Author: Christ Ranger

God is great!

Categories
entertainment Ministry

Ark Encounter Officially Anticipated to Be a Tourist Attraction

Ark Encounter Receives State Approval
for Tax Rebates:
Economic impact study gives themed attraction high marks

 PETERSBURG, Ky., May 19, 2011 – This afternoon, the Tourism Development Finance Authority of Kentucky unanimously approved the application of the Ark Encounter LLC to receive a rebate of sales tax that is to be collected when the attraction opens in Grant County. Based on evaluating a 3-month study, the Authority determined that the project exceeds the criteria established by the state’s Tourism Development Act and thus qualifies to receive a sales tax rebate that Kentucky offers as an incentive for prospective tourist attractions to build in the state.

The Authority today approved the analysis conducted by the independent research group Hunden Strategic Partners. HSP was commissioned by the state to determine how much money tourists would spend at the future Ark Encounter and whether the attraction would have a net positive economic impact for Kentucky even after the rebates are factored in.

The report’s executive summary presented the bottom line of the likelihood of success: “Overall, the Project scores high on nearly all the critical success factors,” adding that “the Project meets all criteria identified by the Kentucky Tourism Development Act.”

The Tourism Authority determined that the Ark Encounter is eligible to receive a sales tax rebate from the sale of tickets, food, and resources at the Ark Encounter for 10 years. The performance-based incentive allows the Ark Encounter to recover up to 25% of its construction costs if it meets attendance and sales projections.  The remaining sales tax that is kept by the state plus other taxes collected (e.g., income taxes of citizens employed at the attraction and at businesses created by the Ark, plus sales tax collected by those businesses) will have a net positive impact for the state. If the Ark Encounter was not built-in Kentucky, those millions of dollars in potential revenue would go to another state. The Tourism Development Act offers impressive financial incentives through rebates without taking existing money out of the state’s coffers.

Hunden Strategic Partners specializes in conducting what is called a “fiscal impact analysis” as it studies a potential tourism project. An economic impact study rather than a feasibility study, the HSP analysis presented two Ark Encounter scenarios and the possible results of each: Scenario A, in which the Ark Encounter will present biblical events from the Old Testament that would exclude the creation account of origins; and Scenario B, in which the project would be similar in content to Answers in Genesis’s Creation Museum and its teachings from the first chapters of the book of Genesis. The Ark Encounter satisfies Scenario A, for it will be an attraction that starts with Noah’s Flood and then continues through the rest of the Old Testament.

 The HSP analysis noted that if the Ark Encounter follows Scenario A, then it:

  • benefits from a theme (the Bible) which has “perhaps one of the largest built-in audiences in theU.S.”; very conservatively, HSP predicts 1.2 million visitors should visit the first year.
  • could have an expected impact to the state of $119 million (e.g., from sales tax, income tax, etc.) over ten years; after the rebate is factored in, the Ark Encounter will generate an estimated $64.6 million in taxes for the state over 10 years.
  • will see (among many benefits): guests filling about 600,000 room nights per year at area hotels, see the hiring of over 3,000 people at the attraction and also at tourism-related business that will be created by the Ark Encounter, etc.

Mike Zovath, Senior Vice-President of Answers in Genesis and head of the team that built the successful Creation Museum in Boone County, further noted: “ThisArkproject will be great for Williamstown, Grant County, and Kentucky. It will bring much-needed revenue and jobs to the Commonwealth. I am satisfied with the HSP analysis because it confirms what we have believed for some time: the Ark Encounter is a viable and worthwhile project.”

The Ark Encounter is a one-of-a-kind historical themed attraction. In an entertaining and educational way, it will present a number of themes from the Old Testament, centered on a full-size, all-woodArk.The attraction also includes a walled city, a first-century Middle Eastern village, a tower of Babel, a large petting zoo, and other attractions. A nationwide feasibility study commissioned by Answers in Genesis in 2009 estimated that the Ark Encounter could draw over 1.6 million visitors the first year.

The Ark Encounter is scheduled to open in spring 2014 on about 800 acres off I-75 in Grant County, Kentucky, south of Cincinnati, Ohio.  Groundbreaking is tentatively planned for late August 2011. The for-profit Ark Encounter will be privately funded, with an estimated cost of almost $150 million. Answers in Genesis is a member of the Ark Encounter LLC and will oversee the project.

Categories
culture entertainment

Turn it on again

Sometimes it’s difficult to appreciate something in which you’re completely immersed .  It may be trite but nonetheless true, a fish might not realize it’s wet.  I would suspect that to someone born and raised in North Korea, totalitarianism “feels” normal.  When an entire society is immersed and accepts something as a given, often that something avoids rigorous scrutiny. 

Television is ubiquitous, or to define it more broadly, electronic visual stimulation is everywhere and largely accepted.  From movies, to television, to video games, to the Internet and our PDAs, we’re increasingly becoming e-stimulation junkies.  Television and its progeny replace our needs and desires for meaningful thought, social engagements, civil duties and the critical thinking that should be attendant to each.  Our electronic cocoons become a cultural religion. Our entertainment binds us more than our religion, politics, or even our business needs.  The stimulation of visual entertainment has increasingly become an end unto itself, a consuming end.  As a result, each year we consume an ever-increasing amount of “screen time.”  See here.

In the April 18 edition of National Review, Ben Berger presents a cogent case that television and its kin may be the primary agent eating away at our social and political fabric.  Could it be that screen time eats Republics as well as grey matter?  Is electronic stimulation on such a scale of consumption a giant, mental parasite?   Could television be a primary agent in what so many of us recognize as fundamental societal decline? 

