Barbie was just released and there are plenty of lovers and haters of the movie to speak to its cinematic and storytelling qualities. But at Worldviewish, of course, we are interested more about what worldview any given narrative promotes. In the Greta Gerwig universe of the beloved Mattel doll, we see that the world comes down to: identity. In the largely postmodern perspective of 2023, it would seem there is a bit of irony here.

Here is where things get particularly troubling: the “hegemony” is Christendom. Marx himself attacked Christianity, and his followers are no different. The Christian worldview dominated the West for nearly a thousand years. For Marx and his acolytes, Christianity had to go. What happens when you implement a theory that assumes oppression, denies objective truth, and elevates those at the fringe of society? 2022 is what you get.

Influencers in a multitude of fields are thrusting various forms of Critical Theory (CT) into the forefront of cultural and ethical discussions. You may have noticed that be it Critical Race Theory, Critical Queer Theory, or any other branch of Critical Theory, it is not usually treated as a theory. It is treated as fact. What’s more, it is often seen as a lens against which all other ethical standards, including Christianity, are judged.

In reflecting on John 3:19 in which humans are inclined to love darkness rather than light, Professor Ronnie Campbell of Liberty University points us back to Lewis’ work in The Great Divorce. In that work, Lewis shows so adeptly that “People are ensnared by their sins and refuse to embrace God’s way for them. They would rather be ruled by their vices than to repent and surrender them over to God.”[6] And by this, Campbell shows that hell is necessary when a people absolutely reject Him and do not want to be with Him—it is their choice that brings them to eternal separation from God. And that is what hell is, to be entirely apart from the One who has created us, in His image, for His glory.

At the creation story when God made man, God placed the tree of good and evil in the midst of the garden where mankind was subject to temptation and eventual sin. We have since had a longing for the garden again, the paradise with God, and this longing throughout history has manifested in both good things (e.g., marriage) and evils (e.g., war). There is great human suffering in the world because man does not choose God (Adam and Eve ate the fruit).

It should be asked: must suffering precede salvation? It would seem that Lewis would say yes. He says, “Pain plants the flag of truth within a rebel fortress. We were then discussing pain which might still lead to repentance.”[1] Geisler and Brooks suggests that though this current world is not the best world, it is the best possible way to the best world where freedom is preserved and evil is defeated by permanently separating those who reject God and sealing those who choose God.[2] We are called in Scripture to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and yet God works in us for his good pleasure (Phil. 12:12-13),[3] suggesting that there is human responsibility as well as God’s sovereignty working together.

To come back to the natural man questioning God, and even the faithful Job did so with no less rebuke, humans may look at pain as evil, and so God must be evil to allow it. But if there is evil, there is good, and Lewis tells us good flows intrinsically from God’s character, God’s nature. A thing is good because God says so, not that God calls it good because it is.

In Mere Christianity, he asks, “If a good God made the world, why has it gone wrong?”[1] A fair point to be sure. If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, why is this world not better? And what would count as “better” or “good?” The answer of course is found in God’s nature. Simply, God is love. So, one must also ask, what is “love?” That our world is a product of a loving creator is called into question for the great brokenness and resulting misery all people in history have endured.

Recently, my interest and appreciation for Creation Science has renewed. If you are not familiar, Answers in Genesis is one of the more prominent Creation Science ministries, focusing on evidence for the biblical account of Creation and a global flood. This was my first visit to their massive Ark Encounter exhibit in Kentucky. Here’s a few things I gleaned from the experience:

The tomb was empty and there was no body to be produced by anyone. The evidence of the surrounding events of Christ’s death and eventual resurrection make the Biblical account the most rational explanation of the empty tomb. As J. Warner Wallace so thoroughly examines in his book Person of Interest, no other event in history has caused such an explosion throughout human history evidenced in art, philosophy, and archaeology as the resurrection of Jesus. He is risen–He is risen, indeed!

In this Passion Week, it’s always good to review why we as Christians believe what the New Testament says about Jesus. Today we’ll look specifically at why we can trust that the Bible was recorded and passed down with accuracy to the original. It is a whole other discussion to talk about the truth of what those records tell. We can explore that in a later post. For now, here are two reasons why we can rely on the transmission of the New Testament:

When most of us hear “Creed” we either think of the band from the 90s or we think of the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, or Caledonian Creed. By the way, those creeds are helpful and worth your time to study! However, what few Christians know is that the vast majority of scholars believe that several statements in the New Testament were actually pre-textual creeds that had been used to pass key doctrines through oral transmission before the New Testament was written. Why does this matter? It demonstrates that belief in Jesus deity and resurrection were not legends that developed over time, but were foundational beliefs held by eyewitnesses in Jerusalem immediately.

