A couple of stunning quotations

While reading the Wall Street Journal, I came across a couple of amazing statements I wanted to share with you regarding global warming and how it's reported to Americans.

Here's Al Gore, in a 2006 interview with Grist.com.

Question to Gore: There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?

Gore's answer: I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.

So, what's he saying here? Gore seems to believe hype is OK; he needs to give us speculations dressed up as scary facts. Keep in mind that Gore stands to get very rich off these tactics since he is an investor with green companies.


This is a quote from Stephen H. Schneider of Stanford University, in a 1989 Discover interview:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but--which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This "double ethical bind" we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

Sounds like Schneider is admitting scientists have biases just like the rest of us. I like his reference to capturing our attention by scary scenarios and simplified statements. Mighty close to hype again, huh?

Global-warming theories take a hit

A new column by George Will pokes another hole in the balloon of the global-warming crowd. He starts by quoting a New York Times story, which says "global temperatures have been relatively stable for a decade and may even drop in the next few years." That phrase "few years" later on in the article turns into "the next decade or so."

What's going on here? We have had an absence of significant warming since 1998, and now we're facing the possibility of the least another 10 years without any sign of increased warming. But the newspaper says the years of temperature stability do not indicate global warming is an invalid theory. Cool stretches are “inevitable,” and the growth of Arctic ice will be “temporary.” So, lack of proof of global warming is shrugged off as mere aberrations. As George Will says, “what makes skeptics skeptical is the accumulating evidence that theories predicting catastrophe from man-made climate change are impervious to evidence.”

The goals announced to combat this phantom global warming are scary. The U.S. is on record as attempting to have an 80 percent reduction of carbon emissions by 2050. If so, we would end up with greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to our 1910 level. George Will says this means emissions on a per-capita basis would equal those in 1875. Buggy whips, anyone??

He argues for the creation of a national commission to evaluate the evidence about climate change. He doesn’t believe this will happen because it would destroy the global warming crowd’s carefully crafted myth that no reputable scientist disagrees with their side. Would President Obama support such a commission? No, he is firmly on the side of the alarmists, having declared at a United Nations climate change summit that nations need to act quickly because "time... is running out," to coin a new phrase (is it my imagination, or does the President spend a lot of time using cliches?).

This debate is far from over. Until there is overwhelming proof, let's not jeopardize our nation's economy and its people by making uncalled-for changes.

Christianity's decline (?)

Recent headlines trumpet news about a Christian decline in the United States, which makes it sound like things are spiraling down for religious people. But like so much that appears in the mainstream media, it is not all bad news. In fact, there is much positive that is going on in the world of religion.

These negative reports talk about Christians becoming fewer in our society and those with no religious affiliation doubling in percent of the population. But almost all of that change occurred between 1990 and 2001. There's been no change since then. Nearly two-thirds of Americans who say they have no religious affiliation also say they believe in God, so this is not some hard core secular group. In fact, a recent study found that two out of every five religiously unaffiliated people still say religion is important in their lives. In addition, these unaffiliated people have a very low retention rate, meaning that people don't stay unaffiliated for long. Most people who were raised without any religious affiliation now belong to one religion or another. In comparison, over three-fourths of all people raised as Protestants are still Protestant.

A new book offers much encouraging news. It's called God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World written by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. They say Christianity helps newcomers to the Sunbelt form communities, helps ordinary people deal with alcoholism and divorce among other problems, and helps people in the inner cities deal with trouble around them. They say it is the Christians who are looking after the homeless and the drug-addicted: "Where is the atheist homeless shelter? Atheists are only interested in themselves." They believe modernization does not lead to secularization; instead, it leads to a search for meaning, which includes an emphasis on God. They have found that evangelicals are rediscovering the life of the mind and starting to produce intellectually stimulating work again. In addition, they discovered the number of people saying that God is central to their lives is going up. In other words, there are more people serious about their faith.

Other findings are also inspiring for religious people. One author notes that young people are getting more involved in the fight against abortion. The Gallup organization recently reported that for the first time since it began asking in 1995, the majority of Americans have embraced the pro-life position. Immigration has helped the Christian faith in America. Asians and Hispanics have flocked to theologically conservative churches.

So things are not terrible for Christianity here in our country. In fact, those who maintain the faith seem more serious about it, a good sign.

The real story of how we got the New Testament

Ben Witherington, author of The Living Word of God, has a section in which he explains how the New Testament books were formed into the canon (books accepted as authoritative). It's important to know this story because many people today have mistaken ideas of how this all happened. Thanks to books like The Da Vinci Code, many readers assume a powerful church set up a council and picked which books they considered legitimate. However, it was not a matter of politics or powerful men sitting down in the fourth century A.D. to decide these issues. No one ruled out other books that had been previously considered legitimate. The truth is quite different.

The New Testament canon came about due to a process that actually started in the New Testament era. Take a look at 2 Peter 3: 16, where Peter describes Paul's writings as part of true scripture. The formation of the accepted New Testament writings was already happening in the primitive Christian community.

Some, including the author of The Da Vinci Code, will argue that Gnostic texts competed with traditional writings for inclusion in the canon. But Witherington says nobody argued for the inclusion of any of the Gnostic texts. They were seen as heresy in their own day as well as long afterward. As he notes, "Not even the earliest of the Gnostic texts, the Gospel of Thomas, was ever on a canon list or seriously considered for inclusion as a sacred text for Christians."

Most of the New Testament became accepted as sacred with no debate surrounding the various works. The ones accepted immediately were Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul's letters (except Hebrews, an anonymous letter).

Which works were debated? Hebrew was because it was anonymous. James and Jude were because they seemed so Jewish. Revelation was because of its prophecy.

What were the standards used to decide if a book belonged in the canon? Again, let Witherington describe this: "It needed to be an early witness, a first-century witness, one that went back directly or indirectly to the original eyewitnesses, apostles, and their co-workers or an early prophet like John of Patmos." So accepted books needed a combination of historical and theological factors to become part of the canon. Early church fathers said accepted books needed to have some sort of connection to an apostle and should involve orthodox teaching.

There was no single church gathering that created the current list of twenty-seven books in the New Testament. The process of sifting and choosing which books should belong in the Christian scriptures was going on throughout the second through the fourth centuries. A man named Marcion came to Rome around 144 A.D. He told the church there he had a list of acceptable books for a canon, but his list was extremely short. It included only Luke's gospel and a few of Paul's letters. The church rejected Marcion, claiming that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John should all be considered scripture.

By the end of the second century there was a list which looks a lot like what we have today. Only James, Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, and 3 John are missing. What's interesting is that eventually all geographical areas where Christianity was popular (the Eastern empire, Africa, the Western empire) independently concluded that these twenty-seven books should be recognized as the Christian scriptures. That's remarkable when you think about it: "The various parts of the church, without political or ecclesiastical coercion, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, all came to the same conclusion about the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.”

What can we say to wrap this up? Here's the key fact -- it was not a matter of the church conducting a big meeting, drawing up a list of books to form the canon, and imposing this list on its members. Instead, the church simply recognized the list of books that had been forming since the time of Peter and Paul. Over the centuries Christians had found these books valuable for worship and instruction. As one person says in Witherington’s book, "The canon thus represents the collective experience of the Christian community during its formative centuries." So there was no conspiracy, no imposition of books, no hiding or destroying competing gospels, no huddled gathering of old men.

Some rules for examining biblical "errors"

In his book The Living Word of God , Ben Witherington wraps up the issue of errors in the New Testament. He has six points that are important to keep in mind when we hear complaints from critics who claim they have found errors in these documents.

First, it's not considered an error when an author intends to give a general report or the gist of something rather than a precise report. His generalizing is not falsifying the story.

Second, it's not considered an error if an author of ancient literature arranged, edited, or paraphrased what someone said. For example Matthew uses the term "kingdom of heaven" rather than the phrase "kingdom of God" used by Mark in the same passage. We should not impose a modern standard of precision which these ancient authors were not required to follow according to the writing customs of their day.

Third, it's not considered an error to present events out of chronological order. For example, John 2 puts the cleansing of the temple there for theological, not chronological reasons.

Fourth, it's not considered an error of the original author if a translator makes a mistake when rendering the original into another language.

Fifth, it's not considered an error when a New Testament author discusses the Old Testament text and appears to misrepresent it. In fact, they are often just paraphrasing the text rather than being concerned about a precise translation.

Sixth, we need to understand what an error would look like. It would violate the principle of noncontradiction, which says that A and not-A cannot both be true at the same time in the same way. For example, it would be an error if one of the gospels said Jesus was born in Nazareth, and another said he was born in Bethlehem. They might both be wrong, but they can't both be right.

When we hear critics talk about errors in the Bible, we should remember something that Ben Witherington said: "I have yet to find a single example of a clear violation of the principal of noncontradiction anywhere in the New Testament."

