Category: Subject Index

CATHOLIC cardinals have destroyed the late Pope John Paul II’s ring and seal in a symbolic end to his authority before secluding themselves from the world to elect his successor. The cardinals will begin their conclave this week, and the Vatican said smoke signals would pour from a chimney above the Sistine Chapel twice a day to tell the world whether or not a new pope had been elected.

Overnight, the cardinals watched an ancient ritual marking the transition between two popes – the destruction of John Paul’s Fisherman’s Ring and his lead seal, two symbols of his authority.

During John Paul’s 26-year pontificate and his many trips around the world, countless pilgrims kissed the gold signet ring.

At 4.30pm Monday (Rome time, 12.30am Tuesday AEST), the 115 cardinals under the age of 80 with the right to choose a new pope will file in solemn procession into the Sistine Chapel, with its Michelangelo frescoes, where voting takes place. They come from 52 nations.

The cardinals will hold up to four ballots a day – two in the morning and two in the afternoon – until they elect the 265th pontiff.

Smoke signals above the Sistine Chapel – black smoke for an indecisive vote or white for a new pope – are expected around noon (8pm AEST) and 7pm (3am AEST) each day.

by Philip Pullella and Claudia Parsons in Vatican City
April 17, 2005, www.news.com.au

Analysis:

A simple reading of this news report, which refers to the Pope’s “authority” and his “reign” show how very different the Catholic pattern is from the pattern revealed in God’s Word. Consider the following passages, contrasting the authority of Jesus with that of a bishop:

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth'” (Matthew 28:18).

“Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly; nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock; and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away” (1 Peter 5:2-4).

God never intended for any man to have the authority or to experience the adulation and worship that is experienced by any man who is appointed as Pope in the Catholic church. A new Pope will be elected within a few weeks, but his reign and authority will not be ordained by God.

An intellectual bombshell dropped last week when British professor Antony Flew, for decades one of the world’s leading philosophers of atheism, publicly announced that he now affirms the existence of a deity.

To be sure, Mr. Flew has not become an adherent of any creed. He simply believes that science points to the existence of some sort of intelligent designer of the universe. He says evidence from DNA research convinces him that the genetic structure of biological life is too complex to have evolved entirely on its own. Though the 81-year-old philosopher believes Darwinian theory explains a lot, he contends that it cannot account for how life initially began.

We (the Editorial Board of the Dallas Morning News) found this conversion interesting in light of last year’s controversy regarding proposed revisions to the state’s (Texas) high school biology textbooks. Our view then was that while religion must be kept out of science classes, intellectual honesty demands that when science produces reliable data challenging the prevailing orthodoxies, students should be taught them.

We were bothered by Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin’s statement that for scientists, materialism must be “absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” That’s called stacking the deck.

Mr. Flew may be dead wrong, but it’s refreshing to see that an academic of his stature is unafraid to let new facts change his mind. The philosopher told The Associated Press that if admirers are upset with his about-face, then “that’s too bad. My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato’s Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads.”

If the scientific data are compelling enough to cause an atheist academic of Antony Flew’s reputation to recant much of his life’s work, why shouldn’t Texas schoolchildren be taught the controversy?

Editorial Board
Dallas Morning News
December 15, 2004

Analysis:

I came across this four month old admission by Antony Flew just this past week. The web site where I found it had an accompanying article with the following statement concerning Jonathan Witt of the Discovery Institute: “Witt noted that Darwin and his contemporaries thought a single cell was a simple blob of protoplasm and that it wouldn’t have been difficult for nature to randomly produce something so simple. ‘In those days the cell was a black box, a mystery. But in the 20th century, scientists were able to open that black box and peek inside,’ he notes. ‘There they found not a simple blob, but a world of complex circuits, miniaturized motors and digital code. We now know that even the simplest functional cell is almost unfathomably complex, containing at least 250 genes and their corresponding proteins.'”

While we appreciate the fact that some evolutionists are beginning to recognize that complexity indicates intelligent design, it is a contention creationists have made from the very beginning of the controversy. As the Psalmist wrote, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well” (Psalm 139:14).

GENEVA (Reuters) – North Korea represses religion and has an official ideology that is a form of secular humanism, a U.S. government agency said on Thursday.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said interviews with North Korean refugees showed a pattern of arrest, imprisonment, torture and execution for public expressions of religion.

