There are many theories that vie to explain why man is sinful. Millard Erickson lists a few of these in his book, Christian Theology (600-613). Some believe that man is still animalistic and merely cannot help his low evolutionary development. Others believe that mankind’s finitude and ability to aspire to greatness compels humanity to overstep its bounds. Still others define sin within the liberation theology context of the oppression of the poor. The opinions are endless.
If one desires to truly understand sin, then one must return to the Fall. The Fall is in drastic need of recapture in the 21st century. Man’s ruin, like the ruins of the Roman empire, speak of unbelievable grandeur and beauty. Nonetheless, the decay of what was once mighty is clearly evident. It is within this century that the stagnation of man’s flower has come to full wither. The rise of sexual perversion, secularized European governments, post-Christian America, casual dalliances with promiscuity, eradication of ‘undesirable’ beings and the love of violence have been sanitized, institutionalized and placed on pedestals as virtues.
The nature of sin can only be explained through its historical origin. Genesis 3 must be taken literally if any portion of the Bible is to be taken literally. None of the elements that would signify that it is entirely symbolic or allegorical are present in this retelling. Though there is the presence of symbolism, it is presented in a literal framework. By references by Paul to this moment, one may garner that he believed it was an historical event (Romans 5:14, I Corinthians 15: 22, 45). The author Luke built Christ’s lineage on this fact of history in Luke 3:38. Like a domino in long line of dominos, to discount a literal Fall featuring the original, specially created human pair, one must also discount the rest of Biblical history which bears the same fingerprints of the supernatural, the same literary elements and the same attestation by Jewish and Christian historians.
Oddly enough the most vitriolic attacks upon a literal Genesis come from those that cite the empirical evidence of science. It is entirely ironic that the body of science has changed its mind countless times and rewritten the texts more times than may be counted. Yet the Bible has remained unchanged as promised (I Peter 1:25). When will the world realize that in all our scientific greatness, we are still children playing with the pebbles of the universe? This blindness is part of the nature of sin.
The historical Fall is the only religious diagnosis that makes sense of the human predicament. Philosophers of various religions have tried to tie all of humanity together as something profoundly good in its current state. The Bible clearly indicates that while Creation was originally good (Genesis 1:31), that now it has fallen into a state of disarray. It is only Scripture that illuminates why humanity is not good as some religions blindly insist.
How did we become bad? Two commonly accepted theories of transmitting sin from Adam to the human race are the “Natural headship of Adam” and the “Representative headship of Adam”. Natural headship posits that all humanity was biologically and spiritually within Adam when he rebelled. Therefore, all mankind was plunged into sin by this one act of rebellion (Romans 5:18, 19). Representative headship contends that Adam, as one who held dominion by God’s command (Genesis 1:28), acted on behalf of the entire human race (Arrington 140).
Adam and Eve, as mankind’s spiritual and physical fore bearers, represented mankind in a legal and perhaps seminal sense before God. Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve appear to have been in a state of untested innocence or righteousness. Sin did not begin with an act, but with a thought or mindset that established itself apart from God (Genesis 3:1-6).
It is important to one’s thinking to understand that the foundation of sin is not merely the enactment of evil, but the thoughts and nature of mankind. Romans 5:12 envelops all of humanity in the original sin of Adam;
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned - for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
Paul pointedly argues that the sin he is talking of does not involve the breaking of a law. Sin is not just an act.
In Genesis 3, Satan tempts Adam and Eve on multiple levels. One of the areas that he attacks is their sense of justice. He implies that God has misled them. Rising from this sense of injustice, Adam and Eve began to rationalize their behavior. Satan’s lie freed them to obey their more prurient desires. They felt that they could legitimatize their willful disobedience. Sin appears to follow a pattern of human expression that was first set in the Garden of Eden.
Satan also inspires a sense of independence. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). Man began to move from his created order in existence to plotting his own destiny. In the words of William Earnest Henley in his poem “Invictus,”
Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul…
It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul (qtd. in Erickson 492)
Man’s decision to leave God may not be blamed by entrapment, Satan’s wiles, or his cunning. If Adam and Eve did not have these desires rage within them, they never would have fallen. Man is solely responsible for his fate.
Nor is God responsible for allowing this moment to come to fruition. Adam was created as a masterpiece and the center of Gods creation. To have stripped Adam of the ability to respond to God in a free fashion would have marred the Creator’s creativity and the perfection of His work. The offer of sin when man was not fallen implies that Adam and Eve had free will prior to the Fall. James in James 1:13 absolves God of any wrongdoing by reflecting on His nature. “God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one.”
Other religions, such as the Latter Day Saints leave God solely responsible for evil. Once, upon dialoguing with Mormon missionaries, we broached the subject of the Mormon interpretation of Genesis. In their view, God gave man two conflicting covenants which made it necessary for man to break one of them in order to please God. In Mormon theology, man had to either multiply the earth and subdue it, or he must not eat of the Tree of Good and Evil. If the first man had not eaten of the Tree, he would have sinned since he could not produce children to multiple until sin entered the world (a peculiar doctrine of Mormonism). If he ate of the Tree, which he did, he would also sin. God forced man to sin. Evangelical and Mormon may at least agree on this point, that sin brought death and destruction into the world. Mormon’s, however, must make God fully accountable for death, rape, incest, murder, stealing, lying and genocide. It is only in Christianity that God is fully absolved of the charge of bringing both physical and moral evil into the world. The brunt or responsibility in Christian theology falls fully on man.
The nature of sin is such that man stands at the epicenter of its heinous intrusion into God’s perfect creation. In Genesis 1:31, God saw His creation and called it very good. Man is responsible for the inception of incest, murder, rape, thievery, and lying. It is interesting to note that the Serpent’s and Eve’s curses were specifically upon their offspring or future generations (3:14-16). Since Satan has no physical offspring and demons are not known to procreate, we should probably see this statement in the light of Christ’s words in John 8:44 where he identifies Satan’s spiritual offspring. This is one of the impacts of sin upon humanity; that there is a struggle between the righteous offspring of Eve and the evil offspring of Satan. Ultimately, this battle would culminate in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ per the message of the Protoevangelium (3:15).
Woman’s curse includes brokenness in her two greatest domains; the life of her children and her relationship with her husband (3:16). Childbearing is characterized by pain. One might expand this to also encompass mother-children relationships after birth since these are often painful, but this would likely be an unfounded stretch.
A woman’s longing for her husband will be intense. Any conflict in the relationship will be magnified due to God’s curse. Harsh, dictatorial husbands will partially define the curse upon women as roles between husband and wife will be murky and in turmoil.
The curse specifically spoken to Adam is tied to the created order. Genesis 3:17-19 is a curse of futility. Once, man’s labor would be fulfilling and productive. Evermore it was to be filled with failure and ultimately swallowed by the despair of death that erases all toil, deeds, and memory. Man is a desperate creature whose stress and anxiety erupt in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes. It is here that his alienation from God boils over into despair.
God’s greatest and most wounding curse is upon man’s relationship with God. Without instruction, without guidance, and without feelings of eternal worth, unsaved humanity now stands as an island. Haunted by divinely given capacities to understand eternity and by loneliness in the vastness of God’s creation, humanity throws itself into fulfilling its insatiable needs. Isaiah recognized that sin separates. “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2).
Mankind is not only alienated from God, but men and women are alienated from one another. This bore itself all too quickly in the Genesis account as Cain murdered Abel and Lamech boasted of killing a man for a slight offense (Genesis 4). The common brotherhood of man, if it ever existed, was quickly extinguished after the Fall. Human interaction is marked by strife and communication failures. Even husbands and wives find unity to be a challenge, as was mentioned previously concerning the curse on Eve.
Humanity’s mire in sin is chronicled in Romans 1 through 3. Romans 1:20-21 tells us that man is thoroughly aware of God’s general revelation concerning Him. Verse 28 states that mankind discards the truth. The last regression is that people know the truth and willingly embrace error (vs. 32).
Underlining that sin seeks substitutes to fill the God-given desires, Romans 1 is a profound statement on the nature of fallen mankind. While God has provided natural means for satiating human desires, man, in alienation from God, endeavors to meet those desires with things that never satisfy. Human sexuality was intended to be satisfied in marriage. God Himself intended to fulfill human spirituality and intellectual curiosity. It is the nature of sinful man to find counterfeits or substitutes for God’s good things.
Sin’s impact on humanity is immeasurable. Businesses attempt to cure its effects, feed its longings and address its consequences. Mankind lives as if this were normal. But in bitter times, the sense of oughtness that permeates dire situations awakens men’s consciences to the way things should be. If death, destruction and moral depravity are normal, why do they cause such a tumult in the human soul? If God used these as his agencies of creation or if there is no God, then why are they not embraced and accepted?
Language has grappled to explain the nature of sin and its impact. The Greeks were not satisfied with just a few words for it as they tried to capture several of its nuances. An exploration of the pertinent terms is useful.
· adikia – The opposite of righteousness. To commit injustice, deal unjustly, a wrong. The concept of adikia is tied to legal considerations. It may reference particular crimes. This word captures the concept that sin is not an individual domain, but that it actually impacts the community as well. In the Old Testament, the community was seen as the preserver of justice, so a sin against justice was also against the community as a whole (Brown 573-576).
· hamartia – To sin, to transgress. In classical literature, it means to miss the mark, to lose, to not share in something or to be mistaken. It was used in this period to describe anything that was not part of the accepted social order. In the Old Testament, the word was used to describe a conscious deviation from the right direction. Here sin is thought of as a breach of the covenants. The New Testament uses this word to describe man’s sins that are against God (577-583).
· parabasis – To go aside, to turn aside, transgress. By its use in Homer and onwards in history, its meaning was centered on a deviation from the original and true direction. It was sometimes used in the sense of an obligation or debt that was not kept. This word was not common in the Septuagint, but it meant to neglect God, to transgress the covenant or to become lax in the maintenance of one’s relationship with God. In the New Testament, it is used of Judas who abandoned his discipleship. In the Pauline writings, it is used to speak of transgressing the law in the context of the Jewish theology of the law (583-585).
· paraptoma – To fall beside, go astray, err, trespass, to step falsely. In classical literature it referred to an excusable error. In the Septuagint, it was used to translate six different Hebrew words that encompass the idea of conscious transgression, not merely accidents. It is only used in the verb form in the New Testament in Hebrews 6:6 where the meaning seems to be that of ‘falling away’. This is the deliberate rejection of the Christian faith. The noun is used in Matthew to speak of actions that result in man falling from the position God gave him (585-586).
