Through A Lense Darkly

Psalm 145 - Great Worship Style!

2010-05-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

As we Christians often find ourselves vearing about between different "styles" of worship, I was reminded today that worship is about God and about the truth of what we bring to Him. Psalm 145 is a wonderful example of simply bringing truth to God, exalting Him for His ways and His character. Read and enjoy!

Psalm 145

Praising God's Greatness

A Davidic hymn.

1 I exalt You, my God the King,
and praise Your name forever and ever.
2 I will praise You every day;
I will honor Your name forever and ever.

3 Yahweh is great and is highly praised;
His greatness is unsearchable.

4 One generation will declare Your works to the next
and will proclaim Your mighty acts.

5 I will speak of Your glorious splendor
and Your wonderful works.

6 They will proclaim the power of Your awe-inspiring works,
and I will declare Your greatness.

7 They will give a testimony of Your great goodness
and will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.

8 The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and great in faithful love.

9 The LORD is good to everyone;
His compassion [rests] on all He has made.

10 All You have made will praise You, LORD;
the godly will bless You.

11 They will speak of the glory of Your kingdom
and will declare Your might,

12 informing [all] people of Your mighty acts
and of the glorious splendor of Your kingdom.

13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom;
Your rule is for all generations.
The LORD is faithful in all His words
and gracious in all His actions.

14 The LORD helps all who fall;
He raises up all who are oppressed.

15 All eyes look to You,
and You give them their food in due time.

16 You open Your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

17 The LORD is righteous in all His ways
and gracious in all His acts.

18 The LORD is near all who call out to Him,
all who call out to Him with integrity.

19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear Him;
He hears their cry for help and saves them.

20 The LORD guards all those who love Him,
but He destroys all the wicked.

21 My mouth will declare the LORD's praise;
let every living thing
praise His holy name forever and ever.

Everything Glorious

2010-04-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

I've heard this song now many times. However, for the longest time I've not really listened to the words well enough to get David Crowder's point in the song. He's making a really simple logical statement, though he's leaving out the final part for us to figure out ourselves. Here's how it works:

God makes everything glorious

I belong to God

therefore

God is making me glorious, too

Now, this is super-simple, but profound. I know this is a common thought/feeling among Christians, but I all too often feel like complete scum - sinful, broken, useless. There is some truth in such thoughts, but God is doing something different with each of His children, which makes all the difference. Be reminded today that God really does do all things well, included building you and me up into a glorious representation of Himself to the world!

The Song of Albion

2009-05-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

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

2009-02-26T11:25:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-16T11:19:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-02T19:32:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-27T19:17:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-09T14:47:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-04T17:37:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-01-04T17:35:00.001-08:00

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.

Answering Some Good Questions

2008-10-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

My brother-in-law has recently asked some interesting questions on his blog (my title above links to his blog) and is interested in answers. This flows out of a continued interest of his in science, as well as a paper he is currently working on regarding the influence of Charles Darwin upon church history. I will try to give my own answers to those questions here.

1. Must one choose between young-earth creationism and and atheistic interpretation of evolution by natural selection? Is there a middle ground?

Of course, one can choose a via media on this issue - many do so. The problem is that this particular issue has two poles that are quite opposed to one another and middle positions are not merely compromises that try to justify science and religion, specifically the Bible's creation account in Genesis. In the process of coming to some compromise, it is necessary to rule out the validity of the Genesis account, or at least some parts of it. This is often done in a somewhat sneaky way by claiming that the account is not meant to be factual but metaphorical. The problem is that the Bible never even hints at an understanding of those first chapters of Genesis as metaphor - everything points to them as concrete facts.

Additionally, those who first began to take compromise positions on this issue, philosophes during the Enlightenment, first established themselves as Deists and then moved into becoming atheists. In other words, the middle positions tend toward the atheistic position, historically. You can see this with various people - Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, etc.

An especially good example is Rene Descartes ("I think, therefore I am"). He attempted to create a way of knowing that was based upon doubt - acknowledge only that which could be proven beyond doubt. In so doing, he attempted to remain a Christian, even claiming to have created a new argument for the existence of God. However, his critics could see that his middle position, which was hardly orthodox by the way, tended toward atheism, and his followes, Cartesian philosophers like Spinoza, moved within one generation to all-out atheism.

2. Is you view consistent with as-yet-undiscovered scientific facts? In other words, is your argument based on a current unknown remaining unknown?

This is often an accusation leveled at theists who hold to a non-evolutionary position - that they believe in a "god of the gaps" theory, meant to explain anything we don't currently understand as being justification for God's existence. Of course, this is a bad argument, since, as history has shown, knowledge does increase and, if this is the reason you believe in God, belief in God diminishes as knowledge increases. Those who hold to this sort of argument for the existence of God are put into the strange position of desiring that mankind discover nothing further about the world in which we live - a quite terrible position.

To me, being a young-earth creationist is about being a Biblical in-errantist. Therefore, I would argue that there has never been even one true scientific fact that discounts what the Bible claims for itself, including the Genesis creation account, and I am not afraid that any new discovery will discount a Biblical claim.

In fact, science, especially archaeology and language studies, have increased the certitude of the Bible, not lessened it. Only one hundred years ago, many Old Testament place names and characters, such as the Babylonian king Belshazzar in the book of Daniel, were thought to be fictional because no such places or people were then known to history - and these were used by scholars to claim that the Bible was full of error. However, today, that king has been identified to have been acting as king of Babylon during its last days in place as co-regent with father, Nabonidus, who had run off to an oasis to worship the sun god full-time while his kingdom was falling apart. Another example would be scholars who claimed for centuries that Moses could not have authored the Torah because he must have been an illiterate. We now know that literacy was much more common in Moses' day than was once thought and that he most likely was quite well-learned for any ancient person. Both of these old arguments against the veracity of the Bible are sometimes still recycled in universities, but they have been thoroughly discounted by scientific learning. I, therefore, am confident that science will do nothing more than uphold the Bible.

3. Supposing that the modern understanding of evolution is true, life, even sentient life, may have developed some other place in the universe. How does your theology handle this possibility?

Supposing that evolution is true and that there is nothing special about the earth, then yes, sentient life is possible somewhere else in the universe - extremely unlikely, but possible.

I'm not sure how to answer this question. I'm inclined to argue that it is not relevant, but that would not be in the spirit of this exchange.

Christian theology has little or nothing to say about other forms of life, especially if no other sentient life exists elsewhere. For, all of creation, we are told, was subjected to futility because of the fall of Adam and Eve. This surely includes non-sentient life here on earth and would include such life forms found elsewhere. In that sense, I suppose, non-sentient life, no matter where it is found, is included in Christian theology as God is at work redeeming even the universe for Himself.

Sentient life is much harder, and would be a difficult thing to reconcile, I believe, with the Biblical account. Christian theology concerns God's response to man's sin through the saving work of Jesus Christ. Several fundamental questions would be raised by another sentient species: have they fallen? If so, has God taken steps to redeem them? Is there a Christ for them or some other way? More basically, are they morally free?

The only problem with such questioning is that it cannot lead anywhere.

I will post my answers to the other three questions in my next post.

Good News from Cuba

2008-04-14T20:28:00.000-07:00

I was reading some news articles today when I ran across one that sounds like really positive news out of Cuba. It is really a small deal, but it may portend much good to come.

Cubans, for the very first time ever, are now allowed to own their own cell phones.

What's so good about that? Well, besides the possible link between cell phone use and cancer, (what, by the way, isn't linked in some way to cancer?) I do think this is a good sign.

You see, governments are meant to uphold the rights of their citizens. Cuba, for far too long, has been ruled by a government too fearful of what its citizens would do with their own rights to really give them access to them. This is common to all communistic governments in history. Their worldview, founded completely on atheistic humanism, requires the government to bring about a society in which want is eliminated through the use of force. Somehow, these people believe that they can create a Utopia through completely non-Utopian means, and the result has always been disaster, oppression, and mass death.

A Biblical worldview sees government not as a tool for creating some perfect society but as a tool God created to punish evildoers and protect people from them. There is no goal of perfection because the Bible teaches that there can be nothing like that where fallen people dwell. Rather, perfection is only found in God and people only trend toward perfection when God is honored and He makes a difference in peoples' lives. Utopia will occur, but it cannot be ushered in by any human effort - it will only occur when Jesus Christ returns to rule the world as King!

