Could someone please explain to me how it is that taxpayers in the U.S. are funding NASA not for scientific space exploration but rather for international Muslim outreach? The last time I checked, NASA and the U.S. Department of State were different federal agencies. When did that change?

On Wednesday of last week, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was interviewed on an episode of Talk to al-Jazeera. During that interview he described three of the top priorities President Obama had tasked him with for his new job (in response to the question about NASA finding itself at a crossroads):

When I became the NASA Administrator—well, before I became the NASA Administrator—he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations, to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.

He was asked if this is “a sort of diplomatic role to win hearts and minds of Muslims.” Bolden quickly denied that, and claimed President Obama simply wants to draw in “the contributions that are possible from the Muslim nations.” Yet in a speech two weeks earlier at the American University in Cairo, Bolden said that NASA used to work “mostly with countries that are capable of space exploration,” but that has changed in light of Obama’s Cairo initiative:

[Obama] asked NASA to change [...] by reaching out to ‘non-traditional’ partners and strengthening our cooperation in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and in particular in Muslim-majority nations.

“NASA has embraced this charge,” Bolden said, adding that NASA “is not only a space exploration agency but also an earth improvement agency.”

Is the American public aware that their tax dollars are funding the U.S. space agency to patronize Muslims to “feel good” about themselves with soft-diplomacy outreach? As noted by former NASA administrator Michael Griffin, NASA’s purpose is not to inspire Muslims or any other cultural entity. No doubt. Its purpose is to expand our knowledge of space and its attendant technologies. “If by doing great things people are inspired, well, then that’s wonderful,” Griffin said, and then observed, “There is no technology they have that we need” for NASA to accomplish its missions.

But earlier this year Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed in her speech at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Qatar that the Obama administration is embarking on a new era of engagement with Muslim nations “to expand educational opportunities, support entrepreneurs, and promote advances in science and technology.”

“NASA, our space program,” she said, “has partnered with the Arab Youth Venture Foundation in Dubai to give Arab and American engineering students the chance to work together on NASA missions.”

Highly advanced rocket technology. Prime Directive, anyone?

Update: 27 July 2010

NASA: National Arabic Sensitivity Administration

(HT: Mike Church)

Gary Habermas is one of the world’s leading scholars on the resurrection. His website and other published materials (such as his book, The Historical Jesus) are outstanding, being first class resources for anyone facing the “latest” regurgitated challenges to the resurrection and related topics.

But I recently discovered another reason to visit his website; the Historical Resurrection Quiz. The quiz is multiple-choice-based and focuses on the historical sources, challenges and arguments concerning the resurrection. The quiz is broken up into levels of various difficulty, requiring you to attain a particular level of knowledge before moving on the next (more challenging) level. All answers are scored and bonus questions at the end of each round is an opportunity to score more points. I found it to be both fun and educational.

Adam was watching me play the first time through and each time I got one wrong he would provide helpful encouragement such as, “Oh you got one wrong, you’re not a real Christian”. Despite his encouragement, I managed to get to level 8 before I had to stop, so I didn’t quite get to finish the quiz. The questions do get harder with each level, though there is some repetition and “dummy” answer options to help narrow down the choices.

Here are a few sample questions from the quiz:

• Why is the Minimal Facts approach effective?
• True or False: If Jesus did not rise from the dead, Christianity is false and we should live accordingly.
• What is the role of evidence in any investigation into Christianity?
• What is the principle of Enemy Attestation?
• What is the Jerusalem Factor argument for the empty tomb?
• What is the Minimal Facts method?
• The fact that Jesus’ disciples sincerely believed that he had risen from the dead and had appeared to them helps to eliminate at least two opposing theories. What are they?
• Regarding the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, what distinguishes the disciples from Muslim terrorists, who also willingly suffered and died for their beliefs?
• Which two Apostolic Fathers report that the apostles were dramatically impacted by Jesus’ resurrection?
• Nine ancient sources attest to the disciples’ claim to have seen the Jesus risen from the dead. These can easily be presented in three categories. What are they?
• How many sources attest to the willingness on the part of the original disciples to suffer and die for their beliefs?
• True or False: The willingness of the disciples to suffer and even die for their beliefs establishes the truth of their beliefs.

