In a 2015 book, How the West Really Lost God, cultural critic Mary Eberstadt affirms that religion is like language—it is learned through community and the first community is the family. Rod Dreher, author of a more recent book, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, agrees with Eberstadt’s conclusion. He says, “When both the family and the community become fragmented and fail, the transmission of religion to the next generation becomes far more difficult” (123).
Read MoreDr. Thomas B. Warren touched an untold number of lives through his knowledge of God's word and his ability to logically reason in its truth. It was my good fortune to sit at his feet on different occasions while I was a student at the former East Tennessee School of Preaching and Missions which is now Southeast Institute of Biblical Studies in Knoxville, TN.
At the time, Dr. Warren was preparing for a debate concerning the existence of God with Dr. Antony Flew, a renowned atheist. Warren had a team consisting of, but not limited to, Roy Deaver and Thomas Eaves who were assisting with the research, developing questions for the debate, and constructing the charts to be used. We students would sit for hours listening to bits and pieces concerning the upcoming discussion. Although the tone of these discussions was extremely serious, we were entertained by the humor of these godly men.
Read MoreIn one of Francis Bacon’s Essays, he wrote of truth. His opening lines are, “What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.” It is a classic illustration of the observation that men stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.
According to Oxford dictionaries, “Truth is dead. Facts are passé.” This is the opening line of Amy Wang, Washington Post writer, in her article titled “‘Post-Truth’ Named 2016 Word of the Year by Oxford Dictionaries.” Wang says the folks at Oxford say post-truth denotes “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential . . . than appeals to emotion . . . [creating] an atmosphere in which [truth] is irrelevant.”
Read MoreTomorrow our nation will observe the Thanksgiving holiday. This is a time set aside and reserved for family, friends, and a grateful spirit of reflection. This year brings with it for many, a time of deceleration following an incredibly heated election season. In a day when some regrettably see our nation as being more divided than it ever has been, it is easy for us to lose within the fray the blessings of today in an alluringly nostalgic dream of years past. We easily slip into dreams of the days when we were a close knit nation of peoples who valued the greater things in life...
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It has been reported that John Adams, second President of the United States, once said, “No man who ever held the office of President would congratulate a friend on obtaining it!” The one who fills the highest office in the land of the free and the home of the brave is, in many ways, occupying an unenviable position. He and others who are in positions of civil authority are in need of our prayers. Paul wrote, “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, FOR KINGS AND ALL WHO ARE IN AUTHORITY . . .” (1 Timothy 2:1-2, emp.
Read MoreI remember my undergraduate years at Harding College when Dr. Clifton Ganus, Jr. was president. Dr. Ganus is a remarkable Christian gentleman. He is among the greatest administrators I have known in Christian higher education. He is also an expert historian. Ganus and Arnold Toynbee, the late prominent British historian, were friends. I recall a chapel speech Dr. Ganus delivered in which he shared part of a conversation he had with Toynbee. The latter said, “Dr. Ganus, civilizations fall when men start hurting one another.”
Read MoreThe terms Atheist and Atheism are derived from the same Greek words, a, of Alpha, the negative, and Theos, God. Thus we get the idea of a system which means without God. I shall not trouble the reader by placing before him the two leading hypothesis which prevailed among this class of unbelievers, but it may not be amiss to state, that one had its origin from Ocellus Lucanus, adopted and improved by Aristotle; and the other, from Epicurus...
Read MoreHistory teaches that a civilization’s greatest threat is from within. Inward decay is deadlier than outward aggression. One does not have to be a modern prophet of doom or a nervous alarmist to detect some of the rapidly multiplying symptoms of moral deterioration in our land. Individual character, the home, and society as God would have it are all being undercut and their foundations weakened by these symptoms.
Read MoreForty years ago this coming September, America was engaged in presidential debates prior to the general election of 1976. During that same time another debate, the Warren-Flew debate on the existence of God, occurred on the campus of a Texas university. Although the 1976 presidential debates, as always, were significant, a good case can be made that the Warren-Flew debate was even more significant. In fact, some have called it “the debate of the century.”
