Category: Deeper Waters Podcast

Deeper Waters Podcast 12/21/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I came across my guest in an unusual way. A Christian friend of mine shared an interesting article on a Christian defense of Dungeons and Dragons. Now I was intrigued since I played growing up and I know several Christians today who still do. I’m still heavily involved in role-playing games, though these are all video games.

The article was a good one and lo and behold, written by a professor at a Christian university. I was intrigued. I also realized that this was a person I had heard of before. He was interviewed by Mary Jo Sharp in her book Why I Still Believe to talk about beauty.

So I thought getting in touch with him would be a simple matter. We could talk about the interaction of Christianity and culture and about beauty as well. After all, could it be that those who are seeing the devil in everything and repelling from the culture are doing more harm than good in the long run?

I reached out to him then and he was delighted to come on the show. We set the date and as you can imagine, it will be this Saturday. We will be talking about the interaction of Christ and culture and straight from Houston Baptist University, my guest will be Philip Tallon.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Dr. Tallon is the assistant professor of theology at Houston Baptist University. He got his PhD in theology at the University of St. Andrews.

Dr. Tallon is a member of the Honors College faculty and Chair of the Apologetics Department. Both areas of service allow him to explore the intersection of theology, philosophy, and the arts: helping students to understand the Lordship of Jesus over “every square inch” of creation.

Dr. Tallon’s primary areas of research are in Christian theology and theological aesthetics. He is especially interested in doing ‘theology through the arts,’ which examines how the arts can reorient and enrich our understanding of Christian truth.

We’ll be talking about beauty, play, and culture. How do we find God in all of these things? What is the way that Christians are to interact with culture? Could there be danger in seeing a devil behind everything that seems contrary to us?

I hope you’ll be watching for the next episode. We are almost completely caught up with episodes after all. Please also go and leave a positive review on iTunes for the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 12/14/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The fairer sex have always been seen as worth pursuing in the eyes of men. Who can blame us? Have you seen them lately? Women are absolutely beautiful. Many an honorable man encounters a woman he is attracted to and comes to love and treats her right and marries her and spends the rest of his life loving her.

Sounds good.

Sadly, there are men out there that are less than honorable. We understand that. Some of them are teenagers in a rebellious state. Some of them are criminals that are behind bars. You can find them in all places. Fortunately, many a woman can find a safe haven in the church since the church does its job of protecting those women and….

Wait.

What’s that?

You mean that these people can be found in the clergy?

That many people who claim to follow Christ can also be mistreating and abusing women in a sexual way?

And the church tends to side with the accused more than with the victim?

What can the church do to make sure we are a safe haven for victims of abuse? How can we love victims of abuse? What steps can be taken to help someone overcome a paralyzing trauma that has the potential to wreak havoc on the rest of their lives?

My guest is someone who went through that abuse. Her story is both horrible and helpful. She is a survivor who has gone on to be a thriver and she wants to raise awareness. There are plenty of people in the church that sadly prey on others. It doesn’t have to be that way though. Her name is Mary Demuth and her book is called WeToo.

So who is she?

According to her bio:

Mary DeMuth is an author, speaker and podcaster who is passionate about helping you live a re-storied life. A survivor of neglect and sexual abuse, Mary was gloriously rescued by Jesus when she was 15. She has spent her life healing from trauma so she can help others not feel so alone. She is the wife of Patrick and mom of three adult children. For more information, visit wetoo.org.

I hope you’ll be watching for this episode. I hope by the end of the month to be all caught up. We’ll be talking about a lot of material that could be very adult-oriented so please be mindful of that if you have children around. Please also go and leave a positive review of the Deeper Waters Podcast on iTunes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 12/7/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What are we to do with the disabled? Sometimes, churches don’t know how to handle people who are really different and have a disability. Some churches might not be accessible to people in a wheelchair. Some might not understand that greeting time could be horrible to someone who has a disability. While special education can be good for some, does it really help disabled kids to be set apart from all the other kids as if to say that they don’t belong?

