# articles

title: All Suffering Is for the Sake of Others
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/06/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/all-suffering-is-for-the-sake-of-others
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/If-God-Is-Good-Suffering/dp/160142132X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1338344692&amp;sr=1-1" rel="noopener" target="_blank">If God Is Good</a></em>, Randy Alcorn offers a perspective on suffering that I hadn’t considered before:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Throughout history God has delayed justice, both upon believers and unbelievers, to give them time to come to him, grow in Christlikeness, and trust him more deeply.</p>

<p>Don’t we give thanks for God’s patience with Saul, the self-righteous killer who became Paul? Or John Newton, the evil slave trader who accepted God’s amazing grace and preached and wrote the song that countless millions have sung? Are we grateful for God��s patience with us? Think of those who endured many years of suffering before the day you came to faith in Christ. <em>Aren’t you thankful God did not deliver this planet from the Curse when millions asked for relief, before you heard the gospel?</em> I came to Christ in 1969. What if Christ had returned and brought final judgment in 1968? Or in 1950, before I was born? If God had brought justice long ago, where would you and If be today? We would either not exist, or we would have been ushered into an eternity without Christ [emphasis added].</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It’s interesting to think that <em>all</em> of our suffering is, in a sense, suffering for the sake of others. We continue in this world of evil, pain, and suffering only because God is still waiting patiently for all His people to be gathered to Himself, and so we undergo all our suffering for the sake of those who will come to repentance in the future, before this world ends and one without evil begins.</p>

<p>I like that perspective. I would hate to be robbed at gunpoint, but is being robbed at gunpoint (or any like result of being in a fallen world) worth it for the sake of another person’s future salvation? Isn’t that situation preferable to a complete end to evil now <em>without</em> that person’s eternal salvation? If I think of every affliction I suffer as an act of love on my part—a self-sacrifice for my future brothers and sisters—it certainly can take some of the sting out of the pain.</p>

<p>Of course, at some point, there <em>must</em> be an end. The doors will close, and the time we’ve waited for will begin for all of us. I trust God knows when that should be. But for now, let’s endure for the sake of others and be thankful for those who endured for our sake before us.</p>
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title: Pain Now, the Land of Happy Later
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/02/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/pain-now-the-land-of-happy-later
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In his book of children’s poems <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Where-Sidewalk-Ends-30th-Anniversary/dp/0060572345/sr=8-1/qid=1171864004/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-2424496-5435344?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books" target="_blank"><em>Where the Sidewalk Ends</em></a>, Shel Silverstein has this poem titled “The Land of Happy”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Have you been to The Land of Happy,<br>
Where everyone’s happy all day,<br>
Where they joke and they sing<br>
Of the happiest things,<br>
And everything’s jolly and gay?<br>
There’s no one unhappy in Happy,<br>
There’s laughter and smiles galore.<br>
I have been to The Land of Happy—<br>
What a bore!</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Growing up, this poem was unsettling to me; to affirm it seemed somehow wrong, and yet I knew it to be true. I much preferred books, movies, and television shows that included bad guys (and more importantly, the people fighting them) over stories about people living happily and somewhat non-eventfully. I couldn’t reconcile my preference with the fact that heaven would have none of this excitement; what was wrong with me that I didn’t prefer the Land of Happy?</p>

<p>It took me years, but I finally saw that there’s no contradiction between 1) loving, honoring, and desiring good and 2) preferring stories with bad guys over the Land of Happy. I was drawn to stories with evil and suffering not because I was attracted to the evil, but because that evil brought out the glory and character of the good that struggled against it; it was the response of <em>goodness</em> that I was tuning in to see. The characters in those stories who rose up against the bad guys revealed the power and beauty of goodness in a way that an unprovoked—though perfectly good—character would not (see <a href="/w/evil-and-the-cross" target="_blank">here</a> for more on this).</p>

<p>The part of God’s story we find ourselves in now is <em>not</em> the Land of Happy. And for a time, this fallen world is instrumental in demonstrating to us the beauty of God’s character—the fullness of which we would never understand, appreciate, or glorify were we not to see Him interact with a sinful world. A few examples:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Because of the existence of our sin, we see that God is a righteous judge: “[O]ur unrighteousness <strong>demonstrates the righteousness of God</strong> [when He judges our unrighteousness]”&nbsp;(Romans 3:5).</li>
	<li>We see God’s holiness and righteousness in the price that was necessary to atone for sin. We see that He’s just and so cannot simply lower His standard and let sin pass: “God displayed [Christ Jesus] publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to <strong>demonstrate His righteousness</strong>, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus”&nbsp;(Romans 3:25–26).</li>
	<li>We see that God has a love that seeks out and sacrifices for us, His enemies: “God <strong>demonstrates His own love</strong> toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”&nbsp;(Romans 5:8).</li>
	<li>We see and experience the incredible depth of God’s grace: “[We] were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, <strong>so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace</strong> in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus”&nbsp;(Ephesians 2:4–7).</li>
</ul>

<p>The aspects of God’s character we learn about now as a result of living in a fallen world will make our time with Him in eternity even more glorious. But after sin has served its purpose here, we won’t need it to continue. We’ll have all of human history on which to reflect in order to truly know God’s character, and all of eternity to enjoy Him face to face in peace.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>He will swallow up death for all time,<br>
And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces,<br>
And He will remove the reproach of<br>
His people from all the earth;<br>
For the Lord has spoken.<br>
And it will be said in that day,<br>
“Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us.<br>
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;<br>
Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation”&nbsp;(Isaiah 25:8–9).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And it won’t be boring at all.</p>
</div>

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title: Sex-Selection Abortion: Bad News for Pro-Choicers
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/10/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/sex-selection-abortion-bad-news-for-pro-choicers
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Allison Benedikt, a writer for Slate, <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/05/31/sex_selection_abortion_and_the_pro_choice_movement_why_liberals_shouldn_t_gulp.html" target="_blank">gets it</a>. The key question when it comes to abortion is, “What is the unborn?” When pro-choicers speak out against sex-selection abortion, they undermine the entire pro-choice position because it’s an admission that sex-selection abortion <em>kills little girls</em>.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Strategically, it makes no sense to give in to this idea that there’s somehow something a little queasier about having an abortion for gender than, say, for money. These are equally legitimate reasons (or, if you are on the other side, equally illegitimate). One might make you uncomfortable in your gut, but it can’t make the movement hesitate. Because that hesitation—that pause of, well, yes <em>this one is complicated</em>, or, as <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/05/31/trying_to_ban_sex_selective_abortion_won_t_cover_up_for_piles_of_republican_anti_woman_legislation_.html" target="_blank">Amanda says</a>, this one is "unpleasant to contemplate"—makes it that much easier for so many of those other reasons (money, timing, work) to seem a little not-OK too.</p>

<p>Also, let’s just remember that we are talking about fetuses. No matter how many ultrasound pics get posted to Facebook, these are fetuses with female genitals or male genitals—not little girls and little boys. If pro-choicers object to aborting because of the sex of the fetus, aren’t we then saying that abortion is “murdering” girls? Aren’t we basically arguing that a fetus is not a blank slate but a future possibility? That is not the case to make if your goal is to protect abortion rights. Gulp for a second if you must, then get over it.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I can’t imagine what argument Benedikt uses to convince herself a fetal human with female genitals is a “blank slate” (whatever that means) and not a very little girl. The words “boy” and “girl” mean something specific, and the use of them by ultrasound technicians is uncontroversial when said female or male genitals are observed on tiny human bodies.</p>

<p>Benedikt recommends that pro-choicers forget what technology is revealing to us, grit their teeth, and force themselves to move past what their consciences are telling them. As they do, expect to see the intellectual contortions used to support the “right” to kill these humans become increasingly more strange.</p>

<p>Sex-selection abortion is a losing issue for pro-choicers. It pits their desire to promote the value of women against their desire to have the right to end the lives of their developing children. It also calls attention to the humanity of those children. If pro-choicers come out against it, they admit to what it is they’re killing. If they come out for it, they look like heartless hypocrites.</p>

<p>Just as Benedikt fears, a conversation with your pro-choice friends about the injustice of sex-selection abortion might be all they need to untangle their thinking. Maybe you could start by showing them this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISme5-9orR0" target="_blank">documentary trailer</a>.</p>
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title: Gender Diversity in Leadership
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/19/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/gender-diversity-in-leadership
content:
            <div> 
		<p>An <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/1836031/can-tech-companies-continue-to-innovate-with-no-women-at-the-table" target="_blank">article</a> in Fast Company titled “Can Tech Companies Continue to Innovate with No Women At the Table?”&nbsp;argues that businesses are harming themselves by not having both men and women on their boards.</p>

<p>Many are concerned about this right now, including Norway, which has passed laws enforcing 40% female boards in companies. Supporters of gender diversity have been quoted as saying, “<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/jan/09/business.workandcareers" target="_blank">In my experience</a>, mixed teams, mixed by gender, ethnic background, by age and experience, perform better than homogeneous teams,”&nbsp;and, “<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/mar/06/women.discriminationatwork" target="_blank">[W]hen you start using</a> the half of the talent you have previously ignored, then everybody gains.”</p>

<p>According to those who are concerned (and even <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/facebook-protesters-all-male-board_n_1453267.html" target="_blank">protesting</a>), men and women are different, and their perspectives are unique and necessary to an institution’s successful leadership. Here’s what Fast Company has to say against those who don’t have gender diversity:</p>

<blockquote>
<ul>
	<li>Diversifying boards also brings different perspectives to companies’&nbsp;big picture objectives, product development, and problem solving. Companies can’t continue to innovate without diverse leaders at the table.</li>
</ul>

<p>And yet, the boards of one in 10 Fortune 500 companies include no women.</p>

<p>“[S]ince the data also shows that companies with more diversity at the very top achieve better financial results, it’s just as important to bring diverse perspectives to the entire chain of command. It’s good business from every angle”...</p>

<p>Facebook and other tech/social media companies’&nbsp;decisions to exclude women from the boardroom is disappointing and a setback.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>But what if we move from business to another institution? What if we’re talking about <em>marriages</em> that exclude women and the diversity they bring? Then there’s no problem? Nothing is lost? Suddenly men and women are interchangeable? Aren’t the differences in their perspectives and contributions even <em>more</em> <a href="http://www.thepoachedegg.net/the-poached-egg/2012/05/apologetics-science-discovers-the-importance-of-motherhood.html" target="_blank">relevant</a> when it comes to the relationships within the family—the institution responsible for creating and socializing the next generation? Why is it bigotry to argue for governmental support of diversity on the basis of the differences between men and women in one case, but not the other?</p>

<p>You who support the creation of laws to uphold gender diversity for the sake of <em>businesses</em>, would it be a similar disappointment and setback for <em>families</em> if the laws upholding diversity in marriage were removed?</p>
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title: See How He Loved Him
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/27/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/see-how-he-loved-him
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2011&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">John 11</a>, when Jesus arrives in Bethany and sees Mary and her friends and family weeping at Lazarus’s death, Jesus Himself weeps. The two reactions to this from the mourners are particularly interesting, for they represent well the common reactions suffering people have toward God today:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?”&nbsp;They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”&nbsp;Jesus wept. So the Jews were saying, “See how He loved him!”&nbsp;But some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>There are those who see Jesus dying on the cross to put an end to suffering and say, “See how He loved us!”&nbsp;And there are those who say, “If He’s really all-powerful, couldn’t He have prevented the suffering in the first place?”&nbsp;The first set has their eyes fixed on God Himself; the second is firmly focused on their own thwarted plans.</p>

<p>Needless to say, the second view leads straight to anger and bitterness. Only the first view, resting on God’s loving, trustworthy character, is strong enough to carry a person through suffering.</p>

<p>John says that after Jesus heard about His friend’s illness, though He knew it would lead to death, He waited two days before coming to Lazarus and his sisters <em>because</em> He loved them. Lazarus was about to have the magnificent honor of showing God’s glory to the world: “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” Through that situation, those who had eyes to see saw Jesus’ love, saw Him disturbed by suffering, saw that He was the giver of life and the healer of all things, saw that He was more powerful than death.</p>

<p>Could Jesus have prevented Lazarus from dying? Certainly. But what the people complaining about Jesus’ lack of action could not see was that Jesus had something greater in mind for Lazarus (and for the world) than a mere healing.</p>

<p>Now what if <em>every</em> instance of our suffering is likewise <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%208:28-31&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">not an end in itself,</a> but remains “for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it”? Lord, help us to say in all circumstances, “See how He loves me!” as we keep our eyes on Your love and compassion revealed in the cross and wait to see how You will give us the joy of bringing glory to You through every situation.</p>
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title: The Burning Research Lab Objection
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/06/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-burning-research-lab-objection
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Here’s a common objection offered against the idea that an embryonic human is a valuable human being: Imagine you’re in a research lab when a fire breaks out, and you have to choose to save either a two-year-old or ten frozen embryos. Which do you choose?</p>

<p>The objection is meant to show that the embryos are not really human beings, and to prove to the pro-lifer that, deep down, he knows they’re not. After all, if they were all equally human, then the pro-lifer would automatically choose the ten embryos, right?</p>

<p>In Scott Klusendorf’s <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Life-Equipping-Christians/dp/1433503204/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1346881660&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+case+for+life" target="_blank">The Case for Life</a></em>, he offers a succinct answer to the burning research lab challenge:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The objection fails for three reasons. First, how does choosing to save one human being over another prove the one left behind is not human? Given a choice between saving my daughter and a building full of other people, I would save my own kid. Would that prove the others were not human beings?</p>

<p>Second, the debate over embryonic stem cell research is not about choosing whom we’re going to save, as in the case of the burning lab. It’s about whom we’re going to deliberately kill to benefit us. Saving my own kid first is permissible. Shooting those left behind is not, even if it would increase my chances of escape.</p>

<p>Third, moral intuitions are important, but they are not infallible. We must examine them in light of reason. A little over a century ago, many whites thought it unthinkable that anyone would consider black slaves human beings…. Thus, it’s no stretch to imagine a proponent of slavery putting the following challenge to a northern abolitionist: “Your barn is burning. You have a choice of saving a Negro slave or a white schoolboy. Which would you choose?” If a majority of abolitionists leave the black kid behind, does that change the kind of thing he is or, more to the point, justify our killing him to get the white kid out?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>For more on answering this challenge, here’s Alan’s response:</p>

<p class="text-align-center"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xfo0YgWYavg" width="560"></iframe></p>
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title: Genetic Selection Involves Killing
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/21/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/genetic-selection-involves-killing
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The Telegraph <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/9480372/Genetically-engineering-ethical-babies-is-a-moral-obligation-says-Oxford-professor.html" target="_blank">reports</a> on an article in the UK Reader’s Digest by Julian Savulescu, the editor in chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Professor Julian Savulescu said that creating so-called designer babies could be considered a “moral obligation” as it makes them grow up into “ethically better children”.</p>

<p>“Surely trying to ensure that your children have the best, or a good enough, opportunity for a great life is responsible parenting?” wrote Prof Savulescu, the Uehiro Professor in practical ethics.</p>

<p>“So where genetic selection aims to bring out a trait that clearly benefits an individual and society, we should allow parents the choice.</p>

<p>“To do otherwise is to consign those who come after us to the ball and chain of our squeamishness and irrationality.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The Telegraph article is unclear about whether Savelescu was promoting genetic selection (screening embryos and choosing the desired one), or genetic manipulation (correcting or replacing undesirable genes), or both. But a look through <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121020002340/http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/magazine/readers-digest-main/the-maverick-its-our-duty-to-have-designer-babies" target="_blank">Savulescu’s article</a> shows he was referring to the first. He speaks only of the type of screening currently being done to determine if certain abnormalities are present, recommending we expand that practice into other characteristics.</p>

<p>I’ve talked about this <a href="/w/a-new-eugenics-for-a-new-day" target="_blank">before</a>: When discussing designer babies, the wording is usually crafted to make it sound like they are trying to make sure your child is better off than he would have been (see for example, the subtitle of the Telegraph article: “Genetically screening our offspring <em>to make them better people</em>...” [emphasis mine])—as if they’re improving the traits of your child. But they are not. What they are <em>actually</em> doing is choosing which one of your many already-created children looks the best. They let him live and kill the rest.</p>

<p>In other words, they’re not actually improving anyone or giving anyone a better “opportunity for a great life.” They’re creating many children and consigning all but one to death.</p>

<p>Whenever people start talking about “designer babies,” watch for this linguistic sleight of hand. Though they try to hide all of those other embryonic humans behind the curtain, hoping you won’t notice the part those human beings are playing in this grotesque experiment, always remember that this process is about more than one child.</p>

<p>Prof Savulescu goes on to say in his <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121020002340/http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/magazine/readers-digest-main/the-maverick-its-our-duty-to-have-designer-babies" target="_blank">article</a> that eugenics is a “moral obligation” to society:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Indeed, when it comes to screening out personality flaws, such as potential alcoholism, psychopathy and dispositions to violence, you could argue that people have a moral obligation to select ethically better children. They are, after all, less likely to harm themselves and others. That doesn’t necessarily imply that people should be coerced into making a choice, but we should encourage them.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>When I wrote about <a href="/w/a-new-eugenics-for-a-new-day" target="_blank">designer babies</a> earlier this year, it was in the context of individuals narcissistically fulfilling their personal preferences, but notice how the Reader’s Digest article is moving the discussion from personal preference to “moral obligation,” which lays the groundwork for possible future legal obligation—or at the very least, community pressure.</p>

<p>As bioethicist Wesley J. Smith <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2012/08/17/readers-digest-pushes-eugenics/" target="_blank">warns</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Eugenics originated as a “moral obligation,” moved from there to legal coercion, and ultimately crescendoed into the worst evils of human history. And now many of those same ideas have regained sufficient respectability the <em>Reader’s Digest </em>editors think them worthy of respectable presentation. This won’t end well.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Real Community
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/26/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/real-community
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Life-Together-Classic-Exploration-Community/dp/0060608528/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1340664642&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=life+together" target="_blank">Life Together</a></em> about living in—and glorifying God through—the hard realities of Christian communities. If we’re to have real fellowship, we must first shatter our utopian expectations of life with our fellow Christians:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves…. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It��s difficult to love real people in real churches when you’re trying to attain an ideal that does not exist. Embracing the reality of our own sinfulness and the sinfulness of others is the only way to enter true fellowship—with all members completely dependent on Christ for forgiveness, hiding nothing from each other, experiencing conflict and forgiveness, and extending grace to others because we receive grace from Him. A church that is focused on building the perfect community will never have the patience to recognize and work on the community that already exists. Bonhoeffer continues:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.</p>

<p>God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself…When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Disillusionment is necessary if we’re to settle down to learn what God would have us learn, rejoicing in our weakness, thankful for His strength, humbled by our sin; but we have to move on through this, or we’ll end up wandering from church to church, spiritually alone and trapped in bitterness. We don’t need to chase after a vision when, in truth, our struggle with God through the difficulties of reality reveals His power and glory and shapes our character far more than would our participation in the (mythical) perfect community.</p>
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title: If God Is Good
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/12/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/if-god-is-good
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I just finished Randy Alcorn’s book,&nbsp;<em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/If-God-Is-Good-Suffering/dp/160142132X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1338344692&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank">If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil</a></em>, and I recommend it. It’s quite long, but the chapters are brief and readable, so it’s not difficult to get through—although you could spend plenty of time thinking through the ideas of each chapter after reading them.</p>

<p>One thing I’ve been struggling to come to terms with the last few years is the sheer weight of all the evil and suffering in the world. Is good really stronger than evil? I certainly knew in my head that goodness—that <em>God</em>—is stronger, but evil seems so intensely powerful, and a little bit of it can destroy much good. I wanted to truly know and trust that good is even more powerful, has more weight, than evil—and not just at the end of time when God puts an end to evil by force.</p>

<p>I found myself picturing goodness as a wimpy little guy who can do nothing to keep himself from being stomped on by bullies. I knew that image was wrong—that it was even an insult to God, but I couldn’t shake it.</p>

<p>But this book has made a big difference. Reading a large amount of it over a short period of time overwhelmed me with story after story of Christians who suffered horrific evils…evils that were used by God to accomplish great goods—not only in the character of these Christians, but in their relationships with God and in the salvation of countless others. As painful as it was, the evil never succeeded in having the last word. The outcome was always&nbsp;<em>God’s</em>intended outcome.</p>

<p>I think I’ve been looking at this all the wrong way. I was measuring the strength of goodness by looking for good to put an&nbsp;<em>end</em>&nbsp;to evils, when all along, the evils were being used strongly by God for good. It’s hard to imagine thanking God for a painful life of paralysis, but people do. People do! Isn’t that incredible?</p>

<p>They’ve learned the secret: God has power over all evil that would seek to destroy, and it will all work to serve God’s good purposes.</p>

<p>Of course, that is where faith—trust in God and His character—comes in, because we can’t always see what good is being accomplished through any one person’s suffering. Sometimes it takes years to see, and sometimes the answer is beyond us in this life. But the avalanche of very specific stories in this book gave me hope like nothing else. Seeing God’s goodness and faithfulness in the lives of those whose level of suffering will probably far exceed mine in my lifetime, and seeing the resulting depth of their knowledge of and trust in God, changed something in me.</p>

<p>God’s goodness is more powerful than evil. Hallelujah!</p>
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title: Atheism and Meaning
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/18/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/atheism-and-meaning
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Yet another atheist, Greta Christina, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/06/30/why_are_believers_ignorant_about_atheists/" target="_blank">misunderstands</a> the grounding problem:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Anglican minister Rev. Gavin Dunbar made an interesting and even compelling argument that grief is necessary for love and humanity… and then went on to argue that, unless you believe in God, you have no reason to care whether the people you love live or die, or even to love them in the first place.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>No. The argument is not, “Unless you believe in God, you have no reason.” The argument is, “Unless there <em>is</em> a God, there <em>is</em> no reason.”</p>

<blockquote>
<p>But rarely have I encountered a critic of atheism who was so ready to deny even my basic humanity, who was so ready to tell me — and tell the world — that because I am an atheist, I see not only morality and virtue, but love and friendship and grief, as an illusion.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Well, that’s exactly the point. These <em>are</em> basic aspects of humanity, and we all experience them, whether or not we believe in God. We experience them because <em>they’re real</em>, and they’re real for everyone because God is real. The problem for atheists is not that they see these things as an illusion, but that they <em>don’t</em> see them as an illusion. They act as if they’re real, and this is inconsistent with their worldview.</p>

<p>Atheist philosopher Michael Ruse has&nbsp;<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/15/morality-evolution-philosophy" target="_blank">said</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Morality is just a matter of emotions, like liking ice cream and sex and hating toothache and marking student papers. But it is, and has to be, a funny kind of emotion. It has to pretend that it is not that at all! If we thought that morality was no more than liking or not liking spinach, then pretty quickly it would break down…. So morality has to come across as something that is more than emotion. It has to appear to be objective, even though really it is subjective.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>As Ruse explains, the atheist has to live as if his worldview were not true, as if morality and meaning were more than just “an illusion put in place by your genes to make you a social cooperator,” as if it were not the case that “God is dead. Morality has no foundation.”</p>

<p>Christina says we create meaning for ourselves—that “social experiences, such as morality, virtue, love, grief, are emotions and mental constructs, which evolved in us to help us survive and flourish as a social species.” She says:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The most crucial point: Saying that life and morality and reason and virtue and emotions such as grief are physical processes –&nbsp;<em>this is not the same as saying they are illusions</em>.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>We’re not saying that in the atheist worldview these things are illusions in the sense that people aren’t really feeling them. The question is not about whether or not atheists experience what they interpret as grief and meaning. The question is whether or not what they’re experiencing is a reflection of reality. Ruse says no, and he’s right…if atheism is true.</p>

<p>There’s a difference between objective reality and a subjective feeling created by “physical processes.” Think of a person undergoing a brain operation. The surgeon initiates a physical process that makes the patient experience the smell of cheese. The experience is truly subjectively experienced by the patient, but that doesn’t mean he’s apprehending an objective truth about reality. There is no cheese there. It’s an illusion. Regardless of how he feels about it. The patient could attach any sort of invented meaning he likes to his experience of the smell of cheese, but is that true meaning?</p>

<p>In the same way, if we invent meaning and morality as a result of physical processes, that doesn’t mean there’s truly an objective scale of good and evil, or that an action is objectively morally desirable or undesirable. It merely means that our brain is manipulating us into feeling something for the purpose of our survival. We “smell” morality, but there is no morality there.</p>

<p>Or think of the schizophrenic woman involuntarily creating illusory scenarios in her own mind. Is the world she experiences through her invented perceptions as meaningful as that of a person who is interacting with objective reality? Don’t we have compassion and sorrow over her situation? Don’t we see the difference between objective and subjective meaning and rightly see hers as an illusion? And yet, if the atheists are correct, and meaning and morality do not reflect some objective standard, but are only subjectively experienced physical processes in our own minds (that could have been different, had we happened to evolve differently), then our invented “reality” of meaning and morality has no more true meaning than the world of the schizophrenic woman. Regardless of how we feel about it.</p>

<p>Ruse says that even when we finally face up to this, we will still continue to act in a moral way because “It doesn’t matter how much philosophical reflection can show that your beliefs and behaviour have no rational foundation, your psychology will make sure you go on living in a normal, happy manner.” Isn’t that odd? No matter what, people continue to act as if morality and meaning were more than illusions…almost as if they really <em>were</em> more.</p>

<p>Christina continues:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>It’s easier to ignore [the] voices [of atheists] if people can pretend that we don’t care about right and wrong, that we think everything is physical and therefore nothing matters, that we see love and compassion as illusions, that we have no reason for grief. It’s easier to ignore those voices if people can pretend that we’re not quite human.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This is just a misunderstanding of the theist argument. No Christian thinks an atheist is “not quite human.” On the contrary, what we call atheists to is a true recognition of their own humanity, because that humanity is greater than what we would find in a blind, uncaring, meaningless, Personless universe made up only of matter—where in the grand scheme of things, a giant tree falling to the left and crushing a busload of children is no different from it falling to the right and crushing some seedlings.</p>

<p>That kind of world doesn’t match our experience. We know that both atheists and theists care about right and wrong, love and compassion. So now we must decide: Are we merely being fooled by survival instincts, or are we apprehending objective reality?</p>
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title: God Bless America
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/04/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/god-bless-america
content:
            <div> 
		<p>On this Fourth of July, I say, “God bless America!” But saying “God bless America” doesn’t mean, “God, give us prosperity and everything we want.” I’m asking God for good things, but those good things include His granting the people of this nation conviction of our sin, repentance, grace, faith, wisdom, justice and mercy in our treatment of each other, knowledge of the truth, trust in Him, and even suffering, if that suffering will bring about everything else on the list.</p>

<p>And may we continue to have the freedom to speak the full truth of what God has revealed. Although, history as shown that sometimes a <em>lack</em> of this freedom is used more powerfully by God to reveal Himself, so I place even that in God’s hands. May we Christians be ready for either.</p>

<p>As Christians, we can’t expect to be fully at home in any nation, but just as we have a special love for our own families above others, it’s not wrong to have a special love for our country and to desire its true good, for the ultimate purpose of God’s glory. God’s words to the Israelites in Babylon through <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jeremiah%2029:7&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Jeremiah</a> were wise ones:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Whatever will move the people of this nation away from our sin and closer to God, that is the blessing I ask for.</p>
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title: Watch Your Language: Mentoring Letter October 2012
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Greg Koukl
date: 10/01/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/watch-your-language-mentoring-letter-october-2012
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Greg explains why you need to find down-to-earth ways of communicating your convictions to others.</em></p>

<p>Here’s a simple communication tip that will make you much more effective as an ambassador for Christ: Watch your language.</p>

<p>I don’t mean avoid vulgar or obscene vocabulary (I presume you’re already doing that). I mean something else.</p>

<p>Consider this. When you settle into your seat on an airplane, what does the flight attendant say over the intercom? She says, “Blah, blah, blah, blah.”&nbsp;Or so it sounds to seasoned travelers. Few pay attention to the “flight attendant noise.”&nbsp;They’ve heard it before and tune out.</p>

<p>Unless you fly, say, Southwest Airlines. Their clever lines are a break (and welcome relief) from the routine. You sit up and take notice.</p>

<p>In the same way, much of our lingo sounds like religious noise to outsiders. Terms like “faith,”&nbsp;“belief,”&nbsp;“the Bible,”&nbsp;“receive Jesus,”&nbsp;even “sin”—as important as it is to talk about it—fall on deaf ears. They’ve heard it before and tune out the “blah, blah, blah.”</p>

<p>Worse, Christian jargon can be misleading. This is especially true of the word “faith,”&nbsp;which suggests a kind of useful fantasy, a “blind,”&nbsp;“leap of”&nbsp;religious wishful thinking. Nothing like this is in view, of course, with the original biblical word, pistis. Still, it’s the way many people (including Christians) mistakenly perceive it.</p>

<p>To solve the lingo problem, I’ve made it a habit to find (and use) substitute words—synonyms for religious terminology—to brighten my conversation and improve my communication.</p>

<p>For example, instead of quoting “the Bible”&nbsp;or “the Word of God”&nbsp;(both easily dismissed), why not cite “Jesus of Nazareth,”&nbsp;or “those Jesus trained to communicate His message after Him”&nbsp;(the Apostles), or “the ancient Hebrew prophets”?</p>

<p>These substitute phrases mean the same thing, but have a completely different feel. It’s much easier to dismiss a religious book than the words of respected religious figures.</p>

<p>When referring to the Gospels, try citing “the primary source historical documents for the life of Jesus of Nazareth.”&nbsp;That’s the way historians see them, after all.</p>

<p>Avoid the word “faith.”&nbsp;Substitute “trust”&nbsp;for the exercise of faith (“I have placed my trust in Jesus”)—which is the precise meaning of the original biblical term, anyway—and “convictions”&nbsp;for the content of faith (i.e., “These are my Christian convictions”).</p>

<p>For the same reason, don’t talk about your “beliefs.”&nbsp;It’s too easy to misunderstand this word as a reference to mere beliefs, subjective “true for me”&nbsp;preferences. Rather say, “This is what I think is true,”&nbsp;or “These are my spiritual [not ’religious’] convictions.”</p>

<p>“Non-Christians”&nbsp;or “unbelievers”&nbsp;are terms that can subtly communicate an “us vs. them”&nbsp;mentality. Instead, substitute the phrase “those who don’t share our views.”</p>

<p>I’ve even found myself avoiding the word “sin”&nbsp;lately, not out of timidity about the topic, but because the term doesn’t deliver anymore. Instead, I talk about our moral crimes against God, or our acts of rebellion or sedition against our Sovereign. By contrast, abandon “blown it”&nbsp;and “messed up.”&nbsp;They don’t capture the gravity of our offenses.</p>

<p>The word “forgiveness”&nbsp;still seems to have power, but sometimes substitutes like “pardon,”&nbsp;“clemency,”&nbsp;and “mercy”&nbsp;can put a fresh face on it.</p>

<p>Rest assured, there’s nothing wrong with using replacement words. Biblical translation is always a matter of choosing English synonyms for original Greek or Hebrew terms. The goal isn’t to soften the original meaning, but rather to make it more vivid and powerful.</p>

<p>Help yourself to my substitute words, or make your own list of synonyms. Try to find down-to-earth ways of communicating your convictions to others (notice I didn’t say “share your faith”) so they don’t tune you out. Simply put: Watch your language.</p>

