Creation Evangelism: The 'big picture' in which the Gospel makes sense

from here: http://creation.com/creation-evangelism

Creation evangelism

The ‘big picture’ in which the Gospel makes sense

Published: 24 March 2013 (GMT+10)

Why bother with creation evangelism? Why start all the way back in Genesis when the gospel is all about Jesus dying for our sins and rising for our justification (Romans 4:25)? CMI’s Dr Carl Wieland explores these questions in today’s feedback.
James G. from Singapore writes in response to How helpful is creation evangelism?

Creation evangelism is fine for some, but not for the millions of people (esp. unreached peoples groups) for whom even basic literacy/education would be unavailable. Faith in Jesus as Saviour and God, I believe, can come in diverse ways, and we should avoid a triumphalistic approach that our interpretation (or our favourite translation of the Bible) must be correct. I can find many verses or words in the KJV incorrectly translated, for instance. Some notable evangelical theologians and scientists who are Bible-believers also accept the “Old Earth” theory (as opposed to the theory that the earth is no more than 10,000 years old).

CMI’s Dr Carl Wieland responds:
Dear James,
You raise some very important points, so I have taken the liberty of a detailed reply, with the responses interspersed with yours.

Creation evangelism is fine for some, but not for the millions of people (esp. unreached peoples groups) for whom even basic literacy/education would be unavailable.

The OT gives the Gospel its logical context.

I used to think a bit like that a few years ago, even while heavily into creation ministry in my own country, that creation/evolution was only relevant in Western nations, but no longer. Not only is chronological teaching of the Bible’s ‘big picture’ crucially important (see shortly) but we are finding that evolutionary/naturalistic ways of thinking are rapidly getting into even very poor developing nations, even if only as aid budgets come with educational strings which include the dominant naturalistic paradigm. And even when reaching unreached people groups; New Tribes Mission found years ago that if they started with the Gospels, the results were very poor. A man hanging on a cross had no relevance, and was often just tacked on to existing belief systems, if taken seriously at all. But teaching chronologically, starting in Genesis, made all the difference, as one sees in their classic video Ee-taow, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxcyiXFc5mc. You will notice how the whole tribe, by the time it gets to the account of Jesus in the NT, is, like the large crowds that were converted when Peter preached to Jews in Acts, not so much ripe but eager for the Gospel. This is easy to understand when you realize that it is the same issue in both cases; the OT gives the Gospel its logical context. The Jews and proselytes already knew and believed it.
Teaching chronologically follows the unfolding revelation of the Bible, and not just about how things came about: God made us, all are from one man/woman, we had a relationship with Him, then the Fall into sin, how it led to the Curse = the groaning struggling suffering creation we see all around us (Romans 8), the resultant global Flood as a judgment of God showing the depths of His hatred of sin, and then the dispersion of Babel with the origin of all people groups including their own. Followed by the giving of the law, the promised Messiah; no wonder that New Tribes Mission found that people, rather than having confused or syncretistic responses to preaching, ended up often, even mostly, ‘hanging out’ for the rest of the story, hungry to find out God’s solution to the problems of sin and death. I.e. ‘What must I do to be saved?’.
Peter did not have to give all that background when preaching to Jews and proselytes in Acts, as stated; he only had to plug in the still-missing bit that the Messiah was the crucified Jesus, and thousands believed. But if we try to preach about the missing bit without the foundation, we have the same situation as when Paul tried that ‘Peter’ approach to the Greeks in Acts; they saw it as foolish babbling. What sense does a structure make without a logical foundation? So he used, of necessity, a different approach at Mars Hill. We only get a condensed summary, but notice how in addition to finding a ‘connection’ to their culture, he also makes sure to build a creation foundation, and to tell them that this same God who made the world made their ancestor as well as that of the Jews, i.e. the one man from whom all nations were made.