And what about healing? What if churches treat disabled Christians as lesser Christians who need to have faith that they will be healed and don’t do anything else for them? What message does it send a disabled person if they are told the condition they have is a sign of their lack of trust in God or the judgment of God or something similar to that?

What about Jesus? Jesus regularly healed the disabled, but is that all? We can’t always do that, so what do we do to love like Jesus did? Did Jesus treat the disabled like second-class humans?

This Saturday, we will be discussing these kinds of questions. How do we follow the way of Jesus when dealing with people who have a disability? My guest is someone who does ministry with the disabled and has a keen interest in this question. She is the author of Disability and the Way of Jesus and her name is Bethany McKinney Fox.

So who is she?

According to her bio:

Bethany McKinney Fox is founding pastor of Beloved Everybody Church in Los Angeles and adjunct professor of Christian ethics at Fuller. She earned her PhD in Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological seminary, her MDiv at Columbia Theological Seminary, and her BA in Philosophy with a minor in Russian Literature from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Her new book Disability and the Way of Jesus: Holistic Healing in the Gospels and the Church (IVP Academic) examines how Jesus’ healing in the Gospels, too often used in ways that wound people with disabilities, might point a way toward real healing and mutual thriving. Dr. Fox is founding pastor of Beloved Everybody Church, a church startup where people with and without intellectual disabilities lead and participate together. She writes and speaks particularly on topics of disability, healing, and church practices to undergrad and graduate students, church leaders, and other people of faith around the country.

As readers of this blog know, disability is something near and dear to my heart. I hope you’ll be looking for this new episode too. We are working hard on getting all of them up for you as soon as we can.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 11/23/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Most any joke today about a Catholic priest is fair game. After all, everyone knows that they’re all secretly pedophiles. Never is this kind of joke made about the public school system, but with Catholic priests, all bets are off. Hasn’t there been a cover-up? Isn’t the Catholic Church defending these priests?

For those of us who are Protestant, it could be tempting to see this as a matter that the Catholics need to deal with, but we do as well. After all, this is used as an argument against Christianity in general as well. Second, it could be a case that if we don’t stand up for truth now, who is going to stand up when our opponents come after us?

Speaking of truth, if we’re talking about different relationships, maybe the priests should be out of that position if they can’t help it, but maybe homosexuals can’t help the way they feel as well. What if as the joke song says about it, that homosexuality is in your DNA and you’re just born that way? Does that mean that it’s okay if you’re gay?

These are important issues today. The second one definitely hits home to a lot of us. If someone has a genetic basis for homosexuality or even a disposition to it, is that something that we can blame them for? Are we not going against their nature?

To deal with these issues, I am bringing on a guest who has looked at both of them seriously. He is a Catholic himself and we will discuss how he handles the claims about the church that he belongs to. We will also discuss homosexuality and how we should discuss the question of if homosexuals are born that way. My guest’s name is Paul Sullins.

So who is he?

Paul Sullins SociologyTaken – 10/15/08 – 1:20:58 PMphoto by Ed PfuellerSullins_Paul_003.JPG

According to his bio:

The Rev. D. Paul Sullins is Research Professor of Sociology and Director of the Leo Initiative for Catholic Social Research at the Catholic University of America and Senior Research Associate at the Ruth Institute.  He has written four books and over 150 journal articles, book chapters and research reports on issues of faith and culture.  He recently published  “Is Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse related to Homosexual Priests?” (National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Winter 2019); “Danish-like regulations may improve post-abortion mental health risk” (JAMA Psychiatry, January 1, 2019),” “Invisible Victims: Delayed Onset Depression among Adults with Same-Sex Parents (Depression and Research Treatment, Sept 2016)”, “Abortion, Substance Abuse and Mental Health in Early Adulthood: Thirteen Year Longitudinal Evidence from the United States”, available via Pubmed or at http://ssrn.com/author=2097328, Keeping the Vow: the Untold Story of Married Catholic Priests (Oxford University Press, 2015), and co-edited (with Pierpaolo Donati of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences) The Conjugal Family: An Irreplaceable Resource for Society (LEV Press, Rome: 2015).  Fr. Sullins is also the Director of the Summer Institute of Catholic Social Thought; a member of the board of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists (SCSS), the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM), and the Natural Family Journal; a Fellow of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI); Associate Pastor of the Church of Saint Mark the Evangelist, Hyattsville, Maryland; and (not least) a Fourth Degree member of the Knights of Columbus.  Formerly Episcopalian, Fr. Sullins is a married Catholic priest with an inter-racial family of three children, two adopted.

