The Qur’an says that “Allah has made men superior to women” (Sura 4:34). It should be no surprise, therefore, when barbaric actions such as the recent sexual assault of Lara Logan take place where there is strong pro-Sharia sentiment. This is the kind of thing that we hope and pray will be prevented from becoming widespread here in the west, if we do something about it.

For the world’s billion-plus Sunni Muslims, al-Azhar University in Cairo is the center of the theological universe, its faculty and scholars the most authoritative voice on the meaning of Islam. It is not very far from Tahrir Square, ground zero of Egypt’s revolution.

It was in Tahrir Square last Friday that the Muslim Brotherhood began shunting aside other opposition leaders, including Google executive Wael Ghonim. The million Muslims jamming the square hadn’t turned out to hear a good corporate citizen of the Left. In this nation, where a strong majority of the population desires the implementation of sharia, Islam’s legal and political system, the throng turned out to hear and hail Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the Brotherhood’s top adviser — who, with his al-Azhar doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence, is sharia personified.

Tahrir Square is also the place where, in the frenzy after Hosni Mubarak’s fall, CBS news correspondent Lara Logan was seized and subjected to a savage sexual assault by an Egyptian gang. Coverage of the attack has been muted. There have been testimonials to Ms. Logan’s courage, and one anti-American leftist lost his comfortable fellowship at NYU Law School for failing to conceal his glee over the atrocity. We have heard much about the attack, but have heard next to nothing about the attackers. You are just supposed to assume it was a “mob” — the sort of thing that could have happened in any setting where raw emotion erupts, say, Wisconsin’s capitol.

Except it doesn’t happen in Madison. It happens in Egypt. It happened in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, in the riots that led to Suharto’s fall — as Sharon Lapkin recounts, human-rights groups interviewed more than 100 women who had been captured and gang raped, including many Chinese women, who were told this was their fate as non-Muslims. It happens in Muslim countries and in the Muslim enclaves of Europe and Australia, perpetrated by Islamic supremacists acting on a sense of entitlement derived from their scriptures, fueled by the rage of their jihad, and enabled by the deafening silence of the media.

• Andrew C. McCarthy – Who Attacked Lara Logan, and Why?

No, I am not speaking of the modern ecumenical movement. A movement that caused the very division it tried to eliminate, exchanging the necessary unity in Christ for a mere unity of values and ignoring the importance of sound doctrine. Nor am I speaking of the inter-faith movement that the Roman Catholic Church seem so keen on promoting, where people of different “faiths” unite under one umbrella, setting aside major differences – like the deity of Christ – in exchange for warm fuzzies.

No. The context of this quote is an interview on the Stand to Reason radio show by Jim Wallace, with James Emery White, about his new book ‘Christ Among the Dragons: Finding Our Way Through Cultural Challenges’. The discussion was as much about ecumenism as it was about ecclesiology (and more), so I don’t want to lose that context. But the kind of ecumenism James has in mind is one where Christ remains at the centre. We unite around Him, rather than around commonly shared values. In any case, there were some things that he said that stayed with me afterwards. So I wanted to share it here for you to ponder also.

“… if a typical non-Christian were to get on the internet and read through the blogs of half a dozen Christians who disagree with each other on a peripheral issue – the rancour and the hatred and the demonization that is going on; I think that if an average non-Christian read half a dozen Christian blogs like that – they would decide at the end that they would not ever want to be become a Christian. It is awful. It is horrific. The lack of love, the lack of charity, the lack of grace, the lack of civility, that exists between Christians who disagree – and often … on very peripheral issues that have divided Christianity for  2000 years. … It is ruining our witness and it is making it extremely difficult for there to be any kind of unity where we as Christians can address the larger issues with a single voice. … As important as truth is, for truth to usurp love would be the most horrific and hellish of ironies.”

Regardless what James White thinks these peripheral issues are – indeed, regardless what you think they are – I think the point is well made as far as it goes. There are things worth dividing over and there are things that are not. But when we disagree in public forums such as this one, the way we treat each other – the way we love one another – is on display for all to see.

Now, I certainly do not hasten to take White up on his challenge to locate such examples among Christian blogs for the benefit of our readers, thereby increasing our footprint of shame all the more. But personally, I am ashamed to say that there have been times that I think I have been on the giving end of this equation. And when on the receiving end, I have found it gives rise to feelings not too dissimilar to the kind evoked by the claptrap presented by PZ Meyers and his “godless horde”. Is that how we would like to be perceived?

