The innocent brutally murdered- It's those Christians again!

Joanne McNeill wrote (Northern Advocate May 10, 2011) ‘… surely for avowed Christians…the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” should be fairly clear cut even if they still don't understand the Jesus cult's attempt to overturn the vengeful principle..."eye for eye, tooth for tooth"... ’ quoting from Exodus-   and then she alludes to Jesus teaching to turn the other cheek. It’s great that you are reading the Bible Joanne- but perhaps a word of advice is in order.

A text taken out of context is a pretext for proof-text, its a post-modern idea that everyone has become her/his own authority; and people think that they can make any verse mean whatever they want it to mean. Intent is prior to content. Your intention was to give people the idea the Bible is internally contradictory and thereby give ground for dismissal as the inspired word of God.

 The word given in Exodus was civil law by which to govern the people, just as our laws dictate how to live. Far from abrogating the law, Jesus raised the bar, if you so much as looked at a woman with lust you had committed adultery in your heart, if you even got angry with another without cause you had as good as committed murder. He affirmed his intention not to destroy the law but to fulfill it.

We all know if people cannot rule their own lives, sooner or later the law will step in to rule it for them and over them. This is ruling imposed from the top down. Jesus came that we might have power to rule our own lives (even excelling the law) from the bottom up, from the inside- out.

If in doubt of the meaning of a text- consult the Author.

(John 8:45, 47) And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. He that is of God hears (understands) God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

To give truth to him who loves it not is to only give him more multiplied reasons for misinterpretation- George McDonald




Footnote: Talk about  editorial balance- Joanne's article appeared May 10, 2011 and they had my response by May 15. They finally printed my letter July18!


Footnote: Norway has just experienced a day that will go down in history as one of, if not- the worst- days in it's largely peaceful history. The perpetrator of these heinous acts, (it is claimed) is a fundamentalist Christian. Who would believe it! 

Ruminations- Chew the Cud (Archives)

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

“The only legitimate place for hate in this world is to hate ideas that foment hate”


"Our commitment to truth is often not as deep as our unwillingness to bear the pain of being wrong. Why we sometimes resort to ad hominem attacks."

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"All Christians are lighthouses, it's just that some are manned, and some are not" Anonymous

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“The test of character posed by the gentleness of God's approach to us is especially dangerous for those formed by the ideas that dominate our modern world. We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can be almost as stupid as a cabbage, as long as you doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character. Only a very hardy individualist or social rebel -- or one desperate for another life -- therefore stands any chance of discovering the substantiality of the spiritual life today. Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright.” Dallas Willard

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“A little science estranges men from God, but much science leads them back to Him.”

- Louis Pasteur

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“Universities are unlike other institutions in that they absolutely require that people challenge each other so that the truth can emerge from limited, biased, flawed individuals,” he says. “If they lose intellectual diversity, or if they develop norms of ‘safety’ that trump challenge, they die. And this is what has been happening since the 1990s.” Jonathan Haidt, a centrist social psychologist at New York University speaking of the very unliberal tendency of liberals to avoid hiring conservative scholars at Universities.

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For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false. —H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

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“We don't believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true.” 

― Dallas Willard "Renovation of the Heart"

J.B.S. Haldane famously said :"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."

"The validity of rational thought, accepted in an utterly non-naturalistic, transcendental (if you will) supernatural sense, is the necessary presupposition of all other theorizing. There is simply no sense in beginning with a view of the universe and trying to fit the claim of thought in at a later stage. By thinking at all we have claimed that our thoughts are more than mere natural events. All other propositions must be fitted in as best as they can round that primary claim"

"Every particular thought, (whether is a judgement of fact or a judgement of value), is always and by all men, discounted the moment they believe it can be explained without remainder as the result of irrational causes. Whenever you know what the other man is saying is wholly due to his complexes, or to a bit of bone pressing on his brain, you cease to attach any importance to it. But if naturalism were true, then all thoughts whatever would be wholly the result of irrational causes. Therefore, all thoughts would be equally worthless. Therefore, naturalism is worthless. If it is true, then we can know no truths. It cuts its own throat." C.S. Lewis

I read this bumper sticker today which gave me pause to think: "Some people are so poor they only have money" but there are people poorer yet- Some people are so poor they only have a desire for money.

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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."--Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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"A Nation of Sheep will beget a government of wolves" Edward R. Murrow

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Psychologist Erich Fromm in his insightful book, "On Civil Disobedience": 

“If a man can only obey and not disobey, he is a slave; if he can only disobey and not obey, he is a rebel (not a revolutionary). He acts out of anger, disappointment, resentment, yet not in the name of a conviction or a principle.”

