Idolatry

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” (Colossians 2.8)

John Calvin has little patience for the philosophers in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Those endowed with this great gift from God of higher rational thought utilize it in order to create idols no less than the most irrational of beings. The philosophers will worship even an unknown god, which is a known absurdity. Here are the brightest of human minds failing, or rather fighting not to see what even blind beasts are able to see; the revelation of God in everything.

In a chat the other night I was told that we as Christians are often making something quite complicated which is not complicated at all. We spend much of our time attempting to persuade and convict others of something which they already know for certain, which is the existence and nature of our glorious God. While I do not want to deny the necessity of means such as preaching and teaching sound doctrine and apologetics, there is a great deal of truth in this. We may wrongfully take it upon ourselves to do what is the work of God alone.

How many people take what they have of God and try to twist it into their own form? How many indulge in creating idols daily? Humanity is inclined to attempt to set itself on a pedestal above its Creator. God, the self, and the world are all interconnected in such a way that the misconception of one results in the misconception of the other two, regardless of which is misconceived. Thus a rejection and a suppression of God the Truth in His creation, in Christ, in the Word, and in the Imago Dei is the quickest way to lose sight of oneself and the world as well as (of course) God as they truly are.

I think it likely that all of us, believers and unbelievers alike, are guilty of idol worship to an extent. How many believers do you know who make assertions about God which are in no way based upon Scripture? How often do you do so yourself? If we do not have a proper view of God, we do not have a proper view of anything else. An age of the demonization of sound doctrine as something which only cold scholars practice cannot produce anything other than the type of confusion and evil we see all around us. All knowing is theologizing.

There is nothing new under the sun. The Apostle Paul knew the results of a failed Christology and witnessed them in his day. He warns us what will happen should we step off of our commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in everything we do. May this be an encouragement and a warning for all of us.

Narrow Road

This is audio of me preaching at a youth rally...in a Vineyard church...last year. I am aware that I make some mistakes throughout. Also, I got a little lazy on the last few parts and did not post the Scripture in the video. So sue me. :) EDIT: I corrected myself once in the video on the audio where I did not need to be corrected! The word in Ephesians 2.8 is, in fact, "pistew", not "pistis". :)

Is McCain Pro-Life?

"John McCain has revealed his pro-choice, pro-abortion heart." – Alan Keyes

Well, here we go again. It is another Presidential election year and the mud is flying, mostly between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. John McCain was criticized early for not being conservative enough for conservatives, but just a week after accusing him of being a liberal the media switched to constantly playing the sound byte, “Conservatives rally around McCain”.

What “conservative” is and is not and what the media does to the elections is not really the subject of this entry though. Nor will this focus a great deal upon McCain’s other controversial positions which should concern Christians a great deal.

Many Christians want to set such subjects aside anyway and cast their vote in favor of the only man in this race who will prevent Clinton or Obama from becoming our next President. There are various reasons given for this, one of which is that McCain is pro-life. My contention is that it really depends on what you mean by “pro-life”.

While people see that McCain has had a pretty consistent voting record on abortion issues (the right kind of consistency), he is proud of being a “maverick”, and one can only guess what he might do or say next. Just from what little I have read, I am convinced that McCain at the least strongly dislikes Christians, and I am terrified of the sorts of measures he has taken against freedom of speech and the times he and those he keeps company with have spoken out against Christianity. McCain has also had some interesting things to say about the pro-life issue.

McCain has stated that the NRTLC has made a business out of the pro-life movement, becoming just another “special interest” group.[1] In 1999, he made statements which would lead each party he was speaking to about making abortion illegal believe two different things.[2] This should really come as no surprise. John McCain is a politician through and through, his many faces are well known.

In fact, McCain has answered “Yes” to the question of whether or not he would reverse Roe Vs. Wade, but what is underneath of this answer is cause for concern.

