# articles

title: How God Answers Our Prayers
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/01/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-god-answers-our-prayers
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Jon Bloom points out how we may be <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-unexpected-answers-of-god" target="_blank">missing the answers to our prayers</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We can’t help but have unreal, romantic imaginations and expectations about what God’s answers to our prayers will be.</p>

<p>Therefore, we are often unprepared for the answers we receive from God. His answers frequently do not look at first like answers. They look like problems. They look like trouble. They look like loss, disappointment, affliction, conflict, sorrow, and increased selfishness. They cause deep soul-wrestling and expose sins and doubts and fears. They are not what we expect and we often do not see how they correspond to our prayers...</p>

<p>If we ask God for greater, deeper love for him, what should we expect to receive? Answers that give us a greater awareness of our deep and pervasive sinful depravity, because those who are forgiven much, love much, but those who are forgiven little, love little (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Luke%207.47" target="_blank">Luke 7:47</a>).</p>

<p>If we ask God to help us love our neighbors as ourselves (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Mark%2012.31" target="_blank">Mark 12:31</a>), what should we expect to receive? Answers that force us to give unexpected attention to a neighbor (who we might not put in that category (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Luke%2010.29" target="_blank">Luke 10:29</a>)), which are inconvenient and irritating...</p>

<p>If we ask God for a deeper experience of his grace, what should we expect to receive? Answers that oppose our pride and humble our hearts (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/James%204.6" target="_blank">James 4:6</a>)...</p>

<p>If we ask God to help us “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord”&nbsp;(<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Colossians%201.10" target="_blank">Colossians 1:10</a>), what should we expect to receive? Answers that require more humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Ephesians%204.2" target="_blank">Ephesians 4:2</a>) than we thought possible and might result in destitution, affliction, and mistreatment, like many saints throughout history, “of whom the world was not worthy”&nbsp;(<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Hebrews%2011.38" target="_blank">Hebrews 11:38</a>).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Etc., etc. Read the rest <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-unexpected-answers-of-god" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>

<p>We often forget that God “predestined [us] to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+8%3A26-39&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">become conformed</a> to the image of His Son”&nbsp;- that He is working in our lives to achieve this, and that we can expect pain will be involved. As <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=heb+12%3A4-11&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Hebrews 12</a> reminds us, “[Y]ou have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines” ...He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.</p>
</blockquote>
</div>

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title: A French Atheist Surprised by Christ—Mentoring Letter August 2014
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Greg Koukl
date: 08/01/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-french-atheist-surprised-by-christ-mentoring-letter-august-2014
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>If you are courteous and offer something of substance, sometimes even hardcore atheists will take notice.</em></p>

<p>August 1, 2014</p>

<p>Last fall I had an unforgettable conversation with a former French atheist named Guillaume who told me how God found him and what got his attention.</p>

<p>One particular detail of his story offers an insight you might find helpful as you engage others with the claims of Christ.</p>

<p>Let’s just call it the “surprise factor.”</p>

<p>His first surprise was discovering that Jesus was smart. Very smart. He handled challenges shrewdly and answered foolishness with wisdom.</p>

<p>Guillaume had a second surprise. As he read the Gospels, he saw “that this was an historical account. Jesus was a person of history.”</p>

<p>It��s not unusual for critics to be caught by surprise when they find an intelligent case for what they dismissed as simply “faith.”</p>

<p>If you are courteous and offer something of substance, sometimes even hardcore atheists will take notice.</p>

<p>Stand to Reason exists to help you do that—to communicate the truth claims of Christianity with logic, clarity, and coherence. Will you help us do that even better—for you and for many others—by sending a gift today?</p>

<p>When you support STR this month, I want to send you Alan Shlemon’s excellent DVD presentation, “Answering Islam.”&nbsp;It’s our gift to you for your gift to us.</p>

<p>By His grace,</p>

<p>Gregory Koukl</p>
</div>

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title: Apologetic Arguments Can Reshape What Our Culture Considers Plausible
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/19/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/apologetic-arguments-can-reshape-what-our-culture-considers-plausible
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In a post at the Gospel Coalition on “<a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/apologetics-and-the-role-of-plausibility-structures" target="_blank">Apologetics and the Role of Plausibility Structures</a>,”&nbsp;Joe Carter explains that even when the current set of beliefs held by atheists prevent them from seeing <em>any</em> argument for God’s existence as plausible (no matter how reasonable), those arguments still have an effect on our culture:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Everything that we believe is filtered through our plausibility structures—belief-forming apparatus that acts as a gatekeeper, letting in evidence that is matched against what we already consider to be possible. Plausibility structures filter out claims that we believe cannot be reasonable or potentially true...</p>

<p>Oddly enough, while atheism is a minority view and has been so throughout the history of the world, it is assumed that pluralism requires that we adopt it as the default plausibility structure for almost all areas of human culture. Everything from science and education to politics and public policy is assumed to begin with the assumption that either God does not exist or that his existence is irrelevant. This idea that soft atheism is the neutral ground from which all sectarian matters must be addressed is patently absurd. Not only does this claim fail to recognize that atheism is not religiously neutral, it fails to acknowledge that atheism is quite implausible.</p>

<p>It is this implausibility that needs to be continuously pointed out and brought into the open. Apologetic arguments for the existence of God aid in this effort by pointing out that the belief in God’s existence is more probable, more plausible, more reasonable, and more rational than its denial. We should be lovingly generous to individuals who adhere to skepticism or atheism. But when these mystical and improbable beliefs are brought to the public square they should receive the utmost scrutiny and a forceful presentation of their irrationality...</p>

<p>Whether [apologetic arguments] are directly useful in leading unbelievers to Christ, they can be indirectly useful in reshaping the plausibility structures of our culture.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read the rest of <a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/apologetics-and-the-role-of-plausibility-structures" target="_blank">his post</a>.</p>
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title: Where Did These Minimal Facts about the Resurrection Come From?
topic: History
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/26/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/where-did-these-minimal-facts-about-the-resurrection-come-from-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>When Gary Habermas’s “Minimal Facts”&nbsp;approach to the resurrection comes up, I’ll often hear two challenges: 1) “Who are these scholars?”&nbsp;and 2) “This is an illegitimate appeal to authority.”&nbsp;So I’ve posted excerpts below from a <a href="http://garyhabermas.com/articles/southeastern_theological_review/minimal-facts-methodology_08-02-2012.htm" target="_blank">paper by Habermas explaining his method</a> that I think will clear some of this up.</p>

<p>It’s important to note regarding the second challenge that Habermas doesn’t dismiss the need for arguments for the historicity of the minimal facts apart from their scholarly support. The use of the scholars to show that “even by skeptical approaches, the resurrection can be established historically,”&nbsp;is merely used as a kind of shorthand in an apologetic approach (as well as being evidence for the strength of the evidence). Certainly, one could take the time to go through the arguments for each fact, but the idea is that as you’re talking to skeptical people, they’re likely to acknowledge a fact that’s accepted by even the most skeptical scholars out there, so this frees you to move on to assembling those facts into a conclusion. If they ask for the evidence for a fact, of course that can be given, as well.</p>

<p>From Habermas’s paper:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>From the outset of my studies, I argued that there were at least two major prerequisites for an occurrence to be designated as a Minimal Fact. Each event had to be established by more than adequate scholarly evidence, and usually by several critically-ascertained, independent lines of argumentation. Additionally, the vast majority of contemporary scholars in relevant fields had to acknowledge the historicity of the occurrence. Of the two criteria, I have always held that the first is by far the most crucial, especially since this initial requirement is the one that actually establishes the historicity of the event. Besides, the acclamation of scholarly opinion may be mistaken or it could change...</p>

<p>Regarding my references to the “vast majority”&nbsp;or “virtually all”&nbsp;scholars who agree, is it possible to identify these phrases in more precise terms? ...At least when referencing the most important historical occurrences, I frequently think in terms of a ninety-something percentile head-count...</p>

<p>Where are most scholars and why, precisely, are they there?</p>

<p>To answer this question in my case, what began as a rather modest attempt to update my resurrection bibliography grew by large increments until it developed into a full-blown attempt to catalog an overview of recent scholarship. The study dominated five straight years of my research time, as well as long intermittent stretches after that. Apparently, I was not very successful at drawing boundaries! I pursued an ongoing study that classified at least the major publications on these topics, continuing on through other representative sources. I counted a very wide spectrum of scholarly views, tracing the responses to about 140 sub-issues or questions related to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. My bibliography is presently at about 3400 sources and counting, published originally in French, German, or English. Initially I read and catalogued the majority of these publications, charting the representative authors, positions, topics, and so on, concentrating on both well-known and obscure writers alike, across the entire skeptical to liberal to conservative spectrum. As the number of sources grew, I moved more broadly into this research, trying to keep up with the current state of resurrection research.</p>

<p>I endeavored to be more than fair to all the positions. In fact, if anything, I erred in the direction of cataloguing the most radical positions, since this was the only classification where I included even those authors who did not have specialized scholarly credentials or peer-reviewed publications. It is this group, too, that often tends to doubt or deny that Jesus ever existed. Yet, given that I counted many sources in this category, this means that my study is skewed in the skeptical direction far more than if I had stayed strictly with my requirement of citing only those with scholarly credentials. Still, I included these positions quite liberally, even when the wide majority of mainline scholars, “liberals”&nbsp;included, rarely even footnoted this material. Of course, this practice would also skew the numbers who proposed naturalistic theories of the resurrection, to which I particularly gravitated.</p>

<p>The result of all these years of study is a private manuscript of more than 600 pages that simply does little more than line up the scholarly positions and details on these 140 key questions, without additional interaction or critique...</p>

<p>This entire exercise is about constructing a viable methodology that is capable of establishing the historicity of the resurrection even when utilizing the particular methods, tools, and conclusions of the critical community of scholars... Chiefly, these can indicate that, even by skeptical approaches, the resurrection can be established historically.</p>

<p>But it should always be remembered that this is an apologetic strategy. Thus, it is not a prescription for how a given text should be approached in the original languages and translated, or how a systematic theology is developed, or how a sermon is written. So it should never be concluded that the use of such methods in an apologetic context indicate a lack of trust in Scripture as a whole, or, say, the Gospels in particular.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read the whole footnoted paper <a href="http://garyhabermas.com/articles/southeastern_theological_review/minimal-facts-methodology_08-02-2012.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
</div>

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title: Is Plan B an Abortifacient?
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/23/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/is-plan-b-an-abortifacient-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’ve been hearing the charge that there’s no reason to think the contraceptives Hobby Lobby refused to subsidize (Plan B, Ella, and two types of IUDs) are actually abortifacients, so I was happy to see that Josh Brahm of the Equal Rights institute had collected a <a href="https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/6-resources-whether-birth-control-pills-cause-abortions/" target="_blank">series of articles by Dr. Rich Poupard</a> of the Life Training Institute, along with an <a href="http://youtu.be/Eq3bloCtGFs" target="_blank">interview</a> with Dr. Poupard on “How Should Pro-Lifers Talk about Birth Control?”&nbsp;to address this controversy (which is mostly centered on Plan B).</p>

<p>Read through the articles <a href="http://joshbrahm.com/6-resources-whether-birth-control-pills-cause-abortions/" target="_blank">here</a> and watch the interview below. Here’s the <a href="http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/2010/08/ella-anti-plan-b-serge.html" target="_blank">bottom line</a> from one of the articles:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Let me contrast Plan B and Ella. Plan B is basically synthetic progesterone, and is merely a larger dose of a form of oral contraceptive that has been used for years. Ella is a progesterone antagonist, which means that it works by blocking the effect of progesterone. The only other progesterone antagonist on the market at this time is mifepristone, otherwise known as RU-486, the abortion pill...</p>

<p>In the case of Plan B—there is no direct evidence that it decreases the receptivity of the uterine lining to an embryo that is attempting to implant. There is some indirect evidence that has concerned many in our movement, but there is also evidence from both animal studies and human studies that indicate no post-fertilization effects from Plan B. In the absence of clear evidence, I urge caution, but cannot state that using Plan B is wrong because of its post-fertilization effects. Lots of my older posts on this topic <a href="http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/search?q=emergency+contraception" target="_blank">can be found here</a>...</p>

<p>What about Ella? I will show in following posts that just about everything that I stated about Plan B is completely different than Ella. Ella has been shown conclusively to have an adverse effect on the uterine lining. Investigators admit that if taken in higher doses, Ella will cause an abortion just like her sister RU-486. This is not an emergency contraceptive drug—it is a low dose abortifacient.</p>
</blockquote>

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title: A Motivating Mormon Role Play
topic: Theology
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 07/15/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-motivating-mormon-role-play
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I recently had the chance to role play a Mormon for an unsuspecting group of Christians at a church in Southern California. You can watch the encounter below. I’m no longer surprised by how ill-equipped long-time Christians can be, but it still saddens me. However, it also motivates me to get out there and train as many people as I possibly can.</p>

<p>Listen to these Christians engage “Elder Kunkle”&nbsp;and then ask, “How would my church, Sunday school class, small group, youth group, students, etc. do in that situation?”&nbsp;And let it motivate you too.</p>

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title: Abortion Justifications Flip Moral Reasoning Upside Down
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/20/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/abortion-justifications-flip-moral-reasoning-upside-down
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Unfortunately, in the last few years we’ve had more than one opportunity in this nation to ponder this question: Why are we more grieved and outraged when a child is murdered than when an adult is murdered, even though both are valuable human beings? As I’ve watched, listened, and considered, three reasons have come to the forefront:</p>

<ol>
	<li>The child didn’t have a chance to live his life.</li>
	<li>We feel a special responsibility to protect children because they’re dependent on us.</li>
	<li>The more innocent the human being, the more deeply we grieve the crime perpetrated against her.</li>
</ol>

<p>The younger the child gets, the more our horror increases: A high school bus is hit by a drunk driver, and we mourn; elementary school students are murdered by a gunman, and we have national grief; babies at a daycare are targeted by a terrorist, and our shock and anger at the heinousness of it consumes us. The horror increases as the age decreases... until we reach the womb. Then suddenly, all our moral reasoning is flipped on its head.</p>

<p>Once we go back in age beyond that magical point, we use those same three reasons not to condemn abortion, but to <em>justify</em> it:</p>

<ol>
	<li>Instead of opposing abortion because a child has her <em>entire</em> future outside the womb taken from her, we justify it by saying she didn’t yet have any “interests”&nbsp;since she wasn’t aware of what she’ll be missing.</li>
	<li>Instead of opposing abortion because of our keenly-felt responsibility to protect the most defenseless of children, we justify it by saying their total dependence on us is parasitical and therefore we have a right to deny our consent for them to depend on us.</li>
	<li>Instead of opposing the violent actions of abortion taken against the most innocent of us, we justify it by comparing those unborn children to violent attackers from whom we have a right to defend ourselves.</li>
</ol>

<p>Do you see the ridiculousness of this? If it’s a tragedy when a five-year-old loses the rest of his life, isn’t it an even <em>greater</em> tragedy when an unborn baby loses <em>every</em> experience waiting for him outside the womb? A five-year-old has seen much of what life is about, though only for a short time. An aborted baby has had even that short time stolen from him. It’s the very fact that an unborn child has not had a chance to become aware of his objectively real interests that makes his death <em>more</em> tragic, not less.</p>

<p>Why are we not consistent on this moral principle of increased horror with decreased age? It makes no sense to arbitrarily flip this principle upside down and use the very points that normally <em>condemn</em> violence against the young to <em>justify</em> it.</p>
</div>

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title: Educating the Deaf
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 08/07/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/educating-the-deaf
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Gallaudet University, the first university in the United States focusing on educating deaf people, was named in honor of the founder’s father, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.</p>

<p>Thomas was born in Philadelphia in 1787. His father was George Washington’s secretary when he was president. The family moved to Connecticut, and Gallaudet earned his masters degree at Yale University. He pursued theological studies in preparation to being a pastor.</p>

<p>In 1814, Gallaudet met a little girl named Alice Cogswell. She was deaf and Gallaudet was motivated to figure out how to teach her since there were no schools for the deaf in the U.S. He eventually learned sign language in France and returned to found the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut. Alice was one of the first students.</p>

<p>Gallaudet married one of the graduate of his school and they had eight children. The youngest, Edward Miner Gallaudet, established a national college for deaf students in Washington, D.C., receiving a charter from Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Another son, Thomas Gallaudet, became an Episcopal priest and also worked with deaf children.</p>
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title: What Is Marriage from a Policy Perspective?
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/02/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-is-marriage-from-a-policy-perspective-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Ryan Anderson, co-author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/What-Is-Marriage-Woman-Defense/dp/1594036225/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1406764965&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=what+is+marriage" target="_blank"><em>What Is Marriage?</em></a> is possibly the most clear and well-reasoned spokesman for man/woman marriage out there. His recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWIhZ5xJJaQ" target="_blank">speech at Stanford</a> (given amidst much <a href="http://www.stanforddaily.com/2014/03/12/gsc-denies-funding-for-controversial-anti-lgbt-event/" target="_blank">controversy</a>) covered three questions:</p>

<ol>
	<li>What is marriage?</li>
	<li>Why does marriage matter?</li>
	<li>What are the consequences of redefining it?</li>
</ol>

<p>Here’s how he opened his remarks:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I’m not going to say anything about morality, anything about theology, or anything about tradition... I’ll be making a philosophical argument, with some appeal to social science, largely to get at a public policy purpose of marriage. The question that I want to ask and then answer is, what is marriage from a policy perspective? What is the state’s interest in marriage? How does the state define marriage? How <em>should</em> the state define marriage, and why?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Below is the full speech, followed by a Q&amp;A that was both challenging and refreshingly respectful. If you know someone who doesn’t understand the reasons for opposing a change in the definition of marriage, this is the lecture to share.</p>

<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9" data-embed-id="YWIhZ5xJJaQ" data-styles="{&quot;width&quot;:&quot;100%&quot;}" style="width:100%"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" class="embed-responsive-item" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YWIhZ5xJJaQ?rel=0" tabindex="0"></iframe></div>

<p>A summary from Anderson’s response to the second question on why this matters:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>What we know is that marriage is the institution that, when it’s stable, it protects children from poverty, it increases the likelihood [that] those children will experience social mobility, it protects children from committing crime, and it prevents the state from having to pick up the pieces in the form of a welfare program or a police program.</p>

<p>So more or less everything that you could care about (if you care about social justice and you care about limited government, if you care about the poor and you care about freedom) is better served by having a healthy marriage culture—a civil society institution that takes care of raising that next generation—than by having the government try to pick up the pieces of a broken marriage culture.</p>

<p>That’s why marriage matters.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Wilberforce and Social Change
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 07/31/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/wilberforce-and-social-change
content:
            <div> 
		<p>William Wilberforce is well-known for his decades-long persistence getting legislation passed to outlaw the slave trade in the British Empire. He and a group of Christians called the Clapham Sect (because that is where they were from) were motivated by their Biblical belief in human value and the value of God’s creation to pursue other ways of solving other social ills. Their campaigns were carried out through a variety of organizations and legislation that they backed. Their goal was to “eliminate public corruption and promote religion in the hearts of the people... The movement emphasized the worth of the human soul and...the individual,”&nbsp;and their goal was to spark evangelical revival.</p>

<p>In 1787, the Proclamation for the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue punished drunkenness, vulgarity, gambling, and immoral books.</p>

<p>The Philanthropic Society tried to prevent crime by trying to deal with the secondary causes. London’s streets were filled with huge numbers of homeless children who committed crimes. One quarter of the unmarried women in London were prostitutes, many were underage.</p>

<p>The Climbing Boys Society worked to outlaw the practice of children who were sold or kidnapped and forced to work as chimney sweeps, treated as property.</p>

<p>The Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debt pursued prison reform. Early in the 19th century, 3/4 of prisoners were imprisoned for owing small amounts of money, and the conditions were horrible. The Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline and The Reformation of Juvenile Offenders also attempted to improve these circumstances.</p>

<p>The Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor helped correct the abuses of the workhouses. It also introduced policies to improve the economy, hoping to improve conditions for the poor.</p>

<p>Wilberforce and the Clapham group also promoted Sunday School as a way to teach children how to read, to educate them in order to improve their conditions, and so they could read the Bible and learn moral virtue that would serve them well in leading good lives.</p>

<p>The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals worked to pass legislation to end cruel practices and sports. One example was a “sport”&nbsp;called “<a href="http://www.humanesociety.org/news/profile/2007/william_wilberforce_021607.html" target="_blank">bull baiting.</a>”&nbsp;A bull would be tethered with a long enough rope to give him free movement. Dogs, bred for fighting, would be unleashed on the bull, and the animals would fight, each tearing the other to pieces.</p>

<p>Wilberforce and the Clapham sect were Christians. They believed salvation was through Jesus and good works did not earn God’s forgiveness. But they believed in common grace - that society should promote the common good by pursuing objective virtues and morality. Not only are these goods in themselves, they also promote the inherent dignity and value of God’s creation.</p>
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title: We Are the Body of the Wounded Healer
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/13/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/we-are-the-body-of-the-wounded-healer
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Because of the tragic death of Robin Williams, I’ve seen people out there commenting on suicide and depression who, I can tell, have not loved someone who was devastated by them.</p>

<p>But then I came across <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140816085525/http://www.aholyexperience.com/2014/08/what-the-church-christians-need-to-know-about-suicide-mental-health/" target="_blank">a post by Ann Voskamp</a>, whose mother battled mental illness, and who attempted suicide herself:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We could tell you what we know.</p>

<p>That—<strong>depression is like a room engulfed in flames</strong> and you can’t breathe for the sooty smoke smothering you limp—and suicide is deciding there is no way but to jump straight out of the burning building.</p>

<p>That when the unseen scorch on the inside finally sears intolerably hot—you think a desperate lunge from the flames and the land of the living seems the lesser of two unbearables...</p>

<p><strong>You don’t try to kill yourself because death’s appealing—but because life’s agonizing.</strong> We don’t want to die. But we can’t stand to be devoured.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Her words to you and me as part of the church:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Don’t only turn up the praise songs but turn to Lamentations and Job and be a place of lament and tenderly unveil the God... who wears the scars of the singe<strong>. A God who bares His scars and reaches through the fire to grab us, “Come—Escape into Me.”</strong>...</p>

<p>I once heard a pastor tell the whole congregation that he had lived next to the loonie bin and I looked at the floor when everyone laughed and they didn’t know how I loved my mama. I looked to the floor when they laughed, when I wanted them to stand up and reach through the pain of the flames and say:</p>

<p>Our Bible says <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+9%3A11-13&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">Jesus said, “<strong>It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick.”</strong></a>&nbsp;<strong>Jesus came for the sick, not for the smug.</strong></p>

<p><strong>Jesus came as doctor and He makes miracles happen through medicine and when the church isn’t for the suffering, then the Church isn’t for Christ...</strong></p>

<p>I wanted us to turn to the hurting, to each other, and promise it till we’re hoarse...</p>

<p><strong>“We won’t give you some excuses—but we’ll be some example—and that will mean bending down and washing your wounds.</strong> Wounds that we don’t understand, wounds that keep festering, that don’t heal, that down right stink—<em>wounds that can never make us turn away.</em></p>

<p>Because we are the Body of the Wounded Healer and we are the people who believe the impossible <strong>—that wounds can be openings to the beauty in us.”</strong></p>

<p>We’re the people who say: “<strong>there’s no shame saying that your heart and head are broken because there’s a Doctor in the house. It’s the wisest and the bravest who cry for help when lost.</strong></p>

<p>There’s no stigma in saying you’re sick because <strong>there’s a wounded Healer who uses nails to buy freedom and crosses to resurrect hope and medicine to make miracles”</strong>&nbsp;[emphases in the original].</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Amen, and God help us.</p>
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title: Can God Do Anything?
topic: Theology
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 08/12/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/can-god-do-anything-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>“Can God do anything?”&nbsp;I asked an audience of Christians at a recent apologetics conference. I gave my answer and offered an explanation. Apparently, my answer was not well received by everyone, as one man in the audience was so incensed that he stood up shaking his head in disgust. He turned for the exit and walked out of the auditorium, but not without glaring back at me one last time, continuing to shake his head in anger. So what did I say? No, God can’t do anything.</p>

<p>Clearly the Bible affirms God’s power. Job 9:4 says, “His power is vast.”&nbsp;Psalm 24:8 refers to the Lord as “strong and mighty.”&nbsp;Isaiah 40:26 says that out of His “great power and mighty strength”&nbsp;God brought forth the universe. Don’t these passages indicate there is no limit to God’s power?</p>

<p>Many Christians mistakenly think God’s omnipotence means there is nothing He cannot do. However, a few questions demonstrate the problem with this view. Can God sin? Of course not. Sin is contrary to God’s moral nature. Scripture affirms this when it tells us that God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18) and cannot be tempted by evil (James 1:13). God is holy and therefore, He cannot sin because that would be a violation of His own nature.</p>

<p>Moreover, can God create a square circle or a married bachelor? Of course not. Square circles and married bachelors are logical contradictions and, therefore, are contrary to God’s rational nature. Can God create a rock so big that He cannot pick it up? Again, the answer is no. God cannot carry out two mutually exclusive alternatives. The question poses a logically impossible scenario, which just means the question is incoherent. God’s own rational nature, in which the very laws of logic are grounded, sets the boundaries of what is possible and impossible.</p>

<p>But if God is limited in these ways, does this undermine His omnipotence? No. We just to need to correctly define this attribute of God. When it is properly understood, the difficulties fade away. So simply put, God’s omnipotence means He can do all that is consistent with His nature. This definition affirms God’s vast power while preventing us from affirming logical absurdities. The great evangelical theologian Carl F. Henry summarizes it this way:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>That God will not alter his own nature, that he cannot deny himself, that he cannot lie and cannot sin, that he cannot be deceived, and that, moreover, he cannot die, are affirmations which historic Christian theology has always properly associated with divine omnipotence and not with divine limitation or divine impotency, because the ’possibility’&nbsp;as stated is a logical impossibility. Any conception of omnipotence that requires God to contradict himself reflects a conjectural and ridiculous notion of absolute power&nbsp;(God, Revelation, Authority, V:319).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Now, what did God’s omnipotence have to do with my talk at this apologetics conference? I was answering a serious challenge to Christianity: “If God is all-powerful, why is there evil in the world?”&nbsp;There’s a hidden assumption in the question, and here it is: If God is all-powerful, He has the power to create a world free of evil. “God can do anything, right?”&nbsp;comes the challenge from the skeptic. Answering this objection demonstrates the importance of properly defining God’s omnipotence.</p>

<p>Our answer, known as the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Freedom-Evil-Alvin-Plantinga/dp/0802817319" target="_blank">free will defense</a>, affirms that God cannot do the logically impossible. God cannot create genuinely free creatures and at the same time cause them to do only what is right. If He causes them to do what is right, they have not done so freely. Human freedom just means that moral evil is possible. However, this does not undermine God’s nature. As philosopher Alvin Plantinga states, “The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God’s omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.”&nbsp;And that’s one reason why it’s vital that we think carefully and correctly about the nature of God.</p>
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title: Use Your Knowledge to Serve Others, Not Judge Them
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/06/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/use-your-knowledge-to-serve-others-not-judge-them
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’ve learned over the years—both from my own experience early on and because of emails I’ve received asking for advice—that there’s a great temptation to get frustrated with the people in your church as you learn theology and apologetics. There’s a temptation to look down on them with a scornful attitude of “they should know what I know!”</p>

<p>This is a spiritually dangerous misunderstanding of how the body of Christ was created to function. It’s not by accident that the people in your church don’t know what you know, it’s by Christ’s design, who has given us all different gifts “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=eph+4%3A4-16&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">for the equipping of the saints</a> for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”</p>

<p>I came across a passage in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Life-Fathers-House-Members-Church/dp/1596380349/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1407276342&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=life+in+the+father%27s+house" target="_blank"><em>Life in the Father’s House</em></a> that sums up the situation well:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>If you understand that any ability you have comes from a gracious God and that anything good you accomplish happens through His power alone, then you will less likely become arrogant as a result of your skills or successes. You will also be less condescending and critical toward others who have different gifts than your own, because you will remember that God Himself has organized the body according to His perfect plan, “just as He wills”&nbsp;(1 Cor. 12:11). If you are unhappy with some of the constituency of your local church and wish that they were more like you, then your problem is ultimately with God, who put them there and made them the way they are.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And now comes the crucial point:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Rather than complaining about their weaknesses, you should eagerly seek to use your gifts for their benefit and humbly receive the ministry God has designed for them to have in your life.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You’ve been given your gift <em>for the sake of</em> those who don’t have that gift, and their lack of that gift is a result of God’s design, not their failure. Their weakness is your opportunity for joyful service, just as your weakness (whatever it might be) is theirs. It doesn’t make sense to despise people in your church for lacking the very thing you were placed there to give them.</p>

<p>Your gift of theological and apologetic aptitude and knowledge is not the only important gift. (“If the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+12&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">whole body</a> were an eye, where would the hearing be?”) It’s given to you so you can get down in the trenches <em>below</em> the people you’re trying to help and lift them up, not so you can look down on them from above.</p>

<p>Your gift makes you a servant, not a master. Once I understood this, it changed everything.</p>
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title: Salt and Light in 19th Century England
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 07/17/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/salt-and-light-in-19th-century-england
content:
            <div> 
		<p><a href="http://www.biographyonline.net/business/sir-titus-salt.html" target="_blank">Titus Salt</a> was a contemporary of of John Cadbury, whom I wrote about last Thursday, and there are similarities in their stories.</p>

