Welcome - RZIM Summer Institute

Transcription

Welcome
Summer Institute 2015
Dear Friends,
Some years ago, I had the privilege of speaking at a colloquium hosted by a fine
group of faculty at Johns Hopkins University. The theme of the conference was
similar to the theme of the conference in which I now welcome you: “What
Does It Mean To Be Human?” There were representatives from a diversity of
perspectives delivering papers. Mine was to be presented from the perspective of
Christianity. I had simply four basic ideas:
1. CREATION: Christianity teaches us that each one of us has been created by
God for a specific purpose. 2. INCARNATION: The Incarnation of Jesus is the essential splendor to which
we are to be conformed. 3. TRANSFORMATION: Because of my propensity to distort and refashion
my destiny I, a human being, am in need of God’s grace and the strength to
change my propensities. 4. CONSUMMATION: The consummation of the Christian life is in the communion that one enjoys with God and the final
purpose beyond the grave.
From this paradigm for life I argued that both the glory of humanity and its shame made sense, its nobility and its flaws, its
creativity and its groanings to return to wholeness. One can imagine the distress of some listeners and the acerbic questions to
which I was subjected when the opportunity was given. Minutes before I presented my talk, Francis Collins, the co-director of the Human Genome Project, made his presentation. In
what was a powerful closing he put two pictures on the screen. As he uncovered the first one he told us it was the Rose Window
from Yorkminster Cathedral in York, England. The beautiful design in magnificent colors was like a great jigsaw puzzle, each piece
perfectly in place. One could only imagine the skill of the craftsman or craftsmen who spent so many hours fashioning all the tiny
pieces of glass and fitting them together. Then Dr. Collins uncovered the second picture. There were the two pictures, side by side, the second design even more complex
and beautiful than the first. As we awaited his explanation, there was pin-drop silence. After a moment, Dr. Collins explained that
we were looking at a cross section of human DNA. There was an audible, awe-stricken response as the audience drew in their
breath and gazed in wonder at the pattern made by the more than three billion bits of information in that one strand of DNA. Dr.
Collins responded by saying that he knew of no other way to end his presentation than to sing a hymn. And with that he picked
up his guitar and sang.
As I sat entranced by what I was seeing, the thought came to my mind that it was because of the DNA strand I was seeing that
I could see what I was seeing. That which held me in awe was the reason for which I could be awe-stricken. In other words, mine
was a meaningful response in recognition of meaning, enabled by that which made my meaning, meaningful. Only a semitranscendent point of reference makes that possible. That is the bequest of our Christian faith because in Christianity the God
who created us in his image and assigns value to each one of us is a transcendent intelligent Being. With this rich theme, we invite you to take further hold of the life into which we have been called, and the fellowship of a
communion unlike any other. In the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, we are shown what it means to be fully and truly
human. With gratitude,
Ravi Zacharias
WEEK AT A GLANCE
TIME
SUNDAY
14 June
MONDAY
15 June
Schedule
TUESDAY
16 June
WEDNESDAY
17 June
THURSDAY
18 June
FRIDAY
19 June
7:30 - 8:30am
Breakfast
Breakfast
Breakfast
Breakfast
Breakfast
8:35 - 9:00am
Worship
Worship
Worship
Worship
Worship
9:00 - 10:00am
Bible Study: Jesus &
the New Humanity
John Dickson
the New Humanity
John Dickson
the New Humanity
John Dickson
the New Humanity
John Dickson
the New Humanity
John Dickson
10:00 11:00am
Impossible People
Os Guinness
The Global Public
Square
Os Guinness
The Journey
Os Guinness
Fool’s Talk
Os Guinness
Humanity in the
Kingdom of God
John Njoroge
11:00 11:15am
Break
Break
Break
Break
Break
Tracks: Arts/
Conversational
Evangelism/ High
School & University/
Science & Faith/ In
Search of Healing/ Do
What You Are
Tracks: Arts/
Conversational
Evangelism/ High
Science & Faith/ In
What You Are
Tracks: Arts/
Conversational
Evangelism/ High
Science & Faith/ In
What You Are
Tracks: Arts/
Conversational
Evangelism/ High
Science & Faith/ In
Search of Healing /
Do What You Are
Human, Really
Human
Stuart McAllister
12:15 - 2:30pm
Lunch/ Table Talks
(Andy Bannister,
John Dickson, Tejdor
Tiewsoh)*
/Free Time
Lunch/Table Talks
(Fuz Rana, Os
Guinness, Aniu
Kevichusa)*
/Free Time
Lunch/Table Talks
(Stuart McAllister,
Nathan Betts, Richard
Everett)*
/Free Time
Lunch/Table Talks
( Jeff Allen, Abdu
Murray, Craig
Hawkins)*
/Free Time
Lunch provided
after closing
session
2:30 - 3:30pm
Bioethics & Human
Flourishing
Fazale Rana OR
Can Science & Faith
Go Together? Nathan
Rittenhouse OR
Dealing With My
Own Doubts
Cameron McAllister
OR
What If I Don’t Need
God?
Andy Bannister OR
Answering the
Questioner
Alycia Wood
Don’t All Religions
Lead to God?
Nathan Betts OR
Why Trust the Bible?
Callom Harkrader OR
The Bible &
Intolerance
Nathan Rittenhouse
OR
Did God Command
Genocide? John
Njoroge OR
Humanity on Film
Margaret Manning
Shull & Jill Carattini
Beyond Right &
Wrong: The Unpaid
Bills of Godless
Morality
John Njoroge OR
Help! How Do
I Answer That
Question? Nathan
Betts OR
Identity After
Advertising
Michael Suderman
OR
Human Destiny:
Questions on Heaven
& Hell
Cameron McAllister
OR
Jesus, Bodies, &
Human Worth
Margaret Manning
Shull & Jill Carattini
How Do You Know
Jesus Rose From the
Dead?
Alycia Wood
The Goodness of
God & The Problem
of Evil Callom
Harkrader OR
Searching for
Intimacy in the Age
of Social Media
Michael Suderman
OR
Responding to
Atheism Abdu
Murray OR
Fully Human:
Insights from
Psychology
Jeff Jackson
3:30 - 3:45pm
Break
Break
Break
Break
3:45 - 4:45pm
Speaker Q&A
Stuart McAllister,
John Dickson, Os
Guinness
Speaker Q&A
Andy Bannister, Fazale
Rana, Abdu Murray
Grand Central
Question
Abdu Murray
U.S. Vision
Carson Weitnauer
(4:00pm - 5:00pm)
Speaker Q&A
Margaret Manning
Shull, Cameron
McAllister, John
Njoroge
11:15am 12:15pm
(12:00pm)
Registration
Opens
5:00 - 6:30pm
Campus
Orientation
Dinner
Dinner
Dinner
Dinner
6:30 - 7:30pm
Welcome
Dinner
Technology &
Humanity
Andy Bannister
(7:00-9:00pm)
Becoming Human/
Acting Human:
Encountering
Humanity in the Arts
Family Testimony
Stuart & Cameron
McAllister
(7:00-9:00pm)
Open Forum
Ravi Zacharias &
Os Guinness
Break
Jill Carattini, Richard
Break
A Scientific & Biblical
Reflection on Human
Uniqueness & the
Image of God
Fazale Rana
Everett, Craig Hawkins,
Josh Schicker, &
Margaret Manning
Shull
I Can Laugh About
It Now (not “Comedy
Presentation”)
Jeff Allen
7:30 - 7:45pm
7:45 - 8:45pm
What Does It
Mean To Be
Human
Stuart
McAllister
*THERE WILL BE SPACE FOR EACH DELEGATE TO ATTEND ONE TABLE TALK DURING THE WEEK. THANK YOU.
Table Of Contents
Venue / Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
Restaurants / Transportation
Speakers
1
2
3
SUNDAY
What Does It Mean to be Human: The Questions Stuart McAllister
7
MONDAY
Jesus & the New Humanity John Dickson
Impossible People Os Guinness
Tracks
Elective: Bioethics & Human Flourishing Fazale Rana Elective: Can Science & Faith Work Together? Nathan Rittenhouse
Elective: Dealing With My Own Doubts Cameron McAllister
Elective: What If I Don’t Need God? Andy Bannister
Elective: Answering the Questioner Alycia Wood
Speaker Q&A Stuart McAllister, John Dickson, Os Guinness
Technology & Humanity Andy Bannister
A Scientific & Biblical Reflection on Human Uniqueness & the Image of God Fazale Rana
TUESDAY
The Global Public Square Os Guinness
Tracks
Elective: Don’t All Religions Lead to God? Nathan Betts
Elective: Why Trust the Bible? Callom Harkrader
Elective: The Bible & Intolerance Nathan Rittenhouse
Elective: Did God Command Genocide? John Njoroge
Elective: Humanity on Film Margaret Manning Shull, Jill Carattini, Cameron McAllister
Speaker Q&A Andy Bannister, Fazale Rana, Abdu Murray
Becoming Human/Acting Human: Encountering Humanity in the Arts Jill Carattini,
Richard Everett, Craig Hawkins, Josh Schicker, and Margaret Manning Shull
WEDNESDAY
The Journey Os Guinness
Tracks
Elective: Beyond Right & Wrong John Njoroge
11
13
15
27
29
31
33
39
41
43
47
49
51
53
69
71
73
75
79
81
89
93
95
97
111
Elective: Help! How Do I Answer That Question? Nathan Betts
Elective: Identity After Advertising Michael Suderman
Elective: Human Destiny: Questions on Heaven & Hell Cameron McAllister
Elective: Jesus, Bodies, & Human Worth Margaret Manning Shull, Jill Carattini
Grand Central Question Abdu Murray
Family Testimony Stuart & Cameron McAllister
Comedy Presentation Jeff Allen
THURSDAY
Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion Os Guinness
Tracks
Elective: How Do You Know Jesus Rose from the Dead? Alycia Wood
Elective: The Goodness of God & the Problem of Evil Callom Harkrader Elective: Searching for Intimacy in the Age of Social Media Michael Suderman
Elective: Responding to Atheism Abdu Murray
Elective: Fully Human: Insights from Psychology Jeff Jackson
The U.S. Vision Carson Weitnauer
Speaker Q&A Margaret Manning Shull, Cameron McAllister, John Njoroge
Open Forum Ravi Zacharias, Os Guinness
FRIDAY
Humanity in the Kingdom of God John Njoroge
Human, Really Human Stuart McAllister
BIBLIOGRAPHY/RECOMMENDED READING
EVALUATIONS
113
115
117
119
121
123
127
129
131
133
145
147
149
151
155
157
159
161
163
165
167
171
173
Venue
The Georgia Tech Global Learning Center
The RZIM Summer Institute is not a function of Georgia Tech.
The Georgia Tech Global Learning Center (GLC) is
designed, staffed, and equipped with the technology to
foster the relationship between people and ideas and
learning and working.
The GLC stands conveniently in the center of Atlanta’s
Midtown neighborhood. It offers a distraction-free,
learning-conducive atmosphere with built-in technology,
flexible room arrangements, continuous refreshment
service, and event and technical support from start
to finish. The Learning Center has state-of-the-art
technology, from audio/visual systems and drop-down
screens to laptop connectivity and Internet access.
Address:
84 5th St. NW
Atlanta, GA 30308-1031
404-385-6203.
About Georgia Tech
The Technology Square parking deck, attached to the
GLC, offers easy and convenient parking:
Located in Atlanta, Georgia, the Georgia Institute of Technology is
one of the top research universities in the United States.
770 Spring St. NW
Atlanta, GA 30308-1031.
Georgia Tech is a science and technology-focused learning institute
renowned for its deeply-held commitment to improving the human
condition and is regularly ranked as one of the top ten public
universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Report.
For driving directions to the GLC at Georgia Tech, see
the next page or visit www.rzimsi.org or https://pe.gatech.
edu/global-learning-center/attend-meeting/directions
RZIM SUMMER INSTITUTE 2015
More information on Georgia Tech University and the surrounding area
can be found at www.gatech.com.
1
Restaurant Guide / Transportation
Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference
Center Dining
(Corner of 5th & Spring Street)
800 Spring Street
Local Atlanta Restaurants
Flying Biscuit Café
1001 Piedmont Ave
404-874-8887
Bacchanalia
1198 Howell Mill Rd
404-365-0410
Moe’s Southwest Grill
5th Street & Williams St
Gordon Biersch
848 Peachtree St. at 7th Street
404-870-0805
Nan
1350 Spring Street
404-870-9933
Starbucks
(inside Barnes & Noble)
Corner of 5th & Spring Street
The Varsity
61 North Avenue
404-881-1706
Park 75 (Four Seasons Hotel)
75 14th Street NW
404-253-3840
Figo Pasta
1210 Howell Mill Rd
(at the corner of Huff Rd)
404-351-3700
Upscale area restaurants:
Veni Vidi Vici
41 14th Street, NW
404-875-8424
Publik Draft House
654 Peachtree St NW
404-885-7505
Transportation Options
•
Taxi or car services
Driving Directions:
•
MARTA (see below for detailed
instructions)
From the Atlanta Airport or south
Atlanta (Interstate 75/85 north):
•
Personal or rental car (See below for
driving directions)
Take Interstate 75/85 north to the
10th/14th Street exit (Exit 250). Continue
straight for .1 mile on Williams Street
and turn right onto 10th Street.
MARTA Rail (Metropolitan Atlanta
Rapid Transit Authority)
Take the Red or Gold train to the
Midtown MARTA station. Then, catch
the free Tech Trolley at the Peachtree Place
station exit. We’re the first stop before
the trolley enters the main Georgia Tech
campus. Cross the street, go through the
courtyard to enter the Center. The trolley
runs every twelve minutes from 5:45 a.m.
until 10:15 p.m., Monday through Friday.
For more trolley information, visit www.
parking.gatech.edu, then follow the Tech
Trolley link.
From the North Avenue MARTA station:
Head north on West Peachtree Street
until you reach Fifth Street. Turn left
onto Fifth Street and go one block. Cross
Spring Street at the pedestrian crossing.
You will pass the Georgia Tech Hotel
and retail shops to reach the courtyard.
Turn left and go through the courtyard to
enter the Georgia Tech Global Learning
Center (GLC).