Did they get it right??

Ben Witherington, in The Living Word of God, does more than just look at different types of literature that make up the New Testament. The next section of his book discusses the historical accuracy of a few disputed passages.

He starts with the differences of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. Some people say it appears that Bethlehem is the hometown of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew while Luke seems to say it is Nazareth. He notes that both accounts stress the Jesus was born in Bethlehem even though both authors realize Jesus was called "Jesus of Nazareth" and that his family lived there after his birth. He points out how much of both gospels tell the same story, especially the fact that Jesus came into this world through a miracle of a virgin birth. Matthew’s gospel does not give us an account of Jesus’ life before his birth; it does not tell the reader where the family lived before his birth. One other difference concerns the flight into Egypt, which Matthew mentions but Luke does not. This does not mean the flight did not happen. Different authors chose different elements to stress.

Witherington tackles Luke 2: 1-4, which some believe contains a problem. Those who doubt the accuracy of Luke say that the famous census of Quirinius took place at a later time than the gospel indicates and that the census described in Luke 2: 1-4 is highly improbable (families having to go to their ancestral hometowns to register). He starts his answer by indicating that Luke obviously knew when the famous census took place – check out Acts 5:37. In addition, the Emperor Augustus set out to get tax revenues from all his provinces, this would mean a census would be necessary. Luke 2: 1 might well mean that Augustus decreed that all the rest of the Empire be enrolled, some of the work already having been done. Another point has to do with the Greek language of Luke 2: 2. It could mean, "This was the first census which happened during when Quirinius was ruler of Syria," or it might read, "This enrollment was before when Quirinius was ruler of Syria." Finally, there is evidence from Egypt that people were forced to go to their ancestral homes for registration.

Then there are the questions that surround the slaughter of the innocents reported in Matthew. The author of this gospel describes a paranoid King Herod, who attempts to end any potential threat to his kingdom by killing all the babies in Bethlehem. How can it be, the skeptics ask, that a horrible event like this would not be written up in other historical accounts? But we need to realize that Bethlehem was a very small town in the time of Jesus, so no more than a handful of infants in that town would have been two years or younger. Plus we know from other sources that King Herod was fully capable of such nastiness since he killed several of his own wives and offspring.

Of course, critics have attacked many other parts of the Bible. But Witherington has demonstrated in the above examples that initial problems may simply be the case of misunderstandings or ignorance. There are plenty of good books devoted to tackling these issues of apparent biblical difficulties, so don't accept the statement of a skeptic without researching it carefully.

So you think you know Revelation?

Besides the four gospels, a book of history (Acts) and a number of letters, the New Testament contains one book of mostly apocalyptic prophecy—Revelation. It’s a lot like the Old Testament books of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, but with some elements of a letter. No other book has confused so many people. Ben Witherington, in The Living Word of God, addresses the literary qualities and conventions of this puzzling book to show how badly treated it has been over the ages. His claim is that Revelation “has been stripped of its historical context and rhetorical setting.”

The author starts by distinguishing the kind of prophecy that exists in Revelation. It is a visionary prophecy much like Zechariah, Daniel, and Ezekiel. It may have elements of predicting the future, but that is not the main point. Instead, John uses a rhetoric which is clearly metaphorical and symbolic. For example, he mentions a person whose number is 666. This individual appears a lot like Nero, who was persecuting Christians in John’s day, but he is not named in the book. The key to the book is this use of coded language that made sense to people of his time, not to us today unless we are willing to put in a lot of study.

Witherington is upset that people claim Revelation is all about today's world. He says that "we must contend with the ridiculous ideas that this book was written especially for late-20th-and early-21st-century Christians, and no one could possibly have understood the book before now, since it's all coming to pass right now." Instead, chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation clearly say that this book was written for first-century Christians in western Asia Minor. John believes that "the sort of things he is writing about are already happening and will continue to happen right up to the point when Jesus returns." So, Revelation is relevant for all the ages since its inception.

Witherington is especially exasperated with those who look to Revelation for confirmation of the theory called "the rapture." He says the book does not speak of a pretribulation rapture of the faithful. Instead, it focuses on suffering and martyrdom of the believers. Witherington claims this idea of "the rapture" did not really exist in Christian history before the early 1800s. It is a recent idea that has become huge in evangelical circles, but the author calls it unbiblical. He asks the reader to consider 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, where the return of Christ is compared to the actions of a king who comes to a city. A greeting committee comes out of the city to meet the dignitary (dead and living Christians rise to meet Jesus in the air); all then proceed back into the city (the Earth). They don't leave the city and depart to the king's domain (the view the rapture would require as an analogy). Witherington says this picture would have been clear to people in Paul's time when he wrote Thessalonians. He's pretty blunt in his assessment of this popular rapture business: "there is no such rapture theology anywhere in the New Testament, or in the Old Testament for that matter. The consistent witness of the New Testament is that Christians will continue to be martyrs throughout every church age."

The author sums it all up by saying we should not use Revelation for specific detailed prophecies of our times. Instead, the book gives us general warnings about the kind of events that will happen, which are common to every age of human history. His approach is useful to help us focus on living well rather than being tossed about with the latest end -times speculations.

Do I agree with his statements? Well, maybe. I read Hank Hanegraaff's The Apocaplypse Code that echoes the same skepticism toward the rapture. I just wish pastors and writers would be honest enough to preface their comments on Revelation by saying, "You know, there are a lot of ways of taking this book. i'm presenting one, but you should read up on the others and make up your own mind."

Letters from 2,000 years ago

This blog is another in a series on Ben Witherington's book called The Living Word of God, which examines the New Testament. Beside the four gospels covered in two previous blogs, Witherington talks about another portion of the New Testament--the letters that make up so much of it. It's obvious that they are written to specific audiences for specific purposes at a specific time using specific conventions popular during this time. We can gain much from them (and avoid misunderstandings) if we know more about these conventions.

Paul's letters are definitely oral documents meant to be read aloud in Greek to their intended audience. What does that mean for us today? We need to think about the kind of rhetorical devices we will encounter in them -- rhythm, parallelism, rhetorical questions, balanced sentences and phrases. You can see this in 1 Corinthians 13 if you read it aloud.

We need to also understand that these letters are attempts to persuade us. Paul, for example, uses all the tricks in his bag -- he tries to convince us, convict us, and even convert us to his points of view. Some may feel they are being manipulated, but he was simply conforming to the conventions of his own day. A good example of this is a lesser-known letter of Paul's called Philemon. In this letter he tries to convince a slave owner to free a slave who has run away from him. Read it sometime and notice the emotional appeals, the use of puns, the kind of pressure Paul puts on the slave owner.

Something else we need to consider when we read a letter is the fact that it is one long discourse. We tend to zoom in on a verse or a small passage rather than seeing the entire argument. Modern chapter and verse indications make it more difficult for us to see the big picture. It's often a mistake to isolate one chapter from the next when they both may be part of the same point. Look at Romans chapter 8 where the first word is "Therefore." We need to see what Paul covered in chapter 7 so we can understand why it is foundational to what he wants to express in the following chapter.

We must also distinguish between the purposes of these letters. Some attempt to solve a problem (Philemon and 1 Corinthians are examples). Others are there to report on progress, like Philippians, where Paul basically tells the people to keep going. Some letters are sermons meant to circulate through various churches, making them more generic in tone (Ephesians) while still others focus on specific problems in a specific church (Colossians and Galatians).

Probably the most difficult thing about these letters is determining what applies to us today. There's no doubt that much of the content dealt with specific situations in a specific culture two thousand years ago. For example, there are comments addressed to women telling them to have long hair. It would be useful to know that female worshippers of Dionysus often dressed like men and cut their hair very short. It appears that in this passage Paul simply wants the women of the early church to look different than pagan worshipers. We should be careful if we attempt to isolate a verse and apply it automatically to our world today.

We would have far fewer misconceptions if we treated the letters of the New Testament in a different way, acknowledging the style in which they were written.

Another look at the gospels

In the last blog covering The Living Word of God by Ben Witherington, I discussed the differences between modern biographies and ancient ones so that today’s readers might be more prepared for what they read in the New Testament gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. There are big differences in length, what is covered, and the amount of editorializing done by the author. Here is some more information about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that attempts to help us understand the mindset of those who wrote about Jesus.

Ancient biographies, of which the New Testament gospels are a part, had as their main goal “an adequate and accurate unveiling of the character of the person in question,” according to Witherington. That’s why there are many stories about Jesus which may have had little historical consequence but revealed his character. For example, think of the story of the wedding feast at Cana. Even though the story involved nothing of a historical nature, it did show his abilities and his relationship to his mother. Ancient biographies, in attempting to show us the character of the person, were highly selective and were not always written according to exact chronological order. For example, early parts of Matthew show Jesus doing nothing but talking or teaching, but the author is simply grouping the teaching material in one spot. When we look at Matthew, Mark, and Luke regarding the temptation of Jesus, we see a different order to the three temptations, not because the authors couldn’t get it straight but because they had a different purpose in relating this event.

