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Tag Archives: Apologetics
The author
Micael Grenholm, a Swedish charismactivist, apologist and author.
Dealing with the Violence of Muhammad
Dr. Nabeel Qureshi
I’m currently reading Nabeel Qureshi’s bestselling book Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. It’s a really good read with solid arguments against Islam and for Christianity. It contains some serious challenges for devout Muslims.
Nabeel had been raised believing that the Qur’an is unchanged and perfectly preserved and that Muhammad was sinless and, in fact, the greatest man who ever lived. Both of those beliefs are actually very easy to disprove when you start looking into it.
I meet Muslims every week when I’m out evangelizing with the Pancake Church. Several of them have argued that Muhammad never killed anyone. One of them was even a dai who used to hand out Qur’ans to people on the streets and who claimed to know the life of Muhammad quite well. I was perplexed by this: how could he have missed that Muhammad fought at least 27 battles, or that he once commanded the beheading of 600 Jewish men?
Nabeel’s book has helped me understand this. Most Muslims never read the hadith or the early biographies of Muhammad’s life (which originated around 200 years after his death or later). Many of them don’t even read the Qur’an, they just recite it in Arabic during prayer. What they know about Muhammad’s life is based on what their Imams or parents tell them, and oftentimes those stories are very distorted and biased. Most Muslims genuinely believe them though and are for example convinced that all of Muhammad’s battles were defensive, something that the earliest collections of hadith denies. (more…)
The Historicity of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection
I hope you all have a blessed Good Friday! Over here this day is called “Long Friday” because people were expected to mourn and have a boring time all day, which made it feel much longer. I think the English name is much better – even if it undoubtedly is sad that Jesus had to die for our sake, it is at the same time amazing since we receive eternal life through His sacrifice.
Christianity stands and falls with the death and resurrection of Jesus being historical events. According to the apostles, these are not just doctrines: they are things that really happened, which they witnessed themselves. In this video, I defend the historicity of both Jesus’ death and His miraculous resurrection:
There are some competing theories on what really happened that Passover weekend 2,000 years ago. For a more detailed discussion on what they’re saying and what their problems are, please watch the video. What follows is a brief summary of each theory and my arguments agains them: (more…)
Muhammad’s Biggest Mistake
The Qur’an includes some embarrassing mistakes, such as describing Jesus’ mother Mary as the sister of Aaron and daughter of Amran (surah 19:27-28 and 3:35-36), which would make Moses the uncle of Jesus even though they lived about 2,000 years apart. Or there’s that passage that portrays the Christian belief in the Trinity as consisting of God the Father, Mary the mother and Jesus the Son (surah 5:116). Muhammad’s biggest mistake however was to argue that Jesus didn’t die on the cross:
And [for] their saying, “Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah .” And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain. (Surah 4:157)
In this lecture, Christian apologist Nabeel Qureshi shows why the Islamic claim that Jesus didn’t die on the cross is so absurd. If there’s anything we can know about Jesus, it is that He died on the cross. In fact, even the most skeptical and atheistic Jesus scholar will most likely agree that Jesus existed, that He was baptized and that He was crucified. Extremely liberal New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan has said: “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be”. (more…)
Seven Reasons Why God Exists
Yesterday my friend Andreas and myself made a video where we go through seven good arguments for God’s existence. They are as follows:
1. The universe was created.
2. There is something rather than nothing.
3. The universe is fine-tuned for life.
4. Morality is objective and not just subjective.
5. There are thousands of scientifically verified miracles.
6. Jesus was awesome and trusted by smart people.
7. Ask God to reveal Himself – you won’t be disappointed.
If you have half an hour, I really recommend you to watch the video. We had a fun time making it! Also, check out the apologetics page on this site for more resources.
Why Believing in God isn’t Like Believing in Santa
It feels like this article shouldn’t have to be written, and yet it’s not uncommon to hear people say “Believing in God is like believing i the tooth fairy or Santa”, “There are no more evidences for God than what there are for Santa” or “Believing in an all-knowing, magic Santa is ridiculous, so is belief in an all-knowing, supernatural God.” The idea is basically that since Santa doesn’t exist, God doesn’t exist, because they are too similar.
This doesn’t work, for many reasons:
1. Adults believe in God
Shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. While basically only kids believe that Santa exists due to their parents telling them so, the majority of the world’s adult population believe in some sort of Deity. Now, some atheists would say that’s because God-believers are like kids who just believe what someone else told them without checking for evidence, but that’s not just insulting but false; while nobody “converts” to belief in Santa Claus as an adult, several atheists have become theists (like C.S. Lewis, Greg Boyd, Anthony Flew) after examining arguments at hind evidence. Which brings us to point number 2:
Why Wealth is Wrong: The Moral Argument
Let us end our little blog series on why wealth is wrong. We have already looked at the mathematical argument, where we saw that it is impossible to keep wealth while giving the same wealth to the poor. Then we discussed the economic argument, which says that it is better to invest in goods and services beneficial for the poor rather than superfluities like luxury and entertainment. And last time, I brought up the Bill Gates argument, which states that it is the quantity of what we keep, rather than what we give away, that measures our generosity.
