My recent debate with James Corbett on the topic, "Is God the Best Explanation for Moral Values?", has generated quite a stir. A number of people from various backgrounds and beliefs have chimed in with their thoughts, including a popular atheist blogger, a Christian science-fiction writer, a Christian postmodernist, the "Apologetics Junkie," and the Saddleback College paper (the debate was held at Saddleback College).

Check out this interview I did last week with Apologetics 315, one of the more popular apologetics Podcasts. We talked about effective apologetics today, youth and apologetics, as well as some of the more pressing questions people are asking about the faith.

Click here to hear the Podcast.

Here is Part 1 of the debate between Sean McDowell and James Corbett on the question, "Is God the Best Explanation for Moral Values?" To view Part 2, click on "continue reading."

The love of a man for a woman (or a woman for a man) can be of the noblest sort, and to those two people it may be the greatest thing of all. But what about the love of a man for a dog, a car, or a sandwich? Are those noble loves? Of course not. Those are what C.S. Lewis describes as "Need-loves," as in "I don't have any friends, so I need a dog," or "I need to be seen in this car," or "Right now I need a sandwich."

There's nothing wrong with loving something you need. Most close relationships are based on Need-love. We need the companionship, the warmth, and the love of other people, so we reach out in love. "Our whole being by its very nature is one of vast need," Lewis writes. Even our love for God is based on our need to be connected with the Creator of the universe, who himself is love.

Next month I will be debating James Corbett from Capistrano Valley High School on the topic: "Is God the Best Explanation for Moral Values." This promises to be an interesting and informative evening! Jim got his Ph.D from Ohio State University and has taught for 37 years. The debate will be held at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California, on Friday, February 26 from 7 to 9:30 pm. If you're interested in attending, you can get more information from my website, where I've posted a pdf announcement of the event. If you can't attend in person, be sure to watch it live right here at ConversantLife.com.

One of my responsibilities as a blogger is to start dialogue and conversation on controversial topics.  In order to effectively set up these conversations, it is important that I remain truthful, open, and honest.  In that spirit, I have a two confessions to make.  Here’s the first:  I am a choir boy.  

When I was in elementary school, my music teacher, Mrs. Neidringhaus (who, coincidentally, just became my Facebook friend last week), suggested I join a local professional boys choir, The All American Boys Chorus.  Lured by the promise of international travel and missed school days, I auditioned.  I was never really a singer before that moment, but that started a new journey for me as a chorister. 

Patrick is a father first, then teacher/writer/cook/photographer and sometimes prophet. He lives and works with Heather in New Zealand and has four beautiful game designing (Josiah), film directing (Jordan), artistic (Jasmine), and acting (Levi) children. You can check them out at www.patrickdodson.net .

The Bible starts off with God creating the world, bringing Adam and Eve to life, giving them tasks and walking with them. However, in the biblical account this does not stay that way for very long. Eve deceived by the Serpent eats the fruit of the forbidden tree and Adam, knowing better, follows her lead. The result is what is historically called the Fall of humankind. There were several curses that came about due to the Fall. These curses demonstrate areas of brokenness in our world. The four areas of brokenness are:

1) Abundance: God called Adam and Eve to work the garden, through which they had abundant resources (Gen. 1:28) for their well-being. With the Fall, work has become difficult and these resources became scarce (Gen. 3:17).

2) Relationships: God created Eve as it was not good for people to live alone. We were created for fruitful relationships. With the Fall, these relationships became contentious (Gen. 3:16).

When followers of Christ become socially conscious about global issues, one of the first things that becomes discussed is the role or necessity of a verbal proclamation of the gospel. There are typically two camps: One believes that the good deeds required to respond to social issues is more or less sufficient; the other emphasizes a verbal proclamation over any type of “physical” service.

These tensions have become highlighted with two recent publications. The first is an article by Mark Galli of Christianity Today entitled “Speak the Gospel Use deeds when necessary”.

The second is The Hole in Our Gospel a book by World Vision USA President Richard Stearns.

Galli is writing from a perspective that demonstrates concern that a verbal proclamation of the Gospel is undermined when deeds are emphasized. He points to the quote, “Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words” which is commonly attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.

Galli shows two important things:

1) There is a good chance that St. Francis never said this since it does not emerge until two centuries after his death. It is unlikely that his followers would not have cited such a pithy phrase.

2) St. Francis regularly preached or verbally proclaimed the gospel, thus demonstrating that he had a high view of such activity.

Before we return to Galli, let’s look at one of Stearns’ stories in his new book. Stearns tells the wonderful story of a collaborative project that World Vision did with Habitat for Humanity in rural India. During a ceremony dedicating the project to the community, a local World Vision worker overhears the local people speaking in their dialect asking each other questions about why Christians would come from so far away to help them. Stearns concludes, “We had not spoken a word in their local language, but the village elders had already ‘heard’ the gospel” (p. 23).

While one could not say that Stearns reflects an opposite viewpoint of Galli, he is emphasizing that the good deeds done either replace or are the functional equivalent of verbally speaking the gospel.

I have read Stearns and Galli on numerous occasions and they are both thought provoking, faithful followers of Christ and strong leaders. If I could be privileged enough to sit down with them, I think we would all come to very similar conclusions regarding the relationship of word and deeds to the Christian faith. However, both of their viewpoints in these recent publications fall short of articulating the fullness of word/deed ministry.