"...born of a gorilla, not of a virgin."

Hmmm.

It is a "Bible for skeptics, seekers, and people of different faiths."

Lots of faiths, perhaps.  But not Christianity.

It's interesting that a book self-claiming to be postmodern and inclusive should so stridently insist that Christians and Jews have "got the story wrong" on origins (and on Jesus).

Also, "The first volume in the series – which will eventually present the Torah, Bhagavad Gita, Buddhist sutras, and Sufi mysticism – covers the Gospel of Mark."

Notice one particular "holy book" that's missing from the revisionist/parody-series?   I wonder why...

I'm sure some have you have already seen this documentary about global warming (hint: the hype may well be based on faulty science).

But if you haven't, it's worth taking two hours to listen to and think about (especially if you can do something else during that time - dishes, laundry, whatever... multitasking to 'redeem the time...' 

Here's a powerful quote from near the end:
"I think one of the most pernicious aspects of the modern envionmental movement is this romantisation of peasant life, and the idea that industrial societies are the destroyers of the world.

The envionmental movement has evolved into the strongest force there is for preventing development in the developing countries.

I think it's legitimate for me to call them anti-human.  Like, Ok, you don't have to think humans are better than whales, or better than owls, or whatever... if you don't want to, right.

But surely it is not a good idea to think of humans as being scum.  ..That it's ok to have hundreds of millions of them go blind or die or whatever.   I just can't relate to that."

Patrick Moore - cofounder of Greenpeace

Here's a recent email I wrote to a email group of creationists...   I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Dear -------, -------, and other friends,

I think you're both right.   We Christians can (and must) base our belief structure upon Christ and the Word of God as our sure foundation (more sure than shifting science).   Yet our faith in Christ is not subjective or based on circular reasoning, but is based on real historical facts (1 Corinthians 15:1-8) that have empirical/historical/scientific backing.

Our "presuppositional structure" can be based on the Bible (a more 'postmodern' emphasis), while our trust in the Bible itself can be based on the "evidence" for the accuracy and truth of the Bible (a more "modernist" emphasis).   Neither full postmodernism nor full modernism are correct (they are both human-centered rather than God-centered), but both philosophies of knowledge have some truth to them.

While saying "Christ should be our starting point" sounds great, problems arise whenever we ask the "What" and "Why" questions.  What/who exactly is this "Christ"?  Is He the Christ of the modern emergent church, the liberal socialistic activist-for-the-poor?  Is He the Christ of Luther? or of the Catholics?  "He's the Christ of the Bible," one might say.  But all of those groups claim Biblical basis.  It is necessary to go back to the "brute facts" of the not-completely-subjective Word of God to ascertain exactly who Christ was and is.    Furthermore, "Why" should Christ be our starting point?   Why not Muhammad or Buddha or Joseph Smith?  Why must we believe in any God whatsoever? Again we must go back to the historical "brute facts" of creation and the history surrounding Jesus of Nazareth to provide a basis for our hope (1 Peter 3:15).

Yet brute facts presented to a nonbeliever will be as ineffective as water rolling off a duck's back... unless God opens the heart and mind to believe.

The Bible itself supports both perspectives on the issue I think (they are complementary rather than contradictory) - in Acts 26:26, 17:22-32, 1 Cor. 15:1-8, etc, examples are given of pointing to Christ from empirical evidences and proofs, philosophical reasoning, and historical facts.   Yet in Col. 2:1-10, 1 Cor 1:18-2:16 and 1 Tim 6:20 we are warned against "philosophy"/"human wisdom" and in 2 Peter 1:19 we are told that the prophetic word is even more sure/reliable than direct sensory experience.

Will people come to believe in Christ without God working in their hearts to open their eyes?  No.  "Evidence" or "brute factuality" without God's regenerating power is useless.  (Acts 16:14, Rom. 1, John 6:44, 65, Eph. 2:1-10, etc).  Kuhn and Polanyi showed the stubbornness of mere scientific paradigms in the face of data... how much more the stubbornness of a human heart that hates God.
On the other hand, was Van Til right that the only way to witness to people is to first get them to adopt your presuppositional starting point (e.g. the Bible is God's Word)?   I see plenty of evidence from Scripture that there are other ways to present the gospel... including ways that start from "scientific facts" or philosophical reasoning, and end at Jesus Christ as portrayed in the Scriptures (e.g. Acts 17:22-32).

