The Media and Koran Burning

Pastor Terry Jones is at it again, with at least seven deaths in a UN station in distant Afganistan to show for it. On April 5 CNN reported,

• At least nine people were killed and 73 injured in Kandahar on Saturday, and 12 people died Friday -- including seven U.N. employees -- when angry demonstrators stormed a U.N. compound in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Ironically, while Jones’ congregation has deserted him, the media hasn’t. Although YouTube had recently removed a video showing Brown University students’ violence against a peaceful pro-family demonstration, it failed demonstrate any moral hesitation about hosting Jones’ provocative Koran burning ceremony.

Now it seems that the media elites can’t get enough of Jones. Meanwhile, the murderers themselves aren’t receiving similar media scrutiny. Nor are those, a-half-a-world away, who continue to demonstrate against the destruction of a single Koran and in favor of taking even more lives. How is it that the murder of those who had nothing to do with Jones represents justice in the Islamic mind, and how is it that they can continue to demonstrate against the destruction of one copy of a Koran and yet feel no guilt about the murder to seven UN personnel?

What does this say about Islam as it increasingly gains a foothold in Western soil? Can Islamic values mesh with Western values? Is the Islamic reaction to this merely one isolated incident? Are the murders and death threats against people in the West who have spoken against Islam indicative of a problem endemic to Islam? These are questions that need to be addressed!

Meanwhile, in Muslim nations, both Bibles and churches are routinely burned, and no one seems to notice it. No Islamic nation tolerates free speech, especially when it entails criticism of Islam – the Prophet, the Koran, and Allah. Criticism is punishable by death:

• [Surah 33:59-61] Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, and women believers to make their outer garment hang low over them, so as to be recognized and not insulted [aa-dh-aa]: God is most forgiving, most merciful. 60 If the hypocrites, the sick of heart, and those who spread lies in the city [Medina] do not desist, We shall arouse you [Prophet] against them, and then they will only be your neighbors in this city for a short while. 61 They will be rejected wherever they are found, and then seized and killed. (Haleem)

James M. Arlandson writes about what we can expect from sharia law:

• In 1989, Iran’s Supreme Leader issued a fatwa (legal decree) to assassinate Salman Rushdie, a novelist, who wrote Satanic Verses, which includes questions about the angel Gabriel’s role in inspiring the Quran. Now the extremists in the highest levels in Iran have recently renewed the fatwa.

• In 2005, The Muslim Council of Victoria, Australia, brought a lawsuit against two pastors for holding a conference and posting articles critiquing Islam. Three Muslims attended the conference and felt offended. The two pastors have been convicted based on Australia’s vilification law. While on trial, one of them wanted to read from the Quran on domestic violence (see 9, above), but the lawyer representing the Council would not allow it. The pastors are appealing their conviction.

• In 2005, British Muslims have been campaigning to pass a religious hate speech law in England’s parliament. They have succeeded. Their ability to propagandize has not been curtailed. Opponents of the law say that it stifles free speech that may criticize Muhammad, the Quran, and Islam.

According to Arlandson, “the Muslim deserves death for doing any of the following (Reliance of the Traveler pp. 597-98, o8.7)”:

• Reviling Allah or his Messenger; (2) being sarcastic about "Allah’s name, His command, His interdiction, His promise, or His threat"; (3) denying any verse of the Quran or "anything which by scholarly consensus belongs to it, or to add a verse that does not belong to it"; (4) holding that "any of Allah’s messengers or prophets are liars, or to deny their being sent"; (5) reviling the religion of Islam; (6) being sarcastic about any ruling of the Sacred Law; (7) denying that Allah intended "the Prophet’s message . . . to be the religion followed by the entire world." http://www.muslimhope.com/JamesArlandson/TopTenReasonsWhyShariaIslamicLawIsBadForAllSocieties.htm

Elsewhere, Arlandson references one of the authoritative sayings attributed to Mohammad”

• “Angered by the poems and now able to strike back after the Battle of Badr, Muhammad had had enough. He asked, "Who would rid me of [Kab]?" Five Muslims volunteered, one of whom was Kab’s foster-brother named Abu Naila. They informed him, "O apostle of God [Muhammad], we shall have to tell lies." He answered, "Say what you like, for you are free in the matter."

Mohammad would not tolerate any criticism. It seems that out of faithfulness to his sayings, Muslims also should not tolerate criticism. However, justice in the West is about accountability -- that no one and no belief system should be above criticism, especially if it justifies criminality.

Meanwhile, the Western media elites have set their sails in the direction of enablement and appeasement of sharia. If Jones deserves some censure for his indiscretion, then Islam deserves even more for its justification of murder. Although the media elites don’t justify the murders, they are unwilling to follow the crimes to their obvious root. Instead, they are bent upon appeasement at any cost. Sadly, this course of appeasement rewards the violent, while it produces cynics among those who trust in justice.