2
Travel .1 mile and turn right onto Spring
Street. Travel approximately .4 miles on
Spring Street to Fifth Street (Barnes &
Noble at Georgia Tech Bookstore on your
left and the Georgia Tech Hotel on your
right), then proceed a half block farther
and turn right at the next light into the
parking deck. Park on the second level
(blue level). From there, enter the Georgia
Tech GLC.
From northeast or northwest Atlanta
(Interstate 75/85 south)*:
Take Interstate 75/85 south to the
Techwood Drive/14th Street/10th Street
exit (Exit 84 for 85 south or Exit 250
for 75 south). Turn left on 14th Street.
Travel .2 mile and turn right on Spring
Street. Travel about .7 mile on Spring
Street to Fifth Street (Barnes & Noble at
Georgia Tech Bookstore on your left and
the Georgia Tech Hotel on your right),
then proceed half block farther and turn
right at the next light into the parking
deck. Park on the second level (blue level).
From there, enter the Georgia Tech GLC.
*If you are coming from north Atlanta,
take Georgia 400 south to Interstate
75/85.
From east or west of Atlanta (Interstate
20):
Take Interstate 20 to Interstate 75/85
north to the 10th/14th Street exit (Exit
250). Continue straight for .1 mile on
Williams Street and turn right onto
10th Street. Travel .1 mile and turn right
onto Spring Street. Travel approximately
.4 mile on Spring Street to Fifth Street
(Barnes & Noble at Georgia Tech
Bookstore on your left and the Georgia
Tech Hotel on your right), then proceed
a half block farther and turn right at the
next light into the parking deck. Park on
the second level (blue level). From there,
enter the GLC.
Speakers & Performing Artists
Jeff Allen is a world-class comedian who has starred in the critically acclaimed film Apostles of Comedy, been
featured in comedy specials on Comedy Central, Showtime, and VHI, starred in the national tours Apostles of
Comedy and Jeff Allen & Friends: Funny People of Faith. He has released ten CDs and DVDs of his material,
performed at the National Prayer Breakfast, and been invited to address corporations and venues around the
world. His goal is to make people laugh as hard as humanly possible.
Andy Bannister is the Canadian director and lead apologist for RZIM Canada. He speaks and teaches regularly
throughout Canada, the US, Europe, and the wider world. Andy holds a PhD in Islamic studies, a topic on which
he has taught extensively, especially since 9/11 and the huge interest that was sparked on the subject by the events
of that day. He has spoken and taught at universities across Canada, the US, the UK, and further afield on both
Islam and philosophy and is an adjunct research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Islam and Other Faiths at
Melbourne School of Theology.
Nathan Betts is an apologist with RZIM’s US Speaking Team. He frequently speaks on university campuses
across Canada and the US, and regularly addresses church congregations. Nathan has written curricula on basic
Christianity and apologetics for several major churches in both Canada and the UK, and his writing has been
featured in Converge magazine. Nathan is a Canadian national who completed his undergraduate degree at Tyndale
University and his MA in Bible and Ministry at King’s College London. He is also a graduate of the Oxford Centre
for Christian Apologetics. He is an avid percussionist and a keen baseball fan.
Chris Blattner is from Central Minnesota and holds a BS in business finance. He spent 27 years in a family
construction company where revenue grew from $30 million to over $1 billion. Chris has held many positions
through those years including site manager, project manager, logistics director, executive risk management director,
and VP. Chris became a committed follower of Christ in 1998 and experienced the challenges of living out his faith
in the construction business world.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity, a daily reading considering themes from theology and
culture to philosophy and the arts. She holds a degree in religion from Hope College, a Masters of Divinity from
Western Theological Seminary and a ThM from Duke University, where she studied sacramental theology and the
arts. Jill is ordained as a specialized minister in the Reformed Church of America, where she serves on the theology
commission.
John Dickson specializes in the big ideas that have shaped our world and inspired men and women to live beyond
themselves. His journey has been an eclectic one: from full-time musician to professional speaker, author, biblical
historian, TV presenter, and director of a multi-media think tank. He began his career as singer/songwriter for
Aussie rock band In The Silence, touring and recording for seven years before focusing on academic studies and a
wide-ranging career as a speaker and author. John has an honors degree in theology and a PhD in ancient history,
and is also a Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University.
Richard Everett began his career in 1970. He has worked as a professional actor, director, writer, and associate
film producer. His body of work includes eight stage plays, over 200 animation scripts, including the BAFTA
nominated Joseph, three plays for BBC Radio 4, and the feature film Two Men Went To War shortlisted for
the Hollywood Film Festival. His first book of short playlets, Sound Bites, was published in 2014, which he
uses for workshops and seminars on “The Writer & The Creative Process.” Richard also runs a weekly drama
workshop for ‘Additional Needs’ adults at the L’Arche Community in the UK and made the delightful short
film Most Important Person in the World with them. (See: richardeverett.co.uk )
Os Guinness is an author and social critic. Great-great grandson of Arthur Guinness, the Dublin brewer, he was born
in China in World War Two where his parents were medical missionaries. A witness to the climax of the Chinese
revolution in 1949, he was expelled with many other foreigners in 1951 and returned to Europe where he was educated
in England. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of London and his DPhil in the social sciences
from Oriel College, Oxford. Previously, Os was a freelance reporter with the BBC. Os has written or edited more than
thirty books. His forthcoming book is Fool’s Talk. He is currently a senior fellow at the Oxford Center for Christian
Apologetics.
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Callom Harkrader is an OCCA Fellow with RZIM. He graduated from Lynchburg College in Virginia with
a bachelor of science in psychology and a double minor in history and theatre before attending the Oxford
Centre for Christian Apologetics. Callom has served as President of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship at
Lynchburg College, a development worker for The Mark Drama, a volunteer with Project Ruth (a Christian
non-profit serving the poor), and a middle school camp counselor. He has also spent significant time doing
mission work in Romania and Uganda. Callom has spoken at universities and churches in the UK and the US
on a wide array of topics related to Christianity and culture.
Craig Hawkins has worked as a professional studio artist since 2001 and as an assistant professor of art
at Valdosta State University since 2011. His body of work pays homage to the beauty and brokenness of
humanity through the expression of a rich and deeply spiritual faith. Reflecting and responding to the Word of
God, Hawkins draws inspiration from truths and principles of the Bible. See his work at craighawkinsart.com.
Jeff Jackson is the Christian Services Director of Recovery Ranch outside Nashville, Tennessee, one of the largest
treatment facilities in the nation and a part of Elements Behavioral Health. Jeff grew up on a ranch in Texas before
heading to Tennessee to work in the music industry, and then later to work in residential treatment for the last
eight years. His passion lies in the interface of psychology, philosophy, and theology, and how these arenas help us
to understand what it fully means to be human from a Christian worldview. He incorporates apologetics, the art
of music and creative songwriting in his work with clients. Jeff holds a B.A. and M.A. from Southern Evangelical
Seminary.
Cameron McAllister is a member of the speaking and writing team at RZIM. He earned a degree in philosophy
and religion from Toccoa Falls College and is currently preparing for graduate studies in creative writing. Cameron’s
apologetic approach is animated by a focus on the intersection of Scripture and great literature. Cameron was born
on the mission field in Vienna, Austria. He moved to the states with his family in 1998 when his father, Stuart
McAllister, began working with RZIM. Cameron and his wife, Heather, currently reside in Atlanta, Georgia.
Stuart McAllister was born in Scotland and saw his life changed by Christ at the early age of twenty. A desire to
serve the Lord and deepen his understanding of the faith led him to join Operation Mobilization (OM) in 1978.
His service with OM took him to Yugoslavia, where he was imprisoned for forty days for distributing Christian
literature. Upon his release, he continued his mission to preach the Gospel in communist countries, resulting in
more imprisonments. Stuart joined RZIM in 1998 as the international director and today serves as Regional
Director, Americas. Stuart speaks in churches and other forums all over the globe, and has been a lecturer at
Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, New York, where he was awarded a doctor of divinity.
Abdu Murray is an adjunct speaker with RZIM. He is also the president and co-founder of Embrace the Truth, an
apologetics-based ministry. For most of his life, Abdu was a proud Muslim who studied the Qur’an and Islam. After
a nine year investigation into the historical, philosophical, and scientific underpinnings of the major world religions,
Abdu discovered that the historic Christian faith alone can answer the questions of the mind and the longings
of the heart. Abdu has spoken to diverse audiences in the US and internationally. He has appeared as a guest on
numerous radio and televisions programs all over the world. As an attorney, Abdu was named three times in Best
Lawyers in American and Michigan Super Lawyer. Abdu also currently serves as the Visiting Professor of Christian Thought and
Apologetics at the Josh McDowell Institute of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. He lives in the Detroit, Michigan, area with his
wife and their three children.
John Njoroge is a member of the speaking team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. He speaks frequently
on university campuses, churches, and conferences around the world. His passion is to help clear the fog between
the academy and the local church by making the case for the credibility of the gospel of Jesus Christ in a winsome
and persuasive manner. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Talbot School of Theology where he earned a master’s
degree in philosophy, a master’s degree in New Testament studies, and a master of theology. While at Talbot, he also
served as a graduate teaching assistant and an adjunct faculty member. John is the host of the African versions of
RZIM’s radio programs Let My People Think and Just Thinking. He is in the process of completing a PhD in philosophy at the
University of Georgia. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife, Leah, and their two boys, Jonathan and Benjamin.
Fazale Rana became a Christian as a graduate student studying biochemistry. The cell’s complexity, elegance, and
sophistication coupled with the inadequacy of evolutionary scenarios to account for life’s origin compelled him to
conclude that life must stem from a creator. Reading through the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible convinced
him that Jesus was who Christians claimed him to be: Lord and Savior. Still, evangelism wasn’t important to him
– until his father died. His father’s death caused Rana to appreciate evangelism’s vitalness. He dedicated himself
to Christian apologetics and the use of science as a tool to build bridges with nonbelievers. In 1999, Rana left his
4
position in research and development at a Fortune 500 company to join Reasons to Believe. Fazale feels the most important thing
he can do as a scientist is to communicate to skeptics and believers alike the powerful scientific evidence – evidence uncovered day
after day – for God’s existence and the reliability of Scripture. (Source: Reasons To Believe).
Nathan Rittenhouse is an OCCA Fellow with RZIM. He graduated with honors from Bridgewater College in
Virginia with a double major in physics and philosophy and religion, and a minor in mathematics before attending
the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and Dallas Theological Seminary. Nathan has interests in topics of
science and religion, church history, and systematic theology. He grew up in an active church and Christian family
and developed an enthusiasm for Christ that has intensified with his academic studies. As a student, Nathan
refreshed his mind by running and was the two-time DII/DIII Virginia state cross-country champion. Before
moving to Boston, Nathan preached in congregations in West Virginia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and served on his alma mater’s
student ministry board. He has worked in several capacities in Christian camping and evangelistic outreach programs to university
students in the US and UK.
Josh Schicker has a long history with the arts and faith. A third generation church musician, he finds great
joy in crafting meaningful worship experiences through engaging both heart and mind. Since 2011, Schicker
has been on staff at North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta as Worship Leader in Mission. As a singer/
songwriter, Josh can be found playing at local venues and his music can be heard in independent films. He and
his wife, Becky, live in Decatur, Georgia.
Johanna Sheridan is the president of The Grace and Mercy Foundation in New York City. Prior to leading the
Foundation, Johanna was a management consultant/auditor with firms such as Arthur Andersen and Morgan
Stanley. Additionally, she provided financial support services to Christian organizations including The Brooklyn
Tabernacle and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. During her professional career, Johanna co-founded and was CEO
of SaltExchange, a venture which connected, encouraged, and empowered Christian leaders in key cities. Johanna
is a Certified Public Accountant and a graduate of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics. In 2012, she was
a member of the Steering Committee for The Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization focused on younger leaders in North
America. Johanna continually challenges herself to experience and glorify God through her prayer life and professional work, and
is a speaker on these topics. Johanna resides in Manhattan (and occasionally in Brooklyn with her parents, siblings, and dogs).
Margaret Manning Shull earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, with honor, from Agnes Scott College in
Decatur, Georgia, before going on to earn her Masters of Divinity degree, summa cum laude, from GordonConwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. Prior to working at RZIM as part of the writing
team, Margaret served in pastoral roles focusing on teaching, discipleship, spiritual formation, and pastoral care
and counseling. She is an ordained minister and enjoys reading and research in topics related to world religions,
philosophical theology, science and faith, biblical hermeneutics, and theology in the arts. Rev. Manning Schull is
passionate about communicating the gospel in ways that engage both heart and mind.
Michael Suderman is an OCCA Fellow based in Washington, DC, with RZIM. He graduated from Tabor College
in Kansas with a double major in philosophy and biblical & religious studies, and a minor in psychology. He
recently completed a Masters of Theology at the University of Oxford alongside two years of study at the Oxford
Centre for Christian Apologetics. Michael has interests in topics related to faith and science, world religions, and
the intersection of Christianity and culture. His passion is to help facilitate the discovery and rediscovery of Jesus by
communicating and clarifying the gospel as the most profound solution to life’s most meaningful questions. Prior to
studying in Oxford, Michael was involved with youth and university ministries and participated in educational and volunteer work
throughout India.
Alycia Wood is an OCCA Fellow with RZIM and was born and raised in Rochester, New York. She graduated
with a degree in criminal justice from Roberts Wesleyan College and later earned her masters degree in social
justice from Marygrove College in Detroit, Michigan. Alycia has had a variety of training and educational
opportunities, including six years in urban youth ministry, prison ministry at Attica and Orleans prisons in New
York, work in fine dining restaurant organizations, and teaching in private and public schools. Alycia is a graduate
of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA).
Ravi Zacharias is Founder and President of RZIM. He has spoken in over 50 countries and in universities
such as Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford. He has addressed writers of South Africa’s peace accord, the cabinet
and parliament in Peru, and officers at the Lenin Military Academy in Moscow. Ravi has spoken at the
National Day of Prayer in Washington, DC, the Pentagon, and twice at the United Nations Annual Prayer
Breakfast. He has written over twenty books and his radio and television programs are broadcast worldwide.
5
What Does It Mean to be Human:
The Questions
Stuart McAllister
Psalms 8
There is no view from nowhere and all views begin from somewhere. Much is at stake in approaching deep questions, so it
demands much of us all.
“So much depends on our conception of human nature: for individuals, the meaning and purpose of our lives, what we ought to do or strive
for, what we may hope to achieve or become; for human societies, what vision of human community we may hope to work toward and what
social changes we should make.”
