You guys read this (God knows why, and I mean that as it stands, only he knows why everyone reading this is reading this) and so I’m taking a bit of a poll.  Would you like to see more content?  What sort of content would you like to see?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Paeter does a great audio drama and also some interviews.  He was kind enough to interview me about Archangel.

4) Jesus must have been sent by, or been part of, Yahweh (i.e. I don’t think the Trinity is strictly necessary for Christianity to be true, but Yahweh’s involvement is).

His problem is as follows:

Link 4 in the chain is whether or not Jesus was from Yahweh.  If the gospels are to be believed on the details of Jesus’ life and teachings, it’s quite obvious that he wasn’t.  Or, at least, if you believe that Yahweh is the God who gave the law of Moses.  You see, Deuteronomy 13:5 and 18:22 lay out the test for a false prophet — a test which Jesus fails in a number of minor ways, and then majorly in the Olivet Discourse.  Jesus, being a false prophet (by encouraging others to break the law of Moses and by predicting events that did not happen).  Even C.S. Lewis admitted that Jesus prophesied falsely in his book “The World’s Last Night” on page 97-100 of the 1988 version (which is the one I have here).  This theological link is irreparably shattered, unless one throws out the gospels as reliable — but of course, if one does that, one must then throw out the resurrection, since the gospels are the only source of the resurrection story.

I’m interested in knowing where he encouraged rebellion against God.  That first Dt. passage talks about those who would encourage you to serve other gods.  I know there are instances where he was accused of encouraging others to break the law of Moses.  I’m not certain that that is the same thing.  He never said that anyone should turn away from God.

As far as the Olivet Discourse is concerned.  He predicted things that have not happened yet.  That’s not the same as predicting something that did not happen period.  Verse 34 does say “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place”, but then he goes on to say “of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone”.  How does one reconcile the two?

Does “this generation” refer to the people living at the time?  Not necessarily.  It is possible that the word generation could be referring to Christ’s spiritual offspring or the Jews or both.  That would reconcile your difficulties and would make the two verses compatible.

As far as Lewis “admitting to” Jesus’ failing as a prophet, doesn’t he begin that essay by saying “I have no claim to speak as an expert in any of the studies involved, and merely put forward the reflections which have arisen in my own mind and have seemed to me (perhaps wrongly) to be helpful. They are all submitted to the correction of wiser heads.”  So what he says is not the Gospel.

In any event, none of this means he’s not “from Yahweh” or not sent by Yahweh.  He was a man and limited, as he said in vs. 36.  He was perfect only in the sense that he was free from sin.  Assuming he prophesied incorrectly it only means he was incorrect.  Something even he admitted was likely to be the case.

1) Jesus must have actually existed in physical, earthly history, rather than in a spiritual or mythical realm.

I can say that this must be true in order for Christianity to be true in “any meaningful sense”. If there was no Christ then there can be no Christianity. Daniel has this to say about point one and following:

Over the years, I’ve become convinced that almost all the available evidence runs *against* every one of those points, with the exception of point 1, depending on how one frames the argument. Since that’s a LONG (like, several books long) conversation and is not relevant to my rejection of Christianity, I will leave it be.

This seems to indicate that even he accepts that most likely Jesus actually existed, though perhaps not as more than a man. This is a hard one to prove or disprove. A lot of the extra-Biblical references to Christ (not that there are many) are “tainted” in some fashion or another. We can’t be certain that the references in Josephus’ Antiquities weren’t added or changed later, for instance.

Books upon books upon libraries of books have been written on this topic. For my two cents the notion that Jesus existed as a real person isn’t much of a stretch and shouldn’t require any sort of extraordinary evidence. Personally I am comfortable accepting the Biblical writings as enough proof of that at least. What say you?

Here is what he had to say:

On the issue of what makes Christianity, I agree with you that the Resurrection is at the heart of it. But from my POV that’s one in a string of doctrines that must be true. For “Mere” Christianity to be true in any meaningful sense (i.e. in a sense that has theological weight by Christianity’s own standards):

1) Jesus must have actually existed in physical, earthly history, rather than in a spiritual or mythical realm.
2) Jesus must have been more than merely a man.
3) There must have been some mechanism by which his death and resurrection accomplished something supernatural in the relationship between God and men (ransom, substitutionary atonement, etc.) and that accomplishment should be identifiable (salvation from hell for some, for all, life abundant, etc.)
4) Jesus must have been sent by, or been part of, Yahweh (i.e. I don’t think the Trinity is strictly necessary for Christianity to be true, but Yahweh’s involvement is).
5) Jesus must be the messiah prophesied in the Tanakh (what Christians call the ‘Old Testament)
6) Jesus must indeed have been sinless and good, and his execution must have been unjust.
7) Jesus’s teachings must logically follow from and/or fulfill the law of Moses.
By extension, Moses must have actually lead an exodus and received a law.
9) Christianity, claiming as it does to be God’s ultimate, final, and true revelation, must proclaim wisdom which men couldn’t arrive at on their own, and/or must proclaim a doctrine unique to that point in religious
10) Yahweh must be both good and just, as well as nearly omnipotent and nearly omniscient.