<p>Salt expanded his father’s wool manufacturing business and became quite successful. He innovated a method of manufacturing alpaca wool, which Charles Dickens even mentioned in one of his books.</p>

<p>Salt was motivated by his Christianity to improve the social and natural environment his employees lived in. He became mayor of Bradford with the goal of improving the poor standard of living. He attempted to innovate ways to diminish the intense air pollution that England’s manufacturing spewed out during the industrial revolution. He used a burner in his factories that produced less smoke and tried to persuade other manufacturers to use it, but to little success.</p>

<p>He had more success improving the lives of his employees. Like George Cadbury, Title Salt built a village in Yorkshire he called Saltaire. He moved his factory there and built homes, parks, churches, and shops for his employees. “He was a great philanthropist of the age, helping his workers have unprecedented living standards for the time.”</p>
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title: How Did You Come to That Conclusion?
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 08/08/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-did-you-come-to-that-conclusion-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Alan’s monthly letter for August 2014</em></p>

<p>Have you ever given someone a free ride? I know you’re a nice person and have probably helped a neighbor in need. There’s one free ride, though, you need to stop giving.</p>

<p>Here’s the scenario. You’re talking to a friend and they raise an objection against your faith. Perhaps they say, “I think God is wishful thinking,”&nbsp;“Science has proven Christianity false,”&nbsp;or “All religions are basically the same.”&nbsp;Instead of <em>them</em> backing up their objection with evidence or reasons, <em>you</em> begin a defensive discourse explaining why their view is incorrect. Now you’ve done it—you’ve just given them a free ride.</p>

<p>Free rides can be avoided with a simple, yet powerful, tactic based on the burden of proof rule. The rule is defined as the responsibility someone has to defend their belief, opinion, or view. Here’s how it works: The person that makes the claim bears the burden of proof. In other words, if someone offers a point of view, it’s <em>their job</em> to give reasons for it, <em>not your job</em> to defend against it.</p>

<p>Too often, though, believers bear the burden of proof when it’s not their responsibility. They try to answer every objection that is mustered against their view. This keeps the Christian in a defensive posture the entire conversation. It also makes sharing your faith a difficult and unpleasant experience. If I felt responsible to respond to every wild objection or story that someone could spin, I’d feel hesitant to share my faith as well.</p>

<p>It’s time to stop giving free rides and begin enforcing the burden of proof rule. Whenever someone raises an objection to your faith, ask a simple question: “How did you come to that conclusion?”&nbsp;This question is not a trick. It’s not unfair. You’re simply shifting the burden of proof back where it belongs—on the person who made the claim.</p>

<p>For example, if a friend tells you all religions are the same, remember, they made the claim. Therefore, it’s their job to bear the burden of proof and give a reason why they think it’s true. Ask, “How did you come to that conclusion?”&nbsp;(or ask any question that requests a reason why their claim or view is true). Then sit back and listen. It’s now their time to defend their claim.</p>

<p>Keep in mind they may not say anything. They’re used to Christians taking the bait and giving them a free ride instead of making them shoulder the burden of proof.</p>

<p>You might be wondering, then, <em>what should I do if they do give reasons for their view?</em> If—and only if—they meet the burden of proof, then it is appropriate for you to offer a response. That’s because once they give their opinion and reasons why that opinion is true, they have now made a legitimate argument. Keep in mind that an argument is not bickering or fighting. It’s simply an opinion with reasons to back it up. Just about everyone makes an argument each day in normal conversation with their friends and family.</p>

<p>The point is that you do not have to respond to an opinion with reasons why that opinion is false. Everyone has opinions. Far fewer people have reasons why those opinions are true. Only when they make an argument (giving a reason why the opinion is true) do you have an obligation to respond.</p>

<p>This is not a trick. It’s not mean. It’s the appropriate thing to do. Plus, it makes sharing your faith simpler. After all, what’s easier to do: give a five minute speech why someone’s opinion is false or take five seconds and ask how they came to their conclusion?</p>

<p>If, after they provide reasons for their view, you don’t know how to respond, simply thank them for their thought and ask if you can get back to them at a later date. Then, investigate the answer (www.STR.org has many helpful answers). You can tell them your response or what you discovered the next time you see them.</p>
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title: Chronicle of Higher Education: Stop Accrediting Christian Colleges
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/09/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/chronicle-of-higher-education-stop-accrediting-christian-colleges
content:
            <div> 
		<p>An <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/The-Great-Accreditation-Farce/147425/" target="_blank">article</a> in the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that accreditation ought to be denied to Christian colleges that require professors to sign statements of faith or otherwise “draw lines around what is regarded as acceptable teaching and research.”&nbsp;This seems like an obvious next step in the current march of secular intolerance, so I expect we’ll be hearing more arguments like this in the future:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Why does accreditation matter? Aside from the traditional goal of conferring legitimacy on colleges and their programs, accreditation has taken on a far more consequential role: Students attending institutions that are not accredited are ineligible for federal financial aid, money that is indispensable to the budgets of most American colleges...</p>

<p>By awarding accreditation to religious colleges, the process confers legitimacy on institutions that systematically undermine the most fundamental purposes of higher education.</p>

<p>Skeptical and unfettered inquiry is the hallmark of American teaching and research. However, such inquiry cannot flourish—in many cases, cannot even survive—inside institutions that erect religious tests for truth. The contradiction is obvious...</p>

<p>Students giving tours at Wheaton College in Illinois are said to describe it as the Harvard of evangelical education. But unlike Harvard, Wheaton is one of the colleges that oblige their faculty members to complete faith statements. In other words, at Wheaton the primacy of reason has been abandoned by the deliberate and repeated choices of both its administration and its faculty.</p>

<p>Wheaton is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools... I asked [Wheaton] to justify the manifest disconnect between the bedrock principle of academic freedom and the governing regulations that corrupt academic freedom at Wheaton... The process administrator’s explanation, in full: “Federal regulations and commission policies require that the commission respect a wide range of institutional missions and belief systems in its accrediting processes.”</p>

<p>This, in my view, can only be described as a scandal. Providing accreditation to colleges like Wheaton makes a mockery of whatever academic and intellectual standards the process of accreditation is supposed to uphold. If accrediting agencies are playing by the rules in this continuing fiasco, then the rules have to be changed—or interpreted more aggressively, so that “respect”&nbsp;for “belief systems”&nbsp;does not entail approving the subversion of our core academic mission by this or that species of dogma.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Right. Because secular colleges have no worldview dogmas whatsoever. And they <em>never</em> draw lines around what is regarded as <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/08/what_does_eric075081.html" target="_blank">acceptable teaching</a> and research.</p>
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title: Why the Outrage over the Hobby Lobby Ruling?
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/03/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-the-outrage-over-the-hobby-lobby-ruling-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The response to the Supreme Court’s <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/hobby-lobby-good-news-bad-news-and-a-warning#.W6mDuBNKijQ" target="_blank">Hobby Lobby decision</a> is troubling. I’m troubled not mainly because of the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/381566/hobby-lobby-sparks-twitter-outrage-left-andrew-johnson-molly-wharton" target="_blank">crazy things</a> I’ve seen online from people who are uninformed about the nature of the decision, but because of a very polite, reasonable discussion I had with a knowledgeable person who strongly opposes the outcome. The outcome, of course, is that the employees of Hobby Lobby will still receive free contraceptives (even the four Hobby Lobby won’t be forced to pay for directly), so if the goal of protestors is for people to get free contraceptives, there should be no anger. But there is. Which means that isn’t their goal.</p>

<p>In the case of the conversation I had, it came down to this: “The public square should remain secular. To me, that is an expression of the separation of church and state* ...I do not think the religious beliefs of company owners should be accommodated when applying laws that impact their company’s practice.”&nbsp;And since, in this case, accommodating the company would have no impact on its employees, I can only assume that fact doesn’t matter to him. No, the owners of even family-owned companies should be prevented from acting according to their convictions when that action conflicts with the beliefs and goals of secularists, no matter how contrary to their conscience, even when accommodation is feasible.</p>

<p>That’s troubling.</p>

<p>I’ve come across two articles with particularly good, concise insight on what is going on here. The first is from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/02/opinion/for-the-supreme-court-hobby-lobby-is-only-the-beginning.html" target="_blank">Paul Horwitz</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The first source of controversy is the collapse of a national consensus on a key element of religious liberty: accommodation. Throughout American history, there has been widespread agreement that in our religiously diverse and widely devout country, it is good for the government to accommodate religious exercise. We have disagreed about particular accommodations (may a Muslim police officer wear a beard, despite police department policy?), and especially about whether religious accommodations should be ordered by judges or crafted by legislators. But we have generally agreed that our nation benefits when we help rather than burden those with religious obligations. That consensus seems, quite suddenly, to have evaporated.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>(It’s worth reading what he cites as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/02/opinion/for-the-supreme-court-hobby-lobby-is-only-the-beginning.html" target="_blank">the other two sources</a>, as well.)</p>

<p>The second article, <a href="http://www.cato.org/blog/republic-gilead-not-night" target="_blank">by Julian Sanchez</a>, gets to what I fear is at the heart of the anger:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]he outraged reaction to the ruling ought to seem a bit puzzling. If what you are fundamentally concerned about is whether women have access to no-copay contraception, then there’s no obvious reason to invest such deep significance in the precise accounting details of the mechanism by which it is provided...</p>

<p>The outrage <em>does</em> make sense, of course, if what one fundamentally cares about—or at least, additionally cares about—is the <em>symbolic speech act embedded in the compulsion itself</em>. In other words, if the purpose of the mandate is not merely to achieve a certain practical result, but to declare the qualms of believers with religious objections so utterly underserving of respect that they may be forced to act against their convictions <em>regardless of whether this makes any real difference to the outcome</em>. And something like that does indeed seem to be lurking just beneath—if not <em>at</em>—the surface of many reactions. The ruling seems to provoke anger, not because it will result in women having to pay more for birth control (as it won’t), but at least in part because it fails to send the appropriate cultural signal. Or, at any rate, because it allows religious <em>employers</em> to continue sending the wrong cultural signal—disapproval of certain forms of contraception—when sending that signal does not impede the achievement of the government’s ends in any way.</p>

<p>Personally, I have no sympathy whatever with the substantive moral views of <em>Hobby Lobby’</em>s owners. But I’m dismayed at how many friends who style themselves “liberals,”&nbsp;even recognizing the ruling will make no immediate difference in employee access to contraception, seem to regard it as an appalling betrayal that the Court refused to license what amounts to purely symbolic compulsion of people with retrograde ideas. If we accept that the exemption here makes no functional difference to whether people are covered, however, that’s the only rationale left for insisting on direct purchase of coverage by employers—and not, I had thought, a <em>legitimate</em> rationale for government coercion in a liberal democracy.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>That’s troubling.</p>

<p>*It seems he’s redefined “state”&nbsp;to mean not the government, but public life. Also very troubling.</p>
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title: Sin and Sinners
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 07/11/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/sin-and-sinners
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I had a frustrating experience the other day you’ve probably had. A family member thanked me for being nice to her lesbian friend. My relative said she appreciated that since she knows how I feel about her lifestyle. I said, “You’re welcome”&nbsp;and mentioned that I can be nice to people even if I think they’re sinning.</p>

<p>In fact, we’re all sinners. If I was going to be rude to sinners, I’d be rude all the time—including to myself.</p>

<p>Sadly, many people, even Christians, have a hard time distinguishing between believing someone is wrong and treating them with kindness and respect. At least when it comes to homosexuality. Obviously, those two principles are at the heart of classic tolerance, and people usually don’t have trouble with them in most other contexts. But when it comes to homosexuality, the culture and many Christians have absorbed the idea that to love someone you must accept their sexuality.</p>

<p>It wouldn’t have occurred to my relative to thank me for being nice to, for instance, another relative who is living with her boyfriend. It hasn’t occurred to her to thank me for being nice to relatives who have divorced. That isn’t surprising to her, but it is when it comes to homosexuality. The main reason, of course, is that there’s constant cultural pressure to not just respect, but accept homosexuality as normal. And a lot of Christians yield to the pressure. Especially when they have family and friends who are gay.</p>

<p>Actually, I’d never said anything about the friend directly. The couple of times I’d said something was in response to my relative talking about how she admired her friend for the courage it took to be true to herself regarding her sexual attraction, ending her marriage and leaving her family. My comments to my relative (who is a Christian) were about her admiring someone for pursuing her sin, not specifically about her friend.</p>

<p>The fundamental biblical view is that we’re all sinners. That’s something every Christian has admitted personally. The Bible also teaches us to be respectful of others because they’re made in God’s image. We love people while at the same time maintaining that they are sinning. After all, every single one of us is a sinner. Why is homosexuality the sin most often talked about? Because it’s the sin currently being normalized, just as divorce and living together have already been accepted.</p>

<p>I’m sure most everyone reading this blog understands that. But it’s a distinction we have to be very careful and deliberate to maintain to help people understand. And if we’re going to offer sinners living in rebellion to God reconciliation with Him as we’ve experienced.</p>

<p>It’s hurtful to be misunderstood, even by those closest to us. It’s hard to be ridiculed and marginalized in the culture. It’s painful when it leads to divisions in families. But we have to continue to keep making this distinction for people, and maybe it’ll sink in sooner or later. And even if it doesn’t, we have to be faithful to the Bible.</p>
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title: Shamed Prophets Become Fearless
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/05/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/shamed-prophets-become-fearless
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Some good (albeit difficult) advice from N.D. Wilson’s article “<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/june/called-to-be-uncool-christians.html?paging=off" target="_blank">Called to Be Uncool Christians</a>”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[W]hen was the last time you hedged on an opinion because of...those around you? When did you last choose your words based more on the politics of a situation than on truth?...</p>

<p>It’s no wonder that one of the first tasks of any prophet was to make himself shameful. John the Baptist wore camel hair and ate insects. Isaiah had to walk around naked for years. Ezekiel had to cook his food over dung. Elijah ate only food carried by ravens—nasty carrion birds. The first thing God told Hosea to do was to marry a whore.</p>

<p>Prophets must be fearless, immune to the pressures of kings and crowds, aligned only with the breath of God.</p>

<p>We are in need of prophets now...</p>

<p>Prophets must be immune to floggings on Facebook and Twitter. They must be fearless before friends and tenure committees and stadiums filled with the priests of Baal. The cool-shaming can have no sting. The world is busy applying pressure on “social issues,”&nbsp;and Christians are busy caving left and right, trying to accept fresh cultural dogma simply so that they might be accepted...</p>

<p>All of our positions—especially in controversy—should flow from honest exegesis, not from the mood at the local coffee shop. And we could all benefit from some shame. When the hot pressure comes, we need to be immune. If God wants it, we should be ready to wear camel hair while cooking locusts and raven scraps over a dung fire in the lions’&nbsp;den after our marriage to a whore.</p>

<p>Shame is easy to find. All we have to do is stop hiding. We already have seriously uncool friends. Moses. Paul. Christ himself. Enjoy them. Like them. In public. Offend the zeitgeist. Become immune.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: How to Get Out of a Corner
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 07/15/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-to-get-out-of-a-corner
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>The Christian gets pigeon-holed as the judgmental one, but everyone else is judging, too. It’s an inescapable consequence of believing in morality.</em></p>

<p>I have a friend who is a deeply committed Christian woman and whose boss is a lesbian. That in itself isn’t a problem. My friend has the maturity to know you can’t expect non-Christians to live like Christians. But her boss posed a difficult question to her, and talking about it with you might help expand your horizons on how to get out of a tough situation.</p>

<p>The boss wanted to know what my friend’s attitude was toward homosexuality.</p>

<p>Now that’s a tough one, isn’t it, because she’s a Christian and has strong views on the issue. At the same time, she was concerned that expressing her own personal views to her employer (for whom the question was not merely academic) might compromise her situation.</p>

<p>My friend’s response was, “Please tell me what my feelings about homosexuality have to do with our professional relationship?”&nbsp;In sword fighting that’s called a parry. She deflected her boss’s question, pushing it aside by asking about its relevance. Because she was quick, my friend avoided what might have been an unpleasant confrontation.</p>

<p>It was a fair response. Sometimes you’re asked a personal question when it’s not the best time to express your opinion. When we make our case about the Lord or our religious or ethical views, we want to choose the time and place so we can be the most sensitive to the person we’re talking to. We don’t want our views misunderstood or twisted.</p>

<p>In less-than-ideal circumstances it’s entirely fair to say, “You know, I’m not really comfortable offering my point of view at this time,”&nbsp;or something like that. Or, as my friend did, “Could you clarify what this has to do with our relationship?”</p>

<p>My friend had successfully parried the issue for the moment, but suspected it would come up again. She might not be able to sidestep twice. What should she do?</p>

<p>Here’s what I suggested. Her answer would depend on precisely how the question was put to her. “How do you feel about homosexuality?”&nbsp;is different from, “What do you think about homosexuality?”</p>

<p>If someone asked me what I felt about homosexuality, I’d answer honestly: I don’t feel uncomfortable simply because someone is a homosexual. Some homosexuals are likable, some are not. I treat persons as individuals.</p>

<p>If I were asked what I think about homosexuality, however, my answer would be different. I think that homosexuals are human beings that should be treated with respect, should not be bashed or called names, and should be given the same individual rights that any other citizen has. That’s what I actually think.</p>

<p>I also think that homosexuality is unnatural, unhealthy—physically and psychologically—and immoral. I say this not as a personal preference, but as a personal conviction—I think that statement is accurate and true. I’m also glad to give the reasons why I think so. These are my thoughts about homosexuality, as opposed to my feelings.</p>

<p>What this approach does is make a distinction between my attitude about homosexual people and my point of view regarding homosexuality. When dealing with people in the public square, it’s very important to make this distinction because people may mistakenly infer your feelings from your thoughts. So if you start off by saying, “I think homosexuality is immoral,”&nbsp;or “I think it’s a sin,”&nbsp;people will infer from your ethical conclusions about homosexuality that you actually hate homosexuals, that you are condescending towards them, etc. And, of course, they’ll take offense.</p>

<p>Don’t go down that road. You don’t want to hide your moral point of view, but you also don’t want them to draw wrong conclusions about your feelings—and how you might be inclined to mistreat homosexuals—from your moral assessment of homosexuality. By offering how you feel about homosexuality up front, you minimize that risk.</p>

<p>There’s another thought I offered as a post-script to my friend. There’s a clever way to answer her boss’s question directly, while eliminating most of the risk.</p>

<p>If you’re placed in a situation where you suspect your convictions will be labeled intolerant, bigoted, narrow-minded, or judgmental, then turn the tables. When someone asks for your personal views about a moral issue, preface your remarks with a question.</p>

<p>Say, “You know, this is actually a very personal question you’re asking. I don’t mind answering, but before I do, I want to know if it’s safe to offer my views.</p>

<p>“So let me ask you a question: Do you consider yourself a tolerant person or an intolerant person? Is it safe to give my opinion, or are you going to judge me for my point of view? Do you respect diverse points of view, or do you condemn others for convictions that differ from your own?”</p>

<p>Now when my friend gives her point of view, it’s going to be very difficult for her boss to call her intolerant or judgmental without looking guilty, too.</p>

<p>This response capitalizes on the fact that there’s no morally neutral ground. Everybody has a point of view she thinks is right and everybody passes judgment at some point or another. The Christian gets pigeon-holed as the judgmental one, but everyone else is judging, too. It’s an inescapable consequence of believing in morality.</p>
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title: John Witherspoon: Pastor, Professor, and Patriot
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 07/03/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/john-witherspoon-pastor-professor-and-patriot
content:
            <div> 
		<p><a href="http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/witherspoon_john.html" target="_blank">John Witherspoon</a> was born in Scotland in 1723 and emigrated to the colony of New Jersey when he was called as president of Princeton University in 1768. Those who heard his sermons said he was a gifted, though not flowery, speaker. He strengthened the curriculum taught at Princeton and emphasized the importance of a well-educated clergy, which was one of the primary purposes of the university at that time. He signed the Declaration of Independence and was a member of the Continental Congress. He had a significant influence on the founding principles of the United States because he trained a number of our early statesmen.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The founders [of Princeton University] had hoped too that the College might produce men who would be “ornaments of the State as well as the Church,”&nbsp;and Witherspoon realized this hope in full measure. His students included, in addition to a president and vice-president of the United States, nine cabinet officers, twenty-one senators, thirty-nine congressmen, three justices of the Supreme Court, and twelve state governors. Five of the nine Princeton graduates among the fifty-five members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were students of Witherspoon.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Witherspoon was influenced by some of the best ideas of the Enlightenment. He thought faith and reason were compatible and converged to identify the truth. He believed in the ideas of liberty, natural rights, just government, and representative democracy. These were ideas he taught his students, including John Madison.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Under Witherspoon’s direction, Madison also came to hold a view of human nature that emphasized both human dignity and human depravity; this understanding would later inform The Federalist. Witherspoon warned him of the evils of a tyrannical society ruled by demagogues and introduced him to the idea of a government of checks and balances. Madison also learned the lesson of prudence and the importance of admitting mistakes. Most fundamentally, nonetheless, Madison came to think that the state—when governed not merely by the will of the majority but by the higher authorities of natural and divine law—may support the life of virtue.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Witherspoon helped to organize and unite the Presbyterian Church in the United States.</p>

<p>“<a href="http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/witherspoon_john.html" target="_blank">One of his students</a>, a later president of the College, recalled that Witherspoon had more presence than any other man he had known, except for General Washington.”</p>
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title: Why Take Christians to Mosques?
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 07/01/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-take-christians-to-mosques-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Alan’s monthly letter for July 2014</em></p>

<p>Sometimes people are puzzled. They think, <em>Shouldn’t we teach Christians about Christianity? Why are you teaching them about Islam and taking them to mosques?</em> That’s a good question.</p>

<p>The short answer is that a mosque experience entails essential training that rarely occurs amongst Christians. I call it “training”&nbsp;because it prepares believers to engage in the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20). I believe it’s essential because Christians need to know and understand the people they are called to reach. Since 38,000 Muslims die <em>each day</em> and enter eternity without Christ, it is critical to mobilize Christians to reach them.</p>

<p>But doesn’t teaching Christians about Islamic theology and taking them to mosques encourage them to become Muslim? Not at all. In fact, the opposite is true. Let me explain.</p>

<p>Last month, I partnered with Impact 360 Institute outside of Atlanta to train Christian students for a Muslim immersion experience. I began the training by role-playing a Muslim. I picked up a Qur’an, took on a Muslim name (Sayyid), and began arguing for the Islamic faith. Why? To give students a taste of what to expect from a real Muslim at the mosque, but in a safe environment. That way they were prepared and more comfortable when they arrived.</p>

<p>During the role-play, students tried to respond to my (Sayyid’s) arguments against Christianity and convince me of their own religious beliefs. Many tried, and most failed. The benefit of that experience, though, is that it produced in them a hunger to learn from the lecture that followed.</p>

<p>After the role-play, I taught them the basics of Islamic theology, including the religious obligations of Muslims and tactics to respond to the challenges I leveled during the role-play. I also emphasized the need for conversational kindness. This gave them some basic tools to engage Muslims.</p>

<p>Once I finished the classroom training, it was time for field work. We went to Al-Farooq Masjid, the largest mosque in Georgia. It’s a massive 46,000 square-foot worship center that can house 1,100 Muslims in its main prayer hall. Before entering the mosque, everyone took off their shoes and the female students donned headscarves to accommodate Islamic guidelines.</p>

<p>One of the leaders gave us a tour of the facility and then we got to sit alongside hundreds of Muslims during their service. We listened to a short “sermon”&nbsp;and then watched every Muslim face towards Mecca, kneel, and bow multiple times. As we heard the sounds of Muslim prayers and Qur’anic recitation, we sensed an effable, yet palpable, spiritual darkness.</p>

<p>After the service, two Muslim leaders ushered us upstairs and taught us about Islam. The students immediately recognized the content and arguments presented. They weren’t caught off guard because they heard it during my training. Instead, they asked questions and gently challenged the Muslim presenters. Our entire time at the mosque was interesting, instructive, and cordial. After leaving, I debriefed the students and answered questions that arose during our visit.</p>

<p>Few Christians ever experience an encounter like this. But it has tremendous benefits. First, it teaches Christians about Islam and Muslims. This is an essential first step for an ambassador. The more you know about the faith, customs, and culture of those you are speaking with, the more you can carefully craft your message and foster an amiable connection at the same time.</p>

<p>Second, it prepares Christians for the Great Commission. Once an ambassador has studied the people they’re trying to reach, the next step is to engage them with the message (specifically, God’s offer of reconciliation as stated in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20). This immersive experience ignites a Christian’s desire to fulfill their duty to proclaim the truth. At the same time, they come away equipped with the tools to engage the largest unreached people group on the planet.</p>

<p>Third, it demystifies Islam and Muslims. Many Christians are ignorant about Muslims and, consequently, suspicious of them and what occurs behind the closed doors of a mosque. By bringing them inside and letting them interact and observe everything that happens there, it removes the shroud of mystery behind their religion. This opens the door for compassion and a Christ-like view of Muslims.</p>

<p>In fact, just before beginning the mosque tour, we noticed a Muslim woman (we could tell she was Muslim because she was also wearing a headscarf) staring at our group of Christian students. I know many believers feel a sense of trepidation about talking to Muslim women, feeling unsure about the appropriateness of engaging them. To our surprise, she approached some of our female students and politely asked for permission to come with us on the tour. Our students warmly welcomed her and they chatted together during our visit. She was extremely friendly and kind. But it took coming to a mosque, where Muslims congregate, to overcome the ill-at-ease feeling that many believers experience.</p>

<p>Fourth, it builds Muslim-Christian relations the right way. Many times, Christians try to build bridges with Muslims by finding theological common ground. Too often, however, this turns into mere appeasement, compromise, or syncretism. Peace between Muslims and Christians shouldn’t be pursued by bringing Islam and Christianity closer together, but by bringing Muslims and Christians closer together. There is no reason why devotees of different religions can’t have radically different theologies and yet still be great friends. The mosque experience is a step towards this healthier approach.</p>

<p>Fifth, it motivates believers to learn Christian theology. That’s because Islam isn’t just another religion—it’s the anti-Christian religion. Its doctrines are diametrically opposed to the Trinity, the incarnation, Christ’s death, His resurrection, and the atonement. When Christians talk to Muslims, they find themselves needing to defend their own convictions, prompting them to study their own faith with more vigor.</p>

<p>Finally, the mosque experience builds confidence in believers. Once you’ve role-played a conversation with a Muslim, studied the Islamic religion, learned how to respond to their objections, toured a mosque, watched their service, listened to Muslim teachers, and engaged them in conversation, you walk away with confidence to share your faith with Muslims. You’re ready to participate in the Great Commission in a new way. That’s the power of this experience.</p>

<p>In reality, what I’m doing would not seem strange to Peter, Paul, or even Jesus. They routinely put themselves in foreign territory to proclaim the message of reconciliation. That message, after all, is for all non-believers—those who have not yet accepted God’s offer for a pardon. Not only have Muslims not accepted this offer, they vigorously reject it. In fact, in the time it took to read this article, 79 Muslims entered eternity without accepting that pardon. This will happen again in the next three minutes. And in the next three minutes. And so on.</p>

<p>You can see what’s at stake. This isn’t a side issue. It’s not inconsequential. This is <em>the</em> issue. This is of enormous consequence. This is about the Gospel, the purpose of Jesus’&nbsp;life. That’s why I take Christians to mosques.</p>
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title: Cadbury Chocolate and Christianity
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 07/10/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/cadbury-chocolate-and-christianity
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Cadbury Chocolate was founded by a Quaker, <a href="http://www.history.co.uk/biographies/the-cadbury-family" target="_blank">John Cadbury</a>, who has a strong sense of social responsibility motivated by his Christian convictions.</p>

<p>His family were anti-slavery and campaigned for abolition. John opened a grocery store in 1824 and hoped that selling drinking chocolate would be an alternative beverage to alcohol. He was concerned that alcoholism led to poverty when people couldn’t work. He devoted himself to social causes after handing over the business to his sons 35 years later.</p>

<p>Richard and George struggled to improve the business and their product, and continued find ways of improving people’s lives. At a time when factories were dismal and dangerous places to work, the Cadburys made sure theirs were safe and humane. George was committed to social reform, and in 1893, they bought up land around their factory to build a community for their workers, named Bournville Village. They wanted to provide a safe, pleasant place to live as an alternative for grimy cities. Each home was comfortable and had a plot of land to grow vegetables. They built a community for families to enjoy activities. They provided their employees with good wages, medical treatment, educational opportunities, and pension plans, which was very unusual for the time. They introduced the 5-1/2 day work week and closing for bank holidays. The factory had sports facilities for the employees. In 1918, the Cadburys organized elected work councils, made up of equal numbers of wokers and management. The councils, one for men and one for women, oversaw the welfare of workers and their families.</p>

<blockquote>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/birmingham/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8412000/8412655.stm" target="_blank">George</a> said of his plans: “If each man could have his own house, a large garden to cultivate and healthy surroundings—then, I thought, there will be for them a better opportunity of a happy family life.”...The brothers set new standards for working and living conditions in Victorian Britain and the Cadbury plant in Bournville became known as “the factory in a garden.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>George and his wife used their fortune to benefit their community, opening a hospital, building a camp for city children to holiday, and donating land for parks. Their home is still used as Europe’s only Quaker study center.</p>
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title: God, Evolution, and Morality Part 2
topic: Science
author: Greg Koukl
date: 06/26/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/god-evolution-and-morality-part-2
content:
            <div> 
		<p><a href="/w/god-evolution-and-morality-part-1">Read part 1 here</a></p>