- Leslie Stevenson and David L. Haberman, Ten Theories of Human Nature
“Those who have not discovered that world view is the most important thing about a man, as about men composing a culture should consider
the train of circumstances which have with perfect logic proceeded from this. The denial of universals carries with it the denial of everything
transcending experience. The denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably – though ways are found to hedge on this – the
denial of truth.”
- Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences
“But there are some people, nevertheless – and I am one of them – who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is
still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important
to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but still more
important to know the enemy’s philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether, in the
long run, anything else affects them.”
- G. K. Chesterton, Heretics
I. The Gospel in the Marketplace of Ideas
A. Why questions are both important and unavoidable
B. Why we need to understand others and their views in order to relate
C. Seeking the right posture or orientation
Colossians 4:5-6
“In combat one seeks to vanquish the opponent. In evangelism, one seeks to persuade them.”
- Ravi Zacharias
“Jesus asked questions, not because he did not know the answer, but because he expected one.”
- Michael Ramsden
Notes
7
II. Why is an Answer (What does it mean to be human) Important?
A. In order to know, live in, and align with reality and hence with truth.
“To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false; while to say of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not
is true.”
- Aristotle
“Truth is our tie to the world. Believing a truth, or stating a truth, is like hitting a target. Falsehood misses the mark. Truth anchors
us to reality. Falsehood cuts our connection to the way things really are. We need truth like we need air, or food, or water. Falsehood, by
contrast, kills.”
- Tom Morris
B. In order to provide a way of life, ethical and moral direction
C. To provide an answer that will make us truly flourish and benefit others
(See Matthew 22:36-40)
III. We Need an Approach, a Method and a Way, to Compare and Evaluate Competing Claims
“Man is born free but is everywhere in chains”
- Rousseau
“Man is condemned to be free”
- Jean Paul Sartre
“Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing”
- Vince Lombardi
A. Addressing the big questions, how can we do it?
- Is there a pattern or meaning in or to history?
- Who and what are we?
- What is wrong in life, with me, with the world?
- Are there any answers, solutions?
B. Addressing the heart questions (Happiness, hope, love, meaning)
C. We need to understand and face the costs of belief and commitments
“Comparison is the mother of clarity”
- Os Guinness
“Emotional satisfaction is not necessarily a test of truth
- S. McAllister
IV. The pattern and practice of being prepared
1 Peter 3:13-17 (read 1 Peter 3:8-12 for setting)
8
Notes
A. There are no short cuts. Working with people, ideas and issues demands commitment, effort and work.
B. Expect opposition. Anger, disgust and the use of shame and shaming are part of the price to be paid.
C. The way of Jesus.
“The Incarnation is the model of mission”
- John Stott
“Lead with compassion, follow with clarity”
- Kevin Myers
V. Whose vision, which answer?
A. Testing, testing…1,2,3!
The coherence test: does the system of belief fit together in a coherent manner?
The reality test: are large chunks of human experience explained or left out?
The pragmatic test: can it be applied to human experience and does it contribute meaningfully to key issues and concerns of
life?
B. The Gospel
Romans 1:16-17
C. The road before us
Proverbs 2:1-5
“knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men…”
- St. Paul
“I believe in Christianity, as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else”
- C.S. Lewis
“Apologetics, is the art and science of Christian persuasion”
- Greg Pritchard
Works Cited
Ten Theories of Human Nature, Third Edition, Leslie Stevenson and David L. Haberman
Worldview: The History of a Concept, David K. Naugle
Philosophy for Dummies, Tom Morris
A Spectators Guide to Worldviews, Edited by Simon Smart
Recommended
Faith to Faith, Don Scott
Grand Central Question, Abdu Murray
Gunning for God, John Lennox
Why Jesus, Ravi Zacharias
Notes
9
Notes
10
Jesus and the New Humanity
John Dickson
11
Notes
12
Impossible People: Christian Courage
in the Advanced Modern World
Os Guinness
I.
Wrestle with the Grand Cultural Shifts of our Age
The information era
II.
Face up to the Challenge of “Wars of Spirit”
Public square
III.
Stand Firm in the Battle for the Soul of the World
Truth
IV.
Appreciate the Special Animosities of Secularism
RC irony
V.
Stand Against the Lethal Distortions of Faith in the Modern World
Fragmentation
VI.
Explore the Modern Meltdown of Faith
Completest revolution
VII.
Recognize the oddities of communication in the age of communication
Inattention
Multiple modernities
The Global South
Denominations Individual believers
Moral order
Protestant irony
Preference
Personal dignity
Overall irony
Secularization
Liquid world
Inflation
Social constructivism
Inertia
VIII. Make Sure we Have the Needed Tools for Faithful Thinking and Living
Weapons of the Spirit
History of ideas Cultural analysis
IX.
Beware False Responses
Quietism
X.
Shoulder the Requirements of Faithfulness
Read the signs of the times Test the spirits
Hotheaded activism
Revisionism
Take up your cross
Notes
13
Notes
14
Do What You Are Track
Os Guinness
15
Notes
16
Conversational Evangelism Track
Three Steps in Answering Tough Questions
Andy Bannister
“The issue is not whether you use an apologetic.
The question is simply: is it a good one.”
I. Step One: Questioning the Question
A. Who is asking the question?
B. What is the question behind the question?
-- Case study: Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler (Mark 10:17-25).
C. Examples of good clarifying questions
II. Step Two: Information Gathering
A. Where might we look for further information? (Books, resources, podcasts, web pages)
B. What are the key points we would like to get across in any conversation?
III. Step Three: Formulating A Response
A. Ground your answer intellectually
-- The tests for a worldview
B. Illustrate your answer existentially
-- The power of stories (including your own)
C. Demonstrate the answer pragmatically
-- What difference does the gospel make to the question in the real world?
Notes
17
IV. Practice, Practice, Practice (and Humility)
A. Nothing beats practice
B. Learning from every conversation
C. What to do if somebody asks a question you really have no clue about
D. Research the common questions and prepare in advance
Further Reading:
Koukl, Gregory, Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions (Zondervan, 2009)
Lewis, C. S., Mere Christianity (HarperOne, 2011)
Pollard, Doug, God Space: Naturally Creating Room for Spiritual Conversations (Group Publishing, 2009)
Stackhouse, John G., Humble Apologetics: Defending the Faith Today (Oxford University Press, 2006)
Strobel, Lee, The Case for Faith (Zondervan, 2010)
Wright, N.T., Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (HarperOne, 2010)
Zacharias, Ravi (editor), Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend (Thomas Nelson, 2009)
Notes
18
Science & Faith Track
Fazale Rana & Nathan Rittenhouse
Description:
Science and faith are often portrayed as enemies warring with one another. As we examine the topic of the human condition at the
2015 Summer Institute, we will see that science and faith are actually complementary aspects of the ongoing commitment to truth
and progress.
I.
What is the Motivation for Christians to Study Nature?
A. Creation is God’s “spoken word”
B. Creation inspires worship
C. “Expanding Eden” throughout Earth
D. “Unleashing” God’s providence
E. Loving our neighbors and providing for those in need
F. Caring for Earth
II. How does the Christian Worldview Relate to the Foundational Assumptions of the Scientific Endeavor?
A. Definition of science
B. Preconditions for science
C. Christian worldview and science
- Nature is real
- Nature is worthy of study and is good
- God is revealed in nature
- God is a God of order and regularity
- God’s providence ensures uniformity in nature
- Humans are made in God’s image
- Humans have dominion over the Earth
III. How does the system of Christian ethics relate to the ethical framework required for science? What about the ethical systems
of other philosophical or religious systems?
A. Personal behavior
B. Community behavior
C. Goals of scientific inquiry
D. Responsibility for discoveries and in-lab “creations”
E. Environmental ethics
IV. How do the worldviews of other philosophical or religious systems relate to science?
A. Materialism and naturalism
B. Eastern religions
C. Islam
Notes
19
Notes
20
High School & University Track
The Challenge of Apathy
Nathan Betts
How do you reach those who don’t need God?
I. The Problem of Apathy
What does it look like and what are its causes?
What drives apathy?
II. A meaningful response
Suggested Reading
Curtis Chang, Engaging Unbelief: A Captivating Strategy from Augustine & Aquinas (Downers Grove, III: Intervarsity Press, 2000).
Thomas V. Morris, Making Sense Of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life (Grand Rapids, Mich: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992).
Notes
21
Notes
22
Arts Track
Making Sense: Humanity & the Arts
Jill Carattini, Cameron McAllister, Margaret
Manning Shull, & musician Josh Schicker
What is best represented in our minds is that which is conveyed by and impressed upon our senses; and since sight is the sharpest sense
of all, even what we hear with our ears or think in our thoughts will be best held in our minds if conveyed to our memory through the
mediation of the eyes. Therefore, things we cannot actually see can still be mentally marked by form or figure or image, and we can possess
as if by seeing what we could otherwise hardly imagine. —Cicero, De Oratore, II. lxxxvii
The mystery of the kingdom, it seems, is a radical mystery: even when you tell people about it in so many words, it remains permanently
intractable to all their attempts to make sense of it. . .With Jesus, . . . the device of the parabolic utterance is used not to explain things
to people’s satisfaction but to call attention to the unsatisfactoriness of all their previous explanations and understandings. — Richard
Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace and Judgment
While we hold arguments at arm’s length, art enables us to live into ideas that are complicated and challenging—that challenge our ways
of living, of being, of thinking, of loving. —Mark Sprinkle, Making Sense: Art and the Gospel
Questions for Discussion
I.
II.
Why are we talking about the arts at an apologetics conference?
What does Jesus’s use of parables tell us about what it means to be human? Are his stories an expendable feature of his
theological discourse?
III. What role have the five senses played in your encounter of Christ? Wisdom? The life of faith?
IV.
How have the arts helped you wrestle with or expand an idea that is complicated or challenging? Or how have the arts
helped you live further into your faith? Can you think of a hymn that taught you theology? A novel that showed you a glimpse
of yourself?
Notes
23
Notes
24
In Search of Healing Track
Jeff Jackson
H…
I.
Heal
II. Hurt
III. Help
IV. Human
Notes
25
Notes
26
Elective:
Bioethics & Human Flourishing
Fazale Rana
Description:
Emerging biotechnologies (such as cloning and cell replacement therapies) hold tremendous promise, but can also be perilous if
misapplied. Secular bioethics provides little help guiding the development and application of these technologies. Ultimately, ethical
deliberations from a secular standpoint rely on utilitarian considerations that devalue human life. As we examine the topic of the
human condition at this year’s Summer Institute, it will become evident that a biblical understanding of the human condition leads to
a robust framework for bioethics, ensuring these new technologies benefit humanity without compromising human dignity.
I.
Ethics Independent of a Biblical Worldview
A. Utilitarianism
- Humanism
- Relativism
- Eastern Religions and Philosophies
II. The Foundations for Biblical Ethics
A. Humans are made in God’s image
B. Human life has intrinsic worth
C. Loving others equates to loving God
- The Ten Commandments
- The Greatest Commandment
- The prophets
- Jesus’ teachings
D. Humans have been granted dominion over creation
E. Humans are fallen, the image of God is distorted
Notes
27
Notes
28
Elective:
Can Science & Faith Work Together?
Nathan Rittenhouse
Description:
The pursuit of truth has often been bifurcated into categories of ‘science’ and ‘faith.’ Although neither of these categories by definition excludes the other, the perception remains that they do. This session challenges the assumption that these fields are in tension
and makes the case that they can symbiotically benefit one another. “There is a superficial conflict, but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science
and naturalism.” - Alvin Plantinga
I. The source and nature of truth
II. Agents and mechanisms: Who did what? Why? and How?
III. The God of the Given
“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”- Jesus
Notes
29
Notes
30
Elective:
Dealing With My Own Doubts
Cameron McAllister
I. Is Doubt Good or Bad?
II. Faith Hidden in Plain Sight
III. Healthy Doubt
IV. Toxic Doubt
V. Trust
Notes
31
Notes
32
Elective:
What If I Don’t Need God?
Andy Bannister
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance.
The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” — C. S. Lewis
I. Introduction: Look Who’s Asking
A.
Not every objection to Christianity is intellectual
B. Who is asking the question and why are they asking?”
The Agnostic: “I don’t think we can ever truly know … and that’s okay.”
-
Strong agnosticism vs. weak agnosticism
The Apatheist: “I just don’t care. Life is good, why do I need God?”
“There’s probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy your life”
~ Atheist bus slogan
-
What’s the big deal about enjoyment?
“I’m sorry—enjoy your life? Enjoy your life? I’m not making some kind of neo-puritan objection to enjoyment. Enjoyment is lovely.
Enjoyment is great. The more enjoyment the better. But enjoyment is one emotion. The only things in the world that are designed to
elicit enjoyment and only enjoyment are products, and your life is not a product … To say that life is to be enjoyed (just enjoyed) is
like saying that mountains should have only summits, or that all colors should be purple, or that all plays should be by Shakespeare.
This really is a bizarre category error.”1
-
The Atheist: “There’s no proof. But what difference would it make anyway?”
-
Just because somebody is arguing doesn’t mean that they’re interested.
-
Paul at Mars Hill: “We want to hear you again on this subject.”
(Acts 17:32)
-
Apologetics is not less than intellectual arguments but it certainly has to be more.
-
The many and variegated reasons for disbelief.
Notes
33
II. The Causes of the Question
A. The assumption that religion is just subjectivism.
-
“It’s just your personal belief. It’s not my personal belief.”
-
Giving a reason: not just about arguments but also about impression.
B. Misunderstanding the scope of the gospel.
“[The cross] is so petty, it’s so trivial, it’s so local, it’s so earth-bound, it’s so unworthy of the universe.” — Richard Dawkins
C. Failure to grasp what the gospel is necessary for.
III. Three Things the Gospel Makes Possible
A. Mind
“Both [Paul] and Pat [Churchland] like to speculate about a day when whole chunks of English, especially the bits that constitute
folk psychology, are replaced by scientific words that call a thing by its proper name rather than some outworn metaphor. Surely this
will happen, they think, and as people learn to speak differently they will learn to experience differently, and sooner or later even their
most private introspections will be affected. Already Paul feels pain differently than he used to: when he cuts himself shaving now he
feels not “pain” but something more complicated—first the sharp, superficial A-delta-fibre pain, and then, a couple of seconds later, the
sickening, deeper feeling of C-fibre pain that lingers. The new words, far from being reductive or dry, have enhanced his sensations, he
feels, as an oenophile’s complex vocabulary enhances the taste of wine.
