# articles

title: Why the Gospel of Luke Should Be Dated Earlier than AD 67
topic: History
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/30/2015
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-the-gospel-of-luke-should-be-dated-earlier-than-ad-67
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Here’s an <a href="http://www.rightreason.org/2015/paul-quoted-luke/" target="_blank">argument from Glenn Peoples</a> for an early date for the Gospel of Luke:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>There’s widespread consensus that Mark was written early, but not such consensus for the others. But here’s a thought: St Paul, while he was writing his Epistles, <em>appears</em> to have known what was written in the Gospel of Luke...</p>

<p>Here is why this appears to be the case. This is an excerpt from Paul’s first letter to Timothy (1 Timothy 5:17-18):</p>

<p>Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in preaching and teaching; for the scripture says, <strong>“You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,”</strong>&nbsp;and, <strong>“The labourer deserves to be paid.”</strong></p>

<p>Paul claims to be quoting from scripture. But which parts of scripture is he quoting from? The first one is easy. “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain���&nbsp;comes from the Torah, in Deuteronomy 25:4. What about the second quote, “the labourer deserves to be paid?”&nbsp;or more literally, “the worker deserves his wages?”&nbsp;(the NRSV from which I quoted often alters the sentence to remove reference to gender). Is it anywhere in the Hebrew Scripture? What about the Septuagint? Nope, nowhere. Was there any Jewish writing at the time that contained this saying and which might have been regarded as scripture? No. So what was he quoting from when he claimed that this is something contained in scripture?</p>

<p>Here’s a quote from something that Christians today regard as Scripture: “Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for <strong>the labourer deserves to be paid.”</strong></p>

<p>And there it is, the elusive phrase. This is from the Gospel of Luke (10:7), where Jesus is giving his disciples instructions before sending them out. So how did Paul know about this saying being in Scripture? Remember that St Paul is believed to have died in AD 67.</p>

<p>So, here is where we are: At some point prior to his death (which is when people tend to write letters) in AD 67 or thereabouts, St Paul quoted from Luke’s Gospel and called it “scripture.”&nbsp;But pretty obviously, you can’t quote from a book unless the book exists. Consequently, the Gospel of Luke must have been written and had time to become recognized by the early Christian community as bearing witness to the life of Jesus prior to AD 67.</p>

<p>So Luke’s Gospel was probably written in the 50s or 60s.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In the <a href="http://www.rightreason.org/2015/paul-quoted-luke/" target="_blank">rest of his post</a>, he examines and responds to objections (e.g., Paul was referring to oral testimony, Paul didn’t write 1 Timothy, etc.) to this argument. For another post on this topic, see Greg’s “<a href="http://www.str.org/quickthoughts/a-short-argument-for-the-early-dating-of-the-gospels#.VMv3QmTF_OY" target="_blank">A Short Argument for the Early Dating of the Gospels</a>,”&nbsp;where he takes another path to an early date for Luke.</p>
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title: Embryonic Stem Cell Success
topic: Bioethics
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 01/06/2015
source: https://www.str.org/w/embryonic-stem-cell-success
content:
            <div> 
		<p>This past November I <a href="http://www.str.org/articles/must-we-kill-humans-to-save-other-humans" target="_blank">wrote</a> that embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) had not led to any successful human treatments. I was wrong.</p>

<p>It turns out there are several clinical studies that have used stem cells derived from human embryos to successfully treat human conditions. In one <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61376-3/abstract" target="_blank">case</a>, embryonic stem cells were used to treat patients with macular degeneration and macular dystrophy. Researchers transplanted human embryonic stem cells into the affected eyes and showed measurable improvement. So, I can’t claim that that embryonic stem cells have treated <em>zero</em> conditions.</p>

<p>None of this changes the main points I make on this topic, though. Adult-derived stem cells are still the superior choice. It’s still true that adult stem cells have been <a href="http://stemcellresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/asc-refs.pdf" target="_blank">far more successful</a> at treating conditions in humans. It’s still true that it’s not necessary to clone human beings with adult stem cells. And, most importantly, it’s still true that treating conditions using adult stem cells doesn’t require you to kill innocent human beings.</p>
</div>

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title: All Paths Do Lead to God
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/24/2015
source: https://www.str.org/w/all-paths-do-lead-to-god
content:
            <div> 
		<p>A reminder from <a href="http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2015/01/23/all-paths-lead-to-god/" target="_blank">Kevin DeYoung</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>All paths lead to God, but only one path will present you before God without fault and with great joy.</p>

<p>Pick a path, any path—it will take you to God. Trust me: you will stand before Him one day. You will meet your Maker. You will see the face of Christ.</p>

<p>There are many ways up the mountain, but only one will result in life instead of destruction.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Greg on <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/why-is-jesus-the-only-way-2#.VMM3KmR4qaC" target="_blank">why Jesus is the only way</a> to life instead of destruction:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Then I asked him, “Have you ever committed any moral crimes?”</p>

<p>“Yes,”&nbsp;he said.</p>

<p>“So have I,”&nbsp;I responded. “So now we have this difficult situation. We both believe those who commit moral crimes should be punished, and we both believe we’ve committed moral crimes. Do you know what I call that? Bad news.”</p>

<p>I continued, “This is where Jesus comes in. We both know we’re guilty, worthy of punishment. God offers a pardon on His terms: Jesus, because He has personally paid the penalty on our behalf. You can either take the pardon and go free, or leave it and pay for your own crimes yourself.”</p>

<p>This approach gives an accurate sense of why the cross is important and why Jesus is actually necessary, showing God as merciful, not petty. The biblical message is not if you don’t believe in Jesus you go to Hell. Rather the message is, “If you don’t receive a pardon for your crimes, you’ll be punished as you should be.”&nbsp;The former approach confuses the doctor with the disease. If you refuse the doctor’s medicine for your disease, the blame belongs to the disease, not the doctor. The obituary doesn’t read, “Cause of Death: He didn’t go to the doctor.”</p>

<p>It’s the disease—sin—that kills, not the lack of a doctor. Jesus is the only way because He is the only one that provides the cure for what ails us.</p>
</blockquote>
</div>

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title: 42 Years Later, Here’s Where Americans Stand on Abortion
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/22/2015
source: https://www.str.org/w/42-years-later-here-s-where-americans-stand-on-abortion
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Today is the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade and a good time to report on a <a href="http://www.kofc.org/un/en/resources/communications/Abortion_in_America_January2015_For_Release_150121.pdf" target="_blank">recent poll</a> that tried to get beyond the “pro-life”&nbsp;and “pro-choice”&nbsp;labels people claim for themselves to determine their specific views about abortion. From Kate Scanlon at <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2015/01/21/new-poll-8-10-americans-support-significant-restrictions-abortion/" target="_blank">The Daily Signal</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>According to the poll, 47 percent of Americans identify themselves as pro-life, and 49 percent as pro-choice.</p>

<p>But it’s not that simple—Americans’&nbsp;views on abortion are “complex.”</p>

<p>When respondents were offered “additional options,”&nbsp;a “good deal of common ground is revealed”&nbsp;between the two sides.</p>

<p>Eighty-four percent of respondents support some form of “significant restrictions”&nbsp;on abortion; such as limiting legal abortions to the first trimester of pregnancy, only allowing abortion in cases involving rape, incest or risk of maternal death—or not at all.</p>

<p>Sixty-nine percent of respondents who identified as “pro-choice”&nbsp;supported the same restrictions.</p>

<p>Only nine percent support legal abortion “at any time”&nbsp;during all nine months of pregnancy, and only 17 percent of those who identified as “pro-choice”&nbsp;support legal abortion throughout an entire pregnancy.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Please don’t miss this: Only 9% of Americans support unrestricted abortion. 84% support “significant restrictions.”&nbsp;Eighty-four percent. Never assume you know what a person thinks about abortion just because she says she’s “pro-life”&nbsp;or “pro-choice.”&nbsp;Always ask specific questions and work from there.</p>

<p>Our laws aren’t just out of step with our people, they’re out of step with the world. Only seven countries in the <em>world</em> have laws as extreme as ours, allowing elective abortions <a href="https://www.lozierinstitute.org/internationalabortionnorms/" target="_blank">after 20 weeks</a>. We share that “honor”&nbsp;with China and North Korea.</p>

<p>Here are a few more posts to read and pass around today:</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="https://www.str.org/blog/pro-life-crash-course#.W6lvihNKijQ" target="_blank">Pro-Life Crash Course</a></li>
	<li><a href="https://www.str.org/blog/you-can-change-our-culture-s-mind-on-abortion#.W6lwPBNKijQ" target="_blank">You Can Change Our Culture’s Mind on Abortion</a></li>
	<li><a href="http://www.str.org/articles/the-s.l.e.d.-test" target="_blank">The S.L.E.D. Test</a></li>
	<li><a href="https://www.str.org/blog/restoring-meaning-selective-reduction#.W6lxeBNKijQ" target="_blank">Restoring Meaning to “Selective Reduction”</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

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title: How to Let Your Opponent Make Your Case—Mentoring Letter February 2015
topic: Bioethics
author: Greg Koukl
date: 02/01/2015
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-to-let-your-opponent-make-your-case-mentoring-letter-february-2015
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Pay attention. Listen carefully. Think about the ramifications of statements others make in unguarded moments when they’re not defending turf.</em></p>

<p>Sometimes when a person disagrees with you on a critical concern—abortion, for instance—he will give your view a leg up without realizing it when talking about something else. If you stay alert, you might be able to leverage his point in support of our own.</p>

<p>A perfect example came from a pro-choice radio talk-show host when he took a call from a blind man who felt that people had sometimes treated him as less of a person because of his disability. The host was appalled.</p>

<p>“Just because you’ve lost your sight, are you any less who you are?”&nbsp;he asked.</p>

<p>“No,”&nbsp;the caller answered.</p>

<p>“If I lost my sight or my ability to speak or do a radio show,”&nbsp;the host continued, “wouldn’t I still be who I am? Wouldn’t I still be me?”</p>

<p>“It’s ridiculous for anyone to think,”&nbsp;he concluded, “that a blind person is any less of a person just because he can’t see.”</p>

<p>It was a great, common-sense observation: Losing any physical ability can’t make any human being substandard since he still remains himself. Yet isn’t this very point implicitly denied in pro-abortion circles by the claim that the unborn is not a real person because he lacks certain abilities?</p>

<p>As I drove along, I bantered with the host in a one-way conversation in my car. “Listen to yourself: ’Wouldn’t I still be me?’&nbsp;Keep whittling away body parts and abilities and keep asking the same question,”&nbsp;I pleaded.</p>

<p>What if the caller were smaller in stature, or weighed only a pound, like many preemies, or even less than an ounce, like a zygote? Would that make a difference in who he was? What if he had no legs, or his body was terribly misshapen by some horrible defect? Would he be any less himself? Would he be any less a valuable human being?</p>

<p>How many body parts or capabilities can I lose or alter and still be myself? The answer: No matter how many pieces I’m missing, no matter how many capabilities I lose, as long as I’m still alive, I’m still me.</p>

<p>Human value transcends abilities—or lack of abilities—because human beings are valuable based on what they are, not on what they do. Therefore, missing abilities can’t disqualify human value. Indeed, if it did—if someone’s worth were based on physical performance—then only the physically perfect would be safe.</p>

<p>It’s a powerful point—a line of thinking completely contained implicitly in the talk show host’s simple observation: “Wouldn’t I still be me?”</p>

<p>Precisely the same point came from another unlikely source: Superman.</p>

<p>In 1995, actor Christopher Reeve suffered a terrible riding accident that shattered his first and second vertebrae. Immobilized from the neck down, unable to breathe without a machine, Reeve whispered to his wife, Dana, “Maybe we should let me go.”</p>

<p>“You’re still you,”&nbsp;she said, tearfully, “and I love you.”</p>

<p>Reeve lived another decade, acting, directing, and ultimately lobbying Congress in favor of human embryonic stem cell research—all from his wheelchair. He also wrote his autobiography. It was titled, Still Me.</p>

<p>Do you see the irony? Reeve was still his valuable self despite his lack of physical ability. Unfortunately, he didn’t apply his own reasoning to other human beings in the embryonic stage.</p>

<p>Here’s the takeaway: Pay attention. Listen carefully. Think about the ramifications of statements others make in unguarded moments when they’re not defending turf. They may just make a common-sense admission that will end up supporting your point, not theirs.</p>

<p>Equipping you to make gracious and incisive arguments for classical Christianity and Christian values is at the core of who we are. That’s why we have produced a powerful print resource for you. Precious Unborn Human Persons poses the one question that ends the abortion debate but which is almost never addressed. And it’s our gift to you for your kind support this month.</p>

<p>Will you give a generous gift today to equip thousands of Christian Ambassadors—and ensure that the Christian worldview has a place in the cultural debate?</p>

<p>When you respond with your donation, be sure to ask for Precious Unborn Human Persons. It’s a key tool that brings clear thought and careful logic to abortion dialogues—and it’s our way of saying thanks for your gracious friendship and support.</p>

<p>Always ready,</p>

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

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title: Textual Variants Aren’t a Problem
topic: History
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/10/2015
source: https://www.str.org/w/textual-variants-aren-t-a-problem
content:
            <div> 
		<p>For the past two days, I’ve posted bits of responses to the poorly-researched Newsweek article “<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/02/thats-not-what-bible-says-294018.html" target="_blank">The Bible: So Misunderstood It’s a Sin</a>”&nbsp;by Kurt Eichenwald. Today I want to point you to one more response by Michael Kruger (author of two books related to this subject matter, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Revisited-Establishing-Authority-Testament/dp/1433505002/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419948492&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=canon+revisited" target="_blank">Canon Revisited</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Heresy-Orthodoxy-Contemporary-Understanding-Christianity/dp/1433501430/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419390009&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=heresy+of+orthodoxy" target="_blank">The Heresy of Orthodoxy</a>). Here he <a href="http://michaeljkruger.com/a-christmas-present-from-the-mainstream-media-newsweek-takes-a-desperate-swipe-at-the-integrity-of-the-bible-part-1/" target="_blank">responds</a> to Eichenwald’s discussion of textual variants:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>In an effort to shock the reader, Eichenwald appeals to two significant textual variations in the NT, namely the long ending of Mark (16:9-20) and the pericope of the adulterous woman (<a href="http://www.esvbible.org/search/John%207.53-8.11/" target="_blank" title="John 7:53-8:11">John 7:53-8:11</a>). These are the same ones that Ehrman highlights in his book <em>Misquoting Jesus</em>—which is evidently a big influence on Eichenwald.</p>

<p>But, Eichenwald only tells part of the story. First, he doesn’t tell the reader that these are the <em>only two</em> significant variations in the entire New Testament. He presents them like they are typical when they are not. <em>Second, he doesn’t explain how text-critical methodologies allow scholars to identify these changes as later additions. And if they can be identified as later additions, then they do not threaten our ability to know the original text</em> [emphasis added].</p>

<p>Even more, Eichenwald continues to make factual errors about these changes. He states:</p>

<p><em>Unfortunately, John didn’t write it. Scribes made it up sometime in the Middle Ages. It does not appear in any of the three other Gospels or in any of the early Greek versions of John. Even if the Gospel of John is an infallible telling of the history of Jesus’s ministry, the event simply never happened.</em></p>

<p>This statement is riddled with errors. For one, scribes probably didn’t make the story of the adulterous woman up—it probably circulated as oral tradition. Second, it was not added in the “Middle Ages”&nbsp;as he claims, but probably sometime between the second and fourth century. Third, we don’t know that “the event simply never happened.”&nbsp;On the contrary, scholars have argued it may be an authentic event that circulated in the early church for generations.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Kruger’s two-part response to the Newsweek article (<a href="http://michaeljkruger.com/a-christmas-present-from-the-mainstream-media-newsweek-takes-a-desperate-swipe-at-the-integrity-of-the-bible-part-1/" target="_blank">Part 1</a>, <a href="http://michaeljkruger.com/a-christmas-gift-from-the-mainstream-media-newsweek-takes-a-desperate-swipe-at-the-integrity-of-the-bible-part-2/" target="_blank">Part 2</a>) is worth reading in full. I appreciate his <a href="http://michaeljkruger.com/a-christmas-gift-from-the-mainstream-media-newsweek-takes-a-desperate-swipe-at-the-integrity-of-the-bible-part-2/" target="_blank">conclusion</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>By way of conclusion, it is hard to know what to say about an article like Eichenwald’s. In many ways, it embodies all the misrepresentations, caricatures, and misunderstandings of the average non-Christian in the world today. It is short on the facts, it has little understanding of interpretive principles, it assumes that it knows more about theology than it really does, and it pours out scorn and contempt on the average believer.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, in a paradoxical fashion, I am thankful for it. I am thankful because articles like this provide evangelicals with an opportunity to explain what Christians really believe, and what historical credentials the Bible really has. Eichenwald’s article is evidence that most people in the world understand neither of these things. With all the evangelical responses to this article, hopefully that is changing.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You can learn more about how textual criticism works in this brief <a href="http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/03/21/an-interview-with-daniel-b-wallace-on-the-new-testament-manuscripts/" target="_blank">interview</a> with Dan Wallace or by watching his more detailed <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/basics-new-testament-textual/id446655163?mt=10" target="_blank">iTunes U course</a>.</p>
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title: Why Christians Don’t Seek to Avenge Insults against God
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 01/14/2015
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-christians-don-t-seek-to-avenge-insults-against-god
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Over a year ago, I heard something on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNIJblJT66A#t=50m37s" target="_blank">James White’s podcast</a> that I’ve been thinking about off and on ever since. It’s a clip of Yusuf Ismail, a Muslim, from a debate he did with a Christian, and it gives some insight into how Muslims view God and the Christian gospel. Dr. White explains in the podcast:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I think this is one of the best insights into the Muslim mind that is trying to interpret the gospel of Jesus Christ within a context that has no room for a suffering Messiah, has no room for the gospel message. This, to me, is a clear illustration of how... Mohammed never understood the very central aspect of the message of the gospel. He never understood it.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This was Yusuf Ismail’s objection to the gospel:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The idea, or the concept, of Jesus being God or being divine has raised for Muslims a number of issues pertaining to the theological mistrust. If Jesus is God, and God allows Himself to be edged out of the world and onto the cross—and as John had suggested earlier on, it was the idea of God incarnate, coming down to earth, humiliating Himself, in a manner of speaking, and being crushed by his enemies, in a manner of speaking—now, if that’s the idea of God, if God allows Himself to be edged out of the world onto the cross, then our understanding of God is fundamentally a God who is weak and totally powerless in the world. He helps us, not through His omnipotence, not through His almightiness, but rather through His weakness and suffering.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>We forget how entirely unexpected and shocking the humility and servanthood of Jesus is—how foreign it is to human expectations of God, and in this case, to Muslim expectations. Transcendence, power, judgment, and victory, they expect. But humility? Self-sacrificial grace? These seem obviously incompatible with deity to Yusuf Ismail.</p>

<p>But this is Christianity: God accomplished His purpose through the weakness, suffering, humiliation, and even death of Jesus, the divine second person of the Trinity. And even more shockingly, Jesus did this <em>for</em> people who were the cause of His suffering, and humiliation, and death. Because of this, it’s not by accident that Christians who live in gratefulness and awe of this don’t seek revenge on those who mock them and their God. We’re told in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=philippians+2%3A1-11&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Philippians 2</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yes, God will accomplish <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2013/02/god-cares-more-about-behavior-than-most-people-think.html" target="_blank">perfect justice</a> in the end. Justice is good, and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+12%3A19&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">we rest in that</a>. But the most honored act of all time, for which Jesus was highly exalted by the Father, was not avenging His Name, but dying for those who disgraced it. He didn’t dismiss justice, but instead He upheld it by bearing it on His own shoulders. This central act of Christianity burrowed into our understanding of the virtuous life and slowly <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2014/05/this-is-the-kind-of-culture-christianity-creates.html" target="_blank">infiltrated all of Western culture</a>—so much so that we in the West now take for granted the beauty of patient, gracious, self-sacrificial humility over an immediate exercise of punitive power. We forget that not every culture has seen this as desirable. It’s an <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2013/01/be-a-parable-of-gods-grace.html" target="_blank">echo of Christ</a>, not something men naturally reason to on their own.</p>

<p>As with any ideal, neither individual Christians nor societies shaped by Christianity have always lived up to this. But the astounding truth is that our knowledge of Christ created this cultural <em>ideal</em> where it didn’t exist before.</p>
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title: Strengthen the Basics in 2015
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 12/31/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/strengthen-the-basics-in-2015
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’ve noticed this unfortunate truth about myself as a fallen human being: When I drift away from reading the Bible or praying, it’s difficult to start up again. I don’t understand why this is, but coming back to it is like fighting my way through a field of molasses. I resist it. I avoid it. None of this makes sense to me since I often feel more spiritually and intellectually satisfied, more peaceful and in awe of God, after I seriously pray or read the Bible. I enjoy it once I start. I’m certainly never <em>sorry</em> I’ve spent my time that way, and yet for some crazy reason, when I’ve been away from it, I resist coming back.</p>

<p>I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you might experience this, too. The best way I’ve found to fight this is to work at creating strong, consistent habits in both Bible reading and prayer in order to avoid the uphill battle of stopping and starting over and over. <em>Maintaining</em> a spiritual habit is much easier than <em>starting</em> one, so it’s best to start it once and then maintain it day by day for the long term.</p>

<p>To help you with this in 2015, I’m recommending two free apps that have been indispensable to me:</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://stayinthebible.com/" target="_blank"><strong><em>The Bible Companion App</em></strong></a>: This app tracks your consistency (I work to keep every day checked off in the ten-day display at the top of the app!) as well as your reading. What I love about this app is that I’m able to work my way through the Bible in whatever order I prefer, and it can show me at a glance what I’ve read and what I have left to go so I never lose track. When every book in the Bible is finished, I simply reset them to zero and start again. (You can reset one book at a time, as well, in case you want to follow a plan that involves something like what I describe in the first paragraph <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2013/01/be-a-parable-of-gods-grace.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)&nbsp;

	<p><br>
	There are a few other bells and whistles (you can now set and track goals for things like prayer and time spent reading other books—both helpful!), but I love the simplicity of it. It works, it’s motivating, and it keeps me faithful. To learn more about what it can do, see their <a href="http://stayinthebible.com/" target="_blank">instructional videos</a>—although, it’s simple enough to figure out most of it on your own.</p>
	</li>
</ul>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://www.geero.net/prayermate/" target="_blank"><strong><em>PrayerMate</em></strong></a>: I wrote about this app&nbsp;<a href="/w/get-this-prayer-app" target="_blank">back in October</a>, and I’m still thrilled with it. You use this app by creating categories (family, work, friends, etc.) and then adding individual prayer requests into each category as you think of them. Each day, PrayerMate assembles a collection of prayer subjects, according to how many you’ve requested it show you from each category. This means you don’t have to be afraid to add new prayer subjects into the app because your daily list will never get too long—it always remains roughly the same length as you rotate through all the requests for each category, a few at a time.

	<p><br>
	You can designate certain prayers for certain days of the week, easily archive prayers, and look back at what you’ve prayed for recently. You can even subscribe to a feed of prayers from or for certain organizations. (Learn more about how to use it <a href="http://www.challies.com/resources/how-an-app-revitalized-my-prayer-life" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p>
	</li>
</ul>

<p>May God bless your new year through prayer and the Bible!</p>

<p><a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2014/12/strengthen-the-basics-in-2015.html" target="_blank">COMMENTS</a></p>

<p><a href="/articles">Read more posts</a></p>
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title: The Reformation the Church Doesn’t Need
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 12/08/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-reformation-the-church-doesn-t-need
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Alan’s monthly letter for December 2014</em></p>

<p>The Church has always been under attack. From its inception, it’s faced persecution from murderous dictators like Nero to worldview challenges from naturalism and Islam. Although many threats are external, some come from within.</p>

<p>Last month, <a href="/w/alan-shlemon-matthew-vines-s-reformation-project-conference-november-11-2014-" target="_blank">I attended the national conference of The Reformation Project</a> in Washington, D.C. Its founder, Matthew Vines, calls himself a gay Christian. Their mission statement says they are “dedicated to training LGBT Christians and their allies to reform church teaching on sexual orientation and gender identity through the teaching of the Bible.”&nbsp;In other words, they want to change the Church to affirm <em>practicing</em> lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people by reinterpreting the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality.</p>

<p>This isn’t a minor project, either. They use the term “reformation”&nbsp;because they believe their mission is in line with the noble reform efforts of Martin Luther. They intend the Church’s transformation to be just as significant as it was post-Luther. They have a two-pronged approach to accomplishing their goal.</p>

<p>First, they want every Christian who believes homosexual behavior is sin to encounter a gay person in their life. They believe these personal relationships will deconstruct stereotypes about homosexuality. That way conservative Christians will be more willing to accept gay-affirming interpretations of Scripture.</p>

<p>Second, they are training Christians to argue for a revisionist understanding of the biblical texts on homosexuality. They want believers to return to their conservative congregations, reform their church teaching, and make it gay affirming.</p>

<p>While at the conference, I experienced two days of hermeneutics and apologetics training. They systematically taught gay-affirming interpretations of the six biblical texts that deal directly with homosexuality. They also had us role-play their talking points so people became comfortable using the arguments.</p>

<p>It might be tempting to dismiss Vines and others like him. Past efforts at church reform, like the Emergent Church, gained little long-term traction. Couldn’t this amount to another flash-in-the-pan movement that’s gone tomorrow? Possibly, but there are at least three reasons to think it will gain momentum.</p>

<p><strong>There are scholars that support it.</strong> Advocates of pro-gay theology need experts to give their view credibility. David Gushee, an evangelical ethicist, and James Brownson, a New Testament professor, are just two of the Christian scholars who have stepped up to the plate. Both have published books calling the church to affirm practicing homosexuals. Brownson is their go-to guy for rigorous hermeneutics and apologetics, and taught the main arguments at the conference. Although the attendees applauded his teaching, I didn’t find his arguments compelling. This is the beginning, though. More scholars will eventually come on board to give this movement greater credibility.</p>

<p><strong>There are Christians that support it.</strong> There are a significant number of Christians who have friends or family who identify as gay or lesbian. The problem is that many of them don’t know how to reconcile their biblical convictions with their love towards that person in their life. They mistake love with acceptance. Love, to them, means they must accept their friend or family member’s homosexuality. This makes them more willing to accept pro-gay theology. It’s not surprising that both scholars at the conference—Gushee and Brownson—confessed that members of their immediate family identify as gay or lesbian.</p>

<p><strong>The culture supports it.</strong> Most of American culture sides with homosexuality. That means advocates of pro-gay theology can count on law, politics, education, and entertainment to add additional pressure to Christians hesitant to accept revisionist interpretations of Scripture.</p>

<p>These three factors will keep the movement growing. That’s why the Church needs to prepare. The Reformation Project is not the pro-gay theology we saw a decade or two ago. They don’t make silly claims like David and Jonathan were gay or claim Romans 1 is about temple prostitution. They make sophisticated and nuanced arguments. They appeal to the Greek and Hebrew of Scripture. And they provide systematic training through conferences around the country.</p>

<p>I’ve been faithful to respond to challenges like this all year. Whether it was abortion, Islam, homosexuality, or another topic, I was training Christians for the defense of the Gospel. That’s why you know I’ll be there to respond to this issue as well. I’ll be there to equip and serve the Church. I’ll be there to stand for the truth. What encourages me, though, is knowing you’ll be there too. You’ll stand for truth. You’ll stand with me.</p>
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title: Kill Humans to Save Humans? Taking the Heat
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 11/15/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/kill-humans-to-save-humans-taking-the-heat
content:
            <div> 
		<p><a href="https://www.str.org/explore#&amp;format=Article&amp;authorId=212" target="_blank">Alan’s</a> and <a href="https://www.str.org/explore#&amp;format=Article&amp;authorId=211" target="_blank">Brett’s</a> newsletters are now posted on the website:</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://www.str.org/articles/must-we-kill-humans-to-save-other-humans#.VGPY31fF8fl" target="_blank">Must We Kill Humans to Save Other Humans?</a> by Alan Shlemon: “Removing stem cells from a human embryo kills the developing human. Without stem cells, a week-old human can’t build his or her body. That’s why ESCR is morally wrong: It kills an innocent human being. Fortunately, scientists have discovered another source of stem cells: <em>adult</em> human beings. Since stem cells have been self-renewing since our embryonic days, they continue to grow and live in our bodies today. They are found in our bone marrow, brain, fat, eyes, and many other places... Adult stem cell therapy has helped human beings for the last 20 years. To date, stem cells have been used in the treatment of 73 different conditions. How many successful human treatments have embryonic stem cells achieved? Zero. None. Nada.”&nbsp;(<a href="http://www.str.org/articles/must-we-kill-humans-to-save-other-humans#.VGPY31fF8fl" target="_blank">Read more</a>)</li>
	<li><a href="http://www.str.org/articles/taking-the-heat#.VGPYwVfF8fk" target="_blank">Taking the Heat</a> by Brett Kunkle: “Our relationships with other believers should be marked by love—the kind of love Jesus has for us. And you might expect that if the world looks in and sees that kind of love amongst believers, they would naturally be drawn to it. However, Jesus alerts us to the typical reaction of the world: “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ’A servant is not greater than his master.’&nbsp;If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also”&nbsp;(vv. 17-20)... So what should be the response of Christ’s followers to the world’s anger and hatred?”&nbsp;(<a href="http://www.str.org/articles/taking-the-heat#.VGPYwVfF8fk" target="_blank">Read more</a>)</li>
</ul>

<p>You can subscribe to their monthly newsletters via email.</p>
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title: Did Polygamy Accomplish the Purpose Given in LDS Scripture?
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 11/28/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/did-polygamy-accomplish-the-purpose-given-in-lds-scripture-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Over the last couple of months, the LDS Church has been publishing some <a href="http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-provides-context-gospel-topics-pages?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed:+LDSNewsRoomTop15+(RSS:+LDS+Newsroom)" target="_blank">in-depth “Gospel Topics”&nbsp;essays</a> covering controversial issues such as the <a href="https://www.lds.org/topics/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng" target="_blank">translation of the Book of Abraham</a> and the <a href="https://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng" target="_blank">First Vision accounts</a>. The latest essays are on polygamy in the early church, and specifically, on the <a href="https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng" target="_blank">plural marriages of Joseph Smith</a> (which some Mormons <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/us/its-official-mormon-founder-had-up-to-40-wives.html" target="_blank">were not aware of</a>—this is the first time this information has been officially stated by the LDS Church, though it’s been available through other sources for quite some time).</p>

<p>Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson have been going over the LDS polygamy essay on their <a href="http://www.mrm.org/podcast" target="_blank">Viewpoint on Mormonism podcast</a> (see the episodes on 11/10-11/25), giving more detail about the historical documents informing this issue.</p>

<p>As part of the discussion, they responded to the LDS claim that God commanded polygamy for the sake of raising up more children, quoting from their book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Answering-Mormons-Questions-Responses-Latter-day/dp/0825442680/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1417035633&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=answering+mormons+questions" target="_blank"><em>Answering Mormons’&nbsp;Questions</em></a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Polygamy certainly is not encouraged in the Book of Mormon. Speaking of David and Solomon’s “abominable”&nbsp;practice of having many wives and concubines, Jacob 2:26-27 [part of LDS scripture] warns, “Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old. Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none.”</p>

