eChurch Christian Blog

Cross posted from Rosh Pina:-

It has been reported by Israeli Messianic Jewish pastor Israel Pochtar, that the Ashdod Police have just interrogated a sixteen year old Israeli citizen following a wave of attacks and persecution launched against the Beit Hallel Messianic Congregation in Ashdod. However he was not the perpetrator of an attack but the victim!

Yad L’Achim, an anti-messianic organization, has filed a police complaint against Beit Hallel claiming, they broke the law by holding a “missionary event for teenagers”. They based their allegations on the youth conference held at Beit Hallel where some youth in the congregation  invited some of their friends. Sixteen year old Dima shared his faith with his friends and ended up getting beaten up by them, resulting in surgery to correct his broken nose.

Dima, a very gifted guitar player, was summoned to the police station to give a statement, since he was one of the young people who invited some of his friends, via Facebook, to attend the youth night at Beit Hallel. When he was there and was answering questions, he was asked about his faith and how he came to be a believer in Yeshua. Dima stated that he  understands his faith, not as a different religion, but rather returning to his spiritual roots. He said “we’ve not converted to anything; we believe in the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua.” What started off as a series of questions quickly turned into a full interrogation behind closed doors, which ended with the police  taking his photo and fingerprints, treating him as though he was a criminal. When he was finally let go, the officer told him to stop “missionizing”, to which Dima replied: “I never started “missionizing”, I’m just sharing my faith!”

Such is the hysteria caused by groups like Yad L’Achim, surrounding Messianic Jews in Israel, that even a sixteen year old telling his friends what he believes can result in a serious physical attack. A sixteen year old minor can be taken in for questioning, (it seems without a laywer with him), by the police about a Facebook invite and end up getting criminalised for his faith and having the temerity to talk about it! We know that it can also lead to attempted murder as it the case of a fifteen year old Messianic Jew, Ami Ortiz and the mishloach manot bomb at Purim a year and a half ago.

It is hypocritical when it is Israeli teenagers that are the recent targets of anti-messianic hatred and violence, for groups like Yad L’Achim, to claim to be concerned about Israeli youth!

By Hilary White

BELFAST, November 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-life advocates in Northern Ireland are celebrating a major court victory today as the Belfast High Court has ordered the recall of health guidelines that they said would have undermined and effectively overturned the province’s pro-life laws.

Lord Justice Girvan found that the guidelines failed to deal properly with conscientious objection to abortion and counseling on abortion. The judge said the guidelines were open to misinterpretation, saying the language was “ambiguous” and left doctors and staff unclear as to what was expected of them. The judge said the guidelines needed to be absolutely clear, otherwise they represented “a trap to the unwary.”

Justice Girvan awarded court costs against the Northern Ireland Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.

Liam Gibson, Northern Ireland officer for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) said, “We hope that the department will now take seriously many of the concerns which were largely disregarded when the guidelines were being drafted.”

Pro-life groups argued in court that the guidelines failed to mention the fact that abortion remains a criminal offense in Northern Ireland. They said they were “misleading and legally inaccurate” and would have brought abortion on demand into the province by “bureaucratic stealth.”

SPUC had argued that it was wrong for the Department of Health to expect health care workers to give “non-directive counselling” to women considering abortion.

“It is simply extraordinary that a government department should have issued guidance on criminal legislation and not have once mentioned the victim of the crime,” Gibson said.

Bernadette Smyth, director of Northern Ireland’s leading pro-life group Precious Life, said, “The court decision today is a victory for our unborn children.” Precious Life ran a petition campaign calling for the withdrawal of the guidelines.

“Our assessment that the guidelines were legally and medically flawed has been vindicated. They were an attempt to change the interpretation of the law and would have effectively legalised abortion in Northern Ireland through the back door.”

That Britain’s 1967 Abortion Act does not apply in Northern Ireland continues to irritate abortion advocates who campaign ceaselessly to overturn the province’s law. Opposition in the province to abortion remains strong, however, from both the public and most political parties, including the Social Democrats, Labour Party, Sinn Féin, the Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party as well as the Catholic Church and evangelical Protestant groups.

