another day, another destiny

This is excellent. The biggest problem I have with guys like Joel Osteen (note: this video is not specifically directed at Osteen) is that his message could only fly in a country like the United States. Try it in Africa or much of Asia and it would be especially disastrous and horrendously offensive. That’s a pretty good test of whether something is the accurately the gospel: does it apply to all peoples at all times in all cultures? If not, well….that should tell you something.

Psalm 26:1-8

O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell,
and the place where your glory abides.

Matthew 26:6-13

Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, “Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

This passage causes me to ponder whether the virtue of efficiency is taken to an extreme by the American church and ends up sacrificing some meaningful ministry opportunities. It brings to mind a discussion I had several years ago regarding what the church is known for–love or glitz. The paradox is that I can picture the church responding like the disciples in the above passage just as easily as I can see them spending inefficiently on the glitzy, “modern” presentation of the gospel. I think the conclusion I arrived at a few years ago is still worthwhile: if your heart is in the right place, and you actively seek wisdom, right actions will follow.

Recently I’ve been pondering what it is that brings people to belief in God, Christianity, etc. There are so many means by which people arrive at their conclusions or beliefs: some people are thoughtful and considering, while others simply maintain the status quo of their ingrained worldview and perspectives.

One one level it seems clear that belief cannot be arrived at simply by examining evidence; after all, there are so many seemingly smart, honest, and insightful people that hold mutually exclusive views with equal conviction. Whatever camp one falls into, surely one cannot in good faith maintain that all his opponents are either lying outright or have fallen susceptible to some masterful demagoguery. There must be another answer.

The Christian doctrine of total depravity attempts in part to resolve this issue: man is so wicked and so completely unable to recognize, let alone choose, truth (God), that God must do the choosing for him. Man is drowning, yet he doesn’t even know it. He cannot even reach for the life raft that God has placed beside him; God must actually fling it over man’s head and drag him back the boat, in effect doing all the work of saving man Himself. (Note: while this particular view of man is not universally accepted among Christendom, it is well within orthodoxy.)

But this doctrine begs the question: Is “total depravity” simply the deus ex machina of Christianity? Is it the excuse, explanation or rationale for being unable to prove it definitively based on the evidence? Is it an intellectual cop-out that only sounds academic and theological?

I will return to this with further thoughts.

Via Canada’s National Post:

TORONTO - In response to a series of controversies over abortion debates on Canadian campuses, the student government of York University has tabled an outright ban on student clubs that are opposed to abortion. Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students, said student clubs will be free to discuss abortion in student space, as long as they do it “within a pro-choice realm,” and that all clubs will be investigated to ensure compliance. “You have to recognize that a woman has a choice over her own body,” Ms. Massa said. “We think that these pro-life, these anti-choice groups, they’re sexist in nature…. The way that they speak about women who decide to have abortions is demoralizing. They call them murderers, all of them do…. Is this an issue of free speech? No, this is an issue of women’s rights.” The school’s administration condemned the decision as contrary to its academic mission.

The article also notes that the same Gilary Massa, vice-president external of the York Federation of Students, had strongly opposed a campus-wide ban on the phrase “Israeli apartheid”:

[Her official letter] called for the ban on the phrase to be rescinded “in accordance with a basic commitment to freedom of expression and organization in the democratic context of the public university.”

The letter added, “This strange and unprecedented ban is a blatant violation of democratic freedoms of speech and dissent, and an attack on students’ right to organize. It is the position of the YFS and GSA [Graduate Students] that universities are sites where discussions and debates about difficult geopolitical questions should be promoted, not stifled. International controversy about use of the phrase ‘Israeli Apartheid’ cannot be resolved through repression, but through ongoing intellectual exchange.”

This rank hypocrisy on display here is galling. The story is a sad commentary on the state of higher-ed in the West. So much for the marketplace of ideas. What are these students afraid of?

A clip from a debate between atheist Dan Barker and Christian apologist Dinesh D’Souza. Watch the entire debate here.

Dan Barker’s monologue’s contained some of the most simplistic, evasive, illogical, rambling, meaningless, gobbledy-gook farcical attempts at argument that my jaw was consistently dropping to the floor. I have watched my fair share of debates, and this was by far the worst in terms of the atheist representation. Dan Barker sounds like a total moron whenever he opens his mouth. It was unfair to ask Dinesh D’Souza to debate a mind so vacuous. Dinesh’s response at the end of this clip almost had me cheering in my cubicle.