In each post we have started with an argument for why wealth is right, and we shall do the same in this post. The most common moral argument I hear when people defend wealth is: “Rich people have worked hard for their wealth, and deserve therefore to have it and do what they please with it.” It is often combined with “We only have a moral obligation for ourselves and our families, not for the entire world.”
The moral argument for why wealth is wrong, on the other hand, is brilliantly summarized by the apostle John: “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?” As I explained in my article about a Christian World Vision, Jesus-followers should without doubt apply the same moralic standpoint on non-believers as well. (more…)
Fundamentalist Non-Religion and the Limits of Apologetics
Church Outreach at a Come In, Go Out-meeting
At least one Sunday a month we have “Come in, go out”-meetings in my house church, where we firstly gather in my living room for some worship, prayer and Bible study, and then we go out on the streets of Uppsala to hand out coffee and evangelize. Yesterday, we had two remarkable encounters during the outreach phase.
A Kurdish man came, received a cup of coffee and then loudly announced “I don’t believe in religion! Not in Islam, Christianity or anything else!” Thinking that this was an atheist, I started to bring up some apologetic arguments for God’s existence, but they fell flat to the ground. “I do believe in a creator! But not in religion! It is impossible for humans to understand God and to have contact with him!”
Oh, so it’s a deist then, I thought. My friend Tryggve and I then started to question him on how the Creator is able to create an entire universe without being able to cure a disease or talk to those that He has created, but our attempts were unsuccesful as the man repeatedly just stated “It’s impossible! It’s impossible! You don’t understand!” I then started to testify about miracles that I have witnessed and how Jesus revealed Himself to me, but I could hardly finish a sentence before the man shouted “No! Those are just illusions! You don’t understand the truth!”
The man furthermore claimed that we all believe what we believe because of our upbringing, whereas I told him about the amazing church growth in Nepal, where millions have converted to Christianity during the last 30 years mainly due to visions, healings, signs and wonders. Again, his response was that it was impossible. I asked him how he knew that it was impossible, and he claimed that “everybody” knew miracles are impossible. When I pointed out that this was a lie since we Christians know that miracles exist, he again said that miracles are impossible and that God does not reveal Himself to people. (more…)
Resources on Evangelism and Apologetics
Pancake Evangelism
Hello charismactivists and all you others who follow this blog! I got two pieces of fresh news for you. The first being that the URL to this website has shrunk to the much simpler name of holyspiritactivism.com. All the old links are still functional and redirects to this site. God bless WordPress for making this transition so easy and convenient đ
Secondly, I’ve created two new resource pages on the website to equip your work for the Kingdom of God. One is about street evangelism which provides some tips on how to share the Gospel as well as arguments for why all churches should make public evangelism as common as Sunday services:
7 Reasons Street Evangelism Rocks
Why All Christians should Participate in Street Evangelism
Why Did the Early Christians Go to the Synagogues?
How to Make a Mainline Church Evangelize on the Streets
âGo Out, Come Inâ â a New (or Old) Type of Church Service
William Lane Craig on the Resurrection of Jesus
I have mentioned previously that I really enjoy the apologetic work of William Lane Craig, and regularly listens to his podcasts and lectures. I find Craig very intelligent, theologically sound and mostly quite easy to understand, and he oftens pinpoints thoughts and arguments that I have developed on my own. The other day I was listening to a talk he was holding in Southampton in the UK a couple of years ago on the resurrection of Jesus:
In the talk, which he has held multiple times in different locations, he defends five historical facts about Jesus and early Christianity which he argues that there are sustainable evidences for. These are:
- Jesus died on a Roman cross outside of Jerusalem
- He was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea
- On Easter Sunday his tomb was found empty by a group of women
- On multiple occassions individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus
- Jesus’ original disciples believed that he had rose from the dead, despite their having predispositions to the contrary
William Lane Craig on Miracles
William Lane Craig is in my view a very good Christian apologist and philosopher, and I regularly listen to his Reasonable Faith podcast. Even though I think he could use some more revival fires and hands-on mission work in the dirt, his intellectual defense for the Christian faith has undoubtedly helped many and led several people to the Lord. In a recent podcast, Craig and Kevin Harris discussed miracles and whether it is rational to believe in these. As a charismactivist, I find the topic highly interesting.
There are many different forms of philosophical and theological objections against the existence of miracles that all are quite easy to respond to. Cessationism is a Christian view which says that miracles did exist in the times of the Bible but then ceased when the Bible was written; ironically, this idea is not found in the Bible. Naturalism is the idea that the supernatural – obviously including miracles – does not exist, but this cannot be proven just as atheism cannot be proven. In fact, as long as the existence of God is not disproven and thus possible, it is entirely possible that miracles exist, as Craig points out in this short video:
In the podcast, Craig and Harris discussed another form of objections against miracles that is quite unique. Philosopher Hans Halvorson has argued that under no circumstances should one believe that a miracle occurs today: “for any event you experience in your life, no matter how strange, surprising, or wonderful, you should not believe that it is a miracle. Similarly, if somebody tells you that a miracle occurred, you should not believe him.” Yet, he also says “it can be rational to believe in the miracle stories of the Bibleâbecause the miracle stories in the Bible are relevantly different than the purported miracles of today.” This is some kind of secular cessationism – miracles don’t happen today, but it’s possible to believe in Biblical miracles because they’re different.
