Frustrations

Departing from my usual course of action, I will deal with this atheist article quickly (because it deserves nothing more) and then vent my frustrations (if you, dear reader, care to hear them). The article's basic claim is that God is more evil than all atheistic/secular governments/institutions combined because he continually slaughters biological life (nay, all of creation) with horrible diseases. How could a "loving" God do such a thing! Answer: He didn't, and He doesn't. To demonstrate this, I will answer each the question's that the article asked:

1. "When were all the harmful viruses, germs, bacteria and parasites created?" Viruses, germs, bacteria, and parasites are all (except for viruses) living organisms, and are a part of the material world. Thus, God created them (which answers the second question that the article asked). Notice, however, that the key word in that question is "harmful." By themselves, viruses, germs, bacteria, and parasites are either harmless or even helpful (like the bacteria that help digestion or that eat away dead skin cells). What makes these things "harmful" is when they become carriers, and therefore transmitters, of disease. Therefore, we must distinguish between two things in regards to our answer to this question: God created the biological life and material components, but He did not create disease. Disease (along with other things) is a result of the Fall: "For the wages of Sin is death." (Romans 6:23) Disease, suffering, death, corruption, and evil are all aberrations of the created order. God did not put them their; they came because of man's choice.
2. "Who, other than God / Yahweh himself, could create?" See answer 1.
3. "If this was the intended effects on humans after the Fall with their forced removal from the Garden of Eden, than why did God even go though the motion of tempting Eve and Adam in the first place since this harmful creation was already created and simply waiting on them outside the Garden?" (sigh) First of all, neither the Fall nor its effects were "intended," as though God wanted them to happen. Second of all, the creation was not "harmful" when it was "created." It was good when it was created (read Genesis 1--"and God saw that it was good"). I will not state anything further, because I have already dealt with this nonsense here and here, and I refuse to repeat myself.
4. "If man (as a sinful creature) alone is the target of these harmful and deadly acts of creation (as one Christian doctor tried to tell me), than exactly why are both plants and animals also affected by harmful viruses, germs, bacteria and parasites?" A "Christian" doctor told you what? It has been (since Christianity's inception) a part of orthodox belief that the whole of creation was affected by the Fall, not just man. Either the doctor was misunderstood (which happens), or he was smoking something serious.

My frustrations are not with these questions in regards to my faith; after all, I did answer them. My frustrations are two: (1) with such questions per se, and subsequently (2) with the state of Christianity in the realm of fundamentals and orthodoxy. I have spoken of these frustrations here before, but I wish to say just a little more.
When I was young (or younger) I typically stayed away from anything that was antagonistic to my faith, and that was a good thing; you should not engage things until you are equipped to handle them (never engage a tank with a fork). However, other then not being ready to engage such antagonism, all forms of doubt and skepticism (whether it was atheistic, agnostic, or devil's advocate) had a numinous horror to it, like it was something monumental and grand, a challenge and obstacle that all must face but many have failed at beating. There is a terror in the thought that there are real and stated doubts about what you think is obvious.
Needless to say, when I got educated (both intellectually and spiritually), I felt that it was time to see what's out there in the world of doubt. After all, if you are not capable of dealing with the "tough" issues laid before you by skeptics, what kind of faith do you have? So I read atheistic articles and blog postings, and even read Bertrand Russell's now (in)famous essay. Every time I read (and still read) something like that, the resulting effect inside me is always the same: sheer, utter disappointment.
When I write about atheistic anything, I want to do it while being amiable and polite (while still being forceful and blunt). After all, I'm not here to merely win an argument, but lead people to the truth; and by that, lead them to the Gospel. Apologetics and evangelism go hand-in-hand. Nevertheless, I cannot help but feel great frustration whelm up within me as I stumble over one idiocy to the next. Every argument I have run into, every supposedly great and crushing argument, has always been the same thing: a ridiculous montage of slip-shod thinking, faulty logic, contradictions, straw-man arguments, emotional rants, misunderstandings and misinterpretations and misquotings of Scripture and/or doctrine, arrogance, and personal vendettas. Perhaps this is all my fault; perhaps I set my expectations to high; but, darn it, I was expecting more than what I've gotten (and still get) so far.
This frustration, however, leads to my second and real frustration. Ignorance is only a crime for those who should know better. Atheist do not know any better; Christians do. The fact that atheists can have such idiotic, crazy, confused, and messed up ideas about what Christian's believe says more about us than it does about them. If people reject what we present, then they are at fault; if they are confused about what we present, however, then we are at fault. Dorothy Sayers still said it best: "Let the dogma of the church be dragged out from under the dreadful accumulation of slipshod thinking and trashy sentiment heaped upon it [by Christians], and set [upon] an open stage to startle the world into some sort of vigorous reaction.” Shame on us, for not keeping the burning truth bright and clear before the world; shame on us all. Until we change our thinking about what it means for a Christian to engage culture, about what it means to develop a Christian intellect, we will have to live with the mess we have made.

P.S. For Chesterton on the importance of the fundamentals, read this from his book Heretics.

