Without Excuse: Apologetics Blog

Catholic integralism is a pre-Vatican II political theology that holds that the Catholic Church should exercise direct authority over governments and the state should be subordinate to the Church, among other contentions. Neo-integralism is fairly modern, though it has roots that are much older. To be clear, integralism is not part of traditional Catholic doctrine. Most Catholics are probably not even aware of it, though it was specifically denounced by Pope Pius XI for using the Church as a political tool of politics rather than the bearer of divine truth. The reason this has become relevant is because it has been creeping into the ideological framework of the political far right, though it remains obscured in the background and has not been fully articulated to its audience. Part of its appeal is that it has a moral framework that places Christian values at the center. It also plays into legitimate grievances over the moral degradation of the West that has largely been facilitate...

We live in a world with three spatial dimensions (length, width, height) and one dimension of time. The concept of extra dimensions is not fantasy but science. For string theory to work, there have to be 10 or 11 dimensions. One theory is those dimensions are so small that they are impossible for us to perceive or access. But there is an alternate theory by physicists Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum that we can't access them because our entire universe is "stuck" on a three-dimensional membrane floating in higher-dimensional space. If that is the case, some of those dimensions are large, even infinite. In simple terms, a dimension is an independent direction. That sounds trivial at first until you realize the more dimensions you have access to, the more freedom you have, and the more things are possible. It's difficult, if not impossible, to conceptualize what more dimensions would look like. But we can get an idea of how big a difference just one dimension makes by su...

The ancient Galilean wedding ceremony is the model for the rapture, specifically the pre-trib rapture. When the Scriptures are compared to the Galilean wedding ceremony, it explains the purpose of the rapture, why the church won’t go through the tribulation, and puts certain biblical passages into proper context. There are very few who understand the significance of the Galilean wedding ceremony, and even fewer who understand the parallels with the pre-trib rapture. That significance, however, would not have been lost on Jesus or His disciples, all of whom were Galilean except for Judas. Nor would it have been lost on the Galileans of the first century, whom Jesus spent most of His time around. It may be no coincidence that Jesus’ first recorded miracle was turning water into wine at a Galilean wedding. It was as if He was trying to draw attention to the wedding for reasons that will soon become apparent. It’s been said that Jesus taught about the resurrection but not the rapture. Ye...

Aliens are a hot topic these days with talks of government disclosures and a secret meeting involving U.S. military intelligence and several prominent pastors ( See here ). The question is, are aliens real? And if they are, how should we understand them as Christians, and what should our response be? I will include excerpts from a book I wrote entitled " Fallen: Legacy of the Watchers and Nephilim ." Do I believe aliens exist, as in non-human entities? Yes, but not in the way they are understood today. Strictly speaking, angels and demons could be classified as "aliens" as they are non-human entities. The Bible describes several such classifications, including seraphim and cherubim. So, clearly, there are other beings out there that God created besides humans. Some of which we know about and others that we may not know about. One particular entity of interest that the Bible does mention is the Watchers: "Shrouded in mystery, the enigmatic figures known as Watch...

I have created yet another blog entitled " The Immortal Soul: A Response to Soul Sleep " (although it might change in the future). It is intended to both refute soul sleep and support the immortal soul. It has several blogs that I originally posted here but have since refined. I wanted to put them into a single blog to act as a digital book of sorts for free.

Should Christians be pacifists? This is a pertinent question for a believer. It was Christ, after all, who commanded us to "turn the other cheek" (Mat 5:39), "love your neighbor" (Mark 12:31), and "love your enemies" (Mat 5:44). Some have taken this to the extremes, becoming pacifists. They eschew any forms of violence, whether that be wars or self-defense, even to the point of martyrdom. I, however, will take a different position. Firstly, we should emulate Christ in how we treat one another on an interpersonal level. We are commanded to love our enemies, but that doesn't infer that we should let them do us harm. Many Christians have been martyred as a result of following Christ, and they will be held in high esteem by God, but it was never a commandment for us to be martyred. God put a survival instinct into every living creature for a reason. Even the most docile animal will fight back if it is cornered. Thus, the use of self-defense with force is j...