This is not a plea for unity through agreement, of course. That certainly does not seem to be White’s implication. But it is a plea that in our treatment of each other on areas where we disagree, we remember that we are brothers and sisters united in Christ and ambassadors for Christ. I should think that counts for something during those moments?

”As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” – Eph 4:3

In a 2010 interview with Casey Luskin from the Discovery Institute, expelled professor Caroline Crocker provides a snapshot of the war between Intelligent Design and Evolution proponents, citing some fairly blunt comments by Dr. Larry Moran – a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto.

Luskin: “Are there really students out there who have good reasons to be afraid about coming out of the closet that they’re pro-ID, or – as a cynical ID skeptic might say – is this just paranoia being spread, and there’s really no reason for these students to be afraid?”

Crocker: “…This is what [Moran] says about students – ‘Flunk the idiots. Forty percent of the freshman class at UCSD reject Darwinism. The university has become alarmed and has offered remedial instruction for those who believe in ID. UCSD should never have admitted them in the first place. Just flunk the lot of them.’^[1] Well, do students have a reason to keep their views quiet? I would say, yes.”

Especially if they find themselves studying under the likes of Professor Moran or anybody of his ilk, because under such circumstances it’s not enough that students demonstrate an understanding of evolution. They must accept it – with all their heart, mind, soul and strength – as their working paradigm for discovering true scientific facts.

Moran writes in a 2007 blog article:

“… it is still quite remarkable that some significant percentage of fundamentalist Protestants can go to college and still reject the basic scientific fact that humans evolved. … It’s not good enough to just be able to mouth the “acceptable” version of the truth that the Professor wants. You actually have to open your mind to the possibility that science is correct and get an education.”

He laments though, “How do you distinguish between a good Christian who is lying for Jesus and one who has actually come to understand science? It seems really unfair to flunk the honest students who admit that they still reject science and pass the dishonest ones who hide their true beliefs.” Being a good Christian and understanding science are mutually exclusive, apparently?

But if students have to believe rather than understand a scientific theory, then science has become a religion. According to the radical Darwinists, a scientist could have a PhD, earn international honours in science, publish hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals, and save millions of lives, and yet, if a Darwin doubter, could be judged scientifically illiterate.^[2]

Dr. Moran agrees – “If they are undergraduates who don’t understand that evolution is a scientific fact, the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and humans share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, then they flunk the course. If they are graduate students in a science department, then they don’t get a Ph.D. If they are untenured faculty members in a science department, then they don’t get tenure.” ^{[3, 4]}

And so the war continues…

References & Notes:

1. As far as I could tell, the primary source for Crocker’s information is a blog entry by Moran in 2006, where the delightful expression “IDiots” can be found. The expression has since been used by some ID supporters to identify people who continue to conflate the Creationist movement with the ID movement in their writings. Moran, for example, often uses the expression “Intelligent Design Creationists.” Hence, some may consider him an “IDiot” for failing to make the appropriate distinction between Intelligent Design and Creationism.
2. This is a quote from a previous article about the inherent religious aspects of science, as held by certain evolutionary zealots.
3. Note here that by “understand”, Moran means “accept”. Students must accept that evolution is a fact, not merely be able to regurgitate their notes, give alleged examples and cite authorities for support.
4. http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2008/04/michael-egnor-gets-it-right.html

The following reflection is based on a article by the late Dr. Greg Bahnsen, called Ready to Reason. I found it particularly helpful and I hope that you will also, regardless of the particular approach to apologetics that you favour most.

Paul writes to the Christians at Corinth, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” – 2 Cor 10:5 (NIV)

Similarly Peter writes, But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” – 1 Peter 3:15 (NIV)

Apart from being the two of the most popular passages used in support of the need for apologetics, they are also a key focus of our ministry here at The Aristophrenium. We believe that God has called upon us as believers to be prepared to defend the faith in the face of challenges and questions which come from unbelievers. Similarly, Dr. Bahnsen says that the necessity of apologetics is not a divine necessity, but a moral one. “God has chosen to do His work through us and called us to it. Apologetics is the special talent of some believers, and the interested hobby of others. But it is the God-ordained responsibility of all believers.” Later in the article Dr. Bahnsen explains it this way:

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And you thought that postmodernism could not touch the field of mathematics. Well it has! As I discovered in Nancy Pearcey’s Book “Total Truth”:

These days’ philosophers no longer regard mathematics as a body of truths. The dominant philosophy of mathematics treats it as a social construction like a game. There are arbitrary rules, neither are true or false, they are just the way we choose to play the game.

