Photo:Hot Day at Third Beach by keepitsurreal

So, you would like to take an opportunity to advance your understanding of Christianity, and you have seen a number of interesting courses and conferences, but you only have a limited amount of vacation time. On the other hand, you and your family would like to go someplace beautiful – full of excitement and adventure – or maybe to relax. Why choose? . . . Do both!

Regent Summer School has a program designed to solve just this dilemma. Most of the courses fit into a 1 or 2-week period with ample time to play. And there are few places better to play than Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Everything from the best of city culture to the best nature has to offer is within easy reach of Regent College.

Of course, the professors know this too, so Regent tends to draw some of the best from all over the world to teach during the summer program. Learners also come from all walks of life, and from all over the world, to create an unique environment that is hard to find anywhere else.

http://summer.regent-college.edu/

Regent College is my alma mater, so I can vouch for excellent, engaging courses and the unique environment. My wife and I discovered Regent while vacationing in the Vancouver area, so we fell in love with the blend of city and outdoors Vancouver has to offer even before we added the bonus of Regent College for my education. We love both! My first course at Regent was a Summer School course a number of years ago in Christian Apologetics. While I enjoyed most of my classes at Regent while earning my degree, the summer school was extra special due to the mixture of people attending. There were pastors, prospective students, current students, people just wanting to dig a bit deeper into their Christian faith, and most of them were also out to enjoy the company of one-another as well as see Vancouver (as most weren’t from the area). The course was designed to engage this diverse group of people.

A description from Regent:

“Classes [by] some of the foremost evangelical scholars of our day – like Alister McGrath, Bruce Waltke, Marva Dawn and Chris Wright – in the areas of theology, art, missions, spirituality, history, Bible studies, church leadership, marketplace theology and much more. If you’re pursuing a graduate degree, some of these courses may well transfer over – and not just in theology or Biblical studies. If you’re considering a career or vocational change, some of these courses will help you sort through those issues. If you’re simply seeking personal enrichment this summer in one of the world’s most liveable cities, come check us out.”

http://www.regent-college.edu/academics/summer/audio_video.php

To allow you to enjoy your vacation and maximize your playing time, you don’t have to complete the course requirements for 45 days, even if you are taking the course for credit. You can also audit many of the courses which is even more fun (as then you don’t have to turn in those assignments 45 days later).

Here are some classes I’m interested in and you might be too as an apologist:

• Mapping Gender, c.1780-1900 – Sarah Williams
• Truth, Beauty, and Imagination: Christian Apologetics in a Postmodern Context – Alister McGrath
• Christianity and the Political Economy of Capitalism – Paul Williams & Paul Oslington
• Science and Christianity: Retrospect and Prospect – Mark Noll & David Livingstone
• The Fiction of C.S. Lewis – David Downing

There are also great free public lectures:

http://www.regent-college.edu/events/public_lectures.php

As for Vancouver, as I mentioned earlier, there is everything from excellent food and culture in the city, to world-class outdoor enjoyment right here. Should that not be enough, it is a short trip to places like Whistler, Vancouver Island, or even into the wine country of the Okanagan.

Here are a few pics to get your dreaming started, but really just put some of these names (Vancouver, Stanley Park, Sea to Sky Highway, Whistler, Vancouver Island, Okanagan, Vancouver Cuisine) in Google images and take a look!

Photo:Vancouver Twilight by photodreamz_

Photo:Vancouver, BC by mayanais

Photo:Vancouver, BC by mayanais

Photo:Vancouver, BC by mayanais

Photo:Stanley Park Seawall by SqueakyMarmot

Photo:Vancouver, BC June 2010 by anitakhart

Photo:BC Mountains by mswern

Photo:Lions Bay from Hat Mountain by kteague

Photo:Shannon Falls by rpongsaj

Photo:English Bay, Vancouver, BC by JamesZ_Flickr

The post The vacation dilemma: solved! appeared first on TilledSoil.org.

