Christian Development

The New Atheists

2010-03-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

For anyone interested in answering the new group of evolutionary atheists led by the likes of Richard Dawkins, (I call them that because they use their background in evolutionary science to disrespect religious believers of all sorts), Phillip Johnson is always the place to begin. Johnson is the intellectual mind behind the beginning of the Intelligent Design movement in the early 1990's. He recently wrote a brief article for Touchstone magazine, read it here:

More of Johnson's books are available at the Rancho del Rey bookstore. Johnson's masterpiece is Reason in the Balance, a book about culture. It's a vivid critique of where evolutionary based thinking will lead western culture. What most people fail to grasp is that evolution is not just an idea about how humans arose, (which would be bad enough) but about how everything arose. It is an alternate creation story for our culture. Whatever creation story our culture believes will be the path that it also follows morally and ethically. If God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with relationship in mind, certain things follow from that about how we are to treat one another and how humans are to serve God. But if we arose through a random chance process of billions of years, then that also says a lot about our nature, namely, that none of us have any intrinsic worth at all. If none of us are really valuable, then we can dispose of one another and be disposed of for a variety of purposes based on the will of the powerful, the state or the intelligent. This is a scary reality to think about. That is why the battle over evolution and Intelligent Design means so much. It truly is a culture war.

The battle over what our culture will believe in the future is being fought right now. Where we are today is the result of what people were thinking and doing before us. Everything is connected. Educate yourself to see where the culture is trying to get you to buy into a false system of thinking. the Bible tells us in Romans 12:1-2 not to conform to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Only then will we be able to prove what God's will for us is. Read the works of Phillip Johnson. another great cultural observer from a Christian standpoint is Nancy Pearcy. Here seminal work is Total Truth.

Modern Day Slavery

2010-03-09T13:37:00.000-08:00

My daughter Marli and I recently gave a message at my home church about the evil of modern day slavery. Right now in the world, over 27 million people are in bondage against their will. It is an over $30 billion a year industry. There is a lot that we can do to fight this horrific evil. Americans apparently account for about one third of this money. Much of the money we Americans spend on this problem is in the area of Internet pornography. Bringing awareness to the fact that lots of the pornography on the Internet has links to sexual slavery can wake people up. Additionally, supporting groups like International Justice Mission and websites like www.love146.org can bring legislation and support for this practically unknown issue.
To listen to the message on modern day slavery, just click on the message section to the right to listen to the sermon from Rancho del Rey Church, Sunday March 7, 2010. For more information about human trafficking and slavery, visit International Justice Mission

Christianity and History

2010-03-09T13:30:00.000-08:00

I recently came across an article by Catholic historian Paul Johnson about the historicity of Jesus and the reliability of the Bible. It was so good I have to simply give you the link and allow you to jump in head first. Just click on the link above and enjoy!

New Blog

2010-01-27T19:37:00.000-08:00

For anyone who reads this blog, I am REALLY SORRY. About a month ago I accidentally deleted my old blog....it's a long story. :-( Anyway, it is back up and running now. But, since things have changed I decided to go ahead and add something different. On this blog I will continue to deal with Christian Development topics. But I also have another web site now, www.MattTague.com where I will be blogging through a verse by verse commentary in the Gospel of Luke. So, for my specifically biblical content, that site may have some stuff that this doesn't have, and vice versa. Thanks for putting up with the delay while this site was down. I should be back blogging regularly now.