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On spiritual sophistry, sarcasm, and Dr. Sarfati

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 12:01 PM ET , Monday, Feb 23, 2009

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Categories: Columns, Science: Genesis, Rebuttals, Politics: The Left Wing, Deep Doctrine Magic: Biblical Theology, Churchianity, Cross Firings, Life Applications



More controversy is brewing on the Boundless webzine, the site for young adults that covers all manner of discipleship, worldview and lifestyle issues. Debate over there is nothing new. What is new is that it involves a true apologetics hero whose arguments, though sparkling with light and truth, also carry static shock that’s even rubbing fellow Christ-followers the wrong way.

Sarcastro, superhero-in-training who combats evil with “the razor-sharp sting of sarcasm”(from The Tick)
Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, Biblical apologetics whizard extraordinaire, is a New Zealand native, chemist and spectroscopist. His Refuting books — two against Evolution and one against religious Compromise — are among the best to be found in any Biblical-creation library. For years he wrote great web-articles and especially rebuttals for the Answers in Genesis global ministry and website. Now — for reasons too complex and difficult to get into here — he’s part of Creation Ministries International, with most of his material imported over there.

More recently, Boundless has been publishing columns by him and other CMI staff. And Sarfati has also been getting into several blog discussions — and riling reactionary responses.

That’s not surprising. Skepticism will always assail someone who believes, and much more so proclaims, such ideas as: God created the world 6,000 years ago; science has limitations in proving origins beliefs and is never “objective”; the global flood of Genesis, not millions of years, is responsible for almost all fossils; evidence fits better with creationist presuppositions.

But Sarfati likes to get into politics, too, and as one friend of mine once said, he seems to know American politics and the Constitution better than most Americans. His style and criticisms are very reminiscent of Ann Coulter, another favorite conservative writer of mine (I’ll admit it).

In a recent comment, Sarfati generalized Leftists as “elitists who regard themselves as above the rules they foist on others,” and employed the use of amusing names for Liberals such as “Debtocrats” or “celebutards.” Other Boundless commentators blasted him back — some of them are left-leaning professing Christians — yet a few others, such as myself here, agreed with the content, yet questioned Sarfati’s style:

Just a few changes [. . .] to remove the name-calling and over-generalizing, would go a long way toward making the truth of the arguments even more poignant.

Dr. Sarfati, I would agree with you that in some situations, even Coulter-esque invective can be entertaining. But coming from a Christ-follower, the juvenile verbiage seems unnecessary. And I would even more strongly suggest that it is also un-Christlike.

Sir, I greatly respect your work for the apologetics and Scripture defense cause, but is [it] a more-powerful argument, and furthermore Scriptural, to “speak the truth in love”?

To that, and other objections, Sarfati noted,

How can following Christ's own challenge-riposte be “un-Christlike”? Have these critics actually even read what Christ said? There is nothing in the Bible demanding that we should be like [C]hrist only when He was gentle, but not when He used riposte.

It seems Sarfati’s response bears a more-direct and comprehensive answer. Dare I go up against one of my apologetics heroes and suggest he’s wrong? No, I dare not. Rather, I prefer coming alongside him as a Christian brother, and admirer, and hope only to suggest graciously a more balanced approach to dealing with folks, and especially professing Christians.

Continued ...



Evolution of a debate: Survival among the extremes

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 06:31 PM ET , Monday, Jan 22, 2007

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Categories: Columns, Science: Genesis, Rebuttals, Deep Doctrine Magic: Churchianity, Cross Firings



Recently I have fallen back into a bad habit, and began engaging in a back-and-forth with evolutionists — and creationist defenders of Kent Hovind — on the forum of the Pensacola News Journal.

The members fall into two extreme factions:
1) Kent Hovind is a “Christian gentleman” who did nothing wrong and who now has been silenced by the Government.

2) Kent Hovind and all creation-believers are ignorant, backward, venom-spewing frauds.