Perhaps the best way to see the gospels is to think of them as interpretive portraits rather than snapshots. When we look at a painting of an individual, we see that the artist has been selective in what is shown to us so that we may gain some sort of insight into the person being portrayed. It’s not fair to hold the gospel writers to modern standards of newspaper reporting or modern biographical and historical conventions. Our question must be if the four gospels portray a good and true likeness of the historical Jesus. I think the answer to that is a definite “yes.”

The Gospels--did he really say that??

I just finished reading The Living Word of God by Ben Witherington, a professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary. In this book the author has interesting things to say about portions of the New Testament. He believes it's important to understand the various genres that makeup the twenty-seven books found there. Since I teach the Bible as literature at Palomar College, I wanted to share some of his points here; he believes we can understand the Bible much better if we understand the type (genre) of literature we are reading.

For this blog I'm going to focus solely on the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) as ancient biographies and histories. Many of my students assume that these gospels must be like modern biographies, covering the person's entire life, producing a chronological account, and containing precise quotations. They have questions when they discover this is not the case. They assume there must be errors in the text.

But Witherington claims these four gospels "all conform quite nicely to the conventions of ancient biographies, which were quite different in scope and character than most modern biographies." To start with, modern authors have unlimited space to tell their stories, but ancient biographies were restricted to material that could fit on scrolls. These authors had to be selective about what they covered. That's why, for example, we don't learn the entire story of Jesus’ life.

In addition, ancient biographies did not spend much time about early childhood development. People in the ancient world did not believe personality developed over time. Instead, they felt you were stuck with whatever personality you were born with. Again, we can see this when we look at the life of Jesus -- we know very little about him before his ministry started around the age of 30.

Another characteristic of ancient biographies was a focus on the death of the individual since this event was thought to reveal the character of the person. A shameful death was considered to be a revelation that the person did not have a good character. It's no wonder, then, that the gospel writers spent so much time on the death of Jesus -- they felt they needed to argue that this death was necessary to fulfill God's plan.

A fourth difference between modern and ancient biographies deals with the amount of editorializing the author did. Much editorializing abounds in modern biographies; the author is often eager to share his/her comments. However, the ancients tended to portray a person indirectly, allowing the words and deeds of the person in question to speak for themselves. That is certainly true of the gospels in the New Testament. We often hear the words of Jesus and are forced to decide for ourselves what he meant.

There is much more that Witherington has to say, but I'll save that for future blogs. I'm hoping that this information will allow us to appreciate the gospels for what they are rather than what they were never intended to be.

A cool book on a warm topic

Tom Bethell, a media fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, has an interesting book out called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science. Among the other things he deals with in this book is global warming/climate change.

The author blames many gullible reporters for passing along scientific fraud and doubtful theories. He believes the media treat doctors and scientists as all-knowing, making it easier for alarmists to make outlandish claims about the environment.

What intrigued me was what he found when he examined statements of global-warming fans. For example, he mentions a Stanford climatologist, Stephen Schneider, who said, "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little of any doubts we might have. This ‘ double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." Now that is a revealing statement -- the American public only pays attention to scare stories.

Bethell also has a quotation from Christine Steward, who was former Canadian Minister of the Environment. Here's a woman in a governmental position saying the following: "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits... Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world." So apparently the end justifies the means -- as long as we have good intentions, it's OK for us to lie to you.

The Real Fight for Civil Rights

A friend of mine wrote the following. We all need to consider what's ahead for those of us who believe in traditional values. There's a long struggle coming up, and we should decide now what we will do--support groups that fight for us (for example, Alliance Defense Fund), create our own action groups, write letters, support political candidates who agree with us, etc. Please don't sit this one out.



Trevor Keezor recently lost his job as a cashier at a Home Depot in Okeechobee, Fla. The reason? He was wearing a pin on his apron that read "One nation under God."

Keezor had been wearing the pin for about a year in honor of his brother, a National Guardsman due to begin serving a second tour of duty in Iraq this December.

Forget the fact that the offensive phrase ---- which just happens to be enshrined in American law as part of our Pledge of Allegiance ---- is not an inherently religious one. Home Depot says it was only enforcing a strict policy forbidding employees from wearing unauthorized buttons and pins.

But is that the whole story? Keezor's pin was especially problematic because it invoked the G-word. That, and the fact that Keezor----a Christian----had recently taken to reading the Bible during his lunch break, was probably another factor that made his employer, and perhaps fellow employees, nervous.

This incident is just the latest in a long list of clashes between anyone expressing a thought, however harmless, that can somehow be construed as "religious" and those charged with enforcing America's post-Christian, post-religious orthodoxy.

And it's not the most upsetting one. As was seen in the aftermath of California's gay marriage debate, the secularist enforcers save their true venom for those whose expressions of religious belief go beyond simple affirmations.

Thomas Messner of the Heritage Foundation has catalogued a long list of incidents in which supporters of traditional marriage (Yes on Prop 8) were targeted because they had the temerity to exercise their rights as Americans by actively supporting a political campaign with which the "progressive" elite disagreed. While hardly an unbiased source, many of these stories where documented in the mainstream media as they occurred, and, if they are being refuted, it's news to me.

But it actually gets worse. A U.S. District Judge in San Francisco has gone along with demands from Prop 8 opponents----in this case two same-sex couples, a gay rights organization and the city of San Francisco----that the organizers of the Yes on 8 campaign turn over internal documents. The hope of the plaintiffs is to find proof that the Yes on 8 effort was motivated by anti-gay bias (whatever that means), which would, in their minds at least, make Prop 8 unconstitutional.

Thus, a politically organized group of American citizens is being asked to prove in a court of law that its reasons for holding a certain set of beliefs, and pursuing a given public policy goal based on those beliefs, were justified. The momentousness of this demand cannot be overemphasized.

Add to these other examples involving conscience clauses for healthcare providers, opt-out policies for the parent's of public school students, the nasty treatment of innocent bystanders such as Carrie Prejean, or the charges of anti-gay bias that are certain to arise out of the recently passed Hate Crimes law and you start to get a preview of what lies ahead, not just for social conservatives but any freedom-loving American; because anyone who holds a belief that is based on traditional ideas of morality---whether or not it's explicitly religious---will be subject to the same treatment.

This is not to suggest that issues involving religious liberty are straightforward; they are not, and they will force conservatives, the religious, and traditionalists of all stripes to address difficult quandaries on the proper limits of religious expression.

In addition to the instance, like the one involving Trevor Keezor, of a private corporation enforcing its dress code, cases involving Islamic taxi drivers in Minneapolis who refused to take passengers carrying alcohol and Muslim students in San Diego who where given a daily break for prayer spring to mind.

Despite what those in the progressive community may think, the fight for same-sex marriage will not be the defining civil rights battle of our time. Instead, the need to defend the religious liberty and freedom of conscience of anyone with a serious and well-developed moral and spiritual philosophy -- Christian and nonchristian alike -- will be the front along which the future freedom of all Americans will be decided.

Whether or not we remain the “Land of the Free and the Home of Brave,” in deed as well as word, will be determined by which side wins that fight.

A challenge to all followers of Jesus

There's one Christian author who challenges me every time I read his work, no matter what it is. The man is Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship. I came across the following in one of his books,The Body. See if these points resonate with you--

The verb tense of the commissioning of the disciples in Matthew’s gospel allows us to render Jesus’ words literally, "as you are going, make disciples." As you go. That means evangelism should flow naturally out of the context of our everyday lives. It's not a set of formulas, techniques, or memorized scenarios. It can't be put in a box. Evangelism is a consequence of holy living, of our own personal passion for Christ, and naturally flows out of the healthy life of the church.

Expressions Christians have used for decades, like "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life," no longer necessarily connect. Christians understand them, but few others can relate. For example, proclaiming that "the Bible says..." commanded respect in the 1930s and 1940s, even in the 1960s -- when 65 percent of all Americans believed the Bible to be literally true. Today only 32 percent believe the Bible is true. The majority find it an interesting collection of ancient legends and stories, but they don't believe it. So if you say, "the Bible says," only one out of three Americans is even ready to listen.

To evangelize today we must address the human condition at its point of felt need - conscience, guilt, dealing with others, finding a purpose for staying alive. Talking about the abundant life or life everlasting or Bible promises often just won't do it.

The secular person’s existential mind-set precludes his or her understanding us. We are in much the same situation as the first-century church, needing to educate in order to witness. So we must be familiar enough with the prevailing worldview to look for points of contact and discern points of disagreement. Before we tell them what the Bible says, we may have to tell them why they should believe the Bible (there is a great case to be made).

