This is my own transcription of a conversation between Greg Koukl and a caller (Pat) to his radio show back in March, 2007. And seeing as it’s  that time of year again, I thought perhaps revisiting this conversation would be instructive for some who have to deal with this increasingly popular and insidious philosophy in their own communities.

Pat wanted to address the philosophy behind Diversity Week – and the way in which the school system was advocating participation by students – by confronting and opening dialogue with the organiser, whom Pat suspected was a lesbian. He begins:

Pat: In Massachusetts we have the regional high school systems. And Diversity Week is coming up. Basically this is the advancement of the homosexual agenda.

One of the things they’re doing [to promote participation in Diversity Week] is the day of silence. By participating in the day of silence you’re saying that you are protesting the brutality against gays, lesbians and trans-gender people. And if you participate in this, at the end of the day… you get to go to an ice-cream social in the cafeteria. If you didn’t participate, you don’t [get to go and have ice-cream in the cafeteria]. What this tells me is they’ve decided that to take the position of being silent in the form of protest is the morally superior position.

Greg: I would ask this question. Why are you buying the students votes?

Pat: Why are you buying the students votes? It’s not a vote.

Greg: Well it is kind of. They’re participating aren’t they? They’re making a statement with, what?

Pat: Ice-cream?

Greg: No. They’re making a statement with their silence. The purchase price for the silence is ice-cream. Why do you have to bribe kids to participate? Why are you rewarding them [for] agreeing with your parochial point of view?

 

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Abdu Murray is a Muslim who converted from Islam to Christianity. In an interview (Oct 17, 2010) with Greg Koukl on his radio show at Stand to Reason, Abdu shares a conundrum he had which triggered his journey from Islam and, eventually, into Christianity. 

Abdu was reading the Qur’an when he came across Surah 5:47 “Let the people of the gospel judge according to what God has revealed in it. And whoever judges not by what God has sent down, those are the transgressors.” Having been raised to believe that the Qur’an is God’s dictation in Arabic – which means that every word, verb tense, and grammar is perfect, and that the Bible had been corrupted before the Qur’an came and that the Qur’an had come to correct those corruptions - Abdu realises this is saying, in 7th-Century Saudi Arabia, the gospel existed for people to go and look at, and to judge it as the word of God; as a source of divine truth.

His conundrum was this: Why would God refer them to a corrupted version of the gospel? If the Bible was once God’s Word and it then became corrupted, two things follow. Either God couldn’t keep it from being corrupted or He wouldn’t keep it from being corrupted. If He couldn’t, then He is inept and not omnipotent but rather impotent. If He wouldn’t, then the very revelation in the Qur’an, that affirms the Bible, may not be revelation and why would we trust anything He has to say. 

Therefore, Abdu concluded that the Bible had not been corrupted at the time of the writing of the Qur’an in the 7^th century. From there it was a simple task to find out if the Bible of the 7^th century is the same as the Bible we have today. It was. And the evidence pointed to it being the same for centuries before as well. 

At this point Abdu was forced to believe, based on his faith in the Qur’an and his faith in evidence, that the Bible is the uncorrupted Word.

This conundrum is explored further in Alan Shlemon’s “Ambassadors’ guide to Islam” booklet (available from Stand to Reason www.str.org). In this booklet Alan identifies a logical argument with regard to the Qur’an and Islamic teachings and is highly recommended by Abdu Murray.

1. The Qur’an says the words of God cannot be changed or corrupted. Surah 6:34, 6:115 and 10:64
2. The Qur’an says the Bible is the Word of God. Surah 2:136 and 29:46
3. Therefore, on the Qur’an’s authority, the Bible could not have been changed or corrupted, as many Muslims claim

If you would like to learn more about Abdu Murray and his ministry – Aletheia International,  you can visit his website at  http://embracethetruth.org/

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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The failing philosophy that allegedly grounds the ideas presented in the new book by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow has drawn much criticism over the last couple of months – even from those who agree with his conclusions. I certainly don’t intend to offer any new or profound thoughts on the matter. Nor do I intend to pontificate on the details of quantum physics, especially when those who are actually qualified to do so think it makes “absolutely no sense” (to quote Roger Penrose).