<p>That’s my own rule every time I write, speak, or broadcast. I want the clearest, most compelling words I can find to resolve a difficulty or communicate the truth. All this with a single goal in mind—to help you be a more effective ambassador.</p>
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title: Happy Birthday, Wilberforce
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/24/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/happy-birthday-wilberforce
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Today is William Wilberforce’s 253rd birthday. Many of you probably already know he worked for decades to end Britain’s slave trade in the late 1700s and early 1800s, but he also had this to say to Christian apologists like you:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Know then, and value as ye ought, the honourable office which is especially devolved on you. Let it be your acceptable service to recommend the discredited cause, and sustain the fainting interests of Religion, to furnish to her friends matter of sound and obvious argument, and of honest triumph; and if your best endeavours cannot conciliate, to refute at least, and confound her enemies.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>That quote is from his book, <em>A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity</em> (1797). Today, they just call it <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Christianity-Hendrickson-Christian-Classics/dp/1598561227/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1251106078&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">A Practical View of Christianity</a></em> (free Kindle version <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Prevailing-Christians-Contrasted-Christianity-ebook/dp/B0082VXMU4/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1345840581&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=a+practical+view+of+christianity" target="_blank">here</a>), and it’s one of my all-time favorite books.</p>

<p>I’ve found Wilberforce’s story and his writings to be a great encouragement to me, with many parallels to the challenges we’re facing today (see <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2008/08/new-atheists-ol.html" target="_blank">here</a>, for example).</p>

<p>If you’d like to learn more about Wilberforce, of course I recommend his book, but I also recommend you listen to (or read) <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/peculiar-doctrines-public-morals-and-the-political-welfare" target="_blank">this short biography</a> by John Piper. Here’s an excerpt:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>What was the key to Wilberforce’s perseverance under these kinds of burdens and obstacles? One of the main keys was his child-like, child-loving, self-forgetting joy in Christ. The testimonies and evidence of this are many. A certain Miss Sullivan wrote to a friend about Wilberforce in about 1815: “By the tones of his voice and expression of his countenance he showed that joy was the prevailing feature of his own mind, joy springing from entireness of trust in the Savior’s merits and from love to God and man...His joy was quite penetrating”...</p>

<p>James Stephen recalled after Wilberforce’s death, “Being himself amused and interested by everything, whatever he said became amusing or interesting...His presence was as fatal to dullness as to immorality. His mirth was as irresistible as the first laughter of childhood”...</p>

<p>In other words, his indomitable joy moved others to be good and happy. He sustained himself and swayed others by his joy. If a man can rob you of your joy, he can rob you of your usefulness. Wilberforce’s joy was indomitable and therefore he was a compelling Christian and Politician all his life.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I pray I will have his joy and perseverance, and I echo <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=k2YEAAAAQAAJ&amp;pg=PA236&amp;lpg=PA236&amp;dq=%22Do+thou,+O+God,+renew+my+heart%E2%80%93fill+me+with+that+love+of+thee+which+extinguishes+all+other+affections,+and+enable+me+to+give+thee+my+heart,+and+to+serve+thee+in+spirit+and+in+truth.%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=1fvZrBNKHc&amp;sig=13E6YYvhdEJVXvr9tvnmXXSJwrI&amp;hl=en#v=onepage&amp;q=%22Do%20thou%2C%20O%20God%2C%20renew%20my%20heart%E2%80%93fill%20me%20with%20that%20love%20of%20thee%20which%20extinguishes%20all%20other%20affections%2C%20and%20enable%20me%20to%20give%20thee%20my%20heart%2C%20and%20to%20serve%20thee%20in%20spirit%20and%20in%20truth.%22&amp;f=false" target="_blank">this prayer</a> from his journal:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Do thou, O God, renew my heart—fill me with that love of thee which extinguishes all other affections, and enable me to give thee my heart, and to serve thee in spirit and in truth.</p>
</blockquote>
</div>

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title: I’d Like to Have an Argument, Please
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 07/01/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/i-d-like-to-have-an-argument-please
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I want to teach you how to assess a basic argument. How can you know if a line of thinking is a good one or not?</p>

<p>There’s no magic to this. The tools of thinking are simple ones. Anyone can employ them skillfully with a little practice. If you have the right equipment you can make a lot of progress even if you don’t consider yourself an intellectual whiz-kid.</p>

<p>Think of an argument like a simple house, a roof supported by walls. The roof is the conclusion and the walls are the supporting ideas. In the lingo of logic, the walls are called premises and the whole structure of the building is called a syllogism.</p>

<p>When all the details of a syllogism are in proper working order, the conclusion can be trusted. The walls are strong enough to support the roof, so the whole structure is reliable. It rests securely on its supporting foundation.</p>

<p>Here are two well-worn syllogisms you may have heard before:</p>

<ul>
	<li>All men are mortal.</li>
	<li>Socrates is a man.</li>
	<li>Therefore, Socrates is mortal.</li>
</ul>

<p>Or...</p>

<ul>
	<li>If it’s raining outside, then the streets are wet.</li>
	<li>The streets are not wet.</li>
	<li>Therefore, it’s not raining outside.</li>
</ul>

<p>Here are some popular ways those two different forms of argument have been employed in defending theism. The first is called the Cosmological Argument, and the second is an example of the Moral Argument:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Everything that begins to exist has a cause.</li>
	<li>The universe began to exist.</li>
	<li>Therefore, the universe had a cause.</li>
</ul>

<p>Or...</p>

<ul>
	<li>If God does not exist, then objective morals do not exist.</li>
	<li>Objective morals do exist.</li>
	<li>Therefore, God exists.</li>
</ul>

<p>The goal of critical thinking is to look at any line of reasoning and test it. Are the walls solid, or can they be knocked down? If the walls go down, the roof goes flat and the argument is defeated.</p>

<h2>A House with No Walls</h2>

<p>First, an observation. Some arguments are not really arguments at all. In terms of our house illustration, people sometimes try to build their roof right on the ground. Instead of erecting solid walls—the supporting ideas that hold up the conclusion—they simply <em>assert</em> their conclusion and pound the podium.</p>

<p>An argument, though, is different from an assertion. An assertion simply states a point. An argument gives reasons showing why the point should be taken seriously. These reasons become the topic of mutual discussion or analysis. If there are no reasons, there’s little to assess. Opinions are opinions, not proof. A mere point of view cannot be taken seriously as worthy of belief. That requires reasons.</p>

<p>A roof is useless when it’s on the ground. In the same way, an assertion without evidence is not reliable. The untutored may be persuaded, but those thinking more carefully will not be swayed.</p>

<p>I frequently get calls on the radio from people who think they’re giving me an argument, when all they’re doing is forcefully stating a point of view. They sound compelling, but a closer look reveals an emperor with lots of attitude, but no clothes. My first task is to recognize that the roof is laying flat on the ground and simply point it out. The caller wants a free ride, but I won’t give it to him. He must ante up, and good reasons are the price of admission for thoughtful discussion.</p>

<p>If you find yourself stymied in a conversation, you may be looking for an argument that’s not there. Ask yourself, “Did they give me an argument or just make an assertion?”&nbsp;If the latter is true, then say, “That’s an interesting opinion. Now I have a question: How did you come to that conclusion? Why should I believe what you just told me? Can you give me any good reasons for your view? What, specifically, is your argument?”</p>

<p>Don’t let challengers flatten you by dropping a roof on your head. Make them build walls underneath their roof. Ask for reasons or facts that support their point of view.</p>

<h2>Three Ways an Argument Can Go Bad</h2>

<p>Any real argument—as opposed to a mere contention—has three elements. First, it has a particular <em>form</em>. Second, it makes particular <em>claims</em>. Third, it uses particular <em>words</em> or <em>terms</em> to make its point. When an argument goes bad, the problem is with the form, or the claims, or the terms.</p>

<p><em>First, an argument’s form can be bad.</em> Take this syllogism: “All men are cheerful. John is a man. Therefore, John is cheerful.”&nbsp;This is a simple argument containing two statements (premises) and a conclusion. The conclusion is dependent on the strength of the first two statements. The first is the major premise—all men are cheerful. The second is the minor premise—John is a man. The final statement is the conclusion—John is cheerful.</p>

<p>Notice the form of this argument. Given that all men are cheerful and that John is a man, the conclusion is inevitable. It <em>follows</em> from the premises because the form is correct, in this case. When an argument is structured properly like this, we say the argument is <em>valid</em>.</p>

<p>What about this one: “All men are cheerful. Jane is not a man. Therefore, Jane is not cheerful.”&nbsp;A moment’s reflection shows this doesn’t work. Even if it were true that all men are cheerful and Jane is not a man, it still wouldn’t follow that Jane is not cheerful. Women can be cheerful, too. This form is not valid.</p>

<p>We use the term “fallacy”&nbsp;to describe an argument that has a faulty construction. There are different types of fallacies listed in logic books and I won’t detail them here. Many of them, though, are obvious upon careful reflection.</p>

<p>When the form is bad—when the conclusion does not follow from the premises—it’s called a <em>non sequitur</em>, Latin for “it does not follow.”&nbsp;Non sequiturs cannot be trusted. It may turn out that Jane is not cheerful, but you can’t draw that conclusion from the argument as it stands.</p>

<p>Even when the form is right, there still may be problems. <em>Claims can also make an argument go bad.</em> Accurate form (a valid argument) does not guarantee that the statements themselves are true. Following our house illustration, the architectural structure may be solid, but the wood itself could be rotten. What if it’s not true that all men are cheerful? Maybe some are gloomy. What if John is not a man, but your neighbor’s pet schnauzer?</p>

<p>Take this argument: “All unicorns live in Ireland. Pegasus is a unicorn. Therefore, Pegasus lives in Ireland.”&nbsp;Acknowledging that the form is valid (it is) doesn’t at the same time commit you to the existence of unicorns or tell you anything about where they live. The factual questions about unicorns is a separate issue.</p>

<p>If the claims in the statements are false, then the argument still fails even though the form is right. Clear thinking requires we look closely at the claims as well as the form. The statements themselves must be true.</p>

<p>The following argument is an example of this mistake: “When an alleged historical account is similar to a myth that came before it, then the later account is also a myth. Ancient myths of dying and rising redeemers are remarkably similar to the Jesus story. Therefore, the Jesus story is also a myth.”</p>

<p>Though the argument is valid (the form is correct), it fails because neither of the premises are true. Myths of alleged dying and rising redeemers that predate the time of Christ bear little resemblance to the accounts of Jesus we find in the Gospels. Further, even if they did, this wouldn’t prove the details of the life of Jesus were fictions. That must be determined independently on historical grounds.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup></p>

<p><em>The third way an argument can go wrong is in its terms.</em> The same words may mean different things in different parts of the syllogism. This is called an “equivocation.”&nbsp;Equivocation means a vagueness, ambiguity, or uncertainty. If somebody states her opinion very clearly and then under challenge becomes less sure of her position, we say she’s equivocating. She waffles; she’s uncertain.</p>

<p>Sometimes words themselves are equivocal. They have multiple meanings that become confused with each other in the discussion. This creates problems for an argument.</p>

<p>Look at this example: “All men are cheerful. John is a man. Therefore, John is cheerful.”&nbsp;The form is in order and, for argument’s sake, let's stipulate that the claims are true. Is our conclusion reliable? That depends.</p>

<p>What if it turns out that the word “man”&nbsp;in the first premise refers to grown males, while the same word in the second premise refers to an adolescent male? Once the terms are clarified, the argument looks like this: “All adult males are cheerful. John is an adolescent male. Therefore, John is cheerful.”&nbsp;See the problem? This argument falters through equivocation.</p>

<p>Here’s a theological example: “Jesus is God. Mary is the mother of Jesus. Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.”</p>

<p>The form here seems correct—the conclusion follows from the premises. It also seems that the individual statements are true. But something’s wrong here. God is not the kind of being that has a mother. Where did we go wrong?</p>

<p>The problem becomes more obvious when we take it a step further: “Mary is the mother of God. God is a trinity. Therefore, Mary is the mother of the Trinity.”&nbsp;This, of course, is patently false. But why is there a problem if the form is sound and the claims are in order?</p>

<p>The trouble lies with the terms. There’s an equivocation here on the clause “Jesus is God”&nbsp;in the first syllogism. Jesus is a very unusual individual. Yes, He is God, but He’s also fully human. Jesus is one person with two natures, the nature of God and the nature of man.</p>

<p>When we say Jesus is God, we are not saying His humanity is divine. That would be a contradiction. We are saying He is God in that He has a divine nature. Mary is the mother Jesus in the sense that she’s the mother of His humanity. She is the mother of His human nature, not His divine nature.</p>

<p>Equivocation—lack of clarity—on these terms makes a false conclusion seem sound. The claims are right. The form is right. But the conclusion is false because the meanings of the terms are equivocal.</p>

<p>Once I took a call on our radio show from a Jehovah’s Witness who argued, “Jesus is God. God is a trinity. Therefore, Jesus is a trinity.”&nbsp;The argument was valid in form, but since the conclusion was clearly false, he argued, the problem must be in the premises.</p>

<p>My caller thought he had logically disproved the Trinity. Either Jesus is not God or God is not a trinity. His attempt failed through equivocation, though, but the problem is difficult for most to see at first. It has to do with the troublesome word, “is.”</p>

<p>There are at least five meanings for the word “is.”&nbsp;Resolving the equivocation in this argument requires distinguishing between the “is”&nbsp;of essential predication (“Aristotle is human”) and the “is”&nbsp;of identity (“Aristotle is the author of the <em>Nichomachean Ethics”</em>). There are also the parts/whole “is”&nbsp;(“Aristotle is skin and bones”), the “is”&nbsp;of accidental predication (“Aristotle is white”), and the “is”&nbsp;of existence (“Aristotle is”).</p>

<p>When Christianity teaches that Jesus is God, it doesn’t mean that Jesus and God are exactly <em>identical</em>. Jesus is different from the Father. He shares the Father’s <em>essential nature</em>, but He is not everything that God is. God subsists in three persons; Jesus is only one of those persons.<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></p>

<p>The missing element here was an explanation of terms. Once the meanings where clarified—and the equivocation removed—this attack on the Trinity was defeated.</p>

<p>Part of the assessment of an argument is based on the clarity of the concepts involved. This is why precision with words is so important for clear thinking.</p>

<h2>Invisible Walls</h2>

<p>Sometimes it’s difficult to assess an argument because the full form of the argument is not stated. The elements are not listed one, two, three as they are in the examples above. Some of the parts are taken for granted—“understood”&nbsp;by the participants—in the process of conversation. This streamlines conversation, but it can also allow faulty claims to go undetected. Let me illustrate.</p>

<p>Once a homosexual said to me, “Jesus never condemned homosexuality.”&nbsp;Though this is only a single sentence, it’s actually a full argument in shorthand, streamlined for brevity. The conclusion didn’t need to be stated. I got the point. I was wrong for attacking homosexuality on moral grounds. Because Jesus never condemned homosexuality, it is therefore morally acceptable behavior.</p>

<p>Notice, though, that the conclusion is not the only thing taken for granted here. The minor premise is stated and the conclusion is assumed, but what of the major premise, our first step in the argument? The unspoken major premise—the invisible wall holding up this argument—contained a serious flaw that went undetected.</p>

<p>We can determine if this is a problem by asking what kind of major premise is needed to make this argument work. The full argument would have to look something like this: “Whatever Jesus did not explicitly condemn is morally acceptable. Jesus never explicitly condemned homosexuality. Therefore, homosexuality is morally acceptable.���</p>

<p>The form of this argument is good; nothing amiss here. But look closer at the major premise. It seems this statement is clearly false. It’s not true that whatever Jesus didn’t directly condemn is morally acceptable. Jesus never explicitly condemned slavery, child abuse, wife-beating, or even gay-bashing, for that matter, but this proves nothing about His moral opinion on those issues.</p>

<p>Many Christians are caught flat-footed here, sensing something is wrong, but not knowing what it is. Sometimes we have to look more closely to identify the unspoken premise before we can see the problem clearly. In this case, that can be done by making the invisible wall visible.</p>

<p>Ask a simple question: “Are you saying that if Jesus doesn’t specifically condemn something, then He condones it?”&nbsp;When they back off (and they must, because such a view is untenable), you might ask, “Then what’s your point?”&nbsp;Don’t get into a fuss. Just ask the question calmly and directly. The silence that follows proves the game is up.</p>

<p>A Jehovah’s Witness once called me and said, “The Trinity isn’t mentioned in the Bible.”&nbsp;The unspoken conclusion was obvious: The Trinity is not biblical. But that conclusion depended on the strength of an invisible wall, which I asked about next.</p>

<p>“Are you saying that anything not specifically mentioned in the Bible cannot be truly biblical?”&nbsp;He was in trouble here because lots of things aren’t mentioned specifically in the Bible that still find support in Scripture. The word “monotheism”&nbsp;isn’t in the Bible, for example, but clearly the idea is taught there.</p>

<p>“No,”&nbsp;he answered.</p>

<p>“Then what’s your point?”&nbsp;I responded, and the argument was over.</p>

<p>Often the flaw in an argument—the “fact”&nbsp;that’s wrong—is hidden in an unspoken assumption your challenger takes for granted. Kick the invisible premise into the open. Often it’s all that’s needed for the whole structure to come tumbling down.</p>

<h2>The Obligation of Reason</h2>

<p>To assess a genuine argument and not a mere assertion, examine the structure. Observe the form of the argument. Examine the claims. Look for hidden statements that may not have been expressed. Finally, examine the terms to see if there’s any equivocation, any ambiguity or lack of clarity that might influence the outcome.</p>

<p>If the argument is sound—if the form is valid, the claims accurate, and the terms clear and precise—then the conclusion is going to be true. Period. In fact, the conclusion is irrefutable; it’s not even possible to be mistaken.</p>

<p>This demonstrates the compelling nature of rationality. There is a bomb-proof quality about deductive logic. If one is faced with a logically valid argument with clear terms and accurate claims, he has a rational obligation to believe the conclusion, even if he doesn't like what he finds. This is called intellectual honesty.</p>

<p>Rationality has nothing to do with what we like; it has to do with what is true. That’s why careful thinking is an indispensable tool for all who are interested in knowing the way the world really is, for those who really do love truth.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">For more details, see Gregory Koukl, “Jesus, the Recycled Redeemer,”&nbsp;<em>Solid Ground</em>, September/October 2009, str.org. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">In this case it can be truly said that the outcome of the argument depended on what “is”&nbsp;is. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2"> ↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: Should Homosexuals Be Allowed to Marry Whom They Love?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 05/17/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/should-homosexuals-be-allowed-to-marry-whom-they-love-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Are we really depriving homosexuals the right to marry the person they love? Yes. But there’s nothing unusual about that. <em>Nobody</em> has the right to marry any person they love. <em>Everyone</em> has restrictions.</p>

<p>When you take an honest look at the marriage law, it turns out that there is nothing unfair about it. Homosexuals have the <em>same rights</em> and the <em>same restrictions</em> as heterosexuals. For example, there is no legal&nbsp;right<em>&nbsp;</em>granted to a heterosexual that does not apply <em>in exactly the same way</em> to every homosexual.&nbsp;Both can marry in any state.&nbsp;Both can marry someone of the opposite sex. Both can receive the benefits that come with legal marriage. Heterosexuals and homosexuals are treated alike.</p>

<p>There is also no legal&nbsp;restriction for homosexuals that does not also apply <em>in</em> <em>exactly the same way</em> to every heterosexual. Neither one can marry their sibling. Both are prohibited from marrying someone already married. They can’t marry a child. And neither has the freedom to marry someone of the same sex.</p>

<p>The marriage law applies equally to every person, whether they are homosexual or not. Everyone is treated the same.</p>

<p>Homosexuals cry foul, of course, because the kind of person they are legally entitled to marry is not a person they love. They believe this is a restriction that is limited to them. But it’s not. There isn’t a person in the United States that has unfettered freedom to marry anyone just because they love them. There are numerous parings of people who love each other and can’t marry.</p>

<p>I have a male friend who I’ve known for over a decade. We have a long-term, committed relationship. We talk every week, we make sacrifices to visit one another, and we’re there to meet each other’s needs. We’re not sexually involved, but I routinely say I love him and he says the same to me. I can’t marry him even though he’s someone I love. I’m restricted. The state won’t recognize our relationship.</p>

<p>Brothers and sisters usually develop strong bonds. They love one another and often have deep, meaningful relationships that can last a lifetime. Their commitment to one another is significant. But they can’t marry one another. Though they love each, they state won’t recognize their relationship. The same is true of two brothers or two sisters.</p>

<p>Fathers and daughters also have long-term, committed relationships. There’s a special bond between them that develops and lasts for years. I can say that the love I feel towards my daughter has a unique texture to it. It’s taught me an aspect of love that, until I had a daughter, I never experienced. There are things that I’ve done and would do for her that virtually no one else on the planet can make me do. And like many fathers and daughters, our special relationship could last half a century or more. But guess what? The state doesn’t care about us as a couple. It doesn’t matter how much we love each other. We can’t get married.</p>

<p>There are dozens of more examples of pairs of people who develop strong, meaningful, and long-term relationships. These people love each other, but that doesn’t mean the state is required to recognize them within the definition of marriage.</p>

<p>Sometimes people point out that in these examples there is no sexual activity and that’s why it’s not the same as a homosexual pair. But why does that matter? Why do we have to use our sex organs with one another to qualify for marriage? Isn’t it enough that we love each other and are committed? Making sexual activity a requirement for marriage is arbitrary.</p>

<p>So what do all these relationships (and many others) have in common? None of them produce the next generation. Committed male friends, siblings, and parent-child relationships don’t have kids.</p>

<p>There is one kind of couple that, throughout all of human history, is known to produce children: heterosexuals. Long-term, monogamous, heterosexual unions <em>as a group and by nature</em> produce the next generation. They create families that become the building blocks of civilization. These families are the <a href="/w/should-homosexual-couples-be-allowed-to-adopt-?" target="_blank">most stable and advantageous environment for raising children</a>. They not only stabilize society, <em>they make society possible</em>. That role can’t be underestimated.</p>

<p>Notice that I said, “As a group and by nature.” As a group, heterosexual couples have kids. There may be exceptions, but the group’s tendency is to produce children. Laws are designed to generalize for the group. “By nature” is a reference to the fact that heterosexual unions produce children by the natural function of their sexual activity. Unlike male friends, siblings, and other relationship couples, it is biologically natural for heterosexuals to produce children.</p>

<p>The government, that normally has a hands-off policy to most relationships, gets involved in sanctioning these long-term, heterosexual unions. It creates a group of privileges and protections for these male-female couplings because it recognizes their role in creating and stabilizing society.</p>

<p>But the government doesn’t get involved in any other relationship pair. It doesn’t legally sanction two male friends, siblings, or father-daughter relationships. That’s because, though there are exceptions, they don’t as a group and by nature produce the next generation. They might love each other – deeply and for a long period of time – but that is irrelevant to the government. The state has a concern to perpetuate and protect our civilization and that explains its vested interested in heterosexual unions.</p>

<p>So why does the government not sanction the relationship of two homosexual males? For the same reason it doesn’t sanction the relationship of male friends, siblings, or a father and daughter. Homosexual couples don’t as a group and by nature produce the next generation. Although, theoretically, homosexuals can adopt, this is the exception. Most same-sex lovers don’t pursue parenting. Furthermore, children don’t naturally result from their sexual activity.</p>

<p>Instead, the state must intervene and grant them children. As Jennifer Roback Morse explains, “Same-sex couples cannot have children. Someone must give them a child or at least half the genetic material to create a child. The state must detach the parental rights of the opposite-sex parent and then attach those rights to the second parent of the same-sex couple. The state must create parentage for the same-sex couple. For the opposite-sex couple, the state merely recognizes parentage.”</p>

<p>A common objection is that marriage can’t be about children because not all married couples have kids. First, although that’s true, every child has a mother and father and a right to know them. These children have a vested interest in the union and stability of their parents. But that’s not something they can protect. Society needs to secure that right for kids so far as we are able.</p>

<p>Second, even if some marriages don’t produce children, it doesn’t nullify the natural tie of marriage to procreation. The purpose of marriage remains regardless of whether married couples actualize it or not. Books are meant to be read even if they collect dust on a bookshelf.</p>

<p>Third, marriages create the optimal environment for raising children. Same-sex marriage intentionally creates the condition where a child is denied their mother or father or both. This is not healthy, a claim that has been long noted by researchers.</p>

<p>The push for same-sex marriage is not primarily about the right to marry the person you love. No one has that right because everyone – including heterosexuals – is restricted. Nor is it to secure the right to adopt children. Homosexuals could be granted every legal right and privilege of marriage, but they would still demand the right to legal marriage.</p>

<p>That’s because this battle is not principally about rights, but about <em>respect</em>. Homosexuals demand public approval for their lifestyle and relationships. As <em>Time</em> magazine wrote, same-sex marriage advocates, “want nothing less than full social equality, total validation—not just the right to inherit a mother-in-law’s Cadillac. As Andrew Sullivan, the (also persistently single) intellectual force behind gay marriage, has written, ‘Including homosexuals within marriage would be a means of conferring the highest form of social approval imaginable.’”[i]</p>

<p>Make no mistake about it. Redefining marriage will impact our culture. It won’t be today, next week, or next year. It will be in the long-term because ideas have consequences. When you sever the natural tie of marriage to procreation and no longer require that children be attached to their parents, you’re doing violence to a vital institution. Marriages start families and families produce the next generation. This is how we secure and stabilize society. That’s why you can’t take a sledgehammer to the core of civilization – the family – and expect that no harm will come.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>
<hr size="1">
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<p>[i] “Will Gay Marriage be Legal?” <em>Time</em>, 2/21/00.</p>
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title: Pro-Life Crash Course
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/08/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/pro-life-crash-course
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Here’s a summary of how to argue for the pro-life position that I created for a friend whose secular philosophy class was scheduled to discuss abortion. It’s a great little cheat sheet you can keep on hand for your own discussions on this subject.</em></p>

<p><br>
The most important question to resolve when discussing whether or not you can kill the unborn is the question, “What is it?”&nbsp;If it’s not a human being, then there’s no problem killing it. If it’s a valuable human being, then one can’t justify killing it.*</p>

<p>There are three stages your argument will have to address:</p>

<ol>
	<li>Is it a human being?</li>
	<li>Should this human being have the rights of other human beings?</li>
	<li>Respond to objections.</li>
</ol>

<h4>Part 1—Is it a human being?</h4>

<p>Steve Wagner formulated this quick defense of the unborn as a human being:</p>

<p style="margin-left: 40px;">If the unborn is growing, it must be alive.<br>
If it has human parents, it must be human.<br>
And living humans like you and I are valuable aren’t they?</p>

<p>There’s really no question that the unborn is a member of the human species. This is just a biological fact. It’s a human being at the earliest stage of development. It looks different from you and me, but so do newborns look different from you and me! We are merely at different stages of development, but we remain the same kind of being throughout all stages of our development.</p>

<p>So now that you’ve established it’s a human being, you’ll need to argue that unborn human beings ought to have the same right to life as every other group of human beings.</p>

<h4>Part 2—Should it have the rights of other human beings?</h4>

<p>To determine whether or not these unborn human beings ought to have rights, there are two questions to answer:</p>

<ol>
	<li>What are the differences between the unborn human being and born human beings?</li>
	<li>Are any of those differences relevant to human rights?</li>
</ol>

<p>To remember the four main differences between the unborn and the born, use the acronym S.L.E.D.:</p>

<p style="margin-left: 40px;">S—Size<br>
L—Level of development<br>
E—Environment<br>
D—Degree of dependency</p>

<p>Now watch this five-minute <a href="/w/here-s-why-unborn-human-beings-are-as-valuable-as-adult-human-beings" target="_blank">video</a> of Scott Klusendorf explaining how to use the S.L.E.D. Test. These four differences are all irrelevant when we’re determining the rights of born people, so why should they be relevant when determining the rights of the unborn?</p>

<p>The fact is that the concept of universal human rights is based on the idea that every human being is valuable and has rights <em>simply because of the kind of being he or she is</em>. We don’t require human beings to meet an arbitrary standard of characteristics (such as race, intelligence, size, or ability) in order to receive rights. The kind of thinking that rules out whole groups of human beings based on an arbitrary standard of characteristics is unjust discrimination, and it has caused all sorts of human rights abuses in the past.</p>

<p>Human beings have rights because they’re <em>human beings</em>. They have these rights because human beings are the <em>kind of being</em> worthy of rights—the <em>kind of being</em> that is self-aware, rational, and moral. And we’re this kind of being, even if we’re not currently able to express one or more of these aspects of our human nature. For example, a person in a coma isn’t able to express his rationality, but he’s still the <em>kind of being</em> that is rational. He doesn’t lose his rights simply because he’s currently unable to express his rationality. In the same way, an unborn child is the <em>kind of being</em> that is rational, even if he is currently unable to express his rationality. He’s a fellow member of the human family, and is therefore worthy of rights.</p>

<h4>Part 3—Respond to objections.</h4>

<p>As Alan Shlemon explains in his <a href="/w/the-pro-life-two-step-at-central-michigan-university" target="_blank">Pro-Life Two-Step</a>, objections will usually fall into one of two categories:</p>

<p>1. <em>The objection will assume the unborn isn’t a human being.</em></p>

<p style="margin-left: 40px;">Example: “Abortion should be legal because a baby might cause a woman financial hardship.”</p>

<p style="margin-left: 40px;">Response: Nobody would say you could kill a person just because he’s causing you a financial hardship. The person who makes this argument is not thinking of the unborn as a human being. Try using a toddler as an illustration the person can better relate to, put the toddler into his argument, and then say his argument back to him using the toddler: “Should a woman be allowed to kill her two-year-old if he’s causing her financial hardship? We don’t kill human beings for this reason. So let's go back to the question: Is the unborn a human being? If he is, then we can’t kill him to save someone money.“</p>

<p>The idea is for you to keep returning to the idea that the unborn child is a human being. Keep trying to get that point across.</p>

<p>2. <em>The objection will disqualify the unborn from receiving rights based on a particular characteristic (size, development, etc.).</em></p>

<p style="margin-left: 40px;">Example: “But the unborn is just a clump of cells.”</p>

<p style="margin-left: 40px;">Response: Show them that the characteristic is irrelevant to the question: “How is size relevant to rights? Can you kill a newborn just because he’s smaller than an adult? Can you kill him because he looks different from an adult? It’s just not a relevant characteristic.“</p>

<h4>Using these ideas in conversation and debates...</h4>

<p>Here are some links that include debates so you can see these arguments in action:</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://strplace.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/pro-life-position-presented-at-secular-university-first-five-minutes/" target="_blank">A pro-life case</a> given to a secular university audience</li>
	<li><a href="http://strplace.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/my-abortion-debate/" target="_blank">A fifty-minute debate</a> on abortion—This should give you an idea of the objections you can expect and how you can answer them.</li>
	<li><a href="https://prolifetraining.com/resources/5-min-pro-lifer/" target="_blank">The 5-Minute Pro-Lifer</a>—Article at Life Training Institute on how to defend your pro-life views in five minutes or less</li>
	<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Unaborted-Socrates-Dramatic-Surrounding/dp/0877848106/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1336432208&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Unaborted Socrates</a>—This book is a cross between <a href="http://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BK316" target="_blank">Tactics</a> and <a href="http://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=CD125" target="_blank">Pro-Life 101</a>, in narrative form, and it’s a helpful model of this approach.</li>
</ul>

<p>And if you want more, here’s a <a href="/w/answer-every-defense-for-abortion" target="_blank">post</a> with a chart and video to help you “Answer Every Defense for Abortion.”</p>