<h2>Can There Be Good without God?</h2>

<p>In 1982, I lived in Thailand for seven months supervising a feeding program in a Cambodian refugee camp named Sakaeo. My charge: 18,250 Khmer refugees who had escaped the holocaust perpetrated on Kampuchea by the Khmer Rouge after the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975.</p>

<p>The first-person accounts told to me of the slaughter that took place were mind-numbing. Even children relayed stories of unthinkable brutality. By 1979, nearly two million Cambodians had perished, almost half of the population. It was the greatest act of genocide ever inflicted by a people on its own population.</p>

<p>It’s virtually impossible for any thoughtful human being to countenance such barbarism—such innocent suffering, such inhumanity to man—without recoiling from the wickedness, the depravity, the unmitigated evil that took place there.</p>

<p>Surprisingly, though, atrocities like the Cambodian carnage provide an unusual opportunity for the theist and a striking liability for the atheist.</p>

<h2>The Brighter Side of Evil</h2>

<p>The problem of evil is a daunting one for Christians, to be sure, yet ironically it places us on very solid footing to make the case for theism. The very same problem, though, puts atheism on the ropes. To make this point during debates, I ask two questions of my audience after I describe, in gruesome detail, the events of the Khmer crisis.</p>

<p>First, what is their <em>assessment</em> of the behaviors I just recounted? It’s a rhetorical question. To a person, they judge the savagery profoundly evil. Second—and this is the important question—what are they <em>describing</em> when they call these acts evil? Do they mean to be describing the <em>actions themselves</em>—the cruelty, the torment, the injustice—or merely their own <em>feelings</em> or <em>beliefs</em> about the actions?</p>

<p>If the actions <em>themselves</em> are evil—if the wrongness is somehow in the <em>behaviors</em> regardless of what people think or feel (remember, the Khmer Rouge had no moral qualms about what they did)—then the evil is objective. If the wrongness is only in the <em>mind of the subject</em>—the person or group making the assessment—then the evil is merely subjective and relativistic. In that case, the atrocities were only wrong <em>for</em> those who object, but would be right <em>for</em> those who approve. The behaviors themselves would be morally neutral; Pol Pot would be off the hook.</p>

<p>Here’s the take-away: The problem of evil is only a problem if morality is objective, not subjective. Relativistic morality is not sufficient grounds for the complaint about human suffering. Only objective morality will do. As it turns out, though, objective morality supports theism and undermines atheism.</p>

<p>The theist must rise to the challenge of evil, to be sure. But for her, the problem turns out to be an ally. It fits her worldview like a glove. First, genuine wickedness depends on the existence of good in the same way shadows depend on the existence of light. One cannot have the first without the second. The theist accounts for that good by grounding it in the character of God. Second, the biblical view of reality doesn’t merely <em>explain</em> atrocities like the Cambodian massacre; it actually <em>predicts</em> them. It is precisely what you’d expect if the biblical take is true.</p>

<p>The very same problem of evil, though, undermines atheism. The atheist must also take his turn offering his own explanation for evil, but he faces a complication the theist does not encounter. How can anything be ultimately evil <em>or</em> good in a materialistic universe bereft of a transcendent standard that make sense of the terms in the first place?</p>

<p>When an atheist bemoans real evil—not the relativistic “evil”&nbsp;that evolution fooled us into believing or the actions violating a social contract that serves our cultural purposes for the moment—he must explain how objective evil could exist in the first place to make room for his protest. He must account for the objective, transcendent moral standard that has to be in position before moral judgments of any kind can be made. His complaint would be unintelligible without it.</p>

<p>So, the atheist who challenges Christianity by asking how God can exist in a world with evil faces a bigger challenge than the theist. The atheist must account for the problem of evil <em>and</em> the problem of good. The difficulty is, there is nothing in his worldview that allows him to ground—to make sense of—vice <em>or</em> virtue in the objective sense. There is nothing in atheism proper that allows him to say anything meaningful about morality other than that our current moral convictions reflect either our evolutionary adaptations or the fashion of the moment—which is to say nothing meaningful about morality.</p>

<p>No, the atheist has not gotten rid of the problem of evil by rejecting God. He has compounded the problem.</p>

<p>At this point, there are only two ways out for the atheist who is determined to cling to his conviction. First, he can try to deny objective evil, dismissing it as illusion or useful fiction. This would be a difficult pill to swallow, though, since his certainty that evil was real (and not a fabrication) launched his protest to begin with. Simply put, the atheist knows too much to go down this road with ease.</p>

<p>Second, he can cast about for an alternate explanation for our universal experience of morality. The current main contender is Darwinian evolution.</p>

<p>In the last issue of <em>Solid Ground</em>,<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup> I showed why that route is a dead end. I argued that since the moral argument for God is based on the existence of <em>objective</em> morality, only a successful naturalistic accounting of the same—objective morality—would be sufficient to undermine it. However, evolution is not capable—even in principle—of delivering to us anything but relativistic morality.</p>

<p>If Darwinism is only capable of explaining our <em>feelings</em> of morality—if the definition of good and bad is simply subjective and “up to us”&nbsp;in some sense (biologically or culturally)—then objective evil is reduced to a fiction after all and the complaint against God based on the existence of evil vanishes into the relativistic mist with it.</p>

<p>If, on the other hand, our indignation against evil is well-founded, then one’s objection against God is at least intelligible. Atheism then becomes the casualty, however. One cannot have it both ways.</p>

<h2>Good without God?</h2>

<p>Some atheists are not convinced, however. It’s clear to them they can be good without any belief in God at all. Just ask them. “I’m as good as any other religious person, pretty much,”&nbsp;Michael Shermer has pointed out, “and I don’t believe in God.”&nbsp;The defense rests.</p>

<p>In the same vein, New Atheist Christopher Hitchens consistently fired off this famous salvo during debates: “Name one moral action performed by a believer that could not have been done by a nonbeliever.”<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></p>

<p>Of course, this is not really the issue, is it? Careful theists do not claim that <em>belief</em> in God is necessary <em>to do good</em>, but that <em>God</em> is necessary for any act <em>to be good</em> in the first place, that without Him morality has no ultimate objective foundation at all. The question is not whether believers and non-believers can perform the same <em>behaviors</em>—of course they can—but whether any behavior can be objectively good in a materialistic world bereft of God.</p>

<p>For a simple rejoinder to Hitchens’s challenge, point out that an atheist can mimic many things Christians count as good—he can feed the poor, love his neighbor, even sacrifice his life for others—but he can never do the <em>summum bonum</em>, the highest good. He can never love God with his whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. He cannot worship the One from whom all goodness comes, and who therefore is worthy of our deepest devotion and unerring fidelity.</p>

<p>Of course, atheists would likely dismiss the point with a sniff and a sneer, but they mustn’t miss the deeper implication. At bare minimum, the response demonstrates that regardless of who is right on the God question, the entire moral project is altered significantly when He is added to the equation. Simply put, the atheist and the theist do not share the same morality.</p>

<p>The difficulty goes deeper, though, and Hitchens and those like him have missed the larger concern entirely. It’s what philosophers call “the grounding problem.”</p>

<h2>Goodness and Grounding</h2>

<p>Long before scientists hammered out the details of gravity, ordinary folk could still predict how objects moved under its influence. They knew <em>that</em> something caused (for example) fruit to fall, and they could calculate <em>how</em> it worked, to some degree. But they didn’t know <em>why</em> things behaved that way in the world.</p>

<p>The “why it works”&nbsp;issue is called the “grounding”&nbsp;question. What is it that accounts for things being the particular—and sometimes peculiar—ways they are? It applies in science. It also applies in morality.</p>

<p>Moral facts are odd kinds of facts. They are not merely <em>descriptions</em>—how things <em>happen</em> to be. They entail <em>prescriptions</em>, imperatives—how things <em>ought</em> to be. They have incumbency, a certain obligation to them. What explains these unusual features? What is their foundation? What “ground”&nbsp;do they rest upon? What—or who—actually obliges us and why should we obey?</p>

<p>It’s true that any sane, reasonable person can <em>know</em> the difference between right and wrong. But <em>why</em> there is a right and wrong to begin with is a different kind of question. Why do objective moral obligations exist? Why do they seem to apply uniquely to humans? And why do we go astray so often and so consistently?<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup></p>

<p>If one’s worldview is going to be comprehensive, it’s got to account for the things that really matter in the world. Objective morality is one of them. Atheists may <em>know</em> the right thing to do—and even do it consistently. That alone, though, does not bring them any closer to answering the grounding question.</p>

<p>An illustration might be helpful at this point.</p>

<h2>Readers and Writers</h2>

<p>Imagine I handed you a copy of <em>Vanity Fair</em> (a periodical Hitchens frequently published in) and asked you to read it. Could you? Sure. So could I. Reading requires only that we possess a certain set of skills mastered well enough to allow us to comprehend the meanings of the words on the page.</p>

<p>Notice that, strictly speaking, for this simple act of reading no <em>additional beliefs</em> about authors or publications or editors or typesetters or newsstands or delivery boys are necessary. You don’t need to <em>believe</em> in writers, etc., in order to be <em>able</em> to read, but you would never have a text to read unless there were writers in the first place. That’s because the existence of authors is <em>logically prior</em> to the skill of reading.</p>

<p>What’s required for someone to read, then, is very different from what is required for things like magazine articles to exist in the first place. Being able to read and having something to read are two completely different things. If you didn’t believe in authors, you could still read books. If, however, your belief were true and authors did not exist, then books would not exist, either. Books, then, turn out to be evidence for authors.</p>

<p>That’s why readers who deny authors sound silly. Sure, they can say they don’t need to believe in authors to be good readers, and they’d be right. They can challenge you to show them one article you can read as a believer (in writers) that they can’t read as unbelievers, and you’d be hard-pressed. Yet neither retort will rescue them from their foolishness. Articles are, by nature, the kinds of things that require authors.</p>

<p>Objective morality is the same way. The issue is not whether we can <em>follow</em> an objective moral code or not, or even <em>know</em> what its obligations are, but rather what accounts for something like a transcendent moral code to begin with. Denying God because you think you could be a fine chap without Him is like denying authors because you fancy yourself a first-rate reader and lover of literature, nonetheless. Morality is evidence for God in the same way that books and articles are evidence for authors.</p>

<p>One more detail: Morality entails obligation, and obligations—like contracts—are held between persons. If there is no <em>one</em> to whom we are obliged, then there is no obligation. Only a person can make a demand or issue a command, and only the right <em>kind</em> of person—one with proper standing and appropriate authority—can do so with legitimacy. The presence of a water-stained rock outcropping by the side of the road with the image “Keep Right”&nbsp;weathered into its face signals no obligation for motorists, nor does a ten year old waving a “Buy Lemonade”&nbsp;sign.</p>

<p>The only adequate grounds for transcendent moral law, then, is a transcendent person who has proper authority over the universe He commands.</p>

<p>Consequently, when atheists claim, for example, “We can be moral without God’s threats,”&nbsp;they’re simply missing the point. When they ask me, “If there were no God, would you still be good?,”&nbsp;it’s like asking if I’d still be faithful to my wife if I weren’t married. Clearly, the question is meaningless.<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup></p>

<h2>Science as Morality</h2>

<p>In <em>The Moral Landscape</em>,<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup> New Atheist and best-selling author, Sam Harris, <sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup> promises a way out of this predicament. Harris thinks the choice between Darwin and the Divine is a false dichotomy. There’s a third option.</p>

<p>Harris is not a relativist. He understands that moral obligations are real and require objective criteria. Yet the grounding need not come from God. Science can do the job:</p>

<p>Questions about values—about meaning, morality, and life’s larger purpose—are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. Values, therefore, translate into facts that can be scientifically understood... Morality should be considered an undeveloped branch of science.<sup id="fnref:7"><a href="#fn:7">7</a></sup></p>

<p>The tools to accomplish this, Harris says, are found in neuroscience and psychology.</p>

<p>The argument...rests upon a very simple premise: human well-being entirely depends on events in the world and on states of the human brain. Consequently, there must be scientific truths to be known about it. A more detailed understanding of these truths will force us to draw clear distinctions between different ways of living in society with one another, judging some to be better or worse, more or less true to the facts, and more or less ethical.<sup id="fnref:8"><a href="#fn:8">8</a></sup></p>

<p>Harris’s approach is straightforward. First, human morality is (obviously, to Harris) about human flourishing. Second, the means to accomplish that end are scientifically quantifiable (science can measure things that relieve suffering, increase satisfaction, etc.). Science, then, can provide objective standards for human morality.</p>

<p>Harris’s approach has advantages. For one, he aims to escape the relativism trap his colleagues have fallen into by appealing to empirical criteria. Second, he acknowledges the role of human flourishing in the ethical equation. I lack space for a thorough critique here (others have already given that<sup id="fnref:9"><a href="#fn:9">9</a></sup>), but I do want to briefly point out two serious drawbacks with Harris’s project.</p>

<h2>“Flourishing”&nbsp;Falters</h2>

<p>Harris stumbles first when he identifies the flourishing of conscious creatures, especially humans, with the good. Two problems here.</p>

<p>One, Harris has either simply equated the two by definition, creating an unhelpful tautology, or human well-being is already good <em>in itself</em> (it isn’t <em>identical with</em> the good, but it is an <em>example</em> of something that’s intrinsically good).</p>

<p>If the first, Harris has made no progress. Tautologies are mere repetitions telling us how words are used, not how the world is.<sup id="fnref:10"><a href="#fn:10">10</a></sup> They are conventions and therefore arbitrary. Why define human flourishing as “good”&nbsp;rather than, say, fern flourishing?</p>

<p>If the second, Harris is still dead in the water. If human flourishing is intrinsically good to begin with, then he has simply assumed at the outset what his project is meant to explain—objective morality. He has not grounded the good, but has smuggled it into the front end of his enterprise. One can always ask, “What, then, makes human flourishing good in the first place?”<sup id="fnref:11"><a href="#fn:11">11</a></sup></p>

<p>Here’s the second problem. The concept of flourishing is ambiguous. What, or who, defines human well-being? It’s easy to imagine a culture “flourishing”&nbsp;(according to some definition) in the midst of all sorts of things others consider evil.</p>

<p>Some want to live fast, die young, and leave good-looking corpses. Others seek a life of service rather than self-pleasuring. Some champion human rights, others ethnic cleansing. By what standard does Harris arbitrate between these options without presuming at the front end that humans were designed for particular moral ends to begin with—assuming, once again, the morality he’s obliged to explain?</p>

<h2>Bait and Switch</h2>

<p>Second, Harris’s approach is not ethical, strictly speaking, but consequentialist. It merely provides, through science, the most effective way to get the desired results (consequences). Whether those results are morally good or not is an entirely different matter.</p>

<p>This problem is easy to miss, since there are two entirely different ways for a thing to be “good,”&nbsp;and Harris bounces back and forth between them without warning.<sup id="fnref:12"><a href="#fn:12">12</a></sup> Behaviors that are morally virtuous are called “good.”&nbsp;However, the word “good”&nbsp;can also signal an effective way to accomplish a goal, irrespective of its moral content.</p>

<p>To make this distinction strikingly obvious, consider this: The Nazis stumbled upon the scientifically “good”&nbsp;way—the best, most efficient way—to kill Jews: zyklon B. Any liquidation of innocent people, though, is morally wrong, and the “better”&nbsp;you get at doing it, the more evil the act becomes.<sup id="fnref:13"><a href="#fn:13">13</a></sup></p>

<p>It’s hard to overstate the significance of this problem for Harris. Morality is not just an end, but a certain <em>kind</em> of end. Science is clearly capable of determining the most effective means to accomplish certain goals. However, just because science can provide objective <em>criteria</em> does not mean science can give grounds for objective <em>morality</em>. That must be established separately, and this Harris has not done.</p>

<p>In <em>The Moral Landscape</em>, Harris’s “objective standards”&nbsp;are nothing more than pragmatic criteria for accomplishing Harris’s vision of the good. His use of words like “good”&nbsp;or “right”&nbsp;simply identify the most effective means to an end, nothing more. Science is descriptive, not prescriptive. Nothing Harris has said changes that. His “moral objectivism”&nbsp;is just utilitarianism, in this case, a sophisticated form of relativism.</p>

<p>Clearly, the kind of robust morality necessary to both parry the moral argument and to ground the atheist’s complaint about evil is impossible on a materialist take on reality.</p>

<p>What moral provision is there in atheism <em>itself</em>—not in the individual views <em>held</em> by atheists, but central to <em>atheism</em>—that precludes genocide or that endorses, for its own sake, specific acts of genuine virtue? What are the moral dictates generated by atheism <em>per se</em> that guide us here? Where are the great acts of humanitarianism or self-sacrifice done in the name of materialism? What authentic virtues follow from a physicalistic view of the world?</p>

<p>No, atheism does not—and cannot—provide these things. It does not have the resources. Theism alone gives the only reasonable foundation for morality.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">“God, Evolution, and Morality: Part I,”&nbsp;<em>Solid Ground</em> (May 2014), available at str.org. [http://www.str.org/publications/god-evolution-and-morality-part-1#.U2vxKlx5qp0] <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">For a lucid response to Hitchens’s challenge, see Amy Hall, “Hitchens’s Challenge Solved,”&nbsp;at str.org. [http://www.str.org/blog/hitchens-s-challenge-solved#.U2vm21x5qp0] <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">Note the distinction here between the <em>epistemic</em> issue—how we <em>know</em> moral truth—and the <em>ontological</em> issue—how we account for morality’s <em>existence</em>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">Frankly, if God did not exist, my actions <em>would be</em> different in lots of things. What those differences <em>would not be</em>, though, is immoral. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">Sam Harris, <em>The Moral Landscape—How Science Can Determine Human Values</em> (New York: Free Press, 2010). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:6">See Sam Harris, <em>The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason</em> (New York: Norton, 2004), and <em>Letter to a Christian Nation</em> (New York: Knopf, 2006). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:7">Harris, <em>The Moral Landscape</em>, 1, 7. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:7">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:8"><em>Ibid</em>., 2-3. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:8">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:9">See, for example, William Lane Craig, “Navigating Sam Harris’s <em>The Moral Landscape</em>,”&nbsp;reasonablefaith.org [http://www.reasonablefaith.org/navigating-sam-harris-the-moral-landscape#sdfootnote1anc] or Tom Gilson’s “Unreason at the Head of Project Reason,”&nbsp;in Gilson and Weitnauer, <em>True Reason</em> (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2013). [http://www.amazon.com/True-Reason-Christian-Responses-Challenge-ebook/dp/B007J71S62] <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:9">&nbsp;���</a></li>
	<li id="fn:10">“Bachelors are unmarried males”&nbsp;is an example. The statement tells you about definitions, but nothing about the world. If neither bachelors nor males existed, the statement would still be true, but trivially so. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:10">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:11">For those concerned that this challenge puts the theist at risk also, see my treatment of Euthyphro’s Dilemma in “Who Says God Is Good?”&nbsp;at str.org. [https://www.str.org/Media/Default/Publications/DigitalSG_0312_New-1.pdf] <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:11">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:12">Resulting, in Harris’s case, in the fallacy of equivocation. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:12">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:13">That Harris does not consider genocide to be consistent with human flourishing is beside my point. I’m simply showing here that the word “good”&nbsp;can be used in two entirely different ways—a detail critical to my critique of Harris. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:13">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: Abortion as Injustice Interview, Part 2
topic: Bioethics
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 07/11/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/abortion-as-injustice-interview-part-2
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I was recently interviewed by students about the injustice of abortion. I thought I’d share my answers. You can read the <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2014/07/abortion-as-injustice-interview-part-1.html" target="_blank">first part of the interview here</a>. This post is the second part of that interview.</p>

<p><em>Do you know of anyone else who is already trying to make a difference? What are they doing?</em></p>

<p>There are many organizations and individuals working hard to make a difference. Besides myself and Stand to Reason (the organization I work for) there are other training groups, like Life Training Institute and Justice for All, that are trying to reduce abortions by changing minds. In addition, there are thousands of pregnancy resource centers that serve the needs of pregnant women. They provide pregnant mothers with prenatal care, supplies, and counseling to support them during and after their pregnancy. Many of these care centers also use ultrasound machines to show mothers images of their unborn babies. Sometimes abortion-minded women who see an ultrasound of their child will change their mind and carry their baby to term. By serving and helping them during their crisis pregnancy, these centers reduce the chances that the mothers will abort their children.</p>

<p><em>How many abortions do you think have been stopped through your program?</em></p>

<p>That’s a difficult question to answer because most of the time I don’t see the full impact of my work. The vast majority of what I do is training Christians to defend the pro-life view. When they actually engage in practicing what they’ve learned, I am not usually with them. The one exception is when I take pro-lifers out on the streets and engage abortion-choice advocates. Sometimes during my involvement in their hands-on training, we get a person who was abortion minded to change their mind. In several other instances, I have had students come back from engaging abortion-choice advocates and tell me that they prevented an abortion. But these examples are uncommon because of the nature of what I do. However, I do know that the pro-life principles I teach are effective and can change minds on abortion. In many presentations I’ve given on secular university campuses, I’ve had people tell me they are no longer pro-choice. These people may one day face a life or death decision and now I know they’ll make the right choice. Therefore, I’m confident that lives are being saved even if I don’t get regular reports of my impact.</p>

<p><em>What do you believe is the most effective way to combat abortions in the U.S. and also worldwide?</em></p>

<p>This requires a three-pronged approach: personally, publicly, and politically. First, individuals must <em>personally</em> commit to not have an abortion themselves. Around 30% of people who have abortions identify as Protestant or Catholic. So, first we need to act consistently with our own values and stop killing our own children. Second, we need to stand up, <em>publicly</em>, against the killing of innocent human beings. That means changing minds on abortion with friends and family. It entails public presentations and debates at universities and other public forums. It also requires that we serve women facing crisis pregnancies with the care, love, and support they need. Third, we need to fight against abortion laws in the <em>political</em> realm. Laws tend to inform the conscience of the culture. When we make a behavior illegal, it communicates that the prohibited behavior is also immoral. To combat abortion in these three realms requires that people get trained with effective pro-life tactics.</p>

<p><em>What governmental change do you foresee about the issue of abortion?</em></p>

<p>I think the government should act consistently. It is already against the law in at least 38 U.S. states to kill the unborn. If someone kills a pregnant woman, they are accused of a double homicide. Killing the unborn, in this case, is treated as murder. The only exception to this law is if the mother <em>decides</em> she doesn’t want to be pregnant, she can request a physician to kill her unborn child. But that’s not consistent. On the one hand, the government treats the unborn as a valuable human being who deserves protection. On the other hand, it treats <em>that same child</em> as neither valuable nor deserving of protection when something happens: the mother decides she doesn’t want a baby. Then, she can request a physician to kill her unborn child. Why does the government strip a member of the human community of their right to life simply based on the desire of their mother? The government isn’t being consistent and it needs to stop this behavior by treating all human beings under its jurisdiction equally.</p>

<p><em>How can young adults make a difference?</em></p>

<p>First, they can commit to not have an abortion themselves. Too many people who are attitudinally pro-life aren’t behaviorally pro-life when it matters most. They think their situation is different and, when in a bind, succumb to the pressure to abort. Unfortunately, the data shows many Christians are having abortions. This needs to stop. Second, they can learn the art of pro-life persuasion so they can change minds on abortion when the conversation comes up. All they need is some basic skills to help them understand the science and some simple philosophical distinctions. The evidence is on our side so there’s no excuse. Third, they can volunteer for a pro-life organization or pregnancy resource center. There are many non-profit, pro-life organizations that work hard at saving lives. Anyone can call them and ask how they can help by volunteering their time. Also, they can volunteer at a pregnancy resource center. These centers come alongside women who are abortion minded and serve them when they need help the most. Fourth, they can financially support pro-life speakers, activists, and organizations. The reality is that money is needed to fund the work of people who have committed their lives to ending the injustice of abortion. It is the holocaust of our time and money provides the means to ensure the work they do to end it doesn’t stop today.</p>
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title: Abortion as Injustice Interview—Part 1
topic: Bioethics
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 07/09/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/abortion-as-injustice-interview-part-1
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I was recently interviewed by students about the injustice of abortion. I thought I’d share my answers. This post is the first of two parts.</p>

<p><em>When, where, and how did you first become aware of the injustice of abortion?</em></p>

<p>I grew up as a Christian so, technically, I was attitudinally pro-life. But I was not behaviorally pro-life until becoming more aware of biology and embryology in my training and career as a physical therapist at Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center. It was then that I changed from merely thinking that abortion was wrong to actually doing something to stop the killing. Studying embryology and seeing graphic images of what abortion does to unborn human beings was one of the key factors that changed my awareness of this injustice.</p>

<p><em>What do you think makes it an injustice?</em></p>

<p>It’s an injustice for exactly the same reason that killing a two year-old is an injustice: it’s wrong to kill innocent human beings. Abortion is the same. It also kills an innocent human being.</p>

<p><em>How does abortion affect your life?</em></p>

<p>I have not had a personal experience with abortion. However, I’m basically a human rights activist so it grieves me to know that innocent human beings are being killed for mostly socio-economic reasons. Knowing that my tax dollars can fund this killing only makes it worse. It is also perfectly reasonable to be motivated to stop an injustice, even if you are not personally affected by it. For example, many women and children are trafficked and sold into sex slavery. Though someone may not have experienced such an injustice personally, it is appropriate for them to do what they can to stop that evil and protect women and children from becoming victims. We are all fellow human beings and caring for your neighbor is not only loving, but commanded by Jesus of Nazareth.</p>

<p><em>What grieves your heart most about abortion?</em></p>

<p>In every abortion that takes place, there are at least two victims. The first is the mother who is emotionally (and sometimes physically) wounded. Her decision to abort her child means she faced a crisis pregnancy. Something went horribly wrong. She chose abortion because there were many failures along the way. She didn’t have the love, support, and guidance she needed to make the right choice.</p>

<p>The second victim is her unborn child, who is fatally wounded. The unborn is the most vulnerable and defenseless of all the members of our human community. They should find themselves protected in their mother’s womb, given their vulnerable state. Yet, it is a place where unborn children are <em>legally</em> killed 2,899 times a day in the United States alone. Anyone who has seen images of the unborn after an abortion has seen the gruesome reality that befalls these innocent persons. It grieves my heart because our society is failing these two victims every day. I know we can do better than abortion.</p>

<p><em>What do you think should be done about it?</em></p>

<p>People should stop killing their unborn children and the government should make it illegal to do so. The government protects born children and adults from being killed by making murder illegal and punishing that crime. I believe they should extend the same protection to unborn human beings since they are morally equivalent to born ones. Until abortion is outlawed again, we should work to serve the needs of women who are facing crisis pregnancies and do everything we can to change minds about the morality of abortion.</p>

<p><em>How are you trying to make a difference?</em></p>

<p>I try to change minds on abortion. If we change enough minds, we can change public opinion. If we change public opinion, we can change public policy. Changing public policy means that laws are changed to protect unborn children and that saves lives. Plus, laws tend to inform the conscience of a culture. When a behavior is made illegal, people think it is also immoral. Until abortion is outlawed, changing individual minds can also save lives by persuading abortion-minded women not to abort their children.</p>

<p><em>How do you talk to someone who has had an abortion?</em></p>

<p>It depends on the topic of conversation, how recent the abortion occurred, and many other factors. I can say, however, that when a woman tells me she’s had an abortion, I’m quick to listen and hear the woman’s whole story. I don’t just make a case against abortion. Also, if I sense that she would be open to counseling or to a more pastoral approach, I’m eager to refer her to the many post-abortive ministries that are better equipped to help women who have had abortions.</p>

<p>Look for part two of this interview on Friday.</p>
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title: Slate: Don’t Let the Doctor Assign a Gender to Your Newborn
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/27/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/slate-don-t-let-the-doctor-assign-a-gender-to-your-newborn
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Remember when <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/it-s-about-the-difference-between-men-and-women#.W6lp7RNKijR" target="_blank">I said</a> that we should expect more attempts to erase the differences between men and women, and that the conflict in our culture over sexuality is, at root, a disagreement over “whether human nature is something in particular or a sea of possibilities bound only by what we can imagine for ourselves”?</p>

<p>Well, Slate has kindly illustrated that for me in its article “<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/06/26/infant_gender_assignment_unnecessary_and_potentially_harmful.html" target="_blank">Don’t Let the Doctor Do This to Your Newborn</a>”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>It’s a strange hypothetical scenario to imagine. Pressure to accept a medical treatment, no tangible proof of its necessity, its only benefits conferred by the fact that everyone else already has it, and coming at a terrible expense to those 1 or 2 percent who have a bad reaction. It seems unlikely that doctors, hospitals, parents, or society in general would tolerate a standard practice like this.</p>

<p>Except they already do. The imaginary treatment I described above is real. Obstetricians, doctors, and midwives commit this procedure on infants every single day, in every single country. In reality, this treatment is performed almost universally <em>without even asking for the parents’&nbsp;consent</em>, making this practice all the more insidious. It’s called infant gender assignment: When the doctor holds your child up to the harsh light of the delivery room, looks between its legs, and declares his opinion: It’s a boy or a girl, based on nothing more than a cursory assessment of your offspring’s genitals.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Male and female aren’t particular things. They aren’t <em>real</em>. And they certainly have nothing to do with what genitals your baby has. They’re merely a doctor’s “opinion,”&nbsp;and he’s stepping completely over the line by forcing his opinion on the baby.</p>

