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During the time of the early church, around 127 AD, a Christian philosopher wrote a defense or apologia to Emperor Hadrian.
His name was Aristides of Athens. He wrote the Apology of Aristides.
Why?
There was widespread narratives that Christianity targetted the poor, women, kids.
The possible implication being they went after this ones because they were gullible.
The Roman society already hated them.
So, the big appeal they had amongst the lowliest of society was framed as a way to subvert civil order.
This dominant narrative further increased the persecutions the Christians faced in Roman society.
Aristides wrote that apologia to Emperor Hadrian to specifically correct that wrong notion about Christianity.
In it, he outlined the core Christian doctrine.
He further stated that Christian values of charity and compassion made them love and cared for the vulnerable of society.
He further used it to criticize the pagan religions that were immoral.
This is an early church period example of using the means of literature to present the correct nature of the faith, as contrary to false dominant narratives.
What Aristides did is more or less what Apostle Femi Lazarus was talking about.
Is what Apostle Femi suggesting not what the evangelicals have done for centuries?
We know you are learned when it comes to orthodox Christian doctrine.
You must be familiar with the famous debate of Alvin Platinga, the father of Reformed Epistemiology, and Anthony Flew, one of the most influential atheists of 20th century Britain.
It was purely a philosophical debate to correct a wrong notion about Christian theism, the worldview on which our faith is built.
The evangelicals have done this for ages.
They have used scholarship, philosophy, debates, and academia to defend the positions of the faith to the public.
The goal of this was both evangelism and correction of notions and narratives.
That is what AFL was saying.
We would be naive if we think our faith isn’t being opposed using the media.
During a recent superbowl, an anonymous organization paid millions of dollars for an ad spot which displayed Jesus supporting gayism, transgenderism, and abortion.
Millions watch the Super Bowl. There’s a coordinated effort to distort the truths of our faith.
Those spending millions of dollars to do so must believe there’s huge value in our doctrine being corrupted.
This is why we must counter and dismiss those lies. The gospel must not be corrupted.
Lastly, this is the digital era. Truth is not true anymore.
Truth is now information that is repeated the most.
And people barely read these days.
We are sorry but if we are to reach people, we must go where they go to get information.
Jesus went to the synagogues and public places.
Paul went to synagogues and areopaguses.
In this age, we go to public places and the internet media.
Narratives are being created and nurtured there. Let us go there to tell the true ones about our faith there too.
If they say what is true about our faith, let us reinforce it.
If they say what is false about it, let us counter it.
That is what we believe AFL meant by Counter-Narrative Strategies.
And don't you think it is important?
The man called Wizarab with millions of impressions here said tithing is where people party and drink alcohol according to Scripture.
Many Christians, though rather unfortunately, follow and believe him.
This is why it is important we tell our own stories, ourselves, in truth.
Nothing wrong in that.
May God help us all.
Amen
It's interesting how you can do almost everything in your Jupyter Notebook but core applications, end-to-end apps are built outside of that platform.
Is it because of its simplicity?