By the way, if you answered True for that last one, then you’re not a real Christian. ;)

Dear Lord,

So far today, I’m doing all right. I haven’t gossiped, lost my temper, been greedy, nasty, selfish or self-indulgent. I haven’t lied, complained, cursed, had lustful thoughts or invoked anger in my children. I haven’t been prideful, worshipped other gods, desired worldly goods, misused your name, stolen anything or given false testimony against another.

But I will be getting out of bed in a minute and I think that I will really need your help then.

Amen.

From Mark Driscoll’s Trial Series – Part 12: Suffering to Learn.

The money quote: “…if you were baptised and you don’t have faith in Jesus, then all you got was wet, not saved.”

When it comes to the freedom of religion, as a blessing of liberty secured by the US Constitution, Americans cannot afford to overlook the subtle changes being suggested by the Obama administration in their shifting focus toward international laws, particularly when it is at the expense of the Constitution they were sworn to uphold and defend. In a speech given on 14 December 2009 by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall, she spoke of the meaning and importance of democracy as it pertains to people enjoying consistent protection of the rights that are naturally theirs, whether they were born in Tallahassee or Tehran. Supporting democracy is one of the cornerstones of their 21st century human rights agenda, she said, because democracy “has proven the best political system for making human rights a human reality over the long term” and the Obama administration will not relinquish the idea of democracy “to those who have used it too narrowly.”

That sounds wonderful. However, buried deep inside this speech by Clinton is a curious phrase, one that threatens the freedom of religion as enshrined in and protected by the Constitution the administration is sworn to preserve, protect and defend:

To fulfill their potential, people must be free to choose laws and leaders; to share and access information, to speak, criticize, and debate. They must be free to worship, associate, and to love in the way that they choose. And they must be free to pursue the dignity that comes with self-improvement and self-reliance, to build their minds and their skills, to bring their goods to the marketplace, and participate in the process of innovation.

If I may beg your pardon, Mrs. Clinton: the freedom to worship might be a protection that international law concerns itself with, but the rule of law that democracy in the United States is predicated upon answers to the Constitution. And what is enshrined and protected in that document is something much broader than freedom to worship. Freedom of religion and freedom to worship are not the same thing, and it’s the former that the Constitution guarantees. As pointed out by George Weigal, Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, in an article about the erosion of religious freedom in America, the freedom of religion cannot be reduced to freedom of worship because real freedom of religion includes the right

to preach and evangelize, to make religiously informed moral arguments in the public square, and to conduct the affairs of one’s religious community without undue interference from the state.

“If religious freedom only involves the freedom to worship,” he notes, well then “there is ‘religious freedom’ in Saudi Arabia”—where non-Muslim evangelism is illegal and the public practice of non-Muslim religions is prohibited, where the right to possess and use non-Muslim religious materials is not provided in law so the government is free to confiscate such materials, where significant restrictions exist for the building of places of worship, where a Muslim who converts to another religion places himself in mortal peril of the death penalty, and where Muslims who do not adhere to the state’s official and strict interpretation of the Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam face significant political, economic, legal, social, and religious discrimination, etc. According to the 2009 Report on International Religious Freedom, Saudi Arabia is a government who, as a matter of policy, “guarantees and protects the right to private worship for all.”

Freedom of religion and freedom to worship are not the same thing. While the former is guaranteed by the Constitution, it is the latter which the Obama administration seems to be leaning towards in its shifting focus toward international human rights laws and a restrictive policy of laïcité (Gk. laikos, Eng. laity) via European influence. However, as observed by Jacques Maritain, philosopher and a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there is a valuable distinction between models found in France and that of mid-twentieth century America, with the latter being considered more amicable because it had both “sharp distinction and actual cooperation” between church and state and “an historical treasure,” admonishing the United States to keep it carefully and “not let your concept of separation veer round to the European one” (as quoted in D.A. Carson’s Christ and Culture Revisited). As a Canadian I realize that our fight is separate from that of Americans, but I strongly and passionately encourage my brethren to the south who desire to “secure the blessings of liberty” for themselves and their posterity to observe very closely and, by power of elections, hold accountable the officials of government who are leaning away from the very Constitution they were sworn to preserve, protect, and defend. It is because of that document that America is comparatively exceptional in its religious freedoms, the slow erosion of which is less anomalous than symptomatic of European-influenced laïcité.

