News

How Could a Virgin Give Birth?

by Solas

How could a virgin give birth to a child? This was asked at a live Q&A at Glasgow University and Andy Bannister shows how we’re faced with a choice of miracle: the birth of a baby without a man involved (but with a God behind the universe); or the miraculous birth of the universe from nothing, caused by nothing. Which is the harder to believe?

Share

Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.

Support

Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose “Digital Media Fund” under the Campaign/Appeal button.

“The Jesus God Shows Up” – Andy with Glen Scrivener

by Editor

Andy Bannister was Glen Scrivener’s guest on the latest SpeakLife’s “The Way Back” programme. It’s a fast-paced lively and revealing conversation, as you would expect with Andy and Glen in the same room! The pressing issue of the nature and meaning of our humanity is an especially important part of the programme, all of which you can watch below:

 

Ethics, Comparative Religion and ‘The Problem of Evil’ at Bede’s School

by Editor

An old friend of mine who I studied alongside at college called Savvas Costi is now the head of the Religious Studies department at Bede’s School, which is a large private school in East Sussex. He invited me and Sharon Dirckx, who often works with us at Solas, to join him for three days in the school.

We did a series of Religious Studies lessons, and lunchtime events – including an especially interesting open Q&A. Sharon did some work on God and Science with the students, as well as helping them to think through the question of God and suffering especially around natural disasters. These, of course, have been the themes of her last three books. Then I did a lunchtime event about human rights and where they are grounded, as well as an evening one entitled, “Does Religion Poison Everything?”. I also had the opportunity to lead a series of comparative religion classes.

As most folks around Solas know, I have been studying and comparing Christianity and Islam for years, especially the Bible and the Qur’an. So we did a session comparing the ways in which the two faiths explain the question of origins – how everything began. Then another one comparing what Christianity and Islam have to say about the problem of evil. We examined the contrasting ways that the faiths explain the presence of evil and suffering in the world. Obviously I can draw extensively on my background in Islamic Studies in those sessions and students are often struck by just how different the two worldviews are when you look in detail at how they apply to specific issues.

I was really impressed with something that one of the students (who wasn’t a Christian) wrote about the human rights session, for the school magazine too. He’d obviously enjoyed the meeting, and had really engaged deeply with the topic and wrote about it really well, so that was great.

Working in a school context is obviously very different from working in a church or a university Christian Union, in terms of what you can and can’t say – and the appropriate ways of presenting things. For example, in a school context you say, “As a Christian I believe that….. “ and there is a reasonable amount of freedom to explain the Christian perspective. What you can’t do is to simply state that something is true. So for example in the talk I gave on human rights, my big idea is that the concept of human rights doesn’t make much sense without God. In a church event, I might push that idea a bit further, but in a a school I might conclude by saying “what you believe about God is crucial because it affects things like human rights – because if you believe in God it is much easier to understand what we mean by ‘human rights’ and ‘human dignity’ than if you believe that we are just a random collocation of atoms”. And then let the students decide what they think. We also use a lot more interaction when working in schools than we would perhaps in a sermon.

The Bede’s students were really great when it came to interaction, discussion times and Q&A. In the classroom setting we’d speak for a few minutes and then ask the students to discuss and debate the ideas – and they were really interested and articulate. In the Q&A event, there were loads of really good questions from the 15-18 year olds who came along. Suffering, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and ‘why do you believe in God?”, all came up.

It was also interesting to observe what happens to a society which is losing its Christian worldview though. I asked one class, “Who here thinks that what Putin has done to Ukraine is wrong?” Every hand went up, So I asked them “why is it wrong?” And no one really knew. So I asked if some things are definitely right and other things definitely wrong – or are these things really just preferences? All but two students said that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are just personal preferences! Two lads had the courage to disagree and say that they thought that there might be more to it than that. The problem was that they all wanted to condemn Putin, but almost all of them had no basis other than preference for that stance.

It reminded me of a famous article by a secular philosopher in the magazine of the Ontario Teachers Association. He had done similar conversations about the basis of morality with High School students and wrote: “I fear we are raising a generation of moral paralytics, they know what they should believe but have absolutely no idea why they should believe it.” “What is going to happen when this lot grow up and have to face difficult decisions?” he asked.

Sharon Dirckx also really enjoyed the week at Bede’s School, and said,

“We had a really blessed time at St Bede’s school. I had the opportunity to take lessons on Am I Just My Brain? with sixth formers. In one lesson, a student began to see during the lesson that there was a lot more to human identity that he’d initially realized. This student then proceeded to come to many of the lunchtime/evening talks. St Bede’s is quite a secular environment but also one where several students were asking the big questions of life. It was a privilege and joy to be there.”