Read MoreHis mother was Madalyn Murray O’Hair. She won the landmark lawsuit filed on his behalf when he was fourteen years old, effectively banning prayer and Bible reading from public schools in America by an 8-1 Supreme Court decision, June 17, 1963. America’s schools have never recovered from this decision that long-time U. S. Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia described as somebody “tampering with America’s soul.”
Read MoreMinnie Louise Haskins (1875-1957) was a British writer, missions worker, London School of Economics student and teacher, and industrial welfare leader in the first half of the 20th century. In addition to her literary work as a poet and novelist, Haskins and Eleanor T. Kelly co-authoredFoundations of Industrial Welfare, a significant publication promoting a spirit of cooperation between worker and employer. However, it is a small collection of poetry published in 1908 that contains the obscure poem for which Minnie Haskins is best remembered. Originally published under the title “God Knows,” this poem is best known from its popular title “The Gate of the Year.”
Read MoreQuestions of origins are important if only because everyone has a beginning and may eventually question life’s purpose. Even the process of life in which we find ourselves seems to require an explanation. Understanding how humanity originated is important because its answer touches on one of the most fundamental of inquiries —the nature and authority of ethical thought.
Read MoreSociety is a mess. Perhaps, we can describe our society as living in chaos. It is scary when we contemplate the society in which we live.
Civil government is ordained of God to which all men are subject in order that good and safety may prevail and evil may be controlled (Romans 13:1-3). As such civil government is for our good—for all citizens. This creates a societal setting in which peace and security can be practiced and enjoyed (Romans 13:4-7).
Read MoreThe last fifty years have brought many advances in healthcare, but they have also brought challenging moral dilemmas. On one end of life, its beginning, people are pressed by American culture to accept what is described as “a woman’s right to choose” when for many Christians that seems an inappropriate response to life in the womb. At the other end of life people are offered the benefits of medical science that can resuscitate and sustain bodily functions through extraordinary means, even when there seems no hope of recovery. In between, people struggle with illness and disease needing someone to help. In this article I consider how Christians can and should help, whether they work in healthcare themselves or simply understand and support others who have such careers.
Read MoreThe Christian’s faith is not built on a blind faith, but is based on verifiable evidence. If a person believes when there is no evidence, his faith is a baseless faith. Adequate evidence is available to verify all that Christians believe.
“Now faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
We all believe in what we have not seen, and for good reasons, for there is evidence that what we have not seen exists.
Read MoreIn his book, A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken describes his friend and mentor, C. S. Lewis, as “a man who could so swiftly cut through anything that even approached fuzzy thinking.” Van (as he was called by Lewis) goes on to say that C. S. Lewis “in brilliance, in wit, and in incisiveness, could hold his own with any man that ever lived” (of course, excluding the God-Man, Jesus Christ).
Read MoreOne of the most frequently asked questions about Warren Apologetics Center is: “What is this ‘apologetics center’ about?” Answering this question in such a way that people have a clear understanding is extremely crucial to the overall success of this project. We have worked hard to do this, but we continue working harder attempting to do an even better job communicating what Warren Apologetics Center is all about.
Read MoreLess than ten years ago, the late Dr. Antony Flew, whom Professor Thomas B. Warren debated on the existence of God in 1976, announced that he (Flew) had given up atheism and embraced theism. The news sent shock waves through the philosophical world. Professor Flew’s “pilgrimage of reason” (as he described it) is chronicled in his 2007 book There Is A God. This former British atheist wrote that he had been influenced in recent years by the philosopher David Conway’s argument for God’s existence in Conway’s 2000 book The Rediscovery of Wisdom: From Here to Antiquity in Quest of Sophia.
Read MoreLife, and specifically human life, exists today. So far as I know, there have been only two explanations for the existence of this life advanced. Creation, the idea that a superior, intelligent and powerful being brought this life into being apart from natural laws; and Evolution, the idea that life began purely by natural law in a very primitive form and developed purely by natural law to the forms in which we find it now.
Read MoreThe words, “If a man dies, shall he live again” (Job 14:14) occur within the cycle of controversy with Zophar. Zophar, agreeing with Eliphaz and Bildad, claimed Job’s suffering was the result of Job sinning. Job replies to Zophar in chapters twelve, thirteen, and fourteen. The question of Job, “If a man dies, shall he live again?” is addressed to God.
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