Introduction It is said that recitation of the Islamic “creed” known as the shahadah is all that is required for a person to convert to Islam. “Shahada” comes from a word meaning “to know and believe without suspicion, as if witnessed, testification.” The shahadah affirms the following: “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is…
Introduction A while back I got my first Catholic study Bible, and that was a difficult choice.* Recently, however, I bought another “first” Bible – this time for one of my kids. Wow, I thought shopping for an adult Bible was scary! In case you are facing the same decision yourself, here is what I…
Introduction The popular Evangelical apologist J. Warner Wallace wrote an article titled What the Earliest Non-Biblical Authors Say About Jesus. Wallace begins by posing the intriguing question: “What would we know about Jesus if we lost every Biblical manuscript on the planet?” Wallace goes on to survey “the accounts of those early Christians who learned directly from the Biblical…
Introduction Growing up, Halloween was one of my favorite holidays. When I became a Christian, I was somewhat surprised when I found out that many Christians did not like Halloween. Blaming the holiday’s pagan origins, they seemed to think that it was necessarily evil. Well, trick-or-treating never influenced me toward evil – it was just fun! Anyway,…
Introduction Several years before becoming Catholic, a friend of mine mentioned an incident concerning praying the rosary – specifically, whether or not it was “biblical.” At the time I did not even know what exactly the rosary was, so I looked it up and recorded my initial thoughts as a Protestant. These are presented below with some additional…
Introduction Natasha Crain is the blogger behind Christian Mom Thoughts (the only “Mommy Blog” that I read regularly – I promise) and the creator of the Facebook group Apologetics for Parents. She is a sharp Christian layperson who holds an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA, and does an excellent job of making apologetics accessible and relevant to parents. I was, therefore, excited…
Introduction “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the…
What’s the Issue? Although it only takes up a couple sentences in the Catholic Catechism, the doctrine of Purgatory seems to pose big problems for many Protestants. Sometimes the reasons for this angst are ill-conceived, however, so it’s a good idea to get a few things straight before criticizing. Purgatory is said to be “a place or…
Introduction Although non-Catholics from the original Reformer Martin Luther, to evangelical hero C. S. Lewis, to modern Protestant scholars like Jerry Walls and Roger Olson, affirm the possibility of a purgatorial state between Heaven and Hell, the idea remains generally unpopular among most non-Catholics. Some do not agree that Purgatory can be found anywhere in Scripture, and reject it on…
Introduction Thomas Aquinas defined true faith in terms of one’s willful adherence to a religious authority. Because supernatural truths of faith are not directly discoverable by the senses or reason, God must reveal them somehow. Because supernatural truths of faith must be revealed, questions concerning them cannot be resolved by other means (e.g., logic, science, philosophy,…
Douglas Beaumont 