Church vs. Christianity – Part III
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Bible & Scripture, Christian Living | No Comments »Well, we've looked at Jesus' initial interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well and gone over some of the things I noticed that seemed to stand out about this meeting. Now, we're moving on to the next phase of this event. As it happens, the woman was still there talking with Jesus when the disciples returned. I find it very interesting that these "giants" of faith, the founding fathers of the Christian movement, could have ...
Church vs. Christianity – Part II
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Bible & Scripture | Comments OffLast week, I started discussing some of the issues of the Church with respect to how they approach and/or address sin. This is not all Christians in all situations, but it is prevalent enough that it creates a perception of the Church as a whole. It is connected to the whole idea of Christianity and drives people away from Christ. Where I started to go with this last week was...I basically started to take a look ...
Church vs. Christianity
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Bible & Scripture, Christian Living | Comments OffIt is no secret that throughout history, terrible human tragedies can be traced back to the Church. Specifically the Christian Church. Notice I'm using the capital 'C' for Church. This is to indicate the idea that it is the body of Christ followers and not a specific denomination that I'm referring to. What sorts of things am I referring to? Just read the news some time. Look at the pictures of Christian protestors at the doors ...
A-B-C Plan
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Christian Living, Political Issues | Comments OffWe've all heard of the ABC plan for fighting against the spread of the AIDS virus. If you haven't, it came out during (I think actually from but I can't be sure) the previous presidential administration. The basic idea of the ABC plan is pretty simple. The 'A' stands for "Abstinence." In other words, the idea here is that one way to slow the spread of AIDS is to abstain from sexual activity. This part of ...
If I Were God…
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in God's Character | Comments OffIt seems like there is just no such thing as having too many articles about the "Problem of Evil" in the blogosphere, these days. In the interest of living that out, here's another one. The way I'd like to approach this today is from the perspective of why people feel like the Problem of Evil is as significant as they feel it is. After all, when I hear about people using this to describe their disbelief ...
Eternal Punishment vs. Finite Crime
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Christian Living | 8 Comments »In Old Testament times, people would take revenge against one another in ways that were absolutely shocking. There was no balance. It was not uncommon to kill someone for being disrepectful or for some petty crime. Then God stepped in with the whole "eye for an eye" thing to keep things a bit more fair when it came to punishment and justice. Later, in the New Testament, Jesus raises the bar even more. It was no ...
Take My Word for It
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Evangelism | Comments OffSeveral months ago, I had written about the idea of non-believers not accepting the books of the New Testament as evidence of actual events. What they are looking for is "extra-biblical texts" to corroborate what the Bible says. In like fashion, I recently heard one atheist mention (several times, actually) that a person's personal testimony of an experience with God would not be sufficient evidence to make a claim of His existence. Now, to a degree, ...
Why We Still Sin
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Christian Living | 2 Comments »Last week, I posted my thoughts on the subsitutionary atonement of Christ. At the end of that post, I posed a question that I promised to address this week. It's "next week" now, so I suppose I should keep my promise and address this issue. Interestingly enough, to a large degree my perspective given in last week's post is actually quite heavily rooted in the concepts I'm sharing this week. In other words, the question of ...
Substitutionary Atonement
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in Sin | Comments OffRecently I was listening to some atheists discussing their concerns regarding the idea of the substitutionary atonement of Christ. Basically, that's just a big, fancy term for the fact that Jesus died for our sins. Nothing more complicated than that. Here is the misunderstanding that I heard based on how the conversation went. They don't get how someone else can be punished in our place. If we are the ones who have sinned, then someone else ...
Omniscience vs. Free Will
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 by Dan Carrington posted in God's Character | 2 Comments »In a recent atheist podcast that I subscribe to, the hosts were discussing the idea of the omniscience of God and how this somehow contradicts the idea of free will. Their argument was basically that, if God already knows what you're going to do and the things you or I will choose before you do so, then you and I have not choice but to make that choice. Normally, I am quite pleased and even pleasantly surprised ...