I intend to go through each point he made and the problems he put forth with each point over the coming weeks/months. It’s certainly too much to cover in one blog post. So as a starting point, what do you think of his list? Is there anything you would add? It’s his list so I don’t know that we can take away, though if you have an objection to a certain point being on the list I’d like to hear it. On the face of them the only one I have an objection to would be nine, but I will go into detail when we get to that.

and I will be eternally grateful. I realize that the economy is making life interesting for everyone and if you can’t then hey, no biggie. I’m not gonna starve and the trip alone is worth it. Expect a thorough trip report and TONS of pictures either way.

The answer is not simple. There were a number of things wrong: too much time apart, not enough money, little or no support from family, an unsupportive husband.
In truth what had happened was we had lost sight of what marriage is supposed to be about. In all honesty, I don’t think that we ever really knew. You know that passion that you see in the movies? People rushing home after dinner and ripping each others clothes off? We had felt that way about each other and thought that was it. That was all there would be. We had truly lost sight of God in our relationship.
I do think that our love truly was deeper than that, after all we had managed to weather living apart for a number years and had developed a pretty strong friendship, but we were not looking any deeper, and certainly not living any deeper than that. I think our friendship in the end was what allowed us to stay together long enough to fix things…
We tried talking with our priest, and a counselor but it didn’t really work for us. We were both committed to changing things but we really didn’t know how. Ann suggested talking to a natural family planning couple. At that point I didn’t see anything wrong with the way we were doing things, but I was desperate and willing to try anything. I knew that contraception was against Church teaching but I didn’t know why, and really didn’t see anything wrong with it.
So we registered for NFP classes and the first meeting was rather awkward. To say there was a generation gap would be putting it mildly. We left that meeting feeling a bit confused. But, we took the materials home and looked over the program on our own and decided to give it a try. At this point I was willing to try anything. I know I keep saying that but, I don’t know how else to express how desperate I was to find something that really helped us heal. Things were starting to get better between us, if for no other reason than that we were both trying to make them better. But most of the things we were doing were very superficial.
What happened next was the thing that probably saved us. I am not going to say that I handed Ann the thermometer in the morning and our marriage was healed. That was really not the case. For one thing she was not going to get up at 5 a.m. with me to take her temperature. But what we did do was talk about the charting every day. It forced us to do the one thing we had stopped doing. We had stopped talking to each other about anything, and it forced us to do it every day. That led to talking about other things that were important to us, and that was what in the end saved us. By talking every day about something as important and intimate as the way your bodies worked, it gave us an opportunity to open up to each other. Which led to open and honest discussions about marriage. We had to do somethings that we were not used to doing like waiting, and not just do whatever we wanted, and so we spent time talking, and doing some things together. We even took dance lessons. No I am no better at it then I was when we started, and if you are out there sir, I still can’t hear the beat.
I don’t want you to think that we started using NFP and we were healed of all ills. We were not. We still have problems, but even during our roughest times we can talk about the charting everyday and it gives us something to share. It gives us a starting point.
The other important thing that came from this was that we learned some very important things about life, being open to it, and understanding what we had been doing by contracepting and holding ourselves back from one another. We were denying God His role in our lives and our marriage. Soon after we opened our hearts to this thinking, we felt a call to teach NFP so we could share the love we found with other people.
The teaching certification process showed us we were not alone. We found other couples who shared our beliefs. We started seeking out and finding priests and other clergy that were really supportive of the NFP lifestyle. And when finding those that were not supportive, we let them know they should be. It became like a crusade for us. And in the end it helped to draw us together.
We are no longer quite as zealous as we once were in sharing our beliefs. The wacky zealots often get tuned out and written off as nuts. Instead we have decided to focus on trying to share what we know with just one person or family at a time. Or one class at a time. Our hope now is that we will plant a few seeds here and there and that when folks are ready to embrace the truth, they will know where to start looking. Balancing the demands of our growing family and other obligations limits our outside commitments. This is one commitment we have decided is worth our time right now because of the changes we have seen in several friends who have come to share our beliefs. We hope that those of you hearing our words today will one day see the joy we do in living an NFP lifestyle.
If you would like more information about Natural Family Planning, please contact your local Couple to Couple League International teaching couple. You can find out more about Natural Family Planning or the organization that we belong to by going out to http://CCLI.org. There are classes going on almost all the time.
Thanks Jeff. I appreciate your openness. Those of you reading this should also check out Jeff’s podcast Great Hites and follow him on Twitter. He’s a good guy.