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Entries Tagged as 'Nicholas Wolterstorff'

A Godless Public Square: Do ‘Private’ Christian Beliefs Have a Place in Public Life? Part I Matthew Flannagan – Theology

August 22nd, 2011 74 Comments

A few weeks ago, as part of Jesus Week at the University of Auckland, Thinking Matters and Evangelical Union hosted an event entitled A Godless Public Square: Do ‘Private’ Christian Beliefs Have a Place in Public Life? This event was a conversation between Theology, Philosophy and Law and featured Matthew Flannagan - Analytic Theologian, Glenn Peoples - Philosopher and Madeleine Flannagan - Legal [...]

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Response to William Lane Craig’s Question 225: “The ‘Slaughter’ of the Canaanites Re-visited” Part II

August 12th, 2011 156 Comments

In my last post “Response to William Lane Craig’s Question 225: “The ‘Slaughter’ of the Canaanites Re-visited” Part I” I discussed William Lane Craig’s position on the Canaanite Conquest account (in light of the fact that Craig referred to my argument in his question of the week: “Question 225: The “Slaughter” of the Canaanites Re-visited”). I [...]

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Response to William Lane Craig’s Question 225: “The ‘Slaughter’ of the Canaanites Re-visited” Part I

August 11th, 2011 6 Comments

Every week William Lane Craig answers a question on his website; this week’s question of the week is entitled “The “Slaughter” of the Canaanites Re-visited”. The questioner asked what Craig thinks of the Canaanite Conquest account. I got a mention in Craig’s reply: “The topic of God’s command to destroy the Canaanites was the subject [...]

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Contra Mundum: Religion and Violence

June 1st, 2011 40 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 [...]

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Thom Stark on Wolterstorff and Hagiographic Hyperbole

April 7th, 2011 36 Comments

Earlier this year I finished a forthcoming article in which I defended Nicholas Wolterstorff’s take on the Canaanite massacre recorded in the book of Joshua. Wolterstorff argues that the Book of Joshua is a highly figurative, hagiographic and hyperbolic account of Israel’s early skirmishes and it is not intended to be taken literally in its details.[1] [...]

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God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part III: Two Implications of the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Account

January 16th, 2011 20 Comments

This three-part blog series is a modified version of what I presented to the Evangelical Philosophical Society meeting in November 2010. In a recent Conference at Notre Dame Alvin Plantinga suggested that the commands to wipe out the Canaanites, recorded in the book of Deuteronomy, might be hyperbolic; they should be understood more like how [...]

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God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part II: Ancient Near Eastern Conquest Accounts

January 10th, 2011 12 Comments

This three-part blog series is a modified version of what I presented to the Evangelical Philosophical Society meeting in November 2010. In my previous post, God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I: Wolterstorff’s Argument for the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Interpretation, I expounded and adapted Nicholas Wolterstorff’s argument for a hagiographic hyperbolic reading of the book [...]

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God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I: Wolterstorff’s Argument for the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Interpretation

January 7th, 2011 42 Comments

Around this time last year I wrote two posts Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites I and Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites II. These posts attracted a fair amount of attention and debate. I got offers to publish my ideas in several upcoming books and present them before both the Evangelical Philosophical [...]

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The Separation of Church and Self: Rethinking Separationism

December 16th, 2010 119 Comments

Is it just for a pluralistic society to ground its public policy on religious premises? What role should religion play in such a society? Debate over questions like these has figured in theology, philosophy, political science, jurisprudence and popular culture for centuries. In contemporary Western pluralistic society the debate continues. Even for those unfamiliar with [...]

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Matthew Flannagan’s Opening Statement: Bradley v Flannagan Debate

August 7th, 2010 11 Comments

On Monday 2 August at the University of Auckland Emeritus Professor of Philosophy Dr Raymond Bradley and Dr Matthew Flannagan (of this blog) debated the topic “Is God the Source of Morality? Is it rational to ground right and wrong in commands issued by God?” For the benefit of those who could not be there, who [...]

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