At its heart Christianity is a mixture a written past and a living oral tradition.  What this means is that our basis for faith is the belief that God has acted in human history in the past and is continuing to act in the present and on into the future.  Now the past aspect of... Continue Reading →

I must begin by saying I do not want to sound like universities are anti-Christian, while there is some bias, which I will discuss, there is as much misinformation about universities.  This idea began in the 1800’s when there was a growing trend toward rejecting religion, however, what I think was truer of universities at... Continue Reading →

If I'm honest I've never really cared much about Halloween. Sure, it was fun to get candy when I was younger, but my neighborhood was spread out and we walked a lot for our candy. I got a little more excited about the festivities when I started passing out candy to the little kids who... Continue Reading →

Well... It’s not so much that the stories are simply exaggerated as the authors had different ways of conveying a story than we use.  We want to dismantle these stories on scientific levels, but the author is completely unconcerned with painting a naturalistic picture he wants us to see God’s work in creation.  Let’s look... Continue Reading →

It would be impossible to discuss the growth of Christianity over time without writing several books.  Throughout the years there have been people who completely accepted Christianity as true and have so cared about people in another area that they have taken the message of Christianity to them.  But the basic answer is Christianity has... Continue Reading →

There is absolutely no way to condense the answer to any reasonable length.  But we will start at the beginning. God created the world to be good, just, and a reflection of God. Humanity was created to govern this creation. Humanity wrecked creation through selfishness, sin, and disobedience. God desires to restore creation to its... Continue Reading →

This question requires a “yes and no” answer.  The no aspect of the answer comes because for many Jews who heard the claims of Christianity this fulfilled the promises they had grown up believing.  Jews have always understood their ancestors were chosen to have a unique relationship with God and that they today carry on... Continue Reading →

[This was a two-part question and so there are two distinct answers. I am assuming that I correctly understood where the student wanted to go with the question I shortened the question to make it a decent title.] Christianity understands itself to be an outgrowth and fulfillment of Judaism, and all of the earliest Christians... Continue Reading →

The idea of resurrection begins in God’s justice, goodness, love, desire for creation to thrive, and desire for relationship. That’s a mouthful (and will make your brain hurt), Basically the Bible says God will not allow the injustice, destruction, and death caused by humanity to be the last word in this creation. Jews (and Christians... Continue Reading →

[I was recently invited into a Western Civilization class and was asked a number of deep, thought provoking, and difficult questions by the students.  There was not time to deal with each of them, even in brief, in the class and so I am responding to them here, one at a time.  I hope I... Continue Reading →