<p>Jacob 2:30 does offer a single exception: “For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.”&nbsp;In an essay titled “<a href="https://apushbystrunc.wikispaces.com/file/view/Notes+on+Mormon+Polygamy.PDF" target="_blank">Notes on Mormon Polygamy</a>,”&nbsp;writer Stanley Ivans states, “While polygamy increased the number of children of the men, it did not do the same for the women involved. A count revealed that 3,335 wives of polygamists bore 19,806 children, for an average of 5.9 per woman. An equal number of wives of monogamists taken from the same general group bore 26,780 for an average of 8. This suggests the possibility that the overall production of children in Utah may have been less than it would have been without benefit of plurality of wives”&nbsp;(p. 64).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>McKeever and Johnson recommend the books <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0252062914/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&amp;colid=DI9VEDYSWKHA&amp;coliid=INFMRE2TAR9XE" target="_blank"><em>Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith</em></a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Loneliness-Plural-Wives-Joseph/dp/156085085X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1417035052&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=in+sacred+loneliness" target="_blank"><em>In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith</em></a> (both written by Mormons) to learn more about polygamy in the early LDS Church.</p>
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title: You’re Not Really Pro-Life Unless...
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 12/05/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/you-re-not-really-pro-life-unless-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The objection that pro-life advocates or organizations aren’t really pro-life because they don’t also advocate [fill in the blank] is one you’ll encounter. Scott Klusendorf responds to this “single issue objection”&nbsp;in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Case-Life-Equipping-Christians/dp/1433503204/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1417802515&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank"><em>The Case for Life</em></a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p><em>How does it follow that because pro-life advocates oppose the unjust killing of innocent human beings, they must therefore take personal responsibility for solving all of life’s ills?</em></p>

<p>Speaking at a pro-life convention in Alberta, a local cleric chastised pro-lifers for focusing too narrowly on abortion when they ought to consider broader “life issues”&nbsp;such as occupational safety, AIDS, poverty, and capital punishment. The result, the cleric said, is a “fractured Christian witness that hurts the cause.”</p>

<p>The cleric is typical of many on the political left who insist that because pro-life advocates oppose the willful destruction of an innocent human being, they must therefore assume responsibility for society’s other ills. In other words, you are not truly pro-life unless you treat the deforestation of the Amazon with the same moral intensity that you do the unjust killing of a human fetus. This is careless thinking and highly unfair to those who take abortion seriously.</p>

<p>Imagine the gall of saying to the Canadian Cancer Society, “You have no right to focus on curing cancer unless you also work to cure AIDS, heart disease, and diabetes.”&nbsp;Or try telling the American Heart Association, “You cannot reasonably oppose cardiac arrest unless you fund research aimed at stopping all loss of life.”&nbsp;Ridiculous indeed, but how is this any different from what the cleric told pro-life advocates?</p>

<p>Consider what he is demanding. Local pro-life groups must take their already scarce resources and spread them even thinner fighting every social injustice imaginable. This would be suicide for those opposed to abortion As Frederick the Great once allegedly said, “He who attacks everywhere attacks nowhere”...</p>

<p>Given a choice, I’d rather pro-lifers focus on at least one great moral issue than waste their precious resources trying to fix all of them.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I think part of what’s behind this objection is ignorance. There are many people who are unaware of the multitude of local, national, and international ministries out there addressing <a href="http://www.wpclinic.org/" target="_blank">crisis pregnancies</a>, <a href="http://www.theharvesthome.net/" target="_blank">single mothers</a>, <a href="http://www.povertycure.org/" target="_blank">poverty</a>, <a href="https://www.prisonfellowship.org/splash/support-angel-tree-2/?redirect_to=https%3A//www.prisonfellowship.org/" target="_blank">prison issues</a>, <a href="https://www.sendrelief.org/human-trafficking/" target="_blank">human trafficking</a>, <a href="http://www.samaritanspurse.org/" target="_blank">disaster relief</a>, <a href="https://www.venninstitute.org/about-venn" target="_blank">religious freedom</a>, <a href="https://worldimpact.org/our-ministry/schools" target="_blank">education for the poor</a>, etc., etc., etc. No one person can, or should, be intensely involved in all of them at the same time. This is why we have the body of Christ. The eye does his job, the ear does his job, and both are needed. (If you ask the person expressing this objection to measure his own life and causes according to his “you must give equal time to every issue”&nbsp;standard, he might more quickly see your point.)</p>

<p>And ultimately, for many people who make this kind of objection, no amount of service on the part of a pro-lifer will be enough, as illustrated by <a href="https://str-legacy.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/podcast/blog/movinggoalline.mp3" target="_blank">this classic interaction</a> a caller had with Greg.</p>
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title: Dawkins and the Lure of Pro-Gay Theology
topic: Theology
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 12/02/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/dawkins-and-the-lure-of-pro-gay-theology
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Richard Dawkins once wrote, “Although atheism might have been <em>logically</em> tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”&nbsp;That’s because prior to Darwin, naturalists didn’t have a credible alternative to the biblical creation model. Along comes Charles Darwin and proposes an explanation of how life emerged on earth without appealing to God. Naturalists eagerly accepted Darwin’s account, making their worldview more complete and justified.</p>

<p>This reminds me of a similar phenomenon occurring with many believers who have friends or family who identify as gay. Up until the last 30 years, Christians believed they only had two options. One, they could agree with Scripture that homosexual behavior was sin. This meant, in their mind, they were not loving towards their gay friends or family. Two, they could dismiss or downplay the biblical prohibition of homosexuality. This approach, however, didn’t feel like they were being faithful to Scripture. Neither option was ideal.</p>

<p>Along comes pro-gay theology and offers them a third way to maintain fidelity to their faith <em>and</em> their gay friend or family. Rather than accepting Scripture’s straightforward (and exegetically sound) teaching on homosexuality, some believers embraced a new interpretation. It requires hermeneutical gymnastics to try to make it work, which is one reason why I reject it. Nevertheless, many Christians are looking for a way to harmonize their Christian faith with their desire to condone homosexual behavior. While Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist, pro-gay theology has made it possible to be gay-affirming Christian.</p>
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title: Death with Dignity
topic: Bioethics
author: Greg Koukl
date: 11/17/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/death-with-dignity-1
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>If you do have rights of any kind you need to offer a worldview in which rights claims have traction.</em></p>

<p>A young and attractive newlywed was facing imminent death due to brain cancer. Her name was Brittany Maynard. She was 29-years-old and married just over a year. There was no way to stop the growth of the tumor. Anticipating her imminent death, she decided to take matters into her own hands and die on her own schedule.</p>

<p>She didn’t want to waste away in a hospice. She wasn’t confident the drugs meant to minimize pain would be adequate to take the pain away. She was committed to the concept of “death with dignity.”</p>

<p>“Death with dignity”&nbsp;distorts the truth as if those who let nature take its course are not dying with dignity. Why does dignity depend on whether or not you’re in pain? The world is filled with people in pain who can still comport themselves with dignity.</p>

<p>The euphemism is a put down to those who suffer. Suffering can be ugly and impossible to stomach for those who are watching it. It can be described in all sorts of ways, but suffering is not undignified.</p>

<p>Brittany Maynard said she was not suicidal. However, she arranged to take medication to end her life. It seems that suicidal was a word properly applied. She was calmly suicidal. The euphemism dignifies suicide.</p>

<p>The <em>People</em> headline read: “My Right to Death with Dignity.”&nbsp;Worldviews were in play in this situation. Though people in the West resonate with “my right to do what I want with my own body,”&nbsp;it would be healthy for us to ask some foundational questions.</p>

<p>What makes you think that you have a right to what happens to your own body? A lot of people hear that and are dumbstruck. Isn’t it obvious what gives you the right to your own body? A right is a morally justified claim to something.</p>

<p>I gave a talk a number of years ago to the Christian legal society at the University of Southern California. The talk I gave was on relativism. There was a young lady studying law that came up to me afterwards.</p>

<p>She said, “I am an atheist and an animal rights activist.”</p>

<p>I said to her, “I think you’re going to have a difficult time making sense of the phrase that you just offered me.”</p>

<p>She said, “Why? I think animals have a right not to suffer.”</p>

<p>I said, “I think I have a right to half of your income for my organization,”&nbsp;then I said, “Tell me what the difference is between our two claims? You made an assertion, and I made an assertion. What makes your claim any more legitimate than my claim on your worldview?”</p>

<p>In a world without ultimate purpose, where does one get the idea that anyone or anything has a right to anything at all? In a universe where there is no god to underscore moral claims and nothing non-material exists anyway, how are you going to get the moral obligation of an immaterial abstract right?</p>

<p>In order for a rights claim to be coherent, it must affirm a world where immaterial moral obligations exist. You need a moral lawmaker who underscores the moral laws you are making. If somebody writes an article “My Right to Death with Dignity”&nbsp;at 29, I ask the question: What makes you think you have any rights at all? You can only have rights in a moral universe governed by God who gives those rights uniquely to human beings.</p>

<p>Our founders argued, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal... Each is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights... life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”</p>

<p>It doesn’t say “right to death”&nbsp;but “right to life.”&nbsp;Someone might want to press the word happiness, but they didn’t mean happiness the way one may think. They meant the good, full, rich life as it aught to be lived by a human being. That isn’t a life that pursues one’s own death.</p>

<p>If you have a right to life, it’s only because God has given you the right to life. In God’s eyes, is it legitimate for one to deprive themselves of their own right to life? The Ten Commandments say, “Thou shall not murder.”&nbsp;It is wrong to take a life without proper justification. Human beings were made really special. We already know this without the Bible, but the Bible tells us that we bear God’s mark.</p>

<p>The Bible doesn’t make the distinction between taking one’s own life and taking another life. It simply points out that innocent human life ought not be taken because human life bears God’s image. When you take a life, you destroy an image bearer. That’s true even if you take your own life.</p>

<p>I have no idea what it must be like to suffer physically in profound ways, and I do not look forward to it. The question isn’t whether we can understand the desire to take one’s own life. The question is whether it’s right and whether we should champion such a thing.</p>

<p>Additionally, there are ramifications of such choices in society at large. In Europe, so-called “death with dignity”&nbsp;statutes have been in place for a long time. Sometimes, people who want to stick around for a while end up losing their lives. The way human life is viewed changes within a culture when law justifies death. It communicates that human life is not the valuable thing, but rather the quality of life.</p>

<p>If there is no god, you don’t have a right to anything. You can get away with certain things, and you might have the power to accomplish things, but that’s a power deal, not a rights deal. If you do have rights of any kind you need to offer a worldview in which rights claims have traction.</p>

<p>There are obvious human rights. The right to die is not one of them. Taking one’s own life is not death with dignity. It’s undignified to kill yourself.</p>

<p>If there is no god, then you don’t have rights. If you do have rights, then there needs to be a god, and maybe this god has something to say about the limits of those rights. Maybe it isn’t your life at all. Maybe you owe something to God. Maybe you owe something to your community.</p>

<p>Brittany Maynard purposed to die in such a way that she could say goodbye to her community. There are legions of people that die having said goodbye to their community without dying at their own hand. They pass with those who they love all around them. They say their goodbyes, and they move on to the next life. Maybe not as peacefully as chemical suicide would allow, but chemical suicide is not dignified, its just suicide. It’s quiet, painless, and undignified.</p>

<p>When people exercise this legal liberty, their intention is to end the suffering. Regardless of which side of the theological divide you find yourself, the suffering for many people does not end at death but increases at death. If there is a god who judges our lives and finds us wanting, it may be that many people who end their suffering in this life pass on to a greater suffering in the next.</p>
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title: The Ex-Slave Abolitionist
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 11/13/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-ex-slave-abolitionist
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Olaudah Equiano was born in an Igbo village in West Africa about 1745. He and his sister were captured and sold as slaves when he was 11 years old. Marc Baer, author of <a href="http://smile.amazon.com/Mere-Believers-Faithful-Changed-History/dp/1625642059/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1415218101&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=mere+believers" target="_blank"><em>Mere Believers</em></a>, argues “that because Equiano became a believer, the enslavement of Africans by Europeans came to an end.”</p>

<p>Equiano led an extraordinary life. He was brought to the Virginia colony on a slave ship and sold to a British naval officer. Equiano became a skilled seaman, learning “English, mathematics, the art of navigation, and several trades.”&nbsp;These are skills he would put to use in adventures all over the globe and make a living when he was free.</p>

<p>On July 10, 1766, he bought his freedom. He said later in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Olaudah-Equiano-Dover-Thrift-Editions-ebook/dp/B00A7353I4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1415228117&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=equiano" target="_blank">his autobiography</a> that it was the happiest day he had ever experienced.</p>

<p>On October 6, 1774, he experienced an even happier day. He “acknowledged my transgression to God, and poured out my soul before him with unfeigned repentance.”&nbsp;He had been reading the Bible but had thought that he was a moral person, obeying enough of the law to please God. On that day, he meditated on Acts 4:12: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”</p>

<p>Equiano became a spokesman for abolition. His personal experience and his Christian convictions gave him the moral justification to show why slavery was horrendously wrong. He “became the most important Afro-British voice in the growing opposition in the 1780s to the slave trade.”&nbsp;He pointed out what is taught in Acts 17:26—all of us have one ancestor and we’re all made by God. “He publicized the true identity of those oppressors as nominal or false Christians because they did what God would not, placing shackles on other humans, and thus had behaved as if they were greater than God.”</p>

<p>He published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Olaudah-Equiano-Dover-Thrift-Editions-ebook/dp/B00A7353I4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1415228117&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=equiano" target="_blank">his autobiography</a> in 1789, which became a bestseller for years. “He was the first ex-slave to tell the story of his African roots, kidnapping, the horror of traveling on a slave ship and the terrible experiences that followed.”&nbsp;He self-published his book with the sponsorship of two British women, the <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2014/11/a-countess-who-devoted-her-fortune-to-christ.html" target="_blank">Countess of Huntingdon</a> and Hannah More. Equiano printed eight more editions and promoted the book across the British Isles.</p>

<p>His book influenced <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Grace-Inspirational-Stories-Wilberforce/dp/1589973933/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1415228268&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=focus+on+the+family+john+newton" target="_blank">John Wesley and William Wilberforce</a>. It rallied readers to the abolitionist movement. Wilberforce introduced a bill outlawing the slave trade six weeks after its publication. It was the beginning of many years of persuasion before it passed.</p>

<p>Equiano gave “voice, respect and dignity to black seamen and other poor African men and women who daily negotiated for their very survival in the colonies and in London.”</p>
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title: Gay or Straight, We All Must Decide if We Love Jesus above All Else
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 11/21/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/gay-or-straight-we-all-must-decide-if-we-love-jesus-above-all-else
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In the last couple of weeks, Alan has talked <a href="/w/alan-shlemon-matthew-vines-s-reformation-project-conference-november-11-2014-" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="/w/bad-reasons-to-adopt-pro-gay-theology" target="_blank">here</a> about the <a href="http://www.reformationproject.org/" target="_blank">Reformation Project</a> conference he attended—a project that aims to convince the church that homosexual acts have not been prohibited by God. (You can hear more about the project, along with a response to some of its arguments, <a href="/w/a-response-to-matthew-vines-the-bible-doesn-t-support-same-sex-relationships" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p>

<p>Alan noted that their work stands or falls mainly on the idea that the type of homosexuality forbidden in the Bible is not the kind of relationship they’re promoting today. In “<a href="http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2014/11/13/not-that-kind-of-homosexuality/" target="_blank">Not That Kind of Homosexuality?</a>”&nbsp;Kevin DeYoung summarizes this popular argument like this:</p>

<blockquote>
<ul>
	<li>There were many bad examples of homosexual behavior in the ancient world.</li>
	<li>For example, here are ancient sources describing pederasty, master-slave encounters, and wild promiscuity.</li>
	<li>Therefore, when the Bible condemns same-sex intimacy, it had these bad examples in mind.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>

<p>DeYoung explains two reasons why this argument fails:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>For starters, the cultural distance argument is an argument from silence. The Bible nowhere limits its rejection of homosexuality to exploitative or pederastic (man-boy) forms of same-sex intimacy. Leviticus forbids a male lying with a male as with a woman (Lev. 18:22; 20:13). The text says nothing about temple prostitution, effeminate men, or sexual domination. The prohibition is against men doing with men what ought to be done with women. Similarly, the same-sex sin condemned in Romans 1 is not simply out-of-control passion or the insatiable male libido that desires men in addition to women. According to Paul, the fundamental problem with homosexual behavior is that men and women exchange sexual intercourse with the opposite sex for unnatural relations with persons of the same sex (Rom. 1:26-27; cf. 22, 25). If the biblical authors meant to frown upon only certain kinds of homosexual arrangements, they wouldn’t have condemned the same-sex act itself in such absolute terms...</p>

<p>The second reason the distance argument fails is because it is an argument against the evidence. The line of reasoning traced above would be more compelling if it could be demonstrated that the only kinds of homosexuality known in the ancient world were based on pederasty, victimization, and exploitation. On the face of it, it’s strange that progressive voices would want us to reach this conclusion. For it would mean that committed, consensual, lifelong partnerships were completely unknown and untried in the ancient world. It seems demeaning to suggest that until very recently in the history of the world there were no examples of warm, loving, committed homosexual relationships. This is probably why Matthew Vines in using the cultural distance argument to make a biblical case for same-sex relationships admits, “This isn’t to say no one [in the Greco-Roman world] pursued only same-sex relationships, or that no same-sex unions were marked by long-term commitment and love.”<a href="http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2014/11/13/not-that-kind-of-homosexuality/#_ftn2" target="_blank">[2]</a> But of course, once we recognize that the type of same-sex unions progressives want to bless today were in fact present in the ancient world, it’s only special pleading which makes us think the biblical prohibitions couldn’t be talking about those kinds of relationships.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>For more details, read the rest of <a href="http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2014/11/13/not-that-kind-of-homosexuality/" target="_blank">DeYoung’s post</a>.</p>

<p>My heart goes out to the people involved in the Reformation Project. I know the sting of loneliness and the desire for intimacy with another person. I know the temptation to step around God’s word in order to pursue this desire. A desire for oneness with a spouse is a powerful, good desire when it’s fulfilled the way God designed it to be fulfilled. And it’s destructive when we place it above God, closing our eyes to what He’s said in order to protect the particular relationship we desperately want. It’s destructive, most of all, to the one thing we ought to guard above all else: our relationship with, love for, submission to, and trust in Christ.</p>

<p>The people of the Reformation Project are engaging in their work as professed Christians, so there is one question they need to be asked—one question they need to carefully consider: <em>If it were true that God actually did prohibit homosexual acts, and you came to know this to be true for sure, would you leave the practice of homosexuality, or would you leave Christ and Christianity?</em> They need to settle the answer to this hypothetical question apart from the question of what the Bible says, <em>before</em> they determine what the Bible says, for the answer to this question goes much deeper than any answer that’s merely about homosexuality. What are you really willing to give up for Christ? How much do you really love Him? More than your boyfriend? Your girlfriend? Your desire for a family? Is He greater than even these things? Is He your Lord? Do you trust that He commands the right commands? Do you trust that He will care for and sustain you when you suffer loss for His sake?</p>

<p>This question isn’t just for the Reformation Project, it’s for you and me, and it’s not an easy one. It never <em>has</em> been an easy one, and many have “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A16-26&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">gone away grieving</a>”&nbsp;from Jesus, who <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+10%3A37-39&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">said</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You don’t have to be gay to feel the weight of that. If, when you read it, you don’t cry out like the man in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark+9%3A21-24&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Mark 9:24</a>, “I do believe; help my unbelief,”&nbsp;you don’t yet understand your own need for grace. But you can rest in this: Jesus has grace enough. He called you to Himself while you were <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+5%3A6-11&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">still His enemy</a>. How much more will He give you grace to follow Him now! He knew your sin and lack of love for Him then, and He knows it now, so there’s no need to hide from Him or from the truth. His grace has covered your past failure, and as you move forward with Him now, His grace will give you life in your loss.</p>

<p>When, gay or straight, you’re prepared to give up what Jesus asks you to give up, <em>whatever</em> it turns out to be, <em>then</em> you’re ready to go to the Bible and find what He wills there.</p>
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title: A Countess Who Devoted Her Fortune to Christ
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 11/07/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-countess-who-devoted-her-fortune-to-christ
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, was a remarkable woman in her time. She was born in 1707 to aristocracy, suffered loss, family disputes, and bad health. She married the ninth earl of Huntingdon, descended from kings, and was part of royal social circles. Her early traditional life gave no indication of her extraordinary activities later in life.</p>

<p>She was raised in the Church of England, but had not experienced personally God’s grace. Revival came to England in the 1730s with preaching from John Wesley and George Whitefield. The Countess heard their message and experienced conversion. She became an evangelist herself, engaging anyone she met—high or lowly standing—about the Gospel. She invited preachers to her house to teach her guests. She became passionate. And she examined her beliefs and actions to live out her Christian convictions.</p>

<p>She believed that generosity and charity were not individual actions, but a way of living. She visited debtor’s prison and personally paid off what was owed by inmates, freeing them. She reached out to coal miners, offering them help. Through the chaplains she sponsored, she helped needy people, giving away today’s equivalent of millions of dollars. She practiced what she read: “When I gave myself up to the Lord, I likewise devoted to Him all my fortune.”</p>

<p>Decades before William Wilberforce and his circle made abolition of the slave trade a national cause, Selina opposed slavery. She sponsored black authors and activists.</p>

<p>She helped found a college called Trevecca for training preachers that was eventually incorporated into Westminster Collge, Cambridge University. The students didn’t pay anything to attend. Many were poor. The Countess paid their expenses from her own pocket and raised support for their education. Trevecca graduates became some of the most influential pastors of their time. She sponsored 64 chapels in England. The school also produced missionaries. The Countess sponsored missionaries to the East Indies, Africa, America, and the South Pacific.</p>

<p>She corresponded with George Washington about founding a college in America for Native Americans. She used property she inherited to found the Bethesda Home for Boys in Georgia.</p>

<p>Selina’s conversion transformed her; God transformed her life. And she lived out the grace she received as thoroughly and generously as she could.</p>

<p>(Source: <a href="http://smile.amazon.com/Mere-Believers-Faithful-Changed-History/dp/1625642059/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1415218101&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=mere+believers" target="_blank"><em>Mere Believers</em></a> by Marc Baer)</p>
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title: Santa Claus: Defender of the Incarnation
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 12/04/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/santa-claus-defender-of-the-incarnation
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Even though it’s questionable how much of it is true, I still love the stories about the real St. Nicholas. From <a href="http://scriptoriumdaily.com/saint-nicholas-santa-claus-songs/" target="_blank">Fred Sanders</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>St. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas" target="_blank">Nicholas of Myra</a>, a bishop in what we now call Turkey, lived in the fourth century. He must have been quite a guy, because while we have <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2008/august/real-saint-nicholas.html" target="_blank">pretty much no reliable documents</a> about him from his own time period, he became very popular in peoples’&nbsp;memories in later centuries. He’s still a fun and inspiring figure to <a href="http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=23" target="_blank">learn about</a>. He was remembered for acts of generosity (tossing gold in a window to rescue three girls from lives of prostitution), miracles (including flying around like a superhero centuries after his death to rescue storm-tossed ships at sea), and good theology. The best story about him is that he went to the council of Nicaea in 325 and became so incensed with the heresies of Arius that he broke up the good order of the council by crossing the room and slapping Arius in the face. From there the story gets pretty chaotic: he may have been expelled for disorderly conduct, and Jesus and Mary may have appeared in a vision to cause the council to re-admit him. Okay, I admit I doubt most of that, and if it comes down to hard evidence, we can’t even prove that Nicholas of Myra was at Nicaea because his name’&nbsp;not on the list of attendees. But after all these years of seeing Santa Claus as a seasonal rival to Jesus Christ, it sure is refreshing to think of him instead as a theological advocate of the central Christian doctrine which we remember at Christmas time, the incarnation of the Son of God.</p>

<p>Santa Claus: Defender of orthodox nicene trinitarian theology. It’s an inspiring thought for the Christmas season, and it makes it possible for us to sing all those Santa songs with newly recovered religious meaning...</p>
</blockquote>

<p>He then proceeds to rewrite the Santa-themed Christmas songs, which you should <a href="http://scriptoriumdaily.com/saint-nicholas-santa-claus-songs/" target="_blank">now read</a>. I particularly recommend “Back at Nicaea (<em>to the tune of ’Up on the Housetop’</em>).”</p>
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title: A 5-Step Method for Studying Scripture: John 15:1-8
topic: Theology
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 11/18/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-5-step-method-for-studying-scripture-john-15-1-8
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I want to lay out a 5-step method I use to study Scripture. I’ll apply it to <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?dc=1&amp;utm_expid=13466113-14._FDQX2HfR4SO5nXu6EKjTw.1&amp;search=John+15:1-8&amp;utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D1%26ved%3D0CCAQFjAA%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.biblegateway.com%252Fpassage%252F%253Fsearch%253DJohn%252B15%253A1-8%26ei%3DBI5qVO7iBor-yQSq5IKwAQ%26usg%3DAFQjCNESQxw4Z6KFiW0avhs-vJZ1RgEzEw%26bvm%3Dbv.79908130%2Cd.aWw" target="_blank">John 15:1-8</a> to illustrate the method. It’s not the only method, and it’s not an exhaustive method, but I hope you find it helpful as a tool in your personal study of Scripture.</p>

<h2>STEP #1 - Identify the genre of the biblical passage.</h2>

<p>John’s gospel falls under the genre of ancient biography, much like ancient Greco-Roman biographies. However, in his historiographical work, John is <em>not</em> a disinterested observer. While recounting factual historical events, ancient historians would also emphasize particular themes. Often in ancient biography, the writer would embed those themes in the narrative (“the moral of the story”). So John, like the other gospel writers, is both historian <em>and</em> theologian. John’s gospel is especially interpretive in its approach to history, and therefore, it may be most accurate to call the Johannine narrative a theological biography.</p>

<h2>STEP #2 - State your initial understanding of the “generic or intrinsic conception”&nbsp;of the passage.</h2>

<p>Jesus gives His disciples final instructions to abide in Him out of love and to love one another.</p>

<h2>STEP #3 - Make observations about the literary, grammatical, historical, and cultural contexts of your passage.</h2>

<p>John writes to both Jews and Gentiles to persuade them of Jesus’&nbsp;divine origin and the divine message that He brings. In particular, John focuses his attention on the Pharisees as opponents and contrasts them with what it truly means to follow Jesus. John labels them “the Jews”&nbsp;and gives a negative view of the Jewish authorities throughout the gospel.</p>

<p>In John 12, John has transitioned us out of Jesus’&nbsp;public ministry with a summary in verses 37-50. In chapter 13, we are led into the Upper Room Discourse, as Jesus joins His disciples at the Last Supper. From chapters 13 through 17, Jesus instructs and commissions the disciples during His very last night with them. At the beginning of chapter 15, Jesus has just finished telling the disciples that their love for Him is evidenced in their obedience to Him.</p>

<h2>STEP #4 - In light of steps 1 through 3, interpret the meaning of the passage.</h2>

<p>Knowing that these are some of the last instructions Jesus gives to His disciples, we sense their urgency and importance. In the Old Testament, Israel is portrayed as a vineyard or vine (e.g. Ps. 80:8; Is. 5:7; Hos. 10:1) and God is the one who cares for the vine. The analogy demonstrates the dependency relationship. In the same way, Jesus identifies Himself as the vine that His followers are dependent upon. If they do not “abide in”&nbsp;Him, they cannot produce the fruit of good works that marks every believer.</p>

<p>Jesus then instructs His disciples that their relationships with one another are to be marked by love. Verses 12 and 17 seem to “bookend”&nbsp;these verses, and the commandment to love one another stated in verse 12 is repeated and re-emphasized in verse 17. This has been the consistent message of Jesus. After washing the disciples’&nbsp;feet in the beginning of chapter 13 and modeling His love for them, He informs them that they are to follow His example of love (v. 34) and that the defining mark of the community of believers is their love for one another (v. 35). In chapter 14, He emphasizes the intrinsic connection between love and obedience. But that obedience can only flow out of the believer who abides in Christ, and the clearest evidence will be found in the love believers have for one another.</p>

<h2>STEP #5 - Apply the passage to life.</h2>

<p>These passages very clearly state that as a community of believers we are to love one another, just as Jesus has loved us. This is a tall order, but at the same time, it must be attainable if Christ has commanded us to do so. We can certainly look to Jesus as our model and see expressions of this kind of love in His life. Indeed, when the community of God is marked by this love, it will be evidence to others that we are Jesus’&nbsp;disciples (13:35).</p>

<p>Throughout John’s gospel we see how this love is evidenced in the believers’&nbsp;lives by seeing how it is evidenced in Jesus. First, we see it in humility. Jesus performs the menial task of a servant by washing the feet of the disciples in John 13. He then instructs them that He is their example and that they should do likewise. As the body of Christ, we should emulate Christ’s example of humble service to one another. Second, we see it in unity. Jesus intercedes for believers in chapter 17, asking the Father that the believers may be “one”&nbsp;and “perfected in unity.”&nbsp;The ideal state of community in the body is unity.</p>

<p>We need to evaluate our love in light of Jesus’&nbsp;love, and not by the standard of love of those around us. When we compare ourselves to others, we can rationalize quite easily and make ourselves look pretty good in our own eyes. However, when we see our love in the light of Jesus’&nbsp;love, we are humbled.</p>

<p>Also, as one whose work largely deals with apologetics and theology, this was a much needed reminder that my love for the other members of the body is a more powerful “argument”&nbsp;for the truth of Christianity than any of the intellectual arguments I can marshal. My hope and prayer is that people can see my love for others, even in my apologetic presentations.</p>

<p>(Want to learn more about studying and interpreting Scripture? Here are <a href="http://open.biola.edu/authors/walter-russell" target="_blank">some excellent videos from Dr. Walt Russell</a>.)</p>
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title: The Right to Die May Become a Duty to Die
topic: Bioethics
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 11/08/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-right-to-die-may-become-a-duty-to-die
content:
            <div> 
		<p>As a follow-up to Melinda’s post on “<a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2014/11/death-with-dignity.html" target="_blank">death with dignity</a>,”&nbsp;here’s an excerpt from a post by Wesley J. Smith titled “<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/392092/how-assisted-suicide-advocacy-hurts-sick-wesley-j-smith" target="_blank">How Assisted Suicide Advocacy Hurts the Sick</a>.”&nbsp;A friend of Smith’s who had ALS wrote this in 1997, during a time when there was a similar push for assisted suicide in the media. Since he was fighting to live, he said, “They are trying to drive me from the well-lit boulevards into the dark alley,”&nbsp;and he wrote “I Don’t Want a Choice to Die”&nbsp;for the <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em> explaining his anger against those who promote assisted suicide:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[A]s Chicago’s beloved Cardinal Joseph Bernardin wrote to the Supreme Court just before he died: “There can be no such thing as a ’right to assisted suicide’&nbsp;because there can be no legal and moral order which tolerates the killing of innocent human life, even if the agent of death is self-administered. Creating a new ’right’&nbsp;to assisted suicide will endanger society and send a false signal that a less than ’perfect’&nbsp;life is not worth living.”</p>

<p>Euthanasia advocates believe they are doing people like me a favor. They are not. The negative emotions toward the terminally ill and disabled generated by their advocacy is actually at the expense of the “dying”&nbsp;and their families and friends. We often feel disheartened and without self-assurance because of a false picture of what it is like to die created by these enthusiasts who prey on the misinformed.</p>

<p>What we, the terminally ill, need is exactly the opposite—to realize how important our lives are. And our loved ones, friends, and, indeed, society need to help us feel that we are loved and appreciated unconditionally.</p>

<p>Instead, reporting in the media too often makes us feel like token presences, burdens who are better off dead...</p>

<p>If physician-assisted suicide is legally available, the right to die may become a duty to die. The hopelessly ill may be subtly pressured to get their dying over with—not only by cost-counting providers but by family members concerned about burdensome bills, impatient for an inheritance, exhausted by care-giving or just anxious to spare a loved one further suffering.</p>

<p>In my view, the pro-euthanasia followers’&nbsp;posture is a great threat to the foundation upon which all life is based, and that is hope. I exhort everyone: Life is worth living, and life is worth receiving. I know. I live it every day.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read the rest of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/392092/how-assisted-suicide-advocacy-hurts-sick-wesley-j-smith" target="_blank">what he wrote</a>. Wesley J. Smith’s blog, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism" target="_blank">Human Exceptionalism</a>, is an excellent resource for following the latest bioethics issues in the news—surrogacy, transhumanism, euthanasia, ESCR, etc. I recommend it.</p>
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title: Don’t Assume We Should Change the Body to Match the Mind
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 11/14/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/don-t-assume-we-should-change-the-body-to-match-the-mind
content:
            <div> 
		<p>When a person’s mind conflicts with his body, which should we help him to change? While speaking at the ERLC National Conference last month, <a href="http://www.dennyburk.com/transgender-when-psychological-identity-trumps-bodily-identity/" target="_blank">Denny Burk said</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>At the heart of the transgender revolution is the notion that psychological identity trumps bodily identity. In this way of thinking, a person is whatever they think themselves to be. If a girl perceives herself to be a boy, then she is one even if her biology says otherwise.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>But as Burk explains, our society takes the opposite view when it comes to “Body Integrity Identity Disorder”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/05/20/determined-to-amputate-one-man-struggle-with-body-integrity-identity-disorder" target="_blank">Fox News</a> did an anonymous interview in 2009 with a person named “John”&nbsp;who has been consumed with feelings of dissatisfaction with his body for as long as he can remember. Ever since he was a child, he has felt like a one-legged man trapped inside a two-legged man’s body. He has suffered psychological angst his entire life because of his two legs. Even as an adult after 47 years of marriage, he still wishes and hopes to have one of his legs amputated...</p>

<p>It turns out that “John”&nbsp;has a condition that pychiatrists call “Body Integrity Identity Disorder.”&nbsp;According to a <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0034702&amp;representation=PDF" target="_blank">2012 study</a>, the only known treatment that provides psychological relief is amputation. Nevertheless, doctors have by and large resisted this, and people suffering from this disorder typically cannot find doctors willing to do the surgery unless they injure themselves...</p>
</blockquote>

<p>We consider it wrong to amputate healthy limbs—it’s considered a mutilation of the body, out of bounds for respectable doctors, even if the would-be amputee desires it.</p>

<p>Burk then makes the obvious connection to those who desire sex-reassignment surgery:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>If that is the case with amputations, then what are we to make of the woman who claims that she is a man trapped inside a woman’s body?...</p>

<p>The ethical question that we have to ask is the same one that we have already asked. Is it right for people to amputate otherwise healthy limbs? Is the problem here damaged limbs or a damaged mind? Does the body need adjusting, or does the thinking?...</p>

<p>Over the last few years, we have seen a number of reports about parents who are letting gender-confused children undergo hormone therapy to delay puberty indefinitely until a decision can be made about gender reassignment surgery (<a href="http://www.dennyburk.com/the-little-boy-who-wanted-to-be-a-girl/" target="_blank">see here</a>). Ironically, these parents believe that it is permissible to surgically alter a child’s body to match his sense of self but it is wrong to try and change his sense of self to match his body. Yet this leads to an <a href="http://touchstonemag.com/merecomments/2013/08/reparative-therapy-illegal-boys-gender-surgery-girls" target="_blank">obvious question</a>. If it is wrong to attempt to change a child’s gender identity (because it is fixed and meddling with it is harmful), then why is it morally acceptable to alter something as fixed as a biological body of a minor? The moral inconsistency here is plain. To this we must also observe that the vast majority of children who report transgender feelings grow out of those feelings. I would argue that it is irresponsible and wrong to physically alter a child’s body through surgery or hormones when we know that most of these children grow out of their gender-conflicted feelings (<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=0CCAQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fpaul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120&amp;ei=8uhjVN_GII6yoQTl0IKABQ&amp;usg=AFQjCNH5GNdwoFfHxiOmmQ9aUkkXzZPRDA&amp;sig2=dbFO8TTqogrgejt1edYGuQ&amp;bvm=bv.79400599,d.cGU" target="_blank">source</a>).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Why, only when it comes to gender disorders, do we accept the idea that the body must be changed to fit the mind? As with those who have Body Integrity Identity Disorder, shouldn’t we rather do what we can to help the suffering person adjust his gender identity to fit his body? Shouldn’t responsible doctors likewise refuse to amputate their healthy body parts?</p>

<p>As it turns out, even if it weren’t problematic for doctors to agree to these surgeries, we may not be doing people any favors by removing their healthy body parts at their request. I’ve posted before about “<a href="/w/why-the-first-hospital-to-do-sex-reassignment-surgeries-no-longer-does-them" target="_blank">Why the First Hospital to Do Sex-Reassignment Surgeries No Longer Does Them</a>,”&nbsp;and this week Stella Morabito compiled a number of stories of people who greatly regretted their surgeries <a href="http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/11/trouble-in-transtopia-murmurs-of-sex-change-regret/" target="_blank">here</a>. The stories are tragic.</p>

<p>We ought to have a great deal of compassion for those who have gender disorders. As with those who suffer from Body Integrity Identity Disorder, we may not be able to provide relief through changing their minds. But that doesn’t mean we should assume relief <em>would</em> be provided through mutilating their bodies.</p>
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title: Taking the Heat
topic: Christian Living
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 11/08/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/taking-the-heat
content:
            <div> 
		<p>She glared at me for the entire two hours. I didn’t know her and I didn’t know her story, but I knew this high schooler wasn’t happy. Apparently her mother had dragged her to my apologetics seminar at a local church in Oregon and sat her in the front row, leaving me to cope with that scowl. I argued passionately for truth, the reliability of the Bible, and Jesus as the only way to God. She remained unmoved.</p>

<p>After 11 years of speaking for Stand to Reason, I’ve come to expect hostile reactions. People do not love the truth, they resist it. The Apostle Paul says our natural reaction is to “suppress the truth in unrighteousness”&nbsp;(Romans 1:18). I’ve seen it time and again. I remember the antagonistic atheist student at a private Christian school in New Zealand. I remember the angry members of S.A.N.E. (Students for A Non-religious Ethos), the student atheist club at Berkeley. I remember the hostile atheists and skeptics in the audience during my debate at Weber State University.</p>

<p>Even Christians will get upset during my talks. There was the Christian parent at a “Who’s Waiting for Your Kids?”&nbsp;seminar, disputing my view of reasonable faith. There were the high schoolers at Hume Lake camp, upset about my views on homosexuality. There was the frustrated young man arguing that inerrancy was essential to the truth of Christianity. These are just a small sampling of the upset reactions I’ve received.</p>

<p>I certainly don’t enjoy having people upset with me. I’d much rather people walk away from a talk feeling encouraged and excited, and of course, many do. However, Jesus’&nbsp;teaching should create a healthy expectation of conflict when we live for Him and proclaim His name to a lost world.</p>

<p>In John 15:12-17, Jesus instructs the disciples concerning their relationship to one another: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you”&nbsp;(v. 17). Our relationships with other believers should be marked by love—the kind of love Jesus has for us. And you might expect that if the world looks in and sees that kind of love amongst believers, they would naturally be drawn to it. However, Jesus alerts us to the typical reaction of the world: “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ’A servant is not greater than his master.’&nbsp;If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also”&nbsp;(vv. 17-20).</p>

<p>According to Jesus, we should <em>expect</em> the world to be upset with us. Yes, even if Christians are the most loving people imaginable. Why? Because the world suppresses the truth in its sin. Unbelievers trip over Jesus because He is “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.”&nbsp;Why? “They stumble because they are disobedient to the word”&nbsp;(1 Peter 2:8).</p>

<p>So what should be the response of Christ’s followers to the world’s anger and hatred? First, be gracious. “Let your speech always be with grace”&nbsp;(Colossians 4:6). Second, rejoice! In Acts 5, we find the Apostles in custody, appearing before the authorities. They are beaten and then warned “not to speak in the name of Jesus.”&nbsp;How did they respond? “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, <em>rejoicing</em> because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah”&nbsp;(Acts 5:41-42). We return love for evil, but we never stop proclaiming the truth.</p>

<p>In a world that hates the truth of Jesus, we are raising up a new generation of His followers to share the truth, boldly yet graciously. As we train young people to know what they believe and why they believe, they grow in their knowledge of the truth and thus, grow in their boldness. As they know more of the truth of Jesus, they are transformed by that truth and grow in their graciousness. They become ambassadors who look like Jesus, “full of grace and truth”&nbsp;(John 1:14).</p>
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title: Horus on the Old Testament Law
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 11/23/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/horus-on-the-old-testament-law
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Okay, I can’t resist this. Remember <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2013/12/horus-mithras-jesus.html" target="_blank">Horus Ruins Christmas</a>? Well, he’s back with a devastating argument against Christianity he learned on the internet.</p>

<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9" data-embed-id="4r2m_cffRjI" 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/4r2m_cffRjI?rel=0" tabindex="0"></iframe></div>

<p>The response to Horus in the video takes a somewhat different approach from what we generally talk about here. For example, while we would say that the moral law still applies in that it accomplishes the things mentioned in the video for Christians today (and I would add that it also reveals God’s nature to us), we wouldn’t say that it applies <em>in virtue of it being part of the Mosaic Law</em> (though perhaps Lutheran Satire wouldn’t either). But you’ll definitely find it interesting, not to mention entertaining. It explains well (or as well as it can in such a brief format) why Christians no longer are under a covenant that includes any of the ceremonial aspects of the law that were contained in the Mosaic Covenant. You can read what Greg has said about this issue <a href="http://www.str.org/articles/how-does-the-old-testament-law-apply-to-christians-today#.VHFuHlfF8fk" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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title: Hannah More: Guided by Christian Convictions
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 11/20/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/hannah-more-guided-by-christian-convictions
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Hannah More, born in the 18th century, became an author, social activist, and philanthropist because of her brilliant mind and Christian convictions.</p>

<p>Her fiancé broke off their long engagement at a time when a breach of that sort of promise by a man was taken very seriously. He settled an annual annuity on her, and this gave her the freedom to pursue her interests in a way many women could not. She moved to London, wrote popular books, and moved in elite literary circles before she became a follower of Jesus.</p>

<p>Hannah realized that Christianity was not about performance, but “a turning of the whole mind to God.”&nbsp;This influenced how she spent her time, energy, and talents the rest of her life.</p>

<p>Hannah and her sister pursued many of their activities together. The two were as well read as university professors. They read from a wide variety of literature, including Puritans’&nbsp;writings and secular philosophers of the time. Hannah read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Life-Spirituality-John-Newton-Evangelical/dp/1573831182/ref=sr_1_3_twi_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1416257235&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=john+newton+autobiography" target="_blank">John Newton’s autobiography</a> and attended his church. He advised her, “You have great gifts; now believe in the giver of the gifts and do the work of that righteous judge in the public sphere.”&nbsp;Newton and her friend William Wilberforce encouraged her to retain her relationships in the fashionable world so she could have influence on the rich and powerful.</p>

<p>She was part of the religious Clapham community, which included many leaders in the abolition movement. They influenced her commitment to evangelism and helping the needy with their philosophy that “The Church is the only institution that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.”</p>

<p>Her writing made her very influential in British culture. She wrote books and tracts on improving social manners and therefore quality of life that became bestsellers. Hannah wrote a response to Thomas Paine’s book <em>The Rights of Man</em>. His book encouraged social change through revolution, and it became popular in England. More wrote equally popular responses to Paine’s argument showing the practical realities that helped readers see the dangerous consequences. She recommended a peaceful way of making important and necessary social changes. Marc Baer, in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mere-Believers-Faithful-Changed-History/dp/1625642059/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1416258213&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=mere+believers" target="_blank"><em>Mere Believers</em></a>, says that “it can be argued that no one played a more important role in preventing revolution in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain than did Hannah More.”&nbsp;More also wrote attacking the French atheist politician whose rhetoric drove Catholic priests into exile to escape violence. And More used the profits of her pamphlet to provide for these exiles.</p>

<p>Hannah and her sister opened a school for the poor at a time when there was no public education and the majority of British citizens were illiterate. The classes met on Sunday, the only day the working people had off. Children were taught to read and write, using the Bible as one of the textbooks. They were taught skills that would help improve their circumstances. Adults were also taught, and job placement services were offered. Within a decade, the sisters opened 16 schools. Hannah continued her direct involvement in the schools for 30 years until she was old and too ill to continue. Three of her schools survived into the 20th century and were models for continuing education.</p>

<p>Hannah encouraged women, and specifically poor women, to get an education to improve their position and wellbeing. She believed that an educated wife was a more suitable companion than a merely ornamental woman. She thought that women could be significant influencers in improving society by getting an education and making wise and moral life choices. British men’s clubs are well known. More endowed clubs for women. Through these clubs, women were encouraged to become self-reliant, taught financial management, and provided services for difficult circumstances.</p>

<p>More was the first woman involved in the organized abolitionist movement. She wrote pamphlets and poetry to advance the abolitionist movement. She helped sponsor the publication of <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2014/11/the-ex-slave-abolitionist.html" target="_blank">Olaudah</a> Equiano’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Olaudah-Equiano-Dover-Thrift-Editions-ebook/dp/B00A7353I4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1415228117&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=equiano" target="_blank">autobiography</a>, the account of a former slave. She helped promote the boycott of slave-grown sugar. She believed strongly that God had created all people equally valuable.</p>

<p>Hannah More led an extraordinary life. She had tremendous influence on society and used it to make positive reforms. She was motivated and guided by her Christian convictions.</p>
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title: New Evidence Quantum Events Are Not Uncaused?
topic: Science
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 12/10/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/new-evidence-quantum-events-are-not-uncaused-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>When people try to refute William Lane Craig’s first premise of the kalam cosmological argument (“Everything that begins to exist has a cause”), they sometimes cite quantum mechanics as proof there are uncaused events. As part of his response, Craig will often explain that the idea that there are uncaused events at the subatomic level is merely one <em>interpretation</em> of the data. And in fact, he says, there are other interpretations <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaniNRDlQoQ" target="_blank">that also fit the data</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>There are at least ten different physical interpretations of the equations of quantum mechanics, and they’re all empirically equivalent, they’re mathematically consistent, and no one knows which, if any of them, is the correct physical interpretation. I’m inclined to agree with philosophers of science who think of the traditional Copenhagen interpretation [which includes uncaused events] as really just quite unintelligible, and I’m therefore more inclined to some sort of deterministic theory of quantum mechanics... It remains a matter of deep debate as to how to understand it.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Now there’s been an interesting development on this subject, according to an article in <em>Wired</em> titled “<a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality/" target="_blank">Have We Been Interpreting Quantum Mechanics Wrong This Whole Time?</a>”</p>

<blockquote>
<p>For nearly a century, “reality”&nbsp;has been a murky concept. The laws of quantum physics seem to suggest that particles spend much of their time in a ghostly state, lacking even basic properties such as a definite location and instead existing everywhere and nowhere at once. Only when a particle is measured does it suddenly materialize, appearing to pick its position as if by a roll of the dice.</p>

<p>This idea that nature is inherently probabilistic—that particles have no hard properties, only likelihoods, until they are observed—is directly implied by the standard equations of quantum mechanics. But now a set of surprising experiments with fluids has revived old skepticism about that worldview. The bizarre results are fueling interest in an almost forgotten version of quantum mechanics, one that never gave up the idea of a single, concrete reality.</p>

<p>The experiments involve an oil droplet that bounces along the surface of a liquid. The droplet gently sloshes the liquid with every bounce. At the same time, ripples from past bounces affect its course. The droplet’s interaction with its own ripples, which form what’s known as a pilot wave, causes it to exhibit behaviors previously thought to be peculiar to elementary particles—including behaviors seen as evidence that these particles are spread through space like waves, without any specific location, until they are measured.</p>

<p>Particles at the quantum scale seem to do things that human-scale objects do not do. They can tunnel through barriers, spontaneously arise or annihilate, and occupy discrete energy levels. This new body of research reveals that oil droplets, when guided by pilot waves, also exhibit these quantum-like features.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Rest the rest <a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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title: Bad Reasons to Adopt Pro-Gay Theology
topic: Theology
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 11/19/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/bad-reasons-to-adopt-pro-gay-theology
content:
            <div> 
		<p>If homosexuals are bullied, we need to protect them. If they’re unjustly discriminated against, we need to help them. If they’re treated with contempt, the person hurting them should be stopped. If a family member comes out as gay and then is belittled, harmed, or vilified, then the offending family needs to be corrected. If Christians ridicule people who identify as gay or lesbian, they need to admonished. If a church doesn’t welcome seekers of all stripes (including people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual), then it needs to change.</p>

<p>But none of these circumstances are reasons to reinterpret Scripture to affirm homosexuality. Nor do they justify Christians making an attitudinal shift to endorse homosexual sex, homosexual unions, or same-sex marriage.</p>

<p>That’s why I’m mystified by the recent trend of some believers to adopt pro-gay theology.</p>

<p>Earlier this month, <a href="/w/alan-shlemon-matthew-vines-s-reformation-project-conference-november-11-2014-" target="_blank">I attended the national conference of The Reformation Project</a> in Washington D.C. Its founder, Matthew Vines, calls himself a gay Christian and is dedicating his efforts to changing the perspective of the Church to gay affirming. He and his allies don’t consider this a minor project. They use the term “reformation”&nbsp;because they see this mission in line with the noble reform efforts of Martin Luther. They intend the Church’s transformation to be just as significant as it was post-Luther.</p>

<p>But why reinterpret the biblical text? According to one evangelical ethicist, it’s because LGBT Christians have been mistreated by the Church. David Gushee, who spoke at the conference I attended, explains his rationale in a <em>Washington Post</em> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/04/im-an-evangelical-minister-i-now-support-the-lgbt-community-and-the-church-should-too/" target="_blank">article</a>. He explains that gay and lesbian people have “received contempt and discrimination for centuries”&nbsp;and that biblical sexual ethics have led to an attitude that is “bristling with bullying and violence.”</p>

<p>Even if he’s entirely accurate, what’s the appropriate action? The Christians who have bullied, treated with contempt, and unjustly discriminated against homosexuals should be punished and corrected. It’s very simple. What should be done, then, with the biblical passages that teach homosexual behavior is wrong? Nothing. The problem is with human action, not divine revelation.</p>

<p>The same is true with any moral command in Scripture. Suppose the biblical sexual ethic against adultery led some Christians to assault adulterers. The correct course of action would be to bring the criminals to justice, not reinterpret the biblical prohibition against infidelity.</p>

<p>But Gushee’s solution throws out the baby with the bathwater. He says “we need to reconsider the entire body of biblical interpretation and tradition related to this issue.”&nbsp;Really? Some Christians (and lots of non-Christians) engage in “unchristlike”&nbsp;behavior, and that requires we reinterpret the moral demands of Scripture?</p>

<p>Why would Gushee call for such a drastic reversal on thousands of years of biblical interpretation? For someone who is described (by the inside flap of his book) as “America’s leading evangelical ethics scholar,”&nbsp;shouldn’t he exhibit clearer thinking? Can’t he distinguish between the moral commands of Scripture and the mistaken behavior of some Christians?</p>

<p>It’s possible something else is motivating him. His article explains his change of heart was from his “growing contact with LGBT people... The fact that one of these LGBT Christians is my dear youngest sister, Katey, has made this issue even more deeply personal for me.”</p>

<p>That didn’t surprise me at all. It’s not uncommon to accept pro-gay theology if a family member or close friend is gay. That’s not only true of Gushee, but also of James Brownson—The Reformation Project’s other scholar—who said his son was gay.</p>

<p>You might think I’m committing a genetic fallacy—the mistake of disqualifying a person’s position because of the origin of their belief (e.g. sympathy for a gay relative). As C.S. Lewis once said, “You must show <em>that</em> a man is wrong before you start explaining <em>why</em> he is wrong.”</p>

<p>I’m <em>not</em> saying, though, that Gushee, Brownson, and others are mistaken <em>because</em> of their family allegiance. They’re mistaken because their reinterpretation of Scripture is wrong. Period. (It’s not my point to make that case here, although I’ve argued this in my <a href="http://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BK379" target="_blank">book</a>). Knowing that, it’s now fair to explain <em>why</em> they’re wrong. Close relationships with homosexual friends or family can motivate one to accept a gay-affirming view of Scripture. I feel the same temptation regarding my gay family and friends.</p>

<p>But you don’t have to abandon Scripture’s moral position in order to maintain a loving relationship with someone who identifies as gay. Many Christians are able to <a href="/w/truth-and-compassion-on-homosexuality-" target="_blank">stand for biblical truth while being compassionate</a>. Their relationships with gays are characterized by the same qualities as their relationships with other friends and family. Yet, they still hold to the God-given moral parameters in Scripture. No compromise needed.</p>

<p>I’m sad all believers can’t see this solution. Instead, they abandon the authority of Scripture because the LGBT community has been wronged by hurtful people or someone they know self-identifies as gay. Neither of these reasons is sufficient for adopting pro-gay theology. Both reasons do warrant, however, a change in attitude and behavior on the part of people who do wrong. In other words, people should change, not the Word of God. That’s doable since God has always been in the business of changing lives.</p>

<p>I can’t help but be reminded of Paul’s exhortation to Timothy (2 Timothy 4:1-5) to stand firm in the truth:</p>

<p>I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. <strong>For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.</strong> But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.</p>

<p>This is precisely what the Church is facing now. People are looking to justify their desires, whether for homosexual behavior or to affirm those who practice it.</p>

<p>Paul’s charge, however, is intended for those of us who will stand firm. We are to preach the Word of God and be ready to “reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.”</p>

<p>This is the sober reality we face. Will we turn away from the truth? Or will we fulfill our ministry? Remember, God will judge us.</p>
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title: The Humility of a King
topic: Theology
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 12/09/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-humility-of-a-king
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Incarnation. The word captures the essence of Christmas. Jesus, “who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, <em>and</em> being made in the likeness of men”&nbsp;(Phil. 2:6-7). God, become man. But still God. Still the Sovereign Lord of the universe. Still the King of Kings.</p>

<p>Indeed, Christmas carols are replete with references to Christ as king. “Angels We Have Heard on High”&nbsp;proclaims, “Come to Bethlehem and see Him whose birth the angels sing; come, adore on bended knee Christ, the Lord, the newborn King.”&nbsp;This King rules the universe. This King is worthy to be worshiped.</p>

<p>In his gospel, Matthew begins by retracing Jesus’&nbsp;royal lineage. In the second chapter, Matthew records the magi’s motivation to seek Jesus: “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him”&nbsp;(v. 2). When they find Jesus, they present Him with gifts fit for a king: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The Incarnation of Jesus is a Kingly affair.</p>

<p>But unexpectedly, this King is unlike earthly kings. Matthew, writing to a Jewish audience, spends the rest of his gospel demonstrating that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, the prophesied “Ruler, who will shepherd [God’s] people Israel”&nbsp;(2:6). But in contrast to earthly kings, the rulership of Jesus is not about exercising power and authority to lord over men (20:25). This King is different.</p>

<p>The divergence of Jesus’&nbsp;rule from Pharisaic rule is stark. Throughout his gospel, Matthew addresses the emerging power of the Pharisaic rabbis. His gospel was likely written in the Syria-Palestine area, where the rabbis exercised serious influence in Jesus’&nbsp;day. Matthew records the growing conflict between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders. Things start “heating up”&nbsp;in chapter 12, as we see the religious leaders’&nbsp;initial rejection of Jesus and his authority. In chapter 14, Jesus withdraws with his disciples, but in chapters 15 and 16, He encounters more resistance from the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees. The confrontations continue in chapters 19, 21, and 22. After Jesus silences the Sadducees in 22:23-46, the religious leaders do not “dare from that day on to ask Him another question.”</p>

<p>In 23:1-12, the confrontation comes to a head. After silencing the religious leaders, Jesus turns his attention to the crowds, warning them about the scribes and Pharisees. In particular, Jesus states that these leaders have put themselves in a position of authority that does not belong to them and then required the people to adhere to laws the Pharisees themselves don’t live by, indicating their hypocrisy. In verse 11, Jesus contrasts the leader’s grab for earthly authority and power with the hierarchy of the kingdom: “But the greatest among you shall be your servant.”</p>

<p>Jesus makes it clear there is one leader in the Messianic community: Jesus Himself. In 23:10, He says, “Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.”&nbsp;In addition, Jesus states in verses 11 and 12 that greatness in the kingdom is marked by servanthood. This theme of humble rulership echoes throughout Matthew’s gospel:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Matthew 1-2: Jesus’&nbsp;humility is evidenced at the outset of the gospel, from the humble circumstances surrounding His birth to the “unclean”&nbsp;shepherds as His first visitors.</li>
	<li>Matthew 10:38-39: Humbly laying down one’s life for Jesus, rather than preserving it, is the way forward for His followers.</li>
	<li>Matthew 18:1-6: Jesus’&nbsp;disciples posture for power, asking Jesus, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”&nbsp;Jesus’&nbsp;response demonstrates the nature of greatness in His Kingdom: humility is the key.</li>
	<li>Matthew 20:20-28: In contrast to the leadership models of this world, leadership in Jesus’&nbsp;Kingdom is humble.</li>
</ul>

<p>This King is clothed in humility.</p>

<p>How does all of this relate to my work? Sometimes apologetics is cast as a power move. It is the Christian’s attempt to dominate others through power of intellect and argumentation. If I win the argument, I win the day. However, this is <em>not</em> our apologetic at Stand to Reason. Yes, we want to demonstrate the truth of Christianity. Yes, we want to demonstrate the powerful arguments in favor of Christianity. But the end goal is not submission to our apologetics arguments, but humble submission to Jesus, the only ruler worthy of our worship.</p>
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title: When We Pray for Strength
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/03/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/when-we-pray-for-strength
content:
            <div> 
		<p>How does God most want to strengthen us when we’re at our weakest? <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/pray-for-the-strength-that-god-supplies" target="_blank">Jon Bloom explains</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[W]hen we ask God for strength, what are we asking for? Are we asking for the strength that God wants to give, or are we asking for the strength that we want to have?</p>

<p>The reason this is important to ask is because the two may not be the same. Highest on God’s agenda for us is strengthening our faith (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Hebrews%2011.6" target="_blank">Hebrews 11:6</a>, <a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Galatians%202.20" target="_blank">Galatians 2:20</a>). Highest on our agenda is frequently accomplishing something necessary or noble, or escaping affliction or humiliation. These may not be wrong desires, but they may be the wrong priorities.</p>

<p>When this is the case, our conception of the strength we need differs from God’s. When we pray for strength, we may imagine the answer looking like increased capacities to accomplish or escape. But the strength that God supplies (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/1%20Peter%204.11" target="_blank">1 Peter 4:11</a>) is often increased capacities to trust his promises, which might require dying to our envisioned accomplishment or enduring what we wish to escape...</p>

<p>The biblical pattern of God strengthening his saints is this: God chooses a sinful, weak person to be his redeemed saint; God further weakens this saint through circumstantial and/or physical adversity; The saint is forced to trust God’s promises; God proves himself faithful to his promises; The saint’s faith is strengthened and hope abounds because his/her faith doesn’t rest on the wisdom of men but on the power of God (<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/1%20Corinthians%202.5" target="_blank">1 Corinthians 2:5</a>).</p>

<p>This pattern is woven all through the Bible. As soon as you see it, you see it everywhere.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/pray-for-the-strength-that-god-supplies" target="_blank">the rest</a>.</p>
</div>

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title: Is All Saints’ Day on November 1st Because of a Pagan Festival?
topic: History
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/25/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/is-all-saints-day-on-november-1st-because-of-a-pagan-festival-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>On <a href="http://www.str.org/podcasts/weekly-audio/angie-mosteller-christian-origins-of-halloween-october-21-2014#.VErabIvF9pE" target="_blank">Tuesday’s podcast</a>, Greg talked to Angie Mosteller about her <a href="http://www.celebratingholidays.com/?page_id=76" target="_blank"><em>Christian Origins of Halloween</em></a> pamphlet. Here’s an excerpt from an <a href="http://www.celebratingholidays.com/?page_id=1116" target="_blank">article on Halloween</a> from her website, <a href="http://www.celebratingholidays.com/" target="_blank">Celebrating Holidays</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The name <em>Halloween</em> is a blending of the words <em>All Hallows’&nbsp;Eve or Even</em> (referring to the evening before All Saints’&nbsp;Day on November 1). The term <em>hallow</em> means “holy”—you may recall reciting it in the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father who art in heaven, <em>hallowed</em> be thy name”&nbsp;(Matthew 6:9).</p>

<p>From the early days of the church, <em>saints</em> (more specifically martyrs—the only persons initially recognized as saints) were honored and celebrated. However, with time, the growing number of martyrs (particularly under the persecution of Diocletian, the Roman Emperor from 284-305 AD) made it impossible to assign a separate celebration for each. Thus, various churches made an effort to select a common day to commemorate all the saints...</p>

<p>Many scholars claim that Gregory III chose to commemorate the saints on November 1 in order to combat an ancient pagan Celtic festival called <em>Samhain</em> that was celebrated on the same day. However, Samhain seems to have been a tradition limited to the Northern Celtic people (particularly in Ireland and Scotland), and since these areas were Christianized by this time, it is difficult to substantiate this assertion. Furthermore, it should be noted that the Irish celebrated saints on April 20, “a chronology that contradicts the widely held view”&nbsp;that Rome adopted the November 1 date under Celtic influence. Lastly, if remnants of pagan practices remained only in the remote parts of Christian lands, they were probably not of particular concern to the Christian leadership in Rome. Scholar Francis X. Weiser believes that November 1 was chosen so that the many pilgrims who traveled to Rome for the Feast “could be fed more easily after the harvest than in the spring.”</p>

<p><em>Samhain</em> (pronounced sow-in) is a name derived from Old Irish that roughly means “summer’s end.”&nbsp;Practically speaking, it was a time to prepare for the harvest, shelter (and slaughter) animals, welcome home soldiers and kings, and generally reorganize communities in preparation for the coming cold weather.</p>

<p>Whatever claims are made about the ancient pagan celebration of Samhain are purely speculative. There were no written records among the northern Celtic people prior to their Christianization in the 5th century. Early Roman sources from the first century BC note the superstitious nature of the Celts and how they would celebrate their festivals with fire and sacrifices (both animal and human), but there is no specific mention of Samhain...</p>

<p>[T]here is no indication that ancient Samhain was ever a festival of the dead or dedicated to some Lord of the Dead.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read <a href="http://www.celebratingholidays.com/?page_id=1116" target="_blank">more</a> or listen to the <a href="http://www.str.org/podcasts/weekly-audio/angie-mosteller-christian-origins-of-halloween-october-21-2014#.VErabIvF9pE" target="_blank">interview</a>.</p>
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title: Marriage Redefinition without Representation
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/07/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/marriage-redefinition-without-representation
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Here in California, our governor and attorney general refused to defend our democratically-established constitutional amendment maintaining the definition of marriage as one man and one woman. So <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/now-we-wait-for-the-ruling#.W6l5mxNKijQ" target="_blank">last year</a>, since the Supreme Court decided that no one other than these men had the necessary legal standing to defend Prop 8, the people of California had no way to defend their votes, and <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/federal-judge-strikes-down-prop-8#.W6lqrBNKijQ" target="_blank">an earlier judge’s decision</a> to strike the marriage amendment down was allowed to stand. The will of the people of California meant nothing. The power and opinions of these few individuals trumped all.</p>

<p>In many other states, judges are striking down the democratically-established legal definition of marriage according to their own opinions about whether or not man/woman-only marriage is irrational and <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-ruling-93407.html" target="_blank">secretly motivated by malice</a>.</p>

<p>This isn’t the way a free society is run, and it’s certainly not the way to maintain a stable one (see the Roe v. Wade debacle of the last 40 years), so the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to not weigh in on whether or not the people of our country have a right to <a href="https://www.str.org/articles/we-re-arguing-definitions-not-rights#.W6lrjhNKijQ" target="_blank">legally define</a> the <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/marriage-law#.W6l6ehNKijQ" target="_blank">most basic</a> and <a href="http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/01/11880/" target="_blank">necessary institution</a> in our country is a blow. From <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/06/supreme-court-decision-will-lead-gay-marriage-five-states-thats-wrong/" target="_blank">Ryan Anderson</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Today the <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/10/todays-orders-same-sex-marriage-petitins-denied/" target="_blank">U.S. Supreme Court declined to review appeals</a> from Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana and Wisconsin on the definition of marriage. This means that lower court rulings that struck down state marriage laws now will go into effect, forcing the redefinition of marriage in these states and potentially in other states in the 4th, 7th, and 10th circuits...</p>

<p>The truth of the matter is that the marriage laws in these five states—as in many states across our nation—are <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">good laws that reflect the truth about marriage</a>. Frequently they were passed with overwhelming democratic support. The Supreme Court should have reviewed these cases and should have upheld the authority of citizens and their elected representatives to make good marriage policy. Instead, the Supreme Court left standing bad rulings from lower federal courts that usurped authority from the people by striking down good laws.</p>

<p>The cases at issue involve lower court rulings that struck down state marriage laws, claiming that they violated the U.S. Constitution. But the courts never provided compelling arguments that laws that reflect the truth about marriage are unconstitutional. Indeed, as former <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/states-not-courts-should-decide-marriage-policy/2014/09/26/5ebdcdee-4042-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html" target="_blank">Attorney General Ed Meese and I argued last week in The Washington Post</a>, the Supreme Court should have reviewed these cases and declared the laws constitutional.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It’s very hard to watch our culture rush headlong into its own destruction waving celebratory flags. I love our people. I love our country. The consequences we’ve been warning about are <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11119062/Incest-a-fundamental-right-German-committee-says.html" target="_blank">already</a> beginning <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/where-s-the-marriage-equality-for-throuples#.W6l6sBNKijQ" target="_blank">to show</a> themselves <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/04/legalize_polygamy_marriage_equality_for_all.html" target="_blank">throughout</a> the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/07/us-usa-florida-adoption-idUSBRE91618L20130207" target="_blank">West</a>, and things are going to get worse. It’s like watching a nation of snowmen fight for a right to live in greenhouses. We can reason, and weep, and plead, but they want their “freedom,”&nbsp;and they just won’t listen to us haters.</p>

<p>Russell Moore has <a href="http://www.russellmoore.com/2014/10/06/same-sex-marriage-and-the-supreme-court-what-now-for-the-church/" target="_blank">some advice</a> for us going forward.</p>
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title: God Ends Suffering in His Own Time
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/24/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/god-ends-suffering-in-his-own-time
content:
            <div> 
		<p>How amusing and humbling it is for us to read Moses’&nbsp;plaintive cry to God after his obedient attempts to help his people leads to an <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ex+5%3A10-23&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank"><em>increase</em> in their suffering</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>O Lord, why have You brought harm to this people? Why did You ever send me? Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, and You have not delivered Your people at all.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It’s amusing because we know what comes next in the story. In just a few pages, we will see the most dramatically miraculous rescue of a people from slavery the world has ever seen, but here is a confused and desperate Moses, declaring, “You have not delivered Your people at all,”&nbsp;right before it all takes place.</p>

<p>It’s humbling because we know we’re just like Moses. And we’re just like the disciples, who, on the eve of being rescued from slavery to sin and death, thought Jesus had not delivered them at all.</p>

<p>I can’t tell you what comes next in your story, but here’s <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+20%3A11-21%3A9&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">what’s coming up</a> in <em>our</em> story:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”</p>

<p>And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yes, for now, we have “<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+4%3A17-18&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">momentary, light affliction</a>.”&nbsp;We’re given less straw and forced to make just as many bricks. We’re mocked. We’re run out of town. We’re put in jail. We’re kidnapped. We’re tortured. We’re beheaded. But the “eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison”&nbsp;that will interrupt and put an end to suffering will be even more dramatically filled with justice for evil and undeserved grace for God’s people than ten plagues and a parting of the sea. Let’s not give up now in the despair of “You have not delivered Your people at all!”&nbsp;Let’s wait a few pages.</p>
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title: Survey Reveals a Whole Lot of Heresy in Evangelicalism
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/29/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/survey-reveals-a-whole-lot-of-heresy-in-evangelicalism
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Christianity Today <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=0CB8QqQIwAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.christianitytoday.com%2Fct%2F2014%2Foctober-web-only%2Fnew-poll-finds-evangelicals-favorite-heresies.html&amp;ei=jStRVP7TJ66IigKlgYGIAw&amp;usg=AFQjCNH8-vppRgJ6oeh19762h2To1hbqaA&amp;sig2=eRAqkGODu88NTZUI4teaUA&amp;bvm=bv.78597519,d.cGE" target="_blank">reports</a> on a survey commissioned by <a href="http://www.ligonier.org/" target="_blank">Ligonier Ministries</a> to assess Americans’&nbsp;theological beliefs:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Most American evangelicals hold views condemned as heretical by some of the most important councils of the early church.</p>

<p>A survey released today by LifeWay Research for Ligonier Ministries “reveals a significant level of theological confusion,”&nbsp;said Stephen Nichols, Ligonier’s chief academic officer. Many evangelicals do not have orthodox views about either God or humans, especially on questions of salvation and the Holy Spirit, he said.</p>

<p>Evangelicals did score high on several points. Nearly all believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead (96%), and that salvation is found through Jesus alone (92%). Strong majorities said that God is sovereign over all people (89%) and that the Bible is the Word of God (88%).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>They also believe in “the Trinity,”&nbsp;but they don’t know what it means:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Almost all evangelicals say they believe in the Trinity (96%) and that Jesus is fully human and fully divine (88%).</p>

<p>But nearly a quarter (22%) said God the Father is more divine than Jesus, and 9 percent weren’t sure. Further, 16 percent say Jesus was the first creature created by God, while 11 percent were unsure...</p>

<p>But if evangelicals sometime misunderstand doctrines about Jesus, the third member of the Trinity has it much worse. More than half (51%) said the Holy Spirit is a force, not a personal being. Seven percent weren’t sure, while only 42 percent affirmed that the Spirit is a person...</p>

<p>Ligonier’s Nichols said that while the survey results are disappointing, they’re not unique to our time or culture, or irreversible. “The church in every age has faced theological confusion and heresy. In this survey we see a wake-up call to the church. We cannot assume the next generation—or even this present one—will catch an orthodox theology merely by being in the church,”&nbsp;he said.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You can read more about the survey, including an infographic on the “State of Theology”&nbsp;in America and links to the survey and key findings, <a href="http://www.ligonier.org/thestateoftheology/" target="_blank">at Ligonier</a>. The infographic compares the results for all Americans with those for self-described Evangelicals and gives a good idea of which ideas we need to do a better job at explaining, defending, and promoting.</p>
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title: Get This Prayer App
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/04/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/get-this-prayer-app
content:
            <div> 
		<p>A couple of weeks ago, <a href="http://www.challies.com/resources/how-an-app-revitalized-my-prayer-life" target="_blank">Tim Challies reviewed an app</a> called <a href="http://www.geero.net/prayermate/" target="_blank">PrayerMate</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I say it without hyperbole:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.geero.net/prayermate/">PrayerMate</a>&nbsp;revitalized my prayer life. It has been at least a couple of years since I made the move from organizing my prayers in a book to organizing my prayers in an app, and, at least for now, I don’t ever see myself going back. I know that praying from an app is not for everyone, but for me it has made all the difference. Let me tell you how I use&nbsp;it.&nbsp;</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It <em>wasn’t</em> hyperbole. I’ve been using this app ever since and finding it extremely helpful. It’s easy to quickly add a prayer request as soon as you hear of a need, and you can do so without worrying that your list will become unmanageably long, because you control how many requests you’ll pray for in each category per day and/or choose which days any one particular request will appear.</p>

<p>I encourage you to read Challies’s <a href="http://www.challies.com/resources/how-an-app-revitalized-my-prayer-life" target="_blank">explanation</a> of how he uses the app and then <a href="http://www.geero.net/prayermate/" target="_blank">get it for yourself</a>.&nbsp;</p>

<p><a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2014/10/get-this-prayer-app.html" target="_blank">COMMENTS</a></p>

<p><a href="/articles">Read more posts</a></p>
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title: The Gospel Is Worth the Pain
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/31/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-gospel-is-worth-the-pain
content:
            <div> 
		<p>It’s Reformation Day today. Nearly 500 years ago, Martin Luther posted his <a href="https://reasonabletheology.org/95-theses/" target="_blank">95 Theses</a> in Wittenberg. At the time, he didn’t expect this would lead to his being put on trial just a few years later—the trial where he ultimately said:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[M]y conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Being faithful to the Word of God is not easy. It involves pain. Sometimes fear, loneliness, helplessness. We may think of Martin Luther as a hero now, but he had the same fears you and I have. When asked if he was ready to recant during the trial, Luther asked for another day to consider his answer. He went back to his room and prayed this prayer:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>O God, Almighty God everlasting! how dreadful is the world! behold how its mouth opens to swallow me up, and how small is my faith in thee!... Oh! the weakness of the flesh, and the power of Satan! If I am to depend upon any strength of this world—all is over... The knell is struck... Sentence is gone forth... O&nbsp;God! O&nbsp;God! O thou, my God! help me against all the wisdom of this world. Do this, I beseech thee; thou shouldst do this... by thy own mighty power... The work is not mine, but thine. I have no business here... I have nothing to contend for with these great men of the world! I would gladly pass my days in happiness and peace. But the cause is thine... And it is righteous and everlasting! O&nbsp;Lord! help me! O&nbsp;faithful and unchangeable God! I lean not upon man. It were vain! Whatever is of man is tottering, whatever proceeds from him must fail. My God! my God! does thou not hear? My God! art thou no longer living? Nay, thou canst not die. Thou dost but hide thyself. Thou hast chosen me for this work. I know it!... Therefore, O&nbsp;God, accomplish thine own will! Forsake me not, for the sake of thy well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ, my defense, my buckler, and my stronghold. Lord—where art thou?... My God, where art thou?... Come! I pray thee, I am ready... Behold me prepared to lay down my life for thy truth... suffering like a lamb. For the cause is holy. It is thine own!... I will not let thee go! no, nor yet for all eternity! And though the world should be thronged with devils—and this body, which is the work of thine hands, should be cast forth, trodden under foot, cut in pieces,... consumed to ashes, my soul is thine. Yes, I have thine own word to assure me of it. My soul belongs to thee, and will abide with thee forever! Amen! O&nbsp;God send help!... Amen! (Quoted by R.C. Sproul in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Holiness-God-R-Sproul/dp/0842339655/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1414712356&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+holiness+of+god" target="_blank"><em>The Holiness of God</em></a>.)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Because the Gospel Luther found in the pages of the Bible freed him from his tortured conscience before a perfectly holy and just God, because it reconciled him to that great God, the Gospel was worth any price to Luther.</p>

<p>Is it worth it to you? Have you seen your own sin? Do you, like the woman of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+7%3A36-50&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Luke 7</a>, love much because you’ve been forgiven much? You will need to. Standing for the truth as Luther stood will never be easy. Plead with God for courage, and keep focusing on Jesus, “the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+12%3A1-3&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">author and perfecter</a> of faith,”</p>

<blockquote>
<p>who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.</p>

<p>For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Line in the Sand
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 10/31/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/line-in-the-sand
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In Lewis’s <em>Chronicles of Narnia,</em> four children, poking about in the back of an old wardrobe in the attic, stumble on another world filled with peculiar delights and strange enchantments. Did you ever tumble by accident into an ancient world? Something like that happened to me recently.</p>

<p>I’ve been rummaging through old books lately. I don’t mean dog-eared copies of the Hardy Boys, old tomes of Dickens, or <em>The Complete Sherlock Holmes</em>. I mean <em>old</em>—Justin Martyr, Augustine, Athanasius—authors whose lips have been silent nearly two thousand years, but whose minds still speak delights and enchantments every time we seek their counsel.</p>

<p>My browsing has been like window-shopping, except I don’t wander through the mall. Instead, I peruse the thoughts of others. I spend no money, only time; all of the merchandise is free for the taking, compliments of the ancients.</p>

<p>Surprisingly, they have not been hard to understand. As Lewis notes, these great men—just in virtue of their greatness—are often more intelligible than their modern commentators.</p>

<h2>Lessons from a Dying Saint</h2>

<p>In my explorations, I stumbled upon the oldest written account of Christian martyrdom outside of the New Testament. It’s very moving, and I’d like to share it with you.</p>

<p>The beloved Polycarp, 86-year-old bishop of Smyrna and a disciple of John the Apostle, was martyred in 156 A.D. Ironically, he was charged with atheism because he denied the false gods of Rome. The phrase “away with the atheists”&nbsp;was meant to be directed at Christians (considered atheists since they rejected polytheism). Instead, as you’ll see, Polycarp turned the denunciation on the multitudes of true atheists.</p>

<p>Listen:</p>

<p>When [Polycarp] was brought before him, the proconsul asked if he were Polycarp. And when he confessed that he was, the proconsul tried to persuade him to recant, saying, “Have respect for your age,��&nbsp;and other such things as they are accustomed to say: “Swear by the Genius [guardian spirit] of Caesar. Repent. Say, ’Away with the atheists!’”&nbsp;So Polycarp solemnly looked at the whole crowd of lawless heathen who were in the stadium, motioned toward them with his hand, and then (groaning as he looked up to heaven) said, “Away with the atheists!”</p>

<p>But when the magistrate persisted and said, “Swear the oath, and I will release you. Revile Christ,”&nbsp;Polycarp replied, “For eighty-six years I have been His servant, and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”</p>

<p>But as he continued to insist, saying, “Swear by the Genius of Caesar,”&nbsp;he answered, “If you vainly suppose that I will swear by the Genius of Caesar, as you request, and pretend not to know who I am, listen carefully: <em>I am a Christian</em>. Now if you want to learn the doctrine of Christianity, name the day and give me a hearing...”</p>

<p>So the proconsul said: “I have wild beasts. I will throw you to them unless you change your mind.”</p>

<p>But he said, “Call for them! For the repentance from better to worse is a change impossible for us, but it is a noble thing to change from that which is evil to righteousness.”</p>

<p>Then he said to him again: “I will have you consumed by fire, since you despise the wild beasts, unless you change your mind.”</p>

<p>But Polycarp said: “You threaten with a fire that burns only briefly and after just a little while is extinguished, for you are ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment, which is reserved for the ungodly. But why do you delay? Come, do what you wish.”</p>

<p>As he spoke these and many other words, he was inspired with courage and joy, and his face was filled with grace, so that not only did he not collapse in fright at the things which were said to him, but on the contrary the proconsul was astonished... The entire crowd, Gentiles as well as Jews living in Smyrna, cried out with uncontrollable anger and with a loud shout: “This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the destroyer of our gods, who teaches many not to sacrifice or worship...”</p>

<p>These things then happened with such swiftness, quicker than words could tell, the crowd swiftly collecting wood and kindling from the workshops and the baths... When the pyre was prepared, he took off all his clothes and removed his belt... Then the materials prepared for the pyre were placed around him. And as they were also about to nail him, he said: “Leave me as I am, for He who enables me to endure the fire will also enable me to remain on the pyre without moving, even without the sense of security which you get from the nails.”&nbsp;So they did not nail him, but they tied him instead. [Then he prayed.]</p>

<p>When he had... finished his prayer, the men in charge of the fire lit the fire. And as a mighty flame blazed up, we saw a miracle... The fire...completely surrounded the body of the martyr. And it was there in the middle, not like flesh burning, but like bread baking or like gold and silver being refined in a furnace. For we also perceived a very fragrant odor, as if it were the scent of incense or some other precious spice.</p>

<p>When the lawless men eventually realized that his body could not be consumed by the fire, they ordered an executioner to go up to him and stab him with a dagger. And when he did this, there came out a large quantity of blood, so that it extinguished the fire. And the whole crowd was amazed that there should be so great a difference between the unbelievers and the elect.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup></p>

<p>Does that last line stand out for you the way it does for me? What was that difference? For one, Caesar had drawn a line in the sand and Polycarp had said, “No, I will not cross.”&nbsp;He was neither intimidated nor unnerved because he knew who he was: “Listen carefully: I am a Christian.”</p>

<p>As followers of Christ here in the West, our lives are not at risk. Far from it. We’re not faced with the ultimatum, “Recant or die.”&nbsp;But sometimes in many small ways, I’m afraid, we implicitly recant with much less incentive. We deny our Savior in the little things—the petty offense, the silent condescension, the hidden envy, the small bit of bitterness, the modest moment of pride.</p>

<p>The small things count, though. Consider this next morsel of wisdom that also comes from the ancients: “Sow a thought, reap an act; sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”&nbsp;The lesson is clear: The most important measure of our success as Christians is not our numbers or even our immediate impact, but our moment-by-moment faithfulness.</p>

<p>This is a wisdom Polycarp understood. The eyewitness account of his martyrdom included this statement: “He had been treated with all honor [by the faithful] on account of his holy life even before his gray hair appeared.”&nbsp;Polycarp was noble in death because he had first been noble in life.</p>

<p>The full record of “The Martyrdom of Polycarp”&nbsp;is longer, and it moved me deeply to read it, causing me to take stock of my own manner of life. Will my epitaph read, “And the whole crowd was amazed that there should be so great a difference between the unbelievers and this one of the elect”?</p>

<p>Sometimes our most profound encouragements come not from the present, but from the past, if we choose to linger over meaningful events there. There’s something refreshing about stepping back a couple of thousands years to a place and time when the options were fewer and therefore clearer, a time when faith was less defiled and life less distracted.</p>

<p>I invite you now to step back not millennia, but decades—not to a simpler time, but to an incredibly complex and dangerous time for Christians—to the life of a more recent martyr whose prescience provides a lesson.</p>

<h2>Lessons from another Saint</h2>

<p>In Germany on April 7, 1933, the newly minted Third Reich sought to reorganize every aspect of life along National Socialist lines by passing the Law on the Reconstruction of the Professional Civil Service. The third clause of the decree included the now infamous “Aryan Paragraph,”&nbsp;a legal provision prohibiting non-Aryans—Jews, in other words—from being employed in any capacity in the German state. As a result, all Jews in civil service were summarily dismissed.</p>

<p>The government policy had an additional consequence. Since the German Church was a state church, the edict had implications for pastors as well. If the <em>Reichskirche</em><sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup> approved the Aryan Paragraph, then Jewish converts to Christianity holding leadership in local churches would likewise be discharged. Pastors all over the country would be forced out.</p>

<p>The general mood in the nation favored the Paragraph. This was not because every German was deeply racist. Far from it, at this stage in the rule of the Reich. Generally, they were more pro-Aryan than anti-Semitic. They were nationalists, embracing their new führer’s pledge of restored respect for Germany and renewal of the glory lost them in the humiliation of Versailles.</p>

<p>Many in the <em>Reichskirche</em> embraced the edict heartily. A strong Germany meant a strong German Church. Though technically the Aryan Paragraph was inconsistent with the Evangelical Church Constitution, signing off on it seemed a small theological concession in light of the benefits gained by making peace with the Nazis and abetting the national program of peace, prosperity and unity: “One Reich. One People. One Church.”</p>

<p>Remember, in 1933 the Reich’s true colors had yet to be flown. The Brown Shirts had a nasty reputation, but few could imagine the horrors awaiting Germany on the distant horizon. Some Christian leaders actually thought Hitler could be reasoned with, that clever diplomatic maneuvering might appease him and even improve their opportunities for evangelism. Anyway, they reasoned, converted Jews could form their own congregations with no serious harm done.</p>

<p>Regardless of the rationalizations, the Aryan Paragraph had enormous strategic significance for the church, something a 27-year-old Lutheran pastor saw immediately. Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood what was at stake long before most did.</p>

<p>Ultimately, the Aryan Paragraph would exclude every ethnically Jewish Christian from the community of God. Yet in Christ’s church there was to be “neither Jew nor Greek”&nbsp;(Gal. 3:28). Whether they be Jews or Gentiles, followers of Christ “were <em>all</em> baptized into one body”&nbsp;(1 Cor. 12:13).</p>

<p>Bonhoeffer immediately saw that the Aryan Paragraph “contradicts the clear meaning of the Scriptures.”<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup> He also saw that affirming it would eventually place the entire German church under de facto secular rule. Ultimately, the Gospel itself was at stake.</p>

<p>When “alien principles”&nbsp;rule the church, the Barmen Declaration<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup> stated, then “the church ceases to be the church.”<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup> Thus, a church excluding Jews would be no Christian church at all, and compromising Scripture to increase its appeal would be to evangelize for a church that no longer had Christ.</p>

<p>So Bonhoeffer resisted. He reasoned, he argued, and he cajoled. He wrote letters, he preached sermons, and he engaged. He prayed, he hoped, and he waited. Finally, when all had been done to no avail, he simply said, “No.”&nbsp;He would not agree to the Aryan Paragraph. He would not support it. He would not endorse it. Instead, he would oppose it with every means available to him. He would defy it, with grace and with courage. “We must shake off our fear of this world,”&nbsp;he wrote. “The cause of Christ is at stake, and are we to be found sleeping?”<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup></p>

<p>Hitler had drawn a line in the sand. Bonhoeffer had said, “No, I will not cross.”&nbsp;He was neither intimidated nor unnerved because he knew who he was. Can you hear his words? “Listen carefully: I am a Christian.”</p>

<h2>Our Line in the Sand</h2>

<p>Today in our culture we do not have an Aryan Paragraph. Jews are not being singled out for special ill-treatment; Christians are. The current source of conflict has largely been a single, general issue, but a more important one waits in the wings.</p>

<p>The issue at present is not ethnicity, but ethics—specifically, the morality of homosexuality and the propriety of same-sex marriage. The culture dictates one direction, the Scripture another. Those faithful to Christ’s Word suffer minor slings and arrows of abuse. The mistreatment is relatively mild, for now—mostly name-calling—but even this is too much for some. They don’t see the point.</p>

<p>As with the Aryan Paragraph, the partnership we’re being asked to accept with the world does not entail rejecting any essential doctrine of faith. It’s a small theological concession in light of the benefits gained by showing love and acceptance rather than what some might view as judgment and bigotry. Go with the flow. Follow the crowd. Celebrate diversity. Christianity will look so much more attractive to so many more if we do.</p>

<p>I’m not going to argue the legitimacy of those two issues here (I have done that elsewhere). Instead, I want you to see the strategic significance of our response in light of the larger spiritual battle we’re in.</p>

<p>True enough, yielding on homosexuality and same-sex marriage does not require denying any vital doctrine. No church councils have weighed in on it. No confessions address it, as far as I know. By itself, it is largely theologically inconsequential compared to weightier matters.</p>

<p>There is no question in my mind, though, that for our day this is our culture’s line in the sand. Cross over—celebrate diversity—and be received with open arms. Resist and face retaliation. And reprisals more painful than name-calling are already in play.</p>

<p>Even so, no Christians are being burned at the stake. No blood is being let here in the States. None are in prison for their faithfulness. Yet disciples of Christ are defecting in alarming numbers, the mere hint of intimidation causing multitudes—especially young people—to cross over. They don’t realize what’s at stake.</p>

<p>You see, <em>this is our Aryan Paragraph</em>, the place where our own culture learns where our loyalties lie, with men or with God. This is the place we either stand in allegiance to Christ and His Word, or surrender to secular bullies who demand we march to their rhythm.</p>

<p>Bonhoeffer saw the Paragraph for what it was and could not cross that line. Neither should we cross the one placed before us, for there’s another line just after it, one that matters, demanding a different diversity: all spiritual roads lead to Rome; all religious paths ascend to the same summit; Jesus is <em>a</em> way, but only one among many.</p>

<p>This line <em>is</em> theologically significant because everything dear to us depends on the legitimacy of Jesus’&nbsp;central claim: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through Me”&nbsp;(Jn. 14:6). If these words are not worth standing for, then Polycarp perished for nothing and Bonhoeffer wasted his loyalties on the gallows that took his life.</p>

<p>My fear is that any Christian crossing the first line will cross the second for the same reasons: to be “tolerant,”&nbsp;to be lauded as loving, to escape the brand, “bigot.”&nbsp;Though not a fool, Paul was willing to be called one for fidelity’s sake, since the so-called “foolishness”&nbsp;of the Gospel had the power to save those who believed (1 Cor. 1:18-24). Are you willing to wear the label “bigot”&nbsp;for the same reason, even if it be libel?</p>

<p>Like Bonhoeffer, we can resist. Yes, we can reason, we can argue, we can cajole. Yes, we can write articles, preach sermons, and engage. Yes, we can pray, we can hope, and we can wait. But in the end, when all has been done to no avail, we can simply say, “No.”</p>

<p>No, we will not teach that curriculum. No, we will not obey that law. No, we will not support those things contrary to Christ. We will not go along with those policies. Rather, we will defy them, with grace and courage. We will oppose them. We will draw our own line in the sand, a line called “Faithfulness and Truth,”&nbsp;and summon our rivals to cross to us. “The cause of Christ is at stake, and are we to be found sleeping?”</p>

<p>When the world draws its line in the sand, will you tell them, “No, I will not cross”? You need be neither intimidated nor unnerved <em>if you know who you are</em>. Tell them clearly, tell them confidently, tell them courageously. Say, “Listen carefully: I am a Christian.”</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">Lightfoot, Harmer &amp; Holmes, <em>The Apostolic Fathers</em> (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989), 138-141.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">The Protestant Reich Church, officially known as the German Evangelical Church. It was eventually opposed by the “Confessing Church”&nbsp;formed by dissident Christian pastors like Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">Eric Metaxas, <em>Bonhoeffer—Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy</em> (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 213. This is a fabulous read, a stirring account of the impact one courageous and deeply thoughtful Christian can have in the face of debilitating darkness.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">The watershed Barmen Declaration of 1934 was a manifesto of the Confessing Church stating its loyalty to the founding principles of German Evangelicalism that the official German Church had abandoned out of allegiance to the Reich.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">Metaxas, 224.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:6">Ibid, 219.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: Must We Kill Humans to Save Other Humans?
topic: Bioethics
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 11/01/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/must-we-kill-humans-to-save-other-humans-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Alan’s monthly letter for November 2014</em></p>

<p>The test was positive. He had cancer. The tumor was only six centimeters, but because it was in his trachea (his windpipe), it had almost completely blocked his ability to breathe. He would probably die from suffocation before the cancer killed him. At just 36 years old (and the father of two), his prognosis was grim.</p>

<p>Thankfully, advances in stem-cell research gave scientists an idea. What if they could use new technologies to treat this patient’s condition? Stem cells have received a lot of press, but what are they and how could they help?</p>

<p>Your body is composed of over 200 different types of <em>specialized</em> cells: blood cells, muscle cells, brain cells, bone cells, etc. Stem cells, though, are <em>unspecialized</em> cells. They don’t have a function... yet. Through a process known as differentiation, stem cells become specialized. They transform from being a general cell to a specific type of cell. During the transformation, they also create another stem cell. That makes them self-renewing.</p>

<p>When you were a week-old embryo, you were composed primarily of stem cells. These cells differentiated into various cell types to create tissue that would form every part of your body.</p>

<p>You can see why stem cells are promising. If scientists can harness the power to create specific cells and tissues, they can create new body parts and organs. This revolution in medicine would allow them to treat a whole host of diseases and disabilities.</p>

<p>Because of this potential, scientists harvest human embryos left over from fertility clinics. They extract stem cells from these tiny humans to use them in research. This is known as <em>embryonic</em> stem cell research (ESCR).</p>

<p>Another source of stem cells is from human clones. Once a clone (or twin) of a patient is made, they allow it to grow for a week. Then, they extract its stem cells (through ESCR) to create genetically matched tissue that won’t be rejected by the patient’s body.</p>

<p>ESCR, however, is immoral. Removing stem cells from a human embryo kills the developing human. Without stem cells, a week-old human can’t build his or her body. That’s why ESCR is morally wrong: It kills an innocent human being.</p>

<p>Fortunately, scientists have discovered another source of stem cells: <em>adult</em> human beings. Since stem cells have been self-renewing since our embryonic days, they continue to grow and live in our bodies today. They are found in our bone marrow, brain, fat, eyes, and many other places.</p>

<p>Here’s the great news. Not only do our bodies contain lots of stem cells, but removing them doesn’t kill us. That means we can still treat disease and disability without killing innocent human beings.</p>

<p>In fact, that’s what scientists and doctors did for the young man with a tumor in his trachea. They took stem cells from his bone marrow and grew them on a trachea-shaped scaffold for two days. During surgery, they removed the man’s cancer-infested trachea and replaced it with the new one they grew in the lab. Now the man is cancer free and has a normal life expectancy.</p>

