The Song of Albion

Lawhead, Steve. The Paradise War. Nashville, Tenn: WestBow Press, 2006.

Lawhead, Steve. The Silver Hand. Nashville, Tenn: WestBow Press, 2006.

Lawhead, Steve. The Endless Knot. Nashville, Tenn: WestBow Press, 2006.

A wonderful fantasy tale (in 3 parts) immersed in Celtic mythology, these books were a welcome respite from my normally serious reading. I've read this author before, but not since high school. Then, I read his version of the Authurian legend, The Pendragon Cycle. I must admit that I prefer those other books, but The Song of Albion is still quite good.

The story is about two men, Oxford graduate students, who step into the Celtic Otherworld and live there for some time. Lewis is the hero; Simon quickly becomes the arch-villain. Simon is the epitome of wealth and privilege in the manifest world and soon pollutes the Otherworld with his selfishness and conceit, nearly destroying it. However, Lewis, a simple exchange student from humble beginnings, grows into the Aird Righ (high king) of Albion as he develops great virtue and deep character. Lewis eventually defeats Simon, but only through his own death. True heroism is heroic to the utter end.

Lawhead, an avowed Christian, only has his faith slip in at the end, where a strong link is made between what Lewis has done for Albion and what Christ has done for us all. His other books generally had a stronger note of Christianity, but never overpowering or unnatural to the plot.

We must sometimes be heroic ourselves. When those times come, it is helpful to already be familiar with how a hero behaves. Fiction, often looked down upon by many, is a great teacher that we should not ignore.

Ministry Nuts and Bolts: What They Don't Teach Pastors in Seminary

Malphurs, Aubrey. Ministry Nuts and Bolts: What They Don't Teach Pastors in Seminary. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1997.

The subtitle of this book was what drew me to purchase and read it. I've already worked in one field where the practice is often light years from the academic theory - public education. So, having learned my lesson to some degree, I wanted to read and learn in order to fill in the gaps that I sensed, and some I didn't, in my seminary preparation for ministry.

Malphurs is mostly concerned in this book to educate the reader about five key elements of ministry (and these can easily be applied to all of life, as I'll show below): core values, purpose, mission, vision, and strategy. He argues, I think correctly, that the vast majority of churches (he put it at 98%) of all stripes have no clue about these things, with the lucky ones being led by someone who gets it intuitively but most without entirely. In addition to providing explanations of each of these, Malphurs gives steps to proper formation of each and diagnostics to help the church leadership see how well they are doing.

Below, I'll try to show what each of these key elements is, how they interrelate, and how they should work both for the church and for the individual.

Core Values - These are the driving factors at the heart of the individual or church. They can easily be discerned by looking at the budget and the schedule/calendar, for "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." This is the first step and seems likely to be a convicting one, calling the church or person away from wrong or simply unimportant values.

Purpose - For the Christian, there is only ever one purpose that over arches all else - to glorify God. The Westminster Short Catechism says it this way, "Man's chief end is the glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever." This purpose must define all else.

Mission - For the Christian, the mission must always reflect the one Great Commission given by Christ - to make disciples. Making disciples of Christ is the most important and best (only?) way to glorify God. It is best if the church or individual comes to a concise statement of mission that relates their role in the Great Commission.

Vision - The vision is a future-looking picture of what the church or individual will look like when they are fully engaged in the mission. This step is often exciting and powerfully motivating. All sorts of things can use this concept: athletes envision the perfect game, generals envision defeating the enemy, artists envision their finished art before beginning. The church is supposed to ask the question: what would this church be/look like if we were fully engaged in making disciples? The individual can ask a like questions about him/herself. The individual can also consider the sort of legacy he/she wishes to leave behind.

Strategy - The strategy is the changing forms of effort the church or individual will makes to do the mission and to realize the vision. This is really the only part that needs to change or be culturally relevant. All the rest are rooted in the absolutes of God's Word and His plan for the church.

Clearly, these are vital things, and not just for the church. We, as individual Christians and families, would benefit immensely from developing core values, purpose, a mission, a vision or desired legacy, and strategies to get there. This is key to living fully for Christ. However, one caveat - too many churches have these things on file but do not make decisions or exert effort accordingly. This actually creates a worse situation, adding hypocrisy to a lack of direction.

I will be working on my own core values, purpose, mission, vision, and strategy. Why don't you?

Coming to Grips with Genesis

Whitcomb, John Clement, Terry Mortenson, and Thane H. Ury. Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth. Green Forest, Ark: Master Books, 2008. $16.99.

