Homeward Bound

Abortion Forever?

2013-05-15T12:21:00.003-05:00

One of the few things we heard out of the mainstream media during the Gosnell hearing is "this is what happens when abortions are hard to get."

The argument must be aimed at bolstering their own supporters, because it's not an argument that will convince many pro-lifers. My brain always interprets this kind of logic as "if abortion isn't legal, people might die when they try to murder their children." Less than compelling.

The other argument I've heard a lot lately is "we've always had abortion and we always will."

It's true we've always had abortion. For centuries people have dealt with unwanted children by killing them — either before they were born or after. Does that make it OK? Of course not. Does that mean it will always be with us? Not necessarily.

There's something else we can say we've pretty much always had: slavery. It's existed in some form or another for thousands of years. It still exists, even in the United States.

But it's not what it once was. Once, slavery was normal. People thought nothing of it. It was a fact of life.

Today, it's recognized by 99% of the human race as a horror and a crime. We may never stamp it out, but we've relegated it to the shadows, and there's a good chance we can make it too risky, too dangerous to practice if we keep the pressure on. There may soon come a day when there is no slavery on this planet.

Abortion has always existed because there were people who said "my needs are more important than the life of this child." There is a chance that we can change things so that 99% of the human race will say "nothing is more important that the life of a child." That's a dream worth fighting for.

Links

2013-03-22T14:12:00.001-05:00

I think these will be helpful sites for you to visit:

Do "contradictions" discredit the Gospels?
(This is part of a series of videos that, frankly, try to sell a DVD set, but the short video is still a useful piece.)

Forget About Evolution and Inerrancy (for a Minute)

"The issue of origins and inspiration and inerrancy are very important. We eventually need to discuss them. But they arenot 'make or break issues.' And they can be used to sidetrack the Gospel into endless and fruitless debate."

Raising Daughters in a World That Devalues Them: 7 Things We Must Tell Them
Like this author, I have two little girls, and I'm appalled at what our culture wants to teach them about themselves, men, God, and life in general. There are a lot of good thoughts here.

Slaying Giants

2013-03-01T15:30:00.000-06:00

"How do we know there were giants?" my eldest daughter asked, out of the blue.

"Are we talking Jack and Beanstalk or the Bible?"

"The Bible."

The other one chimed in, "Because the Bible's God's word."

"I think what she's really asking is, 'Why do we believe the Bible is God's word?'

"We verify the things that we can. If those things stand up to scrutiny, we can trust the things we can't verify."

My youngest's approach is unfortunately common. She seemed scandalized the older one even asked such a question and wanted to take the "God said it, I believe it" approach.

I want them to know, though, that we don't take the Bible on blind faith. It's a reasoned faith, a trust in a trustworthy source.

We will never be able to verify every line of the Bible. But every year or so we find more reason to trust it. "The Hittites didn't exist." Oh, wait, yes they did. "There was no written language in Canaan during the bronze age." Yes, there very much was. "There was no King David." "Solomon didn't rule as much as the Bible claims." "Israel wasn't a powerful kingdom." The objections keep getting knocked down. And that's just the Old Testament. The NT case is much tighter.

Does this prove there were people two or three feet taller than what would consider "tall?" No. But if the records are reliable everywhere else, we have no good reason to doubt and every reason to accept the account.

Lent Losers

2013-02-14T14:55:00.001-06:00

The Lenten season is upon us. I'm not part of a tradition that observes Lent and have no desire to do so, but I can respect the concept.

So I have trouble respecting those who do it half-heartedly.

Lent isn't a weight loss regimen. Most people I know who observe Lent give up things like bread or caffeine — things Jesus doesn't care about. Yes, it's a season for self-denial, but make it meaningful.

I encourage these people to give up favorite sins like cussing, gossip, or extramarital sex (the last making me less than popular). If you can give up cussing for 40 days, odds are pretty good you'll be able to give it up altogether. Isn't that better than losing five pounds?

If you don't have a habitual sin you can give up (it's hard to give up pride for Lent), try adding a meaningful activity. Pray, read the Bible, or actually fast Fridays and give the money for those meals to the poor.

Make Lent less about Biggest Loser and more about being like Jesus.

Life Links

2013-02-07T11:22:00.002-06:00

Sadly, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to spend time considering and discussing the arguments made in favor of the pro-choice position. If anyone ever makes one, I'll let you know.

Instead, here are a few pieces of pro-life goodness.

* Pro-choicers often say you shouldn't ask a woman not to kill her child unless you are willing to take responsibility for it for the rest of your life. Scott Klusendorf wrote a short piece highlighting the insanity of that complaint.