PEP Talk with Sam Allberry

by Solas

Kristi and Andy chat with pastor and author Sam Allberry about the primacy of Jesus in our gospel conversations. Sam offers his thoughts on evangelism with LGBT friends, the balance of truth and narrative, and the importance of deep Christian community.

With Sam Allberry – PEP Talk

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Amazon Music
RSS Feed

Our Guest

Sam Allberry is a pastor based at Immanuel Nashville and Fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He is the author of a number of books, including Is God Anti-Gay? and 7 Myths about Singleness. Find out more at samallberry.com

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

Jesus and The Questions of Our Age

by Editor

It was great to travel down to Selkirk Baptist Church in the Scottish Borders to speak at their morning service about Jesus and the Questions of our Age. We looked at the way the questions Christians are asked, and the objections we face are changing fast today. Hard evidential ‘truth-questions’ are asked less often than they once were; but questions such as Who am I? (identity), What am I for? (purpose) What am I worth? (value) and Can I make a difference? (Agency?) are increasingly common. The prologue to John’s gospel contains a lot of helpful material for answering these vital questions. The whole service is available in the video clip above – but the talk starts at 37 minutes in.

All Things to All Men!?

by Editor

The saying, ‘he’s all things to all men’ has come to mean someone who tries to please everyone, because they have no principles. Originally though, when the apostle Paul coined the phrase it meant something quite different. In 1 Corinthians 9, he wrote:

19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (NIV)

In these famous words, Paul sets out key principles for us as we seek to share the gospel of Jesus.  Solas sent Gavin Matthews speak on this whole chapter, for Hillbank Church in Dundee recently. You can watch the message below:

What Is Irreducible Complexity?

by Solas

We can often assume science has completely mapped out the evolutionary history of the development of life on earth, from atoms to complex organisms, erasing the need for a Creator. Yet, much of the scientific data point to molecules and systems that don’t seem to fit into this theory of beginnings. As part of a talk on “God and Science” at Glasgow University Christian Union, Steve Osmond was asked to explain the concept of “irreducible complexity”.

Share

Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.

Support

Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose “Digital Media Fund” under the Campaign/Appeal button.

Undercurrents: Clint Eastwood’s Western Apocalypse, “Pale Rider”

by Editor

In 1985, Clint Eastwood re-entered the world of ‘Westerns’, producing, directing and starring in Pale Rider – an apocalyptic re-telling of the classic story of underdogs, oppressors and the outsider who rides into town to bring justice. Warning: This article contains plot spoilers!

The setting is Carbon Canyon in California during the Gold Rush of the 1880s. All the rest of the gold-seams in the area are owned by the LaHood mining empire, but one plucky village of settlers are holding out on the legality of their claim, while panning for nuggets. Carbon Canyon is a community of decent people, small families working hard to make a home in the wilderness, living in small dark cabins and working the creeks. LaHood’s land is mined by massive hydraulic schemes, washing vast amounts of soil down the valley to expose the gold beneath. These schemes are inhabited by gun-slinging thugs who enforce company law and turn the land into “hell”.

The opening scene is almost a pastiche of the vintage western. The camera cuts between scenes of the peaceful villagers working the land, with the horses of their attackers rushing across the plains towards them – framed by a backdrop of stunning snow-capped mountains. It soon becomes clear that the raiding party are not there to kill much beyond cattle and pets, but to harass the people off their land, to let the corporation in to blast the canyons for gold.

Some good actors are deployed to put all this together by Eastwood. Corporate bad-guy Coy LaHood is played by a suitably grasping Richard Dysart, and his noxious son Josh by Chris Penn. The central family in the village are key to the story-line and are engagingly portrayed by Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgrass and Sydney Penny. And it’s Penny’s character, the fourteen-year old Megan Wheeler who is responsible for turning the tide of the narrative.

When the mob run into the canyon, Megan is reading aloud from the one book kept in their cabin, the New Testament. As hoof-beats approach outside, she solemnly intones the words of Revelation 6; John’s vision of the apocalypse and it’s four horsemen. These are powerful words which have gripped imaginations and divided interpreters for millennia. After the attack, as pressure builds on the villagers to flee, young Megan prays to God – asking for a deliverer, to rescue them from cruelty and injustice.