In my continuing study on this topic, I picked up this book, on a whim, from my seminary's bookstore. It has turned out to be a very good pick! The book is a collection of 14 articles dealing with the general theme implied by the title. These articles fall under four main headings: the history of the interpretation of Genesis, proper interpretation of Genesis, the Bible's use of Genesis, and special related issues. I'll address each below.

First, the book, through five of its articles, shows convincingly that at no time prior to the 19th century (1800 years worth of Christian interpretation) was Genesis chapters 1-11 ever considered anything other than historical fact. The authors survey the Church Fathers through to the Protestant Reformers, with a consistent young earth view dominating. The only stand-out from the general theme is among the Alexandrian school of the Church Fathers, who used allegory to interpret many scriptures. They interpreted the days as symbolic of ages of the earth, but not what evolutionists need...they felt that each represented one millennium, since the earth was only supposed to last 6000 years before the return of Christ and the beginning of His thousand-year earthly reign. Note that these men still took the earth to be young and accepted the Genesis genealogies as history. Also, note that their frequent allegorizing was heavily criticized in their own day and rejected later. The book completes this historical overview by showing the critical moments when geological theories of deep time began to be accepted among churchmen in the 19th century, leading to a decay of interpretation of Genesis.

Second, in an attempt to show the correct way to interpret Genesis, the authors addressed the genre of Genesis 1-11 and showed powerfully how the framework hypothesis, gap theories, and other attempts to embed deep time into Genesis all fall short. The overall conclusion here is that interpreting Genesis in any other way than history does great violence to the text itself, its natural reading and the way it was obviously understood for thousands of years. (NB: If the ancient Israelites and Church Fathers read this in a way that is different from the way modern scholars do because of modern science, then divine inspiration is destroyed, since they not only did not but could not have understood it aright as it was given. The Bible would have been gibberish for millions of people until the right minds unlocked its true meaning.)

Third, the authors of two articles show that Jesus and the apostles clearly treated Genesis as historical, basing much of their theology and practical teaching upon the root events in the history of man.

Lastly, three special issues were addressed, one of which I've already posted some about previously. They are: the authority of nature as a revelatory agent, the geological implications of Noah's flood, and the problem of evil and death. Each of these is handled well and with much background work having been done.

Overall, this book is a weighty one. The scholars who wrote the articles did their homework! Many questions of the sincerely interested would be answered here. However, as the afterword points out, few will be convinced by even the best arguments, since what is at stake here is spiritual and not merely knowledge.

The Presence of Evil Requires the Rejection of Deep Time

The problem of evil is one of the root issues that should cause any thinking Christian to reject any view of creation that includes deep time (millions or billions of years) and/or evolution. Below is a quote from Granville Penn, a British scientist and theologian from the early 19th century. I believe his analysis of the problem is correct and powerful.

To assume arbitrarily, a priori, that God created the matter of this globe in the most imperfect state to which the gross imagination of man can contrive to reduce it, which it effectually does, by reducing the creative Fiat to the mere production of an amorphous elementary mass; and then to pretend that His intelligence and wisdom are to be collected from certain hypothetical occult laws, by which that mass worked itself into perfection of figure and arrangement after innumerable ages; would tend to lessen our sense either of the divine wisdom or power, did not the supposition recoil with tremendous reaction upon the supposers, and convict them of the clumsiest irrationality. The supposition is totally arbitrary; and not only arbitrary, viciously arbitrary; because, it is totally unnecessary, and therefore betrays a vice of choice. For, the laws of matter could not have worked perfection in the mass which the Creator is thus supposed to have formed imperfect, unless by a power imparted by Himself who established the laws. And, if He could thus produce perfection mediately, through their operation, He could produce it immediately, without their operation. Why, then, wantonly and viciously, without a pretence of authority, choose the supposition of their mediation? It is entirely a decision of choice and preference, that is, of the will; for, the reason is no party to it, neither urging, suggesting, encouraging, or in any way aiding or abetting the decision, but, on the contrary, positively denying and condemning it. The vast length of time, which this sinistrous choice is necessarily obliged to call in for its own defense, could only be requisite to the Creator for overcoming difficulties obstructing the perfecting process; it therefore chooses to suppose, that He created obstructions in matter, to resist and retard the perfecting of the work which He designed; whilst at the same time He might have perfected it without any resistance at all, by His own Creative Act... To suppose then, a priori, and without the slightest motive prompted by reason, that His wisdom willed, at the same time, both the formation of a perfect work, argues a gross defect of intelligence somewhere; either in the Creator or in the supposer; and I leave it to this science, to determine the alternative. (Penn, A Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies, 1825)

Also, read below quotes from atheist evolutionists Richard Dawkins and David Hull and decide if a Christian can hold that God created natural selection as the process of evolution and, at the same time, can be held to be free of guilt for creating natural evil.