Television makes us fat, lazy, inattentive, unsociable, mistrustful, materialistic — and unhappy about all of that. It cheapens political discourse, weakens family ties, prevents face-to-face socializing, and exposes kids to sex and inures them to violence. Yet Americans can’t get enough. In 1950, just 9 percent of U.S. households owned a television; by 1960 it was 90 percent, and by the year 2000 TVs were just about everywhere. Now the average U.S. household has more TVs than people. 

Please read the rest at Ben Berger’s Tocqueville And the Tube

Categories
Atheism, agnostic, evolution, etc.

Did “superbug” Staphylococcus sciuri “evolve”?

See Dr. Georgia Purdom’s Bacteria Keep “Outsmarting” Antibiotics

Categories
politics, economy, etc. video

“Reembrace American Exceptionalism” – Ryan

 

Categories
encouragement humor video

Jacob’s Wives

From Dima Kotik  at Truthonly.com and friends, a modern adaptation on the history of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah:

For an insightful, interesting and serious commentary on the same story, see Richard S. Strauss’ Never Satisfied! – The Story of Jacob and Rachel.

Categories
culture homeschooling

Public Education Failure

Nearly half the citizens of Detroit are functionally illiterate. See here. The City itself had a population of over 700,000 in 2010, with over 4 million people in the metropolitan area.  The metropolitan areas are slightly less-worse:  34 percent in Pontiac and 24 percent in Southfield reported as functionally illiterate.  Note from the linked article, Detroit’s functional illiteracy rate is only slightly higher than Washington DC and Cleveland.  In 2008, DC was spending over $25,000 per child for education.  These cities have been hardcore Democrat party controlled areas for over a century.  The teacher unions run the school systems unchecked.  More proof that the public school system as designed, run, and funded by the left does not work. 

The government does a few things well but not, however, running schools or businesses (or planning economies). Education is best done by families and/or private enterprise with close parental involvement.  The best thing most parents can do for their children’s primary education is to get the government out of their school room, get themselves involved, and put God back in the curriculum.

Categories
encouragement

National Day of Prayer

The mission of today’s National Day of Prayer is “to mobilize prayer in America and to encourage personal repentance and righteousness in the culture.” http://nationaldayofprayer.org/

Please pray:

  • for our nation in regard to the fight against terrorism and also for the safety of our military worldwide.
  • that America would return to the authority of the Bible, especially as the nation deals with issues like “gay” marriage, abortion, stem-cell research, etc.
  • for guidance and wisdom for churches and ministries nationwide, and that God will bless our churches as they proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and seek to bring about reformation and repentance.  
  • for the persecuted church worldwide. For example, the Chinese government continues to crack down on Christians, including the recent arrest of 47 believers (in broad daylight) at an unregistered Beijing church; other members of this church have lost their jobs. Pray that Christians in China will be able to exercise religious freedom.
  • for each of us to submit to God and be transformed to the likeness of Christ in our daily lives.
Categories
politics, economy, etc.

Hey Kids, Look What Mommy & Daddy Have For You!

 

Not surprisingly, the Heritage Foundation reports that our long-term debt is one of the worst in the world.  See here.  Like Rome, fiscal irresponsibility and unsustainable debt appear poised to destroy the foundation of our republic.  See here.

Categories
Atheism, agnostic, evolution, etc.

Obvious Truths of Evolution

Popular sentiment treats “evolution” as fact and teaches that evolution provides a compelling belief system for the origin of life on this planet. (When I use the term “evolution,” unless otherwise specified, I mean “molecules to man evolution”).  There are at least two aspects to evolution: (1) presently observable phenomena, and (2) historical inferences based on a naturalistic worldview to explain the present evidence, what I’ve referred to as “evolution as origins” or “molecules to man” belief.  These two aspects of “evolution” should be distinguished from each other when evolution is discussed.  Further, I believe there is a tension between these two facets of what we call evolution.  Regardless, as explained below, the evolution as origins aspect of evolution is a threadbare belief.  Not only is it undeserving of its dogmatic following, it utterly fails to present a basis for Christians to compromise fundamentals of the faith in general and the teachings of the Genesis account in particular.

Some critics of biblical creation create straw men arguments that creationists reject science or that creationists reject evolution.  The first charge is generally utterly false—when one is dealing with “observational science” (knowledge gained through direct observation and based on the repeatable test—knowledge that builds our technology).  The second allegation is only partially true – we reject “evolution” when it means “molecules to man” belief systems.

The “problem” with Darwinism, like any “good” lie, is that there’s some undeniable truth to it.  Specifically, what is called natural selection is not disputed.  Darwin’s observation and “discovery” of changes he observed and called natural selection are accurate.  Such changes are observable, and entirely consistent with what the Bible teaches concerning kinds.There are observable changes within a kind (or “Family” as kind in most instances probably equates to the “Family” level of classification).  The second aspect of Darwinian evolution, i.e. Darwin’s extrapolation of evolution (the observable changes) as the engine for life and the myriad kinds or families over time is, however, highly incompatible with the teachings of Christianity in general and with the Genesis account in particular.  Darwin’s ideas based on naturalism (regardless of how a secularist explains it), would mean that in nature there is no design, no purpose, just blind, pitiless indifference, which is exactly how Darwin described it.  That assertion and that component of evolution is false and I reject it.

Because Jesus Christ is God, we should give Scripture a strong presumption of validity, from Genesis to Revelation.

Biblical creationists do not reject “observational science.”  The conflict is between two different accounts of “historical science.”  We therefore come to different conclusions because of our different starting points.  It’s not really an argument about evidence.  We all observe the same thing.  The debate properly presented is about interpretations based on presuppositions.

Is the evidence compelling in favor of materialistic evolution?  No.  In fact, it’s threadbare, and evolutionists have to come up with secondary and tertiary assumptions to explain why it doesn’t really fit with their evolutionary beliefs.  Here’s my “top 10″ evidentiary list concerning evolution and illustrating that observing such in the present does not confirm the belief in evolution, but in fact confirms that the correct starting point to interpret such evidence is God’s Word.