In October 2007 a motion was passed in the Northern Ireland Assembly, tabled by MLAs Jeffrey Donaldson and Iris Robinson, that rejected the draft guidelines. Nevertheless, the status of the guidelines remained ambiguous for a year while pro-life groups launched their legal challenge.

I like these comments from George Pitcher over at the Telegraph:-

I absolutely loved this post from Mariano over at the Atheism is Dead Blog:-

Here at Atheism is Dead we have referenced and discussed very many books; some pro theism some contra theism and pro atheism some contra atheism some betwixt.

Yet, there is one anti-religion book that surpasses them all by far—very, very far.

Yes, there is one anti-religion book in particular that I have been aware of for some time but have, frankly, not developed the intestinal fortitude to tackle.

This book is so very anti-religion and makes such cutting statements against religion that, when discussing such matters, it is often all but ignored by both atheists and Christian apologists.

As powerful and destructive of the whole concept of religion as this book is it will, at some point, have to be tackle by someone.

I am not even writing this post as an announcement of triumph over the book’s arguments but merely to all but admit utter flummoxed defeat. It surely requires a mind much, much sharper mine to tackle this book. Compared to what is surely required to overturn this book’s attacks upon religion my mind is about as sharp as a Nerf ball.

This “book” is actually a volume which consists of the thoughts of one conceiver and was penned by 40 authors. Thus, the volume actually consists of 66 books.

This book typically goes by the title: The Bible.

Here are some examples of the Bible’s anti-religion statements:

This people draws near with words only and honors me with their lips alone, though their hearts are far from me, and their reverence for me has become routine observances of the precepts of men (Isaiah 29:13, Jesus quotes this verse in Matthew 15:8).

Has the LORD [as] [great] delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, [And] to heed than the fat of rams (1st Samuel 15:22).

“To what purpose [is] the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?” Says the LORD. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams. And the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, Or of lambs or goats…Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies—I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting…Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow” (see Isaiah 1:11-17).

For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings (Hosea 6:6, also see 2:11; 4:6).

The Psalmist addresses God thusly,

Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require (Psalm 40:6).

For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; you do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise (Psalms 51:16-17).

To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice (Proverbs 21:3).

…to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices (Mark 12:33).

There actually appears to be one favorable reference to religion in the Bible and it is when it is defined thusly,

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world (James 1:27)

But wait a minute; did not God Himself establish the Jewish religion and the Christian religion? Did not God promulgate the 613 commandments (which a Jew never had to keep) many of which prescribe religious ordinances? Did not God ordain baptism, communion, etc.?

Therefore, God established and later besmirch religion!

This would be a good emotive/polemical point yet, overly simplistic and caricatured.

Christians, when allowed the privilege of defining themselves, have long stated that Christianity is not a religion but a relation—a relationship with God.

Judaism is to be considered a peoplehood, people who traditionally held to certain tenets. Let us consider some Jewish history.

When God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt (and I have yet to read anything by any atheist condemning Egyptian slavery) God was building up a nation from the ground up. The Israelites were institutionalized due to four centuries of slavery. They were freed and had to be provided a premise upon which to be build into a nation.

This premise was the God, their God, the one true God, the one who defeated the Egyptian gods had freed them and was making them into a nation, a people—recall that God stated, “against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment” (Exodus 12:12).

The Israelites agreed to abide by God’s laws and live according to them in their nation. In order to break their institutionalization God provided them guidelines that would place their attention where it belonged—on God.

The modern day environmental movement, even the most extreme sorts, present us with a good example of what the Law, the Torah, was meant to accomplish. The environmentalists hold to a save the Earth worldview. This means that everything they do, purchase, utilize, eat and discard is filtered through the question: how will this affect the environment?

Likewise, everything that the Israelites did was filtered through the question: how will this affect my relationship with God? Or, what has God said about this? Or, do I choose my own will or God’s? Or, some such question.

The Torah was meant to function as building blocks or a staircase that was meant to build the Israelites from institutionalized slaves to free agents who learned thesis and antithesis thinking, discerning, deciding, reason, etc.—recall that it was God who stated, “let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). This is why the Jews have considered illiteracy to be a sin and have always been known as academicians, scholars, intellects, scientists, jurists, etc.

