Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

truth

If You Defend Ravi Zacharias and Hucksters Like Him, You are Part of the Problem

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This morning, I received a comment on my February 2019 article “Christians cannot sit on the fence concerning Ravi Zacharias.” It reminded me that even with the most recent shocking revelations about Ravi sexually abusing young women at his massage parlours (see here and here), there will always be people willing to defend the man […]

Ravi Zacharias: Apologist or Fabulist? An interview with Steve Baughman

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Ravi Zacharias has long been recognized as one of the most respected of Christian apologists. For forty years he has been a fixture in the firmament of the apologetic pantheon, lecturing worldwide and publishing popular books like The End of Reason and Jesus Among Other Gods. He founded RZIM International, a hugely important apologetics organization, […]

Genuine Inquiry vs. Partisan Advocacy: A Couple Comments

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Jeff Lowder just wrote a helpful article in which he contrasts “genuine inquiry” vs. “partisan advocacy”. Jeff describes genuine inquiry as “reading opposing viewpoints, not with the goal of preparing pithy one-liners for debates, but with the goal of actually trying to learn something or consider new ways of looking at old topics.” He adds […]

False Witness, Lies, Delusions, and Bullshit … and Why the Difference Matters

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A couple days ago the New York Times published an opinion piece grandly titled “Trump’s Lies.” The article purports to chronicle  “nearly every outright lie he has told publicly since taking the oath of office.” The reader is then treated to a chronicle of dizzying length and breadth chronicling all the public instances where the POTUS […]

The Blustery Word Salad White Noise of Donald Trump’s Campaign Manager

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I was sitting at my computer this afternoon with CNN playing in the background when Erin Burnett asked Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, why Trump retweeted a tweet questioning Marco Rubio’s legal status to become president of the United States. Burnett: “Corey why would he retweet a tweet questioning Marco Rubio’s citizenship if he […]

Ted Cruz and Climate Change Denial

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The documentary Merchants of Doubt provides an excellent primer explaining how spin doctors propagate misinformation. What is especially interesting is the close parallel between the methods of big tobacco and of big oil. For years, the former denied a link between tobacco and cancer. The latter has similarly denied a link between the burning of fossil […]

Gift Shop Wisdom

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Today one of my students stumbled upon this quote attributed to Walt Whitman: This is a great example of “gift shop wisdom”, i.e. the kind of sloganeering which may not mean much, but despite, or rather, because of that fact, it looks great on calendars and coffee mugs. In cases like this, you inevitably wonder, did […]

Do some Christian apologists spin their academic credentials?

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It’s a familiar charge: Christian apologists are accused of being dishonest, of spinning the facts to suit their purposes. While I find no evidence that apologists for Christianity are on the whole any more likely to spin the facts than apologists for atheism, or naturalism, or the Republican Party, or any other topic, that hardly […]

Does William Lane Craig care about the truth of Christianity?

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Editor’s Note: Since this article was posted, Jeff Lowder sent me the following note via email: “I never thought that Craig doesn’t care about the truth. I was careless and sloppy when I said I agreed with Rumraket on everything except for his tally of his debates. I simply didn’t read his comment carefully, and […]

72. You’re not as Crazy as I Think

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Have you ever noticed how many crazy people there are out there? I’m not talking about folks who sport wild hair and a sandwich board that declares “The end is near”. I’m talking about those people who, for some inexplicable reason, fail to share your views on religion or politics or sports or the weather or … you name it. […]