Randal Rauser

Latest

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  Jun 5, 2018

  Hospitality Is a Two-Way Street: Gender Pronouns and Welcome of the Other

  From the perspective of hospitality, I may not agree with the taboos of Japanese culture, the rigors of animal rights vegans, or the Muslim fast, but I shall try to accommodate to each of these folks as I am able. So why wouldn't I likewise accommodate to Caitlyn Jenner and Miriam Knoppow?

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  May 30, 2018

  Shrewd as Snakes: The Psychopath and the Christian

  I learned that psychopathy is a disorder which renders individuals utterly incapable of grasping moral principles of good and evil or right and wrong. Perhaps most disturbingly, the evidence suggested that psychopathy is untreatable.

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  May 15, 2018

  If God Wants Us to Be Saved, Why Isn't Salvation Simple?

  Several different reactions were evoked upon hearing that John McCain reportedly does not want President Trump to attend his funeral. Some were appalled at the sheer bitterness of such a comment. Those who are devoted to God, however, felt deep sadness over apparent entrenched unforgiveness in the heart of someone who has not long to live.

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  May 9, 2018

  Everyday Miracles as Evidence for God

  Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple once observed, "when I pray coincidences happen, and when I do not pray coincidences do not happen." Many Christians can resonate with Temple's wry description of answered prayer. Skeptics ask, "What about all the time when you prayed and those 'coincidences' didn't happen?"

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  May 5, 2018

  A New Defense of the Historical Reliability of the Bible

  Over the last few decades, Christian apologetic defenses of the historicity of the New Testament have typically pursued a minimal facts approach according to which one seeks to establish a basic set of core claims about the life and death of Jesus which are most widely accepted by biblical scholars. The fact is that there are other apologetic strategies which offer a more robust historical defense of the New Testament documents.

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  Apr 28, 2018

  Is God's Love 'Reckless'?

  Over the last couple months, I've heard the song "Reckless Love" played at two different churches. What should we make of the central claim that God's love is "reckless"?

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  Apr 26, 2018

  New Atheism May Be Finished, but Its Sad Legacy Lives On

  Even if New Atheism no longer grabs the headlines, it has left behind a significant and very unfortunate legacy of incivility and anti-intellectualism. Incivility was always a New Atheist hallmark.

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  Apr 21, 2018

  Putting the Worship Wars in Perspective

  If segregating the congregation into special-interest services isn't the answer, how might we begin to change attitudes on the nature of church and worship?

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  Apr 13, 2018

  Finding Christ in a Horror Film: A Review of 'A Quiet Place'

  I know what you're thinking: a post-apocalyptic film in which people are hunted by killer aliens? What's Christian about that?

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  Apr 11, 2018

  Does Calvinism Offer a Basis for the Assurance of Salvation?

  Calvinists insist that perseverance of the saints is a scriptural doctrine. Calvinists have also often argued that perseverance has a clear pastoral advantage in that it grounds our assurance of salvation in the faithfulness of Christ rather than our own unreliable human wills.