Paul and Pat, realizing that the revolutionary neuroscience they dream of is still in its infancy, are nonetheless already preparing
themselves for this future, making the appropriate adjustments in their everyday conversation. One afternoon recently, Paul says, he
was home making dinner when Pat burst in the door, having come straight from a frustrating faculty meeting. “She said, ‘Paul, don’t
speak to me, my serotonin levels have hit bottom, my brain is awash in glucocorticoids, my blood vessels are full of adrenaline, and if
it weren’t for my endogenous opiates I’d have driven the car into a tree on the way home. My dopamine levels need lifting. Pour me a
Chardonnay, and I’ll be down in a minute.’”2
-
What does it mean to speak of “mind” if we’re just molecules?
-
Unless there is a God, it’s hard to see where we get the “I” in statements like “I don’t believe in him”.
“It is all very well to eliminate God from the intelligible universe but eliminating ourselves from it blocks all sorts of enquiries.”3
B. Meaning
-
Can life have meaning without God?
Problem #1: The universe simply doesn’t care
Notes
34
“We are a 1 percent bit of pollution within the universe. We are completely insignificant.” — Lawrence Krauss4
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe.
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.” — Stephen Crane5
“We should not think there’s anything special about us. We used to think we were the centre of the universe
and now we know we’re not.” — Richard Dawkins6
Problem #2: The clash of meanings
What do we mean when we speak of “meaning”?
Problem #3: Avoiding the lure of nihilism
“Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears,
his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and
feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the
noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s
achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins ... Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on
the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”7
Four questions we need to answer to find meaning8
-
The question of identity (who am I?)
-
The question of value (do I matter?)
-
The question of purpose (why am I here?)
-
The question of agency (can I make a difference)
Atheist vs. Christian answers to the questions
“People seem to struggle with the notion that this life is all there is. Many seem to think that if they accept that this is it, life has no
meaning. A friend once compared this to saying that a cake has no meaning once you’ve eaten it. A cake provides you with a pleasurable
experience, a focus for celebration, a memory, and even perhaps a wish. An eaten cake will give you energy. Some of its atoms may
literally become part of you through the processes that are continually replacing the billions of cells in your body. Similarly, when you
die, your memory and the things you did will live on for a while, but your atoms will live on for a lot longer, becoming part of other
objects in the universe.”9 — Atheist, Alom Shaha
Notes
35
… vs.….
“I passionately believe that Christianity answers those questions better than any other worldview I have investigated, not least
atheism which scarcely gets off the starting blocks. Beginning with identity, Christianity says that you are not an accident, mere
scum on the surface of the cosmic pond, but rather that you were fashioned, shaped and created by the creator God. What about value?
Economic theory tells us that something’s value is determined by what somebody is willing to pay for it: for instance, my iPhone is
valuable because I was willing to pay hundreds of pounds for the convenience of email that chases me wherever I go and the ability to
play Angry Birds on the lavatory. Take my iPhone to an island where there is no power, cellphone signal, or WiFi and it is probably
worthless. So what is our value as human beings? Christianity says that God was willing to pay an incredible price for each one of
us, the price of his son, Jesus Christ. That’s why we have value. Turning to purpose, Christianity claims that there is indeed a purpose,
one baked into reality and that purpose is to know God and enjoy him forever. And finally, what of agency? In his short story, Leaf by
Niggle, J. R. R. Tolkien tells the story of a struggling painter, Niggle, who spends his entire life trying to paint a beautiful picture of a
forest, with a vista of mountains and fields in the distance far beyond. But Niggle so desperately wants his picture to be perfect that he
can never finish more than one leaf on one tree, endlessly obsessing over getting it right. Sadly Niggle is struck by a chill, falls ill and
dies, his painting unfinished. After his death, Niggle arrives in heaven, where as he approaches the edge of the heavenly country he
sees a tree. Not just any tree, but his Tree, finished and complete, every leaf perfect. Christianity says that we are all like Niggle: that
we can make a difference if our efforts, our energy, our work is caught up in and with and is part of God’s greater purposes. Then our
strivings can not merely outlive us, but can be revealed to be part of something bigger, beautiful, more real; the kingdom that God is
building for eternity.”10
C. Justice
-
No God, no final judgement, no justice, no solution to the cycle of violence
“My thesis is that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance … to the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I
suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone. Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have
been first plundered, then burned and levelled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers
have had their throats slit … Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human
nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as
one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.”11
-
But if there is a God and there is a final judgement, how can we stand?
“For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation.
The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain
system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom; we objected to the political and economic
system because it was unjust. The supporters of these systems claimed that in some way they embodied the meaning (a Christian
meaning, they insisted) of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and at the same time justifying
ourselves in our political and erotic revolt: we could deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever.”12
-
The logic of the cross
Notes
36
IV.
Conclusion
A. We can’t live without God.
B. All of us worship something: the “I” in the question reflects the problem
C. Helping people find the way home
For Further Reading
Feser, Edward, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2012)
McGrath, Alister, Surprised by Meaning: Science, Faith, and How We Make Sense of Things (Louiseville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2011)
Spufford, Francis, Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense (London: Faber &
Faber, 2013 [2012])
Tallis, Raymond, Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity (Durham: Acumen, 2012)
Williams, Clifford, Existential Reasons for Belief in God: A Defense of Desires and Emotions for Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP
Academic, 2011)
Footnotes
1
Francis Spufford, Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense (London: Faber & Faber, 2013 [2012]) 8.
2
Source: Larissa MacFarquhar, “Two Heads: A marriage devoted to the mind-body problem.”, The New Yorker, 12 Feb 2007 (online at http://www.newyorker.
com/magazine/2007/02/12/two-heads).
3
Mary Midgley, ‘Against Humanism’, New Humanist, 25 October 2010 (http://rationalist.org.uk/2419/ against-humanism).
4
Cited in Amanda Lohrey, ‘The Big Nothing: Lawrence Krauss and Arse-Kicking Physics’, The Monthly, October 2012.
5
Stephen Crane, War Is Kind and Other Poems (New York: Dover Publications, 1998) 36.
6
Cited in Russell Stannard, Science and Wonders (London: Faber and Faber, 1996) 72.
8
9
See Roy F. Baumeister, Meanings of Life (New York: The Guilford Press, 1991). His work is nicely summarized in Alister McGrath, Surprised by Meaning:
Science, Faith, and How We Make Sense of Things (Louiseville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011) 104-112.
Alom Shaha, The Young Atheist’s Handbook (London: Biteback Publishing, 2012)36.
11
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996) 303
12
Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods Employed for their Realization (London: Chatto and Windus, 1941) 273
7
10
Bertrand Russell, ‘A Free Man’s Worship’, available online at http://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/ 264/fmw.htm
Andy Bannister, The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist (or: The Terrible Consequences of Really Bad Arguments) (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2015).
Notes
37
Notes
38
Elective:
Answering the Questioner
Alycia Wood
I. 1 Peter 3:15-16
A.
Are people asking you?
B.
An Apologia appeals to the heart and mind
C.
An Apologia gives evidence for faith
D.
What is our tone?
“Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but
worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true and then show that it is.” Pascal
II. Practical things to keep in mind during Evangelism
A.
How many non-Christian friends do you have?
B.
Look for the open door
C.
Quick to listen, slow to speak.
D.
Move people from 1-2 on the clock
E.
Understand the cost someone may have to pay
F.
Sit down with the gospel and be able to explain it
G.
You must relate Christianity to the person. Why do I need God?
H.
Make it culturally relevant
I.
Understand your role (2 Timothy 2:22-26)
III. Tips:
A.
B.
C.
Think about your answer to the question, “Why am I a Christian?”
It helps, when conversations are going nowhere, to ask these two questions, “What is your biggest objection to
Christianity?” and “Would you believe if I answered it?”
When people, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons come to your door, talk to them!
Notes
39
Notes
40
Speaker Q&A
Stuart McAllister, John Dickson, & Os Guinness
41
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Technology & Humanity
Andy Bannister
I.
Introduction: The Road to Heaven is Paved With Good Inventions
A. Where do humans fit in the ‘Second Machine Age’?
B.
The growing belief that technology can solve every problem.
C.
“When given to capable technologists, the exponential power of Moore’s Law [digital technology] makes even the toughest problems
tractable.”
D. Three examples:
-
Google car
-
IBM’s Watson;
-
Internet connectivity + digital devices = Democracy … ?
II. History Means More Than a List of Website Visits
A.
B.
There’s nothing new about romanticised views of new technologies
Examples from history
-
The telegraph
-
The aeroplane
-
Radio
-
Television
-
Computers
C.
In each case, the technology brought benefits but also costs
D.
Technology leads a double life, one which conforms to the intentions of designers and interests of power and another
which contradicts them—proceeding behind the backs of their architects to yield unintended consequences and unintended possibilities.
E.
We are following the same pattern when it comes to digital technology: we haven’t learnt the lessons of history yet …
“The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.” — Ronald Reagan
“Trying to control the Internet is like trying to nail Jell-o to the wall.” — Bill Clinton
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“Imagine if the Internet took hold in China. Imagine how freedom would spread.” — George Bush
“[The Internet is powerful because t]he more freely information flows, the stronger society becomes, because then citizens of countries
around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It
encourages creativity.” — Barack Obama
III. To Infinity and Beyond (or Near Enough That It Makes No Difference)
A. Digital technology is especially compelling because it has changed the world so incredibly fast
B. Three characteristics that have caused the rapid growth of the computer age
-
Exponential
-
Digital
-
Combinatorial
IV. Being Human (and Why We’re Tempted To Forget How To Be)
A. Who’s in the driving seat? (Is technology deterministic?)
-
Living with progress
“Technology changes, and it changes more quickly than human beings change … our software and our robots will, with our guidance,
continue to find new ways to outperform us—to work faster, cheaper, better.”
-
One size does not fit all: technology, culture and how they interplay
B. All play and no work? (What does the good life look like?)
-
Not all problems can be solved by technology
-
Maximal happiness ≠ maximal screen time
-
The problem of “miswanting”
-
Our ambivalent relationship with work
C. I and Us is Just iOS? (What does it mean to “be human”?)
-
Are we just “meat computers”?
-
The deceptive nature of our metaphors
“[The confusion begins] with the way we talk about machines … we don’t smile with disbelief when we are told that a camera ‘sees’ a
scene; radar ‘searches’ for the enemy; a ‘smart’ bomb ‘hunts down’ its target; a photoelectric cell ‘detects’ the background luminance and
‘instructs’ the camera shutter to open up or close; an electronic probe ‘reports’ the presence of something or other. We are all perfectly aware
that none of these devices would do these things—seeing, searching, hunting down, detecting, instructing, reporting—in the absence of
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(conscious) human beings … We start imagining that machines that help us to carry out certain functions actually have those functions.
This is particularly likely to happen when the machines in question are computers.”
-
The Chinese Room and other reasons computers cannot “think”
V. Modest Conclusions
A. Why technology allures yet deceives us
B. Three responses to technology
-
Cyber-Utopian
-
Cyber-Luddite
-
Cyber-Realist (or Cyber-Agnostic)
C. Why we can never escape being human
D. Choosing wisely in a digital age
E. What we can do versus what we are and who we know
For Further Reading
Brynjolfsson, Erik and McAfee, Andrew, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies.
New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2014.
Carr, Nicholas, The Glass Cage: Automation and Us. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2014.
Keller, Timothy and Alsdorf, Katherine Leary, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work. New York: Dutton, 2012.
Morozov, Evgeny, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York: PublicAffairs, 2011.
Schuurman, Derek C., Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013.
Tallis, Raymond, Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity. Durham: Acumen, 2012.
Works Cited
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (New York:
W.W. Norton and Co., 2014) 55.
David Noble, cited in Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011) 283.
Nicholas Carr, The Glass Cage: Automation and Us (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2014) 40-41.
Raymond Tallis, Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity (Durham: Acumen, 2012) 185.
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A Scientific & Biblical Reflection on
Human Uniqueness & the Image of God
Fazale Rana
Description:
Scripture teaches that human beings are made in God’s image.
This quality makes it possible for us to have a unique relationship with our Creator. And because we bear God’s image, we are
worthy of redemption—accomplished through Christ’s sacrificial death on the Cross.
In our culture today, the prevailing view of human origins is steeped in the evolutionary paradigm. According to this view, human beings differ only in degree from other creatures, not kind—a belief that holds the potential to undermine a biblical view of
humanity and with it the notion that human beings possess inherent dignity and worth.
Yet an increasing number of scientific studies from primatology, physical anthropology, and archeology are challenging the standard evolutionary view. In other words, there is emerging scientific evidence for human uniqueness and exceptionalism.
This presentation suggests a way to integrate these emerging scientific insights and the biblical accounts of human origins and, in
doing so, demonstrate the scientific credibility of a biblical understanding of humanity.
I.
A survey of the Ancient Art in the Caves of Europe and Southeast Asia
II. Comparison of the Archeological Records of Modern Humans and Hominids
A. Stringer quote from The African Exodus
III. How Can we Explain the Origin of Modern Human Behavior?
A. Standard view of human evolution
- Darwin quote from The Descent of Man
- Humans differ in degree (not kind) from animals
B. Changing view
- Suddendorf quote from The Gap
- Humans are unique
IV. Human Uniqueness and the Image of God
A. What is the image of God?
- Resemblance view
- Relational view
- Representative view
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V. Can Human Evolution Bridge the Gap?
A. Chimp behavior and the habiline and erectine archeological records
B. Who were Neanderthals?
C. The Neanderthal archeological record
- Neanderthal art?
- Neanderthal jewelry?
- Neanderthal burials
- Neanderthal brain shape
D. Origin of art
E. Origin of language
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Jesus & the New Humanity
John Dickson
49
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The Global Public Square:
Religious Freedom & the Making of a
World Safe for Diversity
Os Guinness
Introduction
The global question: How do we live with our deepest differences?
