Stand to Reason Videos

Stand to Reason has a library of short videos featuring Greg Koukl addressing various apologetic issues on YouTube.

Greg Koukl Interviews Frank Beckwith

Greg Koukl spent yesterday's Stand to Reason broadcast talking with former Evangelical Theological Society president Francis Beckwith about his return to Roman Catholicism. Listen here. (HT: (welcome back!) Justin Taylor)

STR on Beckwith's Return to Roman Catholicism

Stand to Reason's President, Greg Koukl, (who coauthored Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air with Francis Beckwith) and Director of Operations, Melinda Penner, respond to Beckwith's recent conversion to Roman Catholicism.

Koukl - Chopra Debate Video

Greg Koukl's debate with Deepak Chopra, which originally aired on Lee Strobel's "Faith Under Fire" (about which I commented here), is now available on Google Video. (HT: Melinda Penner)

Greg Koukl on BAM

OK, I think this is my final media announcement for the day. This from Melinda at STR's Blog:

Scott Klusendorf is sick, so Greg will pinch hit for him on The Bible Answer Man today and tomorrow discussing abortion and Roe v. Wade. You can also catch it on-line at OnePlace.com. Greg and Scott provide excellent pro-life training in STR's resource "Making Abortion Unthinkable: The Art of Pro-life Persuaion."

We've used "Making Abortion Unthinkable" at our church and I can attest to its excellence.

How to be a Constructive Influence in an Anti-Intellectual Church

Greg Koukl has some very helpful advice for believers in churches that don't see the importance of cultivating clear thinking. Don't grumble. Be a patient, exemplary, and strategic part of the solution.

Messengers of an Impersonal God?

I watched Greg Koukl and Deepak Chopra discuss the future of faith on Lee Strobel's Faith Under Fire last night. Dr. Chopra has written numerous books on New Age spirituality that have sold millions of copies. Greg did a superb job of representing the gospel in content and character, modeling the qualities of an ambassador that he and the folks at Stand to Reason seek to instill in others. He repeatedly demonstrated the problems with religious relativism and exposed the fact that, contrary to his denial that he is dogmatic, Dr. Chopra adheres to a theological position of which he seeks to persuade others.

As a sign of respect for Jesus, Dr. Chopra said that his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is among his favorites and that he carries a copy of it with him. However, he considers Jesus only one among a number of God's messengers. Not only is this a contradiction of the biblical witness to Jesus' uniqueness, it's also unintelligible given Dr. Chopra's own concept of the nature of God. You see, Dr. Chopra emphatically denies that God is a personal being.

The concept of messenger presupposes two activities, both of which can only be performed by persons. The first is that of sending or commissioning. The summer before I went to college I worked as a messenger for a law firm in Manhattan. They sent me and my co-workers on various assignments to deliver important documents to other firms and businesses. I didn't decide what my destination was to be. Nor did I decide at what times I would go on these errands. All of that was dictated to me by my employer. A messenger is one who is sent by someone not something.


The second activity presupposed by the concept of messenger is communication. A messenger is one who conveys a what? That's right - a message. The task of a messenger is to convey some kind of communication from the one who sent him or her to the recipient. If I were to tell you that my toaster wanted me to tell you something, you'd think that I was either joking or something was seriously wrong with me. That's because we know that toasters and other impersonal entities don't communicate. So, how Dr. Chopra explains the concept of an impersonal God having messengers, I don't know. I don't think he can.

I wouldn't be surprised if Greg offers some more detailed analysis of the exchange at STR's blog so keep an eye out for it.

Earth Day & Imago Dei

I had no idea that today is Earth Day until I read Greg Koukl's insights about the inconsistency of Darwinian theory and the belief that humans are morally obliged to care for the environment:

The moral obligations underpinning Earth Week activities simply do not follow from the naturalistic world view that embraces Darwinism. It follows, rather, from a theistic world view in which God has created man as unique and given him responsibility over the Earth to care for it. Earth Week makes sense for Christians, not for Darwinists.

