When you read the Bible – or hear it referred to as “the Word of God” –how do you know that what you’re reading is what the authors originally wrote? This is a question that skeptics often raise, but in fact it is a perfectly legitimate issue that all serious Christians should understand.

The field of study that deals directly with this issue is known as biblical textual criticism – a term that is somewhat misleading because the word “criticism” usually connotes something negative (as in “to find fault with”). But as scholars use the term, it refers to biblical textual analysis – the art and science of comparing the variant readings in biblical manuscripts in order to restore, as accurately as possible, the original wording in the original texts.

Read the full PDF newsletter here…

In Romans 8:28 the apostle Paul writes, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” This principle applies not only to our personal lives but to the whole realm of human existence. For example, with the increasing secularization of higher education over the past fifty years, residual Christian influences have been marginalized if not purged altogether from campus life. But at some universities this is opening up opportunities for innovative new ministries such as Christian study centers that offer students (and even some faculty) not only a place of spiritual refuge but also the kind of vibrant intellectual stimulation that is often missing in the typical university environment.

Most colleges and universities are essentially closed shops in which only secular liberal and radical left-wing ideas and values are tolerated. As for traditional orthodox Christianity, it is regarded as so antiquated and politically incorrect as to be unworthy of serious consideration.  So ironically, the one place where Christians can express themselves freely and engage in open dialogue and debate with believers and nonbelievers alike is in the one venue that honors true intellectual diversity and academic freedom: a Christian study center.

Click here to read the PDF.

Last July, my 17-year-old son, Brandon, and I were blessed to attend Oxbridge 2011, the world’s premier C.S. Lewis event, hosted by the C.S. Lewis Foundation and held every third year in Oxford and Cambridge. This ten-day event featured an impressive cast of speakers, nearly all of whom are successful authors. This included:

• Walter Hooper (Trustee of the Lewis Estate and editor of many C.S. Lewis collections)
• Stan Mattson (founder of the C.S. Lewis Foundation)
• Os Guinness (social critic and author, The Call)
• Randy Alcorn (Heaven)
• Ken Blanchard (The One-Minute Manager)
• Sir John Polkinghorne (Cambridge physicist and author, Quantum Leap)
• Kalistos Ware (Bishop on the Island of Patmos)
• Vishal Mangalwadi (The Book That Made Your World)
• Mary Poplin (Finding Calcutta)
• Malcolm Guite (Cambridge poet and musician)
• Kevin Belmonte (William Wilberforce)
• Earl Palmer (The Humor of Jesus)
• Joseph Pearce (former IRA street fighter and author, Literary Converts)
• and Michael Ward (Oxford Chaplain and author, Planet Narnia)

These noted speakers did not just helicopter in for a few hours to deliver their address; most stayed the entire two weeks; thereby providing an opportunity to work with, pray with and get to know these wonderful people.  For all in attendance, Oxbridge was spiritually illuminating. As for me, have I never witnessed the “Light of the Lord” reflecting off so many.

It was with much anticipation that I looked forward to meeting Chuck Colson, who was one of the main plenary speakers.  Interestingly, one of Colson’s great friends, British author Jonathan Aitken, also spoke during Oxbridge.  In 1993, Aitken published Nixon: A Life; a highly favorable biography on the rise, fall, and rebirth of Colson’s former boss.  Aitken was one of the few biographers to whom Nixon granted interviews.  Not surprisingly, Aitken met Colson in the course of his research, and they became good friends.  As their lives played out, these two men would come to have much in common.

For years, I have been an ardent admirer of the writings of CS Lewis, not the least of which is his extraordinary masterpiece, Mere Christianity.  In fact, the very reason I was looking forward to meeting Mr. Colson was to speak with him about his own personal experience with my favorite chapter from this book, entitled “The Great Sin.”  Many people know that Chuck Colson experienced a mid-life conversion to Christianity which sparked a radical change in his life’s purpose—to teach Christian worldviews and later to establish the ministry, Prison Fellowship.  However, few people know the role that the book, Mere Christianity, and specifically this one profound chapter on pride, had played in his life.