· asebeia – Ungodliness. This word means that one is unlike God (Arrington 126).
The range of meaning for all of the words used for sin demonstrates both its individual and corporate effect. Sin can result in the personal loss of position and relationship with God. It may also speak of the community’s deviation from God. In general, sin misses God’s intended purpose in an individual’s life. The true deviation begins when a person fails to maintain their proper relationship with God. This was true of Adam and Eve and is true of all sinning humanity today.
An important question is whether man is a sinner because he personally sins or if he is a sinner through some sort of imputed or adopted inner nature. The Bible appears to clearly indicate that man is a sinner by nature, not labor. The ancient heretic Pelagius believed that every individual that enters the world is innocent by nature (Lewis 184). David, in the Psalms, states that a human’s entrance to the world already bears the taint of sinfulness (58:3). Evil men are evil even from the womb. As to his own entrance into the world, David writes in the Psalm 51:5 that he bore some of this taint from the moment of conception. Some have unwisely tried to interpret this passage to mean that David was saying that the actual act of conception was sinful, but this is unfounded by the text.
Various groups have battled over whether man has a sin nature or how that nature impacts mankind. The Socinians of the sixteenth-century denied original sin, any inheritance of depravity and even that sin was punishable by death. Roman Catholics adhere to the idea in A New Catechism that the Fall was not a historic event and that mankind did not become “depraved and guilty as a result of Adam’s sin.” Individuals are not condemned for Adam’s transgressions, but ratify his transgressions by their own personal acts of sin. Arminians either believe in a general preventing grace that covers Adam’s transgression so that people are only responsible for their own personal sins, or that the inheritance of a sin nature only encompasses a predisposition to sin, not actual sin or condemnation. (Lewis 184-188).
Counter to these ideas are the thoughts of John Calvin. Calvin defined original sin as “a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God’s wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls ‘works of the flesh’ ” (George 214). While denying the idea that the sin nature is biologically inherited from Adam, Calvin believed that God had ordained that all men should possess a sin nature (215). Viewing sin as all pervasive, Calvin saw inner awareness of sin as a necessary step in salvation. “No one is permitted to receive God’s blessing unless he is consumed with the awareness of his poverty” (216).
Scripture affirms that mankind has a sin nature that has been inherited from Adam. Many have taken umbrage to this since they believe that it implies that people do not bear personal responsibility for their sins if the inheritance of it is beyond their control. R.C. Sproul writes, “In protest we want to say, ‘No damnation without representation’” (Sproul 149). Karl Barth believed that the story of the Fall was a saga that recounts the fall that every human being individually makes at some point. He objected to the idea that sin was passed like a disease from person to person. Brunner concluded that the universality of sin was due to humanity’s finite limitations. He refused to recognize sin as a state, but only as an act (Lewis 189).
What one applies to the Fall, they should also apply to redemption. To take offense with the position that all sinned in Adam and have inherited his sin and guilt, one should also take offense that Christ died and lived a righteous life so that all men might live. If representation is a bad thing in one instance, it should be a bad thing in other instances.
The fact of the matter is that to be human means to be fallen. Mankind can no more break from Adam than to declare that they are no longer part of the human kind. If humanity inherited Adam’s physical nature, the joy of living, the fullness of creativity, the bounty of his intellectual capacities, and the full range of his emotions, one should not feel tricked by also inheriting his baser characteristics. Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology states that, “This inherited tendency to sin does not mean that human beings are all as bad as they could be. The constrains of civil law, the expectations of family…all provide restraining influences on the sinful tendencies of our hearts” (Grudem 496).
In their original state, Adam and Eve could respond to God. They walked with him in the Garden and freely conversed with Him. At the moment of their sinfulness, however, this interaction was marred and broken. God had to search for Adam and Eve to initiate communication. After the Fall, Adam and Eve did not even want to respond to God. The result of their experimentation with sin culminated in their banishment from His presence in the Garden (Genesis 3).
Can a man or woman freely respond to God today under his or her own willpower? That question is fraught with difficulty. Humanity certainly does not move in this direction easily. Christ said to the people of Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37). Even with the most persuasive representation of God’s mercy, people were not moved.
In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke, the rich man entreated Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers in the hope that they would avoid his fate. Abraham responded that if one was not persuaded by the testimony of Moses and the prophets, that they would not even respond to one raised from the dead (16:31). The redemption of man is not an easy thing.
The question really encircles how bad mankind really is. Did sin merely wound a man’s ability to communicate with God or has he been rendered utterly without illumination? Timothy George reflects on Martin Luther’s opinion of this matter in his book, Theology of the Reformers. In his words:
One of Luther’s complaints against the “pig theologians” was their thesis that the human will of its own volition could actually love God above all things, or, that by doing one’s best even apart from grace one could earn a certain standing before God. To this optimistic appraisal of human potential Luther opposed a stark contrast between nature and grace. “Grace puts God in the place of everything else it sees, and prefers him to itself, but nature puts itself in the place of everything, and even in the place of God, and seeks only its own and not what is God’s.” By “nature” Luther did not mean simply the created realm, but rather the fallen, created realm, and particularly the fallen human will which is “curved in on itself” (incurvatus in se), “enslaved,” and tainted with evil in all of its actions. At the Heidelberg Disputation in 1518, Luther defended the thesis: “Free will after the Fall exists only in name, and as long as one ‘does what in one lies,’ one is committing mortal sin” (George 75)
Luther viewed mankind as damaged beyond human repair in relating to God. Per George, however, Luther never denied that free will retained its power in matters outside of salvation (75).
There are many verses that speak of men responding to God. Peter exhorts the people in Acts 3:19 to “turn to God”. Paul tells the Ephesian elders of his ministry that directed Jews and Gentiles to “turn to God in repentance”. In the quote of the Old Testament in Romans 4:1, Paul writes that Abraham “believed” God. Mark 9:24 is a synergistic passage where the demon possessed boy’s father affirms his belief and asks Jesus to aid his remaining unbelief.
It is worth noting that mankind must respond to God in belief, but how does mankind arrive at that wonderful moment? Even at the great confession of Peter regarding who Christ was, Christ replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). In John 6:44, Christ states that no one comes to him without first being called by the Father. John 3: 7 and 8 would seem to indicate that the Holy Spirit brings the new birth according to His own will. In the words of Romans 8:29,
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
God’s foreknowledge and calling predate a person’s response in our space-time reality.
There are also many verses that speak to the question of man’s bondage. Paul refers to sin as a prison in Romans 7:23. The bondage is so great that the whole world is a prisoner of sin (Galatians 3:22). Slavery is probably the best description of man’s relationship with sin (John 8:34, Romans 7:14). A person cannot consistently choose to do anything that is right. There is always some hidden taint even in the best products of a human being’s intentions. Often when reading the words of Paul in Romans 7:24, one may feel the anguish of his words and feel the desperation. “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
Ephesians 4:18 addresses the inner darkness of unredeemed man’s soul. He is cut off from understanding. His mind has been shut off to the revelation of God’s mercy. The writer of 2 Corinthians 4:4 proclaims that men’s minds are purposefully clouded by the evil one. There is an evil power that desires to keep mankind veiled in shadow. In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus states that the devil steals the word from people’s hearts so that they cannot believe (Luke 8:12). Satan’s intent is to obscure the very face of God and to redirect lost mankind to other diversions. This alone would make a free response by fallen man to God difficult.
Not only is mankind troubled by demons without, but also by the rebellious nature within. Isaiah certainly realized this when he was ushered into the presence of the Lord and cried woe upon himself (Isaiah 6:5). Paul journalizes in Romans 7 his own personal fight with sin. Struggling with desires to do both good and evil is a plight that even redeemed men must face. In particular, Romans 7:8 states “But sin taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire.” Picturing sin as a restless entity, Paul writes that sin actually produced inner evil desires. Here sin is not seen as an act, but as a driving inner force of evil. Verse 23 strengthens the idea that there is an active sin nature.
Unregenerate man’s ability to understand God’s revelation has also been severely damaged. Paul writes that men are “dead” in their sins (Ephesians 2:1). We should be cautious not to construe death as total destruction, but as separation from God (Geisler 540). Unredeemed man is capable of understanding God’s revelation, but he disdains it (Romans 1:28). In the paraphrased words of I Corinthians 2:14, the word of God is “spiritually discerned” by someone who has the Holy Spirit in their hearts. To the un-spirited man, the word of God is foolish.
In our sinful state, God cannot accept us. Every part of our being has been effected by the blight of sin. Nothing good dwells in man (Romans 7:18). Human hearts are full of deceit (Jeremiah 17:9). Habbakuk wrote that “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong” (1:13). Our decrepit nature bars us from entering into God’s presence.
Has man any power to turn to God in faith and repentance on his own? Even as a redeemed man, Paul apparently felt the gravity of the struggle with the sin nature. The answer that Paul supplies for his own query is a fantastic one. “Jesus Christ our Lord” is utterly capable of meeting our needs in struggle.
However, for the unsaved man who faces a spiritual foe, who has his own mind darkened, who is fettered by sin and who has inherited a natural disposition to sin, what may be said of his power to come to God? Paul’s Romans 9 sheds light on the human condition before God. In this context, Paul is discussing the apostasy of the Jewish people from the Lord. Paul is heartbroken over his people and earnestly desires their salvation. In order to make his point, Paul directs his reader’s attention to the story of Jacob and Esau. Even before he was born, Jacob was considered “elect” in the eyes of God. ‘What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” ‘ (vs. 14-15).
The sin nature has a grip on the heart of humanity that God sovereignly breaks so that His people might spend eternity with Him. It does not appear that man has the power to freely turn to God in faith and repentance on his own power. Man has tremendous freedom in expressing his sinful nature while in the unregenerate state, but his choices for God are severely curtailed. Like Adam and Eve in their untested righteousness, Christians have been freed to exercise faith and repentance.
Understanding that every human being has a sin nature should have an impact on how Christians understand their world. First, Christians should never place ultimate trust in another human being. Only God has proved trustworthy. This should not drive the Christian into skepticism about all relationships, but it should blanket them from blindly following others or from entrusting too much confidence in their leadership. Second, Christians should be not be amazed when sin happens even in the lives of those who are well respected. Sin is the common denominator of our broken world. Third, forgiveness should be given swiftly and without reticence. Fourth, evangelism should be undertaken with the understanding that our obstacles are great, but our God is greater.