* Trevin Wax lists 10 questions the media (and we) should ask the pro-choice — questions far more meaningful than the inane ones they pose us.

* Finally, Amy Hall of Stand to Reason and Keith Mathison of Ligonier Ministries explain their pro-life reasoning for anyone who is actually willing to listen.

What Evidence is There for God?

2013-01-31T19:57:00.004-06:00

The case for Christianity consists of different layers. Believing the gospel requires believing miracles can exist. Believing in miracles requires believing in God. The existence of God is the foundation level of the building. How do we get people to believe in God?

Different people will respond to different arguments for the existence of God — that's why there are so many of them. You should have a familiarity with as many as possible, but you may not be able to argue some as convincingly as others. If someone seems inclined toward an argument you're weak on, you can always point them to a book or article, but to be credible, you need to be able to make a case for your own belief.

This is the case I would make:

There are four distinct arguments for the existence of a god I find compelling. While they may resemble each other, they are independent of each other. (Since entire books have been written on this topic, I will offer an abbreviated version of the arguments and point you to more in-depth treatments if you're interested in going further.)

1. The cosmological argument
Every effect must have a cause. The universe began, that is, it is an effect. Therefore it must have a cause. That thing that caused the universe is what we will call God.

Why should we believe the universe began? Physics. Among the reasons are the second law of thermodynamics, general relativity, and Hubble's evidence of an expanding universe. In brief, this universe looks like the remains of an explosion. That explosion occurred at a specific point in time before which our universe did not exist.

Something has to be eternal. The universe isn't it. Whatever ultimately caused our universe is.

Yes, there are cosmologists driving themselves nuts trying to prove the universe didn't get caused or was caused by some natural phenomenon. There are two things to point out about that: 1) They are completely untestable (aka, "not science"). 2) The researchers in question largely admit freely that they are pursuing these things for the sole purpose of getting rid of the moment of creation and therefore the creator. It is not science but philosophy that drives this.

(There are tons of books that cover this. A short, cheap one is the Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics.)

2. The design argument
Our universe, our planet, and life itself show signs of being made very precisely so that life (in fact, intelligent life) can exist. Someone has made all of this possible.

As I posted earlier, before I had ever heard of Intelligent Design, I had been introduced to the concepts via physics professors. Once I came across the totality of the evidence it was pretty stunning. There are dozens of features of the universe that do not have to be any particular value, but for life to exist — any life — they must fall within very tight ranges. Among them: the energy of the big bang, the speed of light, and the ratio of the electromagnetic force to gravity. The last time I checked there were 41 physical constants on the list. Roger Penrose put the odds of the big bang producing a universe fit for life at 1 in 10 to the 10 to the 123 (1 in 10^(10^123)). It is impossible, and yet here we are.

The earth itself shows the same kind of design. Lately the news has been full of the discovery of "earth-like" planets, but you have to understand how loosely they use the term. For life to exist you need a planet in the right part of the right kind of galaxy, orbiting the right distance from the right kind of star, and with a satellite of a certain size. Not only are certain chemicals needed (or needed to be absent), those things require the planet to have a certain size and certain physical characteristics. Life is far easier to kill than to sustain, so it takes a very special planet to provide a place where any life — much less intelligent life — can thrive. There really is no reason there had to be even one.

Finally, the very existence of life is a puzzle. Listening to many scientists, you would think life is so easy to build it should be around every corner. It's not. For natural processes to create life, you need a very special group of chemicals kept in a very careful balance. You need these chemicals to create a self-replicating system than allows errors to creep in. You need some of those errors to not be toxic, though most are. You need something to protect that life from the very forces that created it. The truth is the universe is not old enough for natural process alone to have produced microbial life, much less us. If there is no God, our existence is more of a miracle than if he exists.

It was the design argument that convinced Anthony Flew of the existence of God. The cumulative case for design to get us here is so great that the universe has been described as a "put up job" by some scientists.

(Here you really need more depth, so I recommend dedicated books like The Creator and the Cosmos or some of Ross' other works. Destiny or Chance, though not Christian, is a good book on the topic, too, if you don't mind his naturalistic conclusions.)

3. The moral argument
We know that some things are morally wrong. How do we know that?

I don't mean that some things are a terrible way to run a society. I mean some things should never happen. We have no problem saying the Holocaust was wrong. We all see hurting children as abhorrent and condemn people like the Indian gang rapists and Adolph Hitler with every bit of righteous indignation we can muster. There are people who don't seem to possess a properly developed moral sense, but, like color-blindness, the defect only serves to highlight the norm.

