PROMOTING DIVERSITY WHILE PROHIBITING THE CHRISTIAN VOICE?

WHAT DO YOU THINK? I applaud the MeetUp discussion groups. They represent an attempt to bring those of diverse opinions together to counteract the growing divide and antagonism. They promote listening, understanding, and civility. Refreshing, yes?

While no one will ostensibly disagree with these goals, practice sometimes reflects something very different. I’ve noticed that two conversation groups have forbidden any form of proselytizing.

Should I remain silent? I felt that this prohibition was directed towards me. In opposition to the common expression of a secular faith, I have often presented a Christian perspective. Some have taken issue, as if the Christian worldview is the one voice that should be silenced. One group leader wrote to express his displeasure with me, claiming that others had also complained about me.

Had I tried to kidnap the conversation in favor of my own ideology, I could better understand their objection. If I had been rude, long-winded, or disruptive, I would gladly apologize. Instead, I think that their complaints were just a matter of bias, the same bias we have seen proliferating across the West - the very thing that these groups are designed to oppose.

Therefore, I decided to challenge this group leader by writing a response on his discussion group announcement:

·       I am concerned that your injunction against “proselytizing in any shape or form” is directed against those who express a Christian POV as opposed to a secular or materialistic one. After all, we all proselytize in one way or another, whether by promoting a certain idea or just simply ourselves. Therefore, isn’t your prohibition merely a matter of viewpoint discrimination?

As far as I know, no one has commented. However, to remain silent is to allow the further silencing of the Christian voice and also other voices that might be deemed “unacceptable.” What do you think?

QUESTIONS ABOUT EVOLUTION

In Darwin’s House of Cards, Tom Bethell has expressed his incredulity regarding the theory of evolution:

·       I have become ever more convinced that, although Darwinism has been promoted as science, its unstated role has been to prop up a philosophy—the philosophy of materialism—and atheism along with it.

Bethell’s claim is undeniable. Even many atheistic evolutionists have termed evolution a “God substitute,” even a “religion” as had Michael Ruse. Even among the elites of the evolutionary priesthood, there have been many rumblings of serious doubts, as Bethell relates:

·       In November 2016, the Royal Society in London, one of the world’s most eminent scientific societies, convened a group of scientists to discuss “calls for revision of the standard theory of evolution,” acknowledging that “the issues involved remain hotly contested.”

Bethell points out that materialistic evolution has found itself unable to plug the holes in its ship, and it’s ready to capsize. Not only does this question of the origin of life threaten this embattled theory, there remains the seldom mentioned question of the replication of life:

·       Bear in mind that natural selection can play no role at this stage, because it assumes the prior existence of self-reproducing entities. (Bethell)

We cannot invoke natural selection to explain self-replicating systems because the operation of natural selection relies upon the prior existence of self-replicating systems, without which the “fittest” genes cannot be passed on. Because of this dependence, natural selection cannot be expected to account for the existence DNA, the cell, or self-replicating systems.

Besides, natural selection seems to exclusively serve entropy to remove detrimental mutations, rather than as an inventor of better organs. (Interestingly, entropy might even provide a survival advantage in some circumstances).

Is there any evidence that natural selection has ever produced a new species? Not according to Bethell:

·       Without evidence, Darwin’s supporters today still accept that intergenerational differences accumulate, eventually transforming their phenotype, or bodily form. But such a transformation has never been observed. No species has ever been seen to evolve into another.

Darwin wasn’t able to present evidence that one species had ever evolved into another. However, according to Bethell, Darwin remained undaunted:

·       Paul Nelson, a philosopher of science with Discovery Institute, points out that when Darwin made his arguments, he saw no need for proof. He said, in effect: “Tell me why these minor changes should not add up, over time, to major differences.” Of course, asking why a particular thing should not happen evades the duty of a hypothesis to explain how it does happen. It was one of Darwin’s favorite rhetorical devices, and he used it repeatedly in The Origin.