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives whimpering with fear, others are slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. (Dawkins, God's Utility Function, 1995)

Whatever the God implied by evolutionary theory and the data of natural history may be like, He is not the Protestant God of waste not, want not. He is also not a loving God who cares about His productions. He is not even the awful God portrayed in the book of Job. The God of the Galapagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent, and almost diabolical. He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone would be inclined to pray. (Hull, The God of the Galapagos, 1991)

If the Bible is not believed, including the historical sense of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, then the above is all true and we should reject Christianity and God altogether. However, the Bible makes clear a theodicy which explains that sin is the root cause of all natural and moral evil, that the world was made perfect and will be restored, because of the saving work of Jesus Christ. We cannot afford to abandon this truth for any alternative, no matter what "authority" puts it forward.

World War I

Marshall, S.L.A., and Alvin M. Josephy. The American Heritage History of World War I. [New York]: American Heritage Pub. Co.; Book trade distribution by Simon and Schuster, 1964.

This short history of the First World War (at 483 pages, it only scratches the surface) is an especially good analysis of how the conflagration began and how the criminally inept peace imposed by the victors inevitably led to the Second World War and various other evils. It treats the major battles in a very sparse way, so that it is difficult to learn any more of them than who was engaged, how many died, and how little land was won or lost for such bloody sacrifice. For greater detail on what being in a WWI battle was like, I much prefer Keegan's chapter on the Somme from The Face of Battle. Also, General "Slam" Marshall, being an American, definitely wrote a great deal more detail about the doings of the American Expeditionary Force in France than any other nation's armed forces. For example, he mentions which American divisions fought in each battle, but hardly ever speaks of formations smaller than armies when writing of French, British, German, or Russian battles. I suppose this is all right, but it definitely means one must read elsewhere for the whole story.

All in all, a good book. The political analysis I mentioned above is excellent. The military side is less so. But several questions still remain in my mind: How did men decide to continue sacrificing themselves at the rate they did, and for so little in return, on the Western Front? Why did the armies not simply refuse their leaders when called upon for the umpteenth time to charge machine gun nests through a hail of shrapnel? It seems to me that, for a time, everyone lost their minds! I hope and pray that nothing similar ever happens again.

2 Peter 3:1-7 - Implications for the Creation Debate

1Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. 2I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.
3First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." 5But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

This text is future oriented, teaching believers to be certain of Christ's second coming, even in the face of scoffers. However, Peter points to 2 events from the beginning of Genesis, linking their reality to the reality of the second coming. Those events are: the creation of the world by the mere word of God (He spoke it into existence and He did this by dividing the land from the waters, exactly as it is described in Genesis 1) and the destruction of the world by a global flood. It seems clear that Peter believed these events to be historical fact, interpreting Genesis as history and not fable or parable.

Peter also clearly is addressing an argument we now understand as a bedrock of Naturalism - that all things have gone on like they are now since the beginning (if there was one). This is known as Uniformitarianism. Peter tells us that those who deny that there will be a second coming of Christ, and the attendant resurrection and judgment, will also deny the creation and the flood. (Concepts remarkably like modern ideas of evolution existed in some Greek philosophy well before the time of Christ.) Interestingly, Darwin, in his On the Origin of Species, claimed that evolution would inexorably lead to a perfection of humankind that negates the need for Christ's second coming, and, in the same breath, he denies that any cataclysm like the biblical flood has ever occurred. This would also lead to a destruction of any meaningful understanding of Genesis.

"As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of equally inappreciable length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection." Charles Darwin, Origin, p459

Now, the second coming of Christ is an absolute necessity for Christian orthodoxy (and just for the faith to make any sense at all). If we reject His coming, what do we have left? Only an ethical rule for today, but certainly no hope of escape from the grave. (Or possibly some sort of heretical thought in which physical matter is considered evil and it is thought that believers will live on only in spirit after death. However, this has been rejected down through the ages and neglects the fact that man was always meant to live in a body - I'll deal with this issue of the nature of man in another post later.)

Also, if you think on it at all, you will easily see that Christ's second coming will eclipse by far these other two events (creation and flood) in enormity and effect on the world. So, if you hold to orthodoxy and believe in His coming again, what could keep you from believing in the Bible's testimony of these lesser events? It is inconsistent to believe in the one and not the other.