I hope you’ll be looking forward to this episode. We are working quickly on getting new episodes up. Please also leave a positive review for the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 11/2/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that has in its own way always been around, but wasn’t its own individual branch until sometime after Descartes. Differences have gone all the way back before from Plato to Aristotle. Plato had the theory of the forms to explain how we know things. Aristotle didn’t disagree entirely with the forms, but said we know things through sense experience, or at least that’s where our knowledge begins.

Today, we can look at the material world and see that we have a lot of science and think that that is the path to knowledge. By contrast, what is religion? Religion is done by authority. The adage of “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Some leave out the “I believe it” which would be redundant in a sense.

Is that the way religion is done? Do we just believe something because we read it in a book? How can we know God exists? How can we know what He’s like? Can we have a proper experience of God? How could we tell if that was a valid experience? Can one just intuit God exists even if they don’t know how to articulate the Kalam Cosmological Argument?

We’re going to be discussing religious epistemology today. How can someone know something that is a religious claim? Does one just have to take something by faith? What is faith anyway?

To discuss all of this, we’re bringing on a young scholar. Young is the word as just checking, my wife and I were surprised to see he’s just a few months older than she is, and yet he already has an Oxford published book called Religious Epistemology.. His name is Tyler McNabb.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Tyler Dalton McNabb (PhD, Glasgow) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Macau. Before taking his current position, McNabb taught three years at Houston Baptist University. McNabb is the author of Religious Epistemology(CUP) and co-author of Plantingian Religious Epistemology and World Religions (Lexington). He has also authored/co-authored various articles published in journals such as Religious Studies, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, The Heythrop Journal, and Philosophia Christi.  

We are busy working on getting episodes up. I know we’re behind on schedule, but thanks for bearing with us. Please keep listening.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 10/26/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Truth is said to be stranger than fiction, but fiction sure can be pretty strange. If you interact with a lot of fiction, it can contain some stranger things. Let’s consider for example, Stranger Things, the hit series on Netflix. This series has been a mega-hit for Netflix and has a huge fan following. My wife and I are hoping we have enough to get Netflix again before the new season comes out next year.

Right after watching Season three this year, I went on Amazon to see if anyone had written anything about Christianity and Stranger Things. Sure enough, I found what I was looking for. Not only did I find it, I found it was by someone who had been on the show before.

So I send out a few emails and before too long, things are in the works. I’m really pleased to get to do a show on such a popular series. While it is doubtful the authors want to spread anything Christian in the series, that doesn’t mean we can’t see Christian themes in there. After all, it’s been said wherever you have a hero and a villain, you have the gospel.

We are almost to the day. It’s possible that Allie could be joining me on this show. While she hasn’t read the book, that could be to her advantage in this case so she could ask questions that anyone wondering about Christianity and Stranger Things could answer. We’re still waiting to see what she’ll do.

So Allie may or may not be present, but I can tell you who will be present besides myself. It will be our guest who is an Old Testament scholar who does a lot of work with Logos. He’s written a lot on the unseen realm and is now bringing that knowledge to Stranger Things. His name is Michael Heiser.

Who is he?

“A scholar in the fields of Biblical Studies and the Ancient Near East, Dr. MichaelS. Heiser is a Scholar-in-Residence at Faithlife Corporation, the makers of Logos Bible Software. Heiser studied at Dallas Theological Seminary, has a master’s degree in Ancient History from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s in Hebrew Studies and a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published hundreds of essays and peer-reviewed papers in scholarly journals and popular periodicals such as Bible Study Magazine. He has taught at the collegiate level for well over a decade, specializing in the Hebrew Bible, Northwest Semitic languages (biblical Hebrew, biblical Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, Ugaritic, Egyptian, Akkadian, Sumerian, Phoenician, and Moabite), biblical theology, the history and religions of the ancient Near East and Second Temple Jewish literature.”