Faith in Jesus as Saviour and God, I believe, can come in diverse ways,

morgueFile.com/mensatic

That is so without a doubt. God occasionally has even used dreams to bring e.g. Muslims to Himself. But that does not negate the command to preach the Gospel and make disciples (note, not just converts) teaching them everything about Him—nor does it negate the fact that mostly faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (the Bible). Muslims converted in that way might not have readily been able to access the Bible. And God can use even false teaching to bring people to Him on occasion. But I’m sure you would agree that that does not mean that it is therefore OK to reject or knowingly twist any plain teaching of God’s Word. For example, say that you knew of a person who had come to true saving faith in Christ having first been drawn to Him under the teaching of a ministry that denied His bodily resurrection, or His divinity—is it therefore OK to do either of those things? Is it not rather the case that the person was saved through God’s mercy in spite of such blatant inconsistencies with truth? And that on the whole, a ministry or ministry approach that seeks to honour and be consistent with His teaching has more likelihood of being blessed by seeing souls saved? Paul rejoices in the NT when people are saved despite wrong motives, etc. but in other sections gives very strong condemnations of false teachings; even not-so-bad-sounding ones like subtly adding works to an otherwise sound Gospel are condemned in the strongest possible terms.

and we should avoid a triumphalistic approach that our interpretation (or our favourite translation of the Bible) must be correct.

I can sympathize strongly with the desire to avoid a triumphalistic approach, for sure, and I would hope that is not what is coming across to most readers of this site. (I think not, given the sorts of feedback overall). But—while humility is in order, in this sort of case that same humility can actually be a kind of ‘cover’; an excuse for not wanting to believe a teaching that is rather clear and plain in the Word of God, e.g. because of ‘academic peer pressure’ (scientific and theological). I’m not suggesting that you’re necessarily into that, but it is very common. I’ve seen it used often against those who take an unbending stand on a Gospel-critical issue; they are accused of ‘arrogance’, like ‘How dare you claim to know the truth? A really humble Christian like me would not presume that’ when all along the motive is to shift the glare of the spotlight away from their own compromise with anti-biblical ideas. And I deliberately used “Gospel-critical” here, because we are not talking here about some minor nit-picky point of interpretation. It is about the context I referred to earlier, or the ‘Gospel Big Picture’ (GBP) as I often call it (without which the whole message becomes garbled): The creation of an originally good world, ruined by sin, to be restored through Christ to a sinless, deathless condition once more. Pretty well all the rest, such as the relative recency of creation, flows out of that, really. (The millions of years that today dominate post-Lyellian geology mean that there would have had to be death, disease and suffering before sin, so they are in direct opposition to this GBP). And I put it to you, gently but definitely, that this GBP is so blindingly clear in God’s Word, stated in all sorts of ways and from all sorts of angles and directions, that the issue at stake really has nothing to do with some alternative between legitimate interpretations that arise from the text. Note that I’m always talking here about the original Hebrew. I’m referring to that GBP which

1. Is woven throughout the very warp and woof of the New Testament (see The use of Genesis in the New Testament)
2. Is clearly understood to be so by the average 10-year-old who is coming to the text without presuppositions and pressures.
3. Is held to be the self-evident intended meaning of the Genesis text by even top professors of Hebrew at the bulk of world-class universities (who don’t believe it, which means they are not motivated to twist it to fit their ‘science’)—see creation.com/barr).
4. Was held, taught and believed (taken for granted, really) by the overwhelming majority of both Christian leaders and followers for nearly all the 2,000 years of church history; until the advent of the revival of pagan long-ageism in the ‘Endarkenment’. All the ‘private interpretations’ of Scripture on the matter floating around are really just attempts, verging on the desperate, to try to make the Bible fit with these extra-biblical ideas. The GBP was also held by some of the world’s greatest minds ever; e.g. the man who is rightly regarded as perhaps the world’s greatest scientist, Sir Isaac Newton.

When I was an atheist who was baffled by how Christians were twisting their own holy book, I could see that Jesus clearly believed in a real Adam and Eve.

Ironically, such positions try to claim that they are based on the ‘genre’ of Genesis, when in fact a disinterested scholarly party would be forced to admit that the shoe is on the opposite foot, that it is in large part precisely because of the ‘historical narrative’ genre of Genesis that these professors of Hebrew confirm the view of the people of God throughout the church age that Genesis is intended to be history, i.e. a record of things that really happened. And history is what the NT authors take it as. Paul talks of the temptation of Eve in straightforward terms, as a thing that really happened. When I was an atheist who was baffled by how Christians were twisting their own holy book, I could see that Jesus clearly believed in a real Adam and Eve. He also obviously believed in a young world (to see what I mean, and to see how a prominent theistic evolutionist both agreed that Jesus believed this, but then astonishingly tried to get out of its implications, check out Jesus and the Age of the Earth).

I can find many verses or words in the KJV incorrectly translated, for instance.