So, I am encouraged when Cubans are allowed to own cell phones. It shows that their leaders are beginning to accept the failure of their system and give back to the people rights and responsibilities that have been denied them.

So, I posted...

2008-04-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I know it's been a while, but I simply couldn't keep reading about this woman foisting herself and her poor unborn child on the American public, which is apparently ignorant of facts, without saying something.

Maybe, I'll keep it up some more.

Not a Miracle...

2008-04-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

OK, so unless you've been under a rock for the past few days, you've heard of this "man" who is pregnant. She appeared on the Oprah show this week...surprise, surprise. While on the show, she called what has happened to her a miracle.

I take issue with this. This "man" is really a woman, simple and plain. While I agree fully with the overall opinion that the beginning of a new life is a miraculous event, I cannot see a woman getting pregnant, even after she has had much of her femininity removed surgically, as an event any more miraculous than any woman getting pregnant.

The message seems to be - "My gender is what I say/feel it to be, and my gender is no related to my ability to reproduce." Unfortunately, this is completely backward. Obviously, since no real men have ever actually become pregnant, this is not so. The ability to carry a child and bring it into the world is a purely female ability. Thus, if this "man" has that ability, "he" is really a she and her gender is intimately tied to what has happened to her.

The truth is, this sort of mixed-up mindset about sexuality and gender is sad, in the individual case, and horrific, in the general/culture-wide sense. Our culture has become completely crazy! It has for some time claimed that it is OK (within your rights and unquestionably ethical) to have sex with whomever you wish. Now, we see a further shift to the point where you even get to define your own sexuality (your being!) however you want. This is absurd, and it reaches beyond sexuality, as well. You can define your own heritage, race, religion, history... It is as if many people have simply chosen that there can be nothing "real." Everything is "plastic," changeable and even banish-able from who we are.

No wonder we cannot keep out commitments, to spouses, to debtors, to national and international efforts. No wonder our children are increasingly unaware of where they really come from. No wonder our "leaders" increasingly appeal solely to our appetites, which is the part of ourselves that so often rules over the rest. No wonder, even in our churches, young and old alike cannot tell you what they believe and why.

How is this even a news item at all?

Literal Interpretation of Genesis (All of it!)

2007-10-29T20:55:00.000-07:00

My wonderful wife has encouraged myself and her other blog readers to write on environmentalism from a Christian perspective/worldview. She has "encouraged" me a little more than most, I suppose, but I needed the "encouragement."

I'd like to point out that the Christian responsibility to care for the world we live in is directly related to God's initial commands to Adam and Eve in the garden, right after He created the world. There are those who would say that modern science has proven conclusively that the world is billions of years old and that mankind exists now as a result of the forces of evolution acting throughout those billions of years. I respectfully disagree. Modern science has become a worldview all its own, rather than a method for detecting truth, which is what science really is. As such, it has made conclusions about the world that fit with its materialistic view that there is no God and no such thing as a spiritual world at all. Thus, forces like evolution, which requires vast amounts of time to be mathematically plausible, are postulated to explain how everything that does exist got here.

There are many problems with all of the above thinking, but, as it relates to the environment, the problem at hand is that such thinking undercuts the heart of why we must care for the world. The primary reason is that God made both us and the world and He gave charge of it to us. Caring for the world is an outworking of a holy life and cannot be honestly done by those who deny that there is even such a thing as holiness. At best, those who deny God's existence and His creation of the world as it is written in the Bible, worship the material that they claim is all that exists.

Genesis is where the entire story of the world begins. It is where the world is made and every important institution finds its origins (family, marriage, government). It is also where the central problem of man begins - sin - and God's response to sin is foretold. This cannot be an allegory or myth. It must be truth or our whole reason for being turns to chance encounters of atoms bouncing around the galaxy, at the very best.

It's Been a While...

2007-09-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been absent from blogging for a while (OK, wife, quite a while), but I've been recently looking for an interesting thing with which to get back into the writing. Here it is...

I ran across this story today. It amazes me what people will do for their own gratification! Let me see if I can give you the run down and why it makes no sense, from a Biblical point of view.

First, there is this man who was badly injured in a motorcycle accident. His injuries leave him unconscious and probably dying, especially from attendant strokes suffered after the accident.
Second, there is this man's fiancee, to whom he was to be wed this same time next year.
Third, there is this man's parents.

The fiancee wants the hospital where her man is being cared for to harvest some of his semen (YIKES!) for her to carry his child. She explains to the reporter that this is not simply an act of love for him or out of a desire to have children in general but mostly so his parents could have something left of their only son. His parents and fiancee originally made this request under Iowa's state laws concerning organ transplants but were rejected because of the obvious distinction between saving and creating lives. However, after an emergency request was made to the court system, a judge allowed the procedure.

Now, why is this wrong, in my opinion? Well, it is wrong because it is getting the production of children backwards. While children do most often (though, not always) provide a measure of satisfaction and blessing on parents, that should never be the reason for having them. Children do not exist to provide entertainment or satisfaction for parents. In fact, as most parents will probably testify (not being one yet, I am conjecturing, though hopefully realistically) having a child quickly becomes less about what the parent gets out of the deal than what the parent must put in.

So, for parents of this man to manipulate state laws clearly meant to save the lives of people suffering from illnesses in order to "have a part of him left" is wrong-headed. They want that child (in fact, I think they are thinking more of a small version of their own son than the person that will really be produced out of this) for their own comfort in losing their son, not for the child himself. The same seems to be the case for the potential mother.

What happens if this child ends up being nothing like his/her father? This is quite likely. What then? Unfortunately, children aren't throw-away, like electronics that no longer serve our needs. Also, what about the child's need for a father? Will this be ignored? Additionally, what about this man's rights? He did not make a decision to produce a child (not even in the strictest sense of simply having sex). What is he miraculously awakens from his injuries? I can just see his response, can't you? ("You did what!!!")

Crimes Against Religious Liberty

2007-05-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

This past week a bill passed through the U.S. House of Representatives which, if passed into law, will curtail our freedom of religion enormously. This bill, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, is designed with one goal in mind - to make it a crime to express any negative thought or feeling regarding homosexuality. It equates teaching against homosexuality, even in a religious setting like a church service, with hate crimes such as murdering or otherwise attacking a person solely because of their race or sexual choices. It is clear that homosexuals are the only group whose "rights" are meant to be protected by this law from certain measures that were rejected from being part of the bill, such as an exemption for religious liberty and protections for the homeless and senior citizens. This bill is part of the wider agenda to normalize homosexuality and silence any voice raised against it.

All freedom-loving Americans, especially those who cherish their religious liberty, should unite to defeat this bill. For one thing, there are already laws in every state and on the federal level that deal with hate crimes. Secondly, this law could be used to prosecute pastors who preach the Bible's teaching on homosexuality from the pulpit - a clear violation of true separation of church and state (see the First Amendment to the US Constitution). In fact, laws similar to this one have been passed in several others countries, such as Canada, and in Canada ministers have been charged with hate crimes because they taught the Bible. Finally, this bill gives government the right to pas judgment on citizens' thoughts and attitudes. I believe that inciting someone to commit a hate crime should be illegal (calling on people to beat up illegal immigrants, for example), but teaching that something is morally wrong is certainly not the same thing. Our minds must be free!

The argument is that it is people like preachers who teaching the Biblical prohibition against homosexuality that actually promote hate crimes. However, this is far from the truth. Christians who are staying true to the Bible will always condemn sin whil holding up the love and hope of Christ. For, in every passage of the Bible where homosexuality is condemned, other sins that are somewhat more common are also condemned. We all stand guilty before a holy God, but we have a Way to Him which is opened to us by grace, to which all sinners, no matter what sin, have been called to enter. The Christian message is at once terribly concerned with holiness and amazingly offering of wholeness.

It is interesting that the same people who have cried loudest against the government entering our bedrooms have sought most for that same government to enter our heads!

Sharia - Proof of a Broken, Unjust System

2007-03-08T15:39:00.000-08:00

The other day I read of a 19 year old woman in Saudi Arabia who had been sentenced by a court there to 90 lashes. Her crime - being alone with a man who is not a relative. Now, that in itself is an obvious injustice. What personal freedom is there in this case? However, the real injustice is the rest of the story. She had apparently been dating a man without her parents' knowledge, a no-no, and he decided to blackmail her. So, when she went to meet with him, he and six other men kidnapped and raped her! Some of her assailants have been punished, but not all. It is as if the courts there, which are governed by a strict adherence to Islamic law found in the Koran called Sharia (sorry to any who actually speak Arabic for my Western spelling), are trying to send the message that a woman who leaves the protection of her family for being in public with another man deserves to be treated like this!