Real Racial Reconciliation

Last Thursday evening, I was sitting in on a lecture about atheism when I nearly exploded out of my chair with excitement. My reasons for this is that, without warning, one of the speakers (a professor at my college, who I will dub Dr. P) demonstrated real racial reconciliation. In speaking about the origins of atheism, Dr. P launched into the logical consequences of atheism, specifically nihilism. While talking of nihilism, Dr. P (who is black) addressed the black people in the audience: "I do not want colored people to think that nihilism is a white problem. I have spoken before on the 'nihilism of the hood'." He then went to demonstrate how urban gang mentality is directly related to nihilistic thinking, and then brought his point home with an example of "nihilism of the hood" by referencing the Lester Street Murders. After he made his point, the whole audience, white and black alike, sat unified in our minds and hearts in regards to nihilism and atheism.
That is real racial reconciliation, and I here defiantly post it as testimony against all previous logic in regards to racial reconciliation. Real racial reconciliation is not the continual awareness of and making others aware of the racism that divides us. Real racial reconciliation is the continual awareness of and making others aware of the commonalities that unite us. Any racial reconciliation effort that does not base itself on that logic will lead its followers hopelessly into side eddies, or into further racism (for how reconciled can we get if we are constantly reminded that we still hate each other?).

"Supposed details about celestial furniture..."

I was as giddy as a school boy after reading and mulling over this article by an atheist (we'll call him Mike), because it gave me the opportunity to give practical application to something I read by C.S. Lewis. How nice to know that all my readings of his works were not in vain!
Mike summed up his own point better than I could, so here it is: "As long as Christianity pushes theology...as the dogmatic bases for the truth, then any modern society is doomed to have its scientific advances hobbled to an anachronistic mythical religious past." His reasoning for this is that theology "is of itself a very flawed reasoning system drawn from a pre-scientific ancient world view." The example he gives to demonstrate this is that Christianity (to this day) still speak of the "heart" (among other things) as something Jesus must "come into" in order for someone to be saved. Mike theorizes (or just bluntly states) that Christians say this because there theology in this area (i.e., salvation) is based upon the flawed assumptions that ancient people (those uncivilized morons) had about the heart, i.e., that it was the emotional center of a man, not only the seat of physical life but also of spiritual life. Mike's conclusion is that because the theology is based on flawed assumptions, then the theology itself is flawed, an therefore erroneous.
I could berate Mike for his rather arrogant assumption that ancient people could not distinguish between the literal and the metaphorical, but I have a much more delicious attack: I will accuse him of committing his assumed error of the ancients, i.e., being unable to distinguish between the literal and metaphorical.
Mike has committed what I'll call the "imago-literal correlation" fallacy, a fallacy committed when (in an argument) one debater does not draw a distinction between the essential truth(s) held by a fellow debater, and the imaginative expression(s) that that fellow debater uses to express those essential truths. This idea can be found in Lewis' essay "Horrid Red Things," which Mike's article reminded me of (for which I am eternally grateful to him). In the essay, Lewis tells of a little girl who had two beliefs about poison: (1) that it was dangerous, and (2) that it was full of horrid red things. The first belief is an essential truth about poison, while the second belief is an imaginative expression about poison. When the little girl's mother hears of these two beliefs, she will only correct the latter, not the former. When the little girl has been educated in these matters by her mother, nothing will have fundamentally changed about her beliefs except for the imaginative expression she uses: she no longer believes (as she once did) that poison contains horrid red things; she still believes (as she has always believed) that poison is dangerous. Though it is wise and often necessary of us to correct erroneous imagery, we must not think that erroneous imagery makes the essential truth erroneous as well. As Lewis put it: "If I, staying in [the girl's] house, had raised a glass of what looked like water to my lips, and the child had said, 'Don't drink that. Mummie says it's poisonous,' I should have been foolish to disregard the warning on the ground that 'This child has an archaic and mythological idea of poison as horrid red things.'" The invalidation of the imaginative expression does not mean the invalidation of the essential truth. To commit the imago-literal correlation fallacy is to believe that the invalidation of the expression consequently invalidates the truth behind that expression.
This, of course, is what atheist Mike has done: he has not distinguished between the expressions and the truths (i.e., "theology") behind them. That men of old had the erroneous belief that the physical heart was the center of physical and spiritual life, the center of the person behind the human, does not invalidate the belief that humans have (or are) souls. That men of old had the erroneous belief that the physical heart was "dirty" or a source of evil does not invalidate the belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with humanity. That Christians of old had the erroneous belief (though I doubt they did) that God "cleanses" your "heart" by Christ "coming in" to it does not invalidate the belief that God, through Christ, fixes whatever is fundamentally wrong with humanity. The erroneous beliefs not only do not invalidate the essential beliefs, but also do not even touch them, which is why Mike's argument is vacuous. For any Christian with a rudimentary understanding of theology, the only proper answer to Mike is a resounding, "Yeah. So what?"
Furthermore, Mike has not only fallen prey to the imago-literal correlation fallacy, he has also fallen prey to what I call "nitpickyism," i.e., attack the fundamentally superfluous and ignoring the fundamentally necessary. I suppose, in order to please Mike's scientific mind, we could change our word usage. Instead of saying that we are "fallen" (as though we tripped, or are clumsy), we could say that an aboriginal, supernatural infestation of malicious intent has corrupted our inner disposition. Instead of saying that we need to be "saved" (as though we were drowning, or in some sort of physical danger), we could say that only a supernatural intervention of benevolent intent from outside our existence can correct our corrupted dispositions. Instead of saying that being saved comes by "asking" (as though by invitation) Jesus to "come into" (as though in a spatial relation) our "hearts" (as though the physical organ), we could say a great Being of holiness is offering to us (because He met certain, special conditions) His own inner disposition in place of ours for free if we will only subject ourselves to this process. We could do that, if it would make Mike feel better about our theology.
Unfortunately, it won't make him feel better about our theology, because he has yet to even begin to attack our theology. He has only attacked the expressions, not the theology behind them. Therefore, our using different words will not please him because all we did was replace the old expressions with new ones. Instead of us saying "fallen," we now say "malicious infestation" (as though some disease had a will) has "corrupted" us (as though we were some sort of metal or chemical, or a control in an experiment). Instead of saying "saved," we now say "benevolent intervention" (as though we are druggies) from "outside" us (as though in a spatial relation) that "corrects" us (as though like a teacher). Instead of of saying "asking Jesus into your heart," we now say that a holy Being offers to us His own disposition in place of ours (as though we were at a swap meet or bazaar). No matter how many times we reword it all, Mike will never be satisfied, because he cannot distinguish between the expressions and the theology behind them, and thus will nitpick about any wording we use; for as Lewis said in his essay, "All language, except about objects of sense, is metaphorical through and through...We can make our language more polysyllabic and duller; we cannot make it more literal."