As noted, our ministry, in line with the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, refers/defers to the original autographs. We are not committed to nor defensive about any translation. So this seems completely beside the point. In any case, the differences between translations are not such as to affect any substantial doctrine, and in particular, we are talking about a GBP which does not differ between the translations in the slightest.

Some notable evangelical theologians and scientists who are Bible-believers also accept the “Old Earth” theory

Yes, even though the phrase ‘who are Bible-believers’ should probably be ‘who are in many other respects Bible-believers’, that is so, tragically. And it causes substantial problems for Christians in this area because it subjects them to enormous peer pressure, when seeming ‘authorities’ have for extra-biblical reasons sought to find a way around the straightforward (dare I say honest) exegesis of the Bible in these matters. I note you write from Asia: I am actually at present writing this response from another Asian country, visiting a culture where, like in your own, the influences of tradition mean that the opinions of ‘authorities’ are given far more weight than even in the West. Thus the problem is particularly acute here, because at once-solid Christian institutions such ‘authority opinions’ are causing, frankly, havoc among the sheep. Christians see with their own eyes what the Bible says, yet they feel ‘forced’ to not be like the noble Bereans. And to say to themselves things like, ‘What do I know? Look at all his (or her) degrees. They must understand things about the text that I don’t.’ While this can be and often is true, and Christians have at times stumbled and ignored scholarship, the phenomenon overall is most unhealthy because it has now reached the point where it departs from—let me say it again, plainly—simple honesty. Forgive me if it sounds surprising, but I have more respect in some ways for an honest assessment by an atheist like Dawkins than for scholars and teachers who seek to defend the indefensible and drag believers down the same plughole with them. The Lord Jesus Himself said that sometimes the children of this world are wiser than the children of light. With his Christian background, Dawkins knows full well what the Bible authors are meaning to say. Referring to those “sophisticated theologians” as he called them, “who are quite happy to live with evolution”, he rightly (IMHO) stated that he thinks they are “deluded” and that “there really is a deep incompatibility between evolution and Christianity.”

(as opposed to the theory that the earth is no more than 10,000 years old).

But we are not talking about competing theories here, respectfully. In reality, these are philosophical starting positions that each lead to theories. For example, the young earth is a deduction from Scripture, given certain assumptions. These are, e.g.: that it is God’s Word, without error and authoritative; that it is meant to be understood without hidden messages, etc.; that the things Jesus is recorded as teaching and believing are definitive for a believer; that the ages in the genealogies are not fantasies but real years; that the ancestors of Jesus recorded in the NT were all real people, not myths—all the way back to Adam; that death, disease and suffering are part of the Curse, and death is an enemy, not part of something God calls ‘all very good’. And so on.
Once one starts with either position, one can then legitimately talk about different ‘theories’ of ‘how’. For example, starting with an old earth, e.g. because of one’s understanding of science, one might try to ‘explain away’ the contradictions one encounters from the Bible. E.g. if one starts, outside the Bible, by assuming that the rocks are to be read as a record of billions of years of slow processes, what theories can one adopt to explain away the Bible’s record of a global Flood? Or, starting with the biblical creation position, i.e. the GBP as truth (a pivotal part of which is taking the global Flood as truth, too) one can discuss varying theories and models of the mechanism for the global Flood, and how it can explain the patterns of deposition we see in the rocks.
I hope that has been helpful, and that you will take the time to seriously and prayerfully explore this important issue. There is much more at stake than a ‘difference of theories’, the very authority and credibility of the Bible and Gospel is ultimately at stake. As we have stated many times before, people can be saved despite such aberrant non-biblical views, thanks to ‘blessed inconsistency’ preventing them following their heterodox views on origins to their logical conclusion in other parts of the Bible’s and in relation to the Gospel. However, for most of those around them, those that could otherwise readily accept the Gospel, these consistency issues generally mean that people are kept from belief.
Sincerely,
Carl W.
To which James graciously replied:

Dear Brother Carl,

Thank you so much for your lengthy responses to my points.

It will be my pleasure to ponder over what you wrote, even if I may take some time to evaluate your statements.

Through these 18 years as a believer in the Gospel (after being converted from agnosticism at age 46, I have mulled over so-called scientific findings to prove the “Old Earth” theory.

Your ministry has given people like myself good grounds to think through the issues, and to be able to witness more effectively, especially in our busy, modern and often, unbelieving market places.

Every blessing,

James.