This system is broke, and people all over the world should say so. However, we Westerners have mostly bought into the ambiguities of moral pluralism to the extent that we can't even call evil by its true name.

School Vouchers - An Issue of Church-State

2007-03-08T14:32:00.000-08:00

I just today finished a paper related to how Baptists (past, present, and ideally) view the separation of church and state within the realm of benevolence and education activities done by Baptists. This has become an important issue because of President Bush's aim to fund faith-based programs with public dollars. Another push, which I've witnessed up close in Texas, is for a school voucher system, allowing parents to send their kids to whichever school they desire, even religious schools.

Since I was, and am still licensed as, a teacher, I would like to address this voucher idea. I am opposed to it. I am opposed for several reasons: it would result in the privatization of all education, it would necessarily promote a greater disparity between the "haves" and "have nots" in our society, and it would create a terrible breach of the separation of church and state, which would drive religious schools to bend completely to the will of the state or get out of the education business (ministry?) altogether.

As to the privatization of education, this is something of a tricky thing to say. Technically, a public education is now free to all children of the appropriate ages in the USA. This is technical because it is paid for by society through property taxes primarily, as well as other state and federal monies, so that parents who are property owners are paying for their children to be educated. Under this new system, once vouchers are distributed (never mind the massive bureaucratic headache that would be!) they would become a form of money, which could then be exchanged for an education or part of one. I say "part of one" because there are plenty of schools, even some public schools, that spend more per year on a student than the voucher would be for. Also, and this bleeds over to my second objection, there will certainly be private schools that increase their tuition so that they can control who applies and is admitted to their schools. While I am generally in favor of privatization, this is not true in fields so important as education. The majority of children are at the mercy of whatever system is in place, usually simply because their parents don't care one way or another. With a system like this, parents would necessarily have a greater role to play. This would be wonderful for those parents who are responsible, but would be a tragedy for the rest.

As to this plan encouraging a widening of the gap between those who are wealthy and those who are not, it seems obvious to me. Imagine a private academy in Manhattan and a public school in the Bronx less than 2 miles away. Also, assume for the point of argument that both schools cost the same amount, which would correspond to the amount of the voucher given to parents at each. It is obvious that the private school cannot accommodate all the students from both schools. It is also obvious that at least some of the parents sending their kids to the private school do so because they do not want their kids to be influenced by what can be found at the public school, included the people there. Is it not but a simple thing for the private academy to raise their rates, maybe even double them, in order to hold attendance there out of reach of the public schoolers? The result would not hurt the private school families, who were already paying that amount out of their pockets and would promote greed on the part of the private academy. The result is really a continuance of the status quo that would, I think, result in an even weaker public school.

The most important reason to reject this idea is the commingling between the church and state that would occur in any religious schools that accepted these vouchers, which they would almost have to do to stay competitive. This is true for a couple of reasons, two of which I will look at more closely. First, any education institution accepting the vouchers would have government oversight of the people it admitted and rejected for attendance. Of course, I'm not against anti-discrimination rules in general, but should a religious school be forced to accept applications from homosexual teachers or students who have shown in their previous schooling to be incorrigible? I think not. However, the government funds would tie the hands of the schools, no matter how loudly government agencies claim now that this would not occur. A second problem, also dealing with oversight, comes in the form of educational accountability. I have extremely mixed feelings about this concept, having seen it abusing teachers and students in public schools. However, it would only be a matter of time before schools accepting government funds are forced to submit their students to standardized exams that would prove, one way or another, that they had learned what the government has decided is the bare minimum for a graduating senior to know. This amounts to control, and I mean a death-grip, over the curriculum of schools. If you don't think so, just ask any public school teacher in Texas! Would there be room in a religious school for Bible class? Would the government test allow for the fair hearing that creationism is receiving in such a school? What about sex education? The questions just go on and on! Such a blurring of the lines between the state's realm and that of the church is intolerable.

This doesn't even begin to address the difficulties such a program would have with special needs students.

I am all for both public education, free for all, and private education that is paid for by families. I would love to see Christian groups, possibly associations of churches, provide a better, and financially viable education option that is available to more and more people. However, I reject the temptation to grasp the funds of the state for the use of the church.

What Are You Praying For? How 'bout Revival?

2007-02-09T16:42:00.000-08:00

I've been taking a wonderful class this semester all about revivals and awakenings that have occurred in the past, especially the role of students (teenagers and college students) in them. This has been easily the most exciting class I've had in seminary, with philosophy of religion taking a close second, believe it or not.

My professor is a man of God who prays hard and has a heart for God's work in students' lives, and he has shared with his classes that he feels that revival is soon to come to the church in America. There are all sorts of reasons to think this, too. For example, one thing that has preceded every single revival is moral/spiritual decline. You need only look briefly at a news website, such as foxnews.com, to see that this is increasingly true of our culture. Just tonight I see on that site's main page stories about the following: Anna Nicole Smith's death and the controversy over her daughter's paternity, Elie Wiesel's being attacked by a holocaust-denier, a man who kept the body of his homosexual partner frozen so that he could keep receiving pension checks, a Disney employee who acts as the Beast from Beauty and the Beast and has been arrested on child pornography charges, and a pastor in New York who committed suicide after being caught by the local television station engaging in a homosexual relationship and entering an "adult bookstore." Our culture is literally coming apart at the seems. Each institution is failing, from our schools to our families. We are certainly in decline.

However, this decline is not what I'm really after here. What I want to communicate is what my professor has said several times now to me. One other thing that has been common with every revival is that it was preceded by prayer, sometimes the prayer of a few and sometimes by more. This is not to say that God is in a box and does things the same way every time, but the fact that He has chosen to bring a refreshing of His Spirit when His people have earnestly asked Him for it should open our eyes. Can we expect that He will revive us now without our earnest prayer? I think the answer is obvious.

So, this brings me to the question: are you asking God on a daily basis to come refresh us with His awesome Presence? Are you crying out to Him to show mercy on our nation and people? I have been incredibly convicted that my prayer is too often inward and lacking the sort of direction that God would have for me. Would you join with me in beginning to daily lay our desire, our need, for His Spirit to come powerfully upon us, our churches, and our nation? It is time we shed the tears of brokenness before our God!

Wild at Heart - A Short Review

2007-02-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

Let me start out by saying that this book by John Eldredge has literally been life-changing for me. I had heard good things about it before I read it, but I was blown away by the insight into manhood that was contained between the covers. I often felt like the author was writing about me, personally, and this is not limited to me. Several other men I've discussed the book with have expressed similar feelings. It addresses some of the core issues that Christian men face.

I learned quite a few things about myself and my standing with God through reading this book, but I'll save you all from a long post and just talk about the thing that has affected me the most.

For quite some time I've dealt with a sense of impossibility about my Christian walk, my spiritual life. That is, I felt that I never could measure up to God's requirements for me because there was something fundamentally wrong with me, as if at my core there still lay sin. Now, I'm nowhere near perfect, but I've been learning through this book what it means to have become a new creation in Christ Jesus. Part of what that means is that no longer is a Christian fundamentally broken because of sin at his or her core. Rather, a Christian is now fundamentally good. All that remains of the old self is what Eldredge calls the Traitor within who lies and cajoles to get us back into old habits of sin, and this is only a dying part, no longer what defines the Christian. God has made us good, righteous, and holy in Christ, and that is something to rejoice about! I find myself overcome even now as I type!

If you haven't read this book, please do. You don't have to be a man, either. Women would gain a huge understanding of men, as well as of thier relationships with men from this.

Time Travel and Ethics...Weird Question

2006-12-15T18:24:00.000-08:00

OK, so today I was eating lunch with two guys that I regularly meet with to pray and study the Bible. We weren't very spiritual today, owing to the fact that we're between books of study and also enjoying the nice lull of life right after our semesters have finished. So, we were discussing the intricacies of time travel, especially logical problems with it and the interesting possibilities it could offer.

My friend brought up a very interesting question: what would you do if you could go back to the time prior to Hitler's rise to power and, knowing all that he would do in his life, had the chance to kill him before any of it could happen? Would you do it or leave things as they historically happened?

There are all sorts of things that a person might say here, but I think I'll leave it up to you from here. So, please share your opinion.