A Lengthy Comment to Master Jenkins on Preacher-Boy Syndrome

In regards to bad preaching:

Most preachers today (young and old) suffer from what I call "Preacher-boy Syndrome." You probably know what I mean: You have a friend you've known for years. His a cool guy. He loves life, loves hanging with friends, loves the Lord, and has a humor and vigor that lighten the room.
Then he gets called to be a preacher. He goes to Bible College for a year and comes back. What happens? Now he is all...strange. You feel a certain distance that wasn't there before; you could be looking him in the eye and he'd still seem oceans away. He seems almost brainwashed. Some would say "sanctified," "holy," "excited about God," and other such foolish misdirections. All you know is that anyone with two good eyes and plain common sense could see that there is something not right about him at all. He seems stressed, always pressured. He's always trying to smile a smile that seems plastered on. He's always spitting out "Amen!" and "Praise God!" to everything you say to him (even when what you said does not even merit such a response). You find him asking you weird questions in public, like "You think I should witness to those people over there?" Beforehand, he had never asked you that; he just did it. In short, you feel this terrible atmosphere of anxiety wrapped around some sort of artificial covering that was once your friend. You feel as though he's jumping through hoops with a gun put to his head, as though he's putting on a show to save his life. Sometime, many times, pastors never recover from this.
What happened to your friend is "Preacher-boy Syndrome," which is the Black Death of Bible Colleges these days. Aspiring young preachers, all bright faced and eager, get told (with different words than the ones I'm about to use) that a "preacher" is not who they are, not who God wants to be through them, but is a part that they perform. In order to perform it right, they must say the right things, do the right things, dress the right way, ask the right questions, hang with the right people, etc. In short, preaching, shepherding, stop being who they are (who God is through them) and start being some thing that they are to produce. In other words, it is no longer real; it is contrived. The problem you sense when your friend comes home from Bible College is that he feels utterly, abysmally, undeniably fake. Everything, from his dress to his sermons to his conversations to even his wife, all of it feels contrived, concocted, there because that's what's supposed to be there.
Preach the grandeur of God? Engage the depths of theology? Intellectually challenge your congregation? Spiritually prick their hearts with mighty missiles of God's truth? Good heavens, man! I'm still trying to organize all the charities and events and meetings and fund raisers and parties and choir outings and cantatas and three-point sermons! I'm too busy doing what I'm supposed to do! Doing what I have to do if I'm to be seen as a pastor! How can I be a pastor if I'm not doing all these things! Saying all these things! Wearing all these things!
Since when did following God's will for your life become about anything you do? When did it stop being about God using you and working through you? When did we feel it necessary to put ourselves in the way?

Why does preaching suck these days? Because we have no real pastors. We have performers in pastor costumes. Thus is Preacher-boy Syndrome; thus is another plight and blight upon the modern church.

Why God is Not a Sadistic, Egotistical Monster

Our good friend atheist Joe is back with a fresh attack. His latest polemic basically runs something like this: God is a sadistic, egotistical monster because: (1) He created a world that did not need to be created; (2) He created this world even though He knew it would fall into sin, causing temporal misery and then perpetual damnation for His creatures; and (3) He did all this for His own glory. In short, because God willfully caused and causes suffering for His own glory, He is a sadistic, egotistical monster.
There a few major flaws in his argument. In regards to the first point, i.e., why a reasonable (i.e., practical) God created that which did not need to be, I already presented my thoughts here. However, I would like to add a thing or two. Joe's claim that, for a "reasonable person" (which we assume God is), the only motivation for action is because of "a lack, either his own, or someone else's," is utterly false. Though as fallen humans we cannot know this fully yet, there is such a thing as a complete disinterestedness in a thing, i.e., the thing is done and/or enjoyed because of itself, and not what I or anyone else get or benefit from it. Some artists create because they need to express something; like the prophet Jeremiah, their bones burn unless they prophesy. However, other artists (even the one's whose bones sometimes burn) create merely for the enjoyment of creating, because creating is a good thing in and of itself (as well as a joy in and of itself). The artist was not thinking that he or the world needed more goodness (or joy), only that the thing itself was good to do regardless of its purpose or end. In the same manner, God created the world, not because He or anyone else needed a world, but simply because it, the creation and giving of life and existence, was a good (and enjoyable) thing to do. Read Genesis again: "God created...and God saw that it was good."
In regards to the second point, i.e., God created a world He knew people would suffer in and suffer later all for His glory, there is the erroneous (and blasphemous) assumption that suffering caused by Sin brings God glory. The ravagings of Sin may allow an occasion for God's glory to be presented (i.e., to make known His love, strength, joy, courage, wisdom, etc., to those who are ravaged), but the ravagings themselves are not to His glory. They are abominations, and grevious to Him. "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked," says the Lord (Ezekiel 33:11), and when He came in the flesh He railed against those who committed evil (Matthew 23), and wept at the presence of death (John 11:32-36). Suffering and evil neither gives God glory nor is it glorious to Him, period.
What glory, then, does God's get out of this whole mess of a world? Answer: the glory of redemption. Why did God create a world where He knew we would fall into Sin, as opposed to creating a perpetual paradise where the inhabitants (if there were any) had neither the opportunity nor even the ability to fall? The Christian answer has been that the experience of redemption is better than the experience of unfallenness. Is this the "fortunate fall" theory? Yes...sort of. The difference is that while most take the "fortunate fall" to mean that God foreknew, and therefore caused, the Fall, the truth is that God foreknew, and therefore allowed, the Fall. That difference is key: causation necessitates commendation, but allowance does not. God did not find the Fall agreeable (for lack of a better term), but He did see a way to turn its evil into good (which is what He does: Genesis 50:20 & Romans 8:28).
How do we know that the experience of redemption is better than the experience of unfallenness? Consider this: what are angels? According to the Christian tradition, angels are unfallen beings (and therefore require no redemption) and are continually in God's visible presence (and therefore require no faith). They live the life that atheist clamor for: a life where there is no suffering and no questions, no mysteries or doubts. It is indeed idyllic. Now, consider I Peter 1:12. Peter notes how the coming of the gospel to humanity is a matter that "the angels desire to look into." Imagine that! The idyllic angels, who have tasted neither sin nor doubt, look at our world of the Fall and Redemption and actually desire to know it! Is their idyllic life of unfallenness not good enough? Apparently not. In finding ourselves in the story of redemption, we find ourselves in that which the unfallen angels do not know about and yet desire to know. Apparently, it is better to be redeemed than unfallen. God allowed the Fall so that we could taste that which angels have never known.
One last thing. Atheist Joe uses a quote from Dostoyevsky’s book The Brother's Karamazov, where Ivan Karamazov ask the question of whether or not one would build an "edifice of destiny so that men would finally be happy and would find peace and tranquility" if it was conditioned that they must torture an innocent. Joe attempts to compare this to God creating our world while He foreknew the Fall, and his comparison is completely ridiculous. First of all, the world (or the universe for that matter) was never predicated as that which would bring men happiness, peace, and tranquility, and God never created Creation because it would do that. As stated earlier, He created it simply because it was good, and it was good to create it. Second of all, God's creating Creation was not conditioned on the Fall. The Fall does not cause Creation, nor did Creation cause the Fall. Thirdly, finally, and most importantly, given that we allow the question for a moment, the answer to the question of whether or not God would let an innocent suffer in order to bring about paradise is a most resounding, "Yes, He would." The difference (a difference that causes Christians to fall on their knees and worships Him) is that He was the innocent that suffered (on the cross) in order to bring about the paradise that is redemption. As Christ, God was (so to speak) that "little girl who beat her chest so desperately in the outhouse," the one who's "unavenged tears" caused the edifice of redemption to rise and tower above all humanity. For this, we praise and thank Him forevermore.

Harry Potter: Not anti-Christian, just a-Religious

I am not a Harry Potter fan, "not" in an indifferent sense as opposed to a negative sense. I do not hate the books or movies; I've just never read or seen them. Therefore, it is hard for me to have a conclusive opinion on the subject since I am on the outside looking in. I know many Christians do not like him (like the Witchcraft Repackaged crowd), and others write practical apologetics for him (like the Looking for God in Harry Potter crowd). My standing is more like Greg Koukl; I'm suspicious of both sides, nowhere near convinced that he is either an evil or a God-send.
However, I still find interesting discussions on him to be quite fascinating and thought-provoking. Check out this Time magazine article (of all places) that I found from July of last year. It put another, more interesting, possible reason for Christians (or anyone) to be less than enthusiastic about ol' Potter boy. Take it for what you will. I find it stimulating:

Who dies in Harry Potter? God
by Lev Grossman

"Joanne Rowling has three fancy houses and more money than the Queen, but she still doesn't have a middle name: the K. is just an empty invention, added for effect when she published her first book. Starting with that first letter, she has orchestrated a sustained dramatic crescendo unlike anything literature has ever seen. By selling 325 million books in 66 languages, she has almost single-handedly made the case that the novel can still be a global mass medium. With the fifth Harry Potter movie opening on July 11 and the seventh and last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, coming at midnight on July 21, the crescendo has reached a grand climax.
"Rowling's work is so familiar that we've forgotten how radical it really is. Look at her literary forebears. In The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien fused his ardent Catholicism with a deep, nostalgic love for the unspoiled English landscape. C.S. Lewis was a devout Anglican whose Chronicles of Narnia forms an extended argument for Christian faith. Now look at Rowling's books. What's missing? If you want to know who dies in Harry Potter, the answer is easy: God.
"Harry Potter lives in a world free of any religion or spirituality of any kind. He lives surrounded by ghosts but has no one to pray to, even if he were so inclined, which he isn't. Rowling has more in common with celebrity atheists like Christopher Hitchens than she has with Tolkien and Lewis.
"What does Harry have instead of God? Rowling's answer, at once glib and profound, is that Harry's power comes from love. This charming notion represents a cultural sea change. In the new millennium, magic comes not from God or nature or anything grander or more mystical than a mere human emotion. In choosing Rowling as the reigning dreamer of our era, we have chosen a writer who dreams of a secular, bureaucratized, all-too-human sorcery, in which psychology and technology have superseded the sacred.
"When the end comes, where will it leave Harry? He'll face tougher choices than his fantasy ancestors did. Frodo was last seen skipping town with the elves. Lewis sent the Pevensie kids to the paradise of Aslan's Land. It's unlikely that such a comfortable retirement awaits Harry in the Deathly Hallows."