Rarely does a “standard” Biblical creation advocate as myself enter the fray and suddenly acquire the appearance of a Moderate. Yet this is what has happened here. The Hovind-advocates have tried to ignore my questions, and criticisms of the now-convicted “Dr. Dino,” and the evolutionists merely offer their tried-and-trite ad hominem screeds.

The following are some highlights, with adjustments made only to formatting.

Continued ...



Debatable droppings from 'Dr. Dino' and Co.

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 02:13 PM ET , Saturday, Jan 20, 2007

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Categories: Columns, Science: Genesis, Rebuttals, Deep Doctrine Magic: Churchianity, Cross Firings



Yesterday Kent Hovind, longtime speaker on the Biblical-creationist circuit — and one much more prone to wild generalizations, theatrics and questionable “proofs” — was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax evasion.

Pensacola News Journal reporter Michael Stewart ultra-summarizes the story. And frankly, I don’t want to hear any shouts of “Liberal bias!” right now, as the article is almost too stilted and objective in its style:

After a lengthy sentencing hearing that last 5 1/2 hours, U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers ordered Hovind also:

— Pay $640,000 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

— Pay the prosecution’s court costs of $7,078.

— Serve three years parole once he is released from prison.

Hovind’s wife, Jo Hovind, also was scheduled to be sentenced. Rodgers postponed her sentencing until March 1 to allow her defense attorney an opportunity to argue possible discrepancies in sentencing guidelines.

Prior to his sentencing, a tearful Kent Hovind, also known as "Dr. Dino" asked for the court’s leniency.

“If it’s just money the IRS wants, there are thousands of people out there who will help pay the money they want so I can go back out there and preach,” Hovind said.

Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, was found guilty in November of 58 federal counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes. He faced a maximum of 288 years in prison.

Facing temporary extinction

Even for a guy who shoots rubber bands at the audience during his lectures, as Hovind does, 288 years seems a bit extreme. The solution is that the sentences are concurrent. One may be for 14 years; the other, for 9 years. The actual maximum would be 14 years.

“Dr. Dino” was arrested and indicted July 14 last year, and convicted Nov. 3. That conviction followed the exposure of apparently the better-known Ted Haggard. And despite his much more serious offense — and seemingly even-flakier doctrines — Haggard seemed actually remorseful.

Hovind does not. On his blog, although he seems humble, he acts as though he were Paul and Silas, tossed in jail for preaching the Word.

He was not. He was put in there for income tax-evasion. And the best his followers can do is either agree with his extreme-libertarian, Jews-are-running-everything conspiracy-theory positions, or else seemingly ignore them and pray about his needs, etc.

Hovind’s online frustration with friendly fire is particularly telling:

It was disappointing to me to see the way thousands of “Christians” and even quite a few preachers have believed the worst about me in direct violation of Proverbs 18:13. “He that answereth a matter before he hearth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” Oh well, not much has changed in the Lord’s church in 2,000 years.

“Christians” in quotes? This is most disagreeable. Anyone who does not agree with him is not saved, then? What contemptible arrogance, to say the least.

The Bible passage (Authorized Version only, of course) is irrelevant. We know exactly what he did: we hath hearth (“heard”) “the matter,” and he admits it — tax fraud — blatantly proclaiming in violation of law that he owes the federal government nothing because He’s God’s Man.

Hovind’s lawbreaking was bad enough. I would love to excuse him — and even forgive his absurd “prove evolution and I’ll give you $100,000” ministry “challenge” — but he is unrepentant.

And what can we say about his promising to hand over whatever the IRS wants — not from his own property, but from the future donations of his ever-so-willing followers?

This is perhaps saddest at all, that Hovind’s “disciples” have placed their faith in him like this.

It is dangerous.

Continued ...



