When I was a non-Christian I was forever hearing about how Christians are hypocrites. When I converted to Christianity at 17, one thing that struck me is how often these charges were often a case of the pot calling the kettle black. While there is undoubtedly some hypocrisy within the church, it is also pervasive […]
Entries Tagged as 'Contra Mundum'
Contra Mundum: Dawkins and Secular Hypocrisy
July 7th, 2012 105 Comments
Tags: Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Kirk Cameron · Peter Singer · Richard Dawkins · Secularism · William Lane Craig
Contra Mundum: Separating Church and State
September 2nd, 2011 87 Comments
Co-authored by Matthew and Madeleine Flannagan The late Philosopher Richard Rorty once described religion as a “conversation stopper”, something that polarises discussion and ends or prevents fruitful dialogue. Rorty was an advocate of, “the happy, Jeffersonian compromise that the Enlightenment reached with the religious. This compromise consists in privatizing religion — keeping it out of […]
Tags: Contra Mundum · First Amendment · Investigate Magazine · Separation of Church and State · Separationism · Steven Smith · Thomas Jefferson · Wall of Separation
Contra Mundum: Religion and Violence
June 1st, 2011 41 Comments
On 1 May 2011 the world received the news that Osama Bin Laden was dead; gunned down in Pakistan by an elite team of US Navy Seals. Even before his death Bin Laden had become a legendary persona. Not only was he a terrorist leader responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents but he […]
Tags: 9/11 · Alister McGrath · Christian History · Christopher Eberle · Contra Mundum · David Lindberg · Glenn Peoples · Historical Atrocities · Investigate Magazine · Jim Peron · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Osama Bin Laden · Regine Pernoud · Religion in Public Life · Religious History · Richard Wurmbrand · Ronald Numbers · Sam Harris · Terence Cuneo
Contra Mundum: Stoning Adulterers
May 2nd, 2011 92 Comments
Back in 2005 there was a minor furore when Labour MP Ashraf Choudhary stated he agreed with the Koran’s teaching that people who engaged in homosexual conduct or who committed adultery should be stoned to death. In the media spiral that followed, some commentators pointed out that it was not just Islam that held this […]
Tags: Adultery · Ashraf Choudhary · Capital Punishment · Contra Mundum · Gordon Wenham · Investigate Magazine · J J Finkelstein · John Goldingay · Old Testament Ethics · Raymond Westbrook · Walter Kaiser
Contra Mundum: Why Does God Allow Suffering?
April 4th, 2011 29 Comments
22 February 2011 “may well be New Zealand’s darkest day”; these were the words of Prime Minister John Key in the aftermath of the earthquake which devastated the South Island’s largest city Christchurch. The death toll is expected to be over 200, many more have been injured, have lost property and now live in fear […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Christchurch Earthquake · Daniel Howard-Snyder · Problem of Evil
Contra Mundum: Is God a 21st Century Western Liberal?
February 1st, 2011 15 Comments
On 11 September 2001 Islamic terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Centre killing thousands of innocent people. Ostensibly they did this because they believed God commanded them to do so. This event has invigorated a fear latent in the Western psyche since the 17th century when wars of religion tore Europe apart, the […]
Tags: 9/11 · Contra Mundum · God and Morality · Hermeneutics · J J Finkelstein · Raymond Bradley · Raymond Westbrook · Robert Adams · World Trade Centre
Contra Mundum: In Defence of Santa
December 25th, 2010 37 Comments
I grasped the sponge, water dripped down my wrist as I took aim. The man from the McGillicuddy Serious Party raised his voice and said “now throw!” The sponge flew through the air from my hand and struck Santa solidly on the chest soaking his red costume. Santa laughed and said “throw another one!” It […]
Tags: Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · McGillicuddy Serious Party · Nicholas of Myra · Santa
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
