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Think Christianly, Welcome to College, and My Interview on Stand to Reason

On Sunday I had the opportunity to be interviewed on Stand to Reason’s weekly radio show. I am a huge fan of Stand to Reason (they do wonderful work!). Here is a link to my interview where I offer biblical advice for engaging culture and how to help students make the most of college (My segment occurs in the final hour).

***Also, my publisher has generously made Welcome to College available for only $5 at Amazon until tomorrow night (May 25th). If you are a parent or have a teenager, you can gift it to them or buy yourself a copy. It’s a GREAT deal (72% off). My goal is to get Welcome to College in as many student’s hands as I can during the graduation season. If you like what you see can you help spread the word by sharing this link on Facebook and Twitter? http://amzn.to/mcPGCx Here’s what people are saying about the book:

“Wow! What a book! Quite frankly, this is the book I’ve been waiting for the last forty years to give to college students. It is the single best volume I have ever read for preparing students for how to follow Jesus and flourish as his disciple in college.” — J.P. Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University

“Jonathan has both the intellectual resources as well as the practical experience to provide an effective students’ survival guide to university life. I’m impressed with the wide array of issues he discusses, from intellectual challenges to financial problems to sexual snares to getting enough sleep! All this is done in easily digestible bits for the student on the run.” — William Lane Craig, Theologian and author, Reasonable Faith

“Reading this book is like having your own personal mentor and friend to guide you through the rough rapids of college life. College is a great experience, but it can also be faith-shattering if you are not adequately prepared. This book is perfect for the high school senior who is curious about what college life will be like. It is also helpful to the college student who is dealing with the day-to-day challenges and questions faced both in and out of the classroom. — Mark Schmahl, Pastor of Student Ministries Believers’ Chapel

“This book will prepare anyone who is either enrolled in college or is planning to go to college for the daily challenges Christians deal with on campus. Jonathan Morrow is aware of the real college world and is dead-on with his excellent insight.” — Blake Smith, Junior, Texas Tech University

“Unpacking biblical truths, Welcome to College is a treasure book of wisdom that will literally save lives and help build a culture of life.” — Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Author, Finding God Beyond Harvard: The Quest for Veritas

“Whether you are an incoming freshman or upperclassman, Jonathan provides straightforward, practical insight for dealing with current issues regarding living the Christian life on campuses everywhere. Not only is this a great read, but you will find a place to turn to when questions or struggles show their face.” — Taylor McCabe, Junior, Baylor University

Think Christianly with Jonathan Morrow

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How Much Manuscript Evidence Is There For The New Testament?

“The wealth of material that is available for determining the wording of the original New Testament is staggering: more than fifty-seven hundred Greek New Testament manuscripts, as many as twenty thousand versions, and more than one million quotations by patristic writers. In comparison with the aver- age ancient Greek author, the New Testament copies are well over a thousand times more plentiful. If the average-sized manuscript were two and one-half inches thick, all the copies of the works of an average Greek author would stack up four feet high, while the copies of the New Testament would stack up to over a mile high! This is indeed an embarrassment of riches.” – Dan Wallace

Explore the evidence for the reliability of the NT further here.

Think Christianly with Jonathan Morrow

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“Gays are being denied equal rights today just as African-Americans were denied equal rights”

Alan Shlemon continues our series: Let me be blunt: denying same-sex couples from marriage is not the same as denying interracial couples from it. Although anti-miscegenation laws were immoral, the same mistake is not happening today. And despite the rhetorical force of making the comparison, merely claiming it’s the same does not make it so.

One of the problems with this comparison is that it presumes sexual orientation is a genetically predetermined trait like race. But it’s not, as I’ve argued in a previous post. Numerous researchers have also testified to this. Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project to identify every human gene, has said regarding homosexuality: “Whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations…”[i]Harvard geneticist and homosexual, Dean Hamer, admitted that, “The best recent study suggests that female sexual identification is more a matter of environment than heredity.”[ii] Even the American Psychological Association, a group that advances homosexual causes, doesn’t claim that genes determine sexual orientation.

They say, “Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors.”[iii]
Homosexuality, then, develops also from environmental factors, not merely genetic ones. And since environmental factors vary in type, frequency, and degree, homosexuality is not inescapable. Depending on your developmental environment, you could or could not develop same-sex attractions.