We all believe that there is an objective standard for right and wrong. Even those who claim they don't can't live like that.

Where would such a thing come from? Valiant attempts at an evolutionary explanation have been made, but they all fall short because the thing we know we should do is often, from a survival of the fittest (or survival of our genes) point of view, the last thing we should do. The simple truth is we all possess knowledge of a moral standard that comes from outside of us. The only explanation is that it is imparted to us by our creator.

CS Lewis made this argument famous in his Mere Christianity.

4. The argument from religious experience
The argument here is not that people's religious experiences are true. It is simply that everyone has them.

This is another argument handled ably by Lewis (again, Mere Christianity), so I will simply borrow from him:

Hunger presupposes the existence of food. Thirst presupposes water. Humans yearn to fulfill a spiritual need that we really can't explain, but its presence points to the existence of Something that can fill it. As Lewis put it, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

The universality of religion points to the existence of God. It doesn't matter that different peoples have gone about it different ways. It is that every people has gone about it. In what other situation do humans feel a deep need for something that doesn't exist?

Of course, all of these arguments are for A god, but not necessarily for the God. Rather than argue directly for God, I would argue for Christianity, with the Christian conception of God included. What follows depends on one of the previous arguments being successful. For someone to take the Bible or Christianity seriously, they have to be open to the possibility of the miraculous. This, then, is the second layer of the argument, depending on the first:

5. The reliability of scripture
If someone automatically discounts the miraculous, the phrase "reliability of scripture" is going to be laughable. But if they are open to the possibility, we can show that where the Bible can be tested, it has been shown to be historically reliable. You can probably get away with just the New Testament, but the Old Testament can be shown to be reliable, too. That doesn't mean there aren't still question marks hanging around, but it has been shown to be correct many times and it has never been shown to be conclusively wrong.

The primary goal is to show that the authors of the New Testament 1) were trying to and 2) were successful at giving an honest account of what they experienced. If they presented what happened as they saw it, we can then talk about what they thought they saw.

(Besides the books linked in the paragraph, The Case for Christ is a good introduction to this topic and the next.)

6. The resurrection
If the gospels are reliable, we can address what they say about Jesus and his death and resurrection. As I have argued before, the gospel is a story no one would make up. But even if they were trying to be honest, they might be mistaken. The question is, what is the best explanation for the resurrection and the birth of the New Testament church — a miraculous or natural explanation?

If someone doesn't believe miracles are at least possible, no naturalistic explanation is more ridiculous than an actual resurrection. But if they are open to the possibility, we can show that a supernatural resurrection is the simplest, sanest explanation.

Hundreds of people saw Jesus die. Hundreds of people saw Jesus alive afterwards. Even some who didn't believe in Jesus before hand saw him. Because of this they overturned their lives — giving up the way they were raised to follow after new teachings (in a culture that distrusted the new), preaching the triumph of an executed criminal, and risking their relationships and even lives. Every natural explanation looks ridiculous in the face of what they did, what they risked. The only reasonable explanation is that they saw what they believed to be the resurrected Jesus — in different times and places and under differing conditions, making their being mistaken ridiculously unlikely. The most reasonable conclusion is that Jesus really did get up and bodily leave his grave.

7. On that basis, we can build the third layer: If the resurrection happened, it's a short trip from there to Christianity. Jesus himself pointed to his resurrection as the vindication of all he taught and claimed about himself. It's hard to disagree — getting raised from the dead is a pretty good sign God is on your side. Even if you have trouble believing in some biblical passage or facet of Christian teaching, the major pieces are pretty well in place, and that includes the Christian conception of God.

There is no other religion with scriptures of the same character and quality as Christianity. There is no other religion with a huge, public, defensible miraculous foundation. Christianity and it's conception of God win any contest.

An Offer for the Pro-Choice

2013-01-22T12:15:00.002-06:00

In honor of the anniversary of Roe v Wade, I'd like to present our pro-choice friends an opportunity and an offer.

The pro-life side of the abortion debate has put quite a lot of energy into explaining why we are pro-life. We think unborn human beings (whether zygote, embryo, or fetus), by mere virtue of the fact that they are human beings, have the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness enjoyed by born humans, from infant to adult. We think denying these rights, especially life itself, to unborn humans is a terrible evil that harms the society that allows it almost as much as the actual victim. We have explained this and our reasoning for it in great detail in many places and in many ways.

And the pro-choice side responds that we are terrible prudes who just want to control people's sex lives or some other non-sequitur.

So here is the opportunity: This is a place where you can spell out the reason why an unborn human being is not entitled to the same protections you are. Explain why it's ok to kill a human being two months before birth but not two months after.

