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Four Marks of the Church by Kenneth D. WhiteheadWe can show how the Church of the apostles resembles in all essentials the Church of today by showing how the early Church already bore the marks, or "notes," of the true Church of Christ which are still professed today in the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed declares the Church to be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.Thus, the Church of the apostles was definitely one: "There is one body and one spirit," Paul wrote, "just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one...

Among Catholics and atheists, is easy to exchange convinced assertions: “The gospels are 100% God’s holy Word and every bit is historically accurate!” or “The gospels are fairy tales!” However there is a discipline called “Biblical scholarship” in which scholars do some very interesting work determining just which parts of the gospels they think are reliable and which they think are not. Their conclusions are, of course, debated. That’s what scholars do. Their work is fascinating and it is worth taking some time to look at just a smidgen of their methodology and conclusions. Bible scholars are most interested in...

For Catholics, the doctrine of Christ's divinity is central, for it is like a skeleton key that opens all the other doctrines. Catholics have not independently reasoned out and tested each of the teachings of Christ received via the Bible and the Church, but believe them all on his authority. For if Christ is divine, He can be trusted to be infallible in everything He said, even hard things like exalting suffering and poverty, forbidding divorce, giving his Church the authority to teach and forgive sins in his name, warning about hell (very often and very seriously), instituting the scandalous...

If you were given unquestionable proof that neither heaven nor hell existed – no rewards or punishment after death and no afterlife - how would you live your life? Would right or wrong really matter? Would morality be an issue or would amorality be the norm?

Sunday, June 21, marked the 90th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial decision. The questions surrounding evolution—meaning, in particular, the origins of humans—still raise large and important questions for how we understand human nature and the doctrine of original sin. But Jason Stellman thinks that the obsession with our physical origins, though understandable, is perhaps theologically off-kilter. Where we've come from biologically is not as important as where we're heading. It's not the beginning of the journey, man—it's the destination. Stellman's The Destiny of the Species (Wipf and Stock, 2013) is a brief, rollicking, and readable apologetic, notable not...

On Monday, Michael Eric Dyson appeared on The ED Show on MSNBC, this time hosted by Joy Reid. He was introduced as someone knowledgeable in American history and Biblical theology. Dyson, a professor at Georgetown, then insinuated that the Bible's teaching regarding loving Jesus is “interestingly homoerotic.” Dyson said: Look through the Bible, there's a lot of interesting things. The same men who sat up in a church of all men -- 'I put my God, Jesus over all women, I love Him more than I love her!' -- Hmmm... do you really? That sounds interestingly homoerotic to people who...

Unlike all other religions that emphasize mysticism, myth, fables, legends, or even allegories, Christianity is a historical religion that upholds the facticity of its revelatory events that becomes the very object of faith. Not only is the crucifixion of Christ the most historically attested fact of the ancient world, but believe it or not, the resurrection of Jesus is not far behind. The test of faith in Christianity that so many have a hard time with is not that believing is a leap out into an irrational world of myth, but that believing is based on historical facts, the exact...

“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). “And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit." (Rev. 9:1) In his Concise Commentary Matthew Henry identifies falling stars as tepid, indecisive, weak or apostate clergy who, "Having ceased to be a minister of Christ, he who is represented by this star becomes the minister of the devil; and lets loose the...

Did Jesus Claim to be God? Summary Evidence in addition to his claims in the New Testament The concept of Jesus as divine existed within at least 10 to 20 years of his crucifixion, and therefore likely to have been asserted by Jesus himself. The claims of Jesus to be God make sense of his trial and crucifixion i.e. blasphemy The early enemies of Christ would have declared that Jesus never made such claim A parallel movement, that claimed Jesus as merely a good teacher, would have emerged alongside Christianity Jesus' use of Divine Titles Yahweh - claiming the sacred...

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION Reliable as what?' asked a discerning reviewer of the first edition of this little work, by way of a comment on the title. His point, I think, was that we should be concerned with the reliability of the New Testament as a witness to God's selfrevelation in Christ rather than with its reliability as a record of historical fact. True; but the two questions are closely related. For, since Christianity claims to be a historical revelation, it is not irrelevant to look at its foundation documents from the standpoint of historical criticism. When the first...