Observing the fall of fallible men

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 11:22 AM ET , Saturday, Nov 04, 2006

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Categories: Columns, Science: Genesis, Media: Left-Handed News, Politics: The Left Wing, Deep Doctrine Magic: Churchianity, Life Applications



Kent Hovind, self-styled “Dr. Dino” and one among the more-“flaky” kind of young-earth creation believers, was convicted yesterday for tax evasion. His defense lawyers didn't even try a defense, according to the Pensacola News Journal:

Hovind faces a maximum of 288 years in prison. His wife faces up to 225 years. Her charges include aiding and abetting her husband with 44 counts of evading bank-reporting requirements.

[. . .]

Defense lawyers for the Hovinds rested their case on Wednesday without presenting evidence or calling witnesses.

At last check, nothing on the “Dr. Dino” website references his ongoing troubles — neither were any updates posted in July of this year when he was charged with 58 counts of tax-evasion and related offenses. An apparent master of legal and political carefulness, Hovind immediately began declaring that as an evangelist and Man of God he shouldn't even have to pay taxes anyway — which perhaps explains why his lawyers avoided bothering about a defense.

Wikipedia has several references chronicling the whole tax-evasion story beginning earlier this year.

So: first someone named Ted Haggard, and now Kent Hovind — but the latter likely has nothing to do with the election, unlike the absolutely, hilariously, transparent attempt to take out Mr. Haggard and thus somehow upset the conservative base. (Haggard's accuser admitted wanting to expose “hypocrisy” among those freaks who want to maintain real marriage and all of that; the man had been sitting on the story since May 2006.)

You conservatives out there: are you upset? Does your whole world seem dissolving? Do you trust in fallible men — “of God,” and otherwise — so much that you will abandon your principles when they fall, and fall hard?

If you maintain focus on Christ, and not just corrupt practitioners of faith, I should say not.

One can argue that Hovind was falling all along. His rhetoric is ridiculous, and he accepts the most weird and Coast-to-Coast-AM-radio-like “evidences” for Biblical creation. Though his belief there is accurate, his methods are not. I've criticized him before, though not directly, for treating his own cultural traditions and exterior perceptions just as the same as actual Biblical truth — scroll down to the ‘We must — be — protogolegorically correct!’ section of Churchianity, part 2: The Unwritten Rules of God's House.

Thus, I for one am actually reluctantly satisfied that this “village idiot” of Biblical creation might be put away, though as my brother remarked in properly accented fashion, “I pity the fool.”

Meanwhile, my familiarity with Haggard is limited. He could be right or wrong; it matters little for the faith of informed Christ-followers, and for true Christendom altogether.

And it matters even less in regard to the election, despite whatever hyped-up “questions” the left-leaning media outlets try to self-generate.

Trust not in man, and don't even think that conservative or Republican candidates must be perfect in order to win your vote. Right-wingers are far from perfect — many of them are far from Christ, even — but secular-liberals are far worse.



Willow-y doctrines?

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 02:38 PM ET , Tuesday, Aug 08, 2006

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Categories: Deep Doctrine Magic: Megachurchianity, Science: Genesis



Aug. 18, 2006: Correction appendended. An earlier version of this story listed Lee Strobel as current apologeticist for Willow Creek — that is no longer so, and neither is he with the staff of Saddleback Community Church.

Mr. Strobel's beliefs, however, do not include literal creation; a theistic evolutionist, he supports in his book, The Case for the Creator, the more-vague and -culturally-acceptable Intelligent Design concept. And useful as it may be (and more headlines-prone), this movement does not directly point to the Creator/Savior of the Bible.


Answers in Genesis today has this update from an Illinois supporter, offering his mild criticism of “a well-known mega-church” for its pseudo-Creation beliefs and reinterpretations of Genesis.

We left [a well-known mega-church*]. Here is what transpired and pushed me over the edge (and out of that church).

I attended since 1982, but after a progressive creationist spoke at the church in 2005, I spent the next eight months confronting the elders and staff at the church. Sadness filled my heart to see them reject biblical truth.

There is so much to say about what happened. The bottom line was that I gave up believing there was any hope of the leadership holding a biblical view of the authority of the Word of God.

