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| FRIDAY, MAY 9, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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According to a recent Harris poll, America's favorite book is the Bible. It topped the poll in all categories but there were a lot of differences in people's second choice. Harris reports: Across all demographic groups the number one book is The Bible. Behind The Bible, the Civil War is still being fought as Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind comes in second. Fantasy and a bit of fear round out the top five favorite books of all time: in at number 3 is J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series and number 4 is that other fantasy series, J.K Rowling's Harry Potter books. In fifth is one of the masters of scary books - Stephen King's The Stand. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye rounded out the top 10 favorites. Men chose Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and women selected "Gone with the Wind" as their second-favorite book. In the 18-31 year-old class the Harry Potter series came second, while 32- to 43-year-olds named "The Stand" and Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" as their runner-up. There were other differences according to region but all across the country the Bible came out as the nation's favorite book. You've got to be kidding-or at least somebody must be kidding. I am glad that there are millions of people across America who love and read the Bible. They are the backbone of the nation. But that most people have it as their favorite book is incredible. Here are a few troubling facts that lead me to believe that many people answered not really truthfully but as they knew they ought to answer. How many people, even Bible believing Christians, have ever read the whole Bible? Surprisingly few claim to have done so. How many people, even Bible believing Christians, read the Bible every day or frequently and regularly? Again, surprisingly few. How many people have a good working knowledge of the Bible? How many could open the Bible and show an inquirer what the Bible teaches on any of the great subjects with which it deals? How many people actually seek to obey the Bible? How can it be that the Bible is America's favorite book when across the nation there is such a widespread ignorance of or indifference to what the Bible commands us to do? Then look at the rest of the list of favorites. It is inconceivable that anyone could truly value the Bible and make J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter their next favorite book. How could anyone value the Bible and make the work of atheist Ayn Rand another favorite? Or Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code? The thing is incredible. I believe that this Harris poll tells us more about what most Americans would like to be true of themselves but what they know is not true of them. They know that the Bible is God's word. They know they ought to read it and love it. They know they ought to hear its sublime message. But knowing and doing are very different things. "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." That puts a very different complexion on this national profession to make the Bible our favorite book. The Bible is there to be read, to be believed and to be obeyed. To have it and neglect it is a terrible sin. Spurgeon once spoke of people's Bibles sitting on the shelf unread: "You could trace the word ‘damnation' in the dust on its cover." The Lord says, "I have written unto him the great things of my law and they were counted as a strange thing" (Hosea 8:12). Make sure you do more than profess to love the Bible. Love it, learn it and live it. Otherwise you're kidding yourself to say it's your favorite book. |
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| THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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You may never have heard of biomimetics. The word is new enough that even my word processor's dictionary could not recognize it. It is the formal term for that branch of science that takes design from nature and applies it to human needs, especially in the area of medical innovation. Take the following examples. When scientists recently announced the development of a microphone that can pinpoint exactly where a sound is coming from and raised the hope of a new technology that could be added to hearing aids to make them much more efficient, they had not produced some glorious feat of human engineering. No, they had taken the design that God had used in a tiny fly whose hearing is so exceptional that its "fly microphone" is eight times more effective at pinpointing the direction of sound than the best that man could produce. By taking a design he found in the mocker swallowtail butterfly an English doctor who became a leading medical geneticist was able to develop a treatment that saved the lives of many babies born to mothers who were Rhesus negative. Frequently, such babies died of anemia but the doctor noted that his mocker swallowtail butterflies could make themselves resemble a species that predatory birds didn't like and that they inherited this trait in much the same way that Rhesus blood groups were inherited among humans. By studying and copying the divine design in butterflies he was able to develop a way to destroy dangerous antibodies developed during a first pregnancy so that all future pregnancies would be safe. In recent years electrical brain implants have been developed to control tremors in Parkinson's disease, and also for patients with stroke or spinal cord injuries. But some fail within a few months and one reason seems to be that the implants use electrodes that are stiff and