Another debate, this one entitled Jesus: Messiah, Myth, or Legend?, was held at Macquarie University on March 16, 2010. The event was co-sponsored by the Christian group I’m part of, Macquarie University Christian Union, and the Macquarie University Atheist League.

The speakers were Dan Barker and Chris Forbes.
Dan Barker is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (USA), was a former teenage evangelical preacher and an ordained minister, but is now one of America’s leading atheists. Dr Chris Forbes is a Senior Lecturer in Ancient History, and Deputy Chairman of the Society for the Study of Early Christianity. His areas of interest include New Testament history, and the intersection of early Christianity and Graeco-Roman culture.

It was a really good debate, and very well attended by all sorts of people. Further, it didn’t suffer from the format in the same way as the previous debate. It was, however, incredibly one-sided. In my opinion, Barker was thrashed. This is one of the best defences of Jesus as a historical figure I’ve heard.

Have a listen, and see how what you think.

(Note: the debate goes for well over an hour, so the file is relatively large: ~70 MB.)

A debate on whether the Bible is an Acceptable Guide for Morality was held at Macquarie University on March 16, 2010. The event was co-sponsored by the Christian group I’m part of, Macquarie University Christian Union, and the Macquarie University Atheist League.

The speakers were Dan Barker and Greg Clarke.
Dan Barker is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (USA), was a former teenage evangelical preacher and an ordained minister, but is now one of America’s leading atheists. Dr Greg Clarke is co-founder and director of the Centre for Public Christianity. His PhD in literature was focussed on how theology is discussed in the arts and humanities. He is primarily interested in talking about the importance of Christianity for understanding the meaning of life.

It was a fascinating exchange, but left me feeling deeply sorry for Dan. It also suffered a little from the debate format. The speakers were at cross purposes most of the time, so I think it needed to be a little more conversational than it was. Have a listen, and see how you react.

(Note: the debate goes for well over an hour, so the file is relatively large: ~70 MB.)

For me, it’s hope.

Hope is the best thing—in the strong, Christian, sense, of being assured of what lies ahead—because I know that what is around me is not the sum total of existence, and my future is in the hands of one who is infinitely greater and more in control than I am, who loves me.

And it’s the worst, in that a bunch of people that I know and love dearly don’t have that hope.

That is, not feel like we need to quote verbatim every time we say something from the Bible.

A case in point is when, either in a prayer or a prepared talk, when someone uses part of one of Paul’s letters as an example. It often goes something like this:

Dear Lord, please continue to work in us by your Spirit, just as Paul prayed: ‘that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you can determine what really matters and can be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that |comes| through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.’

(cf. Philippians 1:9-11, HCSB)

That’s really very clunky. The pronouns are all mixed up, and it doesn’t sound right. What I hear is you transitioning very awkwardly from praying to reading the Bible out loud, and trying to pass the latter off as the former. Try something like this instead:

Dear Lord, please continue to work in us by your Spirit, so that our love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that we can determine what really matters…

Basically, relax about the exact words of Scripture. I’m not saying that we should be OK with quoting out of context, or able to twist the words to suit our situation. Rather, I say this because the New Testament writers were pretty similarly relaxed. They quote the Old Testament scriptures all the time, but they weren’t so worried about getting the exact words that they created ungrammatical sentences. They took the quote, understood its meaning and intent, and (sometimes) changed things around so that it worked in the sentence. An example:

But the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.”

Gen 12:7, HCSB.

… but He promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him…

Acts 7:5, HCSB

Or, for the nerds:

Τῷ σπέρματί σου δώσω τὴν γῆν ταύτην.

Gen 12:7, LXX (Rahlfs)

καὶ ἐπηγγείλατο δοῦναι αὐτῷ εἰς κατάσχεσιν αὐτὴν καὶ τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ μετ᾿ αὐτόν

Acts 7:5, GNT (NA-27)

The original verb form didn’t fit in the context of the sentence in Acts, so Luke changed it. The original meaning is clearly there, the intent is the same, but it works in its new context.

This might be something that we can learn from our charismatic brothers & sisters: learn to speak Scripture. My experience of those from a Charismatic/Pentecostal Christian background is that their language is drenched in Scripture, all the time. They clearly love the Bible, love God’s word, read it, and it’s gone and changed the way they express themselves (for the better!).

Get familiar with the language of the Bible, and use it to encourage, strengthen, and call people out on what’s going on in their lives.

But relax about it.

A minister is a machine for turning coffee into pastoral ministry.

I was in on that discussion.

To get things rolling, we’ve put together a site and a web forum as a means of helping people find out who other Christians are, chat, organise to meet up at tournaments, pray for one another, and a bunch of other things. It may go in different directions. We’ll see.

The aims that we chucked around were the following:

1. Get discussions running on any questions about the Christian faith
2. Get to know other Christians in the frisbee community.
3. Give each other some accountability during tournaments. (Not in a bad way, but you know)
4. Ask about how to handle situations that come up regarding conflicts between frisbee and faith
5. Introduce topics for study, ie. we could have continuous threads running about various sections of the bible
6. Have general fellowship with each other
7. Make online prayer requests… if that’s not too awkward for people.
8. Introduce new people to the concepts and beliefs of Christianity
9. Challenge each other to really show God’s love to everyone!

It’s kinda primarily aimed at those who play at a tournament level, but open to anyone in the frisbee scene. No, you don’t have to be a Christian to join (but understand that this is what we’re on about).

If this sounds like something you might be keen to be a part of, check it out. Sign up, contribute.

And let me know what you think.

Her:

Hi. A bit of a strange question… but do you take acid?

Me:

Uh… No.

End of conversation.