The offer: Convince me of your position, and I will promise to be a single-issue, pro-choice voter for the next two years. I will not allow tax policy or international issues to influence my vote in any election where there is only one pro-choice candidate. I offer you the prize of a convert. If, that is, you can make a persuasive case.

Ready, set, go!

Miracles and Broccoli

2013-01-17T19:32:00.001-06:00

Last time I argued that we should be opened minded about miracles. A natural response is, So what?

If miracles are possible, that doesn't mean they're common. That doesn't mean any of the miracles in the Bible really happened. It doesn't mean the Bible's trustworthy. So what does it matter?

Imagine you're trying to convince your child to eat her broccoli. You begin to try to explain how wholesome and nutritious broccoli is. But your child interrupts: "I'll listen to you, but first we have to agree to assume broccoli is poisonous."

A fair fight? Of course not.

That's how many skeptics want to approach the Bible: "Miracles are impossible. The supernatural doesn't exist. Now give me your evidence for this resurrection thing."

If miracles are off the table, no explanation for the resurrection is more ridiculous than an actual resurrection. However if miracles are possible — not assumed, just possible — naturalistic explanations for the resurrection (and related events) start to seem a bit far fetched. We just have to make sure the person we're talking to isn't starting from the wrong presuppositions.

Because if someone's willing to give the evidence a fair hearing, I think it'll win every time.

Why are Miracles Impossible?

2013-01-10T12:26:00.001-06:00

What's the problem with miracles? Why are so many so sure they can't happen?

I'm not talking about those who say they don't happen. If you haven't seen one, I can understand being doubtful. But some people are so sure miracles can't happen. Why?

Picture a mouse. You put it in terrarium and close the lid. Inside is a platform raised six inches off the floor and at the bottom a large rock, say ten pounds. Getting the rock to the top of the platform would require exerting more than ten pounds of force against the force of gravity. But the terrarium is a closed system, and nothing inside it is capable of generating that kind of force.

There is no way the mouse could get that rock to the top of the raised area. As long as that lid stays closed, that rock isn't moving.

To skeptics, our universe is that closed terrarium. The rock is anything the laws of nature say can't happen — water turning into wine, a donkey talking, the dead rising, whatever. These things simply can't happen because it would violate every rule by which the universe operates. Miracles are impossible because our universe is a closed system. Nothing inside it can do these things, and nothing outside it can affect anything inside it.

Back to the mouse: You come in and find the rock on top of the platform. You know the mouse couldn't have moved the rock. You know the rock didn't move by itself. Therefore, someone opened the lid and moved the rock.

In our world, when something happens (or is reported to have happened) that violates the natural laws, we know it didn't, because we live in a close system and nothing inside it can overcome those natural laws (therefore there must be a natural explanation).

But that assumes, in reference to our analogy, that someone built a terrarium that he couldn't open.

(It also assumes that we know everything about our universe such as who is in it — meaning, not God — and what the rules are — as in, there are no exceptions built into the laws we've observed, but that's really beside the point at the moment.)

I've never seen an out-and-out, no-other-possible-explanation miracle that I know of. But I believe, for many good reasons, that this universe was created. And I believe that anyone capable of building his own universe is probably capable of doing pretty much whatever he wants to in it. So even if miracles aren't common (which they shouldn't be, by definition), they are certainly possible.

Resolving to be Holy

2012-12-27T15:55:00.000-06:00

It's New Year's resolution season. This year instead of resolving to lose weight or quit clipping your toenails in the living room (not that those aren't good resolutions), let's try for something more substantive.

We all say, I want to be more like Jesus. But how do we do that? It's easy to get overwhelmed and do nothing. We need to get specific.

Identify the problem
Everyone commits the "little" sins — things like lying or selfishness — and we should fight against those, but we also all have one or two sins that are a particular problem for us. Some might call it your favorite sin, but more likely it's the one you feel is kicking your butt. It's time to do something about that. The sin that so easily entangles has to go.

We say that we struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The flesh is usually our biggest problem, but the world definitely teams up with it, feeding and encouraging our worst impulses.

You may have heard the analogy that the flesh warring with the spirit is like two dogs fighting, and the one you feed will win. We need to cut off the flesh's food supply.

Identify the source
Here's an example: Covetousness. At it's core, coveting is about being dissatisfied with what you have. But you can't be dissatisfied with your lot unless you're aware of the options. You feed your covetousness every time you take in all the things you don't have — whether it's window shopping at the mall or driving by the new car lots or simply browsing the sale ads in the newspaper.