The First Air War, 1914-1918

Kennett, Lee B. The First Air War, 1914-1918. New York: Free Press, 1991. $20.

This book attempts to focus in on the aviation elements of the First World War. While acknowledging that the air war truly played a small role in the conflict (far less than that predicted by its pre-war proponents), Kennett argues successfully that the Great War was the birthplace of air power. This is true because of the technological and doctrinal developments that came fast and furious during the war. To illustrate, in 1914 aircraft were few and primarily used for observation (which remained their most successful use throughout the war), but by the Armistice the various powers all had large air forces of thousands of aircraft, which had specialized roles (such as: fighter, bomber, torpedo bomber, close air support, etc.) and the specialized aircraft models to fit.

It is easy, after reading this book, to trace the lines of development from these early aircraft to those of the Second World War and even today. This alone makes this book an important starting point in studying the militarization of the skies.

Is the book well written? Yes and no. Kennett has delved into most aspects of the air war in some detail and has given a very good general overview of the larger events. However, it is not written in an enthralling style at all. It is often overly factual and seems to lose much of the emotion involved in the subject. This may have been a conscious decision, in order to write free of the hero-worship and celebrity which pilots enjoyed at the time. However, one often misses the human elements because of that decision.

The Faith Given Once for All

Colson, Charles W., and Harold Fickett. The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and Why It Matters. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2008. $18.99

The Faith is an excellent, modern-day addendum to C.S. Lewis' famous Mere Christianity. Colson and Fickett have tried to steer clear of the divisive secondary issues that Christians often fight about and touch base with the core beliefs that make us Christian. In addition, this books is a call for Christians of all traditions to get back to those core doctrines, primarily so we can better be Christian bust also so we can work together because of this common ground.

I believe that the authors do a wonderful job of both informing the reader as to the bedrock doctrines of the Christian faith and challenging Christians to take the logical next step of engaging and transforming the culture. The powerful use of true stories of Christians, past and present, who have acted on their orthodoxy is one of the best aspects of this book. I do still think that Mere Christianity is the stronger book of this sort, but the modern language and style of The Faith make it a better tool for teaching younger believers and non-believers about what it truly is to be a Christian. This is an excellent book for college classrooms or small group studies.

Finally, this book is built on the premise that many so-called Christians do not know these fundamental doctrines or the implications that spring from them. From my own experience, I would have to agree that this is a dire problem in the church, which is part of why liberal, non-biblical concepts have come to be accepted in many mainline churches. If there is, as the New Testament books repeatedly suggest, a core Apostolic teaching about Jesus that must be held for a person to be a believer, then not knowing could easily cost many people for eternity. If the culture were not being horribly debased, this would still be a good enough reason to teach doctrine, but it is and this fast increases the need for Christians to live according to their beliefs.

Dracula

Stoker, Bram and Elizabeth Kostova. Dracula. New York: Back Bay Books, 2005. $10.99.

I picked up this classic horror tale recently with a gift card from my baby son (really from his mom). I've seen a couple of the movie adaptations of the book, and the concept has always interested me. It was a good exercise for my imagination.

Stoker's book is amazing as the fountainhead of so much in this genre. Unfortunately for me, the horror genre has changed dramatically from what it was in the Victorian period, when Stoker wrote. I noticed early on that I was not really affected much emotionally by the tale. This may be due, in part, to my familiarity with movies that have told the story in similar ways, but I think it was largely due to the fact that our modern culture has made horror so much more horrific. Of course, if I were really in Jonathan Harker's shoes in the early part of the book, trapped in Castle Dracula with the Count and his creatures, the experience would be terrible. I guess the imagery used simply fails to excite my modern and inured mind. That said, I was never once bored throughout the 400 pages!

One of the interesting issues surrounding the interpretation of Dracula is the extent to which the story is that of science and modernity overcoming medieval superstition, or even of West over East. This theme appears so often that it seems Stoker must have intended it. I can see how this would have been especially powerful to readers in the time of its first printing, but today the "modernity" present in the book, when thought of in this way, is often laughable. Professor Van Helsing, the symbol of modernity and logic, practices hypnotism, consults ancient superstition, and seems to believe in alchemy. This is not to say that modernity/science should not triumph over superstition but to point out that the hubris associated with any period's estimation of its own learning is dangerous. We have discovered too often that our modern ideas give way to better ideas to come and are sometimes found out to be mere superstition after all.