A sixty-seven year old proud atheist friend of mine recently interjected the sweeping statement “all religion is irrational” into one of our conversations. I replied, not with a direct rebuttal but, instead, with the unexpected question, “who is Jesus Christ?” He replied, “I don’t know.” If I were to ask some of you why I pulled that question out of left field you might also reply with a bewildered “I don’t know.” So keep reading. Please. If you have never really pondered the question “who is Jesus Christ?” then you simply cannot consider yourself to be a committed intellectual –...

Whenever there's an archaeological discovery related to the Bible, conflicting interpretations by various experts can leave a believer's head spinning. Take the discovery in Israel of a palace from the era of King David earlier this year. An archaeologist from Hebrew University in Jerusalem said there's "unequivocal evidence" that David and his descendants ruled at the site. But critics, including some committed believers, say it could have belonged to other kingdoms and that David's palace likely would have been in Jerusalem some 18 miles northwest. Still others claim there is no archaeological evidence that David even existed. Similar confusion ensued...

Former muslim offers powerful apologetic of Christ's death and resurrection. Medical doctor and historian was looking to confirm that Allah was God and Mohammed his true messenger by trying to ascertain that the story of Christ's death and resurrection was a myth. Instead, he found that the records supporting the Bible about Jesus were far more complete and written closer to Jesus' life on earth, while the records regarding Mohammed appeared much later left much to be disputed. Christians can learn a LOT about your own faith in this video! VERY INTERESTING! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaYR4G7oRiw

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A few years ago I began posting brief reflections on movies, music and culture on YouTube, probably the most watched Web site in the world. In my mind, this exercise resembles St. Paul's venture onto the Areopagus in Athens, preaching the Gospel amid a jumble of competing ideas. YouTube is a virtual Areopagus, where every viewpoint—from the sublime to the deeply disturbing—is on display. Never as a Catholic teacher or preacher have I addressed less of the "choir.” The most numerous responses have come to my pieces on atheism and belief. I have made a video called Why Do We...

Are We Really Catholic Bashing? Mike Gendron Throughout the last 13 years we have made the Roman Catholic Church our primary mission field. It has been our heart’s desire to see Roman Catholics embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as their all-sufficient Savior and enjoy the salvation He sovereignly secured for all who trust Him alone. Needless to say, we have received thousands of letters, e-mails and phone calls from disgruntled, irate, annoyed, threatening or confused Catholics who tell us we are Catholic bashers and do not know anything about their religion. Some are zealous for God, but without biblical knowledge....

It is with great pleasure that on this day, which is the Feast of the Queenship of Mary, I announce to you the publication of "Catholicism for Protestants" -- a book of common Questions and Answers about the Catholic Christian faith. The book is based on the article by the same name, which has been revised, improved and copiously annotated with footnotes and Scripture references. Written in a simple Question and Answer format, like the old Baltimore Catechism, this book is designed to equip regular Catholics to explain their faith and win converts. It is ideal both for Catholics who...

Like the article?  Read the book! INTRODUCTION Naturally, any blog entitled "Catholic in the Ozarks" is going to require a page dedicated to answering basic questions that are common to people in the Ozarks.  Since most people in this part of America (the "Bible Belt") are of Baptist and Pentecostal belief, they often don't have much knowledge of what Catholicism really is, or what Catholics really believe.  They may even be under some false impressions or have misunderstandings. This article is a Question and Answer (Q&A) format designed specifically for people in this area, or anyone else who might...

We look back in time, and say the universe is 15 billion years old. But as every scientist knows, when we say the universe is 15 billion years old, there's another half of the sentence that we rarely bother to say. The other half of the sentence is: The universe is 15 billion years old as seen from the time-space coordinates of the earth. The key is that the Torah looks forward in time, from very different time-space coordinates, when the universe was small. Since then, the universe has expanded out. Space stretches, and that stretching of space totally changes...

(article photo) The Law of Biogenesis tells us that in nature, life comes only from life of its kind (Miller, 2012). Therefore, abiogenesis (i.e., life arising from non-living materials) is impossible, according to the scientific evidence. How then can atheistic theories like Darwinian evolution be considered acceptable? There is a growing trend among evolutionists today to attempt to sidestep the problem of abiogenesis by contending that evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life, but rather is a theory which starts with life already in existence and explains the origin of all species from that original life form....