Putin the Jesus freak

Messing about with an AI app, I created this picture of Jesus with Russian President, Vladimir Putin, looking chummy. I am making a point about Putin's dubious claims of being a Christian, which too many people, at least in the social media world, have been taken in by. 

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/womantowoman/2025/03/is-putin-really-a-christian-the-answer-may-surprise-you/
 

Jump for joy

A clever Venn diagram based on Easter, and the cinema release of The Super Mario Bros Movie. 

Good Friday reflections

A timely Good Friday message. Even in the midst of suffering and hardship, it's good to be reminded that Jesus is still on the throne, metaphorically speaking.

Mass delusion

In the fascinating and often frustrating world of internet atheism and agnosticism, I have taken a passing interest in the Jesus myth movement. Jesus mythicists believe that Jesus Christ did not exist, or that there is little evidence for his existence outside of the Bible, which they also claim is not a reliable source. I will not address the question of Jesus in the Koran, as I have not read enough of it to deal with it adequately.

Jesus mythicism is a fringe movement based on a fringe idea. The agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, who is no friend of Christianity, unequivocally believes that Jesus existed. Bear in mind that he is not on the faculty of a seminary, so he is not bound by a doctrinal statement.

The point of this meme is this. All of the New Testament gospels were written before the end of the 1st century AD, as were the pastoral epistles. To this we can add the extra-Biblical writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Tacitus, Aristides of Athens, Justin Martyr, Lucian, Melito of Sardis, the Talmud, and Mara Bar-Serapion, all of which were definitely written between the first and third centuries. The first century historian Josephus also writes about Jesus, but it is likely that later Christian editors altered his original text. Even so, by the standards of ancient literature, this is not that long after the events.

Even if they believe that Jesus existed and was killed by crucifixion, it goes without saying that they totally reject the Christian belief in his resurrection. From a Christian viewpoint, the problem with this line of thinking is that without the death and resurrection of Christ, Christianity is worthless. The apostle Paul said as much in 1 Corinthians 15. That is precisely why this is so crucial.

Jack Zavada has compiled a handy summary of the evidence for the resurrection. He presents the following evidences.

Firstly, we have Jesus's empty tomb. Two major theories have been advanced by unbelievers seeking alternative explanations for this empty tomb. One is that someone stole the body, and the other is that the women and disciples went to the wrong tomb. Neither his executioners or the apostles had any reason or capacity to do this. The women who found the tomb empty had earlier watched Jesus being placed in it, so they knew where to find the correct tomb. Even if they had gone to the wrong tomb, the Sanhedrin could have produced the body from the right tomb to stop the resurrection stories. Jesus's burial cloths were left neatly folded inside, hardly the action of hurrying grave robbers. Angels said Jesus had risen from the dead.

Secondly. women were the first eyewitnesses to the resurrection. This was in a time when women were regarded as second class citizens. If the accounts were not factual, the male gospel writers would not have used women for witnesses. Because they were the first witnesses, the Gospel writers had no choice but to record this information.

Thirdly, we have the evidence of the changed lives of the apostles. After Jesus was crucified, they fled and went into hiding, fearing for their own lives. The risen Christ appeared to them on multiple occasions. Only something truly remarkable as this could have happened to change these men into bold and courageous preachers of the Christian message, spreading it throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. Most notable among them were the apostle Thomas, who initially doubted that he was seeing a flesh and blood man when Jesus appeared to him, and Peter, who denied knowing Christ on the night he was arrested, and John, who is believed to have been the only disciple to die of natural causes.

Jesus was seen alive by more than 500 people at once, as the apostle Paul records (1 Corinthians 15:6). He states that most of these witnesses were still alive when he wrote this letter, about 55 A.D. Undoubtedly they told others about this miracle. It is not possible for hallucinations to be shared between such a large number of people.

Speaking of the apostle Paul, his dramatically changed life is itself further evidence of the resurrection. He changed from being a fierce opponent of Christianity to becoming its most passionate early missionary, enduring many years of suffering and ridicule, and eventually his life, as his New Testament writings attest. Christians believe that Paul was converted because he had a supernatural encounter with the risen Christ. It was his unshakable belief in Christ that enabled him to accept these hardships.