What hath Stranger Things to do with Christianity? What are the themes in the show that point to Christian ideas? What about moral problems in the show like pre-marital sex and other such issues? How should Christians approach a work like Stranger Things?

I hope you’ll be watching for this episode and that you’ll be watching your podcast feed. We are working on putting up new episodes more and more. Please also leave a positive review on iTunes for us.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 10/19/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Atheism seems to be everywhere on the internet. Suppose you go on YouTube being your innocent self and you just want to listen to a favorite Christian song. Don’t be surprised if the comments section is full of atheists talking about how much bunk Christianity is.

It’s not just the internet. Today, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is often out there wherever a cross can be found on any tombstone trying to get it taken down. Religion is always a hot topic in the news. This is especially the case when social issues and sexual issues team up together.

Yet as critical atheists are of religion so often, how come the directions aren’t reversed. What if someone were to be critical of atheism? What if someone were to look past a lot of the bluster we can see and really examine the case?

My guest has done just that. He is a highly trained philosopher in the field and has recently written an excellent book looking at atheism from both a popular perspective and an academic perspective. He will deal with objections you find on the internet and objections you find in academia. His name is Stephen Parrish, author of Atheism: A Critical Analysis.

So who is he?

He has an A.A. in Liberal Arts from Schoolcraft College, a B.S. in biology and Chemistry from Eastern Michigan University, an A.M.L.S. in library science from the University of Michigan, an M.A. in philosophy from Wayne State University, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the same as well. He is currently a philosophy professor at Concordia University in Ann Arbor.

We’ll be talking about his book and about arguments of atheism on the popular and academic level. It will be an intense interview and a lot of it will be quite deep. I hope you’ll be watching for the next episode. Please be leaving positive reviews of our podcast as well.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 10/12/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

For many of us living in America, that Jesus is the Messiah doesn’t mean much to us. It should, but your average churchgoer doesn’t know what that means except some special title among the Jews. If you’re a Jewish person, that title means something.

It really matters to you if the Messiah has come or not. It matters to you that the God of Israel will be glorified. It matters to you that the promise made to Abraham and the other patriarchs has been fulfilled and the promise made to David has been fulfilled.

Yet many Jews today balk at the idea of Jesus being the Messiah.

Even if Jesus rose from the dead, what difference does it make? How does that show he is the Messiah? Answering Jewish people on this requires a whole lot more than just a minimal facts approach or something similar. it requires an understanding of Judaism and how it is that the Messiah fits in.

Fortunately, I do have a friend who does just that.

He will be joining me this Saturday on the show. We will be discussing evangelism to Jewish people and how to tell them the good news that the Messiah has already come. He is indeed the Messiah of the Jews as well as the Gentiles. My friend who has studied this has recently written the book The Resurrection of the Jewish Messiah and his name is Eric Chabot.

So who is he?


He has an MA from Southern Evangelical Seminary and has spoken several times at the National Apologetics Conference in Charlotte, NC. He is a graduate of the Cross Examined Apologetics Instructors Academy and a member of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. He is an instructor at the Messianic Studies Institute in Columbus, Ohio and Adjunct instructor at Xenos Christian Fellowship there as well. He has been doing outreach since 2004 and is the founder and director of Ratio Christi at Ohio State University and director at Columbus State University College Ratio Christi. He is a speaker for CJF ministries and has spoken at numerous churches and other locations. He has written a short booklet on “Is Yeshua The Jewish Messiah?” and co-authored a work called “Does God Exist? Why It Matters.”

(We still hope he affirms the virgin birth, which I do affirm.)

Jewish apologetics is something we don’t see much of, but it is a needed field. I am thankful to have someone in the field studying it since the Jewish people are the ones that brought about our Messiah and brought about the Old Testament for us. We owe it to them to tell them the good news about Messiah Jesus.