I'd love to see a point where it is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary, but certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.[3]

Did you catch that? Can you say two different things at one time any more clearly? Sure, McCain would like to repeal Roe Vs. Wade, but he does not support doing so in the short or the long term. Well tell us Senator, if you would not repeal it in either the short or long term, when would you repeal it?! (Imagine my Mother asking me to pick my clothes up and I respond, “Yes I will. Not planning to in the short term or the long term though”.) Ludicrous.

So while we know he is dishonest on the subject, what does he actually believe? It is hard to tell, when someone will offer such contradictory statements. Let’s not miss the argument for his position that McCain gave us at that same time.

[W]e all know, and it's obvious, that if we repeal Roe v. Wade tomorrow, thousands of young American women would be performing illegal and dangerous operations.[4]

McCain’s reasoning is telling. He thinks that two things will happen if Roe Vs. Wade is repealed. First, abortion will be illegal. Second, women will perform dangerous operations. The first consequence is really pretty irrelevant, and I will not address it other than to ask, “What pro-life person who wants their position worked into politics does not want abortion illegal?” The second consequence, while saddening, is really not of so much weight as to justify the continued murder of unborn babies at the hands of abortion doctors which is still a dangerous operation with some extremely negative potential effects! Let’s pretend that McCain is right though, that he has a good argument. When could Roe Vs. Wade ever be repealed without these results? There is no indication that this could ever happen. Those who place their hope in McCain repealing Roe Vs. Wade should cease doing so.

Every Presidential election year we hear that appointments to the Supreme Court are extremely important, and (so the argument usually goes) whoever the Republican candidate is should be the one we as Christians want in office. Here, as in the areas we have looked at so far, McCain falls short again.

McCain has repeated many times “that he would not have an abortion ‘litmus’ test for a running mate or Supreme Court nominees”.[5] McCain also voted for the confirmation of both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steven Breyer as Supreme Court Justices, not to mention working with Democrat Senators to keep Bush’s conservative appointments out.[6] The game of chess with these seats is bad enough, but McCain hardly gives any clear intention of appointing conservative, pro-life judges anyway.

May we not forget that this man refused to be in the Values Voters debate, has mocked Christians, and distances himself as he can from religious groups, whom he does not believe have a place in politics. Since when has John McCain ever represented the voices of Christians?

Perhaps worst of all is that McCain does not oppose abortions in cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother. In fact, he supports the federal funding of abortion in such cases.[7] Patients would not be required to prove that any of these scenarios is actually the case. Your tax dollars would be going toward funding the murder of innocent babies. That is not all. McCain voted to federally fund embryonic stem cell research.[8] When does life begin? It begins at conception. Embryos are, according to the standards used by pro-lifers, persons who have a right to life. This may now have become an irrelevant issue, but let’s not forget how willing John McCain was to use your tax money to support the destruction of innocent lives through government controlled and funded “scientific research” which equates human babies with spare parts. You may call this nit-picking. I call it evil.

The tirades against Barak Obama, especially in light of what has recently come out about his church and pastor, have been interesting. Christians have no problem calling out Clinton and Obama on everything under the sun. Neither do I, but John McCain is every bit as bad.

This year you will have the option of compromising your beliefs and voting for a “pro-life” candidate who thinks murdering the innocent using your government and money is perfectly fine. I will not take that option. My prayer is that Christians would cease equating the Republican Party with their faith, Fox News with Scripture, and the “lesser of two evils” justification with good rational thinking.

[Disclaimer: I have done what I have had time for in terms of research, citations, and the like. I do not want to be unfair. If you find incorrect facts, then please let me know, but have a reliable source ready. Also, I am in no way supportive of either Clinton or Obama!]

[1] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200002/ai_n8882941 [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/mccain082499.htm [3] Ibid. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid. [6] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=59182 [7] Ibid. [8] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=59187

In the Church but not of it...

Sometimes it is as if no matter where I go, I cannot cease to be in the world.

Duh.

Where else would I be? Now, certainly I could lock myself up in my house, my church, my closet...maybe move to Phoenix, Arizona and be an ascetic (oh wait, people actually LIVE out there!), but for the most part I am going to be in the world. That is not the difficult part of the little cliche, "We are to be in the world, but not of it".

