ABOUT THIS SITE, ABOUT ME

First and foremost, I do not claim to be an expert or leading world authority on any of the topics presented here on the site, especially in scientific issues. I did not attend seminary or any Bible college.

Part of the reason I mention this is that one individual who wrote me some time around 2001 or so expressed some sort of amazement that I am not acquainted with every small detail and facet of a particular belief or field, or that I am not "anal retentive" in listing every fact known about a given subject.

I have read the entire Bible (and I periodically go back and reread it). I do have a college education (I earned a BA degree). I have read a fair amount of apologetic literature over the years, so that I am not compeletely daft or ignorant.

However, it bears repeating that I am not trying to pass myself off as some kind of infallible guide, nor do I think I come across as such on the site, though I am highly opinionated, and I think that does show. :o)

MY THEOLOGICAL BELIEFS

I am a Christian (raised as a Southern Baptist) who has been interested in apologetics (defense of the Christian faith) ever since I was a teenager.

For any who are interested in my beliefs, I agree with conservative Southern Baptists on many issues, though not all (you may want to read The Baptist Faith and Message for more information).

Off the top of my head, I would say that the only topic from which I do differ from the Southern Baptists concerns the role of women in marriage and in church (see False Teachings > Traditional Gender Roles for more information about that).

In other words, (and as should be obvious from the content on the site) I believe in all the fundamentals and standards of the Christian faith, such as Jesus is God, was born of a virgin, was literally and physically raised from the dead, salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone, and so on.

As an adult, I remain interested in apologetics and decided to make a Christian apologetics 'portal' a few years ago; hence The Lion of Judah Christian Apologetics site.

WHY MAINTAIN A SET OF APOLOGETIC LINKS?

One can, of course, type in any sort of query into a search engine and get results pertaining to apologetics. However, I sought to combine material pertaining to the most frequent attacks on the Christian faith, and related matters, into one site.

I spend time hand picking, as it were, pages and sites that are the most relevant to the topic at hand.

I weed out the clunkers so that you don't have to waste your time doing so. This doesn't mean, however, that I should do all your homework for you. I am a firm believer that people should study topics for themselves.

Not to mention that I can not always update the site as often as I would like.

Furthermore, we all know that finding the exact information we need by way of search engines is sometimes hit and miss.

I have hoped that categorizing apologetics topics (e.g., Problem of Evil, evolution, and archaeology), that things would be made easier for a visitor looking for an answer to a particular question.

Have an atheist arguing that the Bible is untrustworthy based upon supposed conflicts with archaelogy? Then jump right to the archaeology page, and maybe the Bible page.

A Roman Catholic insisting that sola scriptura is bunk? Then jump to the Roman Catholic page.

King James Onlyists insisting that the KJV is the only trustworthy Bible version? Then consider visiting the King James Onlyism is a False Teaching section.

MY CRITERA FOR LINKING TO A PAGE OR SITE

As far as the selection of links are concerned, if I am considering linking to a page, I usually, (though not always), skim over the rest of the site in consideration to make sure that most of their beliefs are in line with true Christianity.

This does not mean, though, that I will not link to a page by a group who otherwise adheres to one or two questionable beliefs.

For example, although "King James Version onlyism" is a false teaching, many of its adherents otherwise hold orthodox beliefs, so I have linked to some of their content on other matters not pertaining to Bible versions. It does not follow that if a group is wrong on one belief that they cannot be trusted on other issues.

I also want to point out that I wanted this site to be useful to a variety of people, from the college educated right on down to high school kids.

Therefore, some of the pages I link to will be high brow intellectual works written by people who hold phD's, while some of the work will be written by laypersons who have chosen to write their views in an easy-to-understand manner, and of course, material that falls everywhere between those points is included.

WHAT DOES LION OF JUDAH MEAN?

I noticed the term 'Lion of Judah' show up in my monthly search results quite often (back when this site was located on another hoster and I had a 'search' feature on the home page).

At least one site visitor informed me that 'Lion of Judah' is the name of a music album, and they asked me for more information about the singer. Needless to say, I have never heard of this singer before, and my site has nothing to do with him.

I take it that most assume that this site is somehow affiliated with the 'Rasta' religion, since Rastas have taken over this biblical term ('Lion of Judah') to refer to one of their false prophets.

Rest assured that I do not believe in or endorse the Rasta religion and have since added links to the site exposing the flaws of Rasta.

The name of my site, "Lion of Judah," comes from Revelation 5:5 in the New Testament.

Revelation 5 5:

Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."

The term "Lion of Judah" refers to Jesus.

NED FLANDERS AND CHRISTIANITY

I decided upon the use of this name, Lion of Judah, because it signifies strength and a bit of an attitude. Too often, atheists, agnostics and other assorted critics of Christianity tend to look down upon Christians.

We Christians are sometimes viewed as being wimpy, brain dead, unintellectual types who are expected to behave as spineless doormats.

(Think of "Ned Flanders," a well-known American cartoon character on the t.v. series "The Simpsons" for one common, stereotypical Christian portrayal by those who either are not Christians, or those who were raised in Christian families but now disdain Christianity. )

I do try to update the site every now and then, by checking for dead links and the like. I recently downloaded free software to help with this task, but still, it can be a time consuming venture to upkeep a site. (Make that a very, very, very time consuming venture!)

Hopefully, someone out there will find this site helpful and useful.