According to Bethell, Darwin was aware that his theory faced many major obstacles:

·       Darwin also asked why, if species have descended from others by fine gradations, we don’t see “innumerable transitional forms.” Furthermore, why are species so “well defined”? Why is “all nature” not “in confusion?” These were good questions. He tried to answer them by saying that the same process that “improved” and transformed some varieties extinguished their predecessors: “Both the parent and all the transitional varieties will generally have been exterminated by the very process of formation and perfection of the new form.”

Are transitional forms “generally exterminated” so quickly as to leave no transitional forms? This wouldn’t seem so. Instead, we find that dogs are dogs, humans are humans, and chimps are chimps. Instead, if macro-evolution is a reality, we should be able to observe chimp-humans or at least ape-humans in our midst and the beginnings of post- or super-humans.

In light of these many challenges, we are left to wonder what still accounts for the present hegemony of this theory, if not threat and oppression.

COUNTERING GUILT AND SHAME WITH POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS

I have asked some thoughtful skeptics about how they are able to counteract our deeply ingrained feelings of guilt and shame. They would often answer that they have learned how to counteract them with positive self-talk, positive affirmations that they are truly good people who are trying to do the best that they can do. I responded that:

“I am certainly in agreement with the principle - as you think, so will you feel. At age 14, I began to learn how to give myself positive affirmations. I had long felt bad about myself and dreaded going to school where I felt rejected. However, I learned to flex my muscles in front of the mirror and to tell myself that the girls really loved me. And I believed it and felt that I was now able to face school.

However, once I got there, it again became apparent that the girls preferred the class athlete, the comic, of even the bad boys. I left devastated and returned to my mirror where I had to tell myself even more grandiose things in order to regain my initial high and self-confidence.

However, reality would again come crashing down upon me. The higher I built myself up, the harder I fell.

In retrospect, I began to see that my positive affirmations were unsustainable. They always required more as with any addiction. Besides, they were not only alienating me from reality but also from myself and others, who increasingly were both unable and unwilling to enter into my distorted world, which I had created for myself.

I have now been a believer in Jesus for 43 years. However, these beliefs are not like a drug addiction, for which I need increasing higher dosages. Instead, these beliefs are in accord with reality. They are like a good roadmap which has enabled me to navigate work and relationships more successfully.

Rather than clashing with reality, my beliefs were nurtured by reality. I now really and truly know that God loves me and is taking care of me. What a delight and a source of strength!

And He validates this in many ways. This has given me the courage to cross into “enemy lines,” face condemnation, and the many charges that people make against me. The Bible warns me that:

• The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. (Psalms 34:18-19)

The Lord has always delivered me, and I trust that He will continue to do so.”

A DYING SUICIDAL CULTURE

As strange as it might seem, there are now “righteous” ways for nations to commit suicide. In “The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam,” Douglas Murray attempts to explain the suicidal longings of Europe’s leaders:

• Europe today has little desire to reproduce itself, fight for itself or even take its own side in an argument. Those in power seem persuaded that it would not matter if the people and culture of Europe were lost to the world. Some have clearly decided to dissolve the people and elect another because, as a recent Swedish conservative Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt put it, only ‘barbarism’ comes from countries like his whereas only good things come from outside.

How can we explain such a flight into the world of fantasy, especially in light of the fact that Western civilization is still rated as leading the world in justice and social welfare? Immigration to the West also affirms the continuing allure of the West.

However, Western elites now must try to justify their immigration policies that have placed their nations in growing jeopardy.

• All the time Europeans found ways to pretend this could work. By insisting, for instance, that such immigration was normal. Or that if integration did not happen with the first generation then it might happen with their children, grandchildren or another generation yet to come. Or that it didn’t matter whether people integrated or not. All the time we waved away the greater likelihood that it just wouldn’t work. (Murray)

It also seems that these elites have rejected the necessary cognitive armor to resist the mounting threats or to even acknowledge them:

• For religion had not only retreated in Western Europe. In its wake there arose a desire to demonstrate that in the twenty-first century Europe had a self-supporting structure of rights, laws and institutions which could exist even without the source [Christianity] that had arguably given them life. (Murray)

Killing religion is like killing desire. To kill desire depends upon having a desire to kill desire. To kill religion also depends upon an alternative set of “religious” beliefs. Besides, killing religion creates an intolerable vacuum, which demands that it be filled, and Europe has hastily filled this vacuum:

• In the place of religion came the ever-inflating language of ‘human rights’ (itself a concept of Christian origin). We left unresolved the question of whether or not our acquired rights were reliant on beliefs that the continent had ceased to hold or whether they existed of their own accord.