My further thoughts on this same idea can be found at the bottom of this blog article.

Immigration and Denmark

My dad sent this to me. Read carefully:

"Salute the Danish Flag - it's a Symbol of Western Freedom"

By Susan MacAllen (a contributing editor for FamilySecurityMatters.org)

In 1978-9 I was living and studying in Denmark. But in 1978 - even in Copenhagen, one didn't see Muslim immigrants. The Danish population embraced visitors, celebrated the exotic, and went out of its way to protect each of its citizens. It was proud of its new brand of socialist liberalism one in development since the conservatives had lost power in 1929 - a system where no worker had to struggle to survive, where one ultimately could count upon the state as in, perhaps, no other western nation at the time.

The rest of Europe saw the Scandinavians as free-thinking, progressive, and infinitely generous in their welfare policies. Denmark boasted low crime rates, devotion to the environment, a superior educational system and a history of humanitarianism.

Denmark was also most generous in its immigration policies - it offered the best welcome in Europe to the new immigrant: generous welfare payments from first arrival plus additional perks in transportation, housing and education. It was determined to set a world example for inclusiveness and multiculturalism. How could it have predicted that one day in 2005 a series of political cartoons in a newspaper would spark violence that would leave dozens dead in the streets -all because its commitment to multiculturalism would come back to bite?

By the 1990's the growing urban Muslim population was obvious - and its unwillingness to integrate into Danish society was obvious. Years of immigrants had settled into Muslim-exclusive enclaves. As the Muslim leadership became more vocal about what they considered the decadence of Denmark's liberal way of life, the Danes - once so welcoming - began to feel slighted. Many Danes had begun to see Islam as incompatible with their long-standing values: belief in personal liberty and free speech, in equality for women, in tolerance for other ethnic groups, and a deep pride in Danish heritage and history.

The New York Post in 2002 ran an article by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard, in which they forecasted accurately that the growing immigrant problem in Denmark would explode. In the article they reported: "Muslim immigrants constitute 5 percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending." "Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes."

"Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population. A recent survey finds that only 5 percent of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane." "Forced marriages - promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death - are one problem"

"Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark's Muslim population grows large enough - a not-that-remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim."

It is easy to understand why a growing number of Danes would feel that Muslim immigrants show little respect for Danish values and laws. An example is the phenomenon common to other European countries and the U.S.: some Muslims in Denmark who opted to leave the Muslim faith have been murdered in the name of Islam, while others hide in fear for their lives. Jews are also threatened and harassed openly by Muslim leaders in Denmark, a country where once Christian citizens worked to smuggle out nearly all of their 7,000 Jews by night to Sweden - before the Nazis could invade. I think of my Danish friend Elsa - who as a teenager had dreaded crossing the street to the bakery every morning under the eyes of occupying Nazi soldiers - and I wonder what she would say today.

In 2001, Denmark elected the most conservative government in some 70 years - one that had some decidedly non-generous ideas about liberal unfettered immigration. Today Denmark has the strictest immigration policies in Europe. (Its effort to protect itself has been met with accusations of "racism" by liberal media across Europe - even as other governments struggle to right the social problems wrought by years of too-lax immigration.)

If you wish to become Danish, you must attend three years of language classes. You must pass a test on Denmark's history, culture, and a Danish language test. You must live in Denmark for 7 years before applying for citizenship. You must demonstrate an intent to work, and have a job waiting. If you wish to bring a spouse into Denmark, you must both be over 24 years of age, and you won't find it so easy anymore to move your friends and family to Denmark with you.

You will not be allowed to build a mosque in Copenhagen. Although your children have a choice of some 30 Arabic culture and language schools in Denmark, they will be strongly encouraged to assimilate to Danish society in ways that past immigrants weren't.

In 2006, the Danish minister for employment, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, spoke publicly of the burden of Muslim immigrants on the Danish welfare system, and it was horrifying: the government's welfare committee had calculated that if immigration from Third World countries were blocked, 75 percent of the cuts needed to sustain the huge welfare system in coming decades would be unnecessary. In other words, the welfare system as it existed was being exploited by immigrants to the point of eventually bankrupting the government. "We are simply forced to adopt a new policy on immigration. The calculations of the welfare committee are terrifying and show how unsuccessful the integration of immigrants has been up to now," he said.

A large thorn in the side of Denmark's imams is the Minister of Immigration and Integration, Rikke Hvilshoj. She makes no bones about the new policy toward immigration, "The number of foreigners coming to the country makes a difference," Hvilshøj says, "There is an inverse correlation between how many come here and how well we can receive the foreigners that come." And on Muslim immigrants needing to demonstrate a willingness to blend in, "In my view, Denmark should be a country with room for different cultures and religions. Some values, however, are more important than others. We refuse to question democracy, equal rights, and freedom of speech."