“Any reappearance of Christianity, possibly permeating from northern China to where many thousands of North Koreans fled from famine in the 1990s, is rigorously repressed,” USCIRF North Korean researcher David Hawk told a news conference.

Only two active churches, with one more to be built, and one Buddhist temple were known to exist – all in the capital, Pyongyang, and apparently serving the foreign diplomatic and business community there.

USIRC vice-chair Felice D. Gaer said a full report on the findings from interviews with some 30 ordinary North Koreans among some 6,000 who have escaped to South Korea since 2000 would be published later this year.

Analysis:

With all the attacks that are made against religion in general, and Christianity in particular, it is interesting to note that the country which is considered the most antagonistic to human rights claims to be a humanistic in philosophy.

Continue reading “U.S. Team Says N. Korea Suppresses Religion” →

Kris Braddock sure knows how to cause trouble.  An internet visitor to our web site took issue with Kris’ article entitled “Saved by Faith… But What of Works?”  And then he had the audacity to write me to complain!  Anyway, among other standard Calvinistic arguments he made, he said the following:

“Succinctly stated, the passages in Ephesians and James can ONLY be reconciled as follows: ‘Faith is the ROOT of our salvation. Works are the FRUIT of our salvation.’  Faith is the CAUSE of salvation and WORKS are the EFFECT, or RESULT of salvation.”

Below is my quick reply to him. Continue reading “We Get Letters – (On James 2)” →

In our last article on authority, we documented several “digressions” which resulted from a lack of understanding of how Bible authority is established.  The three general apostasies we mentioned were: 1) The establishment of the apostate church (Catholicism); 2) The embracing of human creeds in the Protestant Reformation; and 3) The apostasy in the late 1800’s which led to the establishment of the Christian Church denomination.

In the more recent past God’s people have been troubled by digression.  In the 1940’s and 1950’s issues arose in the church, which led to division among God’s people. Continue reading “Institutionalism: An Abuse of Authority” →

In the past 2,000 years, since the church was established on the first Pentecost following our Lord’s resurrection, there have been many apostasies.  In every case, widespread apostasy has occurred because of either a lack of respect for, or misunderstanding of Bible authority.  This we will demonstrate momentarily.  Therefore, the principles of authority we have been establishing in this series of articles need to be instilled in each generation to avoid similar departures both presently and in the future. Continue reading “Historical Abuses of Authority” →

A MINISTER from Belsize Park has put together the stories of women of all faiths who chose to take up the cloth.

Uta Blohm has compiled testimonies from rabbis, ministers and priests for her book Religious Traditions and Personal Stories which is published this week.

The Lutheran minister (Uta Blohm), who lives in Belsize Park Gardens, spent six years researching the paths that different women across London and the southeast have taken to become ordained….

…”My advice to any woman who is considering a career as a rabbi, a priest or a minister would be to follow your dreams,” she said. “But be prepared for the road ahead, be prepared to dedicate your life and be ready for those surprised faces and the looks of shock.”

Her research revealed there were as many advantages as problems encountered by the women members of the clergy.

“Some people actually go out of their way to make sure that they get a man to conduct their service. But on the flip side, some people specifically ask for a woman to do the service. There are many advantages for lady rabbis and priests, for a start many women feel more comfortable discussing certain matters with another woman.”

Rene Butler
via Ham&High 24, UK

Analysis:

There is a reason why women who seek to become “church leaders” are received with “surprised faces and looks of shock.”

Continue reading “Women Who Fought to Become Faith Leaders” →

He’s set 62 world records, doing such things as flying around the world in a hot air balloon and transatlantic sailing. But becoming the first person to fly solo around the world without refueling is Steve Fossett’s favourite accomplishment yet.

“I worked on it for such a long time, and it involved a lot of people. It’s an airplane flight, and I want to be an accomplished pilot. So this is right up at the top as far as an achievement for me,” Fossett told CTV’s Canada AM Friday from Salina, Kansas.

It took the millionaire adventurer 67 hours to make the 37,000-kilometre trip around the world. He did it in the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, a single-engine jet that’s been called “a fuel tank with room for one.” Its cockpit is two metres long and is equipped with 13 tanks that can carry nearly 2,500 kilograms of fuel.