<p>________________________________</p>

<p>*The only possible justification in the case of unborn human beings (who have not forfeited their lives by committing a capital crime) would be one where the justification is morally equal to the unborn’s claim to life—i.e., if the situation is the life of the mother vs. the life of the unborn. Any justification less than that of saving the life of the adult human being loses to the greater claim to life held by the unborn human being.</p>
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title: The Competing Views of Marriage
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/11/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-competing-views-of-marriage
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Ryan Anderson, Robert George, and Sherif Girgis have written a <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/299550/marriage-and-presidency-ryan-t-anderson" target="_blank">post</a> explaining why the central issue in the marriage debate—even more central than the question of whether the state should recognize same-sex marriages—is the question of what marriage itself is. As they say, “[T]his is not a dispute featuring ’bigots’&nbsp;on one side, any more than it has ’perverts’&nbsp;on the other. It is a debate of reasonable people of goodwill who disagree about the nature of the most basic unit of society.”</p>

<p>Here is their brief description of the competing views:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>THE HISTORIC VIEW</p>

<p>Marriage as a <em>comprehensive</em> union: Joining spouses in body as well as mind, it is begun by commitment and sealed by sexual intercourse. So completed in the acts by which new life is made, it is specially apt for and deepened by procreation, and calls for that broad sharing of domestic life uniquely fit for family life. Uniting spouses in these all-encompassing ways, it also calls for all-encompassing commitment: permanent and exclusive. Comprehensive union is valuable in itself, but its link to children’s welfare makes marriage a public good that the state should recognize, support, and in certain ways regulate. Call this the <em>conjugal view</em> of marriage.</p>

<p>THE REVISIONIST VIEW</p>

<p>Marriage as the union of two people who commit to romantic partnership and domestic life: essentially an emotional union, merely enhanced by whatever sexual activity partners find agreeable. Such committed romantic unions are seen as valuable while emotion lasts. The state recognizes them because it has an interest in their stability, and in the needs of spouses and any children they choose to rear. Call this the <em>revisionist view</em> of marriage.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>(You can see how if one begins with the first definition, same-sex marriage makes no sense—not because of bigotry, but because of the unique, natural aspects of a man-woman pairing. But if one holds the second definition, to deny marriage to same-sex couples makes no rational sense, and can <em>only</em> be explained by bigotry. This conclusion is unfair, but it persists because these competing definitions are not understood.)</p>

<p>As they point out, those who hold the revisionist view are not able to give coherent reasons under their defining principle of “people who love each other”&nbsp;for the state setting this kind of a relationship apart from others. Since the revisionist definition isn't linked to the natural properties of the two people in relationship (as is man-woman marriage), all boundaries end up being arbitrary:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]he more candid, and consistent, revisionists have long accepted these points. Years ago, 300 prominent scholars and activists <a href="http://www.beyondmarriage.org/" target="_blank">signed a statement</a> arguing that we should recognize polyamorous and multiple-household sexual relationships. These activists agree that making sexual complementarity optional would make all its other norms arbitrary—and therefore unjust to leave intact. We only disagree on whether this top-to-bottom dismantling of the institution of marriage would be a good or a bad thing.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Their <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/299550/marriage-and-presidency-ryan-t-anderson" target="_blank">post</a> is too brief to go into detail, but you can download their paper, “<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155" target="_blank">What Is Marriage</a>,”&nbsp;originally published in the <em>Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy</em>, to review their arguments in more depth.</p>
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title: Why Does God Let Us Suffer?
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/21/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-does-god-let-us-suffer-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Paul Tautges has posted Joni Eareckson Tada’s list (from <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310238358/counoneanot-20" target="_blank">When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty</a></em>) of God’s purposes in our suffering. You should read the <a href="https://counselingoneanother.com/2019/11/03/36-purposes-of-god-in-our-suffering/" target="_blank">whole list</a>, but there are three central ones especially worthy of note.</p>

<p>These first two might sound simple, but they strike at the core of a major misunderstanding of Christianity in our culture today. Whenever I’m asked a question about suffering, I find myself having to begin here:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Suffering teaches us that God is more concerned about character than comfort (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Rom%205.3-4" target="_blank">Rom 5:3-4</a>; <a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Heb%2012.10-11" target="_blank">Heb 12:10-11</a>).</p>

<p>Suffering teaches us that the greatest good of the Christian life is not absence of pain, but Christ-likeness (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/2%20Cor%204.8-10" target="_blank">2 Cor 4:8-10</a>; <a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Rom%208.28-29" target="_blank">Rom 8:28-29</a>).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If only I could convince every Christian in our culture of those two things! There is an assumption behind many Christians’&nbsp;confusion about suffering that God’s main purpose is for us to be <em>happy</em> (i.e., free from pain). But joy in God is not the same as comfort, and neither is maturity. We’ve set our expectations on something false, and when God fails to deliver, we lose trust in Him. It’s better we learn those two purposes <em>before</em> we begin to suffer.</p>

<p>The third purpose is the most important:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Suffering is used to increase our awareness of the sustaining power of God to whom we owe our sustenance (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Ps%2068.19" target="_blank">Ps 68:19</a>).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And it doesn’t just increase our awareness, it increases our <em>dependence</em>. If I had to choose the most important lesson I’ve learned from suffering, this would be it. There is nothing like suffering to humble you before God, to reveal your true position as powerless creature beneath the Creator, to highlight your distressing weaknesses and lack of trust in Him.</p>

<p>When you finally find yourself identifying with the sick and desperate crowd in the Gospels, with eyes lowered, hoping only to touch the hem of His garment, when you wake up in the morning and drop immediately to your knees out of sheer need, that's when you know suffering has done its job.</p>

<p>When He uses you now, there will be no mistake about Who gets the glory.</p>
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title: Atheism and Universal Human Rights
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/22/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/atheism-and-universal-human-rights
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The purpose of this post is merely to provide clarity rather than to argue for the theist position (see all of STR for those arguments). The consequences of an idea do not necessarily prove that idea to be true or false, but we had better be clear about precisely what’s at stake.</p>

<p>What implications in the area of human rights follow from atheism? I noticed that some comments left on two <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/05/pro-life-crash-course.html/#comments" target="_blank">recent</a> <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/05/whats-wrong-with-this.html#comments" target="_blank">posts</a> were helpful in clarifying this aspect of the atheist worldview, so I compiled the separate ideas in an order that creates one argument. (I have tried to retain the original meaning of each excerpt in its context. Ellipses denote an excerpt from a new comment.)</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Intrinsic [human] value? Is that value without a valu<em>er</em>? Why should I believe in that?...<em>You</em> uphold universal human rights, not me...[E]ven if historically everyone thought that rights were grounded in God, unless they had good reasons for thinking so, I have no need to follow in their tradition. Don’t you agree that, usually, if we don’t have a good reason for thinking that X is true, we should withhold belief in X?</p>

<p>[Y]ou appear to take for granted that special sense of [intrinsic human] value you talked about earlier, and which I mentioned before I do not recognize...Why should we grant that all human life has this special value?...I do <em>not</em> agree that anyone belonging to the human “kind”&nbsp;have such special value that they ought to be granted the right to life.</p>

<p>It seems like rights are usually granted by groups of people...I understand “rights”&nbsp;to be freedoms and/or privileges granted to or won by [insert qualification here] beings. So I’m not able to make sense of rights apart from the <em>granting</em> or <em>winning</em> thereof. Since cannot win for himself his rights, they must be granted to him. But we are under no evident obligation to do him this great favor...I don’t think there are such things as “unalienable”&nbsp;rights. In my opinion, Jefferson got that bit wrong.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Since I’m trying to get to the heart of the principle being espoused, I’ve removed the specifics in the third paragraph because they’re irrelevant. The specifics that could be filled into those blanks while applying this understanding of rights to law are numerous and interchangeable, depending on the preferences of the people in power.</p>

<p>Here is the logic:</p>

<ol>
	<li>There is no God in which to ground intrinsic human value and the resulting universal human rights.</li>
	<li>Therefore there is no such thing as intrinsic human value or universal human rights (including the right to keep one’s life).</li>
	<li>Instead, rights are given by a group of people in power to individual humans who are able to win those rights by meeting the qualifications set by that group.</li>
	<li>If any human is not able to win those rights by meeting those qualifications, the group is under no obligation to grant those rights to that human.</li>
	<li>Therefore there are no such things as “unalienable”&nbsp;rights.</li>
</ol>

<p>Are you concerned? Perhaps not if you’re confident you’re in the “in-group.”&nbsp;But who has any guarantees under this principle? Once we ground rights in the will of the people in power, there is nothing to constrain their preferences to what <em>you</em> consider to be a reasonable line between valuable human beings and non-valuable human beings.</p>

<p>Again, the fact that the adoption of this understanding of rights can, has, and will lead to atrocities doesn’t prove it isn’t accurate (though I don’t think we can just dismiss our moral intuition against what logically follows from it). However, it should be a cause of concern to both theists and atheists,* and I hope it will be yet another motivation for you to vigorously argue for the truth in the public square.</p>

<p>__________________________</p>

<p>*While the line of reasoning above is what I usually hear from atheists, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/326579/human-exceptionalism-without-god" target="_blank">Wesley J. Smith argues</a> it’s possible for atheists to support universal human value, as long they change their view of the second half of #3 (how we recognize the value of a human being):</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Happily, human exceptionalism does not require belief in a transcendent God, or indeed, spiritual allusions of any kind if we understand that what matters morally is not the capacities of the individual—which, after all, are transitory—but our intrinsic natures as human beings—which are innate.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In other words, if an atheist accepts the idea that rights are not won <em>individually</em>, but instead are equally shared by all human beings because our shared human nature makes us <a href="http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/personhood.htm" target="_blank">all</a> the <em>kind of being</em> that is worthy of protection, then the concept of universal human rights can be preserved.</p>

<p>I haven’t yet met an atheist who would agree to this, but perhaps the two halves of #3 could be separated and the second half rejected. The major difference would remain—rights would still be in the hands of men rather than unalienable, but at least for the time being, there would be no grounds by which men could justify excluding some human beings from the protected human family.</p>
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title: Can Homosexuals Change Their Orientation?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 03/29/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/can-homosexuals-change-their-orientation-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>You may have seen the sign, “Some people are gay. Get over it!” But I’d like to change it: “Some people <em>used</em> to be gay. Get over <em>that</em>.”</p>

<p>Many people don’t believe it, though. They believe the discussion is over. The “experts” have spoken. Sexual orientation is an inborn and immutable trait like eye color. Change is not possible. Case closed.</p>

<p>But this is an incredible assertion. If it can be demonstrated that <em>just one person</em> has changed, it would falsify the claim. It turns out that not only is change possible, but there are multiple and independent lines of evidence to warrant such a belief.</p>

<p>First, it should be noted that people reported change was possible thousands of years ago. The sixth chapter in the biblical book of 1 Corinthians states that some of the inhabitants of the city of Corinth were homosexuals. But the passage goes on to say, “Such <em>were</em> some of you…” indicating that some of them were able to change (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).</p>

<p>I realize that some people will dismiss this account, claiming they don’t believe the Bible is the word of God. But one doesn’t have to believe in the divine authorship of scripture in order to accept this account of changed lives. The epistle to the Corinthian church is, at the very least, a first century letter to a community of people in a city which still exists in modern Greece. It is a historical correspondence between Paul of Tarsus and the Corinthians. It is highly unlikely that Paul could get away with making false claims about the changed lives of people who live in the city where the letter was publicly read.</p>

<p>Second, many reputable scientists who are experts in the field have testified that change is possible. Dr. Robert Spitzer, who has been called the most influential psychiatrist of the 20<sup>th</sup> century (more than 275 publications to his credit), published a peer-reviewed paper in the <em>Archives of Sexual Behavior</em>. The purpose of his study was to evaluate the claim that homosexual orientation is immutable and, consequently, change is impossible.</p>

<p>Spitzer indicated that of the 200 people in the study, many of them increased in the frequency and satisfaction of heterosexual activity. He also noted that, “Almost all of the participants reported substantial changes in the core aspects of sexual orientation, not merely overt behavior.” More significantly, 11% of the men and 37% of the women reported complete change. Spitzer said that these results go beyond, “anecdotal information and provide evidence that reparative therapy is sometimes successful.” Moreover, he concluded that, “This study provides evidence that some gay men and lesbians are able to also change the core features of sexual orientation.”[1]</p>

<p>But what about the claim that this kind of therapy is harmful? According to Spitzer, there wasn’t evidence of harm. “To the contrary,” he said. The participants reported that therapy, “Was helpful in a variety of ways beyond changing sexual orientation itself.”</p>

<p>The obvious response would be to dismiss Spitzer as an anti-gay homophobe. But this is a man who has fought for homosexual causes. Spitzer was the architect behind the movement in 1973 to remove homosexuality as an illness from psychiatry’s manual of mental disorders (referred to as the DSM). This was a monumental milestone in the history of gay rights spearheaded by Spitzer himself.</p>

<p>Dr. Nicholas Cummings is another researcher who affirms that change is possible. He was the past president of the American Psychological Association (APA) and served as Chief of Mental Health at Kaiser Permanente for 20 years. While serving in that capacity, he personally saw over 2,000 patients with same-sex attraction (SSA) and his staff saw another 16,000. You can read more about his impeccable credentials <a href="http://thecummingsfoundation.org/about-the-foundation/staff-biographies/nicholas-a-cummings-ph-d-sc-d">here</a>. I met him in November 2011, where he told an audience of clinicians that he personally saw hundreds of people change their sexual orientation and estimated that 7% of the 16,000 patients his staff saw experienced successful reorientation. Many of them went on to marry and live heterosexual lives.</p>

<p>Dr. Cummings is another clinician that can’t be dismissed. He has been a champion of gay rights and, while serving as President of the APA, appointed the APA’s first Task Force on Lesbian and Gay Issues.</p>

<p>But these two researchers are just the tip of the iceberg. There have been clinicians and other scientists who have known that change is possible and have been reporting it for over 100 years. Jean-Martin Charcot, known as the father of modern neurology, wrote about how “the homosexual became heterosexual” through his treatments back in 1882. Sigmund Freud would later report change in sexual orientation using psychoanalysis in the 1920s. Researchers continued to report these findings throughout the 20<sup>th</sup> century: Wilhelm Stekel in the 1930s, Frank Caprio and Albert Ellis in the 1950s, Russell Monroe and Edward Glover in the 1960s, Irving Bieber in the 1970s, Karolynn Siegel in the 1980s, and Houston MacIntosh in the 1990s <em>to name just a few</em>.</p>

<p>With this long history of evidence, it’s not surprising that a recent psychiatry textbook, <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=9488" target="_blank"><em>Essential Psychopathology &amp; Its Treatment</em></a>, concluded that homosexual orientation can be changed and that therapy isn’t necessarily harmful. The section addressing this topic states:</p>

<p>While many mental health care providers and professional associations have expressed considerable skepticism that sexual orientation could be changed with psychotherapy and also assumed that therapeutic attempts at reorientation would produce harm, recent empirical evidence demonstrates that homosexual orientation can indeed be therapeutically changed in motivated clients, and that reorientation therapies do not produce emotional harm when attempted (e.g., Byrd &amp; Nicolosi, 2002; Byrd et al., 2008; Shaeffer et al., 1999; Spitzer, 2003).</p>

<p>Given the existence of this clinical research, it would follow that there should be thousands of people who have reported change. And there are. Every year more individuals come out and publicly declare that although they lived as homosexuals for significant periods of time, they no longer are today. This might not constitute peer-reviewed research, but it is worth noting the sheer number of people who claim they have changed.</p>

<p>How can anyone deny that change is possible given all the evidence from psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, peer-reviewed studies, and personal testimonies? I’ll tell you how. One would have to believe that every clinician who treated homosexuality during the 19<sup>th</sup> and 20<sup>th</sup> centuries has lied about their professional work and deceived the readers of their published studies. Therapists around the world who treat homosexuality today would also have to be dishonest about their patient outcomes. Every religious and secular organization that provides counseling to homosexuals would be fraudulent about their results. Every homosexual – thousands of them around the world – who is now living as a heterosexual is just faking it. And every friend and person I’ve met over the years who has claimed to have changed has been misleading me. This would entail a massive and well-orchestrated scheme to deceive vast numbers of people around the world. One would have to believe all that deception is occurring in order to believe that homosexuals <em>can’t</em> change.</p>

<p>Does everyone who tries to change succeed? No. In fact, many people fail. Is it an easy process for those who achieve a measure of change? Absolutely not. Does change always entail complete transformation? Rarely. Do some people return to homosexuality? Of course. But this is the case with treating any condition (depression, alcoholism, personality disorders, etc.). The question, however, is whether it is possible for some to experience substantial and enduring change? The answer is a definite yes. That’s good news, given that there are many people with unwanted SSA. They have hope.</p>

<p>The bad news is that there are many advocates that are extremely hostile towards these change efforts and would deny some homosexuals the right to self-determination. These are the same people who allegedly champion diversity. But ironically, not only do they deny that change is possible, they deny those who have changed even exist.</p>

<p>Though homosexuality is nothing new, neither is the ability of some people to change. I’m not suggesting we try to change every homosexual, but we can give hope to those with unwanted SSA. It’s a hope that many have realized and, as a result, have turned to others who want to change and offered them the truth and compassion they desperately need.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>



<div>
<hr size="1">
<div>
<p>[1] Spitzer, R. L., “Can some gay men and lesbians change their sexual orientation? 200 participants reporting a change from homosexual to heterosexual orientation,” in&nbsp;<em>Archives of Sexual Behavior</em>, Vol. 32, No. 5, 2003, 403–417.</p>
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title: The Death of Humanness
topic: Bioethics
author: Greg Koukl
date: 05/01/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-death-of-humanness
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Life Unworthy of Life?</em></p>

<p>Twenty years ago I made a preposterous prediction. I repeated it 12 years later in an issue of <em>Solid Ground</em>. I echoed it a third time in a Townhall column two years following. Sadly, last week it came to pass, virtually to the letter.</p>

<p>In October 1992, I was the keynote speaker at a fundraising banquet for the Conejo Valley Crisis Pregnancy Center. I warned the audience that revolutions did not start with rifle shot or cannon fire. Instead, they start with an idea or, in this case, the demise of one.</p>

<p>“We are now in the throes of one of those quiet, but desperate, revolutions in thought,”&nbsp;I said. I then described how an idea—one so critical to our case for human freedom it was the pivotal “self-evident”&nbsp;point of the central document of the American experiment—was fading towards extinction.</p>

<p>The notion that humans are different in an absolutely glorious way from every other created thing is the idea that single-handedly guarantees our liberties and secures our safety. This distinction is an inherent quality that cannot be effaced, a fixed reality of the “laws of nature”&nbsp;and a gift of “nature’s God.”&nbsp;It is the one thing grounding our “unalienable”&nbsp;rights—privileges and prerogatives still in force even when denied or disregarded.</p>

<p>Yet this core conviction, the very foundation of human rights, is disappearing. I called its passing the “death of humanness.”<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup></p>

<h2>Slipping Down the Slope</h2>

<p>In the January 2004 issue of <em>Solid Ground</em>,<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup> I warned of the danger of slipping down what ethicists call a “logical slippery slope.”&nbsp;When one action is morally significant, and a second action is similar to the first in a morally relevant way, then the moral quality of the first “slips over”&nbsp;to the second. Murder is immoral, and some think capital punishment is similar enough to murder to make capital punishment immoral too.<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup> That’s how it works.</p>

<p>The issue in question at the time was partial-birth abortion. I objected to calling the procedure an “abortion”&nbsp;for two reasons.</p>

<p>First, it’s a misnomer. Abortion happens to a child <em>inside</em> her mother’s womb. With partial-birth abortion, however, the child is not inside her mother when she’s killed; she’s mostly <em>outside</em>. The baby is delivered feet first until only her little head remains in the birth canal. The doctor then punctures the base of the child’s skull, suctions out the brain tissue with a catheter, then completes the delivery of the baby’s corpse.<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup></p>

<p>Freedom to abort is sacred in this country—a woman’s “Constitutional right.”&nbsp;Therefore, anything called an abortion must be defended. However, simply <em>calling</em> a procedure an abortion doesn’t <em>make</em> it one. In actual fact, partial-birth abortion is not an abortion at all, but infanticide with the baby’s head covered.</p>

<p>Even so, the term stuck, with startling effect. Language cleverly employed can often conceal the obvious, even for a justice of the Supreme Court. “Anything about infanticide, babies, all that,”&nbsp;Justice Ginsburg sniffed, “is just beside the point because what this bans is a <em>method of abortion”</em><sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup> [emphasis added]. To Ginsburg, the issue with partial-birth abortion was not whether a <em>child</em> was imperiled, but whether <em>abortion</em> was.</p>

<p>Which leads to my second concern, the logical slippery slope. If the Justice is not concerned about infanticide or babies and “all that”—in spite of PB abortion’s clear kinship to outright baby killing—what principled argument bars her from simply allowing the delivery to run its course naturally and then take the child’s life?</p>

<p>People often dismiss slippery slope arguments as overstatements, but this isn’t the case here. The differences between PBA and infanticide are only a few inches of physical location and a few seconds from officially recognized birth. What is the moral distinction between a fully delivered baby and one with only his head concealed in the birth canal? None that is relevant. Location is morally trivial in this case.</p>

<p>Therefore, I warned, if partial-birth “abortion”&nbsp;is countenanced (or any late-term abortion, for that matter), then infanticide will be equally simple to defend providing one caveat: They do not <em>call</em> it infanticide. They will find a different term, I predicted, to cleverly conceal the obvious. They’ll call it a “post-natal abortion.”</p>

<h2>Morally Velocitized</h2>

<p>I repeated this last point in an article at Townhall.com in the fall of 2006,<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup> where I warned that our culture was becoming “velocitized.”</p>

<p>I first heard the term in driver’s training in high school. When a driver accelerates from, say, 30 to 60 miles per hour and settles in, he gets acclimated to his new speed and loses his sense of velocity. Going 60 <em>feels</em> like going 30.</p>

<p>This is dangerous on the highway, but it’s deadly when it happens to the moral consciousness of a culture. Years ago, Francis Schaeffer said that what was unthinkable yesterday is thinkable today, and ordinary and commonplace tomorrow. In other words, when a culture’s decline in values begins to pick up speed, it becomes velocitized and ceases to notice the descent.</p>

<p>First it was Roe v. Wade and abortion for any reason (or for no reason at all, it turned out). Before long medical authorities were arguing for the liberty to harvest organs from <em>living</em> children with severe deformities (e.g., anencephaly) whose lives should be sacrificed for their body parts.<sup id="fnref:7"><a href="#fn:7">7</a></sup> And if living children, why not embryos? Indeed, why not <em>create</em> embryos from scratch through “therapeutic”&nbsp;cloning? And partial-birth abortion? Just a few more ticks up the speedometer.</p>

<p>I closed my piece by reprising my prediction:</p>

<p>Since [with partial-birth abortion] the baby is just one contraction away from full birth, why not give a final push, completely deliver the child, and then take her life? Call it a “post-natal abortion”&nbsp;if you like—arguably the safest [abortion] procedure yet.</p>

<p>Now, twenty years after I first sounded the alarm, I am sad to say my prognosis has come to pass. Do not consider me clever for predicting this, though. It was easy. I understood that ideas have consequences. I only stumbled at one point. I didn’t get the wording perfect.</p>

<h2>“After-Birth Abortion”</h2>

<p>On February 23, 2012, the <em>Journal of Medical Ethics</em> (JME) published an article written by philosophers Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva. Its title was, “After-Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?”</p>

<p>It’s a stunning title, when you think of it. Not only does it signal a straightforward appeal for infanticide (which it is), but it suggests the authors reject <em>any</em> argument defending a newborn’s right to life (they do). If that sounds audacious, then you have not been following my argument.</p>

<p>Giubilini and Minerva are not moral mavericks or philosophical trendsetters. They are trend <em>followers</em>. The handwriting has been on the wall for decades. They are simply taking pro-abortion logic seriously. Listen carefully to the thinking outlined in the opening paragraph of their paper:</p>

<p>Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’s health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call “after-birth abortion”&nbsp;(killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.</p>

<p>These philosophers are making a simple point: Fetuses and newborns are the same. They are human, but not persons. Both lack “those properties which will make them ’persons’&nbsp;in the sense of ’subjects of a moral right to life,’&nbsp;that is, [the ability] to make aims and appreciate their own life.”</p>

<p>Since neither fetuses nor infants do the things real persons do, they cannot lay claim to the rights real persons have. Indeed, neither has <em>any</em> rights: “The alleged interest of potential people...amounts to zero.”</p>

<p>“Therefore,”&nbsp;they argue, “...when circumstances occur <em>after birth</em> such that they would have justified abortion, what we call <em>after-birth abortion</em> should be permissible”&nbsp;[emphasis in the original].</p>

<p>They conclude with brevity and clarity:</p>

<p>If criteria such as costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, <em>then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn</em>&nbsp;[emphasis added].</p>

<p>Do not let the technical tone dull your moral senses. This is a classical—and rationally valid—application of the logical slippery slope. Put in a colloquial way, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. The same reasons disqualifying the unborn as persons equally disqualify the infant; if the first can be killed, so can the second.</p>

<p>Again, <em>there is nothing new here</em>. Giubilini and Minerva are not being clever; they are being consistent. The shift in thinking happened decades ago and multitudes have already signed off on it without realizing it.</p>

<p>Everything depends on how you answer one simple question. Your answer determines all that morally follows about abortion, infanticide, doctor-assisted suicide, and even—surprisingly—genocide, as we’ll see.</p>

<h2>Whence Value?</h2>

<p>Here’s the question: What makes human beings valuable? Your answer is going to be one of two things. It is going to be something <em>inside</em> a human—intrinsic and essential to human nature—or something <em>outside</em>—something added on.</p>

<p>Some things are valuable on their own. Love, health, happiness, friendship, and a host of virtues are all valued as ends in themselves (the proverb, “Virtue is its own reward,”&nbsp;signals this conviction). When value is on the “inside,”&nbsp;we say the value is <em>intrinsic</em>, inherent to the thing just the way it is, nothing added. Things with intrinsic value never lose or gain worth. Their value is part of what they already are.</p>

<p>Other things (most things, in fact) are worthwhile for something on the outside, for how they <em>function</em> as a means to some other end. When things valued for their function lose that function, they also lose their value. This is because value resides in the role the thing performs, not in the thing itself. An illustration might help.</p>

<p>Thirty years ago I worked in a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. One of the souvenirs Khmer children peddled to relief workers was riel. Riel was the national currency of Cambodia until the communists came to power and forcibly made rice the standard of monetary exchange for the country. Wads of riel instantly became worthless, save only as a tourist memento.</p>

<p>Money has no intrinsic value. It’s valuable only for its function. Things with <em>functional</em> value lose their value once they lose their function. Simple enough.</p>

<p>Now, back to my original question: What makes human beings valuable? Is it something inside or something outside?</p>

<p>Classically, the former. When Jefferson penned the words “All Men are <em>created</em> equal,”&nbsp;he was referring to the <em>built-in</em> (intrinsic) worth of every human being. This is why we call them “human rights”—rights simply in virtue of being human with no further appeal necessary.</p>

<p>Since a human’s value can never be gained or lost (being essential to his humanity), then liberties based on that value can never be gained or lost, either. They are “unalienable rights.”&nbsp;That was the rationale of the Declaration and the moral justification for the Revolution. The Founders took this truth to be “self-evident.”&nbsp;I think they were right.</p>

<p>But all of that has changed. Abortion on demand altered the equation.</p>

<h2>Human Non-Persons</h2>

<p>Have you ever heard the phrase, “a human, but not a person”&nbsp;used to describe the unborn? Nowadays it’s the most foundational claim justifying the pro-abortion position. What does it mean? Simply this: Merely being human is not adequate to secure “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”&nbsp;Something more is need.</p>

<p>That “something more”&nbsp;varies with who you ask. When the human-but-not-a-person challenge is put to me, I always ask “What’s the difference?”&nbsp;Usually I’m answered with silence because the person has never pondered the question. This is odd considering they have essentially divided humanity into two camps: human persons a human non-persons. The first has the strongest protection under law; the second can be killed with impunity. Considering what’s at stake, it might be helpful to know where the dividing line is.</p>

<p>Giubilini and Minerva offer their recommendation. The function that certifies one’s moral right to life is the ability “to make aims and appreciate their own life.”&nbsp;Others have different lists, including (variously) “sufficient”&nbsp;intelligence, complex brains, human-like awareness, and so on.</p>

<p>One could always ask where they got their lists, or why functions like IQ, skin color, or ethnicity couldn’t be included (it’s been done). But that’s a different problem.</p>

<p>Here is the monumental shift I want you to see. All such lists assume a <em>functional</em> view of human value. There is nothing about being human <em>as such</em> that secures one’s liberty. Rights now depend on how any individual human performs. <em>Doing</em> (in some sense) is what matters, not <em>being</em>.</p>

<p>Whoever lacks the proper functions, also lacks a life worth living. Indeed, these are Giubilini and Minerva’s very words: “Euthanasia in infants has been proposed by philosophers for children with severe abnormalities whose <em>lives can be expected to be not worth living</em>...”&nbsp;[emphasis added]. Since infants lack the functions—and, therefore, the value—that justifies keeping them alive, they ask: “Why Should the Baby Live?”</p>

<h2>“Lebensunwertes Leben”</h2>

<p>Now a bit of ugly history. This notion of “lives...not worth living”&nbsp;(their words, not mine) has been invoked before. It first showed up in German as “<em>lebensunwertes leben</em>,”<sup id="fnref:8"><a href="#fn:8">8</a></sup> literally “life unworthy of life.”&nbsp;It was used to describe segments of the population who were “impaired”&nbsp;in some way.</p>

<p>Lacking certain functions that made life worth living (in the estimation of some), these human beings also lacked the right to live and were thus exterminated. Precisely who were allowed to live changed as time went on and different criteria were added to the list qualifying some humans as legitimate persons.<sup id="fnref:9"><a href="#fn:9">9</a></sup></p>

<p>This shift to a functional view of human value was abetted by a shift in language. Child euthanasia was carried out by “The Children’s Specialty Department.”<sup id="fnref:10"><a href="#fn:10">10</a></sup> Transportation shuttling toddlers to the 30-odd killing centers was provided for by “The Common Welfare Ambulance Service.”<sup id="fnref:11"><a href="#fn:11">11</a></sup> The elderly were dispatched via “The Reich Group of Sanitarium and Nursing Homes.”<sup id="fnref:12"><a href="#fn:12">12</a></sup> The government referred to such measures as “healing”&nbsp;and “therapy.”<sup id="fnref:13"><a href="#fn:13">13</a></sup></p>

<p>It is always risky to invoke such a horrid period of human history to make a contemporary moral point. The impulse is strong to dismiss any such comparison as extreme. “Never again,”&nbsp;the Jews have pledged. The Holocaust is a singular circumstance in human history.</p>

<p>But is it? In our day, the foundational ideological shift has already taken place. Respected philosophers are already asking of <em>perfectly healthy newborns</em>, “Why should the baby live?”&nbsp;And people are listening.<sup id="fnref:14"><a href="#fn:14">14</a></sup></p>

<p>Worse, considering the reasons offered to justify abortion, they don’t have an answer. Given the standard pro-abortion distinction between mere humans and human persons, what principled argument is in hand to rebut Giubilini and Minerva’s logic?</p>

