Kingdom Ready

An evangelical, a unitarian, and a Muslim discuss the identity of Jesus at a forum held in Melbourne, Australia, on 17th July 2013. This was a discussion jointly hosted by City Bible Forum and CrossCulture Church of Christ between three different views on Jesus.

The evening started with 8 minute opening statements by each presenter, then moderated discussion followed by a 2 minute closing.

A Trinitarian Christian – Dr. Bernie Power (Melbourne School of Theology).
A Muslim – Shahir Naga (1God.com.au)
A Unitarian Christian – Steve Katsaras (Red Words Church).

This is the complete presentation. You can download the audio here or subscribe to the christianmonotheism podcast.

Chris Date is the host of the fascinating Theopologetics podcast as well as one of the major contributors to the Rethinking Hell podcast. He is a sharp thinker with a fair-minded and humble attitude. Below I have included links to two of his moderated debates on hell. In both of them Chris shows how verses typically used to teach that hell involves the eternal torment of the damned really teach otherwise. Sadly, neither of Chris’ opponents offered really strong biblical cases for eternal torment, so they were both a tad one-sided. Even so, I found that listening to Chris’ case was extremely informative and helpful for my own thinking on this subject.

Does God Exist?
William Lane Craig vs. Peter Millican

This debate on “Does God Exist?” took place in front of a capacity audience at the Great Hall in the University of Birmingham (in England). It was recorded in October of 2011 as part of the UK Reasonable Faith Tour with William Lane Craig. The debate was hosted by the University of Birmingham Student Philosophy Society and moderated by Professor Carl Chinn.

I recently watched this in preparation for my Apologetics class and really enjoyed it. William Craig was really at his best and Oxford Professor, Peter Millican, brought some interesting arguments against God as well. A video like this is surely a premium resource to share with our atheist and agnostic friends and relatives. The debate is a bit technical at times, but that is the nature of engagement on this level.

I recently listened to Patrick Navas’ debate against James White over whether or not Jesus is God. The specific debate topic was: “The deity of Christ is taught in the following texts or families of texts: John 12:41 (cf. Isa. 6 and 53), 1 Cor. 8:5-6, Heb. 1, Col. 1:15-17, and the ‘I am’ statements of Jesus (John 8:24/58, 13:19, 18:5-6).” Navas argued for a one-God position whereas White defended the doctrine of the Trinity. These two are among the best advocates of their respective positions.

In this clip that has been edited by Jeff Campbell (a basic unitarian and fellow facebook friend to many of us here on the KR blog), he takes a segment of a debate featuring Sir Anthony Buzzard & Joseph Good vs. Dr. James White & Michael Brown and then does his own video commentary on Dr. White’s points.

Basically in the debate, Anthony was presenting the terrific argument he has brought up for years, that Psalm 110:1 shows two different lords.  See the following links from Anthony for greater detail:

http://focusonthekingdom.org/articles/adonai.htm

http://focusonthekingdom.org/articles/adoni.htm

http://focusonthekingdom.org/113.pdf

And even here on this very blog a few years ago: http://lhim.org/blog/2007/06/05/adoni/

Recently we had a discussion about the reliability of the New Testament.  In past discussions also, the work of Bart Ehrman has been cited, especially his book, Misquoting Jesus.  In a recent episode of the radio program, Unbelievable, Bart Ehrman himself has a discussion/debate with Bible scholar Peter Williams, who questions the validity of some of Ehrman’s points.  You can listen to it HERE.

Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus has been on the best seller list and has been influencing the views of many people regarding the texts of the Bible, especially the New Testament.  But while it gives a good introduction to the field of textual criticism in the first four chapters, his conclusions in subsequent chapters are at best overstated and misleading, according to those who have critiqued it.  Peter Williams, who debated Ehrman on Unbelievable, also has a further analysis of the book, which you can listen to and read HERE.

This is the fourteenth and final post in a moderated debate between Biblical Unitarian Danny Dixon and Trinitarian Marc Taylor. A complete list of posts can be accessed here.

If Danny isn’t convinced that Christ is referred to as “Master” in Jude 1:4 (despite virtually all the lexicons/dictionaries that disagree with him) I would direct him to 2 Peter 2:1 where despotes is also applied to the Lord Jesus. The Christian has “only” one Master (Jude 1:4) in heaven and as with God (Act 4:24) it applies “without qualification” to the Lord Jesus. Danny doesn’t believe that only really means only but it could mean another (others?). His attempt at defining (really redefining words) is necessary in order to deny the obvious – that Christ is God.

This is the thirteenth post in a moderated debate between Biblical Unitarian Danny Dixon and Trinitarian Marc Taylor. A complete list of posts can be accessed here.

This debate has turned out to be an entirely different thing that what I had expected. I have debated Marc before, so it was not so much that I would have expected his arguments to be radically different, substantially, than what occurred in the first discussion. I was not, back in June to October of 2006 as focused on his methodology of debate. And I should probably say that he did not, at that time, follow the approach he has taken in this contest—at least not to the degree to which he has done so in the present discussion. I’ll say more on that momentarily.

This is the twelfth post in a moderated debate between Biblical Unitarian Danny Dixon and Trinitarian Marc Taylor. A complete list of posts can be accessed here.

1. “Unique”

In 1 Corinthians 15:23-28, first, the Father who “subjected all things unto Christ” in the present is excepted from being made subject to Christ. Marc confusedly insists ed when he insists that exclusive terminology in the Scripture must stand “without qualification” in a context like Jude 4, when other biblical teaching does establish exceptions. All-inclusive language can be excepted (e.g. see marriage differences in Mark 10:12 and Matthew 19:9 defines

This is the eleventh post in a moderated debate between Biblical Unitarian Danny Dixon and Trinitarian Marc Taylor. A complete list of posts can be accessed here.

1. Only Master (Jude 1:4)
The NIDNTT reads: Belief in the one, only and unique God (Matt. 23:9; Rom. 3:30; 1 Cor. 8:4, 6; Gal. 3:20; 1 Tim. 2:5; Jas. 2:19) is an established part of primitive Christian tradition (2:73, God – J. Schneider). Jude 1:4 teaches that “the uniqueness of God can be applied without qualification to Jesus” (NIDNTT 2:725, One – K.H. Bartels). Unique is defined as “existing as the only one or as the sole example; single; solitary in type or characteristics” (Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, page 1554) while qualification is defined as a “restriction” (page 1174).
In your 2nd Rebuttal you ignored commenting on Jude 1:4 despite the fact that it was in my 2nd Constructive #4. Can you please explain why you either agree or disagree that there is no restriction in that Christ shares in the “uniqueness” (singleness) of the “only one” God?