Be listening please and leave us a positive review on Deeper Waters.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 9/28/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

“Lord. Save me from your followers.” How many people have really been burned badly by the church? They’re that group of people that many of us think we have to see on Sunday and go and put on all of our happy faces and act like everything is just fine in our lives. Many times, you dare not say anything controversial or confess a struggle with sin or anything else, because, well, Christians just don’t do that.

If you grow up in Christian culture, you might sadly be used to this kind of thing and know what to expect in a church. What if you’re an atheist and don’t know what to expect? How do you handle it then? Could it be that some people could be turned away from a church that expects everyone to tow the party line?

What about the way apologetics is treated in the church? Can you really do that there? What about questions such as the appropriateness of beauty? If you’re a woman, is it a case that you have to follow a proper dress code because you’re an object of desire, but the men around you might not be put under that same standard?

My guest is someone who came to Christianity as an adult and found that a major hurdle was the church. Even at her first visit where she was supposed to stand before the church and talk about how she came to Christ, the pastor’s wife saw her outside and told her her outfit was too revealing. Fortunately, she stayed, but how many other seekers might have been turned away?

This lady today is a teacher of apologetics and a highly successful one. Her book is called Why I Still Believe. Her name is Mary Jo Sharp.

So who is she?

According to her bio:

A former atheist from the Pacific Northwest, Mary Jo was raised without religion. She is now an assistant professor of apologetics at Houston Baptist University and the founder and director of Confident Christianity Apologetics Ministry. Mary Jo is the author of LifeWay Christian Resources’s “Why Do You Believe That?” Bible study and is working on an upcoming book on hypocrisy titled, “Why I Still Believe,” with Zondervan. She is an itinerant speaker on apologetics throughout North America and has engaged in formal debates on Islam. She focuses on using love and logic in order to uncover truth.

I hope you’ll be looking forward to the next episode. If you’ve been watching, we are quickly getting caught up on them and hope to be current before too long. Thank you for your support.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 9/14/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It used to be that if you were filling something out and it asked what gender you were, there were two options. You were male or you were female. We all understood that. However, now we live in an age that seems to call everything into question including basic facts of biology.

Now we have boys who claim to be girls and vice-versa. We have an Olympic athlete who has undergone an operation so he can become a woman. Transgenderism is a major new item today and terms like non-binary are showing up more and more.

A great concern is about the possible medical dangers involved with transgenderism. It’s problematic enough to many of us to think that you are a member of the opposite sex. It’s something else quite different when you put hormones in your body to bring about a change. It’s even more concerning when small children who are incredibly impressionable are led down this route and even take puberty blockers and begin a transition. These are kids who have a hard time deciding what to wear to school the next day and yet make major life-altering decisions like this.

But what are the medical side-effects of this? We have drugs that could help people overcome cancer that aren’t released yet, but we seem to want to do something of this extreme level without understanding the circumstances. Are we playing a dangerous game? Could we be damaging children in a way irreversible by scientific means?

To discuss this, I need some help. Obviously, I’m not a scientist or a doctor and I don’t play one on TV. I need someone knowledgeable on this. I need someone like my guest this weekend. Her name is Michelle Cretella.

So who is she?

Dr. Cretella is Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds). She was elected to the Board of Directors in 2005, and served two terms as president prior to being hired as the executive director. Dr. Cretella previously chaired several committees which enabled her to become one of the ACPeds’ chief researchers, editors and spokespersons. Her article Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate was published in the 2016 summer issue of Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Following this, she became one of the world’s most outspoken critics of gender ideology in pediatrics. She is regularly consulted by many media news outlets. 

Dr. Cretella serves on the Advisory Board of the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice, and is Chair of the Gender Identity Subcommittee for the Catholic Medical Association. She is a peer reviewer for the journal Issues in Law and Medicine, and also for the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Cretella received her medical degree in 1994 from the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine. She completed her residency in pediatrics in 1997 at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut. She completed a fellowship in College Health through the University of Virginia in 1999. After 15 years of group practice in rural Connecticut and Rhode Island she left clinical practice to devote more time to family and the ACPeds. Dr. Cretella and her husband are the proud parents of four children.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed that episodes are now going up. We hope to be caught up soon. Please be watching your feed for this and other upcoming episodes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters