The Duty of a Christian Leader Is to Speak Up—Ambrose of Milan (c. 339 – 397)

Late in the fall of 374, the crowd gathered in Milan’s great cathedral turned their attention to Ambrose, the consular prefect of their province. Bishop Auxentius had just died, and the prefect had come to address the anxious gathering. In his usual eloquence he began to plead with the various Christian factions to put their differences aside and elect a new, strong bishop who would unite the Church—but he didn’t get far, for he was quickly interrupted—and shocked—by the call, “Ambrose for bishop!”

When on that fall morning in 374 he entered the great church to give his speech, Ambrose thought he had come to restore order and ask for the bishops to unite the Church; he had no intention of getting into ecclesiastical politics. When the call came, “Ambrose for bishop!” Ambrose ran out of the building, not wanting any part of this, reminding everyone that he was only a catechumen.¹ But the people insisted, and the governor acquiesced, for, in the oldest of Roman customs, vox populi, vox dei, “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” And so, within the span of a week’s time, Ambrose was baptized into the Church, ordained as a priest, and consecrated as a bishop.

In spite of his “irregular” beginning, or perhaps because of it, Ambrose became one of the most beloved bishops in the history of the Church and one of the four doctors² of Western Christianity. An unparalleled writer, theologian, hymnodist, and pastor, Ambrose continued throughout his episcopacy to care both for his city and for his church. The bishop of Milan was never intimidated by either imperial authority or invading armies. When the Goths invaded his province and captured many, Ambrose gave all of his personal wealth to ransom as many as he could and even melted down the golden vessels belonging to his church to ransom many more. And when Emperor Theodosius I (379-395) massacred 7,000 people in Thessalonica in 390, Ambrose excommunicated him and forced him to perform public penance for eight months before he would ever be accepted back into communion.³

Ambrose stood at the threshold of history, where the Church began moving from the margins to the center, from a persecuted minority to a powerful force not only for personal, but also for social transformation. As a bishop, it was his responsibility to God not to accommodate the emperor or the state, but to speak the truth. In one of his letters to Emperor Theodosius he said:

[I]t is not right for an emperor to refuse freedom of speech, nor is it right for a priest to refrain from saying what he knows is right. . . . The difference between good and bad rulers is that the good love liberty and the bad, servitude. There is nothing so dangerous for a priest in the eyes of God and nothing considered so base in him than that he not speak his mind freely. For it is written, “I spoke of your laws in the sight of kings and I was not confused” [Ps. 119:46]. Elsewhere, we read, “Son of man, I made you a watchman of the house of Israel, . . . ” [Ezek. 3:17].

Today, many pastors and leaders of the Church forget their role as “watchmen over Israel” and accommodate the culture around them, trying to be “relevant,” “non-offensive.” Unlike Ambrose they forget that one of the central roles of the Church of Christ is to be the conscience of the people, of culture, and of governments. Her call is to speak openly, clearly, and without compromise, and to bring God’s message of salvation and transformation to all who hear.

Kairos Journal, December 2009

Iain Murray on D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Preaching

"Preaching is a gift from heaven. Revelation is necessary to understand the vital importance of preaching, and why its absence is a disaster worse than a lack of bread and water.* The advance of the church is ever preceded by a recovery of preaching, and in that recovery the memory of those who have spoken with 'the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven' (1 Peter 1:12) has often played an important part. Eminent examples give light to later centuries."

-- Spoken of D. Martin Lloyd-Jones by Iain H. Murray

in the preface to his book, Lloyd Jones: Messenger of Grace.

*"The time is surely coming," says the Sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the LORD." - Amos 8:11

Calamity will follow calamity; rumor will follow rumor. They will look in vain for a vision from the prophets. They will receive no teaching from the priests and no counsel from the leaders. - Ezekiel 7:26

The Text of The Chicago Statement On Biblical Inerrancy

From the Preface of

The Chicago Statement On Biblical Inerrancy

The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian Church in this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the reality of their discipleship by humbly and faithfully obeying God's written Word. To Stray from Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.

