What are the differences between brainwashing and engaging the truth?

Well, I just dropped off my oldest kid, Will, at school for his first day of kindergarten and then came home to find this question waiting for me in my inbox. Interesting question that has lots of implications about reality, raising kids and how we come to know the truth. Some feel deceived that what was presented to them as truth when they were young (by parents, authorities figures, etc..) turned out to be flimsy or, in some cases, flat out untrue. While I don't believe the example in the question below fits that category, his point is worth discussing nevertheless...

Being a single man without children, I find such topics as child rearing very hard to access. However, considering my own experience as a child being reared, I do have opinions. Here's my question

What's the difference between brainwashing and presenting very young kids with a debatable story as though it were an unquestionable fact? For instance, we could use the scenario of teaching little kids in Sunday school the story that a man named Jonah lived in the belly of a whale for 3 days and 3 nights only to be vomited up alive and well.

Is God a "He"? Interview with Dr. Craig Blomberg about gender language in the NIV

Blomberg video: part three from Dave Morlan on Vimeo.

Is Yoga Ok for Christians?

Happy Monday morning everyone. Here is an interesting question emailed to me recently to get our brains going this week.

I believe that it is very important to take care of our bodies and treat them with respect. I also believe that one cannot deny the mental, physical, and overall health benefits of the practice of yoga. You get to quiet the mind and let all the wordly distractions go, it has helped me with balance, immunity, digestion, circulation, physical benefits, much slower to anger, stress, and worrying. However; from the little research I have done on yoga it seems that it started just as something they would do to loosen up their bodies to prepare for meditation. The more recent research I have found is that yoga is almost like treating yourself as a God or deity. This scares me....there are poses in yoga where they say you are bowing to yourself. I don't know what the "third eye" is about and do not participate in that. I also do not participate in the bowing at the end and saying "Namaste". They say that Namaste means "the light in me honors and respects the light in you". It seems like a very nice phrase or a good "mantra", but I don't know enough about the underlying meaning and treating ourselves as deities. I guess my question is whether yoga is ok to do if you believe that God is the one and only God. Is it a tricky tactic of the devil to lure people away from God, unknowingly?

What do you guys think?

How can Christianity be right and other religions be "wrong"?

I had these questions emailed to me from a couple of different people:

How can Christianity be right and other religions be "wrong?"

and, a bit more detailed...

Religion, for the most part, seems to be geographical. For instance, I sometime wonder if I had been born/grown up in a different country if I would have completely different beliefs. How do we know Christianity is the "right" religion? If God created every single person different, is it realistic to believe that everyone would follow the same religion? It seems that many religions have many of the same core values and I will go as far as to say that I think some other religions do some things more similar to the way that Christ lived than Christians do. How am I to say that my religion is correct over theirs? And along the same lines, is seems like disputes about religion have caused much fighting and grief. Should we be focusing more on a personal relationship with God than choosing the right religion?

Anyone out there what to take a stab at these?

Question about "Biblical" Scholarship vs. Secular Scholarship

Had this question emailed to me yesterday based on the Blomberg video in our previous post. Would love to get any thoughts any of you might have on this:

In a recent discussion with professors who tout their own literacy in the writings of antiquity, I was surprised to learn that they believed the KJV remains the only translation. Period. They also referenced Milton as creating part of the creation myths. Not sources on equal historical footing, by any means. Forgive the piling up of my adjectives, but I was disappointed by the poor, imbalanced nature of this type of fallacious scholarship. Why do you believe "the guard" of secular academia are so unwilling to award credit to life's work done by linguists in Biblical studies? Even for secular purposes, it seems like an academic feast. Even if you believe the Bible is literature, and not inspired, one must admit the linguistic work accomplished here, even when improving upon a translation we already possess, benefits the entire world. Boo to censorship.

How did we get the bible? Interview with Professor Craig Blomberg about different bible translations

Untitled from Dave Morlan on Vimeo.