can damage brain tissue over time. To overcome this difficulty scientists have turned to the humble sea cucumber. Sea cucumbers are squishy creatures but when they are threatened their skin suddenly becomes rigid. Apparently this trick is achieved by chemicals secreted by the animal when in danger, stiffening fibers embedded in their soft bodies. In Cleveland, researchers have copied this mechanism to produce a mixture that is soft when wet but hard when dry, thus hopefully alleviating the damage caused by stiff electrodes. The list could go on and on. Science is copying "nature," as most people put it, "God's creation," as I see it. When you stop to realize what is happening in the field of biomimetics you cannot help but see a powerful argument for the truth that these wonders of nature are not the freak accidents of a blind evolutionary process but the product of an all wise God whose designs are far in advance of anything man can come up with. Biomimetics is hampered by one simple fact: man at his best cannot do nearly as good a job at replicating the designs and processes he finds in God's creatures as the creatures themselves do in accordance with the design their Maker placed within them. If anyone were to suggest that microphones with pinpoint accuracy in detecting and isolating sound sources or treatments for destructive antibodies or electrodes for brain implants appeared either suddenly or over a period of time "by chance," he would be taken for a lunatic-a good description of anyone who thinks that the originals from which these designs were taken arose without design or are anything but the creation of God. |
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| WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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Last year a new book hit the American market. It is titled "Stricken by God" and it is a collection of essays that challenge the view that on the cross the Lord Jesus Christ bore the wrath of God due to the sins of his people. It has been hailed as a "wonderful book" and "must reading" for thoughtful Christians. This collection of essays is by well known writers from a variety of backgrounds-Anglican, Roman Catholic, Anabaptist, Evangelical and Eastern Orthodox. In other words Stricken by God represents a thoroughly ecumenical new look at the doctrine of the Atonement. Its main purpose is to debunk the idea that Christ was stricken by God, that He "bore the wrath of God that was our due," or that His suffering was from any hands but the hands of violent men. It is a book that deals with the subject of the Cross from many angles but one uniting theme is that violence and wrath come only from sinful man and never from God. It therefore proposes to remove the commonly believed doctrine of penal substitution and replace it with a theory of the cross that emphasizes "non-violent atonement." That professed evangelicals should be involved in such an endeavor is reprehensible. There really is nothing new in the substance of the essays. Relating the cross to postmodern theology and deconstructionism may make it sound as if we were here dealing with something new but that is not the case. The only thing that differs is the jargon. What the writers of these essays are advocating are the same tired old theories that better theologians in bygone days examined and exposed for the heresies they were. To deny the doctrine of penal satisfaction-that is, that on the cross the Lord Jesus Christ bore the wrath of God in the place of His people-is to deny the heart of the gospel. It is to fly in the face of the plain statements of Scripture. The writers of these essays escape the witness of Scripture by constructing "theologies" (really theories) and by sidestepping the meaning of the Biblical text in favor of their view of the cultural packaging in which they allege it comes down to us. Thus it is not a matter simply of what the text says but of what the writers conceive the message to be if freed from the cultural norms of its time. With consummate arrogance such writers have no difficulty in explaining the meaning of the cross in terms of their own cultural framework. In this day of peace movements, they see a "peaceful" atonement as God's rejection of human violence not as a vindication of His own justice or a satisfaction of His own law. The entire idea is an exercise in apostasy. It is God, not man, who says that Christ was "smitten of God and afflicted." It is God who insists that He "made Christ to be sin for us." It is the uniform teaching of Scripture that God instituted sacrifice for sin, because "our God is a consuming fire," and that Christ is "the lamb of God," the ultimate fulfillment of all Old Testament sacrifice. Contrary to the notion that God has no wrath, the Lord Jesus spoke clearly about "the wrath of God," which He bore when the "chastisement of our peace" was laid on Him. To deny this is to reject the heart of the gospel. This latest ecumenical assault on the "faith once delivered to the saints" is invading churches of almost every confessional persuasion. That is going to raise huge questions. The temptation will be to agree to disagree but this is not a matter on which we may compromise. This issue will show who is really willing to go "outside the camp" and bear the reproach of Christ. A man who won't stand when the atonement is under attack won't stand for anything. God give us men of courage who will stand and never compromise with the dark forces of apostasy. |