And here’s the real bite of the story. Will God answer, or is he indifferent to our suffering? Is God an absentee-landlord in his creation, the first-mover who set things in motion and has left the stage; or is he an active judge over the affairs of people? Clint Eastwood seems clear about God in this respect. A rider on a Pale Horse appears,  an other-worldy figure, who wears a clerical collar. Yet this man is not a messiah who through miraculous powers turns the hearts of all the wicked to goodness. LaHood doesn’t become a figure like Zacchaeus in the gospels who’s encounter with the divine turned him from corruption to benevolence. This man, known as  “the preacher” comes with superhuman power, not to raise the dead, heal the sick and feed the hungry – but to wreak havoc and death wherever he goes. He is in fact, the fourth horseman of the apocalypse: death.

In the biblical text that Megan intones, the heavenly vision is one in which mysterious seals are opened by Christ and as a result God’s justice is unleashed upon the sins of mankind. The rider on the pale horse doesn’t come to redeem but to destroy. In Eastwood’s movie this leads to a story of deliverance where the Pale Rider intervenes to release Megan from attempted gang rape led by LaHood’s son. The rider refuses to be bought off by LaHood, leading inevitably towards a great final showdown, a classic Western shoot-out in the dusty streets of a frontier town. LaHood’s hired lawmakers, hardened killers all, face-down against the Pale Rider. It’s the O.K. Corral meets the battle of Armageddon where good versus evil is a battle fought in lead.

Pale Rider received very positive reviews on release and has gained cult status subsequently. But what’s the attraction of this simple plot in a well-worn genre?

The first is that we identify with the vulnerable, honest people trying to work out a living in the face of power structures which do not operate fairly. We instinctively understand that the poor suffer the world-over from lack of resources and access to justice, which all too often is traded like a commodity. The film taps into a very profound sense of outrage at the way the world so often is, that we all share.

The second is that it presents a narrative in which deliverance comes to us from outside ourselves, and arrives in town like a stranger to set things right. Presented with the circumstances of our own lives, the vulnerabilities of those around us, the cruelty and unfairness of life, we also face the reality that the kind of change the world needs is not incremental but apocalyptic. And quite beyond the capacity of ordinary people like us, working in offices or fields – or panning for gold can ever accomplish. Perhaps we instinctively know that the justice we crave cannot be built, but must be brought to us by a deliverer.

Then, there is an almost spiritual satisfaction in the thought that God will one day unleash justice upon the earth. He does it here in Carbon Canyon, in response to the prayer of a young girl, who is poor, powerless and vulnerable. If God doesn’t only do things like feed the five thousand, but also brings judgement, then perhaps Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-next and the rest will face a divine judiciary, and justice will be served. We’re provoked with the thought that if one girl’s prayer from a log cabin can bring forth death riding on a Pale apocalyptic horse to unleash divine wrath like an avenging angel; then God will one day answer the prayers of millions and usher in His kingdom  where perfect justice will prevail.

It’s always interesting to see who people identify with most in a movie. I suspect my teenage daughter might see the plot through the eyes of young Megan. I’d worry about anyone who identified most with “preacher” – death on horseback! Many of us might most want to align ourselves with Hull Barrett, the plucky gold panner who is inspired by ‘the preacher’ to stand and fight, defend his family and crusade for justice, dignity and rights against the odds. We do like to think well of ourselves generally, don’t we?!

But what if in fact our lives look more like the majority of the cast of Pale Rider, the workers on LaHood’s mines? They don’t direct the malevolence, they are perhaps not deeply committed to the system, nor enjoying much of its benefits – but are nevertheless fully implicated in it. What if we have contributed to making the earth into a suburb of “hell”, bought cheap goods made in sweatshops, cheated our neighbour, or treated others with varying degrees of cruelty? The sobering reality is that the Pale Rider – who in the biblical account is death – will arrive with an appointment for us all. According to the frame of reference of Pale Rider, the man on the horse will not come to deliver us and help us find gold; but gun us down in the street. The ‘I was only following orders’ defence seems to fall on deaf ears when the Pale Rider dynamites the house the mineworkers occupy, as much as it did at Nuremburg.

The question is, are we righteous, and when God does execute justice which side will we be found on? Ultimately, are we the noble gold-panners of Carbon Canyon, or implicated in the crimes of the machine? Profoundly, we’re aware that while we aspire to the former, our lives are deeply tinged by the latter and that in our state of darkness we should perhaps fear the reaper after all.

Clint Eastwood’s film is a riveting re-telling of the apocalyptic tale of the judgement of God upon the wicked, sent via a ghostly avenging angel. That is of course, one major thread of the biblical story. In Eastwood’s world the righteous are saved and the sinners are damned. With one exception. Step forward a man called “Club”, played by all 7 feet and 2 inches of Richard Kiel (who most readers will recognise as Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker). Club enters the story as a company man, a hired thug there to beat up the preacher and enforce LaHood’s brutal despotism. Yet – he changes sides, and aligns his sympathies with the innocent victims of Carbon Canyon. He is the one character in the whole story who is redeemed and forgiven.