Interview with Professor Danny Carroll

We had a great time last night with special presenter Dr Danny Carroll, who is Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at Denver Seminary. Below is an interview we did after the Questions Group....would love to get any thoughts you may have on the interview or hear any thoughts on what he had to say during the Question Group itself if you were there last night...

Interview with Professor Danny Carroll from Dave Morlan on Vimeo.

The value of a question

In less than two weeks I will travel to the UK to stand before an examining board and give an account for my PhD thesis. My defense (i.e. viva) is a process of answering tough questions posed by specialists in my field of study.

In preparing for this, I appreciate all the more the potential of a well-crafted question. A good question can expose ignorance, inconsistencies and a host of other things that I would prefer to keep hidden. This was one of the features of Socrates which eventually got him killed: his method of asking questions served as an expose of the assumed knowledge of his day. His simple sentence: "I have a question" was dangerous, powerful and subversive.

Through out his ministry, Jesus too would stun and stupefy would-be challengers by a single sage question. Indeed, his questions continue to reveal pride and ignorance in our own hearts in ways that can make us rather uncomfortable.

As we continue to ask questions about Jesus, God, et al, I wonder what questions Jesus would ask us. What do you guys think?

Would love to get your thoughts.....

Why preach?

I received an email recently that basically went like this:

What is the proper "method" to do "preaching" in a church? In this email the writer explained that he knew of "verse-by-verse" preaching as well as "topical" preaching. And he was trying to figure out which one was best in terms of helping him grow in understanding who God is and how to follow Him.

I have also received questions that go like this: what is the purpose of preaching at all? In this question the poor writer had experienced loads of woefully poor preaching and as a result was turned off by the whole concept.

In addition to these above, I have met a handful of folks at the Question Group who were checking out Christianity but the very notion of having someone "preach" at them was so offensive as to keep them from ever attending a church service.

In response to these questions, let me first admit that I am currently working on a sermon for this Sunday and as I work on it I hope these very questions influence the texture and posture of how I say what I say. I totally understand that the concept of preaching in itself (as well as preferred styles of preaching) in many cases present a barrier for people in even coming to church or, if they do come to church, from enjoying it. So why is it an important part of the Christian experience....why can't we just throw it out?

Several reasons prevent us from doing this but let me just mention one: the means of preaching, oral proclamation, gives its listeners a hint as to how to respond to the Gospel. In Romans 10 Paul contrasts the ineffectiveness "works" in attaining right standing before God against that of the effectiveness of the "word of faith that we proclaim" (i.e. preaching). The response to this proclamation of the finished work of Jesus on the cross [if you don't know quite what this means email me and it can be its own post] is not that of "well, I must work harder and be a better person to gain love and acceptance by God". Rather, it is a confession that Jesus has ALREADY done the work you needed to do and that he is the better person you or I could never be. It is an oral confession and acceptance of his work on our behalf. Hence the foolishness of preaching (1 Cor 1:18) shows us how to respond to the Gospel - to confess and to accept the work of Jesus on the cross....

Much more to be said but I will stop here to see what you guys have to say....

Is God good?

Hey Guys. Sorry it has been a while since the last post but I am happy to announce the details of our next Question Group. Beginning July 14 and continuing on the 21th and 28th we will have a series based on the character of the God of the Bible. I know that a handful of folks who check out Christianity are concerned not just with the reality of God but whether or not the God of the Bible is good and worthy of our worship. Indeed, one of the most famous opponents of Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, attacks the Bible at precisely the issue of God's character in his book God is not Great. So we will spend some time exploring the Bible to discover what God's character is and is not.

I am also excited to announce that our first night will feature Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at Denver Seminary, Dr. Danny Carroll. Dr Carroll has written a lot on the concern that the God of the Old Testament had for the "outsider" and "foreigner". You can check out his most recent book here.

More details to come but hope to see you all there...