1.  You just don’t get there from a plain reading of scripture.  What the prophets and Apostles taught under inspiration from the Holy Spirit does not in any way support the evolutionary belief of origins.

2.  What is called “Natural Selection” is a demonstrable component of evolutionary belief, but does not add information or complexity to the world.  To the contrary, selecting logically necessitates a corresponding elimination.

3. The engine of change, genetic mutation, does not provide compelling evidence of increasing information and the sustainability or complexity of life. A genetic mutation for humans nearly universally means no change (neutral mutations) or detrimental change (death and disease).  Many mutations in the natural world result in a loss or impairment of important genetic information.  Even the few and far in between ‘beneficial’ mutations, such as antibiotic resistant bacteria, demonstrate offsetting losses.  Antibiotic resistant bacteria survive under constraints of the medication but are weaker in a natural, un-medicated environment.

4.  There is no mechanism that allows for an organism to change from one kind of an organism to another.  Natural selection “selects” from the available genetic information.  Genetic mutations generally degrade information or are net-neutral.  There simply has been no observed mechanism for “evolving” incredible complexities of information necessary to construct the remarkable features and complexities of life in and around us.

5. Endangered species list: the list exists.  The present evidence does not demonstrate the formation of new ‘kinds’ or families over time—even though we have observed a few new ‘species’ within certain kinds.  What we see occurring now and in the fossil record is a steady and ongoing rate of extinction.  “Natural selection” eliminates life forms; specifically, this process involves the weeding out within species of variations that are not well suited to the present environment.  It’s ironic that dinosaurs are held up as iconic for evolution.  They are instead irrefutable evidence of an entire kind being wiped out through natural processes – the exact opposite of evolution. The process of natural selection is not creating new kinds or families; it only “fine tunes” kinds and families to their environment by weeding out the unfit.  There is no such thing as a new families list.  There is a growing endangered species list—which results eventually in entire families becoming extinct.

6.  The missing link between man and ape is still missing.

7.  Any credible idea how life first started by naturalistic processes of matter is also still missing.  Despite well over a century of concentrated intelligent effort, the method for chance or accidental creation of a code system and information system as found in DNA , under conditions purportedly prevalent millions of years ago, have not been discovered.

8.  The mathematical specificity of the simplest DNA – T1 phage. See here for explanation.  See also Georgia Purdom, Water Flea Has More Genes Than Human.

9.  The fossil record does not show eons of steady, incremental evolution.  Instead, we find billions of dead things, buried in fairly proximate layers, scattered over all portions of the earth.  Evolutionists, based on their specific beliefs, interpret this evidence as an explosion of biodiversity over time.  Or, it could be (and in fact is) the record of a worldwide cataclysmic event that killed billions of living creatures in close temporal proximity—a different interpretation based on the revelation in God’s Word concerning the Flood of Noah’s Day, and its various consequences.  The slight variations in where the creatures are found in those layers are likely attributable to when they died, and if it was a worldwide flood, also if and when they sank—how they were buried in specific locales.

10.  Myths and ancient records.  Our ancient “legends” and “myths” are filled with tales of men killing giant lizards.  There are stories and pictures of dragons across continents and going back thousands of years:

  • A Sumerian story dating back to 2000 BC or earlier tells of a hero namedGilgamesh, who, when he went to fell cedars in a remote forest, encountered a huge vicious dragon that he slew, cutting off its head as a trophy.
  • When Alexander the Great (c. 330 BC) and his soldiers marched into India, theyfound that the Indians worshipped huge hissing reptiles that they kept in caves.
  • The Norsemen, or Vikings, regularly carved dragon heads into the bows of their boats.
  • China is renowned for its dragon stories, and dragons are prominent on Chinese pottery,embroidery, and carvings.
  • England and several other cultures retain the story of St. George, who slew a dragon that lived in a cave.
  • There is the story of a tenth-century Irishman who wrote of his encounter with what appears to have been a Stegosaurus.
  • In the 1500s, a European scientific book, Historia Animalium, listed several livinganimals that we would call dinosaurs. A well-known naturalist of the time, Ulysses Aldrovandus, recorded an encounter between a peasant named Baptista and a dragon whose description fits that of the small dinosaur Tanystropheus. The encounter was on May 13, 1572,
    near Bologna in Italy, and the peasant killed the dragon.
  •  Petroglyphs (drawings carved on rock) of dinosaur like creatures have also been found.  See GenesisPark Room 1: the Dinosaurs;Dinosaur Petroglyphs at Natural Bridges National Monument.
  • The book of Job, considered by many to be the oldest book in the Bible (circa 1500 BC) discusses creatures that demonstrate the glory of God.  The book clearly describes what could be a  dinosaur and also a fire-breathing sea dragon—an animal  known to the reader.  See Job 40:15-18 (something that sounds like a brachiosaur); Job 41 (some form of fierce water dragon).

See Ken Ham, What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? ; Ishmael Abrahams, Still Good Evidence.

We do not see nature creating increasing complexities of life and biodiversity.  Instead, we observe “nature’s blind indifference” destroying life forms and slowly reducing the total amount of genetic information.  The fossil record and present observation suggests there was more biodiversity and total genetic information in the past.  That is consistent with the truth: there was a magnificent creation, followed by a fall away from the Creator and a long period of death, decline, suffering and extinction, to include a devastating Global Flood, just as Genesis teaches.

Categories
Atheism, agnostic, evolution, etc.

