Dr Paul Allen

Symbol of the major religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) If there’s one thing to which human history overwhelmingly testifies, it is that we are fervently religious creatures. Among the rocks and rubble of human cultures throughout the millennia is evidence of the pursuit of spiritual things. As humanity, we have exerted extraordinary effort into the worship of figures such as Ra, Gaia, Dazhbog , Zeus, Aphrodite, Shiva, Vishnu, Izanagi, Izanami, Ahura Mazda, and gods of our own understanding. We’ve worshiped rocks, stars, trees, comfort, the dead, the living, and even ourselves. The world has seen her brahmins, caliphs, Siddartha Gautamas, and Joseph Smiths. We are natural-born worshipers. And you’ve probably heard it said before. “When it comes down to it, most of the world religions are pretty much the same.” But is that true? For example, Judaism, Mormonism, Islam, and Christianity ; they propose a probl...

Symbol of the major religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "All religions are true." "All religions lead to God ." "All roads lead to the same destination." While I can understand the sentiment of inclusivity, this idea pictures an evil God. Religious pluralists often reject exclusivist positions for positing a cruel God who only made one way to reach him. But if all religions are true, then God is cruel. And not just cruel—God is an incompetent, cosmic child-abuser. If religious pluralism is true, then God is the father in the second scenario. He saw the train coming, yet he decided to pull the first lever and kill his son, rather than pull the second lever. Is God Cruel or Incompetent? If Islam , Buddhism , Zoroastrianism , and all the other world religions are true paths to God, then why did God kill his Son, Jesus , in order to make a way for men to come to him? The very no...

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Anyone can claim to be the sole path to God . In fact, quite a few people have made this assertion throughout history. The real issue is why anybody should believe Jesus was telling the truth when he said it. We can say that Jesus’ resurrection confirmed him as the Son of God. If that’s true, then all other faith systems cannot be true, because they each assert something contrary to Jesus’ divinity. And of course, the historical record concerning the resurrection is extremely compelling. Well-known apologist and evangelist Dr. Ravi Zacharias believes people should approach the subject by looking at the four fundamental issues that every religion seeks to address: origin, meaning, morality and destiny. In these key areas, only the teachings of Jesus Christ fully correspond to reality. There is coherence among his answers unlike those of any other religion. “Consider Buddhism ,” says Zacharias. “ Buddha ’s answer on the question ...

Paul the Apostle, Russian icon from first quarter of 18th cen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Skepticism toward Christianity in academia has led to anti-intellectualism among certain evangelicals. How should evangelicals approach scholarship? Some anti-intellectualism is nothing but a thoughtless reaction to the skepticism toward Christianity found in many academic circles. But some of it is the pride of those who can do things with their hands but who do not or cannot make much of intellectual pursuits. Intellectual arrogance is still arrogance; blue-collar arrogance is still arrogance.  The right response, for the Christian , begins with repentance and contrition, and a generous recognition that God gives different gifts to human beings in general and to the church in particular. Where the anti-intellectualism is a defensive posture against skepticism in academia, surely the right Christian response is the example of the Apostle Paul , who was determined to bring every tho...

Our Lord Jesus Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) John 14:5–14 Anyone can claim to be the sole path to God. In fact, quite a few people have made this assertion throughout history. The real issue is why anybody should believe Jesus was telling the truth when he said it. We can say that Jesus’ resurrection confirmed him as the Son of God. If that’s true, then all other faith systems cannot be true, because they each assert something contrary to Jesus’ divinity. And of course, the historical record concerning the resurrection is extremely compelling. Well-known apologist and evangelist Dr. Ravi Zacharias believes people should approach the subject by looking at the four fundamental issues that every religion seeks to address: origin, meaning, morality and destiny. In these key areas, only the teachings of Jesus Christ fully correspond to reality. There is coherence among his answers unlike those of any other religion. “Consider Buddhism ,” says Zacharias. “Buddha’s answer ...

A Shinto priest kneeling before a shrine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) A young boy came home from his Japanese baseball practice exclaiming, “Dad, coach is making us worship the ground.” The coach had required them to bow toward the ground in worship. We called a Japanese pastor who said that this was indeed false worship. He reminded me that Japan is pantheistic, like Eastern religions generally. Everything is “god.” There is no distinction between the Creator and creation. In that worldview, it is proper to worship your playing field. This later became a problem for Danny at practice when he would not bow. The first error in Eastern religion is that there is no God with a big G. The gods are small and many, including ancestors, the emperor, statues, and thousands more. Atheists in the West do not believe in “God”; Japanese atheists do not believe in “the gods.” Islam has the opposite error —only a transcendent Allah with no immanence, no Emmanuel (“God with us”). In the West, ...

P yin yang (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard, “I believe there’s a little bad in all that’s good and a little good in all that’s bad.” The problem is not the number of times I’ve heard this but that I’ve heard it most often from professing Christians . While I assume most are unaware, the statement is deeply rooted in Eastern mysticism and strikes against the very heart of the Christian faith , which asserts unequivocally that our triune God is altogether righteous and the sovereign Judge over all that’s evil. The Yin-Yang (yīnyáng) philosophy of Taoism espouses that there are opposing but interconnected forces of light and dark, good and evil, that compose and govern the universe. The dualistic interaction of these two Feng Shui (fŭng shwā) forces creates the essence of an enlightened life; thus, we must seek to bring balanced harmony in all of life through various means, such as yoga, focused breathing (prāṇāyāma), Feng-Shui-designed l...

Cover via Amazon Worldwide trends indicate that multi-faith is both a current reality and our future. The number of people who claim adherence to the major world religions is growing. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and other post-Enlightenment thinkers predicted the death of God and the decline of religious belief over 100 years ago, but their predictions were premature. In fact, secular thinking has long embraced the idea that religion was the socio-political problem, not so much the solution. If anything, " God is dead" has been replaced with " God is back ." Economists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge , an atheist and a Roman Catholic, wrote a fascinating book in 2008 with that title. In it they noted that while statistics about religious observance are notoriously untrustworthy, most surveys seem to indicate that the global drift toward secularism has halted. Quite a few surveys show religious belief to be on the rise. They reference one sou...