Sin literally cracked the world, breaking asunder the earth, relationships, the beauty of God’s original creation, and the nature of man. To be human means to be sinful. To be alive in the earthly realm means that we navigate a broken world. Sin is a horrible blight, but as bad as it is, it has not snuffed out the awesome beauty of God’s craftsmanship. Mankind is the marvel of all that God created. Even after the Fall, the psalmist is still able to express the wonder of being human.
O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth (Romans 8:1-9)!
The nature of sin is unavoidable and it effects are dire, but these were not left without a remedy. In the reworked words of William Earnest Hensley,
Out of the morning that bathes me
Bright as the sun from pole to pole
I thank the God of calvary
For my unconquerable soul
It matters now how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
He is the master of my fate
He is the captain of my soul!
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Congratulations to the Daniels Family
My wife and I recently attended a party to celebrate the 85th and 90th birthdays of my grandmother and grandfather (respectively). It was a beautiful occasion to see all of the generations of the family present to honor them. Due to my grandparents' committment to Christ, many of their progeny are heaven bound.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Evolutionary Musings
Paradigms shift all of the time. Hundreds of years ago, it was the common consensus that the solar system revolved around the earth. The science textbooks changed and a new paradigm entered the scene. The beliefs of science are in constant flux. If the world lasts, a thousand years from now, our progeny will scorn our shallow understanding of the world. Compared to eternity future, we are but still at the beginning, playing with the dust and pebbles of the universe while thinking we are doing something grand.
Evolution is a paradigm that is in grievous trouble.
Fred Hoyle of the British Academy of Science and mathematician Chandra Wickramasinghe decided to calculate the probability of life coming into existence anywhere in the universe. Their results? Utterly impossible. They gave it all the time in the universe, but time plus chance produces nothing!
Francis Crick, Noble Prize winner for his discovery of DNA, also attempted to calculate the probability that life sprang into existence spontaneously. His results? Utter impossible. Instead of jumping into the arms of God, Crick decided to propagate the theory of genetic panspermia. In sum, his theory propounded that life on earth was seeded by benevolent and mighty aliens. Their work made life possible through the path of evolution. The problem? Crick merely delayed the impossible, casting it back on a continuous regression of aliens.
Stephen J. Gould, one of the greatest defenders of evolution, was also troubled by issues that he saw within evolution. As a result, he came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium. He postulated that there were sudden leaps in evolution that left no transitional forms. If only he had made one massive leap, he would have ended up where theists are today.
Are these the actions of men that believe that the evolutionary paradigm is secure?
While the defenders of evolution are resorting to new and stunning conjecture to cover the nakedness of evolution, intelligent design has been seeking to topple the entire infrastructure.
The simple design of a mousetrap is irreducibly complex, no one part of the mousetrap makes sense without all of the other pieces. The evolution of a species or a single organ is also irreducibly complex. Take for example the eye. The eye is composed of mechanisms that are entirely reliant upon one another for the eye to function at all. If evolution is true, each part of the eye evolved over time and accrued in aggregate form. Unfortunately, the individual parts of the eye do not promote the survivability of the animal. They may actually impede its survivability. Over millions of years, the evolutionist would have us believe that the portions of the eye accrued until we had a complete and functional organ.
Another stake in the heart of evolution is the absence of transitional forms. Darwin predicted that this would be the downfall of his theory. Nothing has been found. Frauds have been created such as Piltdown man, Java man and a host of other oddities found to be made out of bits of extinct pigs, apes, etc., but nothing definitive has been offered to support the claims of evolution. If nothing else, our excavations should lead us to conclude that life was more complex and varied in the past than it is at present. This concurs with the concept of entropy.
The third law of thermodynamics is at odds with evolution. Time and chance lead to a loss of genetic information, the accretion of deleterious and deadly mutations. Per the evolutionary model, the very environment that may have produced the earliest protein chain is the same environment that would wipe it out in the next second. Life and entropy teach us that life is fragile.
The fossil record has yielded no evidence for evolution. Fossil beds contain a mixture of species and life forms from supposedly different evolutionary eras all at the same level of excavation. The geological column, which is purported to have taken millions of years to form, is riddled with issues. Dozens of museums have fish and other creatures that are tipped on end in the column. These fossils, know as polystratigraphic fossils, pass through millions of years of evolutionary deposition and sedimentation. How could a fish stand on end over millions of years while it was covered by sedminent? Evolutionists recognize these as “mysteries”.
I’m not attempting to be exhaustive with this list of problems, but the list goes on forever!
If evolution is true, there is no meaning or purpose to the world. We are merely spinning out our days on a not-so-extraordinary speck in the universe. Everything is chemically driven and determined. My love for my spouse has nothing noble within it. I’m merely driven by my biological urges to secure a mate that will perpetuate the species. Emotions over the death of my father are merely a chemically induced warning to avoid those things that limit my survivability. The only drive is sexual, the only moral is survival and there is no answer for anything.
"Nature is red in tooth and claw" is the summation of the evolutionary virtue. By bloodshed the fittest survive, but to what end? Morals are irrelevant. To push an old lady into oncoming traffic or to help her across the street are of equal value; both are meaningless. One might even argue that pushing the old lady into the street opens an ecological niche for a contributing member of the species. As one geneticist one argued with me, adultery and fornication are evolutionary values. They create genetic diversity.
Several scientists have recognized the problem in not having a center upon which to build society, ethics and morals. They have embraced the creation of what they call a “Noble Lie”; the creation of a belief system akin to Christianity. Let us create something to believe in that will allow us to continue our meaningless, mediocre existence. In the end, is it not still a lie?
In a world that is merely a cosmic accident, does even science have any meaning? Is it not merely a search without purpose and a quest without answers? Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Evolution is a paradigm that is in grievous trouble.
Fred Hoyle of the British Academy of Science and mathematician Chandra Wickramasinghe decided to calculate the probability of life coming into existence anywhere in the universe. Their results? Utterly impossible. They gave it all the time in the universe, but time plus chance produces nothing!
Francis Crick, Noble Prize winner for his discovery of DNA, also attempted to calculate the probability that life sprang into existence spontaneously. His results? Utter impossible. Instead of jumping into the arms of God, Crick decided to propagate the theory of genetic panspermia. In sum, his theory propounded that life on earth was seeded by benevolent and mighty aliens. Their work made life possible through the path of evolution. The problem? Crick merely delayed the impossible, casting it back on a continuous regression of aliens.
Stephen J. Gould, one of the greatest defenders of evolution, was also troubled by issues that he saw within evolution. As a result, he came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium. He postulated that there were sudden leaps in evolution that left no transitional forms. If only he had made one massive leap, he would have ended up where theists are today.
Are these the actions of men that believe that the evolutionary paradigm is secure?
While the defenders of evolution are resorting to new and stunning conjecture to cover the nakedness of evolution, intelligent design has been seeking to topple the entire infrastructure.
The simple design of a mousetrap is irreducibly complex, no one part of the mousetrap makes sense without all of the other pieces. The evolution of a species or a single organ is also irreducibly complex. Take for example the eye. The eye is composed of mechanisms that are entirely reliant upon one another for the eye to function at all. If evolution is true, each part of the eye evolved over time and accrued in aggregate form. Unfortunately, the individual parts of the eye do not promote the survivability of the animal. They may actually impede its survivability. Over millions of years, the evolutionist would have us believe that the portions of the eye accrued until we had a complete and functional organ.
Another stake in the heart of evolution is the absence of transitional forms. Darwin predicted that this would be the downfall of his theory. Nothing has been found. Frauds have been created such as Piltdown man, Java man and a host of other oddities found to be made out of bits of extinct pigs, apes, etc., but nothing definitive has been offered to support the claims of evolution. If nothing else, our excavations should lead us to conclude that life was more complex and varied in the past than it is at present. This concurs with the concept of entropy.
The third law of thermodynamics is at odds with evolution. Time and chance lead to a loss of genetic information, the accretion of deleterious and deadly mutations. Per the evolutionary model, the very environment that may have produced the earliest protein chain is the same environment that would wipe it out in the next second. Life and entropy teach us that life is fragile.
The fossil record has yielded no evidence for evolution. Fossil beds contain a mixture of species and life forms from supposedly different evolutionary eras all at the same level of excavation. The geological column, which is purported to have taken millions of years to form, is riddled with issues. Dozens of museums have fish and other creatures that are tipped on end in the column. These fossils, know as polystratigraphic fossils, pass through millions of years of evolutionary deposition and sedimentation. How could a fish stand on end over millions of years while it was covered by sedminent? Evolutionists recognize these as “mysteries”.
I’m not attempting to be exhaustive with this list of problems, but the list goes on forever!
If evolution is true, there is no meaning or purpose to the world. We are merely spinning out our days on a not-so-extraordinary speck in the universe. Everything is chemically driven and determined. My love for my spouse has nothing noble within it. I’m merely driven by my biological urges to secure a mate that will perpetuate the species. Emotions over the death of my father are merely a chemically induced warning to avoid those things that limit my survivability. The only drive is sexual, the only moral is survival and there is no answer for anything.
"Nature is red in tooth and claw" is the summation of the evolutionary virtue. By bloodshed the fittest survive, but to what end? Morals are irrelevant. To push an old lady into oncoming traffic or to help her across the street are of equal value; both are meaningless. One might even argue that pushing the old lady into the street opens an ecological niche for a contributing member of the species. As one geneticist one argued with me, adultery and fornication are evolutionary values. They create genetic diversity.
Several scientists have recognized the problem in not having a center upon which to build society, ethics and morals. They have embraced the creation of what they call a “Noble Lie”; the creation of a belief system akin to Christianity. Let us create something to believe in that will allow us to continue our meaningless, mediocre existence. In the end, is it not still a lie?
In a world that is merely a cosmic accident, does even science have any meaning? Is it not merely a search without purpose and a quest without answers? Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Retrospective - The 2006 Congressional Elections
Some have recently heralded the Republican loss of the House and Senate as a day of gloom and doom. I'm actually fairly upbeat about the whole matter.
The Republicans, who did not live or govern by their campaign promises to protect life, lower taxes, preserve religious liberty, and to create an administration above scandal, have been swept from office. In their place, we have a much more honest bunch. At least the new group tells us up front that they support homosexual marriage, sex education for pre-schoolers, abortion on demand and a litany of other issues. Down with the apathetic Republicans!