A New Kind of Church

Malphurs, Aubrey. A New Kind of Church: Understanding Models of Ministry for the 21st Century. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007. $15.99

In this book, Malphurs has 2 goals: to address criticism of new-model churches (seeker, emerging, small-group driven, etc.) and to promote biblical understanding of church, culture, and change that help churches undergo the necessary changes so that they can remain active, or renew activity, in the great overall mission of the church - making disciples.

Malphurs does an excellent job of educating the reader about the fundamental issues involved in this debate. This is to be expected from a well-respected seminary professor. He is very critical of those who have been arguing vociferously against changes in church models. He criticizes their ungodly, angry way of expressing themselves as well as the simple fact that large parts of their argument are either not biblically founded or actually violate biblical teaching.

Malphurs is ultimately in favor of these new models, though he does offer some caution to them. I suppose I should clarify - he is in favor of necessary changes in the way church is done in order to reach a culture that has changed enough that large segments of it hold no affinity at all for the majority of churches. New model churches are trying to effect those changes, so he supports them.

The last chapter of the book contains a simple explanation of how churches can and should go about changing for the better. This is good, but it is essentially an advertisement for another of Malphurs' books, Advanced Strategic Planning. I guess I'll need to read that one, too.

Being in the younger generation on this issue, I was not strongly challenged by this book, though I could see how it could work wonders for hardened anti-change elements within the church. However, I seriously doubt they will read this or, if they do, give it a fair reading. Even so, I learned a great deal about leadership through this sort of model change.

Mutations and Increasing Genetic Information - An Analogy

A good friend recently put forward the genetic mutation that causes Down's Syndrome (a doubling of the 21st chromosome) as an example of a mutation resulting in an increase in genetic information. This is important because such increases in genetic information are vital if evolution as it is understood today has really occurred (the genome of a bacterium is far smaller than that of a higher animal, such that genetic information must have increased over time if some past bacterium evolved into today's higher animals). In addition, Intelligent Design advocates routinely argue that no such increases of information do occur, essentially destroying the premise upon which the evolutionary process is based.

There may be other examples of supposed increases of genetic information, but I believe I have a metaphor and an understanding of information that thoroughly refutes this one example (Down's Syndrome).

Imagine a library with thousands of books, all original, no duplicates. This is similar to the genome of a human, though really less extensive. Now, the Down's Syndrome duplication is like receiving a second copy of one of those books. At first, this does seem like an increase in information, since you now have more pages, more words, and more letters in the library. But this is deceptive. It is deceptive because information is not in essence a matter of numbers and letters but of meaning. Having two copies of John Calvin's Institutes (one of the larger works in my own library) or Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat (a very short work) does not increase the total meaning contained in the library. As you read the two copies, you cannot learn anything new from the second that you couldn't from the first. In fact, unless you have some sentimental affection for the duplicated book, you could easily see how the duplicate is a problem for the library, taking up space better used for some other original work.

Now, an evolutionist might argue that the duplicate could evolve into another new book. He may concede that it may not contain new information, but argue that it does contain the building blocks for new information. Surely, Calvin's Institutes contains enough letters and words to create Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat. The problem is this: according to evolution this must occur in a non-directed process. I could arrange the Institutes into any number of shorter works myself, but that is a completely different thing. Also, this supposition results in innumerable steps in between the Institutes and the Cat in the Hat that are gibberish, which we do not see in the genetics of any creature, but we should because this process should be on-going. Finally, this process could only create books shorter than or equal to the original, so that more complicated forms and functions cannot derive from less complicated ones, contrary to evolutionary theory.

I can think of other problems with this example of increasing genetic information, but I believe that the above argument is sufficient to reject it. What say you?

The New Answers Book

Ham, Ken. The New Answers Book: Over 25 Questions on Creation/Evolution and the Bible. Green Forest, Ark: Master Books, 2006. $14.99.

The New Answers Book is produced by Answers in Genesis, a Christian group that holds to a Young-earth creationist perspective, researching and teaching in order to promote that perspective. I've seen a couple of their videos and have always found their stuff to be interesting, even compelling at points, and well done. The founder of Answers in Genesis, Ken Ham, is the editor of this book and one of the article authors. The book is a YE creationist attempt to answer the objections raised against that view by others.