<p>According to the author, Christin Scarlett Milloy, “assigning”&nbsp;a gender to your child is potentially damaging:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We tell our children, “You can be anything you want to be.”&nbsp;We say, “A girl can be a doctor, a boy can be a nurse,”&nbsp;but why in the first place must <em>this person</em> be a boy and <em>that person</em> be a girl? Your infant is an <em>infant</em>. Your baby knows nothing of dresses and ties, of makeup and aftershave, of the contemporary social implications of pink and blue. As a newborn, your child’s potential is limitless. The world is full of possibilities that every person deserves to be able to explore freely, receiving equal respect and human dignity while maximizing happiness through individual expression.</p>

<p>With infant gender assignment, in a single moment your baby’s life is instantly and brutally reduced from such infinite potentials down to one concrete set of expectations and stereotypes...</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And there it is. We cannot stand to have any sort of ruler over us. We are gods, able to create even our own being by our will and desires. We answer to no one and nothing. No reality of what it means to be human defines us—not even our own bodies. We define all. We create all. We transcend all.</p>

<p>It’s madness.</p>
</div>

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title: What She Wishes She Had Known Before Going to College
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/28/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-she-wishes-she-had-known-before-going-to-college
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The Beyond Teachable Moments blog has an <a href="http://beyondtm.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/what-i-wish-id-known-before-i-went-to-university/" target="_blank">interview</a> with a young Christian woman who had a difficult time in college when her worldview was challenged:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The most troubling thing was the amount of differing beliefs and worldviews I encountered, from professors and other students. At the time I thought they had much better arguments than I did for the validity of their views.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The post is focused on helping parents do a better job preparing their children:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]he top-of-mind question I had for [the young woman being interviewed] was: what did she wish she’d known before she went to university? Here is her answer:</p>

<p>“I wish I had known that it was okay to doubt; it was okay not to know the answer; and that it was okay to ask hard questions and to challenge the answers.</p>

<p>I wish I had known that there was so much evidence in favor of a creator.</p>

<p>I wish I had known more history and had had a broader perspective on how the world operates.</p>

<p>I especially wish I had known arguments for the resurrection of Jesus, and had known enough to realize how real He really is and to have made Him the foundation of my life much earlier on.</p>

<p>I wish I had been exposed in-depth to different world religions, what their beliefs are and the historical background on which they lay.”</p>

<p>Remember that this young woman grew up in a home with regular family devotions and discussions about faith. However, questions like: ’How do I know that God exists?’&nbsp;would send her parents into a tail spin of worry that she was losing her faith. It became easier to conform to what they wanted her to be, than to openly question her faith under the safety of her parents’&nbsp;roof.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The interviewed woman continues with some <a href="http://beyondtm.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/what-i-wish-id-known-before-i-went-to-university/" target="_blank">suggestions</a> for what her parents could have done differently.</p>

<p>If I may also make some suggestions, visit our <a href="http://www.str.org/training/parent-resources" target="_blank">Parent Resources</a> page, invite Brett to lead your youth group on an <a href="http://www.str.org/training/mission-trips" target="_blank">apologetics mission trip</a>, and send your students to our <a href="http://rethinkapologetics.com/" target="_blank">reTHINK</a> apologetics conference in September.</p>
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title: A Conversation with Brett and Greg on Youth Ministry
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/04/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-conversation-with-brett-and-greg-on-youth-ministry
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Michael Horton discussed youth ministry with Brett and Greg recently on the White Horse Inn. You can download the episodes from <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/white-horse-inn/id356920632?mt=2" target="_blank">iTunes</a> or listen to the audio on the WHI website at the links below, where they’ve also collected related articles, study aids, books, and audio.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2014/05/18/whi-1206-keeping-our-kids-part-1/" target="_blank">Keeping Our Kids, Part 1</a>: “On this edition of White Horse Inn, I’ll talk with Greg Koukl and Brett Kunkle from Stand to Reason about various strategies of passing the faith on to the next generation. In particular, Brett discusses his own crisis of faith during his first semester of college and how that crisis affects his unique approach toward youth ministry.”</p>

<p><a href="http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2014/05/25/whi-1207-keeping-our-kids-part-2/" target="_blank">Keeping Our Kids, Part 2</a>: “Continuing the conversation, Greg Koukl, Brett Kunkle, and I discuss the importance of preparing our youth for a life of faith in a secular age. Not only should they be taught what they believe and why, but before they leave home, they should also be given some basic training in how to communicate their faith and how to answer those with opposing points of view.”</p>
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title: Hobby Lobby Decision Summary
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/30/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/hobby-lobby-decision-summary
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The decision on whether or not corporations like Hobby Lobby are protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act from being forced to provide free abortifacients via their insurance plan came down <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf" target="_blank">from the Supreme Court</a> today. Here’s a <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/381593/hobby-lobby-hysteria-editors" target="_blank">quick summary</a> of the decision from the NRO editors:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]he Supreme Court did not deny access to contraception to anyone. Rather, it ruled today that if the owners of a closely held company have religious objections to providing contraceptives or abortifacients in their insurance policies, the Obama administration cannot force them to do it.</p>

<p>The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) trumps the administration’s regulations. The act says that religious objectors must be exempt from a government policy that imposes a substantial burden on their beliefs if the government has a less burdensome way of advancing a compelling interest. Five justices of the Court ruled that closely held companies can be religious objectors protected by the law, and that the government can indeed make contraception more affordable without coercing these companies...</p>

<p>Congress remains free to enact a new law that requires employers to cover abortifacients and contraceptives and explicitly rules out any RFRA exemptions. It remains free, for that matter, to repeal RFRA altogether.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Just one important clarification, then I’ll have more on the decision tomorrow: The <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf" target="_blank">Supreme Court decision</a> wrongly refers to the Hahns’&nbsp;and Greens’&nbsp;“sincere religious belief that life begins at conception”&nbsp;as being central to the case. That isn’t the controversial belief in question. A new, whole, live and growing member of the human species begins to exist at conception and continues to be a live human being until he or she dies. That’s just a scientific fact.</p>

<p>The <em>actual</em>&nbsp;“sincere religious belief”&nbsp;of the Hahns and Greens being violated by the HHS mandate is one that claims <em>every</em> member of the human species has value and rights, regardless of his or her age, size, or characteristics.</p>

<p>The ambiguous use of the word “life”&nbsp;to mean both “living”&nbsp;and “valuable”&nbsp;is confusing and misleading. If our culture can fool itself into hiding behind the notion that we can’t even know whether or not the unborn human is <em>alive</em>, we’ll never be forced to openly face the real question of value and rights head on. If we don’t clarify the difference between “life”&nbsp;and “value,”&nbsp;noting where the disagreement actually lies, this equivocation on the word “life”&nbsp;will continue to obscure the real issue at stake, which is universal human rights.</p>

<p>I explain more about this needed clarification <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/mr.-candidate-how-does-religion-inform-your-view-on-abortion#.W6mEnBNKijR" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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title: Same-Sex Marriage Is “Expanding Our Sense of Possibilities”
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/25/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/same-sex-marriage-is-expanding-our-sense-of-possibilities-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>“Polyamorists are coming out of the closet,”&nbsp;according to the opening of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/380609/polyamorists-come-out-closet-celina-durgin" target="_blank">this article</a> by Celina Durgin. Acceptance of their lifestyle is increasing, but there are still legal obstacles to overcome:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Diana Adams, the other co-president of Open Love NY and a founding partner of a New York City law firm serving LGBTQ and non-traditional clients, has worked with polyamorous households. Sometimes she helps draw up agreements between married poly clients to prevent marital problems from arising because of their sexuality.</p>

<p>The policy concerns for poly community generally regard securing domestic partnerships among the members of a polyamorous relationship. Some of Adams’s poly clients want to opt out of the adultery ground for divorce and do so in out-of-court contracts.</p>

<p>“At this point, polyamorous people are not seeking to redefine marriage as a whole for all Americans,”&nbsp;Adams told NRO. “They are seeking to find stability within existing legal institutions, with creative use of the law as it is now.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I can think of <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/06/inconsistent-same-sex-marriage-advocates.html" target="_blank">no consistent reason</a> under the new definition of marriage (“people who intensely care about each other”) why these people should be denied what’s legally available to others. Why should only they have to use the law creatively in order to have their commitments recognized? This inconsistency in the law can’t survive. The reasoning will work itself out to its logical conclusion.</p>

<p>When you remove complementary genders from the definition of marriage, you also remove its natural boundaries (two sexes, two people; a union that creates children, a union that must be exclusive and permanent). Therefore, there’s simply <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2014/04/wheres-the-marriage-equality-for-throuples.html" target="_blank">no rational reason</a> to deny polyamorists their “right”&nbsp;to marry <em>under the new definition</em> (<a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2013/03/now-we-wait-for-the-ruling.html" target="_blank">even if you think practical problems could result</a>).</p>

<p>As predicted over and over, despite the adamant protests of same-sex marriage promoters to the contrary, the eventual support of multiple-partner marriage will be one of the consequences of changing the meaning—and legal definition—of marriage.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>“In almost all cases, I see parents who are exploring their own romantic and sexual possibilities on their own time, and that’s not affecting their children at all,”&nbsp;Adams said. “The same-sex marriage movement has initiated a lot of that conversation. Is it possible to have committed love and partnership without traditional marriage? The conversation is expanding our sense of possibilities.”</p>

<p>[Leon Feingold, co-president of Open Love NY] also acknowledges parallels between the LGBTQ movement and the polyamorous movement. Many consider polyamory an orientation rather than a choice. He called the broad acceptance of polyamory the “next big frontier for public perception to cross.”</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Why the First Hospital to Do Sex-Reassignment Surgeries No Longer Does Them
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/21/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-the-first-hospital-to-do-sex-reassignment-surgeries-no-longer-does-them
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Greg referenced this <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CB0QFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fpaul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120&amp;ei=Z8SkU7HbCYXZoATV5YJA&amp;usg=AFQjCNH5GNdwoFfHxiOmmQ9aUkkXzZPRDA&amp;sig2=O6RjkN9TB1YN-87s3NZ6og" target="_blank">article by Paul McHugh</a> (former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins) on the show Tuesday, and it’s worth posting an excerpt here, as well:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[P]olicy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.</p>

<p>The transgendered suffer a disorder of “assumption”&nbsp;like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature—namely one’s maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight...</p>

<p>Psychiatrists obviously must challenge the solipsistic concept that what is in the mind cannot be questioned. Disorders of consciousness, after all, represent psychiatry’s domain; declaring them off-limits would eliminate the field...</p>

<p>We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into “sex-reassignment surgery”—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as “satisfied” by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a “satisfied”&nbsp;but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.</p>

<p>It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription...</p>

<p>At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. “Sex change”&nbsp;is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Listen to what Greg had to say <a href="/w/stephen-meyer-the-design-debate-update-june-17-2014-" target="_blank">here</a> (starts at 1:24:40).</p>
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title: Men Have Forgotten God
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 06/26/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/men-have-forgotten-god
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn played a major role in the collapse of the Soviet Union more than two decades ago. He exposed the reality of Soviet prison camps and was also a critic of the West. The basis for his observations was his Christianity.</p>

<p>Solzhenitsyn was a committed communist until he was a young man. He was imprisoned by the Soviets at the end of World War 2 because he’d written something critical in a letter. He became a Christian in prison and began a writing career that would eventually expose the cruelty of the Soviet Union and contribute to its eventual demise. For fear of being punished, he committed his books to memory. After being released from prison in 1956, he found a publisher in the early 60s. His first book was critical of Stalin, which pleased the current government, but his subsequent books showed their cruelty and he fell from favor. He won the Nobel Prize in 1970 and was expelled from his country in 1974. He spent two decades living and writing in Vermont, until he was able to return to Russia in 1994.</p>

<p>He <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn" target="_blank">summarized</a> his writing and thinking about what he had experienced and witnessed about communism:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”&nbsp;Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”&nbsp;(Edward E. Ericson, Jr. “Solzhenitsyn - Voice from the Gulag.���)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>He also <a href="http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/2000/issue65/7.32.html" target="_blank">found</a> Western culture wanting because it had abandoned Christian foundations:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>At home, Solzhenitsyn had scolded the Soviet leaders for their attempted “eradication of Christian religion and morality”&nbsp;and for substituting an ideology with atheism as its “chief inspirational and emotional hub.”&nbsp;But once in the West, he scolded Western elites for discarding “the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice”&nbsp;and for substituting “the proclaimed and practiced autonomy of man from any higher force above him.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Scholar Edward E. Ericson, Jr., <a href="http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-20-number-2/literature-realm-moral-values" target="_blank">observes</a> that Solzhenitsyn wrote and spoke from his Christian worldview. His view of God and man is what motivated his influential writings.</p>
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title: A Shift in Rights
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 07/02/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-shift-in-rights
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The Supreme Court’s decision on the Hobby Lobby case upholding the First Amendment protection of religious expression (and conscience) is eliciting some odd complaints from those who are unhappy with the decision. The reason is that there has been a significant shift in how people think about the rights we have and the government’s role to protect them.</p>

<p>Traditionally in the American system, our rights are negative—we have rights that others should not take away, but others have no obligation to do anything to provide these rights. The main thing is to refrain from limiting the rights of others. The First Amendment is a perfect example. It says that Congress shall pass no law infringing on the rights of citizens to exercise their free speech and religious expression. Don’t inhibit these rights. But other citizens have no obligations to fulfill these rights, just not to infringe on them. That’s a negative right.</p>

<p>But rights language has shifted 180 degrees, and those that are often talked about now are positive rights. These are rights that citizens hold that create obligations on other citizens to provide. There’s talk of the right to clean water and decent housing. These are supposed rights that other citizens are required to ensure and provide. Those who object to the Hobby Lobby decision take this view of rights: Women have a right to the contraception of their choice, and these need to be provided by others when employers provide insurance. It doesn’t matter to their view that the few “contraceptives”&nbsp;in question in this case (because they are abortifacients) are still available to women, they haven’t been banned. Hobby Lobby has an obligation to provide this right by paying for them. That’s a positive rights view.</p>

<p>The clash of these two views of rights is clearly on display in this case. One side thinks employers have an obligation to provide this right to women. The other side doesn’t want the government requiring them to violate their religious consciences.</p>

<p>Imagine a group claimed they have a right not to go hungry and appealed to the government to make Chick-fil-a open on Sundays. This group has a right that Chic-fil-a has an obligation to fulfill. The owners point out that there are other options where people can eat on Sunday, and the government shouldn’t require them to violate their religious convictions. This is the conflict between positive and negative rights. Can citizens place obligations on others, or do citizens with religious convictions have a right not to be compelled to break them?</p>

<p>The great irony in this clash of rights-talk is that employers would have nothing at all to do with women’s “health care decisions”&nbsp;if the government didn’t try to compel them to pay for it. The problem with the positive view of rights is that the government ends up involving other citizens in the rights of others and often ends up treading on their rights. Most of the rights talk in the Constitution and historically is negative rights—the government must not violate these rights. That was the point of the Bill of Rights. The new positive rights often end up conflicting with negative rights.</p>

<p>There are two very different views of rights going on, and they are bound to clash over and over.</p>
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title: Hobby Lobby: Good News, Bad News, and a Warning
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/01/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/hobby-lobby-good-news-bad-news-and-a-warning
content:
            <div> 
		<p>To get up to speed on the Supreme Court decision on the Hobby Lobby case, see Joe Carter’s “<a href="http://blog.acton.org/archives/70256-know-contraceptive-mandate-decision.html" target="_blank">What You Should Know about the Contraceptive Mandate Decision</a>,”&nbsp;an <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/381545/hobby-lobby-ruling-ed-whelan" target="_blank">outline of the majority opinion</a>, the <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf" target="_blank">majority opinion</a> itself, and <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/hobby-lobby-decision-summary#.W6mEuRNKijQ">my post</a> yesterday (where I explain the bit the decision got wrong).</p>

<p>First, some good news from <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/eidos/2014/06/hobby-lobby-why-traditionalist-will-win-long-term/#ixzz369rhcwm6" target="_blank">John Mark Reynolds</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The most important part of the case is the (7-2?) dismissal of the dangerous idea advanced by the Obama administration that the “free exercise”&nbsp;of religion includes only “worship.”&nbsp;Religious people have the right to start “closely held”&nbsp;companies that reflect their religious point of view. <em>The radical idea that the First Amendment and religion are only about worship is dead at the Court. This is of great importance.</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Now some bad news from <a href="http://www.dennyburk.com/grateful-but-sobered-by-the-supreme-courts-hobby-lobby-verdict/" target="_blank">Denny Burk</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ginsburg agreed that the Green family’s “religious convictions regarding contraception are sincerely held”&nbsp;(p. 21). Nevertheless, she argues that their sincerely held beliefs are not a sufficient reason to find in their favor. For her, it doesn’t matter if their beliefs are sincere. The only thing that matters is whether or not those beliefs are valid. Ginsburg, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer believe that the job of the Supreme Court is to pass judgment on the religious views of the American public. In this case, they believe the Greens’s views were not “substantial”&nbsp;and can be dismissed as irrelevant. This is chilling.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Chilling, indeed. If religious freedom only exists as far as judges agree with the validity of the religious point of view, then religious freedom no longer exists. Since the reason why we need to protect religious freedom in the first place is the fact that <em>people disagree on the validity of religious points of view</em>, requiring our protectors to agree with our view before they protect us kind of defeats the whole point.</p>

<p>And finally, a warning from <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2014/06/30/the-hobby-lobby-decision-shows-the-culture-war-isnt-over/" target="_blank">Ben Domenech</a>, who points out that this decision will only mean that the government will shift the requirement to pay for these drugs from Hobby Lobby to <em>all</em> of us, through subsidies or Medicaid. As he says, most of us “are already subsidizing all sorts of life-destroying pills and implants, whether [we] like it or not”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>That’s one reason why the culture wars have only just begun. When the battleground shifts within a culture, moving from “my body, my choice”&nbsp;to a demand that others pay for and affirm those choices, the aggressors are incentivized to enshrine their perspective as broad mandatory policy, not just as a socially laudable practice. That’s why we’ve moved from a point where corporations providing benefits to employees was considered a good thing to a point where corporations which provide some benefits but not all must be made to suffer. You only pay for 16 out of 20 forms of birth control? Fascist.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>A few more things to keep in mind as you encounter the <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/381566/hobby-lobby-sparks-twitter-outrage-left-andrew-johnson-molly-wharton" target="_blank">outlandish, emotionally charged</a> things people are saying about this decision:</p>

<ol>
	<li>As the last quote indicated, this particular case was about <em>abortifacients</em>, not contraceptives in general. Hobby Lobby had no problem with 16 of the 20 drugs required by the HHS mandate.</li>
	<li>You can’t force your employers to be involved in your health care and then tell those same people to “get their hands off”&nbsp;your health care.</li>
	<li>Drugs that <em>prevent</em> your body from working in a normal, healthy manner should not be classified as “preventive care.”&nbsp;Pregnancy is not a sickness.</li>
	<li>Not receiving free contraceptives from your employer is not the same as being “denied access”&nbsp;to them.</li>
</ol>
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title: Just As I Am
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 06/23/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/just-as-i-am
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I heard a news story on the radio Sunday that the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., had a transgender clergy officiate at their Sunday service for the first time. Someone (the newstory didn’t identify him) said that this showed that God loves LGBT people just the way they are. There’s an element of truth to this, but it actually distorts the Gospel.</p>

<p>God loves us while are are still sinners. Jesus died for all of us while we are still rebels. He reaches out to us and offers us reconciliation in our current stats as sinners. But once we are reconciled to God, He doesn’t leave us just as we are. He calls us out of sin and gives us the Holy Spirit to give us that power.</p>

<p>Jesus told the woman accused of adultery (John 8) that He didn’t condemn her in the judicial sense under the Mosaic Law. The required witnesses were there to give evidence. So Jesus told her He didn’t condemn her, but He told her to go and sin no more. He didn’t tell her He accepted her just as she was. He told her to leave her sinful ways.</p>

<p>He tells all of us that.</p>

<p>Psalm 51 gives us the prayer of a contrite heart. God hears our prayer as sinners, but we ask Him to cleanse our hearts because they’re full of sin. While He hears our prayers just as we are, He doesn’t leave us as we are.</p>

<p>The false message this person in the news story gave is that our sin doesn’t matter in our relationship to God.</p>

<p>The Gospel is not that God accepts us just as we are. The Gospel is that we’re sinners whom God loves and redeems, and gives us the Holy Spirit to live lives that glorify Him and leave sin behind.</p>
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title: Religious Toleration
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 06/19/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/religious-toleration
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Thomas Helwys was one of the early Puritans in 17th century England. He and his fellow Protestant believers met in secret to avoid punishment for dissenting with the state religion. Helwys’&nbsp;wife was imprisoned and banished after her sentence.</p>

<p>Helwys wrote the <a href="http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/2007/issue94/13.23.html" target="_blank">first defense of religious liberty in English</a>, challenging the religious authority of King James I.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Helwys was entirely orthodox in his views on the Trinity and the atonement, but he defended the practice of adult baptism and therefore stood at odds with the state church. (At that time, infant baptism was linked with citizenship.) Helwys’s belief in the lordship of Christ over conscience led him to question the authority of both kings and churches. His treatise <em>A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity</em> (1612) was the first defense of religious liberty in the English language. Here he boldly stated, “The King is a mortal man, and not God, therefore hath no power over the immortal souls of his subjects, to make laws and ordinances for them, and to set spiritual Lords over them.”&nbsp;Christ himself is sole Lord in his Church and sole Lord over the consciences of people, and this means that no human being can exercise authority over another’s conscience. “For men’s religion is between God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the king be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Helwys believed in religious toleration for everyone, including Muslims and Jews.</p>

<p>He was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Helwys" target="_blank">arrested</a> and imprisoned, where he died about 1616 at the age of 40.</p>

<p>Helwys was one of the many voices speaking for religious liberty in the early 17th century, and the Puritans who came to North America established that principal firmly in American values and law.</p>
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title: How to Become a Hero
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/18/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-to-become-a-hero
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I can remember reading <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Hiding-Place-Corrie-Boom/dp/0800794052/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1403058614&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+hiding+place" target="_blank">The Hiding Place</a></em> (the story of <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/04/the-secret-of-rejoicing-while-suffering.html" target="_blank">Corrie ten Boom</a>, a woman who risked her life to save Jews during World War II) and desperately praying that I would have Corrie’s courage and self-sacrifice when I’m eventually confronted with a time that requires it.</p>

<p>How does one become such a person? Jonathan Parnell has some thoughts about this on the <a href="https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/would-you-tackle-the-gunman" target="_blank">Desiring God Blog</a>, where he writes about Jon Meis, a young man who risked his life to save his fellow students during the recent shooting at Seattle Pacific Unversity:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Who, then, are the ones like Jon Meis—a student considered a quiet and selfless guy <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/06/seattle-shooter-was-obsessed-with-columbine-police-say-as-the-student-who-stopped-him-is-hailed-as-a-hero/?tid=hp_mm" target="_blank">by fellow classmates</a>? What kind of person could actually be willing to step up in the face of danger? The answer may be getting clearer.</p>

<p>The person who’d be willing to put the good of others before himself in the event of great loss is the one who puts the good of others before himself in the hundred events of little losses everyday. “We are always becoming,”&nbsp;as Joe Rigney puts it, “who we will be”&nbsp;(<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Live-Like-Narnian-Discipleship-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00FDH5ZNC/" target="_blank"><em>Live Like a Narnian</em></a>, 52). “Right this minute, we are headed somewhere, and sooner or later, we are bound to end up there”&nbsp;(52).</p>

<p>The person of great sacrifice, therefore, must be the person of little sacrifices—the person who has discovered that the life of sacrificial love is the life of greatest joy. The response of sacrificial love in the midst of panic is the end of a trajectory that gets played out as sacrificial love in the midst of normalcy...</p>

<p>The big moment of courageous action doesn’t occur in a vacuum, but has behind it tiny moments of simple sacrifice that have been trending that direction all along. In other words, if we can’t wash dishes and change diapers, we shouldn’t kid ourselves with the idea that we’d step in front of a bullet. If we are stingy with our time and money toward those in need, we’ll be stingy with our lives when a gun gets pulled on innocent people.</p>

<p>Stories like Jon’s should make us pause and ask whether we’d respond like he did. But the question isn’t what we’d do in a particular situation; it’s about what we’re doing now.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>We won’t truly know who we’ve become until we’ve been tested. Until then, pray the Holy Spirit enables us to give up our lives in the everyday moments. “The person of great sacrifice must be the person of little sacrifices.”&nbsp;Now is the time to practice dying by His power, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[W]hoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark+10%3A42-45&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Mark 10:43-45</a>).</p>
</blockquote>
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title: When Your Argument Lacks Impact
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 06/19/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/when-your-argument-lacks-impact
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>The Christian message simply doesn’t make sense to everyone, or it raises questions or counter-examples that make it difficult to even countenance Christianity until those issues are addressed.</em></p>

<p>I like arguments. Not fights; arguments. They’re different. Fights—angry quarrels, silly squabbles—are not productive. They generate heat, not light.</p>

<p>Arguments—points of view buttressed with reasons—on the other hand, are one of the principal means we use to separate fact from fiction. Jesus used them. Paul used them. Peter used them. We should use them, too.</p>

<p>When arguments are done well, they honor God (remember, He was the one who said “Come let us reason together”). But arguments have limits; they don’t always work. When that happens, some are tempted to think that arguments themselves are useless.</p>

<p>This is a mistake. If you’re searching for that perfect line of logic capable of subduing any objection, you’re wasting your time. There is no magic, no silver bullet, no clever turn of thought or phrase that’s guaranteed to compel belief.</p>

<p>Yes, rational reasons can be a barrier to belief. The Christian message simply doesn’t make sense to everyone, or it raises questions or counter-examples that make it difficult to even countenance Christianity until those issues are addressed.</p>

<p>But often rational appeals fail to persuade for other reasons. At least three additional issues may compel the person you’re talking with to head south. And they have nothing to do with clear thinking, even when objections based on reason are the first to surface.</p>

<p>If your thoughtful response fails to have an impact, is not acknowledged or, worse, doesn’t even seem to have been noticed, maybe one of these reasons is lurking in the shadows:</p>

<p>1. Sometimes people have emotional reasons to resist. Many have had annoying experiences with Christians or have suffered at the hands abusive churches. Others realize that to embrace Christianity would be to admit that cherished loved ones now gone entered eternity without forgiveness and are destined to darkness, despair, and suffering forever. Emotionally, this is something they simply cannot bear.</p>

<p>Others know they would face the rejection of family and friends, suffer financial loss, physical harm, or even death if they considered Christ. These powerful demotivators can make the most cogent argument seem soft and unappealing.</p>

<p>2. Some balk because of prejudice. Their minds are already made up. They have prejudged your view before ever really listening to your reasons. They’re interested in defending their own entrenched position, not considering other options.</p>

<p>Cultural influences are very powerful, here. Resistance based on prejudice is especially true of religious beliefs and of non-religious beliefs (like naturalism) held with religious intensity. Often, Christians defend their own denominational peculiarities in a prejudicial way. They plow ahead with blinders on spouting the party line with no thought to the merits of the other side.</p>

<p>3. Finally, some people are just plain pig-headed. Their real reason for resistance is no more elegant or sophisticated than simple rebellion. They love darkness and want nothing to do with the light (John 3:19). So they persist in their mutiny, waging their unwinnable battle against God to the bitter end.</p>

<p>As you can see, we have very limited control over how other people respond to us. That’s largely in God’s hands. We can remove some of the negatives or dispel some of the fog—and we ought to try to do both. But at the end of the day, a person’s deep-seated rebellion against God is a problem only a supernatural solution can fix.</p>

<p>That’s why at STR we always emphasize faithfulness and obedience first, and results second. Ultimately, we must focus on—and depend upon—the Lord for everything.</p>

<p>Trusting in Him,</p>

<p>Gregory Koukl</p>
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title: What Are the “All Things” Philippians 4:13 Says We Can Do?
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/20/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-are-the-all-things-philippians-4-13-says-we-can-do-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>If you went to Sunday School as a child, chances are you heard, sang, and memorized-without-even-trying Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”</p>

<p>But without a knowledge of the context of the verse, it’s also likely you interpreted that to mean, “The sky’s the limit to what I can accomplish when Jesus helps me!”&nbsp;and that’s not exactly what this verse is about. In the spirit of “<a href="http://www.str.org/articles/never-read-a-bible-verse#.U6IJf41dVpE" target="_blank">Never Read a Bible Verse</a>,”&nbsp;here’s the <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+4%3A11-13&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">passage</a> in question:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in 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>The secret of enduring all situations—good and bad—with contentment is “Christ who strengthens us.”&nbsp;David Mathis <a href="https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-secret-in-every-circumstance" target="_blank">introduces</a> John Piper’s short <a href="http://vimeo.com/68629367" target="_blank">video</a> (below) on the meaning of Philippians 4:13 this way:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]he apostle Paul claims, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content”&nbsp;(<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Philippians%204.11" target="_blank">Philippians 4:11</a>)—and says it again, “In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”&nbsp;There is a secret for contentment not just in our greatest triumphs, but also in our deepest devastations.</p>

<p>What is “the secret”? <a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Philippians%204.13" target="_blank">Philippians 4:13</a> calls it “Christ who strengthens me.”&nbsp;Or, to put it in terms of <a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Philippians%203.8" target="_blank">Philippians 3:8</a>, “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”</p>
</blockquote>

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title: Start Preparing to Defend Marriage within the Church
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/14/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/start-preparing-to-defend-marriage-within-the-church
content:
            <div> 
		<p>We usually focus on secular reasons for maintaining the man/woman definition of marriage because there are plenty of publicly accessible reasons to give, and because until now, the people who have needed convincing about the definition of marriage weren’t those who would take the Bible into consideration.</p>