As a life long conservative, I long for a stable and righeous government led by men and women of integrity. In the absence of Christ, who alone will provide this government, I must be solaced by being governed by short-sighted, prone to failure, fallible men and women. Cleaning out Congress was exactly what was needed. When the short-sighted, prone to failure and fallible men and women prove their inability to keep their promises, I should not have to convince myself to vote for them every election season.
Perhaps this will provide the much needed wake up call for the Republicans to heed their conservative base. If not, the Republicans are guaranteed to continue to lose elections.
Whatever may happen, the Bible tells us that we deserve the Democrats...
"Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities. For there is no authority but of God; the authorities that exist are ordained by God" (Romans 13:1).
The Republicans, who did not live or govern by their campaign promises to protect life, lower taxes, preserve religious liberty, and to create an administration above scandal, have been swept from office. In their place, we have a much more honest bunch. At least the new group tells us up front that they support homosexual marriage, sex education for pre-schoolers, abortion on demand and a litany of other issues. Down with the apathetic Republicans!
As a life long conservative, I long for a stable and righeous government led by men and women of integrity. In the absence of Christ, who alone will provide this government, I must be solaced by being governed by short-sighted, prone to failure, fallible men and women. Cleaning out Congress was exactly what was needed. When the short-sighted, prone to failure and fallible men and women prove their inability to keep their promises, I should not have to convince myself to vote for them every election season.
Perhaps this will provide the much needed wake up call for the Republicans to heed their conservative base. If not, the Republicans are guaranteed to continue to lose elections.
Whatever may happen, the Bible tells us that we deserve the Democrats...
"Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities. For there is no authority but of God; the authorities that exist are ordained by God" (Romans 13:1).
The Man from George Street
Author - An Evangelist whose name is not so important as the true story...
This all started a number of years ago in a Baptist church in Crystal Palace in South London, England. The Sunday morning service was closing and a man stood up at the back and raised his hand and said: "Excuse me pastor can I share a short testimony?" The pastor looked at his watch and said, "You have three minutes". The man proceeded with his story: "I've just moved into this area. I used to live in Sydney, Australia. Just a few months back I was visiting some relatives and I was walking down George Street. You know where George Street is in Sydney going from the Business Area out to the Rock the colonial area. A strange little white haired man stepped out from a shop doorway, put a pamphlet in my hand and said: "Excuse me sir, are you saved, if you die tonight are you going to heaven?" "I was astounded by these words. No one had ever asked me that. I thanked him courteously and all the way home to London this puzzled me. I called a friend and thank God he was a Christian and he led me to Christ." The Baptists love testimonies like that. Everyone applauded and welcomed him into their fellowship.
The Baptist pastor flew to Adelaide, Australia the next week and 10 days later in the middle of a three day series in a Baptist church in Adelaide, a woman came up to him for some counselling. He wanted to establish where she stood with Christ. He said "I used to live in Sydney and just a couple of months back I was visiting some friends in Sydney doing some last minute shopping down George Street. A strange little white haired man stepped out of a shop doorway and offered me a pamphlet and said "Excuse me madam, are you saved, if you die tonight are you going to heaven?" "I was disturbed by those words. When I got home to Adelaide, I knew this Baptist church was on the next block form me. I sought out the pastor and he led me to Christ. So I am telling you that I am a Christian."
The London pastor was now very puzzled. Twice in two weeks he had heard the same testimony. He then flew to preach in the Mount Pleasant Church in Perth. When his teaching series was over the senior elder of that Church took him out for a meal and he asked the elder how he got saved. "I grew up in this church from the age of 15. I never made a commitment to Jesus, just hopped on the bandwagon like everyone else. Because of my business ability grew up to a place of influence. I was on a business trip to Sydney just three years ago. An obnoxious spiteful little man stepped out of a shop doorway, offered me a religious pamphlet cheap junk and accosted me with a question: "Excuse me sir, are you saved, if you die tonight are you going to heaven?" I tried to tell him I was a Baptist elder. He wouldn't listen to me. I was seething with anger all the way home from Sydney to Perth. I told my pastor, thinking that he would sympathize, but he agreed. He had been disturbed for years knowing that I didn't have a relationship with Jesus, and he was right. My pastor led me to Jesus just three years ago."
The London preacher flew home and was soon speaking at the Keswick conventions in the Lake District and he threw in these three testimonies. At the close of this teaching series, fours elderly pastors came up and explained that they too had been saved between 25 and 30 years earlier through that same little man on George Street, offering them a pamphlet and asking that same question. The following week he flew to a similar Keswick convention in the Caribbean to missionaries. He shared the same testimonies. At the close of his teaching three missionaries came forward and said that they had also had been saved between 15 and 25 years earlier by that same little man's testimony and asked us the same question on George Street in Sydney. Next he stopped in Atlanta, Georgia to speak at a Naval Chaplain convention. Here for three days he spoke to over 1000 Naval Chaplains. Afterwards the Chaplain General took him out for a meal and he asked the Chaplain how he became a Christian. "It was miraculous. I was a rating on a Naval battleship and I lived a reprobate life. We were doing exercises in the South Pacific and we docked at Sydney harbour for replenishments. We hit Kings Cross with a vengeance. I was blind drunk, got on the wrong bus and got off in George Street. As I got off the bus, I though I saw a ghost as this man jumped out in front of me, pushed a pamphlet in my hand and said "Sailor, are you saved, if you die tonight are you going to heaven?" The fear of God hit me immediately. I was shocked sober, ran back to the ship and sought out the Chaplain. He led me to Christ. I soon began to prepare for the ministry under his guidance. I am now in charge of 1000 chaplains who are bent on soul winning today."
Six months later that London pastor flew to a conference for 5,000 Indian missionaries in a remote part of NE India. At the end the head missionary took him to his humble little home for a simple meal. He asked how he as a Hindu came to Christ. "I grew up in a very privileged position, I worked the Indian Diplomatic Mission and I travelled the world. I am so glad for the forgiveness of Christ and blood covering my sin. I would be very embarrassed if people found out what I got into. One period of diplomatic service took me to Sydney. I was doing some last minute shopping, laden with toys and clothes for my children. I was walking down George Street when a courteous white haired little man stepped out in front of me and offered me a pamphlet and said "Excuse me sir, are you saved, if you die tonight are you going to heaven?" I thanked him very much but this disturbed me. I got back to my town, sought out our Hindu priest. He couldn't help me, but he advised me that to satisfy my curious mind, I should go and talk to the missionary in the mission home at the end of road. That was good advice because that day the missionary led me to Christ. I quit Hinduism immediately and began to prepare for ministry. I left the Diplomatic Service and here I am today, by God's grace in charge of all these missionaries who have together led 100,000 people to Christ.
Eight months later that London Pastor was preaching in Sydney. He asked the local Baptist Minister if he knew of a little elderly white haired man who handed out tracts on George Street. He replied "Yes is do, his name is Mr. Genor, although I don't think he does it any more because he is so frail and elderly." Two nights later they went to meet him in his little apartment. They knocked on the door and this tiny frail old man greeted them. He sat them down and made them tea. He was so frail that he was slopping the tea into the saucer as his hands shook. The London preacher sat there and told him of all these accounts from the previous three years. This little man sat with tears running down his cheeks. He told them his story. "I was a rating on an Australian warship. I was living a reprobate life. In a crisis I really hit the wall. One of my colleagues, to whom I gave literal hell, was there to help me. He led me to Jesus and the change in my life was night to day in 24 hours. I was so grateful to God; I promised God that I would share Jesus in a simple witness with at least 10 people a day. As God me strength I did that. Sometimes I was ill and couldn't do it, but I made up for the days I missed it at other times. I wasn't paranoid about it. I have done this for over 40 years. In my retirement years, the best place was on St. George Street where I saw hundreds of people a day. I got lots of rejections, but a lot of people courteously took the tract. In 40 years of doing this, I have never heard of one single person coming to Jesus until today."
You know, I would say that he has to be commitment. To show gratitude and love for Jesus to do that for 40 years and not hear of any results. That simple little non-charismatic Baptist man witnessed to perhaps 147,000 people. I think that God was showing that Baptist pastor from London was the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Goodness knows how many more had been arrested for Christ. Doing huge jobs out in the mission fields. Mr. Genor died two weeks later. Can you imagine the reward he went home to in Heaven?
I doubt his face would ever have appeared on Charisma Magazine. I doubt there would ever have been a photograph and a write up in Billy Graham's Decision magazine. No one except a little group of Baptists in Sydney knew about Mr. Genor, but I tell you his name was famous in Heaven. Heaven knew Mr. Genor and you can imagine the welcome and Red Carpet and the fanfare that he received when he went home to Glory.
This all started a number of years ago in a Baptist church in Crystal Palace in South London, England. The Sunday morning service was closing and a man stood up at the back and raised his hand and said: "Excuse me pastor can I share a short testimony?" The pastor looked at his watch and said, "You have three minutes". The man proceeded with his story: "I've just moved into this area. I used to live in Sydney, Australia. Just a few months back I was visiting some relatives and I was walking down George Street. You know where George Street is in Sydney going from the Business Area out to the Rock the colonial area. A strange little white haired man stepped out from a shop doorway, put a pamphlet in my hand and said: "Excuse me sir, are you saved, if you die tonight are you going to heaven?" "I was astounded by these words. No one had ever asked me that. I thanked him courteously and all the way home to London this puzzled me. I called a friend and thank God he was a Christian and he led me to Christ." The Baptists love testimonies like that. Everyone applauded and welcomed him into their fellowship.
The Baptist pastor flew to Adelaide, Australia the next week and 10 days later in the middle of a three day series in a Baptist church in Adelaide, a woman came up to him for some counselling. He wanted to establish where she stood with Christ. He said "I used to live in Sydney and just a couple of months back I was visiting some friends in Sydney doing some last minute shopping down George Street. A strange little white haired man stepped out of a shop doorway and offered me a pamphlet and said "Excuse me madam, are you saved, if you die tonight are you going to heaven?" "I was disturbed by those words. When I got home to Adelaide, I knew this Baptist church was on the next block form me. I sought out the pastor and he led me to Christ. So I am telling you that I am a Christian."