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"There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and dont know it" G. K. Chesterton

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The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. Naom Chomsky

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In the end, each of us has a theology. (Even the act of dismissing theology in favor of Jesus is theological.) Thomas Kidd

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Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth. Arthur Schopenhauer

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“Proof” is for mathematical theorems and alcoholic beverages, not for science. Michael Mann

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The Atheist Friedrich Neitzsche:  "How much boundlessly stupid naivety is there in the scholar's belief in his superiority, in the simple, unsuspecting certainty with which his instincts treat the religious man as inferior and a lower type which he himself has evolved above and beyond"

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"the question of whether the Son is both functionally subordinate to the Father and ontologically equal is of crucial importance for the life of the church" Sam Storms

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"An expenditure of words without an income of ideas will lead to conceptual bankruptcy"
Ravi Zacharias

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The Atheist Friedrich Neitzsche:

"How much boundlessly stupid naivety is there in the scholar's belief in his superiority, in the simple, unsuspecting certainty with which his instincts treat the religious man as inferior and a lower type which he himself has evolved above and beyond"

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Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, "The existentialist vacuum of the Western world can only be healed by the restoration of a meaning and a purpose that lies beyond ourselves. The human spirit can bear anything, but a total lack of meaning."

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'There is no secular, scientific basis for the idea of human dignity, or that human beings are valuable and inviolable. Historian Carl L. Becker famously said that, from a strictly scientific viewpoint, human beings must be viewed as “little more than a chance deposit on the surface of the world, carelessly thrown up between two ice ages by the same forces that rust iron and ripen corn.” ' Tim Keller Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just.

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Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and holocaust survivor:

"The existentialist vacuum of the Western world can only be healed by the restoration of a meaning and a purpose that lies beyond ourselves. The human spirit can bear anything, but a total lack of meaning."

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Human autonomy has reached its zenith and is now absolute. Humankind: absolute- God: obsolete.

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Never be afraid or ashamed of ignorance, we all started off in the same state, 

but rather be afraid of remaining that way in thinking we know enough. Beware also of: 

"always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth."

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Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.

— Mahatma Gandhi

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If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. — John Stuart Mill

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“Skepticism is thus a resting-place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings and make survey of the region in which it finds itself, so that for the future it may be able to choose its path with more certainty. But it is no dwelling-place for permanent settlement. Such can be obtained only through perfect certainty in our knowledge, alike of the objects themselves and of the limits within which all our knowledge of objects is enclosed.”

― Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason"

Skepticism should be the temporary suspension of judgement.  The post-modern has opted to live in suspenders all day long without the trousers they were designed to hold up.

"Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,"

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Mark Noll penned the piercing words: “The scandal of the Evangelical mind is that there is not much of an Evangelical mind”

As Charles Spurgeon said, "Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter."

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"A time will come in human history when human beings will follow the Ten Commandments and so on as regularly as they now fall to the ground when they step off a roof. They will then be more astonished that someone would lie or steal or covet than they now are when someone will not. The law of God will then be written in their hearts, as the prophets foretold (Jer. 31:33; Heb. 10:16). This is an essential part of the future triumph of Christ and the deliverance of humankind in history and beyond." Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy.

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The current mindset that afflicts the Evangelical Church is an impoverished view of grace which creates a passive, consumer mentality in our pews.

"Grace is not opposed to effort (which is action), but to earning (which is attitude)" Professor Dallas Willard.

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"The fact is that reality is totally unyielding to false belief- truth is unforgiving- it does not change if you have certain opinions. No-one has ever made a belief true- by believing it. Reality is what you run into when your're wrong...when you come to talking about Christ and his kingdom and the devine conspiracy - the primary issue is truth. Is it true or is it falsehood?" Professor Dallas Willard

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Eduard von Hartmann said nearly a century ago:
“it is perfectly true that nothing exists merely because we wish it, but it is not true that something cannot exist if we wish it.”

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'The problem [of induction ] calls into question all empirical claims made in everyday life or through the scientific method and for that reason the philosopher C. D. Broad said that "induction is the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy" '  Wikipedia

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"Note that I am not postulating a 'God of the gaps', a god merely to explain the things that science has not yet explained. I am postulating a God to explain why science explains; I do not deny that science explains, but I postulate God to explain why science explains. The very success of science in showing us how deeply ordered the natural world is provides strong grounds for believing that there is an even deeper cause for that order."  Richard Swinburne

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"Ultimately it is only the man who feels quite helpless about himself who really trusts God" 

Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones

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Chronological snobbery is the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common  to our age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account  discredited ...  Our own age ... certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic  illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those wide-spread assumptions which are so  ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them. C.S. Lewis- Surprised by Joy

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"democracy" will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." - Thomas Jefferson

The problem with Socialism is, sooner or later you will run out of OTHER peoples money. - Margret Thatcher

