60. Of Apes and Men

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Cecil Planet of Apes - Shotgun

A gorilla was recently killed at the Cincinnati Zoo to save the life of a toddler that had fallen into the gorilla cage.

The result was a social media uproar!  There was immense outrage that the gorilla was shot.  Many suggested that the child should be the one to have died or that the parents should be charged with the death of the gorilla.  At stake in such backlash to the zoo’s decision to kill the gorilla to save the child is the value of human life in comparison to that of animals.  Is all life equally valuable?  Are some species more valuable than others?  Is human life more valuable than the life of all other species?  Would the zoo have killed 10,000 gorillas to save the life of one toddler?  Where is the value of life derived?  Where does human value find its grounding?

Wes, Ben, and Andy discuss all of these questions from a Christian worldview, while trying to get inside the inner workings of some other belief systems.

59. Contradictions in the Bible

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Hey Andy Wrasman,

Someone handed me a pamphlet about your movement! I read through it and I noticed a few problems. You say, “In light of these contradictions, all religions simply can’t be true. They could all potentially be false, but they can’t all be true” and I’m inclined to agree! However, if this statement about contradictions is true, how do you reconcile all of the contradictions among the Gospels like Joseph having different genealogies in Matthew and Luke, the date of the Last Supper which differs from the others in John, and the nature of Judas’ death in Matthew and Acts? By your own logic, shouldn’t the Gospels be viewed as false?

Secondly, you say in your pamphlets that “the original Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, or written by people who wrote using eyewitness testimony.” The earliest Gospel, Mark, was written 30-40 years after Jesus died, allowing plenty of time “for myths to have crept into the accounts.”

I know you’re probably just trying to take advantage of fundamentalists who want to buy cool and edgy shirts and bumper stickers, but come on dude, you should be able to do better than this.

Best,
Jim

In this episode, Andy gives his response!

Show links:

Contradict Movement Gospel Tracts

Contradict – They Can’t All Be True (excerpt is read in this episode)

Did Jesus Die on the Cross?

Chinese email I read on the show:

To give an example of the difficulty of understanding a text when we
don’t know the context of its writing, I want to share an e-mail I received
from a friend (copied exactly as it came to me in my inbox):

i’m glad to hear you r good at home, it must be great to do thing
the same way you always do, haha.

yeah,7.5 is quite a tragedy, a lot of people died that day. I
was quite angry when i heard news. One of my friends is a
soldier there, and he told me that our GOVERmNT sent about
100.000 soldiers to XINJIANG, to get things back to normal
and to stop the revange, cus you know, lot of people who have
family been killed at 7.5 take revenge during the following
days. anyway, if i was them, i’ll do the same thing.

thx for the tips, i really need some exercise, i’m getting fat
now. haha

here is an article wirtten by DANIU, he is talking about you,
haha. he thought you rock. i’ll give you the link, but it’s in
chinese, probably i can translate it to you later

58. Crash Course – The Problem of Evil

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the devil

Andy watches an episode of CrashCourse, an educational channel on Youtube, that focused on answering “The Problem of Evil” from a Theistic worldview.  The answers however utterly fail to answer the problem from a Christian worldview.  Enjoy!

Show Links:

Watch the CrashCourse video here!

“Evil” related blogs posts at andywrasman.com.

Contradict Movement – Order a sticker, pack of tracts, or Andy’s book.

57. Evil and God Quiz

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Dr. Evil meme
How can an all-good and all-powerful God allow evil to exist?

Listen along as Jon takes a quiz that Andy created to help facilitate a conversation to answer this common and difficult question against the consistency of the Christian worldview.

Show Links:

Take the Quiz before Listening!

iMom (Jon mentions this short film in the episode.

Why Does a Good God Allow Evil? (Video that is shared at the end of the episode)

Contradict – They Can’t All Be True (Andy’s book)

56. Building Bridges Part 2

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Building_Bridges

Episode 16 of Reconnect featured guest, Ken Chitwood, sharing an article he wrote entitled, “Building Bridges: Toward Constructing a Christian Foundation for Inter-Religious Relationships in the Shift from Religious Privilege to Spiritual Plurality”.  The key points for inter-religious dialog that Ken suggests are: pay attention, find, and form, friendships, listen and learn, dine, dialog, and do together, discern, and witness to the worldview.

While I agree with many of Ken’s points to approaching inter-religious dialog, I have a different application of the term “building bridges”.  I explain this approach in an article that I wrote for Reformation 21: “Embracing Religious Contradictions to Proclaim Christ Crucified: Tolerance and Coexistence”.   Looking at Acts 17, I see how Paul knew the beliefs and culture of those he was sharing the Gospel of Jesus.  He made the presentation of the Gospel from starting within their belief system with a point of contact that he could use to make a connection to the Biblical narrative of salvation.  I was given the opportunity to share this approach to evangelism at Brookfield Lutheran Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin.  This episode contains that sermon message. 

Senior pastor at Brookfield Lutheran Church, Robert Mrosko, was a guest on Reconnect Episode 39, discussing Star Wars.

The building bridges technique I am advocating for is also shared in Episode 34: “Storytelling Evangelism”.