Mon 1- Friday 5 August marks Jesus Week. A number of events will be held on the University of Auckland campus of which we are part of including this one brought to you by the Evangelical Union and Thinking Matters: A Godless Public Square: Do ‘Private’ Christian Beliefs Have a Place in Public Life? A Jesus […]
Entries Tagged as 'Theology'
A Godless Public Square: Do ‘Private’ Christian Beliefs Have a Place in Public Life? @ Auckland Uni
July 12th, 2011 8 Comments
Tags: Evangelical Union · Glenn Peoples · Jesus Week · Religion in Public Life · Thinking Matters
Guest Post: Paul Copan Replies to Hector Avalos – Deuteronomy 25:11-12, an Eye for an Eye, and Raymond Westbrook
July 9th, 2011 57 Comments
My book review of John Loftus’s The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails prompted several responses from Hector Avalos, one of the book’s contributors. Avalos has offered critiques of not just my arguments but also those of my good friend Paul Copan. This Guest Post, written by Paul Copan, responds to some of Avalos’s charges. Paul […]
Tags: Bruce Wells · Hector Avalos · John Loftus · Lex Talionis · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan · Raymond Westbrook
The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails – A Philosophia Christi Review of John Loftus’ Book
June 25th, 2011 305 Comments
On the list of blurbs just inside the cover of The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, edited by John W. Loftus (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books) 2010, the following appears: As a result of being published on the blurb of the book, the current edition of Philosphia Christi, Vol. 13, no. 1 – Summer 2011, shows the following […]
Tags: Book Review · David Eller · Edward Babinski · Hector Avalos · Jason Long · John Loftus · Outsider Test for Faith · Paul Tobin · Philosophia Christi · Richard Carrier · Richard Price · The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails · Vallerie Tarico
Stark Wars
June 23rd, 2011 29 Comments
Thom Stark has written a lengthy response (304 pages!) to Paul Copan’s book Is God a Moral Monster? which he has published on his blog, Religion at the Margins; it is entitled Is God a Moral. Compromiser? A Critical Review of Paul Copan’s. “Is God a Moral Monster?” In it, alongside his criticisms of Copan, Stark makes […]
Tags: Is God a Moral Monster? · Paul Copan · Richard Hess · Thom Stark
Slow Learners: Foolishness Bound Up in the Heart
June 12th, 2011 47 Comments
Sometimes we Christians find ourselves wondering at the foolishness on display in our society. Things which to us are so self-evident and obvious appear beyond the ken of the average Unbeliever. Take something as basic as whether depravity and perverseness is native to the human soul, or not. Christians, realizing that this is something about […]
Tags: Discipline · Self-Control · Total Depravity
Hear Iain Provan on Why Should we Read the Old Testament, and How?
June 11th, 2011 1 Comment
Compass Foundation and Regent College are hosting Iain Provan at an event in Auckland next month entitled ‘Why Should we Read the Old Testament, and How?’ Here is the info from their blurb: Why read the Old Testament? What relevance could this old collection of books have for us today? And how should we read it? How […]
Tags: Compass · Events · Iain Provan · Regent College

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.





Contra Mundum: Pacifism and Just Wars
July 5th, 2011 27 Comments
Comedian Bill Maher recently berated Christians for being hypocrites for supporting military action against terrorists in his “New Rules” segment on the U.S. TV show Real Time (transcript here). Jesus, Maher contended, was a pacifist; “Jesus lays on that hippie stuff pretty thick. He has lines like, “do not repay evil with evil,” and “do […]
Tags: Bill Maher · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Just War · Pacifism · War Ethics