Medved on homosexuality in the West

Michael Medved has an illuminating article in a recent USA Today on the issue of homosexuality entitled, "Does it matter if only 1.4% of people are gay?".  He writes,  

The nation's increasingly visible and influential gay community embraces the notion of sexual orientation as an innate, immutable characteristic, like left-handedness or eye color. But a major federal sex survey suggests a far more fluid, varied life experience for those who acknowledge same-sex attraction.

Within the article, he states,

While pop-culture frequently cites the figure of one in 10 (based on 60-year-old, widely discredited conclusions from pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey) the new study finds only 1.4% of the population identifying with same-sex orientation.

Moreover, even among those who describe themselves as homosexual or bisexual (a grand total of 3.7% of the 18-44 age group), overwhelming majorities (81%) say they've experienced sex with partners of the opposite gender. Among those who call themselves heterosexual, on the other hand, only a tiny minority (6%) ever engaged in physical intimacy of any kind with a member of the same sex These figure indicate that 94% of those living heterosexual lives felt no physical attraction to members of the same sex, but the great bulk of self-identified homosexuals and bisexuals feel enough intimate interest in the opposite gender to engage in erotic contact at some stage in their development.

Read the article here.  

Brooks: It's Not About You

David Brooks has an excellent op-ed piece in the NYTimes regarding the narcissistic message that most graduates will hear these days.  He says,

Worst of all, they are sent off into this world with the whole baby-boomer theology ringing in their ears. If you sample some of the commencement addresses being broadcast on C-Span these days, you see that many graduates are told to: Follow your passion, chart your own course, march to the beat of your own drummer, follow your dreams and find yourself. This is the litany of expressive individualism, which is still the dominant note in American culture.

But, of course, this mantra misleads on nearly every front.

College grads are often sent out into the world amid rapturous talk of limitless possibilities. But this talk is of no help to the central business of adulthood, finding serious things to tie yourself down to. The successful young adult is beginning to make sacred commitments — to a spouse, a community and calling — yet mostly hears about freedom and autonomy.

 And he concludes his piece,

Today’s grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the center of a life. But, of course, as they age, they’ll discover that the tasks of a life are at the center. Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.

And I say, "Amen."

But, who has ears to hear among both the graduates and the culture who has discipled them to believe that "the self is the center of life?"

The end is near (again). No, for real this time....

UPDATE: THIS JUST IN...

YAHOO News is reporting...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – With no sign of Judgment Day arriving as he had forecast, the 89-year-old California evangelical broadcaster and former civil engineer behind the pronouncement seemed to have gone silent on Saturday.

Family Radio, the Christian stations network headed by Harold Camping which had spread his message of an approaching doomsday, was playing recorded church music, devotionals and life advice unrelated to the apocalypse.

Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994.

----

Al Mohler has a good read if you are wondering if the end of the world as we know it will happen today.  In a post entitled, "The End is Near?  The False Teaching of Harold Camping", Mohler writes,

Harold Camping is now warning the world that the Day of Judgment will begin at about 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 21, 2011. The 89-year-old founder of Family Radio has made such pronouncements before, most recently in 1994. He now says that he simply miscalculated then, but he is absolutely certain that he has the right calculation now. You have been warned.

Despite the long tradition of people who claimed special secret knowledge about the return of Christ, and despite the fact the Camping has got it wrong before in 1994 (yes, this isn't the first time; yet he's been given a pass and scores of people still follow him and give him money--his ministry is worth $72M), Camping remains undaunted.

But Mohler has the right perspective....

First, Christ specifically admonished his disciples not to claim such knowledge. In Acts 1:7, Jesus said, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.” In Matthew 24:36, Christ taught similarly: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”

To state the case plainly, these two verses explicitly forbid Christians to claim the knowledge of such dates and times. Jesus clearly taught that the Father has not revealed such dates and timing, but has reserved that knowledge for himself. It is an act of incredible presumptuousness to claim that a human knows such a date, or has determined God’s timing by any means.

Second, the Bible does not contain hidden codes that we are to find and decipher. The Bible has been given to us in order that we might know the truth, and the truth is clearly revealed in its pages. We are not to look for hidden patterns of words, numbers, dates, or anything else. The Bible’s message is plain and requires no mathematical computation for its understanding. The claim that one has found a hidden code or system in the Bible is an insult to the Bible as the Word of God.

