Podcast Reviews: Deeper Waters with Mentionable Member Nick Peters

 

“Deeper Waters” is a blog and podcast by Christian Apologist Nick Peters - who recently joined the speaking and debate team, The Mentionables. Peters makes no secret of the fact that he and his wife are both “Aspies,” that is, clinically diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome – a type of high-functioning autism. In fact, Peters has stated that the intellectual focus that comes with his autism has allowed him to be very productive in his Apologetics work, and that, if offered a ‘cure,’ he’s not certain he would take it. 

This focus is evident in the volume of material that Peters produces, regularly reading and reviewing full books and contacting high-profile guests for his two-hour weekly podcast, as well as hosting forums and regularly engaging in debates and discussions both formally and informally on the subjects of theology and apologetics. This list of projects has now increased significantly with Nick's new association with, and participation in the work of The Mentionables. 

The Deeper Water’s podcast serves as an interview podcast, wherein Peters speaks with mostly high-profile speakers and writers in the world of Theology and Science on a variety of subjects related to the field of Christian Apologetics. The range of topics covered is broad and has included subjects as diverse as Supposed Forgeries in the New Testament, The Occult, The Hook-Up Culture, and Harry Potter’s relation to Christianity. 

The range of guests Peters has managed to snag for the show is impressive, and includes such well known names as Paul Copan, author of Is God a Moral Monster, eminent New Testament scholar Michael Licona, New Testament textual scholar and critic Daniel Wallace, and astrophysicist Hugh Ross. 

But “Deeper Waters” is more than just a ‘who’s who’ of Apologetics: the topics of conversation are developed well across the course of the two-hour discussion so that the show is informative and educational for those interested in broadening their knowledge on scholarly and philosophical topics without having to be scholars or philosophers. 

As an interviewer, Peters is able to ask the right questions to ask to keep the interview focused and well-paced, so that each episode remains interesting and informative. While Peters is clearly more comfortable discussing the purely intellectual aspects of the topic at hand, it’s clear that he makes a conscious effort to bring a human interest aspect into the show, interspersing the interviews with humorous stories of his own, and encouraging his guests to do the same, so that the tone remains generally light and conversational, no matter how deep “waters” become. 

In every respect, the “Deeper Waters” podcast is a professional endeavor, except – perhaps – for the audio quality, which is less clear than one would expect from a professional recording. The podcasts are certainly listenable, but lack a certain clarity, which is surprising given the overall quality of the rest of the production. 

The “Deeper Waters” podcast is worth adding to your podcast list for the simple fact that it asks qualified Christian scholars - who do not receive as much public exposure as they ought to - to come on and talk less about themselves and more about the topics in which they are experts. While many shows bring this kind of information to the public, few do it from the lips of the experts themselves. 

Interview with Mentionable Speaking Team Member Neil Hess

One of the most offensive claims Christ ever made in the pages of scripture was this: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

In a day and age when the predominant worldview is relativism, that each person finds their own truth, it’s difficult to be confronted with a belief that states that it is the only way to truth. 

But if Christianity is, indeed, the only way, why are there so many self-professed Christians who abandon their faith? 

This columnist recently had the opportunity to discuss this topic with the director of the ‘Soul Winning Ministries', and member of the speaking team, The Mentionables, Neil Hess. 

“I grew up in a semi-Christian household,” said Hess, “my Mom was the one who believed and my dad, basically, wasn’t. I was baptized twice in my teen years. And so, I was a false convert – sorry, I would clarify: someone is a false convert if they would give themselves the title of ‘Christian,’ but they are not saved in the fact that they don’t have that relationship with Christ, which is evidenced by a lack of spiritual fruit.” 

Hess explains from his own experience how it is possible to be a ‘false convert.’ 

“When you have a true conversion, or when the Holy Spirit indwells you, God doesn’t let people go. Once you are saved, you are saved now and forever. And so I would say to the people who fall away, I would say there was never a true moment that that foundation was established, even though they may have been very convinced that they were, or they were sure that they were. As to the ins and outs of all that, I can’t explain to people, I’m not entirely sure, but I do believe that once saved, always saved. So I would say that they were never saved in that sense, although they were probably very involved in the Christian culture, and probably knew a lot about it.” 

Hess, himself, went through this exact experience, living most of his life under the illusion that he was a Christian. That illusion began to break down in his adult years. 