<p>But the logic moves yet a step further.</p>

<h2>Non-Human Persons</h2>

<p>During the 2012 conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest such gathering in the western hemisphere, the rights discussion took a predictable turn. Thomas White, an ethicist at Loyola Marymount, argued that dolphins and other cetaceans (e.g., killer whales) should be declared “non-human persons”&nbsp;with individual rights under law.<sup id="fnref:15"><a href="#fn:15">15</a></sup></p>

<p>“The evidence for [cetaceans’] cognitive and affective sophistication,”&nbsp;White argued, supports his claim.<sup id="fnref:16"><a href="#fn:16">16</a></sup> Dolphins have thoughts and feelings as sophisticated as our own. Since they function in relevantly similar ways as human persons, why not grant them the same rights as human persons? In a radio interview on this point, I heard White actually claim, “Deliberately killing a dolphin is as bad as deliberately killing a human.”<sup id="fnref:17"><a href="#fn:17">17</a></sup></p>

<p>The same logic resulted in SeaWorld recently being sued<sup id="fnref:18"><a href="#fn:18">18</a></sup> (unsuccessfully, for the moment) for using captive killer whales in performances. The plaintiffs invoked the 13th Amendment ban on slavery or involuntary servitude. It was the first time a federal court seriously entertained legal arguments in favor of animals having the same Constitutional protections as humans.</p>

<p>I realize that for some I have just moved from the sublime to the ridiculous. Ironically, though, these claims make perfect sense when rights are attached to functions. Indeed, I take this development to be inevitable given our present course.<sup id="fnref:19"><a href="#fn:19">19</a></sup></p>

<h2>The Consequence of Ideas</h2>

<p>Mark the shift. First, being human was all that was necessary to ensure liberty. Next, humanity was necessary, but no longer adequate to qualify for protected “personhood”&nbsp;since some other functional qualities were required. Now noteworthy thinkers argue that being human is no longer even <em>necessary</em>.</p>

<p>When certain humans are <em>denied</em> basic rights for functional reasons, and certain animals are <em>granted</em> those rights for functional reasons, it’s clear that <em>being human is no longer part of the rights equation at all</em>. Human rights are disappearing in favor of person rights, rendering the original protections guaranteed by the Declaration literally meaningless.</p>

<p>If you are pro-abortion, ask yourself why. If your rationale entails the human/person distinction, even implicitly, then you have bought into the functional view of human value. You have stepped off the cliff and are in a moral free-fall. You will have nothing to say when philosophers like Giubilini and Minerva ask, “Why should the baby live?”&nbsp;You have already ratified their moral logic, even if at the time you did not grasp the implications. If you don’t think so, then try to explain in honest and precise terms how you escape.</p>

<p>Human rights have been replaced by person rights. And what is a “person”? That depends entirely on who happens to be in power at the moment.</p>

<p>I have become convinced that “personhood”&nbsp;arguments are just a legal and linguistic trick meant to keep some members of the human family from being considered bona fide, privileged, and protected members of the human community. History is strewn with the wreckage of this move—Dred Scott, Germany’s “therapeutic”&nbsp;genocide, abortion on demand, partial-birth abortion, and now “after-birth abortion.”</p>

<p>Whenever someone claims a fetus is a human, but not a person (the standard defense for “choice”), they have fallen for this trick. And if this point of view gains general acceptance (which it is doing), then it’s over. The rest is just detail—minor skirmishes, little clean-up efforts. The main battle has been lost. As Wesley J. Smith points out, in the new order, “No one is ever permanently invested with human rights.”<sup id="fnref:20"><a href="#fn:20">20</a></sup></p>

<p>Humanness is dying. The concept of unique human dignity is fading fast. We are putting it to death.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">“The Death of Humanness”&nbsp;was later broadcast on Focus on the Family radio [date]. The banquet was also memorable because I met my wife that evening. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">Gregory Koukl, “Partial-Birth Abortion Is Not about Abortion,”&nbsp;<em>Solid Ground</em>, January 2004, str.org. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">I don’t think this particular application of the slippery slope is sound (there are morally relevant distinctions between cold-blooded murder and capital punishment, so the parallel is flawed), but it does illustrate how the argument is used. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">Frankly, this is old news, and the ban on PB abortion has been happily upheld by the Supreme Court. However, the <em>logic</em> of partial-birth abortion rights is still very much in play in our culture and continues to inform the current conversation. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">“<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2006/nov/09/nation/na-scotus9">High Court Hears Cases on Ban of Abortion Method</a>,”&nbsp;<em>LA Times</em>, 11/9/2006. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:6">Gregory Koukl, “Morally Velocitized,”&nbsp;Town Hall 11/13/06 <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:7">Dr. Charles Plows, Chair of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs of the American Medical Association, Letter to the Editor, <em>LA Times</em>, 1/17 1996. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:7"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:8">Robert Jay Lifton, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Nazi-Doctors-Psychology-Genocide/dp/0465049052/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1333840696&amp;sr=1-1"><em>The Nazi Doctors—Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide</em></a> (New York: Basic Books/Harper Collins, 1986), 21.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:8">↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:9">As far as I can tell, the Germans did not use personhood language, but the substance of their approach was the same as the current human/person distinction. Only the lists of qualities making life worth living are different. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:9"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:10">Lifton., 53. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:10"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:11">Lifton., 70. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:11"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:12">Lifton, 65. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:12"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:13">For more detail, see Michael Burleigh’s award-winning documentary, “<a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/selling-murder-the-killing-films-of-the-third-reich/oclc/36221121">Selling Murder</a>,”&nbsp;which aired on the Discovery Channel in 1994. Here Burleigh chronicles German propaganda justifying euthanasia in films like, “Existence without Life”&nbsp;(“<em>Dasein ohne Leben”</em>). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:13"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:14">To see the influence of this shift on current medical practice all over the world (including in the US), note the remarkable disclosures by JME’s editor in “<a href="http://jme.bmj.com/content/suppl/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.DC2/Savulescu_JME_defence_editorial.pdf">Why Did the Journal [of Medical Ethics] Publish an Article Defending Infanticide?</a>”,&nbsp;jme.bmj.com.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:14">↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:15">Cited at <a href="http://boingboing.net/2012/03/09/the-case-for-dolphin-rights.html">http://boingboing.net/2012/03/09/the-case-for-dolphin-rights.html</a>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:15"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:16">Ibid. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:16"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:17">The Dennis Prager Show, Salem Broadcasting Network, 2/22/12. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:17"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:18">“<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16920866">SeaWorld Sued Over ’Enslaved’&nbsp;Killer Whales</a>,”&nbsp;BBC News online, 2/6/12.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:18">↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:19">There’s even speculaton that computers and robots be considered “persons”&nbsp;once their functions justify it. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:19"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:20">Wesley J. Smith, “<a href="http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2012/02/29/infanticide-and-the-deadly-threat-of-personhood-theory/">Infanticide and the Deadly Threat of ’Personhood Theory’</a>,”&nbsp;<em>First Things</em>, 2/29/12.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:20">↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
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title: The Problem of Good
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 05/23/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-problem-of-good
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The atheist who challenges Christianity by asking how God can exist in a world with evil faces a bigger problem than the theist.</p>

<p>The theist must rise to the challenge, to be sure. But the atheist must also take his turn offering his own explanation, and his task faces a complication the theist does not encounter. He must explain how evil itself could exist in the first place to make room for his complaint. He must account for the objective, transcendent moral standard that has to be in position before moral judgments of any kind can be made.</p>

<p>This difficulty signals an additional problem: The atheist must also solve the problem of good. How can anything ultimately be evil or good in a universe bereft of any standard to make sense of the terms?</p>

<p>Darwin will not rescue the atheist here, because evolution is a materialistic process that can only produce material merchandise. No stirring and recombining of molecules over time will ever cause a moral fact to pop into existence in the immaterial realm. At best, Darwinism might account for behaviors or beliefs that human beings falsely label “moral” because the deception accomplishes some evolutionary purpose. But it is deception, pure and simple. The kind of robust morality necessary to ground the atheist’s complaint about evil is impossible on a materialist take on reality.</p>

<p>No, the atheist has not gotten rid of the problem of evil by rejecting God. He has compounded the problem. The only thing he has gotten rid of is hope.</p>
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title: We Don’t Need “Mother” and “Father” Anymore?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 04/11/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/we-don-t-need-mother-and-father-anymore-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/moms-and-dads-spring-open_b_1406663.html" target="_blank">Huffington Post</a> celebrates the idea that non-traditional families are breaking down our understanding of gender differences: “We aren’t mother or father anymore; we’re just parents.”</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Gay and lesbian couples and single moms and dads by chance or choice embody changing ideas about sex and sex roles, they are also transforming the gender based definitions of parenting. They are challenging us all to reevaluate the terms of marriage. Along with single parents raising children, they are also transforming the nature of parenting—and showing how Americans have transcended the gender-based definitions of parenting. We aren’t mother or father anymore; we’re just parents...</p>

<p>Yes, the terms “mother”&nbsp;and “father”&nbsp;do still usually convey a biological distinction between who inseminates and who gives birth, but the rise of donor insemination and surrogate pregnancies open debate even on that.</p>

<p>Whether we acknowledge it willingly or not, the differing social roles the mother-father nouns once designated are rapidly converging. Certainly, there are still things that fathers undertake more than mothers, such as teaching a child to ride a bike. Some things often seem to fall more to mothers, such as arranging childcare. But each parent can, and does, tend to everything.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The differences between the sexes are more than just biological. And they certainly go beyond preferences for particular tasks. All you have to do is reflect on your own experience to see that this is so.</p>

<p>Did your father tend to enforce standards? Did your mother encourage emotional intimacy?</p>

<p>Did your father push you to mature? Did your mother tend to nurture?</p>

<p>The list could go on and on because the differences between the sexes are as deep as who they are, what they value, and how they relate to people. These differences show themselves not merely in the tasks each sex chooses, but in how each approaches any particular task. Of course either parent can do any task, but what they teach their children in and through the completing of each task will be different.</p>

<p>Men and women are complementary. The lessons learned from both parents are valuable and unique to the strengths of each sex, and children are in desperate need of both. The obscuring of this is not something to celebrate. But it’s exactly what must be done in order to promote same-sex marriage, so you can expect to see more of it.</p>
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title: Values Fight Poverty
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/23/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/values-fight-poverty
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’ve heard atheists complain that the work Christian missionaries do to bring the message of Christ to people in poverty-stricken countries is a waste of resources that could have been used to help the poor in materially tangible ways.</p>

<p>However, even if atheists were correct that Christianity is false, the truth is that merely providing people with material goods won’t change an economy in the long run because there are <em>intangible</em> goods that need to be in place in order for those material goods to take root and grow into a flourishing economy.</p>

<p>An article by Charles White Robby Butler in <a href="http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/john-wesleys-church-planting-movement" target="_blank">Mission Frontiers</a> illustrates how immaterial values can build material wealth:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>When John Wesley was born in 1703, four million out of Britain’s five million people lived in absolute poverty—unless they found enough food for that day, they would begin to starve to death.</p>

<p>When John Wesley launched a Church Planting Movement in this context, he not only changed the eternal destinies of an estimated one million people who came to Christ through his ministry, he changed their economic status as well. Not only did the Methodists he led get saved, they got out of poverty and became a powerful influence in discipling their nation...</p>

<p>The Methodists made such an impact on their nation that in 1962 historian Élie Halévy theorized that the Wesleyan revival created England’s middle class and saved England from the kind of bloody revolution that crippled France.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>How did the conversion of a million people to Christ change England’s economy?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The resulting spiritual change affected their daily lives in four main ways, each of which improved the social and economic status of the new believers:</p>

<ul>
	<li>First, they <em>abandoned sinful habits</em> which had previously ruined their lives.</li>
	<li>Second, they <em>began a new life of holiness</em> which led to health and wealth.</li>
	<li>Third, by going to the Methodist meetings they <em>learned to read</em>, which gave them upward mobility.</li>
	<li>And fourth, they developed a <em>new view on money</em>, which enabled them to profit from the technological innovations of their age.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>

<p>Butler goes on to explore <a href="http://www.missionfrontiers.org/issue/article/john-wesleys-church-planting-movement" target="_blank">in more detail</a> how each of these areas of people’s lives changed as they became followers of Christ who took their role as His disciples seriously.</p>

<p>I do not post this to say that either God’s or our purpose in becoming a Christian is to gain “health and wealth,”&nbsp;nor to concede that spreading the truth about Christ is a lesser goal than spreading material wealth. Rather, it’s to point out that more than anything else, it’s the <em>values</em> of a nation that affect the economy. Where virtues like honesty, frugality, and diligence are valued, and the dignity of the individual, the rule of law, and property rights are respected, people are free to create, trade, and prosper.</p>

<p>And here, in the story of 18th century England, is an example of how the values of Christianity brought a vast number of people out of material poverty as a happy byproduct of their souls being brought of spiritual poverty. So not even the atheist whose first concern is helping the poor materially should dismiss spiritual missionary work as a waste.</p>

<p>If you’re interested in thinking more about how values, economics, and Christianity fit together, I recommend the Acton Institute’s four Foundational Lectures that are now available for free on their website.</p>

<p>(HT: Acton Institute)</p>
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title: Is Homosexuality Just as Normal as Heterosexuality?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 03/22/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/is-homosexuality-just-as-normal-as-heterosexuality-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>People who engage in homosexual behavior are normal in many ways. Like anyone else, they have friends and family, they work and play, they love and hate, and have fears and dreams. But it seems strange to admit that <em>everything</em> about homosexuality is normal. Indeed, it’s hard to say any class of people is normal in every way.</p>

<p>For example, I’m Assyrian. My people are normal in many ways, but there are also many things about us that are abnormal (or just downright weird). We have genetic differences – we are a Semitic people. Our language is extremely uncommon. We have an over-active hair hormone (much to the chagrin of female Assyrians). Our food is strange to my friends and when people see my relatives talk, they think we’re shouting at each other (which we are, but that’s how we talk). We’re not normal in every way.</p>

<p>The same is true of homosexuals. They are normal in many ways, but there are also things about them that are not. They just occur in different categories than those of Assyrians or other groups of people.</p>

<p>At the outset I want to make it clear that by saying that homosexuals are not normal in every way, I’m not saying that they are deranged or inferior. I believe that men and women who identify themselves as gay are, like other people, intrinsically valuable. As fellow human beings, they are the pinnacle of God’s creation, deserving of dignity and respect. Nothing they or anyone can say or do can diminish their value – not even in principle. And we should treat them as such.</p>

<p>But the question of whether homosexuality is normal hinges on what is meant by the term. If normal refers to the frequency or rate at which it occurs in the population, then homosexuality is not normal in that sense. As <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/03/is-10-of-the-population-gay.html" target="_blank">I’ve mentioned before</a>, homosexuals represent approximately 1 – 3% of the population. Clearly, the number of people who have sex with the same gender are far fewer than those who do it with the opposite gender.</p>

<p>Perhaps the term “normal” refers to homosexual <em>behavior</em>. But whether you think God made humans or believe they evolved, our bodies are made to function in a heterosexual way. A basic course in anatomy and physiology reveals that male and female sex organs not only <em>fit</em> together, they also <em>function</em> together (in multiple ways). In fact, they work in concert with one another to such a degree that they can produce another human being. This is unmistakable evidence of the complementarity of male and female bodies and their ability to work together towards a common end.</p>

<p>Homosexuals <em>can’t</em> use their body parts in this (reproductive) way. Though their sexual organs are designed to function with the opposite sex, they have a proclivity to use them with the same sex. This prevents them from using those parts for that purpose. They are never able to use the full function of their sexual anatomy.</p>

<p>Not only that, they use some body parts in a way that violates their intended design. The recipient of male homosexual sex uses part of his anatomy in a way that mimics the female reproductive organ. This becomes a problem because it lacks certain anatomical features that make it well-suited for sexual acts. So homosexual sex eschews the intended function of human anatomy and replaces it with a behavior that violates the design of other parts. That is not normal.</p>

<p>And when parts are used in a way that they’re not designed, this leads to damage. It’s like riding a bicycle without tires on the rims. You might get somewhere, but you’ll damage the wheel rims and are more likely to crash. That’s because you’re using the parts of a bike in a way they’re not designed to be used.</p>

<p>The same is true with homosexual sex. Because body parts are being used in a manner inconsistent with their design, homosexual behavior leads to a disproportionate danger of getting a life-threatening disease. The chances of acquiring HIV are increased because of the damage that occurs to body parts that aren’t designed for sex.</p>

<p>Dr. Amy Lansky, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), stated that men who have sex with men get AIDS at a rate of more than 50 times than that of non-gay men and women.[1] To give a comparison, the CDC warns that men who smoke are 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer than those who don’t. But they’re 50 times more likely to get HIV/AIDS if they have sex with another man. This is a staggering statistic and hardly a normal health risk.</p>

<p>But does this higher risk result in increased infections? Unfortunately, it does. The CDC published an analysis of gay men in 21 cities and found that 1 in 5 of them had HIV. And nearly half of them were unaware of it.[2] This is just sad news.</p>

<p>Look, people are free to live how they want. I’m not trying to tell anyone how to behave in their bedroom. But we have to be honest about homosexuality. It’s uncommon, goes against the design of the body, and carries with it serious health risks. That’s not normal.</p>

<p>So should our response to homosexuality be hostile? No. Even though we’re often tempted to get angry with attempts to normalize homosexual behavior in our culture, we should resist that urge. Knowing these truths about homosexuality should not lead us to contempt, but rather to compassion. When we find out the potential harm that homosexuals face (and the many other hardships that come in their lives), it should drive us to care for them more than the culture does.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>


&nbsp;
<hr size="1">
<div>
<p>[1] Retrieved February 20, 2012, from http://www.preventionjustice.org/content/blog/cdc-finally-makes-it-official-gays-and-other-msm-are-50-times-likelier-have-hiv-women-o</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[2] “1 in 5 Men Who Have Sex with Men in 21 U.S. Cities Has HIV; Nearly Half Unaware,” Press Release by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, September 23, 2010, retrieved February&nbsp; 20, 2012, from http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/Newsroom/ngmHAAD2010PressRelease.html</p>
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title: Should Homosexual Couples Be Allowed to Adopt?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 05/10/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/should-homosexual-couples-be-allowed-to-adopt-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I often hear this question loaded with two scenarios: </p>

<ul>
	<li><strong>Scenario A</strong>: The child lives in an institution, is routinely neglected, given poor nutrition, and often physically and sexually abused.</li>
	<li><strong>Scenario B</strong>: The child lives with two loving women who are lesbians, who have stable jobs, live in a house, and have lots of family in the area.</li>
	<li><strong>The question</strong>: Wouldn’t it be better for the child to be adopted by the lesbians and grow up under scenario B?</li>
</ul>

<p>Well, sure, I guess when you construct the options <em>that</em> way, who will argue with you? I guess the child would be better off with the lesbians. So what’s that prove? Nothing.</p>

<p>I could construct two scenarios in a different way. What if the lesbians didn’t have a stable relationship, couldn’t keep steady jobs, experienced domestic violence in their home, and often used drugs. The other adoptive option was a married heterosexual couple (one a doctor and the other a teacher), who lived in the same home for 18 years, and who had already adopted a child.</p>

<p>Given those two options, wouldn’t it be better for the child to be adopted by the heterosexual couple? Sure, but what’s that prove? That you can construct any combination of scenarios designed to prove that a certain set of people would be better parents.</p>

<p>But you don’t determine public policy based on the exception or extreme case. For example, there might be some instances when it’s justified to run a red light – like rushing a dying person to the emergency room – but that doesn’t mean we should make running red lights legal. That’s bad public policy.</p>

<p>It reminds me of <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2011/12/answering-a-case-for-same-sex-marriage.html" target="_blank">Zach Wahls</a>, the 19 year-old University of Iowa student who made an impassioned appeal for same-sex marriage and parenting to the Iowa House of Representatives. His YouTube video went viral (more than 16 million views) after he argued that his lesbian mothers did a fine job of raising him. Maybe they did, but you can’t generalize one’s person’s experience for an entire group of people. Just because two homosexuals were able to raise a healthy, well-adjusted child (assuming they did), that doesn’t mean homosexual couples – <em>as a group</em> – make the best parents.</p>

<p>Many single fathers have to raise children by themselves. They do the best they can given their circumstances. I’m sure some of these children will declare themselves – like Zach Wahls – to be just fine. But does that mean we should promote single male adoption?</p>

<p>The real question is whether a child who needs to be adopted is best served by a heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple – <em>all things being equal</em>. The question focuses on the <em>needs of the child</em>, <em>not the wants of homosexuals</em> who are politically motivated to normalize same-sex marriage and parenting.</p>

<p>The answer is straightforward: decades of published research in psychology, social science, and medicine demonstrate that children do best when raised by a mother and father (especially the biological parents) in a long-term marriage.[i] That’s because a mother and a father each provide a unique and important contribution to their role as parents. Children who are raised – for example – in fatherless families suffer, on average, in every measure of well-being. They have higher levels of physical and mental illness, educational difficulties, poverty, substance abuse, criminal behavior, loneliness, and physical and sexual abuse.[ii]</p>

<p>Homosexual adoption, by design, will deny a child either a mother or father <em>every time</em>. By legalizing same-sex parenting, society declares by law that mothers and fathers are interchangeable. That means a mother offers no unique contribution to a child. A man could provide all the benefits of a woman.</p>

<p>Besides being counterintuitive, this deprives a son or daughter the distinctive benefits of being raised by both sexes.[iii] A compassionate and moral society comes to the aid of motherless or fatherless children. We don’t intentionally design families to deny children a mother or father. But that’s the result of same-sex parenting.</p>

<p>Lesbian parent Rosie O’Donnell confessed to Diane Sawyer in an ABC interview that her six-year-old adopted son, Parker, said, “I want to have a daddy.” Rosie answered him, “If you were to have a daddy, you wouldn’t have me as a mommy because I’m the kind of mommy who wants another mommy.”[iv] Notice the attention is shifted from the <em>needs</em> of children to the <em>wants</em> of couples. Although Parker asked for a father, his request was trumped by Rosie’s personal desire to be a lesbian parent.</p>

<p>Do Rosie and her lesbian lover know how to raise Parker to become a man? Do they know how to teach him how to treat a woman or his future wife? How will they be his role model?</p>

<p>Glenn Stanton and Bill Maier explore this idea and the suggestion that merely two loving adults are all that’s needed to raise kids: “The two most loving mothers in the world can’t be a father to a little boy. Love can’t equip mothers to teach a little boy how to be a man. Likewise, the two most loving men can’t be a mother to a child. Love does little to help a man teach a little girl how to be a woman. Can you imagine two men guiding a young girl through her first menstrual cycle or helping her through the awkwardness of picking out her first bra? Such a situation might make for a funny television sitcom but not a very good real-life situation for a young girl.”[v] And these are just a few of the absurdities that arise when you jettison the commonsense notion that men and women are both unique and valuable in their role as parents.</p>

<p>Same-sex parenting doesn’t make sense and that is why it must be forced on the people by the state. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse explains: “Marriage between men and women is a pre-political, naturally emerging social institution. Men and women come together to create children, independently of any government...By contrast, same-sex ‘marriage’ is completely a creation of the state. Same-sex couples cannot have children. Someone must give them a child or at least half the genetic material to create a child. The state must detach the parental rights of the opposite-sex parent and then attach those rights to the second parent of the same-sex couple. The state must create parentage for the same-sex couple. For the opposite-sex couple, the state merely recognizes parentage.”[vi]</p>

<p>The price of homosexual adoption is too high. For it to work, the state must redefine marriage, create parentage laws for homosexual couples, and deny the unique role that mothers and fathers play. In the end, children lose and we lose. Children are harmed, which in the end affects everyone in our culture. For this reason, I believe even homosexuals should oppose homosexual adoption.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>



<hr size="1">
<div>
<p>[i] This is supported by multiple studies including Mary Parke, “Are Married Parents Really Better for Children?” <em>Center for Law and Social Policy,</em> Policy Brief, May 2003, p. 1, and Kristin Anderson Moore et al., “Marriage From a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can We Do about It?” <em>Child Trends Research Brief</em>, June 2002, p. 1.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[ii] Much of this research is referenced in David Popenoe, <em>Life Without Father</em> (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996).</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[iii] See Yale Medical School’s Dr. Kyle Pruett, <em>Fatherneed: Why Father Care Is as Essential as Mother Care for Your Child</em> (New York: Free Press, 2000), 17-34.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[iv] <em>PrimeTime Thursday</em>, March 14, 2002.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[v] Glenn T. Stanton and Bill Maier, <em>Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-sex Marriage and Parenting</em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 71.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[vi] http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/15099</p>
</div>

</div>

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title: The Secret of Rejoicing While Suffering
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 04/19/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-secret-of-rejoicing-while-suffering
content:
            <div> 
		<p>If you haven’t heard the story of how Corrie ten Boom and her family hid Jews from the Nazis in Haarlem, Holland and then suffered in concentration camps, I recommend her book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Hiding-Place-John-Sherrill/dp/0800794052/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1334874242&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Hiding Place</a></em>, or this <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Hiding-Place-Radio-Theatre/dp/1589975138/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1334874604&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank">dramatized version</a> of it.</p>

<p>But now you can also hear her story from the <a href="http://tenboom.com/en/" target="_blank">Corrie ten Boom Museum</a>, which offers an online interactive tour of the Ten Boom home where you can explore 360° images of each room while listening to what happened there. Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, so it’s a perfect time to take the tour.</p>

<p>I’m endlessly fascinated by Corrie ten Boom and people like her who rejoice in God in the midst of the worst kind of suffering.</p>

<p>Fascinated by people who can truly say <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil%204:10-13&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">with Paul</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[I]n any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>(His secret was his knowledge that God would sustain him, no matter what. That kind of trust in God is a faith that destroys fear of the future.)</p>

<p>Fascinated by people who agree <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil%201:18-25&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">with Paul</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Fascinated by people who, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil%201:18-25&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">like Paul</a>, rejoice even while suffering, because the pain is less important than the fact that</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, <em>whether by life or by death</em> (emphasis mine).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And my fascination has been this: How did these people get there? So far, the answer I’ve been able to find seems to be a simple one—not complex, not advanced, and not beyond the capability of any of us who have been united with Christ. And here it is:</p>

<p><em>The Holy Spirit will transform us by His power—the very power that raised Christ from the dead—into people who see Christ as He is, and who therefore value Him and the spreading of the truth about Him above all comfort, through these means:</em></p>

<ul>
	<li><em>The very ordinary practices</em> of <a href="http://scriptoriumdaily.com/james-gray-on-mastering-the-bible/" target="_blank">reading</a>, learning, meditating on, and memorizing the Bible; of praying consistently, intentionally and honestly, with repentance, humility, and dependence; and of being part of a local church where we can receive what we need from God through the other members of Christ’s body, the church, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=eph%204:7-16&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">which is</a> “being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part…for the building up of itself in love.”</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li><em>Time</em>. I don’t think we become these people overnight. God is writing a story in each of our lives in which our redemption will honor Him and His grace in front of the whole world. This is usually a long-term plan. He seems to teach and shape us through events in our lives, and events take time.</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li><em>Practice</em>. As we learn to value God more and more, and as we experience His faithfulness in situation after situation, we learn to trust Him to enable us and strengthen us in the future, freeing us to rejoice that our suffering will be used by Him for good.</li>
</ul>

<p>Are you afraid to ask God to make you into one of these people? You probably should be. I’ve never once asked God to make me humble without suffering something painfully humbling soon after, so I can’t imagine this kind of prayer would be different. So yes, you might lose some things as an answer to this kind of prayer. But what if God, as part of His answer, <em>also</em> made you into someone <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil%203:7-11&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">who</a> “count[s] all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus [our] Lord”?</p>

<p>Can you trust Him to do both?</p>
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title: Atheists’ Small View of Christianity
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/27/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/atheists-small-view-of-christianity
content:
            <div> 
		<p>On the heels of the Reason Rally, where Dawkins <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9UKTuuTHEg" target="_blank">exhorted</a> the crowd to “Mock them! Ridicule them! In public,”&nbsp;Tom Gilson wrote a <a href="http://www.thinkingchristian.net/2012/03/atheists-self-trivialization/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thinkingchristian%2Ftomg+%28Thinking+Christian%29" target="_blank">post</a> about the New Atheists’&nbsp;practice of trivializing religion. He quotes David Albert's recent New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html?_r=2" target="_blank">review</a> of Lawrence Krauss’s new book:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>When I was growing up, where I was growing up, there was a critique of religion according to which religion was cruel, and a lie, and a mechanism of enslavement, and something full of loathing and contempt for every­thing essentially human. Maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t, but it had to do with important things—it had to do, that is, with history, and with suffering, and with the hope of a better world—and it seems like a pity, and more than a pity, and worse than a pity, with all that in the back of one’s head, to think that all that gets offered to us now, by guys like these, in books like this, is the pale, small, silly, nerdy accusation that religion is, I don’t know, <em>dumb</em>.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Gilson then gives an illustration of this tactic from an <a href="http://www.thinkingchristian.net/2012/03/atheists-self-trivialization/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thinkingchristian%2Ftomg+%28Thinking+Christian%29" target="_blank">encounter</a> he had at the Reason Rally, and it’s worth reading.</p>

<p>I was thinking about this very thing last week when our weekly challenge at STR Place (our student site) covered this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY2u7JZck_I" target="_blank">video</a>. What struck me more than anything else about the video was the shallowness of his understanding of Christianity. What atheists seem to be lacking is a grasp of the bigger picture. They have certain bits of Christianity memorized, but each bit is known only in isolation, away from the bigger context that could give it meaning. I’ve never heard anyone express what this results in better than Albert: “the pale, small, silly, nerdy accusation that religion is, I don’t know, <em>dumb</em>.”</p>

<p>That’s exactly how their words feel to me—small. Small and shallow. Christianity shaped the entire Western world. Its ideas inspired art, architecture, music, and literature of unrivaled excellence. Even if Christianity were false, there’s a depth and beauty to it that was rich enough to build Western civilization. Men and women have loved and been devoted to God to the point of torture and death. Even if Christianity were false, something in the God of Christianity inspired that love and devotion.</p>

<p>But that depth, that “something,”&nbsp;the big picture, is entirely absent from the image of Christianity maintained by the atheists, leaving them with a parody of its story and teachings that carries about as much power as an episode of Scooby Doo. So what I'm always left wondering is this: Why doesn’t sheer curiosity drive atheists to find the pieces they’re missing so that the last 2000 years of history will at least make a little sense?</p>
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title: Is Denying Same-sex Marriage Like Denying Interracial Marriage?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 05/24/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/is-denying-same-sex-marriage-like-denying-interracial-marriage-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Let me be blunt: denying same-sex couples from marriage is <em>not the same</em> as denying interracial couples from it. Although anti-miscegenation laws were immoral, the same mistake is not happening today. And despite the rhetorical force of making the comparison, merely claiming it’s the same does not make it so.</p>

<p>One of the problems with this comparison is that it presumes sexual orientation is a genetically predetermined trait like race. But it’s not, as <a href="/w/are-homosexuals-born-that-way-1" target="_blank">I’ve argued in a previous post</a>. Numerous researchers have also testified to this. Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project to identify every human gene, has said regarding homosexuality: “Whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations…”[i] Harvard geneticist and homosexual, Dean Hamer, admitted that, “The best recent study suggests that female sexual identification is more a matter of environment than heredity.”[ii] Even the American Psychological Association, a group that advances homosexual causes, doesn’t claim that genes determine sexual orientation. They say, “Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors.”[iii]</p>

