Tag: Deeper Waters

Deeper Waters and Ratio Christi

What happens when Deeper Waters and Ratio Christi come together? Let’s find out as we dive into Deeper Waters.

Ratio Christi is a ministry dedicated to reaching the college student in the intellectual climate he finds himself in. They are not interested in competing with other ministries, but in working with those ministries to equip students the best that they can so that students can make a stand for their faith at secular campuses. There will be a link below with more information about Ratio Christi in it.

Recently, I got to speak with some people from Ratio Christi who have been looking for me to be their social media and communications specialist. What does this mean? It means that someone monitors Facebook and the blogs and is a specialist on the internet ready to help those who have questions.

Consider a student sitting in class who is told that there is no evidence that Jesus exists. He can send an email then or a tweet and it will come to me and if I am there, I will be able to give an answer that he can use in class if need be. Students will have a place they can go to regularly to ask questions. There will also be help on Facebook debates and posting of regular material that will be helpful to students.

From time to time, this will involve public speaking on my part. This is just fine for me and something that I enjoy anyway. It could mean that with this position, I could be coming to your college campus soon to give a talk on an area of the faith you need to know something about.

This is where you dear readers of Deeper Waters can come in. Some of you might see the “donate” button at the top and think “I’d like to give, but I want my gift to be tax-deductible.” No problem. You can now give to Deeper Waters through Ratio Christi. At the end of this post, I will be including a link showing how to donate.

Why should you donate? I do have endorsements and allow me to share those now.

“I count Nick Peters as a friend of mine and believe the ministry of Deeper Waters challenges Christians and non-believers alike to think through the implications of their worldview. Nick’s approach is rigorous and logical but remains Christ-centred at heart. We need people like Nick, prepared to “stick their neck out” to engage with the kinds of questions many people are asking today.”

Justin Brierley
“Unbelievable?” presenter

“The life of Nick Peters itself is a testimony of God’s favor and power. God has given this brilliant young man a passion for using the mind–which is often neglected by Christians–to reach the seeker and the doubter. He is resilient, focused, and disciplined. I believe many will be impacted positively for God’s kingdom through his servant, Nick. And I am proud to call him
my son-in-law!”

Mike Licona
Apologetics Coordinator of the North American Mission Board

“I have known Nick Peters for a couple of years and, in spite of several serious physical ailments, he excels at graduate level research, writing, debate/dialogue, and evangelistic efforts with those of other faiths. I commend his ministry.”

Gary R. Habermas
Distinguished Research Professor, Liberty University

“I have known Nick for many years and have had the privilege of having him on staff as a voluntary moderator/leader in a theology debate forum which ministers to all segments of society. He worked his way into upper leadership due to both his personal character and apologetics ability. I have always known him to conduct himself in a Christian and God-honouring way and could recommend him for apologetics work without reservation.”

DeeDee Warren
Co-owner of Theologyweb.com

“I have known Nick Peters for several years and have been featuring his contributions as a guest writer on the Tekton website for nearly that entire time. He is also my ‘go to’ person for several important topics that are outside my scope, such as arguments for the existence of God and theism as a basis for morals. I find that he is able to succinctly and masterfully address these topics in a thorough and competent way. His talents are such that I have deigned to have him
as a Tekton ministry partner, and I cannot recommend him enough.”

James Patrick Holding
Founder of Tektonics Ministries

“In the years that I have known Nick Peters, my respect and appreciation for him has only grown. In my opinion, Nick is a meticulous thinker, an astute apologist, and an effective communicator. I have always found his arguments to be logical and his positions Biblical.

Let me also say that Nick exhibits another quality sometimes missing in apologetics- he has a tender heart and great “people skills.” I believe that his kind demeanor is reflective of a life yielded to Christ and led by the Spirit. Nick Peters is an example to all who aspire toward apologetics and evangelism.”

Alex McFarland
author and broadcaster

At the end of this, I will also be including a link to a video by Mike Licona of a further endorsement.

I hope many of you readers will become supporters of me in this regard. I will be including links at the bottom. If not your financial support, grant me your prayer support in this.

Expect regular updates as well and be a supporter of Ratio Christi.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

More information about Ratio Christi can be found here.

You can support me through Ratio Christi by debit or credit card here

A video endorsement by Mike Licona can be watched here

Is Deeper Waters Mike Licona’s Mouthpiece?

So where does everything on Deeper Waters come from? Let’s find out as we dive into those Deeper Waters.

