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This is an installment of my series of replies to an article by Dr. David Madison<\/a>:\u00a0a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, who has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. It\u2019s called,\u00a0\u201cThings We Wish Jesus Hadn\u2019t Said\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(Debunking Christianity<\/em>, 7-21-19). His words will be in\u00a0blue\u00a0<\/span>below. Dr. Madison makes several \u201cgeneric\u201d digs at Jesus and Christianity, in the written portion (it details a series of 12 podcasts):<\/p>\n A challenge for Christians: If you\u2019re so sure Jesus existed, then you have some explaining to do. A major frustration is that, while believers are indignant at all the talk about Jesus not existing, they don\u2019t know the issues that fuel the skepticism\u2014and are unwilling to inform themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, I\u2019m up to the \u201cchallenge.\u201d No problem at all. I\u2019m not threatened or \u201cscared\u201d by this in the slightest. It\u2019s what I do, as an apologist. The question is whether\u00a0Dr. Madison<\/em>\u00a0is up to interacting with\u00a0counter-critiques<\/em>? Or will he act like the voluminous anti-theist atheist polemicist Bob Seidensticker?: who directly challenged me in one of his own comboxes to respond to his innumerable attack-pieces against Christianity and the Bible, and then courageously proceeded to\u00a0utterly ignore<\/em>\u00a0my 35 specific critiques<\/a>\u00a0of his claims as of this writing. We shall soon see which course Dr. Madison will decide to take. Anyway, he also states in his post and combox:<\/p>\n [S]o many of the words of Jesus are genuinely shocking. These words aren\u2019t proclaimed much from the pulpit, . . . Hence the folks in the pews have absorbed and adored an idealized Jesus. Christian apologists make their livings refiguring so many of the things Jesus supposedly said.<\/span><\/p>\n The gospels are riddled with contradictions and bad theology, and Jesus is so frequently depicted as a cult fanatic\u2014because cult fanatics wrote the gospels. We see Jesus only through their theological filters. I just want to grab hold of Christian heads (standing behind them, with a hand on each ear) and force them to look straight ahead, unflinchingly, at the gospels, and then ask \u201cTell me what you see!\u201d uncoached by apologist specialists, i.e., priests and pastors, who\u2019ve had a lot of practice making bad texts look good. . . .\u00a0I DO say, \u201cDeal with the really bad stuff in the gospels.\u201d Are you SURE you\u2019ve not make a big mistake endorsing this particular Lord and Savior? That\u2019s the whole point of this series of Flash Podcasts, because a helluva lot of Christians would agree, right away, that these quotes are bad news\u2014if no one told then that they\u2019ve been attributed to Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, Dr. Madison \u2014 good anti-theist atheist that he is \u2014 takes the view that we are not at all\u00a0sure<\/em>\u00a0whether Jesus in fact said\u00a0anything<\/em>\u00a0recorded in the Gospels in the first place. I don\u2019t play that game, because there is no end to it. It\u2019s like trying to pin jello to the wall. The atheist always has their convenient out (when refuted in argument about some biblical text) that Jesus never said it\u00a0anyway<\/em>\u00a0[wink wink and sly patronizing grin], and\/or that the biblical text in question was simply added later by dishonest ultra-biased Christian partisans and propagandists. It\u2019s a silly and ultimately intellectually dishonest game, and so I always refuse to play it with atheists or anyone else, because there is no way to \u201cwin\u201d with such an absurdly stacked, purely subjective deck.<\/p>\n In my defense of biblical texts, I start with the assumption that the manuscripts we have are quite sufficient for us to know what is in the Bible (believe it or not). Going on from there, I simply defend particular [supposedly \u201cdifficult\u201d] texts, and note with appropriate argumentation, that \u201chere, the Bible teaches so-and-so,\u201d etc. I deal with the texts\u00a0as they exist<\/em>. I don\u2019t get into the endlessly arbitrary, subjective games that atheists and theologically liberal biblical skeptics play with the texts, in their self-serving textual criticism.<\/p>\n Dr. Madison himself (fortunately) grants my outlook in terms of\u00a0practical<\/em>\u00a0\u201cx vs. y\u201d debate purposes:\u00a0\u201cFor the sake of argument, I\u2019m willing to say, okay, Jesus was real and, yes, we have gospels that tell the story.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>And in the combox:\u00a0\u201cSo, we can go along with their insistence that he did exist. We\u2019ll play on their field, i.e., the gospels.