I. Appreciate why the Issue has Become Urgent in the Global Era
Explosion of diversity
Floundering settlements
Global public square
II. Remember why Religious Freedom is Primary and Foundational
First liberty
Source of civil society
Key to social harmony
III.Assess the Options for the Public Square
Sacred
Naked
IV.Clarify the Misunderstandings of Civility
Civil
Niceness
Interfaith dialogue
V. Work for the Requirements for Restoration
False tolerance
Restore civic education
Re-open the public square
Renewal of faith
Conclusion
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Os Guinness
53
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Conversational Evangelism Track
Exposing Truth’s Cost, Sharing Truth’s Worth
Abdu Murray
I.
Introduction
A.
Duplicity About Truth
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort or truth – only soft
soap and wishful thinking to begin with, and, in the end, despair.”
B.
The Cost of Truth: Emotional barriers and personal biases that prevent someone from considering the truth,
particularly when considering the truth means that that person might have to give up their own belief.
II. The Profundity of the Cost of Truth
A.
John 18:37-38
Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king.
For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to
the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”
Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out.
B.
Modern day Examples
- Encounter with a Muslim Man in the hospital
- Barriers from Trauma:
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven
times cursed and seven time sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke (that is, of the crematorium). . . . Never
shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith for ever. . . Never shall I forget those moments which
murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.” A bit later he wrote: “Some talked of God, of
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his mysterious ways, of the sins of the Jewish people, and of their future deliverance. But I had ceased to pray. How I sympathized with Job! I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted his absolute justice.”
- Secular Intelligentsia:
“I want atheism to be true. And I’m made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and wellinformed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t that I don’t believe in God and naturally hope that I’m
right in my beliefs, it’s that I hope there is no God. I don’t want their to be a God. I don’t want the universe to
be like that.”
C. Empirical Data: Julia Exline and Alyce Martin, “Anger Toward God: A New Frontier in Forgiveness Research,”
quoted in Everett L. Worthington, ed., Handbook of Forgiveness (New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 79.
III.
Exposing the Cost of Truth
A. Ask the open ended questions: Questioning the Questioner
B. Listen: Often, the first thing to do to talk to someone about Jesus is not to talk at all.
C. Commit to sticking by them.
IV.
Sharing Truth’s Worth
A. Method:
- Colossians 4:5-6
- Blaise Pascal, in Pensées:
“Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is first to show that religion is not contrary
to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that
it is.”
B. What Truth is Worth:
- Answers for our Deepest Struggles. All other questions become secondary.
- Knowing your value in God’s eyes
- Assurance of Eternal Life
Works Cited
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, HarperCollins ed., (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), p. 32.
Elie Wiesel, Night (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1981), pp.45, 57.
Thomas Nagle, The Last Word (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 130.
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I. How Does Scientific Advance Help us see the Beauty of God’s Creation?
II. How Do Scientific Discoveries Inspire us to Worship?
III. How Can a Career in Science be Viewed as a Ministry?
A. Inspiring worship
B. Serving others
C. Caring for the environment
D. Being salt and light in the scientific community
IV. How Can the Church do a Better job of Incorporating Scientists into the Life of the Church?
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The Challenge of Not Being Prepared
Alycia Wood & Nathan Betts
I. Start Explaining the Gospel Whenever it Arises
II. Create an Environment Where People Feel Safe to Ask Questions
III. What are the Benefits and Limits of Science? Do Science and Scripture Conflict? (miracles, creation/evolution, super-natural)
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
Why is there suffering? (Logical and emotional problems) What about evil?
What is God like? Old Testament and New Testament, are they the same God?
How did we get the Bible, can we trust it, who wrote it, is it relevant?
What is prayer, does God always answer?
What is the biblical view of sexuality? (Pre-marital, homosexual…)
What is the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus?
Why do we think of God as Trinity? Was this Constantine’s idea? How can Jesus be God and man?
Do we take the Bible literally? How do we read it?
What is Hell? How can a loving God send people there?
What has God done in your life? Be able to speak on this for five minutes.
What are the beliefs of the main world religions? (Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism; also talk about Jehovah’s
Witnesses and Mormons)
L. How is Christianity different from every other religious system? (Relationship, grace, hope)
M. Why am I a Christian? (Note: This is different than ‘how’ I became a Christian)
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Arts Track
Making Sense: Humanity & Poetry
Jill Carattini, Cameron McAllister, Margaret
Manning Shull, & artist Christian Wiman
“Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which
we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.” —Christian Wiman, Ambition and
Survival
“ You cannot devote your life to an abstraction. Indeed, life shatters all abstractions in one way or another, including words such as ‘faith’
or ‘belief.’ If God is not in the very fabric of existence for you, if you do not find Him (or miss Him!) in the details of your daily life, then
religion is just one more way to commit spiritual suicide.” — Christian Wiman, Ambition, and Survival
Questions and Exercises for Discussion
I. How might poetry help us more fully inhabit our lives and the world we live in?
II. How does poetry help us to expose or confront the things we have made into abstractions—whether faith as something
removed from ordinary living, God as an argument we might hold at arm’s length, the conceptualizing of Jesus and his
call on our lives, or the abstracting of suffering or pain?
III. Read Wiman’s 2047 Grace Street and Denise Levertov’s On a Theme from Julian’s Chapter XX. What phrase jumped out?
What senses were engaged? Did any idea or concept strike you differently than you might have considered it before?
2047 Grace Street
But the world is more often refuge
than evidence, comfort and covert
for the flinching will, rather than the sharp
particulate instants through which God’s being burns
into ours. I say God and mean more
than the bright abyss that opens in that word.
I say world and mean less
than the abstract oblivion of atoms
out of which every intact thing emerges,
into which every intact thing finally goes.
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I do not know how to come closer to God
except by standing where a world is ending
for one man. It is still dark,
and for an hour I have listened
to the breathing of the woman I love beyond
my ability to love. Praise to the pain
scalding us toward each other, the grief
beyond which, please God, she will live
and thrive. And praise to the light that is not
yet, the dawn in which one bird believes,
crying not as if there had been no night
but as if there were no night in which it had not been.
—from Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman
On a Theme from Julian’s Chapter XX
Six hours outstretched in the sun, yes.
hot wood, the nails, blood trickling
into the eyes, yes—
but the thieves on their neighbor crosses
survived till after the soldiers
had come to fracture their legs, or longer.
Why single out this agony? What’s
a mere six hours?
Torture then, torture now,
the same, the pain’s the same
immemorial branding iron, electric prod.
Hasn’t a child
dazed in the hospital ward they reserve
for the most abused, known worse?
This air we’re breathing,
these very clouds, ephemeral billows languid upon the sky’s
moody ocean, we share
with women and men who’ve held out days and weeks on the rack—
and in the ancient dust of the world
what particles
of the long tormented,
what ashes.
But Julian’s lucid spirit leapt
to the difference:
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perceived why no awe could measure
That brief day’s endless length,
why among all the tortured,
One only is ‘King of Grief.’
The oneing, she saw, the oneing
with the Godhead opened Him utterly
to the pain of all minds, all bodies.
—sands of the sea, of the desert—
from first beginning
to last day. The great wonder is
that the human cells of His flesh and bone
didn’t explode
when utmost Imagination rose
in that flood of knowledge. Unique
in agony, Infinite strength, Incarnate,
empowered Him to endure
inside of history,
through those hours when He took to Himself the sum total of anguish and drank
even the lees of that cup:
within the mesh of the web, Himself
woven within it, yet seeing it,
seeing it whole. Every sorrow and desolation
He saw, and sorrowed in kinship.
—from Streams and the Sapphire by Denise Levertov
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Jeff Jackson
E…
I. Expectation
II. Existential
III. Emotion
IV. Experience
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Elective:
Don’t All Religions Lead to God?
Nathan Betts
I. A Bird’s Eye View of Religions and Worldviews:
A) Atheism
B) Islam
C) Eastern Religions
D) Christianity
II. Common Questions Raised:
“Aren’t all religions the same?”
“Don’t all religions lead to God?”
Stories from university campuses
III.The Utter Uniqueness of Christianity
John 14:6-10
Suggested Reading
Bruxy Cavey, The End Of Religion: Encountering the subversive spirituality of Jesus (NAVPRESS, 2007).
Abdu Murray, Grand Central Question: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews (Intervarsity Press, 2014).
Ellis Potter, 3 Theories of Everything (Destinee Media, 2012)
Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods (W Publishing Group, 2000).
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Elective:
Why Trust the Bible?
Callom Harkrader
I. Theoretical: You don’t Take the Bible Literally do you?
A. “One day I was reading the Gospel of John 10: 30, where Jesus says, “I and God are one.” …I interpreted this as “those who have
knowledge of God are God.” - Deepak Chopra interviewed in TIME, Nov. 13, 2008
II. Textual: Which Bible? What Bible?
A. “No television preacher has ever read the Bible. Neither has any evangelical politician. Neither has the pope. Neither have I. And
neither have you. At best, we’ve all read a bad translation—a translation of translations of translations of hand-copied copies of
copies of copies of copies, and on and on, hundreds of times.” - Kurt Eichenwald, “The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin,”
Newsweek, Dec. 23, 2014
III. Historical: Why Should I Trust History When it’s Written by the Winners?
A. ““ . . . The modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda- to promote the divinity of the man Jesus
Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power.” - The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
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Elective:
The Bible & Intolerance
Nathan Rittenhouse
Description:
Our condition as humans is deeply dependent on the way that we relate to one another. It is therefore unsurprising that tolerance
is heralded as one of the highest virtues in secular culture. This session reflects on the idea of ‘tolerance,’ and presents a Biblical
framework for remaining faithful to Christian convictions in a world that does not always appreciate Christian values.
“America…founds her empire upon the idea of universal toleration: She admits all religions into her bosom; She secures the sacred rights
of every individual; and (astonishing absurdity to Europeans!) she sees a thousand discordant opinions live in the strictest harmony ... it
will finally raise her to a pitch of greatness and lustre, before which the glory of ancient Greece and Rome shall dwindle to a point, and the
splendor of modern Empires fade into obscurity.” –Noah Webster 1781
I. Biblical Definitions and Distinctions in a Culture of Tolerance
II. Low Expectations: Seeking Tolerance when Jesus Offers Love
III. Living like Christ in a World of Shifting Moral Language
“The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places” - King David
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Elective:
Did God Command Genocide?
John Njoroge
I.
Introduction
A. This question falls in the general category of the topic of violence in the Old Testament.
B. It is vitally important because it has to do with the character of God.
–– Is Yahweh the same as Jesus?
–– Is the Bible a reliable guide to moral behavior?
C. The question is troubling to nonbelievers.
Richard Dawkins: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous
and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously
malevolent bully.” 1
D. But the question is important to everyone, including believers?
–– The question behind the question: Can God Be Trusted?
A. W. Tozer wrote: “That our idea of God corresponds as nearly as possible to the true nature of God is of immense importance
to us. Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence.”2
Dallas Willard: “The acid test for any theology is this: Is the God represented one that can be loved, heart, soul, mind, and
strength? If the thoughtful, honest answer is; “Not really,” then we need to look elsewhere or deeper. It does not really matter
how sophisticated intellectually or doctrinally our approach is. If it fails to set a lovable God…before ordinary people, we have
gone wrong”.3
II.
Analyzing the Question
A. Note that it assumes an objective moral standard, which in turn assumes God’s existence.
B. What is the expected answer?
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––
A complete explanation of each and every word and concept in the whole Bible and a refutation of all possible
objections.
-or-
––
A rational and consistent defense of the central biblical story and doctrines even if some peripheral details are yet to
be worked out.
III. Answering the Question
A. Morality: God is not subject to morality in the same way that we are.
–– James 3:1
William Lane Craig: “[God] is certainly not subject to the same moral obligations and prohibitions that we are. For example, I have no right to take an innocent life. For me to do so would be murder. But God has no such prohibition. He can give
and take life as He chooses. We all recognize this when we accuse some authority who presumes to take life as “playing God.”
B. It was God who was judging these nations.
––
––
Joshua 5:13-15
Deuteronomy 9:4-6
C. Thus we live in a universe that has justice in it.
IV.
Context: These Commands are to be Read Within the Biblical and Cultural Contexts in Which they Occur.
A. Biblical Context: God’s justice is absolute, but it is not capricious:
–– Ezekiel 33:11 and Genesis 15:16
–– God is judge in both the Old and New Testaments.
–– The command was to drive out the nations, not to annihilate them.
B. Cultural-Historical Context:
–– What is literal and what is not? 1 Samuel 15:1-3 and 1 Samuel 30:13-17
–– Theocratic Nature of the Old Testament
C. Step-by-step Method of God’s Revelation to Us.
–– Matthew 19:8
–– Hebrews 1:1-3
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V.
Worship: Those who Knew God in the Old Testament did not Think of Him as Unjust.
A. Genesis 18:25 and Habakkuk 1:13
B. What about the innocent children and infants?
Wayne Grudem: “[I]t is certainly possible for God to bring regeneration (that is, new spiritual life) to an infant even before he
or she is born. This was true of John the Baptist, for the angel Gabriel, before John was born, said, ‘He will be filled with the Holy
Spirit, even from his mother’s womb’ (Luke 1:15)
“We must, however, affirm very clearly that this is not the usual way for God to save people. Salvation usually occurs when someone
hears and understands the gospel and then places trust in Christ. But in unusual cases like John the Baptist, God brought salvation
before this understanding. And this leads us to conclude that it certainly is possible that God would also do this where he knows the
infant will die before hearing the gospel.”4
VI.
Choice: The real question is, Am I willing to let God Be God?
Thomas Nagel: “I am talking about…the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I
want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God!
I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”5
CS Lewis: You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second
from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last
come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night,
the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.6
Footnotes
1
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008, page 51.
2 A. W. Tozer, “The Knowledge of the Holy” (New York, New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1961), p. 10
3 Dallas Willard, “The Divine Conspiracy” (New York, New York: HarperOne, 1 edition, 1998), p. 329.
4 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), p. 500.
5 Thomas Nagel, “The Last Word” (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 1 edition, 1997), p. 131
6 C. S. Lewis, “Surprised by Joy” in The Inspirational Writings of CS Lewis (New York: Inspirational Press, 1987) p. 125.