I simply want to draw your attention to the failing philosophy of the book – something that Hawking and Mlodinow characterize as “Scientific Determinism” (SD) – and point you in the direction of one who is demonstrably more qualified and seemingly more careful in his thinking on that subject than either Hawking or Mlodinow appear to have been.

Greg Koukl (M.A Philosophy and Ethics) writes in the most recent edition of his bi-monthly newsletter, Solid Ground:

For Hawking and Mlodinow … event causation governs everything—even human choices. Determinism is absolute. There are no exceptions, even human ones. Everything, including human nature, must submit to the sovereignty of physics:

Since people live in the universe and interact with other objects in it, then scientific determinism must hold for people as well….[p.30]

Do people have free will?…Though we feel that we can choose…biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets….[p.31-32]

Our physical brain, following the known laws of science…determines our actions, and not some agency that exists outside those laws. [p.32]

So it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion. [p.32] [emphases added]

It’s hard to believe brilliant men like Hawking and Mlodinow do not see how destructive this move is to their own case, but I think you will see it readily.

Let me put the question this way: Did the laws of physics determine the order of the words on the pages of The Grand Design? Or did Professors Hawking and Mlodinow make that call? Did they ponder the evidence for their theories, consider the implications of the facts, posit conclusions, then choose the right words and select the precise order that would best communicate their views and persuade readers of the rationality of their own ideas?

…in light of SD … ultimately, the laws of physics wrote the book that bears their names no less than the laws of physics determined the arrangement of rocks resting on the surface of the planet Mars. … Remember, the only causation Hawking & Mlodinow allow for is event causation—dominoes fatalistically falling—which is rigidly deterministic.

In other words, if Hawking and Mlodinow are right, they’re wrong. Moreover, it becomes meaningless to talk of the person “Hawking” or “Mlodinow” as agents capable of free thought and action. As this mock interview highlights, the universe deserves all the credit, not beings who merely appear to think and reason for themselves.

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Yoga: Is it just stretching and increasing your flexibility? Or is there something more to it than simple exercise?

Yoga is tied heavily to Eastern Religion, predominately Hindu. In the Hindu Religious worldview, the nature of spiritual reality is that the only thing that exists is an impersonal God and that we are all a part of God, existing in some sort of dream or illusion called Maya. We think we are separate from God but in reality we are part of the divine essence. The goal in the Hindu worldview is to perform certain spiritual practices known as “asana’s” in order to get back to the Godhead. Also known as transcending or achieving enlightenment. Some of these asana’s are fasting, praying, chanting, meditation and yoga.

Now you can’t get away from the fact that yoga is first and foremost a spiritual discipline. Yoga is not done for your physical health but rather your spiritual health. In “kundalini” yoga there is a belief that there is a spirit at the base of the spine, and the kundalini spirit is released with the aid of the yoga asana. Yoga is a system of doing physical things (stretches, breathing, poses and utterances) which is tied to a spiritual outcome.

Thinking that doing yoga is simply physical activity would be like taking the Catholic Rosary beads and praying the Rosary prayers over and over again to calm you down, to make you feel better, all the while believing that praying the Rosary is not religious.

The concern for a Christian doing yoga simply for the stretches is that not all of the stretches are benign. Some have a specific goal which is an Eastern spiritual goal. There may be some physical benefit from doing yoga, and that may be part of the appeal, but yoga should not be confused with a gym workout. By all means, if you can isolate the stretch from the yoga system, then fine, a stretch is just a stretch. But if it’s tied in with the yoga system then there is a concern for the Christian, or anyone else for that matter who doesn’t think that what they are doing is buying into an Eastern religion.

Paraphrased from Greg Koukl’s radio show (www.str.org)

Josephine Tovey writes in Thursday’s Sydney Morning Herald (June 3, 2010):

JESUS may have welcomed prostitutes into the kingdom of heaven, but the reception in Sydney’s ”Bible belt” is distinctly less friendly.

