Posted on Tuesday,

#10: The Christian Life is Active Not Passive [Podcast]

The Christian life is active, not passive.

It’s so easy to start letting life happen to us. There’s so much to do.

Information to process. Schedules to manage. Emails to check. Laundry to fold, practices to get to and homework to be done.

The pace is crazy. If we’re not careful, we can become passive observers in our own lives.

Here’s the problem: If we’re passive, then we’ll not be able to do all that God has called us to do. (more…)

Posted on Tuesday,

#9: Where Do Human Rights Come From? [Podcast]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

Where do human rights come from?

You may have noticed that everyone is not the same. Look around your classroom, workplace, or on social media and you quickly realize that people are, well, different…Men, women, big, small, different cultures and ethnic backgrounds—we don’t have equal abilities, power, talents, strengths, or intellect.

So why treat everyone the same if we’ re not?

It has to be something more than “we agree” or “we took a vote” that everyone is equally valuable because all it takes is for someone to disagree or take a new vote and equality goes out the window. (more…)

Posted on Tuesday,

#8: What is Atheism? [Podcast]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

What is atheism?

Contrary to what you may hear in pop culture or see on YouTube, atheism is not merely the absence of belief. Or as the popular atheist, Christopher Hitchens put it, “Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith.” But even with a delightful British accent—saying it’s so, doesn’t make it so.

Just as Theism is the positive claim or belief that there is a God. Atheism is the positive claim or belief that there is no god.

Here’s the big idea to grasp: The claim that “no gods exist” is just as much a claim to knowledge as the claim that “God exists.” Both require justification—providing good reasons and evidence to support that view. (more…)

Posted on Tuesday,

#6: Do All Religions Lead To God? [Podcast]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | RSS

Do all religions lead to God? If you’ve ever had a conversation about your Christian faith, then you probably have encountered this slogan. But is it true?

No, and here’s why. Isn’t it interesting how people tend to create special rules when investigating spiritual or moral questions? Sometimes we make it more complicated than it needs to be.

For example, are all economic systems the same? Socialism and capitalism are very different. What about forms of government? Having a king (monarchy) and rule by the people (democracy) are very different as well.

(more…)

Posted on Friday,

Will Your Teenagers Graduate from Their Faith After High School?

Welcome to College in Post-Christian America

This is a question I recently discussed on the Christian Parenting website.

Will your teenage son or daughter still be walking with Jesus when they graduate college? Or will they leave their faith behind as they walk off that graduation stage to start a new chapter of life?

As parents, we want what’s best for our kids. As Christians, we know that means following Jesus for a lifetime. That’s certainly what I want as a father of three. But we’ve also seen the stats and they’re not encouraging:

– Depending on the study, approximately fifty percent will disengage from their faith during the college years (there is no indication from the research that they are or will come back).
– Forty-seven percent of American emerging adults agreed that “morals are relative, there are not definite rights and wrongs for everybody.”
– Fifty-four percent of “conservative protestant” teenagers affirmed that there was more than one way to God.