Last weekend, I attended the Apologetics Canada Conference (put on by Apologetics.com and other partner ministries) in Coquitlam, B.C. Canada (kind of a ‘suburb’ of Vancouver; hope that doesn’t offend anyone ). I was excited to listen to some great lectures by some top folks in the apologetics world. I was especially excited to finally meet one of my heroes of apologetics, Greg Koukl. Yes, I do now have an autographed copy of “Tactics” which I need to read soon (though I’ve heard a lot about it already). My unsigned copy will probably now be passed around to many brothers and sisters in Christ.

It was an excellent conference, however, what stuck me most about it, were several things I had not anticipated. First, there was the turnout! From my understanding, the organizers had been hoping and praying to get a couple hundred people. God answered, maybe a bit too much. The facility had a capacity of 600, and I heard they sold out and were turning people away to keep the fire marshal happy. Amazing!

Second, the diversity of people there. There were youth to elderly and in-between, whole families, men AND women! (If this doesn’t strike you as odd, you maybe haven’t been around apologetics too long ). I’m hoping this is a signal of great change in this field. I recently ‘retweeted’ a similar Twitter sentiment from fellow apologist Mary Jo Sharp, “I am overwhelmed at how great the response to apologetics has been at the SBTC women’s conferences this year.” As I said in response to my previous post on the conference, this WARMS MY HEART!

Third, the atmosphere! People were genuinely excited. You could just feel it in the air. The worship team, Ethos ⁽¹⁾Kudos to the Ethos team and many thanks. I’ve been around and have played with a number of talented worship bands over the years, and you folks were top notch!, contributed to this atmosphere, turning it from what some might imagine to be a ‘dry conference’ to an excellent time of worship in all that took place! The organizers included several times of worship throughout, which was an excellent idea. Note: Friday night, I felt the song selection was a bit off ⁽²⁾Worship leaders need to always be measuring the music against metrics of both theological depth and worshiper participation. The latter seemed to be having some issues Friday night., but Saturday, was just excellent all day!

In summary, I was overwhelmed by the conference in a very good way which was extremely encouraging as I push forward in the ministry of TilledSoil.org. Thank you!

Some notes about the conference content:

Greg Koukl started the conference on Friday night. He spoke about the topic of New Atheism. He highlighted how the new atheists really see religion as dangerous, hence their tone. These people tend to be rhetorically powerful in their presentation.

They also tend to shot-gun objections, hoping to win by sheer number (again, a rhetorical approach). I’ve run into this quite a bit in my discussions with atheists, especially on-line. They just keep tossing out objections, and hardly stick to anything that is being discussed.

He then said that their challenges could be boiled down to their saying that reason, science, and morality are on their side. He then walked through each of these, showing how this is not the case.

He also pointed out how when you read the New Atheists works, try to get rid of the ‘trash-talk’ (ex: Christians are dumb; God is a crutch; . . . therefore you are wrong) and ‘silly-logic’ (ex: God made the universe, so then who made God?) aspects of their work. Once you do, you should be down to a few issues to address, rather than a whole bunch (which seem overwhelming).

On Saturday, Dr. Craig Hazen spoke on the Resurrection of Christ. Christianity, in many ways, is a testable religion. In fact, the main tenant of Christianity is testable (1 Cor. 15). The big way to defend the resurrection is actually quite simple. Jesus was alive at point A, dead at point B, and alive again at point C. There is really no serious disagreement on A or B. He distributed an excellent flow-chart to look at all the possibilities of C, and where they fall apart. (I guess Gary Habarmas was the architect of the method.)

Of all the options, the only ones that reasonably account for the historical data (on which most everyone agrees, btw), is either that a) Jesus was an alien (think StarTrek transporters and stuff), or b) Jesus resurrected. We’ll certainly be doing a more full exposition on Christ’s resurrection in a future blog.