Colson was one of the few who came to be known as “all the president’s men” in the Nixon administration, but he held a position of marked influence. According to Colson, he and Nixon brought the worst out in each other.  In Nixon’s biography, Aitken wrote, “Nixon and Colson could ‘hot’ one another up to the most feverish of bouts of plotting and scheming.”  Colson later wrote: “Those who said that I fed the president’s dark instincts are only 50 percent correct, because 50 percent of the time he was feeding my darker instincts.” The paranoia shared by the two led to Colson drafting a 1971 memo that came to be called the President’s Enemies List–which contributed in no small way to the dysfunctional culture within the Nixon White House.  On March 10, 1973, amidst the unfolding of the Watergate cover-up, Colson resigned his position at the White House. One year later, he was indicted for conspiring to cover up the Watergate burglary.

Only five months after resigning his government post, Colson made contact with Tom Phillips, the CEO at Raytheon and a newly-minted Christian. Colson went into this meeting with only one item on his agenda—to secure legal work for his firm. Tom Phillips had a different  agenda in mind.  He saw an entirely different “window of opportunity” in the meeting: a chance to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with someone he knew was in deep spiritual need.

Phillips began by reading some extracts to Colson taken from Mere Christianity and then asked if he could pray with him.  The passages Phillips read from the book were taken from the chapter on pride entitled “The Great Sin.”  This caught Colson’s attention and made him uncomfortable.  At first, he dismissed Phillip’s faith as naïve, “pure Pollyanna.” Because he had always turned a deaf ear to anything that had to do with religion, Colson initially resisted the idea, but soon conceded to Phillips’ request to pray together, saying, “Sure—I guess I would—fine.”

Tom Phillips remembers praying these words that day: “Open Chuck’s heart and show him the light and the way.” Colson would later admit that he felt the movement of God’s Spirit within his soul as Phillips prayed, but that could not bring himself in those fleeting moments to surrender to Christ.   However, later that night, as he sat alone in his car in Phillips driveway he realized he resist the lure, and no matter how much he would have preferred, he could not rationalize this away.  As he later reported: “Outside in the dark, the iron grip I’d kept on my emotions began to relax. Tears welled up in my eyes . . . and suddenly I knew I had to go back into the house and pray with Tom.” Since Phillips had already retired for the evening, Colson drove home.  But there, as he gripped the wheel of his car in front of his own house he wept privately and offered his own prayer.  Climbing into bed that evening, he told his wife Patty that he had undergone a conversion experience, although he confessed that he did not understand it.  A few months later Chuck Colson was convicted of perjury and was consquently interned for seven months.

When Jonathan Aitken wrote his book about Nixon, he was a Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, where he had served for 24 years. A few years later Aitken would rise to become the Minister of Defense on the British Cabinet.  Like Colson, he had reached the apex of government; but as with Colson, his life soon came crashing to the ground.  In 1999, Aitken committed a minor mistake in his testimony before Parliament. The British press and his political opponents piled on him with a vengeance.  Months later, Jonathan Aitken was convicted and sentenced to prison for perjury.  Like Colson, he served only seven months, but it was an exceedingly stressful time, for Aiken had the inglorious distinction of being the first major British leader to be imprisoned in more than 500 years.

"The Light of the World" by Holman Hunt

In his address at Oxbridge, Jonathan Aitken spoke with reverence for his friend; for in his time of tribulation, it was Chuck Colson who traveled to England to provide Aitken with valuable legal counsel and, more importantly, emotional support—for Colson knew full well the pain Aitken was suffering.  He also spoke of his internment with surprising humor. He recounted how the British media had stalked him incessantly until the day of his actual confinement. There he encountered a prison clerk tasked with registering the new arrival.  Oddly enough, this clerk seemed wholly unaware of Aiken’s identity or background.  Without looking up, the clerk perfunctorily asked the new prisoner: “Does anyone know that you are here?” Aitken paused and said wryly: “Well, I suspect that nearly everyone in England knows I’m here.”  Unmoved, this clerk no doubt thought the newly incarcerated felon to be just another in the endless stream of egotistical felons to flow past his desk.