Issues have to be aired. Instead of probing whether or not sharia (Islamic law) can possibly be compatible with Western values, the media elites demonstrate a cowardly indulgence by refusing to delve into these crucial areas.

However, it’s far worse than this. While Jones is castigated for his insensitivity towards Islam, this same media gleefully rushes upon any story that will shame Christianity. Recently, Bart Ehrman published his latest diatribe against the Bible: “Forged: Writing in the Name of God—Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are.” He claims that many of the New Testament books are forged, and as such, they represent “lies.” While Ehrman has every right in the world to publish whatever garbage he wants to publish, the media should be held to a higher standard.

Propaganda doesn’t require outright lies. Unbalanced reporting will do the job just as well! And the media does exquisitely in this area. It has joyfully and broadly trumpeted Ehrman’s new and provocative volume better than any advertising campaign might have done. Meanwhile, they hypocritically malign Jones for insulting Islam.

This type of double-standard abounds in mainstream media. The media elites made celebrities out of a fringe group of scholars called the “Jesus Seminar,” which, without justification, declared that only 18% of words that the Gospels attribute to Jesus are authentic. They did the same thing with Dan Brown and his “DaVinci Code,” which claimed that Jesus escaped crucifixion, married Mary Magdalene and joyously eloped. And then there was the release of the Gospel of Judas about five years ago. The elites were then able to dredge up a cadre of the most radical scholars, including Elaine Pagels, who confidently proclaimed that the church would never be the same after this Judas disclosure.

Anything at all to disparage Christianity! In fact, what Jones did is relatively insignificant in comparison to undermining the entire basis of another religion, as Ehrman is seeking to do by callings books of the Bible “forgeries.” While Jones burnt a single book, the media is happily complicit in burning an entire religion.

The media elites certainly have a right to be critical of Christianity. However, they have a responsibility to do it in a balanced manner. Without this, they are merely ministers of propaganda.

Are Many New Testament Books Forgeries?

I don’t feel like buying another Bart Ehrman book, but it seems that I must. First of all, he is now expanding his attacks against the New Testament in saying that many of its books are forgeries – lies! Predictably, the press is luxuriating over such juicy claims. Do you remember when the Gospel of Judas was made public about four years ago. The media was able to dredge up the most radical and extravagant scholars to inform the world that the church had now been undermined.

Wild allegations will continue to persist. However, what’s worse is that many Christians are stumbling upon these septic-fields and are in lacking the tools and perspectives to counteract them. I therefore have been receiving frantic calls and emails. Here’s why. Ehrman writes,

• ….good Christian scholars of the Bible, including the top Protestant and Catholic scholars of America, will tell you that the Bible is full of lies, even if they refuse to use the term. And here is the truth: Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle -- Peter, Paul or James -- knowing full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/the-bible-telling-lies-to_b_840301.html

He is correct to say that if a book is a forgery, it’s also a lie. However, he offers no evidence for his outrageous claims other than the fact that others agree with him, even scholars who seem not to agree. Throughout the article, Ehrman repeats his meaningless and erroneous claim that “top…scholars…will tell you that the Bible is full of lies.”

• Most scholars will tell you that whereas seven of the 13 letters that go under Paul's name are his, the other six are not. Their authors merely claimed to be Paul.

While the opinions of “most scholars” might be of interest, this hardly constitutes evidence. Truth isn’t a matter of “majority rules.” Nor is it established by an endless repetition of dogmatic claims:

• Whoever wrote the book of 1 Timothy claimed to be Paul. But he was lying about that -- he was someone else living after Paul had died. In his book, the author of 1 Timothy used Paul's name and authority to address a problem that he saw in the church.

• It may be one of the greatest ironies of the Christian scriptures that some of them insist on truth, while telling a lie. For no author is truth more important than for the "Paul" of Ephesians. He refers to the gospel as "the word of truth" (1:13); he indicates that the "truth is in Jesus"; he tells his readers to "speak the truth" to their neighbors (4:24-25); and he instructs his readers to "fasten the belt of truth around your waist" (6:14). And yet he himself lied about who he was. He was not really Paul.

