Last week, I decided to delete my Twitter account after about a decade. Here are the reasons. First, time. social media is notorious for becoming a massive time-sucker. That’s what it’s designed to do. A platform like Twitter has the tendency to fill in the crannies of your life. Have a spare moment? Check your […]
Archives for August 2021
We Struck Them With Axes: On ISIS and the Bible
In a recent CNN segment, reporter Clarissa Ward interviewed a leader of ISIS-K, a Muslim group that opposes the Taliban because … they aren’t serious enough about following Sharia law. As the interviewee observes of the Taliban, “they can’t present one example where they have observed fixed Islamic law punishments, where they have cut off a […]
Rethinking the History of the Canaanite Genocide: What Do You Have To Lose?
The other day, I received an email from a reader of Jesus Loves Canaanites who stated that while he was sympathetic with the argument of the book, he remained inclined to accept the history of the Joshua narrative (and by implication, the ethics of divinely commanded genocide) because of uncertainty over alternative interpretations of the passages. […]
The Sin of Empathy and Sexual Ethics
I was recently asked to respond to a new teaching popular in some Reformed circles according to which empathy is a sin. The article that provides the basis for my understanding of this teaching is titled “Have you heard the one about empathy being a sin?” The author, Mark Wingfield, is attempting to summarize the […]
Reviewing the 1 Star Reviews of Jesus Loves Canaanites
My book Jesus Loves Canaanites has garnered two 1-star reviews at Amazon since its release in April. In this article, I’m going to review the reviews. Review 1 Here’s the first: A Thoroughly Un-Christian Book Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2021 If Rauser didn’t claim to be a Christian then you wouldn’t […]
Eight Problems of Biblical Violence in Three Minutes
A brief survey of eight distinct problems of biblical violence that every Christian needs to consider. ?
An Interview on Canaanites and Epistemology
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i feel like dying: A Conversation on Depression
In this video, I have a conversation with my brother, Rick Rauser, about the reality of clinical depression. ?
Being a Christian is not the Same Thing as Being Saved
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A Simple Illustration of the Crazy Priorities of Fundamentalist Christian Apologetics
I had a copy of this book, Reasons Skeptics Should Consider Christianity by Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, back in the 1980s (although my edition was colored green). I studied it closely and compiled notes of the main arguments on the typewriter, short bullet points that I memorized for debate. (In fact, I refer to the […]
Drunkards, Sin, and God’s Kingdom: A Reappraisal
I 1 Corinthians 6:10, Paul tells us that drunkards are unrighteous and that they will not inherit the Kingdom of God. In short, Paul seems to view the alcoholic as a wicked sinner in rebellion against God. But what if we think about alcoholism from the perspective of modern psychiatry as primarily a therapeutic rather […]
The Unmaking of Patriarchy: A Review of The Making of Biblical Womanhood
Beth Allison Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. Brazos Press, 2021. In 2016, Beth Allison Barr’s husband lost his job as a youth pastor, a position he had held for more than fourteen years. The reason? He dared challenge the church’s complementarian stance on women in ministry. The church […]
Why Christians Should Accept that Jesus Had False Beliefs
In this video, I explain how, in virtue of his human psychology, Jesus gained wisdom and knowledge over time and this would include Jesus having held beliefs at one time which he later came to recognize as false. ?
The Most Reprehensible Genocide Apologetics Talking Point Of All
Genocide apologetics is the enterprise of attempting to defend the ethics of a historical reading of the conquest of Canaan, one which meets the legal definition of genocide. In other words, it aims to argue that genocide is really not intrinsically evil and in some cases, it may even be morally praiseworthy. In Jesus Loves Canaanites […]
