Recently Ghislaine Maxwell has been in the news, now a sex offender convicted of trafficking underage girls in relation to the 2019 Jeffrey Epstein arrest. Long before the #MeToo movement, this sort of sordid behavior was universally looked at with such disdain, especially in the despicable manner in which minors are taken advantage of. But, how do we discern what is truly evil and what is truly good? Is there a moral law, and from Whom does it come?

Endeavoring to know our Lord so well in the design of this world and the orchestration of His salvation plan enriches our own beliefs in these biblical claims.  We are not merely leaping blindly into the abyss, but know there is a real Bridge beneath, even if it is invisible to the human eye.   As Christians, we hold Scripture as authoritative in that we believe it to be the very Word of God.  It is sufficient for our salvation, and yet we affirm the values that evidence demonstrates in accordance with what we find in reality, confirming the Bible’s veracity.  Therefore,  we can more boldly proclaim the truths of scripture when we can reasonably show its correspondence to reality.  Aristotle says, “a claim is true when there is a match with reality.”  

Christmas is more than presents, family, friends, and food – those are responses of its origin, the gift of life the Lord gave freely.  We need to continually reflect on His sacrifice, yes, and also the kinds of sacrifices we are to have for one another, be it time, resources, or material provisions – especially for the least of these.  For “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Christmas is directly connected to Easter. However, none of this would matter if Jesus were not real, of course. So how do we convince an incorrigible world of the truth? There are a few quick things we can point to as we tell people about the hope that is within us this season. This post includes several key arguments for Christmas. Check it out.

Pointing to fulfilled prophecies is a good place to start, one of many defenses of historic Christianity we will explore in upcoming blog posts.  In Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell & Sean McDowell, they cite the work of Peter Stoner, a mathematician who took 8 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus in the Bible and the mathematical impossibility of all 8 being fulfilled by one person. Keep in mind there are over 300 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus concerning the Messiah, 8 of them being:

I came to Hollywood in 2010 to do the Act One Producing and Entertainment Executive Program. One of the first speakers I heard from was the founder of Hollywood Prayer Network, Karen Covell. She started that ministry 20 years ago, and it just celebrated its “birthday” this past August. She and her composer husband, Jim Covell, have been in Hollywood for decades, working and living amongst industry folk, finding and cultivating relationships with the Christians who were here too. I was so impacted by their presentation on Hollywood is a Mission Field, that I have never not thought about it as such. In my last post, I talked about how Hollywood is foreign land. As such, we can look at Hollywood as an opportunity to spread the gospel and make disciples like Jesus commissioned us throughout “all nations”. Inspired by the Covells, here are 5 reasons Hollywood is a mission field:

When Israel was allowed into exile by the God they chose to disobey in their idolatry and other sins, God sent them a word through His prophet, Jeremiah.  He told them: “Build houses and live in them:  plant gardens and eat their produce.  Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.  But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

Often the verse used about fostering and adopting is Jame 1:27. If we read the whole passage starting from verse 19, James is talking about not only hearing the Word, but also doing the Word. On a whole, true religion is, as verse 27 says, “to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world,” but in light of the previous verses, to also obey God’s Word and to walk in righteousness, to persevere in the law, to watch what we say. That last one is really hard sometimes when you see some gnarly cases in the foster system.

If you’re a Christian in a creative field like film and TV, the pressure to succumb to the prevalent worldview of secularism is strong. Apologetics is essential, not just as a defense to give to those who would question our faith, but as an encouragement to ourselves as we work and live in places of increasing hostility to historic Christianity. Truth matters, and when we deal in a currency like imagination, we need to point people to what is true. 

It's been a week since I got back from this year's CIA at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. I'm still experiencing the afterglow of being around others who know the importance of apologetics, especially in a culture that we can only expect will grow increasingly hostile towards a historical Christianity. I live and work in Hollywood, and as a content creator, my day job depends on make-believe. But as a Christian, I want to make the world believe in something True. There is a great threat in the church in Hollywood and we are seeing it seep similarly throughout the modern church at large, and that is the growing trend of secularism. I should point out for those not in the entertainment industry, “Hollywood” refers more to a collective of entertainment media and platforms than an actual location (although it is that as well). As a person who is first and foremost a follower of Jesus but also happens to work in that industry, I wanted to go to the CrossExamined Instructors Academy to learn how to equip my peers in this important mission field.