Dr Paul Allen

English: Illumination of Christ before Pilate Deutsch: Jesus vor Pilatus (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Contrary to recent atheist claims, Jesus did live. I will eat a page of my Bible if someone can find me just one full Professor of Ancient History , Classics, or New Testament in an accredited uni who thinks otherwise, writes John Dickson. There may be good reasons to give up on traditional Christian belief , but today's overreaching sceptics haven't yet stumbled onto them. Brian Morris, the director of Adelaide's sceptical society "Plain Reason", recently provided a case against Christianity that was neither plain nor reasonable. I don't just mean his pastiche of lines out of the atheist playbook - the barbarity of the crusades, the Inquisition, etc. As a longtime student of ancient history, my interest was piqued by his enthusiasm around an apparent "wave of contemporary historians" who "question the authenticity of Jesus", who reve...

The Oldest Christian Church - Yerevan, Armenia (Photo credit: whl.travel ) You’ve seen the statistics. If you’re in ministry, you’ve probably witnessed the problem firsthand. The Millennials (those born between 1980 and 2000) are leaving the church in droves, and staying away. Approximately 70 percent of those raised in the church disengage from it in their 20s. One-third of Americans under 30 now claim “no religion.” There are 80 million Millennials in the U.S.—and approximately the same number of suggestions for how to bring them back to church. But most of the proposals I’ve heard fall into two camps. The first goes something like this: The church needs to be more hip and relevant. Drop stodgy traditions. Play louder music. Hire pastors with tattoos and fauxhawks. Few come right out and advocate for this approach. But from pastoral search committees to denominational gatherings to popular conferences, a quest for relevance drives the agenda. Others demand more fundamental ch...