We withdrew our membership. They had the resident theologian call me to talk about it. The first 30 minutes went well but the last 15 made me angry.

(brackets in original)

Perhaps AiG didn't mean to hide it that well, but it doesn't take much to determine, most likely, that the church being referred to is in fact Willow Creek Community in Barrington, Ill.

It is sobering, indeed, to realize that such an influential institution is so weak on such a vital doctrine as Biblical creation. Yet, such a position is not surprising. Willow Creek — and most “seeker-friendly” mega-churches, regardless of whether my guess is correct — makes it their business to attract “seekers,” that is, people who are supposedly “seeking” spirituality or Christianity and haven't found it in the “traditional” church.

Even otherwise solidly grounded Armenians — those who do believe people can seek God first — could oppose this approach. The Church, as defined in Scripture, is rather an exclusive bunch: a gathering of believers. At no occasion in the New Testament do any early Church leaders give instructions for how to bring nonbelievers to church, or especially how to conduct the services so they'll feel comfortable. In fact, the only direction mention of an unbeliever coming to a gathering of Christ-followers is made by Paul during his instructions for how believers should prophesy in the best order or worship.

[I]f all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

2 Corinthians 14:24 (ESV)

And only then is it an if statement — “if [. . .] an unbeliever or outsider enters” — not a when statement!

One could certainly carry this truth much too far and treat a local church as some form of country club, barring all outsiders because they're not “in” or they don't get it. But such is not as much a danger in the modern church as the notion that the order or style of worship or teaching must cater to “seekers.”

Christ can certainly use any twisted institution or even bad motivations to teach His Gospel. Yet that is no excuse for dismissing vital Biblical doctrines in favor of appealing to the “unchurched.” However, such techniques have proved necessary for the leaderships of Willow Creek-styled complexes whose central goal thus downgrades toward mere entertainment and provider of shallow “spirituality.” They continue to sacrifice spiritual meat for “idles” — the outsiders who are yanked in rather than who wander in by accident.

And that will of course continue to result in a Church being weakened from within, and persisting in the demand that unbelievers come in here where leaders can manage a safe and controlled environment, rather than the Church members huddling by themselves once or more times a week, and then going out into the big bad world for real missions.



AP unnaturally selects AiG

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 09:03 AM ET , Friday, Aug 04, 2006

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Categories: Science: Genesis, Media, Politics: The Left Wing




AP photo

Ken Ham on Tuesday gave his rundown of a recent Associated Press story about Answers in Genesis and its forthcoming Cincinnati area-based Creation Museum — and his opinion, overall, is that even negative publicity can be a blessing.

AiG’s website (answersingenesis.org) spiked to unbelievable numbers! This also shows that the Creation Museum is going to create the interest we have been predicting, with estimated hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.

However, the FOX NEWS version of the article (even though as someone once said, “It doesn’t matter what you say about me, just spell my name right”) does fairly blatantly exhibit some of the usual anti-creationist agenda we’ve seen from some of the secular media.

Well, I thought Fox was supposed to be fair and balanced, anyway, and perhaps just a little more fair to political conservatives. But clearly, many political conservatives are not only non-Christians, but directly opposed to the truth of the Creator altogether. One need not blame a liberal in FoxNews.com staffers' clothing to explain the headline of its reprinting of the story.

The AP article appeared in many other news sources across the nation and other parts of the world! And we’ve already had a number of different Christian media call for interviews! We are going to have a busy few days fitting in interviews (as I already did today) and making sure other commitments are not neglected! But, it is thrilling to be that busy anyway—it is thrilling because it means we have opportunity to tell the public the truth about God’s Word and the gospel.

The article itself is marginal at best, with idiotic proclamations that the juggernaut of Science opposes the concept of Biblical creation. Writer Dylan T. Loven (uncredited in the FoxNews.com reprint) writes a fair summary of Biblical creation belief, and then immediately hurls a bellowing elephant: “That, of course, is contradicted by science.”

Really? Whose version?

