• The Crucifix Prayer

    Blessed are you, Lord God,
    Father all-holy,
    for your boundless love
    The tree, once the source of shame
    and death for humankind,
    has become the cross
    of our redemption and life.

    When his hour had come to
    return to you in glory,
    the Lord Jesus,
    Our King, our Priest, and our Teacher,
    freely mounted the scaffold of the cross
    and made it his royal throne,
    his altar of sacrifice, his pulpit of truth.

    On the cross,
    lifted above the earth,
    he triumphed over our age-old enemy.
    Cloaked in his own blood,
    he drew all things to himself.

    On the cross,
    he opened out his arms
    and offered you his life;
    the sacrifice of the New Law
    that gives to the sacraments
    their saving power.

    On the cross,
    he proved what he had prophesied:
    the grain of wheat must die
    to bring forth an abundant harvest.

    Father,
    we honour this cross as the sign
    of our redemption.
    May we reap the harvest of salvation
    planted in pain by Christ Jesus.
    May our sins be nailed to his cross,
    the power of life released,
    pride conquered,
    and weakness turned to strength.

    May the cross be our comfort in trouble,
    our refuge in the face of danger,
    our safeguard on life’s journey
    until you welcome us to
    our heavenly home.

    Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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  • The Prayer of St. Ephrem

    {Making a prostration}

    O LORD, Master of my life,
    grant that I may not be infected with the
    spirit of slothfulness and inquisitiveness,
    with the spirit of ambition and vain talking.

    {Making a prostration}

    Grant instead to me, your servant,
    the spirit of purity and of humility,
    the spirit of patience and neighborly love.

    {Making a third prostration}

    O Lord and King,
    grant me the grace of being aware of my sins
    and of not thinking evil of those of my brethren.
    For you are blessed, now and ever, and forever.

    Amen.

    Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings,
    You have power over life and death.
    You know what is secret and hidden,
    and neither our thoughts nor our feelings
    are concealed from You.
    Cure me of duplicity;
    I have done evil before You.
    Now my life declines from day to day
    and my sins increase.
    O Lord, God of souls and bodies,
    You know the extreme frailty of my soul and my flesh.
    Grant me strength in my weakness, O Lord,
    and sustain me in my misery.
    Give me a grateful soul that I may
    never cease to recall Your benefits,
    O Lord most bountiful.
    Be not mindful of my many sins,
    but forgive me all my misdeeds.
    O Lord, disdain not my prayer –
    the prayer of a wretched sinner;
    sustain me with Your grace until the end,
    that it may protect me as in the past.
    It is Your grace which has taught me wisdom;
    blessed are they who follow her ways,
    for they shall receive the crown of glory.
    In spite of my unworthiness,
    I praise You and I glorify You,
    O Lord, for Your mercy to me is without limit.
    You have been my help and my protection.
    May the name of Your majesty be praised forever.
    To you, our God, be glory.
    Amen.

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  • PWJ: S4E103 – Bonus – “Season Finale” (Part 2)

    David, Andrew, and Matt wrap up Season 4 with the Season Finale. This is Part 2 of that Finale. Listener Survey: https://forms.gle/X4zq7Uk69KmYo1v3A

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  • PWJ: S4E102 – Bonus – “Season Finale” (Part 1)

    David, Andrew, and Matt wrap up Season 4 with the Season Finale. This is Part 1…

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  • PWJ: S4E101 – Bonus – “Jack vs Tollers”

    After the previously-planned interview fell through at the last minute, David sat down to record a solo episode to talk about his newborn son, Sidecar Day, blue flowers in Narnia, and also to make his tongue-in-cheek case as to why C.S. Lewis is better than J.R.R. Tolkien.

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  • PWJ: S4E100 – AH – “After Hours” with The Gray Havens

    The Gray Havens are an American Christian folk pop husband and wife duo, David and Licia Radford, from Crystal Lake, Illinois. On October 8th they will be releasing their new album, Blue Flower, so David Radford came on the show to talk to Andrew and David about how C.S. Lewis inspired their recent work.

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  • PWJ: S4E99 – AH – “After Hours” with Mike “Gomer” Gormley

    As we approach the end of Season 4, David is joined on the show by Michael “Gomer” Gormley. Among other things, they discuss Ted Lasso, tea, and the Atonement. Also, find out what Gomer would do if he ever became the Pope!

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  • PWJ: S4E98 – AH – “After Hours” with Patti Callahan

    New York Times bestselling author, Patti Callahan, returns to the show to talk about her forthcoming book, “Once Upon A Wardrobe”, which will be released on October 19th.

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  • PWJ: S4E97 – AH – “After Hours” with The Tolkien Road

    A few months ago, John and Greta from The Tolkien Road podcast did a series of episodes on religion in Tolkien’s Legendarium. David invited him onto the show to talk about those episodes and to encourage the Pints With Jack listeners to listen to them.