After Steubenville: 25 Things Our Sons need to know about Manhood from "A Holy Experience"

This is such a good post. 'Boys will be boys' is not an acceptable reason!!
 
from here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/03/after-steubenville-what-our-sons-needs-to-know-about-manhood/

Dear Son,
When you’re the mother of four sons, Steubenville is about us.
Steubenville is about having a conversation with sons about hard things and asking you to do holy things.





Because a Steubenville doesn’t begin with football and it doesn’t begin with alcohol and it doesn’t begin with unsupervised jocks with inflated egos and shriveled morals. It begins with one woman bringing home a man-child in her arms, one mama unwrapping that blanket and what it means to raise up a man.
It begins with one mama looking into her son’s eyes for the next 18 years and showing him what it means to be a woman.
I brought you home when I was 21.
I cradled you, you crying and me crying, and the essence of me ran liquid and milky and a woman poured out of herself to keep you alive. You rooted hungry and it was the roots of a woman that nourished you. It was a woman who gave you life, who was the grace of God that kept you alive, who is the mother of all the living.
I held you when fever burned your forehead. And I stroked back your hair when your stomach churned and I cleaned us both up when you vomited all over everything. I opened books for you and stoked your mind and unpacked a world before you and I laid down me to make more of you and it wasn’t a sacrifice but the unexpected grace of motherhood.
We talked about life being much more than you can see, so you knew that a woman is always more more than you can see. I kept trying to be at peace in my own body so that you would always see women as more than a body. And I always told you that I’ve only ever met beautiful people. Ugly is only a state of soul.
In 8 short weeks from today, you’ll blow out your candles and look up across the table and that baby I brought home at 21 will be 18. I don’t know how that happened. I got a lot wrong. And there’ll be a mother in Steubenville who will be shattered that her teen son’s behind bars and how in the world did that happen. We’re all getting a lot wrong.
Like that night I was 19 and I saw it in my rear view mirror, how a 20-something man reached over and started fondling a terrified 14 year-old sleeping girl. How he shrugged his shoulders when we confronted him, like he was brushing away an annoying fly. How there were girls that whispered that he’d grabbed them too in the dark of a car when he drove them home from youth group, how there were all these shy and ashamed girls who were violated and forced and indifferently robbed.
I want to tell you, son — we were all church kids. There was no alcohol. There were no parties. There were no football teams.
There were young men who opened their Bibles and didn’t value the worth of a God-fashioned woman made for glory, young men who sang worship songs and satiated their lust by ripping off the dignity of a sacred human being, young men who said women were the weaker vessel meant let’s drink them dry and be merry.
We went to the church elders.
A handful of us girls with one teenage boy who knew what he saw and wasn’t afraid, we went to the elders and sat there with our hands literally shaking and our mouths impossibly dry and we tried to find words for what should never have to be said. My cheeks and throat burned.
And I have never told anyone what happened next, but after Steubenville, to stay silent is to let perpetrators perpetuate.
We were looked in the eye, Son, and what we were told, those words tried to shatter God —
“Boys will be boys.”
Son. When the prevailing thinking is boys will be boys — girls will be garbage.
And that is never the heart of God.
That’s what you have to get, Son — Real Manhood knows the heart of God for the daughters of His heart.
Your Dad is one of those men. When he heard of what happened in Steubenville, how boys your age had violated a young woman with such indifference and ignorance, he said it to me quiet –
Unless a man looks to Jesus, a man doesn’t know how to treat a woman.
So this is what your dad and I want you to get, to get this and never forget it: that when God decided to pull on skin and make His visitation into the world, He didn’t show up in some backroom of an inner boy’s club or regale us with some black tie inaugural affair.
This is what God chose as best, this is where He first became one of us: God chose to make His entry point into the world through the holy space of a woman, to enfold Himself inside of a woman, to drink of a woman, be held and nourished and cared for by a woman — that’s the jolting truth of how God loves His daughters with His honor.