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Elective:
Humanity on Film
I. Forgiving and Vengeful
Margaret Manning Shull, Jill Carattini,
& Cameron McAllister
Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven
times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. ‘For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to
a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to
him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be
made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of pity for him,
the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow-slaves who
owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, “Pay what you owe.” Then his fellow-slave fell down and pleaded
with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he should pay the
debt. When his fellow-slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had
taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “ You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?” And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until
he should pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your
heart.’ —Matthew 18:21-35
As We Forgive—directed by Laura Waters Hinson (2010)
Could you forgive a person who murdered your family? This is the question faced by Rosaria
and Chantal, two Rwandan women coming face-to-face with the men who slaughtered their
families during the 1994 genocide that killed one in eight Rwandans.
Without the hope of full justice, Rwanda has turned to a new solution: Reconciliation. But
can it be done? Can survivors truly forgive the killers who destroyed their families? Can the
government expect this from its people? And can the church, which failed at moral leadership
during the genocide, fit into the process of reconciliation today? In As We Forgive, director
Laura Waters Hinson and narrator Mia Farrow explore these topics through the lives of four
neighbors once caught in opposite tides of a genocidal bloodbath, and their extraordinary
journey from death to life through forgiveness.
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II. Hearing and Not Hearing
Then the disciples came and asked him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ He answered, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets
of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance;
but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that “seeing they do
not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:
“ You will indeed listen, but never understand,
and you will indeed look, but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.”
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what
you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it. –Matthew 13:10-17
Revolutionary Road—directed by Sam Mendes (2008)
In the late 1940s, Frank Wheeler, a longshoreman, meets April, an aspiring actress. The
Wheelers are married and move to 115 Revolutionary Road in suburban Connecticut. The
couple becomes close friends with their realtor Helen Givings and her husband Howard.
To their friends, the Wheelers appear to be the perfect couple, but their relationship is
troubled. April fails to make a career out of acting, while Frank hates the tedium of his
work. Meanwhile, Helen asks the couple to meet her son, John, who has been declared
insane, to try to help better his condition. They accept.
April wants new scenery and a chance to support the family so that Frank can find
his passion, and so suggests that they move to Paris to start a new life away from the
hopeless emptiness of their repetitive lifestyle. The Givings, including John, talk with
April and Frank. During the conversation, the Wheelers tell the Givings about their
plans to live in Paris. Tellingly, the only person who seems to comprehend their decision
is John. As the couple prepares to move, they are predictably forced to reconsider. The
relationship unravels tragically, and the story ends with a new couple buying the house on
Revolutionary Road.
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III. Seeing and Not Seeing
Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the
measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your
neighbor, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye,
and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. —Matthew 7:1-5
Wise Blood—directed by John Huston (1979)
After returning home from war, the uneducated and irreligious grandson of a traveling
preacher, Hazel “Haze” Motes aims to find his way by starting his own church—
the church of Truth without Jesus Christ Crucified—preaching against anyone or
anything representing the truth of God or Jesus or sin or evil.
Motes soon attracts a follower, but things get complicated when he encounters fellow
sidewalk preacher Asa Hawks, who for business purposes pretends to be blind, and his
waif-like young daughter Sabbath.
Wise Blood is originally a novel by Flannery O’Connor, who describes Haze’s striking
out against Jesus as a rebellion against a deep-set faith within him: “There are some
of us who have to pay for our faith every step of the way and who have to work out
dramatically what it would be like without it and if being without it would ultimately
be possible or not.” With the same fervor that Haze rejects Christianity and the street preacher’s refrain, he crashes into it headon. In spite of his valiant efforts to discern what is true, he’s often unable to see what lies directly in front of him, and he’s not the
only one. Much is made of eyes and vision in Wise Blood where appearances are often merely facades. That Haze continues to look
becomes his tragic and saving grace.
As O’Connor once confided to a friend, “I don’t think you should write something as long as a novel that is not of the greatest
concern to you and everybody else, and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in
it that we breathe with the air of our times.” That O’Connor’s characters so believably grapple with disbelief makes them more
human, and their struggles more profound.
IV. Scarred and Sacred
So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there,
and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said
to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew,
ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ ( Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew
the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living
water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than
our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this
water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will
become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be
thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
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Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘ You are right
in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is
true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place
where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the
Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father
seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him,
‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the
one who is speaking to you.’
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why
are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man
who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him. –John
4:5-30
Boyhood—directed by Richard Linklater (2014)
Boyhood follows the childhood of Mason from elementary school to
college. The crew was cast in 2002 and the film was shot periodically
over the next twelve years, the characters’ ages keeping pace roughly with
the actors’ real ages. Mason’s childhood, like many, is sometimes idyllic,
sometimes tumultuous, sometimes confusing. We mostly see things from
Mason’s perspective, which means he is sometimes more preoccupied
with and aware of whatever is going on in his personal existence than
with the bigger, more serious issues that the adults in his life are dealing
with—spousal abuse, alcoholism, divorce, financial worry. Mason and his
sister live with their mom, who is never given more of a name; the brunt
of their time with mom, allowing for her flaws to be far more closely
examined as she tries to balance work, returning to school, and raising
children. Boyhood is interested in how relationships evolve over time: in this case, parents and siblings, step-siblings and cousins.
Our relationships to each other in families don’t stay the same over the course of our lives. Siblings start as our playmates, then our
rivals, and eventually become our friends. Parents go from being protectors to, sometimes, needing to be protected—or they do some
growing up of their own. And of course, we rarely notice ourselves changing. But imagine if you could watch yourself growing up on
screen? This is exactly what Boyhood invites viewers to imagine. We know that cinema can depict the passage of time convincingly:
here time is real. We watch it accumulate on the actors’ faces and understand the toll it takes on adults, and perhaps mother’s
specifically. An achievement in film-making, the film also does an important, counter-cultural thing: it reminds us that in the banal
moments, the mundane relationships, the ugly rooms and the awkward phases—that is where we live out our lives.
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V. Lonely and Communing
They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I pray.’ He took with him Peter and James and John,
and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.’ And
going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, ‘Abba,
Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.’ He came and found them
sleeping; and he said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come
into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.
And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. He came
a third time and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into
the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.’ Mark 14:32-50
Her—directed by Spike Jonze (2013)
A sensitive and soulful man earns a living by writing personal
letters for other people. Closed off and insecure in his personal life,
Theodore pours his romantic self into these letters, loving vicariously
as an intermediary for others.
Recently divorced, tingling with loneliness, he grasps furtively for
connection through phone sex and video games. “Play a melancholy
song,” he commands his ever-present hand-held device—and when
the chosen melody does not suit, “play a different melancholy song.”
Theodore becomes fascinated with a new operating system which
reportedly develops into an intuitive and unique entity in its own
right. He starts the program and meets “Samantha,” whose bright voice reveals a sensitive, playful personality. Though “friends”
initially, the relationship soon deepens into love. Jonze’s film uses the tools of lightly scienced fiction to pose questions of genuine
emotional and philosophical weight. What makes love real: the lover, the loved one, or the means by which love is conveyed? Need
it be all three? And, perhaps more pointedly, what is communion?
Samantha is in Theodore’s ear piece, in his hand-held. He carries the latter around in his shirt pocket so that Samantha’s cameraeye can peek out at the wide world. Hers is the last voice he hears at night and the first he hears in the morning; she watches him
as he sleeps. Over time, Samantha grows and learns, encountering selfhood, discovering her own wants, maturing at warp speed;
and ultimately, as a machine capable of higher consciousness, uniting with others, and leaving behind the humans who created
them.
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VI. Least and Greatest/Forgotten and Elevated
And Mary said: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
And Mary remained with her for about three months and then returned to her home. —Luke 1:46-56
To Kill a Mocking Bird—directed by Robert Mullingan (1962)
Through the eyes of Scout, a feisty six-year-old tomboy, the story carries us on an odyssey
through the fires of prejudice and injustice in 1932 Alabama. Presenting her tale first as a
sweetly lulling reminiscence of events from her childhood, the narrator draws us near with
stories of daring neighborhood exploits by she, her brother Jem, and their friend Dill.
Peopled with a cast of eccentrics, the tired and sleepy town of Maycomb finds itself the
venue of the trial of Tom Robinson, a young black man falsely accused of raping an ignorant
white woman. Atticus Finch, Scout and Jem’s widowed father and a deeply principled man,
is appointed to defend Tom for whom a guilty verdict from an all-white jury is a foregone
conclusion. Juxtaposed against the story of the trial is the children’s hit and run relationship
with Boo Radley, a shut-in who the children and Dill’s Aunt Rachel suspect of insanity and
who no one has seen in recent history. Cigar-box treasures, found in the knot hole of a tree
near the ramshackle Radley house, temper the children’s judgment of Boo. “You never know
someone,” Atticus tells Scout, “until you step inside their skin and walk around a little.”
But fear keeps them at a distance until one night, in streetlight and shadows, the children
confront an evil born of ignorance and blind hatred and must somehow find their way home.
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After the Tom Robinson trial, Jem and Scout start to have a different understanding of Boo Radley. “Scout, I think I’m beginning
to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time... it’s because he
wants to stay inside.” Having seen a sample of the horrible things their fellow townspeople can do, choosing to stay out of the mess
of humanity doesn’t seem like such a strange choice. But it turns out only the ugly side of humanity can actually drag Boo out,
as he unexpectedly comes to the defense of the Finch children. When Scout walks Boo home, she’s entering into territory she’s
seen all her life but never before set foot on. Turning to leave, she sees her familiar neighborhood from a new perspective—Boo’s
perspective.
An Incomplete List of Other Films Worth Viewing and Discussing
Philomena, Stephen Frears (2013)
Babette’s Feast, Gabriel Axel (1987)
Jesus of Montreal, Denys Arcand (1989)
Tree of Life, Terrence Malick (2011)
To the Wonder, Terrence Malick (2012)
Hotel Rwanda, Terry George (2004)
Big Fish, Tim Burton (2003)
Mr. Holland’s Opus, Stephen Herek (1995)
Amadeus, Milos Forman (1984)
Grand Canyon, Lawrence Kasdan (1991)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry (2004)
The Mission, Roland Joffé (1986)
Of Gods and Men, Xavier Beauvois (2010)
Housekeeping, Bill Forsyth (1988)
Bladerunner, Ridley Scott (1982)
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Speaker Q&A
Andy Bannister, Fazale Rana, & Abdu Murray
87
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Becoming Human/Acting Human:
Encountering Humanity in the Arts
Jill Carattini, Richard Everett, Craig Hawkins, Josh
Schicker, and Margaret Manning Shull
I. SCENE 1—Belonging & Exile: Art, Faith, & Humanity
II. SCENE 2—Discovery: Art & Christ's Humanity
III. SCENE 3—Grace & Subversion: Art & Human Moments
IV. SCENE 4—A Playwright, a Painter, a Musician, & a Writer
SCRIPTS:
Sound Bites is a collection of 30 seasonal sketches designed to work like mini radio plays for
the church year and many other occasions. With humor and wit and sharp insight, the sketches
provoke and entertain. They are accompanied by the author’s personal reflections together with a
set of probing questions for group discussion.
“It is good to have an established playwright finding fresh ways to explore ancient truths. I am sure
Sound Bites will reach and touch a wide audience of readers, performers and audiences alike.”
—Dr. Rowan Williams (Former Archbishop of Canterbury)
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The stage play “Entertaining Angels” began life by opening the main season at The
Chichester Festival Theatre and playing to a
record-breaking 26,000 people in just over 3
weeks.
The original production starred Penelope Keith,
Benjamin Whitrow, Polly Adams, Caroline
Harker and Abigail Thaw. It was produced by
Michael Codron and directed by Alan Strachan,
with a magical set designed by Paul Farnsworth
which had real grass and flowers, and an actual
stream flowing across the apron stage!
Since then this much-acclaimed play has been
published and performed all over the world and
a huge hit with amateur companies with over 50
productions to its credit.
“Entertaining Angels” Plot Summary:
As a clergy wife Grace has spent a lifetime on best behaviour. Now, following the death
of her husband Bardolph, she is enjoying the new-found freedom of being able to do and
say exactly as she pleases. But the return of her eccentric missionary sister, Ruth, together
with some disturbing revelations forces Grace to confront the truth of her marriage. Set
in a classic English vicarage garden complete with a grass- banked stream and willow, the
play is filled with sharp-edged comedy and probing wit.
“Chichester Festival Theatre has got off to an outstanding start with this fine new
play starring Penelope Keith ... Everett, a dramatist new to me, has come up with that
increasingly rare commodity, a boulevard comedy that is both entertaining and affecting
... This is a funny, touching and genuinely thought-provoking comedy and one that surely
deserves a West End transfer.” —The Daily Telegraph
L’Arche Workshop:
L’Arche is a residential community for adults with special needs. It was founded by the
theologian Jean Vanier in France in 1964 and now has communities all over the world.
L’Arche Bognor Regis is a Christian Community of about 50-60 people with and without
learning disabilities sharing lives together. They aim to celebrate the gifts of each person,
whatever their abilities and disabilities. They like to be creative and responsive, finding
new ways to give thanks for the gifts of each person. This can be through parties, services and just day-to-day life. They offer
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opportunities for personal growth and development through the daily tasks and joys of living together, training (including the
possibility to obtain professional qualifications), mentoring, and days of reflection.
“Every week I take a drama workshop at the Bognor community. It is immensely rewarding, gets me away from my desk and keeps me in
touch with the real world!”
—Richard Everett
Intro to “The Most Important Person” Short Film:
Everywhere you go you hear about ‘important’ people – they are all over the press and TV, and at rock concerts and airport lounges
they even have reserved places for VIP’s (Very Important People). But how do you get to be an ‘important’ person? What makes
someone ‘important’? This short film came from a drama workshop based on that question... and then we went out and made a
short movie!

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Notes
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John Dickson
93
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The Journey:
A Thinking Person’s Quest for Meaning
Introduction
-
-
Os Guinness
The picture of the journey
Diversion and bargaining
I. A Time for Questions
A. Meaning and belonging
B. Signals of transcendence
I. A Time for Answers
A. Conceptual, critical, and comparative
B. The major families of faith
I. A Time for Evidences
A.
B.
C.
D.
The missing step
Skepticism will not last
Big-picture correlations
Close-up justification
I. A Time for Conclusions
A. The great paradox
B. The ever-open options
Conclusion
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Notes
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Os Guinness
97
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Conversational Evangelism Track:
Entrepreneurial Evangelism
Callom Harkrader
I.