Monkey Business

Suppose you were born this morning with the ability to read, think, and understand and found yourself wondering how and why you existed.  Suppose further that someone gave you a Bible, told you it was the word of God, and encouraged you to read it, which you did, from the beginning.  After reading the first few chapters of Genesis, and having not yet “benefited” from modern indoctrination enlightenment, you would not conclude that your existence was attributable to millions and millions of years of micro-evolution, and an amoeba to man metamorphosis.  Frankly, there is simply no way you could infer that from Genesis for from any other book of the Bible.

So, if I told you that although we believe the Bible is a remarkable book and the inspired word of God, most of us also believe that we evolved from some primordial micro-ooze a very long time ago, you just might conclude that there exists compelling evidence that compelled us to shoe-horn such an idea into Genesis.  Of course it would have to be overwhelming evidence before we compromised what we’ve acknowledged as God’s word, or, to put it more delicately, to “accommodate” the narrative to the evidence.

Of course we might think that way, if we were born yesterday.  If, however, we’ve spent decades being told that the Bible governs spiritual issues and science governs reality and that “science” teaches us that our origins and the various forms of life are attributable to the process of evolution, we might more or less simply accept the continual declarations as true, especially if we’d been instructed with the millions and millions and billions of years and evolution theories continually since we wore diapers.

But really, is the evidence of evolution so compelling that it requires us to treat it on par with the plain, ordinary meaning of God’s word?  That we contort God’s explanation of origins to squeeze in millions of years and evolution?  That we treat God’s plain teaching of origins as a metaphor, or worse, as simply untrue?

But maybe evolution for the story of our origins isn’t incompatible with Genesis?  I mean, evolution is science and Genesis is religion.

In the book, The Lie, Ken Ham explains how evolution as origins theory undermines fundamental elements of our faith.

Why do we believe in marriage?

Homosexual marriage is now a heated political topic.  On what do we base our definition of marriage?  Genesis teaches that God created two genders, male and female, and joined one man to one women in marriage.  There was and is nothing arbitrary about our gender or about how we mate.  In Chapter 19 of his Gospel account, Matthew recounts Jesus teaching about marriage: “He who created them in the beginning, made them male and female.  The man shall cling to his wife and they shall become one flesh.”  Jesus himself used Genesis as the foundation teaching about marriage.  Evolution as origins theory has no such foundation for marriage.  To the contrary, if we evolved from some yet-to-be-discovered theoretical ape like creature, marriage is no more and no less than whatever we want it to be.

Why do we promote the wearing of clothes?

We were created and born naked.  Why not strip nude in public when it’s warm out or when we simply feel like being naked?  The entire animal kingdom parades naked with their genitals exposed. We don’t.  Even the most primitive and pagan cultures cover their genitals.  Humans feel ashamed when naked.  Since the fall and original sin, we realize our nakedness and want to hide ourselves.  The first act after falling away from God was to feel shame and exposed.  Further, after the fall, our hearts burn with lust and we cloth ourselves in modesty and for safety.  Our moral hang-up with clothing  makes little sense in the “moral” framework of evolution.  It’s our first reported manifestation of the fall.

Why are there rules of right and wrong?

God created everything, to include us.  We owe him everything and he has all the power.  Quite simply, he has every right and authority to set the rules – the Ten Commandments, etc.   In an evolutionary system, what are rules and why would anyone or anything have more say or legitimacy than any other sentient being?  Why should you, me, a king, or anyone enjoy more “justification” or authority than a rock for asserting what’s right or wrong in an evolutionary framework?

Why are we sinners and what does this mean? 

This question really makes no sense in the evolutionary paradigm.  It’s a fundamental question for Christians that has eternal ramifications.

Why is there death and suffering in the world?

For the Christian, these are the direct result of man’s fall from God.  In the evolutionary context, these are the forces the propel evolution and new species.  In the Genesis account, death and suffering are a curse.  That’s not at all the case in the evolutionary context.

Why is there to be a new heaven and a new earth?

Our hope for the future is utter nonsense from the evolutionary worldview.

The very Gospel Message –

If there was no literal fall of mankind, why would you need a savior of mankind?

If there was no first Adam, why would you need the second and final Adam (1 Cor 15).

Were we created by a loving God or evolved from bugs through a long process of random mutations and pitiless death and struggle?

Does creation testify to the eternal Glory of God or is it the thoughtless product of massive natural processes over billions and billions of years?

Are we eternal souls created by God in the image of God, or are we simply hairless apes?

As believers and followers of Jesus Christ we should come down squarely on one side on all these issues.  But too often, within the church, we want to compromise with evolution.  We want to fit in.  We don’t want to argue with the white-coated scientists or the editors of National Geographic and/or Vanity Fair.  We sit silent as our children are taught that evolution explains the origins of our species and the reason for the life around us.

Is there overwhelming evidence that compels us to disregard these fundamental incompatibilities between Scripture and evolution as origins theories?  Not at all.  In fact, when you look, you can clearly see that this emperor wears no clothes.  Evolution does not deserve the worldly crowns it’s been given, let alone the title of God slayer.  More on this in my next post – Deo volente.

Categories
Atheism, agnostic, evolution, etc. video

THINK

Categories
culture

It’s all about me … cont’d

 Joe Carter at First Things recently published an excellent analysis on the worldview that gives rise to our culture of abortion. (hat tip Jill Stanek) 

Abortion and the Negation of Love

Those of us in the pro-life movement often claim that we live in a “culture of death.” But most of us don’t believe it. Not really. We may use the phrase as a rhetorical tool, but deep in our hearts we think that our family, friends, and neighbors wouldn’t knowingly kill another human being.

We convince ourselves that they simply don’t realize what they’re doing. If only they could see—and honestly look at—the ultrasound pictures of an unborn child. If only we could convince them that what they consider a “clump of cells” is a person. If only they knew it was a human life they were destroying. If they only knew, they wouldn’t—they couldn’t—continue to support abortion.