<p>But just because solid arguments can be drawn from natural revelation (i.e., by observing the world around us to discover <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/03/marriage-what-it-is-why-it-matters-and-the-consequences-of-redefining-it" target="_blank">what marriage is and the consequences of redefining it</a>), that doesn’t mean there aren’t specifically Christian reasons for man/woman marriage that we ought to understand and appreciate as Christians. (See <a href="/w/worshipping-images-of-ourselves" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="/w/why-do-christians-care-about-world-vision-s-marriage-policy-" target="_blank">here</a>, for example.)</p>

<p>And now that people like <a href="/w/a-response-to-matthew-vines-the-bible-doesn-t-support-same-sex-relationships" target="_blank">Matthew Vines are setting out to persuade Christians</a> that God does not oppose same-sex marriage, it’s more important than ever that we think about how marriage fits into the bigger story of the Bible. It’s more than just a question of interpreting a few Greek terms and a handful of verses.</p>

<p>To that end, here are some thoughts from an <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/06/n-t-wrights-argument-against-same-sex-marriage" target="_blank">interview with N.T. Wright</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>With Christian or Jewish presuppositions, or indeed Muslim, then if you believe in what it says in Genesis 1 about God making heaven and earth—and the binaries in Genesis are so important—that heaven and earth, and sea and dry land, and so on and so on, and you end up with male and female. It’s all about God making complementary pairs which are meant to work together. The last scene in the Bible is the new heaven and the new earth, and the symbol for that is the marriage of Christ and his church. It’s not just one or two verses here and there which say this or that. It’s an entire narrative which works with this complementarity so that a male-plus-female marriage is a signpost or a signal about the goodness of the original creation and God’s intention for the eventual new heavens and new earth.</p>

<p>If you say that marriage now means something which would allow other such configurations, what you’re saying is actually that when we marry a man and a woman we’re not actually doing any of that stuff. This is just a convenient social arrangement and sexual arrangement and there it is... get on with it. It isn’t that that is the downgrading of marriage, it’s something that clearly has gone on for some time which is now poking its head above the parapet. If that’s what you thought marriage meant, then clearly we haven’t done a very good job in society as a whole and in the church in particular in teaching about just what a wonderful mystery marriage is supposed to be.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Be prepared for this to become a challenge <em>within</em> the church, just as it has at <a href="http://www.albertmohler.com/2014/06/02/there-is-no-third-way-southern-baptists-face-a-moment-of-decision-and-so-will-you/" target="_blank">this church near Biola</a> (where one of my friends used to attend) that recently changed its position on homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Don’t be caught off guard by this; start thinking about it now. Michael Brown has just written <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Can-You-Gay-Christian-Homosexuality/dp/162136593X/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_pap?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1402710574&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=brown+gay+christian" target="_blank"><em>Can You Be Gay and Christian? Responding with Love and Truth to Questions about Homosexuality</em></a>, and SBTS faculty produced an eBook <a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Gay-Christian-Response-Conversant-ebook/dp/B00KBA8L9Q/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1402711260&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=god+and+the+gay+christian" target="_blank"><em>Response to Matthew Vines</em></a>. Those might be good places to start.</p>
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title: What You’ll Need Most to Continue to Engage Atheists
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/03/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-you-ll-need-most-to-continue-to-engage-atheists
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Can you love the kind of person who says this?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>There is perhaps no greater contribution one could make to contain and perhaps even cure faith than removing the exemption that prohibits classifying religious delusions as mental illness. The removal of religious exemptions from the DSM would enable academicians and clinicians to bring considerable resources to bear on the problem of treating faith, as well as on the ethical issues surrounding faith-based interventions. In the long term, once these treatments and this body of research is refined, results could then be used to inform public health policies designed to contain and ultimately eradicate faith. (Peter Boghossian <em>A Manual for Creating Atheists</em> (Kindle Locations 3551-3555), quoted <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2014/05/peter-boghossian-is-a-bigot-but-is-tim-mcgrew-brain-damaged/?utm_content=buffer360e1&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Those aren’t just words of disagreement, they’re dangerous calls to action that, if enough people were convinced to believe them in the future, would cause Christians—think specifically of yourself and the people you love—to suffer. Maybe you could love atheists like this for a while, while your passion and hope are strong, but not forever. Not on your own.</p>

<p>We all need to take seriously our need for God’s supernatural work in and through us, if we’re going to persevere in apologetics. Are you diligently pleading with Him for this?</p>

<p>What is needed is love in three interconnected areas: <em>Love among your fellow Christian</em>s, which encourages and builds up your <em>love for God</em>, who provides you with His <em>supernatural love for others</em>.</p>

<p>Our love for God drives us to honor Him by drawing more and more worshipers into His presence along with us. Our God-provided love for those we seek to convince keeps us acting in a way that reflects our message, making us a <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/be-a-parable-of-god-s-grace#.XABlKpNKijQ" target="_blank">parable of God’s grace</a> for them. And the love of the Church strengthens and stabilizes our love for God.</p>

<p>Without the foundation of church fellowship, worship, prayer, and God’s <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+13&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">most excellent gift</a> of love, we won’t persevere. Are you neglecting these?</p>
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title: A Reverent Scientist
topic: Science
author: Melinda Penner
date: 06/05/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-reverent-scientist
content:
            <div> 
		<p>William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, helped lay the foundation for modern physics. He was also a mathematician, engineer, and inventor. His most significant work was developing the laws of thermodynamics with James Joule. He invented submarine telegraphy and worked on the project laying the trans-Atlantic telegraph line. He was the first scientist to be honored with a peerage and received 21 honorary degrees. His work “portended the <a href="http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1985/JASA6-85Seeger.html" target="_blank">relativity theory and quantum theory</a>.”</p>

<p>He did not believe evolution could explain the creation of man and the variety of life, which angered Darwin and Huxley. He believed God created, and his scientific inquiry led to greater worship for the Creator.</p>

<p>Some <a href="http://www.adherents.com/people/pk/Lord_Kelvin.html" target="_blank">quotes</a> from Lord Kelvin:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We feel that the power of investigating the laws established by the Creator for maintaining the harmony and permanence of His works is the noblest privilege which He has granted to our intellectual state... As the depth of our insight into the wonderful works of God increases, the stronger are our feelings of awe and veneration in contemplating them and in endeavoring to approach their Author... So will he [the earnest student] by his studies and successive acquirements be led through nature up to nature’s God.</p>

<p>Overpoweringly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie all around us and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us our nature, the influence of free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend on one ever-acting Creator and Ruler.</p>

<p>We only know God in His works, but we are forced by science to admit and to believe with absolute confidence in a Directive Power—in an influence other than physical, or dynamical, or electrical forces.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>He was President of Largs and Fairlie Auxiliary of the National Bible Society of Scotland from 1904-1907.</p>

<p>He is buried at <a href="http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/william-thomson,-lord-kelvin" target="_blank">Westminster Abbey</a> near Isaac Newton.</p>
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title: A New Challenge
topic: Christian Living
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 06/09/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-new-challenge
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Alan’s monthly letter for June 2014</em></p>

<p>“The days of comfortable and acceptable Christianity are now over,”&nbsp;said Robert George. “America no longer favors faithful Christians...who are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage. Because of that, Christians must be willing to bear the consequences of standing up for the teachings of Jesus and His bride, the Church.”&nbsp;George is Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and a leading Christian voice. He spoke these sobering words last month at a prayer breakfast in Washington D.C.</p>

<p>He also asked a key question each of us must answer: “Am I willing to give public witness to the massively politically incorrect truths of the Gospel?”&nbsp;If so, you will face persecution.</p>

<p>He’s right. Christians who act on what they believe (or even state their unpopular beliefs) are now a threat to the American way of life. Things will only get worse. That’s why believers need to know how to respond.</p>

<p>I believe my work plays an essential role in that response. Before I explain more about that, though, I want to be sure you understand something about me.</p>

<p>I think you know me by now. I don’t usually shout from the rooftop my accomplishments. I’m not asking for applause. My purpose is not to seek fame or become the center of attention. I’m certainly not trying to win any popularity contest (especially given the controversial topics I teach on in the public square). I simply want to be faithful to God because I know my audience is One.</p>

<p>I want to make it clear to you, though, that my work with Stand to Reason for the past decade has been significant. Not just important, but critical to the spiritual health of believers and the church. I’ve been training believers like you to know and defend their Christian convictions.</p>

<p>I’ve been on the frontlines of the battle for life. I’ve authored popular articles on the web and debated a feminist at a university over the legality of abortion. Each year, I train students and adults in the art of pro-life persuasion and take many of them onto the streets to engage abortion-choice advocates. Not only do they get to practice their skills, but many times they change minds on abortion and save lives.</p>

<p>I’m also on the frontlines of the battle over two closely related subjects: homosexuality and same-sex marriage. These are watershed issues. My self-produced videos on these topics have been viewed tens of thousands of times on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=alan+shlemon" target="_blank">YouTube</a>. I’ve been featured on radio and television discussing homosexuality and same-sex marriage. I also wrote the book <a href="http://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BK379" target="_blank"><em>The Ambassador’s Guide to Understanding Homosexuality</em></a> to help believers understand same-sex attraction and navigate the complex relationships many Christians face with their friends and family who identify as gay and lesbian.</p>

<p>I’m also on the frontlines of the battle about Islam. Since one in every five people on this planet is a Muslim (and the number of Muslims in the United States is rapidly increasing), the need to know how to engage Muslims is ever more critical. That’s why I wrote <a href="http://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BK331" target="_blank"><em>The Ambassador’s Guide to Islam</em></a>, a book that equips believers with a powerful tactic to engage Muslims in a productive way.</p>

<p>I cover many other topics, including evolution, stem-cell research, physician-assisted suicide, the problem of evil, the resurrection of Jesus, the skills of biblical interpretation, and many more.</p>

<p>I realize you already believe in what I do. That’s why you pray for me and support my work financially. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It means a lot to me.</p>

<p>Many people who have partnered with me in the past have been unable to continue their commitment. People have lost their jobs, moved, or redirected their support to other ministries. The last year has been especially difficult as I lost approximately 30% of support.</p>

<p>Now, I need to find new people who are excited about training believers for the defense of the Gospel and are willing to support it. Would you be willing to help? If so, there are two things you can do.</p>

<p>First, would you tell me about a friend or family member who might consider supporting my work? By introducing me to them, I can send them information about the training I do and invite them to support it. If you’re not sure how to go about contacting them or what to tell them, let me know and I can give you ideas to make it easy.</p>

<p>Second, I hope my letters to you are valuable. My goal is not only to keep you abreast of where and what I’m teaching, but also to provide you with valuable insights about our shared faith. If you learn something from what I write each month, would you consider making a special, <a href="https://www.str.org/donate" target="_blank">one-time gift</a> or increasing the amount you give monthly towards my work? Remember, your contribution is tax deductible and 100% of it goes directly to my work of training believers like you to articulate and defend their convictions. There’s no processing fee taken out, and no part of your gift goes to someone else or the general fund.</p>

<p>Please pray that this year I will be able to raise the 30% of support I lost. Also, I want you to know that I’m so grateful to you for standing by me. Your prayers and financial support encourage me to continue the work of defending the Gospel. Seeing as the days of comfortable Christianity are slipping away, it will be important now more than ever to do the hard work of training the Church for the battle that lies before us.</p>
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title: God of the Gaps?
topic: Science
author: Greg Koukl
date: 06/10/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/god-of-the-gaps-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>When scientists claim that any intelligent design inference is an example of God of the Gaps, they are presuming that there actually is an explanation gap, that is, there simply is no explanation for the phenomena in question.</em></p>

<p>The “God of the Gaps”&nbsp;complaint comes up when theists suggest that design is a better explanation than a naturalistic one in certain areas of science, particularly the beginning of the universe, the origin of life, and the development of life from simple to complex over time.</p>

<p>The complaint arises when there does not appear to be an adequate materialistic explanation for some phenomena observed in nature, leaving an alleged “gap”&nbsp;of knowledge. In the past, some have appealed to supernatural agents to fill the gap, only to have science (in many cases) eventually resolve the issue by discovering a naturalistic explanation.</p>

<p>Darwinism is probably the premier example. God seemed the only explanation for the apparent “design”&nbsp;of the biological realm, until Darwin stepped in with a naturalistic alternative, making it possible, as Richard Dawkins famously noted, to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.</p>

<p>The “God of the gaps”&nbsp;objection is especially frustrating because the challenge often comes not just from materialists, but from other theists who are committed to the Darwinian model. That’s the backdrop.</p>

<p>There are a few important things going on with the challenge that you need to see.</p>

<p>Notice first the assumption that naturalistic science is the only discipline allowed to weigh in legitimately on these kinds of issues. Any reference to God as a causal agent is dismissed as “religion masquerading as science,”&nbsp;inviting the God-of-the-gaps challenge.</p>

<p>Notice also the underlying sense that, at the most, “God”&nbsp;is just a temporary placeholder until science discovers what really happened. Science is the source of true knowledge. Any “God”&nbsp;appeals merely signal ignorance.</p>

<p>How do we respond to this? There are a couple of things we need to keep in mind.</p>

<p>First, whenever the God of the gaps challenge is leveled, it’s a tacit admission that an explanatory gap exists, that is, no materialistic alternative seems adequate to resolve the problem in question at the moment. Sometimes it’s hard to see how some of these things can be resolved naturalistically even in principle.</p>

<p>Second, when ID theorists offer intelligent design as an explanation, they are not like some in the past who tried to plug a knowledge hole with G-O-D. To suggest that ID explanations are blindly appealing to the divine is to seriously misrepresent the view and commit the “straw man”&nbsp;fallacy.</p>

<p>ID scientists and philosophers have published substantial amount of serious research showing that the design inference is based on positive evidence for design, not the absence of evidence for materialistic alternatives. Yet this detail is constantly overlooked, as if the critics of ID haven’t read a word of what their colleagues on the other side of the aisle have produced.</p>

<p>Now, it might be that the ID crowd is mistaken in its conclusions given the evidence. But that’s a different discussion. As it turns out, instead of their ideas being weighed and considered, they’re dismissed out of hand as an empty appeal to the “God of the Gaps.”</p>

<p>Third, the “God of the Gaps”&nbsp;complaint is an example of circular reasoning—presuming that your point of view is true as part of the process of defending your point of view (e.g., the Bible is God’s Word because it says it is, and if it is God’s Word then God wouldn’t lie). Here’s how.</p>

<p>When scientists claim that any intelligent design inference is an example of God of the Gaps, they are presuming that there actually is an explanation gap, that is, there simply is no explanation for the phenomena in question. But in many cases, a “gap”&nbsp;only appears to exist because they are presuming that all explanations must be materialist ones, which is the very point at issue. If the “gap”&nbsp;can be explained by an appeal to design when the evidence justifies it, then there is no gap, just a different kind of explanation. However, if one first presumes that every event in the natural world must have a materialistic, naturalistic cause that he just hasn’t found yet, he’s presuming what he is required to prove.</p>

<p>Is the materialistic, mechanistic view of the universe adequate to explain everything? It doesn’t look like it, but materialists presume it is, asserting a gap of knowledge because there’s no materialistic explanation. That’s circular reasoning.</p>

<p>Finally, did you notice something else going on? When materialistic scientists claim there must be a natural explanation we haven’t discovered yet, they are not only begging the question on the truth of naturalism (circular reasoning), they are also guilty themselves of a gaps fallacy—a naturalism of the gaps, claiming that some future discovery of science will solve the problem. The only evidence they have that science will fill any particular gap is that science has been successful in the past. They could be right, but notice they are filling the alleged gap with their own faith in the future success of materialism, while ID researchers are filling the “gap”&nbsp;with a design explanation that’s based on positive evidence, not a leap of faith.</p>

<p>As it turns out, for many of the “gaps”&nbsp;of materialistic explanations there are perfectly reasonable design explanations that fit the evidence, if they’re allowed to be considered.</p>

<p>The basic rule of good research should be: Follow the evidence where it leads. Don’t fill gaps of knowledge with any kind of unjustified placeholder: either God or faith in some unknown scientific discovery of the future. Don’t opt for a “God of the gaps”&nbsp;or a “science of the gaps,”&nbsp;or a “naturalism of the gaps.”</p>

<p>When the evidence strongly suggests a materialistic explanation, go with that. If a materialistic explanation seems inadequate to the phenomena and positive evidence suggests intelligent design, go with that. Dismissing justified ID alternatives as a “God of the gaps”&nbsp;fallacy will not make the evidence for design go away. Rather intellectual honesty requires one always follow the evidence where it leads, regardless of how philosophically distasteful the conclusions may be.</p>
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title: George Cuvier: Zoologist, Biologist, and Christian
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 05/29/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/george-cuvier-zoologist-biologist-and-christian
content:
            <div> 
		<p><a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/cuvier.html" target="_blank">George Cuvier</a> launched modern vertebrate paleontology. He originated the major classification of living things based on the nervous system: Vertebrata, Articulata, Mollusca, and Radiata. He also proved persuasively that animals did go extinct, which was doubted at the time. He was a Christian who believed God had created the world with all the variety of living things and that all modern species descended from their original pairs.</p>

<p>Cuvier believed that all living things existed in their essential forms without significant evolutionary change, and organisms are functional wholes. He rejected common descent and evolution because any change in form would destroy the functional whole. Cuvier thought that the functional signs of an organism could be detected in any part, and he had an unusual ability to accurately reconstruct animals from small remaining pieces. He also studied strata extensively and would entertain audiences by examining the exterior of a rock that contained a fossil and accurately predicting what they would find when workmen chiseled away to expose the remains inside.</p>

<p>Cuvier began his career as the tutor for the son of a wealthy man, but was invited to move to Paris and appointed to the Napoleonic University of France. He served in various roles throughout his career, spanning Napoleon, three kings, and revolution. He was considered to possess one of the finest minds of his time.</p>

<p><a href="http://biography.yourdictionary.com/baron-georges-leopold-cuvier" target="_blank">Further reading</a></p>
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title: All You Need to Help People Rethink Abortion Is Clarity on These Three Questions
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/04/2014
source:
https://www.str.org/w/all-you-need-to-help-people-rethink-abortion-is-clarity-on-these-three-questions

content:
            <div> 
		<p>Scott Klusendorf spoke on “<a href="https://www.impact360institute.org/videos/how-to-make-the-case-for-life-in-a-post-christian-culture-scott-klusendorf/" target="_blank">How to Make the Case for Life in a Post-Christian Culture</a>”&nbsp;as part of <a href="https://www.impact360institute.org/videos/">Impact 360’s</a> speaker series, and it’s a great video to watch and pass on to others. Here’s the encouragement Scott gives at the beginning:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>When it comes to an issue like abortion or an issue like killing embryos for medical research, many of you feel that you’ve been dropped into an environment where you’re in way over your head, you’re outgunned, and you wonder if you have what it takes to be a faithful witness for Jesus Christ on a key human rights issue of our day...</p>

<p>I want to talk today about how we bring moral clarity on an issue like abortion when we’re in a culture that thinks truth can’t be known on it. And I want to focus our attention on three questions in particular. And my contention is that if you have clarity on these three questions, you will be equipped to engage on this issue.</p>

<p>You don’t need a Ph.D. in philosophy, you don’t need a master’s degree, you don’t even need a bachelor’s degree, I don’t even care if you have a high school degree. If you have clarity on these three questions, I’m convinced God can use you to start a conversation...</p>
</blockquote>

<p>These are the three crucial questions Scott clarifies in the video:</p>

<p>1. What is the unborn?</p>

<p>2. What makes us valuable as human beings?</p>

<p>3. What’s our duty in all of this?</p>

<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9" data-embed-id="93290215" data-styles="{&quot;width&quot;:&quot;100%&quot;}" style="width:100%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="embed-responsive-item" frameborder="0" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/93290215?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0" tabindex="0"></iframe></div>

<p>If you enjoyed this, I also recommend Jay Richards’s Impact 360 talk on “<a href="https://www.str.org/blog/how-to-alleviate-poverty#.XABmEZNKijQ" target="_blank">How to End Poverty in Ten Tough Steps</a>.”&nbsp;All of the videos of their past speakers are available <a href="https://www.impact360institute.org/videos/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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title: How We Glorify God by Sleeping
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/30/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-we-glorify-god-by-sleeping
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Too often when I’ve been busy, my sleep has been the first thing I cut back on. But after reading a post by David Murray on “<a href="http://headhearthand.org/blog/2014/05/14/arrogance-of-ignoring-our-need-of-sleep/" target="_blank">50 Good Reasons to Sleep Longer</a>,”&nbsp;wherein he lists (among others) the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual consequences of sleep deprivation, I started to reassess my attitude towards sleep.</p>

<p>I realized that I often view it as a luxury that needs to be sacrificed if I’m to serve God as fully as possible. I might even feel guilty when I give in to it instead of trying to do “just one more thing.”&nbsp;I’ve tried to force myself to live with less and less of it in an attempt to be more productive. The result is that I have, of late, seen more than a few of those “50 reasons”&nbsp;creeping into my day-to-day life.</p>

<p>Is it okay to sleep? Here’s what Jason McMartin had to say in “<a href="http://magazine.biola.edu/article/14-winter/how-can-sleep-bring-glory-to-god/" target="_blank">How Can Sleep Bring Glory to God?</a>”</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We glorify God by making known his greatness. Human sleep illuminates God’s nature by means of contrast and difference. Humans must sleep and can die if they do not. God’s sleeplessness shows his independence; our sleepfulness reveals our dependence. We cannot not sleep; God cannot sleep. God is blessed in himself, which includes his self-existence and independence. He has the source of life and joy in himself (1 Thess. 1:9; Ps. 36:9; John 1:3-4; Jer. 32:36-41; Zeph. 3:17) and is in need of nothing to possess these things. Sleep brings glory to God by showing that we are not blessed in ourselves and must receive blessing from God’s hand. If we are to possess existence, life, joy or anything at all, we must receive them from God as gifts of grace. Appropriately then, we glorify God in sleep without being able to help it. Sleep shows my creatureliness in contrast to the Almighty Creator who gives me life...</p>

<p>In Scripture, trust emerges as the basic theme concerning the spiritual significance of sleep... Psalm 127 expresses trust in God for success in one’s endeavors of building a house, guarding a city and growing a family. Sleepless activity will not ensure that our efforts will be rewarded. Jesus models trust for us by sleeping in the midst of a storm (Mark 4:35-41). The Good Shepherd causes his sheep to lie down in places of abundance and security (Ez. 34:14-15; Ps. 23; Mark 6:39; John 10:1-18); submission to that guidance and provision is an expression of trust.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It’s more than okay to sleep. It’s more than okay to stop working at night, though there’s no end to what could be done for the sake of God’s kingdom. Sleeping is more than just the way God designed us to function; it’s actually a daily confession of our own limitations, our dependence on God, and our trust in Him to run the world.</p>

<p>We don’t just glorify God by working, we glorify Him by sleeping.</p>
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title: Questions to Help You Study Well
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/11/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/questions-to-help-you-study-well
content:
            <div> 
		<p>If you regularly read this blog, you’re probably interested in ideas—learning them, examining them, explaining them, and passing them on. This worthy passion has its own particular dangers and pitfalls (such as forgetting the bigger picture of <em>why</em> we do what we do or losing sight of the purpose of all gifts and talents: the service of others to the glory of God).</p>

<p>The ever-interesting Fred Sanders of Scriptorium Daily has a <a href="http://scriptoriumdaily.com/christian-studying-bickerstethwatts/" target="_blank">post on Edward Bickersteth</a> (1786-1850), who compiled some “Questions for Self-Examination”&nbsp;for students that are worth reading and considering:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>What is my great design in giving myself to study, and what is my daily view and purpose in pursuing it?</p>

<p>Have I entirely given up myself to our Lord Jesus Christ to serve him unreservedly and supremely?</p>

<p>Do I every day seek direction and blessing from God in all my studies?</p>

<p>In labouring after knowledge in human sciences, do I always make the service of Christ my supreme design?</p>

<p>Do I pursue my studies daily as one that must give account of my time and of all my advantages?</p>

<p>How many hours have I this day spent in study, or for the pursuit of knowledge, allowing for the great maxim, that to pray well is to study well?</p>

<p>Do I pursue practical divinity as well as the knowledge of doctrines and controversies?</p>

<p>Am I solicitous that my soul may grow in grace by every increasing degree of Christian knowledge?</p>

<p>Do I choose my company by their seriousness, as well as by their ingenuity and learning?</p>

<p>Do I take constant care to avoid all company which may be dangerous to my morals or to my studies?</p>

<p>Have I been in any company where I have received good myself, or done good to others?</p>

<p>Have I indulged myself in anything so as to put my mind out of frame for evening worship?</p>

<p>Have I suffered any thing to carry away my heart from God, so as to make me neglect devotion, or perform it in a slight or careless manner?</p>

<p>Do I watch against all evil appetites and passions, and endeavor to subdue them early, that I may learn by my own experience, and teach others by my own example?</p>

<p>Am I ever seeking the spiritual good of all around me?</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://scriptoriumdaily.com/christian-studying-bickerstethwatts/" target="_blank">Read more</a>.</p>
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title: You Really Can Memorize Whole Books of the Bible
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/21/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/you-really-can-memorize-whole-books-of-the-bible
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I completely agree with Andrew Davis’s recommendation that we work toward memorizing whole books of the Bible. From Joe Carter’s <a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/skip-the-verse-memorize-the-book-andrew-davis-on-extended-bible-memorizatio" target="_blank">interview</a> with Davis at the Gospel Coalition:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The Word of God comes to us, for the most part, in paragraphs—developed trains of thought that tell a story (narrative, Gospels), unfold a law (Pentateuch), make a doctrinal argument (epistles), make a case against God’s people and their sins or reveal the future of God’s people (prophets), or describe in complex imagery an apocalyptic vision of the future (Revelation). Individual verses do not capture the train of thought and therefore are more likely to be taken out of context.</p>

<p>The fuller the section of Scripture we can memorize, the better. Also, Jesus said, “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”&nbsp;(<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Matt.%204.4" target="_blank">Matt. 4:4</a>). Memorizing individual verses usually gravitates to the more “famous”&nbsp;verses and likely misses some precious truths hidden in less familiar verses. Memorizing whole books gives people a sense of the perfection of every word of God. It is a continual learning experience, a journey of discovery in which details come alive with incredible power. I am in awe of the majesty of every word of Scripture, and that has come in great part from 30 years of memorizing less famous verses and seeing the wisdom of God in every letter.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The <a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2014/05/12/skip-the-verse-memorize-the-book-andrew-davis-on-extended-bible-memorization/" target="_blank">interview</a> explains more about the method Davis developed for doing this, or you can get his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/An-Approach-Extended-Memorization-Scripture-ebook/dp/B00JJPZUZM?tag=thegospcoal-20" target="_blank">e-book</a> for a full explanation (it’s only $0.99 right now).</p>

<p>I haven’t read his book yet, but it sounds like a good place for you to start, and eventually you’ll figure out the method that works best for you (e.g., I’ve found that memorizing while I’m walking increases my retention exponentially). Sometimes all it takes to get started memorizing a book of the Bible is just knowing that such a thing is possible.</p>

<p>It’s worth your time and effort. For me, reading a book of the Bible <a href="http://scriptoriumdaily.com/james-gray-on-mastering-the-bible/" target="_blank">James Gray style</a> for a month, coupled with extensive memorization in that book, has been life-changing. (I alternate every other month with reading straight through the Bible, picking up where I left off and reading as far as I can, so that I continue to get a regular dose of the big picture, as well.)</p>
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title: “Red Letter” Christians—June 2014 Mentoring Letter
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 06/02/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/-red-letter-christians-june-2014-mentoring-letter
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Arguing from Jesus’&nbsp;silence on issues is not only a logical misstep, but theologically incorrect.</em></p>

<p>Dear Friend,</p>

<p>Twice recently I’ve noticed people making a theological point based on what Jesus, allegedly, did not say. In both instances I have the same questions: So what? Why should it matter what Jesus did not say?</p>

<p>I have three points in mind with these questions. They have to do with a tactical maneuver, a misstep in thinking, and a misunderstanding about the Bible that so-called “red letter”&nbsp;Christians seem to fall into.</p>

<p>First, notice the tactic being employed here: appeal to authority. The person making the comment is trying to bolster her point of view by enlisting Jesus as her ally, as a person whose views must be reckoned with.</p>

<p>Now, on this point I completely agree. What’s odd, though, is that this appeal is often made by people who seem completely unconcerned with Jesus’&nbsp;opinion until it appears He sides with them. This looks suspiciously like special pleading. If, for example, Jesus had condemned the behavior in question, would that make a difference to the challenger? If not, then why bring Jesus into the discussion at all?</p>

<p>So, first I want to point out that if Jesus’&nbsp;opinion on any one issue matters, maybe we should take His counsel on other things for the same reason. If Jesus was a sage to be reckoned with, did He say anything else that bears on the controversy in question?</p>

<p>For example, even if we have no record of Jesus’&nbsp;thoughts on, say homosexuality, did He weigh in on the closely related issue of marriage? He did, it turns out: From the beginning, God designed, endorsed, and intended marriage and sex (“one flesh”) solely for long term, monogamous, heterosexual unions (Matt. 19:4-5). Shouldn’t this teaching of Jesus’&nbsp;have a legitimate bearing on the debate, if His opinion really matters?</p>

<p>Now to the logical misstep. Nothing meaningful can be concluded from Jesus’&nbsp;reticence on any issue because it’s a mistake to assume Christ must favor whatever He doesn’t explicitly condemn. If Jesus’&nbsp;alleged silence means He was pro gay, then He must have been pro gay bashing, pro child molesting, and pro slavery, too, since He never directly condemned those behaviors, either.</p>