The London pastor was now very puzzled. Twice in two weeks he had heard the same testimony. He then flew to preach in the Mount Pleasant Church in Perth. When his teaching series was over the senior elder of that Church took him out for a meal and he asked the elder how he got saved. "I grew up in this church from the age of 15. I never made a commitment to Jesus, just hopped on the bandwagon like everyone else. Because of my business ability grew up to a place of influence. I was on a business trip to Sydney just three years ago. An obnoxious spiteful little man stepped out of a shop doorway, offered me a religious pamphlet cheap junk and accosted me with a question: "Excuse me sir, are you saved, if you die tonight are you going to heaven?" I tried to tell him I was a Baptist elder. He wouldn't listen to me. I was seething with anger all the way home from Sydney to Perth. I told my pastor, thinking that he would sympathize, but he agreed. He had been disturbed for years knowing that I didn't have a relationship with Jesus, and he was right. My pastor led me to Jesus just three years ago."
The London preacher flew home and was soon speaking at the Keswick conventions in the Lake District and he threw in these three testimonies. At the close of this teaching series, fours elderly pastors came up and explained that they too had been saved between 25 and 30 years earlier through that same little man on George Street, offering them a pamphlet and asking that same question. The following week he flew to a similar Keswick convention in the Caribbean to missionaries. He shared the same testimonies. At the close of his teaching three missionaries came forward and said that they had also had been saved between 15 and 25 years earlier by that same little man's testimony and asked us the same question on George Street in Sydney. Next he stopped in Atlanta, Georgia to speak at a Naval Chaplain convention. Here for three days he spoke to over 1000 Naval Chaplains. Afterwards the Chaplain General took him out for a meal and he asked the Chaplain how he became a Christian. "It was miraculous. I was a rating on a Naval battleship and I lived a reprobate life. We were doing exercises in the South Pacific and we docked at Sydney harbour for replenishments. We hit Kings Cross with a vengeance. I was blind drunk, got on the wrong bus and got off in George Street. As I got off the bus, I though I saw a ghost as this man jumped out in front of me, pushed a pamphlet in my hand and said "Sailor, are you saved, if you die tonight are you going to heaven?" The fear of God hit me immediately. I was shocked sober, ran back to the ship and sought out the Chaplain. He led me to Christ. I soon began to prepare for the ministry under his guidance. I am now in charge of 1000 chaplains who are bent on soul winning today."
Six months later that London pastor flew to a conference for 5,000 Indian missionaries in a remote part of NE India. At the end the head missionary took him to his humble little home for a simple meal. He asked how he as a Hindu came to Christ. "I grew up in a very privileged position, I worked the Indian Diplomatic Mission and I travelled the world. I am so glad for the forgiveness of Christ and blood covering my sin. I would be very embarrassed if people found out what I got into. One period of diplomatic service took me to Sydney. I was doing some last minute shopping, laden with toys and clothes for my children. I was walking down George Street when a courteous white haired little man stepped out in front of me and offered me a pamphlet and said "Excuse me sir, are you saved, if you die tonight are you going to heaven?" I thanked him very much but this disturbed me. I got back to my town, sought out our Hindu priest. He couldn't help me, but he advised me that to satisfy my curious mind, I should go and talk to the missionary in the mission home at the end of road. That was good advice because that day the missionary led me to Christ. I quit Hinduism immediately and began to prepare for ministry. I left the Diplomatic Service and here I am today, by God's grace in charge of all these missionaries who have together led 100,000 people to Christ.
Eight months later that London Pastor was preaching in Sydney. He asked the local Baptist Minister if he knew of a little elderly white haired man who handed out tracts on George Street. He replied "Yes is do, his name is Mr. Genor, although I don't think he does it any more because he is so frail and elderly." Two nights later they went to meet him in his little apartment. They knocked on the door and this tiny frail old man greeted them. He sat them down and made them tea. He was so frail that he was slopping the tea into the saucer as his hands shook. The London preacher sat there and told him of all these accounts from the previous three years. This little man sat with tears running down his cheeks. He told them his story. "I was a rating on an Australian warship. I was living a reprobate life. In a crisis I really hit the wall. One of my colleagues, to whom I gave literal hell, was there to help me. He led me to Jesus and the change in my life was night to day in 24 hours. I was so grateful to God; I promised God that I would share Jesus in a simple witness with at least 10 people a day. As God me strength I did that. Sometimes I was ill and couldn't do it, but I made up for the days I missed it at other times. I wasn't paranoid about it. I have done this for over 40 years. In my retirement years, the best place was on St. George Street where I saw hundreds of people a day. I got lots of rejections, but a lot of people courteously took the tract. In 40 years of doing this, I have never heard of one single person coming to Jesus until today."
You know, I would say that he has to be commitment. To show gratitude and love for Jesus to do that for 40 years and not hear of any results. That simple little non-charismatic Baptist man witnessed to perhaps 147,000 people. I think that God was showing that Baptist pastor from London was the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Goodness knows how many more had been arrested for Christ. Doing huge jobs out in the mission fields. Mr. Genor died two weeks later. Can you imagine the reward he went home to in Heaven?
I doubt his face would ever have appeared on Charisma Magazine. I doubt there would ever have been a photograph and a write up in Billy Graham's Decision magazine. No one except a little group of Baptists in Sydney knew about Mr. Genor, but I tell you his name was famous in Heaven. Heaven knew Mr. Genor and you can imagine the welcome and Red Carpet and the fanfare that he received when he went home to Glory.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
A Long Hiatus
I've been absent from the blog world for some time. This is partly due to being weary of the world though joyful in my family after the passing of my father. An additional reason lies in my new position as Assistant Registrar of Wright State University. Neither reason should suffice for leaving a love. I've longed to write...
Secular Enslavement
One of my dear friends recently wrote me an e-mail concerning his life. Having recently graduated from a major Christian university as a preseminary major, he is seeking to find his place in the world.
He wrote of the grip of God compelling him to lose his life for Christ. Society is pulling him to get a good secular job, marry quickly and to settle down in secular serfdom. These two forces are causing him great confusion.
We who read the Scriptures know the truth once the cloud lifts; it is right to risk for Christ. He who wants to keep his fiancee, his wife, his children, his prosperity and his dignity will lose all of them.
There is a grand delusion that besets us. It is the delusion of personal peace and safety. It is our loving duty as brothers and sisters in Christ to strip away this facade of safet and expose the world as it really is. None know their momento mori. None know what awaits them at the end of the next car trip, in the early waking hours, in the moments of the daily grind. Man should not cling to the myth of safety. It does not exist.
What does exist is the grandeur and glory of God both now and forever. It is our purpose in life to make sure that God's glory is greater due to our short passage of time on earth. Bringing glory to God by being willing even to lose my life (never out of violence) shows that I seek and understand what is beyond this poor replica of God's true kingdom.
He wrote of the grip of God compelling him to lose his life for Christ. Society is pulling him to get a good secular job, marry quickly and to settle down in secular serfdom. These two forces are causing him great confusion.
We who read the Scriptures know the truth once the cloud lifts; it is right to risk for Christ. He who wants to keep his fiancee, his wife, his children, his prosperity and his dignity will lose all of them.
There is a grand delusion that besets us. It is the delusion of personal peace and safety. It is our loving duty as brothers and sisters in Christ to strip away this facade of safet and expose the world as it really is. None know their momento mori. None know what awaits them at the end of the next car trip, in the early waking hours, in the moments of the daily grind. Man should not cling to the myth of safety. It does not exist.
What does exist is the grandeur and glory of God both now and forever. It is our purpose in life to make sure that God's glory is greater due to our short passage of time on earth. Bringing glory to God by being willing even to lose my life (never out of violence) shows that I seek and understand what is beyond this poor replica of God's true kingdom.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
New Evangelism Opportunity
Over the last few weeks, Rob and I have had the wonderful opportunity to participate in street evangelism in the Short North and near the OSU Student Union. We have had fantastic conversations and been emboldened to speak to the eclectic people of Columbus' night life.
Here is another opportunity to more fully understand the grace of Christ:
Sunday, September 17, 2006
12:30 - 6:00
Downtown Gahanna Flea Market Day
Contact me at emissary@wowway.com for more details
Here is another opportunity to more fully understand the grace of Christ:
Sunday, September 17, 2006
12:30 - 6:00
Downtown Gahanna Flea Market Day
Contact me at emissary@wowway.com for more details
Friday, August 18, 2006
Funeral Arrangements for Donald Daniels
Viewing
Faith Assembly of God Worship Center
2600 US Highway 40 NE (near juncture of 40 and 42)
London, Ohio 43140
http://www.mapquest.com
First viewing - Monday, August 21, 2006, 2:00-4:00
Second viewing - Monday, August 21, 2006, 6:00-8:00
Funeral
Faith Assembly of God Worship Center
2600 US Highway 40 NE (near juncture of 40 and 42)
London, Ohio 43140
http://www.mapquest.com
Service time - Tuesday, August 22, 2006, 11:00 am
Faith Assembly of God Worship Center
2600 US Highway 40 NE (near juncture of 40 and 42)
London, Ohio 43140
http://www.mapquest.com
First viewing - Monday, August 21, 2006, 2:00-4:00
Second viewing - Monday, August 21, 2006, 6:00-8:00
Funeral
Faith Assembly of God Worship Center
2600 US Highway 40 NE (near juncture of 40 and 42)
London, Ohio 43140
http://www.mapquest.com
Service time - Tuesday, August 22, 2006, 11:00 am
Departure of Donald Daniels
On Thursday, August 17th, 2006, my father met his Savior. Details concerning his burial will be forthcoming.
My father was a righteous man. I loved him for his unswerving convictions, his passionate servant-love for me and for his unshakeable confidence in Jesus Christ. He taught me how to be a man and he set an example that I can only aspire to emulate. My deepest regret is that my sons will not have the blessing of his wisdom or witness the strength of his passion.
For the best of fathers, I praise God. To have the intellectual fire, the warmth of his embrace and his presence was a tremendous blessing. His immortal soul is now with Christ where his true talents and service before God may begin.
My father was a righteous man. I loved him for his unswerving convictions, his passionate servant-love for me and for his unshakeable confidence in Jesus Christ. He taught me how to be a man and he set an example that I can only aspire to emulate. My deepest regret is that my sons will not have the blessing of his wisdom or witness the strength of his passion.