On the basis of what does Ehrman make these indictments? Dogmatic assertion isn’t the same thing as evidence, although it sells books. However, Ehrman provides no evidence whatsoever to support his claims. It also bears observing that this same Ehrman also claimed that

• The oldest and best sources we have for knowing about the life of Jesus…are the four Gospels of the NT…This is not simply the view of Christian historians who have a high opinion of the NT and in its historical worth; it is the view of all serious historians of antiquity…it is the conclusion that has been reached by every one of the hundreds (thousands, even) of scholars. (“Truth and Fiction in the DaVinci Code” p. 102)

Nevertheless, no stranger to exaggeration, he then denied that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – the four canonical Gospels had been ascribed to these men – could not have written these Gospels, because they were illiterate. However, in this case, he did offer one bit of “evidence”:

• When they [the Sanhedrin, the ruling Jewish court] saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled [Ehrman thinks that this word should be translated as “illiterate”], ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

While the Sanhedrin were able to “realize” that they were “unschooled” and unrefined, they couldn’t simply “realize” by virtue of their speech that they were “illiterate.” This is something so patently obvious that no other translation (as far as what I could tell) renders the Greek as “illiterate.”

I intend to read Ehrman’s book, but I hope that he will take this suggestion seriously: The Bible has undergone intense criticism for 300 years and still stands. However, the Koran hasn’t. undergone anything comparable. This imbalance is so obvious and lamentable. I’d therefore suggest that he and other courageous critics remove themselves from the cowardly herd and seek to correct this inequality. Any takers?

Preaching the Entire Word vs. The Theology of Silence

Tim Keller is a fine preacher with a lot to say, but he doesn’t say everything he needs to say. In an interviewer-prompted conversation with Keller on the subject of “justice” at the Ethical Culture Society, his silence spoke loudly. When Keller was asked if he thought that gay marriage was a civil rights issue that the church should promote, Keller was evasive and ambiguous.

He is not alone in this. Many pastors decline to speak on the hot red-button issues lest they prevent the Gospel from being heard. Although this concern might be noble, it is also naïve and un-Scriptural. It is naïve for many reasons. For one thing, the gay agenda is not merely one of marital equality; it also entails the silencing of any critical voices, even if it requires the persecution of people who don’t share their opinions.

Already, many Christians have been targeted because their opinions haven’t meshed with a full acceptance of the gay lifestyle. The Ocean Grove Christian Association was targeted. A lesbian couple challenged them for the use their pavilion to get married. EHarmony.com was targeted to require this Christian organization to carry gay meet-up ads, even though this would require them to violate their beliefs. Many have already lost their jobs because they risked speaking up off the job on this explosive issue. A lawsuit was brought against a Bible publisher charging that the Bible is “homophobic.” Churches are being intimidated merely because they believe in the traditional understanding of marriage. Christian groups that are offering assistance to those who want to leave the gay lifestyle are also being harassed, and those who carry their ads are being threatened.

In light of this, we see that silence will not produce a real and lasting peace. It can’t! Meanwhile, faithfulness requires us to take a stance for truth (Jude 3). If we are going to be embroiled in a defense for the faith – and faithfulness requires this – it is better that we take our stance where Scripture draws the line.

Given the present trajectory, it is only a matter of time before Keller is backed into the corner by homosexualist agenda and forced to declare one way or another. This is what happened to Rick Warren, who now conveniently denies that he ever was against gay marriage.

More importantly, such a strategy of silence is un-Scriptural. Paul, in his final meeting with the Ephesian elders, declared his innocence before them by virtue of the fact that he had not withheld from them any of the teachings of the Bible:

• Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. (Acts 20:26-27)

This indicates that if we fail to speak even some of the teachings of God, we are culpable. This is especially true when we refuse to speak against certain very prevalent sins, and sin defiles, deceives and ultimately kills (Romans 7:11). Therefore, the pastor’s job is to afflict those comfortable with sin – those in denial – in hope of rescuing them from the clutches of sin (2 Tim. 2:24-26; Titus 1:7-11; James 5:19-20).

The prophets of Israel contended with the false prophets for this reason. The false ones were always preaching a very comfortable and marketable message, but this message angered the Lord:

• Jeremiah 8:11: They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace.

• Ezekiel 13:10: Because they lead my people astray, saying, "Peace," when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash,

Silence preaches acceptance. It says, “There’s no big deal about your behavior. If there was, as a pastor, I would have told you.” When we refuse to call a sin a “sin,” we are in essence preaching “peace” where there is no peace. We are denying our listeners the hope that comes through repentance:

• Lament. 2:14: The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity.

Love may not be expedient, but it seeks the best for the one who has not yet repented of his sins. Jeremiah lamented the fact that, although the false prophets were teaching a comforting message, it didn’t go deep enough. It failed to “expose…sin” in the hope of bringing healing.

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HERE IS THE RESPONSE I RECEIVED FROM TIM KELLER’S SECRETARY:

Dear, Daniel,

Thank you for writing. Dr. Keller is not able to review or respond to individual articles. However, for Dr. Keller's publically stated position regarding gay marriage, I would suggest you look at the Manhattan Declaration (www.manhattandeclaration.org), of which Tim was one of the original signatories.

