Dr Paul Allen

Oil painting of a young John Calvin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Mark Twain quipped, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” Closer to our own day, the atheist author Sam Harris defined faith as “the license religious people give themselves to keep believing when reasons fail.” Richard Dawkins , perhaps the most famous atheist of our generation, claims: “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” The one thing all of these definitions have in common is the explicit or implicit idea that faith is in conflict with reason. Unfortunately, some Christians in the history of the church have said things that have provided support for this view of the relationship between faith and reason. Martin Luther , for example, made very strong negative statements about reason, many of which are quoted by skeptics in their attempts to prove that Christianity is inher...

English: Apostle Paul - mosaic in Monreale Cathedral (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Author: Dan Dumas. Walking away from gospel orthodoxy or disconnecting from the stream of church history should strike terror in our hearts. But because of personal compromise, far too many believers are found “walking in the counsel of the wicked, standing in the path of sinners and seated with the scoffers” rather than defending the faith to the death. When was the last time you thought deeply about the consequences of “little” erroneous theological decisions that can subtly distort both your faith and practice? The Apostle Paul ’s grave concern in 2 Corinthians 11:3 was that we would be so easily led astray by the Devil from our “simplicity and devotion to Christ .” The pastor who lacks theological discretion is of all men most pitied. Oh the folly of a careless mind open to everything and falling for anything. G.K. Chesterton once said an open mind is like an open mouth. It is intended to s...