For the best of fathers, I praise God. To have the intellectual fire, the warmth of his embrace and his presence was a tremendous blessing. His immortal soul is now with Christ where his true talents and service before God may begin.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Invitation for Street Evangelism
A number of years ago, a story came out of England about a woman who was walking next to a river with her young daughter. The child got too close to the edge and slid into the water. The mother who could not swim watched in dread as her daughter drowned right before her very eyes. During the subsequent investigation, it was found that the water was only two feet deep. We are like that woman! The fear of man keeps us from wading into the will of God. The waters are not treacherous! God has encouraged us to plunge in.
II Corinthians 5:18-21 states
With some fear, but taking to heart the message of reconciliation, Emissary has taken to the streets of Columbus. During a recent outing, we started at the topiary gardens behind the Columbus Metropolitan Library, moved to the area around Franklin University and concluded our time in the Bottoms. We encountered blue collar, white collar, black power, rainbow power and a myriad of other people groups.
While at the Donatos Pizza next to Franklin University, Rob talked to an extremely handsome, British man. He listened to Rob until he came to the issue of lust. When Rob asked, “Have you ever lusted in your heart after someone of the opposite sex?” the gentlemen replied that he looked at the “other tree.” Predictably, he did not believe that his lifestyle was sinful. He was merely pursuing his natural instincts. Rob addressed the nature of sin and encouraged the man to consider the sacrifice of Christ. We parted amicably, and upon watching the man leave, we noted the advertisement on the side of his truck; English Elegaynce Landscaping, German Village.
It is a great tragedy if someone misses an eternity with Christ because we never witnessed. But the tragedy grows far deeper for you if you do not witness. Philemon 6 states this, “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.” Do you know that if you are not sharing your faith, you are missing a “full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ?” This knowledge cannot be found in the next life since we cannot witness in heaven.
Here are a few opportunities to reach a fuller understanding of God through evangelism:
Short North, August 11, 2006 from 9:00 pm to 12:00 pm
The Bottoms, August 19, 2006 (Time TBA)
If you are interested in either opportunity, please contact me via emissary@wowway.com for additional details.
II Corinthians 5:18-21 states
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
With some fear, but taking to heart the message of reconciliation, Emissary has taken to the streets of Columbus. During a recent outing, we started at the topiary gardens behind the Columbus Metropolitan Library, moved to the area around Franklin University and concluded our time in the Bottoms. We encountered blue collar, white collar, black power, rainbow power and a myriad of other people groups.
While at the Donatos Pizza next to Franklin University, Rob talked to an extremely handsome, British man. He listened to Rob until he came to the issue of lust. When Rob asked, “Have you ever lusted in your heart after someone of the opposite sex?” the gentlemen replied that he looked at the “other tree.” Predictably, he did not believe that his lifestyle was sinful. He was merely pursuing his natural instincts. Rob addressed the nature of sin and encouraged the man to consider the sacrifice of Christ. We parted amicably, and upon watching the man leave, we noted the advertisement on the side of his truck; English Elegaynce Landscaping, German Village.
It is a great tragedy if someone misses an eternity with Christ because we never witnessed. But the tragedy grows far deeper for you if you do not witness. Philemon 6 states this, “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.” Do you know that if you are not sharing your faith, you are missing a “full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ?” This knowledge cannot be found in the next life since we cannot witness in heaven.
Here are a few opportunities to reach a fuller understanding of God through evangelism:
If you are interested in either opportunity, please contact me via emissary@wowway.com for additional details.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Review of Rob Bell and his work "Velvet Elvis"
Rob Bell is the founder of Mars Hill church in Michigan. His wildly popular church of 10,000 (composed almost entirely of card shifters) and his writings have garnered him wide attention.
He is attempting to re-envision the church. Unfortunately, most heresy is grounded in trying to add a guest wing to God's Church.
As a postmodern and Emergent Church member, Rob Bell is repaving the errors of America's theological liberalism. It is quite amusing that so many people think he is creative and pioneering. Take a peek at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelical's review at Reformation 21. I think it says it all.
He is attempting to re-envision the church. Unfortunately, most heresy is grounded in trying to add a guest wing to God's Church.
As a postmodern and Emergent Church member, Rob Bell is repaving the errors of America's theological liberalism. It is quite amusing that so many people think he is creative and pioneering. Take a peek at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelical's review at Reformation 21. I think it says it all.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Emergent Error
We are at another watershed in the American religious experience. A new movement known as the Emergent Church advances ideas that are reshaping the evangelical landscape. The Emergent Church embraces post-modernism and the “best” practices and traditions of all facets of Christianity; emphasizing authentic experience, social justice, and unification of the Church.
For the sake of this blog entry, I will be focusing on the issues that I see as negative (though there are a few positive facets to the movement). The movement is not monolithic or fully blossomed, but some defining elements appear to be emerging.
Central to the belief of the Emergent movement is the idea that the current incarnation of Christianity has been heavily influenced by scientific reductionism and modernism. Searching for the true meaning of Biblical texts has led to a schism between liberals and fundamentalists. This schism is viewed as hurtful and Emergent practitioners desire to heal the rift by not focusing on the underlying meaning of sacred texts. By focusing too intently on the meaning of scriptural texts, we practice the horrible heritage of our modern, western ideals.
The Emergent church desires to deconstruct theology. Per an article in the Wikipedia, “The Postmodern church resolves this issue (the issue of establishing an identity and worldview) by encouraging followers to deconstruct each element of their faith experience and reassemble the pieces according to his or her own unique journey of deconstruction” (For an uncritical review, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_Church). In other words, faith becomes even more intensely personal and non-universal. An Emergent’s experience is their own and no one elses.
Many have been drawn to the Emergent Church due to its focus on the mystical rather than the rational. Post modern Emergent members believe that the intellect has taken too much preeminence in the Church. They seek to end the opposition between science and faith by simply not addressing the issues of science. Instead, mystery will be embraced. We will simply leave the larger issues of creation, the Fall, and a global flood to those who have always had our best interests at heart; the evolutionists.
Emergent church-goers love symbols. Through the use of symbols, Emergents believe that they unite members of the Church Universal by evoking their lineage. Though the symbols had specific meaning in their historical context, an Emergent uses them to create a new cohesive center and meaning for post modern believers. In doing so, they destroy the historical nature of the symbols.
The movement also challenges long-standing doctrine. Recently, I heard one of the leading spokespersons of the movement, Brian McLaren, speak about his view on hell. In his words, those who believe in a literal hell are sinning. They ascribe to God the creation of something that God would never create in His goodness.
In McLaren’s own words:
For the sake of this blog entry, I will be focusing on the issues that I see as negative (though there are a few positive facets to the movement). The movement is not monolithic or fully blossomed, but some defining elements appear to be emerging.
Central to the belief of the Emergent movement is the idea that the current incarnation of Christianity has been heavily influenced by scientific reductionism and modernism. Searching for the true meaning of Biblical texts has led to a schism between liberals and fundamentalists. This schism is viewed as hurtful and Emergent practitioners desire to heal the rift by not focusing on the underlying meaning of sacred texts. By focusing too intently on the meaning of scriptural texts, we practice the horrible heritage of our modern, western ideals.
The Emergent church desires to deconstruct theology. Per an article in the Wikipedia, “The Postmodern church resolves this issue (the issue of establishing an identity and worldview) by encouraging followers to deconstruct each element of their faith experience and reassemble the pieces according to his or her own unique journey of deconstruction” (For an uncritical review, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_Church). In other words, faith becomes even more intensely personal and non-universal. An Emergent’s experience is their own and no one elses.
Many have been drawn to the Emergent Church due to its focus on the mystical rather than the rational. Post modern Emergent members believe that the intellect has taken too much preeminence in the Church. They seek to end the opposition between science and faith by simply not addressing the issues of science. Instead, mystery will be embraced. We will simply leave the larger issues of creation, the Fall, and a global flood to those who have always had our best interests at heart; the evolutionists.
Emergent church-goers love symbols. Through the use of symbols, Emergents believe that they unite members of the Church Universal by evoking their lineage. Though the symbols had specific meaning in their historical context, an Emergent uses them to create a new cohesive center and meaning for post modern believers. In doing so, they destroy the historical nature of the symbols.
The movement also challenges long-standing doctrine. Recently, I heard one of the leading spokespersons of the movement, Brian McLaren, speak about his view on hell. In his words, those who believe in a literal hell are sinning. They ascribe to God the creation of something that God would never create in His goodness.
In McLaren’s own words:
Because if the cross is in line with Jesus’ teaching then—I won’t say, the only, and I certainly won’t say even the primary—but a primary meaning of the cross is that the kingdom of God doesn’t come like the kingdoms of the this world, by inflicting violence and coercing people. But that the kingdom of God comes through suffering and willing, voluntary sacrifice. But in an ironic way, the doctrine of hell basically says, no, that that’s not really true. That in the end, God gets His way through coercion and violence and intimidation and domination, just like every other kingdom does. The cross isn’t the center then. The cross is almost a distraction and false advertising for God (http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/brianmclaren.htm).
McLaren denies not only hell, but also our ability to have a hermeneutic (interpretational principle) for studying the Bible. In an Emergent’s world, the text does not have one central meaning. It has a variety of valid interpretations feasibly as numerous as the individuals who encounter the text. Generally, Emergents do not believe that a text of scripture has the meaning intended by the author (author-centered meaning or, in this case, God centered meaning). As an individual on a religious journey, the pilgrim brings unique meaning to the text.
Emergents are also consumed with pragmatism. If something appears to work it should be modeled by everyone. If throwing away the rational mind, systematic theology, doctrine, ecclesiology, science and author-centered meaning draws thousands to our churches, that is viewed as a good thing. After all, anything that draws large numbers can’t be wrong. Can it?
How these individuals refer to themselves as Evangelicals is beyond me. Words rot. Over time, the term Evangelical has become so packed with meaning that it has become meaningless. Perhaps the time has drawn nigh to coin a new term to refer to believers who assert the primacy of the Bible, absolute truth and author-centered meaning. Might I suggest “Douloi” meaning "servants" (Philippians 1:1)? It might sound strange at first, but so did "fundamentalist" and "evangelical" many years ago.