Lastly, countless people have died for Jesus, absolutely certain that the resurrection of Christ is a historical fact. Hundreds or thousands of early Christians died in the Roman arena and in prisons for their faith. For centuries, thousands more have died for Jesus because they believed the resurrection is true. Even today, people suffer persecution because they have faith that Christ rose from the dead. An isolated group may give up their lives for a cult leader, but Christian martyrs have died around the world for nearly 2,000 years, believing Jesus conquered death to give them eternal life.

Taken together, all of these evidences give us good reason to believe that Jesus was a historical figure, was crucified, and was resurrected. This summary is not exhaustive, but it is a good starting point. If you look into the New Testament documents, and some of the material which is listed here, which is a mixture of Christian and secular sources, it is my hope that your beliefs about Jesus and who he was will either be strengthened or challenged.

https://www.bethinking.org/is-the-bible-reliable/the-historicity-of-the-new-testament

https://www.history.com/news/was-jesus-real-historical-evidence

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544

https://www.learnreligions.com/proofs-of-the-resurrection-700603

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/12/jesus-tomb-archaeology/

https://www.rzim.org/read/a-slice-of-infinity/credible-witnesses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm4DWnD72TE

Fake history

Firstly, this post is not intended to attack the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), our national broadcaster. You can get that from other outlets. Today their news website ran with a story about a couple of former neo-Nazis, Justin and Lisa Beulah, who have now renounced their former lives. They are now a respectable, mainstream Christian couple. For that I am glad.

However, talking about her past, Lisa claims that one of the reasons that she became interested in Nazism was that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler "was a Christian." The story does not correct Beulah's claims. 

My problem with this is that the reader may think, "There you go, Hitler was a Christian. Look at how evil Hitler was. Think of how many people he killed. If that's what Christians are like, there's no way that I'd ever want to be one."

As I have written here before, Hitler was no follower of Jesus. He payed lip service to Christianity, because it was good for him politically. As Tim O'Neill has observed:

"Overall, the evidence indicates that Hitler was a manipulative politician who could pay careful lip-service to Christian ideas where and when it suited him. He was clearly a theist, but claims he was a Christian do not stack up and depend mainly on pre-1933 public statements and writings and some isolated later statements...which are either rhetorical or flatly duplicitous. Hitler was not a pagan and was not an atheist. But he was not a Christian and was definitely not a Catholic."

The truth is that he despised Christianity, and all that it stood for. I sincerely hope that the Beulahs realise this.

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/nazism-and-the-racial-corruption-of-religion/10097168

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/10/26/was-hitler-a-christian-an-atheist-or-neither/

https://historyforatheists.com/2019/05/the-great-myths-7-hitlers-pope/

https://roscoeland.blogspot.com/2015/11/knockout-punch.html

https://roscoeland.blogspot.com/2018/04/provocation.html

By Deutsche Bundespost - scanned by NobbiP, Public Domain, Link

Please bring a plate

Happy Resurrection Sunday to my reader. A friend forwarded this video to me, Falling Plates. When I had cable television, one of the channels used to run episodes of The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show, a compilation of highlights of the American variety show , which ran on American television for 23 years from 1948 to 1971. If you didn't like musicians, dancers, comedians, acrobats, or ventriloquists, perhaps plate spinning would tickle your fancy. It takes the plate spinner a lot of skill to balance the plate on the end of a pole without it falling off.

Think of your life as a spinning plate on the end of a pole, and the pole as a wobbly foundation for your life, based on the temporal things of this world. Temporal pleasures cannot fill the deepest longings of the human soul for meaning, significance, a sense of purpose in life, for certainty and stability in a tumultuous and uncertain world. Only Jesus can offer this. Through his sacrificial death on the cross, in which he took the punishment for our sins, and his resurrection from the dead, he made it possible for humanity to be reconciled with its creator. The peace that only he can offer with God brings rest to the restless soul.

Misrepresentation

Portraits of Jesus similar to this one can be found hanging on the foyer walls of Mormon places of worship. As I regularly drive past one of their premises in my home town, and this portrait is large enough for me to see it from my car, I know this for a fact.