Being in the world does not mean living ungodly, saying stupid things, mutilating your body, becoming a pragmatist, accepting the world's standards, or any other such nonsense. It is not that difficult to be in the world, really, unless you are a complete hermit.

As Christians, we are not to be of the world. We are of Christ. All throughout Scripture we find two diametrically opposed views of the world: Christian, and Non-Christian. Read it for yourself and see. There is enmity between the woman's seed and the serpent's seed. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, fools despise it. You either hear Jesus or you are of the devil. The cross is wisdom and power or folly and weakness. You are saved from the wrath of God or you are condemned. There is no middle ground.

The sad thing I see happening in the best of churches and in Christian institutions is Christians rejecting the only standard we have to make sense out of anything, the Word of God. Now, I realize you are becoming bored reading this, for it is nothing new. There is nothing new under the sun, this is true. I am nevertheless shocked to hear the sorts of things which will follow coming from Christians who have been in the church for years and in some instances are heads of large ministries and schools that are supposed to be orthodox.

Apologetics have been known to bring awful heresies into the Church in the past, and things are no different now from what I have observed. I am wearied by poor apologists, who will not simply give the Word of God its place.

For example, I listened to one discussion between the head of a Christian school and an atheist organization. The minister started the discussion with the idea that it is possible God does not exist and that it is possible that the Bible is not God's Word.

Just think about that for a moment, before I tell you that it gets much worse.

He called this "common ground". Now, if you share "ground" in "common" with someone, then I would presume you are both on it, that there is something there which both parties believe. Is that not what the analogy is intended to convey? So what was the "common ground"? It was that the Bible is not inerrant. How can it be common to both parties if this man believes differently? This makes no sense!

Now I brought this to the attention of a student of this man. The replies I received almost knocked me out of my chair.

"But, you also cannot assume that a non-believer is going to use a believer's text to believe." "You cannot use Christian ideas to persuade an Atheist to become or at least even see logic in being Christian. You have to use Atheistic ideas to show them how there is a possibility that there can be a God." "The problem comes when trying to get others to believe your beliefs." "You cannot get someone to see your viewpoint on an issue using your viewpoint on the issue." "[W]hen approaching a person that does not even believe that God exists, it would be ludicrous to present Scripture to them because it would be only words and no meaning." "Not everyone consciously realizes that God exists." "I just do not see how it is effective when the person does not believe that it is inerrant. It is hard for a person who does not consciously believe in God to believe that the Bible is His inspired Word."

Are there alarms going off in your head? There should be. I read this sort of stuff and pray, "Oh God, what have we done? Who are we? Forgive us!"

We have left the Word of God and inserted our own. If the very Word of God cannot convince or persuade someone to become a Christian, then what can the poor words of other human beings do? What foolish thinking! I am not proposing that we become like the Mormons, telling people to only believe for the sake of believing, or that we should not have an apologetic. What I am proposing is that our "apologetic" has become an obstacle to the very things we seek to defend!

Read the Word of God Christians, and believe it!

It is not ineffective:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4.12)

It is not ridiculous to present it to the unbeliever. Even when Paul was on Mars Hill speaking to the atheistic philosophers he used Scripture:

The God that made the world and all thing therein, he, being Lord of heaven and earth...giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. (Acts 17:24, 25)

He was paraphrasing the following passage from the Old Testament:

Thus saith God Jehovah, he that created the heavens and stretched them forth; he that spread abroad the earth and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it...(Isaiah 42:5).

There are no true atheists, people who do not believe in God:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is *plain to them*, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been *clearly perceived*, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are *without excuse*. 21For although *they knew God*, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1.18-23)

Plain to them
Clearly perceived
So much that they are
Without excuse
They knew God

Scripture is clear. Our common ground is not the teaching of the world! We are not to be of the world, though in it we must be. Our common ground is that this world, not the system run by Satan, but the physical creation, is God's, and so are we. We are created in His image, all of us. We have His powerful Word, which is true and loud and clear. This is our "common ground" with the unbeliever. There is no other.