Hvilshoj has paid a price for her show of backbone. Perhaps to test her resolve, the leading radical imam in Denmark, Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, demanded that the government pay blood money to the family of a Muslim who was murdered in a suburb of Copenhagen, stating that the family's thirst for revenge could be thwarted for money. When Hvilshoj dismissed his demand, he argued that in Muslim culture the payment of retribution money was common, to which Hvilshoj replied that what is done in a Muslim country is not necessarily what is done in Denmark. The Muslim reply came soon after: her house was torched while she, her husband and children slept. All managed to escape unharmed, but she and her family were moved to a secret location and she and other ministers were assigned bodyguards for the first time - in a country where such murderous violence was once so scarce.

Her government has slid to the right, and her borders have tightened. Many believe that what happens in the next decade will determine whether Denmark survives as a bastion of good living, humane thinking and social responsibility, or whether it becomes a nation at civil war with supporters of Sharia law.

And meanwhile, Americans clamor for stricter immigration policies, and demand an end to state welfare programs that allow many immigrants to live on the public dole. As we in America look at the enclaves of Muslims amongst us, and see those who enter our shores too easily, dare live on our taxes, yet refuse to embrace our culture, respect our traditions, participate in our legal system, obey our laws, speak our language, and appreciate our history. We would do well to look to Denmark, and say a prayer for her future and for our own.

Some Thoughts on Government

I once heard a pastor say that, technically speaking, America's War of Independence was a sin because we failed to be "subject to the higher powers." In refusing to submit to British authority, we violated said biblical mandate, and therefore our country's freedom and very existence is founded on sin. That is the first thought I wish to address.
It had been the long held, orthodox Christian stance that all communitive dynamics are reciprocal in nature. Take Paul's command to husbands ("love your wives") and wives ("submit to your husbands"). Though one of those can happen without the other, the way it is supposed to work is that they happen because of the other. The husband loves the wife because she submits; the wife submits to the husband because he loves her. It does not matter who starts it, just as long as it keeps going. This reciprocal element means that the participants will do their part willingly, and not out of force or a sense of duty.
This reciprocal element is the key to the citizen/government dynamic as well. Generally speaking, Christianity has taught that the purpose of government is to seek the good of the people (or so Romans 13:1-7 says). In response to said good-seeking, the people submit to the government (see vs. 7 of Rom. 13; the "therefore" implies that it is the logical outcome of the previous verses). That is how it is supposed to work. Our founding fathers said as much in the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness [i.e., the 'good']. That to secure these rights [i.e., 'seek the good'], Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Because they understood the reciprocal element that makes a healthy citizen/government dynamic, our founding fathers knew that when a government ceased to keep its end up, it ceased to be a government in the biblical sense and no longer merited submission (obviously, they were drawing heavily from Aquinas and Locke as well as the Bible):

"Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect [i.e., 'seek the good'] their Safety and Happiness [i.e., the 'good']."

In Matthew 22:21 (one of my favorite government verses), Jesus simultaneously denounces tyranny and anarchy. The only way to avoid both is to follow what is laid down in Romans: governments, seek the good of the people and not your own good (therefore, do not be tyrants); people, submit yourselves to the government, and let them be your authority (therefore, do not be anarchists). Our founding fathers understood this, and I defiantly claim that their move for our independence was one of the most Christian acts our government has ever committed. It was done with a complete understanding and sensitivity to biblical mandates, and was in no way a sin of any kind.

My second thought concerns the ludicrous "separation of church and state" clause that does not exist in our Constitution or its Amendments (check for yourself). It has come to my attention that proponents of said non-existent clause seem to be confused in regards to the difference between religion and truth. Our founding fathers, having come from the tyrannical state church of England, and being Protestants with a firm memory of "holy Roman" empires, knew well what happens when politics and religion become bed-fellows. Thus, they made the first amendment, which guarantees that the two are to never get bound up with each other. However, there is nothing in that amendment (or any founding document) that even remotely suggests that politics is not to be bound up with truth.
I say this because it frustrates me to no end when politicians today denounce the involvement of religious ideas, citing the first amendment as their grounds, without first checking if said ideas are true. It is perfectly fine (and American) for the government to deny favoritism to or endorsement of any religion; it is not at all fine (or American) for the government to deny favoritism to or endorsement of the truth. Separation of church and state (if it were real) does not mean separation of truth and state. That religions happen to endorse or adhere to certain truth claims does not mean that those truth claims are religious, but that those religions are philosophies that seek out the truth. Truth transcends religion. Our founding fathers knew that. That is why they could make the first amendment without batting an eyelash: they could tell the difference between what was religious and what was true. We could sure use a return to such sanity.