Third, Christians are indeed to be looking for Christ to return and seeking to be found faithful when Christ comes. We are not to draw a line in history and set a date, but we are to be about the Father’s business, sharing the Gospel and living faithful Christian lives. We are not to sit on rooftops like the Millerites, waiting for Christ’s return. We are to be busy doing what Christ has commanded us to do.

In Hebrews 9:28, we are taught that Christ will come a second time “to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” That is the faithful Christian response to the New Testament teachings about Christ’s coming. The church is not to be arrogantly setting dates, but instead to be eagerly waiting for him. Of that we can be truly certain.

Read the full article here.

For years, Camping has convinced untold numbers that the visible church is evil, so they should follow him.  And with all of this hullabaloo, scores more will be convinced that Christianity has nothing to offer because of con-artists like Camping.

So after today, can we please make Camping's name synonymous with "heretic"?

Like at 6:01pm to be precise?

Happy Belated Birthday, Mr. Hubble Telescope

April 24th was the bday, but I'm thank for this telescope and the beautiful pictures of our universe that it has given to us.

 

Click here for the first 20 years in pictures.

NT Wright deconstructs Hawkings deconstruction of Heaven

In case you missed it earlier in the week, the otherwise brilliant scientist, Stephen Hawking, ventured out of his narrow specialized field of theoretical physics to pontificate on why Heaven is a fairytale for scaredy-cats (the topic of "Heaven" being properly the realm of meta-physics).  

Illustrating the old dictum that "the man of science is a poor philosopher," theologian & NT scholar, NT Wright deconstructs Hawking's stinkin' thinkin'.

Hawking is working with a very low-grade and sub-biblical view of ‘going to heaven.’ Of course, if faced with the fully Christian two-stage view of what happens after death -- first, a time ‘with Christ’ in ‘heaven’ or ‘paradise,’and then, when God renews the whole creation, bodily resurrection -- he would no doubt dismiss that as incredible. But I wonder if he has ever even stopped to look properly, with his high-octane intellect, at the evidence for Jesus and the resurrection? I doubt it -- most people in England haven’t. Until he has, his opinion about all this is worth about the same as mine on nuclear physics, i.e. not much.

 Read the rest here.

The Nature of Nature

I'm super grateful for my friend, Catherine, and her Easter gift to me:  The Nature of Nature:  Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science.   The book is edited by her son, Bruce Gordon (see "Coffee with Dr. Bruce Gordon"), and his collegue, William Dembski.

The mammoth book (917 pages excluding endnotes) is a collection of essays by both Christian and non-Christian thinkers on the issue of naturalism, the belief that nothing exists outside of physical matter or nature.   Some notable non-Christian thinkers include Michael Shermer, Francis Crick, Roger Penrose, David Berlinski & Michael Ruse.  Noteable Christians include Bruce Gordon, William Dembski, William Lane Craig, JP Moreland, Alvin Plantinga, & Stephen C. Meyer.  

The debate?  Bruce Gordon explains in his introductory essay:

"A central issue in this interplay between presuppositions and conclusions, one made all the more pressing by recent scientific advances, is whether the universe is self-existent, self-sufficient, and self-organizing, or whether instead it is grounded in a reality that transcends space, time, matter, and energy.  More pointedly, does our universe find its ultimate explanatory principle in matter or mind?"

Some of the articles are way out of my league (e.g., articles on Quantum Physics which, just perusing them is enough to make ones head swim--unless of course, you speak that language), but most are right up my ally in terms of my interests in philosophy, cosmology, & ethics.

What am I looking forward to reading the most?