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| TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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English scientists have succeeded in cracking the code of an ancient clay tablet that was discovered about 150 years ago. Over the years all attempts to read the cuneiform symbols have been unsuccessful-until now, that is. According to the code crackers, the tablet records the sightings of an ancient Sumerian astronomer. They take his description of a "white stone bowl approaching" to refer to an asteroid that in his words "vigorously swept along." The scientists have produced a theory-and, yes, the inevitable book!-that details how the asteroid wreaked havoc over a wide area. According to one of the researchers, it was likely to have crashed into the Austrian Alps at Köfels. As it travelled close to the ground it would have left a trail of destruction from supersonic shock waves and then slammed into the Earth with a cataclysmic impact. Debris consisting of up to two thirds of the asteroid would have been hurled back along its route and a flash reaching temperatures of 400C (752F) would have been created, killing anyone in its path. About one million sq km (386,000 sq miles) would have been devastated and the impact would have been equivalent to more than 1,000 tons of TNT exploding. So far this is just another story from the ancient past that will generate little interest beyond some academic journals-hardly the riveting stuff that makes a book a best seller. But then the researchers injected a note of controversy. They said that at least 20 ancient myths record devastation of the type and on the scale of the asteroid's impact, including the Old Testament tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Ancient Greek myth of how Phaeton, son of Helios, fell into the River Eridanus after losing control of his father's sun chariot. If you want to transform a bit of boring academic research into a best seller, just bring the Bible into it and take the chance to debunk one of its best known records into a "tale" on the same level as the stories of Greek mythology. But the entire theory is impossible. The men who cracked the code to read the Sumerian tablet used computers to arrive at the date the ancient astronomer saw his "white stone bowl." They arrived at June 29 in the year 3123BC. That was well over a thousand years before Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees; even longer before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. So whatever the ancient Sumerian saw, it had nothing to do with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Bible record is no mere "tale." It is the sober history of the visitation of divine wrath on the cities of the plain. Of course, men would like to remove all record of God's wrath and put everything down to asteroids or other accidents of nature. However, no matter how hard they try, their efforts are in vain. The ancient record of the destruction of Sodom and her sister cities on account of their sin is a necessary reminder to careless sinners in our day that God is still the righteous Judge of all the earth. To deny God's word for a clay tablet from another country at another time is a monumental error. To replace His wrath with the accidental destruction caused by an asteroid is astronomical lunacy. |
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| MONDAY, MAY 5, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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It's official. In a company email the McDonald's Corporations made this statement: "McDonald's is indeed a Corporate Partner and Organizational Ally of NGLCC [The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce]. Our vice president of U.S. communications, Richard Ellis, was recently elected to its board of directors." So the company that has built its reputation and its wealth on being a family restaurant with endless kids' promotions and Happy Meals is now on record as being a proud ally of the sodomite movement, contributing an undisclosed amount of money to the furtherance of its aims. This is a far cry from Ronal McDonald, the cheerful clown who welcomes you and your family and whose name has long been associated with those special homes that McDonalds has long provided near hospitals to accommodate the parents of sick or dying children. That kind of charitable action is a big plus for the company and deservedly so. But becoming a proud sponsor and ally of the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and placing a top executive on its board is far from praiseworthy. It is yet another example of a company that has made its reputation by appearing family friendly throwing in its lot with a bunch of radicals and perverts who are the sworn enemies of the traditional family. Companies who take this kind of stand will listen to only one argument: money. They are not interested in anything we may have to say as long as they can laugh all the way to the bank. But if their decision causes enough people to buy another company's product instead of theirs, then they listen. Already thousands of people have contacted McDonalds and the company has replied by playing down its involvement in NGLCC. It protests that it has always sought to provide a non-hostile environment for all employees-ignoring the fact that this issue has nothing to do with the McDonalds work environment. McDonalds has also said that the fact that one employee is on the NGLCC board does not mean that the company is aggressively supporting the homosexual agenda. But the man on the NGLCC board is not some hamburger-flipping teenager. He is a senior executive and has expressed his excitement at being able to promote the group's agenda. And of course, McDonalds has put money into the NGLCC-something they don't want us to talk about. All this tells us that McDonalds, despite its size and economic strength, does not want to lose business. It knows that if enough people get serious about opposing the continuing undermining