Many can speculate at the different theories of the empty tomb (check out #3 on that list, the Alien Theory–it’s my favorite, aside from #1 of course!). Continuing from the previous post, all the theorizing in the world means little in light of the fact they all confirm: The tomb was empty. Have a look at several compelling arguments that the disciples could not have stolen the body.

And how do we know the tomb was even empty? The four gospels corroborate that the tomb was, in fact, empty. The empty tomb is also mentioned in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (15:3-8), a sermon by Paul (Acts 13:36-37), and Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:29-32.[3] The fact of the empty tomb cannot be refuted historically, as it would only take the body of Jesus to squash any movement against the Jewish authorities, much less be the catalyst of a new religion. It was capital punishment to rob a tomb according to an archeological discovery in 1878 of a stone slab pronouncing this edict from an emperor from the time that Jesus lived, likely because of the events surrounding Jesus’s resurrection and to prevent any other claims of so-called resurrections.[4] This archeological discovery only strengthens that for certain, the tomb was empty. If the tomb was not empty, there is no gospel. We were dead in our sins, unable to save ourselves from the wrath of God to come, and because Christ was resurrected, we too can be resurrected in Christ and avoid eternity without God. Because of Jesus, we can participate in forever with our Creator, the God and Father of all.

What is the gospel? To begin with what it is not, the gospel is not a way to become a better person. It is not a social justice mantra or the secret sauce to success. My go-to in answering this question is 1 Corinthians 3-4. Paul writes, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” The passage goes on recording to whom Jesus appeared post-resurrection, specific names of eyewitnesses that were still alive in the time of Paul’s writing. We have all heard that the gospel literally is translated as good news. It’s a message first before it is a way of life.

A worldview is the lens through which one sees the world and a person’s worldview matters because it impacts how she thinks and the decisions she makes. We saw the importance of worldview in the post Faithfully Different: Why Worldview Matters. A religion is a worldview, for example Christianity. For Christians, we understand the world through what is revealed in God’s Word, the Bible. From the worldview of what the Bible teaches, we know what the origin, meaning, morality, and destiny is for each of us who bears the imago dei. 

Religious pluralism in various forms is accepted by many, but is it rational? This post discusses various forms of religious pluralism, applying the law of non-contradiction to discern what can be considered true. This is especially helpful to Christians, especially those of us in the entertainment industry engaging in apologetics.

As people, we are drawn to great stories. We love our entertainment, and the Joe Rogan Experience is no exception for his 11 million listeners, drawing controversy surrounding COVID-19 and racial slurs. One need only survey the landscape of mass media to see truth shared through narrative. However, when we cannot agree on that narrative, or rather, the interpretation of those various versions of reality, any concept of truth begins to unravel. In the example of Joe Rogan, everyone has their own version of the truth, and has strong opinions against those who do not agree.

Apologetics can seem daunting for the beginner. Listening to the professionals pull from decades of knowledge in debate can make a beginner feel like defending the faith is out of reach. But, it doesn’t have to be. In this post, I’m going to give you a few simple approaches that you can apply today in a conversation with a skeptic from any level of knowledge. It is an approach built into presuppositional apologetics that is easy to apply and consistently effective.

Whoopi Goldberg’s comments about the Holocaust rightly sparked backlash. A person’s worldview is critical as it can influence how they perceive truth. Bad worldview lead to terrible consequences. Worldview matters. I have had the privilege to read an early copy of Faithfully Different, the next book by apologist Natasha Crain, released this month. Her tagline sums up pretty well what I endeavor to do in my conversations with people, “Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture.” As an apologist of historic Christianity in very not-Christian Hollywood, there is a whole lot of confusion about what anything means – even to the Christian! We are swimming in the fishbowl of secularism, and Crain distills so much of the issue: Christians do not know what the Bible really says. We are fighting upstream against a tide of popular culture that in the end (and I do mean The End, as in Revelation), we know we are never going to change. The Lord is coming back for His bride, and we are only going to see the culture descend further from the Way, the Truth, and the Life until He does (unless you’re post-mil, but that’s a whole other topic we won’t address here!).