The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh, making clear our understanding of it and warning against its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the witness of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the claims of God's own Word which marks true Christian faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstanding of this doctrine in the world at large.

The Holy Word of God

The Holy Word of God was written by Joshua Drake in 2004. He writes: "I wrote this hymn while in Glasgow under the ministry of C. Peter White at Sandyford-Henderson Church of Scotland. Mr. White regularly de­fended the authority of scripture and I wrote it as an encouragement to him."

The Holy Word of God:
It is the Christian’s rule
To teach, correct, rebuke and train—
The Church’s priceless jewel.

Let others rule by whim
Their lives from day to day.
God’s children have his Holy Word,
Which gladly they obey.

God-breathed, yet penned by man,
Preserved by arms and art,
The Church has born it in her breast—
She dare not from it part!

Nor could she ever do,
Else truth she could not know,
But set adrift in lies and myth
On wayward paths to go.

Yet we’ve no cause to fear.
God’s promises are true.
The gates of hell will not prevail
O’er those His grace imbues.

So let God’s true Church sing:
Those who His word do love—
Whom, as is written, shall be saved
To join His courts above.

There is a God. You are not Him.

Think about it.

A Promising New Book Is Coming!

Following are Don Kistler's pre-publication comments on Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible. It is due out in November and promises to be a great resource to those of us who are Sola Scriptura in our orientation to God's Word. Watch for it in the bookstores or order it from https://store.ligonier.org/.

Sola Scriptura, the formal principle of the Protestant Reformation, is essential to genuine Christianity, for it declares that the Bible is the inspired word of God, the church's only rule of faith and practice. Yet this doctrine is under assault today as never before, both from outside and and inside the church. In manifold ways, both blatant and subtle, the idea is being put forth that the Bible is inadequate for the needs of modern man. Such suggestions represent an attack on the very foundations of the Christian faith.

In this book, several leading Reformed pastors and scholars, including Joel Beeke, Sinclair Ferguson, Robert Godfrey, Ray Lanning, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Derek W. H. Thomas, and James White, unpack the meaning of the doctrine of sola Scriptura("Scripture alone"). They also explain where the attacks on the Bible are coming from and show how those who accept the Bible as God's inspired Word should respond. Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible is a treasure trove of information and a comfort to those who grieve to see the twenty-first-century church wandering away from the safe harbor of the Bible.

A Gentle Question - Why?

I watched a major league pitcher serve up a ball to a sure-fire home run hitter—a hanging curve right up there in the strike zone—a hitter’s dream. As the pitcher watched his offering disappear into oblivion the camera caught the frustration on his face and his mouthing the one word, “Why?” over and over again. “Why? Why?" In other words, "Why did I throw that pitch?”

As discouraging as it was I’m sure he got over it. But it occurs to me that we all face serious Why questions. And these are Why questions not quickly gotten over; questions that can haunt us throughout life, at death, even into eternity. For Christians it might well be the unspeakably painful Why of a life wasted by disobedience. I’m thinking of the times God showed us His leading and we said, “No.” We had a better idea.

God used a tract to move missionary James Fraser to a life of obedience in Burma. It asked: "If our Master returned today to find millions of people not evangelized, and looked—as of course He would look—to us for an explanation, I cannot imagine what explanation we should have to give. Of one thing I am certain, that most of the excuses we are accustomed to make with such good conscience now, we shall be wholly ashamed of then."

The last sentence haunts me. It means that there will be no defense. No justifying. No other word for our disobediences. No excuse will stand and we will be “wholly ashamed.”

That’s one very big, WHY.”

Does it haunt you? For many it means nothing. Maybe because they believe there can be no regrets once we die. However, I think that our good conscience excuses help explain why North America no longer leads in world missions. It is also why almost 7,000 unreached people groups number more than 50% of the world population.

Closer to home, excuses might account for neighbors, family members, and coworkers who are still unsaved. Or it might help to explain why agencies like TEAMS cannot find missionary home staff and why there is so little interest in career missionary opportunities—little interest but plenty of those good conscience excuses. And sadly, they are excuses that any thoughtful person should be wholly ashamed of now—not to mention then, when Jesus might finally ask us His own Why question.

When Isaiah (6:8) offered himself in response to God’s Who question—”Who will go?”—he never again had to worry about the Why question. Know that God is still asking that question and He will continue to do so until that Day—the Day He finally asks it one last time.

America's Ugly Exported "Gospel"

Watch an excerpt of John Piper protesting the prosperity gospel and the ugliness that follows when teaching goes beyond Scripture; but then, exulting in God, whose glory shines in suffering.

America's Ugly Exported "Gospel"

In Affliction, Consider Christ

ReceiveTheWORD focuses on the absolute sufficiency of that Word; proclaiming and proceeding, as it does, from an all-sufficient Godhead. Pastor Joel Beeke's article at the Reformation21 blogpost addresses the perennial issue of affliction in order to show that the Bible is enough. This will serve to move the believer toward godly understanding of and response to such trials. Read prayerfully. Willingly. Thankfully.

For extended reading on this general theme read the following by Philip Ryken - especially Part 3:

The Crook In the Lot Part 1

Two Dangers That Lead To Destruction - The Crook In the Lot Part 2

Why God Allows Suffering - The Crook In the Lot Part 3

What Can We Gain From Calvin Today?

One answer comes from Doug Wilson, Pastor of Christ Church, Idaho:

We gain, he says, "His rock solid, absolute confidence in the Bible."

He goes on to say that Calvin is not like "a modern day inerrantist who says the Bible is technically true but is still somehow apologetic over the fact. He doesn't have his hat in his hand, trying to persuade someone to please accept him even though he believes the Bible."

"The Bible is not something that takes a test from the world. The Bible is, in Calvin, that which administers the test to the world."

From Cornelius Van Til

"The Bible is authoritative in everything it addresses, and it addresses everything."

One Hymn's Testimony To the Sufficiency of God and His Word

If Thou But Suffer God To Guide Thee

If thou but suffer God to guide thee
and hope in him through all thy ways,
he'll give thee strength, whate'er betide thee,
and bear thee through the evil days.
who trusts in God's unchanging love
builds on the rock that naught can move.

What can these anxious cares avail thee,
these never-ceasing moans and sighs?
What can it help if thou bewail thee
o'er each dark moment as it flies?
Our cross and trials do but press
the heavier for our bitterness.

Be patient and await his leisure
in cheerful hope, with heart content
To take whate'er thy Father's pleasure
and his discerning love hath sent,
Nor doubt our inmost wants are known
to him who chose us for his own.

God knows full well when times of gladness
shall be the needful thing for thee.
When he has tried thy soul with sadness
and from all guile has found thee free,
he comes to thee all unaware
and makes thee own his loving care.

Nor think amid the fiery trial
that God hath cast thee off unheard,
that he whose hopes meet no denial
must surely be of God preferred.
Time passes and much change doth bring
and sets a bound to everything.

All are alike before the highest;
'tis easy to our God, we know,
to raise thee up, though low thou liest,
to make the rich man poor and low.
True wonders still by him are wrought
who setteth up and brings to naught.

Sing, pray, and keep his ways unswerving,
perform thy duties faithfully,
and trust his word, though undeserving,
thou yet shalt find it true for thee.
God never yet forsook in need
the soul that trusted him indeed

Words: Georg Neumark; Catherine Winkworth translation

Music and Meter: Georg Neumark, Wer nur den lieben Gott - 98 98 98
This hymn tune has been used for more than 400 hymns.
Alfred B. Smith's is a later tune.

Why I Don't Have A Television and Rarely Go to Movies

I suspect that [others] would not agree on the degree to which the average pastor needs to be movie-savvy in order to be relevant, and the degree to which we should expose ourselves to the world’s entertainment.

I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.

If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.

There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them.

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.

I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).

Brothers, that is serious. Really serious. Jesus is violent about this. What we do with our eyes can damn us. One reason is that it is virtually impossible to transition from being entertained by nudity to an act of “beholding the glory of the Lord.” But this means the entire Christian life is threatened by the deadening effects of sexual titillation.