As such, “Club” is the one the character who we can perhaps truly identify with in Pale Rider. We are not completely pure and virtuous like Hull Barrett. We are tainted by our own faults and our complicity in the system which is so often cruel and unjust. We are not completely innocent like young Megan either, in that while we are often victims, in truth we are as much sinners as we are the sinned-against.

Perhaps few of us are like Coy Lahood, so deeply committed to greed that we will do any evil in order to gain the next piece of gold. Yet we are a bit like “Club”. He finds himself in the midst of a wicked system, he finds himself complicit in things he finds unethical, he looks within himself and around himself and comes to an awakening that things are not right. He alone in this movie shows a sign of what a genuine ‘preacher’ might call ‘repentance’. Thankfully he does so before the credits roll, and the end is called and the final shots are fired.

It means that Club is the character in Pale Rider’s Californian apocalypse we need to emulate before our narrative ends and our credits roll. To some people that might sound rather apocalyptic. But in Pale Rider, Clint Eastwood is consciously bringing an apolcalyptic tale to a specific time and place, and asking us to imagine what it might look like in ours. He pictures divine justice arriving to both liberate and destroy – and we cannot help but ask where we stand before it.

Ethics in Edinburgh!

by Editor

We’ve had a long association with Edinburgh Theological Seminary (ETS) and it’s always really enjoyable to be able to teach on their apologetics programme. I was back there recently because they invited me to contribute to their ethics module. Of course in the contemporary cultural climate, Christian ethics are at the centre of apologetic debates, and some hostile critiques of our faith; so it’s important to address some ethical topics from an apologetic perspective.

The first topic we looked at was, “Can We Be Good Without God?” That’s a significant subject to work through because there is often some push-back from the atheist community around this question. They frequently misunderstand the Christian perspective here. What they sometime hear us saying is that atheists can’t live good lives, because they don’t have God. That is terribly unfair, and Christians should expect some abuse if they go around suggesting that they are better than other people… because that is not the argument we should be making!

In the class with the ETS students, we looked rather at the question, “is there such a thing as “good” if God doesn’t exist?” If we are just atoms and particles in motion, then all we have ultimately is preferences. So, I might like things arranged one way, someone else might like them arranged another way, but we don’t really get to attach labels like “good” and “evil” to them without grounding those ideas.

So, with the students we walked through some of the ways in which atheists have attempted to construct some kind of foundation for morality, appealing to things like evolution. But evolution doesn’t select for morality, (it might occasionally), but equally it might select for things we consider to be totally amoral.

We landed on the idea that we instinctively feel that we do live in a moral universe – and that if that is the case, then that is a very powerful existential argument for God. It’s actually something we’ve looked at a few times on the Solas website. It came up in The Beginner’s Guide to Apologetics, here and here, in our Short Answers video series and in a stand-alone article.

One of the reasons that we teach in Bible Colleges like GLO and ETS is that we are passionate about seeing the next generation of pastors and ministers graduating well-equipped to talk to their congregations about how to share their faith well with their friends. So, getting the next cohort of ministers apologetically equipped is very important and not all Bible colleges are doing that yet.

We had about twenty students in the ethics module at ETS, most of whom were trainee ministers in the Free Church of Scotland. But ETS trains more widely than that these days, pastors for places like the FIEC, and training people for other roles within the church other than the pastorate. It’s important work, and so it’s great to be in partnershp with ETS in it.

Bob Ackroyd, Systematic Theology leader at ETS commented:

“‘Can we be good without God?'” Many in contemporary Scotland would clearly answer question, ‘Yes, of course!’ Final year students at ETS are exploring ethical issues in their Practical Theology course. We were delighted to have as our guest lecturer, Andy Bannister from Solas. Andy engaged us with philosophy, comparative religion, and contemporary culture to consider how we might address and answer that question from a biblical standpoint. Andy has worked with ETS for many years and is a valued friend and colleague. Andy is great at getting us to listen well, think deeply and speak wisely.”

PEP Talk with Kiri Jane Erb

by Solas

This week on PEP Talk, Andy and Kristi chat with Kiri from British Columbia. She shares her story of conversion from a non-Christian household and journey through different cultural landscapes ministering to young people. An emphasis on discipleship shows how the gospel touches our deepest longings, sufferings and hopes.