AOL, as Ken Ham said, was much more polite in its portrayal, and even included fair photographs of the museum's exterior and interior. This would be a rarity for the once-fledgling web-subscription service — its headlines are very often politically left — or worse, devoid of any substance whatsoever.

Continued Godspeed to AiG, on the front lines of the culture conflict. ...



Breaking: 'Dr. Dino' indicted

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 06:39 PM ET , Thursday, Jul 13, 2006

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Categories: Science: Genesis, Deep Doctrine Magic: Cross Firings



This from the the Pencascola News Journal regarding Kent Hovind, creationist firebrand, and brought to my attention by my brother DaveLoneRanger at FreeRepublic:

A Pensacola evangelist was arrested Thursday and indicted in federal court on 58 charges that include income tax evasion, making threats against investigators and filing false complaints against Internal Revenue Service agents.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Miles Davis handed down the indictment against Kent Hovind, who operated a creationist theme park Dinosaur Adventure Land, off Old Palafox Road.

Hovind’s wife, Jo Hovind, was also indicted on 44 of the counts and appeared in court alongside her husband.

Arraignment for the Hovinds is scheduled for2 p.m. Monday. The couple was released pending their trial but are not allowed to travel outside the Northern District of Florida.

Those darned atheists! there's just no end to what they'll come up with!

Answers in Genesis, the more-reasonable and downright legal organism of the Biblical creation apologetics movement, hasn't yet commented.

“Dr. Dino's” group itself hasn't commented either. However, his very silly “$250,000 offer” to prove evolution (on his own terms, of course) still remains. Perhaps someone managed to “prove” it and the Hovinds were forced to seek the funds by tax evasion ...



The end of an epic

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 04:19 PM ET , Sunday, Jun 25, 2006

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Categories: Media: Books, Science: Genesis, Deep Doctrine Magic: Christian Novels



At last, I have read the third installment of the not-yet-widely-known Cradleland Chronicles by Douglas Hirt, Fall of the Nephilim, despite my best efforts to stretch my time spent over the space of five days, since my special order arrived on Tuesday.

As with the previous two volumes, I was gripped, and still awed and inspired by the amount of (un-bragged-about!) research and informed conjecture put into this three-installment epic.

As one well-versed in Biblical creation-based science theory, even the novels’ “minor” elements like the Earth’s magnetic field deterioration and the meanings of crop circles are tremendous fun to find.

As one who very much enjoys great storytelling, the impact of the characters and circumstances will last a lifetime. And toward the end of Fall, I did not even need to try to grieve, my disbelief fully suspended, over the loss of the antediluvian world and the way it could have been. Instead, those reactions came naturally to me. And again, the account of Noah in Genesis 6 – 9 loses its air of first-grade Sunday-school “flannelboard fiction” and takes added dimension, becoming all the more Real.

Would that more readers have discovered this world, its characters, its cultures and technologies! And yet, alas, I’m forced to feel giddy seemingly all by myself, as would someone who’s discovered an obscure but brilliant musical group.

I’m telling others about the trilogy. Perhaps Leenah’s long-lost story can indeed be found and spread to the world.

Thanks to Douglas Hirt for writing this like they would never make it a movie. A Christ-following reader’s imagination provides film enough for this wonderful story.



Don't have a cow, but ...

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 06:41 PM ET , Monday, May 15, 2006

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Categories: Deep Doctrine Magic, Science: Genesis, Media



Evidently The Simpsons last night attacked Biblical creation and lampooned people who push (often too strongly, though out of good intentions) for a Creator of some kind to be acknowledged in public school science classes.

Here's a great response from Answers in Genesis. They review the episode fairly and realize that serious Christ-followers familiar with the origins debate issues shouldn't take this silliness too seriously. (Would that more informed Christians react the same way to a certain film releasing this Friday ...)

In the [cartoon's] courtroom, a stereotype is fueled: that there are no Christians who are real scientists. Although one expert witness for the prosecution claims to be a scientist and declares there are still missing links, his degree is shown to be from some Christian-based diploma mill.

