I am pleased to present now a very thoughtful guest post by Platinum member Fredrick Ackun!    To respond, simply make a comment, and he will be able to reply. I am looking for more contributions!  Feel free to send one along, on any topic! *************************** In this post, I wish to share and elaborate a bit on some personal realizations I have made in my faith journey. They are some of the main reasons why I am of the view that studying and acquiring knowledge about what we believe in is imperative. A faith system solely premised on theological presuppositions with no recourse to historical information can rub away context that would have otherwise provided a deeper appreciation of its narratives. The two keywords here are History and Theology; hence, it may be important to spell out a fundamental difference between these two terms in relation to the faith journey. History is an attempt to reconstruct events in the past based on evidence and plausibilities. Theology, on the other hand, is interpreting history through [...]

I am pleased to be able to provide a new post by Marie Wiley, the second she has submitted!  Are you interested in submitting one?  It can be on any topic related to the blog.  And it's Platinums-only.  So go for it. And many thanks Marie! ******************************** The vision I have of Jesus from The Gospel of Peter is one of my favorites. A gigantic Jesus with an equally gigantic cross illustrates so well my own personal idea of who this holy man is. He is bigger than the human beings I know or know of. When I hear the saying, “Never meet your heroes because you will be sorely disappointed,” I imagine our Jesus to be the exception. When his giant holy cross asks me if I have heard its message, I think, “Heaven, yes.” I know (in a gnostic sense) that its message to me is not one of salvation through Jesus’s death in atonement for my sins. I don’t believe in that. It’s nothing personal, but in all the arguments for this [...]

This now is the second of Douglas Wadeson's two-part post, presenting the flip side of his earlier one. These Platinum guest posts have been terrific so far.  I hope you too have enjoyed them.  Soon we'll vote on which of the four we've seen goes on the main blog site!  But for now, here is Doug again. In my previous post I argued that it may be possible to be a “Christian” but not necessarily a “disciple.”  Now I will discuss the flip side: is it possible to be a disciple of Jesus but not a Christian?  As a reminder from the previous post, I defined a Christian as one who believes in the Christ (Messiah), that died for the sins of the world and then was raised back to life by God; this is Jesus, of course.  Salvation comes by believing in Him, not through your actions.  In fact, trying to be saved by your “works” is futile and even heresy. A “disciple” is by definition a student or pupil or follower.  Such a [...]

The weeks' Platinum post comes to us from Douglas Wadeson, a long time member of the blog and recently retired (lucky fellow) physician.  The post comes in two parts: the second part will appear next week.   Remember: this post, your comments about it, and any ensuing back and forth come to Platinum members only.   (And remember: you too can submit a post!  I hope you do so.  Just send it to my assistant Diane Pittman, at [email protected]) Here now is part 1 of Doug's post: ******************************* In Dr. Ehrman’s Christmas blog post he ponders: “So this is what I don’t understand:  why so many of the alleged followers of the Prince of Peace not only refuse to accept his teaching but by and large preach *against* it, standing precisely for what he stood against.  It’s as if they haven’t read their Bibles.  It’s all there – in Jesus’ teachings, in the Old Testament prophets, he based his message on, in the gospel proclaimed by his earliest followers. God is not on the side of the [...]