God's Impracticality (or, Why God is Not a Superman Villain)

This blog entry has piqued some curious thoughts in my brain. The subject matter (and comments, and atheist blog responses) is a bit much to all take in, so I'll summarize and then make my point. Basically, there is an atheist argument put forth against God that goes a little something like this: if man is the crown jewel, the apex of God's creation, then God would have built a more "human-scale" (i.e., smaller) universe, a universe more conducive to human exploration and dominion, a universe that reflected man's position as the apex of creation. However, because the universe is not "human-scale," because it's so...so...big, obviously there is no God, because if there was one, than He would have made a universe fit for man. Yeah.
I could get bogged down in historical facts (like how people have known since Ptolemy that the universe was huge, and it never affected Christian faith), or cultural facts (like the real meaning behind Dante's universe in The Divine Comedy; our good old friend atheist Joe completely butchers it), but I won't. Heck, I won't even quibble with old atheistic trump cards (old Joe asks what was the purpose of all the suffering of animal life that existed before man; you know, for a man that supposedly has something "equivalent" to a "Ph.d." in theology, he forgets the Fall at the drop of a hat. Just a quickie: Death is a result of sin. Sin is a result of the Fall. Therefore, before the Fall, there was no death, e.g., "the law predation"). Anyway, I found something more interesting to grapple with.
You see, I couldn't help noticing several atheists (when commenting on the blog) kept making statements like this:
"What about places in the universe where mankind hasn't reached and will never reach? What about parts of the universe that are inhospitable to man? What's the point of them if man can't reach them?"
"What was the point of life before man? Why did God not just make man and everything all at once?"
These statements (and those like them) come from the basic premises of the aforementioned argument (i.e., If God were real, He would have created a universe that reflected man's position as the apex of creation). There are all basically asking the same thing: Why is God so impractical? You would think He would not be so wasteful, so distracted. Why all these galaxies? Why not just ours? Why all this stars? Why not just ours? Why all these worlds? Why not just ours? Why is there anything other than that which is necessary for man?
What I find interesting about all this is the assumption behind these statements, i.e., that God (if He's real) is practical. He would take the most effective and most efficient course in all His doings. Any signs of ineffectiveness or inefficiency, any signs of impracticality, speaks against God's existence. It was here that I was struck with a tremendous (though blindingly obvious) thought: the God the atheist claim we believe in is not the God we believe in.
Apparently, the God that the atheists believe that we believe in is mere machine, mere brain, a cold, calculating computer (kinda like Brainiac, the villainous Kryptonian computer from the adventures of Superman). The universe as it is disproves the existence of such a God. That's perfectly fine. Such a concept of God should be damned as heresy.
I want to say this deliberately and defiantly: Christianity has never believed in a practical God, per se, i.e., we have never believed in the God that is all brain. We have long held that the God who is is a brain and a heart, i.e., a person (in fact, three persons in one). Christianity has always held to a personal God, a God with artistic flair, a God who is "wondrously wasteful," a God who enjoys a perfect disinterestedness that does not require Him to create anything other than for the joy of creating it.
We have never believed in a machine God. If God is a machine, then why stop your questions at the "wasted spaces" and "wasted times" of the universe? Quit being cowards and ask the courageous question: Why is there anything at all? Why is there history? Why are there races? Why are there people? Why is there our world, and star, and galaxy? Why did God even bother with creation? Why did He bother with angels or mankind? The fact is that even a "human-scale" universe would be impractical in the end. The universe, of any conceivable size or structure, is ultimately superfluous, fundamentally unnecessary; it does not need to be. Than why is it?
Why does an artist create? Generally speaking, for the sheer joy of creation, and nothing more. The atheists are most correct in saying the universe disproves a machine God; any universe would disprove a machine God. Thank goodness we do not believe in such a God.
In addition (and this is key), Christianity has never held that the universe is for man. That man is the "apex" does not necessitate that the universe is about man. The universe is for and about God. Man's "apexness," man's very existence, is meant to point to Him, not us. The universe is for Him, not us. We are for Him, and not ourselves. The animals that existed before us were for Him, not us. The spaces we can never reach, both on and off our world, are for Him, not us. They are to His glory, not ours. The glaring error in the argument "If God were real, He would have created a universe that reflected man's position as the apex of creation," is that creation reflects the creator, and man is a part of the creation; its "apex" maybe, but still just a part, just as a peak is just a part of the mountain, and the mountain is just a part of the earth, and the earth is just a part of the universe. As a part of the creation, man joins in all creation by reflecting the glory of the creator. Simply put, the universe is not supposed to be "human-scale." It is supposed to be God-scale.
By the way, that all is for God and for His glory rubs atheists the wrong way. "Why does He deserve it?" God deserves it because He is God, the highest and the greatest, the par excellence of all things. Strictly speaking, God doesn't need to do anything to be worthy or praise; He just needs to be, and He is worthy. Creation is, in one sense, an added bonus, a superfluous wonderland for His pleasure and ours, built to bathe us in the glory of God.
Interesting enough, C.S. Lewis dealt with this very issue (surprise, surprise). In Perelandra, the protagonist Elwin Ransom had an interesting question for the king of Venus, to which the king (and the angelic guardians present) had an interesting response that states the Christian stance I have been talking about much better than I ever could (this excerpt can be found in the last chapter):

"I am full of doubts and ignorance," said Ransom, "In our world, those who know [God] at all believe that His coming down to us and being a man is the central happening of all that happens. If you take that from me, [sir], whither will you lead me? Surely not to the enemy's talk which thrust my world and my race into a remote corner and gives me a universe with no centre at all, but millions of worlds that lead nowhere or (what is worse) to more and more worlds for ever, and comes over me with numbers and empty spaces and repetitions and asks me to bow down before bigness. Or do you make your world the centre? But I am troubled. What of the people on [Mars]? Would they also think that their world was the centre? I do not even see how your world can rightly be called yours. You were made yesterday and it is from old. The most of it is water where you cannot live. And what of the things beneath its crust? And of the great spaces with no world at all? Is the enemy so easily answered when He says that all is without plan or meaning? As soon as we think we see one it melts away into nothing, or into some other plan that we never dreamed of, and what was the centre becomes the rim, till we doubt if any shape or plan or pattern was ever more than a trick of our own eyes, cheated with hope, or tired with too much looking. To what is it all driving? [...]"