While on the stand to argue against Lisa, anti-evolutionist Ned Flanders loses his cool when Lisa’s father (Homer) creates such a stir in the courtroom that Ned calls him a gorilla. It prompts the judge to wonder whether Homer might be a missing link himself. The case is dismissed when Ned admits the possibility that Homer could be related to an ape.

In an attempt to be serious, the cartoon has a moralizing (usually politically liberal) Lisa present the tired argument that religion should not be taught in schools and that scientists should not teach in churches. Ned, the evangelical, concurs, saying that a few more young people like Lisa should “evolve.” The program ends.


Far too many people, especially at the helm of pop-culture pap like this, believe that there is such a thing as “non-religion.” They have a right to believe this — but it is a belief, and just as much so as any Muslim, Jew, or Christ-follower. “Neutrality” is mythical and impossible.

Informed Biblical creationists, actually, should rejoice that their public criticisms of atheism's seeming monopoly of science have garnered such recognition. This program could not have been produced a decade ago. Like all the Christian books critiquing The Da Vinci Code, TV exposure like this can only contribute further to popular recognition of the true creation movement!



Ex-“proof” for evolution just keeps mutating

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 09:32 AM ET , Thursday, May 04, 2006

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Categories: Science: Genesis

Refuting Evolution 2 Recommended
Refuting Evolution 2
by Jonathan Sarfati, Mike Matthews


CNetNews.com has this about how Japanese geneticists are purportedly finding more examples of human evolution in action:

Small damages to sequences in the human genome are causing evolutionary changes in our DNA, according to a group of Japanese geneticists.

Their recent findings prove that a common form of DNA damage caused by oxidation (called 8-oxoG) is a primary cause of mutagenesis, damage to DNA during the genome replication process that causes mutations in the resulting DNA molecules.

Succinctly, the human race is genetically mutating, and we now may know how and why--at least in part.


The story's headline reflects just a slight scientific error, based on common misunderstanding of the nature of mutations:

X-Men may be closer than you think


Oddly, I fail to see how “damages to sequences in the human genome” (emphasis added) could lead to X-Men-like superpowers such as the ejection of giant finger claws ...

More on how loss of genetic information naturally won't lead to genetic information gains from chapter 5 of Dr. Jonathan Sarfati's Refuting Evolution 2, at AnswersinGenesis.org.



Government- in-exile, Churchian- style — part 2

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 01:24 PM ET , Sunday, Apr 30, 2006

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Categories: Columns, Science: Genesis, Deep Doctrine Magic: Churchianity, Cross Firings, Legalism, Life Applications



Have you read before of those unusual, ridiculous fights in typical American churches?

Or perhaps you’ve heard, anyway, of multiple anecdotes describing how entire congregations have evidently split asunder because of squabbles over where to put the organ, what color to paint the baptistery, or somewhat more-substantive issues such as church programs, worship formats and teaching styles.

You may laugh. I certainly have.

But those fights may actually make sense, compared to my recent tangle with a posse of Churchians. At least objectors to painting the baptistery in a nice shade of lilac rose may have at least glanced at the paint strip before pronouncing the color ugly.

As I described in Part 1, I had volunteered to help teaching the youth group of the church my family and I were attending. My intended focus was worldview fusion — the concept that following Christ isn’t limited to church and Sunday school. Instead, it’s a way of thinking that applies to all areas of life.

With discussions about origins beliefs and honoring the Creator through science, using materials from Answers in Genesis, some youth were beginning to show interest. Others were not; they were the types who were merely “dragged” to youth group. And that’s okay.

Then the trouble began, and not with the youths at all.

Instead, the opposition came from the youth’s parents and/or grandparents. Their pathetic, closed-minded “government-in-exile”-style insurrection was done in the shadows, without even talking with me first. They made, by comparison, even the most juvenile-acting of the youth groupies resemble the innocent hand-puppet residents of Mr. Rogers’ Land of Make-Believe.