We Need to Check Spending

2006-12-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

As I was changing into my uniform for work today, someone had a radio station playing over the PA system in the locker room at work. As I was listening, there was an ad for some credit company, promoting their "product" with an offer for a zero-percent interest loan right at the beginning of someone's use of their service. This was framed as a quick way to get some Christmas money, and it was also called several times "free money." That bothers me to no end, and I think it should be illegal to call something free which clearly isn't. Anyone using this service definitely has to pay that money back.

Now, I see something similar every time I get a credit card bill. (We don't actually use our credit cards, except for emergencies, which we haven't yet had, and for expense items that will be repaid by work - even so they still send the dang bills.) I don't know about you, but every credit card bill I've ever received had a "check" attached, made out to me for several hundred dollars. I've been raised to distrust, even abhor, borrowing money, so this has never caught me. However, I wonder how many people cash that check, whether they know that they will have to pay it back or not.

I just think that credit card companies are just barely legal and should be required to be much more forthcoming in their information disclosures. I would hope that this would lead to lower levels of indebtedness. However, I realize that the real reason we Americans owe so much in consumer debt is that we simply want more "stuff" than we can afford. Our hearts are never content, always seeking more only to find that more doesn't satisfy either.

Some people might point out that lower levels of consumer debt would cause an economic slow-down because people aren't buying as much. This would lead to a loss of jobs. However, I think that would only be temporary. When people are no longer saddled by such debt, they will have much more income to spend on things because they won't be paying the interest. The key is having the patience to wait, which most just don't have.

Grey's Anatomy - Where It Goes Wrong

2006-12-07T20:28:00.000-08:00

Well, my lovely wife and I have been watching a few shows via DVD for the past couple months. Actually, there have only been 2 shows that we've seen this way - Grey's Anatomy and The Office. ( As an aside, I think this is a far superior way to view TV - no commercials, you get to watch them on your own schedule, it frees you from the addiction to TV to an extent, and, if you have the will to do so, you can censor them yourself.) However, after watching the first 2 seasons on Grey's Anatomy, I've had some mixed feelings about the show, and I think I will be much more careful about watching it in the future, if I do at all.

First of all, the show, which is about a group of surgical interns learning how to cut people open and fix them up and all their other life experiences, lacks any understanding that actions have consequences. The interns are constantly breaking the rules and cutting corners, and this in a business where life and death occur daily. Now, I realize that this is just entertainment, but entertainment often teaches us far more than books or classrooms. One intern even stops a man's life-sustaining heart treatment in order to make him worse so he could move up the donor list, only to have him die of some freak complication a day after he gets the new heart. While that intern, I've heard, gets booted out initially in the current season, I've also heard that she gets to come back. In addition, this sort of 2+2 does NOT equal 4 logic extends to their personal lives, where they are all sexually promiscuous and drunks.

The lack of integrity is bad, but the thing that Grey's Anatomy does that is so horrible is that it, through good storytelling and cool characters, makes the viewer start to want the things that the characters want, most of which are immoral things. This was pointed out to me by my wife, who said that the show makes her wish certain things would happen to/for the characters that she would never wish for a real person.

The best way I can illustrate this is with the following contrasting example - Grey's Anatomy, in the TV world, causes me to wish that Meredith and Derek, who is married to someone else, would become a couple, but in real life, I would never wish a marriage to end so a man could start an illicit relationship with a girlfriend. In fact, I would strongly counsel those people to stay apart and for the marriage to seek help, and I would pray for them and witness to them. The show so muddles things that the idea that there really is a right way to live life is gone.

So, I realize that there are probably some people here who do watch this show. I'm not saying you have to stop to be a Christian, but I am warning you to think about how you feel and think while watching any show. If the feelings and thoughts that are evoked are contrary to the truth of God, as revealed in the Bible, then you might need to stop watching. Sometimes, I wonder where the line is between being a person who will watch these sorts of things on TV for entertainment and being a person who would do them himself.

Movie Review - United 93

2006-12-06T14:48:00.000-08:00

Well, my lovely wife is away for a couple of days at one of her company's marketing meetings. So, I got the chance to borrow a movie from the video store that I wouldn't normally get to see. She has higher standards with regard to violence and movie rating than I do.

As I looked through the store, I saw a few items, but what caught my attention the most was United 93, a movie about the events of September 11, 2001, especially what happened aboard that one flight.

Several things are worthy of note. First, this movie brought back to me most of the emotions and thoughts I had sitting in my apartment that day, watching these events unfold from a very different vantage point. That is enough, I think, for me to say that this is a good movie. Any time a movie can bring a person back to a real world event, it is powerful.

Second, the movie makes clear just how confusing and unprecedented the attack was. I realize that the makers used large amounts of license, but the waves of confusion the air traffic controllers and military personnel were getting hit with as the different planes were taken over and smashed into their targets must have really happened on some level. Also, the disbelief and complete lack of a plan to do anything about this sort of attack seemed real.

Third, there was a powerful moment near the end that really puts the entire conflict between Islam and the West (here I'm using a higher definition for our culture, and I am including our common Christian heritage, even if that is no longer dominant - it could definitely be argued that I'm wrong to use it so) into perspective. There is a moment, right before the passengers are about to try to retake the plane, where they start saying together the Lord's Prayer. At the same time, the camera cuts away to the terrorists aboard, who are praying in Arabic to Allah, and to the several bloody, dead bodies they have already killed in taking the plane. I know that there are issues relating to those attacks that are extremely complicated, but this is simple. In that snapshot, you can see what is wrong with Islam and what is right with Christianity.

I definitely recommend that you see this movie. There are no big stars in it, and you will probably find yourself feeling quite sad at the memories, but the courage those people displayed deserves to be remembered and respected.

Election '06 - Thoughts...

2006-11-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

Well, by now most everyone knows that the Democratic party has gained a strong majority in the US House of Representatives and may yet gain a single-vote majority in the US Senate, depending on how the Virginia Senate race turns out. Now, I've been thinking about just what this might mean for us regular folks, and I have some ideas. Also, the election points out some things.

First, let me say how amazing this is, and healthy in a way, for our nation. That is not to say that I'm glad that power in our legislature has shifted the way it has, just that I'm glad to be in a nation where such a shift does not mean we are about to start a war. This sort of thing can lead to violence in many places all over the world, and has. I think it is important to remember that, with our system, nothing is really permanent and there is always next time.

Second, I am interested in voter turn-out statistics, particularly regarding conservative Christians. From what I've read/heard, the nation-wide turnout was about 40%, which is actually slightly higher than the last mid-term election cycle in 2002. However, this election was radically different in the way many races were balanced. There has been a push among some supposedly conservative Christian groups to step away from the political process because neither side has met our expectations. I realize that the Iraq war, or rather weariness of it, probably drove most people to seek change, but I wonder how many Christians chose to simply stay home rather than vote for conservatives that have let them down, seemingly. I'm not sure where to answer these questions, but I bet there will be studies published on the internet pretty soon.

I now expect a couple of things to happen. I expect that the Democratic majority will initiate impeachment of President Bush. This can happen with a simple majority of the House of Reps., which they now have. The charges will have something to do with the way he led the nation into Iraq, none of the craziness about him being behind the 9/11 attacks. He will certainly not be convicted in the Senate, but the Democrats will feel vindicated over the Clinton impeachment and will feel like they really stuck it to Bush, whom they hate with utter abandon.

I also expect that absolutely NOTHING will get done in Washington, DC, for the next 2 years. The president still has to sign bills into law, and the Democrats don't have the votes to overturn vetoes - especially since I expect the remaining Republicans to really circle the wagons. This means that the country is safe from attempts to pull out of Iraq immediately or to immediately overturn the tax cuts, and a whole host of other ideas liberals have been formulating over the past 12 years.

The truly interesting thing coming out of this election is the run-up to the next one, which will have a much greater potential impact. We should be looking for both parties to really get serious about finding that perfect presidential nominee. Those 2 individuals will have the greatest impact on which party will be able to further its agenda.

As a Christian, I feel the need to affirm that this world is not our home. We do not look to the government to provide all that we need - we look to Jesus. Also, I see that our representatives in government must be held accountable for their actions, regardless of party, and held to a high standard. The Republicans who have had moral problems have certainly hurt their cause among conservatives and must look to set their own affairs in order (no pun intended). In addition, Christians need to take stock of the issues that are confronting our society today and need to be reminded that we cannot afford, on any level, to sit back and allow the world around us to decline morally without lifting our voices in warning. We dare not become those lazy watchers on the wall who have the blood of innocents on their hands.

