- Taught the Fallacy Detective with middle and high school youth group
- Preparing material for course on Christianity vs. Mormonism
- Started teaching to Case for the Resurrection of Jesus with the adult Sunday School
I had the privilege of
being with the middle and high school teens of Mt. Zion for six weeks to teach
through Fallacy Detective. The goal of the
course was to answer the question “what is bad reasoning?”
Our fast-paced,
140-character culture is not conducive for clear critical thinking. Poor
arguments built on emotions and misdirection can unfortunately be very
persuasive. So we studied a bunch of common logical fallacies in order to train
our teens to spot and avoid bad reasoning.
The main topics we studied were “Avoiding the question”, “Making assumptions”, “Statistical fallacies” and “Propaganda.” Some of my favorite fallacies were:
The main topics we studied were “Avoiding the question”, “Making assumptions”, “Statistical fallacies” and “Propaganda.” Some of my favorite fallacies were:- Red herring fallacy - Introducing an irrelevant point into an argument
- Loaded Question: Asking on question which assumes the answer to a second question
- Proof by lack of evidence: Claiming something is true simply because nobody has yet given any evidence to the contrary
- Bandwagon propaganda: Pressures us to do something just because many other people like us are doing it
The classes were a
whole lot of fun. Hands down my favorite exercise was making “jokes” based on
the fallacy of equivocation (changing
the meaning of a word in the middle of an argument). Here’s a zinger one of the
teens came up with:
“Why didn’t the skeleton invite that girl to the prom?”
“He didn’t have the guts!”
(Get it?! Because
“guts” can mean “courage” or “internal organs”, neither of which the skeleton
had!)
I’d really encourage
anyone with teens to work through the Fallacy Detective together. It’s a
clever and fun way to learn critical thinking for both teens and adults. I’ll post all the slides, fill-in-the-blank handouts, and the fallacy quick-look
sheet on the website for download.
The bulk of my free
time this summer (which isn’t much) has been spent studying Christianity Contrasted to Mormonism. As
I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been meeting with Mormon missionaries for
a while. I’ve had the opportunity to learn about a new religion, study my own
faith, and then put it all into practice within a bunch of great conversations. It’s been so rewarding that I’ve decided to
build a short course.
The goal of the course is multi-faceted.
First and foremost, it is a unique way of shoring up your own faith and
theology. Secondly, it’s an opportunity to learn about a fascinating religion
and some American history; Mormonism is a huge American-originated religion!
Thirdly, it will hopefully be a catalyst for you to witness and engage in
conversations with Mormons or people of other faiths.
To prepare I’ve read a
bunch of books such as The Book of Mormon, Mormonism
101, Answering
Mormons’ Questions, Ambassador’s
Guide to Mormonism, and of course, the Bible! I’ve also read a lot of
articles and listened to/watched a ton of lectures, debates, and interviews on
the topics of Christianity Contrasted to
Mormonism.
In a future post I’ll discuss
the upcoming course but here are some highlights:
- Community kick-off event – a talk by James Walker on Saturday October 8th, 2016: James Walker will present his journey from Mormonism to Christianity.
- Christianity Contrasted to Mormonism class begins November 3rd, 2016 at Mt. Zion UMC, rooms 13-15 in the education building
- Conversation with J. Warner Wallace on November 3rd, 2016: We will have a video call with Jim Wallace to discuss his experiences investigating Christianity and Mormonism. Jim went from an atheist to Christian using a cold case detective’s approach to look for truth. As someone who has many Mormon family members he has also applied that approach to Mormonism.
- Mormon Evidence: I will share my findings from investigating the evidence behind the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith
- Who is God?: We will contrast the Mormon and Christian concept of God and study the scriptural evidence to support the Christian concept of God
- What is the Gospel?: We will contrast the gospel as presented by Mormons with that presented by Christians and then study the scriptures to see why the gospel really is good news!
- Meeting the missionaries: I’m considering setting up a meeting with the missionaries to put our studies to the test!
I’m really excited about
this study and the topic. I hope you consider attending the talk by James
Walker on October 8th and also participating in the follow-on study
with us. I promise that it will be a fascinating and deeply enriching study.
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Finally, I started
teaching the Case for the Resurrection of
Jesus to the adult Sunday School at Mt. Zion UMC. The first class was Sunday,
August 14th and I just finished out third class. I actually recorded
the class so you can watch the video here.
(Disclaimer: it was simply recorded with an iPad that was in a poor angle so
the video and audio aren’t great.) 
Related to this topic, I
wanted to share about an email I recently received. In the email I was told
that a Vacation Bible School teacher was asked by a second grader if Jesus’
resurrection actually happened. The teacher had just shared the gospel with the
students and then the 7-year-old inquisitively asked if the resurrection really
happened. The teacher assured him that it did happen and then went on to inform
him that there was even good historical evidence to support it! Although the
teacher didn’t have the opportunity in class to go into more detail she was
able to pass along this short animated
video on the topic.
This little encounter
highlights the power and need of studying the historicity of the resurrection.
Children are smart and want more than “because I have faith” in response to a
questions about whether the resurrection actually happened.
It’s amazing that
Christianity stands or falls on an event that took place in an actual place at
a particular time and “was not done in a corner” (Acts 26:26). What’s even more
incredible is that there is good historical evidence that Jesus really did rise
from the dead!
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