Overall, the book is an excellent resource for understanding the YE creationist perspective on the available scientific data. This perspective is built upon a serious reading of Scripture, particularly Genesis chapter 1-11, using the grammatical-historical hermeneutic. This reading is one that attempts to treat the Biblical text within its own linguistic setting (e.g. - reading poetry and narrative differently because they have entirely different uses in the Bible) and historical setting. This view is the one taught, by and large, by my own seminary and many other conservative theological institutions. The key here is that YE creationists first accept the Bible as true and authoritative and then take their view to the science, resulting in very different theories concerning everything from DNA to the geologic column and even light from distant galaxies. The alternative, common among moderate and liberal theologians, is to accept current scientific dogma (e.g. - the universe is 14+ billion years old and all life evolved over that period) and then read the Bible to figure out how to fit or bend the text to agree with the science. At least to me, the YE creationist view of science-theology makes more sense.

The best articles were: the two dealing with dating methods by Mark Riddle, the one concerning catastrophic plate tectonics and the flood by Andrew Snelling, that by Jason Lisle about distant starlight and the age of the universe, and the article about defense/attack structures in plants and animals by Andy McIntosh and Bodie Hodge. All of these were highly scientific, interesting, and vital for a YE view to stand up to scrutiny.

The problems with the book are mostly those of structure. Since the articles were written independently, there are frequent instances of repetitious information. However, one should expect this out of a source book like this one. The weakest article was the one by Ham answering the question, "Did Jesus Say He Created in Six Literal Days?" The article does well to point out many quotes of Jesus dealing with other elements of Genesis 1-11 as literal/historical facts, but he then goes further and tries to show that Jesus was speaking in several Old Testament passages that specifically refer to creating in six literal days. While I still think these passages are germane to the question, since God does not contradict Himself within the Godhead, I would hesitate to make Jesus the speaker in the Old Testament unless there is a lot of clear evidence.

Finally, as you might be able to tell, I have a great affinity for the YE creationist view. It seems to me that creationists and evolutionists (and all those who hold to naturalism) are each simply choosing their ideological (one might say theological and still be quite correct) commitments and then interpreting science or the Bible accordingly. To me, as a Christian, it only makes sense to remain committed to the Bible, the authoritative and inspired and inerrant Word of God, and then approach science than to accept what science (the majority dogma known collectively as science) says and then approach the Bible. Throughout this book, the various authors repeatedly point out the dangers in accepting a compromise view of Genesis 1-11: it opens the entire Bible to the charge of fallibility and irrelevance and ultimately undermines the salvation wrought by God in Christ Jesus.

Science's Blind Spot

Hunter, Cornelius G. Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism. Grand Rapids, Mich: Brazos Press, 2007. $14.99.

This book is an excellent "thinker." I often had to re-read portions so that I could more fully understand and I found myself, my assumptions, challenged in a very positive way. I urge anyone interested in science, an aspect of science, to read this book. Below, I will first try to deal with Hunter's arguments and then go one step further in some analysis of my own.

Hunter's thesis is that, by requiring that science can only ever provide natural/material explanations, it has created a blind spot such that, if the data ever pointed to a non-material explanation it would be missed. Nowhere in the book does Hunter try to prove that non-material explanations are necessarily present, but he does argue that science should reject the adoption of a priori assumptions, such as the requirement that all explanations be material, in favor of following the date wherever it leads.

To illustrate his point, Hunter shows the difference between empirical science (fact-based, experimentation, repeatable) and rational science (theory-based, not repeatable or experimental, dogmatic). His clear example is of two biologists, one studying how nerve cells work and the other studying the evolutionary descent of some animal species. The one involves lab experiments all over the world, while the other involves historical fiction and supposition based on thin data collected from paleontology and similarities between organisms. It is clear that these two types of science are vastly different, the rational sort not conforming well at all to common definitions of science.

Interestingly, Hunter does not blame this intellectual requirement that all explanations be material on atheism, as I've often thought. He calls that a bad mistake committed by many Christians in scientific debates. Rather, he argues that naturalism (what he calls theological naturalism) arose during the Enlightenment because of theological concerns. These relate to the problem of evil, human freedom issues, and a disbelief in an intervening God, not from a disbelief in any god at all. Theologians and scientists looked at the world, its suffering and apparent lack of meaning, and felt that God could not be responsible for all of this. This group, many of whom were deists (names include Burnet, Kant, Leibniz, Darwin, etc.), therefore, posited that God does not intervene in the world but has created natural laws sufficient to explain all that exists. Thus, science should only ever look for natural/material explanations because, according to their theology and not any sort of science, that was all there could be. Essentially, they felt the need to get God off the hook for evil.

This has great bearing on the Intelligent Design debate, since ID scientists argue that the date points to a designer while evolutionists argue that it points to purely material causes. According to Hunter, it may be that evolutionists can't see the design implications because they have decided before examining any data that it can't exist.