Each of us must see ourselves as ministers of the gospel. Also, we must be willing to be uncomfortable. Living in a post-Christian culture means that our Christian faith will be ridiculed and that we will be regarded as strange. That can be costly. But obedience often is. If we love the approval of Christ more than the approval of our peers, we will be willing to be perceived as odd now and then. Finally, we must learn how to support and encourage one another. We must equip one another with Christian perspectives on critical issues. And we need to exchange information. What Christians must do in a post-Christian age can be likened to the way the underground operated in Europe during the Nazi occupation in World War II. The underground had its own elaborate network of signals, method of communication, maps, charts, and its own command structure. The parallel is a bit extreme, perhaps, but useful as Christians determine how they will network with one another in a culture hostile to the open expression of Christian truth.

The Fort Hood massacre and "diversity"

As the days go by, my anger has increased over the Fort Hood killings by Major Hasan. The attack was bad enough, but many of the responses have been nothing short of insane. People are trying to tiptoe around the issue of religious fanaticism. Here are a few items that I've encountered followed by my reactions.

1. Dr. Phil, noted TV psychologist, was upset on a show the other day when someone brought up the killer's Islamic identity. He trotted out the old routine--the killer was a victim. Of what? Things like deployment, the Army, the stresses of a new kind of terrible war unlike any other we have known.

Are we going to shift blame from the individual to society? Can we afford to wave away all individual responsibility? How is this fighting worse than that endured by others in Vietnam, Korea, World War 2? Is Dr. Phil unable to see evil and hatred when it rears its ugly head?

2. Another excuse, fear of deployment, surfaced in the headline for the New York Times's front-page story: "Told of War Horror, Gunman Feared Deployment." Who was the source for this idea? The perpetrator's cousin.

Are you surprised this paper, which prides itself on liberal leanings, couldn't see Islamic undertones to the killings? Evil is so "old-fashioned" these days, don't you know. Better to shut your eyes and whistle happy tunes. The Christian idea that we are all broken people who lean toward evil just doesn't resonate with this crowd.

3. Maybe the worst reaction of all came from the Army's chief of staff, General George Casey when he was interviewed for a Sunday talk show on television. He was asked about reports that the killer had made
anti-American tirades and had shown other danger signs but hadn't been reported for fear of offense to a Muslim member of the military.
These were speculations, Gen. Casey repeatedly said. We need to be very careful, he explained, "We are a very diverse army." He went on to declare,"This terrible event would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty."

I am so upset that a high-ranking member of our military has bought into political correctness. Is our Army to be a case study of "diversity," or is it to be a fighting machine?


In case you haven't heard some of the comments made by Hasan, here are a few reported by the media. Read these and decide people are "speculating" or "jumping to conclusions" if they suspect Islamic fanaticism is behind the attack:

1. A British paper reports that Hasan "once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats"

2. He also told colleagues at America's top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.

3. Fellow doctors have recounted how they were repeatedly harangued by Hasan about religion and that he openly claimed to be a "Muslim first and American second."

What do I take away from all this? Several things:

1. Our military failed us. The CIA failed us. The FBI failed us. Our entire government failed us.

2. These are the same people who want us to turn over more of our lives to them so they can "protect" us?? I'm thinking health care right now.

3. Political correctness can get you killed.

4. Discrimination can be defended, depending on the situation. For example, I'm all in favor of racial profiling to keep us safe.

5. There is a huge difference in religions. Does anyone worry about an enraged Methodist attacking city hall? An out-of-control Presbyterian? A crazed Baptist, clutching the New Testament?

6. The Bible says there is such a thing as evil, and I see no reason why we should abandon this concept.

7. The liberal idea that all problems can be solved by changing the outside of people has hit a dead end here. Hasan was given a good education, money, a job, and other perks, but his heart was not changed.

Pelosi's plan for you

Well, the big vote took place last night. Get ready for huge changes in your health care. I came across an article that examines closely some of these changes. It's not a pretty sight. Tighten your seat belt and read the following.

The health bill that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is bringing to a vote (H.R. 3962) is 1,990 pages. Here are some of the details you need to know.

What the government will require you to do:

• Sec. 202 (p. 91-92) of the bill requires you to enroll in a "qualified plan." If you get your insurance at work, your employer will have a "grace period" to switch you to a "qualified plan," meaning a plan designed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. If you buy your own insurance, there's no grace period. You'll have to enroll in a qualified plan as soon as any term in your contract changes, such as the co-pay, deductible or benefit.

• Sec. 224 (p. 118) provides that 18 months after the bill becomes law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will decide what a "qualified plan" covers and how much you'll be legally required to pay for it. That's like a banker telling you to sign the loan agreement now, then filling in the interest rate and repayment terms 18 months later.

On Nov. 2, the Congressional Budget Office estimated what the plans will likely cost. An individual earning $44,000 before taxes who purchases his own insurance will have to pay a $5,300 premium and an estimated $2,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, for a total of $7,300 a year, which is 17% of his pre-tax income. A family earning $102,100 a year before taxes will have to pay a $15,000 premium plus an estimated $5,300 out-of-pocket, for a $20,300 total, or 20% of its pre-tax income. Individuals and families earning less than these amounts will be eligible for subsidies paid directly to their insurer.

• Sec. 303 (pp. 167-168) makes it clear that, although the "qualified plan" is not yet designed, it will be of the "one size fits all" variety. The bill claims to offer choice—basic, enhanced and premium levels—but the benefits are the same. Only the co-pays and deductibles differ. You will have to enroll in the same plan, whether the government is paying for it or you and your employer are footing the bill.

• Sec. 59b (pp. 297-299) says that when you file your taxes, you must include proof that you are in a qualified plan. If not, you will be fined thousands of dollars. Illegal immigrants are exempt from this requirement.

• Sec. 412 (p. 272) says that employers must provide a "qualified plan" for their employees and pay 72.5% of the cost, and a smaller share of family coverage, or incur an 8% payroll tax. Small businesses, with payrolls from $500,000 to $750,000, are fined less.

Eviscerating Medicare:

In addition to reducing future Medicare funding by an estimated $500 billion, the bill fundamentally changes how Medicare pays doctors and hospitals, permitting the government to dictate treatment decisions.

• Sec. 1114 (pp. 391-393) replaces physicians with physician assistants in overseeing care for hospice patients.

• Secs. 1158-1160 (pp. 499-520) initiates programs to reduce payments for patient care to what it costs in the lowest cost regions of the country. This will reduce payments for care (and by implication the standard of care) for hospital patients in higher cost areas such as New York and Florida.

Questionable Priorities:

While the bill will slash Medicare funding, it will also direct billions of dollars to numerous inner-city social work and diversity programs with vague standards of accountability.

• Sec. 399V (p. 1422) provides for grants to community "entities" with no required qualifications except having "documented community activity and experience with community healthcare workers" to "educate, guide, and provide experiential learning opportunities" aimed at drug abuse, poor nutrition, smoking and obesity. "Each community health worker program receiving funds under the grant will provide services in the cultural context most appropriate for the individual served by the program."

These programs will "enhance the capacity of individuals to utilize health services and health related social services under Federal, State and local programs by assisting individuals in establishing eligibility . . . and in receiving services and other benefits" including transportation and translation services.

• Sec. 222 (p. 617) provides reimbursement for culturally and linguistically appropriate services. This program will train health-care workers to inform Medicare beneficiaries of their "right" to have an interpreter at all times and with no co-pays for language services.

• Secs. 2521 and 2533 (pp. 1379 and 1437) establishes racial and ethnic preferences in awarding grants for training nurses and creating secondary-school health science programs. For example, grants for nursing schools should "give preference to programs that provide for improving the diversity of new nurse graduates to reflect changes in the demographics of the patient population." And secondary-school grants should go to schools "graduating students from disadvantaged backgrounds including racial and ethnic minorities."

Responding to the issue of respect and Christians

In the previous post, I listed a number of responses from people who were asked what they respected (or didn't respect) about Christians. Their responses gave me a peek into how today's society views Christians. As the old joke starts out, there was some good news and some bad.

The good news was that people respond when Christians live the life that Jesus commanded. Those who wrote about Christians were impressed when they saw love, respect for others, a willingness to hear the other person, and an attempt to maintain freindships despite religious differences. I was pleasantly surprised to hear how impressed the writers were when Christians approached them using logic. For too long we have circled the wagons in our Christians bastions and failed to vigorously contend for the faith, using apologetics (a rational defense of the faith). We have so much rationality on our side--logic, history, archeology, textual criticism, manuscript evidence, and scientific discoveries stretching from the outer reaches of the cosmos down to the incredible cell. I'm glad some are employing these tools as they interact with the world.

