Author Archives: Bruce Nielson

The Case for Christ: The Believing Scholar Point of View (Part 1: Scripture)

Posted on by

Case for Christ In my last post I did a short book review of Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ. I mentioned that what I liked best about the book was it was a short introduction of some of the best believing Christian scholars.

In this post, I am going to try to attempt to summarize the believing Christian scholar point of view as Strobel lays it out. For this post, I’m just going to summarize the point of view laid out in the book, not comment on it. (Note: I split this post into two parts. This part will deal with the historicity of scripture internally. The next will deal with some outside evidences or issues. The split up is a bit artificial, I admit.)

For this post, I will not be in any way critical of the point of view being expressed, but rather just to try express it in its own words.

Continue reading →

Review of “The Case for Christ”

Posted on by

I recently listened to Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ and wanted to give some thoughts on it in a few posts. First, let me give a quick book review to get things started out.

I confess, I liked the book. Strobel is a journalist and so he writes pretty well. Essentially he creates a semi-fictional story of him going around asking believing Christian scholar’s hard hitting questions about Christianity. Of course he’s actually a believing Christian himself and admits this both at the start and end of the book. He was once an atheist, but by the time he wrote this book, he’s definitely committed to Christian beliefs.

Continue reading →

A Jewish Rabbi Defines Monotheism

Posted on by

Another reprint from Mormon Matters.

Only months into my mission we stopped to meet a man that had grown up Mormon but had left the Church and was now attending a Method Church with his wife and family. He was very interested in his forgotten Mormon heritage and enjoyed having us stop by to talk religion.

On one of our visits he showed us a book called Who Needs God by Harold Kushner, a Jewish Rabbi. He lent me the book to peruse. Mission life does not leave a lot of time for reading books, but for the sake of having discussions with him I read through parts of the book, picking out topics that sounded interesting. To this day I still haven’t read the whole book, but enjoyed the parts I did read very much. Kushner is a very insightful man.

One passage that I read blew me away because it gave such a comprehensive definition of monotheism:

The affirmation of monotheism – that there is only one God – is a moral statement, not a mathematical deduction. If there is only one God and He demands moral behavior, then there can be such a thing as good and evil. (Technically speaking, right and wrong are matters of fact: Who stole the money? Good and bad are matters of morality: Should I take the money?) When there are many gods, as in pagan legends, the issue is not: What is good? The issue is: Which God shall I serve? Which one has the power to protect and reward me? Think, for example, of the conflicts of Homer’s Illiad, where the gods take sides. What pleases one displease another. A person offends one of the gods but is under the protection of another, stronger one. The issue is not what is right but who has the might.

The assertion that there is only one God is the assertion that issues of moral behavior are not matters of personal taste. We cannot decide by majority vote that it is all right to steal and lie, any more than we can decide that winters should be mild or cookies more nourishing than vegetables.

Continue reading →

What is Lovecraftianism?

Posted on by

Some of you may have heard me use the term “Lovecraftianism” at times. Though people usually understand what I mean by that without an explanation, I thought I’d give a short explanation anyhow.

Lovecraftianism is Cosmic Horror

A while back, I wrote a post about horror author H.P. Lovecraft and of his “cosmic horror” stories. Lovecraft created anti-mythical / maltheistic stories where human beings not only don’t have a special relationship with reality, but that reality is actually hostile to us.

In a typical Lovecraft story an investigator will discover some intriguing detail that seems out of place, perhaps a finely carved statue of ancient origins but advanced technology. The investigator looks into this anomaly and he discovers some awful truth about reality. This often takes the form of discovering that an ancient god is going to awaken and enslave us, devour us, or breed us.

Now that the investigator knows the truth he can never be as peace again. He might commit suicide, go insane, or just live out his days knowing too much and hoping the worst does not happen while he is still alive.

Continue reading →

“The Whole Church is Under Condemnation”: The Talk that Changed the Church

Posted on by

Another reprint from Mormon Matters.

April 1986: President Benson presides over his first General Conference. Did anyone listening to his humble little talk, called “Cleaning the Inner Vessel,” realize that it would send ripples through the Church and start a massive change in Church policy and doctrine?

President Benson said:

Unless we read the Book of Mormon and give heed to its teachings, the Lord has stated in section 84 of the Doctrine and Covenants that the whole Church is under condemnation: “And this condemnation resteth upon the children of Zion, even all.” (D&C 84:56.) The Lord continues: “And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written.” (D&C 84:57.)

Now we not only need to say more about the Book of Mormon, but we need to do more with it. Why? The Lord answers: “That they may bring forth fruit meet for their Father’s kingdom; otherwise there remaineth a scourge and judgment to be poured out upon the children of Zion.” (D&C 84:58.) We have felt that scourge and judgment!

The Prophet Joseph said that “the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than any other book.” (Book of Mormon, Introduction.) The Book of Mormon has not been, nor is it yet, the center of our personal study, family teaching, preaching, and missionary work. Of this we must repent.

Only a teenager at the time, this is one of the few general conferences of which I remember well. Our family concentrated our family scripture reading on The Book of Mormon shortly thereafter.

Continue reading →