<p>Homosexuality, then, develops also from environmental factors, not merely genetic ones. And since environmental factors vary in type, frequency, and degree, homosexuality is not inescapable. Depending on your developmental environment, you could or could not develop same-sex attractions.</p>

<p>Race, however, <em>is</em> entirely genetic and therefore inescapable. You���re not born an African American – you’re <em>conceived</em> as one. Your race is determined the moment the chromosomes of the sperm and egg blend together. Nothing will change that. Neither your mother’s diet, the hormones in her womb, nor intrauterine trauma will alter your birth as an African American. And once you’re born, your race is impervious to cultural, social, or psychological influences during childhood development. Nothing can alter – even slightly – your race.</p>

<p>That means homosexuals can’t claim they’re like African Americans in the sense that they are born that way. Their plight is not the same. African Americans are genetically born that way. Homosexuals are not.</p>

<p>But the differences grow more significant. Since homosexuality is not merely the product of genes, it is mutable. Homosexuals can and do change. I personally know men who have changed. This type of mutability has been observed for thousands of years and documented by researchers for the last one hundred years (<a href="/w/can-homosexuals-change-their-orientation-" target="_blank">I’ve written about this in a previous post</a>). In fact, sexual orientation in females is quite fluid.</p>

<p>Actress Anne Heche is an example. She grew up as a heterosexual, got involved in a lesbian relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, then married a man with whom she had a child, and now is living with another man. The same is true of former “Sex and the City” star, Cynthia Nixon. She grew up heterosexual, married a man, and had two children. In 2004, she became a lesbian. Nixon also infuriated the homosexual community by claiming that her change in orientation was, “a choice.” She went on to explain: “I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me… Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate?”[iv]</p>

<p>My point is not that sexual orientation is a choice. I’m simply acknowledging that it’s mutable for some people.</p>

<p>Race, however, is immutable. I don’t know any African Americans that have changed their race. None of them have become Swedish for a few years. It can’t happen, even in principle.</p>

<p>But there’s even a more significant problem with comparing homosexuals with African Americans, especially with regards to the issue of marriage. Interracial couples can marry because they can fulfill an essential <a href="/w/should-homosexuals-be-allowed-to-marry-whom-they-love-" target="_blank">function of marriage</a>. As Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse has explained, marriages bind males and females for the long term and protect the rights children have to be with their parents. Male-female unions are the precise kind of pairing that produces children and provides the ideal environment to raise them. Having an African American marry a Caucasian doesn’t impact that function in any way.</p>

<p>Homosexual couples, on the other hand, don’t include both sexes. Not only are they incapable – by nature – to produce children, but they are also ill-suited to raise kids who need a mother and a father (<a href="/w/should-homosexual-couples-be-allowed-to-adopt-" target="_blank">I’ve argued this in a previous post</a>). That’s why the state has never sanctioned the relationship of two men or two women, but they sanction interracial unions so long as they’re heterosexual.</p>

<p>Homosexuals are hoping to convince the culture that their plight is the same as African Americans. Naturally, this has a strong, rhetorical effect. But with careful reflection it becomes apparent the two groups are not parallel in meaningful ways. That’s because race and sex are not the same. This makes all the difference.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<div>
<hr size="1">
<div>
<p>[i] F. Collins, <em>The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief </em>(New York: Free Press, 2007), 260.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[ii] D. Hamer and P. Copeland, <em>Living with Our Genes: Why They Matter More Than You Think</em> (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1009), 188.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[iii] http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/orientation.aspx, accessed 4/30/12.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[iv] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/magazine/cynthia-nixon-wit.html?pagewanted=all, accessed 4/30/12.</p>
</div>
</div>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
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title: St. Patrick’s Day
topic: History
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/08/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/st.-patrick-s-day
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, and I love to tell the story of his life and work that has inspired me so much as an apologist. So here’s a reposting of that story for you to think about this coming week. Let us not forget the purpose of the arguments we learn or neglect the personal communion with God that empowers us.</em><br>
&nbsp;</p>

<p>St. Patrick’s Day is a deeply humbling, inspiring, and joyful day. I’m ashamed to admit that up until a couple of years ago I knew nothing about St. Patrick, but now that I do, this day truly moves me towards both reflection and action.</p>

<p>Sometime around AD 400, Patrick, a sixteen-year-old Briton, was kidnapped by Irish pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. He had previously rejected the Christian faith of his parents, but during his six years of captivity, he repented and gave his heart to God, praying constantly as he tended sheep alone in the hills. When he escaped and returned to Britain, Patrick was far behind his peers in terms of education and never really caught up, but he worked hard to receive the theological training he needed so he could return to the Irish as a missionary—to the very people who had enslaved him:</p>

<blockquote dir="ltr">
<p>I must take this decision [to return to the Irish], disregarding any risks involved, and make known “the gifts of God and his everlasting consolation.” Neither must we fear any such risk in faithfully preaching God’s name boldly in every place, so that even after my death a spiritual legacy may be left for my brethren and my children, so many people in their thousands whom I have baptized in the Lord.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Thanks to Patrick’s love and service, within a hundred years, the country was transformed from an illiterate, pagan nation of war, slavery, and human sacrifice to the guardian of the literature of Western civilization as Rome crumbled. After the dust settled, it was the Irish who traveled into Europe to plant the seeds of spiritual renewal and learning through the creation of monasteries that protected the ancient manuscripts and re-evangelized Europe.</p>

<p>God began all this through a man who felt decidedly unqualified for service, but who loved God completely, believed He is true, and was willing to give his life for others:</p>

<blockquote dir="ltr">
<p>[God] stirred up me, a fool, from the midst of those who are considered wise and learned in the practice of law, as well as “persuasive in their speech” and in every other way and, ahead of these others, inspired me who is so despised by the world, to be fit to help (if only I could!) faithfully and “in fear and trembling” and without any complaint that race of people to which the love of Christ drew me and thus spend the rest of my life, if only I might prove worthy; simply to serve them in humility and truth.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Patrick was adamant, particularly at the end of his <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385491638/qid=1116812091/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-2583375-8588130?v=glance&amp;s=books&amp;n=507846" target="_blank">Confession</a></em>, that nobody who reads his words should ever attribute the work he describes to his own abilities and power. But rather, they should glorify God who was the One working in him and through him, a humble former slave. He reminds us that <em>everything</em> accomplished through him was a gift from God. The irony of this holiday is that Patrick would be horrified to learn that not only is there a special day now devoted to <em>him</em>, but that day is cluttered with leprechauns, gold, and good-luck charms—the kind of paganism he worked so tirelessly to rescue people from in the first place.</p>

<p>Instead, I pray you’ll see this day as a reminder of the value of bringing Christ to the lost through prayer, suffering, sacrifice, and loving your enemies. And above all, I pray it’s a reminder of the value and glory of God Himself who loved a small country of barbarians enough to make sure even they would come to know Him.</p>

<p>So let Patrick’s words now be ours:</p>

<blockquote dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">At last I came here to the Irish gentiles to preach the gospel.... Now I was able to hand over the freedom of my birth for the benefit of others. And should I prove worthy, I am ready and willing to give up my own life, without hesitation for his name.</p>
</blockquote>

<p dir="ltr" style="margin-right: 0px;">(I encourage you all to read Patrick’s story in his own words in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385491638/qid=1116812091/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-2583375-8588130?v=glance&amp;s=books&amp;n=507846" target="_blank">The Confession of St. Patrick</a></em> and see how the God he loved changed the world through him in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385418493/qid=1116812141/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-2583375-8588130?v=glance&amp;s=books&amp;n=507846" target="_blank">How the Irish Saved Civilization</a></em>. To tell your children about the real St. Patrick, I recommend <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Story-St-Patrick-Shamrocks-Leprechauns/dp/0882640143/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=the+story+of+st.+patrick&amp;qid=1552753266&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-4" target="_blank"><em>The Story of St. Patrick</em></a>.)</p>
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title: Virtues and the Economy
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 04/19/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/virtues-and-the-economy
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I wrote not long ago about how a <a href="/w/values-fight-poverty" target="_blank">change in values</a> in 18th-century Britain (as a result of a million people coming to Christ) affected their economy. In <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Indivisible-Restoring-Family-Freedom-Before/dp/1455503126/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1334792090&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">Indivisible</a></em>, James Robison and Jay Richards also explore how the Christian worldview intersects with economics.</p>

<p>In order to succeed in a free market (where the rule of law is enforced), you must find a way to serve others—to provide them with something they value enough to purchase from you. This is true, regardless of your reasons for trying to make money, whether noble or not-so-noble. At the very bottom of it all, <em>you must serve others</em> in order to be successful and make money in a free market. In this way, all motivations are channeled in a direction that is outwardly focused on others’&nbsp;needs, and people are served.</p>

<p>But as Robison and Richards point out, in order to successfully make a living serving in this way, certain virtues are required and rewarded:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Free enterprise, or entrepreneurial capitalism, requires a whole host of virtues. Before entrepreneurs can invest capital, for instance, they must first accumulate it. So unlike gluttons, entrepreneurs must save rather than consume much of their wealth. Unlike misers, they risk rather than hoard what they have saved. Unlike the self-centered, they anticipate the needs of others. Unlike the impulsive, they make prudent choices. Unlike the robot, they freely discover new ways of creating and combining resources. Unlike cynics, they trust their neighbors, their partners, their culture, their employees...This cluster of virtues is the essence of what Rev. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute calls the “entrepreneurial vocation.”&nbsp;Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, but everyone can benefit in a society where entrepreneurs are free to pursue their calling.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Robison and Richards explain how our ability to create wealth in this way—to actually make the size of the wealth pie increase (not just increase one slice at the expense of others)—reflects the truth of the Christian worldview:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>New wealth comes not from matter alone, but from how we represent, inform, and transform matter—from mind. This most profound truth of economics is just what Christians should expect, since we know that each of us is created in the image of God...At the base of the free enterprise system is not greed or consumption, which are everywhere, but intuition, imagination, and creation.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The creation of new wealth actually argues against materialism. The creative minds of human beings, not physical material, are the greatest resource available to us.</p>

<p>Richards wrote a clear and compelling book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Money-Greed-God-Capitalism-Solution/dp/0061900575/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1334790310&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">Money, Greed, and God</a></em>, that explores these ideas in more depth, and I recommend it, particularly if these ideas are new to you and/or you disagree with what you’ve read here. Give that book a try, and see what you think.</p>
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title: Every Human Being Is a Person
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/13/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/every-human-being-is-a-person
content:
            <div> 
		<p>A blog by Robert J. Elisberg at the Huffington Post titled “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/personhood-amendments_b_1326600.html" target="_blank">Unborn in the USA</a>” is instructive: there is a profound lack of understanding of basic aspects of the abortion debate among those who oppose pro-lifers. In a way, I find that encouraging. It’s not that they’ve heard our arguments and rejected them, it’s that they haven’t heard our arguments at all. They don’t understand the issue, therefore understanding could change their minds.</p>

<p>Elisberg’s post is about the “Personhood Act” currently under consideration in Oklahoma:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The bill will give personhood status to gametes from the moment of fertilization. Or conception. Or whatever mental image or description you would prefer, like “from the moment a woman's ovum is impregnated by the ejaculated sperm of a male.”&nbsp;That would be a person.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Here’s where I begin to question his knowledge of basic human biology—or at the very least, his understanding of why pro-lifers oppose abortion. First, pro-lifers are interested in saving the lives of very young human beings—members of the <em>Homo sapiens</em> species who are growing and changing, just as we all grow and change from birth to death. Perhaps his sentence was just badly worded for rhetorical effect, but after fertilization, the gametes no longer exist as gametes; the combination is a completely different kind of entity. No one, I repeat: <em>no one</em> wants to give personhood status to gametes. A gamete is <em>not</em> a human being—not a whole organism on a path of development to maturity with his or her own unique DNA.</p>

<p>Second, his mocking description, “from the moment a woman's ovum is impregnated by the ejaculated sperm of a male,” is exactly the definition of how a human being is created. This is basic biology, and trying to make it sound silly doesn’t change that fact. When an egg and sperm come together, the result is a brand new combination of DNA that will be the same from that human being’s conception to his or her death. This is why pro-lifers support human rights for these very young people—because <em>they’re human beings</em>.</p>

<p>Elisberg wants to arbitrarily separate the term “person” from “human being” and then attach rights to “persons” rather than to human beings. But doesn’t that make a mockery of universal human rights and open wide the door for whomever is in power to define whole groups of “inconvenient” human beings out of their rights?</p>

<p>But here’s where his argument really loses its way:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]here is a huge flaw in these personhood bills, which proponents have tried to hide. A flaw that, by its very nature, eliminates any possible defense in the cause.</p>

<p>That flaw is as core a flaw as any cause can have -- because it’s the very name of the cause itself.</p>

<p>Personhood....</p>

<p>The name “personhood”&nbsp;hides that proponents of the bills cannot actually tell you if the “person”&nbsp;is a male or a female.</p>

<p>Ask them. “Okay, this unborn ‘person’&nbsp;you want to give human rights to at the moment of fertilization? Is that a male? Is it a female?”&nbsp;The answer can’t be determined. Indeed, “he&nbsp;or she”&nbsp;isn’t ever used in the discussion. Instead it’s always “the unborn child.”&nbsp;The unborn person. It��s always spoken of in the general -- because it can’t be spoken of in the specific. But that impregnated egg is very specific. And one thing that can’t yet be determined is if it’s a male or female....</p>

<p>For all the convoluted debate, it’s really very simple, in the end: if something can’t be determined to be a male or female, it can’t possibly be a person. After all, being a male or female is pretty much the core requirement to be a person. Everything else is gravy. So, without being able to determine if something is male or a female, then it’s impossible to call that a person.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I wish I could sit down and talk with Elisberg because he simply doesn’t have the facts. The sex of embryonic humans is very much determined from conception. Once again I point out that the DNA of a human being in the zygote stage of life is <em>exactly</em> the DNA that will direct his or her growth through <em>every</em> stage of life. It <em>is</em> a “he” or “she” "from the moment a woman's ovum is impregnated by the ejaculated sperm of a male." That’s simple biology.</p>

<p>Or perhaps he’s saying that despite its DNA-determined sex, an embryonic human being is a non-person because we can't know what that sex is. That would be an odd claim for two reasons: 1)&nbsp;It certainly is possible for us to know the sex of an embryonic human if the right tests are done. This is precisely what makes possible the controversial IVF practice of choosing which embryonic children to implant or destroy <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2010/07/09/i-have-a-right-to-a-baby-girl-using-ivf-for-sex-selection/" target="_blank">based on their sex</a>. But regardless, 2) Why should it matter whether or not we know the sex of an embryonic human? Would our knowledge change the fact that it <em>is</em> objectively male or female? Can our mere <em>knowledge</em> about another human being’s sex determine his or her moral status? Where would this leave babies like <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089474/Beck-Laxton-Kieran-Cooper-reveal-sex-gender-neutral-child-Sasha.html" target="_blank">Sasha</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13581835" target="_blank">Storm</a>, whose sex was kept secret from society?</p>

<p>Either way, if Elisberg thinks that “being a male or female is pretty much the core requirement” for acknowledging a human being’s rights, then he has picked the wrong side.</p>

<p>So if the purpose of these pro-lifers’ use of the term “personhood” isn’t to hide the fact that unborn children are neither male nor female, why are they using that word in these bills? Because that’s the word currently being used as shorthand for “worthy of rights.” The writers of the bills are trying to close the gap that’s been artificially created between “human beings” and “persons” and make clear the fact that <em>all human beings are persons</em>. Every member of the human race. We’re all persons because a human being is&nbsp;<em>the kind of being</em> that has personal properties, whether those properties are currently being expressed or not. Peter Kreeft <a href="http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/personhood.htm" target="_blank">explains</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Surely the correct answer [to how "person" is to be defined] is that a person is one with a natural, inherent capacity for performing personal acts. Why is one able to perform personal acts under proper conditions? Only because one is a person. <em>One grows into the ability to perform personal acts only because one already is the kind of thing that grows into the ability to perform personal acts, i.e., a person</em> (emphasis mine).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This is why human beings are persons, no matter what their age or current ability.</p>
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title: No Earthly Good?
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/29/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/no-earthly-good-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>John Loftus of Debunking Christianity, author of <em>Why I Became an Atheist</em>, has <a href="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2012/05/okay-time-has-come-im-done.html" target="_blank">announced</a> he doesn’t want to spend time arguing for atheism anymore:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I have no more desire to engage Christians. They are deluded, all of them. I have never been more convinced of this than I am now. I have better things to do. I spent 39+ years of my adult life on a delusion. If I add the years of my childhood that's almost my entire life. Yet this is the only life I will ever have. It's time to move on, or at a minimum take a very long hiatus.... If what I have written isn't good enough then nothing is good enough for some Christians. What I intend to do is turn this blog over to a few qualified people. I'll still be a part of it and I suppose I'll post something from time to time. But I see no reason to waste large chunks of my time on this delusion anymore. [He continues in a comment:] I'm going to do other more enjoyable things.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>My purpose in talking about this is not in any way to speak badly of John Loftus for quitting. Who enjoys spending all their time arguing for something that is continually rejected—particularly online, where the anonymity of commenters leaves a blogger open to all sorts of frustrations and abuse? I can sympathize with his desire to walk away.</p>

<p>In fact, there’s a moment in Spider-Man 2 I often think of where Peter Parker, after being fed up with being hated by the people he’s trying to help, decides to hang up his Spidey costume and live a normal life, free from the weight of his responsibility to sacrifice himself for others, free to pursue what he enjoys. As the sound of a siren approaches and police rush past him, we think for a moment that he’ll take action to help, as he used to. But no. Instead, he takes a big bite of his hot dog and continues on his way.</p>

<p class="text-align-center"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nL8hVXSDmNM" width="560"></iframe></p>

<p>Who in the fight doesn’t want that? Who isn’t tempted by that hot dog—that call to an easier life?</p>

<p>So here’s the question: Since that is a temptation for everyone, what is likely to make the difference? Why do people like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Elliot" target="_blank">Jim Elliot</a> give up their very lives for others, sacrificing all the earthly pleasures we all long for?</p>

<p>I think there are many answers to that, but I see a big one in Loftus’s explanation. If this life is indeed the only life you will ever have, then it’s true that life is too short…<em>to spend it suffering thanklessly for the sake of others</em>. This is why, contrary to the catchy saying, being “heavenly minded” doesn’t make you “no earthly good.” Rather, it’s the very fuel of earthly sacrifice, as <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2004/194_Happy_in_Hope_Patient_in_Pain_Constant_in_Prayer/" target="_blank">John Piper explains</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>So don’t make the mistake of thinking that future-oriented, future-sustained joy limits present usefulness. It doesn’t limit it. It liberates it. If your future is glorious and sure (which it is in Christ!), you don’t live for money or power or fame. <em>You don’t have to grasp and snatch and chase pleasures that are slipping through your aging fingers. You are free to live for others now. </em>You are free to be another kind of person than the kind that lives for this world. If your hope is glorious and sure, you will seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other basic things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). Your love will be genuine. It will be radical, risk-taking, sacrificial because of the joy set before you [emphasis added].</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Most people want to do good for others in theory. But no great good is accomplished without suffering. Is your life “too short” to spend it on this? Or can you say with Jim Elliot, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose”?</p>

<p>Again, the point of this is not to say we’re better people than John Loftus. I know I’m not better. It’s only to say that he’s right—he has no good reason to continue. But we do.</p>
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title: Our View of Man Matters
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/28/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/our-view-of-man-matters
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I wrote earlier this week about how the values of Christianity affect <a href="/w/values-fight-poverty" target="_blank">economics</a>. Now here’s a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/03/24/rally-for-nothing-in-particular/" target="_blank">quote</a> from Larry Taunton, a Christian and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Christopher-Hitchens-Restless-Notorious/dp/0718091493/ref=sr_1_1?crid=12C71PWZJ0KJ4&amp;keywords=the+faith+of+christopher+hitchens&amp;qid=1584737016&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=the+faith+of+christopher%2Caps%2C268&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank">friend</a> of Christopher Hitchens, on how our view of man affects the role and power of the government:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>How we answer the question of God’s existence or non-existence will largely determine our view of man and that, in turn, will determine our view of government.&nbsp;</p>

<p>If, for instance, you do not believe in God, you are likely to conclude that man is a temporal being meant to serve the state, an eternal institution. This is the view of the communist world. Sacrificing a few million people for the sake of building socialist paradise was always deemed an acceptable price to pay.&nbsp;</p>

<p>If, on the other hand, you believe in a just, benevolent God who made man in his own image, you will likely draw a very different conclusion: man is an eternal being that the state, a temporal institution, is meant to serve.</p>

<p>Proponents of a society free from religious influence can point to no nation or civilization that was founded upon atheism that we might call even remotely good. The story of those regimes is well documented and may be summarized in a word—murderous.&nbsp;</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Our view of man affects countless cultural practices and laws. Are human beings valuable in themselves, or do others grant them value based on a standard of acceptable characteristics? Do we all have equal intrinsic value, or do we need to enforce equality of outcome (roles, wealth, etc.) in order to be equal? Do we have a fixed human nature that the state must respect, or can we recreate ourselves (or be forced by the state) into whatever we wish?</p>

<p>The idea the United States government is built on—that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights—is one that grew out of the Christian worldview. There is no sense in which we’re all equal if there’s no shared, intrinsically valuable human nature; and there’s no sense in which we have unalienable rights if the state grants all rights and there is no one higher than the state. What the state gives, the state can take away.</p>

<p>This is obviously a very brief discussion of a large issue. But I wanted to illustrate again that, agree or disagree with Christianity, one thing it is <em>not</em> is the nonsensical silliness many atheists make it out to be (see <a href="/w/atheists-small-view-of-christianity" target="_blank">my last post</a>). Rather, as Taunton puts it in his <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/03/24/rally-for-nothing-in-particular/" target="_blank">article</a>, “Christianity, whatever the faults of its adherents, has a rich intellectual tradition that has a comprehensive view of life.”</p>
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title: Atheism: More Than Just a Non-Belief
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 02/11/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/atheism-more-than-just-a-non-belief
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Tom Gilson has an <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2012/02/ridiculous-atheistic-posturing/" target="_blank">excellent post</a> on the frequently-heard claim, “Atheism is nothing but a lack a belief in God”—as if the non-belief in God did not entail many other beliefs about reality. Gilson summarizes concisely some aspects of an atheist worldview that have major consequences for every area of life—behavior, decision making, governing, ethics, rights, and more:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[I]t’s ridiculous for atheists to claim that atheism is nothing but a lack of belief in God. It’s also (in its most common naturalist/materialist form) a lack of belief in:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Transcendent moral values and duties</li>
	<li>Ultimate accountability</li>
	<li>Knowledge of what is really good and really evil</li>
	<li>An explanation for the real, ontological worth and dignity of human beings</li>
</ul>

<p>Or, atheism in that form entails the belief that</p>

<ul>
	<li>There are no transcendent moral values or duties</li>
	<li>There is no ultimate accountability</li>
	<li>There is no knowing what is really good and really evil</li>
	<li>There is no explanation for the real, ontological worth and dignity of human beings, so it’s quite possible that human beings don’t have any special worth or dignity</li>
</ul>

<p>These beliefs have <a href="http://www.thinkingchristian.net/2011/10/does-dawkins-believe-atheists-actions-have-no-connection-to-their-beliefs/" target="_blank">consequences</a>.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>All the beliefs that go along with an atheist’s “lack of belief in God”&nbsp;can be stated positively: The universe is random and purposeless, moral values and duties are illusory, a belief in human exceptionalism is species-ist, we have only instrumental value, human nature is malleable and can (and should) be reshaped and improved by society, etc. These are all positive claims that need to be recognized and defended.</p>

<p>Read Gilson’s <a href="https://www.thinkingchristian.net/posts/2012/02/ridiculous-atheistic-posturing/" target="_blank">full post</a>, and take a look around the blog while you’re there. He does great work!</p>
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title: What About the Inquisition?
topic: History
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/24/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-about-inquisition
content:
            <div> 
		<p>We all expect the Spanish Inquisition to show up sooner or later in our discussions with atheists. Does the presence of the Inquisition in Christian history discredit all of Christianity? Does it render our past completely barbaric?</p>

<p>Here's a question that can help clarify the issues involved with the Inquisition objection: Do you honor Thomas Edison for inventing the light bulb, or do you merely scoff at him for not inventing a computer? Edison explored the same world we explore, and yet he only invented a light bulb. Was he a colossal failure? Absolutely not. Data (in this case, the data of the physical world) takes time to work through, sort out, and apply. Edison had a less than perfect understanding of the world, but he furthered the process of our knowledge and application of the facts of nature by one more step, moving us all towards a more precise understanding of the one reality of nature that has existed since the beginning. Eventually scientific data would lead to computers, but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate the beauty and wonder of the invention of the light bulb in its own time. And even though at the time of the light bulb's creation there were many other false ideas about how to apply the laws of nature (the use of leeches, for example), the false applications did not discredit science for all time.</p>

<p>Now move this same idea away from science and into the realm of morality and Christianity. Like the unchanging laws of nature, we have the unchanging words of God in the Bible. And as in the world of science, in the world of Christianity we've had to work out our knowledge and application of those unchanging words into our societies. This takes time because human societies started off so far from the ideal—with many false ideas and without knowledge of some true ideas of application that hadn't yet occurred to them. (For example, the idea that a pluralistic society could peacefully exist and not tear itself apart looks obvious to us now, but before the cultural situation made the discovery of this radically new idea possible, it was assumed that one must enforce unanimity for the good of the citizens, in order to survive.)</p>

<p>It's no surprise, then, that 500 years ago societies had only reached the moral equivalent of the light bulb and not the computer; but the problem was in the application, not in the data. That is, as inevitably as an application of the facts of the physical world led to computers, so the ideas of the Bible have led to the free societies we now see in the West. But one ought not be surprised by the amount of time it took the societies of the West to work through ideas based on biblical data any more than one is surprised by the thousands of years it took us to work through scientific ideas based on the observable data of nature. Nor does it make any more sense to fault the unchanging Bible itself for those societies' slow pace than it does to fault the always-present laws of nature for our formerly rudimentary ideas about science. The Bible and nature remained the same even if the implications had not yet been fully explored and rightly applied. And, as with the light bulb, we ought to honor the steps that were made in creating better societies rather than merely degrade the people of the past for not creating the inventions and institutions we have today.</p>

<p>But why, we may then ask, when first creating the nation of Israel, did God not immediately demand that they live as we do today? The answer might be similar to the reason why He didn't supply them with computers. A computer would have been completely beyond their grasp. In the same way, Israel had a difficult enough time adjusting their society to what God <em>did </em>give them explicitly at that time. Some things, to be fully understood, accepted, and lived out, have to be reached on our own as we struggle over time, learning little by little. Applications of ideas are discovered and then take time to permeate and transform a society. This, in turn, lays the groundwork for discovering more applications.</p>

<p>What God did do is speak to Israel where they were. He addressed the world as they knew it, and He set a foundation of ideas in place through the Old and New Testaments that would infect societies in such a way that the spread of those ideas would eventually lead us to where we are today. He told us that we're all—men and women—created in His image (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen%201:27;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">Gen 1:27</a>) and equal in value before Him (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gal%203:28;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">Gal 3:28</a>, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=philemon;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">Philemon</a>). We're not to kidnap people and sell them into slavery (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ex%2021:16;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">Ex 21:16</a>), we're not to punish people in a way that humiliates them (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=deut%2025:3;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">Deut 25:3</a>), we're not to make converts by the sword (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%203:5-8;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">John 3:5-8</a>, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2018:36;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">18:36</a>), the State is under God and the law (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=deut%2017:14-20;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">Deut 17:14-20</a>), no one—rich or poor (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=lev%2019:15;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">Lev 19:15</a>), native or foreigner (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=num%2015:15-16;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">Num 15:15-16</a>)—is to be favored when justice is dispensed, and the foundation goes on and on.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, just as the lack of good scientific instruments slowed the discovery and application of the laws of nature, our moral weaknesses—stubbornness, ignorance, biases, selfishness, and inherited false beliefs—have made the application of the Bible to our societies a difficult, slow process. This is why the Inquisition, while condemnable, is not unexpected or surprising and so does not successfully argue against the truthfulness of Christianity. And in fact, it gives <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20john%201:8-10;&amp;version=49;" target="_blank">further witness</a> to the truthfulness of the Bible's central message of our desperate need for Jesus and the forgiveness He provides.</p>
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title: Christianity As Science-Starter: Kepler
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/25/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/christianity-as-science-starter-kepler
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In Nancy Pearcey’s excellent book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Leonardo-Secular-Assault-Meaning/dp/1433669277/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1327463416&amp;sr=8-1-spell" target="_blank">Saving Leonardo</a></em>, she explains why Greek thought didn’t create modern science:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]he ancient Greeks are often given credit for the origin of modern science. But that is a mistake. The Greeks locked up mathematical truths in a kind of Platonic heaven of ideal forms—a realm of mental blueprints or templates for all the objects in the material world. The problem was that these blueprints did not match their objects except in a rough and approximate way. Why not? Because the Greeks regarded matter as eternal, not created. Therefore matter had its own inherent, independent properties, which did not necessarily line up with the blueprints in the ideal realm.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It was their view of the nature of the universe that held them back from scientific discovery, and it was Kepler’s Christian view of the creation of the universe that drove him on towards science:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[H]ow did Johann Kepler discover that the planetary orbits are ellipses? Ever since antiquity, people had thought the planets moved in circular orbits. The idea went back to Aristotle. He had reasoned that the heavens are “perfect,” and the circle is the “perfect” shape, ergo the heavenly bodies must move in circles. (This was an example of the Greeks’ deductive approach to science.) How did Kepler succeed in breaking through a settled belief in circular orbits that had held sway for two thousand years?</p>

<p>It began when he had difficulty plotting the orbit of Mars. The most accurate circle he could construct based on observations was slightly wobbly. Had Kepler retained the Greek mentality, he would have shrugged off such a minor aberration. His thinking would have been that objects correspond to geometrical ideals, after all, only approximately. But Kepler was a devout Lutheran. He was convinced that if God wanted a line to form a circle, it would be exactly a circle. And if it was not exactly a circle, it must be exactly something else. It would not be merely an arbitrary departure from the ideal. This theological conviction sustained Kepler through six years of intellectual struggle and thousands of pages of scientific calculations before he finally hit upon the idea of ellipses.</p>

<p>Kepler later spoke gratefully of the minor mismatch in Mars’ orbit as a “gift from God” because it spurred his greatest scientific breakthrough. The chief aim of science, he said, is “to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>One aspect of this I find interesting is the fact that it took so very long for the ideas of Christianity to overcome previously held cultural ideas left over from the Greeks. As was the case in the moral realm (as I discussed <a href="/w/what-about-inquisition" target="_blank">yesterday</a>), the Christian worldview in reference to the physical realm was slowly working its way through Western culture. No culture turns quickly, and God has a very long-term view of progress, working within the human limitations that make it difficult for a massive group of people to change an entrenched, accepted paradigm.</p>