Different people are led to Christ from different starting points (1 Cor. 9:19-23).

With esteem,

In Christ, Tim

Quote from this book I'm reading:

"He who spends his life moving away from his treasures has reason to despair.  He who spends his life moving toward his treasures has reason to rejoice."

Very true...

Furthermore, I'd expand it a bit - it's not just "treasures" in a fiscal sense.  It's pleasures, joys, beauties, anticipations, loves, and special people.

This is the incredible and diametrically opposed contrast between Buddhism and Christianity.

Buddha taught - everything in life is 'changing' and slipping away constantly.  If you try to hold on to it, you will only cause yourself heartache and sorrow.  Therefore the thing to do is to 'let go'... of everything.  Try to rid yourself of all desire.  Try not to anticipate anything in the future, or hope for an afterlife, or try to hold onto any beauty or amazing people that surround you.  Because it's all transient.  The present is all you can ever have.

Jesus Christ teaches - "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)

Buddha taught - everything that's beautiful is all passing away, so stop longing for it.

Jesus Christ teaches (through His Word given in the Old Testament) -

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4

and

"Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no money come, buy and eat
Come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without cost.
"Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And delight yourself in abundance. 
"Incline your ear and come to Me
Listen, that you may live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
According to the faithful mercies shown to David.
"Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
A leader and commander for the peoples.
"Behold, you will call a nation you do not know,
And a nation which knows you not will run to you,
Because of the LORD your God, even the Holy One of Israel;
For He has glorified you."
Seek the LORD while He may be found;
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the LORD,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
And do not return there without watering the earth
And making it bear and sprout,
And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
"So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;
It will not return to Me empty,
Without accomplishing what I desire,
And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it."  Isaiah 55

My mom sent me info about this book - The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception by John MacArthur.   Here's the blurb: In our postmodern era, a war is being waged against truth. Absolute Truth is argued away as a belief of the past, replaced by cultural relativism and uncertainty. Surprisingly, the world is not the only enemy. Pastors and Christians have fallen prey to subtle deception and are leading others astray. Dr. John MacArthur sounds the alarm in this call to apologetic arms. He examines how the Emerging Church movement, incorrect exegesis, apostasy, and false teaching are all attacking truth and denying Christ’s lordship. Reserve your copy now, arm yourself with the Word of God, and join the battle for truth today!  

One thing that is pretty noticeable in the blurb (and I presume in the book) is a sense of alarm - notice the words "war", "enemy", "fallen prey", "sounds the alarm", "call to apologetic arms", "attacking", "arm yourself", and "join the battle".   Of course, Christianity in America today tends to be polarized with respect to these words.  If you're an American Christian, you may tend toward one of two responses upon reading the blurb.

(1) MacArthur's right - there's a deception and a war going on - a battle for truth - we need to get back to the Bible, arm ourselves apologetically, and eliminate heresy from our midst!

or

(2) MacArthur's gone off his little fundamentalist rocker again - all this talk of "war" and "battle" is precisely the problem with the church today - instead of showing unity and love to the world, we take up arms and fight to the death among ourselves about doctrinal nitpicks.

Where do you fall on this (admittedly slightly overstated) spectrum?

You probably know which view makes more sense to me.  (1)   Though my habitual thought on this (my Marcius Cato ecclesiotheraputic meta-statement) is: "what we need in the Church today is not less doctrine but more love."

But what I really wanted to mention about this book/blurb is this.   In the human body there is a special collection of organs and cells that make up the "immune system".   When foreign material of any type enters the body, the system is triggered and "alarms" the rest of the body, stimulating killer cells, repair cells, tissue inflammation, etc etc.   It is a very sensitive part of the body, responding to tiny little "problems" like a single virus or bacteria swimming through the bloodstream.