• "The Rise of Naturalism & Its Problematice Role in Science and Culture" (Bruce Gordon)
• "Sauce for the Goose:  Intelligent Design, Scientific Methodology, and the Demarcation Problem" (Stephen Meyer)
• "Evolution versus Naturalism" (Alvin Plantinga)
• "Must Naturalists Be Realists?" (Michael Williams)
• "On the Origins of Life" (David Berlinski)
• "DNA:  The Signature in the Cell" (Stephen Meyer)
• "Life's Conservation Law:  Why Darwinian Evolution Cannot Create Biological Info" (William Dembski & Robert Marks)
• "The Limits of Non-Intelligent Explanations in Molecular Biology" (Michael Behe)
• "The Chain of Accidents and the Rule of Law:  The Role of Contingency and Necessity in Evolution" (Michael Shermer)
• "Naturalism and the Origin of the Universe" (William Lane Craig)
• "Habitable Zones and Fine-Tuning" (Guillermo Gonzalez) 
• "On the Origins of the Mind" (David Berlinski)
• "Evolution and Ethics" (Michael Ruse)
• "Naturalism, Science, and Religion" (Michael Tooley)

As you might guess, this will keep me busy for a long while.  Now, if I only had a reading group to discuss these articles....

Do you like mysteries?

Dr. Holly Ordway has a nice, succinct post on mystery novels and the Christian worldview. 

Mystery novels, taken as a whole, reflect at a deep level the truth of the Christian worldview. And yes, I mean mystery novels in general, not “mystery novels by Christian writers.”

Here’s why.

In any normal mystery novel (notice that I am omitting weird literary or experimental ones; those are the exceptions that prove the rule), certain ingredients are essential:

1. A crime.
2. An investigation of the crime.
3. A resolution of the crime.

All three conditions point ineluctably toward a moral universe, one in which right and wrong, good and evil, have objective meaning. Let’s consider each point.

 Read more here.  

The Great Debate: Is there evidence for God?

 Well, we of course believe there is overwhelming evidence for it.  But tonight there will be a debate between two well matched opponents:  Dr. William Craig (pro) & Dr. Lawrence Krauss (against).  You can get the a preview of the debate here at Wintery Knight, and you can watch the debate online, 7pm EST.

Last day for free audio download

Have you downloaded RC Sproul's "The Holiness of God" from christianaudio.com yet?   Today's the last day to do so.  I encourage you do get this free download.  Sproul's classic work is one of the top 5 most influential books in my life. 

Science & Faith

"Once upone a time, back in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was certainly possible to believe that science and religion were permanently at war...This is now seen as a hopelessly outmoded historical stereotype that scholarship has totally discredited."

~ Alister McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion:  Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine

Ideas have consequences....

Does one's worldview matter?

"I see no reason for attributing to man a significance 

different in kind from that which belongs 

to a baboon or a grain of sand?"

~ US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

I wonder if those who hold to such a worldview finding it shocking when someone goes on a shooting spree?

"How," one wonders given Holmes' view of human life, "could such an incident be no more significant than exterminating ants?"

[qtd. in Time Magazine: “The Nation: A Clearer Voice?” (Sept 21, 1953)]

Rome burns football idolatry

You've probably seen the commercials of the guys who have "never missed a super bowl."  If not, check it out here:  Bob, Tom, Larry, & Don.  Sports commentator Jim Rome surprisingly takes them to the shed in his typical cut-to-the-chase style.   Check it out:



For the record, I need to hear Rome's rebuke as much as these guys do.   As one who has allowed his weekend to be ruined by what a bunch of 20 year olds do on the grid iron, I need to be reminded of what is truly important as well. 

How prone is the heart to call this into question...

Memorable words from Jedi-master, Jonathan Edwards,

“There is no one thing whatsoever more plain and manifest, and more demonstrable, than the being of God. It is manifest in ourselves, in our bodies and souls, and in everything about us wherever we turn our eye, whether to heaven, or to earth, the air, or the seas. And yet how prone is the heart of man to call this into question! So inclined is the heart of man to blindness and delusion, that it is prone to even atheism itself.”

From Man's Natural Blindness in Religion
Qtd in James Spiegel's The Making of an Atheist, p. 9 

Amazon makes me smile!

Just arrived...

What was in it?

• The Making of an Atheist:  How Immorality Leads to Unbelief
• The Lost World of Genesis One:  Ancient Cosmology & the Origins Debate
• Washed & Waiting:  Reflections on Christian Faithfulness & Homosexuality
• Is God Just a Human Invention? And 17 Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists
• Saving Leonardo:  A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning

Amazon makes me smile!

Free Audio: Adopted for Life

Christian Audio is offering Russell Moore's Adopted for Life for free during the month of February.   Be sure to download it.  

Reading Log for January 2011

Below is a record of what I read in the month of January 2011. And to understand the ratings, here is my standard.