All Christ-exalting transformation comes from “beholding the glory of Christ.” “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Whatever dulls the eyes of our mind from seeing Christ powerfully and purely is destroying us. There is not one man in a thousand whose spiritual eyes are more readily moved by the beauty of Christ because he has just seen a bare breast with his buddies.

But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshiping Christ.

One more smaller concern with TV (besides its addictive tendencies, trivialization of life, and deadening effects): It takes time. I have so many things I want to accomplish in this one short life. Don’t waste your life is not a catchphrase for me; it’s a cliff I walk beside every day with trembling.

TV consumes more and more time for those who get used to watching it. You start to feel like it belongs. You wonder how you could get along without it. I am jealous for my evenings. There are so many things in life I want to accomplish. I simply could not do what I do if I watched television. So we have never had a TV in 40 years of marriage (except in Germany, to help learn the language). I don’t regret it

- John Piper, June 2009

Should We Still Be Sending and Going?

As our family prepares to move overseas, we sometimes encounter this question in one form or another: Is the Western missionary model still legitimate?”

The question stems from a variety of concerns and perspectives, but our basic answer must be “yes.” Even with the high cost of sending and recent shifts in the global Church, it is still strategic and fitting for Western missionaries to cross geographical and linguistic boundaries in the pursuit of new worshipers of Jesus. Here is why I think so:

1. God wants his name to be great in every place as well as among every people.

Though missiologists in the past couple of decades have rightly emphasized the importance of unreached people groups ("nations") as the focus of the Great Commission, there are a number of texts which seem to require a geographic and not exclusively an ethnic focus (e.g. Malachi 1:11).

The Great Commission cannot be fulfilled by only reaching the unreached who migrate to America, or Christ doesn’t receive the glory he deserves.

2. There are still hundreds of remote peoples who haven’t heard the gospel.

Many Unreached peoples are unrepresented in reached cities. In these cases, someone is going to have to cross cultural and geographic boundaries to deliver the message in the flesh.

3. Too little money is given to missions, not too much.

God has blessed this nation with an abundance of resources, yet a staggeringly low percentage of Christian spending is channeled toward missions, especially missions to the unreached.

When God’s people here in America are biblically calibrated, there are plenty of resources both to continue sending workers from the West, and to support indigenous pastors and church planters.

4. In many cases, the Church in the West has something to offer.

With a long history of Christian thought, abundant resources, and relative lack of persecution, the Western Church can often make a contribution in places where the Church is younger and less grounded.

Just as it would be arrogant to think that we know it all and have no need of the global Church, it would be arrogant to sit on our wealth of resources, history, and doctrinal development rather than make it accessible to the world.

5. Crossing cultures is a fitting means for the message.

When Christians from more privileged and dominant-language cultures (such as America), set aside their comforts, rights, and security in order to identify with and minister to people of lesser-privileged cultures and more obscure languages, something powerful and gospel-adorning is communicated.

It is the purpose of God that the incarnational activities of going and identifying illustrate and glorify the gospel (1 Thessalonians 2:1-8).

- by Bill Walsh, International Ministries Director, Desiring God

America's Debt To John Calvin

In this year of John Calvin’s 500th birthday, I don’t know of a better place to read about his impact on America than Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures On Calvinism given at Princeton Seminary in October 1898. Kuyper was a pastor, a journalist, the founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, and Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

John Calvin and Martin Luther were the twin pillars of the Protestant Reformation. Why do fewer people speak of Luther’s culture-shaping impact on America, but for centuries Calvin has been seen in this light? Kuyper argues,

Luther’s starting-point was the . . . principle of justifying faith; while Calvin’s . . . lay in the general cosmological principle of the sovereignty of God. . . . [Hence] Lutheranism restricted itself to an exclusively ecclesiastical and theological character, while Calvinism put its impress in and outside the Church upon every department of human life.

It is the personal pervasiveness of God’s sovereignty that makes all the difference. This means that “the whole of a man’s life is to be lived as in the Divine Presence.” This “fundamental thought of Calvinism” shaped all of life. “It is from this mother-thought that the all-embracing life system of Calvinism sprang.”

