Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 21

Challenge Response: Jesus Never Said a Word about Homosexuality

Here's my response to this week's challenge:

Links Mentioned on the 3/09/16 Show

The following is a rundown of today���s podcast, annotated with links that were either mentioned on the show or inspired by it:

Commentary: Relativism and the Problem of Evil (0:00)

Evil as Evidence for God by Greg Koukl
Why Evolutionary Ethics Fails to Account for Objective Morality by Brett Kunkle
Where Do Good and Evil Come From? ��� Peter Kreeft���s video for PragerU 
Greg���s ���You can't sin against the particles��� tweet and responses
Duck Dynasty, Medieval Islam, and Moral Philosophy by David Friedman

Questions:

��� Announcements:

Upcoming events with STR speakers
STR Cruise to Alaska ��� August 6-13, 2016 

1. Should a Christian kid go to a Mormon dance? (0:26)

Is Mormonism Just Another Christian Denomination? by Greg Koukl
Is God an Exalted Man? by Amy Hall
LDS View of Atonement Clarified by Amy Hall
���Mormons Aren���t Christians��� Is Not an Epithet by Amy Hall
The Ambassador���s Guide to Mormonism by Brett Kunkle

2. Since there have been many Republican presidents since 1973, why is abortion still legal? (0:44)

Pro-Life Crash Course by Amy Hall
You Can Change Our Culture���s Mind on Abortion by Amy Hall
Liabilities of a ���Living��� Bible and Constitution View ��� Commentary by Greg Koukl

Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)

To take part in the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00���6:00 p.m. PT), follow @STRtweets and use the hashtag #STRtalk.

A Pro-Choice Atheist���s Inconsistency

One of the ways to be a good ambassador for Christ is to be a good listener. Oftentimes, we are so busy trying to win the argument that we fail to listen to the person making the argument. I believe that we would be much more effective if we would just stop talking and start listening. It has been my experience that if you listen to an atheist long enough, they will give you the rope to hang their arguments with.

Specifically, I���m listening for internal contradictions or inconsistencies in their own view. If you are attentive, you���ll be able to identify and expose these inconsistencies.

Let me give you an example. This week I made a comment on Twitter that generated some hostility from abortion advocates. One person erroneously interpreted my pro-life stance as merely a religious position. This faulty assumption led her on a tirade against the God of the Bible. She believed that if she undermined my Christian faith, then she���d undermine my pro-life view.

As a general rule, I try not to get sucked into unfruitful conversations with atheists on social media. Of course, there is a time and place for it, but I didn���t think this person was open to truth. I was ready to let this go when she said something that caught my attention. She started to attack the moral character of God. To make her point, she brought up what she referred to as the ���genocides��� committed by God in the Old Testament. Clearly, she did not think God had the right to kill people in the Bible. In fact, she thought that these atrocities turned God into an evil monster.

@luv2research @timothybarnett @RoyalJak Read the story of Noah- looks like genocide to me.

��� Julie Anne (@julieannecs) 22 February 2016

This argument comes up with some regularity with many Internet atheists. My point here is not to answer this challenge specifically. What caught my attention was that she was adamantly pro-choice. In fact, her profile picture said, ���Still Standing with Planned Parenthood.��� She didn���t realize it, but her argument against God was inconsistent with her pro-choice convictions.

She strongly believed in a woman���s right to choose to kill her child through the act of abortion. On her view, the mother���s right to kill her child supersedes the child���s right to live.

With this rationale in your mind, consider her argument against God. She chastised God for taking human life when He used His right to choose. Think about these two claims next to each other. When the Creator of all life takes the life of one of His creatures, He���s a moral monster. However, when a woman takes the life of her child, she���s just exercising her right.

Do you see the blatant inconsistency? When it���s a woman making the choice to kill an innocent human being, she���s justified and commended. When it���s God making the choice to kill wicked people for their wickedness, He���s unjustified and condemned. But doesn���t the Creator have rights over His creation? If anyone is justified in taking life, it would be the Creator of all life.