On the other hand, there was some bad news. Writers complained about a lack of respect among Christians, a lack of humility, a closed-mindedness, and hypocrisy. Some of this may simply be because Christians say they know the truth, which is unpopular today. But there are ways we can present our position without coming across so negatively. Greg Koukl, a popular Christian radio show host, writer, and speaker, puts it in a good way--we are to act as ambassadors for Christ, demonstrating knowledge, wisdom, and character. Today's postmodernist world wants to see how Christians live and how they treat others before they will respond to our message. That seems fair to me.

A fascinating question and interesting answers

I came across a powerful insight the other day:

The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians -- when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug and complacent, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.

I then googled "Has anyone met a Christian he/she actually respected?" The answers were fascinating. I've gathered several for you to read and think about. Maybe in the next blog I will comment on these answers.

Here goes:

1. I respect all Christians. It's their religion that I do not care for.
99% of the people I know are Christian. Since I have become an atheist, there is one characteristic in them that I have found to be sorely lacking: respect for me in return, even though we disagree. Christians have responded with statements/questions such as, "You're going to feel really bad if something happens to Vin [my son]", "What if you're wrong? You know you'll go to hell, right?" "Really? I actually thought you were a pretty decent person [yeah, I got mad over that one].", and, my least favorite, "Don't tell anybody....they'll think you're crazy!"


2. I think what I dislike about the stereotypical American Christian is the lack of humility, the lack of tolerance (despite what Jesus commands in the bible), the arrogance, and the lack of intellectual pursuit of truth.


3. One of my roommates was studying to be a pastor and he has a degree in Theology. I respect him greatly. He is a great source of information. He is accepting of others, supporting gay marriage and respecting the separation of church and state. He doesn't spend his time judging or preaching.
My best friend is also a Christian and she is also very accepting of others. She supports gay marriage. She knows and respects that I'm an atheist. She doesn't spend her time judging or preaching either.
Being a Christian doesn't mean that someone isn't worthy of respect.


4. One of my best friends is Christian, and he's pretty cool. We don't always agree, but he's always willing to have a friendly debate with me. Trick is, when we're done debating, we're DONE, and move on to another topic of conversation. He does drop the 'my God is totally awesome' hints every once in a while, but I understand that it's part of his religion to proselytize and that it kinda comes with the territory. I respect him a great deal for not only what he's been through in his life and how he's handled it, but how good of friend he's been to me and our other friends. Here are some traits that would cause me not to respect a Christian: I've met Christians who are overbearing, don't want to listen, or decide I'm stupid or silly right off the bat because I don't believe their 'truth'. Then there's the ever so popular condescending approach. And the fire-and-brimstone, 'burn in hell you rat bastard atheist scum' version.


5. How they treat others, their sense of personal responsibility and their values are things that I respect. I have met many Christians, many atheists and many fellow agnostics who possess these qualities. You don't need to be religious or non religious to be respectable. You just need to be a decent human being... maybe with a sense of humor! :)


6. One is a friend from high school. We graduated a year apart several years ago and were roommates a couple times. We can have discussions on everything from the origins of life to regular this and thats. We can always respectfully disagree without getting preachy or pissed off. And the other is a friend of mine from college that is probably the most compassionate Christian I've ever met. Tolerant and open minded every step of the way. As a matter of fact if she wasn't so religious I think we'd be a couple by now. I love that girl but her Jesus love is too much for me in that respect. So yes it's possible but most are close minded, backward thinking bigots as far as I'm concerned.


7. Not in person, but in this forum, I've encountered one or two. The one I remember was extremely knowledgeable regarding his religion, used logic (!) to make his points, rather than emotion or irrelevant bible quotes, and just generally impressed me as a person who had arrived at his faith rationally, rather than by indoctrination.


8. A persons religion doesn't matter that much to me. If they have a good attitude and good character (honest, sincere, positive) then they are a good person no matter what.


9. The first thing I hate about most Christians is their lack of broad mindedness, They have confined themselves to the belief that the christian way is the only way. Yes I have met Christians that are my good friends and family, and it's their humble nature and open mindedness and ability to understand deeper things that I respect and cherish them for. :)


10. This is basically a circumstance about being open minded to other people's beliefs...no matter how outlandish they may seem. For me though, the ones I respect the most are the christians that respect their own values, while at the same time not pushing them on others...If you wanna be a "holy roller", thats fine, but don't push your religion on me.


11. I usually make friends with the rocker christain type, and they are not one of those christains who freak out about everything.. example.. they are not aloud to watch harry potter or read it cuz of the so called "witch craft" .. honestly, thats just tooo far


12. I have met Christians I respect, I have met Jews I respect, I have met Muslims I respect. etc. I am not ignorant to the point of judging someone for their beliefs, its the attitude they exhibit that is the final criteria I use.


13. The ones I've known, care for the poor, care about the youth, care to reach out to those whom the world looks down upon, long suffering, kind, patient, self controlled, the list goes on. True christians are very loving people.


14. I just don't like christians that feel the need to proselytize, or the ones that act "holier than thou" , or the phonies that say what great christians they are and then fool around on their spouse, etc. (hypocrites) Otherwise, most christians are okay people.


15. yes. D. W. He is such a respectful person, and he listens and responds to any doubts that I have about the existence of God, rather than just spouting out bible verses and judging me. He is the ONLY christian that I talk to about religion.

Global warming takes another hit

I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that cautions us to think clearly about global warming issues. The author of the article, Bret Stephens, looks at a popular book called Freakonomics, which came out in 2005. Its authors, University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and writer Stephen Dubner, had a lengthy chapter on global warming where they discussed former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold and some of his ideas. Global warming fanatics were not happy with this book, says Stephens, because its authors did not appear to be sold on the hysteria surrounding global warming.

Now these two men are out with a second book, SuperFreakonomics, and the results are the same. Al Gore, a former Clinton official name Joe Romm, and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman lash out at this book for its supposedly bad reporting as well as its lack of enthusiasm for global warming. Actually, Levitt and Dubner are considered careful researchers. In addition, Stephens says they do acknowledge temperatures have risen a little over one degree Fahrenheit over the past century. But here's where they part company with the global warming hysteria. They note that sea levels will probably not rise more than 18 inches over the next 90 years, which is less than the normal variation of tides along most coastlines. They say "changes in carbon-dioxide levels don't necessarily mirror human activity." My favorite quotation is from Mr. Myhrvold when he says Al Gore's scary scenarios "don't have any basis in physical reality in any reasonable time frame."

Stephens indicates SuperFreakonomics also challenges the current climate-change craziness in other ways. For example, the authors say climatologists show a herd mentality by matching one another's forecasts. In addition, like everyone else, they respond to the economic reality of research funding. Money is available for those who can claim the greatest problems lie ahead of us. The two authors also point out that huge problems often have cheap and simple solutions. Think of world hunger -- it was solved not by population control but by developing better strains of rice and wheat. So maybe, they suggest, we can tackle global warming with a variety of cheap fixes rather than destroying the economies of the United States and other industrialized nations. They even say we may want to do nothing until the state of technology gets better and can tackle the problem with better solutions.

As you might expect, global warming fanatics hate these ideas. They are interested in controlling huge economies, gaining vast new powers in the process. Stephens quotes Newsweek's Stefan Theil as support: "climate change is the greatest new public-spending project in decades." Remember how people said it's important to follow the money? Well, here's another good example.

Books like Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics are important. They cause us to slow down and truly think rather than being carried along with our emotions. Before we destroy our economy, let’s consider the evidence carefully.

"Awesome God" and the school

This is a story from the Alliance Defense Fund, a group which seeks to preserve religious liberties in this country.

Four years ago in New Jersey an eight-year-old girl named Olivia wanted to sing her favorite song, “Awesome God,” in a school talent show. However, the teacher told her the lyrics were too religious and that, therefore, the school would not allow it. The mother spoke to the school board to support her daughter’s choice, but again the song was turned down. The Alliance Defense Fund sent a letter stating that nothing in the United States Constitution prohibits a person from expressing his/her religious faith on government property. The school rejected this letter.

The mother said to the author, "If you are a Christian -- if you're a person of faith -- you do not leave your faith at the school door. You are who you are. And you take it through every aspect of your life. And for somebody to shut you down, or tell you that you can't be the person that you are -- that's not what God created us to be." As a result, the family turned to their only remaining option, a lawsuit.

The case came before a judge on the very day of the talent show. The judge asked why Olivia could not sing the song. The attorney for the school district said that the girl was attempting to proselytize through the words of the song. The judge then asked if it was OK if the girl sang “Amazing Grace”, to which the attorney replied that it would be fine.