“I went to college and had inklings of faith at times (and by ‘inklings’ I mean that I felt conviction). But I hadn’t surrendered, I hadn’t bent my knee, so to speak. I started dating… but in retrospect I know that I was using her for my pleasure. 

“And it’s hard for me to say that, even now, because it’s so despicable sounding, but it is what it is. I felt severe conviction about that for the last four or five months I was in that relationship. And I finally broke it off, since this horrendous conviction overcame me, and all that led up to one day when I was student teaching in a classroom and a young woman was talking, as I was walking around the classroom, I was talking to her, and she told me the story about how her grandmother had been on the operating table and died. And when her grandmother had died, she saw Jesus, and Jesus said ‘It’s not your time, go on back.’ 

“As this young lady was relating this story to me … I felt, like, a physical push on my chest, almost, it just took my breath away. And it went from the point of acknowledging intellectually that I believed in Jesus, to, ‘Oh, wow, Jesus is real!’ And I said ‘Oh, God, forgive me! Oh Lord!’” 

Neil Hess is still a science teacher for a Middle School, but he also heads up ‘Soul Winning Ministries,' a ministry that “exists to equip people with the tools and knowledge they need to fulfill the great commission,” according to their website. 

Hess also recently joined the speaking team, The Mentionables, a ministry which gives him the opportunity to bring his message to a national audience, along with his team members.

“I spent so much time as a false convert that I really have a heart for those people… I just feel like God has been calling me to do apologetics full time and just basically go out and give people the gospel. Super long story short, my goal is basically to equip other people to know and to share their faith and to share the gospel whenever they can.”  

Agnosticism is Lazy Thinking

Agnosticism is Lazy Thinking
Any good worldview should have explanatory power that relates to all of the things that can be
observed in the universe. This would include the material universe: the nature of matter, energy, and
time; and the immaterial universe: logic, truth, justice and morality. In other words, a good worldview
will be able to adequately address both science and philosophy.
By this standard Greek Mythology, for instance, fails as a worldview. By assigning various gods to
different aspects of reality, Greek Mythology cannot adequately address all of reality. Which god was in
charge of, say, quantum mechanics? As new information about the world came to light, new gods would
be required to explain it, or old gods would have to be assigned new duties. It also fails to explain the
unity of reality. If the goddess of the earth and the goddess of the moon are not getting along, how does
this affect tidal forces, and does the god of the sea have any say in that?
Pagan religions such as this have largely been abandoned because as new information comes to light,
these worldviews are clearly inadequate to the task of explaining reality.
That being said, any positive worldview – a worldview that proposes to be able to explain reality – must
be predictive. That is to say that, as more things are discovered about the universe, these worldviews
must already have sufficient explanation for the new information built in to that worldview.
For instance, when the double-slit experiment was performed, the results could not have been
predicted by Newtonian Physics. As a result, Newtonian Physics had to be discarded for another kind of
physics that could explain the results of that experiment.
On the other hand, quantum physics was able to predict the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle which
was later discovered through particle collision experiments. This means Quantum Physics was upheld as
a theory.
Speaking broadly, there is one negative worldview – a worldview that attacks others without giving a
sufficient model of reality itself – and four positive philosophies that thinking people subscribe to in
order to explain reality. The negative worldview is agnosticism. The positive worldviews are
postmodernism, materialism, pantheism, and theism.
Agnosticism is not so much a worldview as it is the lack of a worldview. An Agnostic states that they do
not know how to explain both science and philosophy in a unified manner. Implicit to Agnosticism,
however, is that they reject all of the alternative worldviews.
Postmodernism states that truth is not comprehensive. In other words there are truths, but there is no
Truth. This allows the subscriber to hold any number of contradictory beliefs or ideas to be true without
requiring the believer to reconcile the differences.
Materialism states that the material universe is all that exists, and that immaterial concepts, such as
logic, philosophy, truth, and so forth, are simply illusory results of the mechanical processes that govern
the brain. This neatly gets rid of philosophy and appeals solely to science.
Pantheism states that all of reality is illusory, especially the idea that people are individuals. The
opposite of Materialism, this worldview gets rid of the concept of the material and reduces all of reality
to the immaterial.
Finally, Theism states that there is an immaterial, eternal God who is responsible for creating reality.
This system allows for science because the material universe is a product of intelligent design which is
what makes it intelligible, and that immaterial things, such as intelligence itself, are fundamental to
God’s nature, and indeed, were the processes he used in order to design the universe. In principle this
worldview explains both the material and the immaterial universe without inherent contradictions.
The problem with the positive worldviews are that they are subject to criticism. By making a statement
that they hold to be factual, people can challenge the factuality. For instance, Postmodernism
fundamentally states that there is no Truth. Yet they believe that to be true, contradicting their own
philosophy. Materialism states that there is no thought, just mechanical processes that give the illusion
of thought. And yet they have to use language, philosophy, and the immaterial concept of “illusion” in
order to state this. Pantheism states that material reality is illusory as is the concept of “self.” But if
there is no “self”, who is having the illusion? Theism attributes reality to an intelligent God. If this is the
case, couldn’t everything that people do not yet understand simply be credited to this God? And how
would someone go about falsifying the existence of such a God?
The fact that a positive worldview can be criticized is simply a byproduct of making a statement of fact.
Statements of fact must necessarily be challengeable. If a person walks into a room and announces that “dinosaurs were aliens,” no one in that room is obligated to believe this statement. It is the
responsibility of the person making the statement to provide a convincing argument to support this idea.
However, challenging a comprehensive worldview that attempts to explain reality comes with an
additional burden: one must be able to provide some alternative explanation. It is easy to nitpick and
tear down a worldview. This is what the Agnostic philosophy does. But just because a worldview
requires explanation does not mean it is false. It is also the duty of the critic to show how some other
system better explains the facts. For example, a defense attorney may be able to find potential holes in
the prosecution’s case against their client, but unless they are able to provide a solid alibi, the
prosecution’s case is the best explanation in the room. To thoroughly discredit a worldview, one must
advance an alternative that better explains the evidence. Agnosticism is just lazy thinking.