In Him,

Andi Brindley
Assistant to Dr. Tim Keller

Evolution or De-Evolution

Which theory can best explain the facts? While evolution suggests upward progress – from the amoeba to humanity – creationism sees things going in the opposite direction, from a “very good” creation downward. Chemist and creationist, Bruce Malone, explains:

• Modern science has difficulty explaining why cells stop making perfect copies. This is because modern science assumes evolution to be a fact which requires a belief that we are increasing in complexity – evolving upwards. Therefore, cell reproduction should be getting better with time, not worse. Furthermore, if humans have been around for 1 million years (or more), then there have been over 20,000 generations of humans in existence. It is documented that every generation has between 100 and 1000 mistakes added to the DNA code. [John C. Stanford, Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome, Third Ed. 2008, 45-88] There is no possibility that the useful coded information content of the human genome could survive such a process for such a long time period. Thus the assumptions of evolutionary thinking blind researchers to understanding just how rapidly detrimental mistakes are building up and how recently the human DNA code was created.

Let’s just put aside the question of the age of humanity. Evolution should predict improvement over time; creationism should predict the opposite. We find deterioration not only in the human genome. There are other evidences of “de-evolution.” Here are several findings to consider:

• THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS: “Evolution is just plain unscientific. It violates the laws of chemistry including the second law of thermodynamics, the laws of probability, and information theory.” Eric Norman

• STAR BIRTH: “We have never seen a star born, but we have seen hundreds die.” Richard Kleiss

• NUMBERS OF SPECIES: “One-third of all known species [of birds] on the [Hawaiian] islands have become extinct within the last 1,500 years. Yet no new species of Hawaiian birds have developed over the same period…This evidence implies that the millions of different life forms on Earth could not have come from evolution, because creatures become extinct far faster than they could possibly evolve into new types.” Kleiss

• LANGUAGE: “If humans have evolved from less intelligent creatures, one would expect the earliest written languages to be the least complex. The opposite is true. The oldest languages are the most complex.” Kleiss

Is There Only One Way to God?

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Probably the most offensive thing about the Gospel today is its “exclusivism” – that the Gospel excludes all other ways to God! During an Oprah broadcast, one woman charged that Christ is the only Way! Oprah responded, “I don’t see how there can be only one way!” (Rough Quote)

She might not have realized it, but she was plugging into a massive worldview debate – exclusivism/particularism (E/P) versus inclusivism/universalism (I/U). While the first position tends to define reality by particulars – particular people, truths, and places – the latter (I/U) places the emphasis on universal laws, morals, and the family of all humanity (sometimes even inclusive of all living things). In today’s culture, I/U has received such broad acceptance that the particularists cringe when we express our belief that salvation is through Christ and not through Buddha. In contrast, I/U usually asserts that there are an unlimited number of roads to salvation, the oneness of all humanity, and equal justice for all (although the fetus and the elderly are silently left out of this equation).

The predominance of I/U has been a long time in coming, and today it has become a philosophical tsunami within Western culture. Many trace this tsunami back to the Enlightenment. The devout Isaac Newton discovered that our universe operated according to universal laws. The philosopher J.K.S. Reid wrote (although this was never Newton’s intention):

• The physical universe could now be conceived independently without reference to a spiritual order outside it….The whole thing could quite well be construed as an intelligently designed machine. (Christian Apologetics)

However, as the enlightenment picked up speed, the inclusive universal laws began to be favored over the exclusive particulars of Christian revelation. Consequently, the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) wrote,

• The role of revelation can be no more than very limited. It can offer nothing that is contrary to reason. (Reid)

Science and I/U were becoming more authoritative than Scripture. In response, many defenders of the Christian faith responded that Scripture is no less authoritative than science, and it is not contrary to reason, even if some of what has been revealed goes beyond our understanding. However, the tsunami continued to gain strength. Matthew Tindal (1655-1733) proclaimed,

• Nothing [beyond reason] can be requisite to discover true Christianity…to admit nothing to belong to it except what our reason tells us to be worthy of having God for its author.

According to Tindal, reason, apart from Scripture, was now the ultimate arbiter of truth. Why such a dogmatic position? Since the physical world could now be understood in terms of impressive universal physical laws, the moral/spiritual world shouldn’t be any different! To have any authority, Christianity’s moral claims had to conform to the methods and nature of science.

A new religion – Deism – was created by the “enlightened,” based upon these “insights.” Although God had created the world, He now governed it by universal laws. There was no need for particular miraculous interventions. He had wound the clock and was now merely sitting back to watch the hands move.

Many of our Founding Fathers embraced Deism. Thomas Jefferson famously created his Jefferson Bible by eliminating the particulars – the miracles – which didn’t fit into his Deist orthodoxy.

