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Media > Reasonable Faith Podcast > What’s Happening at Reasonable Faith?

What's Happening at Reasonable Faith?

November 21, 2016     Time: 06:55
What’s Happening at Reasonable Faith?

Summary

Dr. Craig unveils some upcoming events and his new book just published.

Transcript What’s Happening at Reasonable Faith?

 

KEVIN HARRIS: We are nearing the end of another year, Dr. Craig. 2016. We want to reflect on that a little bit and look into 2017.

DR. CRAIG: This is our tenth anniversary of the founding of Reasonable Faith, which is very exciting. Jan and I have been involved in ministry ever since we got out of my graduate studies, but Reasonable Faith was founded only ten years ago. In these ten years it has grown into a worldwide ministry with impact all over the globe. It is very exciting. I am looking for ten even better years, even more impactful. I say that, Lord willing, because I think there is a kind of snowballing effect. When we started off, we were very tiny and unknown. Now there is momentum and snowballing that I think can make the next ten years even more effective.

KEVIN HARRIS: Very good. Let’s look backwards. Some good events and some traveling.

DR. CRAIG: Yeah. We did. This past year, for example, was the dialogue with Kevin Scharp at Ohio State University. I thought that was an excellent exchange of views, and particularly interesting because of Kevin’s synopsis of the apologetic that I lay out for Christianity which I had never seen before. Despite some inaccuracies that you and I talked about in a podcast or two, I thought that was very interesting.

Another highlight from this past year is the publication of this book. After twelve years of work, God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism, has been published by Oxford University Press. I am just thrilled with this volume. It is beautiful, Kevin. OUP is really the top publisher academically in the world. This is just a beautifully printed volume. We went through it with a fine-toothed comb. I had two other proofreaders besides myself to eliminate every misspelling, every inconsistency of punctuation or capitalization, so as to have the most perfect formatting that we could get for this book. I am really excited that that is now out.

One other thing that I would mention that we began this year is these videos embedded on Facebook. We’ve been putting videos on YouTube now for some time. What we started to do this year is to embed videos right on the Reasonable Faith Facebook page. Jan and I have been making these every Thursday afternoon, and we call it “Join Me in My Study.” It is filmed in my office. I basically describe what I’ve been working on for the past week and share in five minutes or less some thoughts about my work on the atonement of Christ for our sins. I have just so enjoyed filming these little videos sharing with people what excites me, what I’m involved in. Then these are posted later on YouTube so you’ve got both the immediate Facebook audience (which has now grown to over five hundred thousand likes – just incredible) and then also archived on our Reasonable Faith YouTube channel.[1]

KEVIN HARRIS: They are not long. Each video is easily digestible.

DR. CRAIG: Exactly.

KEVIN HARRIS: So start from the beginning if you haven’t seen these yet.

DR. CRAIG: Good point, because they do build on each other from week to week. If you jump in right in the middle you are going to have to try to catch up. Right now we are talking about theories of punishment and the question of justification of punishment. What justifies a legitimate authority in punishing a person, inflicting harsh treatment on that person? We are talking about retributive justice and how this is consistent with God’s punishing Christ for our sins.

KEVIN HARRIS: The trip to Hong Kong.

DR. CRAIG: Oh! Yes, I forgot all about that. This past year featured the trip to the Far East where Jan and I were speaking in both Singapore and then Hong Kong. This was a wonderful opportunity to see folks on the other side of the world who are already using Reasonable Faith material. The dialogue with the Buddhist philosopher there was fascinating. Speaking at Hong Kong University to a large audience.[2] It was just great. These have been videoed, and so again made available to a wider audience. This has helped to open up China more to our Reasonable Faith products as folks in Hong Kong are taking this material into the mainland. We are working on getting more and more of our materials translated into Chinese.

KEVIN HARRIS: Any big international trips in the works?

DR. CRAIG: We do have two international trips planned for 2017. First to Ireland in March – a university speaking tour. Then later in Germany I’ve been invited to address a national philosophy conference in Berlin and will share my work on God and abstract objects. Those are in the works, as well as domestic speaking here in the U. S.

KEVIN HARRIS: A lot of our listeners are following you on Defenders. In fact, they go and stream live your Defenders class which is available. Right now, at this recording, you are going through a series on the Holy Spirit.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. We just wrapped up the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Now we will turn to the doctrine of Christ where we will talk about the person of Christ and then the work of Christ. It is when we get to the work of Christ – what did Christ do to win our salvation? – that I’ll begin to share all of my recent study on the atonement, which I am very excited to do in our Defenders class.[3]

 

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