You're fine with your coffee maker until you see the one that will get up off the counter and gently shake your arm to wake you while percolating coffee to a jazzy tune. You're fine with your car until you start contemplating the unending comforts of "rich Corinthian leather."

You can cut off the food to your covetous heart by cutting off the flow of information about things you don't need. Don't look at sales ads to see what's out there. Check out the new coffee pots only after yours dies. Stay away from car lots until it's actually time to replace your car. By removing the things you don't have from your mind, you give yourself fewer things to be unsatisfied about.

Oh, covetousness isn't your problem? How about lust? Cut off the supply. No, I'm not talking about pornography. That's an effect, not the cause. Our society loves to feed our lust — on billboards, on tv, and, of course, as we walk down the street. Guys, if that's your problem, you might need to change gyms. Ladies, perhaps you need to change reading material.

Maybe it's cursing. How do the people you spend your time with talk? What about your entertainment choices?

Make a specific plan
Whatever it is, figure out the sources of the food and cut them off.

Make a plan. A specific plan. "I will covet less" will get you nowhere. "I will stop driving by the car lot" is specific, and it's easy to tell how you're doing.

Figure out how you can stop feeding the flesh: "I will stop loitering outside the aerobics class." "I will stop watching movies with bad language." Whatever it is, do something concrete.

Keep it going
Then do something else concrete. Whatever change you make is just a drop in the bucket. You stopped driving by the car lot; now excuse yourself when your friend starts talking about his new car. You stopped hanging out watching women in spandex; now stop watching the LFL games.

Then continue. This is a process. Keep looking for things you can change, ways to cut off the food. As you progress, hopefully the beast will get weaker.

I suggest making a list. I'll bet you can think of five things you do that feed your problem. Surely you can name three. In Dave Ramsey style, start with the easiest one to cut out. Then move down the list. By the time you've finished the list you should be able to name other habits that contribute to your problem. Make a new list and start down it.

Watch out
Back to the world, the flesh, and the devil: Most of the time I think the devil is the least of our problems — until you try to make some real changes. This is spiritual warfare. Expect to be attacked. Look for it. Plan on it. Be on your guard.

A lot of times we should resist the devil. We need to fight and we can win. But not in this. If you were any good at fighting on this issue, it wouldn't be an issue. Run. When temptation springs up, head for the hills.

Persevere
It's going to be a long road. But by this time next year you will hopefully be a lot more like Jesus than you are today. And hopefully I'll be there with you.

Happy Mayan Doomsday

2012-12-21T09:43:00.001-06:00

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." And the Mayans. Really?

I'm not terribly worried that the world will end today. (I am worried the slightest little thing might set off the nuts, so be watchful out there.)

But honestly, looking at the world around us, it's hard to think it would be a bad thing. Not Quetzalcoatl's end of the world but Jesus'. We look forward to a day with no more sorrow, no more pain, when every tear will be wiped away, and we are saved from even the presence of sin.

No, that doesn't sound bad at all.

"Come, Lord Jesus."

The Most Important Question

2012-12-17T12:50:00.001-06:00

Following the Newton school shooting, people are asking all kinds of questions, and they are important. What can we do to prevent these shootings? How did this man's family and friends not see this coming? How can we prepare our kids in case this happens in their schools? Should gun laws be changed?

The hardest question is also the most important one: What is wrong with us that we're creating these people?

Even though some gun laws have been relaxed over the last decade, guns are still much harder to get than they were 40 years ago. But this kind of thing didn't happen then. Certainly not in the numbers that it is happening now.

So what has changed in our society that we are producing these monsters?

That's the question we've got to answer. The guy with the knife in China, the guys with the box cutters on September 11, and Timothy McVeigh didn't need guns to kill lots of people. Evil will find a way. We have to find a way to stop the evil.

What are we doing wrong? That's the question that has to be answered.

Review: Oxygen

2012-12-12T12:59:00.001-06:00

The first manned mission to Mars. An explosion en route leaves the four astronauts with only enough oxygen for one. NASA's solution: Put three of them in a coma and let the fourth take care of them all the way to Mars. But one of them is probably the saboteur....

Oxygen, first published in 2001, wraps a thriller around some powerful theological reflection on the nature of faith and its relationship to doubt and uncertainty. It also deals with the science-versus-faith dance and attitudes toward "fundamentalists" (a term as ill-defined in the book as in our society).

It's also a fun, nerve-racking ride.

I highly recommend it to any and all believers, particularly those dealing with doubt and skepticism. I would also love to get it into the hands of non-believers, especially scientists leery of being pigeon-holed if they're open to Christianity.