Notice that I haven't used the noun church to describe their buildings, because I believe that should only be used for places of worship used by legitimate Christian denominations. The Mormons are not a legitimate Christian denomination.

The other problem with this painting is that Jesus is depicted as blonde haired and Caucasian, whereas he was actually Jewish, and would have had a darker complexion.

It seems apt that a pseudo-Christian religious group that does not proclaim belief in the true Jesus would also have portraits of a fake Jesus on the walls of their places of worship.

Factual error

Jesus the Game Changer is a mostly excellent documentary series that looks at the life and teachings of Jesus, and why they continue to impact the world. However, in the first episode, the presenter erroneously states that the Roman Emperor Constantine, who reigned from 306 to 337 AD, made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. While he was the first Christian emperor,  Constantine merely gave Christianity legal status in the Roman Empire. It was one of his successors, Theodosius I, who actually made it the official religion of the Empire, when he issued the Edict of Thessalonica, on this day in 380. 

Holy is his name

I picked up this postcard at a church over the weekend. As you can see, it is a painting of Mary holding the baby Jesus. Mary looks uncannily like actress, Natalie Portman, in costume as Padme from the Star Wars prequels. Unfortunately, both mother and child look Caucasian in appearance, and not even slightly Jewish. Presumably, the artist wasn't going for historical accuracy. 

All American prophet

I went to see The Book of Mormon on Tuesday night. Mormons may be offended, but I thought it was a funny and clever satire of Mormon beliefs and practices. It was gentle without being malicious. I wish more satirists would take that approach towards religion, especially Christianity.

I don't know how many Christians were in the audience. I'm guessing that most of the audience were secular; either atheist or agnostic. If so, I pray that they will come to faith in the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. 

Get to the point

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull used to take thinly veiled swipes at his predecessor, Tony Abbott, for using snappy three word slogans, such as "stop the boats." Turnbull has been justifiably criticised for his waffling communication style. Changing it will help him engage people more effectively.

Christian evangelists don't have the luxury of waffling. They need to reach people as effectively as they can. Glen Scrivener gets it. He's presented the gospel in ninety seconds. During the Christmas season, churches often erect signs with this slogan: "Jesus is the reason for the season." This is a snappy seven word slogan, simple, profound, memorable, and thought provoking. Unlike Prime Minister Turnbull, it cuts through.

I am

The other day I was reading the story of Jesus healing a demon-possessed man in Luke's gospel (8:26-39). This is a story that I thought I was familiar with, but there was one detail I'd never noticed before.

After the man was healed, he wanted to be with Jesus, but he commanded him to return to his home town, and tell everyone how much God had done for him. Luke writes that, "he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him." 

The detail I noticed was that Luke uses these parallel statements to indicate that God and Jesus are equal in status. Jesus is God. Knowing this gives me more reverence for Jesus. I have to take him seriously. Just like the man in this story, I also have an obligation to tell others what he has done for me. 

Seriously?

I sometimes debate online with atheists and agnostics who sincerely believe that Jesus never existed. I post this summary of a recent article, linked at the foot of this posting, for the benefit of them and any other spiritual seekers.

Firstly, recent archaeological finds reveal that Nazareth existed and was settled in the time of Jesus.

Furthermore, Jews in the time of Jesus believed that there would be a messiah figure who would suffer and die, that Christians always believed in Jesus as being divine, and this was not a later innovation.

The gospels were based on written sources, and not oral transmission, as skeptical New Testament scholars have claimed.

The gospel of Mark, widely believed to be first of the gospels to be written, may have been written 5 to 10 years after Jesus was crucified, and not in the late 60s or early 70s AD as scholars often claim.

Finally, many contemporary authors claim that Jesus was an illiterate peasant. However, looking at the debates between Jesus and the Pharisees in the gospels, Jesus shows a thorough knowledge of Jewish law and scripture.

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/6-shocking-new-discoveries-about-jesus-of-nazareth/

400 posts

Today marks the 1936th anniversary of the death of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, who ruled from 69 to 79 AD.

Vespasian is a significant figure in Christian history. He reigned during the first Jewish revolt of 66-70 AD, which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the final exile of the Jewish people from their homeland. These events are described in the writings of Josephus, but long before that, the synoptic gospels record that Jesus himself prophesied about them (Matthew 24:1-3, 15-20, Mark 13:1-2, Luke 21:5-24).

