Headlines - week 15

He is Risen
Alastair Begg in FSAOF - "One of my favorite C.S. Lewis quotes is "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." This month we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: the only person through whom we are reconciled to God."

Theologian Gives Top 10 Myths About the Resurrection
Christian Post - "The most common myth pertaining to Jesus' resurrection is the earliest Christians had visions of Jesus exalted in heaven and the visions were hallucinations," Licona told The Christian Post via email.
Most Christians "don't have a clue" how to not only explain the resurrection, but how to defend their Christian faith, he said.
"And we're paying a price for that in terms of our decreasing influence in Western culture," he continued. "There are numerous reasons for this state of affairs. Perhaps the primary one is that most Christians don't require evidence for their faith or try not to dwell on anything that challenges it."

Heaven without hell

Andrew Bale in Rubicon - "Words like “punishment,” “judgement” and “wicked” don’t slip easily off the tongue of a church that seeks to establish a compromised camaraderie with the world. It is difficult (and becomes even tedious after a while) to have to constantly reconcile the image of an angry God with one of unbounded compassion when we present the gospel.
Striking a balance between God the Judge and God the Father has been a challenge for the church since the crucifixion. However, the chief dangers which confront the world, as William Booth pointed out, are “religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”
    “Heaven without hell” makes most (if not all) of the gospel irrelevant. After all, what is the “good news” that Jesus brought to the world if it isn’t the possibility of Salvation?
    “Heaven without hell” makes The Salvation Army obsolete. Without the possibility of damnation, who are we fighting and what are we trying to save people from?
    “Heaven without hell” makes the crucifixion an unnecessarily cruel act of divine self-harm. Why did Jesus have to die if there was no penalty hanging over us?"