Essays
The Bible, Government and Christian Anarchy
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Kingdom Living, Politics
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
This “essay” contains my informal reflections on biblical texts that I believe support what some call “Christian Anarchy.” Consider it a very rough draft of a future project. I’ll argue that Kingdom people are called…
The Case for Annihilationism
Category: Essays
Tags: Afterlife, Essay, Heaven and Hell, Judgement
Topics: End Times
Annihilationism is the view that whoever and whatever cannot be redeemed by God is ultimately put out of existence. Sentient beings do not suffer eternally, as the traditional view of hell teaches. While I am…
Open Theism and the Nature of the Future
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View, Free Will and the Future
In this philosophical essay Alan Rhoda, Tom Belt and I argue that the future cannot be exhaustively described in terms of what will and will not happen, but must also be described in terms of…
The Hexagon of Opposition
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View
Throughout the western philosophical and theological tradition, scholars have assumed that the future can be adequately described in terms of what will and will not happen. In this essay I, Alan Rhoda and Tom Belt…
What is the Warfare Worldview?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
The warfare worldview is based on the conviction that our world is engaged in a cosmic war between a myriad of agents, both human and angelic, that have aligned themselves with either God or Satan….
Old Testament Support for the Warfare Worldview
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Essay, Old Testament, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Rebuking Hostile Waters Satan plays a minor role in the Old Testament relative to the New Testament. Instead, the warfare worldview in the Old Testament is expressed in terms of God’s conflict with hostile waters,…
New Testament Support for the Warfare Worldview
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Essay, New Testament, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Warfare in Jesus’ Ministry The theme of God striving to establish his sovereign will (his Kingdom) on earth over and against forces that oppose him is prevalent in the New Testament. In keeping with the…
Naturalism and the Historical Jesus
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
The quest for a “merely human” Jesus The various radical views of Jesus now being advocated by certain scholars and propagated through the press are buttressed by a number of different historical arguments. Some argue,…
Twenty Arguments Against Cameron’s “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
On March 4th, 2007, the Discovery Channel aired James Cameron’s much celebrated documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” The documentary basically gives a new spin on an old discovery. In 1980, a first century tomb…
William Wilberforce and the Possibility of “Christian” Politics
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Kingdom Living, Politics
Topics: Creation Care, Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
William Wilberforce was a passionate Christian who entered politics for the sole purpose of ending the slave trade. For more than thirty years he passionately and courageous labored to get Parliament to outlaw the practice….
How Details in the Gospels Support Their Historicity
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
*This essay is adapted from G. Boyd & P. Eddy, Lord or Legend? (Baker, 2007). For a fuller discussion, see P. Eddy & G. Boyd, The Jesus Legend (Baker, 2007). There are a number of…
Trapped in a Constantinian Paradigm
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Kingdom Living, Politics
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
A Response to James Smith’s Review of The Myth of a Christian Nation In my book The Myth of a Christian Nation I repeatedly call on Christians to engage in social activism. Followers of Jesus…
Is there Archeological Support for the Reliability of the Gospels?
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
One of the many tests historians typically submit documents to in accessing their historical reliability concerns the extent to which archeology supports or undermines the historic claims the document makes. So we need to investigate…
Corroborating Historical Evidence of the New Testament
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
One often finds skeptics arguing that if the events recorded in New Testament actually took place, we should expect to find others of the time mentioning them. Yet, they argue, we find nothing but silence…
Christians and Politics: What are the different views?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Politics, Social Issues
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
How involved should Christians be in secular politics? Throughout history, Christians have embraced a number of different perspectives on this issue. These perspectives can basically be broken down into three groups. First, some Christians believe…
Must wives submit to husbands?
Category: Essays
Tags: Christian Life, Essay, Marriage, Relationships
Topics: Relationships
The apostle Paul writes: Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the…
How should evangelicals “do” theology?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Theological Method, Theology
Topics: Theological Method
A central debate among evangelical theologians concerns the question of theological method. In other words, how should we “do” theology? All evangelical Christians believe the Bible is God’s inspired revelation. Thus, evangelicals agree that Scripture…
Response to the September 11th attacks
Category: Essays
Tags: Current Events, Essay, Free Will, Open Theism, Predestination
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues, The Problem of Evil
Was God Punishing Us? Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, many people have asked the question, “Why did God allow this to happen?” In response, some Christian…
Response to Bruce Ware’s “Defining Evangelicalism’s Boundaries: Is Open Theism Evangelical?”
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Responding to Objections
The following essay was written in response to Bruce Ware’s article, “Defining Evangelicalism’s Boundaries: Is Open Theism Evangelical?” Published in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, June 2002. Introduction I want to begin by…
A Brief Outline and Defense of the Open View
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View, Open Theism What it is and is not
While many Christians have found the open view of the future to be the most helpful and accurate view of God’s foreknowledge of the future based on biblical, philosophical, and experiential evidence, others have criticized…