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"It is tragic when men who profess to be the ministers of the gospel appear to be more sure of what they do not believe than of what they do. They are convinced of their doubts; they are doubtful of their convictions. But the final tragedy is that instead of keeping their miserable doubts to themselves they drag them into the pulpit and give them an airing in almost every sermon. There is no apostolic 'We know!' about their preaching but only a hesitant 'We venture to suggest' -Frank Colquhoun on the Liberal 'gospel' out of John A Haverland's book "Feed My Sheep"

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"Only observe, I pray you how many evasions and ways of escape a slippery mind will invent, which wold flee from the truth, and yet cannot get away from it after all." Martin Luther, "The Bondage of the Will" pgs. 155-156

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"Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God's existence and Jesus' resurrection (and, hence, his divinity). In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview" Lee Strobel 

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Modern science teaches that man is not the apex of creation, but the ex-ape of evolution. 

Greg Bahnsen (?)

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"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair." 

C.S. Lewis

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G.K. Chesterton in characteristic wit said:

 "Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone must tell us what to say. "

Apologetic for Apologetics

“For though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”  Austin Farrer “The Christian Apologist”(1904-1968)

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What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? Tertullians ever relevant question...

The one time skeptic and investigative journalist Lee Strobel now a committed Christian and author of several Christian apologetic works including "The Case For Christ" and "The Case for Faith" is in a quandary. Recently his son approached him with the idea of studying philosophy. "Son" he is reported as saying, "do you know the difference between a large pizza and a Philosophy Professor?" No doubt this was followed by a perplexed look from his son. "A large pizza will will feed a family of four!" 

Why is it that a discipline which at its core seeks to answer the big questions of life has fallen into such disrepute and, for many marginalized into irrelevance? Is Christianity diametrically opposed to philosophy? If we are to love Christ as our source of wisdom- (philosophy comes from two Greek words meaning "love of wisdom")- shouldn't Christians be actively interested in this discipline? Having read some of Lee Strobels work I have no doubt of his appreciation for the value of this much maligned vocation, but his pragmatic question to his son also highlights how seriously undervalued it is in general in our society and in some corners of Christendom. C.S. Lewis who continues to make a profound impact on behalf of Christ was himself deeply involved in philosophy as his work continues to show. He once said: 

“Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered" 

If Christians are to seriously engage in contemporary society surely we ought to be questioning the assumptions and strongholds that are binding our neighbours, friends, and even members of our own families.

"But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption," 1 Corinthians 1:30 NASB

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" I went at your bidding, and passed along their thoroughfares of trade. I ascended their mountains and went down their valleys. I visited their manufactories, their commercial markets, and emporiums of trade. I entered their judicial courts and legislative halls. But I sought everywhere in vain for the secret of their success, until I entered the church. It was there, as I listened to the soul-equalizing and soul- elevating principles of the Gospel of Christ, as they fell from Sabbath to Sabbath upon the masses of the people, that I learned why America was great and free, and why France was a slave." – Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian reporting to the French Senate, (circa 1800)

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Why, as a culture, has the West enjoyed such singular success? Let me answer by asking some questions: If you were to do a survey of human migration over the last decades what countries would you expect these migrants to come from? And what countries do you think these migrants are going to? Now if you investigated the reasons for these movements what do you think would be behind them? I venture to say that people move from poverty, oppression, disenchantment and fear- and they move towards wealth, opportunity, security and hope- to give a few examples. If you wanted to find a common denominator as to those countries that represent opportunity, wealth, security I think if you scratch the surface you will find that Western Culture is the key. And what does Western culture value? (Western culture has nothing to do with race) Since Western culture is based on objective reality and universal human nature, it is open to everyone, transcending both geography and race. But if one digs deeper, it becomes clear that the truly fundamental basis for the rise of the West was an extraordinary faith in reason. Western culture inculcates the value of "reason". "The Victory of Reason" explores a series of developments in which reason won the day, giving unique shape to Western culture and institutions. The most important of these victories occurred within Christianity. . . . While the other world religions emphasized mystery and intuition, Christianity alone embraced reason and logic as the primary guide to religious truth. . . . Encouraged by the Scholastics and embodied in the great medieval universities founded by the church, faith in the power of reason infused Western culture, stimulating the pursuit of science and the evolution of democratic theory and practice." Rodney Stark- "The Victory of Reason"

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 Describing his own quite reluctant conversion, C.S. Lewis exclaimed,

"I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. Who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape? The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”

C.S. Lewis -Surprised by Joy... 

It seems, to my understanding of the man, that C.S. Lewis was no ally to any sort of determinism (See here) let alone that of the theological kind- like predestination. Yet here at least he tips his hat of approval in the direction of divine omnipotence in his own experience of conversion.
Of course it can be argued that Lewis was such a reasonable man, that is to say- he was such a man in whose life the discipline of logic and reason played such a powerful role, that for him it was all but impossible to resist such a formidable presentation of the truth as that which the Spirit of God had revealed to his mind. Therefore he himself might argue that due to his own respect for reason he dared not oppose the substantiated claims of the Gospel even while his own carnal nature looked desperately for ways of escape.