Race, however, is entirely genetic and therefore inescapable. You’re not born an African American – you’re conceived as one. Your race is determined the moment the chromosomes of the sperm and egg blend together. Nothing will change that. Neither your mother’s diet, the hormones in her womb, nor intrauterine trauma will alter your birth as an African American. And once you’re born, your race is impervious to cultural, social, or psychological influences during childhood development. Nothing can alter – even slightly – your race.

That means homosexuals can’t claim they’re like African Americans in the sense that they are born that way. Their plight is not the same. African Americans are genetically born that way. Homosexuals are not.

But the differences grow more significant. Since homosexuality is not merely the product of genes, it is mutable. Homosexuals can and do change. I personally know men who have changed. This type of mutability has been observed for thousands of years and documented by researchers for the last one hundred years (I’ve written about this in a previous post). In fact, sexual orientation in females is quite fluid.

Actress Anne Heche is an example. She grew up as a heterosexual, got involved in a lesbian relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, then married a man with whom she had a child, and now is living with another man. The same is true of former “Sex and the City” star, Cynthia Nixon. She grew up heterosexual, married a man, and had two children. In 2004, she became a lesbian. Nixon also infuriated the homosexual community by claiming that her change in orientation was, “a choice.” She went on to explain: “I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me… Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate?”[iv]
My point is not that sexual orientation is a choice. I’m simply acknowledging that it’s mutable for some people.

Race, however, is immutable. I don’t know any African Americans that have changed their race. None of them have become Swedish for a few years. It can’t happen, even in principle.

But there’s even a more significant problem with comparing homosexuals with African Americans, especially with regards to the issue of marriage. Interracial couples can marry because they can fulfill an essential function of marriage. As Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse has explained, marriages bind males and females for the long term and protect the rights children have to be with their parents. Male-female unions are the precise kind of pairing that produces children and provides the ideal environment to raise them. Having an African American marry a Caucasian doesn’t impact that function in any way.

Homosexual couples, on the other hand, don’t include both sexes. Not only are they incapable – by nature – to produce children, but they are also ill-suited to raise kids who need a mother and a father (I’ve argued this in a previous post). That’s why the state has never sanctioned the relationship of two men or two women, but they sanction interracial unions so long as they’re heterosexual.

Homosexuals are hoping to convince the culture that their plight is the same as African Americans. Naturally, this has a strong, rhetorical effect. But with careful reflection it becomes apparent the two groups are not parallel in meaningful ways. That’s because race and sex are not the same. This makes all the difference.

[i] F. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (New York: Free Press, 2007), 260.
[ii] D. Hamer and P. Copeland, Living with Our Genes: Why They Matter More Than You Think (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1009), 188.
[iii] http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/orientation.aspx, accessed 4/30/12.
[iv] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/magazine/cynthia-nixon-wit.html?pagewanted=all, accessed 4/30/12.

Think Christianly with Jonathan Morrow


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The Temptation of Tim Tebow (A penalty flag has been thrown)

“I’m throwing a penalty flag,” writes Esther Fleece in the Washington Post, “The infraction? Roughing the passer. As well as millions of people worldwide, some people of faith, all people of conviction, who live by the same values the passer lives by.

The injured party? New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow. The guilty party? AshleyMadison.com, a Web site whose sole contribution to the greater cultural good is helping married men and women arrange secret adulterous affairs. You may have heard how Ashley Madison has offered a bounty of $1 million to anyone who can offer proof of having had sex with Tebow, the famously and unapologetically Christian athlete who has publicly declared – because the media have been rude enough to ask him the question – that he is, at age 24 and single, a virgin.
“Sports and sex (and of course, infidelity) go hand in hand,” said AshleyMadison.com founder and CEO Noel Biderman in a news release. “If Mr. Tebow is indeed abstaining from adult relationships, I would encourage him to find a nice lady or two and enjoy his youth and fame as much as possible.
“We are beyond the days where pre-marital sex has a social stigma, and it is my hope that soon we will also feel the same about infidelity.”
Let’s set aside for the purposes of this discussion the crassly transparent attempt by Biderman to make a buck, or at least generate a few headlines promoting his “business,” by taking advantage of Tebow’s name and fame. Let’s focus instead on the smarmy assumption at the root of his stunt – namely, that abstinence before marriage is an impossibility and/or a silly relic from the past….” (read the rest)

Think Christianly with Jonathan Morrow