Does that sound familiar? "Why all the wasted spaces? Why all the wasted time? How can mankind by the focus of it all when it all is so big?" The angelic guardians answer. Their answer is huge, so I will only copy some key parts. I recommend you find the book and read the whole section...heck, read the whole book while your at it:

"Though men or angels rule them, the worlds are for themselves. The waters you have not floated on, the fruit you have not plucked, the caves into which you have not descended and the fire through which your bodies cannot pass, do not await your coming to put on perfection, though they will obey you when you come. Times without number I have circled Arbol while you were not alive, and those times were not desert. Their own voice was in them, not merely a dreaming of the day when you should awake. They also were at the centre. Be comforted, small immortals. You are not the voice that all things utter, nor is there eternal silence in the places where you cannot come. No feet have walked, nor shall, on the ice of Glund; no eye looked up from beneath on the Ring of Lurga, and Iron-plain Neruval is chaste and empty. Yet it is not for nothing that the gods walk ceaselessly around the fields of Arbol...
"That Dust itself...is at the centre. It waits not till created eyes have seen it or handled it, to be in itself a strength and splendor of [God]...[Always], and beyond all distances, before [beast, man, or god] came and after they are gone and where they never come...[Dust] utters the heart of the Holy One with its own voice...
"Each grain is at the centre. The Dust is at the centre. The Worlds are at the centre. The beasts are at the centre. The ancient peoples [i.e., Mars] are at the center. The race that sinned [i.e., Earth] is there. Tor and Tinidril [i.e., Venus] are there. The gods are there also...
"Where [God] is, there is the centre. He is in every place. Not some of Him in one place and some in another, but in every place the whole [God], even in the smallness beyond thought. There is no way out of the centre, save into the Bent Will which casts itself into the Nowhere...
"Each thing was made for Him. He is the centre. Because we are with Him, each of us is at the centre...Each thing, from the single grain of Dust to the strongest [angel], is the end and final cause of all creation and the mirror in which the beam of His brightness comes to rest and so returns to Him...
"All that is made seems planless to the darkened mind, because there are more plans that it looked for...There seems no plan because it is all plan: there seems no centre because it is all centre..."

Tornaders and The Big Picture

This past Tuesday evening was one wild night, and I'm not talking about the elections. A huge cold front ripped across the Mid-south, bringing with it around 30 tornadoes and killing about fifty people from Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Union University was totaled; the Hickory Ridge Mall was smashed; houses were obliterated; cars were flipped; and, oh yes, people died.
Times like these can bring out the old atheistic trump card: "If God is so good, why all the destruction?" Ah, yes; the good old "problem of evil." For me, however, times like these make that "problem" a rather odd question to ask.
Consider: why did only fifty people die? (Stay with me, now; I'm not being callous.) We had thirty tornadoes cutting across three states. Why aren't we hearing about hundreds, even thousands, of deaths? Why only fifty? Those fifty are horrible and sobering on their own, but problem-of-evil proponents don't like those nit-picky details; they like the big picture (Try and tell them in the midst of a tragedy: "What about all those who survived?" They'll say: "What about all those who were killed!" See? Big picture). They'll say: "Look at the big picture! All that devastation! All those deaths!" Okay, fine. We'll stick with the big picture then: thirty tornadoes and only fifty deaths. That is not a "problem of evil." That is a miracle, and nothing else.
Consider also: Union University was slammed with a F4 tornado, the second most powerful tornado possible (the highest is an F5). The university dorms (where the F4 tornado mostly hit) were full of students. How come no one was killed? That's right: the second most powerful tornado possible strikes buildings full of people, and no one is killed. Is that an opportunity for agnosticism, or to fall down on your knees and worship? Only a narrow-minded fool chooses the former.
At the risk of sounding very cheesy (and cliche), why can't atheist just look at the bright side? In other words, why can't they see the miracles that occur in the midst of (and not in spite of) the tragedies? It's like they wear blinders that funnel everything bad and wretched right into their faces until they are smothered by darkness. I am convinced that most atheistic tendencies are the result of always seeing the glass half empty. Chesterton was right in noting that atheist and agnostics seem to be caught in perpetual pessimism: they are forced to be "gay about the little things, but sad about the big ones;" and I believe Chesterton to be right when he said, "It is not native to man to be so."
For the Christian, the big picture is joy, the joy of the Lord, the joy of knowing the Lord; and grief is merely another opportunity to know Him even more. Joy is fundamental; grief is superficial. For the atheist, however, it is reversed. The big picture is grief, the grief of man, the grief of man alone; and joy is merely a way to escape reality, to escape the despair. Grief is fundamental, but joy isn't even superficial; it is non-existent, an illusion. True Christianity is wise enough to admit that there is grief; but it is also brave and courageous enough to defiantly proclaim that grief is not the end, not the big picture. The big picture is transitory grief surrounded and penetrated by eternal joy.
There is grief (fifty people really were killed), but there is joy (many more should have died that didn't). The question is, "Where is your focus?" Solely on grief, and a man turns from God. Solely on joy, and man becomes naive (though much happier). Solely on both, and man sees the big picture; and consequently, finds God, for His presence is found in both the laughter and the pain. Amen.