With Kiri Jane Erb – PEP Talk

Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Amazon Music
RSS Feed

Our Guest

Having Co-Lead Soul Edge Ministries (Canada) for over 12 years, Kiri Jane Erb has had the privilege of investing into hundreds of young Christian leaders, equipping them for resilient church leadership. With a multidisciplinary approach to apologetics, she is passionate about the clarity, beauty and relevance of the Gospel message gaining traction in human hearts. Her upcoming novel carries this same heartbeat, nestled in historical fiction. She is currently completing her MA Systematic and Philosophical Theology at the University of Nottingham and is also an adjunct speaker for Apologetics Canada.

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?

by Editor

Christians around the world this weekend are celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus. The Resurrection of Jesus is for Christians the most important event in human history. If the Resurrection is merely fiction, then the whole of Christianity falls apart. It becomes a foolish religion, worse than useless, in fact.

This article looks very briefly at some of the historical and rational evidence for the Resurrection.

Let’s start with a piece of rational evidence hidden “in plain sight”. Christianity has more followers today than any other religion on Earth. However, we know that there was a time when there were no Christians on this planet. So, why are there Christians today? Rational cause and effect tells us that at some point in the past, something must have happened (some cause) that had the effect of compelling some people who weren’t Christians to become Christians.

Now this might sound like stating the obvious (and I suppose it is), but for all of us – atheists, agnostics, Christians, those of other faiths – this provides a direct challenge. Cause and effect tells us that the start of Christianity is a historical event. As a result, when and why Christianity started can be studied like any other historical event. Historians of all faiths and no faith have been doing this very thing for about 200 years. The key point we must not lose sight of is that “something happened” to cause all the Christianity we see all around us today. Something happened to start it all in the first place – and given all the historical research that’s been directed towards finding out “what happened”, all of us can come to your own, informed view of what we think happened.

So what do today’s historians think “happened”. The consensus view is that the disciples of Jesus saw Him alive (though in what sense is debated) after His death. If you look hard enough on the internet you may find other theories, but this is the consensus view of professional historians who study this period of history.

So, given the above, the issue boils down to, what was it the first disciples saw. Was it the Resurrected Jesus or something else – or did they make the whole thing up.

One explanation could be: it’s pretty easy to appear to your disciples after your “death” if you didn’t die in the first place. I covered this in the companion piece to this article on “The Crucifixion” and there we concluded that it’s most likely that Jesus was crucified and died.

If Jesus died we are left with three possibilities other than the disciples actually seeing the risen Jesus.

First Possibility: Did they see a ghost?

For us in the “rational” 21st century, this is about as hard to grasp as seeing the Resurrected Jesus. However, the descriptions of a “physical” Jesus in the written sources, that could eat, drink and be touched doesn’t sound like a spectral appearance.

Second Possibility: Were they subject to some form of hysteria?

The followers of Jesus would have been very distraught after Jesus’ death. That can make people a bit irrational and unstable. Is it possible that seeing Jesus alive again was all in their minds? Mass hallucination brought on by fevered imagination and wish fulfillment?

In response to this, our knowledge of psychology tells us that hallucinations are individual occurrences. They aren’t something that happen to groups of people at the same time. If you don’t believe me type “hallucination” then “mass hallucination” into Google (or any other search engine) and see what you get. When I did this for this article, I got articles on the medical condition when I typed “hallucination”. When I typed “mass hallucination” I was directed to various websites dealing with “mass hysteria” (which is a thing) rather than mass hallucination (which clearly isn’t a thing).

Also, there are multiple appearances of Jesus over a period of over 5 weeks to different people and to the same people more than once to be explained.

You could just about imagine a situation where a small group of people grieving in a room together might work themselves up into such an emotional frenzy that they all were able to convince each other that they saw the person they were grieving over.

Could any of the appearance events fit with something like this?

If I’m honest, the circumstances of one or two could. Although, there is nothing in the written sources hinting that anything like this actually occurred. For the rest, the actual appearance descriptions just don’t fit with some form of hysterical event.

For example:

  • Two disciples are walking to a village called Emmaus in broad daylight. They are chatting when suddenly Jesus appears with them.
  • The disciples are out catching fish on the Sea of Galilee, as they come ashore, Jesus is waiting for them and has cooked breakfast for them.
  • Jesus appears to 500 people at the same time.

When these are studied and dissected, there is little or no evidence to suggest that “hysteria” played a part in the appearance events experienced by the disciples. 

Third Possibility: Did the disciples just make it all up?

It’s an important fact worth repeating, that nearly all of the first disciples met violent deaths proclaiming Jesus as the risen Son of God. They just wouldn’t have done this if they had made the whole thing up.

So, as I mentioned above, today’s historians (Christian and non-Christian) specialising in 1st century near Eastern history are of the majority view that the disciples “saw” Jesus after His death. So, “in what sense” did they see Jesus?