of their Christian values and take their business elsewhere in such numbers it could spell trouble. So the next time you pull up at the Golden Arches, just take a moment to think that McDonalds is now selling more than hamburgers and kid's Happy Meals. They are now in the forefront of the attempt to market homosexual perversion to mainstream America. Ronald McDonald may smile benignly on you and your kids but behind the mask is a face that is far from benign. So perhaps it may be a good idea to think before you buy, to determine that you will not wittingly give your money to support the sodomite agenda. Let McDonalds know that whatever deals they offer, the only deal we're interested in from them is for them to get out of the business of destroying American families and values-in other words, stick to hamburgers and Happy Meals and get out of marketing sexual perversion. |
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| FRIDAY, MAY 2, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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He drives a 20 foot van with the key to his life passion emblazoned on its side. There is a heart and on either side the words "Jesus" and "Darwin." The message is clear, "Jesus Loves Darwin." Rev. Michael Dowd is not simply saying that Charles Darwin was a sinner and God loved sinners. No, he means that Jesus and Darwin are on the same page when it comes to the teaching of evolution. Dowd, who was once a Roman Catholic and then professed to have been saved or "born again," is a flamboyant preacher who is taking his message of theistic evolution to wherever he can find an audience. According to press reports he preaches it with all the fervor of a Charismatic evangelist. And he speaks with as little regard for truth. Dowd tells his hearers, "The atoms of our bodies are literally stardust. The carbon and the oxygen and the nitrogen were formed inside red giant stars. The gold and silver and other heavy metals were formed in supernova stars that then explode with this tremendous metal-rich stardust." Dowd sees his job as spreading a cosmological message: According to him, evolution is God's work. He sees it as his "responsibility to find more sacred, meaningful holy ways of promoting evolution." That has led him and his wife, science writer Connie Barlow, to embark on a nationwide crusade to spread his tale. And what a tale it is! He sees his version of evolution as "sacred" and "inspiring." Evolution does not progress as Darwinists have long told us by "the survival of the fittest." According to Dowd, "All of nature is in an act of holy communion. It's always saying ‘take, eat, this is my body.' It's not survival of the most ruthless, it's survival of the most cooperative. Mutual benefit is all throughout nature." He has more to say: "Any God that can be believed in or not believed in is precisely not what I'm talking about. Do you get that? I'm talking about something that is undeniably real. Whether you call it God or not is up to you." This is lunacy. It is poor science and it is lunatic religion. Evolutionary process has become Dowd's God. And to further the message of his idol he does not scruple to steal the words of Christ at the institution of the Lord's Supper and blasphemously attribute them to his imaginary evolutionary process-insinuating that "nature red in tooth and claw" (an evolutionary stand-by for years) is really the revelation of the true meaning of sacrifice and salvation. Not much wonder that no Bible believing churches have asked for his services. He has been limited to places like Unitarian Universalist "churches," which are not churches at all but clubs for all kinds of freakish, humanistic philosophy. However, Dowd did speak to a group of 125 "moderate to liberal evangelicals" in the Bahamas. Now there's a strange breed for you! "Moderate to liberal evangelicals." I know such groups exist and claim the name evangelical-they have just about the same right to be called evangelicals as Michael Dowd has to be called a Christian, which is none. Jesus does not love Darwinism. Jesus saves; Darwin damns. Between them is a great gulf fixed-and Michael Dowd is on the wrong side of that gulf. |
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| THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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A Canadian Christian ministry that has spent the last 30 years exposing false religions, cults and "fads" in the church has had to give up its charity status. Evidently the Canadian government has decided that freedom of speech does not extend to charities and it deems efforts to expose the religious errors of others a form of "hate" speech. According to the founder of the ministry, "We tried diligently to comply with government demands, transferring ownership of our website and magazine out of the Charity. We agreed to teach only Christian doctrine under the charity banner, with all the critiques of other religions done under a separate corporation. Surely this was enough! It was not. We now cannot present Christianity as better than any other religion. We cannot be ‘persuasive' when presenting Christianity." Not only has the Charity been disbanded to make way for a Ministry Corporation that will be fully taxable, but the people who created the apologetic videos and literature that it has been using for years cannot take their own products with them into their new corporation. If they want them they will have to buy them, otherwise they will have to make them over to a charity recognized by and acceptable to the Canadian government. I cannot speak for the standard of the apologetic work done by the Canadian ministry in question for the simple reason that I have not encountered it. But I can speak against