<p>By the way, I refer to Jesus’&nbsp;“alleged”&nbsp;silence because not everything He said and did is on record. In fact, the vast majority is not (note Jn. 21:25). The Gospels are biographical sketches, not exhaustive records of Jesus’&nbsp;sentiments. The vast majority of His ethical opinions were irrelevant to the main message: the person and work of Christ.</p>

<p>But there’s a deeper theological concern here regarding Scripture, especially when the “Jesus never said anything about that”&nbsp;comment comes from a Christian. The mistake is thinking that the verses in red letters (the actual words of Jesus) have more authority than the rest of the Bible.</p>

<p>In his new book, <em>A Call to Action</em>, Jimmy Carter argues against the male dominance promoted in Christian circles in part by noting that the Gospels “never report any instance of Jesus’&nbsp;condoning sexual discrimination or the implied subservience or inferiority of women.”</p>

<p>Though I’m certain the former President has valuable things to say about the plight of women in the world, this way of arguing is counterproductive since it ultimately undermines the authority of all Scripture, including the texts in red letters.</p>

<p>Our doctrine of Scripture entails that all the holy writings are “God breathed”&nbsp;(called verbal plenary inspiration). Therefore, Jesus’&nbsp;words have no more authority than Jude’s, and Paul’s words have no less authority than Christ’s. In fact, since Jesus is God—the same God who inspired all of Scripture—in a very real sense, Titus’s words and Paul’s words are Jesus’&nbsp;words.</p>

<p>Since the same doctrine supporting Jesus’&nbsp;words endorses every other biblical writer, singling out Jesus as a special authority undermines the doctrine of inspiration for all of Scripture. Consequently, Jesus’&nbsp;own words fall under the cloud, especially since He wrote nothing Himself, but entrusted that task to His followers.</p>

<p>No, nothing helpful follows from Jesus’&nbsp;apparent silence on any issue. Don’t make this mistake yourself. And don’t let others slip it by you, either. Simply say, “Jesus never said anything about that? So what? Let’s look at what the Bible does say.”</p>

<p>Thanks for standing with Stand to Reason.</p>

<p>Thoughtfully yours,</p>

<p>Gregory Koukl</p>
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title: Christianity Worth Thinking About
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 05/26/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/christianity-worth-thinking-about
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Even with the popularity of the so-called “new atheists”—Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins—it’s clear to me that it’s no leap of faith to believe in God.</em></p>

<p>I noticed something stunning a few years back while paging through Frederick Coppleston’s landmark work, A History of Philosophy, for a class. Virtually every major thinker in the history of western civilization since Aristotle was a deeply committed Christian theist.</p>

<p>The list is impressive: Irenaeus, Eusebius, Augustine, John Duns Scotus, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, Rene Descartes, Gottfried Leibniz. It isn’t until the Enlightenment that God and the Bible are not a standard part of the philosophic equation.</p>

<p>For 18 centuries, those who thought deeply and carefully about reality did so with the conviction that God was real, that Jesus was His messiah, and the Gospel was the power of God to change lives.</p>

<p>Let me tell you why this discovery was so important to me. As you may know, I used to think I was too smart to be a Christian. As an Honors College student in pre-law at Michigan State University, I thought Jesus was for socially unacceptable fools who needed someone to do their thinking for them.</p>

<p>So when I was drawn into the Kingdom, it was an epiphany of sorts to realize how wrong I was. Early on I discovered Francis Schaeffer and his seminal trilogy—The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason, and He Is There and He Is Not Silent. Then there was C.S. Lewis, Josh McDowell, J.P. Moreland, and a host of others since.</p>

<p>These luminous minds convinced me that Christianity is worth thinking about. It’s a phrase I know you’ve heard me use often. I open my talks at radically liberal schools like Cal Berkeley, UC San Diego, UCLA, and Ohio State with those words.</p>

<p>It’s become almost synonymous with STR. In fact, I frequently use both phrases together: “Stand to Reason—Christianity worth thinking about.”</p>

<p>Even with the popularity of the so-called “new atheists”—Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins—it’s clear to me that it’s no leap of faith to believe in God. In fact, the more we learn about science, the more credible Christianity becomes. Recently the number one philosophical atheist in the world, Antony Flew, did a dramatic about-face and embraced theism—against his will, as it were—on the strength of the scientific evidence for a designer.</p>

<p>Believing in leprechauns is a leap of faith. Believing in God is like believing in atoms. You follow the evidence of what you can see to conclude the existence of something you cannot see. The process is exactly the same. The effect needs a cause adequate to explain it.</p>

<p>There is nothing unreasonable about the idea of a personal God creating the material universe. A Big Bang needs a “big Banger,”&nbsp;it seems to me. A complex set of instructions (as in DNA) needs an author. A blueprint requires an engineer. A moral law needs a moral law giver. This is not a leap. This is a step of intelligent reflection.</p>

<p>It’s also not a leap to believe in the Jesus of the Gospels. Eminent historian Will Durant, author of the 11 volume set, The Story of Civilization, after a careful assessment of all the evidence, concluded:</p>

<p>No one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic, and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels.</p>

<p>All views and religions give you a picture of the world. That’s what a worldview is. The more I read, the more I study, the more I thoughtfully reflect, though, the more I’m convinced that Jesus doesn’t just give us a view of the world. He gives us a view of reality. When you follow Him, you’re not wishing on a star, you’re living in the real world.</p>

<p>On the rear window of my car I have a red sticker. It’s the STR emblem with “Stand to Reason”&nbsp;printed above it and a profound four-word phrase below: “Christianity Worth Thinking About.”</p>

<p>It’s a constant reminder to me and to others that when I’m following Christ, I’m not practicing a fantasy. I’m practicing reality. And so are you.</p>

<p>I’d like to highlight the word “worth”&nbsp;as a motivation for your decision to support STR today. Where there is worth, there is always value. I want you to look back over this past year. In your involvement with STR, have we been a value to you?</p>

<p>If so, I hope you believe us worthy of your support, and will choose to send a gift today.</p>

<p>Thoughtfully and thankfully,</p>

<p>Gregory Koukl</p>
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title: Michaelson: Gay Culture Will Affect Marriage, Not the Other Way Around
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/28/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/michaelson-gay-culture-will-affect-marriage-not-the-other-way-around
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In “<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/27/did-christians-get-gay-marriage-right.html" target="_blank">Were Christians Right about Gay Marriage All Along?</a>”&nbsp;Jay Michaelson asks a question that’s currently dividing the country: “What if gay marriage really will change the institution of marriage, shifting conceptions around monogamy and intimacy? On the other hand, what if the domesticating institution of marriage changes—and even erases—the more libertine tendencies of gay culture?”</p>

<p>Michaelson points out that both “ultra-conservatives”&nbsp;and “radical liberationists”&nbsp;oppose same-sex marriage—conservatives because they fear it will change the institution in fundamental ways, and liberationists because they fear it <em>won’t</em>: “[N]ormalizing marriage is a narrowing, rather than an expanding, of sexual possibility,”&nbsp;and, “If your agenda is liberation, then the vision of same-sex marriage, in which gays become domesticated and live happily ever after, is a kind of nightmare.”</p>

<p>But Michaelson thinks the liberationists need not fear. His prediction falls on the side of same-sex marriage changing the institution, and he supports that as a good thing:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]here is some truth to the conservative claim that gay marriage is changing, not just expanding, marriage. According to a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2906147/" target="_blank">2013 study</a>, about half of gay marriages surveyed (admittedly, the study was conducted in San Francisco) were not strictly monogamous.</p>

<p>This fact is well-known in the gay community—indeed, we assume it’s more like three-quarters. But it’s been fascinating to see how my straight friends react to it. Some feel they’ve been duped: They were fighting for marriage equality, not marriage redefinition...</p>

<p>What would happen if gay non-monogamy—and I’ll include writer Dan Savage’s “monogamish”&nbsp;model, which involves extramarital sex once a year or so—actually starts to spread to straight people? ...Is non-monogamy one of the things same-sex marriage can teach straight ones, along with egalitarian chores and matching towel sets?...</p>

<p>Maybe instead of jealousy, non-monogamous couples will cultivate “compersion”&nbsp;to take pleasure in their partners’&nbsp;sexual delight.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>His conclusion:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Notice, by the way, that the ultra-conservatives and the radical liberationists share the same vision of LGBT liberation. Whether as dream or nightmare, both see it as destroying conventional notions of church and state. The only question is whether same-sex marriage will speed or slow the process. And, of course, whether it’s for better or for worse.</p>

<p>The mainstream LGBT movement, meanwhile, still insists that neither of these futures will come to pass. Don’t worry, they say, we’re not out to smash anything.</p>

<p>Who’s right? Only time will tell...</p>

<p>[I]f I had to predict, I’d go with a gradual realization of the conservative nightmare—only it won’t be a nightmare, and plenty of straight people will thank us for it. Maybe gays will preserve marriage precisely by redefining, expanding, and reforming it—and maybe then it can be palatable to progressives, as one of a multitude of options.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If any liberals or conservatives who supported same-sex marriage feel they’ve been duped, it’s only because they weren’t listening to those who explained the <a href="/w/same-sex-marriage-won-t-be-enough" target="_blank">consequences</a> of detaching marriage from two complementary sexes whose union completes “one flesh”&nbsp;and creates new life. Marriage is <a href="/w/ryan-anderson-what-is-marriage-" target="_blank">monogamous</a> because two complete the union. Marriage is <a href="/w/ryan-anderson-what-is-marriage-" target="_blank">permanent</a> because that union creates children who need to be raised.</p>

<p>Other unions do not complete the human reproductive system and create children, therefore monogamy and permanence are not central. Rather, what’s central is the sexual and emotional fulfillment of the participants, and who’s to say there’s one best way to accomplish that? Therefore, the radical activists seek “liberation”—the freedom to seek their own fulfillment however they see fit. No boundaries, no rules, no societal expectations. Each person acting as his own god, defining for himself what it means to be human.</p>

<p>So once again we’re back to the truth that <a href="/w/sexual-expression-is-a-worldview-issue" target="_blank">sexual expression is a worldview issue</a>. Those who believe in God will always be at odds with those who believe they <em>are</em> gods. Will being their own gods, remaking themselves in any image they like, make them happy? Will society flourish with their view of sexuality and marriage?</p>

<p>I say with great sorrow, no.</p>
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title: Father of Modern Taxonomy
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 05/22/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/father-of-modern-taxonomy
content:
            <div> 
		<p>You’ve seen plants referred to by their scientific names, such as <em>Rosa rubiginosa</em>. That form of naming plants and other living things was introduced by a Christian who was a scientist named <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html" target="_blank">Carolus Linnaeus</a>. He was born in Sweden in 1707 to a Lutheran pastor. He showed interest in nature from his childhood, and eventually pursued science at the University of Uppsala. His interest was motivated by a theme that keeps popping up among Christian scientists featured on this blog: They believed the world was created by God, and therefore orderly, and able and worthy to be studied. This is the principle that generated tremendous scientific investigation.</p>

<p>Linnaeus developed the modern taxonomy system. Though it’s been changed over time, it is the basis for categorizing and naming living things.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>For Linnaeus, species of organisms were real entities, which could be grouped into higher categories called genera (singular, genus). By itself, this was nothing new; since Aristotle, biologists had used the word genus for a group of similar organisms, and then sought to define the differentio specifica—the specific difference of each type of organism. But opinion varied on how genera should be grouped. Naturalists of the day often used arbitrary criteria to group organisms, placing all domestic animals or all water animals together. Part of Linnaeus’&nbsp;innovation was the grouping of genera into higher taxa that were also based on shared similarities. In Linnaeus’s original system, genera were grouped into orders, orders into classes, and classes into kingdoms. Thus the kingdom Animalia contained the class Vertebrata, which contained the order Primates, which contained the genus Homo with the species sapiens—humanity. Later biologists added additional ranks between these to express additional levels of similarity.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Linnaeus based plant classification on their reproduction, which was considered rather scandalous at the time. “[O]ne opponent, botanist Johann Siegesbeck, called it ’loathsome harlotry’. (Linnaeus had his revenge, however; he named a small, useless European weed Siegesbeckia.)”</p>

<p>Linnaeus experimented with hybridization of plants and animals. But he rejected the notion of evolution, which was already introduced at his time long before Darwin popularized it. He believed that there was a limitation in the changes a species could undergo, being set in its creation. The potential for change was present at God’s creation.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The concept of open-ended evolution, not necessarily governed by a Divine Plan and with no predetermined goal, never occurred to Linnaeus; the idea would have shocked him. Nevertheless, Linnaeus’s hierarchical classification and binomial nomenclature, much modified, have remained standard for over 200 years. His writings have been studied by every generation of naturalists.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: First-Century Synagogue Discovered in Magdala
topic: History
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/27/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/first-century-synagogue-discovered-in-magdala
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The decision of the Rev. Juan M. Solana to build a retreat center in Galilee has led to an interesting archaeological find: “the presumed hometown of Mary Magdalene and an ancient synagogue where experts say Jesus may well have taught.”&nbsp;From the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/world/middleeast/a-resort-in-galilee-rises-where-jesus-may-have-taught.html" target="_blank"><em>New York Times</em></a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>All that remained before construction could begin in earnest was to carry out a salvage dig on the site, a routine requirement in Israel. The Roman Catholic Church and the archaeologists dispatched by the Israel Antiquities Authority did not expect to find anything significant, and intended to get the dig over with as quickly and cheaply as possible.</p>

<p>But their spades struck history only a little more than a foot below the surface: a stone bench that, it soon became evident, was part of the remains of a synagogue from the first century, one of only seven from the Second Temple period known to exist, and the first to be found in Galilee. A local coin found in a side room of the synagogue was dated from the year 29—when Jesus is thought to have been alive...</p>

<p>The site of the dig was only about five miles from Capernaum, a known center of Jesus’&nbsp;activities.</p>

<p>Soon it was clear that the site was not just near Magdala; this <em>was</em> Magdala. The dig went on to uncover an ancient marketplace and a separate area of rooms with adjacent water pools, presumably used for producing the salty cured fish that Magdala was famous for; a large villa or public building with mosaics, frescoes and three ritual baths; a fishermen’s neighborhood, scattered with ancient hooks and other equipment; and a section of a first-century harbor...</p>

<p>The ancient synagogue had some unusual features, including an ornately engraved stone block that archaeologists say was probably used as a table for reading the Torah. It is carved with columns and arches, a seven-branched menorah with vessels for wine and oil to each side, a 12-leaf rosette and chariots of fire. The stone appears to be a miniature of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed in the year 70, adorned with symbols also meant to commemorate the First Temple.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>To learn more about the discovery, here’s an <a href="http://issuesetc.org/2014/05/14/5-the-discovery-of-a-first-century-synagogue-in-galilee-dr-paul-maier-51414/" target="_blank">Issues, Etc. interview with historian Paul Maier</a>.</p>
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title: Generations of Medical Missionaries
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 06/12/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/generations-of-medical-missionaries
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Rev. Dr. John Scudder, Sr., founded the first Western Medical Mission in Asia in Ceylon in 1819. He also founded a family of medical missionaries whose combined service covers four generations, 42 members, and 1100 years of service, mostly in India.</p>

<p>Scudder, Sr., studied medicine at Princeton University and practiced in New York City, but then became convinced he could serve God best by practicing in Ceylon, and later India. He was especially effective at treating cholera and yellow fever. In 1836, he started a printing press in Madras, India, to print Bibles. He and his wife had six children; all of them became medical missionaries in India.</p>

<p>His son Henry Scudder was involved in translating the Bible, books, and tracts in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu. He founded a dispensary and practiced medicine. After a stint as a pastor in the U.S., he worked in Japan for the last years of his life.</p>

<p>Another son Silas Scudder founded a hospital and dispensary in Ranipet, India, and had a large outdoor practice treating people. The hospital had such a high standard of care that the Madras government closed their own dispensary and encouraged people to go to the missionary hospital.</p>

<p>The third generation of Scudders include Ida Sophia Scudder, who didn’t intend to become a missionary, but was moved by three women who died in childbirth. She opened a clinic for women at Vellore, and later founded a medical school for women, the Vellore Christian Medical College. She became so well known that a letter addressed “Dr. Ida, India”&nbsp;would be delivered to her. A commemorative stamp was issued in her honor in 2000.</p>

<p>Ida’s brother Dr. John Scudder specialized in blood transfusion and worked with Dr. Charles Drew to start a plasma transfusion project during World War 2.</p>

<p>Ida’s sister Ethel Scudder and her husband became medical missionaries in Iraw, Kuwait, and Oman. Other family members followed in their footsteps.</p>

<p>Ida’s niece Ida Belle Scudder took over her work at the hospital and school in Vellore, and founded the diagnostic radiology and radiotherapy departments there. She oversaw the transition of the school to be coeducational and its affiliation with the University of Madras. An essay contest in her honor continues to this day; the essays focus on her values of service.</p>

<p>Ida’s other niece, Marilyn, was head of the eye department at a hospital in Mvuni, Tanzania.</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scudders_in_India" target="_blank">You can read more about the Scudder family here</a>.</p>
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title: Totally Dedicated to Science and Religion
topic: Science
author: Melinda Penner
date: 04/24/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/totally-dedicated-to-science-and-religion
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Einstein said of <a href="https://www.faraday.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/Faraday.php" target="_blank">Michael Faraday</a>&nbsp;“that he, of all people, had made the greatest change in our conception of reality.”&nbsp;He was one of the most famous scientists of his time.</p>

<p>Faraday lived from 1791 to 1867 and discovered many of the fundamental laws of physics and chemistry. He discovered electromagnetic induction and the laws of electrochemistry, and invented the first dynamo, converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. He isolated benzene as a fundamental component of organic chemistry. Throughout his career, he lectured at the Royal Society. His lectures on the latest scientific discoveries were very popular. He was well known for being able to explain complex scientific ideas to Victorians hungry for the latest scientific knowledge.</p>

<p>Faraday was an elder in his church, a member of Sandemanians. He believed in the literal interpretation of Scripture, and believed that the uniformity of God’s creation made scientific inquiry possible. He believed that the revelation of nature pointed to the Creator, and the revelation of Scripture pointed to the Savior. He was actively engaged in church activities.</p>

<blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/michael-faraday-11630518.html" target="_blank">Faraday’s</a> peace and security was not in his worldly fame but in the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1861 Faraday wrote to a scientist friend: Since peace is alone in the gift of God; and as it is He who gives it, why should we be afraid? His unspeakable gift in His beloved Son is the ground of no doubtful hope.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: This Is the Kind of Culture Christianity Creates
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/02/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/this-is-the-kind-of-culture-christianity-creates
content:
            <div> 
		<p><a href="http://cure.org/" target="_blank">CURE International</a> is an organization that builds hospitals in impoverished areas of the world, offering needed surgeries and medical help, particularly to children with birth defects (who are usually being ostracized by their society). Tragically, one of their doctors was murdered last week, along with two others. <a href="http://cure.org/blog/2014/04/ceo-statement-regarding-shooting-at-cure-international-hospital-in-kabul-afghanistan/" target="_blank">From their CEO</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>It is with deep sadness that I write today, mourning the loss of three lives that were taken by force at the CURE International Hospital compound in Kabul, Afghanistan.</p>

<p>One of these men, Dr. Jerry Umanos...had faithfully served the Afghan people as a pediatrician at the hospital for more than seven years, caring for the most vulnerable members of society—children and premature infants—and helping them survive the harsh realities of childbirth in Afghanistan...</p>

<p>The shooter was not an employee of CURE International, but rather a member of the Afghan police detail assigned to protect the hospital. The assailant shot himself after the attack <em>and was taken into surgery by Jerry’s colleagues at the hospital</em> before being transferred out of our facility into the custody of the government of Afghanistan [emphasis added].</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Why did Christianity create a civilization where people seek to heal those lowest on the societal ladder, at great cost to themselves? Because “Jesus...although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=phil+2%3A3-11&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">taking the form of a bond-servant</a>, and being made in the likeness of men... He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”&nbsp;for us.</p>

<p>Because Jesus <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+13%3A3-16&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">washed His disciples’&nbsp;feet</a> and said, “Whoever wishes to become great among you <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark+10%3A42-45&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">shall be your servant</a>; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”</p>

<p>In humility Jesus served us; in humility we serve others.</p>

<p>Why did Christianity create a civilization where people heal their enemies? Because “while we were still helpless, at the right time <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+5%3A6-11&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Christ died for the ungodly</a>. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”</p>

<p>Because “<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+5%3A6-11&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">while we were enemies</a>,”&nbsp;while we “were by nature children of wrath... God, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=eph+2%3A1-9&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">being rich in mercy</a>, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.”</p>

<p>By grace God gave to us; by grace we give to others.</p>

<p>Do not take for granted that what Christianity has built will always be.</p>
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title: More Charges of Forgery Leveled against Jesus’ Wife Fragment
topic: History
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/07/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/more-charges-of-forgery-leveled-against-jesus-wife-fragment
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Not long after the papyrus and ink of the “<a href="https://www.str.org/blog/jesus-wife-fragment#.W6mHrxNKijQ" target="_blank">Gospel of Jesus’&nbsp;Wife</a>”&nbsp;fragment were <a href="http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/04/jesus-wife-fragment-appears-real" target="_blank">dated</a> to AD 659-859 in refutation of <a href="http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/jesus-wife-fragment-further-evidence-of.html" target="_blank">accusations of forgery</a>, new evidence has come to light that may once again point to forgery. From the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/us/fresh-doubts-raised-about-papyrus-scrap-known-as-gospel-of-jesuss-wife.html" target="_blank"><em>New York Times</em></a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Last month, the Harvard Theological Review published the results, saying that radiocarbon tests produced a date of 659 to 859 A.D., and examinations using a technique called micro-Raman spectroscopy found that the ink matched other papyruses that were dated from the first to the eighth centuries...</p>

<p>Dr. Askeland discovered among the papers published in the theological review a photograph of a small tattered square of papyrus called the “Gospel of John,”&nbsp;which features strikingly similar handwriting in Coptic to the Jesus’&nbsp;wife fragment and was tested alongside it. Both fragments were given to Dr. King by the same owner.</p>

<p>It happens that Dr. Askeland wrote his Ph.D. thesis at Cambridge on the Coptic versions of John’s Gospel, so he decided to compare this square fragment with another John text called the Codex Qau, an authentic relic which was discovered in 1923 in a jar buried in an Egyptian grave site. Amazingly, the text of the small John fragment replicated every other line from a leaf of the Qau codex, and for 17 lines the breaks in the text were identical. It “defied coincidence,”&nbsp;he said.</p>

<p><a href="http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.de/2014/04/the-forgery-of-lycopolitan-gospel-of.html" target="_blank">Dr. Askeland’s theory</a> is that a modern-day forger copied from a photograph of the Qua codex off the Internet. If the John text is forged, he reasons, so is the Gospel of Jesus’&nbsp;Wife, which seems to be written by the same hand.</p>

<p>Not only that, but he found that both these John texts were written in the Lycopolitan dialect, which experts believe died out before the seventh or eighth century, when the Gospel of Jesus’&nbsp;Wife was supposedly written, according to radiocarbon testing. [For another problem with the John fragment, see <a href="http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/more-evidence-of-forgery-jesus-wife.html" target="_blank">here</a>.]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Dr. King herself is taking this seriously:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>“This is substantive, it’s worth taking seriously, and it may point in the direction of forgery,”&nbsp;Karen L. King, the historian at Harvard Divinity School, said in a telephone interview, her first since the recent developments. “This is one option that should receive serious consideration, but I don’t think it’s a done deal.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>A scholar who previously supported the authenticity of the fragment also says more research needs to be done:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Malcolm Choat, a Coptic expert at Macquarie University in Australia who cautiously contradicted the doubters in his paper last month for the Harvard journal, said in an interview that the new evidence was “persuasive,”&nbsp;but “we’re not completely there yet”—until the John and Jesus wife papyruses can be studied in person or using high-resolution images to understand their relationship.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>While <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/jesus-wife-fragment#.W6mHrxNKijQ" target="_blank">nothing theological</a> rides on such a late fragment, even if genuine, I’m still interested to see how this turns out and grateful for the public scrutiny, which I hope will discourage future forgeries.</p>
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title: Psychologist Recommends Intentionally Suppressing Intuition of Design
topic: Science
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/03/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/psychologist-recommends-intentionally-suppressing-intuition-of-design
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Well, this is the most literal playing out of Romans 1:18-21* I’ve ever seen. From <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/04/story_time_psyc084701.html">David Klinghoffer</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304311204579505574046805070" target="_blank"><em>Wall Street Journal</em></a> salutes the research of Boston University psychologist Deborah Kelemen. She has discovered that it’s possible with Darwinian storytelling to <em>suppress</em> common sense in children of the kind that leads them to recognize artifacts of intelligent design in nature.</p>

<p>The <em>Journal</em> notes that quite apart from religious instruction, kids are primed to see life as reflecting “intentional design.”&nbsp;It’s intuitive. The corrective is to catch them at an early age and train them to see things in a Darwinian light...</p>

<p>The initiative to program children is repeatedly referred to as “intervention,”&nbsp;a term used in psychological counseling to refer to an attempt to thwart counterproductive, dangerous thoughts or behavior. The intuitive response of human beings, seeing design in nature, is implicitly compared to destructive patterns of abuse, alcoholism, drug addiction, and the like!</p>

<p>Given that bizarre premise, suppressing design thoughts becomes the preferred solution.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read the rest of Klinghoffer’s post at <a href="http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/04/story_time_psyc084701.html" target="_blank">Evolution News and Views</a>.</p>

<p>*“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”</p>
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title: Lord, Liar, Lunatic...or Legend?
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 05/07/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/lord-liar-lunatic...or-legend-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The first time I heard <a href="https://apologetics315.com/2008/11/sunday-quote-c-s-lewis-on-jesus-christ/" target="_blank">C.S. Lewis’&nbsp;Trilemma</a> challenged was nearly 20 years ago. A local college professor invited Greg to speak to his philosophy class each term. The professor was a skeptic, but was happy to expose his students to good thinking even if he didn’t believe what the Bible taught about Jesus. After one class period, he chatted with Greg and presented his challenge to the Trilemma. It was incomplete, he said. There is a fourth possibility: The Gospels are legends.</p>

<p>So there’s a “quadlemma”&nbsp;to answer, and Tom Gilson has written an excellent new article in <a href="http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=27-03-035-f" target="_blank"><em>Touchstone</em></a>. He considers this fourth possibility in an interesting way. It’s not only about how a legend about a man called Jesus developed. It’s about how four separate legends about a man called Jesus with a uniquely good character and great power developed independently and remarkably similar. It’s easy to miscalculate what this would require, and Tom thinks it through very carefully and in an extremely helpful way.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>In order for the legend hypothesis to hold water, there must be a plausible explanation for the genesis of the Gospels. <em>Somebody</em>—or more precisely, four somebodies—put the Gospels in writing, and they got their information, or their ideas, from somewhere. And here we encounter a remarkable thing about the story of Christ: that it was placed in its final form not just once but four times, and that each of those four final authors (or author groups) got the crucial aspect of Jesus’&nbsp;character—his perfect power and perfect goodness—exactly right, without flaw.</p>

<p>For the Gospel authors to have produced generally compatible pictures of Jesus would be no surprise: we can certainly assume that they worked interdependently, borrowing sources from each other, relying on common tradition, and so on. In the end, though, they all worked independently to some degree, and yet they all produced a character of unparalleled power and self-sacrifice, with no mar or imperfection of any sort.</p>

<p>The implications of this may be more profound than is commonly recognized. For there seem to be only two plausible explanations for the Gospel writings: either Jesus Christ was a real man, and the Gospel authors painted a consistent picture because they recorded his life faithfully; or he was the stuff of human invention, at least in large part, and all four sources just happened to come up with a character of moral excellence beyond any other in all history or human imagination.</p>

<p>According to the most skeptical scholarship, the character and story of Jesus came about through processes of legendary development. The question is, who would have been involved in that, and what must have been true of them—and is it really likely that they could have accomplished such a feat of moral and literary excellence out of whole cloth? Let’s consider what this legend hypothesis calls on us to accept as true.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=27-03-035-f#ixzz30sXX6Piw" target="_blank">Read his entire article</a> and add it to your tool kit to answer this increasingly common challenge.</p>
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title: Literature and the Gospels’ Genre
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 05/14/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/literature-and-the-gospels-genre
content:
            <div> 
		<p>C.S. Lewis is well known for being an apologist and writer. But first, he was a literature scholar. His remarks about claims that the Gospels were legend draws from his experience. He wrote this essay in 1959, and the original title was “<a href="http://orthodox-web.tripod.com/papers/fern_seed.html" target="_blank">Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism</a>.”&nbsp;It is still a quite timely and apt observation on the current Biblical critics:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[W]hatever these men may be as Biblical critics, I distrust them as critics. They seem to me to lack literary judgement, to be imperceptive about the very quality of the texts they are reading. It sounds a strange charge to bring against men who have been steeped in those books all their lives. But that might be just the trouble. A man who has spent his youth and manhood in the minute study of New Testament texts and of other people’s studies of them, whose literary experience of those texts lacks any standard of comparison such as can only grow from a wide and deep and genial experience of literature in general, is, I should think, very likely to miss the obvious thing about them. If he tells me that something in a Gospel is legend or romance, I want to know how many legends and romances he has read, how well his palate is trained in detecting them by the flavour; not how many years he has spent on that Gospel...</p>

<p>I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage—though it may no doubt contain errors—pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned to read...</p>