There came a time when the Israelites were performing rituals robotically. They seemed to forget that the spirit of the law was the surface upon which the letter of the law was written. You may have heard about a Shabbat Goy; this is a Gentile whom a Jew may get to perform certain tasks that are unlawful for the Jew to perform during the Sabbath. Thus, the Jew could still get what she wanted accomplished during the Sabbath but not be technically performing those functions herself.

Nationally, the Israelites had reached the point of forgetting what the rituals meant, what they were conveying, to what they pointed, their ultimate purpose and were simply jumping through ritualistic hoops. This, at this level, at this point, really is what is commonly termed “religion” and it is condemnable—God condemns it.

The rituals were meant to symbolically represent one’s relationship to God (as well as the coming Messiah for example). They were meant to enact a change from institutionalized slaves, to people who could daily make various decisions for themselves via laws and rituals, to ultimately changing the persona.

Thus, God emphasizes to them that He wants and what is wrong with “religion”:

They are merely going through the motions whilst “their hearts are far from me” and they are merely following “the precepts of men.”

God emphasizes that to obey and heed is better than sacrifice. What is the point of the performing the sacrifice if it is merely the performance of a religious duty—quite literally; merely a performance?

Just what is the point? “Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.”

Why? Because God “desire[s] mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

Judaism has long known that the commandments in the Torah where temporary and that the Messiah would fulfill them.

The Gospel message was given to the first two people who ever lived and thus: it has always been in the ever since. In Genesis 3:15

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.

This is known as the protoevangelium and it denotes that the seed of the woman (note: not the seed of the man) will crush the serpent’s (symbolic of satan) head (ultimate defeat) while satan bruises the seed’s heel (a strike, not defeat). Thus, the belief in the ultimate redeemer has always been known and is in the most ancient knowledge of the ancient peoples.

Don Richardson conducted some interesting research in the area and published a book entitled: Eternity in Their Hearts: Startling Evidence of Belief in the One True God in Hundreds of Cultures Throughout the World

Note Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, aka Paul the Apostle’s condemnation of the trappings, and I mean literal traps, or religion gleaned from Colossians ch. 2:

Beware lest anyone cheat you…according to the tradition of men…So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Let no one cheat you…taking delight in false humility and worship of angels…if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—“Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

Or consider what he stated as gleaned from Galatians ch. 4:

…when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods. 9 But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years.

Thus, ritual was meant to be indicative. Paul, notes this in stating,

So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ (Colossians 2:16-17).

Thus, let us keep in mind that when anyone besmirches “religion” they are merely seconding the Bible and God Himself. Indeed, religion, the sort against which atheists and various anti-Judeo-Christians rail is the very same religion against which God rails—and He was first.

BBC

A relationship counsellor from Bristol who refused to offer sex therapy to gay couples has lost his appeal for unfair dismissal.

Christian Gary MacFarlane, 47, was sacked by marriage guidance service Relate after he said he could not do anything to promote gay sex.

Mr MacFarlane, who is a former church elder, was appealing on the grounds of religious discrimination.

He alleged Relate had refused to accommodate his religious beliefs.

Mr MacFarlane started training with Relate in May 2003 and said he enjoyed good relationships with clients and colleagues.

He was suspended after meetings with his manager, in October 2007, in which he claimed he was asked to state his views regarding same-sex couples.

After the suspension was lifted he said he was labelled a “homophobe” and, following a further disciplinary hearing, was dismissed on March 18.

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Analysis from Christian Concern for our Nation:-

CHRISTIANS in employment in the UK will no longer be able to act according to their consciences – after a landmark Employment Appeal Tribunal case which declared the rights of homosexual couples trump those of people of faith and conscience.

I really enjoyed these two following contrasting headlines, relating to French attitudes on Mosques:-

BBC – France’s foreign minister has condemned Switzerland’s referendum vote to ban the building of minarets.

The Washington Post – In Marseille, unease over mosque project – Plans stoke debate about identity and assimilation in French city with growing number of Muslim immigrants

You have to laugh!