It is also an extremely important part of the body, because if these "tiny little problems" were ignored, they would establish a hold on some part of the body, and by the time the body noticed that something was wrong, it would be too late - the bacteria or viri would be swarming through the body and the person would be dead.

Now Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:

But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.

If the foot says, "Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body," it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. And if the ear says, "Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body," it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired.

If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you"; or again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."

On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it.

So it seems pretty obvious that some Christians have been given the (gift? role? interest? talent? task? responsibility? even, genes??) of "sniffing out" what is true and what is false doctrinally... and they are not to be shunned for their sensitivity, but rather supported and listened to.    Meanwhile other Christians have been given the (gift? role? interest? talent? task? responsibility? genes??) of "showing love to all men" and "accepting one another" without much suspicion of whether they might accidentally be "accepting wolves in sheep's clothing."... again, rather than being shunned for their indiscriminate bleeding-heart-ness, they should be encouraged in their role.

Yet the encouragement and support should be tempered with wisdom from the "other types" of Christians.  The ideal church will have BOTH (plus more) types of Christians... the "doctrinally-sensitive" types helping the "oozing-compassionate" types to wisely discriminate truth from error, and the "oozing-compassionate" types helping the "doctrinally-sensitive" types to make sure they're putting their knowledge into loving action.

Example #1 - 2 Corinthians 11:3-4, 19-20 -  But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully. ... For you, being so wise, tolerate the foolish gladly. For you tolerate it if anyone enslaves you, anyone devours you, anyone takes advantage of you, anyone exalts himself, anyone hits you in the face.

Paul explains to the Corinthians that they are way too "accepting" - when someone comes and preaches "another Jesus" or "a different gospel", they blindly and naively accept it!... and Paul writes to them to help them be more discriminating.

Example #2 - Galatians 2:1-10 ... "they only asked us to remember the poor--the very thing I also was eager to do."  

Paul had gone to check with the Jerusalem apostles to make sure the doctrine he was preaching was correct.  They agreed with him that it was correct, but they wanted to make sure that he was "remembering the poor" - i.e. putting his knowledge of the truth into action.  And of course, Paul was gung-ho about that.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Personal experiences?

What's the difference between a dirt floor and an "earthen" floor?   Oh, and make sure you inflect your voice just right when saying "earthen".   If you can't see the scintillating beauty of the emperor's new clothes, you're just an unsophisticated country-dweller who can't recognize chic when he sees it.   (How to enlighten yourself?  Read the New York Times every day.)

Favorite quote:
Some aficionados see a spiritual aspect to earthen floors, too. Mr. Rowell said his floor would help create a “sacred space.” Mr. Meyer agreed. “I think people are craving the earth,” he said. “They want to be more primal. How much more primal can you get than dirt?”

The immense crystalline irony of "western civilisation" in its most brilliant peaks groping for truth and reality and meaning, having abandoned the source of true life, God the Creator, and subsequently ending up blindly groveling on the floor, eating dirt and ashes.  But it still considers itself beautiful, oh yes.  Unending, our glorious evolution.  Sublime, our brave new world.

The indigenous americans and for that matter still the poorest of the poor of all the earth have dirt floors.   The time once was when (western, judeo-christian) civilization elevated itself (in a self-aware way) above the dirt.  Now having lost its heritage and being forced to seek more and more stimulation in an desperate quest for meaning, it runs back to the animistic and architectural poverty of the primitive civilizations, like a wolf licking a frozen blood-covered knife, frantic with mixed pain and desire, bleeding to death but unable to pull away.

<see comments section>

This six minute video is absolutely hilarious... especially if you've ever heard any of these arguments from an atheist or evolutionist.  There's also a related piece of text, but the video is even funnier.

This really hits on many of the most important questions about God.   Right at the beginning, the question is asked: "If there is a Dawkins, why hasn't he shown himself to me?"