Be Aware of the Power of the Media...

2006-10-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

Today, I read about a video aired by CNN recently in Breakpoint, an excellent Christian worldview daily email that I highly recommend. The video was made by insurgents in Iraq and shows a sniper shooting and killing an American soldier. In the video, the insurgents can be overheard talking about being careful to not harm any innocent people. CNN, after coming under fire for airing the video, has defended itself as simply showing the whole truth about what is happening in Iraq.

Now, I don't want to simply rehash the points made by Chuck Colson on Breakpoint, but they do bear a brief overview. First, it is clear from the large numbers of civilians who have been killed in the fighting in Iraq that the insurgents are not interested in protecting innocents. In fact, the death of these people, especially women and children, is known by the insurgents to be the most effective way of influencing us in America. So, their talk about protecting the innocents is meant only for us, to make Americans think that the insurgents are the heros and our soldiers the villians. Second, it is clear that the insurgents wanted CNN to air this video to help their position. It is timed close to our elections and obviously tilted to show the insurgents in a good light. Thus, I really think it should be considered a crime to have aired it, call it aiding the enemy, and I certainly hope that the US military follows through on its threat to ban CNN reporters from military units and operations. Third, Colson made the point that CNN's claim that it is simply showing the whole truth cannot possibly be true. This last point is what I would like to expand upon further.

I guess I need to start out by saying that it is impossible to communicate anything more complex than a simple fact (such as "my shoes are red") without shading the information with presuppositions and desired outcomes. This is mostly true just because of the enormous amount of information that is involved in any significant event. The information simply must be narrowed down into something that can be related easily. For example, think of a car crash. If all the information about that crash was related to a person, it would include full interviews of each person involved, each police officer that responded, each witness, a police report detailing the event and who was responsible, insurance reports about what it might cost to fix the damage, and on and on. If this were put on the evening news, it would take literally days of video to relay, and it would never be complete as it would be impossible to get inside the people's heads and know what they were thinking/feeling at that moment. So, we should always remember that the events related to us are incomplete.

Added to this, we must consider the motives of the executives in control of the news programs. First, they are motived by money. They receive money through their advertising, and they can charge more for commercial spots when they have more people watching the show. So, they are motivated to air the most emotive and exciting events that they can to draw attention. Unfortunately, because of the condition of fallen man, we seem to be most attracted to events that are gruesome and evil. Second, many of these executives are among what has been called the cultural elite of America, which is a loosely defined group of people using their power to mold American thought how they see fit - following a liberal agenda. They often use TV as a tool, and an effective one, to push their ideas. Usually this is not overt, but hidden in the messages of popular shows.

Speaking of that, it is important to point out the impact media has on our thoughts by introducing ideas in a prepackaged way. This is especially true of TV, since it does so through images. At least print media allows people to play with the ideas in their heads through their imaginations. TV takes that away by presenting the idea in an image that is already set for people. It literally does our thinking for us. We shouldn't be surprised by that, since TV dictates to such a great degree our clothing and hair styles and even our social mores. It also plays on the old idea that seeing is believing. However, anyone who delves a little deeper knows that, with TV, seeing is not necessarily believing.

In conclusion, I am suggesting that, even here where the freedom of the press is written into our Constitution, the press needs to be held accountable. Certainly, freedom has never meant lack of responsibility/accountability. We Christians should be careful to not buy the media's point of view without examining it. To allow such a powerful influence past our defenses is a giant mistake.

One Counter-Cultural CEO...We Need More...

2006-10-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

Today, I was reading on Fox News on-line and saw an interesting interview in the economic news section. The CEO of JetBlue airline, David Neeleman, was speaking on one of the shows( I can't keep the different personalities separate in my mind since I only read the articles on-line and don't actually watch them) about how he donates his entire salary to his company's crisis management fund, which apparently helps out victims and families of victims of accidents related to the airline, and refuses to take stock options as part of his payment. In fact, his salary is only $200,000 per year, which sounds like a lot but isn't considering his position and that he is being successful.

Now, Mr. Neeleman is quite wealthy and probably doesn't miss the money he donates, but the example is stunningly different than the majority of businesspeople. It seems that the news has been full of businesspeople being indicted for crimes committed through their power and position as heads of companies, and the majority seem to be fleacing their own workers.

As I read the New Testament accounts of Jesus teaching on money and wealth, I am somewhat uncomfortable with those who would horde wealth and even more so with those who would gladly step on others for more. It seems that we need more CEOs who are willing to be satisfied with what they have and to view their positions of power and wealth as platforms for working good for others.

Bankruptcy...

2006-10-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

This morning I was driving across our part of town to our church to do a voice-over for a video (a new skill of mine), and I had to have seen twenty or more high school and middle school aged students walking the streets. They weren't just near the schools, and they weren't just in the poorer neighborhoods. They were everywhere.

Now, as a once and future educator, I am appalled by this sort of truancy. As I drove, I was thinking bad thoughts about these kids and finally came to an important question. I asked myself, "Don't they know that they are handicapping themselves for their future by skipping school?"

However, this question immediately caused me to wonder about some even more important things. Just what is it that they will be missing out on if they continue on this trajectory? I realized that our secular society holds up materialism as the prize for those who work hard and succeed. That is exactly what we all tell our students in schools - work hard, study, behave so you can be successful and grow up to have a nice job, nice house, and things. The problem is that this sort of future is empty - profoundly. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Whole generations of people are even now coming to maturity who know that materialism fails to meet our most important needs.

Now, I definitely do not mean to excuse these truant kids as some sort of heroic rebels set against the corrupt system we have. But I am pointing out that what we are offering our students as the goal toward which they are working is not worth working for. We must offer something far more rewarding, and I think that such reward can only be found in Christ.

Of course, that last statement I made is a little hard to put flesh on sometimes, but Jesus gives us the meaning and value that we long for. Also, He provides us with a reason to be excellent at all things - His glory's sake. In addition, He has given us all (Christians that is) the ultimate mission to accomplish, which provides us with a community of support and an ultimately higher aim for our lives. Lastly, Christ gives us an eternal reward, while materialism is only valuable so long as you can enjoy it, which will certainly not last past your death and probably won't last that long.

We need to get out and offer this goal to those who are waking up to the failure of the American dream.

The Stewardship of Pain

2006-10-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

I am reading a book called "The Joy of Fearing God" by Jerry Bridges along with two other Christian guys. We read a chapter a week and discuss it over lunch on Fridays. I recommend it as a good book for forcing us to deal with the concept of fearing God, which is not well understood in our churches and rarely preached.

In this week's chapter, something really stood out to me. It is what the author has called the "stewardship of pain." This is the idea that God brings all things into our lives for us to make use of those things to bring Him glory, even the pain, both physical and emotional, that we go through. God desires us to give over to Him our pain just as much as He desires that we commit our time, abilities, and money to Him.

This is an amazing thing to think on and accept because it brings us to a wonderful place of trusting Christ to not only grant us the grace that we need to rejoice even in our sufferings but also to make use of those sufferings in ministry to others.

As I've said before, I firmly believe that God wastes nothing. All things that we are led through will be used by Him for His glory. This gives me great delight to trust my savior who I know is in control of every situation.

As a commentary on our society, it is important to point out that this "stewardship of pain" is very counter-cultural. Our society seeks to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Certainly, it is rare for the society to hold up pain and suffering as tools for good, which is exactly what God can make of them.

A General Rejection of Utility

2006-10-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

Utility is something nearly all high school graduates know something about. It is usually introduced to us in economics classes. It is defined in Wikipedia (an incredibly useful source, even though you must check its facts) as "a measure of the happiness or satisfaction gained by consuming goods and services." Now, I taught high school economics for a semester and taught about utility. When dealing with rather mundane examples, such as the number of twinkies a person eats and how that relates to utility, this is a good teaching concept. However, utility is increasingly being applied wholesale to our world to great detriment.

In the past two weeks, we've seen two different school shootings involving men who either sexually assaulted girls or seemed to intend to prior to turning thr guns on them. Those men saw those children as goods to be consumed for their satisfaction, pure and simple. They may have had other serious mental/spiritual problems, but their treatment of others is clearly utilitarian.

While less bloody or high profile, we've also seen an increase in this sort of thinking toward the elderly, infirm, and unborn over the past 30 years or so. Repeatedly, we hear reasoning related to mercy killings, euthanasia, and abortion couched in terms like "quality of life" and "contribution to society." People have been increasingly reduced to what they are able to provide to the great ME our society seems to worship.

