Volume 39:Issue 1

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CONTENTS:

04 From the Editor
Apologetics across the Generations: Introducing “Postmodern Realities”

06 Effective Evangelism
A Holy Spirit Encounter with a Jehovah’s Witness

08 Practical Hermeneutics
Matthew 18:18 and Binding Satan in Prayer

10Motherhood and the Life of the Mind
by Melissa Cain Travis
Christian Growth/Practical Apologetics: Mothers are uniquely positioned to influence their children’s intellectual formation profoundly. When they become dedicated learners, they are better prepared to initiate spontaneous conversations that will inspire their children to think more deeply about Christianity. Melissa Cain Travis maps out a strategy to make this goal attainable.

16 Unexplaining the Mormon Priesthood Ban on Blacks
by Bill McKeever
New Religious Movements: Until 1978, the Mormon Church (LDS) banned blacks from its priesthood based on their prophetic revelation that blacks bear the curse of Cain. Since the ban was lifted in 1978, the church leadership has repudiated the reasoning that led to the ban. Anyone see a problem?

24When Baby-Making Takes Three: You, Me, and She
by Heather Zeiger
Ethical Discernment: Surrogacy today is an increasingly popular reproductive option for infertile couples. But could bringing a third person—another woman—into God’s plan for human reproduction be a good thing? Heather Zeiger surveys and evaluates the practice.

30 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Anselm: In Defense of Greatest Being Theology
by Tom Morris and David Baggett
Christian Apologetics/Philosophical Theology: The eleventh-century philosopher and theologian Saint Anselm understood God as the greatest possible, or maximally perfect, Being. Philosophers Tom Morris and David Baggett explain what this remarkable conception of God is and explore some of its intriguing implications for apologetics and philosophical theology.

38 Reservoir Gods: Quentin Tarantino’s Premodern Theology
by Philip Tallon
Cultural Apologetics: Why—despite his critical and boxoffice success and his preoccupation with God and theology in his films—is Quentin Tarantino rarely seriously discussed in Christian journalism? The answer will surprise you.

46 The Justice of Hell?
by Donald T. Williams
Theological and Philosophical Apologetics: Objections raised against the historic orthodox doctrine of hell usually turn on its alleged incompatibility with either the justice or the goodness of God. But what if a proper valuation of God’s maximally good nature actually makes hell’s justice and rightness inescapable?

52 Reviews
A Summary Critique: Noga Kadman’s Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948…Alvin Plantinga’s Knowledge and Christian Belief…Os Guinness’s Fool’s Talk…Brian K. Morley’s Mapping Apologetics

58 Viewpoint
The Cultural Challenge of the Fragmented Self

60 Postmodern Realities
Recovering the Lost Unity of Heart and Mind

62 Ask Hank
What Is the Euthyphro Dilemma, and Is Religion the Root of Evil?