Apologetics and Evidence

The reason I write this is because I frequently hear members from the Church of Christ crying out that Christian denominations are evil and such, and I have recently posted on the   Apologetics and Evidence Facebook page that Mormonism is not a Christian denomination [1]  and received some disgruntled comments from a few people over it. I will argue that denominations are biblical, and that groups of people, such as the Churches of Christ who argue against such are biblically in error.   The argument is as follows: 1. If we can in principle, refer to the Way as a denomination, then Jesus also condones denominations that adhere to the essential doctrines of Christianity. 2. We can in principle, refer to the Way as a denomination. 3. Therefore, Jesus also condones denominations that adhere to the essential doctrines of Christianity. First, what even is a denomination? I would say that a denomination is any body of believers of the biblical Jesus who are in agreement with es...

Nearly everyone has experienced division. We personally learn the effects of such even in high school. When a classmate on a random day decides on a whim to negatively regard a fellow student, he or she might gossip about a person, and try to   poison the well , for example, in making such a person seem unappealing or unreputable in whatever issue is being discussed.   Poisoning the well   is the idea that before   person B   even gets a chance to examine certain information on his or her own,   person A   seeks to distort  person B’s   understanding by pointing out things that might either be true or false in order for   person B   to immediately have the perspective that   person A   has. For instance, I have recently been called an   anti-Mormon , which is a textbook example of poisoning the well. What this does is when a Mormon calls another person anti-Mormon, he is using this derogatory label to warn other Mormo...

How much does a person have to know or believe in order that, if he or she died, would go to heaven ? Would God wait on a person’s death if he or she was on the way to being saved? This question comes out of thinking about the goodness of God. God is perfect in His goodness by definition, so it seems safe to assume that God would do everything in His power to cause a person to live until they were to trust in Christ before he or she died.  I know a guy (Let’s call him “Man X”) who gave his life to Christ and about a year after faithfully coming to church came in my study and asked me in a roundabout way, “So, Jesus isn’t God, right?” As in, after coming to church for over a year, with him listening in the congregation faithfully every Sunday morning, Man X wanted clarity on this because he had heard that Jesus is God from someone else . The thing is, during the time that Man X was listening under me, I know for a fact that I have taught that Jesus is God over and over, nearl...