The lines have blurred once again just as they did during the birth of liberalism. Emergents will think they are ploughing new ground, but it is merely the same harrows created by the liberals. The liberal/fundamentalist split occurred slowly; mainly because the liberals were still developing their theology and the conservatives were always trying to catch up to the latest heresy. It took time to get it wrong so badly. Hopefully our day and age will not have to wait forever for this new movement to define itself. The longer it takes, the more ingrained the Emergent ideas will become in everyday thinking. Perhaps they should be pushed to develop faster…
We might need to revive adherence to creeds and perhaps the appellative “heretic”.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Evangelism Training at Grove City Church of God
Rob and I will be appearing at the Grove City Church of God the next three Thursdays. Pastor Barr has invited us to speak on the topic of evangelism and we are greatly excited to be among his people. Look for us on May 18th and 25th and on June 1st. Services begin at 7:00. For directions, please visit http://www.gccog.org/cog/welcome.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Judas' Resurrection
Yet another assault on Biblical Christianity has been unleashed. This time it is the Gnostic Gospel of Judas. Within this writing, Judas is the stellar friend of Jesus who understands Christ like no other. He alone can be trusted with betraying Jesus! Jesus must be betrayed so that his divine spirit will be set free from his all too human body.
Isn't it amazing the things we can’t find a trace of in the sixty six books of the Bible? If only we had found the Gospel of Judas earlier. Thousands of people could have spared themselves from martyrdom, stopped wasting time praying and finally figured out that life really is meaningless!
Liberal scholars and the National Geographic Society are embracing the Gospel of Judas and proclaiming that it carries equal weight with the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Brandishing the Gospel of a traitor, they desire to rewrite our understanding of Biblical history.
The Gospel of Judas is certainly not a recent discovery. Ireneaus, the bishop of Lyons, had this to say about the Gospel of Judas circa 180 A.D:
The Gospel of Judas is obviously a late and highly embellished rendering of fiction. The copy now being paraded on the news and on National Geographic is written in Coptic and was translated from an earlier Greek version. It bears the marks of a fully developed Gnosticism which only came into existence well after the time of eyewitnesses to Christ's earthly activities.
Here is an excerpt from one of the more interesting passages (please forgive the translators conjectural emendations):
Gnosticism sought secret knowledge to open the doorway of immortality. Within Gnostic belief, the spirit of man partakes of the divine essence, but his physical body shackles him to drudgery. Gnostics view the corpus as evil and abuse it either by throwing it into extreme pleasure or extreme impoverishment. The ultimate ideal of Gnosticism is separation of the spirit from the body.
Gnostics were some of the early perverters of the unembellished story of Christ’s death and resurrection. Dissatisfied by the story of God’s loving sacrifice on their behalf, they denied Christ came in the flesh. In fact, Christ was in a worse condition than being in hell when he was in physical form. An incipient form of Gnosticism probably inspired John to write “And you can know which ones come from God. His Spirit says that Jesus Christ had a truly human body” (CEV, I John 4:2).
This early heresy would later become highly embellished, highly symbolic and totally separated from reality. I guess it is the perfect topic for our “modern scholars” at National Geographic. I never cease to be amazed that hacks can dredge up old heresies and recast them as scholarship.
To take a peek at the Gospel of Judas and Gnosticism, visit the following sites:
Isn't it amazing the things we can’t find a trace of in the sixty six books of the Bible? If only we had found the Gospel of Judas earlier. Thousands of people could have spared themselves from martyrdom, stopped wasting time praying and finally figured out that life really is meaningless!
Liberal scholars and the National Geographic Society are embracing the Gospel of Judas and proclaiming that it carries equal weight with the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Brandishing the Gospel of a traitor, they desire to rewrite our understanding of Biblical history.
The Gospel of Judas is certainly not a recent discovery. Ireneaus, the bishop of Lyons, had this to say about the Gospel of Judas circa 180 A.D:
They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.
The Gospel of Judas is obviously a late and highly embellished rendering of fiction. The copy now being paraded on the news and on National Geographic is written in Coptic and was translated from an earlier Greek version. It bears the marks of a fully developed Gnosticism which only came into existence well after the time of eyewitnesses to Christ's earthly activities.
Here is an excerpt from one of the more interesting passages (please forgive the translators conjectural emendations):
The multitude of those immortals is called the cosmos— that is, perdition—by the Father and the seventy-two luminaries who are with the Self-Generated and his seventytwo aeons. In him the first human appeared with his incorruptible powers. And the aeon that appeared with his generation, the aeon in whom are the cloud of knowledge and the angel, is called [51] El. […] aeon […] after that […] said, ‘Let twelve angels come into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld].’ And look, from the cloud there appeared an [angel] whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood. His name was Nebro, which means ‘rebel’; others call him Yaldabaoth. Another angel, Saklas, also came from the cloud. So Nebro created six angels—as well as Saklas—to be assistants, and these produced twelve angels in the heavens, with each one receiving a portion in the heavens.
Gnosticism sought secret knowledge to open the doorway of immortality. Within Gnostic belief, the spirit of man partakes of the divine essence, but his physical body shackles him to drudgery. Gnostics view the corpus as evil and abuse it either by throwing it into extreme pleasure or extreme impoverishment. The ultimate ideal of Gnosticism is separation of the spirit from the body.
Gnostics were some of the early perverters of the unembellished story of Christ’s death and resurrection. Dissatisfied by the story of God’s loving sacrifice on their behalf, they denied Christ came in the flesh. In fact, Christ was in a worse condition than being in hell when he was in physical form. An incipient form of Gnosticism probably inspired John to write “And you can know which ones come from God. His Spirit says that Jesus Christ had a truly human body” (CEV, I John 4:2).
This early heresy would later become highly embellished, highly symbolic and totally separated from reality. I guess it is the perfect topic for our “modern scholars” at National Geographic. I never cease to be amazed that hacks can dredge up old heresies and recast them as scholarship.
To take a peek at the Gospel of Judas and Gnosticism, visit the following sites:
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Sexual Plague
While watching MSNB’s Dateline, I was reminded of the sexual disaster of America. Utilizing a non-profit group known as Perverted Justice, MSNBC trolled for men who were willing to engage in sex with a thirteen year old girl or boy. Decoys would engage these men in chat rooms or via the phone and would invite them to meet them in a quiet residential neighborhood.
MSNBC trolled for a mere three days. I would have expected half a dozen men to greet the MSNBC cameras. Shockingly, over fifty men were arrested subsequent to their surprise interviews. With nary a blush, the men would spin the most outrageous lies. “I did not know how old she was.” “I just came to teach her a lesson about online predators.” Then the MSNBC reporter would unveil their lewd and offensive chat room dialogues that left all of the lies naked. Seldom did any of the men show shame.
From a short four years in ministry, I met many men who struggled with sexual issues. Dozens were addicted to pornography. Some may have been emerging predators. How many men have sexual sin at some point in their life? 100%! In the words of a New Zealand evangelist, “There are only two kinds of men in this world. Perverts and forgiven perverts.”
America is in the throes of a great plague. Predators are being created daily by our over-saturation with sexual content. MTV and HBO know no limitations to their exploitation of man’s desire for sexual gratification. Recent Victoria’s Secret advertisements aired at all hours have only one purpose; arousal.
If the Church does not mobilize to address the silent plague, our young men will be rapists, our young women will be victims and our parents will be complicit. God has made us fully aware of the scope of our degradation.
To read the full MSNBC story, go to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11152602/. Please be aware that the content is graphic. This is the third time that MSNBC has pursued sexual predators.
MSNBC trolled for a mere three days. I would have expected half a dozen men to greet the MSNBC cameras. Shockingly, over fifty men were arrested subsequent to their surprise interviews. With nary a blush, the men would spin the most outrageous lies. “I did not know how old she was.” “I just came to teach her a lesson about online predators.” Then the MSNBC reporter would unveil their lewd and offensive chat room dialogues that left all of the lies naked. Seldom did any of the men show shame.
From a short four years in ministry, I met many men who struggled with sexual issues. Dozens were addicted to pornography. Some may have been emerging predators. How many men have sexual sin at some point in their life? 100%! In the words of a New Zealand evangelist, “There are only two kinds of men in this world. Perverts and forgiven perverts.”
America is in the throes of a great plague. Predators are being created daily by our over-saturation with sexual content. MTV and HBO know no limitations to their exploitation of man’s desire for sexual gratification. Recent Victoria’s Secret advertisements aired at all hours have only one purpose; arousal.
If the Church does not mobilize to address the silent plague, our young men will be rapists, our young women will be victims and our parents will be complicit. God has made us fully aware of the scope of our degradation.
To read the full MSNBC story, go to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11152602/. Please be aware that the content is graphic. This is the third time that MSNBC has pursued sexual predators.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Afghanistan's Freedom in Islam
Editor's note: This story was reported by ABC News at http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1746943&page=1. It details the plight of a man who embraced Christ in a country that utterly rejects Him. Death is often the end of those who leave Islam for Christ. Pray for this man.
ABC NEWS
By GRETCHEN PETERS and LARA SETRAKIAN, with reporting by BILAL SARWARY
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 20, 2006 — Despite the overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban government and the presence of 22,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a man who converted to Christianity is being prosecuted in Kabul, and a judge said Sunday that if convicted, he faces the death penalty.
Abdul Rahman, who is in his 40s, says he converted to Christianity 16 years ago while working as an aid worker helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Relatives denounced him as a convert during a custody battle over his children, and he was arrested last month. The prosecutor says Rahman was found with a Bible.
Human rights workers have described the case as an unsettling reminder that the country's post-Taliban judiciary remains deeply conservative, and they have called on President Hamid Karzai to intervene. During Taliban times, men were forced to kneel in prayer five times a day, and couples faced the death penalty for sex outside marriage, for example. Reform efforts have been slow, say experts, since there are so few judges and lawyers with experience.
The U.S. State Department is watching the case closely and considers it a barometer of how well democracy is developing in Afghanistan.
"Our view … is that tolerance, freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "And these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly."
A number of Christian nonprofit groups do humanitarian work in Afghanistan. Dominic Nutt of Christian Aid calls the Rahman case a step backward for the country, especially if Rahman is executed.
Nutt, who has spent time in Afghanistan, tells ABC News "few practitioners are used to the concept of democracy and toleration … [many] are educated only in Islamic law."
Presiding judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah tells ABC News a medical team was checking the defendant, since the team suspects insanity caused Rahman to reject Islam.
"We want to know that the doctors have given him a green light on his mental state, because he is not normal when he talks," says the judge.
The post-Taliban constitution recognizes Islam as Afghanistan's religion, and decrees that Islam's Sharia law applies when a case is not covered by specific legislation. The prosecutor says under Sharia law, Abdul Rahman must die.
The judge, however, holds hopes for a solution.
"We will ask him if he has changed his mind about being a Christian," Mawlazezadah says. "If he has, we will forgive him, because Islam is a religion of tolerance."