I found this small article from Israel Today quite interesting:-

According to a centuries-old rabbinical prophecy that appears to be coming true, on March 16, 2010, Israel will begin construction of the Third Temple in Jerusalem.

During the 18th century, the Vilna Gaon, a respected rabbinical authority, prophesied that the Hurva Synagoge in Jerusalem, which was built during his day, would be destroyed and rebuilt twice, and that when the Hurva was completed for the third time, construction on the Third Temple would begin.

The Hurva Synagogue was first destroyed shortly after its initial construction when Muslims demanding the return of loans tore it down. The synagogue was rebuilt a hundred years later and became the most important Jewish house of worship in the Holy Land, only be blown to pieces by Jordanian troops during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.

In 2001, Israel finally decided to rebuild the landmark, which today stands in the center of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City. The building is scheduled to be completed and the Hurva Synagogue dedicated for the third time on March 15 of next year.

Copyright Notice

This cartoon is copyright of Dod Cartoonist, © 2009. www.worldofdod.wordpress.com

If you like this cartoon, pass it on. You’re welcome to use it for free for any legitimate non-commercial purpose as long as you don’t alter it, and provided you link to my website and include this full copyright notice within any post or copy that you produce. If you wish to use my cartoons for any commercial purposes, then you MUST contact me first.

A timely reminded from the Jerusalem post

Freedom of speech is under physical and legal threat not only from terrorists but also at the UN. Two US-based Islamists planned to kill a cartoonist and the editor of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten responsible for publishing cartoons depicting Muhammad in 2005, it was revealed a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, at the UN, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) delivered another blow with a resolution on “combating defamation of religion,” which was passed by a committee of the UN’s General Assembly on 12 November.

While the tactics employed by terrorists and the OIC are obviously different, the purpose is essentially the same: to ensure that criticism of Islam is censored. And it is working.

Following news of the foiled attack against Jyllands-Posten, leading Danish newspapers refrained from reprinting the Muhammad cartoons despite doing so last year when another attack on the cartoonist was foiled. While the editors have explained this omission as a matter of “responsibility,” fear would seem more likely. That was, after all, the reason why Yale University chose to omit pictures of Muhammad in a book called The Cartoons That Shook the World. Thus, grotesquely, a book dedicated to investigating “the conflict that aroused impassioned debates around the world on freedom of expression, blasphemy and the nature of modern Islam” does not contain the very cartoons which were at the core of the book’s subject matter.

From Salman Rushdie to Jyllands-Posten, death threats have had a chilling effect on discussion, let alone criticism, of Islam.

The efforts to ban criticism of Islam through human rights law at the UN are not yet legally binding but they are making progress.

The OIC has been successful in passing numerous resolutions on defamation of religion at the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. The latest from March 2009 states that “defamation of religions is a serious affront to human dignity leading to restriction on the freedom of religion.”

IN GENEVA, the OIC is working on the adoption of a legally binding instrument that would oblige member states to prohibit criticism of religion. In an explanatory letter of October 29 the OIC said that in Denmark and the Netherlands the personality of Muhammad had been ridiculed with intent to “violate Muslim sentiments” and, therefore, “the contention thathuman rights standards should apply only to individuals is not credible.”

The concept of defamation of religion thus turns human rights on their head by protecting abstract religions and ideas from criticism by individuals, rather than protecting individuals from oppressive dogmas. While the Western states at the UN have weakly complained about the concept of defamation of religion, the relentless efforts of the 57-member OIC and its allies have got the votes. Too often Western states have entered into seemingly harmless compromises that really serve as a way of chipping away at the concept of free speech bit by bit.

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Before anyone complains about this vote, which undoubtedly many will, they should note reciprocal Christian freedoms in Islamic nations. Check out how many Cathedrals and large Church structures grace the Islamic skyline and yet hardly anyone in the West bats an eyelid, because, this is the Muslim way!

Analysis from the most excellent Cranmer Blog

Cranmer has received quite a few emails about the decision of the Swiss people to prohibit the construction of any more minarets (there are just four in the entire country). He was not going to comment on the matter because, for the (former) life of him, he cannot work out what all the fuss is about.