CTV.ca News Staff

Analysis:

Fossett’s successful attempt to circumnavigate the world in 67 hours reminds me of another aviator who is at the forefront of many people’s mind due to the success of a recent Hollywood movie called The Aviator.

Continue reading “Fossett Delighted with World Record Flight” →

Consider the following scenario. A parent gives a child a ten dollar bill, and tells him to go into the store and buy a gallon of milk, and a loaf of bread. The child returns to the car with the milk, the bread, some change, and a candy bar. The parent tells the child, “I didn’t say you could get a candy bar!”, and the child replies, “You didn’t say I couldn’t!”

The child’s statement is true, but he quickly learns that the parent’s silence on the matter did not constitute permission to go ahead and buy the candy bar. From this example, we understand the principle that silence is not permissive.

The same is true with the word of God. Continue reading “The Silence of Scripture” →

Friday afternoon Debbie, me, Kendra, Jeremiah and one of Kendra’s friends jumped into the car for a last minute trip to Austin. My niece was playing in the high school basketball playoffs, and Kendra’s softball game had been cancelled. A mad dash when school let out got us to the game just at tip off. On the way home everyone, (except for yours truly), slept. (By the way, Heather’s team won, and made it to the state quarterfinals before losing yesterday).

The trip to Austin seemed much quicker than the long road home that night. Partly because we were fresh, but mostly because a good portion of the journey was taken up with a rather challenging conversation we had.

Continue reading “Christian Ethics” →

There is a simple mathematical principle that children learn early on in their education, as they are taught “sets” of numbers.

Simply, we could state that one set of numbers would be all “positive, whole” numbers. The set would be described in the following manner:

{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,…}

Within that set of whole numbers, we could have a subset of all odd whole numbers that have a positive value. Described as:

{1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,…}

Other similar sets could be represented in similar ways. Continue reading “Sets and Subsets” →

“Atlanta – A federal judge on Thursday ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its high school biology textbooks that call evolution ‘theory, not a fact,’ saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

“‘By denigrating evolution, the School Board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories,’ U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said.

“The stickers were put inside the books’ front covers by Cobb County public school officials in 2002. They state: ‘This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.'”

The Indianapolis Star [January 14, 2005]

Analysis:

The preceding article is yet another indication of the active antagonism modern culture expresses toward the faith the Christian holds dear.

Continue reading “Evolution Stickers Must Go” →

In our last article we indicated that at certain times God’s commands are general in their nature. Such generic authority allows room to exercise discretion.

For example, in Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus gave his disciples instructions, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” The command to “Go”, given by Jesus, is generic in nature. Jesus did not specify the means of going, so the disciples had discretion in fulfilling the command. These areas of discretion can be categorized as expediencies. Continue reading “Expediency” →

“The scientist who attracted the world’s attention by cloning Dolly the sheep is taking another major step for medical research: cloning human embryos and extracting stem cells to try to unravel the mysteries of muscle-wasting illnesses such as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“Ian Wilmut, who led the team that created Dolly at Scotland’s Roslin Institute in 1996, was granted a cloning license Tuesday by British regulators to study how nerve cells go awry to cause motor-neuron diseases.

“The experiments do not involve creating cloned babies, but the license has nonetheless stirred fresh controversy over the issue and prompted abortion foes and other biological conservatives to condemn the decision.”

Thomas Wagner
The Associated Press
Fort Worth Star Telegram, Wednesday, February 9, 2005

Analysis:

Embryo: 1. a. An organism in its early stages of development, especially before it has reached a distinctively recognizable form. b. An organism at any time before full development, birth, or hatching. 2. a. The fertilized egg of a vertebrate animal following cleavage. b. In humans, the prefetal product of conception from implantation through the eighth week of development. (Dictionary.com)

Continue reading “License to Clone Human Granted” →

A study of authority reveals that it can be categorized in two ways, Generic authority, and Specific authority.
By Generic we mean “general, opposite to specific” (Webster’s). So, Generic authority is inclusive. It includes all the methods or ways in which the thing authorized may be accomplished.

In contrast, by Specific we mean “precisely formulated or restricted; specifying or explicit” (Websters). So, Specific authority is exclusive. It only includes that which is expressly stated or specified.

On the surface, this may seem to be rather confusing. In reality it is a matter of simple common sense, and can readily be determined. Continue reading “Generic and Specific Authority” →