Unfortunately, Oxygen was put out by a Christian publisher and is unlikely to end up on any shelf not in the "Christian fiction" section of a bookstore. It's the problem of the Christian Ghetto (or Country Club if you prefer). There's nothing wrong with in-focused works to help fellow believers, but those things will have little to no impact on the rest of the world. I'd give anything for this book to have been put out by Bantam instead of Bethany.

But that has no bearing on the book itself. Oxygen is a great story and would be a great gift for just about anyone.

Perspective links

2012-12-07T09:14:00.001-06:00

* A different perspective on the culture war:

"I want to suggest that hospitality is a radical alternative to both the language and practice of culture wars."

Read why and how it would work in The Culture of Hospitality.

* A different perspective on the poor:

"[T]he historical evidence is in, and it is quite clear: over the last 200 years, free markets, not government programs, have created wealth that has brought general worldwide benefit to the poor, lifting multitudes out of grinding poverty."

Paul Copan explains in The Poor and Free Markets.

* A different perspective on assisted suicide. A very different perspective:

"As a good pro-choice liberal, I ought to support [assisted suicide]. But as a lifelong disabled person, I cannot."

Read his story and concerns in Suicide by Choice? Not So Fast.

Giving Thanks

2012-11-22T10:38:00.001-06:00

We are thankful for the blessings we've received. We know we have been given much. We also have been forgiven much and promised even more.

Can we live our lives every day in light of that thankfulness? Can every decision be an expression of our thanks for all God has given us? Today, every today, is a good day to find out.

Don't Rock the Vote

2012-11-13T12:58:00.003-06:00

I've been trying to figure out the results of this election. Nothing really changed.

If one party or another had seen a real shift in power, you could argue that the American people accepted their approach and rejected the other's. But that didn't happen.

Instead President Obama was re-elected by a comfortable margin and the House remained comfortably Republican. How do we process this?

There are a certain number of people in this country who will vote for whatever Democrat/Republican is on the ballot. The parties spend a good amount of energy trying to get these people to actually go vote, but their choice is pretty predictable.

Then there's that last 20% or so who go back and forth. They make up their minds based on how they feel about their situation and the candidates in question. If they feel secure, they tend to vote for the status quo. If they don't feel secure, they vote for the candidate who scares them the least.

I think these "moderates" voted for the status quo:

The economy has sloooowly gotten a little better. Unemployment is down a little. The price of gas is down from recent highs. Did Mr. Obama's economic policy cause this? Maybe, maybe not. But it didn't screw things up too badly. Would Romney's policies do better? Maybe, maybe not. But if what's going on right now isn't that bad, why take a chance?

The same applies to the GOP in the House. Whatever you may think about them, they haven't burned the place down, so why stir up trouble?

If that's the case, what does that say about the future? I don't think anyone was voting for gridlock, per se. But since one side ran on tax increases and the other on tax cuts, neither side can really claim a mandate for their policy. They're going to be expected to meet in the middle.

So what happens in four years? If people feel they're doing ok, they may vote the status quo again. President Biden? Yikes!

Election Day Subliminal Messages

2012-11-06T12:36:00.004-06:00

Well, it's game time. The debating and demagoguery culminates in decision day. I hope everyone will make sure to vote. (I hope the conservatives will vote and the liberals will wash their cars.)

Tomorrow we will know the results of the game. (Tomorrow we'll know who's suing whom.) And no matter who wins, the next day the sun will rise. (Unless the Lord punishes us for inventing turducken by having the sun eat us.)

Whoever wins will only have four years of influence (Have you heard of the Supreme Court?) and then we'll be able to undo anything we don't like. (Have you heard of Daylight Saving Time?)

The most important thing to remember is that no matter what happens, Joe Biden won't be the president. (Pray for Obama's health!)

And God is still on His throne.

Play ball!

What is Pro-Life?

2012-11-01T13:18:00.002-05:00

Thomas Friedman argued in a recent column that liberals should take the term "pro-life" back from conservatives as a way to win the abortion debate. He says being pro-life requires "respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth."

Friedman is fine with you killing your children as long as it's not where he can see it, but he is pro-life, he says, because he supports gun control, the EPA, and Head Start.

Huh?

Yes, that old canard again. You're not "pro-life" if you don't believe in top-down state control of every aspect of your life — except over your reproductive choices, of course. He praises NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg as "the most 'pro-life' politician in America" because of his bans on smoking and large sugary drinks and his support for gun control, "climate change" regulation, and early childhood education.