<p>This type of science fiction medicine isn’t an isolated incident, either. Scientists have treated a form of blindness where a person’s cornea (outermost layer of the eye) becomes opaque. They took stem cells from the person’s eye, grew a new cornea, removed the old one, and then grafted the new cornea onto the damaged eye. They’ve also treated heart attack patients. Scientists extracted stem cells from patients’&nbsp;bone marrow and directly inserted them into the damaged heart tissue. This triggered the growth of new heart muscle and blood vessels, improving the function of the heart. It’s amazing.</p>

<p>Adult stem cell therapy has helped human beings for the last 20 years. To date, stem cells have been used in the treatment of 73 different conditions. How many successful human treatments have embryonic stem cells achieved? Zero. None. Nada. ESCR is still being performed on animals in the hopes it will one day deliver on its promise to treat humans.</p>

<p>Adult stem cell research has everything going for it. It’s easier, more effective, and isn’t morally problematic. Not only is it not necessary to clone human beings (because your body won’t reject your own stem cells), you don’t have to kill any unborn human beings either.</p>

<p>This is a refreshing change for Christians. Too often we’re the ones resisting the latest scientific advancement. In this case, though, we can champion a new frontier in medicine without compromising our moral position.</p>
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title: You Can’t Erase Gender, but You Can Sure Try
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/15/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/you-can-t-erase-gender-but-you-can-sure-try
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Remember when I said we should expect to see more efforts to erase the <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/it-s-about-the-difference-between-men-and-women#.W6lp7RNKijR" target="_blank">distinction between men and women</a>? Take a look at these excerpts from a handout titled “<a href="https://blogs.vsb.bc.ca/pride/files/2016/02/Gender-Spectrum-12-Easy-Steps-on-the-Way-to-Gender-Inclusiveness.pdf" target="_blank">12 Easy Steps on the Way to Gender Inclusiveness</a>,”&nbsp;compiled by <a href="https://www.genderspectrum.org/" target="_blank">Gender Spectrum</a> and given to Lincoln (Nebraska) Public Schools staff (“<a href="http://journalstar.com/news/local/education/lps-staff-s-transgender-training-concerns-parents/article_0b37dd75-758d-50c1-9deb-16901059bc5a.html" target="_blank">not meant as rules staff had to follow</a>, but as suggestions for how teachers can make students feel comfortable”):</p>

<blockquote>
<p>1. Avoid asking kids to line up as boys or girls or separating them by gender. Instead, use things like “odd and even birth date,”&nbsp;or “Which would you choose: skateboards or bikes/milk or juice/dogs or cats/summer or winter/talking or listening.”&nbsp;Invite students to come up with choices themselves. Consider using tools like the “appointment schedule”&nbsp;to form pairs or groups. Always ask yourself, “Will this configuration create a gendered space?”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>That alone is interesting and odd. If you’re not going to divide the class into boys and girls, why would you continue to divide the children into two separate lines? The reason they’re being divided up in the first place is that they’re different in a way that’s relevant to getting little kids to stand quietly in line—and they’re <em>two kinds</em> of different. Of course, the teachers could continue to artificially divide them into two lines by irrelevant categories, but it’s not going to accomplish the good that dividing them by gender—the <em>relevant</em> category—used to accomplish. You don’t avoid cooties by separating kids according to their preference for summer or winter, so what’s the point? It’s odd to me that the people who came up with these suggestions didn’t just recommend teachers stop dividing the children into separate lines. (They probably will eventually, but one step at a time.)</p>

<p>This is exactly <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/inconsistent-same-sex-marriage-advocates#.W6lqDRNKijR" target="_blank">the kind of inconsistent thinking</a> being expressed by many same-sex marriage advocates (with, I predict, the same eventual outcome of dropping the number two). They’re insisting we ought to hold on to two-person marriage while at the same time removing the reason for defining it as two people in the first place. When “male”&nbsp;and “female”&nbsp;are deemed irrelevant, the number two is no longer in play. At that point, if you insist on “two,”&nbsp;you’re just prolonging a meaningless habit, and how long will that last?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>2. Don’t use phrases such as “boys &amp; girls,”&nbsp;“you guys,”&nbsp;“ladies and gentlemen,”&nbsp;and similarly gendered expressions to get kids’&nbsp;attention. Instead say things like “calling all readers,”&nbsp;or “hey campers”&nbsp;or “could all of the athletes come here.”&nbsp;Create classroom names and then ask all of the “purple penguins”&nbsp;to meet at the rug.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>A lot is being made of this “purple penguins”&nbsp;designation in the media, but in fairness, the guidelines are not asking teachers to call kids “purple penguins,”&nbsp;they’re asking teachers to divide the classroom into groups and give those groups special names. “Purple penguins”&nbsp;is just one example of a name they could use, and using it would be no different from dividing students into groups and referring to them as “Bruins”&nbsp;and “Trojans.”&nbsp;It’s only the fact that the group names are supposed to be used as a way to <em>avoid</em>&nbsp;“boys and girls”&nbsp;that turns this into craziness.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>4. Have visual images reinforcing gender inclusion: pictures of people who don’t fit gender norms, signs that “strike out”&nbsp;sayings like “All Boys...”&nbsp;or “All Girls...”&nbsp;or “All Genders Welcome”&nbsp;door hangers.</p>

<p>5. When you find it necessary to reference gender, say “Boy, girl, both or neither.”&nbsp;When asked why, use this as a teachable moment. Emphasize to students that your classroom recognizes and celebrates the gender diversity of all students.</p>

<p>6. Point out and inquire when you hear others referencing gender in a binary manner. Ask things like, “Hmmm. That is interesting. Can you say more about that?”&nbsp;or “What makes you say that? I think of it a little differently.”&nbsp;Provide counter-narratives that challenge students to think more expansively about their notions of gender.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>There has to be a better way to show compassion to the few children who suffer from gender confusion that doesn’t involve destroying a healthy understanding for <em>all</em> the children of the reality that the world is divided into boys and girls who are different from each other. It’s also hard for me to believe that little kids will go along with this. They’re still quite aware of who the boys are and who the girls are, and they tend to care.</p>

<p>You can read more about this situation in the <a href="http://journalstar.com/news/local/education/lps-staff-s-transgender-training-concerns-parents/article_0b37dd75-758d-50c1-9deb-16901059bc5a.html" target="_blank">Lincoln Journal Star</a>. Here’s an extraordinary quote at the end of the article:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>“Our purpose is to educate all kids,”&nbsp;[Student Services Director Russ] Uhing said. “We do not push a political agenda, we don’t push a religious preference on people, or a sexual preference on people. That’s not what our role is.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It sounds like Uhing is making the common mistake of thinking the worldview he’s promoting is neutral just because he doesn’t attach a political or religious label to it. But of course, <em>there is no neutral view</em>. He is promoting an aspect of <em>a particular worldview</em>. Erasing the distinction between boys and girls is anything but neutral. It teaches children what to think about the meaning of male and female—the most basic aspect of ourselves, telling them that gender is meaningless, <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/it-s-about-the-difference-between-men-and-women#.W6lp7RNKijR" target="_blank">something we create for ourselves</a> and use however we like, not something given to us for a purpose we ought to submit to. This understanding of gender has numerous cultural, philosophical, theological, and yes, even political implications. Whether he realizes it or not, the view Uhing is advocating <em>does</em> play a part in advancing a particular political agenda, which is precisely why <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/it-s-about-the-difference-between-men-and-women#.W6lp7RNKijR" target="_blank">I predicted we would see more of it</a>.</p>
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title: How to Turn Your Theology into Communion with God
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/23/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-to-turn-your-theology-into-communion-with-god
content:
            <div> 
		<p>When Tim Keller was <a href="http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/tim-keller-on-prayer" target="_blank">interviewed</a> about his new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Prayer-Experiencing-Awe-Intimacy-God/dp/0525954147/?tag=thegospcoal-20" target="_blank"><em>Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God</em></a>, here’s what he had to say about turning your theology into communion with God through biblical meditation and prayer:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Biblical meditation means, first, to <em>think out</em> your theology. (That means having it clearly in your mind. Know what you believe.) Second, it means to <em>work in</em> your theology. (That means self-communion, talking to yourself. For example, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?”&nbsp;It is asking yourself, “How would I be different if I took this theological truth seriously? How would it change my attitudes and actions if I really believed this from the bottom of my heart?”) Third, it means to <em>pray up</em> your theology. (That means turning your theology into prayer, letting it trigger adoration, confession, and supplication.) Do those things, and your theology will intersect with your experience...</p>

<p>It should go without saying—but I will say it—that what I mean by “meditation”&nbsp;is not any of the contemplative practices that aim at getting beyond words and rational thought into pure awareness of our oneness with God. Biblical meditation, rather, is filling the mind with Scripture and then “loading the heart”&nbsp;(to use John Owen’s phrase) with it until it affects not only the emotions but the entire life.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read <a href="http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/tim-keller-on-prayer" target="_blank">the rest of the interview</a>.</p>
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title: Why Our Moral Debt Could Be Transferred to Jesus
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 11/05/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-our-moral-debt-could-be-transferred-to-jesus
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In a post addressing “<a href="http://derekzrishmawy.com/2014/10/23/the-beauty-of-the-cross-19-objections-and-answers-on-penal-substitutionary-atonement-500th-post/" target="_blank">19 Objections and Answers on Penal Substitutionary Atonement</a>,”&nbsp;Derek Rishmawy responds to the objection that <b>“</b>penal substitutionary atonement is morally repugnant because moral guilt is not transferable. It is wicked to punish the innocent in the place of the guilty”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>In response to this, some have noted that some forms of debt are transferable. People can pay off each other’s financial debts all the time. Why not Christ? Well, as long as it is thought of financially, yes, that seems unproblematic. But moral debt seems different and non-transferable. We are not usually supposed to punish the innocent in the place of the guilty. At this point, it seems that a few things ought to be made clear.</p>

<p>First, Jesus is the Christ, not just any other person. Christ is not just a name; it is a title meaning “Messiah”, the Anointed King. In the biblical way of thinking, kings of nations stood in a special representative relationship with their people. As N.T. Wright says, when you come to the phrase “In the Messiah”&nbsp;in the NT, then, you have to think “what is true of the King, was true of the people.”&nbsp;So, if the King won a victory, then so did the people, and so forth. The King was able to assume responsibility for the fate of a people in a way that no other person could. This is the underlying logic at work in the Bible text. We do not think this way because we are modern, hyper-individualists, but he is the one in whom his people are summed up...</p>

<p>Jesus occupies a unique moral space precisely as the mediator of the new covenant relationship. Most people cannot take responsibility for the guilt of others in such a way that they can discharge their obligations on their behalf. Jesus can because he is both God and Man, and the New Adam, who is forging a new relationship between humanity and God. This, incidentally, is just a variation on Irenaeus’&nbsp;theology of recapitulation (re-headship). As all die in Adam, so all are given life in Christ (Rom. 5:12-20). If Christ dies a penal death for sins, then those who are in Christ die that death with him (2 Cor 5:14). His relationship is, as they say, <em>sui generis,</em> in its own category.</p>

<p>This is where modern, popular analogies drawn from the lawcourt fail us. We ought not to think of Christ dying to deal with the sins of people as some simple swap of any random innocent person for a bunch of guilty people. It is the death of the King who can legally represent his people in a unique, but appropriate fashion before the bar of God’s justice. He is our substitute because he is our representative. Strictly speaking there are no proper analogies, but there is a moral logic that is deeply rooted in the biblical narrative.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You can read Rishmawy’s response to the other 18 objections <a href="http://derekzrishmawy.com/2014/10/23/the-beauty-of-the-cross-19-objections-and-answers-on-penal-substitutionary-atonement-500th-post/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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title: Women and Christianity
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 10/02/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/women-and-christianity
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Critics of Christianity consider it a patriarchal religion that relegates women to “second class citizens”&nbsp;at best. This isn’t the case at all. Christianity values all humans equally, and the behavior and practices of the early church demonstrate that women were valued just as highly as men. And this was in stark contrast to the treatment of women in literally any other culture and religion at that time. Though the Bible teaches complementary roles in marriage, it elevated the status of women in marriage, placing equal value on each spouse. Christianity placed new obligations on husbands for the treatment of their wives and daughters. And this played out quite clearly in the early church.</p>

<p>Rodney Stark offers the evidence in his book <em>The Triumph of Christianity</em> (p. 144-154).</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Because Jesus, the twelve apostles, Paul, and the prominent leaders in the early church in Jerusalem were all men, the impression prevails that early Christianity was primarily a male affair. Not so. From earliest days women predominated.</p>

<p>In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul begins with personal greetings to fifteen women and eighteen men who were prominent members of the Roman congregation. If we may assume that sufficient sex bias existed so that men were more likely than women to hold positions of leadership, then this very close sex ratio suggests a Roman congregation that was very disproportionately female. Indeed, the converts of Paul “we hear most about are women,”&nbsp;and many of them “leading women.”&nbsp;Thus, the brilliant Cambridge church historian Henry Chadwick (1920-2008) noted, “Christianity seems to have been especially successful among women. It was often through the wives that it penetrated the upper classes of society in the first instance”...</p>

<p>The question persists, Why? The answer consists of two parts. First,...religious movements always attract more women than men... Far more important is the second part of the answer, which suggests that Christianity was attractive to women far beyond the usual level of gender differences. Women were especially drawn to Christianity because it offered them a life that was so greatly superior to the life they otherwise would have led...</p>

<p>Christian writers have long stressed that Jesus’s “attitude toward women was revolutionary... For him the sexes were equal”...[R]ecent objective evidence leaves no doubt that early Christian women did enjoy far greater equality with men than did their pagan and Jewish counterparts. A study of Christian burials in the catacombs under Rome, based on 3,733 cases, found that Christian women were nearly as likely as Christian men to be commemorated with lengthy inscriptions. This “near equality in the commemoration of males and females is something that is peculiar to Christians, and sets them apart from the non-Christian populations of the city.”&nbsp;This was true not only of adults, but also of children, as Christians lamented the loss of a daughter as much as that of a son, which was especially unusual compared with other religious groups in Rome.</p>

<p>Of course, there is overwhelming evidence that from earliest days, Christian women often held leadership roles in the church and enjoyed far greater security and equality in marriage...</p>

<p>In Romans 16:1-2 Paul introduces and commends to the Roman congregation “our sister Phoebe”&nbsp;who is a deaconess “of the church at Cenchreae, that you may receive her in the Lord as befits the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a helper of many and of myself as well.”&nbsp;Deacons were important leaders in the early church, with special responsibilities for raising and dispersing funds. Clearly, Paul saw nothing unusual in a woman filling that role. Nor was this an isolated case or limited to the first generation of Christians...</p>

<p>Prominent historians now agree that woman held positions of honor and authority in the early Christianity...</p>

<p>The superior situation of Christian women vis-à-vis their pagan sisters began at birth. The exposure of unwanted infants was “widespread”&nbsp;in the Roman Empire, and girls were far more likely than boys to be exposed... Even in large families, “more than one daughter was hardly ever reared.”&nbsp;A study based on inscriptions was able to reconstruct six hundred families and found that of these, only six had raised more than one daughter.</p>

<p>In keeping with their Jewish origins, Christians condemned the exposure of infants as murder. As Justin Martyr (100-165) put it, “we have been taught that it is wicked to expose even new-born children...[for] we would then be murderers.”&nbsp;So, substantially more Christian (and Jewish) female infants lived...</p>

<p>The Christian position on divorce was defined by Jesus... This was a radical break with past customs. A survey of marriage contracts going all the way back to ancient Babylon found that they always contained a divorce clause specifying payments and divisions of property and the cause of divorce need be nothing more than a husband’s whim... But the early church was unswerving in its commitment to the standard set by Jesus, and this soon evolved into the position that there were no grounds for remarriage following divorce. In addition, although like everyone else early Christians prized female chastity, unlike anyone else they rejected the double standard that gave men sexual license. As Henry Chadwick explained, Christians “regarded unchastity in a husband as no less serious a breach of loyalty and trust than unfaithfulness in a wife.”</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Death with Dignity
topic: Bioethics
author: Melinda Penner
date: 11/06/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/death-with-dignity
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’m very sorry to hear that <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/03/361094919/as-planned-right-to-die-advocate-brittany-maynard-ends-her-life" target="_blank">Brittany Maynard ended her life</a> Saturday. My sincere condolences to her husband, family, and friends.</p>

<p>Brittany literally became the cover girl for doctor-assisted suicide when she went public with her decision and was on the cover of <em>People</em> magazine. She was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor and chose to end her life at her own timing rather than die of the disease. This is called death with dignity.</p>

<p>There has been criticism for those who have publicly disagreed with her decision. But Brittany went public in order to spark a change in public policy, so it’s in the public square for discussion.</p>

<p>“Death with dignity”&nbsp;is a phrase that suicide proponents have used. Of course, there’s rhetorical power to the phrase to identify it with suicide, bypassing the difficulty and suffering of dying naturally. But dignity has nothing to do with the mode of death, but the way someone handles dying. There’s nothing at all undignified about needing the care of others when we can no longer care for ourselves. There’s nothing undignified about a difficult death. Dignity is a virtue of how the person handles the very difficult circumstances they find themselves in.</p>

<p>I’ve become more personally acquainted with suffering and dying. For the last year my mother’s heart conditions have worsened. She’s become incapacitated and needs care for virtually every need she has. She’s bedridden and her memory is worsening. It’s nothing very unusual for someone nearly 90. She’s slowly dying. It’s very difficult for her and there have been times she’s yearned for it to end. But my mother has accepted every degradation in her condition with grace. She’ll die of natural causes. She is dying with dignity.</p>

<p>My mother often says she never imagined she’d be like this. She would rather die than linger like this. I can’t imagine how hard it is to be in her situation. And I know there are families dealing with much, much worse.</p>

<p>It isn’t pointless.</p>

<p>There’s a community aspect to anyone’s death. Each person’s death and how we handle it either communicates the intrinsic value of human life or the lack of it. It speaks of our value for those virtues or says they’re unimportant. It tells everyone that life is precious and not ours to take, or it says that we are our gods and personal autonomy is paramount.</p>

<p>Brittany Maynard went public because she wanted her death to tell us what she thought about suffering and dying. We need to think carefully about what she told us because it has consequences for all of us and how we treat the suffering and dying, the very vulnerable. My mom’s dying process also tells us something. And I hope that it teaches us that we aren’t the masters of our fate. That life is precious and valuable even when it’s extremely difficult and painful. That we need to care for the sick and dying with patience and compassion. And that there is dignity in the way we accept dying by natural means even when it’s very, very hard. In caring for the sick and dying, we affirm the value of every person by treating them humanely through sickness until death.</p>

<p>Obviously, there are worldview issues involved in this. If you don’t believe in an afterlife, the virtues gained during the end of life aren’t very valuable. If you don’t believe that we are God’s creatures and He gives us life and value, then we are the masters to exercise autonomy over our fate. The value—or lack of it—we put on life at the worst moments in life and death will have consequences for how we treat people at any point in life. This will have consequences for how we as a society provide for the suffering and dying. It will have consequences for the kind of people we are.</p>

<p>These are the issues that need to be part of the public discourse.</p>
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title: Five Ways Our Joy in God Depends on the Bible
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/08/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/five-ways-our-joy-in-god-depends-on-the-bible
content:
            <div> 
		<p>As you’re spending time learning apologetics, it’s crucial that you never stray from reading the Bible. There are many reasons for this (see <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/apologetics-aren-t-enough-to-connect-you-with-a-person#.XFZu1JNKijQ" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.str.org/articles/you-want-to-be-a-good-apologist#.VC9L-ildVpF" target="_blank">here</a>, for example), and at this year’s Desiring God Conference, John Piper gave <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/conference-messages/scripture-the-kindling-of-christian-hedonism" target="_blank">this one</a>: “[A]ll the God-exalting joy that we hope to experience now and in the age to come hangs on the truth and power of the Bible.”</p>

<p>Here’s a summary of the five ways he says our joy in God depends on the Bible:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>First, there can be no fullness in our joy in God where there is no fullness in the revelation of God’s excellencies. And that fullness is in the Bible. You can’t love him if you don’t know him. And the more fully you know him, the more fully you can love him and treasure him and delight in him. And God knows what kind of revelation and what fullness of revelation is needed to ignite and sustain the fullness of joy that glorifies him most. And that fullness of revelation is in the Bible...</p>

<p>Second, the story of how God acted in history to purchase our release from spiritual deadness, and the bondage of the will, and the wrath of God is only known because of the inspired record of it in the Bible. The power that this story has is possible only because God ordained that it be preserved by his inspired spokesmen in the Bible...</p>

<p>Third, that historical account of God’s saving work in Christ is the instrument in the hands of the Holy Spirit by which he makes us alive to the all-satisfying glory of God...</p>

<p>Fourth, the joy of faith is created by the word of God... The reason there can be no saving faith apart from the Scriptures is they are the only reliable portrait of the Christ of faith. Saving faith is faith in Christ, and Christ is only known through the inspired Scriptures...</p>

<p>Fifth... this joy is attacked and embattled everyday of our lives, until we die or until Christ comes, and its endurance—its perseverance—is only possible because of the Scriptures. We owe not only the creation of the joy of faith to the word, but also its daily survival.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read, listen to, or watch <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/conference-messages/scripture-the-kindling-of-christian-hedonism" target="_blank">the rest</a>.</p>
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title: Mercy in the Ancient World
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 10/09/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/mercy-in-the-ancient-world
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Historian Rodney Stark writes in <a href="http://smile.amazon.com/The-Triumph-Christianity-Movement-Religion/dp/0062007696/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412285639&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+triumph+of+christianity" target="_blank"><em>The Triumph of Christianity</em></a> about the significant contrast Christian mercy and compassion was in comparison to pagan religions. Before this passage quoted here, Stark gives the details of the truly horrible conditions in the ancient world. It’s worth reading to get a better picture of the terrible conditions Christian mercy intervened to change.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>In the midst of the squalor, misery, illness, and anonymity of ancient cities, Christianity provided an island of mercy and security.</p>

<p>Foremost was the Christian duty to alleviate want and suffering. It started with Jesus: “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me... Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me”&nbsp;(Matt. 25:35-40).</p>

<p>James 2:15-17 expresses a similar idea... In contrast, in the pagan world, and especially among the philosophers, mercy was regarded as a character defect and pity as a pathological emotion: because mercy involves providing <em>unearned</em> help or relief, it is contrary to justice. As E.A. Judge explained, classical philosophers taught that “mercy”&nbsp;indeed is not governed by reason at all,&nbsp;and humans must learn “to curb the impulse”; “the cry of the undeserving for mercy”&nbsp;must go “unanswered.”&nbsp;Judge continued: “Pity was a defect of character unworthy of the wise and excusable only in those who have not yet grown up.”</p>

<p>This was the moral climate in which Christianity taught that mercy is one of the primary virtues—that a merciful God requires humans to be merciful. Moreover, the corollary that <em>because</em> God loves humanity, Christians may not please God unless they <em>love one another</em> was even more incompatible with pagan convictions. But the truly revolutionary principle was that Christian love and charity must extend beyond the boundaries of family and even those of faith, to all in need. As Cyprian, the martyred third-century bishop of Carthage explained, “there is nothing remarkable in cherishing merely our own people with the due attentions of love... Thus the good was done to all men, not merely to the household of faith.”</p>

<p>It wasn’t just talk. In 251 the bishop of Rome wrote a letter to the bishop of Antioch in which he mentioned that the Roman congregation was supporting fifteen hundred widows and distressed persons. This was not unusual. In about the year 98 CE, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, advised Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, to be sure to provide special support for widows. As the distinguished Paul Johnson put it: “The Christians...ran a miniature welfare state in an empire which for the most part lacked social services”...</p>

<p>These charitable activities were possible only because Christianity generated congregations, a true community of believers who built their lives around their religious affiliation... Even if they were newcomers, they were not strangers, but brothers and sisters in Christ. When calamities struck, there were people who cared—in fact, there were people having the distinct responsibility to care! All congregations had deacons whose primary job was the support of the sick, infirm, poor, and disabled.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: The Myth of Hate
topic: Christian Living
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 11/04/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-myth-of-hate
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’m told writing this post won’t matter. I can clarify until I’m blue in the face and nothing will change. It doesn’t matter what Christians actually think or believe about homosexuality. It seems the world will still believe what it wants to believe no matter what anyone says.</p>

<p>But I still have hope. So, I’m putting this out there. The most common misconception about Christians and homosexuality is that Christians hate homosexuals. Though there are some things Christians have done to contribute to this impression, it’s largely untrue.</p>

<p>Let me first speak for myself. I can honestly say I don’t hate or feel animosity towards people who identify as gay or lesbian. Keep in mind that I’m, allegedly, one of those right-wing fundamentalist fanatics who say homosexual sex is sin. I travel around the country teaching about the Christian worldview and often address the topic of homosexuality. I’m the one the media refers to as “a Christian minister who serves up homophobia to congregations across the country.”&nbsp;If there’s any kind of person who is supposed to hate homosexuals, it’s me. I’m the activist.</p>

<p><em>But I don’t.</em> Not even a little. I have family and friends who identify as gay and lesbian and I love each of them. They come over and spend time with me. There’s no malice. I’m not angry. They’re always welcome in my home.</p>

<p>I realize I don’t speak for every Christian, but I know and have met a lot of Christians across the country. I’ve been travelling and specifically talking about this topic for over a decade. I’ve met Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics, Coptics, Presbyterians, Evangelicals, Seventh Day Adventists, Mennonites, Methodists, Anabaptists, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Orthodox, and others. Guess what? I don’t find they hate homosexuals. In fact, they’re often frustrated that no one believes them that they, as Christ commanded, love all people. Of course I’m not claiming to have performed a rigorous poll. But if hate largely represented the attitude of most Christians, you’d think I’d run into it when I spoke up on homosexuality.</p>

<p>Are there some people—even Christians—who hate homosexuals? Sure, you can find them. They often get disproportionate media attention because of their noxious speech or behavior. Others can be found on internet forums and in the comments sections of blog posts or articles. But you can’t broad brush all or most Christians this way.</p>

<p>Two years ago I met a Christian who was genuinely hateful towards homosexuals. At first, I didn’t believe he was serious because it’s rare to find that attitude in the Church. He explained that his father (now deceased) used to disparage homosexuality and that’s what instilled hate in him. Even though he admitted he felt this way, he knew it was wrong, confessed his sin to me (a stranger to him), and asked for help to change.</p>

<p>Even though it’s rare to find bona fide haters, many homosexuals tell me that Christians show hate to homosexuals by what they do. “You may not feel or say you hate homosexuals, but your behavior—denying marriage equality—is hateful in itself. Your actions speak louder than words.”</p>

<p>That doesn’t logically follow, though. People have been legislating against one another since voting began. That’s part of the political process. People might vigorously disagree on public matters, but it doesn’t mean they hate each other.</p>

<p>Furthermore, even though Christians agree with the biblical prohibition of homosexual sex, it doesn’t mean we hate people who violate it. This is an important and obvious distinction that seems forgotten. The Bible, for example, is opposed to gluttony, but we don’t hate gluttons. The Bible is against drunkenness, but we don’t hate people who drink too much. The Bible is against pre-marital sex, but we don’t hate people who have sex with their boyfriend or girlfriend. The Bible is opposed to stealing, but we don’t hate thieves. Yes, the Bible is opposed to homosexual sex, but <em>we don’t hate homosexuals</em>.</p>

<p>In fact, the Bible commands us to do the opposite. We’re called to love our neighbor. Indeed, Jesus commands us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-44). I’m <em>not</em> saying homosexuals are the enemy—they’re not and I make that clear each time I teach. My point is that we’re not given room to even hate people who are against us. That’s because our enemies are also made in the image of God. They deserve dignity and respect.</p>

<p>Loving homosexuals—indeed all people—is consistent with what our King commands. That’s why the Christians I see are eager to live accordingly.</p>
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title: How Same-Sex Marriage Will Affect Friendships
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/10/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-same-sex-marriage-will-affect-friendships
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In a <a href="http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/10/13869/" target="_blank">review</a> of Anthony Esolen’s new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Defending-Marriage-Twelve-Arguments-Sanity/dp/1618906046/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412715846&amp;sr=8-2" target="_blank"><em>Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity</em></a>, Matthew Franck explains the unintended effect same-sex marriage will have on friendships in our society:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The fallout from the destruction and redefinition of marriage spreads still more widely, even beyond the immediate territory of the family. Deep friendship between members of the same sex is now in grave danger. To show us why, Esolen asks us to imagine a world in which the incest taboo is erased (and that is a world that <a href="http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/01/2316/" target="_blank" title="may not be far off">may not be far off</a>). In such a place, ��You see a father hugging his teenage daughter as she leaves the car to go to school. The possibility flashes before your mind. The language has changed, and the individual can do nothing about it.”</p>

<p>So too, in the world that is rapidly embracing and recognizing homosexual relationships as normal and normative, the space for deep and meaningful male-male or female-female friendships among the young is rapidly shrinking to the vanishing point. “The stigma against sodomy,”&nbsp;Esolen rightly notes, “cleared away ample space for an emotionally powerful friendship that did not involve sexual intercourse, exactly as the stigma against incest allows for the physical and emotional freedom of a family.”</p>

<p>Add, then, the estrangement of boys from boys and girls from girls, in a world in which intimacy always raises the suspicion of sexual desire. This is a bleak horizon to contemplate: plenty of sex, mostly empty and unrewarding, with much less love and friendship.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read the rest of <a href="http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/10/13869/" target="_blank">Franck’s review</a>.</p>

<p>I’ve already seen a change happening in interpretations of friendships, most recently in the discussion over Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s friendship with Eberhard Bethge, and it’s upsetting to me that people might shy away from close friendships for this reason. Here’s <a href="http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2014/07/22/was-bonhoeffer-gay-and-other-adventures-in-missing-the-point/" target="_blank">what Trevin Wax had to say</a> about the “assumption [that] affectionate male friendships must be romantic in nature”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>History is replete with examples of robust male friendships that are full of affection and expressions of love and yet are not sexual.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, the sexual revolution has made it more difficult to imagine passionate <em>philos</em> apart from <em>eros.</em> That’s why revisionist historians read romantic notions into Teddy Roosevelt’s affectionate letters to his closest friends. People wonder out loud about Abraham Lincoln’s sharing a bed with his friend, Joshua Speed. It’s hard for our society to understand how King David could weep so terribly over the lost love of Jonathan unless there was some sort of romance between them. And now, Bonhoeffer’s relationship with Bethge is put under the microscope of 21st century assumptions.</p>

<p>In fairness to the biographer, it is certainly possible that Bonhoeffer was attracted to Bethge, even though acting on such a notion was always out of the question. But it’s also possible, even likely, that Bonhoeffer’s friendship was, like many male friendships of the time, strong and affectionate, with a passion that did not include sexual desire.</p>