Things got interesting at this point. The judge began to recite the first verse of “Amazing Grace” and asked how this song was not proselytizing but the other song was. There was no response from the school’s attorney. The judge went on to recite a verse of another Christian song called “Put Your Hand in the Hand.” He asked the attorney if this song also proselytized. The attorney at this point was completely flustered. The judge concluded that, despite his personal conviction that the school’s case was unsubstantiated, he could not grant a preliminary injunction since it raised constitutional issues too complex for quick resolution. So, unfortunately, Olivia was not able to sing the song at the talent show that evening.

A year and a half later, a federal judge ruled in favor of Olivia. Just as any other child in any other American public school, she would be free to present Christian themes in a talent show. That ruling has since enabled The Alliance Defense Fund to win several other similar free-speech cases for other students around the country.

How did the New Jersey school handle the result of this decision? School officials have not allowed a talent show since the decision came down. What a shame and what stupidity.

The Alliance Defense Fund is there for all of us. Please consider reading their material or supporting them-- you can reach them at telladf.org.

Interesting poll results

A new poll from Parade magazine has some interesting findings regarding the spirituality of America.

In some ways the news is good. About 70 percent of Americans believe in God, nearly 80 percent pray, and 3/4 believe parents need to give their children a religious upbringing. In addition, only five percent don't believe in God.

But as far as I'm concerned, much of it is bad news. About half say they rarely or never attend worship services, and over one-fourth say they don't practice any kind of religion at all. Many put themselves in a new category -- "spiritual but not religious." This is pretty fuzzy thinking, which is echoed in other findings of the poll. For example, only 12 percent say their own religion is the only true faith while 59 percent said all religions are valid. How is that possible? For example, one says Jesus is the Messiah while another says he is not. Both of them cannot be correct. Only 40 percent said the reason they picked their faith is because it is the source of truth. Why are the rest selecting thier faith--it "feels" right? it's convenient? it requires very little commitment? Nearly 60 percent said religion and politics should not mix at all.

What does all this suggest? People have bought into relativism big time. Truth is not as important as it was at one time. Instead, people are selecting their religious beliefs for fuzzy, emotional reasons. It bothers me that a majority believe religion and politics should not be mixed. Tell that to the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the thousands of other political leaders who have invoked the name of God while working in the political arena. A worldview will follow an individual into politics; there's no way to separate the two. Either a religious outlook on life or a secular outlook on life will inform the political leader, and from what I've seen of secular leaders (Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Lenin, to name a few), I'll take my chances with an individual whose religion plays an important role in his/her life.

The Horrors of North Korea

I came across this story in World magazine. It's hard to read things like this, but we must in order to see the face of evil. We can't pretend that meetings, peace accords, treaties, or speeches at the U.N. will cause such evil to disappear. It's there, it's real, and we need to be vigilant.



Soon Ok Lee has recently published her memoir entitled Eyes of the Tailless Animals. It chronicles six years she spent in a North Korean labor camp. If there was any doubt about the horrors of a godless society, this book will dispel it quickly.

She was born into a life of privilege in North Korea. Only one god was allowed there, and it was Kim Il Sung, father of today's dictator. She was arrested for refusing to give a bureaucrat more clothing than he was allotted.

Life in prison was a horror story. She was greeted with the words, "you are not a human being anymore." This is where the title comes in -- she was a "tailless animal." Although not a Christian believer at the time, she met an increasing number of women sentenced for their Christian belief, or as the supervisors called them, "superstition believers." Every month these women were placed in the yard in front of all the prisoners and asked to deny their belief. When they refused, they were given the hardest work possible. One Christian slipped and fell into a large feces tank. The guard told everyone to let her die, but four others ignored the command and jumped in to save her. No official even tried to get the women out, so all five died. The author later found out that the four who jumped in to save the woman were also Christians.

Eventually she escaped with her son to China, thanks to people of faith. They ended up in South Korea, where an inspector debriefing them handed them the Bible and started singing "Amazing Grace." She remembered the song because her mother and some of her friends used to close the front door to her house and sing that same song.

It's hard for us living today in America to imagine such hellish circumstances. I would hope that you might consider joining groups such as Open Doors or Voice of the Martyrs because they will tell you similar stories from around the world and what you can do about these precious people who stand up to tyranny.

Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize

OK, I know this is old news. But I came across two statements that capture in a few words the frustration I have felt over this issue. See if you agree.

John Podhoretz of Commentary:

The Nobel Committee chose him wisely because he does, in fact, represent the organization's highest ideals.

He is an American president queasy about the projection of American power. He is an American president who rejects the notion of American exceptionalism. He is an American president eagerly in pursuit of legitimacy to be granted him not by those who voted for him but by those who do not cast a vote and who chafe at American leadership. It is his devout wish that America become one of many nations, influencing the world indirectly or not influencing it at all, rather than "the indispensable nation," as Madeleine Albright characterized it. He is the encapsulation, the representative, the wish fulfillment, the very embodiment, of the multilateralist impulse. He is, almost literally, a dream come true for the sorts of people who treasure and value the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dennis Prager (radio talk show host):

Thanks to Barack Obama, America is for the first time aligning its values with those of "the majority of the world's population." If you think the world's population has had better values than America, that it has made societies that are more open, free, and tolerant than American society, and that it has fought for others' liberty more than America has, you should be delighted.

Last of four parts--summary of Signature in the Cell

Here is the last part of my summary of Dr. Stephen Meyer's new book, Signature in the Cell. It's a bit daunting, but he has so much good info on recent discoveries that indicate a designer behind all life. The other three parts are available here in case you want to catch up.

Another complaint about intelligent design is that it does not qualify as a scientific theory by definition. Scientific theories, according to this complaint, must explain events or phenomena by reference to natural laws alone. Science must not assume there are any seen or unseen powers that interfere with the normal working of material objects. Meyer rejects this by saying the activity of a designing intelligence does not necessarily break or violate the laws of nature. He says it is the same style of explanation as other historical scientific theories in which events are explained primarily by reference to prior events. Those who say ID does not qualify as a scientific theory generally argue that it invokes an unobservable entity, it is not testable, it does not explain by reference to natural law, it makes no predictions, it is not falsifiable, it cites no mechanisms, and it is not tentative. But Meyer indicates that many scientific theories infer unobservable entities, causes, and events. For example, there are theories of chemical evolution and the existence of many transitional intermediate forms of life. Both of these are unobservable. Historical sciences commonly use indirect methods of testing as they weigh competing unobservable events to determine which one has the greatest explanatory power. The theory of intelligent design is subject to empirical testing and refutation. Many times scientists say that a theory must explain all phenomena by reference to purely material causes, but Meyer wonders why science should be defined that way. Scientists in the past have not always restricted themselves to naturalistic hypotheses. Today many scientific fields currently suggest intelligent causes as scientific explanations – consider archeology, anthropology, forensics, astrobiology.

Meyer spends time refuting the idea that intelligent design is religion. Religions usually involve various formal structures, practices and ritualistic observances, but these are all missing in ID. In addition, it does not offer a comprehensive system of belief about the intelligence behind the design of the universe. The theory of intelligent design does not affirm any sectarian doctrines. Of course this theory has religious and metaphysical implications, but these are not grounds for dismissing it. Intelligent design is not the only idea that has metaphysical or religious implications. Consider Darwinism – it has significant metaphysical and religious implications as well. Scientific theories should be evaluated on the evidence rather than the implications they may have. Antony Flew, a well-known atheistic philosopher who has now become a proponent of intelligent design, insists that we should “follow the evidence wherever it leads.” Meyer argues that the motivations of the people behind the theories should not invalidate them either because it is not the motivation that determines the merits of the idea; it’s the quality of the arguments and the relevance of the evidence marshaled in support of that theory.

Meyer ends his book by explaining why this issue matters. The scientific case for intelligent design poses a serious challenge to the materialistic worldview so dominant today in the West. Materialism may seem liberating, but it has proven “profoundly and literally dispiriting.” It suggests we have no purpose in life, we are all accidents, nothing lasts beyond the grave, everything will be gone as the universe spins down to heat death. On the other hand, intelligent design says that the ultimate cause of life is personal, suggesting there is something beyond this life.

I spent a long time going through Signature in the Cell because I like wrestling with interesting concepts. I was only able to scratch the surface of the book’s content in this summary, but my goal was to pass along the main points I got and to arouse your curiosity to know more about this fascinating field of study.

Signature in the Cell--part 3

Here's the third part of my summary of Dr. Stephen Meyer's book, Signature in the Cell. Check the previous two blogs for the earlier part of the book.