A lot of people have said that Mike Licona has been awfully quiet in his debate with Norman Geisler and I have been told by some that there is suspicion that what is really happening is that Mike is quiet in public but is instead using my blog as it were as a sort of mouthpiece. How far this goes I am not sure. Does Mike just give me the information? Does he write the posts wholesale? Does he just tell me what topics to write about?

Here’s the answer to those last three questions. No, no, and no.

There is no one in the family that I agree with entirely. That includes my own wife. We have disagreements. No doubt that some will think that Mike is a respected authority in the area, and I do not dispute that. Despite that, there are areas that I do disagree with him on.

When this whole controversy surrounded him erupted, my wife and I were getting ready to see the Liconas for her birthday and when I went down there, Mike and I spent a lot of time discussing the Bible and how to handle this. Mike has come to me to seek my opinion on some matters. There is a mutual respect there.

Why is he quiet in public? It is because this is not a debate he needs to waste his time with. He needs to be preparing for the more important debates and writing more books. This is something that I have said repeatedly that he just needs to leave to J.P. Holding, Max Andrews, and myself. Of course, there are some things he will share and in fact ask me to not share on my blog, and when it comes to that, I do respect his desire for privacy in that area. I often disagree, but I do respect.

If anyone knows me, they probably know that I am too much of a free agent to be one who will just allow someone else to do my thinking for me and to be used in such a way. I would hope that readers would realize that my own writing style come through the blog and when I write on a topic, I write on a topic because I want to write about it. Now that doesn’t mean that no one else has any impact on what I say, but the final decision comes from me.

What do the Liconas know in advance? Hardly anything. In fact, the time that they read the blog is usually about the same time anyone else has the option, and that is after it has been published. Even in this debate, I have not sent my blogs to the Liconas in advance to have them look over it and see if they approve or not. I’ve just written and published.

Now if I thought Mike was in violation of Inerrancy and Geisler was correct, I would be telling him so, but I have made it a point to be as impartial as possible and examine the evidence and when I do, I just conclude that Mike is not violating Inerrancy and I believe that while his view could be wrong, we need to find out if it is wrong, not by simply asserting by authority and pointing to Inerrancy, but by examining the evidence of the claim. I don’t know about you, but for me, if this is what the Bible is teaching I want to know. On this, Mike and I do agree. He wants to know what the Bible teaches as well.

When you read Deeper Waters, you are not reading the opinion necessarily of Mike Licona. It could be that he agrees with what I say here, but it is not because I have written it. He agrees with something because he believes it to be true and if it is true, then it can be said to be his opinion. It is an idea however that exists independently in my own mind and that I put to the text and share to the world. It is my doing my little part for the future of evangelicalism.

Have I realized the risks for me from the beginning of the debate? Yep. I sure have. Once again, I point to what people know about me. If something is going on that I don’t believe is right, I am not one to sit in the background and do nothing.

Also, for those who need more convincing, my in-laws have areas that they disagree with me on and they think I’m wrong on and they have talked to me about those areas. We’ve had some give and take exchanges and there are a number of areas that today, I still don’t agree with them on, and they know it.

Back when we were engaged, I remember my now mother-in-law being with my wife and I and talking about relationships with parents. My mother-in-law told my wife that she had no doubt that whenever push came to shove, I would not hesitate to stand up to parents in defense of my wife. That has happened a number of times. I have even stood up to her parents before if I thought they were in the wrong concerning her and let them know it.

I have no doubt to them that sometimes that’s annoying to have a son-in-law that can do that, but then at the same time, I think it makes them thankful they have a son-in-law who does not just cave in to pressure like that and at the same time is devoted to their daughter and will defend her at any time if I think someone is in the wrong concerning her.

They also know that if I thought that Mike was in the wrong on this, I would be letting him know entirely. That does not mean in the wrong on his interpretation, but it means in the wrong on Inerrancy. His interpretation could very well be wrong, but that does not mean that he is violating Inerrancy. Is his interpretation wrong? I honestly don’t know. I’m open I’ll say at least.

So for now, let this post stand as my statement that what I write is my own thinking. Now some people might think that this too could be a written post of Mike’s to deny the idea, but if they do, let them present their evidence other than a conspiracy theory. If someone wants to believe that, I probably won’t convince them, but for those who want to know for sure, I hope this settles the issue.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Reflections on the 2011 Apologetics Conference

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Considering how long it’s been since I’ve got to write, I’m wondering if I should have begun with “I’m not dead yet!” No. We had a busy conference and I had to get caught up on my emails and then there’s work as well as getting ready for my parents coming by today and staying the weekend so we had to pick up the apartment, add in to that that our cat has developed fleas and that increases our need.