Dr. John Mark Reynolds then spoke on ‘The War of Worldviews.’ (my notes are more sketchy here, but I’ll toss out a couple points) He said there are a couple kinds of atheists: ‘religious’ non-believers who don’t have to think about this stuff, because Dawkins said religious people are stupid; and more classical atheists who come from a line of atheism which began in wishing there was no god(s). He said the beginnings of atheism came from humanity being the play-things of Zeus (or other gods). In other words, anything was better than becoming that, even ceasing to exist. The science tie with atheism is a much more recent thing.

One thing he noted that was very important, is that in some circles, Christians are just as guilty as the atheists in their misbehavior in discussion.

He listed some of the main reasons he is a Christian:1) we have to ask whether we live in a cosmos or a chaos? 2) how does one account for beauty? (even the bottom of the ocean, which few see, is beautiful). Why does beauty help in math, logic, and science? (Why Ockham’s Razor?) He notes that the selection of helio-centrism over geo-centrism wasn’t initially made on the basis of empirical science, but beauty. 3) The problem of ‘is’ to ‘ought.’ Basically the argument from morality. The problem of evil is a huge problem without God.

There were a number of great breakout sessions on a number of topics in the afternoon.

The concluding keynote was given by Dr. Steven Collins, who is the Dean of the College of Archeology at Trinity Southwest University in New Mexico and director of the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project, which is basically looking at the city of Sodom and others in the area.

I especially enjoyed this lecture because it was something quite new to me. It is also interesting because so few seem to believe in the historicity of the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) these days.

He said that the location of the city on most Biblical maps is not only in the wrong place, but usually even has a question mark by it. He says this is because of the work of William Albright, and that since, scholars have not paid attention to all the Biblical witness in Genesis 13:1-12.

The detail of this lecture was incredible. I’ll just try to give a few of the important points. First, how this ends up will have an impact on dating of the Genesis events, ie: bronze age or late iron age. Sodom has more Biblical geographical indicators to its location than Jerusalem or Ai. Sodom was bigger than Jerusalem by a factor of 10. Sodom occupations are early to middle bronze age. Sodom is located on the best agricultural land in the region, yet was uninhabited for 5-7 centuries after it’s destruction. Bronze age layer is sitting in over 1 meter of ash with sulfur smell. So, 2500 years of continuous occupation, then nothing for 5-7 centuries? Sodom is over square kilometer in size.

Then he talked about the destruction layer. I think most of that is unpublished, and was found just this last year. Bodies ripped and torn apart, of all ages, yet it happened very quickly. Bricks and rocks show extreme heat. Zircons turned into to bubbles at over 2000 degrees.

He also notes that the Arc of the Covenant would have probably been sitting where the Sodom temple was located (good one, God!), before the Israelites crossed the Jordan, and that it was probably the Israelites who began to resettle the area. Most other cultures would have been too afraid to after it’s destruction (hence uninhabited for so long).

NOTE: Sodom – Apologists have to be quite careful about this kind of thing until the work is published, the findings are reviewed, etc. However, I would tend to side with Dr. Collins’ theories, as the general history of archeological evidence seems to keep confirming the Bible as time goes on, rather than the skeptics and liberal Bible scholars. It’s a wait and see situation before I’d put too much weight on this.

The post Apologetics Canada Conference recap appeared first on TilledSoil.org.

The post Apologetics Canada Conference in Vancouver area appeared first on TilledSoil.org.

Photo:Ground Zero view by SpecialKRB

Over the years, my e-mail address has somehow found its way onto the lists of a whole bunch of political and Christian organizations, ranging from extreme ‘left’ to extreme ‘right’ in their views. Sometimes, browsing these can be amusing, but at other times, it just makes me mad.