As an openly gay atheist, Murray’s respect for Europe’s formative values is both noteworthy and far-sighted. Europe’s attempt to retain certain Christian values without their Christian foundation is inevitably doomed. To illustrate, human rights apart from human exceptionalism simply cannot be sustained. Why should we experiment on animals, eat, or cage them, rather than on humans? What makes us more valued than animals? Only the Biblical faith, and not science, can answer this question.

Besides, human rights depend upon the belief in human equality. However, this too cannot be sustained without the Biblical revelation that we are all created in the likeness of God and therefore are endowed with transcendent value. In view of our many profound obvious differences, there is no way to sustain the belief in human equality from a secular perspective.

Likewise, there is no adequate way to sustain the objective moral superiority of one culture over another without religion. Without it, Hitler’s or Stalin’s genocidal cultures cannot be deemed any worse than traditional Western/Christian cultures.

Lacking any vision of its fading greatness Europe has lost the ability to integrate its immigrants:

• And while the movement of millions of people from other cultures into a strong and assertive culture might have worked, the movement of millions of people into a guilty, jaded and dying culture cannot. (Murray)

While the immigrants might esteem Europe’s material advantages, they do not esteem its self-indulgent and morally decadent influences and warn their children against them. Clearly, the “mea-culpa” guilt-ridden West admits that it has no superior vision of life to offer.

Where can such a vision be found? It cannot be found in valueless materialism and secularism. These can only offer potential materialistic benefits in the midst of their growing decay.

An objective vision can only come from Above. The Christian faith has already abundantly demonstrated that it can give many earthly blessings. However, its God can offer far more:

• Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” (Jeremiah 6:16)

Despite the mounting problems, they still refuse to return and to walk in the way of the Lord.

THE REVELATION OF AN OT MYSTERY WHICH HAS LIBERATED ME

The message of the Hebrew Scriptures was shrouded in mystery, like clouds that hide the sun. It therefore became the role of the New Testament to reveal what had remained hidden in the Old:

·       When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit…to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 3:4-5, 8-10 ESV)

Even the Hebrew Scriptures testify to the fact that God has His secrets (Deuteronomy 29:29). To emphasize this fact, God had placed one object in the Holy of Holies that even the High Priest would be struck dead if he looked upon it. Only on one occasion could he enter the Holy of Holies, and that was on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, and only after elaborately sanctifying himself. So that he would not be able to see this forbidden object, the wings of the Cherubim were spread over it, and the High Priest would enter only as billows of blinding smoke arose from his censor:

·       “And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small, and he shall bring it inside the veil and put the incense on the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony [the Ten Commandments], so that he does not die.” (Leviticus 16:12-13)

How odd! The “mercy seat,” also called the “atonement cover,” was the place the High Priest would go to request the Lord’s mercy for the children of Israel. It appropriately covered the Ark of the Covenant of the Law, as if to protect Israel from its damning curses (Deuteronomy 27:26; Romans 3:24-26). Why then would the sight of this cover be forbidden with the treat of death? Besides this, there was only one other thing that Israel could not look upon without being struck dead – the face of God – as God had warned Moses, when Moses had requested to see the glory of the Lord:

·       "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." But He said, "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live." (Exodus 33:19-20 NKJV)

What did God mean by this? He had revealed that He is a Spirit and, therefore, has no body, and could not be seen anyway (1 Timothy 6:16; John 1:18). At this time, God revealed His nature to Moses. However, He did not reveal His Face. I think that this is because the face generally tells us more about a person than does his foot our leg. Instead, it seems as if God would hide His face to represent that He is hiding His most cherished secret – that He would pay the price for the sins of the world. It was this revelation, not a literal face, which was to be carefully guarded at the threat of death.