  • It’s unlikely they saw a ghost.
  • It’s unlikely they suffered some form of hysterical event.
  • It’s unlikely they made it up.

In the rational 21st century, it’s difficult to get our heads around the idea of a man dying and coming back to life again three days later. It’s pretty implausible. But… historians tell us that the disciples “saw” Jesus after His death.

By deduction, it would seem that the least unlikely explanation is that they actually saw Jesus alive after His death. And what’s more, the other explanations look even more “implausible” than this.

Is any of this Important to You Today?

What we haven’t discussed here is Jesus’ message – and what the implications of it are for all of us. There’s isn’t space to do that here either! However, consider this. If Jesus is the Son of God, if Jesus is real, then His message is real too and how you respond to it has consequences for you in this life – and beyond.

In the last 2,000 years, countless lives have been positively transformed by Jesus’ message. If you truly accept Jesus’ message, it’s always a positive transformation.

So do you not owe it to yourselves to weigh up the masses of historical and rational evidence not covered in this article* and decide what you think? If you do this and decide Jesus is real, do you not owe it to yourselves to find out what His message is and open yourself – at least to the possibility – of experiencing that radical positive transformation?

A great place to start looking for evidence for Jesus is where you’re reading this article, the Solas website, by clicking here. Another place to look is www.jesustheevidence.com

Questions of Gender and Sexuality in Forres

by Editor

It was great for the Solas team to be back in Forres Baptist Church for a follow-up Confident Christianity event, focussing on the controversial subjects of sexuality, gender and the gospel. These are topics which are important for many reasons and which the church has not always been good at responding to, or talking about. For a start, there are many LGBTQ+ people who believe that gospel and the church is not for them – whereas the welcoming, gracious message of Jesus is for everyone. Then there are folks who will push-back against the gospel because the ethical standards taught in the Bible are so at odds with so much of contemporary western culture. The question we looked at together was, how we can share the Bible’s message with both grace and truth.

Our guide through these complex and sensitive subjects was Dr Ben Thomas, who came up from Oxford to speak. Ben has spent many years researching issues of the Bible, the gospel and sexuality, and has come to orthodox/traditional conclusions which he has lived out himself. He spoke with great sensitivity, making it clear that while discipleship is a challenging thing for all of us, God’s grace in Christ is the very best thing for any of us to experience.

In his first session, Ben shared his testimony and then looked at issues of sexuality. In particular he focussed on the Bible’s view of sex, and how we can share the gospel faithfully and wisely with LGBTQ+ friends, family members and colleagues. The second session was more complex, as Ben navigated the issues of gender and gender identity. His guide through the current terminology in these debates was very helpful and insightful. What shone through these sessions was that God’s transforming grace is what everyone needs, regardless of their identity in any aspect of their lives. The gospel of Christ is indeed good news for everyone!

Jon Mackenzie, pastor at Forres wrote:

“It was great to welcome Dr Ben Thomas and Gavin Matthews up to Forres to hold an evening Solas event with controversial subjects! We spent the night looking at how to share the gospel with LGBTQ+ people and how to approach transgender issues which are becoming more frequent in our churches. It was a very welcoming and informative night with a Q&A session that could have run on past midnight! This Solas event was a superb way for us to tackle difficult subjects with clear biblical guidance, open discussion and lots of useful information. This is the second Solas event we have run as a Church and they have drawn a lot of interest from our fellowship and others, and we look forward to running more in the future.”

In John’s gospel he described Jesus coming into the world like this: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14). Grace and truth were abundantly evident in Ben’s really helpful guide through these sensitive subjects in Forres. Holding firmly to to biblical truth but also commending the gracious, transforming gospel of Christ, which promotes human flourishing on the other – was the hallmark both of the talks and the Q&A session at the end. There were many really insightful and helpful contributions from the floor – which were hugely appreciated by all.

Doesn’t the Bible Contradict Science?

by Solas

Don’t the Bible and science clash with each other? As part of a live Q&A at Glasgow University, Andy Bannister shows how things are much complicated than that soundbite. And with the help of one of the most famous atheist scientists of the 20th century, Andy reveals how in some cases, the Bible has been ahead of the science for thousands of years.

Share

Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.

Support

Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose “Digital Media Fund” under the Campaign/Appeal button.

Was Jesus Really Crucified?

by Editor

Good Friday is here again. Christians around the world will be marking this day by contemplating the significance of the crucifixion of Jesus for our sins on this day nearly 2,000 years ago. A question often asked today is: “It was an awfully long time ago, how can we be sure that Jesus was really crucified and killed?”