Do not stand for it. Please. In the upcoming election cycles, show your elected officials, like Hillary Clinton and her talk of freedom to worship, that Americans value their Constitution and hard-fought independence above international laws. In a twist that ought to be more ironic, the Obama administration is one of the best arguments for the principle values of America’s founding fathers. As you commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence this Fourth of July weekend, resolve to fight hard by the power of your vote for the values and freedoms that made your country great.

Some of the things I’ve been reading this week:

• Darrell Bock from Talbot Theological Seminary in La Mirada, CA, discusses what is missing from Bart Ehrman’s The New Testament: An Historical Introduction.
• Aviel Schneider says the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit disclosed that President Obama admitted to him in confidence that he’s a Muslim and sympathetic to the Muslim agenda.
• Mark Lamprecht describes what Jerry Falwell Jr.’s statement exposes about his theological priorities.
• Licia Corbella with the Calgary Herald talks about the disturbing undercurrent at the Islamic Journey of Faith Conference this weekend in Toronto, ON. (Even though Zakir Naik is denied entry into Canada, he will still be speaking at the conference via telecast, an attendee informed me.)
• Kenneth Minogue from the New Criterion laments the diminishing moral life of our democratic age.
• A band called Birds of Paradise released a new song in which children sing about their preference to “die as martyrs.” And no, it’s not a parody.
• Bill Vallicella over at Maverick Philosopher talks about how astonishingly closed John Hick’s open mind is.
• Raymond Ibrahim at the Middle East Forum discusses “The Two Faces of the Ground Zero Mosque.”
• Washington Post staff writers William Wan and Michelle Boorstein provide some thoughts on why Liberty University is no longer proud of their former president and star apologist.
• Jonathan Acuff at CNN Belief Blog offers a couple of ideas about why Christians are jerks online, in his opinion.
• R. Scott Clark at Westminster Seminary, CA, provides a comprehensive look at theses on covenant theology. (Very deep, but well worth a bookmark.)
• BiblicalTraining.org offers a free introductory course on Islam, taken from 24 separate lectures by Dr. Timothy Tennent at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA. (HT: Justin Taylor.)
• A school superintendent in Provincetown, MA, is handing out condoms at an elementary school and teaching your 5-year old children how to use them. And she thinks you can go fly a kite if you object to her doing so.

And on the lighter side:

• Matthew Warner at the National Catholic Register describes the ten types of blog commenters.
• A new breed of cat? Literacy in Los Angeles for the win!
• Are you ready for a Calvinist Dictionary? (My favourite was “Faux Pas: Coming to church with a Bible translation other than the ESV.”)

The temporary sign gifts can be found listed in 1 Cor 12:10 and are; miracles, healings, languages, and the interpretation of languages.

Miracles: A miracle is a supernatural intrusion into the natural law, which can have no other explanation than that of God acting. In John 2:11 it is revealed that Jesus performed His first miracle in order to manifest His glory. Why did He do miracles? It was to manifest His glory and reveal Himself as God. What is His glory? It is the composite of His attributes as deity. Miracles are the confirming signs of the revelation of God. That has always been and will always be their intent. John 5:36 and John 20:30 also attest to this truth. Miracles are always in the scripture for one purpose; to prove God is speaking.

For 30 years of His life Jesus did no miracles (John 2:11). This proves that it is not God’s purpose to perform miracles in all ages and in all times. Only when God reveals Himself do we see miracles. Jesus waited till the beginning of His ministry before the miracles began. We see the same pattern in the Old Testament too. The revelation at the time of Moses was accompanied by miracles, same too with the lives of Elijah and Elisha. The rest of the Old Testament is very scarce when it comes to miracles.

Miracles were to authenticate the living word and the written word. They are only found in Christ, the Apostles and those that worked with them in setting up the foundations of the church. Mark 16:17-20 and 2 Cor 12:12 support the fact that the signs of an apostle were “signs”, that is, the ability to do miracles.