<p>That then is my first bleat. These men ask me to believe they can read between the lines of the old texts; the evidence is their obvious inability to read (in any sense worth discussing) the lines themselves. They claim to see fern-seed and can’t see an elephant ten yards way in broad daylight.</p>

<p>Now for my second bleat. All theology of the liberal type involves at some point—and often involves throughout—the claim that the real behavior and purpose and teaching of Christ came very rapidly to be misunderstood and misrepresented by his followers, and has been recovered or exhumed only by modern scholars... The idea that any man or writer should be opaque to those who lived in the same culture, spoke the same language, shared the same habitual imagery and unconscious assumptions, and yet be transparent to those who have none of these advantages, is in my opinion preposterous. There is an <em>a priori</em> improbability in it which almost no argument and no evidence could counterbalance.</p>

<p>Thirdly, I find in these theologians a constant use of the principle that the miraculous does not occur. Thus any statement put into our Lord’s mouth by the old texts, which, if he had really made it, would constitute a prediction of the future, is taken to have been put in after the occurrence which it seemed to predict. This is very sensible if we start by knowing that inspired prediction can never occur. Similarly in general, the rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous in general never occurs. Now I do not here want to discuss whether the miraculous is possible. I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question. Scholars, as scholars, speak on it with no more authority than anyone else. The canon ’If miraculous, then unhistorical’&nbsp;is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it. If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the biblical critics in the world counts here for nothing. On this they speak simply as men; men obviously influenced by, and perhaps insufficiently critical of, the spirit of the age they grew up in.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Science, Purpose, and Design
topic: Science
author: Melinda Penner
date: 05/15/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/science-purpose-and-design
content:
            <div> 
		<p><a href="http://crev.info/?scientists=william-harvey" target="_blank">William Harvey</a> was a physician and scientist in the 16th and 17th centuries who was the first to demonstrate how the circulatory system worked. He described how the arteries, veins, valves, lungs, and heart worked to circulate blood—and he was amazed at God’s design and purpose in the systems of the body. He enjoyed studying how God had made things to work.</p>

<p>Harvey considered science a godly vocation and was motivated by the idea that the Creator had made things in an orderly way that could be understood and studied.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Harvey’s primary achievement, the explanation of the circulation of the blood, was occasioned in part “by asking why God put so many valves in the veins and none in the arteries.”&nbsp;He believed that nature does nothing “in vain.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>He was physician to King James 1 and King Charles. He was also the first to propose that humans and mammals reproduced by a sperm fertilizing an egg.</p>
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title: God, Evolution, and Morality Part 1
topic: Science
author: Greg Koukl
date: 05/01/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/god-evolution-and-morality-part-1
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The billboards read: “No God? No Problem. Be Good for Goodness’&nbsp;Sake,”&nbsp;and “Are You Good without God? Millions Are.”&nbsp;The point was clear: Morality in no way depends on belief in God. And why should it?</p>

<p>Atheists can be good, too. New atheist Christopher Hitchens regularly challenged his religious opponents to suggest a single act of goodness they could perform that he, the atheist, could not accomplish with equal success.</p>

<p>The campaign is intended as a broadside against a central evidence for God, the moral argument, classically one of four cornerstones for the case for God’s existence.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup> Put most simply, if there is no God, there is no morality. However, morality exists. Therefore, God exists.<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></p>

<p>Note, by the way, that <em>objective</em> morality is the issue here. Clearly, no God is necessary for the make-me-up morality of relativism. Universal moral obligations, however, require transcendent grounding. That’s the argument.</p>

<h2>An About Face</h2>

<p>Atheists, at least until recently, have characteristically agreed with the first premise: No God, no morality. Fine. They understood the calculus and were willing to live with the consequences. Indeed, Jeremy Rifkin sees the silver lining of atheism’s moral nihilism and rejoices:</p>

<p>We no longer feel ourselves to be guests in someone else’s home... No set of pre-existing cosmic rules... It is our creation now. We make the rules. We are responsible for nothing outside ourselves. We are the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup></p>

<p>Times have changed.</p>

<p>While 20th century British atheist, A. J. Ayer, dismissed moral judgments as meaningless grunts of emotion (“emotivism,”<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup> he called it), the new atheists want to occupy the high moral ground.</p>

<p>In my 2010 national radio debate with American atheist Michael Shermer, the <em>Skeptic</em> magazine editor repeatedly denied he was a relativist and insisted that evolution was adequate to explain morality. New atheist Christopher Hitchens’s position was the same. Natural selection and social contract were sufficient to make sense of his objective ethics.</p>

<p>Oddly, while much of the culture shifts increasingly towards relativism (“It’s wrong to push your morality on others,”&nbsp;“Who are you to judge?”), there’s a trend in atheism moving in the opposite direction.</p>

<p>And for good reason. Support for subjective morality means surrendering the most rhetorically appealing argument against God: evil. Indeed, in a relativistic realm, Richard Dawkins would be denied his famous flourish against the Bible’s God in <em>The God Delusion</em>:</p>

<p>The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup></p>

<p>Clearly, to Dawkins, God is not just “unpleasant,”&nbsp;but wicked. The professor is not simply emoting, but judging. That requires a real morality, not merely a morality-according-to-me.</p>

<p>Can’t a materialistic scheme do this, though? Can’t natural selection acting on genetic mutation produce substantive ethics? Surely, right and wrong are obvious to most people, even “godless”&nbsp;ones. Mere belief in the Divine doesn’t seem to add anything. Morality helps us, as a species, get our genes into the next generation. Nature selects the survivors. Moral genes win. Simple.</p>

<p>Two thoughts, quickly.</p>

<p>First, it’s tempting for evolutionists to think that any trait conferring reproductive advantage must have evolved. They tell a natural selection story, wave their Darwinian wand, and the conversation is over. This is dangerously close to being circular. Simply telling a tale about, say, the survival benefits of altruism is not enough. Exactly how does this work? How does a mechanistic process produce a moral obligation? In what sense is goodness or badness a physical quality? Genes might determine <em>behavior</em>, but how do they determine <em>beliefs</em> about behavior when it comes to right and wrong?</p>

<p>Second, the materialist account of morality starts with the assumption that the truth of evolution—in the technical, neo-Darwinian-synthesis sense—is unassailable.<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup> However, in the last decade even nonreligious thinkers have raised serious doubts about the program’s actual capabilities.</p>

<p>A host of secularists are having significant misgivings, and for good reason. In 2008, a group of evolutionary biologists, now known as the “Altenberg 16,”&nbsp;met in Austria “united in their conviction that the neo-Darwinian synthesis had run its course and that new evolutionary mechanisms were needed to explain the origin of biological form.”<sup id="fnref:7"><a href="#fn:7">7</a></sup> Noted philosopher Thomas Nagel, himself a committed atheist, stunned the academic world with his recent book, <em>Mind and Cosmos—Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False</em>.<sup id="fnref:8"><a href="#fn:8">8</a></sup></p>

<p>Let’s set those issues aside for now, though. I want to look at a different problem: Even if Darwinism <em>were</em> true—even if “good”&nbsp;and “bad”&nbsp;somehow identified genetically transferable, physical traits—evolution <em>still</em> could not account for <em>objective</em> morality (“Good for goodness’&nbsp;sake”), not even in principle.</p>

<p>To defend this claim, however, I must be clear on terms. It makes no sense to try to explain morality unless we’re clear on what kind of morality we have in mind. In common parlance, there are two varieties: subjective and objective. When it comes to the question of God, evolution, and morality, the difference is critical. But what, exactly is that difference?</p>

<p><em>In the Mind or in the Matter?</em></p>

<p>When I tutor students on objective truth, I start with a statement, then ask two questions. I make a dramatic display of placing a pen on the podium, then say, “The pen is on the podium.”&nbsp;Next, I ask if the assertion is true. When the students nod, I ask the critical question: “What <em>makes</em> the statement true?”</p>

<p>Hands shoot up. “Because I <em>see</em> it there,”&nbsp;one student says. But if you didn’t see it, I ask, wouldn’t it still be true that the pen is on the podium? Seeing might help you <em>know</em> the statement is true, but it isn’t what <em>makes</em> it true.</p>

<p>“Because I <em>believe</em> it,”&nbsp;offers another. If you stopped believing, I challenge, would the pen disappear? No. And would believing really hard make a pen materialize atop an empty podium? Probably not.</p>

<p>“The thing that makes the statement ’The pen is on the podium’&nbsp;a <em>true</em> statement,”&nbsp;I tell them, “is a pen, and a podium, and the former resting on the latter. It doesn’t matter if anyone <em>sees</em> it. It doesn’t matter if anyone <em>believes</em> it. It doesn’t matter what anyone <em>thinks</em> at all. It is completely independent of any subject’s thoughts—a ’subject’&nbsp;here being any person or any group of people. It is, in other words, completely mind <em>independent</em>.”</p>

<p>This is an object lesson on the meaning of objective truth. If the “truth maker”—the condition that makes the statement true—is something about the <em>object</em> itself, then the truth is an <em>objective</em> truth, that is, the statement accurately fits some feature of the world “out there,”<sup id="fnref:9"><a href="#fn:9">9</a></sup> regardless of anyone’s opinion about it.</p>

<p>By contrast, think of my daughter, Eva, at five years old, amusing herself with a book beyond her reading ability. As she tells the tale, out tumbles the dramatic details. She turns each page at proper intervals, yet her yarn bears no resemblance to anything on the page. It’s purely a product of her own imagination. The story is in her head, not in the book.</p>

<p>Put another way, the “truth”&nbsp;spoken is in the subject (Eva), not in the object (<em>Fancy Nancy</em>). It is mind <em>dependent</em> (a five-year-old mind, in this case). Therefore, it is a <em>subjective</em>, or relative, truth.</p>

<h2>Real Bad or Feel Bad?</h2>

<p>These same distinctions apply in exactly the same way to morality. It’s the difference between <em>real</em> bad and merely <em>feel</em> bad.</p>

<p>Moral objectivism is the view that moral claims are like the statement, “The pen is on the podium.”&nbsp;Philosophers call this “moral realism”&nbsp;because moral qualities are as real as the pen, though not physical. The “truth maker”&nbsp;is an objective fact, not a subjective feeling.</p>

<p>So, for example, when an objectivist says, “Rape is wrong,”&nbsp;he means to be describing rape itself, not merely his own belief, feeling, opinion, point of view, or preference about rape.<sup id="fnref:10"><a href="#fn:10">10</a></sup> In objectivism, something about the <em>object</em> (an action, in this case) makes the moral statement true. If rape actually <em>is</em> wrong, it’s because of something about rape, not something about a person, his culture, or his genetic conditioning. Objective moral truth is mind <em>independent</em>.</p>

<p>By contrast, moral relativism is like little Eva’s story. The “facts”&nbsp;are only in her head, not in the world. No act is bad <em>in itself</em>. The words “evil,”&nbsp;“wicked,”&nbsp;or “wrong”&nbsp;(or “good,”&nbsp;“virtuous,”&nbsp;or “noble,”&nbsp;for that matter), never actually describe behavior or circumstances. Rather, they describe a judgment in the mind of a subject—an individual or a group—who has either expressed a preference or felt an emotion.</p>

<p>In relativism, the <em>subject</em>—her beliefs, tastes, or preferences—is the “truth maker.”<sup id="fnref:11"><a href="#fn:11">11</a></sup> In a relativistic world, then, no belief can actually be false. Instead, it is true <em>for</em> the person who holds it. It is true <em>for her</em>, even though it might not be true <em>for others</em> who have different beliefs. That’s because in relativism moral truth is mind <em>dependent</em>.</p>

<p>Moral relativism is also called “moral non-realism”&nbsp;because moral statements do not describe real properties of actions. Transcendent, objective, moral obligations are fictions. Behaviors can be distasteful (individuals dislike them), or taboo (cultures forbid them), but they cannot be wrong in any ultimate sense. Rape is only wrong if someone believes it so, not because anything is questionable about the act itself.</p>

<p>Put most precisely, objective morality is when the words “moral”&nbsp;or “immoral”&nbsp;describe an act, not someone’s opinion about the act. It is mind independent, matching some feature of the external world. Nothing <em>inside</em> a subject’s mind makes moral claims true.</p>

<p>Subjective, relativistic morality does not describe acts, but beliefs. It is mind dependent, tied to the opinion or belief of an individual or group. Nothing <em>outside</em> a subject’s mind makes moral claims true.</p>

<p>In an objective statement, moral <em>facts</em> make a claim true. In a subjective claim, a subject’s moral <em>feelings</em> make the claim true. In moral realism, morality is a property of <em>behaviors</em>. In moral non-realism, morality is a property of <em>subjects</em>. They are beliefs subjects hold, not properties objects have.</p>

<p>Objectivism is the view that morality is like gravity. Relativism is the view that morality is like golf. The facts of physics are features of the world, not a matter of personal whim, individual taste, or cultural convention. Golf, on the other hand, is man-made. The rules are up to us.</p>

<p>Notice, I am not here saying objectivists are correct and relativists are incorrect. I am simply clarifying the differences between the two. I am defining terms, not defending a view.</p>

<p>But why all this tedium about definitions?</p>

<h2>Explaining the Explanation</h2>

<p>It is axiomatic that for an explanation to be a good one, it must explain what needs explaining. If evolution is capable of explaining one kind of thing, and morality turns out to be something else, then the evolutionary explanation fails. The critical question is this: Does the kind of morality evolution is capable of accounting for fit the morality that actually needs to be explained?</p>

<p>Atheists say that purely natural processes are adequate to produce the kind of morality central to the moral argument for God—<em>objective</em> morality, goodness <em>for its own sake</em>, in their words.</p>

<p>Relativistic morality is utterly useless to this task. Only a successful Darwinian account of moral <em>realism</em> will succeed. Nothing else will do. That’s the crux. Can evolution rise to this task? Let’s see.</p>

<h2>The Blind Moral Maker</h2>

<p>Most of us know the basic Darwinian story. Simply put, natural selection chooses among genetic variations (mutations), selecting those traits best suited for survival and reproduction. This process mimics design so well, Richard Dawkins famously dubbed it “the blind watchmaker.”</p>

<p>In <em>Descent of Man</em>, Darwin argued that every human faculty—including the moral one—is the result of the same mindless process that governs all the rest—the blind <em>moral</em> maker, if you will. Note atheistic philosopher and committed Darwinist, Michael Ruse: “We are genetically determined to believe that we ought to help each other.”<sup id="fnref:12"><a href="#fn:12">12</a></sup> My radio debate opponent, Michael Shermer, explains:</p>

<p>Evolution generated the moral sentiments out of a need for a system to maximize the benefits of living in small bands and tribes. Evolution created and culture honed moral principles out of an additional need to curb the passions of the body and mind. And culture, primarily through organized religion, codified those principles into moral rules and precepts.<sup id="fnref:13"><a href="#fn:13">13</a></sup></p>

<p>By a moral sense, I mean a moral feeling or emotion generated by actions...&nbsp; These moral emotions probably evolved out of behaviors that were reinforced as being bad either for the individual or for the group.<sup id="fnref:14"><a href="#fn:14">14</a></sup></p>

<p>The codification of moral principles out of the psychology of moral traits evolved as a form of social control to ensure the survival of individuals within groups and the survival of human groups themselves.<sup id="fnref:15"><a href="#fn:15">15</a></sup></p>

<p>Moral sentiments...evolved primarily through the force of natural selection operating on individuals and secondarily through the force of group selection operating on populations.<sup id="fnref:16"><a href="#fn:16">16</a></sup></p>

<p>Shermer identifies two factors he thinks form “moral sentiments,”&nbsp;or “moral feelings,”&nbsp;in humans: moral traits determined genetically by evolution, and codes enforced culturally for the good of the group—a combination of nature and nurture.<sup id="fnref:17"><a href="#fn:17">17</a></sup> This is a standard evolutionary characterization of the naturalistic origins of morality.<sup id="fnref:18"><a href="#fn:18">18</a></sup></p>

<p>I want you to think very carefully about the implications this Darwinian explanation of morality has for our question about goodness and God. Atheists want to undermine the force of the moral argument for theism by accounting for morality in purely naturalistic terms. No God needed. The morality evolutionists must explain to successfully parry the moral argument, though, is <em>objective</em> morality since it’s the only kind of morality relevant to the argument. As I said earlier, relativism won’t do.</p>

<p>Recall that objective morality (moral realism) is mind <em>independent</em>, based on facts <em>outside</em> the subject, the object being the truth-maker, while relativistic subjective morality (moral non-realism) is mind <em>dependent</em>, based on feelings or beliefs <em>inside</em> a subject (an individual or cultural group), the subject being the truth-maker.</p>

<p>So here’s my question: What kind of morality did Shermer describe in his Darwinian account above, objective or subjective? Note the phrases “moral <em>sentiments</em>,”&nbsp;“moral <em>feeling</em> or <em>emotion</em>,”&nbsp;“the <em>psychology</em> of moral traits,”&nbsp;and ethics that “<em>culture</em>...honed...and codified.”&nbsp;In each case Shermer describes a morality that is mind <em>dependent</em>, grounded on feelings in the <em>subject</em>, with the subject being the truth-maker. Relativism, in other words.<sup id="fnref:19"><a href="#fn:19">19</a></sup></p>

<p>Atheists like Shermer and Hitchens claim to be objectivists (and seem convinced they are), yet consistently ground their “morality”&nbsp;in entirely subjectivist ways. Michael Ruse, however, is not so confused: “Ultimately, morality is an illusion put in place by our genes to make us social facilitators.”<sup id="fnref:20"><a href="#fn:20">20</a></sup> He explains:</p>

<p>Substantive ethics, claims like “Love your neighbor as yourself,”&nbsp;are simply <em>psychological beliefs</em> put in place by natural selection in order to maintain and improve our reproductive fitness. <em>There is nothing more in them than that...</em>&nbsp;We could easily have evolved a completely different moral system from that which we have.<sup id="fnref:21"><a href="#fn:21">21</a></sup> [emphasis added].</p>

<p>As a Darwinist, Ruse explicitly rejects objectivism, labeling his view, appropriately, “moral nihilism”&nbsp;and “moral non-realism.”<sup id="fnref:22"><a href="#fn:22">22</a></sup> In this, he is being doggedly (and refreshingly) consistent. Indeed, he adds, even one’s conviction that morality is objective is part of evolution’s clever deceit.<sup id="fnref:23"><a href="#fn:23">23</a></sup></p>

<p>Consider, in support, Robert Wright’s characterization of evolutionary morality in <em>The Moral Animal</em>:</p>

<p>The conscience doesn’t make us feel bad the way hunger feels bad, or good the way sex feels good. It makes us feel <em>as if</em> we have done something that’s wrong or something that’s right. Guilty or not guilty. It is amazing that a process as <em>amoral</em> and crassly pragmatic as natural selection could design a mental organ that makes us <em>feel as if</em> we’re in touch with higher truth. Truly a shameless ploy.<sup id="fnref:24"><a href="#fn:24">24</a></sup> [emphasis mine]</p>

<p>I’m not denying here that evolution can account for the “shameless ploy”&nbsp;of our <em>sense</em> of morality (though I am deeply skeptical). That’s a different issue. I’m arguing that if it does, it can only give subjective morality, not objective.</p>

<h2>Matter in Motion</h2>

<p>But there’s a second problem.</p>

<p>Darwinism is a strictly material process by definition—as one put it, “clumps of matter following the laws of physics.”<sup id="fnref:25"><a href="#fn:25">25</a></sup> How can a completely materialistic process (natural selection acting on genetic variations)—even if true—produce genuine, objective moral obligations? How can a mere reshuffling of molecules cause an immaterial moral principle to spontaneously spring into existence and somehow attach itself to behaviors? It can’t.</p>

<p>Behaviors are physical, but whether any behavior is morally good or bad is not in its chemistry or physics. Right and wrong, virtue and vice, values and obligations, are not material things.</p>

<p>No Darwinian process can make rape wrong. It can only—even in principle—make people <em>think</em> rape is wrong. Indeed, no biological process can tell us anything about the morality of rape at all.</p>

<h2>Darwin, No Exit</h2>

<p>These are intractable problems for evolutionists. The difficulties are so deep, it’s impossible for them to rescue their moral project.</p>

<p>No, Darwin will not help the atheist here. Since evolution is a materialistic process, it can only produce physical merchandise. No stirring and recombining of molecules over time will ever cause a moral fact to pop into existence in the immaterial realm.</p>

<p>At best, Darwinism might account for behaviors or beliefs human beings falsely label objectively “moral”&nbsp;because nature’s deception accomplishes some evolutionary purpose. But it is deception, nonetheless. Evolution might be able to explain subjective moral <em>feelings</em>. It can never explain objective moral <em>obligations</em>. It can never make an act wrong in itself.</p>

<p>This is a fatal challenge. On a Darwinian view, there can be no such thing as “goodness for its own sake”—goodness for the inherent good of goodness—because “good”&nbsp;can only exist in the evolution-deluded minds of its subjects, and that’s relativism.</p>

<p>The moral argument for God stands. Darwinism can’t touch it.</p>

<p><em><a href="/w/god-evolution-and-morality-part-2">In Part II,</a> I will discuss the “grounding”&nbsp;problem, address Sam Harris��s approach to objective morality without God, and answer Christopher Hitchens’s claim that atheists can do any good thing a theist can do.</em></p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">The other three are the cosmological, teleological (design), and ontological arguments. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">This form of argument is called <em>modus tollens</em>. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">Jeremy Rifkin, <em>Algeny: A New Word—A New World</em> (New York: Viking Press, 1983), 244. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">A. J. Ayer, “Emotivism,”&nbsp;published in Louis Pojman, <em>Ethical Theory</em> (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995), 416. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">Richard Dawkins, <em>The God Delusion</em> (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 31. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:6">Philosopher Michael Ruse begins his naturalistic account of morality with, “The matter of scientific fact with which I start this discussion is that evolution is true.”&nbsp;R. Keith Loftin, ed. <em>God and Morality—Four Views</em> (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2012), 54. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:7">Stephen C. Meyer, <em>Darwin’s Doubt</em> (New York: HarperCollins, 2013), 292. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:7">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:8">Thomas Nagel, <em>Mind and Cosmos</em> (New York: Oxford University Press: 2012). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:8">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:9">This is called the “correspondence”&nbsp;view of truth. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:9">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:10">He may have beliefs, feelings, etc., about rape, but that’s not what he’s describing. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:10">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:11">Moral relativism, then, is a kind of <em>subjectivism</em> since judgments of right and wrong are completely up to the <em>subject</em>—the individual person or group—to decide. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:11">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:12">Loftin, 60. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:12">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:13">Michael Shermer, <em>The Science of Good and Evil</em> (New York: Holt, 2004), 149. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:13">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:14"><em>Ibid</em>., 56. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:14">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:15"><em>Ibid.</em>, 64. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:15">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:16"><em>Ibid</em>., 19. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:16">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:17">Curiously, these are two entirely distinct processes: an event cause (mechanistic, evolutionary forces acting on the genetic code), and an agent cause (cultural norms—a type of human intelligent design). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:17">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:18">Though some evolutionists focus solely on the genetic contribution. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:18">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:19">Clearly, there can be objective <em>criteria</em> for, say, human flourishing, but that is not the same as objective <em>morality</em>. If human flourishing is itself an objective moral good, that must be established separately. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:19">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:20">Loftin, 69. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:20">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:21"><em>Ibid.</em>, 65. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:21">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:22"><em>Ibid.</em> <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:22">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:23"><em>Ibid.</em>, 68. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:23">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:24">Robert Wright, <em>The Moral Animal</em> (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994), 212. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:24">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:25">James Anderson, <em>What’s Your World View?</em> (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), 69. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:25">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: Christians Need a Good Dose of Confidence—Mentoring Letter April 2013
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 05/01/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/christians-need-a-good-dose-of-confidence-mentoring-letter-april-2013
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Stand to Reason is committed to cultivating the intellectual life in the defense of Christianity and in the nurture of Christian maturity.</em></p>

<p>On May 1, 1993, I met with a group of 50 men and women whose opinion I respected. I wanted their counsel on—and financial help with, if they approved—an idea I’d been working on. I called it “Stand to Reason.”</p>

<p>For eight years I’d been productive as a staff pastor of a large local church in Southern California, doing part-time radio on weekends and taking every outside speaking opportunity I was offered.</p>

<p>My efforts had been fruitful, but scattered. I wanted to focus, to dial down on the unique, quality contribution I could make to the Kingdom in light of my own distinctive background, capabilities, and spiritual gifts.</p>

<p>I also wanted to make a change that mattered, to accomplish something bigger than me, not built on an individual person, but on a Kingdom purpose. There was trouble in the church and trouble in the culture. Could I do anything to make a difference?</p>

<p>On that Saturday morning in May two decades ago, I laid out my ideas. I later captured that vision in a short piece outlining my thoughts. Here is what I wrote.</p>

<h2>Christians Need a Good Dose of Confidence</h2>

<p>The infamous Scopes “Monkey Trial”&nbsp;of 1925 was a watershed event for Christians. John Scopes and the ACLU lost the court battle, but it was an empty victory for believers who abandoned the field and took refuge inside the walls of the church. 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 Christ.</p>

<p>Christians were the founding fathers of the intellectual community in the United States, but in the years that followed, 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>But that’s beginning to change. Sharp and fair-minded thinkers like Francis Schaeffer, Alvin Plantinga, J.P. Moreland, Chuck Colson—to name just a few—have slowly been chipping away at the stranglehold non-Christians have on the world of ideas.</p>

<p>Now, nearly seventy years after Scopes, we’re 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 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>Will the followers of Christ advance or will we retreat again as we did in 1925?</p>

<h2>It’s Time to Give the World a Piece of Our Mind</h2>

<p>The concept of Stand to Reason is based on the conviction that Christianity and Christian values, if properly understood and properly articulated, can “stand to reason”&nbsp;in the public square. The truth is on our side, but whether that truth will make a difference depends on whether we are equipped or not.</p>

<p>There’s a crying need to equip rank-and-file Christians to defend Christian beliefs and values in the marketplace of ideas against people who don’t understand our language and who don’t accept our source of authority. That need is especially acute for those Christians in positions of respect and influence in their communities—doctors, lawyers, teachers, office-holders, business leaders, school board members—who must function in a public square that is increasingly hostile to Christian values.</p>

<p>Our mission is to train Christians to think and send them into the public square to defend their beliefs and values. Stand to Reason is committed to cultivating the intellectual life in the defense of Christianity and in the nurture of Christian maturity.</p>

<p>Stand to Reason will use moral and rational suasion and fair-minded advocacy to make the point that Christianity is worth thinking about. It will give the average believer the tools of thought and the facts he needs to stand to reason for the historic Christian faith and for classical Christian values. It will aid him in communicating facts in a compelling, even-handed, and gracious way.</p>

<p>Now, after more than two decades of hard work, prayer, and the financial partnership of that first group and of thousands more just like you, I can say with confidence that we have delivered on our original intention. You are evidence of that.</p>

<p>Unlike earlier generations, we have not retreated. We have advanced. And by God’s grace, twenty years from now we will still be in the vanguard. To do that, we need your help.</p>

<p>Our brothers and sisters in Christ still need a dose of confidence. Christianity is still worth thinking about. And we still want to “give the world a piece of our mind.”&nbsp;With your help we will continue to be here to make that happen.</p>

<p>In His grip,</p>

<p>Gregory Koukl</p>
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title: Where’s the Marriage Equality for Throuples?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 04/25/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/where-s-the-marriage-equality-for-throuples-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Did you hear about the “<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2611020/Meet-worlds-married-lesbian-threesome-baby-make-four-July.html" target="_blank">world’s first married lesbian threesome</a>”?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Doll, Kitten and Brynn Young married in a ceremony in August 2013, when each of their fathers walked them down the aisle. All three women wore white wedding gowns and exchanged rings.</p>

<p>The so-called ’throuple’&nbsp;worked with a specialist family lawyer who drew up the paperwork and drafted the ceremony so that all three of them were obligated and bound to each other.</p>

<p>While Brynn and Kitten are legally married, Doll is handfasted to both so the threesome are as equally married to each other as legally possible.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If only bigoted statutes didn’t exist to prevent the government from treating them equally under the law and endorsing the choice of partners their orientation calls for:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Doll had known that she was polygamous since high school. She explains: “I had always dated girls—who although they had boyfriends or girlfriends—were also allowed to date me.”</p>

<p>“I never thought that much about it and I had never really ’come out’&nbsp;as poly to my friends and family. To me, it was just how I was”...</p>

<p>Before meeting Doll and Brynn, Kitten had been in two long-term relationships with men. Her first relationship lasted ten years and she had been engaged to her second boyfriend...</p>

<p>'The whole break-up forced me to really think about who I was and I realized that I had not been honest to myself. On reflection, I realized that I hadn’t been happy in my previous monogamous relationships and I discovered that I was poly...</p>

<p>Kitten says: “...I had a very traditional upbringing and marriage had always been an important symbol of commitment for me. We wanted to celebrate our love in a wedding like everyone else.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Love is love!</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The threesome insist their relationship is like that of any normal couple: having breakfast with one another, watching TV after work and sharing a bed together...</p>

<p>Kitten, Brynn and Doll had to work with the legalities of the state to get married to each other. As being married to more than one person is not currently legal, they had to combine handfasting, legally binding documents and legal marriage.</p>

<p>A family lawyer drew up paperwork—in terms of assets, wills and legal rights to children—to bind them all together as much as they could without an actual three way marriage...</p>