Once ensconced in his new quarters, Aitken’s fellow prisoners soon realized he had an expertise in the law.  They came to him for counsel.  They asked him to write letters to the parole board on their behalf, for many of his “pen pals” were illiterate.  One day Aiken reached out to an inmate to give testimony to his faith. This hardened man was so moved that he soon assembled a “Big House” Bible study group.  Not surprisingly, these spiritual neophytes asked Aiken to lead the group in their daily devotional study. Aitken reflected on how all Bible study groups are, in varying degrees, comprised of sinners.  But, on the first day, as Aitken looked around at the faces in his circle of new friends, there staring back at him were murderers, rapists, bank robbers and embezzlers—fallen men, perhaps more fallen than most, but still in need of the forgiving grace of Christ. Here too, there was a parallel with Colson’s own work. In light of Colson’s own work with prison ministries. In this, these two men shared a most unique bond.

Sadly, Brandon and I did not get to meet Chuck Colson last July, for only days before his arrival he was forced to cancel his plans due to illness. Ironically, it was not his illness, but rather his wife Patty’s illness, that prevented his appearance.  No one at Oxbridge would have believed it possible that less than a year later it would be Chuck Colson whose unanticipated passing Christians all around the world would be mourning.

In the chapel at Keeble College, where Brand and I lived while in Oxford, there hangs a famous painting by Holman Hunt,  who founded the Pre-Raphaelite movement in art in 1848.  It is called “The Light of the World.”

Truly, it is this “Light of our World” that illuminates—and as I have said, this light had shone in large measure throughout Oxbridge.  If we are blessed, each of us in our own way will see the light and reflect it onto others. Somehow, years ago, this light was reflected onto Tom Phillips, who in turn reflected it onto Chuck Colson, and from Colson to Jonathan Aitken.  By any measure, Chuck Colson reflected the “Light of the World” onto countless people, including prisoners who might otherwise find little light in their darkened cells.

As we celebrate the life of Chuck Colson, we must be mindful of the source of this light.  It is as C.S. Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce:

“The Glory flows into everyone, and back from everyone:
like light and mirrors. But the Light’s the thing.”

A special presentation by

When you read the Bible, how do you know that what you’re reading is what the authors originally wrote?

Dr. Daniel B. Wallace is the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts and an expert in the field of Biblical textual criticism. For several years his team at CSNTM has been involved in photographing the oldest and most ‘at risk’ Biblical manuscripts in the world, and in the process they have discovered many manuscripts that were previously unknown to exist.

Join us for this fascinating presentation as Dr. Wallace explains why we can trust that the Bible has been accurately transmitted and preserved through the centuries.

Thursday, May 17 • 7:30 PM
Perimeter Church • Fellowship Hall

•   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •   •

Dr. Wallace is a professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary and the author of numerous books including “Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture.”

Perimeter Church • Fellowship Hall

• The historical roots of anti-Semitism
• Why the Jews were targeted
• Darwinism and the Holocaust
• The problem of Tolerance
• Why politics matters

Despite the onrush of resistance against his policies, Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos chooses to dig in his heels. He jettisons any notion of fairness and democracy in order to shut down all active debate. Case in point: Recently the Chancellor suddenly and arbitrarily rescheduled a town-hall meeting intended to provide a public forum for discussion of this matter.  Seemingly, to constrain the public outcry, he selected one of the smaller conference rooms available on campus to serve as the site for this meeting.  Oddly, the Chancellor had a “schedule conflict” (this in spite of the fact that it was he who set the date), so three complicit subordinates were tasked with defending the official “party line.”

 Much to the dismay of school administrators hundreds of students showed up to voice their support for Professor Swain and to demand that this violation of religious rights be rejected. Still, the Chancellor stubbornly refuses to hear, let alone heed, the voice of reason. Worse yet, he apparently rejects a recent Supreme Court ruling that speaks loud and clear on this issue. As Supreme Court Justice Alito wrote in a recent 9-0 ruling for the high court regarding religious association, “a religious body’s right to self-governance must include the ability to select, and to be selective about, those who will serve as the very ‘embodiment of its message.’” That same right is necessary for religious groups at Vanderbilt to accurately represent and adequately serve students.