Riding the wave of the tsunami, the skeptical philosopher David Hume argued that even if miracles did occur, they would be impossible to prove:

• We may establish it as a maxim that no human testimony can have such a force as to prove a miracle…I say that a miracle can never be proved so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. (Reid)

For Hume, the universal and repeatable would always take precedence over the anomalous particulars. Consequently, the particulars of Christian revelation had been banished to the inferior world of faith. According to R.C. Sproul, the philosopher Emmanuel Kant put the final nail into the Christian coffin of revealed particulars, expelling Christianity from its dominant position within the university:

• Kant tried to demonstrate…that it is impossible to know God intellectually or to prove His being. While it has always been realized that humankind could not comprehend God fully, Kant was saying that humans can’t know Him, even partially. (Classical Apologetics)

Consequently, the particular and “unprovable” truths of Christianity were further expelled from the domain of “fact” to the blind and uncertain domain of “faith.” The broad acceptance of Kantian thought meant that I/U would further dominate E/P, the certain over the uncertain. As light dominates the darkness, what is certain will always dominate the uncertain. As a result, science and its testable and measurable universal laws had now attained preeminence over the intellectual life of the West.

Of course, Christians countered that the historical and theological assertions of the Bible are just as much a matter of fact as are the findings of science, but the West had already been won by the Enlightenment and its I/U worldview. The implications of this shift have been leavening Western thought ever since.

Even within the church, it often seems to predominate. Recently, in an interview, Emergent Church guru, Brain McLaren, censured the church for its “Christian elitism.” According to enlightenment I/U thinking, there should be no room for exclusive truth claims about one way, one man and His crucifixion. Consequently, I/U is a message that seems to be increasingly more appealing, especially among the younger generation, among whom I/U has been strenuously pushed.

For these youth, any assertion of E/P – “we’re in and you’re out” – smacks of elitism, pomposity, and detestable privilege. Any mention of the “saved” and “unsaved” is utterly offensive. Particularistic reasoning has been increasingly discarded from any question of human rights. For example, convicted prisoners should have the same rights as anyone else. Children should have the same liberties as their parents. Gay couples should have the same rights to marry as have heterosexual couples. In such a cultural climate, Christianity is either automatically ruled out or modified in a way acceptable to I/U.

However, E/P and I/U aren’t mutually exclusive. They can and must abide together. The particulars must embrace the universals. Ironically, it is the Biblical revelation that provided the necessary basis for the moral universals (and even the scientific universals), asserting that we have inestimable value because we’re created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). The notion of human equality is not, nor can it be, the product of reason and science. By virtue of observations and measurements, humans are very different. Some make positive contributions; some make negative. Even when we regard humanity according to their most prominent characteristics – intelligence, creativity, and morality – some animals have more of these than do some humans. Some animals are more intelligent than newborn babies and certainly more capable. Should they therefore be valued more than humans? If the Bible is not received as the revelation of God, there is no compelling reason why this shouldn’t be the case.

E/P is also a fundamental and inseparable part of humanity and life. We marry one wife, not everyone. Our commitment is to one woman and not all. Our children are ours and not the property of the State or the world. We have primary responsibility for them.

To try to impose universals where particulars have their domain is to violate reality. I lived in Israel for two years and resided in a number of Kibbutzim of the radical Hashomer Hatziar movement. These are collective, socialistic communities. I was surprised to find out that some of the older communities had practiced a radical form of socialism at their beginnings. They believed that marriage was an illegitimate form of ownership. A woman shouldn’t be the exclusive property of any one man. Likewise, the children shouldn’t be any more the property of the couple who sired them but of the community. However, in no case did this experiment survive. The reality of particularism (E/P) was simply too much to overcome. This has also been the experience of the many communes that have arisen in the West.

It should also be noted that, from a Biblical perspective, it is the particularism of exclusive relationships that birth universals and inclusiveness. It is our relationship with our Savior that enables us to embrace those further away, starting with our responsibilities to our parents, children and church, but then reaching beyond them. It is because I value my particular circumstances that I can empathize with those of others. It is the particularism of Scripture that gives us the universal of the essential equality of all humankind before God.

In fact, you can’t have universals without particulars. For the Abrahamic religions, it starts with the one particular – God. And then, while all humanity fell because of the first man, humanity will be saved through another Person (1 Cor. 15:21-22). Further, it is by virtue of our relationship with the Particular that we can and should embrace all people as our “neighbors.” Children arise from particular relationships, not abstract universal, inclusive principles.

For the naturalists, it starts with a particular explosion from a singularity, and they continue to attempt to find the one principle or formula that will unite all else.

God also starts relationally and personally with selected particular people and, from there, works outward in an I/U direction. He chose Israel, but this was also in anticipation of His outreach to the Gentile nations. He then individually chose those of His church, but instructed them to,

• …go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19-20)

What is the matter if there is only one way? Oprah rejects this idea in favor of multiple ways. Many dogmatically insist that I/U is the only possible ideal. Is this insistence the product of reason or a worldview tsunami?