This pro-choice atheist was caught in a dilemma. She could not consistently condemn God for taking human life while advocating for a woman���s right to do it. Obviously, if a mere creature has the right to kill another creature, how can she logically think the Creator of every creature does not? If she were actually consistent, she would be celebrating God���s right to choose. Of course, she won���t do that because her worldview is self-centered. To admit that God has any rights over His creation would call into question the way she lives her life. That is, if God is in charge, then she can���t be. So, rather than remain consistent in her view, she was willing to sacrifice reason at the expense of autonomy.

Challenge: Jesus Never Said a Word about Homosexuality

Today���s challenge comes from an interview with Jimmy Carter:

Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things���he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

Is this an appropriate conclusion? What can we know about Jesus��� view of sexuality? Give us your thoughts in the comments below, and then come back to the blog on Thursday to hear Alan's response to this challenge.

[Explore past challenges here and here.]

What Is Your View on Noah���s Flood?

Was Noah���s flood a historical event?

Impact 360 Video: Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?

Impact 360 packs a lot into this short video! And since it also includes a link for more information, sharing it is a great way to stir up interest in this question among your friends.

Links Mentioned on the 3/04/16 Show

The following is a rundown of today's podcast, annotated with links that were either mentioned on the show or inspired by it:

Commentary: Evangelism and Apologetics: Gardening Precedes the Harvest (0:00)

The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy by Francis Schaeffer
Can You Argue Someone into the Kingdom? by Alan Shlemon

Questions:

1. What is the concern about Christians adopting an old-earth view? (0:28)

How Old Is the Earth? (Video of R.C. Sproul talking about how he approaches this question and has grace for those who disagree with him)
Have Grace for Fellow Christians on the Age of the Earth by Amy Hall
Greg's interview with Hugh Ross
Seven Days that Divide the World by John Lennox
40 Questions about Creation and Evolution by Kenneth Keathley and Mark Rooker
Biblical Reasons to Doubt the Creation Days Were 24-Hour Periods by Justin Taylor

2. What does Isaiah 28:10 mean in context? (0:52)

Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)

To take part in the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00���6:00 p.m. PT), follow @STRtweets and use the hashtag #STRtalk.

Christianity Is the Story of Reality

This month���s Solid Ground is an excerpt from Greg���s new book, The Story of Reality (coming out in December). The book is going to be a good one. In it, Greg describes the big picture of reality; history, theology, and philosophy all come into play as he explains the story of God, man, Jesus, cross, and resurrection.

The correct answer to the question ���What is Christianity?��� is this: Christianity is a picture of reality. It is an account, or a description, or a depiction of the way things actually are. It is not just a view from the inside (a Christian���s personal feelings, or religious beliefs, or spiritual affections, or ethical views, or ���relationship��� with God). It is also a view of the outside. It is a view of the world out there, of how the world really is in itself.

Put another way, Christianity is a worldview���.

All of us have beliefs about the world we think are accurate. All of us have a worldview picture��� at least a rudimentary one���forming in our minds, even if we are not consciously aware of it. Every religion tells a story of reality. Every philosophy and every individual outlook on life is a take on the way someone thinks the world actually is. There is no escaping it. These stories are meant to bring order to our beliefs, to explain the ���pieces��� of reality that we encounter in life, whether big things or little things, important or inconsequential.

All worldviews are not equal, though. Some have pieces that seem to fit together (internally) better than others, and some have pieces that seem to fit reality (externally) better than others. If they are good stories���that is, if they explain many things, especially the most important things, in a way consistent with our normal encounters with the world���then we have more confidence the stories are accurate, which is just another way of saying the worldview is true���.

Read this month���s Solid Ground, and get a taste of The Story of Reality.

Atheism Isn't Simply a Lack of Belief

Many atheists don���t like the term ���atheist.��� They take atheism to be just the default position. I���ve even heard some atheists state that atheism is not really a belief at all. Rather, they assert it is simply a lack of belief.

