Ronnie W. Rogers, “Taking every thought captive…”

As you probably have heard, I am going to be a participant again in the Oxford Round Table this summer.  This time it will be held at Harris Manchester College in Oxford.  I will be presenting a paper entitled, “The Decline of Religion in Public Education and The Decline of Public Education”.  As a part of my presentation, I included an argument in support of the validity of “religious arguments” in the public marketplace of ideas like education, politics, law and morals.  Although I am not quite through with the argument, I thought I would share it with you before I leave on vacation. 

As you know, I am a strong proponent of Christians going into the public domain and presenting “the truth in love”.  Hopefully, the following will help you be better equipped to do that in even the most secular of forums. 

Secularists summarily dismiss religious arguments from the public square simply because they are religious, which they define as being associated with supernatural religion or anything non-secular.  In addition, an opinion is determined to be religious and therefore unworthy of public policy because it is either a part of a religious worldview, is derived from one’s religion, there is an element of faith involved, it is partly based on religion, or because it is merely consonant with religion. 

The context of the discussion concerning the appropriateness of religious arguments and their influence upon public policy may be considered from the vantage point of historical precedence, constitutionality, morality and rationality, or spiritual mandate for adherents.  The following is intended to addresses only moral and rational considerations.  Thus, the question is, “Is it moral to exclude religious opinions from a democratic public marketplace of ideas just because they involve an aspect of faith—a faith assumption?”  For the following reasons, my answer is NO.  (more…)

Francis J. Beckwith, a wonderful Christian apologist and former President of The Evangelical Theological Society, has taken his stand with the Roman Catholic Church.  I have just a few comments.

Dr. Beckwith is an outstanding Christian scholar, and from what I know about him, quite a gentleman.  Consequently, my comments are not intended to be an attack upon the man, but rather his decision and concerns I have with the ETS and Baylor University. (more…)

Christians’ opinions about war cover the continuum from pacifism to patriotism—from no war to any war for the homeland.  I think both positions are based upon selective use of biblical teaching.

It is true that God’s perfect world did not have war; however, it is incorrect to conclude from that truth that God is therefore against all war—e.g. a pacifist.  We know that God is not a pacifist since He actually led Israel into war e.g. Jericho, Joshua 6; Ai, Joshua 8.

It is true that war is a dreadfully horrid situation.  It is the most dreadful of conditions one can imagine except for tyranny and hell; unfortunately, the reality is that in a fallen world it is, at times, the only way to prevent would-be despots from imposing totalitarianism upon every man woman and child.  Tyrants view humans as a means rather than an end; consequently, it is perilous indeed to believe that such a malevolent mind could value humane agreements or treaties beyond what is self-serving. (more…)

When anyone sees two young men riding bicycles and wearing white shirts and black ties, he can be almost certain that the Mormon missionaries are spreading the message of Mormonism. 

Generally, Mormons are well educated and hard working as well as being fairly knowledgeable about Mormonism.  Often times, they are even more knowledgeable about how to confound the average Christian with seemingly inexhaustible quotes from their authoritative books—including the KJV—apostles and prophets of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.

I have read that as many as forty percent of Mormons come from a Baptist background. The reason for this is because that while Baptists are known for being “people of the Book” meaning the Bible, they are all too often inadequately familiar with “the people of the Book”; thus, they are fitting prey for the Mormon Missionaries who seek to convert Christians from being “people of the Book” to “people of the books”, which includes all of the Mormon writings.

In order to speak the truth to Mormons, and not be lured into the cult by their cunning ways, Christians must be armed with the truth of Scripture and an understanding of Mormonism’s doctrines, falsehoods and tactics. 

The following documents were designed to equip Christians to engage Mormonism with the truth. (more…)

Undeniable should not be taken to mean that no one denies Christ is God. One only has to look into the halls of academia, walk the corridors of cults, listen to the mantra of atheists and agnostics, or scan the pages of antiquity to find a plethora of individuals all too willing to deny that Jesus Christ is God incarnate; however, the deity of Christ is undeniable if the pages of Holy Scripture are allowed to speak.

Although one may not fully comprehend the declaration of Scripture concerning Christ being fully God and fully man in one person, it is undeniable that it is proclaimed in Scripture.  But even the lucidity of Scripture regarding the nature of Christ does not bridle the pride of cults in seeking to strip Christ of His deity and none more formidably so than the Jehovah Witnesses. 

They have gone to great lengths to explain away every Scripture that clearly teaches or implies the full deity of Christ.  They have done this in the voluminous writings of the Watchtower, their “New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures” and “The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures”. 

If you want to arm yourselves with the knowledge of what the original languages actually say concerning the deity of Christ and how JW have meticulously mistranslated all of the verses that teach Christ’s deity, I encourage you to study the following two documents. (more…)

Of course this is the age old question that is asked by virtually everyone at some time over the course of their life.  It may be a mother whose child died tragically, the philosopher who denies the existence of God or the solider who fought valiantly only to be rejected by the people he risk his life to protect. 

Some people look at the world full of natural calamities, war, hate, child abuse, divorce, innocent lives taken through the neglect of others…and the seemingly endless prospering from evil and conclude that there is no God; or if there is He does not care about me. 

The following notes were used in a presentation that I did on this subject, which I think will answer the problem of evil better than concluding that there is no God or that God does not care about you. (more…)

The following article is intended to demonstrate that the purpose of the construction of chapter two is not only to elaborate on chapter one, but to connect chapter one to chapter three, and thereby transition the narrative forward in the unfolding account of man.  Chapter two, as constructed, is essential to communicating the full understanding of man’s beginning in a perfect garden, followed by the fall, the curse, the flood…and the full chronicle of God’s grace and provision of redemption for man as revealed in the following pages of Scripture.  Therefore, the omissions and additions of chapter two compared with chapter one are based upon this expanded purpose, and when understood as intended, do not conflict with chapter one. (more…)

I am often asked about the co-existence of God’s sovereignty and man’s free choice.  recently, I briefly answered a couple of questions regarding this.

microsoft-word-sovereignty-free-will-question-2-2-07.pdf

I was asked to participate on a panel discussion at University of Oklahoma on the place of reason in the Christian faith.  These are the notes that I used (more…)

Free-agency-vs-determinism-4-10-06.pdf