<p>The speculation about Bonhoeffer’s sexuality distracts us from the greater loss of slowly disappearing same-sex friendships, the kind of love we see in literature between Sam and Frodo, relationships that many today can hardly conceive of, apart from some sort of sexual longing.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This is just one unintended consequence of the sexual revolution and subsequent redefinition of marriage, the most basic and foundational institution in our society. There will be many more. You can’t rip the foundation out of a house and then not expect every room to be affected in some way.</p>
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title: “Our Minds May Be Separate from Our Brains”
topic: Science
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/18/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/-our-minds-may-be-separate-from-our-brains-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Medical Daily reports in “<a href="http://www.medicaldaily.com/life-after-life-near-death-experiences-suggest-consciousness-continues-beyond-death-306443" target="_blank">Near-Death Experiences Suggest Consciousness Continues Beyond Death</a>”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>A <a href="http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(14)00739-4/abstract" target="_blank">new study</a> of cardiac arrest patients indicates that 46 percent had memories of the time during which they were clinically dead, while two percent could explicitly recall seeing and hearing events related to their resuscitation. These results, the researchers say, suggest consciousness is present beyond the point at which scientists can detect it. Our minds, then, may be separate from our brains.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The UK Independent <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/life-after-death-largestever-study-provides-evidence-that-out-of-body-and-neardeath-experiences-may-actually-be-real-9780195.html" target="_blank">explains more</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Experts currently believe that the brain shuts down within 20 to 30 seconds of the heart stopping beating—and that it is not possible to be aware of anything at all once that has happened.</p>

<p>But scientists in the new study said they heard compelling evidence that patients experienced real events for up to three minutes after this had happened—and could recall them accurately once they had been resuscitated.</p>

<p>Dr. Sam Parnia, an assistant professor at the State University of New York and a former research fellow at the University of Southampton who led the research, said that he previously [thought] that patients who described near-death experiences were only relating hallucinatory events...</p>

<p>Dr. Parnia’s study involved 2,060 patients from 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria, and has been published in the journal Resuscitation.</p>

<p>Of those who survived, 46 per cent experienced a broad range of mental recollections, nine per cent had experiences compatible with traditional definitions of a near-death experience and two per cent exhibited full awareness with explicit recall of “seeing”&nbsp;and “hearing”&nbsp;events—or out-of-body experiences.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>For more on this subject, see “<a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/12/newsweek-heaven-is-real.html" target="_blank">Newsweek: Heaven Is Real</a>,”&nbsp;“<a href="https://www.str.org/podcasts/weekly-audio/gary-habermas---what-we-can-and-cannot-learn-from-near-death-experiences" target="_blank">What We Can and Cannot Learn from Near Death Experiences</a>”&nbsp;(an interview with Gary Habermas), and “<a href="http://veritas.org/talks/near-death-experiences-and-afterlife/" target="_blank">Near Death Experiences and the Afterlife</a>”&nbsp;(a lecture by Habermas).</p>

<p>(HT: <a href="http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/new-study-patients-experience-awareness-of-surroundings-after-brain-ceases-to-function/" target="_blank">Wintery Knight</a>)</p>
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title: The Intellectual Life and the Fruit of the Spirit
topic: Philosophy
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 10/21/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-intellectual-life-and-the-fruit-of-the-spirit
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:22-24).</em></p>

<p>I love the intellectual life. I love the reading, the studying, the debating, the discussions, the ideas. I love all of it. But looming in the shadows are the various threats it poses to the fruit of God’s Spirit in my life:</p>

<ul>
	<li>In regard to <strong>love</strong>, it threatens my ability to love others whom I have intellectual disagreements with and whose ideas I find dangerous.</li>
	<li>In regard to <strong>joy</strong>, it threatens to subtly remove joy from my life as it often requires a critical and skeptical eye toward ideas, which can lead to negativity.</li>
	<li>In regard to <strong>peace</strong>, it threatens the peace I ought to live in with other believers even when I disagree. Indeed, I’ve had heated discussions that broke fellowship with my brothers in Christ for some period of time.</li>
	<li>In regard to <strong>patience</strong>, it threatens my ability to be gracious and understanding as I interact with those who have difficulty seeing and affirming the truth. Specifically, I have to be very attentive to this with my own family.</li>
	<li>In regard to <strong>kindness</strong>, it threatens my ability to be charitable to the ideas of others.</li>
	<li>In regard to <strong>goodness</strong>, it threatens the priority I place on practicing spiritual disciplines and cultivating virtue, as I feel the continual pull to bury my head in books.</li>
	<li>In regard to <strong>faithfulness</strong>, it threatens my faithfulness to God himself, as I give more attention to man’s written word than God’s written Word.</li>
	<li>In regard to <strong>gentleness</strong>, it threatens the way I interact with non-Christians as I strive against the urge to persuade using only the “resistless force of logic.”</li>
	<li>In regard to <strong>self-control</strong>, it threatens the priorities I must have in place as I battle for balance between the intellectual life and God, family, church, and other priorities.</li>
</ul>

<p>As we continue to cultivate an intellectual love for God, let us be on constant watch for these potential pitfalls, and let us attend to our own virtue and life in the Spirit with as much emphasis and passion as our intellectual life.</p>
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title: The English Hippocrates
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 09/18/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-english-hippocrates
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Thomas Sydenham, born in 1624, was a Christian physician known as the <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Thomas_Sydenham.aspx" target="_blank">father of English medicine</a>. He is responsible for significant advancement in epidemiology. He advocated diagnosis by observing the advancement of symptoms. Of course, this is familiar and obvious to us today, but it was not the medical practice of the time. His observations during the Great Plague of London in the 17th century and subsequent smallpox epidemic led him to recommend more careful observation and distinction among diseases and more thorough testing of therapeutic cures before declaring them cures and using them on patients. The care and cure of the patient was always at the center of his method. He innovated the treatment of smallpox and malaria. Even though some of his suggestions were discounted in his lifetime, they influenced later generations of doctors. His book <em>Observationes Medicae</em> became a standard medical textbook for 200 years.</p>

<p>Sydenham’s family had close ties with Cromwell in the English revolution, and Sydenham fought in the war, being left for dead in one battlefield.</p>

<p>His Christian convictions shaped his practice of medicine and motivated him to find better treatments to alleviate suffering. <a href="http://www.cmf.org.uk/students/sydenham/" target="_blank">He wrote:</a></p>

<blockquote>
<p>It becomes every man who purposes to give himself to the care of others, seriously to consider the four following things:</p>

<p>First, that he must one day give an account to the Supreme Judge of all the lives entrusted to his care.</p>

<p>Secondly, that all his skill, and knowledge, and energy as they have been given him by God, so they should be exercised for his glory, and the good of mankind, and not for mere gain or ambition.</p>

<p>Thirdly, and not more beautifully than truly, let him reflect that he has undertaken the care of no mean creature, for, in order that he may estimate the value, the greatness of the human race, the only begotten Son of God became himself a man, and thus ennobled it with his divine dignity, and far more than this, died to redeem it.</p>

<p>And fourthly, that the doctor being himself a mortal man, should be diligent and tender in relieving his suffering patients, inasmuch as he himself must one day be a like sufferer.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Getting Out of the Hot Seat
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Greg Koukl
date: 09/15/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/getting-out-of-the-hot-seat
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>The key is to get out of the hot seat, but still stay engaged, deftly shifting control of the conversation back to you while shifting the spotlight—and the pressure—back on him.</em></p>

<p>By now you’re probably aware of the virtues of an STR approach named after the infamous Lieutenant Columbo. This bumbling and seemingly inept TV detective’s remarkable success was based on an innocent query: “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”</p>

<p>The key to Columbo is to go on the offensive in an inoffensive way with carefully selected questions that move the discussion along in an interactive way.</p>

<p>The most effective question you can ask in most circumstances is either a clarification question (“What do you mean by that?”), or a request for reasons (“How did you come to that conclusion?”).</p>

<p>There’s a further advantage of Columbo. I call it “getting out of the hot seat.”</p>

<p>Sometimes we’re afraid we may not have sufficient information or be quick enough on our feet to deal with a challenge. The fear of getting in over our heads is enough to keep us from saying anything at all.</p>

<p>We especially dread the possibility of some aggressive critic blasting us with arguments, opinions, or information we are not equipped to handle. This is where “Columbo”&nbsp;really shines. When someone else is coming on really strong with challenges you have no idea how to respond to, practice a little “conversational Aikido.”&nbsp;Use their aggressiveness to change the course of the conversation into something productive.</p>

<p>Here’s how. The minute you feel overmatched, buy yourself some time by shifting from persuasion mode to fact-finding mode. Say something like this:</p>

<p>Gosh, you certainly have some interesting points. The problem is, this is all new information for me. I wonder if you could do me a favor. I really want to understand your point, so would you take a moment to carefully explain your view and also your reasons for it to help me understand better? Then let me think about it.</p>

<p>Don’t try to argue your own case. Instead, ask probing clarification questions. Make sure you understand the ideas—write them out if you need to—then say the magic words: Let me think about it.</p>

<p>Once you say these words you free yourself from any obligation to respond in any way to his challenge. All the pressure is gone; you’ve already pleaded ignorance. Now in your own time, at your own pace, you can research the issue without stress or anxiety.</p>

<p>Start a notebook. Open a computer file and record the question from your notes. Then begin to outline an answer from your research. Review what you learned. Rehearse your response out loud a few times or role play with a friend. When the issue comes up again, you’ll be ready.</p>

<p>When you face a new challenge, start another entry and go through the same steps. You’ll be surprised how soon your expanding notebook will cover the basic issues. There aren’t that many.</p>

<p>The key here is to get out of the hot seat, but still stay engaged, deftly shifting control of the conversation back to you while shifting the spotlight—and the pressure—back on him.</p>

<p>If you take this approach, there are no losers; no egos are at stake. You’re simply asking the person to give you their best shot. It’s almost like saying,&nbsp;“Oh, you want to beat me up. Fine with me. Just do it slowly and thoroughly.”</p>

<p>Is there anybody who cannot do this? Is there anyone—even the most retiring, shy, bashful, skittish, or reserved—who cannot say, “It’s okay if you beat me up. Just do it slowly and thoroughly.”&nbsp;This little technique will allow the most timid to tame the most terrible. It really works.</p>

<p>Don’t miss the deeper lesson: You don’t have to be the expert on every subject. In fact, you can be effective even when you know very little if you use questions wisely.</p>

<p>You don’t have to hit home runs in conversations with others. Just getting up to bat will do. And your first two Columbo questions—“What do you mean by that?”&nbsp;and “How did you come to that conclusion?”—will help you get in the game.</p>
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title: Christians: Intolerant Haters Since AD 33
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/13/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/christians-intolerant-haters-since-ad-33
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Pliny the Younger, a Roman governor of Bithynia who, as Michael Kruger wrote in a <a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/are-christians-intolerant-haters-the-charges-are-not-new" target="_blank">recent post</a>, thought that “intolerance of the Roman gods was enough of a reason to kill Christians, despite their [as noted by Pliny himself] holy lives,”&nbsp;commented back in the second century on the “<a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/pliny.html" target="_blank">stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy</a>”&nbsp;of Christians who would not yield to the culture.</p>

<p>This obstinacy has been getting us into trouble for 2,000 years whenever a government makes the upsetting discovery that Christians place the authority of Jesus (as expressed in the unchangeable Bible) above that of civil authorities and so <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bonhoeffer-Pastor-Martyr-Prophet-Spy/dp/1595552464/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1410562775&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=bonhoeffer" target="_blank">can’t be bent to their will</a> no matter what. And I mean <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tortured-Christ-Richard-Wurmbrand/dp/B002FR7QC6/ref=sr_1_3_title_2_mas?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=undefined&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=%22richard+wurmbrand%22" target="_blank"><em>no matter what</em></a>. The horrific tortures Christians have suffered over the ages are innumerable.</p>

<p>But guess what? We’re still here. And we’ll still be here 500 years from now, if Jesus hasn’t returned by then. I think our culture still does not know our God-enabled stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy. They still have hope that some pressure will convince us. But once it sinks in that they’ve met an immovable force... well, what happens next has not, in the past, proved to be fun for Christians. If a rock can’t be convinced to move along and stop impeding traffic in the middle of the road to progress, then the only thing left is to work at removing it.</p>

<p>Enter Michael Kruger’s post: “<a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/are-christians-intolerant-haters-the-charges-are-not-new" target="_blank">Regarded as ’Intolerant Haters’: What’s New?</a>”</p>

<blockquote>
<p>In the midst of the high-octane cultural wars of the last several years—particularly the debate over homosexual marriage—evangelical Christians have been slapped with all sorts of pejorative labels. Words such as <em>bigoted, arrogant, exclusive, dogmatic,</em> and <em>homophobic</em> are just a few.</p>

<p>But two labels particularly stand out. First, Christians are regularly regarded as <em>intolerant</em>. Christians are not only regarded as intolerant religiously—because they affirm the words of Jesus that “no one comes to the Father except through me”&nbsp;(<a href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/John%2014.6" target="_blank">John 14:6</a>)—but they are regarded as intolerant ethically, because they refuse to approve any and all behaviors as morally good.</p>

<p>Christians are also regularly (and ironically) regarded as <em>haters</em>. Apparently, our modern world regards the act of telling people they’re wrong as a form of hatred. It is never explained how the charge does not apply equally in the other direction, since those who make this charge are telling Christians they are wrong.</p>

<p>Needless to say, such a situation can discourage Christians in the modern day. We might be tempted to despair and think that the church is entering into dark days. But a little historical perspective might be useful. Truth be told, this is not the first time Christians have received such labels. Indeed, pejoratives were given to Christians from the beginning.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/are-christians-intolerant-haters-the-charges-are-not-new" target="_blank">Read the rest</a> of what Michael Kruger has to say about two ancient leaders who accused us of hatred and intolerance. He says these stories are both frightening and encouraging.</p>

<p>Do I have the strength and courage to stand with Jesus no matter what? Absolutely not. Though I’m <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/decide-here-and-now#.XFRnxJNKijQ" target="_blank">committed to it</a>, I have no delusions of grandeur about my own ability to do so. But thank God, I know that I am <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jude+1&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">kept for Jesus Christ</a>, and I trust Him to give me what I need when <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/how-our-suffering-glorifies-god#.XFRpvZNKijQ" target="_blank">the time comes for me to need it</a>.</p>
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title: Naturalism: Bumping into Reality
topic: Philosophy
author: Greg Koukl
date: 09/02/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/naturalism-bumping-into-reality
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Lately I’ve been enjoying my nine-year-old Annabeth’s theological common sense. “Papa, why don’t atheists believe in God?”&nbsp;she asked.</p>

<p>“Well, for a number of reasons,”&nbsp;I said. “Partly because they can’t see Him, so they don’t believe in Him.”</p>

<p>“Can they see atoms?”&nbsp;she offered.</p>

<p>“Good point. But I think they’d say that doesn’t count since they can still detect atoms with scientific instruments, something they can’t do with God. They won’t believe in anything they can’t measure scientifically.”</p>

<p>“That is the weirdest thing that I’ve ever heard,”&nbsp;she concluded.</p>

<p>My fourth grader was on to something that more educated types seemed to have missed: Lots of things are real that cannot be detected by science. How did she know that? She didn’t go to grad school. Innocence often sees the obvious.</p>

<p>Annabeth’s insight was about the inadequacies of naturalism, modernism’s worldview conviction that reality consists completely of material particles in a physical universe governed by natural laws.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup></p>

<p>Naturalism is best summed up in Carl Sagan’s famous faith statement, “The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.”<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup> No Gods, no souls, no Heaven, no Hell, no miracles, no morality, no sin, no forgiveness, no transcendent purpose—just molecules in motion. It’s the worldview of virtually all atheists and the methodological philosophy governing all science.</p>

<p>Entire cultures have been subtly indoctrinated with this physicalistic view. Even many religious people have a naturalistic impulse in their day-to-day dealings with reality, relegating whatever spiritual “beliefs”&nbsp;they have to the shadow-lands of “faith.”</p>

<p>Dealing with naturalism can be daunting, until we realize we have a powerful ally working in our favor: Reality is actually on our side.</p>

<h2>Reality Our Ally</h2>

<p>This is an insight I learned from Francis Schaeffer. If Christianity is true, he noted, then the worldview it presents is accurate—it describes reality the way it actually is <em>even for naturalists who deny it</em>. “Regardless of a man’s system,”&nbsp;Schaeffer pointed out, “he has to live in God’s world.”<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup> This situation creates a problem for skeptics, but an opportunity for us.<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup></p>

<p>Someone once said that reality is what you “bump”&nbsp;into (and sometimes get injured by) when you don’t take it seriously. Consequently, anyone who denies some significant feature of the world is headed for a collision. Skeptics are not just at odds with “religion,”&nbsp;then. They are at odds with reality. Their claims about the world dictated by their competing worldview are going to conflict in important ways with the actual world they experience every day.</p>

<p>Schaeffer called this the “point of tension,”&nbsp;a kind of dissonance between what naturalists say about the world and the way the world really is. Sooner or later they’re going to affirm—sometimes without even realizing it—features of reality that make no sense given naturalism.</p>

<p>On the one hand, the naturalist <em>speaks</em> from his own worldview. On the other hand, <em>the way he lives</em> affirms things that have no place in his view of reality, but makes complete sense in ours. He is sending two conflicting messages at the same time, but doesn’t realize it. He’s bumping into reality.</p>

<p>Atheist Richard Dawkins is a prime example. On the one hand, his naturalism dictates that morality is just a relativistic trick of evolution to get our selfish genes into the next generation. On the other hand, he rails against the God of the Old Testament as a vindictive, bloodthirsty, homophobic, racist, genocidal, sadomasochistic, malevolent bully.<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup> Do you see the problem?</p>

<p>Clearly, Dawkins is not coming to this conclusion based on his naturalism. Instead, that’s his common-sense moral realism talking. His protest makes no sense in his worldview, but is perfectly consistent with ours.<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup> Dawkins is living in a contradiction on this issue. That’s the point of tension. He’s trading on our worldview, not his. Dawkins is bumping into reality.</p>

<p>There’s something else I want you to see though—not just the contradiction naturalists live in, but also the explanatory power of Christian theism over naturalism. Here’s what I mean.</p>

<p>Important details of the Christian worldview fit nicely with the way we actually discover the world to be. They resonate with our deepest intuitions about reality. This “fit”&nbsp;is the classical definition of truth.<sup id="fnref:7"><a href="#fn:7">7</a></sup> Consequently, Christianity has the ability to make sense of salient details of the world and of human experience that naturalism cannot.</p>

<p>I want to suggest some practical ways to take advantage of both the naturalists’&nbsp;“bump”&nbsp;into reality and the superior explanatory power of Christian theism. My goal is to be shrewd and creative—to catch him by surprise, if I can—maneuvering with questions wherever possible. This is the heart of the “tactical”&nbsp;approach.</p>

<p>First, a qualifier. There is no “silver bullet”—no perfect answer, no magic apologetic trick guaranteed to change someone’s mind in a single session. Rather, my aim with people who are deeply committed to a false worldview is to try to plant a seed of doubt or uncertainty in their mind, or to get them thinking in a productive way about Christianity. I call it “putting a stone in their shoe.”</p>

<p>There are lots of different ways to do this with naturalism, but I want to focus here on three bumps with reality that create serious worldview problems for the naturalist, yet serve to validate the Christian view. I’m going to call them “the bump of stuff,”&nbsp;“the bump of bad,”&nbsp;and “the bump of me.”</p>

<h2>The Bump of Stuff</h2>

<p>My starting point for this maneuver is simple: Stuff exists. Not too controversial. The naturalist cannot easily deny the existence of the material world. It’s her stock in trade, the only thing she’s certain about.</p>

<p>Here’s the fundamental question: Why is there stuff? Why is there something rather than nothing? Where did everything come from? What caused the universe to come into existence?<sup id="fnref:8"><a href="#fn:8">8</a></sup></p>

<p>Let me show you how this line of questioning plays out tactically in conversation. I was once asked during an audience Q&amp;A to give evidence for the existence of God.</p>

<p>��Can I ask you a few questions to get us rolling?”&nbsp;I said to the challenger. He nodded. “First, do you think stuff exits? Is the material universe real?”</p>

<p>“Yes, of course,”&nbsp;he answered.</p>

<p>“Good. Second question: Has the stuff of the universe <em>always</em> existed. Is the universe eternal?”</p>

<p>“No,”&nbsp;he said. “The universe came into being at the Big Bang.”</p>

<p>“Okay, I’m with you. Now the final question: What <em>caused</em> the universe to come into being?”</p>

<p>At this point he balked. “How do I know?”&nbsp;he said. “I’m no scientist.”</p>

<p>“Neither am I,”&nbsp;I admitted, “but there’s really only two choices: something or nothing. What do you think? Do you think something outside the natural universe caused it to come into being, or do you think it just simply popped into existence with no cause, for no reason?”</p>

<p>At this point, the skeptic who prides himself in his use of reason finds himself in a rational box. Both the law of excluded middle and the law of non-contradiction (it can’t be neither option and it can’t be both) oblige him to choose one of only two logically possible options available.</p>

<p>To admit something outside of the natural, physical, time-bound universe is its cause would be to contradict naturalism. Yet, who is in his rational rights to opt for the alternative? Even if he thinks it <em>possible</em> the universe popped into existence, uncaused, out of nothing, it’s understatement in the extreme to say <em>it’s not the odds on favorite</em>.</p>

<p>Imagine a man’s wife asking where the new Mercedes Benz SL parked in their garage came from. I doubt she’d be satisfied with the answer, “Honey, it didn’t come from anywhere. It just popped into existence. That kind of thing happens all the time.”&nbsp;Even ordinary folk untutored in physics know that’s not going to wash. <em>Reason</em> dictates we opt for the most <em>reasonable</em> alternative.</p>

<p>Indeed, the nothing-caused-the-universe option is worse than magic. In magic, a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat. In this case, though, there’s no hat... and no magician. There’s just a rabbit (the universe, in our case) appearing out of nowhere.</p>

<p>You might recognize this line of thinking as the Kalam cosmological argument, an ancient defense of theism recently revitalized by philosopher William Lane Craig.<sup id="fnref:9"><a href="#fn:9">9</a></sup> If you haven’t read his books, let me give you the short course: <em>A Big Bang needs a big Banger</em>. I think that pretty much covers it. Every effect requires a cause adequate to explain it.</p>

<p>Ironically, the night I was working out the particular details of this point in the lobby of a large hotel in Poland, there was a huge bang in the reception area. The gabby crowd in the lounge was immediately struck silent, everyone wondering the same thing: <em>What was that?</em></p>

<p>Of course, they knew what is <em>was</em>. It was a big bang. The real question in their minds was, “What <em>caused</em> that?”&nbsp;Did something fall over? Did a firecracker go off? Did someone get shot?<sup id="fnref:10"><a href="#fn:10">10</a></sup></p>

<p>I promise you one thing, though. No one in that hotel—regardless of religious or philosophic conviction—thought the explosion was <em>uncaused</em>. It never occurred to anyone that the bang banged itself.</p>

<p>Naturalists know this, too. Once at a dinner party a young man sitting across from me announced—somewhat belligerently—that he no longer believed in God. “It’s irrational,”&nbsp;he said. “There’s no evidence.”</p>

<p>In response, I raised my point about the Big Bang. “If you heard a knock on the front door over there across the room,”&nbsp;I said, “would you think the knock knocked itself, or would you conclude some <em>one</em> was doing the knocking and then get up and answer the door?”</p>

<p>He sniffed dismissively at my question, however (remember, there’s no silver bullet), so I let the issue go. Half an hour later over dessert, there was a loud knock on the front door (I’m not making this up).</p>

<p>Startled, he lifted his head in surprise. “Who’s that?”&nbsp;he blurted out.</p>

<p>I said, “No one.”</p>

<p>The point was lost on him, of course. His next move, though, was telling: <em>He got up and answered the door</em>.</p>

<p>That night this young, naive atheist had bumped into reality. He knew a simple knock could not have knocked itself, yet seemed completely willing to accept as reasonable an entire universe popping into existence without cause or purpose.</p>

<p>Naturalism has no resources to explain where all the “stuff”&nbsp;in the world came from. Christian theism does.</p>

<h2>The Bump of Bad</h2>

<p>Let me introduce this next maneuver with a question. What is the most frequently raised objection to the existence of God, the most durable, the most challenging objection to theism? Answer: the problem of evil.</p>

<p>Evil is a part of reality that naturalists bump into all the time and then make a philosophical fuss with us about. I want you to see, though, how the problem of evil can be used to your advantage.<sup id="fnref:11"><a href="#fn:11">11</a></sup></p>

<p>First, describe for your naturalist friend something morally grotesque (chances are, he’s already provided you with examples). Mention Auschwitz, or some recent killing reported in the news, or any striking inhumanity to man. If those don’t move him, suggest sexual slavery, global warming, second hand smoke, the NRA, George Bush—whatever pushes <em>his</em> personal moral hot button.</p>

<p>Next, ask, “When you say these things are evil, are you describing the <em>actions themselves</em>, or merely your emotions or your society’s cultural ethic?”&nbsp;(This is the difference between objectivism and relativism.)</p>

<p>Virtually every time—if they don’t have their philosophical guard up—they’re going to tell you the truth. They’re convinced the <em>actions</em> are evil, regardless of personal opinion or cultural consensus. They think the evil is <em>objective</em>, thus the problem for theists. If morality were reduced to subjective preferences, there’d be no complaint. The problem of evil is only a problem if morality is objective.</p>

<p>Now here’s the final question. How does the naturalist get objective values (things that have <em>intrinsic</em> worth—worth in <em>themselves</em>) and objective duties or obligations (“Thou shalts”&nbsp;and “Thou shalt nots”) in a world consisting only of matter in motion? How does naturalism account for the kind of objective morality needed to ground the problem of evil? Simply put, it’s going to be very difficult to make sense of transcendent moral law without a transcendent moral law giver.</p>

<p>Of course, this is the moral argument for God: If there is no God, there is no objective morality; but objective morality exists (that’s why there’s a problem of evil); therefore, God exists.</p>

<p>At very best, the naturalist might be able to account for mind-<em>dependent</em> morality—relativism, in other words. But if evil is merely a matter of <em>subjective</em> opinion, there’s no <em>objective</em> problem. What, then, has the naturalist been bumping into all this time when he cites evil against God?</p>

<p>The naturalist has one of two choices here, it seems to me. One, he can cling to his relativism and drop his objection about evil in the world. Surrendering that complaint, though, is going to be hard for him to do because he knows too much. Two, he can salvage his complaint about evil at the expense of his naturalism, since no materialistic scheme can account for immaterial moral obligations. What he can’t do is have both ways if he’s intellectually honest.<sup id="fnref:12"><a href="#fn:12">12</a></sup></p>

<p>Note the “bumps”&nbsp;in this candid admission from former atheist, Holly Ordway:</p>

<p>My atheism was eating into my heart like acid... My worldview was entirely negative. I could not have explained the source of my own rationality, nor of my conviction that there were such things as truth, beauty, and goodness. My worldview remained satisfying to me only insofar as I refrained from asking the really tough questions.<sup id="fnref:13"><a href="#fn:13">13</a></sup></p>

<p>As a human being, Ordway could not deny objective morality, but as a naturalist she could not make sense of it, either.<sup id="fnref:14"><a href="#fn:14">14</a></sup> Christian theism can by grounding it in the perfect goodness of God. Every time the atheist bumps into bad, point this out.<sup id="fnref:15"><a href="#fn:15">15</a></sup></p>

<p>Notice something else in Ordway’s reflection. Not only was her naturalism incapable of making sense of her morality. It was also corrupting her soul. This existential problem is our last “bump.”</p>

<h2>The Bump of Me</h2>

<p>Personally, I do not think we talk enough about the soul.</p>

<p>Our souls are the one thing we are in <em>direct</em> contact with every waking moment of our lives, yet according to naturalism, conscious souls don’t even exist. This denial creates huge difficulties for the naturalistic, materialistic view of reality.</p>

<p>Consciousness is currently such a problem that atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel stunned the establishment with his recent book, <em>Mind and Cosmos—Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False</em> [link]. Playing completely against type, Nagel argues that naturalistic approaches are utterly incapable of accounting for <em>the</em> central feature of human experience—human consciousness.</p>

<p>New Atheist Daniel Dennett’s claim that, “Consciousness is an illusion of the brain, for the brain, by the brain,”<sup id="fnref:16"><a href="#fn:16">16</a></sup> shows just how much trouble naturalists are in. Think, for a moment, about exactly what an illusion is. Illusions happen when your conscious mind is being appeared to in a false way. Things that are not conscious (rocks come to mind) do not have illusions. Only consciousness can be “appeared to.”</p>

<p>Thus, if consciousness is an illusion, then what is <em>experiencing</em> that illusion? Is the illusion having an illusion? Hardly. This is a crystal clear example of self-refutation, since Dennett must presuppose what he’s trying to deny in order to deny it.</p>

<p>No, consciousness—your direct, subjective experience of your own soul—is real.<sup id="fnref:17"><a href="#fn:17">17</a></sup> Though you probably never thought of it this way, it is more palpably real to you than anything else in your personal experience since <em>every</em> experience is a conscious event of the soul.</p>

<p>Here’s the problem. Naturalism denies the obvious, reducing human beings to physical parts stuck together without reason or purpose—biological accidents, cosmic junk. No wonder they call it nihilism—nothing-ism. And when you start really believing nothing-ism about human beings, bad things begin to happen.</p>

<p>Most of us know better, though. Deep inside we know we’re not simply chunks of meat in motion. Reality informs us there is something wonderfully unique about humans—qualitatively, not just quantitatively. Humans are special, wonderful, valuable.</p>

<p>We know something else, though. Humans are beautiful, yes, but they’re also terribly broken. We are not physically sick; we are morally corrupted. And we know it.</p>

<p>Years back I lectured to a sold out crowd at the University of California at Berkeley. I made the case against moral relativism simply by pointing out how frequently we bump into—and ultimately violate—objective morality in our daily lives. This discovery, I pointed out, has explanatory power since it accounts for the personal feelings of guilt each of us experiences. We <em>feel</em> guilty because we <em>are</em> guilty.</p>

<p>That’s the existential crisis. We know we’re beautiful, but we also know we’re broken. That’s undeniable reality. Yet naturalism gives us no reason to believe either of these things. It cannot account for our wonder and it cannot repair our brokenness.</p>

<p>Christians have the remedy, though. “The answer to guilt is not denial,”&nbsp;I told the students at Berkeley. “The answer to guilt is forgiveness. And this is where Jesus comes in.”</p>

<p>Where naturalism fails, Christianity succeeds. Because our souls bear God’s own image, we are wonderful. Because we have rebelled against the God who gave us our beauty, we are fallen, guilty, and ultimately lost.</p>

<p>Frenchman Guillaume Bignon, finding his own naturalistic atheism being challenged as he encountered Christ in the New Testament,<sup id="fnref:18"><a href="#fn:18">18</a></sup> nevertheless found the cross befuddling. “Why did Jesus have to die?”&nbsp;he asked, over and over again. It made no sense to him.</p>

<p>Then something completely unexpected happened. “God reactivated my conscience,”&nbsp;he told me. “That was not a pleasant experience. I was physically crippled by guilt, not knowing what to do about it.”</p>

<p>Suddenly it dawned on him, “<em>That’s</em> why Jesus had to die. Because of <em>me</em>. Because of my guilt.”&nbsp;He immediately surrendered all his brokenness to the only one who could repair it, all his guilt to the only one who could forgive. When he did, “The feelings of guilt just evaporated.”</p>