This interestingly though, isn’t a question raised much by historians specialising in the first century. Even historians sceptical of the events of the resurrection are agreed that Jesus was a real person and that He was killed by crucifixion. For example resurrection sceptic and New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman says of the crucifixion:  “One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea [Pontius Pilate]…”

Why are historians so confident this happened?

One reason is the way crucifixion was viewed in the ancient world. It was seen as a deeply shameful way to die – reserved for the worst criminals and insurrectionists. The fact that this shameful manner of death is such an integral part of the Christian story makes it all the more likely that it happened. The argument goes that if early Christians were making it all up they would have chosen a more honourable way for Jesus to die. That Jesus died by Crucifixion would have made it harder to win converts to Christianity in the early years. “How could the Son of God die in such a shameful manner” Christians and non-Christians would have thought.

“Christ killed by Rome”, appears in a number of non-Christian sources dated to reasonably shortly after Jesus died. For example, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote of Nero’s persecution of Christians in Rome for the great fire in AD 64 to divert attention away from himself:

“Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”

There is enough of this type of circumstantial evidence to convince historians that Jesus’ crucifixion is an actual historical event occurring in either AD 30 or AD 33. I personally favour 3rd April 33 for historical Roman political reasons. Pontius Pilate was an appointee of Sejanus (the head of the Praetorian Guard in Rome – played by a blond curly haired Patrick Stewart in the BBC’s “I Claudius” incidentally) who had been placed in control of the day-to-day running of the Roman Empire by the Emperor Tiberius. In AD 30 this arrangement was still in place. By AD33 Tiberius had decided that Sejanus had Become too powerful and had executed him and his family. This understandably made Sejanus’s appointees particularly keen to show their allegiance to Tiberius. The Jewish leaders say to Pilate at Jesus’ trial: “If you let this man [Jesus] go you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar” (John 19: 12). After they say this, Jesus’ fate is sealed.

Also on the evening of 3rd April 33 there was a lunar eclipse where the moon turns a red colour This phenomena is called a “blood moon” – an ominous sign to Jewish people at that time (see Joel 2: 31, Acts 2: 20, Revelation 6: 11-13).

Of course you can find on the internet all kinds of alternative theories about whether Jesus existed and if He was crucified. However, I think it’s fair to say these theories really have no credibility amongst historians that specialise in this period of history; secular and Christian alike.

So it more credible to believe that Jesus lived and was nailed to a Roman cross. But can we be certain that Jesus actually died there? Indeed it would be pretty easy to appear to your disciples after your “death” if you didn’t die in the first place! Could He have been taken off the cross before He died, then revived later?

At first glance, this doesn’t look too implausible. We’ve all heard of people who have been pronounced dead – then to everyone’s surprise revive some hours or days later in a mortuary or hospital. Like Walter Williams opposite in Alabama in 2014. This kind of thing can occasionally happen today. What about 2,000 years ago when medical knowledge was more primitive? Could the Romans who executed Jesus have made a mistake?

Alternatively, was the whole thing faked? Was the crucifixion somehow stage managed as some form of diversion to allow Jesus to escape? Historians and archaeologists can tell us quite a lot about Roman, torture and execution techniques. I won’t go into the gory details here. You can find it all on the internet if you’re interested. What our knowledge of Roman torture and execution tells us is that it was very unlikely that anyone survived a Roman crucifixion. We know of some examples from other historical sources that it happened – but it was a very rare occurrence.

Even if Jesus could have been taken down before He died and the nails taken out of His wrists and feet – He would have been unable to use His hands and He wouldn’t have been able to walk. It’s very unlikely He would have ever made a full recovery.

Also, He wasn’t executed by amateurs. Roman soldiers carried out the execution. They may not have had 21st century medical knowledge – but they knew exactly how to kill someone. That’s what they were trained to do. They were professional, career killers.

Also, He was executed on the orders of the Roman governor of Palestine, Pontius Pilate. Some have tried to argue that perhaps the soldiers had been bribed by persons unknown not to kill Jesus. Instead they were to stage-manage a fake execution.

Firstly, this would have been pretty difficult, as it was a public crucifixion (as all crucifixions were. That was the whole point – to act as a warning to others not to disturb the Roman order).

Secondly, if this had been found out, the soldiers would have disobeyed a direct command from the Roman ruler of Judaea. A slow and painful death would be the inevitable result for the soldiers defying orders.,.

Also, it looks like Jesus was tortured and flogged before He was crucified.  In short, just suppose He was able to survive the crucifixion. Just suppose there was some plot to get Him off the cross. What kind of condition would He have been in?  Hardly an impressive sight for the disciples a few days later! And hardly an inspiration for the disciples to then go and spread the message of a Risen Christ triumphing over death throughout the Eastern Roman Empire!