In contrast, the Biblical genius is that it starts with a particular relationship and proceeds out from there. Jesus is the light of the world, and so we too must take that light out into the world:

• Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

The Roots of Genocide

Genocide doesn’t suddenly appear. A foundation for the extermination of one people by another requires extensive preparation. Daniel Goldhagen, author of Hitler’s Willing Executioners, has an intense interest in genocide. His father was a Holocaust survivor. He recently produced a documentary on genocide, Worse than War. He too insists that you don’t need a telescope to see genocide coming. Its clamorous march is unmistakable.

It starts with the systematic denigration of a certain group of people – whether Jews, Gypsies, or Tutses. Once they become demeaned in the minds, they soon will be victimized by demeaning actions. If they are held in contempt in our minds, they will soon be hated through our spit and fists.

• Volunteers from the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) visited Brown University during their statewide tour for traditional marriage in Rhode Island on March 23. While peacefully demonstrating on the Ivy League campus, their pro-family banner was vandalized and a volunteer was spat upon in the face. March 30, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com)

According to TFP Student Action Director John Ritchie.

• “Dozens of pro-homosexual students screamed, spat, taunted, and even attempted to destroy our traditional marriage banner…Suddenly, a loud thud-rip noise was heard. I looked up and saw a pro-homosexual student literally crashing through our traditional marriage banner, attempting to destroy it. Running at top speed, he flung himself into it and ripped one side loose. Some students watching from a distance approvingly cheered the act of violence… Seeing the violent attitude of the pro-homosexual students, the police wanted to escort us to our vans after the campaign was over to protect us. And thank God they did, because when we pulled away from the curb, many pro-homosexual students closed in to hit the sides of our vehicles with their fists or palms. A hard object, maybe a rock, was even thrown against one of the vans.”

Why the violence? The traditional-marriage group wasn’t promoting something new, something that would radically undermine a way of life that we have grown to respect and love. They were merely championing something that had been universally accepted. Nor were their means violent, coercive or even disruptive. Had they been demonstrating in favor of Hitler or a terroristic organization, such student conduct might be easier to understand.

Nor do I think that Brown and other universities will require student to go for awareness or sensitivity training in response to their violent conduct. Nor will seminars on the virtues of necessity of free speech be provided. The absence of these forms of remediation will be indicting evidence that the persecution of conservative Christians is more than acceptable. Instead, had it been a demonstration in favor of women’s rights, the matter would have been handled entirely differently.

Why this violent conduct in regards to a prosaic pro-family demonstration? We should hardly expect violence in regards to a demonstration in favor of having more children or eating a more natural diet! Violence doesn’t spring out of a vacuum. Its legitimacy and justification must be carefully established. Students don’t just rush to violence and then laugh at their unacceptable conduct unless there is already a sizable well-respected group that they believe will honor them for it. And there is!

The university has long heaped their undeserved scorn upon conservative Christians. Their bias has become so passé that they can talk openly among themselves about not hiring or granting tenure to Evangelicals as the recent rejection by the University of Kentucky of Martin Haskell’s employment application has made very apparent.

In a survey of non-Evangelical professors conducted about five years ago by a Jewish group, it was found that 53% of the faculty admitted that they had negative attitudes towards Evangelicals – far more than towards Muslims. This is in stark contrast to their negative attitudes to Jews (3%) and Buddhists (4%). This disparity is shocking, and it is perfectly understandable that their antipathy would find expression in their teaching.

Secular humanism is the religion enthroned on the college campus. We find this bias infused within many textbooks. One claims that secular humanism,

• "reflects the Enlightenment's emphasis on rationality, science, and personal effort rather than blind faith in supernatural powers…Among the tenets of humanist philosophy:

1. A faith in human intelligence and abilities.
2. A commitment to democracy and civil liberties.
3. A belief in the importance of, if not the divine origin, of the Ten Commandments and of the ideals of social equity, the community of humankind, and world peace.
4. Opposition to all theories of predestination, divine determination, and fatalism.
5. Compassionate concern for all human beings.”

• "These are the beliefs that conservative Christians in the United States fear being taught to their children." (Sociology, p. 400)

There’s no appreciation of the fact that equality and democracy arose within a Biblical context. This imbalance might be partially explainable by virtue of the lack of Evangelicals in academia. Recently, Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist, University of Virginia,

• polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

Of the three conservatives, we can only wonder if any were Evangelicals. And even if all three of them are Evangelicals, they most likely lead a closeted existence within the hostile university atmosphere.

