I have been attending the 2009 Apologetics Conference sponsored by the Evangelical Philosophical Society in New Orleans. I have heard presentations from Drs. William Craig, Mike Licona, Craig Keener, Gary Habermas, J. P. Moreland, and other leading evangelical apologetes.
Someone might ask, Why would someone who has de-converted from evangelicalism want to attend such a conference?. The reason is simple. I want to hear the very best that evangelicalism can offer in terms of defending conservative Christianity. I am not afraid to examine my beliefs.
I will be writing more on the various presentations and why they didn't convince me to re-convert to evangelicalism as time goes forward.
Tonight I will be meeting with John Loftus, Hector Avalos, Jim Linville and others who are in New Orleans for the Society of Biblical Literature Conference. As announced on this blog previously, we are planning a new group within SBL for strictly secular Bible scholars.
looking forward to further reports from the apologetics conf.; also new of the secular Bible scholars group
ReplyDeleteFacts about Evangelical Christianity speak for themselves:
ReplyDeleteSince Jesus was a Kosher Jew (who had little to no use for gentiles),there are thus no Gospel / Salvation Tracts that can give a so-called Plan of Salvation to the world drawn from the earliest traditions (or what is know as the Synoptic Gospels) and little from the late Gospel of John even with it high Christology.
This fact is even re-enforced by the Apostles themselves, who (other than Peter), totally fade from Christian history shortly after the crucifixion. And even Peter (who was taught by the Master Jesus himself) is placed at odds with Paul (along with his Judaizing opponents) in Galatians and Corinthians.
So how does the Evangelical world prove that “unsaved” individuals need some vaguely defined Doctrine of Salvation? By cutting and pasting verses from Paul’s letters at random to invent this so-called of Biblical Salvation!
Even this so- called salvation plan cann't be found in Paul’s earliest letters, but (as seen in the Gospel Tracts themselves) is usually totally extracted from his last theological work called Romans.
So, in short, the Doctrine of Christian Salvation is randomly pieced together by a small segment of Christianity know as Evangelicals from the remaining works of a Hellenistic Jew called Paul who most likely never saw or hear the earthly Jesus and who created the universality of Original Sin based on the Genesis 3; a dogma NEVER believed or accepted by Judaism itself.
Now my Evangelical Christian friend; just how much of an assurance of salvation do you really have????