The poster campaign showing minarets as missiles was undoubtedly provocative and offensive. Switzerland is a democracy which permits freedom of speech and freedom of expression, so get over it.

The Muslim community there makes up 400,000 out of a total population of 7.5 million people. They are justifiably dismayed by this decision, but Switzerland is a democracy which is governed by the ballot box, so get over it.

Muslims may feel alienated, ostracised and defamed by this decision, but 57 per cent of Swiss voters have expressed their view, so get over it.

The Swiss government and parliament had rejected the ban as unconstitutional, but their people have decided to the contrary. In a true democracy, it is the people who decide which powers to lend to their governments, and the people have spoken, so get over it.

Apparently, the ban is a ‘far-right’ initiative of the Swiss People’s Party. This is appalling. How dare any ‘right wing’ (let alone a ‘far right’) party articulate any view with which as many as 57 per cent of an entire population might agree.

And Cranmer is equally appalled that 22 out of 26 cantons voted to ban the minarets: what does this say about the backward, unenlightened, extremist, xenophobic Swiss and their outdated, medieval views, their contempt for human rights and the tyrannical propensity by which they oppress the minorities who dwell among them?

Switzerland is not a member of the EU and so not subject to its courts. Were it to be so, there is no doubt that the democratic will of the Swiss would be overturned with the stroke of a pen by the assertion of an ‘equality’ directive: after all, if the Christians can have their spires, why should the Muslims not have their minarets and the Jedi their death stars? But this is a local planning matter, and mosques and minarets are no more a prerequisite for the practising of Islam than church buildings and spires are for Christianity. There is no ‘phobia’ or ‘religious hatred’ in the decision: for the Swiss, this is not simply about the construction of minarets, but the realisation that each one may lead to an amplified call to prayer, and each amplified call to prayer the universal proclamation five time a day of the omnipotence of Allah and the uniqueness of Mohammed his prophet. And so the matter is both political and religious; material and spiritual; planning and prophetic.

Was Switzerland right to ban the construction of minarets?

Cranmer is not Swiss: it is not for him to say. But Calvin would undoubtedly have thought so. And the people of Switzerland have in any case spoken. They still possess and inhabit a democracy.

Is their intolerance un-Christian, unenlightened or undemocratic?

Possibly, maybe, yes and no. But who are we to judge?

And the Gates of Vienna Blog

The Swiss people went to the polls today in a referendum on the banning of minarets in Switzerland.

By the time they voted, they were well aware of the stakes in the issue. If they voted to approve the minaret ban, they would certify themselves as “racists” and “xenophobes”. They would show that hate and intolerance had won. They would be identified as worthy heirs of the Third Reich.

Yet, despite all of that, despite the pariah status that awaited them, the Swiss people voted overwhelmingly to approve the minaret ban.

So what happens next? What can the “world community” do to teach Switzerland a lesson?

If it were a member of the European Union, the solution would be easy. The example of Austria a few years back shows how the EU handles a member state whose internal politics violate the sensibilities of the bien-pensants in Brussels.

But Switzerland is a tougher nut to crack. Will the OIC call on its member states to boycott cuckoo clocks and watches? Will the jet set give up their skiing holidays in Switzerland? Will the rich and powerful close their numbered Swiss bank accounts and put their money elsewhere?

The Ledger

The Bible says in Psalms 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

The very skies that they use for their backdrop give acknowledgment to the existence of a God they say don’t believe in.

The Bible goes on to say in Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so there is no excuse.”

Excluding any biblical support and speaking only from personal experience, I have walked both paths, that of an unbeliever and now a believer. I can say that my “unbelieving” lifestyle was merely an excuse for a lack of moral accountability and a ticket to live life on my terms.

I have come to find out that an overwhelmingly loving God has a plan and purpose for my life that is unexplainably more fulfilling and meaningful than I can have imagined for myself.