government interference in Christian ministry. At the moment the Canadian government seems dedicated to the destruction of any statement or promotion of the exclusive claims of historic Christianity. At the same time it has allowed a leading homosexual activist to receive the nation's highest civilian honor. The recipient is the minister of a pro-sodomite church, the man whose actions led to Canada's decision to recognize same-sex "marriages." This intolerant attitude toward Bible Christianity can only get worse. There are forces at work to make sure it does. Europe is as bad as Canada in its assault on the rights of believers to stand for the faith once delivered to the saints. Today, governments use the power of the tax-exempt status to coerce churches and Christian ministries into submission. When that fails-as it must in the case of all true Christians-they will proceed to the next step, the enforcement of hate crimes legislation against them. Soon quoting what the Bible says against homosexuals will be a hate crime, punishable by severe fines or even imprisonment. Naming false religion-especially Islam and its false prophet-will bring down the full weight of the law on our heads. This is where the madness of political correctness is leading. It has already begun, not only in Canada and Europe. Even here in the U.S. there are disturbing signs that we are headed down the same road. Weak people will succumb for fear of being labeled "haters" but people with a genuine love for God and people will remember that "love rejoiceth in the truth" and will do all they can to expose the lies of false religion that are ruining men in body and soul and give those people the pure truth of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. |
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| WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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The Vatican is playing a clever political game these days with Turkey. As you probably know the Apostle Paul came from Tarsus, which now lies within the national boundaries of Turkey, near the Syrian border. In Tarsus, there is a church that has been used by the Muslims as a feed store but since 1990 has been a museum. It draws a large number of tourists every year but Turkish authorities have employed a number of petty rules to make it difficult for Roman Catholics to use the church for Mass. Now the pope intends to change all that. For some time, he has been under pressure from a couple of his cardinals to push Turkey to grant free access to the church in Tarsus and now he has come up with the way to do it. Turkey is in the process of gaining entrance into the European Union and cannot make enemies among the major players in the EU. So the Vatican has enlisted the help of Germany in her approach to Turkey. The deal is that is Turkey will give the Vatican the right to have free use of the church in Tarsus, Germany (where there are millions of Turkish immigrants) will make it easier for Muslims to build mosques. So, whatever the state of local opinion in Tarsus, Turkey must play ball with the Vatican. I find it interesting that the pope should show such an interest in the birthplace of the Apostle Paul because if there is one thing that the entire Church of Rome has consistently repudiated it is the gospel as preached by Paul. For example, Paul stated emphatically, "We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (Romans 3:28). He explained this further by stating, "God imputeth righteousness without works" (Romans 4:6). His meaning is clear and beyond doubt but that has not stopped the Church of Rome contradicting it and that in the most unambiguous language. The definitive statement by the Church of Rome on the subject of justification is that given by the Council of Trent in the 16th century. So completely did that document state the Roman Catholic position on justification that even the Second Vatican Council made no attempt to redefine its position or even to refine the statement of Trent. And what is that statement? Listen carefully: "If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified...: let him be anathema." And again, "If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice [righteousness] of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, ... or even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the favor of God: let him be anathema" (On Justification, Canon ix, xi). In other words, what Paul expressly teaches the Church of Rome expressly anathematizes. It seems a bit hypocritical to be so insistent on gaining use of a church in Tarsus just because Paul was born there when you so vehemently curse the message Paul delivered. Of course, the curse works both ways, for Paul just as insistently stated that if anyone, even an angel from heaven, should preach any other gospel than he preached, "let him be accursed [anathema]" (Galatians 1:8, 9). The Vatican may find a way around Turkish red tape but it cannot wheedle its way out of the denunciation of the great apostle. |