<p>I think we underestimate the power culture has over our view of the world, and this often causes unfair scorn of those in the past who couldn’t see the applications of truths that we easily see today. This underestimation also leads to accusations against God for not completely remaking human culture when He gave the Israelites the Law. But the truth is, human society can be dangerously fractured by radical, abrupt, imposed change, and God wisely chose to work through the centuries in as stable a way as possible. It’s amazing to think how far we must still have to go.</p>
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title: Did Jesus Never Say Anything about Homosexuality?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 01/19/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/did-jesus-never-say-anything-about-homosexuality-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>This week I’m starting a new series that responds to common objections on the topic of homosexuality. Each Thursday I’ll address a different challenge. I’ll be starting with religious kinds of objections and then slowly move towards more secular ones.</em></p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p><strong>Today’s challenge: “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, so he must not have thought it was a sin.”</strong></p>

<p>I remember driving to a conference about homosexuality and seeing a line of protestors outside the building. A man was holding a large sign that read, “What Jesus said about homosexuality” and the rest was blank. The implication was obvious: since Jesus was silent on homosexuality, he must not have thought it’s wrong. It’s as if Jesus’ silence on the matter trumps all other considerations. Although that sign might have rhetorical power, there are a number of reasons why this argument doesn’t work.</p>

<p>First, it’s not certain that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. The Gospel writers didn’t record everything that Jesus said – only what they thought was important to their audience. Indeed, most of what Jesus said (and did) was never written down. John 21:25 says, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” It’s possible Jesus did talk about homosexuality, but the Gospel writers didn’t feel it was necessary to include it in their accounts.</p>

<p>Second, it’s clear what Jesus&nbsp;<em>would have said</em>&nbsp;about homosexuality if asked. Jesus was an observant Jew who, like all Jews living under the Old Covenant, was bound by the Mosaic Law. That’s why He often referenced it (e.g. Jesus references the two greatest commandments of the Law in Matthew 22:37, 39). Therefore, if He was asked what He thought about homosexuality, He would have cited the Levitical prohibitions (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13) that unequivocally state that homosexual behavior is a sin.</p>

<p>Third, Jesus did not speak about&nbsp;<em>every</em>&nbsp;immoral behavior. Should we infer that drunkenness, child sacrifice, and neglecting the elderly are appropriate since Jesus never said anything about them either? That’s absurd. Jesus addressed moral issues as they arose in conversation with His disciples, the crowds, and his opponents. Since there were no gay pride parades or organizations defending homosexual behavior at the time, it’s reasonable that Jesus wouldn’t be prompted to address the issue. And as mentioned earlier, not every discussion was documented by the Gospel writers.</p>

<p>Fourth, the argument that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality presumes that the words of Jesus are more authoritative than the words of Scripture elsewhere. But it is the Holy Spirit – God Himself – who inspired&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;of the Bible, including epistles like Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 1 Timothy where homosexuality is addressed. That means the black letters in the Bible are just as authoritative as the red letters. Moreover, Jesus and the Holy Spirit co-exist in the Godhead and have been in perfect and eternal communion from eternity past. Therefore, we can be confident that Jesus agrees with what the Holy Spirit revealed about moral issues in the Bible.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
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title: After-birth Abortions
topic: Bioethics
author: Melinda Penner
date: 02/28/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/after-birth-abortions
content:
            <div> 
		<p>As a follow up to the dolphins rights post this morning, Australian ethicists argue that <a href="http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411" target="_blank">after-birth abortions</a> are a logical extension of pre-birth abortions because there's no moral distinction between the fetus and a newborn.&nbsp; This is what happens when you define personhood functionally and assign rights that way.&nbsp; There is a logical slippery slope that is no fallacy and this is it.</p>

<p>They're correct that the short trip down the birth canal makes no moral distinction.&nbsp; (See the <a href="http://www.str.org/w/the-sled-test" target="_blank">SLED test</a>.)&nbsp; Sadly, rather than realizing this logically means we should protect the unborn's rights, they don't question their premises and take the logic the other direction.</p>
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title: Three-Judge Panel Strikes Down Prop 8
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 02/07/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/three-judge-panel-strikes-down-prop-8
content:
            <div> 
		<p>A three-judge panel of the 9<sup>th</sup> Circuit Court of Appeals has just struck down California's Prop 8—an amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as one man and one woman. From the <a href="http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2012/02/07/1016696com.pdf" target="_blank">ruling</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted….</p>

<p>All that Proposition 8 accomplished was to take away from same-sex couples the right to be granted marriage licenses and thus legally to use the designation of ‘marriage,’ which symbolizes state legitimization and societal recognition of their committed relationships. Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples. The Constitution simply does not allow for “laws of this sort.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Hopefully, I need not say here that our opposition to same-sex marriage is not intended to lessen the dignity of any individual human being. We are all created in God's image and have equal intrinsic value. However, while nobody denies that same-sex couples do love each other just as any heterosexual couple does, there are relevant differences in the relationships that justify privileging heterosexual couples in a way same-sex couples aren't. This should in no way be taken to mean that a homosexual is less valuable as a human being. It's the innate differences between male and female, <em>not</em> homosexual and heterosexual, that are behind the arguments for bringing opposite sexes together through traditional marriage.</p>

<p>This subject obviously involves a lot of emotion, so to help you think through this as clearly as possible, I've collected some links from past posts—written, audio, and video—that give a good overview of the issues involved and respond to the concerns of the judges:</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2009/07/discussing-samesex-marriage.html" target="_blank">Discussing Same-Sex Marriage (Audio)</a> – "How do you make a reasonable argument against same-sex marriage rights?&nbsp;Greg answered that on a recent radio show."</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li><a href="/w/same-sex-marriage-challenges-and-responses" target="_blank">Same-Sex Marriage Challenges and Responses</a> – "Western civilization is shuddering under a tidal wave of activism in favor of same-sex marriage. Here is a careful response to their most compelling arguments."</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2010/09/what-is-marriage.html" target="_blank">What Is Marriage?</a> – "One of the smartest men I know of, Robert P. George from Princeton University, with Sherif Girgis and Ryan T. Anderson have written an argument for the traditional definition of marriage. You can download the <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1677717#%23" target="_blank">PDF</a> and digest it."</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2007/08/denying-same-se.html" target="_blank">Denying Same-sex Marriage Isn't Unequal Protection</a> – "An Iowa court recently <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/08/30/iowa.samesexmarriage/index.html" target="_blank">ruled</a> in favor of six same-sex couples who claimed that denying them the right to marry violates the equal protection clause. This argument seems reasonable at first. Straight people can marry. Gays cannot. This is not equal protection. A little reflection, however, reveals how this view is mistaken.''</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2010/08/federal-judge-strikes-down-prop-8.html" target="_blank">Judge Strikes Down Prop 8</a> – "Prop 8 makes a very rational classification on the basis of a <em>relevant</em> characteristic—that is, the gender of the participants. Men and women are different, and there's no getting around this. This fact has biological, emotional, psychological, and more <a href="http://www.michiganfamily.org/index.php/what-every-child-needs/" target="_blank">ramifications</a> when it comes to families and the creation and rearing of children. The fact is that both male and female are essential to marriage."</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2011/08/were-.html" target="_blank">We're Arguing Definitions, Not Rights</a> – "One common misconception in the same-sex marriage debate is the idea that the traditional legal definition of marriage is a violation of equal rights. Since this is an extremely emotionally charged accusation, it's difficult to get past it into a real discussion of the issue. Here's the approach I usually take…"</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2008/09/liberal-support.html" target="_blank">Liberal Support for Traditional Marriage</a> – "This self-described liberal Democrat <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-blankenhorn19-2008sep19,0,2093869.story" target="_blank">supports</a> California's Proposition 8, which would constitutionally define marriage between one man and one woman because, as the piece so well explains, marriage, as a societal institution recognized by government, is about children."</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2011/12/answering-a-case-for-same-sex-marriage.html" target="_blank">Answering a Case for Same-Sex Marriage (Video)</a> – Alan responds to Zach Wahls's video promoting same-sex marriage.</li>
</ul>
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title: Restoring Meaning to “Selective Reduction”
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 03/06/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/restoring-meaning-to-selective-reduction-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/the_new_scar_on_my_soul.html" target="_blank">This article</a> is disturbing. And that’s why you should read it. The euphemism “selective reduction”&nbsp;will become more and more common (see <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/right-fashion-our-lives-how-we-want#.W6lwwRNKijQ" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/why-do-fetal-reductions-bother-pro-choicers#.W6lxSxNKijQ" target="_blank">here</a>), so let us not forget what it’s referring to:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[O]f the three embryos that were implanted, all three took. We were faced with the news of triplets. I was shocked, knowing the burden that would entail, but since G-d gave us three, I was prepared to do whatever I needed to do to help, manage, and provide.</p>

<p>My wife? Something snapped. She insisted that we do a “selective reduction”&nbsp;from three to one, or else she would have a full abortion. She was adamant. She would <em>not</em> carry three. She would <em>not</em> carry two.</p>

<p>I was presented with a Coventry-esque decision: save one, or save none. I chose the former, though I tried on several occasions to convince her to at least keep twins. I failed...My mantra became “Save one, or save none.”</p>

<p>Before the procedure, my wife’s eyes teared up; she asked the doctor over and over if they would feel pain, and was assured they would not. I asked again if my wife was sure about this because once done, it could not be undone. She said she was sure, but her tears and her looking away from the screen, deliberately, and her wanting me to not look either, told me the truth: she knew as well that this was wrong...</p>

<p>My wife didn’t look, but I had to. I had to know what would happen to my children. I had to know how they would die.</p>

<p>Each retreated, pushing away, as the needle entered the amniotic sac. They did <em>not</em> inject into the placenta, but <em>directly into each child’s torso</em>. Each one crumpled as the needle pierced the body. I saw the heart stop in the first, and mine almost did, too. The other’s heart fought, but ten minutes later they looked again, and it too had ceased...</p>

<p>[T]hat emotional scar will ache my whole life. I see my child’s smile every night and anticipate a new one in some months...but I think of the two smiles I will never see. Every day, returning from work, I hear “Hi Daddy!”&nbsp;and know there are two voices and two giggles that I will never hear. I play with and cuddle my child, looking forward to the same with the second...but I know there are two sets of hands that will never touch mine, two sets of toes that will never be counted, two hugs that will forever be absent from my arms.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This is what the dehumanization of the youngest members of our human race leads to. As the author notes, euphemisms ease guilt and make it possible to rationalize such decisions for the sake of easing the difficulties of parenthood. But in the end, which is truly easier: raising triplets, or dealing with this knowledge for the rest of your life?</p>

<p>I urge you to read the <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/the_new_scar_on_my_soul.html" target="_blank">full article</a> and pass it on.</p>

<p>(HT: <a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/03/06/60-second-summary-the-new-scar-on-my-soul/" target="_blank">Joe Carter</a>)</p>
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title: Sinners Unaware
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/26/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/sinners-unaware
content:
            <div> 
		<p>To expand my thoughts at the end of <a href="/w/christianity-as-science-starter-kepler" target="_blank">yesterday’s post</a> about the slow-moving nature of worldviews, I thought I’d post a piece I wrote a few years ago after reading a chapter called “Trusting the Theology of a Slave Owner” in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Entranced-Vision-All-Things/dp/1581345631/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4070727-9465705?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1174160828&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">A God Entranced Vision of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards</a></em>. It’s a sobering reminder of our limitations as human beings in applying revealed truth to our practices:</p>

<p>Even as Edwards argued against the slave trade, saying it was wrong because we’re all of the same human race, made by the same Maker in His image, and we ought not steal human beings and tear them away from their families, nor should we profit from others who do so—even as he argued this, Edwards continued to own slaves.</p>

<p>It’s a scary thought that a man who knew God’s word far better than I do and who spent far more time in prayer, study, and meditation than I do was blinded enough by his own sin and culture not to see a sin that is now glaringly obvious to us—that a man of such incisive and precise thinking could not see that he condemned himself with his own arguments against the slave trade.</p>

<p>His son, who was able to follow the logic of Edwards’s arguments and the implications of his theology to the end, argued eloquently against <em>slavery</em>, not just the trade. But it took those of that next generation to finally work their way completely out of the blinders of cultural complacency.</p>

<p>It’s difficult to see clearly and then fight against a sin you’re already participating in. How much more so if your culture condones it! Our sin blinds us and distorts our perception (a frightening reality that ought to make us more careful about giving into temptation). Edwards had slaves, so he was not able to see the wrongness of it, and while he was ahead of his time morally in many ways, including in his arguments against the slave trade, his treatment of his slaves, and his inclusion of slaves as members of his church, we can see now how far he was from God’s standard of perfect righteousness.</p>

<p>If this doesn’t point out the need of all of us for a savior, I don’t know what does! We are all desperately in the “sinner” category (a category which includes everyone but God) in ways of which we haven't even a clue. Edwards fought so hard for holiness in himself and mastery over his sin, and people around him would have considered him a very good man. Some who misunderstood the gospel probably thought he was good enough to get to heaven based on his works. But they could not even see the sin of slavery.</p>

<p>In the same way, as best as we try to conquer our own sin, there will be sins in our lives that we will never even recognize. This is a humbling thought to which we are forced to <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%207:24-8:4&amp;version=49" target="_blank">respond like Paul</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!... Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…. For what the Law could not do [i.e., make us righteous], weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Fetal Humans
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 02/08/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/fetal-humans
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’ve been thinking of how unhelpful the term “human fetus” is. It reverses our usual grammatical way of speaking about a stage of development, so it perpetuates fuzzy ideas about the identity of the unborn.</p>

<p>We say “adult human,” not “human adult,” because that is the clearest way to speak. Saying “human adult,” “dog adult,” “horse adult,” etc. would make it sound as if an “adult” is a type of creature in and of itself, with the qualifier telling us if it happens to have human qualities, or dog qualities, etc. No, the type of <em>being</em> is “human,” and the <em>qualifier</em> is “adult.”</p>

<p>We ought to also say “fetal human.” It puts the emphasis in the right place and makes it clear to the listener that “fetal” is a stage of development, not a kind of being.</p>

<p>The word “fetus” has been used to obfuscate the identity of the unborn for too long, and even we pro-lifers can’t help but be affected by it. Just think of both terms and you’ll see what I mean. Don’t you feel more of an immediate kinship with a “fetal human” than a “human fetus”? Don't you feel more protective of a fetal human? This is not a language trick, it’s a more consistent use of grammar and a long-overdue clarification.</p>
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title: One of These Gods Is Not Like the Others
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/17/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/one-of-these-gods-is-not-like-the-others
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Atheists will frequently place all concepts of gods into the same category, saying things like, “I just believe in one less god than you do,” or, “As we learn more and more about nature from science, the need for a god will retreat to the point where there’s no longer a place for one.”</p>

<p>These statements can only come from a misunderstanding of the radical differences between the ancient pagan gods and the Christian God. Not all concepts of gods are equally likely (or unlikely), nor are they equally necessary. Is a rain god necessary to explain rainfall on any particular day? No. But is a creator God who, in a universe that had a beginning, brought everything (including the predictable laws of nature) into existence out of nothing necessary? Now that is a completely different question.</p>

<p>In <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Leonardo-Secular-Assault-Meaning/dp/1433669277/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1326754179&amp;sr=8-1-spell" target="_blank">Saving Leonardo</a></em>, Nancy Pearcey discusses how belief in a very specific God gave rise to science:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Nature was thought to be full of gods or spirits ready to inflict disaster…unless they were placated by the correct performance of the correct rituals…. It did not seem at all orderly or predictable.</p>

<p>By contrast, the Bible rejects any religious status for nature. In the opening lines of Genesis, the sun, moon, and stars are not gods. Nor are they emanations of a divine essence. They are created objects. As a result, they do not have ultimate power over humans. The biblical teaching of a transcendent God liberated people from fear of spiritual forces within nature….</p>

<p>In the biblical worldview, theologian Thomas Derr says, “man did not face a world full of ambiguous and capricious gods who were alive in the objects of the natural world.” Instead there was “one supreme creator God whose will was steadfast.” Thus “nature exhibited regularity, dependability, and orderliness. It was intelligible and could be [scientifically] studied.”</p>

<p>In short, the idea of an intelligible order in nature was not derived from scientific observation. It was derived from biblical theology <em>prior</em> to observation. And it was what made the scientific enterprise possible in the first place.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Looking at the two kinds of gods, you can see how in the first case, each nature-god would be debunked, become obsolete, and disappear as knowledge about the laws of nature increased. However, in the second case, God is not in nature in the sense that His changing moods determine the day’s events, depending on whether or not we have correctly manipulated Him. Rather, it’s God Himself Who <em>establishes</em> the laws of nature, rendering them orderly and predictable, according to His Nature. This God is not manipulated by human beings. He’s not capricious, or vindictive, or chaotic. In short, He isn’t a mirror image of us and our ever-changing moods, as were the other gods of old.</p>

<p>Because of this, as Pearcey points out, the very idea of “laws” in nature developed for the first time in the Christian West. And as more and more is discovered about the workings of nature, this true God will not in any sense be pushed out. Rather, He will be further glorified by this complex, creative expression of His beautiful, consistent, and orderly Nature.</p>
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title: Are Homosexuals Born that Way?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 02/23/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/are-homosexuals-born-that-way-1
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Lady Gaga’s mega-hit song “Born this Way” sold millions of copies affirming what many people believe: homosexuality is hardwired. In fact, people think that’s as axiomatic as saying the earth revolves around the sun. No rational person rejects the idea. The only hold-outs, it is said, are either ignorant of science, homophobic, or bigots (read: Christians). But before I explain why this view is beset with problems, let me make a tactical suggestion.</p>

<p>Many Christians get defensive when someone says homosexuality is inborn. I understand the temptation to argue against this claim. But it’s a mistake to try to show it’s false, at least initially. That’s because the claim is not an argument. It’s just an opinion and, therefore, not necessarily true. In order for their claim to become a bona fide argument, it must be supported with evidence or reasons.</p>

<p>So, instead of defending <em>your</em> convictions, make them defend <em>their</em> claim. Simply ask, “What evidence do you have that homosexuals are born that way?” Then wait and listen. This is totally appropriate and not just a rhetorical trick. It’s how the burden of proof works. Whoever makes the claim bears the burden to show it’s true. Since they’ve made the claim, it’s <em>their</em> job to back it up, <em>not</em> <em>your</em> job to prove them wrong.</p>

<p>If they don’t have evidence for their claim, then it’s fair to <em>graciously</em> explain that their view is un<span style="text-decoration: underline;">reason</span>able – that they don’t hold their view for good reason. If they do offer evidence for their view, only then is it appropriate to respond with a counter-argument.</p>

<p>With that tactic in mind, let’s look at three problems with the born-that-way theory. The first is the most egregious. A simple scientific fact-check demonstrates that no study has proven that homosexuality is biologically determined.</p>

<p>Decades of research to discover a “gay gene” have been unsuccessful. It’s now uncommon for scientists to think that homosexuality is solely genetic. Perhaps the most powerful line of evidence is found in twin studies. Since identical twins have identical genetics, it would follow that if one twin was homosexual, the other would also have to be homosexual 100% of the time. But both twins are homosexual in less than 15% of the cases.<a href="#_edn1"><sup><sup>[1]</sup></sup></a></p>

<p>Not only is the genetic effect extremely low, but it also accounts for shared environmental factors. In other words, even saying that the genetic contribution to homosexuality is 15% is not accurate because identical twins are usually raised together and share a similar environment. In order to isolate the contribution of genetics, one would have to study identical twins <em>raised apart</em>. That way you eliminate the effect of their environment.</p>

<p>It was also speculated that homosexuality had a biological basis. But research that <em>correlates</em> brain anatomy/physiology with homosexual behavior doesn’t prove <em>causation</em>. In other words, even if the brains of homosexuals have structural differences from those of heterosexuals, that might suggest their behavior changes their brain, not necessarily the other way around. This is possible due to neuroplasticity – the lifelong ability of the brain to change in response to the environment, behavior, brain injury, or even acquiring knowledge. For example, blind people’s brains have a different neurologic structure because reading braille using fingers is a different behavior than using eyes to read.</p>

<p>What’s surprising is that pro-gay researchers and organizations acknowledge the dearth of evidence for a biological cause to homosexuality. The American Psychological Association (APA), for example, once held the position in 1998 that, there is “evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person’s sexuality.” However, a decade of scientific research debunked this idea and caused the APA to revise their view in 2009. Their new position reads: “Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, <em>no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor </em>or factors”<a href="#_edn2"><sup><sup>[2]</sup></sup></a> [emphasis mine]. A pro-gay group like the APA wouldn’t revise their statement unless there was overwhelming evidence that necessitated a position change.</p>

<p>A second problem with the born-that-way theory is that even if true, it wouldn’t prove that homosexual behavior is moral. Consider that scientific research has discovered genes they believe contribute to alcoholism, unfaithfulness, violence, and even many diseases. Are we to believe that because there is a genetic contribution to these behaviors (or even if they were genetically <em>determined</em>) that they should be regarded as morally appropriate? Of course not. So, proving homosexual behavior is appropriate by appealing to a genetic determinant is equally spurious.</p>

<p>This mistake in thinking is known as the naturalistic fallacy. You can’t get an “ought” from an “is.” Even if homosexuality <em>is</em> natural, it doesn’t prove it <em>ought</em> to be. And scientists who are attempting to prove homosexuality is inborn agree. Harvard geneticist Dean Hamer, himself a homosexual, says, “Biology is amoral; it offers no help in distinguishing between right and wrong. Only people guided by their values and beliefs can decide what is moral and what is not.”<a href="#_edn3"><sup><sup>[3]</sup></sup></a><sup> </sup>Simon LeVay, a Harvard trained neuroscientist and also openly gay, concurs: “First, science itself cannot render judgments about human worth or about what constitutes normality or disease. These are value judgments that individuals must make for themselves, while taking scientific findings into account.”<a href="#_edn4"><sup><sup>[4]</sup></sup></a></p>

<p>A third problem stems from the mere existence of the “ex-gay” community. If homosexuality is, as many pro-gay advocates state, as inescapable as eye color, then how do they explain former homosexuals? Eye color <em>is</em> genetic, something that one is born with and can’t change. But sexual orientation is fluid, as evidenced by the changed lives of thousands of men and women.</p>

<p>There are women who have had long-term, lesbian relationships with other women and then changed and became attracted to men. There are also men who have had same-sex attractions since puberty, spent a decade in gay relationships, and then developed attractions to the opposite sex. Many of these people have gone through some form of counseling or therapy, but many have not.</p>

<p>The fact that even one person has changed is evidence that homosexuality is not hard-wired. But that there are thousands of individuals who share this experience is significant counter-evidence against the born-that-way theory. I know many of these people. They can’t all be lying about their life.</p>

<p>Instead, what they offer is hope. Since many people are dissatisfied with their same-sex attractions, these changed lives represent an opposing voice to the cultural chorus that claims homosexuals are born that way.</p>


<p>&nbsp;</p>

<div>
<hr size="1">
<div>
<p><a href="#_ednref1">[1]</a> Bailey JM, Dunne MP, Martin NG. 2000. Genetic and Environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample. <em>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</em> 78:524-36. The figure is the pairwise concordance, not probandwise concordance.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p><a href="#_ednref2">[2]</a> Retrieved on February 2, 2012, from http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation.aspx</p>
</div>

<div>
<p><a href="#_ednref3">[3]</a> Hamer, Dean &amp; Copeland, P. (1994).&nbsp;<em>The Science of Desire</em> (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 214.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p><a href="#_ednref4">[4]</a> LeVay, Simon, “Sexual Orientation:<em>&nbsp; </em>The Science and its Social Impact,” in <em>Reverso, </em>2000, p. 12.</p>
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title: Can You Have Gay Friends If You Think Homosexual Behavior Is a Sin?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 02/09/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/can-you-have-gay-friends-if-you-think-homosexual-behavior-is-a-sin-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>A youth leader wrote me: “I would say that the issue of homosexuality is THE #1 BARRIER for teenagers…that keeps them from believing the gospel.” I can see why he said that. It’s a simple cost-benefit analysis. You can keep your faith or you can keep your friends and family. You pick. Well, the answer for many people is obvious: relationships are more important than a theological idiosyncrasy. So, they either compromise on the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality or they ditch their faith altogether.</p>

<p>Part of the problem stems from the belief that if you keep your convictions about homosexuality, then you can’t stay in relationship with your friends and family who say they’re gay. But this isn’t the biblical view.</p>

<p>The New Testament doesn’t prohibit Christians from friending (I know, I know…that’s so Facebook-ish) homosexuals. Paul, writing about a sexually immoral man in 1 Corinthians 5:9-10, tells Christians that they are “not to associate with sexually immoral people— <em>not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral</em>, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.” Notice how Paul clarifies that we don’t have to avoid relationships with non-believers (who he calls “people of this world”). After all, we can’t influence them if we’re not involved at all.</p>

<p>There <em>is</em> a group of people that Paul warns Christians to avoid. Continuing his discussion on sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 5:11, Paul explains, “But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of a brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.” The people Paul warns us to avoid are <em>Christians</em> who engage in sexual immorality. Why? Because sin left unchecked within a body of believers is like cancer. It spreads and harms those around them (1 Corinthians 5:6-7).</p>

<p>That doesn’t mean we are to end all relationships with Christians who have committed sexual sin. Paul is talking about <em>unrepentant</em> Christians. People who know the biblical standard but thumb their nose at it and continue in the illicit behavior. That’s the context of 1 Corinthians 5.</p>

<p>It does mean that people who claim to be Christian and engage in willful, unrepentant homosexual behavior fall under the jurisdiction of this command. Friends like that can influence us and other believers in negative ways. But this rule applies to any sexual sin, not just homosexuality.</p>

<p>In all other circumstances, there’s no reason to choose between your faith and your friends. Keep them both so you have a chance to be a positive influence in your relationships. That’s the point of being an ambassador for Christ.</p>


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title: Does God Punish Gay People for Being Who They Are?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 02/02/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/does-god-punish-gay-people-being-who-they-are
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Here's today's challenge: "If God made people gay and they don’t have a choice in the matter because they were born with that orientation, then isn’t it unfair that He punishes them for just being who they are?"</em></p>

<p>I have to agree with pro-gay advocates on this one. Homosexuals are born with an orientation. And it <em>is</em> genetic. This leads to desires that not only feel natural, but are considered sinful by God when acted upon.</p>

<p>But it’s not a <em>sexual</em> orientation. It’s a <em>sinful</em> orientation. The Bible calls it a sin nature. And everyone is born with it—not just homosexuals.</p>

<p>I was born with that orientation too. As early as I can remember, I always felt that way. It felt natural for me to lie to get myself out of trouble. It seemed normal for me to fantasize about having promiscuous sex with girls. It was easy to think of myself first and others later.</p>

<p>So homosexuals aren’t unique. They’re not the only ones who get to complain they have a proclivity towards behaviors that God deems immoral. It will never be right for me to lie, sleep around, or act selfish. And alcoholics, some of whom are born with a genetic predisposition towards heavy drinking, don’t get off the hook either. Every person on the planet is faced with the choice to act morally despite being born with an orientation to do wrong.</p>

<p>Although we’re born that way, it’s not because of God. It’s a genetic problem that we inherited from our ancestors. So God is the wrong person to blame.</p>

<p>But even though we’re all born that way, God doesn’t punish us for being who we are. We’re punished for our behavior—for <em>acting</em> on our natural orientation. The Bible doesn’t condemn people for experiencing same-sex attractions. It prohibits homosexual <em>behavior</em>. It’s irrelevant whether you feel you’re born that way, you experiment with homosexual sex, or you’re stuck in a prison with no heterosexual outlet. It’s your conduct that matters.</p>

<p>So homosexuals aren’t faced with a unique situation that’s unfair. Everyone is born with an orientation to sin. And it’s a deep, ingrained tendency that’s impossible to resist. It doesn’t go away with therapy or medication. You can’t pray away the orientation.</p>

<p>But God doesn’t leave us helpless. Although He punishes sinful acts—even ones we’re born with a proclivity to commit—He also helps us in two ways. He grants us a pardon and gives us power.</p>

<p>The first is a pardon for our bad behavior. He offers someone else to pay the penalty for our moral crimes. We can accept the pardon and go free or pay the penalty ourselves. It’s our choice. That means a man can live a lifetime of homosexual behavior and still be acquitted. That’s a great offer given God isn’t even responsible for our sinful desires.</p>

<p>The second is power to overcome our proclivity to sin. He does this by replacing our old orientation with a new one. It doesn’t guarantee we’ll have perfect desires (we’ll still experience external temptations and have internal patterns of thought that we’ve habituated), but it does give us the strength to resist them. Many people who have experienced same-sex attractions have also experienced this new power.</p>

<p>These two offers are great, but we have to agree with the stipulations. Since God’s laws have been violated, He decides the terms of the contract. Although the pardon and power are free, they require action on our part. In exchange for our acquittal and a new orientation, God asks for a lifetime of allegiance.</p>

<p>Like living under a monarchy, we become subjects of the King. Except unlike previous kings, Jesus of Nazareth doesn’t just sit on a throne and rule. He also takes our place when the guilty verdict is rendered and the penalty is served. That’s why He deserves our allegiance.</p>

<p>Granted, it’s no small commitment. But given the alternative, it’s understandable why billions of people throughout history have taken God up on His offer of grace. That offer is good for anyone with any orientation.</p>

<p><em>This post is part of a series responding to common challenges on the topic of homosexuality. You can read the first two posts <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/01/did-jesus-never-say-anything-about-homosexuality.html" target="_blank">here </a>and <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/01/is-homosexuality-the-worst-sin-of-all.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</em></p>
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title: Who Says God Is Good?
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 03/01/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/who-says-god-is-good-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Sometimes the simplest questions—questions that seem so basic we never expect them to be asked—can stop us in our tracks if we’re not equipped to engage them.</p>

<p>For example, central to the Gospel is the notion of goodness. God is good; we’re not good. God’s goodness prompts Him to rescue us from our non-goodness, our sin. Seems clear enough.</p>

<p>To some people, though, it’s not clear at all. Something so central to Christianity is hopelessly vague to them: “What is ’good’?”&nbsp;they ask.</p>

<p>“Well, that’s simple,”&nbsp;you may be tempted to say. “’Good’&nbsp;is whatever God says it is.”&nbsp;That answer—though true as far as it goes, in my opinion—only magnifies the problem in the minds of skeptics.</p>

<p>It may explain what we <em>mean</em> when we say certain actions are good (i.e., they are consistent with what God wants us to do or be), but it makes it impossible to ever say God <em>Himself</em> is good (“God always does what He tells Himself to do”?). And if we can’t make sense out of the claim that God is good, then a Gospel based on God’s goodness loses its legs.</p>

<p>I want to explain how defining goodness by making a bare appeal to God’s divine commands can make us vulnerable to an ancient challenge—one that’s also raised frequently today. Then I want to show you how to answer the objection and clarify what we mean by the good.</p>

<h2>The Challenge</h2>

<p>This problem goes back a long way, at least to the 4th century before Christ. Plato’s famous dilemma concerning the nature of goodness is still being raised today as a serious challenge to Christianity. Is an act right because God says it’s so, or does God say it’s so because it’s right?</p>

<p>The question first surfaces in Plato’s dialogue, <em>Euthyphro</em>.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup> In this conversation between Socrates and Euthyphro, Socrates is attempting to understand the essence of piety and holiness:</p>

<p><em>Socrates</em>: And what do you say of piety, Euthyphro? Is not piety, according to your definition, loved by all the gods?</p>

<p><em>Euthyphro</em>: Certainly.</p>

<p><em>Socrates</em>: Because it is pious or holy, or for some other reason?</p>

<p><em>Euthyphro</em>: No, that is the reason.</p>

<p><em>Socrates</em>: It is loved because it is holy, not holy because it is loved? <sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></p>