Meyer then presents a positive case for intelligent design as the best explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life. He begins by saying there is no other adequate explanation as to the cause. Secondly, he claims there is experimental evidence to back up intelligent design as a cause. Here he mentions experiments that try to simulate prebiotic conditions; they “invariably generate biologically irrelevant substances.” In addition he says intelligent design is the only known cause of specified information. He concludes that ID provides the “best, most causally adequate explanation of the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life on earth.” He considers other forms of specified information, such as radio signals, books, hieroglyphics, and indicates that they always arise from an intelligent source, a mind rather than a strictly material process. In addition, Meyer refers to a groundbreaking book on design detection by William Dembski – The Design Inference. This book claims that we can detect the prior activity of other minds by the effects they leave behind, namely complexity and specification. His example is Mount Rushmore – the shapes etched in the rock face demonstrate intelligence behind them because they are complex and specific to four particular American presidents. Dembski’s theory applies to the cell’s information-processing system as well as to DNA itself. Even “junk DNA” has now been found to perform many important functions.

The last part of Meyer’s book defends the theory of intelligent design against various popular objections to it. Some complain that the case for intelligent design constitutes an argument from inference. But Meyer says that is not true. We already know from experience that intelligent agents do produce systems rich in information. This is an inference to the best explanation based upon our best available knowledge rather than an argument from ignorance. Another complaint about the design inference says, “If an intelligence designed the information in DNA, then who designed the designer?” He found it odd that anyone would argue it was illegitimate to infer that an intelligence played a role in the origin of an event unless we could also give a complete explanation of the nature and origin of that intelligence. It does not negate a causal explanation of one event to point out that the cause of that event may also invite a causal explanation. For example, nobody needs to “explain who designed the builders of Stonehenge or how they otherwise came into being to infer that this complex and specified structure was clearly the work of intelligent agents.”

A third complaint about ID is that it is simply religion masquerading as science. Critics say the theory is not testable and, therefore, neither rigorous nor scientific. But Meyer says different scientists and philosophers of science cannot agree about what the scientific method is, so how do they decide what does and does not qualify as science? He rebuts the critics in several ways. First, he says the case for intelligent design is based on empirical evidence, not religious dogma – information in the cell, irreducible complexity of molecular machines, the fine-tuning of the laws and constants of physics. In addition, advocates of intelligent design use established scientific methods, especially the method of multiple competing hypotheses. For another thing, ID is testable by comparing its explanatory power to that of competing theories. As an example, Meyer refers to junk DNA. Neo-Darwinism says this is an accumulation of nonfunctional DNA through mutational trial and error while ID proponents claim that there must be some biological function in this so-called “junk.” It turns out that recent discoveries indicate this type of DNA performs a diversity of important biological functions. To further bolster the idea that ID is scientific, Meyer goes on to say the case for ID exemplifies historical scientific reasoning, it addresses a specific question in evolutionary biology (how did the appearance of design in living systems arise?), and it is supported by peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Signature in the Cell--Part 2

I am continuing a summary of the information in Dr. Stephen Meyer's new book, Signature in the Cell.You can read the previous blog entry to see the first part of my report on this important book.


Meyer follows this with an examination of what scientists in the past had thought about biological origins and how they investigated these questions. He found it interesting that Watson and Crick were not doing experiments in labs, but that didn't mean they were not doing science. Instead, they built models based on data they acquired from other sources, like scientific journals, other scientists, and other laboratories. In this way they were much like current advocates of intelligent design, who have been accused of not doing science. A brief story is revealing -- when Meyer asked Fred Hoyle, a famous astronomer, about whether he thought the information stored in DNA might point to an intelligent source, his reply was, "That would certainly make life a lot easier to explain." Meyer goes on to explain that modern science was specifically inspired by the idea that the universe is the product of a rational mind and that humans could understand it. He says historical scientists reasoned from clues back to causes, conferring unseen facts/events/causes in the past from clues or facts in the present. Based on this, he asks what causes now in operation produce digital code or specified information? Intelligent design must qualify as a possible scientific explanation for the origin of biological information because we know that intelligent agents produce specific information.

For the next 150 pages Meyer examines the competing explanations for the origin of biological information. He starts by examining the possibility that chance produced this information. Most people who advocate chance assume that life could not originate without biological information first arising in some form, which means they must explain where the DNA information came from or how proteins might have arisen directly without DNA. Many origin-of-life scientists realize how difficult it is to generate specified biological information by chance alone in the limited time earth has been around. But it's even more difficult than this -- building a living cell not only requires specified information, but it also requires a vast amount of information. For example, the simplest cell requires nearly 500 proteins and nearly 600,000 bases of DNA to assemble these proteins. One experiment in the late 1980s indicated the probability of achieving a functional sequence of amino acids in several known proteins by chance was about one chance in 10 to the 63rd power (it's about like picking one atom out of all the atoms in the universe). Another problem with chance was the discovery of the lack of a favorable prebiotic soup on primitive earth. A biophysicist at San Francisco State University named Dean Kenyon came up with another explanation for the origin of biological information -- self-organization., in which life might have arisen through a series of chemical transformations in which more complex chemical structures arose from simpler ones. However, one of his students asked him if his model could explain the origin of the information in DNA, and Kenyon realized that it could not. Probably the most popular theory now of how life began (apart from intelligent design) focuses on RNA molecules; the premise is that RNA performed both as proteins and DNA. But there are huge problems with this theory -- RNA is easy to destroy, it makes a poor substitute for proteins, and it doesn't explain the origin of genetic information. It's no wonder that Francis Crick said, "... in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going."

A book you should know about--Part 1

I recently read a powerful book that argues for the existence of a creator based on the tiny world of the cell. Years ago, scientists thought of the cell as a primitive and simple thing--a glob of protoplasm. But discoveries have since changed this view. To help explain these amazing findings, Dr. Stephen Meyer, a former geophysicist and college professor who leads the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, wrote Signature in the Cell. The book looks intimidating since it has over 500 pages of information, but it is an important book that many should read. Meyer focuses on the importance of the discovery in 1953 of the information-bearing capacities of the DNA molecule, what he calls the "signature in the cell." For the next several blogs, I'd like to walk you through the book.

His opening chapters define the scientific and philosophical issues at stake in the DNA enigma. Darwin had argued that the striking appearance of design in living organisms could be explained by natural selection working on random variations. But, thanks to Watson and Crick, scientists discovered the structure of DNA. They found that DNA stores information using a four-character chemical alphabet. This information is used to build crucial protein molecules and machines the cell needs to survive. This chemical alphabet functions like letters and a written language or symbols and a computer code. In fact, Bill Gates said, "DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created." Of course, the key question is how the information in DNA arose. You have to have information before you can build the first living organism. In the mid-1980s a controversial book came out called The Mystery of Life’s Origin by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, and Roger Olsen. These three scientists came to the conclusion that no theory had explained the origin of the first life. They suggested that the information in DNA might have originated from an intelligent source.

Next, Meyer describes the mystery surrounding DNA in more detail. He tells in depth the story of Watson and Crick as they set about to understand the structure of DNA. By the mid-1950s scientists soon realized that DNA could store an immense amount of information. Meyer ties this in with information about proteins -- they build cellular machines and structures, they carry and deliver cellular materials, they allow chemical reactions necessary for the cell’s survival. To do all this, a typical cell uses thousands of different kinds of proteins, and each one has a distinctive shape related to its function. These proteins are made of smaller molecules called amino acids. The structure of proteins depends upon the specific arrangement of its amino acids, but the question was what determined the arrangement of the amino acids. It was Francis Crick who suggested it was the precise arrangement of the four-character chemical alphabet found in DNA that determined the arrangement of amino acids. Scientists soon found there were mechanisms in the cell to transcribe, transport, and translate the information in DNA so that amino-acid chains could be constructed at certain sites. Like a production facility at Ford, the cell uses digitally encoded information to direct the manufacture of the parts of its machines. You can see animation of this process at signatureinthecell.com or in the DVD called Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Here's another mystery -- it takes DNA to make proteins, but it also requires proteins to make DNA; so how did the whole thing get started? Which came first, the chicken (nucleic acids) or the egg (proteins)? The author says scientists must now explain the origin of three key features of life -- DNA's capacity to store digitally encoded information, the complexity of the information in DNA, and the cell's ability to process the information.

The final virtue--fortitude

The final cardinal virtue pointed out by C.S. Lewis is fortitude. We don’t hear it much any more; it’s such a quaint word. But he says it means the ability to face danger as well as hang in there when pain comes. Lewis believes this is a crucial virtue because we need this one in order to practice the other three which I covered in previous blogs.

Whenever I think of fortitude/bravery, I think about one particular individual--Ernest Shackleton. He was putting together an expedition to the Antarctic, and he supposedly placed this ad:

“Wanted. Men for hazardous journey. Low wages. Bitter cold. Long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in the event of success.”

The expedition went on to face a terrible ordeal when the ship was caught in the ice and crushed. Shackleton never gave in to despair, his men fought the elements, and they triumphed in the end. You have to read an account of this amazing saga.

