Posts Tagged ‘N.T. Wright’
Best Links of the Week
Russell Moore has an interesting piece on the parallels between what Romance Novels do for women and what Pornography does for men.
Here is a nice rebuttal of Harold Camping and the whole world ending on 5/21/2011. Also a man spent his life savings putting up those billboards everywhere. This highlights the need for doing theology in community. Doing theology on islands doesn’t turn out well. Also, the ministry has an estimated worth of $72 million, although this may be a bit misleading as the lionshare of this is in FCC licenses.
Reportedly on 60 Minutes this evening, George Hincapie weighs in on Lance Armstrong and the use of PEDs. This is interesting because unlike Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton, Hincapie actually has credibility and is probably the cyclist closest to Armstrong. Would be pretty sad if true.
Ray Lewis says one unintended consequence of the NFL Lockout will be a rise in crime. I think I am actually inclined to agree with Lewis and am wondering if he read Freakonomics recently.
N.T. Wright weighs in on Stephen Hawking’s comments about heaven
Tim Challies annual, “Where & Why We Buy Books”
Medvedev warns of new Cold War over missile defense shield
Egyptian Saif al-Adel now acting leader of al Qaeda
Iran reportedly building rocket bases in Venezuala
Dark Tower trilogy of movies and two tv series may be nixed. For those who don’t know this is some of Stephen King’s best work and was a very seminal body of work for the television show LOST.
San Francisco man reportedly “cured” of AIDS
Several Hedge Fund managers buying up massive amounts of farmland
Some Wikileaks documents of Gitmo files shed light on enhanced interrogation techniques and unintentionally bolster their effectiveness
Shallow Small Groups:
Really well produced and themed time lapse:
Best Links of the Week
The Danger of an Unconverted Seminary
Which is your favorite? Did I miss anything extraordinary?
1. “The Danger of an Uncoverted Seminary” – a very worthwhile read, from a mainline perspective, on thedechristianization of the West and how seminaries ought to be adjusting to this shift. We’ve never been more like the 1st/2nd centuries – pluralism, syncretism, and a world where the velocity of ideas was ever quicker due to new trade routes.
2. Very disturbing Gallop Poll showing that 53% of democrat leaning voters think positively about “socialism.” This is insanity. People need to read history. Also included in the poll were voters impressions of: small business, free enterprise, entrepreneurs, capitalism, big business, and federal government. Also, 63% of all polled (both democrat and republican) thought Barack Obama was a “socialist.”
3. Google has been doing lots of stuff this week: “Is Google Planning to Add Storeviews to Google Maps?“; “Google Creates Experimental Fiber Network…(capable of 1Gb/s)“; they also are launched an offensive on Facebook over their Gmail client – “Google wants to be Facebook and Facebook wants to be Gmail“.
4. Ligonier has a huge compilation of links on the New Perspectives on Paul, from Turretin to present.
5. Proposed Obama 2011 budget cuts could drastically reduce charitable giving from taking away line item deductions for those in 28% and higher tax brackets.
6. A fascinating piece on First Things entitled, “Vampires and the Anthropic Principle.”
7. First Things has an interesting info-graphic and analysis of the 210,000,000 Facebook profiles and friend networks: “The Localism of Facebook Nation”
8. “The Government Has Your Babies’ DNA”
9. Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post writes on the fallout of the Amazon v. MacMillan.
10. Only 4 men have been to all 44 Superbowls, here is their story.
11. “Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy“: infinite possibilities here.
12. A very scary article from GQ about cell phone radiation and brain cancer. The writer talked to several investment bankers in their late 30s/early 40s who have been using cell phones since the brick days… and have brain tumors. This is not a tin foil hat, conspiracy theory article, it is cogently written.
13. Awkwardfamilyphotos.com – self-explanatory, hilarious, and definitely awkward.
14. “The Beauty of Waves“: series of photos from LIFE Magazine of beautiful waves. Photography done by Clark Little.
15. Several people in the Philippines have been murdered by singing the triumphalist Frank Sinatra song, “My Way,” read the NY Times article.
16. 12 really random things you can buy on the internet (I fancy both the tanks and the giant floating hamster balls).
17. NY Times article on the ‘Shortage of Men on College Campuses.’
18. Foxnews on proposed new government administration to study climate change. File under: big government and waste of money.
19. NY Times Op-Ed chilling story on “The World Capital of Killing.”
20. “Will the Baby Boomers Bankrupt Social Security” – CNBC article
21. Ed Stetzer on potential upcoming shifts in pastoral ministry.
22. Low intelligence second most important indicator (behind smoking) as predictor of heart disease.
Introduction to Apologetics, Part 3: Evidentialist Apologetics
Irreducible Complexity
Evidentialist Apologetics can be seen as a subset of classical apologetics mainly focusing on all the evidence supporting the Christian faith and its rationality. Evidentialists can be looked at in three main overlapping categories: those advocating A. Teleological Argument B. The Intelligent Design Movement (which borrows from the Teleological Argument) C. Those promoting the reliability and historicity of the Bible, Jesus, miracles, and the resurrection.
Teleological
William Paley (1743-1805) was the first to popularize the Teleological Argument by reworking some of Aquinas’ fivefold argument. The argument is essentially that there is too much order, specialization, and fine-tuning in our world and the Universe for it to have been a product of mere chance. Therefore, an intelligent and wise being must have created all of these things. This being is God. The problem with Paley is that he employed the analogy of God as a watchmaker who set the laws that governed the timepiece in motion. Paley’s argumentation was critical for a young Darwin in seminary. The impersonal (nearly deistic) picture painted by Paley, led others (Darwin) to look for naturalistic laws that could in turn replace God.
John Polkinghorne (1930-) has written extensively on the fine-tuning of the universe and has been an advocate of ongoing dialogue between science and religion (see also Michael Polanyi).
The intelligent design movement is a movement of scientists, thinkers, and philosophers who are challenging scientific materialism (aka Naturalism or Neo-Darwinianism). The aim of the movement is to get a seat at the table on the discussion of origins of life. Many of their arguments are really quite sound science and present very damning (and in my view fatal) critiques of Darwinian macro-evolution. Michael Behe (1952-) in his book Darwin’s Black Box argues that on the microbiological level many different things have the characteristic of irreducible complexity. He employs the analogy of a mousetrap which has five pieces to it: platfrom, spring, hammer, hold-down bar, and catch(cheese). If you take away any one piece of the mousetrap then you have something that is functionally worthless, and therefore unable to catch any mice. The mousetrap is irreducibly complex and is in its most simple state with its five components and therefore it has no functional precursor. Behe then goes on to describe several things that have this characteristic of irreducible complexity, namely, the eye, flageullum, cilia, e. coli, adaptive immune system, and blood coagulation.
Other noteworthy scholars are William Dembski (1960-), Nancy Pearcey (1952-), Michael Denton (1943-), and Phillip Johnson (1940-), many of whom are involved with the Discovery Institute.
Reliability and Historicity of Bible, Jesus, Miracles, and Resurrection
F.F. Bruce (1910-1990) spent his entire life defending the historicity of the Bible against the tsunami of doubt cast by higher and lower Bible criticism. His New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable is an absolute classic and a fairly easy read. Josh McDowell (1939-) has written on the historicity of the person of Jesus in his popular book More Than a Carpenter. In a similar vein Lee Strobel (1952-) has written on the historicity and Biblicity of Jesus. N.T. Wright (1948-) has written probably the best defense of the resurrection of Jesus in his terrific volume The Resurrection of the Son of God. C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) has written many important apologetic works what lands him here is his defense of miracles.
Up next is a look at presuppositional apologetics.
Modern Pensées 