That Christ never beat down a woman with harsh words or lusting eyes or sneering innuendos, but He stepped in and stopped a broken woman from the abuse of angry men. Christ came to the defense of a hurting woman and the Son of Man stood between her ache and her attackers and He lifted the weight of shame from her and cupped her heart with hope and wrote a new future into the dust and dirt of everything and he saved. her. life. That’s how God loves His daughters with His defense.
That Christ didn’t degrade women in His talk, but He made women heroes in His stories. He invited a woman with a coin and broom to reveal the truth about the Kingdom of God. He honored an intentional woman with an unjust judge as unveiling the character of God. He elevated a lonely, unmarried woman who dropped her meager resources into the temple treasury as the rebuke of God for all the rich and religious. That’s how God loves His daughters with His words.
That Christ didn’t demonize women but He accepted the presence of a woman reviled by the self-righteous, He sat with the scandalous woman the righteous regarded as damaged goods, He welcomed the rejected and the immodest though he lost the respect of the religious. That’s how God loves His daughter with His grace.
That when Christ stepped out of that black tomb, he still didn’t choose to first manifest Himself to prestigious officials, religious leaders, the Twelve, but instead He revealed Himself first to the women, He entrusted the veracity of His resurrection to the testimony of the women, He offered the privilege of proclaiming Christ as the risen Savior to the women, though no court at the time would accept their testimony. That’s how God loves His daughters with His regard.
So your Dad wanted you to know — when you turn the pages of the Bible, Son, let everything you read of women be shaped by how Jesus sealed His view and value of women.
Let Christ shape you and not the magazine covers of the Walmart checkout: Real Manhood never objectifies women. Real Manhood edifies women.
Real Manhood means you don’t get drunk, and a man can get drunk on a lot more than alcohol.
Men drunk on power, on control, on ego, lose more than all inhibition — they lose The Way, their own souls. Men drunk on anything can destroy everything and real manhood thirsts for righteousness.
Real Manhood means peer pressure only makes you stronger in Christ.
That in a culture where it’s the tendency to bend, you’ll stand. That in situations where there’s tendency to look the other way, you’ll look for help. That, at times in the church when there’s a tendency to be divisive on the secondary and a unified front of silence on the painful, you’ll seek to rightly divide the truth and unify the brokenhearted.
Because if Christ is The Truth — then where there isn’t Truth, there isn’t Christ. Why ever be afraid of the Truth?
Because if you’re at peace in Christ, you fight injustice.
And Son?
Real Manhood means you take responsibility for your body.
A woman’s immodesty is never an excuse for a man’s irresponsibility. Responsible men — are response-able. This is your job. A woman has her’s. Focus on yours. Real Men don’t focus responsibility on women staying “pure” but on men not pressuring. (Truth is, none of us are pure, Son, and the onus is on you, Son, to pursue holiness.)
Your Dad and I need you to know:
Real Men never pressure but treasure. No one tries to crush a diamond.
Because pressuring a girl? Is blackmail, coercion and repeated robbery attempts. You’re meant to be a man, not the mafia. When you’re pressuring a girl for what you want — is your flag to lean into Jesus who will give you what you need.
The thing is: Real Manhood means you hallow womanhood. A woman isn’t a toy to amuse your lusts, a thing to aggrandize your ego, a trophy to adorn your manhood. A woman is of your rib, who birthed your rib, who cupped your rib, who is meant to be gently cherished at your rib, at your side.
The culture of boys will be boys — means girls will be garbage and you were made for more than this, Son. Your Dad and I believe boys will be godly and boys will be honoring and boys will be humble.
And that teenage boy from youth group, who saw how girls were hurting and violated in shadows and shame, who stood with the wounded because he believed real men of God are men for the hurting?
That brave teenage boy, Son?
He’s now your Dad.
There are more than a few good men, Son.
Real men like their Father — who laid down His life for His daughters.