This is what happened about three weeks ago (and in the last couple weeks) when I received e-mails from the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) about the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ project in New York city. For the unfamiliar, ACLJ is an organization specializing in legal defense of U.S. Constitutional freedoms (especially religious), headed up by their Chief Counsel, Jay Sekulow. You’ll often hear him on radio shows and advertisements on more conservative Christian radio. Many time, they do good work, providing legal balance against some of the wacky stuff the ACLU pulls and battling against abortion, etc.

I was quite shocked when I read the Ground Zero Mosque e-mail though. It says:

“But President Obama still doesn’t get it. When it comes to an Islamic mosque on the sacred site of Ground Zero, he’s out of step with the American people.”

I guess, in that case, I’m ‘out of step’ with the American people as well. And, it would seem, the American people are then out of step with the U.S. Constitution. One would think that one of the top legal experts on religious freedoms in the U.S. would understand this simple point. I get that he generally opposes Obama, but give me a break. When Obama is right, give him credit for it.

And, sacred site? For whom? If a Marxist died in the attacks, should no commercial enterprises be built there? If a Buddhist died in the attacks, should no Christian church be built near the site? Even if most of the people killed there were Christians, what does this have to do with it being ‘sacred’ and preventing a mosque from being close-by?

Then we get to this statement:

“This is NOT AN ISSUE OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM! The issue at hand is the construction of a mosque at this sacred site.”

Hmm, that certainly clears it up. Um, Jay.?.?  And:

“We’re sending a POWERFUL message to President Obama: The site at Ground Zero is hallowed ground – and NOT the place to build a mosque.”

So, let me see if I understand this correctly. ACLJ is asking us to use political clout and money, to force President Obama to use any power he might have, to deny Muslims their Constitutional rights. Does anyone else see the problem with this?

So, yesterday, I get another e-mail from ACLJ saying:

“This is not a religious freedom issue …

This is not a political issue …

IT’S AN AMERICAN ISSUE. Your voice – combined with millions of others – has made this debate the #1 news story in America.”

And that is REALLY sad, and REALLY scary in my opinion. Then ACLJ goes on to list a whole list of ‘enemies’ of the ‘Christian Right’ that are in support of the mosque project, and then refers to Obama again:

“But he’s also ignoring the will of the American people…”

And, I hope he continues to do so, as long as that WILL is unconstitutional! Just like I hope Roe v Wade gets overturned as unconstitutional, no matter what the WILL of the people is, or like I would have supported overturning slavery, no matter what the WILL of the people was at the time. And, I hope one day, a president will go against the WILL of the people if they decide not to let me build a Christian church somewhere in America.

On August 4th, I wrote the following as part of an e-mail response to ACLJ:

“As a Christian apologist, I see this as not only embarrassing, but destructive to the Christian message. Denying religious liberties has typically been a ‘black mark’ on Islam (at least to a modern Western audience). Now, it seems, that when on Christian turf (questionably these days), ‘Christians’ will pull the same tactics on the Muslims if they can get the chance. Shameful! What a set-back to Christian apologetics.”

Ok, enough of the rant; on to some apologetics training.

First, when doing apologetics, we want to treat the people we disagree with in a fair manner. When ACLJ and other Christians act like this, it becomes an anti-apologetic to the Christian message. Apologists to Muslims have a hard enough job as it is. (And, shouldn’t every Christian treat their neighbor fairly anyway?)

But, second, when we see our Christian brothers and sisters acting in non-Christian ways, we need to stand against them in that action, and stand for what is right. This gets hard to do, especially when honor, emotions, money, and power are involved. Consider what is currently going on concerning Ergun Caner (and the famous apologists who have jumped to his defense), apparently involving tall-tales, lies, and cover-ups, which damage Christian witness to Muslims. ⁽¹⁾Click the link above or see: “A Sampling of Ergun Caner’s Myths” – 07/21/2010 – James White – http://aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=4084  As Christians, we can’t just overlook this kind of stuff because these people are ‘in our camp’.