<p>They hope to show the world that polyfidelity is an acceptable choice of love.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>There’s <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/justice-kennedys-roadmap-gay-marriage" target="_blank">no rational reason</a> to legally discriminate against three people who love each other. These polyphobic laws “<a href="http://www.libertylawsite.org/2013/06/26/scalias-doma-dissent/" target="_blank">demean the throuple</a>, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects.”&nbsp;It’s clear that the purpose of defining marriage as “<a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/06/inconsistent-same-sex-marriage-advocates.html" target="_blank">two</a>”&nbsp;is “<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-ruling-93407.html" target="_blank">to disparage and to injure</a>”&nbsp;throuples, motivated by “<a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2013/7/civility-bullying-and-same-sex-marriage" target="_blank">animus</a>”&nbsp;against polys and a “bare congressional <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/justice-kennedys-roadmap-gay-marriage" target="_blank">desire to harm</a> a politically unpopular group.”</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Brynn says: “Doll, Kitten and I may not be the norm but we are perfectly normal. We are simply people trying to live the life that we feel is best for us and we deserve the rights afforded to others.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Marriage equality!</p>
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title: What Can We Do to Deepen the Cultural Conversation about Christianity?
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 04/30/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-can-we-do-to-deepen-the-cultural-conversation-about-christianity-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>David Bentley Hart has a <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/05/gods-and-gopniks?utm_source=First+Things+Subscribers&amp;utm_campaign=f3ba4b8619-4_15_144_15_2014&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_28bf775c26-f3ba4b8619-172542161" target="_blank">post</a> on First Things responding to a <em>New Yorker</em> <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2014/02/17/140217crat_atlarge_gopnik?currentPage=all" target="_blank">article</a> by Adam Gopnik:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Ostensibly a survey of recently published books on (vaguely speaking) theism and atheism, [Gopnik’s article] is actually an almost perfect distillation of everything most depressingly vapid about the cogitatively indolent secularism of late modern society. This is no particular reflection on Gopnik’s intelligence—he is bright enough, surely—but only on that atmosphere of complacent ignorance that seems to be the native element of so many of today’s cultured unbelievers.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Hart warns, “The article is intellectually trivial, but perhaps culturally portentous”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Simply said, we have reached a moment in Western history when, despite all appearances, no meaningful public debate over belief and unbelief is possible. Not only do convinced secularists no longer understand what the issue is; they are incapable of even suspecting that they do not understand, or of caring whether they do. The logical and imaginative grammars of belief, which still informed the thinking of earlier generations of atheists and skeptics, are no longer there. In their place, there is now—where questions of the divine, the supernatural, or the religious are concerned—only a kind of habitual intellectual listlessness...</p>

<p>The real problem with his article is not its dialectical deficiencies so much as its casual inanities...</p>

<p>Almost all public discourse is now instantaneous, fluently aimless, deeply uninformed, and immune to logical rigor... Principled unbelief was once a philosophical passion and moral adventure, with which it was worthwhile to contend. Now, perhaps, it is only so much bad intellectual journalism, which is to say, gossip, fashion, theatrics, trifling prejudice. Perhaps this really is the way the argument ends—not with a bang but a whimper.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The phrase “casual inanities”&nbsp;is a good way to describe what I’ve observed (see “<a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2013/11/to-the-atheist-who-called-jesus-the-magic-carpenter-and-a-warning-to-churches.html" target="_blank">To the Atheist Who Called Jesus ’The Magic Carpenter’</a>”&nbsp;and “<a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/03/atheists-small-view-of-christianity/comments/page/2/" target="_blank">Atheists’&nbsp;Small View of Christianity</a>,”&nbsp;for example), but I fear the problem did not begin with atheists.</p>

<p>If we Christians have a small view of God and the story He’s telling through history, if we lack reverence, wonder, and awe when we contemplate and speak of Jesus and the cross, if we view church as a self-help exercise, if our services reflect this empty perspective, we can’t be surprised when the culture around us absorbs the same shallow view.</p>

<p>Christianity’s intellectual history is rich and deep, its art is meaningful, its theology addresses the universal condition of man and responds to our greatest questions, its worldview created Western civilization. We can’t change the atheists’&nbsp;awareness and appreciation of these things, but we can intentionally increase our own.</p>

<p>I’m not primarily talking here about learning more reasons to think Christianity is true, I’m talking about immersing ourselves in the true story of redemption, as revealed by our Creator <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2013/05/the-bible-different-from-all-the-rest.html" target="_blank">in the Bible</a>. This is the story that was powerful enough to change all future Western stories. Know that story. Love that story. Live that story. Connect yourself and your church with centuries of great thinkers and lovers of God. Worship in a way that’s worthy of Him.</p>

<p>Let discussion of Christianity—whether between atheists or Christians—never again be filled with “casual inanities.”</p>
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title: Ask the Right Question about Evolution
topic: Science
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 05/08/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/ask-the-right-question-about-evolution
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Alan’s monthly letter for May 2014</em></p>

<p>Evolution can be overwhelming. It draws upon evidence from multiple disciplines: geology, paleontology, genetics, chemistry, and others. It’s hard to know where to begin. That’s why I suggest using an easy, yet powerful tactic to help handle this issue.</p>

<p>Whenever you come across the topic of evolution, ask a simple question: What definition of evolution is being used? Since evolution has at least three different meanings, it’s essential to know which one is being invoked.</p>

<p><strong>Definition #1:</strong> The first definition of evolution is change over time. In this sense, virtually everything evolves. Cities evolve, clouds evolve, personalities evolve, and even your hairstyle evolves. As you can see, there’s nothing controversial about this meaning of evolution. Anyone can subscribe to it.</p>

<p><strong>Definition #2:</strong> A second definition of evolution is microevolution<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup> (also known as the “Special Theory of Evolution”). It entails minor changes that take place within a species that allow it to survive. Charles Darwin advanced this concept in the first five chapters of his landmark book, <em>On the Origin of Species</em>.</p>

<p>For example, evolutionists cite the ability of bacteria to develop a resistance to antibiotics. Because bacteria can change in this way, they are said to “evolve”&nbsp;and become immune to drugs designed to kill them.</p>

<p>Another example of microevolution is finch beak variation. Princeton University researchers Peter and Rosemary Grant followed Darwin’s initial observations of finches on the Galapagos Islands.<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup> They discovered that droughts produce mostly large and hard seeds that only finches with big beaks can eat. Birds with smaller beaks, unable to crack and consume the larger seeds, tend to die off. This increases the population of finches with large beaks and reduces the number of finches with small beaks.</p>

<p>Notice that these examples of microevolution are observable. No one doubts these small changes occur. That’s why this second definition of evolution is also uncontroversial.</p>

<p><strong>Definition #3:</strong> The third definition of evolution is macroevolution (also known as the “General Theory of Evolution”). This molecules-to-man hypothesis says that every living plant and animal that exists today (or has ever existed) evolved from a single-celled organism by small, incremental changes. Evolutionists believe macroevolution is the same process of microevolution, but left to run for millions of years. This definition is often referred to as Darwinism.</p>

<p>Unlike microevolution, macroevolution is <em>un</em>observable. Therefore, it assumes the small (micro) changes observed in bacteria and finches are responsible for the large (macro) transitions that evolved fish into reptiles, dinosaurs into birds, and produced other large-scale changes. It’s not merely that macroevolution is unobservable that makes people doubt it occurred. It’s that they’re skeptical that the mechanism involved in microevolution is also responsible for macroevolution. That’s why this third kind of evolution is controversial.</p>

<p>Here’s why defining the term “evolution”&nbsp;is so critical. Darwinists often equivocate on the term. They cite examples of change over time (definition #1) and microevolution (definition #2) to prove that macroevolution (definition #3) occurred. For example, they’ll point to antibiotic-resistant bacteria and call it “evolution.”&nbsp;Then they say, “See, bacteria have evolved, therefore evolution is true”&nbsp;(meaning <em>macro</em>evolution). But that’s precisely what’s in question. Can micro changes within a species add up and account for large-scale transitions?</p>

<p>The National Academy of Sciences (perhaps the most powerful science organization in the United States) equivocates on the definition of evolution. They’ve produced a 140-page guidebook, <em>Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science</em>, to help educators explain Darwinism. Most of their evidence for evolution includes examples of change over time and microevolution. Since virtually everyone agrees these instances of evolution are genuine, people are led to believe that’s all that is needed to prove that macroevolutionary changes are possible.</p>

<p>For example, page 11 of the guidebook tells us that a major theme in evolution is that “the world around us changes. This simple fact is obvious everywhere we look. Streams wash dirt and stones from higher places to lower places. Untended gardens fill with weeds.”&nbsp;Of course things change (definition #1). We all know that. But the process that moves dirt and stones downstream can’t produce beaks and birds.</p>

<p>Or on page 55, it says, “Evolution in the broadest sense explains that what we see today is different from what existed in the past. Galaxies, stars, the solar system, and earth have changed through time, and so has life on earth.”&nbsp;Again, this is just change over time. No one contests this. But the cause of cosmic events doesn’t seem to be the same process that causes dinosaurs to evolve into birds.</p>

<p>On page 17, the guidebook tells us that “The North American lacewing species <em>Chrysoperla carnea</em> and <em>Chrysoperla downesi</em> separated from a common ancestor species recently in evolutionary time and are very similar. But they are different in color, reflecting their different habitats, and they breed at different times in the year.”&nbsp;This is simply microevolution at work (definition #2). It’s easy to see how a sub-population of an insect can become isolated and begin to breed at a different time of year. It’s not as clear, though, how that same process can create insects in the first place.</p>

<p>The guidebook goes on to describe finch beak variation (page 19) and antibiotic-resistant bacteria (pages 16-17). They never clarify, though, that these are examples of microevolution. Instead, it is implied that if you accept the observable changes in bacteria, insects, and finches, then this proves “evolution”&nbsp;is true and—by implication—macroevolution, as well.</p>

<p>That’s why it’s critical to define the term “evolution.”&nbsp;If you don’t, you’ll be led to accept that macroevolution is true (definition #3) simply because things change over time (definition #1) or because small changes can occur within a species (definition #2).</p>

<p>Whether you’re reading a text, listening to a show, or talking to a person, employ this tactic first. Ask what definition of evolution is being used. It’s a simple and effective question that defines terms and gives you knowledge about the issue. That way you’ll know what definition is being invoked so you can respond appropriately.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">Some take exception with the use of the terms “microevolution”&nbsp;and “macroevolution.”&nbsp;But these words merely refer to the Special Theory of Evolution and the General Theory of Evolution respectively. They are concepts that Darwin introduced in his book, <em>On the Origin of Species</em>. Furthermore, evolutionists themselves routinely use these terms in the scientific literature. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">Peter R. Grant, “Oscillating Selection on Darwin’s Finches,”&nbsp;in <em>Nature</em>, June 11, 1987. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: How Does the Old Testament Law Apply to Christians Today?
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 04/28/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-does-the-old-testament-law-apply-to-christians-today-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>As New Testament Christians in the New Covenant, which commands or moral principles are obligatory and would apply regardless of the covenants because they are universal morals that transcend the Mosaic Law?</em></p>

<p>God’s laws—from both the Old Testament and New Testament—are not just arbitrary expressions of His power. God does not make one thing up today and make up something contradictory tomorrow. He is not a nasty monster asserting that whatever He says goes, even if He says the opposite of what He said yesterday.</p>

<p>The Mosaic Law of the Old Testament was written for the chosen people of Israel. Let me make a distinction between how the Israelites were chosen then and how we as Christians are chosen now because it relates to the purpose of the Law and how we apply it today.</p>

<p>Israel was chosen for a purpose—Genesis 12:1-3. They were God’s instruments to accomplish a plan of rescue for the world: God becoming man as a member of the Jewish race and dying on the cross for man’s crimes against God. They were not chosen to be saved, rather they were chosen to be used to accomplish God’s plan of salvation. Many of those Jews took advantage of the mercy offered through that plan, and many went wayward. Israel’s being chosen did not secure their salvation. It secured a salvation plan for the world, and whether they individually participated in it or not was another question.</p>

<p>Christians are the chosen in the sense that those who are in Christ, putting their trust in Him, are the ones that benefited from that plan of salvation God was working out through Israel. We put our confidence in Him, so we are chosen regarding salvation.</p>

<p>God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever because He is God. God doesn’t change, but that does not mean the way He deals with mankind doesn’t change. God dealt with Adam and Eve in one way, and He dealt with the Jews through Abraham with a different plan. He deals with Christians now through a new plan, a new covenant.</p>

<p>There was a unique relationship God had with the nation of Israel as part of the execution of that plan. There is a unique kind of plan that He has in the new covenant that's expressed through Jesus and what He did on the cross.</p>

<p>God changes a lot of different things. He can make plans and play things out so that certain things apply in some cases and don’t apply later, though His purpose is constant and unchanging.</p>

<p>The Mosaic Covenant is a treaty God made with the Jews, the nation of Israel. What was the point of the book of Deuteronomy? Deuteronomy is the second time the law is given. It is first given in Exodus when Moses is at Mount Sinai. There’s 40 years of wandering and the first generation dies away. Then there’s a new generation that takes the land under Joshua. Before Moses dies he gives that same law again a second time in Deuteronomy to the new generation that is now meant to take the land and live according to this law as a nation. The important thing is that this is an agreement that God made with Israel. It is not an agreement God made with anyone else.</p>

<p>Nothing that is in the Mosaic Law applies to me as a Gentile in virtue of it being in the Mosaic Law. No command is incumbent upon me in virtue of being part of the law. Here is an analogy: There is nothing in California law that applies to somebody living in Ohio. Ohio has its own statutes. There is a statute against murder in California. Does that mean since I’m not in California it’s okay for me to murder in Ohio? No. I’m not under the California statute, but I am under the Ohio statute. There are a lot of rules that apply in any situation in any state. There are also laws and rules that are unique to a particular state’s situation.</p>

<p>The Mosaic covenant is like a state law. It was given to those people in that state for that period of time. We are in a different state now. We have a different covenant that applies to us—the new covenant with different obligations. We are not obliged by everything in the Mosaic Law. That was a set of civil obligations that were applicable to those people in that nation. It was made between God and Moses and Israel. God took them out of the land, He rescued them, and they were obligated to Him as their Sovereign. They had to keep the terms of the covenant. If they did, He would protect them, and if they didn’t, He would forsake them&nbsp;(Deuteronomy 28). There are blessings and curses in the Mosaic Covenant meant for Israel.</p>

<p>The Mosaic contract is no longer in force. It has been replaced for everyone, including Jews, by the new contract. The new contract is a new enterprise. Gentiles were never under the old contract. Now, Jews and Gentiles alike who put their faith in Jesus are under the new contract.</p>

<p>Does that mean we can go around murdering people because we’re not under the Mosaic Law? No. The obligation not to murder is universal and should be in any law. Just as our law does, the Mosaic Law included universal moral principles. So we are obligated to follow those moral rules, not in virtue of them being in the Mosaic law, but because they are universal for all people. The Mosaic law included universal moral rules and rules that were limited to the nation who lived under that contract. We have to distinguish between these as we consider how we relate to the Mosaic covenant now.</p>

<p>Universal moral obligations from the Mosaic Law are repeated in the New Testament. The things that no longer apply to us are not repeated in the New Testament. It’s exactly like being in a separate state.</p>

<p>For example, love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself are in both the Old and New Testaments. This is a summary statement in the New Testament. Part of it was in response to the Jews. It was hard to keep all the laws, so they decided, let’s keep the most important one. There were debates between them about which law was the greatest commandment, so they asked Jesus. The purpose of finding the greatest commandment was to focus on keeping that really well and not worry so much about the others.</p>

<p>Jesus says, you don’t have to worry about the rest of the commandments if you can fulfill these: Love your God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself. Then, the lawyer who raised the question, seeking to justify himself, asks who is his neighbor. Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan, which points out even your enemies are your neighbor.</p>

<p>The lawyer is interested in finding a way that he can work his own salvation out by himself. As a Christian for 40 years, I have not had a split second of my life as a follower of Christ when I loved the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. There has probably been a moment or two in 40 years that maybe I’d love my neighbor as myself, but most of the time, no. I cannot justify myself, Greg Koukl, based on the demands of those simple commandments. This was Jesus’&nbsp;point. You want to justify yourself? Fine, try these two on for size.</p>

<p>Jesus is emphasizing the complete impossibility of self-justification, which is the fundamental difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The nation of Israel was obliged to obey the laws of their nation in order to reap God’s blessings or curses. It was based on their obedience. The New Covenant is based on grace, not obedience. The two laws are completely different, so the way they apply to us are different.</p>

<p>When Jesus is talking about loving your neighbor he is not advancing it as a separate ethic. He’s saying that this sums up the obligation of the Old Testament Law. It is meant to be a further burden on anyone that is seeking to justify himself, which is the case for the person who asked the question. If you’re seeking to justify yourself, then you have to treat your neighbor this way, and you’re not going to be able to consistently treat your neighbor this way. Therefore, you can’t justify yourself.</p>

<p>Today, we do not live under the Mosaic covenant. We don’t have all the laws that pertain to dietary and sacrificial things because Jesus did away with those laws. We don’t have the punishments proscribed in the law because that was for their judicial system in that nation. Just as the punishments for laws in other states don’t apply to us in California (even if we have the same law), we don’t apply those punishments since we aren’t under that system of laws.</p>

<p>The question we have to ask ourselves as New Testament Christians in the New Covenant is, which commands or moral principles are obligatory and would apply regardless of the covenants, because they are universal morals that transcend the Mosaic Law? We need to look at the passages in question and ask: Does this seem to express a moral obligation that transcends the Mosaic Law?</p>

<p>One way to know that is to see how it’s worded. Another way is to see if the same kinds of directives come up in the New Testament where the Mosaic Law is not operating. Virtually every one of the Ten Commandments, save the Sabbath, is also expressed in some way or another in the New Testament as morally obligatory. Other things, like homosexuality are forbidden in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. We have the commands against homosexuality in Corinthians and Romans, so it becomes clear that this is a universal and it is not just simply a provision of the Old Testament Law, while the punishment is limited to that old system and not applicable in the New Testament.</p>

<p>This allows us to answer a lot of challenges that people might make regarding the old law. They say it looks like we’re picking and choosing the Old Testament Law because we’re against homosexuality, but we don’t follow these other details. We are picking and choosing, but we are not doing so arbitrarily. We understand the Old Testament law was given as a contract to Moses and was therefore very unique and particular for the nation of Israel. However, there are some things stated in there that go beyond the law and are above the temporal role of the Mosaic Law. They seem to be universals and are therefore in the New Testament.</p>

<p>We are not being arbitrary when we say homosexuality is forbidden. In Leviticus it is being expressed clearly as a universal, right next to bestiality and child sacrifice. These things are wrong in any culture. Indeed, at the end of the chapter, it says people in other cultures practiced these things and they were judged for them. That’s another hint that these are universals and not just a peculiar law limited to the Jews, though the particular application of law was limited to their system of law.</p>

<p>Note also in Ephesians 2 Paul talks about the role of the law. It was a dividing wall that kept the Gentiles and Jews separated. He said that dividing wall has been torn down now so that the Jews and Gentiles can be combined into one new man on the New Covenant having been built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles in Christ Jesus the cornerstone. We are not under the Mosaic Law, but under the New Covenant. The Mosaic Law contained some universal moral principles that apply today because they transcend the old law, but aren’t applied in the same way judicially. The Mosaic Law was limited to a time and nation, but morality was not.</p>
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title: No-Fault Divorce Led to Confusion about Marriage
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 04/26/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/no-fault-divorce-led-to-confusion-about-marriage
content:
            <div> 
		<p>This <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-so-far-very-limited-move-against-no-fault-divorce/article/2547417?custom_click=rss&amp;utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter" target="_blank">article caught my eye</a>—a movement to change no-fault divorce laws. We began tinkering with traditional marriage decades ago, and some of the force behind the case for same-sex marriage is drawn from ideas introduced to make divorce easier in the 60s. One of the key ideas: Marriage is about love. So when spouses fall out of love, they should be able to end their covenant easily, rather than show a sufficient reason for the instability to the individuals and society divorce causes. It was a fad 40 years ago for marriage vows to end with “as long as we both shall love.”&nbsp;And now the argument is made that the government shouldn’t prevent people who love each other from getting married.</p>

<p>Of course, <a href="http://www.str.org/quickthoughts/is-marriage-about-love#.U1gG815mt-4" target="_blank">marriage wasn’t about love</a>. It was, in part, about making stable families to raise the next generation.</p>

<p>I <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/the-battle-for-marriage-began-years-ago#.U1gDbV5mt-4" target="_blank">wrote about this</a> nine years ago quoting Al Mohler. And it’s more true now.</p>

<p>There were some legitimate reasons for no-fault divorce—abused women who couldn’t show proof for just cause for a divorce. But it was much more about the feminist movement, freeing women from the “bonds”&nbsp;of a patriarchal institution. And a generation that naively believed love was all that mattered. There were no doubt marriages with cause for divorce, but the effects of no-fault divorce has had far-reaching consequences that now mean overturning an institution that provided stable families that helped create stable societies across millennia, across civilizations, across religions.</p>

<p>And for a culture who cries that the government has no business in our bedrooms, isn’t it odd that we want to say that they do have business in our most intimate feelings—love?</p>

<p>We’ll see if the damage can be repaired.</p>
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title: Remember “HANDS” When Arguing for Jesus’ Deity
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 05/10/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/remember-hands-when-arguing-for-jesus-deity
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Does the Bible teach that Jesus is God? Over at <a href="http://apologetics-notes.comereason.org/2014/05/the-hands-argument-for-deity-of-jesus.html#.U2P-iK1dVpE" target="_blank">Come Reason’s Apologetics Notes</a>, Lenny Esposito has a summary of the acronym “HANDS”&nbsp;given in the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Putting-Jesus-His-Place-Christ/dp/0825429838/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1399061540&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank"><em>Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ</em></a> (by Rob Bowman and Ed Komoszewski):</p>

<blockquote>
<p>1. Jesus shares the HONORS due only to God.</p>

<p>2. Jesus shares the ATTRIBUTES of God.</p>

<p>3. Jesus shares the NAMES that are used of God.</p>

<p>4. Jesus shares in the DEEDS that only God can do.</p>

<p>5. Jesus shares the SEAT of God—that is, Jesus sits on God’s throne.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read a brief overview of each of these categories on <a href="http://apologetics-notes.comereason.org/2014/05/the-hands-argument-for-deity-of-jesus.html#.U2P-iK1dVpE" target="_blank">Lenny’s post</a> or get all the details in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Putting-Jesus-His-Place-Christ/dp/0825429838/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1399061540&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank"><em>Putting Jesus in His Place</em></a>.</p>
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title: Speaking the Truth in Love to Mormons
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 05/15/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/speaking-the-truth-in-love-to-mormons
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Brett’s monthly letter for May 2014</em></p>

<p>Mormons are the <em>only</em> true Christians. At least, that’s the official position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Shortly after Jesus’&nbsp;original disciples had passed from the earth, the Christian church lost the Gospel. According to the Mormon scriptures, God restored the true Gospel to the earth through the prophet Joseph Smith, and he established the LDS church (<em>Pearl of Great Price</em>, Joseph Smith - History, 1:1-75), “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth”&nbsp;(<em>Doctrine &amp; Covenants</em> 1:30). Therefore, Mormonism is the restoration of <em>true</em> Christianity. Christians of any other stripe are <em>false</em> Christians. All other Christian churches are <em>false</em> churches.</p>

<p>Interestingly enough, Mormons often take offense at any suggestion they are not Christians. But according to official LDS teaching, this is exactly <em>their</em> view of <em>us</em>. Mormons believe we are part of an “abominable”&nbsp;church founded by Satan (I Nephi 22:13 &amp; I Nephi 13:5-6). So when they take offense, I ask them why. When they respond with some version of, “You think we are wrong,”&nbsp;I gently remind them this is precisely the view they have of me. And I quickly add I am not in the least bit offended. Why not? Because I want the truth. If my views about God and the Gospel are wrong, I want to know.</p>

<p>In fact, a crucial indicator of my friends’&nbsp;love for me is their willingness to speak the truth to me. Do you know who loves me most? My wife. And do you know who speaks the most truth into my life? My wife. Sometimes, while driving on California’s crazy freeways, my wife will lean over and speak some truth. “Honey, you really shouldn’t yell lethal threats at other drivers.”&nbsp;In doing so, Erin takes a risk because my first response is often offense. “That guy was tailgating me!”&nbsp;But as she continues to speak truth and I slowly remember my goal to pursue truth in all areas of life, I open up to the truth of her words and the error of my ways. My wife’s truth-telling is evidence of her deep love for me.</p>

<p>In the same way, sharing the truth with Mormons should be evidence of our love for them. When you talk to your Mormon friends about the Gospel, assure them you’re not trying to unnecessarily offend them. Make it clear the pursuit of truth, in love, is your motivation. Defuse their defensiveness by suggesting you could possibly be wrong in your views of God. If anyone, Mormon or otherwise, senses you are open and fair-minded, they are more likely to engage in conversation.</p>

<p>Once they’re convinced you care, bring truth front and center. Gently ask, “Would you want to know if you were worshiping the wrong God?”&nbsp;If they answer yes, they’re probably ready to hear more of the truth. Ultimately, if you can help your LDS friends see that love and truth are not mutually exclusive, you can help ensure that a potentially offensive discussion is a productive one.</p>
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title: Gifts, Talents, and Character
topic: Theology
author: Melinda Penner
date: 04/29/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/gifts-talents-and-character
content:
            <div> 
		<p>One of the resources I like best in <a href="https://www.logos.com" target="_blank">Logos Bible Software</a> is the library of <a href="https://www.logos.com/product/17902/timothy-keller-sermon-archive-1989-2011" target="_blank">Timothy Keller’s sermons</a> from over 20 years at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. I’ve been listening to sermons by Keller for a couple of years now, so when I saw they were releasing transcriptions, I was anxious to get them so that I could also read them. His sermons have been daily fare for me because I find his teaching to be a unique balance between pastor and apologist, intellectual and counselor that gives me insight and practical application. Keller exegetes the passage and talks about the passage, something unfortunately sometimes hard to find in a sermon. He’s an intellectual with an ear to the postmodern culture. He has an apologetic posture, ready to answer objections and critics—and even the questions and doubts of believers influenced by our culture. And he’s a pastor, instructing, exhorting, and encouraging. It’s an array of teaching that appeals to my mind, but also my heart, which is the side I can easily neglect.</p>

<p>On my drive home yesterday, I listened to a sermon on 1 Corinthians 13 in a series on grace, and this morning I found the transcript in the Logos library so I could read and review it. This one really caught my attention because it spoke to a propensity for mistaking gifts for character that I think I was (still am?) guilty of much of my life, and it’s something God has been working on in me for several years now, though I’d never understood it in the way Keller explained it.</p>

<p>Keller begins the sermon by introducing the original audience and the setting in its historical context, then draws parallels to our current condition so we can see even better how it applies. There aren’t too many Bible passages that are more familiar than 1 Corinthians 13, which makes it even harder to read with Paul’s original intention. We have all kinds of assumptions that make it easy to gloss over it. Sometimes the principle “never read a Bible verse”&nbsp;can even apply to a chapter. This chapter follows 12 chapters of context where Paul is laying the foundation for this, and this chapter draws on that. This isn’t a lovey-dovey reflection on love. The character flaws Paul mentions in this chapter are ones that he has brought up earlier in the book. So as the Corinthians heard this read, they’d see the contrast of their character flaws to what they should be—what Paul is calling them to be. It would have been incredibly convicting.</p>

<p>Here’s the main lesson Keller draws from the passage: Being gifted is not the same thing as character.</p>

<p>We can be gifted by God with spiritual gifts, but it’s not the same thing as character. We can even do good things but they gain us nothing because they don’t build character or commend us to God. It’s possible to do loving things without actually being loving—to do outwardly good things but not be good inside. To lack love and grace. Don’t mistake gifts for grace, talent for character.</p>

<p>I think this is an insight into why it’s possible to accomplish great service in the body of Christ and still fall into grave sin. The gifts that we use to serve the Body, the gifts God uses, are not the same thing as integrity and character.</p>

<p>“It’s not being gifted, not being good; it’s being graced.”</p>

<p>Keller points out that personifying love in this chapter calls to mind 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 where Paul encouraged them to put aside their disagreement and bragging to remember the cross. Jesus is love personified here. Paul is illustrating what love personified in Jesus looks like, how the cross changes us inwardly. We’re never going to be loving people by certain behaviors, but by deep change in our character when we remember the cross and Jesus’&nbsp;love shown there.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Where do you see the ultimate example of, “Does not keep a record of wrongs”? The cross. “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”&nbsp;Where do you see the ultimate example of love never giving up? “Father...remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.”</p>

<p>Here’s the key. If you see verses 4-7 first as a guide for your behavior, you’ll never get there. If you see this not as a love you have to do first but a love that was done <em>for you</em> and <em>to</em> you first, if you see Him pouring Himself into you, that’s going to change everything... If you see Him loving you like that...that completely...then you’re going to be able to turn around and do it for others. Common sense. You could never produce this kind of love ever in a million years, but you could pass it on if somebody gave it to you. Jesus has done it.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>That’s the kind of insight that shifts me from my actions to my character, from doing good to being filled with love and grace. It’s not something I generate. It’s the result of meditating and dwelling on the love and grace Jesus has given me. That changes me from the inside out.</p>

<p>One of the things I like best about Logos Bible Software are these kinds of resources. There’s a ton of sophisticated resources for in-depth Bible study. But there are also resources like the Keller sermon archive that are pastoral and devotional. Even resources that can work for Bible study groups and homeschooling.</p>
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