It doesn't matter that the ban on sugary drinks is largely illusory, that most "climate change" regulation would punish the poor more than anyone, or that neither early childhood education nor gun control works. He cares about everyone — except unborn children.

As I have argued before, most of our political debates are over how to help people. Everyone's heart is in the right place; we just disagree about what will actually work or what is necessary.

But the abortion debate is over whether it is OK to kill unborn human beings. There is no logical argument than can make anyone who says "yes" to that question "pro-life."

Do We Really Value the Unborn?

2012-10-25T12:41:00.002-05:00

Do miscarriages invalidate the prolife philosophy? I've heard this objection to the prolife view a few times. Our friend Vinny has used it a couple of times here. Let's break it up into two parts.

1. Prolifers claim every unborn child is valuable, but there are miscarriages all the time. It's natural. What's the problem with embyo/fetus being aborted?

Yes, babies die before birth all the time. They die after birth, too. People die every day of all kinds of things, natural and otherwise. That's no reason to make murder legal, and it's no reason abortion should be legal.

2. There are countless miscarriages every year. If the unborn are so valuable, why is no one trying to do anything about it? (Implied: Obviously it's just your little group that thinks it's a big deal.)

The response to this is more complicated. First, miscarriages don't devalue the unborn. Ask any woman who's had one.

Second, it is a little "out of sight, out of mind." Especially before the first ultrasound (and in the past, before "quickening"), the whole idea that there's a baby in there is a bit surreal. Losing a child you've never touched is a lot like waking up from a dream. If as many babies died right after birth as die in the first trimester, the response would be greater, not because they are more valuable, but because we could see it happening.

Third, as sad as they are, I think the common attitude is that there was probably something wrong with the child, and that's why it didn't thrive. That may be wishful thinking, but I think that is a part of why there isn't more concern.

Fourth, but people are doing something about it. That's why sonograms abound. It's why we try to fix problems in babies in utero. It's why women who are trying to get pregnant now take folic acid supplements. It's why we have drugs to help thicken uterine linings. That this research doesn't get as much press as breast cancer research doesn't mean it's not there and that it's not important.

The question for the pro-choice crowd is, what happens, and when, to make this valueless blob of tissue suddenly a valuable human baby?

Christian and Conservative?

2012-10-22T09:21:00.000-05:00

During the last presidential election , I wrote a series addressing the question of whether you can be a Christian and a conservative. (I say yes.)

I have revised and updated that material and turned it into a pdf that can be downloaded for free here. It's a little over 50 pages long.

I encourage you to pass it along to anyone you like. It's really not intended for liberals as much as those middle of the road folks who might be cowed into supporting liberals out of a misplaced sense of guilt. But liberals might get something out of it too.

Now that I'm finished with that, hopefully I can spend more time writing original material for the blog.

If you don't know ...

2012-10-19T12:45:00.004-05:00

Peter Kreeft makes the case that the default position for most people should be prolife. It's short but sweet.

Free Audiobook

2012-10-02T10:09:00.002-05:00

Christian Audio.com is giving away the audiobook of Tony Evans' How Should Christians Vote? (Amazon listing here) for the month of October. I haven't read or listened to it yet, but I've found him to be biblical and level-headed in the past, so I plan to listen to this soon.

Why I'm Still a Christian

2012-09-27T12:43:00.002-05:00

The skeptics are right about one thing.

I was raised in a Christian home. We went to church every week — frequently, twice on Sunday and again on Wednesday. My parents are Christians, as were their parents, so it's no surprise, the skeptics point out, that I became one. And they're right.

But it didn't have to stay that way.

Many people find themselves having to re-examine those decisions as they grow up — especially in college. I went off and got a degree in physics, so you would expect me to face that (though it wasn't my physics classes that created the problem, and, frankly, I found more unbelievers in the humanities than the sciences). But the day came when I had to decide whether I could still believe in stories about men rising from the dead and things like that.

Fortunately, I had already been prepared and not the way you think. By the time my crisis of faith occurred, I had four years of physics classes under my belt. Out of the almost one thousand hours of classroom instruction, three lectures really stood out.

The first one was when we learned that the behavior of the gravitational force could have been anything at all, but if it weren't exactly what it is, we would never have been able to understand it — it would have simply been too complex to figure out by observation. I still remember one particularly profane classmate saying aloud, "Gee, I feel like I need to go to church."

The second was when we were told how all the matter in the universe formed when the energy of the big bang converted into matter and antimatter — and how they should have formed in equal amounts, but for some reason they didn't, leaving just a bit more matter to make everything we see.