The billboard caused me to research the atheistic lifestyle and belief system and most sources took me to its strongest proponent, Madalyn Murray O’Hair. If you Google her you will find very interesting reading of her self-destructive life and violent death, her own grandchild was murdered along with her

In my readings I found that she said that being a Christian is a “crutch” and for “the weak.” I can only say that living a genuine Christian life, that modeling the life of Jesus Christ, takes more guts, more fortitude, more self-discipline, more sacrifice, more self-denial, more forgiveness, more compassion, more humility, more tongue biting (the list could go on and on) than that of any atheistic lifestyle that has no moral standards or absolutes. So to my atheistic friends I humbly surmise that your lifestyle is for “the weak” as it requires none of the self-introspection, personal discipline and accountability that living a genuine Christian life requires.

In conclusion, I feel an overwhelming sadness for my atheist friends who are missing out on the greatest love that a human being will ever experience and buying into the lie that there is no God.

The Bible concludes by saying in Psalms 14:1 “The fool says in his heart there is no God.”

There is something to be said about the way Jesus is ‘packaged’ for the populace at Christmas. In the minds of our children this Christmas, I wonder how their image of Jesus would compare with John’s experience?

Revelation 1

…..I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,”dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

Telegraph

Away in a Manger cannot be sung “without embarrassment”, Once in Royal David’s City is “Victorian behaviour control”; and O Come, All Ye Faithful is misleading, said the Bishop of Croydon, the Rt Rev Nick Baines.

He blamed the much-loved carols for adding to confusion over the season’s real meaning and turning Jesus into a figure as fictitious as Father Christmas.

While others defended the traditional songs as “joyful” and “triumphant”, the bishop complained that the carols have contributed to the story of Christ’s birth being seen “as just one more story alongside the panto and fairy stories”.

In a new book published by the Church of England, Why Wish You a Merry Christmas, the bishop argues that carols encourage images of Christmas that have more to do with Victorian sentiment than the Biblical account of Christ’s birth.

“I always find it a slightly bizarre sight when I see parents and grandparents at a nativity play singing Away in a Manger as if it actually related to reality,” he said.

“I can understand the little children being quite taken with the sort of baby of whom it can be said ‘no crying he makes’, but how can any adult sing this without embarrassment?”

He said that Jesus would be abnormal if he had not cried as a baby. “If we sing nonsense, is it any surprise that children grow into adults and throw out the tearless baby Jesus with Father Christmas and other fantasy figures?” He continued: “Once in Royal David’s City has Jesus as ‘our childhood’s pattern’ — even though we know almost nothing of his childhood apart from one incident when he was 12 years old and being disobedient to his parents — and invites children to be ‘mild, obedient, good as he’, which means what, exactly? This sounds suspiciously like Victorian behaviour control to me.”

While the bishop praises the ability of some carols to excite and capture the Christmas message, he cites O Come, All Ye Faithful as a prime example of inaccuracy.

The bishop said it was not the “faithful” who went to see the baby Jesus and his parents but shepherds, who are the “great unwashed” and the wise men, who were “not good Jews, but were pagans, men who were outside the covenant people of God”.

“Some of the traditional carols perpetuate images of Christmas that have more to do with Victorian sentiment than the story we actually read in the Gospels,” the bishop said in the book.

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Masterclass from Bill Muehlenberg

I was recently speaking and teaching interstate at some churches and Christian groups. A number of these groups, I was informed, had actually broken away from a larger Pentecostal denomination. They had simply grown disillusioned with what their megachurches were on about, and wanted to get back to a more pure and biblical Christianity.

They had many concerns about the big evangelical and Pentecostal churches, and were growing tired of the emphasis on entertainment, marketing techniques, the celebrity-culture, the superficiality, and the rank imitation of the surrounding culture. So they moved on, and set up smaller churches, including home fellowships.

Now of course there is always a danger here. Those who are discontented can be so for the wrong reasons, and can have rather un-Christlike responses. They can be rebellious, un-submissive, disobedient and troublemaking. They can react in bitterness, anger and resentment. That is something we don’t want to encourage or foster.

But there is another sort of discontent which can in fact be a good discontent. There can be a holy desire to simply have the best that God wants for us. There can be a discontent with man-centred religious programs, with trendy, faddish gimmicks, with lifeless and spiritless churches, and with cheap grace and a watered down gospel, especially a gospel that is all about self, instead of Christ and the denial of self.