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  • PWJ: S4E96 – AH – “After Hours” with Rod Bennett

    Author Rod Bennett joined David to talk about a presentation on he gave at a big Christian rock festival about C.S. Lewis’ relationship to “Pulp Fiction”.

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Qur’anic Surprises

Surah 11:1 says that the Qur’an is a fully-explained book, but nobody seems to known what “Alif-Lãm-Ra” means.

Surah 12:20 speaks about currency (“dirhams”) used in Egypt at the time of Joseph, which didn’t exist at the time. This is an anachronism, unless we allow the Qur’an to speak in terms that its hearers would understand. If we do this, the objection to the Bible referring to the Egyptian king as “Pharaoh” goes away.

Surah 3:35 says the Virgin Mary is the daughter of Imran (who was the father of Moses!)

Surah 3:7 says that parts of the Qur’an are unclear.

Surah 3:93 speaks of the Torah as though it is present and uncorrupted

Surah 33:50 speaks of marrying first cousins

Surah 105 is utterly imcomprehensible without the Hadith

Surah 1:54 says a man dies and nobody knows

Surah 2:62 says Christians are okay, but Surah 3:85 suggests that they’re in trouble

Surah 2:85 says you can’t just believe part of the earlier Scriptures

Surah 3:3 The Torah and Injeel are a guidance for mankind!

Surah 9:29 says that persecution is allowed on the basis of belief

Surah 4:24 says slaves are allowed

Surah 33:56 says Allah and the Angels pray? for Muhammad?

Surah 4:48 says that Shirk will not be forgiven but Surah 4:153 shows that it can be forgiven.

Surah 4:65 says you have to submit to all of Muhammad’s teachings (which are spread across multiple volumes of hadith)

Surah 4:167 denies the crucifixion. What happened? Does this mean that Allah is responsible for Christianity’s existence Surah 5:47 tells Christians to judge by the Gospel, implying that Gospel is still inexistance.

Surah 5:3 says that Islam was completed and perfected on this day, but this isn’t the last verse of the Qur’an revealed. Doesn’t that mean it’s incomplete and perfected later? Isn’t that a contradiction?

Surah 7:109 and Surah 26:34 put the words “Surely this man is a skillful magician” into the mouths of two different people at the same event. This can certainly be harmonized, but were this found in the Gospels this would be called a contradiction.

Surah 7:143: Allah enters creation?

Surah 19:28: The Virgin Mary is sister of Aaron?!

Surah 20:85: A Samaritan led the worship of the Golden Calf?!

Surah 22:6 Allah says he is “The Truth”…a title claimed by Jesus.

Surah 24:35 comes Allah to many things he has created (and I’ve heard it said often that you can’t do this)

Surah 26:196: Claims that the Qur’an has been foretold in the previous scriptures

Surah 40:55, Surah 47:19, and Surah 48:2 all seem to say that Muhammad sinned, despite the common Islamic belief that he was sinless.

Surah 47:7: You can help Allah?

Surah 55:56 the rewards of Jenna

Surah 16:44 says that Muhammad will explain the revelation he’s been given and Surah 59:7 says Muhammad will explain what is allowed and forbidden (outside of the Qur’an?).

Surah 98:6 and Surah 8:55 Those who don’t believe in the Qur’an are the “worst of creatures”

Surah 5:45 quotes “the Torah” but doesn’t match either Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, or Deuteronomy 19:21

Surah 21:105 says it’s quoting the Psalms but adds an extra word (“servants”) in Psalm 37:29

Surah 28:38: High towers are built out of baked clay?! And has it confused Haman from the story of Esther?

Surah 61:6 says that Jesus gave “good news of a messenger after me whose name will be Aḥmad”

Surah 66:12 has translations which obscure the word “vagina”. Mary protected it and it was breathed into. It also claims that Mary was the daughter of Imran.

Surah 33:36: Muhammad is a decision partner with Allah (shirk?!)

The Big Bang in the Qur’an?

There are three main problems with what’s said here:

  1. As with most scientific miracle claims in the Qur’an, A LOT is read into a vague text. All it says is that “the heavens” and “the earth” were once together and that God separated them. It’s a BIG jump from this basic statement to the Big Bang Theory (a theory first suggested, not by a Muslim reading this Qur’an, but by a Catholic priest).
  2. The idea of God (or the gods) separating and organizing creation isn’t unique to the Qur’an. If this is a proof, then many other religions of the world are vindicated.
  3. Most importantly, the Qur’an says that EVEN UNBELIEVERS recognize that the heavens and the earth were separated. If this was common knowledge among unbelievers, what is exactly is the miracle of the Qur’an?

The strange challenge of the Qur’an

I’ve always found this to be a very strange argument…

I can’t write a poetry like Shakespeare – does that mean his poetry is divine revelation? Of course not.

In fact, when I read the Qu’ran, I found it very erratic and stilted, so producing something equal or better doesn’t seem hard. I think I would submit in response to this challenge the poetry of Kahlil Gibran.

However, the challenge is impossible to meet because by what standard would one judge one better than the other? The Qur’an doesn’t say…

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