This is being taught to school children. A school curriculum developed at Michigan State University for grades 6-8 called “Connected Mathematical Project” says that students should learn that “mathematics is man-made, that it is arbitrary, and good solutions are arrived at by consensus among those who are considered expert”

In Minnesota, teachers are instructed to be tolerant of “multiple mathematical worldviews” in their Minnesota State Statues Governing the Licensing of Teachers, 106, 111. And in New Mexico a recent graduate of high school tells of how a mathematics teacher labelled him a “bigot” for thinking it was important to get the right answer. As long as students worked together in a group and achieved consensus, the teacher insisted, the outcome was acceptable.

If mathematics is arbitrary, then there are no wrong answers, just different perspectives. The simplest, most universal form of knowledge – mathematics – is subject to some radically different worldview interpretations.

If this is happening with mathematics how much more will postmodernism effect more complex fields, biology, economics, law and ethics.

[Simplified for brevity - not an exact quote]

Surely, only the terms used to token mathematics are arbitrary (numbers will be different as spoken / written in other languages), but the qualities that make one (1) or two (2) appear to be universal.

This is dangerous territory we now walk into if the postmodern philosophy of “There is no truth” is the guiding rule for society. I certainly want truth when it comes to the medicine that my doctor prescribes to me, the truth of traffic light operations and I would hope that my bank manager isn’t taken in by this relativistic approach to mathematics either.

The problem at the heart of this philosophy that “There is no truth”, is that this proposition is indefensible. It is, in and of itself, a truth statement and therefore invalidates itself. In other words, they want the statement “There is no truth” to be accepted as truth. If someone were to try to make that statement, then the response should always be “Really, is that true?”

How can you have a meaningful conversation with anyone who holds this view?

All this reminds me of “Values Clarification” which is also being taught to our school children (more universally than this philosophy of mathematics) where they are told that their values and ethics are to be decided by themselves, individually and as a group, and that it is by this moral code that they are to live their lives. The problem arises when they decide that it is ok to cheat on their school tests or that it is ok to hurt others to get what you want. It’s just not a philosophy that can find any traction in reality because, when they grow older and apply what they have learned, they discover that society can and will punish them via the law (a fine or incarceration), if their “values” don’t match those existing already in society.

Yesterday, Negeen Mayel appeared on Freedom Watch her arrest last year at the Dearborn Arab Festival. Those of you who have been paying attention to this event should already know the background behind this story (and for those who don’t, kindly go here for a recap of the events). It is good to see that this news story isn’t being ignored, and that something is being done to let people know that this kind of injustice is going on in Dearborn and other areas that are being affected by Islamisation.

Watch the five minute video clip here:

• Freedom Watch – Since When is Filming Cops a Crime?

It’s twelve months to the day that myself, Ryft and Duane embarked on this joint-venture under The Aristophrenium brand to proclaim the truth of the gospel and centrality of Christ in all things. One year on and I think we’ve achieved a number of milestones along the way that, humble though they may be, surprised even us to have reached. We’d like to share a few of the milestones with you here:

• 26 posts in our first month
• 190 posts in the first year
• breaking 80+ subscribers to our RSS feed
• enjoying some attention and kudos thrown our way from other, more well-established Christian bloggers
• attracting some great regular readers who engage / challenge us and others in our community in the comments sections of the blog
• the addition of two new staff writers during the course of the year – Adam and Fisher
• and we’ve learned a few new ways in which to build effectual networks for the sharing of the gospel message of our Lord Jesus Christ

This is our opportunity to say “thanks”. Thanks to you, our readers and community members, for making this past year an especially rewarding experience.

We hope that you will not only encourage us by your ongoing participation in The Aristophrenium community but that you would also hold us accountable to our Mission & Beliefs. If we at all lose sight of these we have ceased to perform that to which the Apostle Paul in 2 Cor 10:5 exhorts us to do: demolish the foolishness of the world and hold every thought captive and obedient to Christ.

Following is a handful of the thought-provoking pieces from us here at The Aristophrenium that summarizes our official “first year in review”. We are very pleased to have you celebrating the year with us.

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