Introduction

Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I will move the world.
– Archimedes

I’m not going to deal with evidences, or proofs, or anything of the sort, for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. That isn’t the question. The question is as follows: “Was the Resurrection of Jesus Christ a lever long enough to move the world?”

The answer? A resounding “YES!”

Why is this? Well, that’s what I’m here to talk about. Contrary to the beliefs of many non-Christians, the most important concept in Christianity is NOT His birth, His teachings, His death, His healing, His moral authority, or His claims.

The central tenet of Christianity lies here: That Jesus died, He rose from the dead, physically, and promised to do the same for everyone that believes in Him, and serves Him as Lord. On that basis, everything else in Christianity rests. The incredible spread of Christianity, its well-nigh-impossible staying power, and its far-ranging influence all stem from this tenet.

This is not the extent of Christianity, or the sum total of it – but therein lies it’s uniqueness. A historically verifiable claim, resting in space-time, and a promise, made in an equally verifiable space-time, that the same thing will be done for those who follow Him.

Jesus died, and He was buried – then rose from the dead, was seen by His disciples, and hundreds of others. That is the testimony of people who died for claiming it. They wrote about it, preached it, and the constant message of the Gospel is that exact same thing.

Read the rest of this entry

Blogging

All about blogging: General, Conceptual, or Technical

(Ignore this post – it’s for navigation/organizational purposes)

Joe’s new Geisler Bio!

Bets are on: How many comments until we get a scathing character assassination of Geisler by Joe’s resident troll brigade? Who will it be?

It’s currently at 0 comments, so I can do some prophetic utterances…

I give it <5 – Larry being the obvious choice, with mumon coming close behind.

At most, 10 comments in. Now, it’s the waiting game. Feel free to join in.

Which gives me an idea – this could be a fun meme. “How many comments at EO till you get to the slavering troll remark?” Because, after all – EO just isn’t EO if it doesn’t have slavering trolls. I wish we wouldn’t keep feeding them, though…

Well, mumon isn’t ALL troll. He just lurks in the vicinity of trolldom – especially when it comes to EO. A large, large percentage of his posts are Joe-stalker material 😀

(I think mumon is the president of the Joe Carter anti-fan club! If he isn’t, I nominate him…)

Anyway, just something to look at, since I haven’t posted jack lately.

Via Google Alerts, and the Chicago Tribune.

Joel Osteen stands behind the lectern in stylish suits and preaches in a soothing Southern drawl and a big, easy smile. His sermons speak less to Gospel and Scripture than to staying positive and praying for a better life.

Critics have labeled his talks “cotton-candy theology”–sweet and sugary with little nourishment for the soul.

Some religious scholars say Osteen’s simplistic message presents a dangerous, watered-down version of Christianity. His sermons often sound more like motivational speeches than Biblical interpretations.

Michael Horton, a professor of apologetics and theology at Westminster Seminary California, said Osteen trivializes the Christian faith by viewing God as a being who exists solely for our personal happiness. Osteen is part of a growing “prosperity gospel” movement, he said, where followers are instructed to pray to God for health, wealth and happiness.

“In this religion, God is not worshiped. He is used,” said Horton, a minister in the United Reformed Churches of North America.

“Joel Osteen uses the Bible each week like it’s a collection of fortune cookies that can be opened to suit any of your needs or goals in life. The Bible is a story about the redemption of Christ, not a timeless set of principles for success.”

Ooooh. Goooooo apologetics!

Osteen said such criticism unfairly fails to look at his message as a whole.

“When I talk about prosperity and better things, I’m not just talking about financial success,” he said. “I’m talking about prosperity in your marriage, prosperity in your health, and with your kids. I don’t think God wants us to be at the bottom of the totem pole. He wants us to have a better life than our parents did.”

Gag me with a Buick. I’ve started a tradition. Every bookstore i get into, where I see his smiling face looking at me from a book cover – I turn it around. I do it constantly, because I’m in bookstores constantly. Petty, I know… but he annoys me.

Really annoys me.

Go read the article. Typical “religion reporter” fluff. At least they got a good quote in from the apologetics professor.

Satan loves it when we’re weak. He buffets, torments, and tempts us – precisely when we are least equipped to resist. That is his plan – and we should beware. When circumstances, and their effect on us, render us as weak as a newborn kitten, insofar as vigilance goes – that is when he strikes.
Read the rest of this entry

In my life, I have experienced sorrow. Not the sort of sorrow you experience when someone dies.

The kind of sorrow you experience when you know someone is alive – and you cannot see them, love them, or be with them. The type of sorrow a father experiences when he is separated from his children. I wrote a bit about it on June 21st of last year – and I transferred it to this new blog, when I moved. I got to re-experience a bit of that just this morning.
Read the rest of this entry

My response to Mumon’s 5 questions, as posted here.
Read the rest of this entry

Check this out, from Wittingshire: On Boys and Bikinis. It’s absolutely great.

What really never ceases to amaze me, especially after reading Schaeffer’s works, is that Christians still fail to realize that we are no longer living in a Christian nation (if we ever did), and that we no longer have a Christian culture. It is a sub-culture, at best.

Our country, and our culture, are in the grip of subjectivism, humanism, and a rebellion against all convention. We are NOT in the grip of the Holiness and Majesty of the Lord God, Omnipotent. We are in the grip of a worldview which says “live all you can, cause you just live once… you have the right to do whatever you want” – to quote a DC Talk song from a ways back.

What have we become?

Self-indulgent people.

What have we become?

Tell me, where are the righteous ones?

What have we become?

In a world, degenerating…

What have we become?

On to Schaeffer.
Read the rest of this entry

I sometimes wonder. Did God create our overdeveloped sense of irony in order to give us a concrete example of how He works? I know – it’s an odd question. Here’s why I ask it, though.

Often, in life, He answers our prayers at precisely the point we would never have expected it. He works in exactly the manner we wouldn’t have worked. He uses the people we never would have used, to do what we never would have imagined doing. He does it on purpose, I believe.

He has an unknown woman driving tent stakes through foreign army commander’s temples. A coward leading an army selected by their mode of drinking from a stream. A treacherous prophet warned by a donkey, of all things. A strongman slaughtering thousands with the jawbone of a donkey. A boy with a sling, killing a giant, when an entire army sits quaking in their armor. A rebellious prophet swallowed, and vomited up, by a whale. Then, whining about the fact God didn’t kill everyone he was assigned to preach the Word to. Oh, and whining about a stupid plant more than the thousands he was assigned to save. He reduces the mighty king of Babylon to a raving beast. Shows the wisest man in history as the most prone to massive folly.

God knows irony.