This Saturday’s conference talk topics revealed

imagesFolks, there is still a bit of time left to order tickets for The Faith Explained Conference online at this link: http://goo.gl/Rdgl6M. After tonight, one can only buy tickets at the door.

Here are the topics of tomorrow’s presentations:

Cale Clarke: Jesus, Alive Forevermore: The key question is this: Did Jesus rise from the dead? If this didn’t happen, nothing else matters, as St Paul himself said: “If Christ is not risen, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith”. We’ll examine the evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

Dr. Craig Evans: Talk #1: How Old and How Reliable are the Bible Manuscripts? Many scholars say that one can’t trust the text of the Bible – that it has been hopelessly corrupted over time. Is this true? What do the latest discoveries tell us about the trustworthiness of the Scriptures?

Talk #2: Jesus and Archaeology: Learn how archaeology helps us to understand – and in many cases to confirm what we know of – Jesus of Nazareth.

Cardinal Thomas Collins: Discipleship: What does it mean to truly follow Jesus in the 21st century?

I can’t wait…see you there!

 

 

 

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Bible Study (Genesis) Thursday; The Faith Explained Conference this Saturday!

GenesisYou’ve no doubt heard about The Faith Explained Conference this Saturday, Sept. 27, featuring Cardinal Thomas Collins, Dr Craig Evans, and me. If you don’t have tickets yet, grab them at this link: http://goo.gl/Rdgl6M, but hurry, as online sales will end soon.

However, that’s not the only big event we’ve got this week: if you’re in the Toronto area and are looking for a Catholic Bible Study, join us this Thursday night at 7:30 at St Justin Martyr parish in Markham as we begin The Faith Explained Bible Study of the book of Genesis.

The Bible’s first book is endlessly fascinating, and we’ll be exploring a lot of important questions people ask about it. Just what does Genesis teach, for example, about creation?

One of the best Catholic scholars out there, Dr Brant Pitre, has put together a good shortlist of what we need to believe about creation, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). The axiom about Church teaching as an interpretation of Scripture holds here:

Fundamental Catholic Doctrines on Creation

1. Creation is a work of the holy Trinity (CCC 290-92)

2. The world was created for the glory of God (293)

3. God created the world from his free will and divine love (295)

4. God created the world ex nihilo (“out of nothing”) (296-99)

5. God created an ordered and good world (299)

6. God transcends creation and is present to it (300)

7. God upholds and sustains creation at every moment (301)

8. God’s providence guides creation towards its perfection (302-305)

9. God gives his creatures free will to share in his providence (306-308)

10. If Creation is good, why does evil exist? (309)

a. Reality of physical evil (310)
b. Reality of moral evil (311)
c. God can bring good out of an evil (312-314)

(source: BrantPitre.com)

For much more, join us for our series on Thursday evenings.

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William Lane Craig on the value of apologetics

UnknownThe Faith Explained Conference on September 27 (go here for tickets: http://goo.gl/Rdgl6M) is fast approaching, and I can’t wait! As we explore our conference theme of “Jesus: Yesterday, Today, and Forever” (Hebrews 13:8), we’ll be spending some time in the presentations on apologetics – offering a reasonable basis for Christian faith.

William Lane Craig is one of the foremost Christian apologists and philosophers active on the world stage today. Over at his Reasonable Faith site, Craig has posted a great talk that he presented at Calvin Seminary on the value of apologetics. Here’s a snippet:

Having sound arguments for the existence of a Creator and Designer of the universe or evidence for the historical credibility of the New Testament records of the life of Jesus in addition to the inner witness of the Spirit could increase one’s confidence in the veracity of Christian truth claims. On Plantinga’s epistemological model, at least, one would then have greater warrant for believing such claims. Greater warrant could in turn lead an unbeliever to come to faith more readily or inspire a believer to share his faith more boldly. Moreover, the availability of independent warrant for Christian truth claims apart from the Spirit’s witness could help predispose an unbeliever to respond to the drawing of the Holy Spirit when he hears the Gospel and could provide the believer with epistemic support in times of spiritual dryness or doubt when the Spirit’s witness seems eclipsed. One could doubtless think of many other ways in which the possession of such dual warrant for Christian beliefs would be beneficial.

So the question is: do natural theology and Christian evidences warrant Christian belief? I think that they do. In my published work I have formulated and defended versions of the cosmological, teleological, axiological, and ontological arguments for God’s existence and have also defended theism against the most prominent objections lodged by atheist thinkers to belief in God, such as the problem of evil, the hiddenness of God, and the coherence of theism. Furthermore, I have argued for the authenticity of Jesus’ radical personal claims and the historicity of his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances to various individuals and groups, and the unexpected belief of the earliest disciples that God had raised him from the dead. Moreover, I have argued, using the standard criteria for assessing historical hypotheses, that the best explanation of these facts is the one given by the disciples themselves: God raised Jesus from the dead.

The entire address, which is well worth your time, can be found here.

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Pope Francis and Diego Maradona

Yes, that Diego Maradona, he of the infamous “Hand of God” goal in the ’86 World Cup. Maradona was in Rome Monday night not simply to see his fellow Argentine Pope Francis, but to play, along with other futbol luminaries Javier Zanetti and Roberto Baggio, in a unique event billed as an “Interreligious Match for Peace”. Zanetti indicated that the “friendly”, played in front of a huge crowd at Rome’s Olympic stadium, was the “express wish of Pope Francis” who wanted to show the power of sport for building bridges of peace.

And this isn’t the only event Francis has dreamed up in this regard: the Vatican press office today spelled out more about an upcoming conference on sport:

On the occasion of the Interreligious Match for Peace, the Pontifical Council for Culture has organized a three-day seminar, called “Sports at the “Service of Humanity: From the ‘Results-Oriented Culture’ to a ‘Culture of Encounter”’. The seminar began on Monday, and ends on Wednesday.

In a video message for Brazil’’s World Cup Soccer championship earlier this year, Pope Francis said, “Soccer can and should be a school that promotes a ‘culture of encounter’. One that leads to harmony and peace between peoples.” With that idea in mind, the Pontifical Council for Culture, together with international Catholic sports associations, has organized a two-day seminar to coincide with Monday’s Interreligious Match for Peace to reflect on the theme of ““Sport at the Service of Humanity”.”

Organizers want the discussion to focus on sports as a means of encounter and dialogue rather than what it seems, in many cases, to have become: a lucrative business for a lucky few and a place for winner-takes-all competitiveness. In our highly consumeristic society, we must, they say, “replace the money and the medals with the human being”. One of the objectives of the seminar is preparing for the international Vatican Global Conference on Sport and Faith to be held in the Vatican in September 2015.

I don’t know about you, but I think this is brilliant on Pope Francis’ part. Sport is a huge cultural force that, if you’ll pardon the pun, is an overlooked arena for the furtherance of the Gospel. The soccer match, seminar, and conference is yet another creative evangelistic move by the Holy Father.

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Is that Craig Evans….or Tom Selleck?

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Here’s a blast from the past: Dr Craig Evans, looking very Magnum, P.I.-ish, delivering a lecture on Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, back in ’99.

Catch the good Doctor in person, along with Cardinal Thomas Collins and me, at The Faith Explained Conference in Toronto on September 27. Get your tickets at http://goo.gl/Rdgl6M while you still can!

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