This can be thought of directly in terms of utility. Person A (an elderly mother, for example) provides Person B (son) with steadily decreasing utility because A no longer makes an income and requires constant care from both family and medical workers. In this way of thinking, when the utility derived falls below an acceptable level, B no longer has the responsibility to provide for A. In fact, some are arguing that A should be pressured, or even forced, to go ahead and put an end to her life so everyone else can maximize their utility.

And the examples abound.

We must reject this sort of utilitarian view of the world in favor of a Christian view that upholds the value of every human life as a sacred thing treasured by God. If we allow utilitarianism to become the main way of thinking, we will be left with a world in which a sexual predator is no longer doing anything wrong, since those children provide him with utility.

Revolt and Its Impact on History and Us

2006-10-04T16:57:00.000-07:00

Recently, I finished reading a book by Ron Wells called "History Through the Eyes of Faith." It was an excellent read, and I recommend it strongly to anyone interested in a companion text to help shade in some areas left untouched by most Western civ history books. It helps point out many Christian points of view on events without coming to judgment on those events. In fact, the author makes the point, which I think I agree with, that history is not about making judgments on past events rather than reporting on them. The judgment must happen, but that is not history - it is us learning from history.

One of the most important parts of the book is the way it highlights three different revolts that have occurred in Western history, all of which have serious implications for our world today. The first two can be considered good, from a Christian perspective, but the last has been a serious tragedy to be sure. They are: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment.

Both the Renaissance and the Reformation were, in their own ways, revolts against Medieval thinking and attempts to get back to an ancient ideal - ancient Roman and Greek thought and art on the one hand and early church doctrine as found in the Scriptures on the other. While some might see these are reactionary, it is clear that they both had positive goals that have remained ideals for some of us. Of course, there were problems. The Thirty Years War in Central Europe was an excess that came directly out of the Reformation that is probably the darkest aspect of that movement (literally 30% of people living in that part of Europe were killed!). However, that hearkening back to our roots was a wonderful thing.

The Enlightenment has really been a rejection of Christianity to be replaced by a new ideal altogether. This is based on the ideas of progress and evolution that coincided with the Enlightenment. The main jist is that man can become perfected, given the right circumstances of environment. Enfortunately for us, the Enlightenment is still the dominant thought pattern for our society, and all other Western societies. In fact, both of the dominant government systems in the past century (democracy and communism) were birthed from the Enlightenment (think about the "new Soviet man" that the Russian were always trying to create and the many social programs often attempted in the USA).

One interesting thing to note is the nature of our government. In truth, we do not have a democracy in the United States. We have a republic. Both come out of the Enlightenment, but one (democracy) is an attempt to see the Enlightenment principles fulfilled while the other (republic) is a system designed to check Enlightenment principles before they can cause too much damage. It is a good think for us that the Articles of Confederation (our first government and constitution) failed and was replaced by the Constitution. Additionally, while I have serious problems with many government programs, it is important to note that government exists to limit man's fallenness, not to create a perfect world in which man can become new.

We Christians hold that the one and only means by which a man can become a new creation is in Jesus Christ. There is no program that can match His graceful work - and that is the sort of revolution that I long for!

The Immigration Problem - A Biblical Perspective on the Treatment of "Aliens"

2006-08-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

Immigration, especially the illegal kind, is a hot topic in our current political situation in the U.S. and will likely grow into a key point of contention in this November's elections. As such, I thought it would be a good topic to explore from a Christian/Biblical perspective. In order to do this, I have done a short (which is to say "not exhaustive") word study of the English word "alien" in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. I also thought to study the word "foreigner" but found that it was not used often in a context other than a description of the spiritual state of believers in this world. So, I will display my findings on what can be said about treatment of aliens and what cannot be said first before attempting to frame a larger discussion of our current problem and what might be done about it.

First, there are several injunctions in the text about the treatment of aliens living among the Hebrew people. In Exodus 22:21 and 23:9, God tells the people to not mistreat or oppress aliens among them because they were once aliens among the Egyptians and were not well treated. In Leviticus 24:22, God requires the same laws to be used with both native-born Hebrews and aliens. I think we can imply that this also means that they were to be applied equally, as well. In Psalm 146:9, God is said to watch over the alien. In addition, we Christians are described as aliens in this world by Peter in I Peter 2:11.

Additionally, the Hebrew culture was not closed to outsiders. There are numerous examples of foreigners who found a place among the Hebrews and were eventually assimilated. Among them are: Ruth, Rahab, and several of David's mighty men, just to name a few. From this, we can see a readiness to accept foreigners, assuming that they were willing to enter into the Covenant.

From these observations about aliens, we can understand that God desires us to apply our laws as evenly as possible and not discriminate against an alien living in our nation. However, I would like to draw a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants that comes from the difference in political structures between a 1000 B.C. Hebrew people and our 21st century selves. In that time, the idea of the nation-state did not exist. In fact, much of the world was unclaimed wilderness through which any person could rightfully travel without fear of retribution from the owner, since there was none. Because of this, an alien living among the Hebrews would not ever have been thought of as illegal, as there was no border to have illegally crossed. However, today's world is much different. There is not one spot (other than Antarctica and who wants to live there!) that is not owned by some nation, and the borders between nations are clearly marked for all. In addition, we have all set up laws to govern the admission of people into countries, for all sorts of valid reasons. Therefore, I would like to say that the primary focus of the Biblical teachings on aliens are properly applied to legal immigrants and not illegal immigrants. This is not to say that we should mistreat illegal immigrants or oppress them, but they should be treated as people who do not belong precisely because of the manner of their arrival. I find the Biblical warrant for this in the many teachings calling for Christians to be lawful people, as well as the fact that our God is Himself a law-giver who expects laws to be obeyed. Illegal immigration may touch on many problems, such as economics, cultural/social issues, demographics, and the war on terror, but I think it is primarily a problem of crime. We have a law that details how a person can legally enter our country, and some people have chosen to enter the country in an unlawful way.

So, just what can be done about this problem? First, I think that we need to deal seriously with the influx across the border with Mexico. (I realize that the northern border with Canada is not particularly secure, either, but also understand that the vast majority of illegal immigrants come across the southern border, making of primary importance.) I would see an immediate military deployment to the border to last until police forces can be beefed up to deal with the problem. It is important for police to be the ultimate guardians of the border because, as I said above, this is a problem of crime and because military forces are not really trained for this sort of duty and will tend to excess by their nature as war-makers.

Second, I think a long, critical look must be taken at our mechanisms for legally entering the country. I have heard many people argue that the system is too slow and difficult and that this actually contributes to illegal immigration because it is much easier than the red tape. I tend to believe these arguments because of my understanding of normal government practice. Our government is not quick on much of anything and finds all sorts of ways to make simple things difficult. So, I think this system should be streamlined, though while still maintaining some checks to prevent certain types of people from entering the country, such as convicted criminals, known terrorists, etc. However, in keeping with the command from Leviticus 24, we must not discriminate in our immigration system on the basis of race, as has been the case in U.S. history.

Thirdly, even though it is a crime to enter the country illegally, we cannot realistically arrest and jail all of the millions of illegal immigrants now in the country. That would require more resources than could possibly be available. Alternately, we also do not have the wherewithal to eject all of those people from the country, both because we couldn't find and arrest them all and because many businesses, as has been claimed, would fail without their labor. So, a system must be put into place that makes these illegal immigrants into something else. I would not see an amnesty that conveys citizenship on all of them because it would only encourage more illegal immigrants, rewards criminality, and is basically unfair, especially to those who have pursued immigration legally. I would rather see a guestworker system put into place. This would allow illegal immigrants to obtain working papers for a limited time, such as two or three years, after which they would have to either apply for full citizenship in the normal way or leave to return to their nations of origin. This project would have a short sign-up period of maybe three months for illegal immigrants to register with the government after which they would be considered criminals to be deported immediately upon capture. In addition, severe penalties would have to be put into place for any company employing illegal immigrants who do not have working papers. I think this plan, while not perfect, would be advantageous for all - the immigrants would not immediately be deported but would have time to earn some money which would stand them in good stead in their homelands, the government would know where these people are and be able to tax them in order to make up for the medical and education expenses they are already incurring on our society, businesses would be required to treat all of their employees equally without their illegal status to hold over them, and our national security interests would be better served. I think it would ultimately help us to treat immigrants to our nation fairly and without oppression, as called for in the Bible, and to uphold lawful lives, also an interest of the Bible.