But they do know. And the abortions continue. Not because we live in a culture of death but because we live in a culture of me.

Read the rest of this excellent article here.

See also Really, it’s not about you

Categories
Atheism, agnostic, evolution, etc.

Hateful Atheists, cont’d

So… an off duty, atheist TSA officer coordinated a porn and obscenity posting “attack” on Ken Ham’s Facebook page this past Sunday morning.  Reason: someone posted a quote by Mr. Ham on an atheism bulletin board that angered the atheists.  See here.  I suspect they don’t care or know about how the Bible instructs to identify a tree by the fruit it produces.

Categories
politics, economy, etc. video

Debt Visualized, Paul Ryan

I like what I’ve seen of this Congressman, and I like that orange tie.  Presidential.

Categories
entertainment

Are you smarter than your right foot?

While sitting there, lift your right foot and swing it in CLOCKWISE circles.

While still swinging your right foot in CLOCKWISE circles, draw the number 6 in the air with your right hand.

If your right foot continues to swing clockwise throughout the drawing, see your doctor because then you’re likely not human.  If instead your foot changes direction, return to whatever you were doing.  You’re normal.  I wonder whether our resurrection bodies will have this hard-wiring “issue” …

Categories
theology

Worldwide War Reports and Gilgamesh’s Flood

My mother’s father told of a great war in the 1940s and what it was like to be blown off the deck of a battleship in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  My father’s father would tell what it was like to be in the German Luftwaffe in Northern France during the late 1930s and labeled a traitor for criticizing Hitler in the 1940s in Germany during a great war.  My father’s uncle would tell what it was like to fight and freeze in Russian and be captured and sent to Siberia in a great war in the 1940s.  It was also told that another of my great uncles died in a battle outside Stalingrad in the 1940s.  All these different stories told about a great worldwide war in the 1940s.  Very different stories.  It would be absurd, however, for me to conclude that these stories were false because they reported different events from a great war.  It would be doubly absurd for me to conclude that these different stories indicate that in fact there was no great war.

Of course, that would be absurd if I was using such reasoning to disclaim that there was a historical cataclysmic worldwide war.  If, however, I was using such reasoning to disclaim the existence of a historical, cataclysmic worldwide flood, I would be a respected academic.  Steve Ham provides an excellent analysis on how ancient records to include The Gilgamesh Epic support the Scriptural history of the worldwide flood here.  A telling well worth the reading.

Categories
biz, legal, and professionalism

NC Supreme Court Rejects Bar Leadership’s Ethics for Sex and Gender

I previously wrote about efforts to stop the North Carolina State Bar leadership from passing and implementing “ethics” guidelines against taking a person’s sexual orientation or “gender identity” into consideration when working as a licensed attorney in North Carolina.  See Orwellian Sexual Ethics in NC Bar.  Those efforts failed.  The legal elite in NC, in a fit of tolerance and enlightenment, passed the resolutions, though with some healthy dissent from the ranks.

If passed, this amendment would prevent attorneys from taking “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” into consideration when hiring and choosing to represent clients.  It would be unethical to note that your legal candidate Bobbie used to be Bob and is the president for the local NAMBLA chapter.  Even though this post-modern moral garbage paraded as “ethics” would trample on the Constitutional rights of Christian attorneys, even though there’s no evidence of any need for such regulation or that it would promote a legitimate public purpose, and even though this “ethics” guideline would protect “sexual orientations” that are currently felonies to practice in North Carolina, the NC Bar “leadership” passed this resolution out of committee, where it was thereafter passed by the State bar counsel and leadership.  From there, the Bar leaders sent this “ethics” resolution to the North Carolina Supreme Court for final approval, where the amendment would then have the force of law.

Praise God for sanity from the North Carolina Supreme Court Justices.  Without comment, the Court rejected the proposed amendment.  The CAL’s article on this reprinted with permission:

N.C. Supreme Court Nixes Plan by State Bar to Add ‘Sexual Orientation’ and ‘Gender Identity’ to its Preamble

By L.A. Williams, Correspondent
Christian Action League

 RALEIGH — The N.C. Supreme Court has nixed a plan by the State Bar Council to add controversial language to the Preamble of its Rules of Professional Conduct that would have obliged attorneys not to consider “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” when deciding whom they represent or hire.

“The High Court’s decision not to approve the change is a victory for Tar Heel attorneys’ freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association,” said the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League. “Had they endorsed this misguided proposal, attorneys with Judeo-Christian beliefs would be caught in a no-win situation. Plus, the Bar would have set a bad precedent for other professional groups and given added momentum to the push to get this language introduced into state laws.”

The proposed amendment to the preamble, endorsed by the North Carolina State Bar in January, stated: “While employed or engaged in a professional capacity, a lawyer should not discriminate on the basis of a person’s race, gender, national origin, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. This responsibility of non-discrimination does not prohibit a lawyer’s advocacy on any issue.”

Many lawyers may not have paid much attention to the suggested change and still others who support the homosexual agenda may have felt it was needed, but Anthony Biller, an intellectual property attorney from Cary, points out that the proposed amendment went well beyond homosexuality.

“By extending the ethical guideline to ‘sexual orientation’ the authors draw a circle of protection … to include all forms of sexual orientation, which includes pedophilia, polygamy, bestiality, sadomasochism, necrophilia and every other form of sexual deviancy,” Biller wrote in a Feb. 10 letter to the Supreme Court justices reminding them that many of those forms of sexual orientation are in fact felonies under North Carolina law.” Since this draft was promulgated by a committee of intelligent and experienced attorneys, one can presume this broad classification was intentional and that these few attorneys intend the Bar to impose radical social philosophy regarding human sexuality on all practicing attorneys in North Carolina.”