Sports analogies are a dime a dozen–because people understand them and they are great illustrations of various truths. It’s particularly hilarious (saddening?) when someone looks at the sporting realm, sees an obvious truth, yet totally misses its application in the real world. Take Jesse Jackson:

[1960s Civil Rights leaders] would all be pleased that white America is maturing. Blacks and whites have been playing together in athletics, entertainment, in the military and now as political leaders. Look at the Super Bowl last Sunday…They were able to transcend race because the playing field was even. The rules were public and the goals were clear, and there was inherent justice in the competition.

James Taranto notices the obvious connection to affirmative action:

Contrast this with, say, university admissions, in which the scales are tipped in favor of certain ethnic groups, based on rules that are shrouded in secrecy. If we want society to be more like the NFL, shouldn’t we be doing away with rules that enforce distinctions based on race?

Because it is separated from real life, sports is a perfect lens to evaluate the idea of affirmative action without bias. Jesse Jackson sees the truth clearly. But when it comes to the real world, it’s amazing how blind he is.

[Cross-posted here.]

Most of the time, moral equivalence arguments about America and its terrorist enemies come from the left, and they are rightfully dismissed as idiotic, relativistic tripe. Recently, however, a new comparison is unfortunately apt. On his blog, John Piper compares two recent news items.

Breitbart reports:

Two women suicide bombers who have killed nearly 80 people in Baghdad were Down’s Syndrome victims exploited by al Qaida.

The explosives were detonated by remote control in a co-ordinated attack after the women walked into separate crowded markets, said the chief Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad General Qassim al-Moussawi.

Other officials said the women were apparently unaware of what they were doing in what could be a new method by suspected Sunni insurgents to subvert toughened security measures.

This is horrible, and proves that Islamic extremists continue to reach new lows in the wicked pursuit of their aims. Yet consider this, via Medical News Today:

Although no national data are available, the abortion rate of fetuses with the condition [of Down Syndrome] was found to be 59% in one California study and 92% in an English study.

In addition, the New York Times reported last year that “about 90 percent of pregnant women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis have chosen to have an abortion.”

In terms of how we treat those with Down syndrome, America is as complicit in brutal and heinous murder as the terrorist enemies we fight.

I was driving home late last night, flipping stations, and I ended up listening to Loveline–a syndicated radio show that claims to focus on relationship issues, but seems to revolve primarily around sex. I tuned in right as a Canadian girl called in. She told them that, due to her religious beliefs, she considered sex before marriage a sin; however, she admitted to enjoying just about every sexual act short of actual intercourse. She also observed that every time she fooled around, it coincided with being drunk. During the entire description, she was cracking jokes about alcohol and her sexual activities.

The psychologist host of the show, Dr. Drew–most definitely not a Christian–ripped into the caller for her blase attitude towards her drinking habits and her sexual activity. Here’s a rough paraphrase of his reaction to her, off the top of my head:

Do you want help or not? You clearly have an alcohol problem here, which is a serious issue, and you’re crapping on that by making jokes. You’re also crapping on your religious beliefs. You’ve admitted that your drinking habits are what get you into situation where you compromise your religious beliefs, and you aren’t taking this seriously. Now, do you want help or not? [She answers yes]

OK. Now, I believe that if you [crude description of intercourse] then that’s considered sex–that you’ve lost your virginity. And all this technical getting-around-it is bogus. I’m pretty sure that when the guys in the Bible were writing these rules, they weren’t sitting around a whiteboard with diagrams of body parts, deciding which were allowed to touch and which part could go where. They had no idea what kinds of things people these days would come up to rationalize away their behavior into a technicality. The point of those rules was chastity.

As I listened, my jaw dropped. This guy nailed it–and he, as an unbeliever, nailed a supposed Christian to the wall on her rationalizing away actions that directly violated her professed beliefs.

Five minutes later they were onto another caller, discussing his propensity to scour local bars for transsexuals. But for 2 minutes I observed him speaking Truth by a common grace.

This article on Planned Parenthood’s political activism is fraught with somber irony:

For the first time, abortion-rights advocate Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. is launching a major effort to elect pro-abortion-rights candidates to Congress and the White House in November.

The “first time”? Are you kidding?

With its “One Million Strong” campaign, Planned Parenthood becomes the latest Washington interest group to launch an independent effort to elect candidates who back its priorities.

And just think: their potential pool of voters to impact has been reduced by 40 million over the last 35 years.

The efforts come at a time when many abortion-rights advocates feel they are under attack. Since President Bush took office, he has nominated federal judges who have chipped away at abortion rights and installed two antiabortion justices to the Supreme Court. Two of the oldest justices on the current Supreme Court are liberal. If a Republican wins the 2008 presidential election, two more conservative judges could be added to the court.

It truly boggles the mind that a definition of human life so “expansive” to include life at conception would be opposed by so-called liberals, especially in an era where imprisoning terrorists and “cutting them off from the outside world” is considered a human rights abuse.