Lewis (to a Calvinist) might have said, "that does not mean that there was only one, inescapable, course of action in any absolutist sense, any more than a moral imperative such as a mere man saying 'follow me' might mean. Even if it was at the point of a gun...One could always choose death."
But this is exactly the point, the very fact of his conversion and his own admission of the circumstances at least ought to alert the reader to the possibility that God had inextricably drawn Lewis to himself. Even if Lewis argued against his own writing of the "compulsion of God" being taken in a literal sense- does not change one iota of the very real possibility that this literally was true in an absolute sense. This is especially when we consider how the scriptures themselves speak of "Him whose arm is not so short... " He who knows our frame, knows how to make us willing...even while our mind continues its objections. Amazing grace...

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David Hume (1711–1776): “Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to be positive or dogmatical on any subject". Well Mr. Hume the subject is philosophy and you just failed to meet the criterion of your own definition. While denying dogma Hume is absolutely dogmatic! David Hume was no friend to revealed religion and thanks to his work we are a very strongly skeptical world today. Isn't it wonderful with hindsight and a little training in philosophy we can spot wrong headed thinking!

Another faux pas by Hume:"If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion." -An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. That statement itself denies it's own premises and is a metaphysical statement.

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Francis Schaeffer's definition of democracy: “the tyranny of the fifty-one percent”

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After spending five years researching the life of Robert Falcon Scott his biographer, David Crane was asked: “What was the most moving moment in your research?” His unhesitating reply was upon reading personal notes in the prayer book of Scott’s friend, fellow explorer and one of those who perished with him- Dr Edward Wilson. “…It’s one of those unbearable documents. It’s very, very moving. At the beginning he’s written… good protestant theology- that because Christ has died for us there is nothing more we need to do. That is the faith in which he died and by which he lived, To have in your hand the physical evidence of that faith is wonderfully touching…Wilson’s prayer book wakes you up to a different culture, a different world, a different concept of humanity.”

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“God has not been so sparing to men to make them barely two-legged creatures, and left it to Aristotle to make them rational.” John Locke

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"Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgement, and misguide the mind; What the weak head with strongest bias rules,- Is pride, the never failing vice of fools" Alexander Pope

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"The new atheists are classic examples of the very thing that they despise: they are characterized by the blind faith that all faith is blind faith." John Lennox- Gunning for God

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Current accounts of knowing have placed the would-be objective scientific knowing (test-tube epistemology, if you like) in a position of privilege. Every step away from this is seen as a step into obscurity, fuzziness and subjectivism, reaching its peaks in aesthetics and metaphysics. N T Wright- "The Challenge of Jesus"

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A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery. C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, ch.3

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"The historicity of Christ is as axiomatic for an unbiased historian as the historicity of Julius Caesar." - F.F. Bruce

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"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." -Albert Einstein

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A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently. -Augustine

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A creed which defines "love" as the ultimate criterion for life but does not adequately define love, ends up tolerant of every evil; but virtue- as the compliment hypocrisy honours it with shows- is rejected, for it is jealously exclusive. And thus as David Hume once said, the corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst. K.C.

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"The science of reasoning is of very great service in searching into and unraveling all sorts of questions that come up in Scripture....The validity of logical sequences is not a thing devised by men, but it is observed and noted by them that they may be able to learn and teach it; for it exists eternally in the reason of things, and has its origin with God."Augustine (circa third century AD)

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" 'Coincidence' is simply God choosing to remain anonymous." Anonymous

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"The Postmodern", as G.K. Chesterton mused, "is one who has his feet firmly planted in mid air."

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"The only alternative to the doctrine of predestination is the assertion of the reign of total chance, of meaninglessness and brute factuality. The real issue is, what kind of predestination we shall have, predestination by God or predestination by man?" -Rousas John Rushdoony

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"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"
-Thomas Jefferson or Wendell Phillips

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“Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of their time.” 

-John Loftus quoting Voltaire. Problem is John, this is a double edged sword relating just as assuredly to atheists as it does to believers.

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'The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot a wrong question.' -Anthony Jay

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"Here," (in the West)," we believe that religion is an amputation of the brain" -Ravi Zacharias

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The definition of faith offered by W. H. Griffith-Thomas is typical of a long Christian tradition . [Faith] "affects the whole of man’s nature. It commences with the conviction of the mind based on adequate evidence; it continues in the confidence of the heart or emotions based on conviction, and it is crowned in the consent of the will, by means of which the conviction and confidence are expressed in conduct." Alistair McGrath.

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