“Why didn’t the Christian God ever explicitly and clearly condemn slavery?” This was John Loftus’ question in his book, Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity. He posed it after sharing the following chilling account of slavery as practiced in the antebellum American south, He took her into the kitchen, and stripped […]
Entries Tagged as 'Christian History'
Contra Mundum: Slavery and the Old Testament
April 3rd, 2010 33 Comments
Tags: Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · John Loftus · Old Testament Ethics · Slavery · Theology
Hear Matt Preach on the Resurrection
March 19th, 2010 21 Comments
Matt will be preaching on the Resurrection at Massey Presbyterian Church, 510 Don Buck Rd, Massey, Waitakere City, Auckland on Sunday 11 April at the 9.30am service. All welcome. If you cannot make it that Sunday he will be repeating the sermon at the Riverhead Presbyterian Church, Cnr Arthur and Gt North Rds, Riverhead, Auckland, […]
Tags: Easter · Massey Presbyterian Church · Preaching · Resurrection · Riverhead Presbyterian Church
Freedom, Science and Christianity: A Response to James Valliant Part II
February 18th, 2010 2 Comments
Recently Peter Cresswell published a guest post by James Valliant, which originally appeared on SOLO. In Freedom, Science and Christianity: A Response to James Valliant Part I, I addressed Valliant’s claims that science and freedom of religion were unanimously opposed by Christians and the success of science and freedom of religion in Europe was solely […]
Tags: Aristotle · Christian History · Dark Ages · Enlightenment · Founding Fathers · James Valliant · Libertarianism · Liberty · Mark Murphy · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Peter Cresswell · Regine Pernoud · Rodney Stark · Science and Religion · SOLO · W.E.H. Lecky
The Theological Foundations of the Enlightenment Philosophers
February 14th, 2010 7 Comments
In my previous post, Freedom, Science and Christianity: A Response to James Valliant Part I, I criticised a recent post by James Valliant. I plan to put Part II of this critique online later this week (after Madeleine is clear of her exam on Tuesday to edit it). Here, I simply want to pick up […]
Tags: James Madison · James Valliant · John Locke · Lactantius · Lindsay Perigo · Pierre Bayle · Tertullian · Thomas Aquinas
Freedom, Science and Christianity: A Response to James Valliant Part I
February 12th, 2010 14 Comments
Recently Peter Cresswell published a guest post by James Valliant, which originally appeared on SOLO. The following series is a critique of this piece. Valliant’s basic thesis is that, Both science and freedom came about among European Christians despite the best efforts of pious Christians to prevent their development, and only on a foundation of […]
Tags: Christian History · Dark Ages · David Lindberg · Enlightenment · Founding Fathers · James Hannam · James Valliant · Libertarianism · Liberty · Peter Cresswell · Regine Pernoud · Science and Religion · SOLO
Contra Mundum: The Flat-Earth Myth
December 1st, 2009 218 Comments
A while back I made a passing comment on my blog criticising an advertisement which claimed that, prior to Columbus, the Church taught that the world was flat. In response I received the following email from a high-school student in the US, I’ve been studying Christopher Columbus in my history class and my history books […]
Tags: Christian History · Contra Mundum · flat earth · Investigate Magazine · Science and Religion · Selection · Urban Myths
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.
Guest Post: No Official Religion in God’s Own?
April 6th, 2010 124 Comments
David Simpkin is a Hamilton based lawyer with an interest in church-state issues. He studied law at the University of Auckland and holds a BA majoring in history and political studies. David is married to Susan and has a infant son, Caleb. He attends Whitiora Bible Church in Hamilton. David writes: As a holiday weekend that coincides with […]
Tags: David Simpkin · Freedom of Religion · Guest Post · Human Rights Commission · Religion in Public Life · Religious History · Rights and Freedoms · State Religion