In urging the justices to reject the proposal, Biller wrote that “gender identity is an anathema to the Biblical concept that God intentionally created men and women unique from each other and that God chose each person’s gender.” He said the amended preamble would mean that attorneys could not refuse to associate, hire or represent based on someone’s philosophy of gender and that it would certainly protect “cross dressers, transsexuals and men who would prefer to use the ladies latrine in my office.”

Biller was far from alone in his concern over the proposal. Jere Royall, counsel for the North Carolina Family Policy Council also submitted a letter to the justices asserting that not only would the change create a protected status for behaviors that “many understand to be harmful physically, psychologically and spiritually,” but that the addition of the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” neither of which are defined in North Carolina law, “would violate the United States’ and North Carolina’s Constitutionally protected freedoms of speech and religion, whether now as part of an ‘aspirational’ statement, or later when they may be included in a different part of the rules, and become the basis for disciplinary action against the attorney.”

 The Alliance Defense Fund had weighed in on the issue as early as 2009, pointing out the problems in a very similar rules revision that was proposed but then withdrawn in July of that year by a subcommittee of the N.C. State Bar Ethics Committee. The withdrawal came after hundreds of attorneys from across the state expressed their opposition, many mailing their own letters of protest and others signing onto the ADF letter.

 Still, the Bar brought the issue back to the table and gave its approval early this year sending it on to the High Court. And even though Lawyers Weekly reported in a March 16 article that the justices’ rejection of the proposed amendment “means the issue is dead,” Biller said he wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up again.

“I would anticipate this issue or some variation thereof resurfacing at some point in the future within the state bar, though it could be in another form, such as from another committee opining on a substantive area of law,” he said.

In his letter to the N.C. Supreme Court he called the push to amend the preamble “a transparent attempt to obtain the credibility of a state bar organization to endorse one side in a disputed political and moral debate while suppressing the other side.”

The Rev. Creech agreed and urged Christian attorneys across the state to be vigilant in their efforts to keep the North Carolina Bar from being used as a vehicle for the homosexual agenda. He also suggested that residents from all walks of life keep an eye on this and other professional groups that are embracing this radical social agenda.

Categories
homeschooling

Great Help for Compromisers

If you’re going to call a well known someone an unspiritual sinner and permanently ban that someone and his ministry because they impolitely called out false doctrine at your event, please be so kind as to not continue marketing and promoting using the banned person’s brand to promote your own services.

As of today, the Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc. (“GHC”) is still promoting Answers in Genesis as part of GHC’s conference packages on their blog home page.  At first you would think it to be an oversight, however GHC disabled the purchasing links on the ad itself. They’ve removed the ability to purchase, but continue to use the AiG brand to promote the GHC conferences, even after banning the ministry in perpetuity from their future conferences.  GHC is still publishing the following on their blogsite promoting their conferences:

Fantastic Savings from Answers in Genesis & the Creation Museum

Posted July 11th 2010 at 6:07 am by bdean

We love the incredible work being done by our friends at Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum! If you’ve not yet had the chance to visit the Creation Museum, you are missing out on an incredible experience. This 70,000 square foot facility is really state-of-the-art, and it truly brings the pages of the Bible to life!

As we are such fans of the work of Answers in Genesis, you might imagine our enthusiasm when they approached us with an SPECIAL PACKAGE OFFER for our convention attendees that reflects a savings of 75%!! And so, we’re quite happy not only to provide you with this information, but to also recommend it sincerely.

See here and here. It’s difficult impossible to reconcile GHC’s marketing statements with their cursory treatment of Mr. Ham and the AiG ministry and GHC’s subsequent refusal to talk. “Friends” don’t fire friends via midnight emails out of the blue, particularly when the “friend” was doing what the friend has been doing for years: calling out and condemning false doctrine and attacks on scriptural authority.

GHC made a bad decision and then displayed institutional hubris in carying it out. Mr. Dean at GHC should call Mr. Ham directly, as a friend, and try to work this out with love.

UPDATE: someone pointed out to me that on the day GHC “expelled” AiG and said they were too busy to discuss it by phone, they called Dr. Bauer to inform her of their decision to ban AiG.  Interesting that GHC had the time to call her and felt the need to as well.  See Dr. Bauer’s statement re call here.

Additional posts on the topic:

False Piety by GHC, Inc.

A Time to Keep Silent, and a Time to Speak by Henry Morris III, D.Min.

Free Love Christians by Nathan Ham

Related: The Inerrancy of Scripture: The Fifty Years’ War . . . and Counting by Albert Mohler (reviewing Enns);  Creation vs. Evolution — The New Shape of the Debate by Albert Mohler

Categories
culture homeschooling

False Piety by Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc.

Suppose a company, representing itself as Christian, hosted a homeschool convention featuring prominent Christian speakers and as is typically done, set up a large venue for vendors to present and sell their homeschool curriculum and wares.  Suppose further that one of the speakers and vendors teaches apostasy and sells homeschool materials propagating the false teachings.  Another Christian speaker and vendor talks on the topic of the increasing problem of compromise and false doctrine within the church and cites to the apostate vendor and his curriculum.  In short, one speaker criticizes another vendor for teaching and selling false doctrine.

What if anything would you expect the convention host to do? 

Would your answer change if the host had a policy against filtering the viewpoints of vendors and speakers?

I would not expect the host to ban the critic and continue hosting the apostate.  Of course, I would be and was mistaken.  In this case, the critic was Ken Ham who criticized the teachings and curriculum of Peter Enns and BioLogos.  The convention host is Brennan Dean, Great Homeschool Conventions.  In the real life story, it was not enough for Mr. Dean to ban Mr. Ham from further speaking engagements.  Instead, he permanently banned the entire Answers in Genesis ministry from appearing as a vendor at any future conventions hosted by Mr. Dean’s company.  Fire the critic, ban his ministry, and protect against criticism (and depressed sales) of the false doctrine.  You can’t make this stuff up.  See detailed article, to include Mr. Dean’s midnight email to AiG announcing his edict here. 