The wife and I both went to the conference the whole time for both days. We started off going to a session for her on the apologetics of horror. My wife happens to enjoy the horror genre. I can’t really get into it at all. Hence, we take turns deciding who will choose a movie on movie night. (Exception could be going to a movie theater)

The next talk we went to was on women celebrating being women. I suggested that my wife go to this one as I thought it would be directed towards her and something she’d enjoy more. I believe she did and I got to share some of my own thoughts afterwards with the presenter when it was finished.

We next went to a talk on addressing the homosexual agenda, which gave her the added benefit of getting to contribute, seeing as when my wife was in high school, she interacted with several people who were homosexual or bisexual. They knew her views on homosexuality and they respected her because she did treat them like human beings, an approach that the speaker liked.

After lunch, our next talk was listening to Gary Habermas. He’s always a favorite of us seeing as my wife grew up knowing him and refers to him as “Uncle Gary.” He was also the man who married us. His talk was on conquering emotional doubt. Yeah. We’ve heard it several times before but hey, it’s him and we wanted to hear it again.

After that, it was my talk on Jehovah’s Witnesses and “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” It wasn’t my finest performance as seeing as I had a powerpoint so I could do quotes, I ended up pretty much reading out everything. I’m not a speaker that’s used to using Powerpoint so I have more practice to do on that.

I believe after that we went to hear my wife’s Dad, Mike Licona, give a talk on Jesus’s resurrection and if it was physical or spiritual. Most amusing was in that talk when someone asked during the Q & A, “Yes. Concerning Matthew 27. Just kidding!” I’m not sure how many other people got the joke, but the Mrs. and I got a laugh out of it.

The highlight after the dinner for me that weekend was actually the talk by Josh McDowell. I’m not a fan of him really on many apologetics issues, but this talk was one that had me paying great attention as he spoke on pornography today and how prevalent it is in our society with even children 4-5 years old viewing internet pornography. His research is in a work called “The Bare Facts.” I highly recommend this. We simply must do something about this problem.

Greg Koukl gave a great talk then on bad arguments against religion. Koukl is an enjoyable presentable due to his more common sense approach. He’s not going into deep philosophy per se, although those issues are in there. He’s giving common parlay for the common man on the street.

The evening ended with Mike again as he gave a talk on if Jesus is the only way. Mike did an excellent job as he freely admits when he is still struggling with a topic and doesn’t go along with the party just for the sake of going along. On the essentials however, he’s a force to be reckoned with. We pray that this controversy that he’s been put through soon ends.

The next morning began with a talk by Dembski on theistic evolution. Now my thinking on the topic is that the evolution debate really doesn’t matter. It’s been a secondary debate we’ve allowed ourselves to be dragged into. Still, if someone like Dembski thinks that the case can be made using ID, more power to him. I do not doubt that Dembski is an extremely intelligent and educated man. While I do not agree with the approach, if he thinks he can do it, let him.

Our next talk we went to centered around the future of mankind with technology and was quite revealing as there was talk about trans-humans, cyborgs, and post-humans. Where are we going to be in the future? I wonder how a blog like this will be done ten years from now. Are we starting to push the envelope too far?

We then heard a talk about the uniqueness of Christianity to which it was not only a good talk, but there were some very amusing powerpoints throughout it.

After lunch, we returned to hear Frank Turek interviewing William Lane Craig on his recent U.K. Tour, a tour in which for some reason Richard Dawkins was conspicuously absent, but we know that this absolutely cannot be due to cowardice on the part of Dawkins. Surely not!

Craig then gave a talk on the problem of evil. It was a very good talk, although I do hope Craig will start saying more on the emotional problem of evil as well. It could be however that that would be for more personal one-on-one talks rather than a general talk to an audience.

Gary Habermas gave a great talk on the Shroud of Turin. Even if one does not think the Shroud is authentic, there is much about it that needs to be explained. A funny part in his talk was how he told about a Christian who gave a reason for thinking it was a fraud. He said that the Christian was a speaker and he wouldn’t give a name, but his initials were “Josh McDowell.” If you haven’t looked into the Shroud, it’s a fascinating topic.

Finally, Frank Turek wrapped us up with a talk on the existence of God. He’s the kind of guy one often has to prepare oneself for as his style is very much in your face with a lot of humor thrown in.

My overall impression was that this was a very good conference. My wife is not into apologetics like I am and she still enjoyed it. We also got stressed on the importance of bringing apologetics into the church more and more. I’m hopeful that next year I will get to speak again. It was a great honor to do so this year.

Okay. Next time I hope to be able to write on Inerrancy again. With my folks in town, that might not happen until Sunday or Monday.