If we were to say that miracles are continuing today, after we have established that the purpose of miracles is to confirm God’s revelation, then God is still revealing His word. And if He is still revealing His word then the Bible is incomplete and Revelation 22:18 and Gal 1:8-9 are a lie, because they say that if anyone adds to what has been taught by them, then they are accursed.

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May 15, 2010 — Two teams have succeeded in building little robots that work on DNA tracks.  These resemble in many respects the machines that cells use to perform its functions on DNA.  No one denies that humans engineered their nanobots on purpose, but Darwinist scientists claim natural cellular machines evolved without purpose or design. What’s the difference?

…

So if we do it, it’s intelligent design, but if nature does it, it’s blind evolution? You realize, of course, that the natural machines in cells are far ahead of us: they are not only autonomous, but attain very complex behaviors that are programmed into their molecular systems. Not only that, they belong to complexes of molecular machines, which belong to networks of signal processing systems, that boggle the mind – and they belong to entire systems that have a coded library, and can reproduce all their parts! Why should not scientists find it “inspiring to see such creativity” of “autonomous molecular systems that can execute complex actions” and ascribe it to design? Molecular biology should be filled with God-fearing, worshiping, praise-singing scientists shouting Hallelujah! What we get instead are man-fearing, fault-finding, hate-mongering ingrates shouting Pal-Ayala.

The permanent edifying gifts are divided into two categories; speaking gifts and serving gifts.

There are 5 speaking gifts identified in Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Cor 12:8-10. These are prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, teaching and exhortation. In the same passages we find 6 serving gifts which are; leadership, serving, giving, mercy, faith and discernment. Lets look at each of these individually.

Prophecy: As we discovered earlier the meaning of prophet means someone who speaks out. So here we have a simple variation to the ability to speak out. It is the gift given by the Spirit of God to a person to proclaim God’s truth to others. To proclaim God’s truth publicly before an audience. Prophecy falls into 2 categories; revelation and reiteration. Revelation: disclosing something never before disclosed. Reiteration: repeating a message which God has already given. The revelatory gift of prophecy was in play during the early church and in Old Testament times, but now it has no function as all revelation has been given (Rev 22:18). Now only the reiterative gift of prophecy is present in the church because that’s what’s needed.

An interesting side note here is that all the gifts mentioned in Rom 12:6-8 are non-miraculous (including prophecy). And all the gifts listed in 1 Cor 12:8-10 are miraculous. Prophecy which is mentioned in both, can be both. In once sense prophecy can be miraculous and revelatory and in another sense it can be normal proclaiming. Hence it’s inclusion in both lists.

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Just a very brief article in response to Peter Lumpkins, who wrote a fair but perplexing analysis of Liberty University’s investigation of Ergun Caner and the official statement it concluded with. And this will be very brief because that is all it takes.

Lumpkins felt that the official statement had definitively provided a “vindication” of Caner by somehow demonstrating that he did not “make up his life testimony” in any way similar to Mike Warnke’s fictitious background, and therefore people who have been critical of Caner’s testimony “should drink their own tonic and offer public apologies.” I will shoulder this admonishment publically and without any hesitation, immediately upon Lumpkins successfully reconciling the glaring conflict between Caner’s life testimony and the court documents which contradict it. While he is right about our inability to draw conclusions from what is not there, we surely can draw conclusions from what is there.

His life testimony is that he was raised in Turkey as a Muslim terrorist trained in jihad and then moved to the U.S. as a young teenager. Evidences (official court documents) prove that he and his family had actually moved to a quiet suburb of Columbus, Ohio, when Caner was about three years of age. The latter contradicts the former.

If Lumpkins can successfully reconcile Caner’s life testimony, which we have, with the official evidence that contradicts it, which we have, then I will be among the first to step forward and offer a public apology. But as it stands right now, it is impossible for his life testimony and the court documents to both be true. One of them is false, unless Lumpkins is aware of something that reconciles the two without likewise contradicting the ample evidence that is there.

(A nod to Carla Rolfe, who just expressed a similar request.)