Given this redefinition, most atheists are taken aback when theists demand they provide evidence for their atheism. After all, they'll assert, we don���t demand evidence from people who lack belief in Santa Claus. Moreover, we���re told that everyone who lacks belief in Santa is technically an ���a-santa-ist.��� However, no one has ever labeled them with that term. Furthermore, the atheist might point out that most people don���t believe in the thunder god Thor (as much as you might like the movie), but no one calls them ���athorists.���

Continuing this line of thinking, they will point out that everyone agrees that the athorist and the asantaist aren���t forced to prove that Thor and Santa don���t exist. The burden of proof would actually be on the person who claims that Thor and Santa do exist. Likewise, the theist is told that it���s up to him to prove that God exists. It is not the atheist���s responsibility to prove that He doesn���t.

But is this really what atheism amounts to? Is it merely a lack of belief in God? The answer is a resounding, No! Atheism is not simply a lack of belief. It is not the default position. Let���s get our terms straight. The theist affirms the statement, ���There is a God.��� The agnostic says, ���I do not know if God exists��� or ���You cannot know God exists.��� The atheist affirms the statement, ���There is no God.��� These are all beliefs. 

To say you simply lack a belief about something is to say that you have no beliefs about it. For example, if you asked me, ���Who is the best female polo player in Europe?��� I wouldn���t know where to start. Why? Because I have no beliefs about the quality of women���s polo in Europe, or any other country for that matter. I truly lack a belief regarding that question.

This is not the case with atheists. People don���t write books about things they don���t have any beliefs about. No one debates about non-beliefs. If they did, there would be nothing to talk about.

This attempt to change the definition of atheism to a lack of belief is a tactic to try to shift the burden of proof. But it won���t work. The belief that there is no God is a belief. And if the atheist thinks it is a reasonable belief, he should have reasons to believe it.

The Bible Does Not Approve of Everything It Records

Our young people face an unprecedented assault on their faith. It seems to come at them from every side. One area that is effectively used by the enemy is social media. On media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it is very easy for people to share rhetorically powerful posts that can leave young Christians scrambling to find an answer.

Recently, my 14-year-old niece showed me a meme that generated a lot of debate on Instagram. The meme pictured a Bible lying on its side with hundreds of colored tabs sticking out of it. The meme said, ���The Good Book? Pink tabs are for murder, purple for human or animal sacrifice, blue for rape, yellow for slavery, and green for misogyny.���

The question that this meme was trying to raise was pretty clear: How can a book that contains murder, animal or human sacrifice, rape, slavery, and misogyny be called good?

When challenges like this come up, I have a question: Does a book necessarily approve of everything it records? The answer is obviously, no. Consider your favorite news reporter. Just because she tries to accurately report on immoral events, like murder and rape, that does not mean she is an evil person. In fact, the news reporter could be a good person and abhor the immoral behavior that she reports.

So this challenge rests upon a demonstrably false assumption. This challenge assumes that everything contained in the Bible is commended by the Bible. This is simply not true. There are many things in the Bible that are described, but not prescribed. For example, David���s sin of murder and adultery are faithfully recorded in Second Samuel. However, it would be a gross mistake to conclude that God, therefore, approved of those immoral acts. On the contrary, the Bible condemns both murder and adultery (Exodus 20:13, 14).

Therefore, it is mistaken to think that God approves of all that the Bible records. So going through the Bible and marking off every instance of murder, animal or human sacrifice, rape, slavery, and misogyny will not tell you if the Bible is a good book or not.

There is a reason the Bible is called the Good Book, and it has to do with all the evil that is recorded in the Bible. Romans 5:6-10 says,

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person���though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die���but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

The Bible shows us just how wicked we really are. Read it for yourself. Everyone who has ever drawn breath is a sinner. Paul calls us all ���ungodly��� and deserving of the wrath of God. That is the bad news. The good news is that God has a plan to save us. The Bible is a record of the unfolding of the plan of redemption. So the Bible is called ���the Good Book��� because it contains the good news that Christ has died to save sinners like you and me. That sounds pretty good to me.