Christ Centered Apologetics Book Review

Christ Centered Apologetics is a new book from Crosslink Publishers which presents arguments for the historic Jesus. The book defends the claim that the New Testament is accurate in what it says about Jesus. 

Christian Apologetics – the defense of Christianity which uses science, philosophy, and scholarship to support the truth of Christian beliefs – has, of recent years, become more and more philosophical and esoteric. The go-to arguments made by Christian Apologists of recent years tend to focus on the cosmic and the nature of morality. However, if one views the New Testament, the proof it offers, and the arguments made by evangelists therein, they all focus on the existence and teaching of Christ. 

Indeed, if Jesus could be proven to be a real historic character who actually did rise from the dead, all arguments about God’s existence and his nature would more or less be settled. 

Christ Centered Christianity acknowledges that God “put all of his eggs in one basket,” so to speak, offering Jesus as the physical proof of his reality and of his intentions toward humanity. 

The book attempts to prop up the truth of the New Testament Jesus by examining scholarship, history, and the philosophy surrounding Jesus. This results in a very well-rounded and circumspect argument that makes the life, death, and resurrection of Christ a veritable certainty. 

Once the argument for Jesus is laid out, the book then focuses on how to present and argue these proofs with a skeptical world without being confrontational, preachy, or argumentative. 

Christ Centered Christianity by no means disparages the cosmological and moral arguments – or any other Apologetic study, for that matter. Rather, it relegates such arguments for the realm internal to the Church; stating that these arguments are put to best use in lending confidence to those who are already persuaded by the compelling life of Christ himself. 

To those who are not believers in Christ, the primary goal is to introduce them to Christ. This book makes the case that belief in Christ is actually reasonable based on the evidence. This evidence includes an examination of the Gospels and, based on their contents, whether it is reasonable to believe that they were written by eye-witnesses of Christ. It then examines the transmission of the documents to modern times to see if they are still reliable after so many generations of translation and transmission. Beyond this, archeological and textual evidence is examined to verify the reliability of the New Testament based on external evidence. The book also makes a connection between the Old Testament profile of the Messiah to the Jesus of the New Testament to show the uncanny accuracy of ancient prophecy. If Jesus fulfilled even one prophecy, his miraculous nature is verified. 

All in all, Christ Centered Christianity is a book that meets a need in the modern church, that need being the wedding of Apologetics with Evangelism - that one cannot speak to the modern world about Christ without the evidence that Apologetic study provides, nor can one speak of evidence divorced from the need to share Christ.