Dr. Enns is Senior Fellow of Biblical Studies for The BioLogos Foundation, which views Christ and scripture as follows:

If Jesus as a finite human being erred from time to time, there is no reason at all to suppose that Moses, Paul, John wrote Scripture without error. Rather, we are wise to assume that the biblical authors expressed themselves as human beings writing from the perspectives of their own finite, broken horizons.

See here.  Dr. Enns openly teaches that the Old Testament does not provide a reliable or accurate account of origins.  He explains,

When it comes to the science/faith discussion, the presence of the cosmic battle motif in the Old Testament should send us a strong signal: don’t expect the Old Testament to inform, let alone guide the scientific investigation of origins. If we approach the Old Testament expecting from it a “literal,” “historical,” “accurate” account of creation, we will (1) misrepresent reality in the name of faith, and (2) miss the theology that the biblical authors were so intent on putting there.

See here.  Dr. Enns teaches that the Creation account in Genesis is simply a metaphor and that Adam did not exist; Adam is a metaphor for the nation of Israel. See links to Enns’ BioLogos teachings here.  Dr. Enns’ homeschool curriculum reportedly dissuades parents from teaching their children about sin, grace, or the Old Testament.  See here.

For years, Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis have defended the integrity, reliability, and relevance of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.  I agree with this and serve the AiG ministry. Many families homeschool precisely because they also believe this and the public schools are prone to undermine such a worldview.  When it was announced that Mr. Dean and his company GHC were banning Mr. Ham and AiG, there was an outpouring of protest.  In hours, hundreds of people posted gracious words of support and encouragement on Mr. Ham’s FaceBook page and criticized GHC on their FB page.  This morning as hundreds of posts turned to thousands, GHC disabled and deleted all comments on their FB page and posted an “explanation” on their website.  They claimed that actually, they agreed with Mr. Ham’s “position,” but disagreed with his “spirit.”  See here. 

There are a few problems with Mr. Dean’s attempt to justify his suppression of Mr. Ham and AiG.  Foremost, neither Mr. Dean nor anyone else at any point during the prior convention or thereafter approached Mr. Ham or any of the leadership (or anyone lese) at AiG to discuss this “spiritual” problem. In his midnight email, Mr. Dean accused Mr. Ham of divisiveness and of defaming the convention and “other speakers.”  See here. It smacks of post-hoc rationalization.  Does the Bible support addressing a “spiritual” problem via a midnight email and then refuse to return calls to discuss the allegations? Is that “spiritual”?  Second, Mr. Dean provides nothing to substantiate his accusation and public defamation of Mr. Ham.  Third, even if Mr. Dean’s slander were true, how would that justify permanently banning the entire AiG ministry as a vendor.  Are AiG’s books, movies and curriculum “unspiritual”?  Hardly.  Mr. Dean’s explanation lacks content and merit.

What is nearly certain is that Mr. Ham’s criticism of Dr. Enns adversely affects sales of Dr. Enns’ new homeschool curriculum.  Dr. Enns’ curriculum is published by Peace Hill Press, the publishing arm of The Well-Trained Mind.  Peace Hill Press is owned and operated by Dr. Susan Wise Bauer and her family.  Ms. Bauer is the corporate Vice President.  Mr. Ham’s criticism is not good business for a major homeschool vendor and a prominent speaker within the homeschool community.  It appears to me that Mr. Dean made a decision to protect vendor sales at his conventions. Ken heavily criticized many compromisers of Scripture. Mr. Dean’s midnight email explanation only took issue with Ken’s criticism aimed at other vendors though. It’s Mr. Dean’s right to make this decision to protect his sales forum and vendors.  He should not, however, dress this decision up in “spirituality.” 

Mr. Dean attributes his decision to his “board of directors.”  Yet, neither his midnight email nor the subsequent public accusation this morning against Mr. Ham identify these individuals.  If Mr. Dean is going to invoke the decision and judgment of others, they should step out of the shadows and acknowledge their role.  

I think Mr. Dean made a business decision to ban Ken Ham and AiG.  The market should respond accordingly, to both the banning of Ham/AiG by Mr. Dean’s GHC and to the decision by Peace Hill Press and Dr. Bauer to publish Dr. Enns’ homeschool curriculum.  In the end, we should remember to pray for each other – to include for Mr. Dean, Dr. Enns and the folks at PHP – and do our best to honor Christ while defending and debating the centrality and reliability of Scripture.

Related: Great Help for Compromisers 

UPDATE June 10, 2011: Answers in Genesis Board of Directors’ Statement on Allegations by Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc.

Categories
love marriage and family

Christian Marriage

Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord … Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her … .  In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. Ep. 5:22, 25, 28

Let marriage be held in honor among all … Heb. 13:4

Love bears all things, … endures all things. 1 Cor. 13:7

A post I wrote last year about Christians and divorce receives the most traffic on this blog, thousands of hits.  See here.  It occurred to me recently that some of this traffic might be Christians struggling with thoughts of divorce and perhaps I should write some encouraging words about marriage, particularly about sustaining marriage through difficult times.  Thinking about this, I realized that most of the useful stuff I know about marriage I learned from others who shared with me and my wife marital truths from and premised in scripture.  Our learning started with lots of advise and insight on dispute resolution mechanisms from an Army chaplain prior to our military marriage (pre-marital counseling from the chaplain was mandatory), and our learning continues.