<p>The dilemma Euthyphro faced is this: Is a thing good simply because the gods say it is? Or do the gods say a thing is good because of some other quality it has? If so, what is that quality? The problem stumped Euthyphro.</p>

<p>In more recent times, Plato’s approach has been used as an assault on the coherence of Christianity. The great 20th century British philosopher and atheist, Bertrand Russell, formulated the problem this way in his polemic against the faith, <em>Why I Am Not a Christian</em>:</p>

<p>If you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, you are then in this situation: Is that difference due to God’s fiat or is it not? If it is due to God’s fiat, then for God Himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God’s fiat, because God’s fiats are good and not good independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God.<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup></p>

<h2>The Problem</h2>

<p>Russell’s version is an attempt to show an internal flaw in the Christian’s notion of God and goodness. Is a thing right simply because God declares it so, or does God say it is good because He recognizes a moral code superior even to Him?</p>

<p>This problem presents a dilemma because one is forced to choose one of two options, both ultimately hostile to Christian theism. The believer is caught between a rock and a hard place.</p>

<p>On the one horn of the dilemma, God reigns and His Law is supreme. As the ultimate Sovereign, He establishes the moral rules of the universe. His commands are absolute. We must obey.</p>

<p>Ethicist Scott Rae describes the view: “A ’divine command’&nbsp;theory of ethics is one in which the ultimate foundation for morality is the revealed will of God, or the commands of God found in Scripture.”<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup> This view is known as ethical voluntarism.</p>

<p>At first blush this seems correct, until we realize the liabilities we run into unless it is properly qualified. The <em>content</em> of morality seems to be arbitrary, dependent on God’s whim. Though God has declared murder, theft, and debauchery wrong, it could have been otherwise had God willed it so. Any “immoral”&nbsp;act could suddenly become “moral”&nbsp;by a simple declaration (fiat) by God. This is Russell’s point.</p>

<p>Further, it reduces God’s goodness to His power. To say that God is “good”&nbsp;simply means that He is capable of making and enforcing His commands. As Russell put it, “For God Himself there is no difference between right and wrong.”</p>

<p>This is the position of Islam,<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup> but it is unacceptable to the Christian. Morality is not arbitrary. God is not free to call what is wrong right, and what is right wrong. The text is clear: “It is impossible for God to lie”&nbsp;(Hebrews 6:18). The Psalmist writes, “No evil dwells with you”&nbsp;(Ps 5:4). God cannot sin.</p>

<p>But the alternative horn of the dilemma seems no better. If the Christian asserts that morality is not arbitrary, he is caught on the second horn of the dilemma. If the standard is an absolute that even God can’t violate, doesn’t this make the Almighty Himself beholden to a higher law? The sovereign becomes the subordinate.</p>

<p>In each case, Christianity loses. Either God is not good (in any meaningful sense), or He’s not sovereign. That’s the dilemma.</p>

<h2>Grounding</h2>

<p>Plato’s challenge forces us to consider an important detail in any discussion on the nature of morality: grounding.</p>

<p>The word “ground”&nbsp;originally meant “the lowest part, base, or bottom of anything.”<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup> In philosophy it refers to the foundation or logical basis of a claim. Euthyphro’s task was to identify the logical grounding of piety or virtue. What base does morality “stand on”?</p>

<p>Frank Beckwith and I chose a title for our book on relativism that paints a word picture: <em>Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air</em>. Our point: Relativists who make any claim to morality have no basis for their assertion. They are standing not on solid ground, but on thin air.</p>

<p>A law is only as legitimate as the authority upon which it rests. The U.S. government can’t pass laws governing Canadians. Our federal laws apply only to the people of this country. Individual citizens can’t fabricate laws that regulate their neighbors. They don’t have that authority.</p>

<p>The founders of our country argued that even governments are subject to a higher law. Certain truths are transcendent, they observed, grounded not in human institutions but in God Himself. This appeal to higher Law was their moral justification for the American Revolution.</p>

<p>The problem of grounding morality is a difficult one for atheists who claim they can be good without God. Certainly, an atheist can <em>act</em> in a manner some people consider “moral,”&nbsp;but it’s hard to know what the term ultimately refers to. It generally means to comply with an objective standard of good, a Law given by legitimate authority. However, without a transcendent Lawmaker (God), there can be no transcendent Law, and therefore no corresponding obligation to be good.</p>

<p>Thomas Merton put the challenge this way:</p>

<p>In the name of whom or what do you ask me to behave? Why should I go to the inconvenience of denying myself the satisfactions I desire in the name of some standard that exists only in your imagination? Why should I worship the fictions that you have imposed on me in the name of nothing?<sup id="fnref:7"><a href="#fn:7">7</a></sup></p>

<p>As I wrote in <em>Relativism</em>, “a ’moral’&nbsp;atheist is like a man sitting down to dinner who doesn’t believe in farmers, ranchers, fishermen, or cooks. He believes the food just appears, with no explanation and no sufficient cause.”<sup id="fnref:8"><a href="#fn:8">8</a></sup> The atheist’s morality has no grounding.</p>

<p>Does the Christian fare any better, though? That is the challenge of Euthyphro’s dilemma.</p>

<h2>The Solution</h2>

<p>The general strategy used to defeat a dilemma is to show that it’s a false one. There are not two options, but three.</p>

<p>The Christian rejects the first option, that morality is an arbitrary function of God’s power. He also rejects the second option, that God is responsible to a higher law. There is no Law above God.</p>

<p>The third option is that an objective standard exists (this avoids the first horn of the dilemma). However, the standard is not <em>external</em> to God, but <em>internal</em> for Him (avoiding the second horn). Morality is grounded in the immutable character of God, who is perfectly good. His commands are not whims, but rooted in His holiness.</p>

<p>Could God simply decree that torturing babies was moral? “No,”&nbsp;the Christian answers, “God would never do that.”&nbsp;It’s not a matter of external command. It’s a matter of internal character.</p>

<p>So the Christian answer avoids the dilemma entirely. Morality is not anterior to God—logically prior to Him—as Bertrand Russell suggests, but rooted in His nature. As Scott Rae puts it, “Morality is not grounded ultimately in God’s commands, but in His character, which then expresses itself in His commands.”<sup id="fnref:9"><a href="#fn:9">9</a></sup> In other words, whatever a good God commands will always be good.</p>

<h2>A Second Problem</h2>

<p>The Christian’s job is not done, though, because Bertrand Russell’s observation suggests a second problem. Socrates’&nbsp;challenge to Euthyphro has not been entirely met. What is “good”? It doesn’t help to say that God is good unless we know what the term refers to.</p>

<p>If the word “good”&nbsp;means “in accord with the nature and character of God,”&nbsp;we have a problem. When the Bible says “God is good,”&nbsp;it simply means “God has the nature and character that God has.”&nbsp;If God and goodness are the very same thing, then the statement “God is good”&nbsp;means nothing more than “God is God,”&nbsp;a useless tautology.</p>

<p>The answer to this problem hinges on the philosophical notion of identity, expressed symbolically as A = A. When one thing is <em>identical</em> to another (in the way I’m using the term), there are not two things, but one.<sup id="fnref:10"><a href="#fn:10">10</a></sup> For example, the president of Stand to Reason (Gregory Koukl) is identical to the author of this article. Everything that’s true of the one is true of the other.<sup id="fnref:11"><a href="#fn:11">11</a></sup> The author and the president are the same. They are not two, but one.</p>

<p>According to Christian teaching, God is not good in the same way that a bachelor is an unmarried male. When we say God is good, we are giving additional information, namely that God has a certain quality. God is not <em>the very same thing</em> as goodness (identical to it). Rather, it is an essential characteristic of God, so there is no tautology.<sup id="fnref:12"><a href="#fn:12">12</a></sup></p>

<h2>Knowing Goodness</h2>

<p>So, what is “good”? How can we know goodness if we don’t define it first?</p>

<p>The way Abraham responded when he first learned of God’s intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah gives us a clue to the answer:</p>

<p>Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly? (<a href="http://www.esvbible.org/search/genesis+18/">Gen. 18:25</a>)</p>

<p>Here’s the question: How did Abraham know that justice required God not treat the wicked and the righteous alike? As of yet, no commandments had been formally handed down.</p>

<p>Abraham knew goodness not by prior <em>definition</em> or by some <em>decree</em> of God, but through moral <em>intuition</em>. He knew what justice was in a similar way we know our own thoughts: He experienced it directly. He didn’t need God to define justice (divine command). His ability to recognize the good (and the bad) was built in.<sup id="fnref:13"><a href="#fn:13">13</a></sup></p>

<p>An example might help here. How would you respond if someone asked you why you believe in colors? You’d simply say, “Because I can see them. You can, too. Look, there they are.”&nbsp;We have a built in perceptual ability to recognize colors and when the faculty is working as it ought,<sup id="fnref:14"><a href="#fn:14">14</a></sup> the colors simply present themselves to us. In this case, seeing <em>is</em> believing. No other appeal is necessary. One doesn't need to <em>define</em> color to be able to <em>see</em> color.</p>

<p>In the same way, we have an innate perceptual ability to “see”&nbsp;moral qualities, and when the faculty is working as it ought,<sup id="fnref:15"><a href="#fn:15">15</a>&nbsp;</sup>virtue and vice jump right out at us. Again, this kind of “seeing”&nbsp;is believing. Formal definitions are not necessary.</p>

<p>Even the atheist understands what moral terms <em>mean</em>. He can “see”&nbsp;good and bad just fine. By his own admission he does not need God in order to <em>recognize</em> morality. What the atheist doesn’t see, though, is that he needs God to <em>make sense of</em> what he recognizes.</p>

<p>This is precisely why the moral argument for God’s existence is such a good one, in my view. The awareness of morality leads to God much as the awareness of falling apples leads to gravity. Our moral intuitions recognize the effect, but what is the adequate cause? If God does not exist, then moral terms are reduced to mere relativistic preferences or emotional exclamations (“Murder—ugh!”). Ultimately, there’s nothing to them.</p>

<p>Christians need not fear Plato’s famous dilemma. When Euthyphro’s problem is applied to Christianity, it mischaracterizes the biblical view of God. Goodness is neither above God nor merely willed by Him. Instead, ethics are grounded in His holy character. Moral notions are not arbitrary or capricious. They are objective and purposeful, grounded in God’s immutable nature.</p>

<p>Further, no outside definition of piety is necessary because morality is known directly through the faculty of moral intuition. God’s laws express His character and—if our moral intuitions have not been corrupted—we immediately recognize those laws as good.</p>

<p>This solution speaks volumes in favor of the Christian worldview because it shows that problems vexing other views simply don’t arise when Christianity is properly understood.</p>

<p>Even though the challenge is still raised against Christianity today, we are not handicapped by Plato’s challenge to Euthyphro.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">There is some debate whether this word should be pronounced “u-THY-froh”&nbsp;or “U-thuh-froh.”&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">Plato, <em>The Dialogues of Plato</em>, translated by J. Harward, Robert Maynard Hutchins, ed., vol. 7 of <em>Great Books of the Western World</em> (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952), 195. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">Bertrand Russell, <em>Why I Am Not a Christian</em> (New York: Touchstone, Simon &amp; Schuster, 1957), 12. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">Scott Rae, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Choices-Introduction-Scott-Rae/dp/0310230152"><em>Moral Choices—An Introduction to Ethics</em></a> (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 31.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">Ibid., 32. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:6"><em>Webster’s New World Dictionary</em>, Second College Edition. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:7">Quoted in Phillip Yancy, “<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1996/october7/6tb136.html">The Other Great Commission</a>,”&nbsp;<em>Christianity Today</em>, October 7, 1996, 136.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:7">↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:8">Frank Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, <em>Relativism—Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air</em> (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 169. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:8"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:9">Rae, 32. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:9"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:10">The term “identical twins”&nbsp;is, strictly speaking, a misnomer. Twins aren’t identical to each other. Each twin is identical to herself and only similar to the other. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:10"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:11">Philosophers know this as Leibnitz’&nbsp;law of the indiscernability of identicals. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:11"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:12">This distinguishes between the “is”&nbsp;of essential <a href="http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/433/catlec.pdf">predication</a> and the “is”&nbsp;of identity mentioned earlier. The word “is”&nbsp;can mean at least five things.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:12">↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:13">Something like this has to be the case. Regardless of how one grounds the concept of goodness, another could always ask, “But what makes <em>that</em> notion good?”&nbsp;To avoid a vicious regress, one must eventually appeal to some irreducible, primitive concept known by intuition. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:13"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:14">Blind or colorblind people notwithstanding. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:14"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:15">Sociopaths notwithstanding. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:15"> ↩</a></li>
</ol>
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title: A New Eugenics for a New Day
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/10/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-new-eugenics-for-a-new-day
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Our culture needs to sit down and seriously think through some questions about what it means to be a human being. And I don’t just mean the question, “When do rights begin in a human life?” I mean the big ones: What are we? What is the good life? Is the highest good the manufacturing of a “perfect” life, designed according to our specifications—one where every risk and difficulty is removed, even if at great expense to the life and liberty of others? Or is it a greater good to live nobly and well in our fallen, endlessly imperfect world, in the face of our own imperfections and those of our fellow man, maturing through trials, and learning to value and selflessly love those imperfect others? In other words, should our lives be focused on creating beauty, or on stamping out imperfections?</p>

<p>I’ve been reading G.K. Chesterton’s “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eugenics-Other-Evils-G-Chesterton/dp/1463744412/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1326174978&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">Eugenics and Other Evils</a>” (published in 1922), thinking how far things have gone since his day. His concern was that it was a crime against human dignity to breed people like cattle and place what ought to be an “individual adventure,” the founding of families, under the control of the state. He was appalled that eugenics was being held above ethics for “the good of society.”</p>

<p>What’s happening <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/unnatural-selection-is-evolving-reproductive-technology-ushering-in-a-new-age-of-eugenics/article1357885/" target="_blank">now</a> is even worse. It’s no longer about posterity—at least <em>that</em> goal was focused on the good of others. No, now the call of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_eugenics" target="_blank">eugenics</a> is fashioned to appeal to your preference and ease as an individual. The question isn’t, “How will this affect future society,” but “How will this affect <em>me</em>?” And while both questions, when asked in the arena of eugenics, lead to atrocities, the second one adds a layer of narcissism and flippancy that brings all of this to a new level of horror.</p>

<p>But there’s a second way in which today’s practice of eugenics has gone beyond what Chesterton imagined. The eugenics promoted in his day took place on the front end—the state would determine who should not marry whom, or who should be prevented from procreating at all. When such programs became (rightly) stigmatized, we put an end to the forcible curtailing of any person’s natural ability to create human life. But that didn’t put an end to eugenics, it just moved the whole process to the back end. In order to have our cake of freedom and eat eugenics too, we now let any and all procreation take place, even encouraging procreation in purposeful excess of the number of children that will be allowed to continue to live (in the case of <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/unnatural-selection-is-evolving-reproductive-technology-ushering-in-a-new-age-of-eugenics/article1357885/" target="_blank">eugenics via IVF</a>), so that we can be sure to get what we personally prefer, for our own individual benefit.* Then we just kill the rest.</p>

<p>The lesson that should have been learned in the first round of eugenics was not merely that people’s liberty to create offspring shouldn’t be violated, but also that the idea itself of a designer society is repulsive and unnatural, an affront to humanity. It teaches you not to view children as separate, distinct human beings placed under your care for a time (and valuable apart from you), but instead turns them into interchangeable accessories to be rummaged through, then bought and sold, according to whatever outfit you’re seeking to match.</p>

<p>And you end up with something like <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/unnatural-selection-is-evolving-reproductive-technology-ushering-in-a-new-age-of-eugenics/article1357885/" target="_blank">this</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>A 47-year-old woman who had relied on donor eggs, and underwent IVF and PGD [preimplantation genetic diagnosis] intending to conceive a boy as the fifth-generation namesake in her husband’s family, said: “I don’t feel that we are playing God at all. ... No one but God can decide what sex the embryos are going to be.” Indeed, all her healthy embryos turned out to be girls.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>One can only conclude that she likely killed all ten and tried again.</p>

<p>Or this:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>One woman was determined to avoid the genetic mutation that causes webbed feet in her husband’s family. But all 10 of the embryos the couple conceived by IVF carried the mutation. Rather than have any of them implanted, she opted to use donor sperm and bear a child with normal feet but no biological tie to her husband.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I can’t tell you how much that one disgusts me.</p>

<p>Or this:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>In 2007, for instance, doctors were condemned for enabling a couple to avoid having their baby inherit a severe squint that prevented the father and grandfather from looking anywhere but down or to the side.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It’s interesting how they state that one, because of course, they <em>didn’t</em> prevent any babies from inheriting a severe squint, they merely killed the ones who had.</p>

<p>Or this:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>A prenatal screening program of [amniocentesis and abortions] helped to reduce Tay-Sachs in Montreal’s Jewish and Mediterranean communities by more than 95 per cent.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Once again, they didn’t reduce the instances of Tay-Sachs, they reduced the number of <em>people</em> who had Tay-Sachs. By killing them.</p>

<p>With all this eugenics, we’re not becoming better, we’re becoming inhuman.</p>

<p>_______________________</p>

<p>*One can’t say it’s for the child’s benefit, for there are many children involved in any particular situation, not just one, and this kind of eugenics doesn’t improve any of those children’s lives. It merely kills all the unfortunately flawed ones and allows the accepted one to live.</p>
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title: Is 10% of the Population Homosexual?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 03/01/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/is-10-percent-of-the-population-homosexual
content:
            <div> 
		<p>It’s often said that if you repeat something loud enough and long enough, people will begin to believe it. Such is the case with the claim that 10% of the population is homosexual. Though it’s commonly believed, the figure is rarely questioned.</p>

<p>The media only contributes to the problem. It seems like every movie and television show includes the obligatory homosexual character(s). It’s no surprise, then, that American perception of the prevalence of homosexuality is skewed. A Gallup poll in 2002 found that Americans estimated the percentage of homosexuals to be 21.5% of the population, a startling number that would even shock pro-gay advocates!</p>

<p>The origin of the 10% statistic is from a 1948 book by Alfred Kinsey called <em>Sexual Behavior in the Human Male</em>. Kinsey concluded from his research that “10 percent of the males are more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55.”[1]</p>

<p>But just who are “the males” in Kinsey’s research? It turns out that his sample population contained a high percentage of convicted criminals, sex offenders, and male prostitutes. To no one’s surprise, many researchers were critical of his conclusions since his test subjects didn’t represent the broader population. The American Statistical Association blasted his sampling procedure the same year his book was published. One of their committee members, Princeton mathematician John Tukey, wrote, “A random selection of three people would have been better than a group of 300 chosen by Mr. Kinsey.”</p>

<p>Clearly the 10% figure isn’t credible, but accurately estimating the homosexual population can be elusive. One problem is how you determine who is “homosexual.” Do only lifelong homosexuals fit the definition? Should people who have had a single homosexual encounter be included? Does someone who experiences homoerotic dreams count? How one defines “homosexual” affects the prevalence estimate.</p>

<p>But even with this problem, many studies give a lower estimate than the touted 10% Kinsey figure. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a group that’s affirmative of homosexuality, found only 2.3% of 3,321 males reported homosexual contact in the previous 10 years.[2] A later study of 93,311 women in the <em>Archives of Family Medicine </em>found only 1.4% ever had sex with another woman as an adult.[3]</p>

<p>Most recently, however, was a UCLA study by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity that incorporated and analyzed data from previous prevalence studies. Gary J. Gates, the author of the study and a Distinguished Scholar at the UCLA School of Law, found 1.7% of the adult population identified as either gay or lesbian.[4]</p>

<p>You’d think that now that the 10% figure has been debunked, pro-gay groups would apologize for the misrepresentation and offer scientifically defensible estimates. But they don’t. Instead, they admit they knew the figure was inaccurate, but used it to advance their cause anyway. Tom Stoddard, former member of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, said, “We used the figure…to create an impression of our numerousness.”[5]</p>

<p>Jill Harris, of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, said “I think people probably always did know that it was inflated.&nbsp; But it’s a really nice number that you could say, ‘one-in-ten,’ and it’s a really good way to get people to visualize that we are here.”</p>

<p>In an Oxford University Press publication, Bruce Voeller admitted that he “campaigned with gay groups and in the media across the country for the Kinsey-based finding that ‘We are everywhere.’ And after years of our educating those who inform the public and make its laws, the concept that 10 percent of the population is gay has become generally accepted ‘fact’…As with so many pieces of knowledge and myth, repeated telling made it so.”[7]</p>

<p>Regardless of the actual percentage of homosexuals in the population, it’s not relevant to our obligation to “get along and be more tolerant.” Even if there were only ten homosexuals in the country, it would still be virtuous for Christians to tolerate (in the accurate sense of the word) them. The number is irrelevant for that purpose.</p>

<p>But tolerance shouldn’t be our goal. Christians shouldn’t aspire to treat homosexuals the way the secular culture treats them. We fail if we do. Instead, we should treat them <em>better</em>. That doesn’t mean we advocate for gay rights or pitch their agenda. It just means we love them better than they’re loved by the world. That’s the first step in transforming our relationship with them for the sake of transforming their relationship with God.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<div>&nbsp;
<hr size="1">
<div>
<p>[1] Alfred Kinsey et al., <em>Sexual Behavior in the Human Male</em> (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1948), 651.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[2] John O.G. Billy, et al., “The Sexual Behavior of Men in the United States,” <em>Family Planning Perspectives</em>, Alan Guttmacher Institute, March/April 1993.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[3] Barbara G. Valanis, et al., “Sexual Orientation and Health: Comparisons in the Women’s Health Initiative Sample,” <em>Archives of Family Medicine</em>, 9:843-853, September/October 2000, pp. 844.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[4] Gary J. Gates, “How many people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender?” The Williams Institute, April 2011.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[5] “How Many Gays Are There?” in <em>Newsweek</em>, February 14, 1993.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[6] “Gay Rights, Special Rights,” Jeremiah Films, Inc. 1993; quoted in Mike Haley, <em>101 Frequently Asked Questions about Homosexuality</em>, (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 2004), 178.</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[7] Bruce Voeller, “Some Uses and Abuses of the Kinsey Scale,”&nbsp;<em>Homosexuality, Heterosexuality: Concepts of Sexual Orientation</em>, (Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 35-36.</p>
</div>
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title: Materialism vs. Christianity on Justice
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 02/07/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/materialism-vs.-christianity-on-justice
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I came across two very different sources—with two different views of man and two different views of morality—that speak about justice. One views morality as objective and significant, responsibility as inescapable, and justice as desirable. The other sees “good” and “evil” as “mental constructs,” man as a machine, and retributive justice as irrational nonsense. Each position flows inevitably from the most basic part of the view’s foundation: is there a materialistic universe, or is there a God?</p>

<p>The first excerpt is from Richard Dawkins’s answer to the question, “<a href="https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11416" target="_blank">What is your dangerous idea?</a>”</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Retribution as a moral principle is incompatible with a scientific view of human behaviour. As scientists, we believe that human brains, though they may not work in the same way as man-made computers, are as surely governed by the laws of physics. When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software.</p>

<p>Basil Fawlty, British television’s hotelier from hell created by the immortal John Cleese, was at the end of his tether when his car broke down and wouldn’t start. He gave it fair warning, counted to three, gave it one more chance, and then acted. “Right! I warned you. You’ve had this coming to you!” He got out of the car, seized a tree branch and set about thrashing the car within an inch of its life. Of course we laugh at his irrationality. Instead of beating the car, we would investigate the problem. Is the carburetor flooded? Are the sparking plugs or distributor points damp? Has it simply run out of gas? Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or a rapist? Why don’t we laugh at a judge who punishes a criminal, just as heartily as we laugh at Basil Fawlty?... Isn’t the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component?... [D]oesn’t a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility…?</p>

<p>Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions?... Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution…. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Basil Fawlty when he beats his car. But I fear it is unlikely that I shall ever reach that level of enlightenment.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The second is from J.I. Packer’s <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-God-J-I-Packer/dp/0830816518/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1328569841&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">Knowing God</a></em>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]he character of God is the guarantee that all wrongs will be righted someday; when “the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom 2:5) arrives, retribution will be exact, and no problems of cosmic unfairness will remain to haunt us. God is the Judge, so justice will be done….</p>

<p>Why, then, do we fight shy of the thought of God as a Judge? Why do we feel the thought to be unworthy of him? The truth is that part of God’s moral perfection is his perfection in judgment. Would a God who did not care about the difference between right and wrong be a good and admirable Being? Would a God who put no distinction between the beasts of history, the Hitlers and Stalins (if we dare use names), and his own saints, be morally praiseworthy and perfect? Moral indifference would be an imperfection in God, not a perfection. But not to judge the world would be to show moral indifference. The final proof that God is a perfect moral Being, not indifferent to questions of right and wrong, is the fact that he has committed himself to judge the world.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In both the atheist and Christian excerpts, there is a recognition that we human beings are resistant to accepting what the author claims is true. And as they attempt to persuade us, their arguments both depend on a shared point of observable reality: we have an innate understanding of the concepts of good, evil, responsibility, and justice and continually act as if they’re real (even if we’re rationally convinced they’re not). Then comes the difference: Packer argues <em>from our knowledge of these things</em> to the rightness of God acting as Judge, but Dawkins simply dismisses them as illusions and looks forward to the day when we��ll escape the biological programming that traps us into imagining they’re real—though not even he can bring himself to laugh at them as nonsense.</p>

<p>This is awfully convenient for Dawkins. His worldview doesn’t seem to match reality? It’s not because of a mistake in his earlier reasoning;&nbsp;it’s because we’re all living in evolution’s Matrix, forever trapped in the false reality it creates for us. So any aspect of human experience that argues against this worldview can simply be declared part of the Matrix and dismissed. But is this as reasonable as a worldview that takes seriously and accounts for <em>all</em> of the reality we experience?</p>

<p>If you find that not even you can live in the worldview you promote—if much of what seems to be true can only be laughably false in your world—rather than playing the illusion card, why not go back a few steps and consider where you might have gone wrong?</p>
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title: Does Homosexual Behavior in Animals Mean It's Natural for Humans?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 03/08/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/does-homosexual-behavior-in-animals-mean-it-s-natural-for-humans-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The first “museum dedicated to gay animals” opened in 2006 at the University of Oslo (Norway). It was called <em>Against Nature? An Exhibition on Animal Homosexuality</em> and claimed to prove that animals develop “long-lasting [gay] partnerships.” The creators hope to “de-mystify homosexuality among people” and debunk the belief that gay sex is a “crime against nature.���[1]</p>

<p>Lesbian star, Rosie O’Donnell, makes a similar claim that “In every animal kingdom and every species, 10 percent of the population is homosexual,” and that’s “a fact of nature.”[2] (You can see my response to the claim that 10% of the human population is gay <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/03/is-10-of-the-population-gay.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</p>

<p>The argument is that since animals engage in homosexual behavior that is instinctual, it must be natural for them and, consequently, natural and moral for humans since they are animals too.</p>

<p>There’s something wrong with this line of reasoning. In fact, a simple question composed of a two-letter word gets right to the heart of the problem: <em>So</em>? Even if animals exhibit homosexual behavior, <em>so</em>?&nbsp; What does that prove? It proves nothing. Do advocates of this view really want to say: Because animals engage in X behavior, therefore X is natural/moral for humans? This claim is absurd. Here’s why.</p>

<p>There’s a Latin term in logic called <em>reductio ad absurdum</em> that means “reduction to the absurd.” At Stand to Reason we call it “Taking the Roof Off.” It’s a simple way to disprove a claim by showing that it leads to an absurd conclusion. In fact, I’m confident you already know this tactic.</p>

<p>Imagine a father asks his daughter, “Why did you start smoking?” She answers, “Because all my friends were doing it.” The father’s response would be obvious: “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do that too?” Notice the father’s reasoning. He accepts his daughter’s rational, for the sake of argument, and then asks himself a question: <em>If I apply my daughter’s rationale to jumping off a cliff, that would mean she’d jump of a cliff too. But that’s absurd! That means her rationale is also absurd.</em> And then he asks a question that exposes the absurdity of her thinking. That’s <em>reductio ad absurdum</em>.</p>

<p>With the claim about animal homosexuality, this tactic works equally well. The rationale for the argument is that if animals engage in a behavior, it must be natural and moral for humans do it too. Let’s apply that logic to some other animal behavior: cannibalism. Animals eating their own kind has been observed in over a thousand animal species. Following the logic of the view would mean that cannibalism is natural and moral for humans. But that’s absurd! And so is the rationale that led to that absurd conclusion.</p>

<p>Indeed, animals engage in all sorts of selfish, violent, and primitive behaviors that humans would almost universally categorize as immoral. That’s why taking moral cues from the animal kingdom is absurd. Yes, humans are an animal of sorts, but we’re more than that. We are rational beings with a capacity for free will and a rich intellectual life. To reduce our behavior and relationships to instincts, stimuli, and urges ignores a major component of human nature. I like how Richard Umbers puts it:</p>

<p style="padding-left: 30px;">“<em>Homo sapiens</em>&nbsp;is an animal, but not&nbsp;<em>merely</em>&nbsp;an animal. We have a lot in common with parasitic worms, but there are some differences, too. Our bodily nature is subject to intellectual direction. A human being unites the intellectual and the corporeal, what is rational and what is animal. We get a distorted picture of man when we focus on one aspect to the exclusion of the other. They can never be separated.”[3]</p>

<p>When humans have conflicting instinctive reactions, our intellect can reason between them and determine the most expedient or moral course of action. Animals, however, behave according to their strongest instinct given what they see, smell, hear, taste, and perceive. These natural impulses aid in their protection, survival, and reproduction.</p>

<p>But internal or external stimuli can cause their instincts to clash or get confused, leading to unusual behavior. Sometimes a cat will kill his kittens. Unlike females whose strong maternal instinct protects her babies, the predatory instinct of a tom cat can confuse his offspring for prey. Are his hunting impulses natural? Yes. Can they be misdirected? Sure. Should we declare filicide or cannibalism as natural or moral for humans? No.</p>

<p>The same is true for allegedly homosexual acts among animals. Their sexual drive and instinct to mate is extremely strong and can be confused. When animals are in heat, they release pheromones that trigger an instinctual behavior by males. According to an expert in the field, this inborn impulse is so strong, that it can “instigate a frenzy of mounting behaviors. Even other females who aren't in heat will mount those who are. Males will mount males who have just been with females [in heat] if they still bear their scent…And males who catch wind of the estrus odor may mount the first thing (or unlucky person) they come in contact with.”[4] I’ve even seen a dog mount a couch. One might have good taste in sofas, but I doubt it’s so good that your dog is sexually attracted to it. The poor pooch is confused.</p>

<p>Plus, sexual activity among animals is known to be used for purposes other than reproduction. Although humans can express themselves by speaking, writing, gesturing, and a multitude of other ways, animals are limited. Consequently, they are known to use sexual behavior to express a range of sentiments: social dominance, aggression, avoiding conflict, and many other emotions. That’s why many researchers think it’s naive to impose a human understanding of homosexuality onto animal behavior.</p>

<p style="padding-left: 30px;">“Properly speaking, homosexuality does not exist among animals.... For reasons of survival, the reproductive instinct among animals is always directed towards an individual of the opposite sex. Therefore, an animal can never be homosexual as such. Nevertheless, the interaction of other instincts (particularly dominance) can result in behavior that appears to be homosexual. Such behavior cannot be equated with an animal homosexuality. All it means is that animal sexual behavior encompasses aspects beyond that of reproduction.”[5]</p>

