RC Talk - The Official Blogs of Ratio Christi Chapters

Our last Ratio Christi Discussion explored the uniqueness of mankind.  The discussion utilized a prezi, and the link is here (http://prezi.com/fr3forup1_7-/what-does-it-mean-to-be-human/ ).

Unfortunately, if you were not there, the prezi may be of limited value since the “meat” of the meeting was in the discussions.  The topics are captured in the prezi, though, so you will get a feel for the types of issues we discuss at our Ratio Christi meetings.

The bottom line was our observations that humans are unique in their:
• Creative capacities
• Craving for justice
• Compassionate tendencies
• Aesthetic passions
• Depths of self-awareness
• Quest for transcendent meaning through worship

In a mere hour-long discussion we were not able to “prove” that these observations are consistent with a Christian worldview of humanity being created in the image of God.  But let’s continue the conversation on these topics as time allows.

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The discussion on March 28th was “What is morality, and is morality OBJECTIVE?” 

Morality

(from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and those that are bad (or wrong). [1]

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The discussion on March 7th (Sam Houston State University) was “What is faith?” 

There are MANY debates, blog posts, articles, and books supporting and attacking faith.  But it is fairly difficult to find information on what exactly is meant by the word “faith”.  Richard Dawkins wrote that

“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”

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We are all called to carry out the great commission, but who really holds the office of an evangelist?

Many Christians would describe an evangelist as someone that travels from church to church to preach messages. Their messages inspire believers to give to ministries that focus on taking the gospel to the unreached. Perhaps they would mention someone that preaches a message to bring revival to the church and convince people we bring to their meetings to become a follower of Christ. The right answer, however, according to Ephesians chapter 4, is that the evangelist is a person who equips believers to “do the work of the ministry so that they may build up the church.” That means the person who gives us the intellectual ability to answer the questions and objections of family and friends is really acting in the office of the evangelist. By training believers to give a reasonable answer, these people are probably doing more to win people to Christ than many traveling preachers. Apologetics is the branch of Christian theology that seeks to address the intellectual obstacles that keep people from taking faith seriously, and therefore it is the apologist who is the true evangelist.

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