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| TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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You've heard of the pot calling the kettle black. Well, here's a prime example. An English professor has charged creationists with lying about the fossil record. Ever since the days of Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell, evolutionists have been lying continually about what is and what is not in the fossil record-and now this evolutionist has the gall to say that opponents of his evolutionary fairly tale have lied to make his pet theory look bad. Here's the charge he makes. For years evolutionists have told the world about the geologic column, the ordered strata of the earth's rocks in a sequence that records the history of the planet's evolution. They have confidently trumpeted the existence of fossils as proofs of their theory. On the other hand, creationists have drawn attention to the fact there is nowhere on earth where the complete geologic column can actually be observed. In other words, it is an assumption that stratification took place as evolutionists envision. Creationists also pointed to gaps in the fossil record, the absence of "intermediate species"-usually called missing links-as proof that the story of the earth as told by Darwin and his followers is a wild fantasy, devoid of anything like real proof. Evolutionists have always been super keen to discover some missing link. The fact that their theory demands millions of such links makes it a little embarrassing that they have been unable to produce any. Of course, they have claimed to have come up with some but on closer investigation these have always proved to be something other than what evolutionists claimed them to be. At times, some evolution zealots have even stooped to downright deception to make their claims stick. But, says this learned professor, evolutionists are not the liars here; creationists are. Creationists criticize a model of evolution that is unfair, as if evolution said that there was a direct link between apes and men whereas it claims that they both sprang from a common ancestor. According to the professor, we should think of evolution as something like a bush, with the ancestors of apes and the ancestors of man branching off from the same trunk. Now, don't you see, that does away with the need for all those troubling no-shows, the missing links. Well, no, I don't see anything of the sort! It's funny how evolutionists insist that anything that undermines their theory can be answered by simply sticking it further back in time. In reality all that does is make the situation worse for their theory. Instead of doing away with the need for missing links between apes and men we now need to see the missing links between them and their supposed common ancestor and then the almost innumerable links along the path from sub-human to nearly-human to homo sapiens. I know Time-Life has produced very convincing artists' impressions of these stages but that's what they remain-the imagination of an artist, not the findings of a scientist. So, dear professor, it's not creationists who are lying, it's you. And until you find those missing links, we're going to go on telling people that they don't exist. |
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| MONDAY, APRIL 28, 2008 | 15 years ago |
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A famous German theologian used the term "Christless Christianity" to describe the empty religion he found in Europe's liberal churches. Of course, he knew that the label was an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. If you take the Christ out of Christianity you have no Christianity at all. And that was the point. What posed as Christianity was not even a distant relative of it. It was an altogether different religion, the antithesis of all that true Christianity was and is. These thoughts came to kind when a friend showed me an article from Toronto's Globe and Mail. It was written during the Easter season and here's an synopsis of the story: On Easter Sunday Christian churches rang out the good news of the resurrection of Christ with such wonderful hymns as Jesus Christ Has Risen Today, Hallelujah. However, in Toronto's West Hill United Church things were a little different. Had you been foolish enough to visit that church you would have heard the familiar tune of that hymn and most of the words-with one alarming difference: the words "Jesus Christ" were excised from the text and replaced with "Glorious hope." So, hope was declared to be resurrected, not Christ, and this was meant to be an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit. The central truth on which all the hope Christianity has to offer rests, the resurrection of Jesus Christ the Son of God after His crucifixion, found no expression in what claims to be a Christian church. In fact, in the services of West Hill United Church no divine anybody made an appearance. That church describes itself in various ways. It proclaims, "We are just like you" and describes the congregation as racially diverse (which is fine) and made up of people some of whom are "straight" while others are "gay." Such little things as sexual purity or biblical morality have as little place in West Hill United Church as Jesus Christ has. Yet the church presents itself as a dynamic community of faith. It prides itself that it does not have the answers to life's big questions. It blathers on and on about "the Spirit" but is singularly devoid of any definitive statement about God or His Son. It makes much about its support for the human spirit by discussions on such uplifting and edifying subjects as diet and of course AIDS prevention, led by Gretta, its minister. None of this has the remotest connection with Christianity. This is apostasy and it is in your face. This church makes no pretense to Christian orthodoxy. It is a blatant repudiation of all that the Christian faith propounds. Yet it remains a congregation in the United Church of Canada-which says a lot for the state of that denomination. How Christians can remain in fellowship in churches that have so repudiated the gospel is more than I can understand. But they do, finding some lame excuse for their compromise. Christless Christianity is little more than atheism and churches that promote it are not churches of Christ at all but what the word of God rightly calls "synagogues of Satan." |
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