The media has also proved hostile and demeaning to Christians, consistently portraying them in a negative light. In a recent NPR expose, the CEO was not at all hesitant to speak negatively of social conservatives, even among those who identified themselves as part of the Muslim Brotherhood. This openness reflects the fact that contempt for social conservatives is endemic within the industry. It’s often expressed in terms of what mainstream media will report and what it won’t report. When Sarah Palin made an innocuous comment about getting someone in the cross-hairs of her scope, the media wouldn’t let go of it. However, more explicit death wishes, when made by liberals, get a free-pass:

• “Rush Limbaugh is beginning to look more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come. Not yet, but we’ll be there to watch.” — Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Morning Meeting, Oct. 13, 2009.

• “So, Michele, slit your wrist! Go ahead! I mean, you know, why not? I mean, if you want to — or, you know, do us all a better thing. Move that knife up about two feet. I mean, start right at the collarbone.” – Montel Williams talking about Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on Air America’s Montel Across America, Sept. 2, 2009.

While the mainstream media has reported copiously about the genocide against Muslims in Darfur, it has totally neglected the decade-long genocide against the largely Christian southern Sudan which has left 2 million dead. While mainstream media reported on the Myanmar military regimes crackdown on its Buddhist monks, it has been silent on the decades-long genocide against the largely Christian Karen and Karenni peoples in the north. Brent Bosell of Newsbusters.org, reports about this systematic imbalance:

• Christians getting slaughtered and maimed in the Middle East by radical Islamists during the Christmas season. That story rates barely a media eyebrow lift. On Christmas Eve in Nigeria, AP reported that Danjuma Akawu, secretary of Victory Baptist Church in the city of Maidiguri, charged that a mob of about 30 men attacked his church on Christmas Eve, killing five people, including the pastor, two choir members rehearsing for a late-night carol service and two passersby. He said the attackers came in three cars and dragged the pastor out of his house before shooting him to death. They drove off after setting the church and pastor's house on fire. On the other end of the same city, a security guard was shot and killed at a Church of Christ. Network coverage? Katie Couric’s CBS aired nothing. Neither did ABC.

• This is a pattern. On Halloween, 58 were killed at a Catholic church in Baghdad, as Islamic radicals took church members hostage during Mass and executed the priests. ABC, CBS , and NBC aired little anchor briefs, yet managed to put the weight of scrutiny on Iraqi government forces for attempting to storm the church and defeat the radicals. On New Year’s Eve, the New York Times reported from Baghdad on a cluster of 10 bomb attacks in which two people were killed and 20 wounded, all of them Christians. One week after an Islamic extremist group vowed to kill Christians in Iraq, the bombs were placed near the homes of at least 14 Christian families around the city. The networks didn’t find that compelling, either.
On 2/15/11, LifeSiteNews.com reported that according to the estimates of Aid to the Church in Need

• …as many as 170,000 Christians are killed out of hatred for their beliefs around the world each year, largely in Muslim dominated countries.

Why is the mainstream media silent about this genocide? Why the systematic imbalance in reporting? Perhaps the secular humanistic elites would rather portray Christians as the persecutors rather than the persecuted. Persecutors are scorned; the persecuted are pitied. Perhaps the mainstream media detests Christianity to such a degree that they want to disparage it and its message. Clearly, they have their favorites. While TV consistently portrays gay characters in a favorable light, Christians are portrayed as biased hate-mongers, small-minded, and homophobic.

Christians are so consistently degraded as “homophobic” that many now are arguing in favor of curtailing our right of free speech. And this is just what is happening. While the media will view much programming in favor of homosexual marriage, the traditional stance is seldom if ever heard. Meanwhile, the media asks the rhetorical question, “Why are Christians so opposed to gays?” without ever giving a Christian a chance to fully respond.

The New Hate Crimes legislation, signed into effect last year, not only criminalizes the action itself, but also speech that can possibly be construed to lead to a hate crime. An amendment to this bill that would exempt religious speech was defeated. Consequently, we now hear more talk about the Bible itself as “homophobic!” And since we are “homophobic,” the media can more conveniently justify not showing the increasing victimization of Christians

• Days after the videotaped incident [at Brown] was posted on YouTube, the video sharing website pulled down the footage, leaving a message stating: “This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service.”

Unbalanced reporting serves propaganda better than outright lies. The media remains silent regarding to such hate crimes, favoring instead their own causes and victims. Some are presented as the good guys worthy of our compassion, while others aren’t. I’m not saying that the systematic denigration of Christians and the accompanying refusal to air anything that might put Christians in a favorable light will lead to genocide, but this is how genocide begins. Besides, this discrimination is taking place in a culture that prides itself on tolerance and justice. Should not this hypocrisy be exposed?