I've been reading in Anthony Hoekema's Created in God's Image. In it, he notes that while in one sense post-Fall humanity retains God's image (Gen. 9:6; James 3:9), that image has been severely perverted and stands in need of being renewed in Christ (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10) who perfectly images God. This progressive renewal manifests itself in three relationships: with God, with each other, and with nature. Concerning the last he writes:

The renewal of the image means, in the third place, that man is now enabled properly to rule over and care for God's creation. That is to say, he is now empowered to exercise dominion over the earth and over nature in a responsible, obedient, and unselfish way. This means that man is now enabled to look upon himself as a steward of the earth and all that is in it, rather than an overlord with absolute and completely arbitrary power. This includes holding property, tilling the soil, growing fruit trees, mining coal, and drilling for oil not for personal aggrandizement but in a responsible way, for the benefit and welfare of one's fellowmen. In our present world this also includes concern for the conservation of natural resources, and opposition to all wasteful or thoughtless exploitation of those resources. It includes concern for the preservation of the environment and for the prevention of whatever hurts that environment: erosion, wanton destruction of animal species, pollution of air and water. It includes concern for adequate distribution of food, the prevention of famine, and the improvement of sanitation. It also embraces the advancement of scientific investigation, research, and experimentation, including the continuing conquest of space, in such a way as to honor God's commands and to give him praise.

A dear Christian woman who enjoys gardening and is very good at it recently told me that other believers have insinuated that the time she spends working the soil could be better used evangelizing. The implication is that such (trivial) pursuits are obstacles to authentic spirituality. I think this reveals how desperately evangelicalism needs to consider the doctrine of creation as something more than the apologetic answer to evolution. Since the Bible presents redemption as a restoration of creation (not just individual souls) then it's imperative that we understand the beginning of the biblical story. In his excellent book, Heaven is a Place On Earth Michael Wittmer reminds us that:

...it is good for us every now and then to revisit our theological footer and check for cracks in our doctrine of creation. Even small problems there, if left unattended, will cause exponentially larger difficulties upstairs, in our understanding of the fall and redemption. In short, to the extent that we misunderstand the story of creation we will also be confused about the gospel.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if as part of our discipleship we encouraged followers of Christ to garden to the glory of God?

Four Challenges for the Church

Today on Stand to Reason's blog Greg Koukl identifies four challenges facing the church and three of them are from within. Among them is an implicit relativism in the church due to valuing experience over truth:

This happened because there is an unhealthy hunger for an experience of personal revelation that has replaced our hunger for truth. Many Christians desperately want God to communicate with them directly. They are taught more and more from pulpits all around the country that this is what every Christian can expect to happen. This trend has seriously distracted Christians from focusing on the Word already given, the Bible.

A related problem I see is that of a faulty ecclesiology that fails to appreciate the corporate or communal nature of the church. Most of the "you's" in the New Testament are plural ("y'all"), addressing whole bodies of believers. However, we're prone to read them as though they're addressed to us as individuals in isolation from the rest of God's people . For example, Paul's admonition to not "let the sun go down on your anger" lest we give the devil an opportunity (Eph. 4:26-27) is frequently presented as a warning against the possible demonization of the Christian who nurses bitterness regardless of the fact that the whole chapter is a call to preserve the unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4:1-3). The thrust is corporate not individualistic. When Jesus' followers nurse bitterness against each other and refuse to pursue reconciled relationships, we give Satan an opportunity to disrupt our communion and mar our witness to the world and the principalities and powers.

In his book The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit, Craig Van Gelder claims that the current emphasis on the individual believer is in large part due to the influence of Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke. According to Locke's social contract theory, the only social obligations to which one is bound are those entered into voluntarily. Van Gelder quotes from Locke's "A Letter Concerning Toleration" in which he applies his theory to the nature of the church:

I take (it) to be a voluntary society of men joining themselves of their own accord in a church order to the public worshipping of God in such manner as they judge acceptable to Him....I say it is a free and voluntary society. Nobody is born a member of the church....since the joining together of several members into this church-society...is absolutely free and spontaneous, it necessarily follows that the right of making its laws can belong to none but the society itself; or at least to those whom the society by common consent has authorized thereunto.

On the result of adopting this understanding of the nature of the church, Van Gelder writes:

In this view, while the divine aspects of the nature of the church may be included confessionally, the church's identity is shaped primarily by its social organization. Because of the voluntary, individualistic nature of joining this social organization, its focus tends to be on the rights and privileges associated with membership, not on a covenantal commitment to the community and its values.

Of course, the New Testament does have much to say about the ministry of the Spirit in the life of the believer. The issue is one of emphasis. Van Gelder offers the following clarification:

While the calling, saving, sealing, gifting, and empowering works of the Spirit can be developed biblically from the perspective of the individual, this is not the New Testament's primary focus in defining the relationship between the Spirit and the church. The Bible's focus is not on individual Christians but on the formation of a new type of community, a new humanity that is indwelt by the Spirit.