<p>So we can’t infer homosexuality when a male chimpanzee mounts another male any more than we can infer sofaphilia when a dog mounts your couch. Yes, I made up the word “sofaphilia.”</p>

<p>Animals behave according to their instincts. That’s appropriate. When humans do the same, we don’t applaud them. Instead, we often put them in jail. That’s because humans have the capacity, and therefore the responsibility, to use principled self-restraint when their instinctual response is to act like an animal.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<div><em>This post by Alan Shlemon is part of a Thursday series responding to common challenges pertaining to homosexuality. You can read Alan's previous posts on this subject&nbsp;<a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/aaalan/" target="_blank">here</a>.</em>

<hr size="1">
<div>
<p>[1] http://www.nhm.uio.no/besok-oss/utstillinger/skiftende/againstnature/index-eng.html</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[2] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,48821,00.html</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[3] http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/a_gay_old_time_in_the_animal_kingdom/</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[4] Jacque Lynn Schultz, C.P.D.T. at http://www.petfinder.com/pet-training/stopping-dog-humping.html?page-index=3&amp;. A short bio on Jacque Lynn Schultz can be found here: http://www.avianwelfare.org/aboutus/schultz_jacque.html</p>
</div>

<div>
<p>[5] Antonio Pardo, "Aspectos médicos de la homosexualidad," <em>Nuestro Tiempo,</em> Jul.-Aug. 1995, pp. 82-89; as quoted in Luiz Sérgio Solimeo, “The Animal Homosexuality Myth,” at http://narth.com/2010/09/the-animal-homosexuality-myth/</p>
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title: Is Homosexuality the Worst Sin of All?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 01/26/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/homosexuality-worst-sin-all
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Christians define sin as “missing the mark.” It almost sounds cute. Kyle lied so he missed the mark…Oops. Katy gossiped...Shucks, that was wrong. Randy was prideful…Yikes, better stop that.</p>

<p>But homosexuality? Whoa! That’s more than missing the mark. That’s an abomination! Homosexuals aren’t just sinners. They’re revelers consummating their reprobate mind. Someone please cite one of the Levitical prohibitions against homosexuality (preferably Leviticus 20:13 since it includes the death penalty) and say it in the King James Version for rhetorical effect.</p>

<p>And Christians don’t just <em>think</em> homosexuality is the worst sin. We <em>act</em> like it too. Christians who rarely cite scripture suddenly invoke Bible verses when the topic comes up. We get uneasy when gay men come to church, but we gladly welcome post-abortive women. We’ll move a lesbian who sits next to other females at youth group, but we won’t separate girls who gossip.</p>

<p>It’s no wonder the culture thinks Christians hate homosexuals. We give their behavior a unique status: the worst sin of all. And because homosexuals are committing the supreme evil, we treat them like pariahs.</p>

<p>As a result, not only do homosexuals think their sin is the worst, but <em>they </em>are the worst. They’re the chief of all sinners. That’s why our verbal antidotes like, “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner” are so ineffective. They only hear the word, “hate.”</p>

<p>We shouldn’t be surprised, then, when homosexuals get anxious around Christians. It shouldn’t shock us that they start their own denominations. These men and women still have spiritual yearnings, but because Christians keep them at arm’s length, they have no choice but to turn to churches with pro-gay theology that accept them.</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong: homosexual behavior is a serious sin. I’m not trying to downplay the gravity of what they do. But the Bible doesn’t elevate its status above all other sins.</p>

<p>Although homosexual behavior was a capital crime under the Mosaic Law, so were blasphemy, false prophecy, adultery, bestiality, and many other sins. Under today’s New Testament teaching, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 places homosexuals among other sinners like thieves, drunks, swindlers, and fornicators. And 1 Timothy 1:8-11 lists them among liars, rebels, slave traders, and other sinners. There’s no special designation for any of these sins (although sexual sins are grouped together since they are sins “against the body” in 1 Corinthians 6:16-20).</p>

<p>Many homosexuals have come to Christ. But they didn’t do it because they believed their sin was the worst. Instead, they recognized their sin was an obstacle to fellowship with God. Making homosexuality the worst sin isn’t merely a peculiar theological mistake. It has practical ramifications that alienate men and women engaged in homosexual behavior. And it creates unnecessary offense to the gospel that’s already offensive.</p>

<p><em>This post is part of a series responding to common challenges on the topic of homosexuality. If you missed the first post (Did Jesus Never Say Anything about Homosexuality?), you can find it <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/01/did-jesus-never-say-anything-about-homosexuality.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</em></p>
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title: Should Christians Impose Their Moral Standards on Society?
topic: Arts and Culture
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 02/16/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/should-christians-impose-their-moral-standards-on-society-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><strong><em>Today's challenge is a common complaint. Because Christians have moral concerns with homosexual behavior, it is alleged that they shouldn't be allowed to impose their standards on the rest of society.</em></strong></p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>There are two separate, but related, implications to this challenge. The first is that it’s wrong to impose <em>any</em> moral rules on society. The second is that it’s wrong for <em>Christians</em> to impose <em>their</em> morality.</p>

<p>The first implication is a common myth that needs to be debunked. It’s perfectly acceptable to legislate morality. When you think about it, morals are the only thing you can legislate. For example, we have laws against stealing for one reason: it’s <em>immoral</em> to take someone’s property. So, we take that moral rule and establish it in law.</p>

<p>The same is true for laws against murder. The reason they exist is because we think it’s immoral to kill an innocent human being. So, we take that moral rule and make it against the law to break it. By legislating that rule, we are legislating morality.</p>

<p>In fact, it’s the moral rule that legitimizes the law’s power to limit freedom. Without a moral grounding, laws would be unjust. They would be the raw use of power to get what someone wants, not to do what’s right. That’s called tyranny.</p>

<p>Therefore, all laws reflect a moral viewpoint. The only question is <em>whose</em> morals will be legislated and which viewpoint will be advanced.</p>

<p>The second implication of this challenge is that it’s wrong for Christians (or religious people for that matter) to impose their morality (i.e. views on homosexuality) on society. Because their policies are motivated by religion, they shouldn’t be allowed to inform the political process.</p>

<p>But why are only Christians limited from imposing their moral views? Why can’t we restrict other people? Homosexuals want to impose their moral standards on society. Let’s make them keep their private beliefs out of the public square. Does that sound fair? It doesn’t because our country endows all citizens with the privilege to participate in the political process. No one is excluded, not even Christians or homosexuals.</p>

<p>Some will respond by saying that Christian morals should be excluded because they are religious and that violates the separation of church and state. But the words, “separation of church and state” are neither in the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution. Even the First Amendment protects religious expression, it doesn’t silence it: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech...” Notice who and what is restricted: the <em>government</em> is restricted from <em>establishing a state religion</em>. The <em>people, </em>however, are free to <em>exercise</em> <em>their religious beliefs</em>.</p>

<p>People who are motivated by religion are free to advocate for public policy. Yet the establishment clause is often read as restricting religious people, when in reality its purpose is the exact opposite. Every citizen enjoys the freedom to legislate their morality. You can’t be disqualified because of your motivations.</p>

<p>Finally, thinking our laws restrict religiously motivated people leads to absurd conclusions. Most of the framers of the Constitution, for example, were practicing Christians. It doesn’t make sense that they would willfully write into the Constitution and Bill of Rights a system of law that they knew would disqualify them from political involvement.</p>

<p>Not only that, but it would also mean that if an ordinary American was against theft because the New Testament (Ephesians 4:28) forbade it, then they wouldn’t be permitted to legislate against larceny. Every person with a religious view would have to remain silent on public policy. This would disenfranchise massive portions of United States population.</p>

<p>Christians have the right, as well as any citizen, to impose their morals on society. To try to limit their role in public policy is an illegitimate attempt to silence dissent. It’s a group’s way of saying, “Just go away,” while at the same time imposing their own moral vision on society. It’s not only unlawful, it’s un-American.</p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>
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title: The Third Column
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 01/01/2012
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-third-column
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Something is happening.</p>

<p>The pieces began to fall into place for me late last summer in the small town of Turlock, California, while having dinner with colleagues before an event.</p>

<p>Seated around the table were Craig Hazen, Frank Beckwith, William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, and myself—each deeply involved in publicly defending the faith on a national level for years. One by one we reflected on the people who had made a difference for us when we were all wet-behind-the-ears pups during the Jesus movement and soon after.</p>

<p>The list was short: Norm Geisler, John Warwick Montgomery, Francis Schaeffer, Josh McDowell, and Walter Martin.</p>

<p>Moreland set the tone, expressing his gratitude for those pioneers in our field who laid the foundation for our own work. His point was simple. We are in their debt. Let’s stay faithful. Let’s stay united. Let’s leave a legacy behind in the lives of others, just as those men had done in ours.</p>

<h2>The First Column</h2>

<p>These five men were our mentors—the first column in the fight, in a sense—paving the way, setting the example, establishing a beachhead.</p>

<p>They taught us. They set a standard for us to shoot for, maybe even to exceed. They inspired us to imagine a day when thoughtful Christians would once again be active players in the marketplace of ideas. And it was about time.</p>

<p>Back in 1925, when state legislatures began to pass laws against teaching evolution, the ACLU stepped in to test the law in Tennessee using high school teacher John Scopes. William Jennings Bryan was the spokesman for the fundamentalists. The ACLU had Clarence Darrow for the defense.</p>

<p>The infamous “Monkey Trial”&nbsp;was a watershed event for Christians. Scopes and the ACLU actually lost the court battle,<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup> but it was an empty victory for believers. For the most part, followers of Christ abandoned the field and took refuge inside the walls of the church.</p>

<p>Choosing cultural monasticism rather than hard-thinking advocacy, they left the public square to the secularists. The disciples of Dewey, Marx, Darwin, Freud, Nietzsche, Skinner and a host of others replaced the disciples of Jesus in the cultural conversation.</p>

<p>Puritan Christians had been the founding fathers of the intellectual community in the United States, but in the years that followed the Scopes trial, Christianity lost its claim as a player in the marketplace of ideas. As Os Guinness pointed out, Christians had not been out-thought, they just had not been around when the thinking was being done.</p>

<p>Then things began to change. Sharp and fair-minded men like those I mentioned above began to slowly chip away at the stranglehold non-Christians had on the world of ideas. It was just a start—a small start in light of the challenge—but a column was beginning to form, nonetheless.</p>

<p>And just in time. Nearly ninety years after Scopes we are balanced on the cusp of another historical watershed. On one side is a public square crying out for answers to the critical issues of life, but also heating up against virtually everything that historic Christianity stands for. On the other side is the cultural and intellectual monastery that provided sanctuary—and ensured impotence—for Christians in the past.</p>

<p>Which way will the church go this time? Will Christians engage in careful, compelling ways, or will they retreat? An answer to that question—at least a partial answer—is starting to come into focus.</p>

<h2>The Second Column</h2>

<p>Those of us seated around the table all had our own individual stories of what God had done in us and through us since the early days. One thing was clear to me, though. What God had been doing amounted to more than the sum of our individual contributions. Something else was happening.</p>

<p>For over twenty years now a second column has been forming, one much bigger than the first. In the first column were the pioneers. In the second column are leaders who were influenced—either directly or indirectly—by that first small band. They are now heading up enterprises of their own that collectively have a much larger impact than our mentors could have ever accomplished on their own—the result of the simple calculus of discipleship and multiplication.</p>

<p>We in the second column saw the need to equip rank-and-file Christians to defend classical Christianity and classical Christian values with people who didn’t understand our language and who no longer accepted our source of authority. We were convinced that Christianity could compete in the marketplace of ideas if it was properly understood and properly articulated. And we were committed to a diplomatic model of fair-minded advocacy to make the point that Christianity was still worth thinking about, even in this new era.</p>

<p>Our little band of brothers at the table that summer evening was just a small portion of the second column. There are many more whose names you’d recognize, people like Ravi Zacharias, Nancy Pearcey, Os Guinness, Chuck Colson, David Noebel, Gary Habermas, Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, Lee Strobel, Hugh Ross, to name just a few.</p>

<p>But the second column is small compared to the one that is coming next.</p>

<h2>The Third Column</h2>

<p>A third column has begun to form. Everywhere I travel I meet sharp, committed, ambassadors for Christ who are students of those in the first two columns and are <em>grouping up with others of kindred spirit in their local communities</em>.</p>

<p>Their names will probably never grace the cover of a book or be in lights on an apologetics conference marquee. Instead, they are foot soldiers with boots on the ground, individually being faithful to defend the Gospel in smaller arenas their Commander in Chief has entrusted to them.</p>

<p>They are small bands—“little platoons,”&nbsp;Edmund Burke called them—of ordinary people making a difference right where they live. They are not large organizations or huge institutions. Collectively, though, these platoons scattered around the country and, more and more, the world, growing into an army of clear-thinking Christians.</p>

<p>You’ll find them in places like Montgomery, Alabama; Calgary, Alberta; Olympia, Washington; Dallas, Texas; or Atlanta, Georgia. You’ll also find them in places you’ve probably never heard of, like Mt. Airy, Maryland; Woodruff, Wisconsin; Denton, Texas. You’ll even find them in Turlock, California. They’re the third column, laying it down where their feet hit the ground.</p>

<p>Let me give you a few examples of the groundswell of activity the Holy Spirit has been building for years.</p>

<ul>
	<li>Gracepoint Church [link] in Berkeley, California, has been actively discipling its college students to engage the intellectual community at Cal. Over half of their college seniors, a group normally enjoying private apartments <em>off</em> campus, take up residence back in dorms <em>on</em> campus as part of a deliberate strategy to impact that community. And they’re flourishing.</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li>In 1992, J.P. Moreland and Scott Rae founded a rigorous Master of Arts program in philosophy of religion and ethics [link] at Talbot School of Theology. Their vision: place 100 of their graduates in Ph.D. programs in top secular institutions, expecting many to eventually become university professors themselves. As philosophically trained, faithful followers of Christ, they would begin changing the academy from within. Moreland and Rae have exceeded their goal, having placed 140 in Ph.D. programs to date, with 40 of them working as professors in universities around the country. And there are many more on the way, propelling&nbsp;the third column forward.</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li>In the last 12 months, Matt Burford has organized a cadre of friends and businessmen in Montgomery, Alabama, to launch Tactical Faith [link]. Their goal: help connect churches and Christian schools in the Southeast with apologetics speakers and training materials and assist church pastors and lay leaders with the training needed to get their local congregations equipped. They can’t keep up with the requests for help coming in.</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li>Two years ago Chris Shannon, a commercial real estate loan underwriter, started a Reasonable Faith [link] chapter in Dallas, Texas, to do his part in making a difference for the Kingdom. The group is an extension of the work of Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, helping like-minded Christians graciously and carefully defend Christianity in our culture. In just a few short years, Reasonable Faith has exploded, with local groups meeting together in 37 cities in 20 states and four countries. Requests for new chapters are flowing in faster than Shannon (who now directs the initiative) can process them—truly an overwhelming third-column&nbsp;response.</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li>Many beyond our borders are also feeling the surge. Andy Steiger and his small but committed team at Apologetics.com Canada [link] are igniting fires of smart Christianity in local churches in Vancouver, B.C. Jojo Ruba [link] has been doing the same in Calgary, Alberta, for years. In Tauranga, New Zealand, software engineer Rodney Lake formed Thinking Matters [link] to sponsor regular gatherings of those passionately committed to defending the Christian faith in their secular society.</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li>Reasons to Believe [link] was founded in 1986 to demonstrate that sound reason and scientific research consistently support the truth of the Bible, thus strengthening believers and equipping them for productive dialogue with skeptics. In addition to their writing, speaking, and training as part of the second column, RTB now has chapters in 39 cities in 20 states and five different countries—little platoons of educated third-column Christians engaging doubters in their local communities.</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li>Ratio Christi [link] is a grassroots campaign for Christian worldview engagement specifically intended to help connect second-column speakers and organizations to third-column groups on campuses and in churches around the country. Their goal is to have clusters of thoughtful Christians in 500 universities and 1500 churches in the next five years, a task requiring 1000 new full-time apologetics mentors to lead those local groups. That’s a big column.</li>
</ul>

<p>Each of the examples above (and I’ve just scratched the surface) describe the efforts of more formal enterprises, but most of those in the third column are not officially organized.</p>

<p>I wrote in <em>Tactics<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></em> [link] about a small group of housewives with kids who met together weekly in my own community. They gathered not principally for fellowship and prayer, but for study and stimulating discussion so they could love God with their minds, not just their hearts.</p>

<p>On virtually every trip I take, I encounter dear people who tell stories of how God is using them and their friends in ways they never thought possible. They have grouped together with others of kindred spirit to plant a flag, claim a territory, establish an outpost—to make a change that endures. And their numbers are legion.</p>

<p>People like these—people like you—are the future of thoughtful Christianity. The next years do not belong to best-selling authors or popular speakers at big events, though we still need both. Rather, the future will be determined in relatively quiet corners of our Christian communities—small groups of committed disciples in the local church with warm hearts and sharp minds demonstrating that Christianity is worth thinking about.</p>

<p>How can you join the column? It’s easier than you might think.</p>

<h2>Gather, then Scatter</h2>

<p>First, gather. Gather together in “little platoons,”&nbsp;then gather information. Find others around you of similar vision—at school, in church, in your social circles. Think of yourselves like sparks in dry tinder igniting a larger fire in your spiritual community. This may be a church-sponsored class or an informal fellowship of like-minded Christians like Lewis had with Tolkien, Williams, and Sayers.</p>

<p>When you meet, ask questions, raise issues, entertain the hard challenges—ones skeptics have raised or ones that have vexed you personally. If you’re a pastor, make sure those in your church—especially young people—feel safe voicing honest objections, even if you don’t know the answers just yet. This one thing can have a liberating—and energizing—effect on youth.</p>

<p>Then find answers. They’re everywhere. Read books, listen to podcasts, search the web. I promise, you will not come up with a problem others have not pondered and someone else has not answered well—many of them connected with groups I’ve mentioned here.</p>

<p>Second, scatter. Scatter into your larger community and scatter the seeds of information you have gathered as a group. Start conversations simply by asking questions if you like (the Columbo tactic), finding out <em>what</em> people believe and <em>why</em>. Then, be on the alert for opportunities to weave truth into the dialog in a friendly, diplomatic way.<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup></p>

<p>Stay calm. Don’t overstate your case. Don’t overreact to opposing ideas. And don’t get into a fuss or a fight. Don’t swing for the fences—don’t try to win all the arguments. Just put a stone in their shoe. Give them something to think about.</p>

<p>And here’s one, final bit of advice that may be the most important.</p>

<h2>Bloom Where You’re Planted</h2>

<p>I want to pass a thought on to you that has served me well for almost four decades as a follower of Christ. I hope it will be your servant as well. Here it is: Bloom where you’re planted. Make the best of the opportunities within your immediate grasp, even if they seem small or inconsequential.</p>

<p>If you can’t speak to 100, speak to 10. If not to 10, then one, maybe a solitary soul at Starbucks. When you can’t speak, write—in your own blog, on someone else’s, to the editor, in a diary of personal reflections. Don’t let your seeds of insight slip away. Find some soil for them to take root in. When possible, do both—talk <em>and</em> write, if you’re able.</p>

<p>Keep your eyes open. Take what opportunities come your way. Do whatever you can, wherever you are, even if modest or unexceptional. Then watch to see how the Lord decides to use your offering. Sometimes it’s the smallest of seeds that grow into the largest of trees. That’s how the third column works.</p>

<p>This notion of blooming where you’re planted meshes seamlessly with a basic biblical principle: We must first be faithful in smaller things before we can be entrusted with larger ones. And if bigger things never come our way, then the small acts of faithfulness will be enough. God is honored in every act of fidelity, grand or simple.</p>

<p>The first column was tiny. The second column is larger. The third column is massive, and you are part of it.</p>

<p>J.P. Moreland’s advice to each of us around the table that night in Turlock is the same advice I pass on to you. We are in debt to those who came before us. Let’s stay faithful. Let’s stay united.</p>

<p>Gather. Scatter. Bloom. Make a difference, even if it’s small. Leave a legacy behind in the lives of others, just as those men have done in ours.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">The ruling was eventually overturned on a technicality. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">Gregory Koukl, <em>Tactics—A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions</em> (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2"> ↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">Again, <em>Tactics</em> is invaluable here, providing an easy-to-follow, step-by-step game plan. It’s available at str.org. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3"> ↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: Can We Trust the Text of the New Testament?
topic: History
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 11/15/2011
source: https://www.str.org/w/can-we-trust-the-text-of-the-new-testament-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Ed Komoszewski of Parchment and Pen <a href="http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/11/dont-put-bart-before-the-horse/" target="_blank">reviewed</a> the recent Bart Ehrman/Dan Wallace debate &nbsp;("Can we trust the text of the New Testament?"), offering these six points (abridged below) to summarize Wallace's argument:</p>

<p style="padding-left: 30px;">(1) The New Testament has vastly more manuscripts than any other ancient author. In fact, it has more than one thousand times as many copies as the average classical author does.</p>

<p style="padding-left: 30px;">(2) The New Testament has far more manuscripts in the <em>early</em> centuries than any other ancient author. It boasts more than 500 manuscripts within 800 years of its completion. Within 200 years of its completion, the New Testament has <em>three times more</em> manuscripts than the average classical author has in <em>2000</em> years!</p>

<p style="padding-left: 30px;">(3) There are two attitudes that rational people will avoid: absolute certainty and radical skepticism. When examining historical data, we simply can’t be as certain as scientists are when their experiments are repeatable, controlled, and predictable. History doesn’t yield itself to such certainty. But it also does not warrant the rampant skepticism that is found among many postmodernists today.</p>

<p style="padding-left: 30px;">(4) The New Testament copying was not like the telephone game…. Among [Wallace's] points, he mentioned that researchers can go “up the line” to earlier witnesses to find out what they said, that there were multiple lines of transmission rather than a single line, that the copying was in written rather than oral form, and that there was no desire to botch the job (which is the whole point of the telephone game).</p>

<p style="padding-left: 30px;">(5) The Alexandrian family had roots that almost surely went back to the first decades of the second century.</p>

<p style="padding-left: 30px;">(6) Wallace’s <em>coup de grâce</em> was his listing of various titles of books that Ehrman had written. Wallace argued that if Ehrman was right that we simply have no idea what the original text said, then <em>all</em> of Ehrman’s books on the New Testament would be pointless!... Wallace showed that in <em>Forged</em> Ehrman assumed that he knew what the words were in Paul’s authentic letters…to the degree that he could pronounce judgment on the words in the Pastoral letters. It was a brilliant stroke: <em>Forged</em> was published earlier this year, and it simply reveals that Ehrman is massively inconsistent on what he thinks the original New Testament said.</p>

<p>Here's the bottom line:</p>

<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Wallace painted Ehrman as a radical skeptic. Is that picture true to form? One person from the audience asked Ehrman what it would take for him to be <em>sure</em> that we knew what the original of, say, the Gospel of Mark was. He said if we had ten first-generation copies, written within a week or so of the original, with “0.001% deviation” between them, then he could be relatively assured that we had Mark’s Gospel intact. Forget the fact that such requirements are not made for <em>any</em> other ancient literature, or that the New Testament is so rich in copies that scholars can get a very good sense of the original wording. Ehrman’s response to this question confirmed that Wallace had indeed framed things accurately.</p>

<p>A <a href="http://www.friendsofcsntm.com/smudebate/" target="_blank">DVD of the debate</a> is available for purchase from the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, and you can listen to two recent lectures Wallace gave on this same subject for free <a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2011/11/10/is-what-we-have-now-what-they-wrote-then/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>

<p>[HT: <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/comereason/status/134658147943071744" target="_blank">@comereason</a>]</p>
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title: Not Genocide, but Capital Punishment
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/08/2011
source: https://www.str.org/w/not-genocide-but-capital-punishment
content:
            <div> 
		<p>To follow up on yesterday’s <a href="/w/the-judgment-that-led-to-salvation" target="_blank">post</a> on the judgment of the Canaanites, here’s the summary of Clay Jones’s article in the Christian Research Journal, “<a href="http://www.equip.org/articles/killing-the-canaanites" target="_blank">Killing the Canaanites</a>”&nbsp;(divided into paragraphs by me):</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The “new atheists”&nbsp;call God’s commands to kill the Canaanites “genocide,”&nbsp;but a closer look at the horror of the Canaanites’&nbsp;sinfulness, exhibited in rampant idolatry, incest, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality, reveals that God’s reason for commanding their death was not genocide but capital punishment. After all, the Old Testament unequivocally commands that those who do any one of these things deserves to die.</p>

<p>Also, God made it clear in His conversation with Abraham regarding the Canaanite cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that He knows who would or would not repent, and in the case of those cities, not one person would heed the warning and even Lot’s family had to be forcibly pulled away from the coming destruction.</p>

<p>In Leviticus 18 God then warns Israel that if they commit similar sins that the land would similarly “vomit”&nbsp;them out. Later when Israel disobeys God and allows the Canaanites to continue to live among them, the corruptive and seductive power of Canaanite sin results in the Canaanization of Israel. Subsequently, God sent prophets to warn Israel of their coming destruction, but they didn’t repent and God said that they became “like Sodom to me”&nbsp;and He visited destruction on Israel for committing the same sins.</p>

<p>This again reveals that God’s motive isn’t genocide, but capital punishment. That we commit similar sins today renders us incapable of appropriate moral outrage against these sins and thus we accuse God of “genocide”&nbsp;to justify our own sinfulness.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Another point from the article that supports yesterday’s <a href="/w/the-judgment-that-led-to-salvation" target="_blank">post</a> about God driving the Canaanites out in order to protect the development of Israel as a new country in covenant with God:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Also, this wasn’t the entire destruction of a race as God didn’t order that every Canaanite be killed but only those who lived within specific geographical boundaries (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/nkjv/Josh.%201.4" target="_blank">Josh. 1:4</a>). Canaanite tribes (especially the Hittites) greatly exceeded the boundaries that Israel was told to conquer.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read Jones’s <a href="http://www.equip.org/articles/killing-the-canaanites" target="_blank">article</a> for the full explanation of these points.</p>
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title: He Suffered Because God Loved Him
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/27/2011
source: https://www.str.org/w/he-suffered-because-god-loved-him
content:
            <div> 
		<p>One of the biggest stumbling blocks to reconciling God’s goodness with the existence of suffering is a misunderstanding of God’s love. It’s assumed that if God were loving and powerful, He would care about our good and therefore prevent our pain. Too often, the question is never asked: what is the goal of God’s love for His people? That is, what <em>is</em> our greatest good? Only by answering this question can we know how God’s love would act in order to accomplish His goal for us.</p>

<p>In a recent <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/this-illness-is-for-the-glory-of-god" target="_blank">sermon</a> on the death of <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2011:1-16&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Lazarus</a>, John Piper discussed this relationship between God’s love and our suffering:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>It was love that moved Jesus to let Lazarus die. It was the love of Jesus for this family and for his disciples—and for you, reading this text—that caused him to choose to let Lazarus die.</p>

<p>Look again at the connection between verse 5 and 6: “Now Jesus <em>loved</em> Martha and her sister and Lazarus. <em>Therefore</em> [because of this love], when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”&nbsp;He did not hurry to his side.</p>

<p>And in writing John intends—and Jesus intends—for everyone seeing this to ask: How is that love? John has gone out of his way to set this up. Jesus loves them. He loves them. <em>He loves them</em>. Therefore, he does not heal him but lets him die. Why is this love?</p>

<p>Jesus has given the answer loud and clear and will give it again in verse 15. He said in verse 4: “This illness does not lead to death [in other words, the point is not death]. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”&nbsp;This illness will turn out for the glory of God, and the glory of the Son of God. This illness will put the glory of God on display. It will make Jesus look amazing.</p>

<p>Therefore (verse 6) love lets him die. Love lets him die because his death will help them see, in more ways than they know, the glory of God.</p>

<p>So what is love? What does it mean to be loved by Jesus? Love means giving us what we need most. And what we need most is not healing, but a full and endless experience of the glory of God. Love means giving us what will bring us the fullest and longest joy. And what is that? What will give you full and eternal joy? The answer of this text is clear: a revelation to your soul of the glory of God—seeing and admiring and marveling at and savoring the glory [of] God in Jesus Christ. When someone is willing to die—or let your brother die—to give you (and your brother) that, he loves you.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The full <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/this-illness-is-for-the-glory-of-god" target="_blank">sermon</a> is worth watching, listening to, or reading.</p>
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title: Decide Here and Now
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 11/29/2011
source: https://www.str.org/w/decide-here-and-now
content:
            <div> 
		<p>It’s likely most of us will never go to prison for our trust in Christ. But what Richard Wurmbrand says below (as quoted in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Let-Nations-Be-Glad-Supremacy/dp/0801036410/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1321054602&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">Let the Nations Be Glad</a></em>) about his time as a pastor in Communist Romania will still surely apply to you, because as Jesus said, “If they <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15:20&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">persecuted</a> Me, they will also persecute you,”&nbsp;and, “If they have <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt+10%3A25&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">called</a> the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!”</p>

<p>Here’s how Wurmbrand once prepared his young students to face this:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>What shall we do about these tortures? Will we be able to bear them?... And here comes the great need for the role of preparation for suffering which must start now. <em>It is too difficult</em> to prepare yourself for it when the Communists have put you in prison.</p>

<p>I remember my last Confirmation class before I left Romania. I took a group of ten to fifteen boys and girls on a Sunday morning, not to a church, but to the zoo. Before the cage of lions I told them, “Your forefathers in faith were thrown before such wild beasts for their faith. Know that you also will have to suffer. You will not be thrown before lions, but you will have to do with men who would be much worse than lions. Decide here and now if you wish to pledge allegiance to Christ.”&nbsp;They had tears in their eyes when they said yes.</p>

<p>We have to make the preparation now, before we are imprisoned. In prison you lose everything. You are undressed and given a prisoner’s suit. No more nice furniture, nice carpets, or nice curtains. You do not have a wife any more and you do not have your children. You do not have your library and you never see a flower. Nothing of what makes life pleasant remains. Nobody resists who has not renounced the pleasures of life beforehand.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You may not be thrown to the lions or tortured in prison, but at some point, if you’re using what you’re learning here and speaking to others about Christ, you will face varying degrees of angry friends and family, condescension, rejection, loss of relationships and/or status, and ridicule—all resulting in pressure to turn your back on God and what He has revealed to be true.</p>

<p>The only kind of faith—that is, <em>trust</em>—in God that can survive this is the one that resonates with this <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt%2013:45-46&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">parable</a>: “[T]he kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”&nbsp;Is life with Christ worth more to you than anything that could be taken from you, including life itself? If it is, no loss or threat can shake it. If it isn’t, your faith is vulnerable.</p>

<p>Evaluate yourself now, <em>before</em> you have to face any fire. (I’ve been told that <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/When-People-Are-Big-Small/dp/0875526004/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1321057243&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank">When People Are Big and God Is Small</a></em> can be <a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2006/11/23/when-people-are-big-and-god-is-small/" target="_blank">helpful</a> in working through the temptation to fear men more than God.) Cultivate your appreciation of God’s infinite value. Meditate on Him, read the Bible, “<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2015:1-11&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">abide</a> in Christ”&nbsp;and His love, ask for His strength, and depend on Him to give it when you need it. Decide now to make Him your treasure above all else.</p>

<p>Paul <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2 tim 3:12&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">informs</a> us, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”&nbsp;Decide now to say with him <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20tim%204:18&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">also</a>, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”</p>
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