However, to put it all in historical context, hating Christians is to be expected as Jesus had warned:

• "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.” (John 15:18-20)

• "All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.” (John 16:1-2)

Peace of Mind is Peace with Scripture

Peace of mind largely depends on peace and harmony of thought (Col. 2:2-3). You can’t find cognitive peace and rest as long as your mind obsesses among several conflicting thoughts. Of course, I’m not talking about the higher, more esoteric questions – “Is light a wave or particles?”

We also ponder these more esoteric questions within the corpus of Christian revelation. How can the Trinity be one God and yet three persons? I’m not talking about these irreconcilable questions either, but rather those that profoundly impact our lives on a daily basis – “Is punishment or even a harsh word ever justified” or “Is genocide wrong?” These questions not only require down-to-earth answers. They also permeate so much of our decision-making and even what we think about ourselves and others.

Perhaps even closer to home are questions and doubts about our relationship with God. Can we be sure that He loves, forgives, and accepts us? While many verses give us this assurance, there seems to remain certain verses that tend to undermine our assurance. For example, let’s take several from 1 John:

• 1 John 3:6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.

• 1 John 5:18 We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him. (NASB)

John seems to be saying that if we sin, we are not God’s. This is a terrifying thought, especially for the one whose hope rests exclusively in God. While I knew that we are saved by grace through faith without any consideration of my moral performance (Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5-7; Romans 3:27), I was still plagued with doubts. Perhaps God saved me without my deserving it at all, but perhaps now He required moral perfection in order to stay saved? Although this doubt didn’t sound right to me, I couldn’t absolutely dismiss it. Its accusing finger regularly appeared in my face.

This, however, didn’t seem to be the message of Scripture, which consistently asserted that we stood before God by grace, since no one could ever be good enough:

• Psalm 130:3-4 If Thou, LORD, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.

• Psalm 143:2 And do not enter into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight no man living is righteous.

I also began to find the same assurances in the New Testament:

• Romans 3:19-20 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

Paul himself confessed that he continued to struggle with sin:

• Romans 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

• Galatians 5:17 For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

And Paul wasn’t alone in confessing the fact that he hadn’t arrived morally. James also admitted that “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). I therefore was able to comfort myself that I was in good company. Besides, when I read about the Apostles, I found that they too continued to struggle against sin.

I was beginning to grow in confidence and peace of mind, but I continued to be troubled by John’s statements. However, at closer examination, I came to conclude that John couldn’t have possibly have meant that sinlessness was a necessary sign of salvation. For one thing, he claimed that anyone who said to be without sin was a liar (1 John 1:8, 10). “Anyone” includes even those who are saved!

Furthermore, he reached out to offer the very hope that we all, who struggle with sin, so desperately need:

• 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

This suggests that sin doesn’t damn us, but gives us an occasion – many of them – to enjoy anew the grace of God each time we confess our sins to Him, thereby instructing us of His love and patience with us. Nevertheless, as a doubter by nature, I continued to obsess over the two verses that continued to condemn me from His loving assurances.

As I continued to study, I found other reasons to dismiss my two “accusers.” In other verses, John demonstrated that there was on-going forgiveness for people, like me, who continued to struggle with sins:

• 1 John 5:16-17 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.

John assures us that the sinning brother would receive forgiveness and “life.” Sin was a continuing reality, even for the “brother.” (Scholars have long disagreed about the “sin leading to death.” It seems that the easiest way to understand this is in terms of a sin that a “brother” continues to refuse to repent – the sin that should also excommunicate him. Although we should continue to pray for such a brother, we should not pray that he is healed until he repents.)


It is after these two verses that one “accuser” appears: “No one born of God sins.” However, this present active verb can also be translated “anyone born of God does not CONTINUE to sin” 1 John 5:18; NIV). Seen in this light, it is not the sin that precludes salvation but the refusal to repent of sin and willingly continue in it. And this refusal is something antithetical to true faith, which rejects the former life of sin and wants to follow God.

While the wisdom of the Reformation proclaimed that we are saved by grace through faith alone – sola fide – it also proclaimed that such a faith is not alone, because it would give rise to a changed life.

I then confronted my first “accuser” to find that it too lacked the killing venom. Let’s examine the larger context:

• 1 John 3:4-9 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.

Once again, I found that the problem wasn’t a matter of falling into sin, but instead the unrepentant “practice” of sin, something that even paralleled the devil’s own practice and delight in sin. In contrast to this, I could now easily see that the one who “practices righteousness” is not necessarily the one who is sinless, but the one who strives against the practice of sin and who is cleansed as he repents (1 John 1:9). Likewise, our victory isn’t a matter of achieving sinlessness, but of receiving a true faith in God (1 John 5:4).

I felt myself delivered, at least from that struggle, and brought one step closer to assurance and the peace of mind that I so desperately sought. No wonder that Scripture tells us to meditate on the Word day and night (Psalm 1)! There is no more blessed practice!