Tag: featured

PWJ: S3E44 – AH – “After Hours” with Joseph Loconte

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Continuing “Tolkien Month”, I interviewed Joseph Loconte, author of A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War which tells the story of how the First World War shaped the lives, faith, and writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.

S3E44: “After Hours” with Joseph Loconte (Download)

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The roadmap for Season 3 is available here.

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

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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.

S4E98: “Once Upon A Wardrobe”, “After Hours” with Patti Callahan (Download)

If you enjoy this episode, you can subscribe manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found (iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Audible, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn and Overcast), as well as on YouTube. The roadmap for Season 4 is available here.

More information about us can be found on our website, PintsWithJack.com. If you’d like to support us and get fantastic gifts, please join us on Patreon.

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Real Men Still Do This

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I was at lunch with a new friend the other day and, as a matter of course, as we were leaving the café, I opened the store’s door for her. Her reaction was one of utter surprise! She asked me if opening doors was an “English thing”! I replied no, it’s a “real man” thing.

It’s a complete joke!

You may have heard the joke that if you see a man opening a car door for a lady then it’s either a new lady or a new car. Unfortunately, this joke appears to be, in fact, reality. This is tragic! It’s so sad when a man does not think enough of the lady in his company so as to perform this simple act of kindness. It’s even more heartbreaking when a husband does not do this for the woman to whom he has pledged his life.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies… – Ephesians 5:25, 28

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Produce one chapter like it?

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I was recently having a discussion online with a Muslim and he said “The Qur’an even tells you exactly how to disprove it if you’re in doubt of its authenticity, so if no one has disproved it in 1440 years, and you can’t disprove it”. Here he was referring to the Qur’anic challenge to “produce a chapter like it”, as evidence that the Qur’an is of divine origin. 

I have to say, this challenge is bizarre for a number of reasons… 

Firstly, the challenge is rather light on details! Do we have to produce it in Arabic? What does it mean to be “like” the Qur’an? What objective criteria can we use to measure it? How do we know when the test has been fulfilled?

Secondly, entire websites devoted to poetry in the Qur’anic style. Why do these fail the test?

Thirdly, it’s just an odd argument. Even if I couldn’t produce something like the Qur’an, it doesn’t mean it’s divine. I can’t produce a Beethoven Symphony or a Shakespeare sonnet either!  Even if Muhammad was the only person in history to produce something like the Qur’an, I still don’t see why that would demonstrate it’s divine. Alternative explanations would be that Muhammad was uniquely skilled, or you could even suggest that it comes from a nefarious spiritual source.

Personally, I think the poetry of Kahlil Gibran greatly superior to the Qur’an, both in terms of beauty and wisdom. The English is great and I’m sure the original Arabic is as well. 

Bad Islamic Apologetics

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I was in an apologetics discussion group and someone posted the following:

I told the members of the group that I didn’t like this line of argumentation. Several people responded by saying that since the Qur’an claims that there are no contradictions within its pages, the passages cited above were clear evidence that the book is not of divine origin.

In reply, I explained that they were interpreting the Qur’an in a way which forced a contradiction and then declared it to contain contradictions. I pointed out that they would never accept a Muslim exegeting the Bible in this way.

Even without digging into the context of these passages from the Qur’an, it seemed immediately obvious to me that the statements could very easily be harmonised by simply recognising that “first of” can mean “foremost among”. This would mean that, according to the Qur’an, Moses declared himself to be foremost among the believers of his time and Muhammad made the same claim for himself in his own generation. Interpreting the passages in this way eliminates the contradiction.

There are many apparent contradictions in the Bible, but careful exegesis can show this not to be the case.  If you wouldn’t accept bad methodology when interpreting the Bible, you shouldn’t force it on the Qur’an….

Nostra Aetate

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In the concluding post for the “Introduction to Islam” series I quoted the Second Vatican Council document “Nostra Aetate” since it provides Church teaching regarding non-Christian religions in general, and Islam in particular.

In the JP2 Group we will be working through this Council document, once we have concluded our current series.

In preparation for this study I have put together a formatted PDF of this document. I also recorded the text onto MP3, which I thought I would also post here:

Nostra Aetate (Download)

TEA: C.S. Lewis – Apostle To The Skeptics

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Last night I gave a talk in Charlotte, North Carolina, on C.S. Lewis, telling the story of how he came to faith in Christ and how this journey influenced his own subsequent evangelistic efforts.

C.S. Lewis – Apostle To The Skeptics (Download)

You can subscribe to “Theology With An English Accent” manually, or any place where good podcasts can be found  (Feed | iTunes | Google Play).

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