Can We Bring The Holidays Down A Notch? Huffpo by Kristen Howerton

From here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-howerton/can-we-bring-the-holidays_b_2903040.html

by Kristen Howerton

Blogger, Rage Against the Minivan

Posted: 03/19/2013 4:02 pm

This past Sunday was St. Patrick's Day, a holiday I had completely forgotten about until my oldest stumbled out of bed and into the living room at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday night while we were watching SNL.  "Can I help you guys hide the gold coins?" he asked. The WHAT?  "The gold coins. I know the leprechauns aren't real. I know it's you, like Santa. So I want to help you. I can make the leprechaun trap, too."
We told him to go to bed and then looked at each other with exasperation. Gold coins? A leprechaun trap? Is he serious?  When I was a kid we celebrated St. Patrick's Day by wearing something green. THE END. I had noticed that over the past few years, our kids were getting some grander ideas from school. But I didn't think that we needed to replicate these experiences at home.
Apparently, the children believed that we did.
All four of them woke up and came into our room like it was Christmas morning.

Did a leprechaun visit?
Can we search for him?
Did he leave a pot of gold?
Let's go find the gold coins!
I bet he left chocolate!

So. Many. Expectations.
All of which were dashed.
I had four seriously disappointed and grumpy kids on my hands. At one point my daughter went into full-blown meltdown mode, kicking random items in her room and yelling about what a LAME HOLIDAY this was.
And in my overly-tired impatient state, I might have yelled back, "YOU'RE RIGHT. This IS a lame holiday. It was never my favorite. All we did was wear green. That's all we're doing today. I'm sorry if you do more at school. That's not what we do here. I don't know where you are hearing this stuff but it's not happening here."
Fellow parents: St. Patrick's Day is supposed to be a "phone-it-in" holiday. Yes, I've turned into a bit of a grinch, but SERIOUSLY WITH THE HOLIDAY OVERKILL. It used to be Christmas was the main event, but now it's as if every holiday must be at a Level 10. And if Christmas wasn't already hard enough as a parent, someone also decided that we have to move an Elf around every day, into creative tableaus? And then someone else decided that the Advent Calendar was A Thing beyond a simple religious observation and now involves some kind of gift each day leading up to Christmas?
And about a month after having survived that whole mess, we've got Valentine's Day, which has became The New Halloween, because God forbid you send a simple store-bought card. You'd better include some candy or your child will be shunned. Shunned! One of my kids came home with not just a candy from each class, but a WHOLE FREAKING GOODIE BAG from each student.

And then, I think I've got a break for a month BUT NO. Surprise! We've got 100 Days of School to celebrate. And by "celebrate" I mean the kids sticking 100 things on a hat. And by "the kids" I mean me.

And suddenly Pi Day is a thing? My children expect to be served pie because someone at school told them so?
And Dr. Seuss's birthday? Sure it's a great event for school, but my kids are now asking what we're doing to celebrate that at home, too.
And do not even get me started on what Easter has become. When I was a kid my mom went to the store and bought us a new dress and a pre-made plastic Easter basket for $8.99.  THE END. There was candy and we loved it. Maybe we would die some eggs from a kit sitting in the check-out lane at Target. They would look like crap.
Now we've got to leave footprints from the Easter Bunny and make artful, Pinterest-worthy eggs with stencils and ikat prints and probably some that are ombre. AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT.
I don't like the feeling of disappointing my kids. But I refuse to give into this holiday overkill. I'm overwhelmed enough as it is. Today I gave all of my kids a bath. We read with each of them for the recommended 20 minutes. We reviewed our math facts. We practiced guitar. We sat together at the table and ate a meal that was NOT procured at a drive-thru.  We played outside. Most days, I'm struggling to achieve all these things. I can't have these haphazard, once-monthly overblown holidays take over my life.  I can go big for Christmas and Easter. That's all I can handle.
But I can't do this alone. Fellow parents... teachers... sunday school workers... I beseech you. BRING IT DOWN A NOTCH.  Ya'll are setting up expectations that I just can't maintain. Wouldn't we all be just a little happier if we returned to the slacker days of store-bought valentines and kit-dyed eggs and JUST WEARING A GREEN SHIRT AND CALLING IT A DAY?
For the sake of overwhelmed parents like me, I beg you. Stop the madness.

Reading between the lines

from here

 

by Don Batten

Photo stock.xchng

I visited China in 1983, at the time when the cult of Mao was just beginning to loosen its grip on that country. However, Communist party cadres still very much controlled everything, and the minders for my visit made out that this was ‘paradise on earth’. “There is no unemployment in China”, they said.
Beijing’s English language newspaper was full of positive thinking—everything was wonderful in utopia. The newspaper praised all the enterprising citizens who were contributing to the ‘revolution’. And then my eyes fell on a story about a madam comrade, a model citizen, who had started a program for ‘idle youths’, giving them training in various work skills so they no longer got into mischief. In other words, they had been unemployed!

I suspected my minders had been stretching the truth just a little in claiming that there was no unemployment in China. How could there be ‘idle youth’ in need of skill training if everyone had a job? It was likewise with crime. Crime and corruption did not exist but were reported when the culprits were punished. Propagandists catch themselves out because it is difficult for them to be consistent.
It’s like that when you read the science journals of today, especially the popular ones. Many writers try to give the impression that evolution (everything-made-itself) explains everything—just like the communists tried to persuade people that their doctrine solved everything. However, if you think carefully about what you are being told, you will see that they often give the game away. You have to learn to ‘read between the lines’.