Nevertheless, God did reveal Himself in cryptic ways. Psalm 25 assures that to those who fear Him, He will reveal His covenant. However, the Mosaic Covenant had already been revealed to all Israel. Therefore, the Lord must be talking about another covenant, a secret covenant:

·       The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant. (Psalm 25:14)

It seems that this must have been the future Messianic Covenant, which had not been as clearly revealed as it is now through the NT. What indication do we have that this Covenant had been kept secret? The Messiah Himself had also been a carefully kept secret as was the Covenant:

·       …The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away. (Isaiah 49:1-2; 51:16)

Why would the Messiah, along with the ultimate atonement, remain hidden in the folds of the Hebrew Scriptures? I’d like to suggest that He had to remain hidden so that the Mosaic Covenant wouldn’t be prematurely deprived of its authority. It was under this Covenant that the Temple, the blood offerings, and the Levitical Priesthood had to dominate the Israelite religion until the Cross, the atonement of God. Under this final Covenant, the priests would make atonement for Israel, confessing Israel’s sins upon perfect innocent animals:

·       “He (the High Priest) shall make atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly.” (Leviticus 16:32-34; Ezekiel 43:20; 45:20)

Nevertheless, our Lord cryptically revealed to His prophets that something greater would follow (Amos 3:7; Psalm 40; Isaiah 53). GOD HIMSELF WOULD PROVIDE THE ULTIMATE ATONING OFFERING:

·       "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people; For He will avenge the blood of His servants, And render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people." (Deuteronomy 32:43 NKJV)

What was the nature of this mysterious offering? Clearly, it wasn’t a matter of another animal. Job had been making many animal sacrifices, but they failed to accomplish God’s purposes. Instead, the prophetic Elihu revealed to Job that a special offering had to be procured through an intermediary:

·       If there be for him an angel, a mediator, one of the thousand, to declare to man what is right for him, and he is merciful to him, and says, ‘Deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom [a redeeming payment]; let his flesh become fresh with youth; let him return to the days of his youthful vigor’; then man prays to God, and he accepts him... (Job 33:23-26)

Even the righteous Job would require an unspecified ransom, a vicarious atoning payment for his sins. This would be a payment that no man or priest could possibly fulfill:

·       Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit…But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. (Psalm 49:7-9, 15)

Since a priest could never provide such a payment, nor could an animal suffice, God would have to pay the atoning price, as many verses suggest:

·       Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake! (Psalm 79:9; 65:3; 19:14; Hosea 13:14)

This must have been confusing to the average priest, who had been designated to provide the atonement. Why should he provide the atonement if God will provide it? Why should the Mosaic Covenant even be maintained? However, the commands of Moses prevailed. Nevertheless, this Covenant played an indispensable role in God’s worldwide plan of salvation, a red carpet for the coming glory of the promised Messiah:

·       But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:22-24)

The Cross was the culminating glory and revelation of our Lord, an act that proved beyond any doubt that God loves us beyond understanding (Romans 5:8-10; Ephesians 3:16-19):

·       And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:23-24; 13:31)

How can it be that the moment of His greatest disgrace and humiliation could become the very moment of Christ’s glory? This was when He proved His love for me!

I had been suffering from decades of devastating depression and self-loathing. Then panic attacks utterly disabled me. It felt to me as if God hated me. Against my will, it seemed as if He was the greatest deceiver and sadist. Perhaps He created us for His perverse entertainment. How could I prove otherwise? I couldn’t until it became plain that He had really, really, really died for my sins, even when I was His bitter enemy.

This understanding liberated me. I became convinced that He REALLY loves me. A deceiving sadist would never have died for me. I am so grateful that this great mystery has been revealed and that we can now confidently approach our Savior:

·       Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19-22)