The Hills Shire Council, home of the Hillsong church and one of the fastest-growing regions of Sydney, is pushing for a change in state planning laws to allow it to ban brothels.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/hills-folk-reject-oldest-profession-20100602-wzul.html

In typical What-Would-Jesus-Do fashion, the basic rub of her article is that although Jesus lovingly welcomes prostitutes into heaven, hypocritical unfriendly Christians (supposed followers of Christ) won’t even allow prostitutes to work in their town; trying instead to ban brothels (a safe haven for these women to practice their craft), potentially forcing them to prostitute themselves in more dangerous territory. And the standard by which Josephine measures this alleged hypocrisy… who knows? Dropping the J-bomb is about as close as she comes to providing any reason whatsoever for us to believe that her opinions are based on anything more than creative scripture twisting.

And as Josephine provides no reason for us to think that these Christians are acting against the desires of our Lord, I will not presume to respond as if she had. However, in the interest of highlighting a basic hermeneutical principle that I find helpful, I suggest that the best candidate verse is the second half of Matthew 21:31

… Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. …”

Whenever I am trying to figure out the meaning of a verse or passage, there is a principle I use which flows from good hermeneutics; something Greg Koukl calls ‘Never Read a Bible Verse’:

When I’m on the radio, I use this simple rule to help me answer the majority of Bible questions I’m asked, even when I’m totally unfamiliar with the verse. It’s an amazingly effective technique you can use, too.

I read the paragraph, not just the verse. I take stock of the relevant material above and below. Since the context frames the verse and gives it specific meaning, I let it tell me what’s going on.

This works because of a basic rule of all communication: Meaning always flows from the top down, from the larger units to the smaller units, not the other way around. The key to the meaning of any verse comes from the paragraph, not just from the individual words.

If we read on from verse 31 to verse 32, it would appear the reason “…the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God…” is not because Jesus merely tolerates and accepts prostitutes for who they are, or because he thinks brothels are such a good influence in the community and he wants to ensure there will be women willing to work the streets in the Kingdom. No, it is because they believed what John the Baptist had preached about Jesus, repented of their sin, and put their trust in Christ. “For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did.” It is not that all prostitutes are entering the Kingdom with Jesus’ approval despite their way of life, but only those who heard John, believed what he said, turned from their way of life and trusted in Christ; those are the ones who are “entering the kingdom of God.” It has nothing to do with them being prostitutes and everything to do with how they responded to Jesus.

So whatever basis Josephine is using to justify her position, it can’t be Matthew 21. That passage provides no basis for believing that Christians should support or condone prostitution in their community, or that by banning brothels they are somehow being unfriendly, unloving, or acting against the desires of our Lord.

The truth of the phrase “a picture tells a thousand words” holds much persuasive power. The media has long used a variety of images to convey the truth and reality of situations far removed from the every day viewer; we use images to provoke, to emotionally stir and to captivate people’s attention. We are, by and large, a visually stimulated people. The success of the movie industry and of TV programming is testament to that. Yet can we intentionally use graphically disturbing pictures to promote a cause or to bring awareness of an issue to the uninitiated? Can we use images to sway our opponents on the abortion issue? If they’re used appropriately, then the answer is an emphatic, “yes”.

The use of pictures does have its place; the use of factual pictures entomb the truths of an event for future generations. One man who understood this in totality was General Eisenhower who, on visiting the Nazi concentration camp at Ohrdruf on April 12th, 1945, ordered that every citizen of the nearby town of Gotha visit the camp; that media personnel make full documentation; and that military cameras be sure to capture the horrific scene, immortalizing in photographs the barbarity and cruelty.

Said Eisenhower, “I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’”^[1] Eisenhower envisaged that the documentation was necessary because, at point in the future, he believed there would be people who would deny that such astrocities ever took place, perhaps thinking them some elaborate conspiracy to stir the hearts and cloud the minds of a gullible people. Yet there are groups who deny the holocaust; I’m sure Eisenhower would not be surprised.

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