Example 1. The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

On the Lateline program on ABC (Australia) television in 1996, the presenter interviewed one of the astronomers behind the SETI program. Why would anyone bother to send signals into space, hoping to get an answer, when the closest planet (if any exist) is likely to be a hundred thousand light years away? It would take 200,000 years to get an answer! What would motivate anyone to do this? What motivated this astronomer? He said, “It would be the death of religion.” “You mean Christianity?” asked the presenter. “Yes”, was the reply.
This astronomer obviously did not want to believe in the Creator as revealed in the Bible, and therefore would believe that blind chance produced life, which is full of complex information, from simple chemicals. The amount of information in a bacterium is about the same as in two large books. And then this original life form changed into all the life forms on earth, including him, all by itself, without a Creator’s involvement. The astronomer has about 1,000 books of complex information in each of his cells. All this information just happened; no intelligent source was necessary, in his way of thinking. No Creator was necessary. All that meaningful coded information just made itself.
But then how could this astronomer be sure that anything he heard with his radiotelescope from outer space was not also the result of chance? How would he know that it came from an intelligent source? He is ready to recognize the evidence for intelligence on a radio signal from ‘out there’, but not in the incredible living things beneath his very nose—indeed in his nose—here on earth. Such inconsistency is present throughout evolutionary thinking. For more, see God and the extraterrestrials.

Example 2. Antibiotic resistance

In a very interesting article in New Scientist, Jason Chin discussed antibiotic resistance, attributing such resistance to ‘evolution’.¹ The whole tone of the paper was ‘evolution does it’. This indoctrinates the uninformed reader in the belief that antibiotic resistance is evolution in action. But is it?

Evolution would need a mechanism for creating new genetic information. Chin implies throughout the paper that the antibiotic resistance mechanisms have arisen as a result of exposure to antibiotics—that is, evolution has created new complex functions. However, he unwittingly gives the game away in several places.
Amoxycillin resistance in bacteria has been overcome by adding a compound which blocks the bacterial enzyme which degrades the amoxycillin. The combination, known as Augmentin, the author says, “is a better antibiotic than amoxycillin ever was [that is, even when bacteria had never been previously exposed to amoxycillin]: it is active against a wider range of bacteria …” (my emphasis and addition).
So, reading between the lines … when amoxycillin first came into use it could not kill some types of bacteria because these already had the enzyme that degrades amoxycillin. Addition of the enzyme blocker in Augmentin now allows amoxycillin to kill these bacteria as well.
But that means that there were certain bacteria that already had the resistance mechanism before amoxycillin was in use. It is well known that the genes for such resistance can be transferred between different types of bacteria. The bacteria which were not resistant, but now are, most probably got their resistance from the ones which had the resistance mechanism all along. There is no new genetic information involved, just its transfer from one bacterium to another! In other words, all this has nothing to do with microbes-to-man evolution. There is no new complex information.
This is confirmed in the last paragraph of the article. Julian Davies of the University of British Columbia suggests that scientists should be able to predict the ways in which bacteria will foil new antibiotics. He is reported as saying, “I would go and get a handful of soil, I would expose the microbes in the soil to the antibiotic and pick out the ones that grow. And in a fortnight I could tell you the mechanism of resistance that would eventually be found in the clinic.”
Again, the resistance mechanisms are already present in some bacteria. Resistance arises in disease-causing bacteria by transfer of the genetic information from resistant types of bacteria which may not even cause disease. These may be ecologically beneficial bacteria that are involved in normal healthy soil, for example. Or they may be bacteria that normally live in the large intestines of healthy people, or on our skin. A gene for resistance usually has some other role normally and it just happens also to confer resistance to an antibiotic.
So, we can read between the lines in these overtly evolutionary statements and see that the very subject matter contradicts the evolutionist’s beliefs. Complex genetic information does not arise from accidents, it can only be the result of our immensely intelligent Creator’s plan and purpose.

Virtual Debates, Real World Doubts

from here

Published: 9 March 2013 (GMT+10)

Sometimes debates turn nasty. Some people are not interested in respectful dialogue and only troll message boards and internet forums to insult those they disagree with. This can be exhausting, and it can create doubts if one is not careful. CMI’s Lita Cosner provides some sound biblical advice for how to handle the situation.