Well, those are my ideas, though most are not original to me. Tell me what you think.

A Child of One's Own

2006-08-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

In this post, I'd like to examine a question that seems to be increasingly asked in our society and answered in a way I disagree with. That question is: do we have an inherent right to a child of our own flesh?

At first glance, this seems like a no-brainier. Many people will assert that, of course, we do have such a right. I, however, reject that position because I believe it takes us into behaviors and pursuits that are directly opposed to a holy life.

As a clarification, I need to state that I do believe that people (here I am being general to all couples, when I would like to be specific to married couples only) do have an inherent right to attempt to procreate. The only reason I can think of for a couple being denied this right is that one or both of them are in prison. Otherwise, no one should ever be given the power to discriminate against any group in this way. I have heard of people suggesting this sort of action for various groups: those with birth defects or mental retardation as a form of eugenics, the poor to limit the number of children that the government must support, or in China where a form of this is used to curtail population growth problems, etc. This seems to me to be a particularly cruel mentality, which leads only to further mistreating of these groups.

The first reason I believe we do not have an inherent right to a child of our own flesh comes from the problems created by today's reproductive therapy industry, which is driven by this sort of thinking. Many of these therapies require the creation of numerous fertilized embryos to be implanted inside the womb of a mother (and this isn't even always the "real" mother, either). When doctors perform these procedures, they often use many embryos to increase the chances that one will successfully implant. Of course, we Christians who maintain that life begins at conception (even if that occurs in a Petri dish) hold that each of those fertilized embryos is a separate human being valued by God (I do realize that not all Christians will agree with this, but I hold them to be wrong on this issue). This causes problems with these procedures because, even a successful one involves the destruction of many of those embryos. In addition, it occasionally is too successful, resulting in a multiple pregnancy, which doctors often wish to reduce through selective abortion. Even more, in these sorts of procedures, it is cost effective to create many more fertilized embryos than will be needed, resulting in unwanted embryos, which are now being haggled over by certain groups wishing to use them for stem cell research. All of these evil results of reproductive technology are driven by the perceived right to a child of one's own, which is difficult for so many.

Now, to be fair, it could be argued that there is a way to use reproductive technology in a highly controlled and conservative way that is compatible with Christian views. While this is possible, it is simply not the case in practice. In addition, as it is the costs for such therapies are extreme. Further restrictions would enable only the super-rich to use these methods, creating an unattainable hope for nearly all couples suffering from infertility.

A second reason I am opposed to this idea, and I think the most disturbing, is that I believe it is often just one more symptom of the me-centered culture we live in. By this, I mean that many couples (and even some singles) are having children primarily for their own fulfillment. We can see this in celebrities having children as just one more of their entourage, as well as regular parents obsessing over every little detail of their children's lives, from baseball dads beating up coaches and refs to cheerleading moms plotting against their daughters' rivals. This is not to say that having children does not provide some fulfillment to parents. In fact, it does and should, but this is not the only or best reason for having children. The Bible describes children as a blessing and a gift from God, but also as a responsibility. While it is a two-way street, the relationship between children and parents seems to me to be primarily one that flows from parents to children when in its proper shape. Children do not exist to fulfill some need in parents.

I realize that my views here have far-reaching implications for such things as adoption and the problem of evil (why does a good God allow people to not be able to have children of their own in the normal way?). Those would be great topics for comments, as I now have some other things I must attend to.

Jus ad Bellum - Applied to Israel's Current Conflict

2006-08-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

I would like to take a look at the current Israeli conflict and see if we can determine if it is a just war or not, based on the traditionally accepted criteria for a just war. I am interested in this topic in a general way because of my love of military history and in a specific way as a Christian seeking to understand the world in a Christ-like way. Another reason for this is that Israel has been widely criticized for breaking some of the rules for a just war by many important members of the international community, especially several European nations and the head of the UN.

The basic question is: Does Israel's current military activity versus the known terrorist group Hezbollah inside the state of Lebanon fit the criteria for a just war? I will list the most commonly accepted criteria, define the criteria, and discuss each as it relates to this conflict. I realize that this is not a theory (just war) that is universally accepted, but it is widely accepted. Any additions or objections to my analysis is welcome in the comments section, but please do be polite even if this is a heart-felt issue for you. Also, please do not think that I am a typical Israel-loving evangelical Christian. I do not believe that the current state of Israel is the same as the people who were once God's chosen people. The New Testament makes it quite clear that God's chosen people are those who have put faith in Jesus Christ, whether Jew or Gentile.

OK, with all that said, let's get started.

For a Just War there must be:
A. Just Cause - basically a just cause has been defined as using force to redress a grave public wrong (one that involves many people, not few) or in defense - examples of this would include being attacked by an enemy nation, having a foreign nation prevent enough food for the people of a nation, or any number of other possibilities.
Israel's current fighting began after an attack by Hezbollah on one of its military outposts on the border with Lebanon in which 3 soldiers were killed and 2 were captured. Hezbollah's stated aim in this act was to exchange these soldiers for several of their own prisioners in Israeli jails. Israel's initial military response was powerful but limited. Only after failing to find their lost soldiers did Israel beef up its military attack on Hezbollah.
At this point it seems like a fairly small event caused a huge one by Israel. However, a further historical account might aid things. Hezbollah was founded in 1985 by Shiite fighters seeking to create in Lebanon an Islamic state, much like Iran. They have had most of their support from Iran and Syria over the years. Their overall reason for existence is to destroy Israel, and they have committed numerous terrorist acts over the years. There is much more history of Hezbollah's terrorist activity, including being commonly thought to have been behind the bombing of the U.S. marine barracks in 1983 which killed 241 marines.
Thus, taken all together it would seem that Israel's response is to redress a grave public wrong, which is the threatened destruction of their entire nation symbolized by the capture of two soldiers.

B. Comparative Justice - in order to begin hostilities, the injustice suffered by the just party must outwight any injustice suffered by the opposing party - this is important because it is rare that a conflict will occur in which one side bears absolutely all responsibility and the other side has done no wrong of any kind.
Here we will see that Lebanon has suffered some severe problems over the years at the hands of Israel. Lebanon is certainly not a wealthy state, and at least some of that can be attributed to several military defeats at the hands of Israel since the 1947 Israeli War of Independence. However, Israel has never attacked Lebanon in order to destroy it as a nation. In fact, Israel has only ever occupied Lebanese territory for the purpose of keeping Hezbollah at arms length from its own population centers. Which, of course, points out that Lebanon is not Israel's actual enemy here. Hezbollah is, and it would be hard to prove that Hezbollah has suffered more at the hands of Israel than vice versa. At any rate, I would conclude that Israel has suffered more injustice than Hezbollah, though I will concede that this is a debatable issue.

C. Legitimate Authority - Only a duly constituted public authority may wage war or use force - this is to prevent rogue groups from using force to get their way.
Obviously, this is an easy one. The authority to declare/wage war in Israel is in the hands of the Knesset (their version of parliament) and the prime minister, Ehud Olmert.

D. Right Intention - force can only be used in a just cause or to correct a wrong - force is never OK for simple material gain or for pumping up a nation's economy.
This too seems like an open-and-shut case, as Israel's stated aim in the current conflict is to disarm Hezbollah to a point where it no longer constitutes a threat to the people of Israel. This is directly proportional to the problem that brought about the fighting. Also, it is obvious that Israel does not stand to gain anything from this in terms of money or land or even international prestige.

E. Probability of Success - War may not be waged when there is no hope of success - this is important because it would prevent both futile bloodshed and the use of extreme measures (think nukes here) in order to win a conflict.
This seems simple, but I don't think it really is. At first glance, Israel's much vaunted military (pretty much accepted by all parties as the best in the Middle East and often thought of as one of the best in the world, pound for pound) would seem to be capable of this task without any problem. However, as the U.S. is learning in Iraq, Hezbollah will likely be a much tougher entity to absolutely defeat than is anticipated. The fighting will be confused and guerilla. The Hezbollah fighters are religious zealots not likely to give up at all, much less easily. Also, it is thought that both Iran and Syria may be aiding Hezbollah with money and arms. Even so, I feel committed to the idea that Israel is capable, in the end, of defeating Hezbollah to the extent that they have aimed. This is so because I am also committed to a similar idea about the U.S. military's chances in Iraq.