Third, are Christians really so scared and unsure of the reliability of the Christian Gospel message, that they feel the need to resort to political power to force Christianity in (or push other religious out)? Historically, Christians do not have a very good track record with THAT method of ‘evangelism’. I think we’re much better off sticking with Jesus’ method of making disciples. Just think, if only half of the money that is probably being put into the legal defense against this mosque project, where instead put into a program to train Christians about Islam so they could effectively witness to Muslims, how much could be accomplished!

Fourth, we need to be careful about what we are REALLY saying through an action like opposing this mosque. As Dr. John Stackhouse points out at his blog:

“Either we think all Muslims are somehow implicated in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or we don’t.

If all Muslims are thus implicated, then of course they shouldn’t be allowed to build near Ground Zero. Nor should they be allowed to build near anything else that matters to the rest of us. In fact, they should all be rounded up and exiled as the clear and present dangers that they are.

If we don’t think all Muslims are implicated in the attack, then of course they should be allowed to build a mosque or community centre or whatever the heck they want to build wherever the zoning and funding will allow—just like any other citizens.” ⁽²⁾Click the link above or see: “Ground Zero Mosque: It’s a Simple Question” – Dr. John G. Stackhouse Jr. – August 17, 2010 … Continue reading

Christians certainly aren’t perfect. We’re fallible humans. Yet, we need to at least be trying to think these things through and act like Christians. When we make mistakes (especially those which do direct damage to Christian ministry), we need to admit our failure and apologize. I could understand little isolated groups of Christians doing this kind of thing, but the scale of this leaves me in amazement. That I haven’t heard more push-back from other Christians leaves me saddened. Please join me in acting like a Christian towards Muslims (or anyone else we encounter), and holding our Christian brothers and sisters accountable to do the same.

Update: Tuesday, August 31, 2010

I received another e-mail from ACLJ today. This time, they are making a fuss about public funding:

“backers of the Ground Zero mosque are pushing for taxpayer funding to finance the $100 million project. . . . Make no mistake, this is nothing short of a double standard – your church would not be legally allowed to use tax-free bonds.”

But, a quick search turned up this Reuters article which spells things out a bit more clearly:

“Tax laws allow such funding for religiously affiliated non-profits if they can prove the facility will benefit the general public and their religious activities are funded separately.”

So, yes, if your church met the criteria (most churches probably wouldn’t, but then, neither would most mosques), it could get that kind of funding. Apparently, Jay Sekulow believes his supporters are too lazy to do a bit more research. Beware folks, even supposedly ‘Christian’ organizations aren’t above trying to deceive  you to win your support.

Update: Wednesday, March 16, 2011

It seems they just won’t give up. I got another e-mail today (I’ve gotten several between my last update and now) talking about the progress in court. It seems the argument has now boiled down to: a) NYC didn’t give the site ‘landmark protection status.’ and b) “An Islamic victory mosque at Ground Zero would be a political statement supporting those attacks on our American values.”

As for A, granting that I don’t live in NYC or understand that area fully, I’m not sure why it would be granted landmark status, other than to put a roadblock in the path of the mosque location. It isn’t even at ‘ground zero’ but blocks away. Maybe it has become common practice to just use any legal loophole to get one’s way, but this certainly doesn’t seem very Christian to me .

For B, allowing Muslims to build their mosque would be a victory in principle showing that our ‘American Values’ actually mean something other than being a political propaganda toy! When we say freedom of religion, we actually mean it. We can show Muslims around the world that Christianity is religion strong enough to allow freedom of the mind and of religion, and still stand firm on its own.

Rather than silly stunts like ACLJ is promoting, may I urge instead that you get a good translation of the Quran (a free PDF version recommended by Dr. James White of aomin.org) and a good Bible translation (such as NASB), and do some reading. This way, you will not only be prepared to talk to Muslims, but also better know Christianity. The worldview ‘battle’ is not ultimately won in the courts, but in the mind!

The post Ground Zero Mosque & Embarrassing ‘Christian’ Antics appeared first on TilledSoil.org.