Consider also this text taken from a letter to Chancellor Zeppos that was co-signed by a prominent group of law professors from elite schools such as the University of Virginia, Stanford and Notre Dame and other schools from around the country:

“Quite simply, it makes no sense for a university to require groups to accept as leaders persons who do not share their beliefs. A Talmud study group does not invidiously discriminate when it chooses a Jewish discussion leader rather than a Baptist. This is simply the free exercise of religion. Of course the University has an important interest in prohibiting religious discrimination where religion is irrelevant. But it is fundamentally confused to apply a rule against religious discrimination to a religious association. The University has changed a prohibition on religious discrimination from a protection for religious students into an instrument for excluding religious students. In so doing, the University has turned its prohibition on religious discrimination on its head.”

Vanderbilt’s altered non-discrimination policy undermines those groups with common interests, especially communities that meet to express commonly held religious beliefs. By preventing students and organizations from choosing leaders based on principles of faith, administrators are charting a new course that inhibits student efforts to create communities that can adequately meet their needs. This new policy also prevents students from maintaining the purpose and integrity of their communities over time.

The current dialogue also fails to represent the concern of hundreds, if not thousands, of parents and alumni from across the country who have called, written and recently purchased radio ads expressing their discontent with Vanderbilt’s new policy. This is not a case of a few rogue groups flaunting a well-established and accepted policy; this is a story of Vanderbilt enforcing a new, aggressive policy that has been met with widespread resistance from across the Vanderbilt community.

Dr. Carol Swain challenges us to “Be the People,” and here she is practicing what she preaches.  At great personal risk, she is called to “speak boldly to power,” and she is speaking not from a safe distance but in her own backyard.  It is contingent upon us all to support Carol, to join the chorus of dissenting voices. We must stand up and “be the people” to help turn back this affront to religious freedom.

The battle line must be drawn here, now.  But what, you may ask, can you do?  Certainly, Vanderbilt alumni have a right to voice their concerns directly with university officials and even to curtail their financial support, if so inclined.  Those of us who did not attend Vanderbilt should pray for Carol and all those who stand with her.  Better yet, I ask that you consider making a donation to the cause at http://vanderbiltreligiousfreedom.com/.

Perhaps, most importantly, we should stand a watchful guard as relates to our own alma maters.  We should be prepared to react quickly and decisively if this cultural cancer takes root. For if the secular liberals at Vanderbilt are successful with this patently anti-Christian initiative, like-minded Leftists will soon bring this agenda to a school near you.

-Jim Motter

During the Forum, Dr. Swain shared a disturbing story of an ongoing confrontation underway in her own backyard at Vanderbilt University.  Under the guise of enforcing so-called pre-existing universities policies, Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos seeks to force Christian organizations to “toe the line” with a prevailing political correctness that, by any measure, has run amok.  Ostensibly, this means to operate in a manner consistent with the University’s anti-discrimination policies, but the reality is quite a different story.

Just what are these anti-discrimination practices?  For some time all religious organizations operating under the auspices of Vanderbilt University have been required to allow people of all faiths to participate freely and openly.  On the surface, this seems reasonable; and it is, in fact, consistent with Vanderbilt’s pre-existing anti-discrimination policies.  The problem is that these new dictates go much further.  School administrators are now insisting that any and all leadership positions within religious organizations be open to people of all faiths—including people of conflicting faiths or no faith at all.  In other words, by this absurd logic, atheists should be allowed to serve as the president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes or any other Christian organization such as Vandy Catholic, The Baptist Collegiate Ministry, the Lutheran Student Fellowship, InterVarsity or even the Christian Legal Society.

Just why an atheist would seek a position of leadership in an organization of faith is unclear. Moreover, the premise that Christians would even nominate, let alone elect, a non-believer to lead their organization is similarly puzzling.  But this is not the real issue.  Even if the threat of an atheist group commandeering a Christian group is minimal, there are other risks.  Imagine, for example, that you are a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and that you’re running for president of the organization. You win the election, but when the results are announced the student you beat in the election files legal action because he suspects (or merely chooses to rationalize) that members of the organization cast their votes against him due solely to his unorthodox religious beliefs.  According to the way this policy now reads, Vanderbilt officials would have grounds to investigate your organization for discrimination if the defeated candidate (or anyone) even so much as lodged a formal complaint.