The third was a special guest lecture by a famous visitor, Professor Stephen Hawking. He described how precisely balanced the energy of the big bang had to be — saying that if the expansion of the universe had been either greater or smaller by less than one part in a trillion trillion there would be no universe right now.

At the time of my crisis of faith I had never heard of intelligent design. I had not heard of Dembski or Behe. But Chen, White, and Hawking had taught me much of what they would later write.

I knew everything had to have come from somewhere — something had to be eternal, and the universe (by various laws of physics) couldn't be it. And I knew, thanks to those three lectures, the universe was a finely crafted machine, designed just so, enabling life to exist.

So there was one verse in the Bible I knew I couldn't doubt: the first one. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." And if that was true, every other miracle was possible.

That's important because if miracles aren't possible, Jesus didn't rise from the dead. No matter how bizarre the explanations for the evidence may be, they are less bizarre than a resurrection.

But if miracles are possible, Jesus actually rising from the dead is on the table. Evidence has to be considered and arguments evaluated, but it's not an automatic no.

And once the evidence is considered and the arguments are evaluated, the best explanation is that Jesus did rise from the dead. It's story that no one would make up. Christianity is true.

Someone may have questions, concerns, even doubts, but "Jesus really rose from the dead" is a solid place to begin the journey.

Rape and Abortion

2012-08-27T12:30:00.019-05:00

In the wake of Congressman Akin's infamous statement about rape and pregnancy, the left had a field day attacking conservatives on their anti-abortion stance. Many on the right ran for cover, trying to distance themselves from his statements or even his position.

Let me go on the record as saying Mr. Akin's statement about pregnancy from rape is ignorant and demonstrably false.

Let me also go on the record as believing abortion should only be legal to save the life of the mother.

No rape and incest exception? No.

Even as they ridicule, pro-choicers are aware that a rape exception is inconsistent with the pro-life philosophy and use that against us. We may as well stand for what we believe in and be able to explain why.

The fundamental question about aborting an unborn child is this: What is it?

If the unborn is a blob of tissue, little more than a cancerous growth inside the mother or a parasite inside a host, then we shouldn't even be having this conversation. Aborting this little blob has no more moral significance than removing a mole.

If the unborn is a human being at a slightly earlier stage of development than an infant, then we must treat that life with all the care due any other human being.

The circumstances of his conception does not change that.

Rape is a horrible thing. Besides the physical violence, there is emotional trauma that will need a long time to heal, if it ever does.

And aborting the child produced by that attack will not change any of it. Allowing the child to be born, however, brings a little good out of that horrible thing.

After all, our society doesn't put rapists to death. Why would we kill their children? The child is not responsible for the act that brought him into the world.

You may be thinking, "Isn't it cruel to make a woman carry a child conceived in rape to term?" I don't think so. But even if it were, it's not all about her any more. There's another life involved. That innocent little life deserves to be protected. And many women, after carrying such children for nine months, realize they love and cherish that child as much as any other.

And if the mother doesn't want to raise the child, the line to adopt healthy infants is wrapped around the block ... many, many times.

All that said, though, I wouldn't make outlawing abortion after rape part of any party's platform. It's not something many people will be receptive to at this point in time. Tactically, it's something we should ease into.

Life is full of partial victories. If abortion was only legal in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother, the vast majority — by some estimates, 99+% — of abortions would cease. If, in time, we were able to convince people that rape isn't a good reason to abort a baby, that would be ideal, but we shouldn't set ourselves up for a much more difficult fight when we still have the larger one to win.

Until

2012-08-16T12:02:00.010-05:00

The Revelation says the Lamb of God will become the Lion of Zion. Astride a great white horse, he will lead the armies of heaven and tread "the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty" (19:15).

Jesus? Our Jesus? The meek and mild Jesus? The one about whom the scriptures say

"A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out..." (Matt 12:20).

Sometimes it's hard to see Jesus as a warrior. But that passage is the key. The sentence continues:

"A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out
till he leads justice to victory."

That "till" is important. Jesus came with a purpose, a mission, and he carried it out. He was here to be a sacrifice, to be killed simply for claiming to be exactly who he was. Next time, the mission will be different.

The other day as I was reading this, when that "till" jumped out at me, I was reminded of a song from some years ago:

First time around he came as a man
clothed in humility
He was the Father's sacrifice
sent to set us free ...

This time around
there'll be no speculation
the king will wear his crown.
This time around
the world will see his glory
watch is kingdom come down ...

As hard as it is to imagine sometimes, the day will come when Christ will return in glory and power to establish his kingdom on earth. And we will be able to say goodbye to sin and pain and grief and all the ills of this world.

Come, Lord Jesus.