D.W. from the United States writes:

123rf.com/Frenk And Danielle Kaufmann

Hello CMI,

First I just wanted to say thank you for your ministry, because it has really encouraged me especially when I am doubting or internet message boards and see a topic posted by a skeptic.

I guess my questions are really regarding arguing, faith, and doubt. I have learned a lot about philosophy and science from your website and have read many of your articles. I guess my question is how to do you guys deal with emotional doubt and just sometimes getting tired of being ridiculed and laughed at online and in real life? I know I should just not let what people say on message boards bother me, but I just feel so tired of reading the hateful insulting messages over and over and that the people posting them not even looking for truth or desiring to have an honest conversation. I am sorry for this long message. I hope I am not wasting your time. I just am frustrated because among my group of friends back home I am the only one who has taken time to look up information about creation/evolution and its frustrating that the people I know in real life don’t care about an important topic. I guess all I am asking is how do you guys not constantly wonder if you are right, or constantly doubt yourselves? Thank you for answering my rather long-winded question.

CMI’s Lita Cosner responds:
Dear D.,
Thanks for writing in. I can give you a few suggestions based on personal experience and my opinion, but have you talked with your pastor, or another Christian mentor, about this? Such ongoing, face-to-face relationships are much more helpful than anything I could suggest in an email.

Online forums and message boards can be horrible places; apparently people think that they can dispense with normal human decency just because they’re hiding behind the anonymity of a screen name (and unfortunately it’s not only non-Christians who sometimes do this). Some people aren’t affected as much by this sort of online bullying, but when it starts to take an emotional toll, it may be time to take a step back and re-evaluate things.
The first thing I would suggest is taking a break from the debates. You say these people are hateful and insulting and have no interest in even an honest conversation, so there would be no loss in cutting off the exchange, at least for a while. Spend your time instead reading Scripture, praying, and spending time with fellow believers. Just doing this will go a long way toward ‘recharging your batteries’. Maybe meet with your pastor to discuss your involvement in these message boards (I can’t emphasize enough the importance of having someone ‘there with you’ to talk to).

Finally, you asked “how do you guys not constantly wonder if you are right, or constantly doubt yourselves?” I can only answer for myself. If I were arguing based on my own opinion, I couldn’t be nearly as certain. I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in the past, and I’m probably wrong about a lot of things now. But when it comes to creation/evolution, it’s not a matter of my opinion, but what God’s Word says. And not just in Genesis, but in Exodus 20, and 1 Corinthians 15, and Romans 5–8, and John 1, and all over the place in Scripture. The plain reading of Scripture, and of the overarching narrative in Scripture, requires a six-day creation around 6,000 years ago, a perfect Creation ruined by the sin of the historical first man, Adam. And I’m absolutely certain that Scripture is true. So while it may be wearying dealing with the constant attacks from skeptics, I never actually wonder if they’re right, because I’m grounded in Scripture, not in my own interpretive quirks. And I make sure to stay grounded in Scripture through personal Bible study and sitting under biblical preaching and teaching in my church.
I hope these few thoughts and suggestions are helpful.
Sincerely,
Lita Cosne

Because of What He did

from here

Few things can weary you more than the fast pace of the human race.  Too many sprints for success. Too many days of doing whatever it takes eventually take their toll.  You’re left gasping for air, holding your sides on the side of the track. You’re asking yourself, “When I get what I want, will it be worth the price I paid?”

It’s this weariness that makes the words of Jesus so compelling. “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28).

Come to Me.  Why Him?  He offers the invitation as a penniless rabbi in an oppressed nation.  He has no political office.  He hasn’t written a best-seller or earned a diploma.  Yet they called Him Lord. They called Him Savior. Not so much because of what He said, but because of what He did. What He did—on the Cross!  He did it for the weary people of this world.

Know Your Strengths

from here:

When you teach, do people listen? When you lead, do people follow? Identify your strengths, and —this is important—major in them.  Singing for others would give me wonderful satisfaction. The problem is, it wouldn’t give the same satisfaction to my audience.  I’m what you might call a prison singer—I never have the key, and I’m always behind a few bars.

Paul gives good advice in Romans 12:3: “Have a sane estimate of your capabilities.”

Be aware of your strengths. Take a few irons out of the fire so one can get hot. Failing to focus on our strengths may prevent us from accomplishing the unique task God has called us to do. We cannot meet every need in the world. But some of us try. In the end, we run out of fuel. So, have a sane estimate of your abilities—and stick to them.