So, in summary, it’s regarded as a historical “fact” that Jesus was crucified and died.

What happened next is the foundation of Christianity. Is there good evidence for the Resurrection being a historical event? It’s to the events of the Easter Sunday that we will turn our attention in the next article.

Sharing the Gospel in Glasgow University

by Editor

The other week I had the joy of serving on the Glasgow University campus for a week, with he Christian Union (CU) there for their annual events week. Events Weeks are intense weeks where the CU seeks to really reach out, to put on mission, to reach out to their piers and colleagues. They put on a whole programme of talks, and events – all designed to places that Christian can invite their friends to, where they will hear the gospel.

I was there every lunchtime for a week, speaking at what is known as ‘lunchbars’. The CU had booked the bar in the student union building – it was a very accessible, neutral venue. And, even better the CU provided a meal for everyone. Free food is always a good way to make it easy to invite people! I did nine talks across the week, and Steve Osmond (a Solas Associate Speaker) did the 10th one.

Over the course of the week, we looked at everything from “Why can we trust the Bible?”, “Are Faith and Science Irreconcilable?”, “Where is God when we suffer?” to “Do human Rights Make Any Sense Without God?” and “The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus”. These were fifteen to twenty minute talks, followed by Q&A, in which students could submit questions from the floor or online from their phones.

I was enormously encouraged by the number of students who came along. Sometimes, lunchbars only attract a handful of students, but on the first day we had about 70-80 and then on the Tuesday so many came that the CU ran out of food and had to dash out to the supermarket and get more sandwiches; and then finds more chairs! There were great questions in the Q&A too. The questions weren’t hostile either, but they were really thoughtful and phrased in ways which showed that they were coming from non-Christian folks who were really thinking.

The CU held two lunchbars everyday, so I’d do my talk on the topic of the day twice, two lots of live Q&A with the whole room; and then hang around at the end to see who wanted to chat further. Three of these conversations especially stick in my mind. One student came to chat who is studying theology. I asked him why and he told me that while he was convinced that atheism makes no sense, and that there must be some kind of a God, he didn’t really know more than that. He had all kinds of questions about what kind of God there might be, and had come to study theology to try and understand that better. We had a really interesting conversation about how we can know what is true? Are all religions true? Only some of them? Or only one? I laid out the reason why even though I have studied Islam academically (that’s what my PhD is in), I follow Jesus – and find his claims compelling. I was also able to send him a copy of my book, “Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?”

Another student came to talk to me who described herself as being “close to faith” but who still had lots of questions; especially around questions of faith and science. After the talk on human rights, a Christian law student came to speak to me about how she could winsomely explain to colleagues in the law faculty how Christianity makes most sense of human rights. Then the highlight for me was on the last day when one of the CU members came to me shared how their friend had been quite hostile to faith for quite a long time, and who had resisted coming to events – and conversations about faith were very hard to start. But her friend came to the lunchbar about the resurrection of Jesus! At the end her friend said, “that was incredibly compelling, I hadn’t realised that the evidence for the story at the heart of Christianity is so powerful!” And she now wants to have further conversations with her friend about faith. The student form the CU said to me that she was so encouraged that there was now a door open into her friend’s life to talk about things that really matter. And there are many other stories like that from across the week. On the Tuesday when Steve from South Africa was speaking too, I remember looking over and seeing Steve surrounded by students asking him questions!

There weren’t just lunchbars either. Every evening Andy Robertson spoke too – and reported similarly encouraging responses, good numbers and a genuine openness. So, a hugely exciting week there on the campus. We love getting involved in CU missions, love serving the CU’s and seeing God at work in all kinds of ways!

Lucy Hemmingsley, Co-President of the CU said: “

Events week went very well and the main issue of the week was wondering how we would find enough food, chairs, and tables to host everyone that came along which is a wonderful problem to have! It was such a blessing to see the way that God has been stirring questions and curiosity up in the hearts of students on campus, and preparing students on campus for events week while we were preparing ourselves. There were always plenty of good questions as people clearly came ready to engage and find out more. Now Events Week itself is over but follow up is continuing with lots of 1-on-1 follow up and an Exploring Christianity course for international students where we meet with international students that came along to events week to eat together and read the Bible. It has been such an encouragement to myself and David (my Co-President) to be part of the international follow up and see the way that God is so clearly showing himself to students from different cultures and backgrounds through His word and their eagerness to learn more of him.

Thank you Solas for your ongoing support of students as we share the gospel on campus.”