F. Proportionality - The overall destriction from the conflict must be outwighted by the good to be acheived by it - a nation may not kill ten thousand enemies in order to save the lives of ten of their own, for example.
Interestingly, this is the main issue that others critical of Israel have raised - that their attacks have been disproportional to the harm done to them. This might be warrented. Certainly, Israel has damaged the infrastructure of Lebanon to a great degree - knocking out roads, bridges, airports, and preventing easy resupply to the state. Also, there have been somewhat more deaths on the Lebanese side than the Israeli side. However, this may be a difficult thing to quantify, since it is difficult to say that any destruction visited upon Lebanon would be disproportionate to Hezbollah's aim to completely destroy Israel. Also, we may have a difficulty in holding Lebanon as an innocent party in this. Their government has allowed Hezbollah to flourish in southern Lebanon for many years, even after agreeing in 2000 to disarm them - it simply never even tried. In fact, Hezbollah has political members inside of the government of Lebanon, even on the prime minister's cabinet. Also, this issue seems mostly to relate to civilian deaths suffered in Lebanon because of fighting and Israeli bombing. However, this is an accepted part of a just war under the idea of double effect - which allows for the "legality" of accidental killing of civilians when the enemy has chosen to place his forces in a civilian area. Notice that Israel is bombing Hezbollah targets that have been purposely mixed in with civilians in Lebanon, while Hezbollah's rockets are targeting civilian areas in Israel without any military value at all (especially when you consider that Hezbollah is using non-guided rockets which can only be aimed at general regions while Israel is using mostly guided missiles to go after their targets; also, it should be remembered that the killing of civilians is to Hezbollah's advantage in PR and to Israel's disadvantage). Thus, I would end up saying that Israel's actions do conform to proportionality, even if they have some horrible, unintended repercussions.

G. Last Resort - War may only be resorted to after all viable, peaceful alternatives have been seriously attempted and exhausted.
Israel has attempted repeatedly to come to terms with its neighbors to form a lasting peace in the region. That can be shown by the fact that Israel has peace treaties currently in place with both Egypt and Jordan, once enemies. Also, only in the past year, Israel has been pulling out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in an attempt to allow the Palestinians a fair chance at developing themselves as a democratic state, even if that attempt has not worked out just yet. Even in Lebanon, Israel pulled out of the same land they are now fighting over with the promise from Lebanon that Hezbollah would be disarmed. In addition, the UN has been in southern Lebanon since 2000 in a supposed attempt to make sure Hezbollah was disarmed, but they have done nothing. Rather, some reports have it that Hezbollah has used areas near the UN forces as zones for firing off their rockets because they knew that Israel would be reluctant to attack them there. All of these attempts by Israel to appeal to other involved nations for help and the international community have failed. Thus, it would definitely seem that Israel has exhausted their alternatives to war.

After all of this, it seems to me that Israel is justified in their current conflict to use force to destroy Hezbollah's ability to conduct terrorist actions inside of Israel. I sincerely hope that this does not spread, as it seems likely to because of the support for Hezbollah of Iran and Syria and the general instability in the Middle East. I also, for my part, deeply regret any deaths that occur in this that were not warrented. However, I also wish to see any terrorist group such as Hezbollah brought to a point where it is no longer able to conduct such actions against others. This seems to be a pre-condition for any lasting peace.

A wonderful website for further study of the theory of just war is: www.justwartheory.com

Looking forward to any comments...

Book Review - "Love Your God With All Your Mind"

2006-07-28T20:29:00.000-07:00

I just completed this wonderful book, and it inspired me to actually work on this blog. I imagine that it will take me a while to get to the quality of postings that I feel are needed, but I'm going to make an earnest effort at it.

So, let me tell you a bit about this book. First, I had to read it for my philosophy class, and I will be writing a more detailed review of the book for the class. The class has been extremely good for me, though tough. I've become convinced more than ever before of how important it is that we Christians think through our lives and the decisions we make in order to more closely live our whole lives as Christians and not just a part that we label "spiritual."

The author, J. P. Moreland, seeks to address the serious issue of the weak intellectual state of the Christian community. He points out in the first part of the book that Christians have been surrendering the marketplace of ideas to non-Christians for the past 100 years...so much so that Christians have a hard time even being taken seriously by the world. This is because of several bad experiences (like the humiliation of Christians in the Scopes Monkey Trial) and the rise of some scientific theories (like evolution) that seemed to make Christian ideas about the way the world is irrelevant. I think anyone who looks at their own church can see how this has impacted us all. There is a lot of suspicion of learning and education among evangelicals, which is exactly opposite of what should be. In addition, there are far too few Christians in the many fields of academia who are making an impact on their fields for Christ. Rather, many Christians who go into fields like art, science, and psychology end up compartmentalizing their lives such that their faith is kept separate from their vocation. This not only goes against a Biblical view of how our lives should be, it doesn't make sense. No wonder Christians are not taken seriously in the press or on college campuses - we say we believe certain things in church and deny those same things in our academic pursuit...not because science or any field actually proves our beliefs to be false but because we have allowed the world to force us into its mold.

Moreland then goes on to show how important it is to develop a Christian mind - important for its role in our own spiritual transformation from baby-Christians to mature believers and for the way it will affect those around us.

Naturally, Moreland then gives many good ways that each of us can begin to develop our minds for Christ...literally as worship for Christ. Is this not the sort of thing meant by Paul, when he said that we should renew our minds for our transformation in Romans 12:2?

Probably the most important part of this book for me was Moreland's teaching on the way a Christian mind is necessary for a proper doctrine of vocation...that is, for a Christian to properly be Christ-like in his/her vocation, which is also an act of worship. The truth of this is so important that it cannot be overstated!

In addition to all of this, Moreland gives several suggestions of how a church can help its members to develop their minds. Some of these suggestions are really challenging, especially given the current state of most churches, and I'm not going to say right off that each is the best way to go - only that they deserve some good thought. Among his suggestions are: no senior pastors (he thinks that the senior pastor model of leadership is not Biblical and tends to a codependent relationship between a needy pastor and needy people, so he thinks the church should be led by a group of co-equal elders who share responsibilities for preaching and leadership development), decentralized ministry (the elders should be equipping the church members for ministry and not doing the lion's share themselves), a distinction between forms and functions (seeing the difference between what the Bible says a church should be doing and how any given church chooses to go about it, especially seeing that a church has the responsibility to examine its forms often and make changes where necessary in order to better do the functions), sermons should be shared (no one teacher should preach more than half of a year's sermons, since no one person can be prepared to do a good job that many times, a greater use of supplemental material for sermons like study notes and suggested readings, and an occasional intent to teach higher ideas even if some people in the congregation cannot keep up with the level of teaching), a greater utilization of the church library (through printing book reviews in the bulletins from time to time, suggesting certain books to be read, and bringing the library out to the people, so to speak), separating the "enfolding" aspect of Sunday Schools from the Bible study aspect (so that we do not neglect either aim and we can develop groups of Christians whose vocations are similar in order to impact that vocation for Christ), and holding up both the individual church's growing members and Christian intellectuals from all over (even from Christian history) as examples and heros.

The final thing Moreland does in this book, which might be one of the most important, is provide 33 pages of other resources for the Christian thinker. These are subdivided by subject/vocation so that someone can look up resources (books, organizations, periodicals, etc.) that will shed light on their own areas of interest.

I think we have an obligation as Christians to search for the truth and dispel falsehood. We cannot do that without sharp minds. Therefore, we must develop our minds for the cause of Christ.

An Opening Explanation...

2006-04-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

Well, as this is my first post on this blog, or any for that matter, I think I need to explain the spelling variation in my title. "Lense" is a correct variant spelling for "lens," even if it is old and more British than American. Now, I didn't pick it because that is the case. I picked it because I actually thought that was the correct spelling. So, I find myself in the position of defending a mistake - never a good place to be.

However, this is a good occurrence because it reminds me of my fallibility as I begin this blog. I suppose that it might be seen as a little ego-centric to claim to be able to articulate a Christian worldview and critique the culture from that worldview. So, I need to once again remind any readers that my ideas are not perfect, but they will always be based upon the unchanging Truth of Scripture, so far as I am able. And I must remember that the Holy Spirit is in the business of redeeming even my thoughts.

Also, feel free to disagree with me, though I would request any who comment be courteous. I'll do the same. A good conversation is preferable to angry outbursts every time.