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Good! So we shall examine his cherry-picked texts and see whether his interpretations of them can stand up to scrutiny. He is issuing challenges, and I as an apologist will be dishing a bunch of my own right back to him. Two can play this game. I will be dealing honestly with his challenges. Will he\u00a0return<\/em>\u00a0the favor, and engage in serious and substantive dialogue? Again, we\u2019ll soon know what his reaction will be. A true dialogue is of a confident, inquisitive, \u201cnothing to fear and everything to gain\u201d\u00a0back-and-forth<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0interactive<\/em>\u00a0nature, not merely \u201cships passing in the night\u201d or what I call \u201cmutual monologue.\u201d<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Dr. Madison\u2019s ninth podcast of twelve is entitled: \u201cOn Matthew 10:14-15, towns that reject the message of the Kingdom of God will be destroyed.\u201d<\/a> Here is the \u201coffending\u201d passage:<\/span><\/p>\n Matthew 10:14-15<\/strong> (RSV) And if any one will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.\u00a0[15] Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomor\u2019rah than for that town.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n . . . two brutal verses . . . if you turned them away, would you deserve destruction on the day of judgment? . . . sounds vindictive and petty, no? . . . Doesn\u2019t this sound like typical cult fanaticism, [that] we\u2019ve heard from religious cranks forever? \u201cIf you don\u2019t believe me, you\u2019ll be sorry\u2019 you\u2019ll be damned.\u201d And Jesus is supposed to be all about love and compassion, right? . . . Don\u2019t be so confident that Jesus was a good guy, and that he was a great moral teacher. These verses undercut that.<\/span><\/p>\n Dr. Madison apparently doesn\u2019t grasp or comprehend (agree or disagree) the notion of ultimate justice and God as Judge at all. It\u2019s not that complicated. I tackled this general area in a reply to another atheist, entitled,<\/span> \u201cGod\u2019s Judgment of Sin: Analogies for an Atheist Inquirer\u201d<\/a> (9-6-18). Here are some excerpts (slightly abridged):<\/span><\/p>\n God as the Creator has the \u201cprerogative\u201d to judge His creation when they have gone astray.<\/span><\/p>\n We have earthly judges (by analogy) who do the same thing. A criminal commits a crime. He is given a fair trial, found guilty, and is then judged, if deemed guilty.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But it\u2019s inconceivable that God is the Cosmic Judge?<\/span><\/p>\n Imagine if\u00a0everyone on earth<\/em>\u00a0were like an SS agent (think, Heinrich Himmler). We took out people like that in World War II and everyone thought it was quite moral. But if\u00a0God<\/em>\u00a0does it, suddenly it\u2019s immoral.<\/span><\/p>\n Well, with the Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah, that\u2019s what the Bible says took place: the level of immorality was virtually universal and beyond repair. So God judged. I don\u2019t have the slightest problem with it. I think it\u2019s exactly what we would expect in a God Who is both perfectly loving and a just judge.<\/span><\/p>\n In a blanket judgment by God there will be children who are killed as well. But they are not necessarily condemned to hell. God judges each soul individually. So yes, they may have to die young as a result of being in a hyper-corrupt culture (below the age of reason and guilt, as we Catholic say), but they have an eternal life in front of them and God will judge them justly in that respect.<\/span><\/p>\n In the atheist view, on the other hand, there is no ultimate justice at all. Since we are doing Nazi analogies, it would be as if the Nazis had won World War II and were ruling the world right now, doing all the evil they did while they were in power. In a world without God, there would be no ultimate justice. These Nazis would die and cease to exist. They would pay no penalty for their great evils (not even in this life if they aren\u2019t defeated). Their victims would die and cease to exist as well, and never receive any good things. All they had was an earthy life which was a living hell under Nazi rule.<\/span><\/p>\n There is no justice or meaning or \u201chappy ending\u201d in that scenario. Many people in the world have a terrible life: and very often because of despotic rulers or bad social or religious systems. In the Christian worldview the unrepentant bad guys are judged for their evil (and will end up in hell). People who accept God\u2019s grace spend eternity with God in heaven, in great bliss and joy, with no more suffering.<\/span><\/p>\n That<\/em>\u00a0is meaningful and just.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0I also wrote in a similar article,<\/span> \u201cIs God an Unjust Judge? Dialogue with an Atheist\u201d<\/a> (10-30-17):<\/span><\/p>\n The Bible says that God is Love and the life of Jesus illustrates that rather dramatically. The Bible also teaches that He is the judge of the world. The two are not mutually exclusive. We don\u2019t say that human judges are wicked and evil because they pass sentence (following jury verdicts) for someone to go to jail. We recognize that as due punishment for crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n God judges, as the Creator.\u00a0He desires that none perish, but He does judge folks for the sins that they willingly commit. He doesn\u2019t cause anyone to sin, but He judges them for their sins.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n