5 stars -- I loved it; highly recommended
4 stars -- A great read; recommended; will most likely read it again
3 stars -- Average read; most likely will not read it again
2 stars -- Didn't care much for it
1 star  -- Painful, waste of paper

1.  Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow, by Nancy Guthrie.   This is an excellent book by a mother who lost several children.   She doesn't sugar coat the pain of living in a broken world, and she certainly doesn't spout platitudes.  Here you will find a sure guide for journeying through pain and loss, and still seeking God in the process.  While I have a few quibbles with how she worded a few things, I have a much more than a little admiration for the ways in which she worded so much of what she says.   4.5 stars

2.  Servant Leader, by Ken Blanchard.  A good little book with some practical advice about leadership characterized by servanthood.   He strained some of the biblical texts, I thought, to support what he wanted to say, but he had some good things to say.  3 stars

3.  Children of Men, by PD James.   I went into this book wanting to be intrigued by the story.  The first chapter is excellent as James sets up a world in which humanity has lost the ability to have children.   Fascinating premise.  But after chapter 1 it went downhill.  My wife has a hundred page rule on a book--if the author doesn't do it for her by then, she puts it down.  I have a 50 page rule.  I gave James about 85 pages and then started skimming desperately looking for the story to pick up.  Note to James:  I don't care about what a man's earlobes look like, nor the kind of eyelashes he has, nor about his lips, his chin, his eyebrows, etc.  Get on with the STORY.   I'll probably give James another shot with a different book down the road, if only to make my wife happy.  Sum:  1 chapter = brilliant.  Next 10 chapters = painful. Remember, I wanted to like this book.  1 star

4.  The Five Dysfuntions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni.   I started this in December & finished it on the first day or two of the year.   A good little book about leadership that is told via the form of a narrative followed by a section explaining the principles.  Much more entertaining than James!   And the narrative wasn't that great.   He talks about the absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, & inattention to results.  Good stuff that I'll using in team building.   3 stars

5.  Who Made God:  Searching for a Theory of Everything, by Edgar Andrews.   Let me just start by saying 10 stars (okay, I know I'm using a 5 star rating standard, but I really enjoyed this book).   Edgar is a brilliant man (with the credentials to back it up) who takes the whole issue of metaphysics, physics and biology and makes it accessible to the non-philosopher & non-scientist.  And that's no easy task, but Edgar does it with wit & humor.  His chapter introductions are worth the price of the book.   While showing that the New Atheists are offering nothing new but repackaged silliness, he takes on the fairytale of Darwinian evolution and has some critical comments for the Intelligent Design camp as well.   Check out Edgar's website as well as Challies' review.   I will read this one again, and soon.  5 stars

6.  The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission, by John Dickson.  This is an excellent book--one I wished I had written because he says everything I would have wanted to say about the issue of 'promoting the Gospel with more than our lips' (the subtitle of the book).   Dickson contends that it is every Christian's duty to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but not all do it in the same way.  Here are some of the many ways he suggests:  promoting the Gospel with our prayers, our money, through the works of the church, through Christian behavior (being beautiful, he says, and he means by that something like 'living a beautiful and attractive life), through our public praise, through our daily conversation.  Endorsed by all the right people (NT Wright, Christopher Wright, Alister Begg, Ravi Zacharias, Richard Bauckman, Jim Belcher, Tremper Longman, Timothy George--and now yours truly), this book is a must-read for believers (I know, the phrased is over used, but I plan to implement this book in my own ministry and leadership training).  5 stars

7.  Of Mice & Men, by John Steinbeck.  I haven't read this classic story since high school.  I enjoyed it this time around, even though I knew the ending that came all too quickly.   Who cannot love Lennie and his dream of feeding rabbits with his buddy George.   Tragic story, but good story telling nevertheless.   4.5 stars

My wife brought home the library (she's a great wife) the DVD with Gary Sinese (George) & John Malkovich (Lennie).  I somehow didn't get the memo that it was released in 1992.   While some of the transitions were a bit wooden & I wished some of the scenes were a bit more fleshed out, this was a good film.  Sinese is one of my favorite actors (since I first saw him on the silver screen in Forrest Gump), and Malkovich played Lennie to perfection.  4 stars 

Scripture completed:  Genesis, Daniel

Piper: If they say, “Are you a Calvinist?” say, “You decide. Here is what I believe . . .”

