Veritas Forum Comes to the University of Pittsburgh
October 9, 2008
The Veritas Forum is coming to the University of Pittsburgh, Oct. 15 and Nov. 12. They say:
The Veritas Forum at the University of Pittsburgh seeks to explore the possibility of truth, beauty and goodness in every aspect of our academic and personal lives. The forum is an opportunity for the entire university community to explore and discuss life’s hardest questions together. By asking the pressing questions on campus and answering them with respected university voices, we hope to engage the entire university in fruitful discussion.
We, the planners of the forum, are inspired by the idea that Jesus Christ has something relevant to offer our modern university in its search for knowledge, truth and significance. We welcome and honor skeptics and their questions, and even bring some of our own. The Forum is not meant to be a typical academic exchange of abstract and unembodied ideas. Rather, it should come out of real community earnestly exploring questions of real importance.
Wednesday, October 15
12:10 PM, LR-3 Scaife Hall. Refreshments served at noon.
Robert Orr, M.D., C.M. Consultant on Clinical Ethics at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity
Winner of the AMA Isaac Hayes and John Bell Award for Leadership in Medical Ethics
Finding God Beyond Harvard: The Quest for Veritas
Kelly Monroe Kullberg Author of Finding God at Harvard and Finding God Beyond Harvard
Founder of The Veritas Forum.
For more information, see www.veritas.org/Pitt.
Debate: Has Science Buried God?
October 8, 2008
Richard Dawkins thinks so. But he will be challenged this this month (Oct. 21) by John Lennox in an important debate at the Oxford Museum of Natural History. The debate, Has Science Buried God, is sponsored by the Fixed Point Foundation.
The debate is being billed as “Huxley vs. Wilberforce, Part II” because it will take place at the same museum as the famous 1860 debate between T.H. Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce. Huxley called himself “Darwin’s Bulldog” and today many are calling Dawkins “Darwin’s Rottweiler.”
While on study leave in Oxford this summer for an apologetics course I “ran into” Richard Dawkins at the Oxford Museum of Natural History (see picture left), the museum where the debate will take place. When I walked into the museum I was surprised to see Richard Dawkins there being interviewed by a television crew. He was, of course, talking about his views on science and religion.
I also had the pleasure of sitting under the teaching of Dr. John Lennox during that week in Oxford. Dr. Lennox taught during each of our morning sessions on the book of Acts and he will undoubtedly provide a solid defense of the Christian faith during this forthcoming debate. Dr. Lennox’s book, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?, provides a very strong defense of Christianity in the light of modern scientific ideas, easily the best I’ve read.
Unfortunately, if you were hoping to attend this debate, tickets sold out quickly. You can, however, take advantage of the following resources:
- Attend our church’s forthcoming class on apologetics during our Wednesday evening G.I.F.T. ministry (Oct. 22 – Nov. 19, 7:15-8:15). The class is a video series, “Foundations in Apologetics” by RZIM. Lecturers include John Lennox, Ravi Zacharias, and Alister McGrath.
- Read John Lennox’s book, God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?
- Read Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion.
- Listen to a previous debate between Dawkins and Lennox at Dawkins’ own website.
- Listen to John Lennox in other debates/forumns: Does God Exist, a debate between Lennox and Michael Shermer; We’d Be Better Off Without Religion, a panel debate that took place in Australia in August; A Conversation Between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox
Why We Are a Confessional Church
October 7, 2008
This was the topic for the Sunday School class I taught this past week – to which I’d like to add a few comments here.
At the beginning of the class I commented that “Confessionalism” is generally not a popular idea in today’s evangelical world. The great confessions that came out of the Reformation are often seen as dusty, old, irrelevant, lifeless, useless documents that should be put onto the shelves of Christian history for study, and nothing more.
R.C. Sproul articulates this contemporary mindset well:
In our day, there has been a strong antipathy emerging against confessions of any stripe or any degree. On the one hand, the relativism that has become pervasive in modern culture eschews any confession of absolute truth. Not only that, we have also seen a strong negative reaction against the rational and propositional nature of truth (Table Talk, April 2008, p. 7).
This type of mindset does not bode well for confessionalism.
Many also would suggest that the traditions of men are a dangerous thing to build a church upon. Jesus made this argument quite strongly in Matthew 15:1-3:
Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
Tradition is a very bad thing if it’s not a biblical tradition. This was the Pharisees problem. They ignored the rule of God’s word in favor of their own traditions. But biblical traditions, biblically speaking, are to be commended and passsed on. Paul makes this abundantly clear in his letters:
1 Corinthians 11:1-2 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.
2 Thessalonians 2:15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.
These passages of Scripture signify for us the danger of holding to unbiblical tradition (Jesus’ words to the Pharisees), and the importance of holding to and passing on biblical tradition (Paul’s letters to the churches). One of the goals we have as a confessional church is to pass on what we believe to be biblical tradition, beliefs, and practices. And we do that in part through our confession.
One ray of hope for orthodox, Reformed, confessional Christianity today is that many, many people among the new generations are increasingly becoming disillusioned by the generic and bland styles of Christianity that have so often been promoted in recent decades. R. Scott Clark suggests, “A remarkable number of postboomers are demanding preaching and worship that is substantial and confessional” (Recovering the Reformed Confession, p. 6). This move can be tangibly seen in the increasing popularity of contemporary hymns that are much more substantial theologically than much of the worship music that came out of the 70′s and 80′s (for an example of this, see the PCA’s college ministry worship music website, RUF Hymnbook Online). In the void of a solid confessional theology within evangelicalism, the cry among many in the younger generations is now, “Give us a deep, historical, confessional, Reformed, joyful, traditional, time-tested, biblical theology!”
This is why we are a confessional church.
We are ultimately a confessional church because the Bible is important to us. The Bible commands us, after all, to teach sound doctrine (1 Tim. 4:6; Tit. 1:9; Tit. 2:1), and that is what the confessions set out to do.
As R. C. Sproul says, “Without such confessions, theological anarchy reigns (Table Talk, April 2008, p. 7). And no one, of course, wants that.
Or do they?
For more read:
- The Westminster Confession of Faith
- Recovering the Reformed Confession, by R. Scott Clark
- Truths We Confess: A Layman’s Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith, by R. C. Sproul
Ordinary Means Podcast
October 3, 2008
The October Ordinary Means podcast has been released. This month Shaun Nolan and Matt Bohling answer listener’s questions about the ordinary means of grace and how the Lord works in our lives.
New Website and Ministry Name for Peter Jones
October 3, 2008
It looks like Dr. Peter Jones’ ministry, Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, has now officially become truthXchange. Their new website looks excellent, and it’s full of a number of important articles and resources by Dr. Jones on modern paganism.