Listen to Craig’s and Harris’ response to Halvorson’s article below:
Why is there Something Rather than Nothing?
I was listening to a TED talk the other day on this topic by philosopher Jim Holt. In a detailed manner he described the puzzle of existence and explained why it cannot simply be “pushed back” one level by saying “big bang did it” or “the multiverse did it”, because the question is more fundamental than so: it is not just about why this or that happened but why anything happens, why there are whys.
As an atheist, he quickly also excludes God from the equation, saying that we then must explain what created God and that the universe is way to non-perfect and mediocre to have been created by an all-powerful, intelligent being.
What solution does Holt then himself have to the puzzle? I waited curiously to the end to hear it, but it was a bit of an anticlimax. Holt says that we can theoretically imagine three types of realities: (more…)
The Fine Tuning of the Universe and the Existence of God
Scientifically speaking, why the universe exists and why it looks like what it looks like is still a mystery. We don’t know why anything exists rather than nothing, or why energy-matter works as it does. Furthermore, there is still no explanation to why the universe’s force constants are as they are.
Christian apologist William Lane Craig, among others, talk about the universe being fine tuned for life, planets, stars and even atoms to exist, as you can see in the video above. The cosmological constant, Î, has a value of approximately 10â122, and if this would change by less than a trillion’s trillionth of a percent, the universe would either be sucked back into a black hole right after big bang or disparse so quickly that stars would never form.
Leonard Susskind, professor of theoretical physics at Stanford, explain the fine tuning of the universe in more detail above. Now, if the universe was caused either by nothingness or from something unintelligent and non-designing, as atheists would argue, the fine tuning becomes really hard to explain. Our universe where the cosmological constant and other constants like the gravitational constant are suitible for stars, planets and life to exist, is ridiculously unlikely. Susskind is not a theist due to his lack of faith in miracles, but he isn’t an atheist either because of his inability to refute the idea that a divine entity caused this complex universe, and so he remains agnostic. (more…)
Greg Boyd: Do All Roads Lead to God?
Greg Boyd
Pastor, author and MennoNerd blogger Greg Boyd has written an excellent piece on his ReKnew website that really brings up the sharp apologist in him. I deliberately share his whole text here because we believers have all things in common:
First, if itâs really true that Jesus is the way to Father and that no one comes to the Father except through him, (Jn 14:6) then it seems that no other religious leader or religious doctrine can bring us to the Father. âTheâ is a definite article, and it implies singularity. âA dogâ could refer to one of any number of dogs. But âthe dogâ can only refer to one particular dog. If Jesus is the Lord and Savior and the way to the Father, heâs the only one there is.
This isnât what most people in our relativistic, post-modern age want to hear. I, on occasion, give talks or participate in debates on secular university campuses around the country on issues related to the historical Jesus. Whenever I stand by the claim that Jesus is the only way to God I am confronted with a certain amount of hostility. To think thereâs only one way to God, I am often told, is arrogant, ignorant, intolerant and dangerous. Everyone knows these days that there are many ways to God, at least for people who are sincere in what they believe.
Whatâs odd is that no one has ever been able to provide me with cogent arguments defending this position. When Iâve asked for some, as often as not people have simply stared at me in disbelief, offended at the suggestion that truths this obvious would need supporting arguments.
Always beware when any of your beliefs are so âobviously trueâ you think they donât  need supporting evidence or arguments. This the way brainwashed people think!
The Kundalini Myth
Andrew Strom is a Christian who believes that large parts of the global charismatic movement is demonic. In his video Kundalini Warning, as well as in the book with the same name, he claims that false spirits have invaded ministries like Catch the Fire (the “Toronto Blessing” church), IHOP, Bethel Church, Morningstar, and more. These false spirits originate in the Hindu kundalini cult in India, Strom argues.
Now, you expect some strong evidence to support these radical claims, don’t you? Perhaps Strom have discovered some documents proving that before the Toronto Blessing began, pastors John and Carol Arnott went to India to receive kundalini teaching from a guru. Or perhaps Strom have made an interview with Bethel Church’s pastor Bill Johnson and found out that his greatest inspiration is Lama Rama Ding Ding from Uttar Pradesh?
Nope. On the contrary, none of these ministries have ever preached kundalini teaching, nor have they had any association with Hindu groups whatsoever.
So how does Andrew Strom then know that the spirit through which these ministries experience miracles isn’t the Holy Spirit but a kundalini spirit? The answer is of course: YOUTUBE VIDEOS! In Kundalini Warning, Strom shows us recordings from a kundalini meeting, where people according to him behave just like charismatic Christians. The guru lays his hands on people, and they start to shake, laugh, cry and praise the gods. Thus, when John Arnott lays his hands on people and they start to shake, laugh, cry and praise God, it is the work of the devil. If they are quiet, say amen and go and drink coffee afterwards, it’s the Holy Spirit, I guess.
(more…)
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