At the same time that Jesus spoke of these events, he also spoke of his second coming. This portion of the prophecy is yet to be fulfilled. When and how this will take place is a matter of debate. The key thing is to make sure that we, and I include myself in this, are in right standing with God.

Dogmatic bigot

Part of tertiary education involves developing critical thinking skills, and learning to engage with ideologies and beliefs differing from your own. The library collection of any tertiary institution represents a spectrum of scholarly opinion. In plain English, just because an item is held in the library, it does not mean that the institution, its faculty, or library staff endorse the viewpoints of its author, authors, or contributors.

It is unprofessional for librarians to refuse to hold resources just because they disagree with the opinions expressed in them. I write this wordy disclaimer because my library holds literature both supportive of, and hostile to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), also known as the Hare Krishnas. 

Some of this literature was written by ISKCON's founder,  (1896-1977). I noticed that he went by the title of "His Divine Grace." It strikes me as blasphemous that the late Swami, a mere man, would consider himself to be divine in any sense. He was an ordinary man, just like I am, and in need of salvation from Jesus Christ, just like I am (Romans 3:10, 23, 7:18).

The Bible consistently attests that Jesus is the only sinless man who ever lived. (2 Corinthians 5:21, Colossians 2:9, Hebrews 4:15, 9:14, 1 Peter 1:19, 2:22, I John 3:5). I wouldn't want to entrust my eternal destiny to another fallen, sinful human being such as A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, or indeed any other spiritual leader of his ilk. It would be pure folly.

http://www.ibtimes.com/swami-prabhupada-founder-hare-krishna-movement-virulent-racist-anti-semite-1412102

Fair dinkum

The Dalai Lama

I spent a portion of the weekend clearing my backlog of sermon podcasts to listen to. Among others, I often listen to Phil Fernandes, who once served in the United States Marine Corps, and is the long serving pastor of Trinity Bible Fellowship in Seattle in the United States.

He often speaks on the classical Christian doctrine of the Messiahship of Jesus Christ. My takeaway from these sermons is that the fact of Jesus being the Messiah is so well attested by scripture that it should be beyond dispute. Anyone who studies these passages should be left with little doubt that these verses describe Jesus and not somebody else. 

To know the real, you have to know the counterfeit. Just as bank tellers are trained to detect counterfeit currency, Christians need to train themselves to detect spiritual counterfeits. The early Christians had to take close heed to Christ's warning about "false Christs" (Matthew 24:24, Mark 13:22).  These warnings were echoed by the apostles in their writings (1 John 2:18, 22, 4:3, 2 John 1:7). The early Christians were not immune to spiritual deception. 

Neither are we, their contemporaries. These days Christians need to be more discerning than ever. Who are some modern false Christs? Fernandes mentioned cult leaders Sai Baba (1926-2011), Bhagwan Shreee Rajneesh (1931-1990), David Koresh (1959-1993) and Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama is addressed as "Your Holiness." It is offensive for any mere human being to carry such a title. Holiness connotes the idea of being pious, pure, and saintly. Jesus is the only sinless man who ever lived (2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 4:15, 1 Peter 2:22, 1 John 3:25). Because of this, only through believing and trusting in Jesus can any sinful, fallen human being have reconciliation with God.

As for the Dalai Lama, his teachings lead people astray and away from Jesus. He denies that Jesus is God in human form, instead asserting that Jesus had lived previous lives, and that his purpose was to preach a message of tolerance and compassion, and to help people become better human beings. Since he offers a distorted version of what Jesus taught and who he was, he meets the biblical definition of an anti-Christ.

Years ago some friends of mine went to hear the Dalai Lama speak at one of his public meetings in Melbourne. They reported that most of what he said consisted of feel good generalities. There was no notion of human sin, the need for repentance, and accountability to God. He might tickle your ear with inspiring sounding words, but I definitely would not entrust him with my eternal destiny. He might be charismatic, charming and affable, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, but he is still an ordinary man in need of salvation.

http://www.gotquestions.org/Dalai-Lama.html

http://instituteofbiblicaldefense.com