My wife and I recently celebrated our 18th anniversary so our marriage has “matured” to a young adulthood of sorts.  We’ve been married long enough that we can look back and figure out some stuff we did wrong and some stuff we did (and will hopefully continue to do) well and what works.  So we put down a “top 10” to do list for a healthy marriage.  Several of these overlap.  And no, my wife did not ghost write this; she’s just further along the path on most these virtues and techniques than me!  We are both fellow journyers with many of you on the marital road. Arrival is on the other side of the divide.  Please feel free to share any encouraging words or advice about marriage in the comments …  Here goes:

1.  Purpose. Remind yourself daily of the Biblical purpose for marriage. Although I’m blessed to find happiness in my spouse, the purpose of Christian marriage isn’t happiness; the purpose is to become more like Christ.  This does not mean Christian marriage isn’t intended to romantic or pleasurable, quite the contrary, God is love and in Christ is eternal satisfaction for those who pursue him. Pursue Christ first, and everything else starts falling into place.  The presence of Christ in us should become increasingly noticeable the better someone knows us.  No one is closer than our spouse, whom scripture describes as our same flesh.  Our marriages should be the starting point for lives of grace, love and service.  Both submit to Christ.  The Bible calls on the wife to submit to the husband and the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church.  Christ was nailed to the cross for the church.  For more on this point, read the excellent book by Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage.

2. Priority.  A simple tool to practice living like Christ: put yourself last.  Put J.O.Y. priorities in your marriage – look to serve Jesus, Others, then Yourself, in that order.

3. Love.  Love is a feeling and a verb.  So even if you don’t feel lovey, we’re called to do love.  Christ likely didn’t feel in love when being beaten and nailed to the cross.  In fact, he was quite open about not wanting to drink from that cup of misery. Yet out of the action of love for us, he did it.  I am certain he was not feeling giddy and “feeling in love” when they drove the spikes through his hands and feet, yet it was love and obedience to the Father’s will that held him there. The sacrament of marriage continually requires the Christian application of selfless love and obedience to God.  In marriage, two become one.  There is no better place to regularly practice and witness the presence or absence of Christ-like love.  With unconditional love, the marital union blossoms with commitment, trust, happiness, and peace.  Without it, the relationship and spouse withers.  Sadly, many couples endure dead relationships.  Just do love.

4. Knowledge. Know how to love your spouse.  One of the biggest revelations to me, after we’d been married for over ten years, was that love has its own languages.  Plural.  I had no idea.  I thought there was one love language – the one I spoke and understood.  I had often felt kinda rejected when my sweet wife didn’t seem to hear or speak my language.  Come to find out, I had no clue how to speak her love language.  I’ve since come to learn and appreciate that we each feel and convey love quite differently.  Dr. Gary Chapman, whom we discovered through our church, explained the 5 dominant love languages people speak and understand.  There are explanations and free tests at his website here and his bestselling book The 5 Love Languages is a must read if you’re not familiar with these concepts – a must read for marital bliss (see also Dr. Chapman’s book on the same topic for parenting here).  Most of us respond to and naturally understand just one of these languages.  My wife and I had entirely different languages – what an eye opener and blessing to discover.  This is one thing I wish we had learned at the outset of marriage.

5. Dare to be intimate.  The Bible advises spouses to not deny themselves to the other.  There’s an obvious and sometimes neglected sexual side to this affirmative duty.  There is also a spiritual and emotional side.  There is much said and written about sex in marriage.  It’s obviously an important component that we’re directed to not neglect.  Enough is not, however, said about the necessity for intimacy beyond sex, and this is far more challenging for most of us.  It’s often easier to share our bodies than our feelings.  Spiritually, it’s easier to pray alone or superficially than to close hands together and bare your soul before God, together, in prayer.  Candor and prayer.  Help each other to dare to bare more than just your bodies.

6. Prime Time. The Army chaplain told us to “hold our fire” until “prime time.”  This was excellent advise.  The time to raise a disputed issue is not when our spouse first walks in the door.  Give each other time to unwind from the day and recuperate.  “Prime time” for TV is also a prime time to engage our own biggest issues, after we’ve had a time to settle down from the days activities.

7. First Person.  That same Army chaplain also advised us that when we “open fire” against the other, to do it in the first person tense.  Speak from the perspective of how the accused issue affected you.  Instead of saying, “You were wrong in how you talked to me,” try “The way you talked to me made me feel like [fill in the blank].  I was really hurt, embarrassed, etc.”  Explaining how someone’s actions made you feel or otherwise affected you makes the same point as attacking the accused action/flaw, but it’s far less antagonistic.  This technique works. (My wife has shared a lot of such “feelings” with me …)

8. Peers. Hang out with people who support and encourage your faith and believe passionately in marriage.  Hanging out with single friends at the singles club is a recipe for disaster, for even the best marriages.  Equally dangerous, be discerning in your “friendships.”  Most affairs don’t originate in clubs.  They start with emotional bonds formed around the water cooler or community events.  Spiritual bonds can be a significant trap for those in ministry. Be careful with whom you grow close ties.

9.  Patience.  Marriage isn’t about “helping” your spouse improve, changing their minds, or winning arguments or anything else about the other.  Wrong paradigm. See number 1 above.  If you want to change something about your spouse, spend a lot of time praying about it and for them before even raising the issue, unless, of course it’s a clear spelled out in scripture sin issue.  Even then, particularly then, pray even more.

10.  Forgive.  Love keeps no record of wrongs.  Live grace.

Related articles: Sacrificial Love by Matthew White; Marriage Gems by Lori Lowe; Is Religion an Answer? Marriage, Fatherhood, and the Male Problematic by W. Bradford Wilcox;  Why Monogamy Matters by Ross Douthat; Marriage as Witness to the Culture by JC Sanders.