Hunter definitely holds to the principle of parsimony, which is that when a natural/simple explanation fits the data it is unnecessary and undesirable to look for a more complex, non-material one. However, when material explanations fail to fit the data, non-material ones can and should be considered. He argues that, in the case of evolution, the material explanation fails in key ways to adequately explain the data.

As my own contribution, I would like to point out that theological liberalism, like that which opened the door to deism and theological naturalism, leads people to reject the God of the Bible in favor of some other god derived from philosophy and human reason. When this occurs, it should be no surprise that concepts based off of the nature of this new god do not work well in the real world. This is why the doctrines of the inspiration and authority of the Bible as so important. Interestingly, if people are worried about the problem of evil, the Bible actually addresses that subject already in a way that shows that God bears no taint of evil but is actually at work to redeem those who brought it into creation.

War Since 1945

Black, Jeremy. War Since 1945. Contemporary Worlds. London: Reaktion, 2004. $24.95.

I have read Black's Eighteenth-Century Europe, so I should have been warned about his style and the sorts of conclusions he comes up with. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that his book was the driest and most difficult of those I read for my Christianity in the Enlightenment class.

Black's goal in this book is to remind the reader that there was much else going on in this period (1945-present) than just the Cold War. Additionally, he wants the reader to see that most of the conflict has been non-Western, more specifically non-American, in order to warn us off of any Euro- or Ameri-centric understanding of warfare. He makes the cogent point that, if the USA is to be considered the foremost military power, then all others must be fundamentally different, making study only of American military forms and methods inadequate and misleading.

Much like the other book of his that I've read (he's written many more), this book, at less than 200 pages, is far too short to cover such a broad topic in anything more than surface facts. This serves to marginally inform the reader but detracts considerably from the book's readability.

The most interesting fact I learned from the book is that there was actually a war fought in Central America over a soccer match (the Football War of 1969 between Honduras and El Salvador)! Of course, it was really more complicated than that, but come on!

The Children of Húrin

Tolkien, J.R.R., Christopher Tolkien, and Alan Lee. Narn I Chîn Húrin: The Tale of the Children of Húrin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. $15.99.

This delightful journey through early Middle Earth was light years from the difficulties of The Silmarillion, Tolkien's great work that covers the entire history of Middle Earth from its creation to the end of the Third Age, and helped make clear many of the references to older times found in The Lord of the Rings. Christopher Tolkien (J.R.R.'s youngest son and the protector of his literary work) has taken various writings that his father had left unfinished and, with some editing and a few instances of gap filling, provided us with a whole tale from the First Age of Middle Earth.

This story is not a happy one, but is a tragedy of the highest degree. It bears some similarities to other well-known, ancient tragic works. As such, while the story is satisfying in itself, I am glad that it is coupled with Tolkien's happier works of Middle Earth.

For one only familiar with the LOTR and The Hobbit, the biggest characters have already been introduced. Morgoth is the great enemy, and Túrin, son of Húrin, is the tragic hero. These are each in direct, though distant, relation to the great characters of the LOTR, such as Elrond and the elven lords, Aragorn, as well as Sauron.

Much like The Return of the King, this book has several helpful appendices. The most interesting, especially for those interested in literature, is Christopher Tolkien's explanation of how the present book descended from various prose and poetry of his father.

On the negative side, it is easy to feel the uncompleted nature of J.R.R. Tolkien's original work. Unlike The Hobbit of the LOTR, the details here are often spare. One doesn't get a good mental picture of the land or cities that Túrin visits, which was never a problem with his other works. Also, at times, the story seems to run on too quickly. I believe that the tale, had it been completed by Tolkien himself, could easily have been 2 books of much greater length than this one. That said, the story is still quite good.

While the tragedy contained in this book is the work of Morgoth, the lesson of humility can still be learned from what happens to Húrin's family.

Understanding Intelligent Design

Dembski, William A., and Sean McDowell. Understanding Intelligent Design. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2008. $13.99.

I must confess a previous general dislike for scientific things. This was not really driven by my religious convictions but is more complicated. Some of the contributing factors include: a high school chemistry teacher who taught nothing, another high school teacher (this time physics) who knew so little math that his students routinely had to correct his grading mistakes, my resulting ignorance of many scientific concepts, my love and study of history (probably a right-brain versus left-brain issue), as well as the feeling that much of the "truths" that I, and all of society along with me, was being fed were in fact incompatible with biblical Christianity and the realities of the world.