For example, Calvin’s doctrine of “vocation” follows from the fact that every person, great and small, lives “in the Divine Presence.” God’s sovereign purposes govern the simplest occupation. He attends to everyone’s work. This yielded the Protestant work ethic. Huge benefits flow from a cultural shift in which all work is done earnestly and honestly with an eye to God.

Or consider how Calvinism breathed an impulse of freedom into modern history. The decisive principle was the sovereignty of the Triune God over the whole Cosmos, in all its spheres and kingdoms, visible and invisible. A primordial Sovereignty which eradicates in mankind . . . a threefold . . . supremacy, viz., (1) the sovereignty of the State; (2) the sovereignty in Society; and (3) the sovereignty in the Church.

God’s sovereign claim on every person and every sphere of society relativized all other claims. It began with the churches.

The sovereignty of Christ remains absolutely monarchical, but the government of the Church on earth becomes democratic to its bones and marrow. . . No church may exercise any dominion over another, but . . . all local churches are of equal rank.

This impulse of freedom spread to the political sphere. Calvin and his heirs had a strong predilection for republican government—and an aversion to monarchy. A benevolent dictatorship would be ideal in a sinless world. But in a sinful world, it brings the horrors of tyranny. “Call to mind . . . that Calvinism has captured and guaranteed to us our constitutional civil rights.”

We ask: Why then did Calvin endorse the death of Servetus for heresy? How was this part of his liberating impulse? Kuyper’s answer is helpful.

I not only deplore that . . . I unconditionally disapprove of it; yet not as if it were the expression of a special characteristic of Calvinism, but on the contrary as the fatal after-effect of a system, grey with age, which Calvinism found in existence, under which it had grown up, and from which it had not yet been able entirely to liberate itself.

A thousand years of abuses are not thrown off overnight. But the impulses of liberty, flowing from the decisive principle of the all-embracing sovereignty of God, proved to be unstoppable. “Calvinism has liberated Switzerland, the Netherlands, and England, and in the Pilgrim Fathers has provided the impulse to the prosperity of the United States.”

Kuyper closed his lectures with a claim that for many today sounds preposterous. Do not write him off. Get the book Lectures On Calvinism, and test these words, spoken to Americans in 1898.

In the rise of your university education . . .; in the decentralized . . . character of your local governments; . . . in your championship of free speech, and in your unlimited regard for freedom of conscience; in all this . . . it is demonstrable that you owe this to Calvinism and to Calvinism alone.

- by John Piper, June 19, 2009

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" - Jesus Christ (Matthew 24:35).

The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers.

Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its stories are true, and its decisions are immutable.

Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy.

It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.

It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's charter.

Here, paradise is restored, Heaven opened, and the gates of Hell disclosed.

Christ is its grand subject, our good the design, and the glory of God its end.

It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet.

Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully.

It is a mine of wealth, health to the soul, and a river of pleasure.

It is given to you in life, will be open in the judgment, and be remembered forever.

It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.

Pray it in. Read it through. Live it out. And pass it on.

-- Unknown source

Please view - click here.

God Has Spoken By His Prophets

God has spoken by His prophets,
Spoken His unchanging Word,
Each from age to age proclaiming
God, the one, the righteous Lord.
Mid the world's despair and turmoil,
One firm anchor holding fast;
God is King, His throne eternal,
God the first, and God the last.

God has spoken by Christ Jesus,
Christ, the everlasting Son,
Brightness of the Father's glory,
With the Father ever one;
Spoken by the Word incarnate,
God of God, ere time began,
Light of light, to earth descending,
Man, revealing God to man.

God yet speaks by His own Spirit
Speaking to the hearts of men,
In the age-long Word expounding
God's own message, now as then;
Through the rise and fall of nations
One sure faith yet standing fast,
God is King, His Word unchanging,
God the first, and God the last.

-- George Wallace Briggs

What Is Recession For?

John Piper asks this question in a February 1, 2009 sermon preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church. The following is a brief excerpt.