May we not make the mistake of letting those who are not of Christ pollute our thinking with theirs, whether it be in our thinking about the Word of God or anything else.

Induction and Miracles

Unlike the school papers I had posted here before anyone ever read the blog, I felt this was bloggish enough to be blogworthy. I hope you enjoy. The inductive principle states that future experiences will resemble past experiences. This allows us to make general and specific inductive inferences. (This is not as difficult to understand as it sounds.) For example, since my past experience tells me that eggs are nourishing but gravel is not, in the future I will eat eggs for breakfast instead of gravel. The reason I have for doing this is that I believe future experiences will resemble past experiences. Now, the future will obviously not always be exactly like the past. No one is claiming that. The claim is only that the future will resemble the past. So, given my past experience, future experiences that are like my past experiences will be very similar. The future will resemble the past. There may even be surprises along the way. For example, the eggs could have gone bad. This still does not overturn our belief that the future will resemble the past. In fact, if we know that the eggs have gone bad, we infer, based on past experience, that they will not nourish, will taste bad, etc. if the eggs taste bad or make us sick, we may infer, based on past experience, that the eggs have gone bad. These are inferences based on the inductive principle, not instances where the inductive principle is somehow refuted. There is a reason why this is important. Some question the ability of Christians to use the inductive principle because of miracles. There have been several different answers to this problem and some deep theological considerations with respect to the Reformed understanding of miracles, but I think the best answer to the question can be readily found in the writings of the great philosopher, skeptic, and atheist Bertrand Russell. Russell devotes a significant portion of his Problems of Philosophy to the subject of the "problem of induction".

The problem of induction is stated quite clearly by Russell.

"All arguments which, on the basis of experience, argue as to the future or the unexperienced parts of the past or present, assume the inductive principle; hence we can never use experience to prove the inductive principle without begging the question. Thus we must either accept the inductive principle on the ground of its intrinsic evidence, or forgo all justification of our expectations about the future." (Russell, Problems of Philosophy, pg. 310)

This puts us in quite a predicament. All inferences concerning matters of fact are undercut by this problem. The Christian argues, however, that since the universe is constantly subject to order by the will of our infinite-personal God, we have every reason to believe that future experiences will resemble past experiences.

The unbeliever will undoubtedly ask, "What about miracles?". This is really missing the point though, for it does not solve the unbeliever's problem of being unable to justify any inductive inferences. Once one realizes the indefinite number of practical facets of our lives which are based upon the inductive principle as well as the entirety of science itself one realizes what a massive problem this is. The unbeliever's worldview simply cannot make sense of anything.

The objection about miracles is easily solved. Russell took care of this when he wrote:

"The fact, therefore, that things often fail to fulfil our expectations is no evidence that our expectations will not probably be fulfilled in a given case or a given class of cases. Thus our inductive principle is at any rate not capable of being disproved by an appeal to experience." (Russell, Problems of Philosophy, pgs. 309-310)

Miracles are not a threat to the inductive principle. They fall into the same category as the bad eggs. No appeal to miracles may be seen as refuting the principle of induction, for we are looking for reason to think that things will probably be such-and-such based upon past experience and the belief that the future will resemble the past. As Christians, we humbly suggest that miracles are to be expected in accordance with the will of God as it is seen to operate throughout Scripture, but we certainly do not expect these to be so frequent and of such an arbitrary nature that we have no reason to believe that the future will be like the past. Instead, the nature of God as it is revealed to us is our very basis for making such an assumption about the future resembling the past. As Russell states, an appeal to experience cannot refute this belief.

"The inductive principle, however, is equally incapable of being proved by an appeal to experience. Experience might conceivably confirm the inductive principle as regards the cases that have been already examined; but as regards unexamined cases, it is the inductive principle alone that can justify any inference from what has been examined to what has not been examined." (Russell, Problems of Philosophy, pgs. 309-310)