Article continued at http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1746943&page=1
ABC NEWS
By GRETCHEN PETERS and LARA SETRAKIAN, with reporting by BILAL SARWARY
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 20, 2006 — Despite the overthrow of the fundamentalist Taliban government and the presence of 22,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a man who converted to Christianity is being prosecuted in Kabul, and a judge said Sunday that if convicted, he faces the death penalty.
Abdul Rahman, who is in his 40s, says he converted to Christianity 16 years ago while working as an aid worker helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Relatives denounced him as a convert during a custody battle over his children, and he was arrested last month. The prosecutor says Rahman was found with a Bible.
Human rights workers have described the case as an unsettling reminder that the country's post-Taliban judiciary remains deeply conservative, and they have called on President Hamid Karzai to intervene. During Taliban times, men were forced to kneel in prayer five times a day, and couples faced the death penalty for sex outside marriage, for example. Reform efforts have been slow, say experts, since there are so few judges and lawyers with experience.
The U.S. State Department is watching the case closely and considers it a barometer of how well democracy is developing in Afghanistan.
"Our view … is that tolerance, freedom of worship is an important element of any democracy," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "And these are issues as Afghan democracy matures that they are going to have to deal with increasingly."
A number of Christian nonprofit groups do humanitarian work in Afghanistan. Dominic Nutt of Christian Aid calls the Rahman case a step backward for the country, especially if Rahman is executed.
Nutt, who has spent time in Afghanistan, tells ABC News "few practitioners are used to the concept of democracy and toleration … [many] are educated only in Islamic law."
Presiding judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah tells ABC News a medical team was checking the defendant, since the team suspects insanity caused Rahman to reject Islam.
"We want to know that the doctors have given him a green light on his mental state, because he is not normal when he talks," says the judge.
The post-Taliban constitution recognizes Islam as Afghanistan's religion, and decrees that Islam's Sharia law applies when a case is not covered by specific legislation. The prosecutor says under Sharia law, Abdul Rahman must die.
The judge, however, holds hopes for a solution.
"We will ask him if he has changed his mind about being a Christian," Mawlazezadah says. "If he has, we will forgive him, because Islam is a religion of tolerance."
Article continued at http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1746943&page=1
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Islam's Forgotten History
If it were not for the intervention of God, we would be speaking Arabic, praying five times daily to Mecca and participating in the hegira. Few remember their history. It was a fateful day in 732 A.D. that Charles “The Hammer” Martel brought the Cordoban Muslim emirate to its knees. By stopping the Islamic hordes at Tours, Charles stopped Islam from conquering all of Europe.
Even fewer people realize that modern day Spain was controlled by Islam until 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella finally reclaimed the Iberian Peninsula for Roman Catholicism (Map – Dark brown denotes Muslim dominion in 750 A.D.).
Even fewer people realize that modern day Spain was controlled by Islam until 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella finally reclaimed the Iberian Peninsula for Roman Catholicism (Map – Dark brown denotes Muslim dominion in 750 A.D.).
It is a grand history of hundreds of years of domination, glorious conquest and fabled wealth that still inspires many of those who practice jihad or holy war.
A world ruled by those who take the Koran literally is too dreary to contemplate. Consider the following quotes:
· On February 23, 1998, five Islamic caliphates signed a fatwa declaring war against the U.S. · “The ruling to kill Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it…”
· Surah 2:191 states, “And slay them wherever you catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out, for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter.”
· Surah 4:89 states, “Seize them and slay them wherever you may find them…”
· Surah 9:29 states, “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day.”
When you contemplate your role in evangelism, keep in mind that Christians are beginning to fall behind in the race for souls. 
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Globalization and Christ
A number of recent books and articles have driven me to believe that God's hand may be shifting to Asia. In particular, I'm re-reading "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman. This secular book chronicles the rise of software and outsourcing superpowers such as Bangalore, India and Xianjian, China. The world's wealth and influence are shifting to these two nations in particular as the economic playing field is being leveled by technology.
While we were sleeping last night, executives in America sent their requests for presentations and research overseas to India. India, with its vast intellectual capital, turns these jobs over to men and women with doctorates who will work for a fraction of the wages earned in the U.S. When the U.S. executives arrive at work the next morning, the research and an accompanying PowerPoint presentations will be on their desktop computers. India and China work while America sleeps; the beauty of outsourcing.
If you call to reserve an airline, to order a Dell computer or to resolve a technical computer problem, it is likely an enthusiastic, English speaking West Indian who will fulfill your needs. I recently ordered a Dell laptop and received some of the best service imaginable. When I asked where the customer service representative was located, she sweetly replied "Bangalore, India".
India and China are earning the right to America's repetetive, but skilled IT jobs. In Thomas Friedman's estimation, the only jobs that may remain in America are those that require people skills. If a job has any component that may be done overseas it will be done there in the future; such jobs include taxes, call centers, the reading of CAT scans and x-rays, routine legal work, programming, hotel and airline reservations, project management, data analysis, architectural work, etc. Americans beware! God is beginning to shift world influence to a new world long deprieved of our lifestyle.
World markets and cultures are opening to embrace the surge of American outsourcing. India and China are welcoming American companies, their business practices and ideals unreservedly into their nations. The shift has massive potential for fulfilling the passion of Jesus Christ. The gospel is exploding in India and China. Per a recent article at http://www.religionnewsblog.com/13711/Evangelical-Christianity-shifting-outside-West:
In a world of globalization and evangelicalization (a coined word), mission agencies relying on indigenous missionaries are enormously effective, while mission bodies dependent upon expensive American missionaries are blunted. Consider these excerpts from K.P Yohanan, founder of Gospel for Asia (http://www.gfa.org/gfa/whynativemissions):
I believe we are at a watershed in history. While Asia is rising to new prominence, America's influence in globalization, evangelicalization and mission activity is waning. The next decade of world history will see massive changes in monetary, intellectual, political and Christian capital. Are we ready? What can we anticipate? How can we best support what God is already doing?
While we were sleeping last night, executives in America sent their requests for presentations and research overseas to India. India, with its vast intellectual capital, turns these jobs over to men and women with doctorates who will work for a fraction of the wages earned in the U.S. When the U.S. executives arrive at work the next morning, the research and an accompanying PowerPoint presentations will be on their desktop computers. India and China work while America sleeps; the beauty of outsourcing.
If you call to reserve an airline, to order a Dell computer or to resolve a technical computer problem, it is likely an enthusiastic, English speaking West Indian who will fulfill your needs. I recently ordered a Dell laptop and received some of the best service imaginable. When I asked where the customer service representative was located, she sweetly replied "Bangalore, India".
India and China are earning the right to America's repetetive, but skilled IT jobs. In Thomas Friedman's estimation, the only jobs that may remain in America are those that require people skills. If a job has any component that may be done overseas it will be done there in the future; such jobs include taxes, call centers, the reading of CAT scans and x-rays, routine legal work, programming, hotel and airline reservations, project management, data analysis, architectural work, etc. Americans beware! God is beginning to shift world influence to a new world long deprieved of our lifestyle.
World markets and cultures are opening to embrace the surge of American outsourcing. India and China are welcoming American companies, their business practices and ideals unreservedly into their nations. The shift has massive potential for fulfilling the passion of Jesus Christ. The gospel is exploding in India and China. Per a recent article at http://www.religionnewsblog.com/13711/Evangelical-Christianity-shifting-outside-West:
In 1960, there were an estimated 50 million evangelical Christians in the West, and 25 million in the rest of the world; today, there are an estimated 75 million in the West, and 325 million in the rest of the world (representing about 20 percent of the two billion Christians worldwide).
Other experts differ on the number of evangelicals (estimates range from 250 million to nearly one billion) but agree that the number is growing rapidly.
"As the vibrancy of evangelicalism seems to have waned somewhat in the West, many in the non-West are ready to pick up the banner and move forward," said Kilgore, a former missionary who is now associate provost at Philadelphia Biblical University. "Most Americans have no idea how big the shift has been."
Todd M. Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, writes that "Africans, Asians and Latin Americans are more typical representatives of evangelicalism than Americans or Europeans."
The new evangelicals are more exuberant in their worship services; put more faith in spiritual healing, prophecy and visions; and read the Bible more literally than many of their Western cousins.
In a world of globalization and evangelicalization (a coined word), mission agencies relying on indigenous missionaries are enormously effective, while mission bodies dependent upon expensive American missionaries are blunted. Consider these excerpts from K.P Yohanan, founder of Gospel for Asia (http://www.gfa.org/gfa/whynativemissions):
- Although native missionaries do face many difficult obstacles as they take the message from village to village, they still have an enormous advantage over their coworkers from North America and other non-Asian lands.
- Today, over 85 percent of Asian countries do not allow western missionaries to come and freely preach the Gospel and plant churches.
- In the eyes of the people, native missionaries do not represent a foreign country or a strange religion. They already know the language or can easily learn a local dialect.
- A native missionary can be sent out at a fraction of the cost of a Western missionary. In fact, the average cost is only $1,100 to $1,800 per year compared to over $75,000 per year for a foreign missionary.
- The possibility of reaching Asia's multitudes through native missionaries in our generation is very real as thousands are being trained to plant churches across Asia!
- To date 54 Bible colleges have been established in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and at the Bhutan border. Currently, nearly 8,000 young men and women are currently receiving training.
- The quality of GFA students is incredible. Over 98 percent of our graduates minister in places where the Gospel has never before been preached. Frequently, our graduates will establish a new fellowship within their first year on the field.
- On average, our missionaries establish nearly 15 fellowships every day in Asia among unreached villages and people groups.
- The churches planted in each culture are truly indigenous in character, self-governing,self-propagating and, as soon as possible, self-supporting.
I believe we are at a watershed in history. While Asia is rising to new prominence, America's influence in globalization, evangelicalization and mission activity is waning. The next decade of world history will see massive changes in monetary, intellectual, political and Christian capital. Are we ready? What can we anticipate? How can we best support what God is already doing?
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Rob and I had a fantastic time at the Grove City Church of God on Sunday (1-29-06). People were very responsive to our Islam presentation and many shared concerning their witnessing encounters with Muslims. I was genuinely surprised at the number of people that came into contact with Islam on a daily basis.
Pastor Barr is truly a pastor’s pastor. We greatly appreciate his invitation to speak before his lovely congregation.
--Owen
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