<p>Naturalism cannot do this. It cannot explain the beauty and wonder of being human. And it has no answer to human brokenness. It cannot provide the consolation of true forgiveness. Only God in Christ can solve our existential crisis.</p>

<p>So here is my suggestion: When talking with a naturalist, keep an eye out for his “bumps”&nbsp;with reality. When you see one, point it out—graciously, but clearly—using questions as much as possible.</p>

<p>Show him naturalism doesn’t make sense of the reality he encounters every day. It doesn’t make sense of the existence of the world. It doesn’t make sense of the problem of evil. And it doesn’t make sense of his own deep hunger for significance or rescue from sin.</p>

<p>By contrast, in each of these areas Christianity has superior explanatory power. Intellectually, Christian theism proves to be a much more satisfying answer. Existentially—personally—it’s the only answer.</p>

<p>Poke naturalists with reality to get them thinking. It’s no silver bullet, but it might just put a stone in their shoe and get them thinking.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">A view also called “physicalism”&nbsp;and “materialism.”&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, Steven Soter, “The Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,”&nbsp;PBS, 1980. Note the religious ring to Saga’s words, the atheist’s equivalent of the “Gloria Patri.”&nbsp;<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">Francis Schaeffer, <em>The God Who Is There</em>, in <em>The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer</em>, Vol. I (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1982), 138. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">I develop the tactical applications of this idea in chapter 10 (“Taking the Roof Off”) of <em>Tactics—A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions</em> (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009). [link] <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">I’m not suggesting his <em>complaint</em> is sound, but rather that objectivist moral <em>assessments</em> like this are only at home in a theistic world view. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:7">Truth as correspondence: A claim or belief is true if it matches the way the world actually is. On the flip side, when one’s world view does not fit reality, it’s false. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:7">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:8">These are the basic questions tied to the cosmological argument, the case for God based on the existence of the cosmos. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:8">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:9">E.g., William Lane Craig, <em>Reasonable Faith</em>, third edition (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008). [link] <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:9">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:10">As it turned out, an over-pumped tire inner tube had exploded. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:10">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:11">I discussed this move in detail in “God, Evolution, and Morality, Part II.”&nbsp;[link] <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:11">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:12">It’s possible for naturalists to avoid this dilemma by taking no personal stand on morality while pointing to an apparent internal contradiction in theism, but I’ve almost never heard it put this way in actual conversations. Atheists usually launch their complaint by first affirming objective evil. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:12">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:13">Holly Ordway, <em>Not God’s Type</em> (Chicago: Moody, 2010), 27. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:13">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:14">Naturalism also cannot make sense of objective good. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:14">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:15">For a more thorough, accessible discussion of the first two “bumps,”&nbsp;see William Lane Craig’s <em>On Guard</em> (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2010). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:15">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:16">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in2FXOjq7g8. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:16">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:17">Your soul is what you are aware of when you introspect, the ground or basis of your irreducible, first-person perspective. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:17">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:18">http://gracenyc.onthecity.org/plaza/topics/7becdc2df794f161230567bbbd6db1dd41ccf2cd/. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:18">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: The Ethic of Caring for the Sick
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 09/04/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-ethic-of-caring-for-the-sick
content:
            <div> 
		<p>David Bentley Hart explains that the ethic of caring for the sick and needy, establishing hospitals and clinics, was unique historically in Christianity because of what the Bible taught. He writes in <em>Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies</em> (p. 29-34):</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Admittedly, the condition of lepers in medieval Western society—social and legal, to say nothing of medical—was anything but happy. But scholars less confident of their perspicacity than Le Goff would probably have paused, at least for a moment, to marvel at the very existence of lepers’&nbsp;hospitals in an age when the fear of contamination was so great, and might have leadenly ascribed the location of these hospitals at the edges of towns to nothing more sinister than the exigencies of quarantine. They might even have noted the amazing willingness of Christian towns to tolerate the proximity (a mere “stone’s throw”&nbsp;away) of persons whom other societies would have banished far from all human habitation, and the willingness of monks, nuns, and even laity to minister to those persons’&nbsp;needs. There was, after all, a long tradition of Christian monastic hospitals for the destitute and dying, going back to the days of Constantine and stretching from the Syrian and Byzantine East to the Western fringes of Christendom, a tradition that had no real precedent in pagan society... St. Ephraim the Syrian (A.D.C. 306-373), when the city of Edessa was ravaged by plague, established hospitals open to all who were afflicted. St. Basil the Great (A.D. 329-379) founded a hospital in Cappadocia with a ward set aside for the care of lepers, whom he did not disdain to nurse with his own hands. St. Benedict of Nursia (A.D.C. 480-c. 547) opened a free infirmary at Monte Cassino and made care of the sick a paramount duty of his monks. In Rome, the Christian noblewoman and scholar St. Fabiola (d. A.D.C. 399) established the first publish hospital in Western Europe and—despite her wealth and position—often ventured out into the streets personally to seek out those who needed care. St. John Chrysostom (A.D. 347-407), while patriarch of Constantinople, used his influence to fund several such institutions in the city; and in the <em>diakoniai</em> of Constantinople, for centuries, many rich members of the laity labored to care for the poor and ill, bathing the sick, ministering to their needs, assisting them with alms. During the Middle Ages, the Benedictines alone were responsible for more than two thousand hospitals in Western Europe. The twelfth century was particularly remarkable in this regard, especially wherever the Knights of St. John—the Hospitallers—were active. At Montpellier in 1145, for example, the great Hospital of the Holy Spirit was founded, soon becoming a center of medical training and, in 1221, of Montpellier’s faculty of medicine. And, in addition to medical care, these hospitals provided food for the hungry, care for widows and orphans, and distributed alms to all who came in need...</p>

<p>The ethical presuppositions intrinsic to modernity, for instance, are palliated fragments and haunting echoes of Christian moral theology. Even the most ardent secularists among us generally cling to notions of human rights, economic and social justice, providence for the indigent, legal equality, or basic human dignity that pre-Christian Western culture would have found not so much foolish as unintelligible. It is simply the case that we distant children of the pagans would not be able to believe any of these things—they would never have occurred to us—had our ancestors not once believed that God is love, that charity is the foundation of all virtues, that all of us are equal before the eyes of God, that to fail to feed the hungry or care for the suffering is to sin against Christ, and that Christ laid down his life for the least of his brethren.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Christianity’s Uniqueness
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 09/11/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/christianity-s-uniqueness
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In reply to the critics who claim Christianity was just a copy-cat religion among the ancient religions, it’s helpful to take a look at how an ancient adherent of these pagan religions viewed Christianity. The inherent uniqueness of Christianity was a scandal to many. Not only would Jesus’&nbsp;followers not worship other gods, they rejected the layers of intermediary deities. Christianity taught that we could approach God directly in Jesus Christ. This was utterly unique in the ancient pantheon of gods.</p>

<p>This passage from <a href="http://smile.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashionable/dp/0300164297/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1409866350&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=david+bentley+hart" target="_blank">David Bentley Hart’s book <em>Atheist Delusions</em></a>, recounts such reaction and makes an interesting parallel to one of the most common contemporary objections.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>In such a world [the polytheism and syncretism of ancient Rome], the gospel was an outrage, and it was perfectly reasonable for its cultured despisers to describe its apostles as “atheists.”&nbsp;Christians were—what could be more obvious?—enemies of society, impious, subversive, and irrational; and it was no more than civic prudence to detest them for refusing to honor the gods of their ancestors, for scorning the common good, and for advancing the grotesque and shameful claim that all the gods and spirits had been made subject to a crucified criminal from Galilee—one who during his life had consorted with peasants and harlots, lepers and lunatics. This was far worse than mere irreverence; it was pure and misanthropic perversity; it was anarchy. One can see something of this alarm in the fragments we still possess of On True Doctrine by the second-century pagan Celsus (preserved in Origen’s treatise Against Celsus, written many decades later). It is unlikely that Celsus would have thought the Christians worth his notice had he not recognized something uniquely dangerous lurking in their gospel of love and peace. He would have naturally viewed the new religion with a certain patrician disdain, undoubtedly, and his treatise contains considerable quantity of contempt for the ridiculous rabble and pliable simpletons that Christianity attracted into its fold: the lowborn and uneducated, slaves, women and children, cobblers, laundresses, weavers of wool, and so forth. But, at that level, Christianity would have been no more distasteful to Celsus than any of those other Asiatic superstitions that occasionally course through the empire, working mischief in every social class, and provoking a largely impotent consternation from the educated and well bred. It would hardly have merited the energetic attack he actually wrote.</p>

<p>What clearly and genuinely horrified Celsus about this particular superstition was not its predictable vulgarity but the novel spirit of rebellion that permeated its teachings. He continually speaks of Christianity as a form of sedition or rebellion, and what he principally condemns is its defiance of the immemorial religious customs of the world’s tribes, cities, and nations. The several peoples of the earth, he believed, were governed by various gods who acted as lieutenants of the Great God, and the laws and customs they had established in every place were part of the divine constitution of the universe, which no one, high born or low, should presume to disregard or abandon. It was appalling to him that Christians, feeling no decent reverence for these ancient ordinances and institutions, should refrain from worship of the gods, should decline to venerate the good daemons who served as intermediaries between the human and divine worlds, and should even refuse to pray to these ancient powers for the emperor. These Christians were so depraved as to think themselves actually above the temples and traditions and cults of their ancestors; they even—ludicrously enough—imagined themselves somehow to have been raised above the deathless emissaries of God, the divine stars and all the other celestial agencies, and to have been granted a kind of immediate intimacy with God himself. And in thus claiming emancipation from the principalities and powers, the thrones and dominions, they had also renounced their spiritual and moral ties to their peoples and to the greater cosmic order. To Celsus, this was all too clearly an unnatural and deracinated piety, a religion like no other, which—rather than providing a sacred bond between the believer and his nation—sought to transcend nations altogether.</p>

<p>And, of course, he was entirely correct. The Christians were indeed a separate people, or at least aspired to be: another nation within each nation (as Origin liked to say), a new humanity that (according to Justin Martyr) had learned no longer to despise those of other races but rather to live with them as brothers and sisters. The church—governed by its own laws, acknowledging no rival allegiances—aimed at becoming a universal people, a universal race, more universal than any empire of gods or men, and subject only to Christ. No creed could have been more subversive of the ancient wisdom of the world, and no movement more worthy of the hatred of those for whom that wisdom was the truth of the ages.</p>

<p>One of the more diverting ironies of contemporary anti-Christian polemic is the recrudescence of this same line of critique—or, rather, the development of something very similar, though with a more modern inflection. Today, obviously, it is not the “seditiousness”&nbsp;of the gospel that offends us (we are scarcely conscious of it), much less its “vulgarity”&nbsp;(which for us is a word almost devoid of any connotation of disapproval), but its “intolerance.”&nbsp;At least, in certain circles, this has become a favorite complaint. It is needless to say, a charge redolent of certain distinctly modern concerns. The early Christians rarely would have had the leisure to think in such terms, even had those terms been intelligible to then. As theirs was for centuries the weaker position within society, they tended to think of the faiths of their ancestors not simply as rival creeds but as a tyranny from which they had escaped. They understood their rejection of all gods but their own as the very charter of their spiritual freedom, their writ of emancipation from the malign cosmic principalities that enslaved the nations. To judge from some of the recent popular literature on the topic, however, there are some who view this attitude on the part of the early Christians not only as unreasonable, nor only as a little wicked, but as Christianity’s principal and most damning fault.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: A Finely-Tuned Universe: Necessity, Chance, or Design?
topic: Science
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/23/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-finely-tuned-universe-necessity-chance-or-design-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><a href="http://www.reasonablefaith.org/" target="_blank">Reasonable Faith</a> has released a short video examining this question: Is the fine-tuning of our universe a result of physical necessity, chance, or design?</p>

<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9" data-embed-id="UpIiIaC4kRA" 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/UpIiIaC4kRA?rel=0" tabindex="0"></iframe></div>

<p>If you missed their previous video <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2013/08/a-simple-explanation-of-the-cosmological-argument.html" target="_blank">on the kalam cosmological argument</a>, take a few minutes to watch that one, as well.</p>

<p>(HT: <a href="https://apologetics315.com/2014/09/the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe/" target="_blank">Apologetics 315</a>)</p>
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title: Utilitarian Atheists Aren’t “Just as Moral,” They’re “Differently Moral”
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/23/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/utilitarian-atheists-aren-t-just-as-moral-they-re-differently-moral-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Christopher Hitchens used to insist that atheists were as moral as Christians, challenging, “Name one moral action performed by a believer that could not have been done by a nonbeliever.”&nbsp;But <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/hitchens-s-challenge-solved#.W6l_cBNKijQ" target="_blank">as I said long ago</a>, the claim that “atheists are as moral as Christians”&nbsp;is meaningless if we’re operating under different systems of morality.</p>

<p>This week, Richard Dawkins was a perfect example of this as he set off a firestorm with his tweets about Down syndrome children. Here’s the interaction that set it off:</p>

<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/InYourFaceNYer" target="_blank">@InYourFaceNYer</a> Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.</p>
- Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) <a href="https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/statuses/502106262088466432" target="_blank">August 20, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script type="text/javascript" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

<p>He said <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/11047072/Richard-Dawkins-immoral-to-allow-Downs-syndrome-babies-to-be-born.html" target="_blank">even more than that</a> as he continued to defend his original tweet (including the regrettably true statement, “Apparently I’m a horrid monster for recommending what actually happens to the great majority of Down Syndrome foetuses. They are aborted”), but you get the idea.</p>

<p>Within Dawkins’s moral system, it is actually immoral <em>not</em> to abort a Down syndrome child. In his eventual <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/21/richard-dawkins-apologises-downs-syndrome-tweet" target="_blank">apology</a> for creating a controversy, he <a href="https://richarddawkins.net/2014/08/abortion-down-syndrome-an-apology-for-letting-slip-the-dogs-of-twitterwar/" target="_blank">explained why</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>If your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare...</p>

<p>My true intention was, as stated at length above, simply to say what I personally would do, based upon my own assessment of the pragmatics of the case, and my own moral philosophy which in turn is based on a desire to increase happiness and reduce suffering.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>So you see? Dawkins’s recommendation to “abort it and try again”&nbsp;was perfectly moral <em>within his own system of morality</em>. If nothing else, this incident has brought some clarification:</p>

<ul>
	<li>A system that adds up potential happiness, weighs it against potential suffering, and chooses to “increase the sum of happiness”&nbsp;(at least, according the reckoning of the person doing the adding and the weighing) kills Down syndrome children before they can be born.</li>
	<li>A system that upholds the value and dignity of every human being regardless of his or her abilities or characteristics because we’re all made in the image of God protects, cherishes, and loves them.</li>
</ul>

<p>There is no “just as moral”&nbsp;here; we’re <em>differently</em> moral. And as long as God gives me the ability, I will fight to convince people that the moral system built on our being made in the image of God is the true one.</p>
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title: What Makes a Successful Apologetic Argument?
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/26/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-makes-a-successful-apologetic-argument-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>As part of his explanation of what apologetics is, James Sire wrote this at the beginning of his new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Apologetics-Beyond-Reason-Seeing-Believing/dp/0830840559/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1408751673&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=apologetics+beyond+reason" target="_blank"><em>Apologetics Beyond Reason</em></a> (quoting one of his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/A-Little-Primer-Humble-Apologetics/dp/083083382X/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1408751729&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=a+little+primer+on+humble+apologetics" target="_blank">earlier books</a>):</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The success of any given apologetic argument is not whether it wins converts or strengthens the faith of any given believer, but whether it is faithful to Jesus. The reasons that are given, the rhetoric that expresses these and the life of the apologist and the larger community of faith must, then, demonstrate their truth.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I love that. And we try to cover all three of those areas—knowledge, wisdom, and character—in our <a href="http://www.str.org/about/ambassadors-creed" target="_blank">Ambassador Model</a>. Dr. Sire’s words are a good reminder to review the <a href="http://www.str.org/about/ambassadors-creed" target="_blank">Ambassador’s Creed</a> if you haven’t done so in a while.</p>
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title: Incest: Another Disordered Image of Worship
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/20/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/incest-another-disordered-image-of-worship
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In an <a href="http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/09/13606/" target="_blank">article on <em>Public Discourse</em></a>, Christopher Tollefsen writes of Aquinas’s three natural-law-based reasons why incestuous unions ought to be forbidden, and one of those reasons touches on an aspect of incest I hadn’t thought of before:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Aquinas’s third reason is that incest is contrary to an “accidental”&nbsp;end of marriage: the binding together of humankind and the extending of friendship. We see this at virtually any wedding when two unrelated families gather to celebrate their new connection. Incestuous unions would have nothing of this sort to celebrate.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This is interesting because it seems to be related to one of the problems with homosexuality. See this quote from John Piper on Romans 1, which I previously posted (with more context) in “<a href="https://www.str.org/blog/worshipping-images-of-ourselves#.W6l8xBNKijQ" target="_blank">Worshiping Images of Ourselves</a>”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>We learn from Paul in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=eph%205:22-32&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Ephesians 5:31-32</a> that, from the beginning, manhood and womanhood existed to represent or dramatize God’s relation to his people and then Christ’s relation to his bride, the church. In this drama, the man represents God or Christ and is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. The woman represents God’s people or the church. And sexual union in the covenant of marriage represents pure, undefiled, intense heart-worship. That is, God means for the beauty of worship to be dramatized in the right ordering of our sexual lives...</p>

<p>[T]he disordering of our relationship to God is dramatized by the breakdown of that heterosexual union.</p>

<p>Homosexuality is the most vivid form of that breakdown. God and man in covenant worship are represented by male and female in covenant sexual union. Therefore, when man turns from God to images of himself, God hands us over to what we have chosen and dramatizes it by male and female turning to images of themselves for sexual union, namely their own sex.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If homosexuality, contrary to the purpose of sexual union in marriage, is an image of our turning away from God and worshiping ourselves, then incest, as a similar turning inward towards those in our family who are like us rather than an outward turning towards a different family, is likewise contrary to the purpose of our sexuality. We’re to worship outward, not inward, and our sexuality is meant to reflect this.</p>

<p>It has taken me a while to realize how artistic God actually is—that many (surely, all!) aspects of this world, not just sexuality and marriage, exist to ultimately point us to Jesus. Like the beauty of a painter who speaks to us through images in his artwork, God has created and arranged the things of this world to <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/be-a-parable-of-god-s-grace#.WvNx5dOUvdc" target="_blank">paint for us Christ</a> and His work on the cross. Here’s another example of this <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/sermons/the-all-providing-king-who-would-not-be-king" target="_blank">from John Piper</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>One of the reasons God created bread—or created the grain and the water and yeast and fire and human intelligence to make it, and I mean the really good kind, that’s not mainly air—is so that when Jesus Christ came into the world, he would be able to use the enjoyment of bread and the nourishment of bread as an illustration of what it means to believe on him and be satisfied with him. I believe that with all my heart. Bread exists to help us know what it is like to be satisfied in Jesus.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=hebrews%208-9&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">temple</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+11:23-25&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">the Lord’s Supper</a>, the <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/what-was-the-purpose-of-the-command-against-mixed-threads#.W6l9DRNKijQ" target="_blank">holiness code</a>, marriage, bread, even <a href="https://www.str.org/articles/did-god-condone-slavery#.W6l9MxNKijQ" target="_blank">slavery</a>—look at the painting God has created for us, the images in the story He is telling us, and see Christ, our needed redeemer. As James Sire says in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Apologetics-Beyond-Reason-Seeing-Believing/dp/0830840559/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1410983998&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=apologetics+beyond+reason" target="_blank"><em>Apologetics Beyond Reason</em></a>, “As it turns out, our world is so fashioned and has such a history that it is no exaggeration to say that every person is created for Christ and everything created makes a case for Christ.”</p>
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title: Cal State Universities Derecognize InterVarsity Clubs
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/09/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/cal-state-universities-derecognize-intervarsity-clubs
content:
            <div> 
		<p>InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s requirement that <em>leaders</em> in their campus clubs be Christian has been declared unacceptable discrimination by the Cal State University system. The clubs were told they must cease enforcing their requirement that leaders hold Christian beliefs. InterVarsity declined, and after a one-year exemption period, the 23 university campuses in the Cal State system “derecognized”&nbsp;InterVarsity. This means the clubs no longer have free access to campus meeting rooms, nor can they receive student activity money, participate in student fairs, or use the university name in the name of their clubs.</p>

<p>It’s utter hogwash. And because it’s such utter hogwash, it’s hard to believe that anyone actually believes the argument being made here. A club formed around a particular identity can’t limit its officers to people who affirm and promote that identity? What nonsense is this? Is it possible that someone could actually think this is reasonable?</p>

<p>Whether anyone truly thinks it’s reasonable or not, this strategy has already been used to derecognize Christian campus groups in other parts of the country. In one recent example, a woman working for InterVarsity who considered herself to be “an acceptable kind of evangelical,”&nbsp;was surprised to find that she was “<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=0CCAQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.christianitytoday.com%2Fct%2F2014%2Fseptember%2Fwrong-kind-of-christian-vanderbilt-university.html&amp;ei=a44QVKuKGZPpggT3oYGoCg&amp;usg=AFQjCNECVKdZ6YC4_20syo7iSEsX2EHAUA&amp;bvm=bv.74649129,d.eXY" target="_blank">The Wrong Kind of Christian</a>”&nbsp;for Vanderbilt, as she explained in Christianity Today:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Like most campus groups, InterVarsity welcomes anyone as a member. But it asks key student leaders—the executive council and small group leaders—to affirm its doctrinal statement, which outlines broad Christian orthodoxy and does not mention sexual conduct specifically. But the university saw belief statements themselves as suspect. Any belief—particularly those about the authority of Scripture or the church—could potentially constrain sexual activity or identity. So what began as a concern about sexuality and pluralism quickly became a conversation about whether robustly religious communities would be allowed on campus.</p>

<p>In effect, the new policy privileged certain belief groups and forbade all others. Religious organizations were welcome as long as they were malleable: as long as their leaders didn’t need to profess anything in particular; as long as they could be governed by sheer democracy and adjust to popular mores or trends; as long as they didn’t prioritize theological stability. Creedal statements were allowed, but as an accessory, a historic document, or a suggested guideline. They could not have binding authority to shape or govern the teaching and practices of a campus religious community...</p>

<p>The line between good and evil was drawn by two issues: creedal belief and sexual expression. If religious groups required set truths or limited sexual autonomy, they were bad—not just wrong but evil, narrow-minded, and too dangerous to be tolerated on campus.</p>

<p>It didn’t matter to them if we were politically or racially diverse, if we cared about the environment or built Habitat homes. It didn’t matter if our students were top in their fields and some of the kindest, most thoughtful, most compassionate leaders on campus. There was a line in the sand, and we fell on the wrong side of it.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It seems obvious to me that a Christian club choosing Christian leaders is legitimate religious discrimination. It should seem equally obvious that kicking out any Christian group that doesn’t conform to the administration’s ideas of <em>the right kind</em> of theology is <em>illegitimate</em> religious discrimination, and yet there we are.</p>

<p>I suppose it’s possible that this ridiculous situation is merely the result of a bureaucratic inability to make a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate discrimination rather than a targeted strategy to remove religious groups from campuses. But if that were the case, wouldn’t they also “derecognize”&nbsp;every fraternity and sorority on campus? After all, those clubs discriminate on the basis of gender, something clearly frowned upon in the university, so if no distinction can be made between legitimate and illegitimate discrimination, that should be it for the Greek system. But surprise, surprise, fraternities and sororities are <a href="https://www.calstate.edu/eo/EO-1068.html" target="_blank">exempted</a> from this new non-discrimination policy, making this situation look less like a poorly reasoned principled decision and more like an excuse to excise “the wrong kind”&nbsp;of religious groups.</p>

<p>So far, this has been happening to campuses here and there, but now we’re talking about half a million students and faculty who will be affected by the Cal State system’s decision. I went to a Cal State, and InterVarsity played a part in my becoming serious about being a Christian, so this hits close to home. And as an apologist, I can’t help but think of <a href="https://ratiochristi.org/about/" target="_blank">Ratio Christi</a> and pray that their work can continue.</p>

<p>Owen Strachan called this “a <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thoughtlife/2014/09/5-thoughts-on-the-cal-state-system-derecognizing-intervarsity/" target="_blank">massive blow</a> to the cause of religious liberty on the college campus.”&nbsp;But he also urges local churches to step up their ministry to students, and if that’s what comes out of this—if more college students become involved in local churches—that will be a good thing.</p>

<p>Ultimately, as angering as this is (I’m as insulted by the irrationality of it as I am by the discrimination), whatever comes out of this will be for our good—however difficult that good turns out to be, and I can’t help but feel a twinge of excitement wondering what new forms of ministry might be created to bring the gospel to universities and serve the students.</p>
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title: Character at the Keyboard
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/29/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/character-at-the-keyboard
content:
            <div> 
		<p>David Brooks’s op-ed in the New York Times on “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/opinion/david-brooks-the-mental-virtues.html" target="_blank">The Mental Virtues</a>”&nbsp;reminds us that “character tests are pervasive even in modern everyday life. It’s possible to be heroic if you’re just sitting alone in your office”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Thinking well under a barrage of information may be a different sort of moral challenge than fighting well under a hail of bullets, but it’s a character challenge nonetheless...</p>

<p>[T]he mind is embedded in human nature, and very often thinking well means pushing against the grain of our nature—against vanity, against laziness, against the desire for certainty, against the desire to avoid painful truths. Good thinking isn’t just adopting the right technique. It’s a moral enterprise and requires good character, the ability to go against our lesser impulses for the sake of our higher ones.</p>

<p>Montaigne once wrote that “We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we can’t be wise with other men’s wisdom.”&nbsp;That’s because wisdom isn’t a body of information. It’s the moral quality of knowing how to handle your own limitations.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Citing the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Virtues-Regulative-Epistemology-Cognitive/dp/0199575703/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1409327010&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=intellectual+virtues" target="_blank"><em>Intellectual Virtues</em></a>, Brooks lists ways we can work on the virtues needed at the computer keyboard. For example, regarding “firmness,”&nbsp;he says, “You don’t want to be a person who surrenders his beliefs at the slightest whiff of opposition. On the other hand, you don’t want to hold dogmatically to a belief against all evidence.”&nbsp;Here are the six he describes:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Love of learning</li>
	<li>Courage</li>
	<li>Firmness</li>
	<li>Humility</li>
	<li>Autonomy</li>
	<li>Generosity</li>
</ul>

<p>Read more <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/opinion/david-brooks-the-mental-virtues.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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title: Your Labor and the Two Great Commandments
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/30/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/your-labor-and-the-two-great-commandments
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Take a few minutes this weekend to think about the dignity of work in general, and your work in particular. Your work, whatever it is, is your opportunity to glorify God by serving others. From <a href="http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2010/09/01/work-and-two-great-love-commandments" target="_blank">Jordan Ballor</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22:37&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">first great commandment</a> is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”&nbsp;We are to love God in all we do. This includes that portion of our day which we spend at work. We are, quite simply, to show our love of God in our work.</p>

<p>It is one thing, however, to say that we are to love God in our work. It is quite another to do so. What does loving God in our work really look like?</p>

<p>It is here that the <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022:39&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">second great commandment</a> comes to the fore: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”&nbsp;As <a href="https://shop.acton.org/products/work-the-meaning-of-your-life" target="_blank">the Christian writer Lester DeKoster puts it</a>, at its core “work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others.”&nbsp;It is in putting ourselves in the service of others that our work also finds meaning. For in making ourselves useful to others, we do for them as we would have them do for us.</p>

<p>And this is, as DeKoster puts it, the great secret connecting work and the two great love commandments. For in making ourselves useful to others, we make ourselves useful to God. This is how we show our love for God: in serving others.</p>

<p>After all, that’s how he shows his love for us. The incarnation is God’s entrance into a life and death of service for human beings. The <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%202:1-11&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank">Apostle Paul makes this connection as he writes</a>, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”&nbsp;He says this just before he points to the example of Christ as the one who serves others, “taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”&nbsp;This is the good news of Jesus Christ, for our life and death, our rest and our work.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If you’re interested in reading more about how Christianity and the Gospel relate to your work, I recommend Matt Perman’s <a href="http://whatsbestnext.com/" target="_blank">blog</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Best-Next-Gospel-Transforms/dp/0310494222/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_har?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1409353268&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=what%27s+best+next" target="_blank">book</a> (<em>What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done</em>).</p>
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title: Only One Thing Will Keep You Going
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/27/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/only-one-thing-will-keep-you-going
content:
            <div> 
		<p>If you haven’t yet started thinking about how you’re going to deal with suffering and persecution (big or small), now is the time to do so. May God grant that the worst that will ever happen to you is that you encounter some angry comments on your Facebook page, but you may face more, and even little discouragements have a way of adding up. How will you deal with them?</p>

<p>I’ve been asking this question for a while now—reading books about people who have suffered, asking questions of people who face opposition, trying to understand how they continue to press on. And overall, the answer comes back to one thing: Those who know and love Jesus well, those who think He’s worth any price, persevere. I don’t think there’s anything else strong enough to keep us going—not a love for the truth, not a love for the lost, not a desire to make a difference, but only Jesus Himself.</p>

<p>If you want to persevere, that’s where your focus needs to be. Seek with all your might to <a href="http://scriptoriumdaily.com/james-gray-on-mastering-the-bible/" target="_blank">know Jesus</a>, trust Him, and depend on His power in your life and in the world.</p>

<p>Last night, in front of the White House, there was a <a href="http://aclj.org/iran/franklin-graham-pastor-saeed-wife-kids-and-hundreds-more-gather-white-house-pray-for-his-freedom" target="_blank">prayer vigil</a> for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeed_Abedini" target="_blank">Saeed Abedini</a>, a former Muslim turned Christian pastor from Iran (now also an American citizen) who has been imprisoned in Iran since 2012. This is an excerpt from <a href="http://media.aclj.org/pdf/pastor-saeed-letter-rebekka-her-8th-birthday.pdf" target="_blank">a letter</a> he wrote to his daughter on her 8th birthday:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I know that you question why you have prayed so many times for my return and yet I am not home yet. Now there is a big WHY In your mind you are asking: WHY Jesus isn’t answering your prayers and the prayers of all of the people around the world praying for my release and for me to be home with you and our family.</p>

<p>The answer to the WHY is WHO. WHO is control? LORD JESUS CHRIST is in control.</p>

<p>I desire for you to learn important lessons during these trying times. Lessons that you carry now and for the rest of your life. The answer to the WHY is WHO. The confusion of “WHY has all of this happened?”&nbsp;and “WHY your prayers are not answered yet”&nbsp;is resolved with understanding WHO is in control... LORD JESUS CHRIST, our GOD!</p>