Creative Engagement
A. “The Samaritan woman said to him, “ You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews
do not associate with Samaritans).” John 4:9
II. Confounding Love
A. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” 1 Corinthians 13:7-8a
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I. How Can Science be Used for Evangelism? (Part 1)
A. The scientific case for materialism and naturalism
- Scientism or methodological naturalism
- Scientific theories are sufficient to explain the universe and all phenomena within
- Where is the evidence for God’s intervention in nature?
- Is there evidence for miracles?
- There are “bad” designs in nature
- The fallen world and the problem of natural evil
- Scientific advance renders the creation accounts unbelievable
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Notes
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The Challenge of Digital Technology
I. The University Landscape
-
Distraction
-
Consumption
-
Connectivity
-
Image Conscious
Nathan Betts
II. How do we overcome the temptation to conform to this world?
Suggested Reading
Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains (Norton, 2011).
Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (Basic Books, 2011).
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Arts Track
Making Sense: Humanity & Visual Art
Jill Carattini with artists
Tim Lowly & Craig Hawkins
“Chicago artist Tim Lowly’s work compels us to recognize the image of God even
in one who lacks markers of the roles, capacities, and relationships we too often say
express our humanity, and highlights two linked characteristics common to Jesus and
Church: brokenness that does not merely equate with imperfection, and a social picture
of our essential identity in Christ. By allowing Lowly to place Temma’s identity and humanity at the
center of our attention, we can reframe our sense of
what it means to bear the image of God and reflect
the crucified Christ as his Body.”
—Mark Sprinkle, Summer Institute 2014
“There is a sense in which we look at Temma and
we want to affirm that she is made in the image of
God by denying that the image of God has anything
Eve’s Curse, 2010
to do with her physical, material body. But, if we
Craig Hawkins
recognize Jesus as our model for the image of God, we
will not deny the physicality of the human experience,
nor the Incarnation, nor even Christ’s suffering on our account. Indeed, we must affirm the goodness of creation and our physicality, even—especially—in its brokenness because Jesus, himself,
was broken. Even after the resurrection, his wounds were not abolished or erased, but remained
tangible marks by which the Lord revealed himself every bit as much as he did in his creative and
healing power.”
—Mark Sprinkle, Summer Institute 2014
“My art is a humble attempt to ask the right questions... I collect moments of revelation and try to
visually give them away as a drawing or a painting. In sharing these revelations I hope to motivate
the viewer to reassess things typically taken for granted.” —Craig Hawkins
Carry Me, 2002
Tim Lowly
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Communion No. 2
Craig Hawkins
Hawkins with Temptation No. 1 and New Covenant
Questions for Discussion:
1. Some might wonder if art is more of an escape from reality, or a frivolous exercise in the face of “real” world concerns. Does the
Christian faith affirm or deny this concern? How might the Christian faith open up our ability to engage reality? Are there aspects
of Christian faith, i.e., the affirmation of the Incarnation, that offer artists distinct advantages for being more truthful in the exploration/engagement with reality?
2. How does Tim Lowly’s painting of his daughter Temma confront your assumption of what it means to be human: noble and
flawed? What is the significance of his painting his students alongside of Temma? What does that affirm about our shared humanity?
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Lowly with Carry Me
Our Promise by Craig Hawkins
3. Does it disrupt assumptions you might have about sin and brokenness? What symbols come to mind as you engage your Christian faith? How are these symbols important to you in communicating the gospel? What senses are engaged by symbols or artistic
representation, like this painting by Hawkins entitled “Our Promise”? How is sensory engagement important in the articulation of
faith? Notes
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Notes
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Jeff Jackson
A…
I. Anger
II. Arrogance
III. Acceptance
IV. Apologetics
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Elective:
Beyond Right & Wrong:
The Unpaid Bills of Godless Morality
John Njoroge
I. The Dependence of Morality on God
A. What Naturalism cannot explain:
––
Moral Facts
––
Moral Duties
––
Moral Accountability
––
Nature of Human Beings
B. Two of the main ways in which the moral argument for God is developed
––
Deductive Argument
––
Inference to the best explanation
II. Why Naturalistic Alternatives Fail
A. Evolution
Charles Darwin: “If … men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our
unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their
fertile daughters, and no one would think of interfering.”1
B. Social Contract Theory
C. Moral Platonism
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III.
Beyond Right and Wrong
A. Demands of morality exceed our ability to meet them.
B. Morality doesn’t always pay in this life.
C. The Bible solution
–– John 8:31-32
––
CS Lewis: “I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a
glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one there is filled full with what
we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are
not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes”.2
Footnotes
1 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2d ed. (New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1909), 100.
2 CS Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 132.
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Elective:
Help! How Do I Answer That Question?
Nathan Betts
Help! How Do I Answer That?
–– If we are living a life that reflects Christ’s character, it will only be a matter of time before we are asked questions about
our faith.
II.
Context Is Everything.
–– Questions never come to us in a vacuum. There is always a context from which questions originate. For instance, depending on a person’s experience or background they might ask you a question purely out of intellectual curiosity. However,
that question might be worded in the exact same manner, but asked by a different person with a different life experience.
Therefore, the meaning behind the question can potentially be vastly different.
III.Having A Framework Can Help.
––
––
––
––
––
The following is a four-step framework that might be helpful in conversations of faith. When you are asked a tough
question, pause to ask yourself the question,
i. Who is asking the question?
ii. What is the question behind the question?
iii. Before giving an answer, what would be a good question to ask?
iv. Formulate a response: Research - Process - Shape a Response
Suggested Reading
David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale University Press, 2010).
Alister E. McGrath, Mere Apologetics: How to Help Seekers and Skeptics Find Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012).
John G. Stackhouse, Humble Apologetics: Defending the Faith Today (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Ravi Zacharias (editor), Beyond Opinion: Living the Faith We Defend (Thomas Nelson, 2009)
Helpful Websites: www.rzim.ca; www.rzim.org; www.rzim.eu; www.bethinking.org
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Elective: Identity After Advertising
Michael Suderman
115
Notes
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Elective:
Human Destiny: Questions on Heaven & Hell
Cameron McAllister
I.
The Problem of Heaven
A. What is eternal life and when does it begin?
B. The joy of selflessness
II. The Problem of Hell
A. What do I love?
B. Whom or what will I serve?
III. The Problem of Freedom
A. A little help from Ivan Karamazov
B. What is love?
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Elective:
Jesus, Bodies, & Human Worth
Margaret Manning Shull & Jill Carattini
A World of Ideas about Bodies
A. Jewish Understanding of the Body
- Formed of Dust
- A Part of the Good Creation
- Returned to the Dust
B. Greek Understanding of the Body
- The Separation of Soul from Body
- Only the Spirit Matters, the Flesh Counts for Nothing
- The Ideal/Heaven/The Afterlife as a Spiritual, non-material reality
I.
A Response and a Conversation: Jill Carattini and Margaret Manning Shull
II.
The Embodied Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus and the Redemption of Our Bodies (and of Human Worth)
A. Jesus: Living an Embodied Life
- Eating and Drinking
- Touching and Healing
Jesus: Dying a Physical Death
- Blood, sweat and tears
- Prepared for burial
B. Jesus: Wounds Still Visible
- Physical wounds as Identity Markers
- Eating and Drinking with the Disciples
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Jesus: A Bodily Ascension
- Present and Physically Absent
-
- Further Up and Farther In
III.
A Response and Conversation:
Jill Carattini and Margaret Manning Shull
Suggested Reading
N.T. Wright Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven,
Resurrection and the Mission of the Church (HarperOne: New
York), 2008.
Michelle Mary Lelwica, Starving for Salvation: The Spiritual
Dimensions of Eating Problems among American Girls and
Women (Oxford Press: Oxford, England), 1999.
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Grand Central Question
Abdu Murray
I.
Introduction
A. “Life-Shaping Moments” - Worldviews must provide propositional truths in relevant ways.
B. Understanding “Relevance” as deeper than being “well-packaged” or even “practical”
II. The Questions every worldview must answer.
A. How did we get here? (is there a God and what is He like?)
B. What is the point of human existence?
C. What accounts for the human condition?
D. Is there a better life (or salvation?)
III. Answering the Questions: Christianity and other Worldviews Compared
A. Question 1: How did we get here?
- Atheism/Secular Humanism: Chance, physical necessity. No design.
- Theism: We are designed on purpose and for a purpose.
B. Question 2: What is the purpose of humanity?
Atheism/Secular humanism: Seeks to offer us purpose and dignity, but there is ultimately no purpose
“If the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies…are exactly what we should
expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in
intention…The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no
design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”1
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“[H]uman beings are simply machines for propagating DNA…It is every living object’s sole reason for
living.”2
- Islam: Our purpose is to submit to God.
- Pantheism: Our purpose is to realize each of our inner divinities or inner power so that we can be free
of suffering.
“Success in life could be defined as the continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy
goals…. Even with the experience of all these things, we will remain unfulfilled unless we nurture the seeds of
divinity inside us. In reality, we are divinity in disguise, and the gods and goddesses in embryo that are contained
within us seek to be fully materialized.” 3
- Christianity: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and delight in His presence forever.”
Westminster Confession
C. Question 3: What accounts for the human condition?
- Secular Humanism: Chance, disasters, lack of resources, and lack of education.
- Pantheism: Ignorance of your divinity, which leads to believing the illusion of suffering.
- Islam: Failures in following Islamic law (Shariah) and Islamic principles.
- Christianity: Sin: We have violated the purpose for which we were created.
D. Question 4: Is there a better life?
- Secular Humanism: We will achieve a utopia if we just try hard enough and educate ourselves into paradise.
“Atheists have to live with the knowledge that there is no salvation, no redemption, no second chances. Lives can go
terribly wrong in ways that can never be put right. Can you really tell the parents who lost their child to a suicide
after years of depression that they should stop worrying and enjoy life?” 4
- Pantheism: Enlightenment through working off karma, escaping suffering, and realizing your inner divinity.
“Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future and to make the Now the
main focus of your life. It means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes
to what is. You then don’t need pain anymore. How much more time do you think you will need before you are able
to say, “I will create no more pain, no more suffering”? How much more pain do you need before you can make that
choice?” 5
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- Islam: Paradise: A sensuous, physically dominated existence we an achieve after fulfilling our duties to
be good “submitters”
- The Gospel: The Already-Not Yet attainment of a meaningful life on earth and ultimate fulfillment in
heaven.
IV. Applying The Truths in a Narrative
Hinduism/Pantheism: Rich in myths and stories, but no real historical narrative that we can relate to.
Islam – based on a claimed historical context, but no narrative of God’s intimate interaction with humanity.
Atheism: There is no overarching narrative at all.
The Gospel Narrative
- Christianity’s roots are historical and its truth claims depend on facts of history (crucifixion, resurrection).
- Christians transformed the world and shaped the idea of what human value is because they relied on the historical
reality of the Gospel message.
- The Gospel message directly applies to our lives: “Life Shaping Moments Revisited.”
Footnotes
1
2
3
4
Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (NY: HarperCollins, 1995), 132-33.
Richard Dawkins, “Growing Up in the Universe” (lecture, Royal Institution Christmas lectures, London, 1991).
Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams (San Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen Publishing, 1994), pp. iv-v.
Julian Baggini, “ Yes, Life Without God Can Be Bleak. Atheism Is About Facing Up to That,” The Guardian, March 9, 2012, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/mar/09/life-without-god-bleak-atheism.
5 Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1999), p. 226.
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Family Testimony
Stuart & Cameron McAllister
125
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I Can Laugh About It Now
Jeff Allen
127
Notes
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John Dickson
129
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Fool’s Talk:
Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion
Os Guinness
Introduction
I. Our problem: lack of persuasion
II. A precedent: The ‘foolmaker’
III. Principles and precedents from the Scriptures
Conclusion
The closed fist. The open hand.
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Os Guinness
133
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Conversational Apologetics Track
Michael Suderman
135
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I. How Can Science be Used for Evangelism? (Part 2)
A. The scientific case for God’s existence
- Cosmological argument
- Design argument
B. God’s mode of action in nature
C. The scientific record and the creation accounts
- Young-earth creationism
- Old-earth creationism
- Evolutionary creationism
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The Challenge of Not ‘Seeing’ Christ
Alycia Wood
I. Be a home away from home.
II. Support the local college ministry.
III. Identify 3 people that you can ask tough questions to. What are good resources? Teachers, pastors, books, websites…
A. How do I know God loves me? How does He relate to me? How does the Bible help that relationship?
B. Is doubt okay? What are the benefits of asking tough questions?
C. What is the biblical view of human identity and purpose? Compare to other systems of thought.
D. What are the main atheistic arguments against Christianity? Why does new atheism (Dawkins and crew) seem popular?
E. Do we have free will and real consequences to our decisions? What does it mean for God to be sovereign?
F. What is a worldview? (Origin, meaning, morality, destiny)
G. Is the belief in God a psychological crutch?
H. Is Christianity a political system? What about the crusades?
I. What is worship?
J. Why are there different denominations?
K. What is sin?
L. Can you disagree with someone and still have compassion for and/or be friends with them? Not just in theory, but in
reality.
M. What are four major things Christianity has contributed to society?
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N. What is the value of the Church and Christian community?
O. I’m a good person, I’ll go to heaven. Why do I need Jesus?
P. Is faith opposed to reason? What is faith?
Q. What is truth? How do we know what we know?
R. Is it arrogant to claim one way to God? Can I be certain?
S. Are Christians hypocrites?
T. What is the gospel and why does it matter?
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Arts Track
Making Sense: Humanity & Music
Margaret Manning Shull, Jill Carattini,
Cameron McAllister, & musician Josh Schicker
“I maintain music is not here to make us forget about life. It’s also here to teach us about life: the fact that everything starts and ends, the
fact that every sound is in danger of disappearing, the fact that everything is connected—the fact that we live and we die.” —Daniel
Barenboim
“It’s essential for us to develop an imagination that is participatory. Art is the primary way in which this happens. It’s the primary way in
which we become what we see or hear.” —Eugene Peterson
“I find in music there’s a space and a language I can use to express things in ways I can’t describe conversationally.” —Sufjan Stevens
I.
Musician and theologian Jeremy Begbie suggests that thinking musically can help us better understand several key features
of the way God reveals himself to and through human experience. Unlike the visual field, for instance, in which the eye tells
us that things are either here or there, our auditory senses can accommodate two or more musical notes at the same time—
each completely filling our ears and perceptual space, yet neither obscuring or negating the other. How might music help us
consider our own humanity? The social image of humans in relationship? The paradoxical natures of Christ?
