It may be rebutted but it cannot be refuted that no one can live and no academic discipline can operate without faith, properly defined!
Faith, like its twin sister hope, is fragile but is a fundamentum in life, by that I mean it is absolutely foundational to life. So you ask me what then is faith in my book?
As I have argued in lecture theatres and urged in sermons, faith is belief, based on…

Ancient books are not always, if ever, easy to read properly, unless one can find helpful background information.
The Herods in the New Testament are not clearly differentiated, so we read about King Herod in Mt. 2:1(re the nativity of Jesus) then there is a King Herod in Mk. 6:18 (the one whom John rebuked for marrying his brother’s wife) and there is yet another King Herod in Acts 12:1-2(who had James the brother of…

If you are uncertain or ignorant about your facts as a writer of material purporting to be history then you hedge your bets by using vague terms, skillfully avoiding anything that anyone could double-check and blow your cover. For this reason fairy tales usually begin in an uncertain time and in an unspecified location. No sensible writer of pure fiction bares his flanks by writing what Luke wrote in his Gospel at chapter Luke 1:5 and…

Many have read or said that the Biblical idea of Jesus having been conceived of a virgin is not only paralleled in other cultures but is drawn from one or other of these other cultures.  Jamaican Atheist, Michael Dingwall argued in a slightly nuanced but similar vein recently on my LOVEFM’s The Morning Watch in Jamaica (heard on love101.org, 7-8 am EST on weekdays).
The argument used is that since the Biblical idea is later…

The ostensibly progressive and rights-protecting California law banning all reparative (‘conversion’) therapy for minors is very puzzling and raises some very awkward questions.

What is it about homosexual orientation or behavior (if unwanted) that makes it so uniquely resistant to Psychotherapeutic behavior-modification interventions? I say uniquely resistant because such clinical interventions are utilized for a whole range of unwanted behaviours including alcoholism, sexual/gender identity issues, anxiety disorders (phobias), unlawful sexual urges, etc. What then is…

Our Lord Jesus Christ was, in all likelihood, naked on the cross. Christian art and the Church will not face it readily so you won’t see crucifixion pictures of Jesus with exposed penis though in all likelihood, following Roman custom, he would have been crucified naked.
There is even biblical support for this seemingly way out thought. Let’s probe this radical idea a bit by checking John 19.23 in a few versions in light of…