But there are others who demonstrated fortitude. Think of George Washington as his army faced the best troops in the world, Martin Luther King taking on Southern hostility, David squaring off with Goliath, the Spartans at Thermopylae, Americans staring out at a huge Mexican army at the Alamo, Rosa Parks as she refused to move to the back of the bus, Winston Churchill standing up to the attacks of Adolph Hitler.

Contrast this with today’s Americans. We ask our politicians to protect us throughout our lives, we hesitate to boldly proclaim the truth of Christianity, we turn to drugs (prescriptions or on the streets) to lessen the pain whether real or imaginary, we kill ourselves to deal with our problems, we drop out of school when the classes become difficult, we blame others for our shortcomings because that’s easier than changing ourselves.

We all need to practice small acts of fortitude daily, read of those who have performed with fortitude, and ask God for the courage to handle all that life throws our way. It was Jesus who said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Virtue #3--justice

Let’s continue looking at the four virtues C.S. Lewis covered in Mere Christianity. Besides prudence and temperance, he indicated justice was considered a crucial component of virtue.

Lewis believes this is more than just courtroom outcomes. He sees it as more about fairness, honesty, and keeping promises. Of course, this broader definition will impact more of us on a daily basis.

Is America full of justice today? Whenever we call a crime “white collar,” we may be preparing to let someone off the hook in a criminal investigation, a situation which does not seem particularly fair. What about affirmative action? In many cases it is used as a form of reverse discrimination, so how is that improving our society when we replace one form of unfairness with another? Lying and deceit figure prominently in our songs, movies, television shows, and politicians. Just recently the governor of South Carolina was caught in a monstrous lie while he attempted to carry on an affair with an Argentinian woman. We all know about Bill Clinton’s aversion to telling the truth.

But look at the rest of us--not much better when it comes to justice. We make marriage promises, but a high percentage opt out later. We want special favors. We fill out tax forms in a "creative" manner. We cut corners at work. We feel better by saying all we told was a "white" lie. We promise to do something, only to wiggle out of it later.

It's depressing to realize all our shortcomings here. But at least we should be honest enough to recognize the problem and begin to be people who truly honor justice in an unjust world.

C. S. Lewis and virtues--part 2

This blog is a continuation of the previous one, which was reflecting on four cardinal virtues pointed out by C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. The second one has to do with temperance. Lewis points out that this is more than simply an anti-alcohol position, which most people might immediately think of, reflecting back to early 20th-century efforts to curb heavy drinking. Instead, he believes it refers to moderation or self-restraint in many areas of life.

There are many applications of this virtue. We should be temperate in our use of leisure time and money, our relationships with people, our language, our food and drink, our mental activities, etc.

So, how do we measure up as temperate people today? Again, it’s pretty easy to see that America has largely lost its ability of self-discipline. Look at our use of drugs, the booming pornography industry, our inability to keep out of debt, the rise of anorexia and bulimia, the fanaticism of many sports fans, the inordinate attention given to pets. I remember when the movie Titanic came out; many of my son’s friends talked about seeing the movie five or six times. The only reason I might have considered doing that would be to make sure that Leonardo DiCaprio was really dead at the end.

C. S. Lewis for yesterday and today

C. S. Lewis wrote a famous book entitled Mere Christianity, which has become a classic in Christian apologetics circles. I was reading through it the other day when I came across a section devoted to four cardinal virtues. It struck me that there is a good reason why these are considered classic virtues by many varied societies down through the ages – they are still true today. In the next four blogs I would like to explore each of the four, showing how important they are to us today and how far we are from achieving them.

The first virtue is called prudence. Lewis defines this as practical common sense, being aware of the outcome of our actions. We can demonstrate this virtue in so many areas of life – how we use our money, communicate with others, do our jobs, develop friendships and romance, schedule our week, vote for the best candidates, etc.

How are we doing today in 21st-century America? Are we prudent people? We probably all know the answer to this question. Take a look at our celebrities – Brittney Spears, Michael Jackson, Alex Rodriguez, Madonna, Jack Nicholson. Not exactly known for common sense, eh? But we can't just blame them. We can see a lack of prudence in other areas, such as our high divorce rate, the amount of debt we accumulate, the chances we take with our health. It strikes me than one key example of our deficiency in prudence is the foreclosure mess. Many people failed to see the outcome of their actions when they bought a home for more than they could really afford. Practical common sense deserted them with the dream of homeownership dangling in front of them.

We need to develop a life of prudence as well as other classic virtues. We can read and be inspired by those who demonstrate such virtues (check out Bill Bennett's Book of Virtues), we can teach our children about this quality, we can watch less TV (a less prudent place I can't think of), we can talk over decisions with our friends, we can develop and nourish friendships with wise people. Most of all, we can spend time reading the Bible, where we encounter examples of both prudent and imprudent people.

So, Who's Really Educated?

One knock against Christians is that we are all stupid, uneducated id-juts led around by smooth-talking pastors out to make a buck. But what’s this? Evidence to the contrary? Yep.

According to American Evangelicalism, by sociologist Christian Smith (what a great name), evangelicals have more years of education than many other groups—fundamentalists, Roman Catholics, and . . . yes, nonreligious. Of all groups surveyed, it was the nonreligious who had the most people with only a high-school education or less. Guess who had the highest number with more than a high-school education. Right—the evangelicals. Then to top it off, a higher percent of evangelicals have studied at the graduate-school level than . . . (can you guess?) the nonreligious.

This book discovered that among highly educated people there is a high percentage of believers in God. It’s certainly true that some become more skeptical about God as they gain education, but the author has discovered that this is mostly due to socialization. They don’t discover something that destroys their faith.

So the idea that more education leads to less evangelical faith is a myth. That’s good to know, isn’t it? Our faith is credible and able to stand up to scrutiny.

The only warning I would interject here is to parents about to send their children off to college. Thanks to liberal professors more interested in indoctrination than instruction, there’s a good chance your children will be pressured to dump their faith. But fill them with good apologetic tools while they are young, consider sending them to a Christian college, encourage them to connect with a good college church group, give them college-oriented apologetics articles to read, and pray for them daily.

Revelation, the age of the earth, and other difficulties

I grew up in the church. I heard many pastors over the years speak firmly about all sorts of different topics. Each time the message was simple: “I’m teaching this because it’s true, it’s obvious, and all Christians agree with it.” After I grew up and read on my own, I found that much of what they said was absolutely true and fully backed by other thoughtful Christians. But there were other biblical topics that I found out weren’t so clear cut.
Let’s start with the age of the earth. When I was young, I heard no other position advocated besides a young earth, meaning 24-hour days of creation going back only 6,000-10,000 years. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I discovered another world of sincere Christians who argued for an old earth, one that has been here billions of years with God creating over an extended period of time.

Then there is the church doctrine of the “Rapture.” Every church I sat in, every pastor I heard, every commentary I read—all treated the “Rapture” as an obvious part of church doctrine. But a few years ago I was amazed to find out that this idea did not come about until the 1830s. For nearly 2000 years no one had seen or advocated such a concept in the New Testament.

Of course, there’s the magical mystery tour of the future as conducted by Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. These two are the most prominent proponents of a very popular view of biblical prophecy that I heard growing up. Using references from Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation, these individuals confidently tell us what is going to happen in the future. Again, I have been surprised to find out that there are many other legitimate ways to interpret these biblical passages. Many biblical scholars, for example, believe a majority of prophecies were fulfilled at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

There’s a pretty simple lesson here for all of us. Whenever anyone attempts to deal with areas of biblical controversy, it would be helpful to admit that not all people agree and that what is being proposed is simply one person’s opinion. We should all encourage one another to do the hard work of studying, praying and coming up with our own conclusions.

Our own "Dear Leader"

President Obama will be addressing America’s school children. That’s OK; it’s pretty mild stuff about seeking excellence. But take a look at what the Department of Education has done with “helpful” lesson plans it has prepared for teachers to use in conjunction with the speech—especially the one for grades 7 through 12.

Before the speech, teachers are urged to use "notable quotes excerpted (and posted in large print on board) from President Obama's speeches about education" and to "brainstorm" with students about the question "How will he inspire us?" Suggested topics for post-speech discussion include "What resonated with you from President Obama's speech?" and "What is President Obama inspiring you to do?"

Now, this is going too far. It’s one thing to focus on the kids and their need to strive for excellence. It’s something else to turn the focus toward the President. “How will he inspire us?” sounds a lot like a North Korean inquiry into their “Dear Leader” and his ability to carry the nation to safety on his back, fighting off the evil imperialists. This whole thing is a continuation of the concept of a secular messiah, come to save us all (mostly from ourselves). Remember the campaign rhetoric like “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for”? Somebody close to the President needs to tell him Americans want a limited government.