There are lots of obvious answers - perhaps "because he's got better things to do with his time", etc.  But personal subjective experience isn't the only type of evidence... maybe he's "shown himself" to other people...?   Ah, but what if all those other people who claimed to have seen him are all lying?   Or delusional?/hallucinating?   Or merely spreading legends and hearsay?

The logic is almost exactly the same as the evidence for the Biblical Jesus and His miraculous life and resurrection...   and once you have a miracle-working, resurrected, Messiah who teaches that God does exist and that He is in fact "one" with Him, the evidence for the existence of "God" begins to stack up quite substantially...

... here's another very nice list of the "top ten" questions atheists ask, with answers.   All answers except for #4 are pretty good.   For #4, it would probably be better ask a bunch of questions in reply, asking the evolutionist exactly why he's so sure about his scientific theories.

I came across this cool list of questions today... thirty-seven questions from atheists toward theists/Christians... with some excellent answers by Rob Bowman.

I especially like the question "What would convince you that you're wrong?"  I've asked this question before to atheist friends of mine, and they've had a hard time answering it.  One guy said, "If a ten-foot-tall angel were to appear to me right now, with flaming sword, and tell me that I'm wrong, then I'd believe it."  Then I pressed him a bit on it, and he admitted that he could still think of some reasons to disbelieve it (it might be a elaborate special-effects hoax, etc).   Atheism turns out to be rather "unfalsifiable."   On the contrary, as Bowman says, just a few simple things would be enough to "falsify" Christianity.  Such as... a plausible explanation for the origin of the resurrection stories, the New Testament documents, and the origin of the Christian church in Jerusalem around 30 AD.

How do you decide what is "good" music, worth listening to?  (or, opening the can of worms even more, how do you decide about "good art" or "good movies", etc?)  Do you have any principles, or do you just listen uncritically to whatever you "like"?

I am not an expert at this, though I'd like to become more discerning.   I tend to enjoy listening to most types of music, from classical to rock to rap and lots in between (though not so much "modernist"/atonal music, jazz, and some related foreign music - I am somewhat irritated by them, maybe by the false worldviews underlying them).  The only type of music I typically buy though (as opposed to e.g. receiving as Christmas gifts) is classical,... because there's just so much to choose from in the rock / ccm spectrum and I have a hard time just picking out a few best ones to buy.

I created a list of a few questions to ask about music before listening to it... (those of you who were in my sunday school class might find this list familiar..   This list is pretty basic and needs revision and/or expansion...  any thoughts?  What Scriptures are helpful to you?  (for movies/art also..?)

Does this song honor God and His ways?  I Corinthians 10:31
Does this song help me think about what is right and true?  Philippians 4:8, Romans 14:22-23
Does this song approve what God condemns, or condemn what God approves?  Proverbs 19:27
Do my parents approve of this song?  Colossians 3:20
Can I worship God with my mind and my understanding through this song?  I Corinthians 14:15
Will listening to this song be beneficial to the people around me as well as myself?  I Corinthians 8
Will listening to this song grieve the Holy Spirit who lives in me?  I Corinthians 6:19-20
Can I listen to this song in the name of the Lord Jesus?  Do the words of this song please Him?  Colossians 3:17, Ephesians 4:29
In a long conversation last night with a friend, I was attempting to delineate three axes or dimensions along which music can be rated - skill, lyric 'truthfulness', and the life example of the artist.  Any music that rates well in all of these areas can then be chosen based on personal taste...

Skill is pretty self-explanatory - is this a three-year old banging on the piano or a Jimi Hendrix or Paganini performing?  (or somewhere in between).

The life-example of the artist/composer is another interesting way to discern.  Would I refuse to support a Hendrix or a Benjamin Britten by buying their music, simply because of their lifestyle?  Or could that be separated / turned into a teaching tool?  Schubert's and Bach's music are both incredible, but their lifestyles were extremely different.  Might the latter's music be somehow "better" because of this?

Lyric "truthfulness" is the most important...   Do the words of the song portray the world "truly?"  Does the message it conveys correspond to the way the world actually is?

