Episode 2-5: A Conversation with Gay/Progressive Leader Brandan Robertson
I had a most interesting conversation on Thursday with Brandan Robertson, who is a leading spokesman for gay and progressive Christianity, on everything from the character of Jesus, to the nature of the Bible, to Christianity’s connection to slavery. Not much on homosexuality; it wasn’t one of our topics...
Disappointing: Seidensticker’s Atheist Critique Not Even Semi-Serious After All
It’s strange. You’d think an atheist as sure of himself as Bob Seidensticker would be more serious about it. Last week he blogged the question, “How Good Was Jesus if He Didn’t Eliminate Slavery?” I answered by explaining how the the principles Jesus’ taught cut every leg out from...
When Atheists Say, ‘I Read the Bible, That’s Why I’m An Atheist.’
Note to podcast listeners: The webinar I told you I would be on this weekend was postponed to next Friday due to an emergency situation with the webinar host. This week’s podcast is also delayed, as I’d been intending to use the webinar audio for that purpose. I saw...
Slavery in the Old Testament: A Biblical Overview via Logos 6
Very soon I’ll be opening up a group study of Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster?. Be sure to get a copy if you want to join with us. The idea to study Copan’s book was kicked off, courtesy of Keith, during conversations on slavery in the Bible....
If not the Bible, then how did we come to know that slavery is wrong?
That WWJTD’s response to my August 24 post, Ten Reasons the Bible Has It Right On Slavery, was scornful is hardly surprising. First, he caught me legitimately in an error: I misused the word “condone” where I meant “heartily affirm.” I should have said, “Note that the Bible does...
Ten Reasons the Bible Has It Right on Slavery
I read Keith’s comment #172 this morning with deep grief in my heart. He wondered whether there was something unique about Christianity that would cause it to be more liberating than other worldviews (especially Jainism). My grief is this: we Christians have not explained and demonstrated the most basic...
Seven Reasons To Give Old Testament Ethics the Benefit of the Doubt
Why do Christians give Old Testament ethics the benefit of the doubt? That question came up before Christmas, as a result of discussions here on slavery in the Old Testament. There is no denying that the slavery codes in the Pentateuch seem wrong, even barbaric, to 21st century readers...
Slavery and Freedom
Skeptics criticize the Bible for not condemning slavery, with some taking it to such an extreme level that they refuse to recognize the clear historic good that Christianity has done in freeing slaves. I think we need to think more deeply about slavery and freedom. Freedom has classically been...
On Christianity and Slavery: You Would Think…
It’s a funny thing about Christianity and slavery, as I said in a comment just now. You would think that if some person showed up on the scene in a society where slavery was totally ingrained—ingrained in moral philosophy, in law, in its conception of what it means to...