Continued ...



C.S. Lewis on Evolution

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 09:21 AM ET , Friday, Apr 28, 2006

Permalink
Categories: Science: Genesis



This topic arose via another discussion in NarniaWeb's Narnia and Christianity forum. I had casually referenced a C.S. Lewis letter quote I had recalled reading, in which Lewis had written something about wishing he had written more about supposedly scientific evolution.

At the time, of course, the present-day form of the Biblical creation movement hadn't yet begun to coalesce. That arguably happened later in 1961 with the publication of the book The Genesis Flood by the late hydrologist Dr. Henry Morris, founder of the Institute for Creation Research, and Dr. John Whitcomb.

Another NarniaWeb member wrote to ask about the source of the quote, and now, thanks to what I like to call the Deep Discussion Magic that she brought about, I'm now a little more informed about Lewis' views on creation/evolution:

After further research and reading, I found the verbatim quotes, and a whole apologetics webpage describing Lewis's evident support for some form of “theistic evolution” and later apparent shift away from that. In the mid-1940s Lewis corresponded with a Captain Bernard Acworth about the topic. Evidently Capt. Acworth was a former journalist and World War II opponent who later became interested in Christianity and debunking evolution (perhaps with some questionable arguments).

Continued ...



'Godless' by Ann Coulter — release date: 06.06.2006

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 11:27 AM ET , Thursday, Apr 27, 2006

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Categories: Columns, Science: Genesis, Media, Politics: Get A-CLU!

Godless: The Church of Liberalism Recommended
Godless: The Church of Liberalism
by Ann Coulter


Human Events Online finally presents the description, via email subscription, about conservative commentator Ann Coulter's forthcoming book — information that Fox News host Neil Cavuto couldn't extract from Coulter last week:

Ann Coulter is set to release her most controversial book ever.

In Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she shows convincingly that liberal hostility to traditional religion stems from the fact that liberalism is itself a religion — a godless one. And, she shows how, thanks to the liberals who dominate our courts, our government bureaucracies, our schools, and our media, liberalism is now the established religion of our country.

Continued ...



Government- in-exile, Churchian- style — part 1

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 01:41 PM ET , Monday, Apr 24, 2006

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Categories: Columns, Science: Genesis, Deep Doctrine Magic: Churchianity, Evangelism, Legalism, Life Applications, Ransom Notes



Last week, I finally finished the third installment of a three-part series about “Churchianity.” That is, the tendency of some (often smaller) American-Southern churches to uphold their own Churchese jargon, unwritten traditions and antique evangelism methods — supporting them above not only natural, timeless relevancy to the “real world,” but often Scripture itself.

The first two installments, Part 1: Speaking the Language of Churchese, and Part 2: The Unwritten Rules of God’s House, were written in late January. I didn’t get around to Part 3: Antique Evangelism until months later.

That’s partly because I was waiting for my own experiences with one church’s mutant strain of Antique Evangelism to run their course.

All the better, unfortunately, was to let the mess finish and then write about any lessons learned.

Yet nothing that happened in my situation seemed to yield any insight. I experienced almost exactly what I could have expected from such a church, whose entrenched, government-in-exile-style leadership sought to avoid not only new ideas, but public conflict altogether, at whatever cost.

That meant they instead resorted to “underground” opposition, a drive-by-shooting form of indirect attack. And of course it proved they were too cowardly to let their positions be known and thus open for discussion.

So it wasn’t “disillusioning.” I wasn’t much shocked to find that Churchians could behave so badly.

And yet I’ve found there’s still much to be learned from seeing such disgusting events happen personally.

It’s like a building implosion: you may know some of how it’s done, you may have even seen it happen in TV news clips. But it’s still even more impressive to see it happen in front of you. Perhaps for the first time, the enormity of the event — or problem — truly impacts you.

And yes. A figurative structural implosion is exactly what was happening at this church.

Continued ...