John Piper gives some good advice on answering the question, "Are you a Calvinist?" 

He says, "If they say, 'Are you a Calvinist?' say, 'You decide. Here is what I believe . . ."

• I believe I am so spiritually corrupt and prideful and rebellious that I would never have come to faith in Jesus without God’s merciful, sovereign victory over the last vestiges of my rebellion. (1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 3:1–4; Romans 8:7).

• I believe that God chose me to be his child before the foundation of the world, on the basis of nothing in me, foreknown or otherwise. (Ephesians 1:4–6; Acts 13:48; Romans 8:29–30; 11:5–7)

• I believe Christ died as a substitute for sinners to provide a bona fide offer of salvation to all people, and that he had an invincible design in his death to obtain his chosen bride, namely, the assembly of all believers, whose names were eternally written in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. (John 3:16; John 10:15; Ephesians 5:25; Revelation 13:8)

• When I was dead in my trespasses, and blind to the beauty of Christ, God made me alive, opened the eyes of my heart, granted me to believe, and united me to Jesus, with all the benefits of forgiveness and justification and eternal life. (Ephesians 2:4–5; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Philippians 2:29; Ephesians 2:8–9; Acts 16:14; Ephesians 1:7; Philippians 3:9)

• I am eternally secure not mainly because of anything I did in the past, but decisively because God is faithful to complete the work he began—to sustain my faith, and to keep me from apostasy, and to hold me back from sin that leads to death. (1 Corinthians 1:8–9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24; Philippians 1:6; 1 Peter 1:5; Jude 1:25; John 10:28–29; 1 John 5:16)

This is good advice, and it's a line of thought that I've used for years.  People like to use labels, and often people mean different things with labels.  I once encountered a university student who was enraged when she learned that I was a Calvinist b/c that meant--in he mind--that I endorsed burning heretics.   That was rare, but in my experience in talking to people about these issues over the last 20 years, most people mean 'hyper-Calvinism' when they use the terms 'Calvinism.' Very few people accurately defined Calvinism. 

To read Piper's entire post, click here.

Sometimes, you should just call it quits....

Snowflakes evidence of Intelligent Design?

After having temps above freezing this last week melting much of the snow that had accumulated so far this winter, it started falling from the sky this afternoon.   I love the beauty of falling snow.   But what you can't see with the naked eye can be photographed with high power equipment.   Check this out...

Paul Burwell, edmontonjournal.com

Evidence of intelligent design, or random chances processes at work in a meaningless universe?  

How do you account for the symmetry & beauty?  

Art in nature points to the nature of the Artist.  

Check out more photos online at the Calgary Herald.

Paul Burwell, edmontonjournal.com

Living for experiences is like chasing vapors...

Here's a great quote from Michael Horton on seeking experiences vs. lived experience in light of truth...

"... manufactured and prepackaged "experiences" are incredibly short-lived. I cannot remember most movies I have seen. For whatever brief moments or even hours that I am wrapped in the cocoon of a space ride at Disneyland or am overwhelmed with intense emotion at a concert, the experience leaves as quickly as it came. However, my most enduring experiences are identified with events in which the goal was something other than having an experience. I will never forget hearing the minister say, "I now pronounce you husband and wife." Just words, right? They are words that change our life. "You have cancer." "We got all of the cancer - you're free and clear." "You're pregnant." "You got the job." Reports grounded in objective facts - outside of us and our experience - are the most significant experience generators in our lives.

"Each week, as I join my brothers and sisters in a public confession of sin and our particular sins to God in silence, Christ's ambassador declares that I am forgiven in Christ's name and on the authority of his Word. Regardless of what I feel inside, God's external Word assures me that I have peace with God in his Son. This is not a subjective experience - a peaceful, easy feeling - but an objective announcement. And precisely because of its objectivity - the fact that it is announced to me even when I am not overwhelmed by it emotionally - I get the experience of forgiveness thrown in as well. Living for experiences is like chasing vapors. It is sunsets, not "the sunset experience"; actual expressions of love, not "the love experience"; the Triune God, and not "the worship experience," that turn out to deliver the most important and lasting experiences."

- The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World, p. 224

[HT: routundus]