<p>God is in control of the whole world and everything that is happening in it is for His good purpose, for His glory, and will be worked out for our good (Romans 8:28). Jesus allows me to be kept here for His glory. He is doing something inside each of us and also outside in the world. People die and suffer for their Christian faith all over the world and some may wonder why? But you should know the answer of WHY is WHO. It is for Jesus. He is worth the price. And He has a plan to be glorified through our lives.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It’s time <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2011/11/decide-here-and-now.html" target="_blank">now</a> to learn the lesson Pastor Saeed wants his daughter to learn, and you can start here:</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://scriptoriumdaily.com/james-gray-on-mastering-the-bible/" target="_blank">James Gray on Mastering the Bible</a> (Yeah, I know I keep bringing this one up, but there’s a good reason for it!)</li>
	<li><a href="https://www.str.org/blog/how-our-suffering-glorifies-god#.W6l72hNKijQ" target="_blank">How Our Suffering Glorifies God</a></li>
	<li><a href="https://www.str.org/blog/be-a-parable-of-god-s-grace#.W6l8BxNKijQ" target="_blank">Be a Parable of God’s Grace</a></li>
	<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/If-God-Good-Faith-Suffering/dp/1601425791/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1411760014&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=if+god+is+good+alcorn" target="_blank">If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil</a></li>
</ul>
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title: Devotion, Not Quiet Time
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 08/25/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/devotion-not-quiet-time
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>Devotion (in the sense I’m using the word) is different from “devotions.”&nbsp;My goal isn’t to squeeze a sense of well-being out of the encounter, but to focus entirely on Him, worshiping Him, thanking Him and devoting myself to His purposes for the day.</em></p>

<p>I know that nourishing our relationship with God is an important part of guarding the treasure entrusted to us. But one way of pursuing that—having a daily “quiet time”—has always been difficult for me. Maybe it’s been hard for you, too.</p>

<p>First, I’ve never done well with the ritual because I could never be consistent. The fact that I’m not really an early morning person combined with a chaotic schedule both seem to sabotage my best intentions.</p>

<p>Second, I don’t think you have to have “daily devotions”&nbsp;to be a good Christian. It’s become somewhat of an Evangelical sacrament, a source of blessing for many, but also a source of guilt for others who don’t (or can’t) keep the regimen.</p>

<p>Yes, the Bible says we should pray, study, and meditate—no question there—but it doesn’t demand a particular time or pattern. There are a number of ways to satisfy that requirement. Jesus, David, and others often started their days with prayer, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best pattern for you and me.</p>

<p>Third, I’ve long suspected the effort is somewhat misdirected. Quiet times are encouraged as a way to “get closer to God,”&nbsp;meant to accomplish a subjective goal (generate emotional closeness), not an objective one (gain spiritual understanding).</p>

<p>It’s not that such a goal is wrong as much as it’s wrong-headed. Feeling close to God, it seems to me, is much like the pursuit of happiness. It’s gained not as a goal in itself, but as the outcome of pursuing some other goal. To get something for yourself, you have to focus on something else: God, in this case.</p>

<p>So I have a recommendation. Instead of trying (unsuccessfully) to have devotions every morning, I have devotion. That is, I take five to ten minutes early in the day to focus on God—not to get something from Him, but to actively devote myself to Him for the day. After I sing a hymn or two, I use a biblical prayer (I’ll share it with you in a moment) as a guide to express my dedication to the Lord.</p>

<p>Devotion (in the sense I’m using the word) is different from “devotions.”&nbsp;My goal isn’t to squeeze a sense of well-being out of the encounter, but to focus entirely on Him, worshiping Him, thanking Him and devoting myself to His purposes for the day. The focus is entirely on God—not on my feelings—surrendering myself to the Father, no matter how I feel nor what befalls me. It’s fairly brief by design, but still very meaningful.</p>

<p>My moments of devotion may develop into a longer prayer time, but they don’t have to. Instead, no matter what my schedule is, I can start each day devoted to Christ, then anticipate time for regular prayer and supplication later in the day by scheduling it or squeezing it in using methods I discussed elsewhere (see “10 Tips to Help Your Prayer Life”).</p>

<p>I suggest using a biblical prayer as a model. Many have used the prayer of Jabez for this purpose. I don’t care for this because it’s too general and therefore invites abuse, people making the prayer into a kind of talisman or charm (though I don’t think that was author Bruce Wilkinson’s intent).</p>

<p>Instead, I use the prayer of Paul found in Colossians 1:9-12. I pray this prayer in personalized form almost every day for my family and myself.</p>

<p>Here’s my adaptation:</p>

<p>I pray that we may be filled with the knowledge of Your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that we may walk in a manner worthy of You, Lord, to please You in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to Your glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father.</p>

<p>I add other personal sentiments before and after, as seems appropriate, but this prayer is the core. Notice that when you pray this way the focus is entirely on God and His purposes. You ask for knowledge, wisdom, and understanding so you can honor and please God, bearing fruit in your daily walk. You ask for power so you can attain steadfastness and patience. You ask for joy in the context of thanksgiving.</p>

<p>As you can see, it will be very difficult to co-opt this prayer for selfish purposes. But it’s perfect to help you and I start our day on the right foot, devoting ourselves to God regardless of how we feel.</p>

<p>If you’ve been having trouble with “quiet times,”&nbsp;try daily devotion for two weeks. Write Colossians 1:9-12 on a card and use it as a guide. Gather a small collection of favorite songs—not ones that report your feelings, but ones that focus on the Lord—and use them to begin your devotion.</p>

<p>All good ambassadors need to stay in close contact with their sovereign. This is one small way to help you accomplish that. It may even become a habit. Of course, it’s not meant to substitute for times of extended prayer. But it may help you consistently start your day devoted to the Lord even when you can’t schedule “devotions”&nbsp;first thing.</p>
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title: How to Answer the Harshest Critic You’ll Ever Face—Mentoring Letter October 2014
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 10/01/2014
source:
https://www.str.org/w/how-to-answer-the-harshest-critic-you-ll-ever-face-mentoring-letter-october-2014

content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>You can answer the harshest critic you’ll ever face.</em></p>

<p>October 1, 2014</p>

<p>Let me tell you why every church needs to care about apologetics—about defending the faith—other than that Scripture commands it, Jesus and the apostles practiced it, and it works. (I’ll set those points aside for now.)</p>

<p>Ask yourself a question: If you had Jesus standing beside you at this moment—not spiritually present, but really, physically there—would it have an impact on how you live? Do you think your conduct would be different? Would it affect your sense of peace and confidence in God’s control over your life? Would it rid you of timidity and fill you with boldness?</p>

<p>Of course, it would.</p>

<p>One reason we falter in those areas now is what one person called “pockets of agnosticism,”&nbsp;the private places of uncertainty every Christian who is honest must admit to having. I have them, so do you, because if we were completely psychologically certain of our convictions—like we’d be with Jesus physically standing at our side—our lives would be very different because our pockets of agnosticism would shrink to zero.</p>

<p>Clearly, our confidence that what we believe to be true is actually true—not just “true for me,”&nbsp;but true in the deep sense (“true truth,”&nbsp;as Francis Schaeffer used to say), true to what actually is—has a powerful impact on how we live our lives as Christian ambassadors. Spiritual confidence translates into spiritual action. What could be more obvious?</p>

<p>Sadly, it’s not obvious in many churches. Some pastors think apologetics is window dressing, fine for those who like that sort of thing, but an extravagance, a non-essential. Agreed, not everyone will make a vocation of defending the faith. But sooner or later each Christian will be forced to face the harshest critic of all: his or her own inner doubts.</p>

<p>That’s right, the toughest opponent you’ll ever have to confront is you. Someone once said, “The heart cannot believe what the mind rejects.”&nbsp;This is also obvious. If you’re not confident the message of Scripture is true, you can’t put your trust in it even if you tried. Trust cannot be manufactured. Faith cannot be squeezed out by acts of sheer will.</p>

<p>However, if you get your hands on substantiating evidence—if you find out the facts and are equipped with compelling reasons—your confidence grows automatically, deepening and invigorating your faith.</p>

<p>The Apostle John understood this. Which is the very reason he wrote the final eyewitness account of Jesus’s life—and the best selling biography of all time—the Gospel of John. Listen to this:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Therefore, many other signs [literally, attesting miracles] Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name (John 20:30-31).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Did you get that? According to John himself, <em>the central purpose of his Gospel was to give hardcore evidence for faith</em>. And that’s not a contradiction in terms. Luke made the same point in Acts 1:3: “To these [apostles] Jesus presented Himself alive after His suffering by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days...”&nbsp;And Paul: “According to Paul’s custom... for three Sabbaths [he] reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead... and some of them were persuaded...”&nbsp;(Acts 17:2-3).</p>

<p>Take note. Spiritual growth involves increasing our <em>understanding</em> of the truth, to be sure. That’s what happens every week at church or Bible study. But we also need <em>confidence</em> that the things we learn are actually true. We’re taught in church <em>what</em> to believe; we’re not usually taught <em>why</em> we should believe it. We’re not given the “many convincing proofs”&nbsp;that what we’re learning is reliable, so our pockets of agnosticism swell and our doubts increase.</p>

<p>Want your doubts to fade and your faith to increase instead? Want to silence the critic in your own head? Then study, learn—even a little—about the powerful evidences supporting Christianity and you won’t be wishing on a star about eternal things. Increase your knowledge of the evidence and watch your agnosticism wither.</p>

<p>When those pockets shrink, it changes your prayers (they’re more aggressive), it changes your sense of trust (you’ll rest more, knowing God will accomplish what concerns you), and you’ll work harder (confident your efforts are not in vain). In short, apologetics can make all the difference in the world.</p>

<p>Stand to Reason is not about wishing, but about confidence. With your help, every talk we give, every broadcast we make, every article we write is meant to turn shaky belief into confident knowledge, confidence that Christianity can stand on its feet.</p>

<p>Your gift to STR this month will mean thousands of others will receive the gift of confidence from you. And when you send a gift, request <em>The Ambassador’s Guide to the Voice of God</em>, a tool to help you think biblically about the claims many Christians make about “hearing from God,”&nbsp;and the silence, perhaps, you experience when you listen for Him. It’s our thanks to you for your faithful partnership with us.</p>

<p>Yours because His,</p>

<p>Gregory Koukl</p>
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title: Are We at War with Muslims?
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 10/01/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/are-we-at-war-with-muslims-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Just 29 days after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, Oprah Winfrey invited Queen Rania on her television show. Rania is a devout Muslim and royalty of the Islamic country of Jordan. That’s why she can, allegedly, speak on behalf of her faith. Her job that day was to help repair Islam’s massive public relations problem.</p>

<p>Rania assured the American people: “The fact that Islam is very tolerant means that it doesn’t impose anything on other people.”&nbsp;President Bush, shortly after 9/11, said that “Islam is a peaceful religion and Muslims are a peace-loving people.”&nbsp;Just last month, President Obama responded to the recent rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria by stating the terror group “is not ’Islamic.’”</p>

<p>But we see a different face of Islam in the news. Besides the September 11 attacks, there have been riots, bombings, and beheadings all done in the name of Islam. Are the perpetrators of this violence not following true Islam? What do we make of Islamic leaders who decry the violence of jihadists? How do we make sense of the contradictory claims by Islamic spokesmen? Will the real Islam please stand up?</p>

<p>I use a simple tactic to help me sort through the confusion. If I want to know whether a teaching or behavior is truly Islamic, I ask a simple question: Is it based on authoritative sources in Islam? There are three primary sources.</p>

<p>The first is the Qur’an. Muslims believe this book contains the literal words of Allah and is, therefore, the highest authority in Islam. The corollary in Christianity, Muslims claim, is not the Bible, but Christ.</p>

<p>The second is hadith literature. These are written traditions that record what Mohammed said, did, or approved of. Although hadith is not on par with the Qur’an, it’s nonetheless authoritative because it gives practical applications to the broad principles in the Qur’an. Sharia law in Islamic countries is derived from hadith literature.</p>

<p>The third is the Sunnah. This is the life example set by Mohammed. Since he perfectly embodies Muslim behavior, how he lived in his day is authoritative for Muslims today.</p>

<p>These authoritative sources provide a handy tactic to determine whether a teaching is Islamic. If it’s taught in the Qur’an, hadith, and Sunnah, then it’s legitimate. It doesn’t matter what Queen Rania, the Presidents of the United States, or mosque leaders say. They could claim Islam is about flying kites, but it wouldn’t make it so.</p>

<p>Let’s, then, apply this tactic. Is violent jihad a valid Islamic doctrine? According to the Qur’an, yes. There are 164 verses (out of 6,236 total) that teach jihad. Although jihad literally means “struggle”&nbsp;and can refer to a struggle of the heart or mind, these verses all refer to the struggle to fight in warfare for Allah.</p>

<p>What about hadith literature? There are hundreds of written traditions about violent jihad. Indeed, there’s an entire section that it is titled “The book of jihad”&nbsp;that details who to fight, when to fight, and how to fight.</p>

<p>Finally, there’s the Sunnah, the precedent set by Islam’s prophet. According to the earliest extant biography (<em>The Life of Mohammed</em>, written by a Muslim), Mohammed led military campaigns and even ordered the assassination of non-combatants. Most troubling, though, is he ordered the execution—by beheading—of an entire Jewish tribe. Mohammed’s biography indicates he killed 600 to 700 men in one night.</p>

<p>Are Islam’s authoritative sources clear about the question of violent jihad? Crystal clear.</p>

<p>I hear two kinds of responses, though. The first thing most Muslims say is that they don’t practice violence, nor do most Muslims they know. I agree. But this is in spite of what the Qur’an, hadith, and Sunnah teach, not because of them. Let me be clear, however. Virtually every Muslim I’ve met, both in the United States and the Middle East, has been kind, friendly, and peaceful to me. My point is <em>not</em> that most Muslims engage in violence, but that their authoritative sources teach that it��s permissible.</p>

<p>The second response I hear is, “Islam is a <em>peaceful</em> religion that’s been hijacked by <em>violent</em> terrorists.”&nbsp;I disagree. I think the opposite is true: Islam is a <em>violent</em> religion that’s been hijacked by <em>peaceful</em> Muslims. At its core, Islam teaches violence, but thankfully most Muslims don’t live consistently with this mandate.</p>

<p>We need to realize, then, that Muslims are <em>not</em> the enemy. Our battle is not against them. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 10:3-5 that “though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, the weapons we fight with have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.”</p>

<p>It is the enemy, Satan, who has erected the stronghold of Islam. He has set up that religion against the knowledge of God. Our war is against Satan, his army, and his lies. He’s the true terrorist.</p>

<p>That’s why training Christians to reach Muslims is so critical. Muslims are not the enemy, but hostages of the enemy. I will continue to fight with weapons, not of this world, to demolish strongholds.</p>
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title: The Witness of Christian Compassion
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 08/28/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-witness-of-christian-compassion
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Ancient societies and religion were not known for their care for the sick and dying. Christians who often risked their lives to care even for non-Christians represented a radical difference in the values taught by the Bible than anything else known at that time.</p>

<p>It was common in ancient societies, including Rome, which saw the inception and rise of Christianity, to abandon the sick and dying. Roman religion did not teach followers to care for the helpless.</p>

<p>Destitute families lacking any resources to help sometimes even abandoned the chronically ill to die. In Rome, sick or elderly slaves were routinely left to waste away on Tiber Island. Unwanted children were often left to die of exposure. If a father decided that the family couldn’t afford to feed another child, that child would be abandoned on the steps of a temple or in the public square. Almost without exception defective newborns were exposed in this way. (<a href="https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/new-era-in-roman-healthcare/" target="_blank"><em>Christian History</em> magazine</a>)</p>

<p>In ancient Greek religion, the god Asclepius was sought for healing, but there was no ethic of caring for the sick and dying that this god encouraged.</p>

<p>Against this backdrop, Christianity was a distinct contrast. The Bible teaches the intrinsic value of every human being, and this is what motivated early Christians to begin caring for their ailing. Church leaders followed the biblical admonition to visit the sick. Congregations and communities set up formal practices for care. And as this became common among Christians, they were challenged to care for non-Christians, as well.</p>

<p>In the third century AD, an epidemic swept across Northern Africa, Italy, and the western empire. As many as 5000 people a day were dying in Rome. The sick were abandoned in the streets and the dead left unburied. In Carthage, the Christians were blamed for the disease, and the emperor ordered Christians to sacrifice to their gods to end it. Carthage’s bishop, Cyprian, encouraged Christians to care for the sick and dying. They buried the dead and risked getting sick by taking in the sick. This was repeated other times in the early centuries of the church during epidemics. Christians introduced a new concern and standard of care for sick people.</p>

<p>Rodney Stark, author of <em><a href="http://smile.amazon.com/Rise-Christianity-Marginal-Religious-Centuries/dp/0060677015/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1408655497&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+rise+of+christianity" target="_blank">The Rise of Christianity</a></em>, argues that some of the marked growth of the church in the early centuries can be attributed to care and compassion Christians showed for the sick. He tracks increased conversion rates during three plagues: the Antonine plague (2nd c.), the Cyprian plague (3rd c.), and the Justinian plague (6th c.). Christians demonstrated their love for God and biblical values, and they offered a very attractive witness.</p>

<p>Their example has been followed through the history of the Christian church. Catholic orders were devoted to care. Mennonites in Holland and Quakers in England formed societies to improve health care. Modern medical missionaries carry on in this mission today.</p>

<p>Today, we take for granted the responsibility to care for the sick regardless of religious convictions. It was Christians practicing what the Bible taught them that began caring for those in need.</p>
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title: Same-Sex Marriage Is Not the New Interracial Marriage
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/10/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/same-sex-marriage-is-not-the-new-interracial-marriage
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Comparing opponents of same-sex marriage to those who opposed interracial marriage is common, but not accurate. As I’ve <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/race-sex-and-marriage#.W6lspRNKijQ" target="_blank">posted before</a>, the arguments of same-sex marriage <em>advocates</em> actually have more in common with those of interracial marriage opponents. Frank Beckwith <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2012/10/race-sex-and-marriage.html" target="_blank">explains</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>By injecting race into the equation, anti-miscegenation supporters were very much like contemporary same-sex marriage proponents, for in both cases they introduced a criterion other than male-female complementarity in order to promote the goals of a utopian social movement: race purity or sexual egalitarianism.</p>

<p>This is why, in both cases, the advocates require state coercion to enforce their goals. Without the state’s cooperation and enforcement, there would have been no anti-miscegenation laws and there would be no same-sex marriage. The reason for this, writes libertarian economist Jennifer Roback Morse, is that “marriage between men and women is a pre-political, naturally emerging social institution. Men and women come together to create children, independently of any government.”&nbsp;Hence, this explains its standing as an uncontroversial common law liberty. “By contrast,”&nbsp;Morse goes on to write, “same-sex ’marriage’&nbsp;[and same-race-only marriage] is completely a creation of the state...”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Ryan Anderson adds to this “<a href="http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/27/7-reasons-current-marriage-debate-nothing-like-debate-interracial-marriage/" target="_blank">7 Reasons Why the Current Marriage Debate Is Nothing Like the Debate on Interracial Marriage</a>.”&nbsp;Here are three:</p>

<ul>
	<li><strong>Great thinkers—including champions of human rights—knew that gender matters for marriage, and none thought that race does.</strong> Searching the writings of Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, Maimonides and Al-Farabi, Luther and Calvin, Locke and Kant, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., one finds that the sexual union of male and female goes to the heart of their reflections on marriage but that considerations of race with respect to marriage never appear. Only late in human history do political communities prohibit intermarriage on the basis of race. Bans on interracial marriage had nothing to do with the nature of marriage and everything to do with denying dignity and equality before the law.</li>
	<li><strong>Even cultures that embraced same-sex relationships did not treat them as marriages.</strong> Far from having been devised as a pretext for excluding same-sex relationships—as some now charge—marriage as the union of husband and wife arose in many places over several centuries entirely independent of, and well before any debates about, same-sex relationships. Indeed, it arose in cultures that had no concept of sexual orientation and in some that fully accepted homoeroticism and even took it for granted. Bans on interracial marriage, by contrast, were the result of racism and nothing more.</li>
	<li><strong>Marriage must be color-blind, but it cannot be gender-blind.</strong> The melanin content of two people’s skin has nothing to do with their capacity to unite in the bond of marriage as a comprehensive union naturally ordered to procreation. The sexual difference between a man and a woman, however, is central to what marriage is. Men and women regardless of their race can unite in marriage, and children regardless of their race deserve moms and dads. To acknowledge such facts requires an understanding of what marriage is.</li>
</ul>

<p>Read the rest of <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/27/7-reasons-current-marriage-debate-nothing-like-debate-interracial-marriage/" target="_blank">Ryan Anderson’s article</a>, or listen to a <a href="http://issuesetc.org/2014/08/28/4-same-sex-marriage-and-interracial-marriage-ryan-anderson-82814/" target="_blank">recent interview</a> he did on this subject.</p>
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title: God’s Clockmaker
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 09/25/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/god-s-clockmaker
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Richard of Wallingford lived in the early 14th century. He was orphaned and went to live with the monks at St. Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire, England. The abbot must have noticed his good mind because he sent Richard to study at Oxford. Richard devoted himself to theology, math, and astronomy. He became abbot of St. Albans and was known for being strict and kind.</p>

<p>He was the first to introduce modern trigonometry to England in the papers that he wrote. Richard of Wallingford’s signature achievement is the clock he built, which was the most advanced at that time. It showed the position of the sun, moon, stars, and tides.</p>

<p>Richard used the latest technology of his time and the most advanced astronomical knowledge, solving both practical and technological problems to design his clock. Some have suggested that it could be used as a planetarium by disconnecting the main drive. His escapement design is thought to be similar to a sketch found in Da Vinci’s notebooks, but no where else. You can read more about the function of the clock <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/richard-of-wallingford#ixzz3DhfFc4N8" target="_blank">here</a>. Sadly, Richard wasn’t able to complete his clock. He died of leprosy at the age of 44. It was completed 20 years after his death, but was destroyed during Henry VIII’s reformation and dissolution of the abbey. His plans were discovered in the 1960s and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wE8pr9aFzM" target="_blank">replicas have been built</a>.</p>

<p>Richard also invented an astronomical calculation device he called a equatorium that was able to predict eclipses.</p>
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title: Wedgwood Abolitionist
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 07/24/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/wedgwood-abolitionist
content:
            <div> 
		<p>You may be familiar with Wedgwood pottery. One of the most distinct of Josiah Wedgwood’s designs is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasperware" target="_blank">jasper ware</a>—most commonly with blue or green glaze with classic figures applied in white. He was a well known potter in the 18th century, and was also an abolitionist and innovative business man.</p>

<p>He was born in England in 1730 to a family of potters. They were dissenters of the Church of England, and his biblical values ran deep.</p>

<p>He opened his own pottery and experiments with glazing techniques and colors that became famous. Wedgwood invented the pyrometer to control the temperature in the kilns to ensure consistent quality of his pottery. He introduced a production line in his factory. “<a href="http://www.colsoncenter.org/the-center/columns/indepth/17482-josiah-wedgwood-1730-1795" target="_blank">He is credited</a> with creating the first illustrated catalogues, employing the first modern traveling salesmen, and pioneering direct mail marketing. He offered money-back guarantees, free delivery, and self-service in his shops. He even set up ’buy one, get one free’&nbsp;sales for his products.”&nbsp;As a result, he became a very successful businessman, and his pottery was purchased in the royal palaces of Europe, as well as middle class homes.</p>

<p>Because of his Christian convictions, Josiah Wedgwood had a high view of the intrinsic value of all human beings, and this led him to become involved in the abolition movement in England. He asked one of his designers to create an emblem for the movement. It was a kneeling slave with the caption, “Am I not a man and a brother?”&nbsp;The design became a wildly popular symbol of the abolition movement in England and even America. It could be seen on snuff boxes, pipes, cuff links, and women’s jewelry. The jewelry gave women a rare opportunity to express their social and political views when that was very uncommon. Wedgwood helped promote the cause of abolition that led to the end of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807.</p>
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title: Human Rights and an English Priest
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 08/14/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/human-rights-and-an-english-priest
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Probably like most people, I wasn’t interested in history when I was a child. My interest began as an adult. But there is one historical fact that has stuck with me since childhood, but not because of my history textbooks. The Magna Carta was signed in 1215 AD at Runnymede. That fact has stuck in my mind because of an episode of My Favorite Martian—Tim and Martin accidentally ended up witnessing the signing of the great document because they dialed the year rather than the time in their time machine.</p>

<p>The Magna Carta is foundational human rights document because it was the first in history that imposed on the sovereign to respect the rights of citizens and limit the ruler’s arbitrary will. It covered the rights of noblemen, not all citizens—but it was a beginning. It is the cornerstone that most modern constitutions are built on. It influenced the U.S. Constitution. The first clause of the Magna Carta protects the freedom of the church, and one of the key people responsible for the document and its signing was the Archbishop of Canterbury.</p>

<p><a href="http://biography.yourdictionary.com/stephen-langton" target="_blank">Stephen Langton</a> was born in the 1150s and probably grew up aware of the conflict over religious freedom between Thomas Beckett and Henry II. These events may have planted ideas that influenced him later in his career. Langton became a priest, studied, and later lectured and wrote on theology in Paris from 1181 to 1206. He would have seen Notre Dame being built. He wrote commentaries on the Old and New Testaments, and is most likely the person who determined the chapter markers in the Bibles we use today.</p>

<p>He was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1207 and returned to England in the middle of strife between King John and the English barons. He told the barons of a document he learned about in Paris signed by Henry I in 1031 that the king agreed to recognize certain liberties of the barons. With this precedent in mind, he and the barons drafted the document that would become the Magna Carta. After the rebels took London in 1215, John signed the Magna Carta and Langton’s is the first signature of the witnesses. By this time, Langton was actually siding with the king and used his influence to get John to agree. He continued to act as a mediator finding peaceful ways to resolve disputes and protect the rights the king had agreed to honor. He later authored constitutions that became the basis of ecclesiastical law that have been used for centuries.</p>

<p>Langton died in 1228 and was buried at Canterbury Cathedral.</p>
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title: Quakers and Constitutional Freedom
topic: History
author: Melinda Penner
date: 08/21/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/quakers-and-constitutional-freedom
content:
            <div> 
		<p>You remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Penn" target="_blank">William Penn</a> from history class. He was granted the colony of Pennsylvania by the king in payment for debts owed his father. Penn was a Quaker who converted to Christianity in his early 20s. Penn adhered to the biblical values of human equality and intrinsic value and dignity. These later influenced the governmental framework he proposed for Pennsylvania.</p>

<p>Because of his dissent from the Church of England, Penn was imprisoned in the Tower of London for his outspoken religious beliefs. Penn was close friends with George Fox, who founded Quakerism. By rejecting the church’s authority over congregations, “Fox not only extended the Protestant Reformation more radically, but he helped extend the most important principle of modern political history—the rights of the individual—upon which modern democracies were later founded. Penn traveled frequently with Fox, through Europe and England. He also wrote a comprehensive, detailed explanation of Quakerism along with a testimony to the character of George Fox, in his introduction to the autobiographical Journal of George Fox. In effect, Penn became the first theologian, theorist, and legal defender of Quakerism, providing its written doctrine and helping to establish its public standing.”</p>

<p>Penn’s father banished him from his household for his religious beliefs. On his deathbed, Penn’s father expressed his respect for his son’s religious convictions and courage. He entreated the Duke of York, the future King of England, to protect his son.</p>

<p>Penn and other Quakers purchased land in America that became New Jersey. He encouraged a mass migration of Quakers to escape persecution and pursue practicing their religious freedom in peace. The King later granted Pennsylvania to Penn. “On March 4, 1681, the King signed the charter and the following day Penn jubilantly wrote, ’It is a clear and just thing, and my God who has given it me through many difficulties, will, I believe, bless and make it the seed of a nation.’”</p>

<p>Penn proposed a framework for the government of his colony that included some landmark features that influenced the U.S. Constitution a century later. He limited his own power under the legal framework. And he provided for amendments to allow the constitution to be changed over time. Other rights that were unique at the time:</p>

<ul>
	<li>the assembly could bring a request of impeachment of the governor before the council for its trial</li>
	<li>unconstitutional laws should be invalidated, although it did not specifically grant courts the power to declare their unconstitutionality</li>
	<li>capital punishment to be applied to a strictly limited scope of criminal offenses only, including murder and treason</li>
	<li>freedom of worship in the colony was to be absolute</li>
</ul>

<p>Penn vowed that he would not oppress the native population or the immigrants of Pennsylvania for his own benefit. He later attracted other persecuted religious groups from Europe to immigrate making Pennsylvania a place of religious toleration.</p>

<p>Penn insisted that the Quaker schools be open to everyone, so the colony had a high literacy rate. Philadelphia became a center for science and medicine. The Quakers improved treatment of the mentally ill. Prisons were places of reform where the inmates were treated better than was common at the time.</p>

<p>On November 28, 1984, President Reason on an Act of Congress declared William Penn to be an honorary citizen of the United States. He had favored unifying the American colonies.</p>
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title: A Book about the Bible That Makes You Want to Read It
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/08/2014
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-book-about-the-bible-that-makes-you-want-to-read-it
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I enjoyed <a href="http://barrycooper.com/about/" target="_blank">Barry Cooper’s</a> new book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Can-I-really-trust-Bible/dp/190955913X/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1407452967&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=can+i+really+trust+the+bible" target="_blank">Can I Really Trust the Bible?</a></em> (from the same series as <a href="http://www.str.org/podcasts/weekly-audio/sam-allberry—-is-god-anti-gay-january-28-2014#.U-QK34BdVpE" target="_blank">Sam</a> Allberry’s <em><a href="http://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BK382" target="_blank">Is God Anti-Gay?</a></em>). The book covers the basics about the Bible—what it is, how it’s organized, etc.—and was written with both Christians and non-Christians in mind.</p>

<p>Cooper outlines the book’s approach this way in the introduction:</p>

<blockquote>
<ol>
	<li>Does the Bible <em>claim to be</em> God’s word? What does it say on the outside of the jar? Does the Bible have anything to say about itself?</li>
	<li>Does the Bible <em>seem to be</em> God’s word? What does it look like when we “take off the cover”&nbsp;and peer inside? Does the Bible look like something only God could have written?</li>
	<li>Does the Bible <em>prove to be</em> God’s word? What does it taste like? Can we know, in our own personal experience, that the Bible really is God’s word?</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>

<p>The beauty of this little book (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPr9jM3ACJ8" target="_blank">only 82 pages!</a>) isn’t merely that it explains what the Bible is, but that it does so in a way that stirs up awe and a desire to immerse oneself in God’s powerful written words. Read it, and you can’t help but be moved to “taste and see”&nbsp;that those words are good.</p>

<p>From the book’s conclusion:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>To help us grasp how powerful Scripture is, the biblical writers say it’s like fire. To express how penetrating it is, they describe it as being sharper than any double-edged sword. To explain how vital it is for life, they speak of it as bread and milk, food and water. To show how necessary it is for seeing clearly, they speak of it as a light, and as a mirror. To communicate how much we need it if we’re to be secure and grounded, it’s spoken of as an anchor, and as a rock. To underline how valuable it is, they speak of it as being more precious than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. To convey the fact that it creates life, it’s spoken of as being like a seed. And when it describes how satisfying it is, God’s word describes itself as being sweeter than the very sweetest honey.</p>

<p>Taste and see.</p>
</blockquote>
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