My conversation last night turned on whether it's ok to listen to songs that (as we both agreed) emphasize "the problem" rather than "the solution".  Songs that focus on the dark sinful pain that some people in the world are going through... the abused, the molested, the oppressed in genocidal conflicts, the depressed, the suicidal, etc.  And it would seem that the great majority of popular "secular" groups focus on these very issues.  Ostensibly they focus on the problems in order to stir up people to fix the problems.  But does this in fact work?

The same issues are relevant for art and movies.  How much "dirt" is appropriate to watch, for the "truth-value punch" obtained?  Someone once said (perhaps of Victor Hugo, who is a controversial example of these things) that the best artists/musicians/authors are the ones that portray the whole scope of the world with power and truth while using the least amount of "dirt" or titillation.  It's easy to pile up dark and sinful words/images that shock people; it takes far more skill to shock/move people without those words/images.

Last night we discussed Philippians 4:8 and its implications for the Christian: "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things."

How should we Christians apply this passage?  ...and specifically, does this bear on the type of music we ought to listen to?   By the way, as I've studied this passage, the meaning of the sentence seems to indicate that these adjectives are to be taken together, not singly.  So it's not saying that I can meditate on sinful thoughts as long as they're popular in society ("good repute"), or that I can meditate on atrocities all day long as long as they historically happened ("true").  Rather, my thought life should ascend all of these axes simultaneously.

In fact, the concept of what is "true" is extremely revealing.  What are the most representative "truths"/"true situations" about/in the world?  This reflects on the fundamental nature of reality.  Is the world actually pantheistic/panentheistic/atheistic?   If so, the only real question as the existentialists suggested is whether or not to commit suicide... and the groups which sing about sin and darkness and pain are fundamentally correct in their emphasis.

In fact, Ecclesiastes is very similar.
"Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them.
So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living.
But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun."  - Ecclesiastes 4:1-3

But on the other hand if the problem of evil is only temporary... if though evil is extremely real it is also in the process of being demolished forever by God (i.e. if the Christian/Biblical worldview is in fact true), if though "the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now", someday soon "the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God," well then!

In that case the fundamental nature of the world is (for those who BELIEVE in God) absolutely beautiful.  I think it was C.S. Lewis who wrote (I forget where) about the two types of stories - the "tragic" and the "comic", where the "tragic story" has a sad ending and the "comic story" has a happy ending.  The comic may be full of turmoil, but it still has the ending of joy... and vice versa for the tragic.  Our world is absolutely rent with pain and tears, but for those* of us who have been saved / adopted-into-God's-family, joy is now our deepest and most proper noetic stratum.

If in fact the Hero has stepped into the story and begun his awesome work of redeeming and restoring ("his sheep" John 10:26-27 and somehow "all things" Col. 1:19-20... there are depths upon depths here), then the deepest and most fundamental truth is redemption... the fact that God is literally redeeming people.  Now.   And the most fundamentally "true" songs are the ones that point to / ascribe-glory-to  that Hero.  To emphasize anything else or anyone else would be not only wrong, but pathetic.

Now let's say a Christian Contemporary singer gets up and sings about God's wonderful love and redemption.  There are gazillions of people (e.g. my friend from last night) who will be instantly "turned off" by that, because they interpret the song as "ignoring"/"overlooking" the depths of darkness and pain that many throughout the world are going through.  These people say they want to "dig deeper" - beyond the "platitudes of happy niceness" into the dark and dirty depths of the gritty/real/actual world.  So they say.

But I'm suggesting that they are fundamentally mistaken - they are actually not "digging deep enough"... because the people who suggest this are fundamentally buying into the atheistic mindset (whether they are Christians or not)... they are suggesting that "this world is all there is"... they are neglecting the Hero Himself and putting too much emphasis on the background/setting of His deeds.
Anyway...     what do you think?
I am looking forward to hearing the perspectives (and even the music - please read these links) of persecuted Christians throughout the world as I grow older...  Surely of all people, these dear souls cannot be accused of glossing over the dark grittiness of the world in favor of Christian platitudes.  Whatever truths have gotten them through the refining fire are obviously not platitudes.