I will mention five [of God's reasons for this recession]:

1. He intends for this recession to expose hidden sin and so bring us to repentance and cleansing.
2. He intends to wake us up to the constant and desperate condition of most of the world where there is always and only recession of the worst kind.
3. He intends to relocate the roots of our joy in his grace rather than in our goods, in his mercy rather than our money, in his worth rather than our wealth.
4. He intends to advance his saving mission in the world—the spread of the gospel and the growth of his church—precisely at a time when human resources are least able to support it. This is how he guards his glory.
5. He intends for the church to care for its hurting members and to grow in the gift of love.

Plenty Of Jobs At God's Employment Agency

There’s something positive about this current financial cataclysm.

Here's what I mean: Remember what happened on the day Stephen was stoned? We read that, “A severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered, and those who were scattered went on their way proclaiming the message of good news” (Acts 8:1,4). And later, “Those who had been scattered as a result of the persecution went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the message” (Acts 11:19).

In spite of Jesus’ parting “Go ye” words still ringing in their ears, most Jerusalem Christians had remained content in their home town comfort zone. What got their attention? What got them moving? What made them obedient?

Persecution. A cataclysm of persecution. They were scattered. Not willingly, but in fact, the persecution “made havoc” of the church. It cost believers everything.

Cataclysm? Yes, but it was good for the church and good for the Gospel because they began doing what Jesus had told them to do — “They that were scattered went everywhere preaching the Word.”

Our present cataclysm is not the same as this but it has the same potential. Could it reset the direction of our lives so that 2500+ languages might have a Bible? A flood of Christian workers materialize? Billions of unreached people hear of Christ? And could it mean that even short term mission agencies will have a surplus of workers? It all can happen once we are freed from hindrances and delivered from our excuses. It doesn’t require a cataclysm to do this but such an upheaval sure helps create a situation where it is more likely to be done.

None of us really want the losses caused by this financial downturn, but here it is. Now what? Well remember . . .

God’s employment office is open and He has plenty of jobs.

Dear Scientific American,

Thank you for your recent interesting and informative issue, “The Evolution of Evolution.” I agree. Since a priori we know that evolution explains how we got where we are today, we certainly don’t want any religious fanatics to point out any flaws in our presuppositions or theories. It is important to squelch all debate and make sure there is no meaningful dialogue with opposing viewpoints. So thank you for hanging in there. And thank you for all of the info you packed into this issue.

As a researcher in the medical sciences I frequently see inconsistencies in the data supporting an evolutionary model. It is comforting to know we can hide these inconsistencies from the uninformed and safeguard our mantra of tens of millions of years of “…crazy diversification in the variety and complexity of animal life,” time so vast that no one can comprehend and thus no one can challenge either. Brilliant!

I also was relieved to see the article “The Latest Face of Creationism” exposing the creationist agenda for what it is. It is important to vilify these loonies and make sure no one is hoodwinked by their Trojan Horse attempts to get into our schools or to have laws passed for any sort of equal access. Let’s keep our agenda quiet so no one knows that we secretly harbor some doubts but still will fight any attempts anywhere to challenge our right to indoctrinate all students everywhere. (Thank you Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. Scott et al!) The enemy of our young is the free flow of ideas and opportunity to examine all sides of intellectual issues. We must catch them early or if we allow them to think and evaluate ideas and presuppositions we might lose some innocent minds to Intelligent Design. Heaven forbid! There is too much at stake here. If they realized the religious zealotry in our ranks it would not go over well.

Thanks again for this brilliant and revealing issue of Scientific American.

With gratitude

Steve Shive

Steve - aka Rudy Baga - knows that he will probably never see his tongue-in-cheekiness in print, "but it was fun writing it."

I Am His

I am His by purchase and I am His by conquest; I am His by donation and I am His by election; I am His by covenant and I am His by marriage; I am wholly His; I am peculiarly His; I am universally His; I am eternally His.

Once I was a slave but now I am a son; once I was dead but now I am alive; once I was darkness but now I am light in the Lord; once I was a child of wrath, an heir of hell, but now I am an heir of heaven; once I was Satan's bond-servant but now I am God's freeman; once I was under the spirit of bondage but now I am under the Spirit of adoption that seals up to me the remission of my sins, the justification of my person and the salvation of my soul.

Thomas Brooks (1608-1680)