That said, I am now engaging myself in reading designed to catch myself up on science related to the Intelligent Design debate. I saw the movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" last year, and I've been in some interesting discussions on the issue. I have an inner conviction about the truth, but I've lacked the scientific knowledge to be effective in debate. So, this book, as the title might suggest, is the first step for me. I realize that my book choices are biases, but I have not yet found any book that tries to take seriously the claims of ID and defeat them with scientific evidence. If such a book exists or is written, I will read it. As it stands, the establishment scientific community is making a concerted effort to simply ignore ID in the hopes that it will just disappear.

On to the book...

Dembski (a major light in the ID movement) and McDowell are trying to make accessible to the average reader the aspects of the ID debate and present, in basic, understandable form, the evidence for ID and against Darwinian evolution. They make clear early on that they have no issue with natural selection or evolution as the means to explain variation within the population of a species. The problem is with natural selection-driven evolution as the explanation of the origin of life or as the mechanism for one species coming from another. They also show that ID is not some neo-fundamentalist attempt to subvert science in order to establish a theocracy (a common claim) but is actually a big-tent movement, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and agnostics and with room for everything from young-earth creationists to people who believe in divinely guided evolution.

The central problem seems to be that, given what we now know about the cell and DNA, no material process is know to exist that can explain (with a reasonable mathematical probability, which Dembski very conservatively puts at no less than 1 in 10 to the 150th power - the universal probability bound) the information necessary to give rise to even the most simple of life forms. Thus, since we can detect design (forensic science and the SETI program are just two of many such examples), this book states that ID provides scientific proof, mainly in the fields of probability and information sciences but related to biology, geology, cosmology, physics, chemistry, and other major areas of study, that is best understood to point to an outside super designer.

There are also many proofs given for ID and against evolution. These are quite convincing, especially the many examples of the tricks pro-evolution scientists have had to pull to maintain their theory. I won't catalogue them here, but you should definitely take a look.

The book is well-written and achieves its goal of providing a basis for general understanding of the subject. It also points to further resources for study in one of its appendices. At only a little over 200 pages, it is a quick read. The drawback of this is that it is clear that further reading is necessary to graduate to anything more than a casual discussion of ID.

Finally, I would like to point out what the authors also emphasize in their first chapter. This debate really is important to the larger worldview debate. If Darwinian evolution, based on naturalism, is true, then Christianity is necessarily false. That simple fact makes this subject something truly important for Christians to study, understand, and speak up about.

The Rise and Fall of the British Empire

James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. $21.95.

I bought this book while researching for a paper for my Christianity in the Enlightenment class (the paper was very successful and was read before the editorial board of BaptistTheology.org). The book includes a terrific chapter on the early Raj, or British government of India, which was very useful for the paper. However, after finishing the paper and my other class work, and graduating, I chose to come back to this book as my first post-seminary read.

James' goal in writing was to present the British Empire as it developed and not merely as it is seen today, in hindsight. This is important because, as he says, "History cannot be unwritten or written in the subjunctive." So often today, history studies are about what should have been, based upon our current values, and not what really was. This aspect provides James' book with a balance and reality that sometimes was difficult to read but, I believe, hit very close to the truth.

James does an excellent job of showing the effects, other at odds with one another, of empire on the people of Britain. The Empire bred a certain superiority complex among the British that lent itself to racism and an overbearing political propensity to interfere where unwanted. The Empire simultaneously helped cause the development of evangelical missionary efforts, liberal political trends toward democracy in Britain and elsewhere, and a rise in efforts to provide social justice. James does a great job of laying out all of this evidence but allowing the reader to weigh it and come to his/her own conclusions about the British Empire.

As a historian interested in military events, this book was often disappointing to me. James is not writing about the battles and wars of the Empire but about the political/economic developments that brought them about. This should appeal to many others not interested in the military side.

All in all, the book was a very good read. It does not get bogged down by the two world wars, like most such books do. James is a good writer, in addition to making good choices about what to concentrate upon. I would strongly suggest it for anyone interested in world history over the past 400 years and especially for those whose interest has been piqued by the current claims and counter-claims concerning American imperialism.

A Little Free Time and a Huge Reading List!

Well, I've just finished my master degree. I hope to get another one (history this time), followed by a PhD in the same field, but that's for another day. For now, I'm going to enjoy work, time with my new baby boy, and reading books that I choose for myself. I'm also going to blog more. I hope to mix in some book reviews, as I finish books, with my other thoughts. The first review will follow shortly.