There is also this scenario: What if a student leader goes away for the summer and has experienced a change of beliefs? What if this leader no longer embraces the shared beliefs of the organization? How, then, can this student lead people in putting those beliefs into practice? Under this new policy, asking this student to step down qualifies as discrimination, yet keeping this person in that leadership position undermines the integrity of the organization. These are only a few examples of the kind of catch-22 this policy creates for religious organizations.

Were these policies truly “pre-existing” as claimed by Vanderbilt school administrators?  According to the official storyline, various offices are finally “catching up” with a policy that has been in place all along. But no matter how the facts are framed, the reality is that the student handbook was altered in December 2010 when a section specifically protecting religious association was removed—a fact highlighted by a school newspaper in September 2011. So, clearly, the answer is “no.”  Despite efforts by school administrators to conceal this fact, the laws have been rewritten to create this new weapon in the anti-religion arsenal.

Into this fray steps Dr. Carol M. Swain. She is virtually alone among Vanderbilt faculty members in confronting school administrators.  Thankfully, however, she is receiving active support from a great many University students including, but not limited to, Christians.  Members of non-Christian organizations are demonstrating against this travesty.  Even more amazing is this: some atheist groups are on board with the Christians.  They recognize that this action puts virtually all organizations that operate at Vanderbilt University in legal peril. For it takes little imagination to realize that this altered “anti-discrimination” policy is a gun that can be pointed in any direction–meaning Jewish groups could conceivably be forced to accept Muslim leaders or that Feminist groups might be coerced to sharing a platform with conservative men. Given the student support to Professor Swain, Vanderbilt alumnae have reason to be proud of their alma mater’s students. About school leaders, there is cause for concern.

By any measure, what school officials are doing is an affront to first amendment rights.  Universities are not exempt when it comes to respecting the Constitutional rights of students and religious-based student organizations. Whether a private institution or not, Vanderbilt University has no right to dictate the internal policies of religious organizations when it comes to how these groups select their leaders and govern themselves.

The battle line must be drawn here, now.

-Jim Motter

New Insights into the Resurrection of Jesus

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the linchpin of the Christian faith. As the apostle Paul wrote, “If Christ has not been raised from the dead, our preaching is useless and so is your faith” (I Cor. 15:14).

Yet the resurrection has been one of the most controversial of all Christian doctrines, and debates over the historical accuracy of the New Testament accounts of the resurrection continue to the present.

Dr. Mike Licona is the author of “The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach” – the most comprehensive study of the resurrection ever written.

Mike Licona earned his Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from the University of Pretoria and is one of the foremost Christian apologists and debaters on the scene today. Find out more about his ministry and numerous books at RisenJesus.com.

March 15 • 7:30pm

Perimeter Church • Fellowship Hall

Since our founding in 2003 the Areopagus has sponsored nearly 250 seminars, forums, lectures, workshops and special events, including more than 50 semester-length seminary-level courses in Christian history, apologetics, and contemporary cultural issues. In the process more than 10,000 people have attended our programs in various churches and other venues, and we believe we have made a unique and substantial contribution to the quality of Christian education throughout the metro-Atlanta area.

The Ladder of Thorns: Finding God in a Life of Suffering

by Timothy Dalrymple, Ph.D.

Thursday, February 16 • 7:30 PM
Perimeter Church • Fellowship Hall

The relationship between human suffering and divine love is an enduring concern for Western philosophical and religious thought. Does suffering serve a purpose? From whence does it come? How does it shape the human spirit, and how should it inform our faith?

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) developed an original and compelling response to these questions: a “ladder” of suffering in which each form of human suffering will – if we let it – serve in essential ways to break down our former self, reduce it to nothing, and bring forth a new creation in Christ.

———————————————————–

Timothy Dalrymple is the Director of Content for Patheos.com, the largest religion website in the U.S., and the Managing Editor of its Evangelical Portal. He is also a regular columnist for World magazine. Dr.Dalrymple earned bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and religious studies at Stanford University, an M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in modern western religious thought at Harvard. Dr. Dalrymple has ministry experience in youth ministry, college ministry, prison chaplaincy, teaching Christian apologetics, and leading overseas missions. He is currently a member of Perimeter Church.

 Files related to this event

• PDF Flyer