II. Simone Weil described music as “time that one wants neither to arrest nor hasten.” What might music have to say to us about
the human experience of time and silence, patience and presence?
III. One of the primary services the arts can render to theology is their integrative power, their ability to interrelate the intellect
with the other facets of our human makeup and senses, or as Eugene Peterson says, to develop an imagination that is
participatory. Can you think of a way in which music has integrated your head with your heart or helped you reimagine
something?
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Jeff Jackson
L…
I.
Listen
II.
Learn
III.
Life
IV.
Love
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Elective:
How Do You Know Jesus Rose from the Dead?
Alycia Wood
I. What criteria would you need to know for something from the ancient world to be deemed as true?
II. The Minimal Facts approach (Commonly used by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona)
A. Jesus died by crucifixion
- Josephus
Jewish Antiquities 18:63-64
- Tacitus
- The Babylonian Talmud
- Mara Bar Serapion
- Lucian of Samosota
- (Thallus, in reference to the crucifixion)
B. Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them
- Irenaeus, in a letter to Florinus
C. Conversion of Paul
D. Conversion of James
- Josephus 20.9
E. *The Empty tomb
Suggested Resources
The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona
The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach by Michael Licona
The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright
www.earlychristianwritings.com
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Elective:
The Goodness of God & the Problem of Evil
Callom Harkrader
I. The Intense Personal-ness of Pain
A. “ You more you appreciate the reality of evil and pain and suffering the closer you get to invoking the presence of God.”
John Njoroge
II. The Impersonal-ness of Other Options
A. “In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other
people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the
properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
Richard Dawkins, “God’s Utility Function,” Scientific American, Nov. 1995
III. The Intense Personal-ness of God
A. “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with
them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There
will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:3-4
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Elective:
Searching for Intimacy in the Age of Social Media
Michael Suderman
149
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Elective:
Responding to Atheism
I. Understanding our Terms: What is Atheism?
Abdu Murray
“Classical” Definition: Belief that there is no God
Contemporary Definition: Lack of Belief in God.
Agnosticism
-Hard or Strong Agnosticism: The view that the God’s existence or non-existence is unknowable because we lack the ability
to verify such a thing.
-Soft or Weak Agnosticism: The view that God’s existence or non-existence is not currently known, but may become known
at some point. Therefore, judgment should be reserved until more data is discovered.
II. The Approach in Responding to Atheists
Every atheist is different: Reasons for unbelief are very personal and don’t arise in a vacuum.
Skepticism vs. Cynicism
-Skeptic: Someone who won’t believe something until there is adequate evidence
-Cynic: Someone who won’t believe something even when there is adequate evidence.
Personal Reasons for Unbelief
“I want atheism to be true. And I’m made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know
are religious believers. It isn’t that I don’t believe in God and naturally hope that I’m right in my beliefs, it’s that I hope there is no
God. I don’t want there to be a God. I don’t want the universe to be like that.” Thomas Nagle, The Last Word (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997), p. 130.
“I wanted to believe the Darwinian idea. I chose to believe it not because I think there was enormous evidence for it, nor because I
believed it had the full authority to give interpretation to my origins, but I chose to believe it because it delivered me from trying to find
meaning and freed me to my own erotic passions.” Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means (London: Chatt & Windus, 1946), p. 310
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-
Empirical Data on “Emotional Atheism” – Exline, J. J., & Martin, A. M. (2005). Anger toward God: A new frontier in
forgiveness research. In E. L. Worthington, Jr. (Ed.), Handbook of Forgiveness (pp. 73-88). New York: Routledge.
III. Issues Common to Atheists
“Faith versus reason” or “Faith versus Knowledge”
- The Misdefinition of Faith – Belief without evidence or belief in the face of strong contrary evidence.
- The Biblical Definition of Faith: Hebrews 11:1
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”
- The “God of the Gaps”
- Scientism: Science is the only means by which we can know truth.
“It seems to me, that the only objects of the abstract science or of demonstration are quantity and number, and that all attempts to extend
this mere perfect species of knowledge beyond these bounds are mere sophistry and illusion. When we run over libraries, persuaded of the
principles, what havoc must be make? If we take in our hands any volume; of divinity or school of metaphysics for instance; let us ask,
Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning
matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flame; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” David Hume,
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (London: 1748; Minneapolis: Filiquarian, 2007, pp. 147,149)
Belief in God is Just Psychological crutch: People invent a being on which to place their hope because they are too weak to
face reality.
-
Sigmund Freud: Belief in a Heavenly Father is merely the mechanism by which we deal with our earthly “father issues”. -
Turning the objection around: Freud’s unbelief could be an expression of his desire for autonomy freedom from the
baggage of parental authority. -
The argument that never was: Saying God is a crutch does nothing to disprove God’s existence The Problem of Evil and the Moral Argument
-
The Problem of Evil assumes Moral Realism – Without God, there can be no problem of “evil” to solve:
“The long and the short of it is that I became convinced that atheism implies amorality; and since I am an atheist, I must therefore
embrace amorality. I call the premise of this argument ‘hard atheism’…a ‘soft atheist’ would hold that one could be an atheist and still
believe in morality. And indeed, the whole crop of ‘New Atheists’ are softies of this kind. So was I, until I experienced my shocking
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epiphany that the religious fundamentalists are correct: without God, there is no morality. But they are incorrect, I still believe, about
there being a God. Hence, I believe, there is no morality.” Joel Marks, “An Amoral Manifesto I” (Philosophy Now, Issue 80, August/
September 2010), p. 30.
-
The Problem of Evil actually proves God’s existence
IV. Faith Coming Full Circle: Where does Your Trust Lie? How Strong is Your Crutch?
The Empirical Adequacy of the Christian Faith:
-
The Atheist view of humanity doesn’t comport with the historical evidence:
“Atheism lends a valuable critique of outmoded, regressive religious systems. We welcome its vision of a universe upon which meaning
was never imposed from above. But secular humanism goes further, calling on humans to develop within the universe values of their
own—as it were, from below. Further, secular humanism maintains that, through a process of value inquiry informed by scientific
and reflective thought, men and women can reach rough agreement concerning values, crafting ethical systems that deliver optimal
results for human beings in a broad spectrum of circumstances.” Tom Flynn, “Secular Humanism Defined” ( July 7, 2012), www.
secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=main&page=sh_defined.
-
Jesus accurately describes the human heart
Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”
The Logical Consistency of the Christian Faith
- Humanity cannot be the solution to its problem.
- Humanity is in need of redemption
The Historical Reality of the Christian Faith and its experiential relevance: The Resurrection.
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Elective:
Fully Human: Insights from Psychology
Jeff Jackson
I. Humans: Created in the Image of God
A. God’s Desire
B. God’s Design
II. The Human Dilemma
A. Man’s Deviation
B. Man’s Desire
C. Identity Crisis
D. The Image War
III. Human Doing versus Human Being
A. Human Doing
- Performance, Appearance & Control
- What I do I believe is Who I Am
- An Epidemic of the Church
B. Human Being
- Learning to Be in a World of Doing
- Created in the Image of the Great I AM, not I DO
- A Salvation of Grace not by works
IV. Restored Identity
A. The Crisis, The Cross, The New Creation
B. Glimpses of the Garden – John 4, John 8
V. Validation, Value, & Voice
A. Being Human on a Firm Foundation
B. Fully Human = Priceless
C. A Conversation with God
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The US Vision
I. God
Carson Weitnauer
II. Vision
III. Team
IV. Opportunity
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Speaker Q&A
Margaret Manning Shull,
Cameron McAllister &John Njoroge
159
Notes
160
Open Forum
Ravi Zacharias & Os Guinness
161
Notes
162
John Dickson
163
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Humanity in the Kingdom of God
John Njoroge
I. What is the Gospel?
A. Matthew 3:1-3 – John the Baptist’s announcement
B. The Gospel Jesus Preached
C. The Gospel that the apostles preached
- The Book of Acts
- The Epistles
D. Summary: Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.
II. God’s vision for Humanity is Life in His Kingdom
A. Some common misconceptions about the Kingdom of God:
B. Does the Kingdom apply to believers today?
C. Summary: The Gospel is an invitation to enter into the Kingdom of God.
III. How to enter into the Kingdom of God
A.
B.
C.
D.
Matthew 7:24-29
Matthew 11:12
Colossians 1:13 and 3:1-17
Summary: Entering the Kingdom involves an intentional life of discipleship unto Jesus.
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Human, Really Human
Ecclesiastes 3:9-15; Romans 14:7-9
Stuart McAllister
How shall we then live? This was a question posed by Francis Schaeffer and later by Charles Colson (and others before and since).
“The first great fact which emerges from our civilization is that today everything has become “means”. There is no longer an “end”, we do not
know whither we are going. We have forgotten our collective ends, and we possess great means: we set huge machines in motion in order to
arrive nowhere.” - Jacques Ellul
“There is something morally repulsive about modern atavistic theories which deny contemplation and recognize nothing but struggle. For
them not a single moment has value in itself, but is only a means for what follows.” - Nicolas Berdyaev
“It is only when we live with Christ that life becomes really worth living, and that we begin to live at all in the real sense of the word.” William Barclay
“For me to live is Christ, to die is gain” - St. Paul
I. Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing
Matthew 5:8
“The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is…that there shall be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has
always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
“Christian spiritual formation is focused entirely on Jesus. Its goal is conformity to Christ, a process that arises out of a purposeful interaction with the grace of God in Christ.” - Dallas Willard
A. Why Focus is essential to a lasting journey.
B. The role that study and education must play in your continuing process.
“Man is what he believes”- Anton Chekov
“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.” - Montaigne
“The mind is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not discreetly how to use it. - Michael de Montaigne
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C. Continuous renewal pursues ongoing growth.
Romans 12:2; Colossians 3:1-3
II. Personally Committed and Socially Distinct (not morally superior)
A. The call to vital differences
1 Peter 1:13-19; 1 Peter 2:11-12, holiness: set apart.
B. My life and way is a message
“Before a man can do things there must be things he will not do.”
- Mencius
“We need roots in the past to give obedience ballast and breadth; we need a vision of the future to give obedience direction and goal.
And they must be connected. - Eugene Peterson
C. Marching to a different drummer
Luke 9:23-26
“Spiritual formation rests on the indispensable foundation of death to self and cannot proceed unless that foundation is firmly laid
and constantly sustained.” - Dallas Willard
III. Without the Right Use of Means we Will Not Achieve Good Goals
2 Timothy 2:14-15
“Discipline while the world is yet unfallen, exists for the sake of what seems its very opposite – for freedom, almost for extravagance.”
- C. S. Lewis from A Preface to “Paradise Lost”
“If I intend to obey Jesus Christ, I must decide to become the kind of person who would obey.” - Dallas Willard
“An intention is brought to completion only by a decision to carry through with the intention” - Dallas Willard
A. In all witness, struggle, failure and challenges much be faced
“ I have found that nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of the Faith seems to
me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate”
- C. S. Lewis
B. Stay in community with others and grow together
C. Keep prayer and Intercession central as you seek to faithfully witness
Proverbs 4:23
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IV. Together with purpose
Galatians 6:2
A. Honesty, support and mutual accountability
B. Pitfalls of the apologetic life
Pride: thinking you are smarter than others
Arrogance: acting as if you are smarter than others
Performance: hoping others applaud how much smarter than them you are
“The Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and
proclaimer of the divine word of salvation”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
C. A lesson from a wise practitioner
From all my lame defeats and so much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me. - C.S. Lewis
V. Make Sure to Keep the End in Mind
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
A. Commitment means focusing on the long term and seeking to live well now but also to finish well.
B. We need to cultivate “double listening”, the scriptures and the news, and be prepared to “give an answer”.
C. As a man thinks in his heart so his he (Proverbs)
“The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
- Westminster Confession
“ God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him.” - John Piper
“ You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.” - St. Augustine
A final word, Romans 11:36
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Works Cited
Revolution of Character, Dallas Willard with Don Simpson
A Long Obedience In the Same Direction, Eugene H. Peterson
The Quotable Lewis, Editors, Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root
Mere Apologetics, Alister McGrath
Recommended Reading
Minding the Heart, Robert L. Saucy
The Call, Os Guinness
The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Recommended Reading List
Books with an asterisk (*) are especially recommended. Ravi Zacharias
*Why Suffering?: Finding Meaning and Comfort When Life Doesn’t Make Sense
The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists
Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality
The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives
Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of The Christian Message
Beyond Opinion: Living The Faith We Defend
Andy Bannister
Burning Questions Documentary, RZIM, 2014, http://burningquestions.ca
Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl
Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted In Mid-Air
G.K. Chesterton
The Everlasting Man
What’s Wrong With the World
Paul Copan
Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God
John Dickson
If I Were God, I’d End All the Pain: Struggling with Evil, Suffering and Faith
If I Were God, I’d Make Myself Clearer: Searching for Clarity in a World Full of Claims
A Spectator’s Guide to World Religions
The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission: Promoting the Gospel with More Than Our Lips
*Life of Jesus: Who He Is and Why He Matters
Timothy Keller
The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
Gregory Koukl
Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions
Os Guinness
The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It
The Global Public Square: Religious Freedom and the Making of a World Safe for Diversity
*Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times
C.S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain
Stuart McAllister
Seeing And Exploring Cultural Connections (DVD with PDF)
Sean McDowell
Apologetics for a New Generation: A Biblical and Culturally Relevant Approach to Talking About God
Alister E. McGrath
Intellectuals Don’t Need God & Other Modern Myths: Building Bridges To Faith Through Apologetics
Abdu Murray
Grand Central Question
171
John M. Njorge
Apologetics – Why Your Church Needs It, RZIM, 2008
Blaise Pascal
*Pensees and Other Writings
Nabeel Qureshi
Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity
Fazale Rana
The Cell’s Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator’s Artistry
Origins of Life: Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off (with Hugh Ross)
Clifford Williams
Existential Reasons for Belief in God: A Defense of Desires and Emotions for Faith
N.T. Wright
Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense
Spiritual formation resources:
Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel
*Beloved Dust
Dallas Willard
The Divine Conspiracy
Eugene Peterson
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society
David Platt
Radical
Michael Horton
Ordinary
Philip Yancey
What’s So Amazing About Grace?
John Ortberg
The Life You’ve Always Wanted
St. Augustine
Confessions
Brother Lawrence
Practicing the Presence of God
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