As I spent time with these people, and heard their stories, a passage from 1 Samuel sprang to mind. In 1 Sam 22:1-2 we find these words: “David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there. All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him.”

It is interesting that David, who at the time was not on the throne, but was being hounded and chased around the country by Saul, found himself to be a magnet for those who were on the fringes of society, those who did not fit in, those who were discontented and in distress.

The really amazing thing about this motley crew of rejects, misfits and outsiders is that they went on to do many mighty things for God and David. We read about these men later in the Old Testament narratives. In 2 Samuel 23, 24 and 1 Chronicles 11, 12 we learn about “David’s mighty men”.

You can read for yourself all the marvellous exploits and mighty deeds these men performed. These men, who were the cream of the crop under King David, were at one time the rejected, the despised and those who did not fit in to the religious and social scene of the day.

Perhaps in the same way today as the mainstream churches (and I include my own evangelical churches here) become more and more worldly and less and less endowed with power from on high, we will see more and more small groups of those who are restless, alienated and discontented moving on, seeking to find those who are like-minded and fully serious about a radical commitment to Jesus Christ.

Now I am not seeking to promote rebellion and anti-church sentiment here, nor am I saying our churches are all going downhill. But surely any serious follower of Jesus Christ can see that much of what passes for biblical Christianity today is a far cry from what it should be.

Indeed, in many ways we are far removed from the vitality, power and influence of the early church. In many ways we have perhaps become more like the Scribes and the Pharisees than we might care to admit. We might even be addicted to mere traditions of men and human programs, instead of reliant on the Spirit of God in all that we do.

The traditions of men

Evangelicals and Pentecostals take great delight in passages such as Mark 7:8-9 in which Jesus rebukes those religious folk who promote the “traditions of men”. We rightly look down on the Scribes and Pharisees, and know how bad the religious establishment can become. But perhaps we need to look much more closely in our own backyards.

I actually think us evangelicals, Pentecostals, and other “cutting edge” Christian groups have just as much religious baggage as those mainline denominations that we so quickly denigrate. Indeed, we have plenty of our own traditions of men which we slavishly adhere to.

Let me provide just one example. Because I travel a lot and speak at a many different churches, I have come to notice various trends and fads which evangelical and charismatic churches are plugging into. One of these is to turn the worship experience and setting into something basically like a disco.

Time and time again I find churches which have all their walls painted black, and their auditoriums looking just like discos. They have strobe lights flashing away and smoke machines working overtime during their times of worship. They apparently think this is hip and contemporary, and will help make their churches “relevant” and appealing to young people.

Of course there is not one passage in the entire Bible which instructs us to get the disco look in order to attract crowds or properly worship. There is not one text anywhere which even remotely suggests that we should copy the ways of the world in order to reach people and appeal to outsiders.

What we have, in other words, is simply another tradition of men. We, who pride ourselves in doing things by the Book, and not conforming to the world, are doing exactly the opposite: we are setting aside Scripture and foolishly imitating the world, its music, and its methods.

Never mind that when it comes to worship, there should be only one focus: the living God. Everything else is peripheral and secondary. Indeed, real worship, according to the Bible, has nothing to do with emotional highs and disco-like attractions. It is all about ascribing glory to a holy, pure and majestic God. It is not about us at all; it is all about Him.

Now I do not want to be picking on the evangelical world and the Pentecostal churches. They happen to be the ones I most often deal with, but as Peter says, ‘judgment must begin with the household of God’. None of our methods, plans, and activities are sacrosanct, or above criticism. Indeed, everything we do is regularly to be checked out in the light of Scripture.

Bible-believing evangelical Christians should be the very first to question and assess; discerning if we are merely creating our own fleshly traditions, or are in fact doing things as God would have them to be done. We dare not assume that what we are doing is always fully pleasing to our Lord.

Thus it may be the case that we will see more groups of those who long for something better, whose hearts are set on heaven, and who take seriously the commands of our Lord to deny self, take up our cross, and follow him. Some of these folk may be discontented and in distress, as were those who gravitated toward David.

If it is a holy discontent, then can I say we need more of it. Hopefully they can stay in their churches and bring about much need renewal and revival. But if they must leave and form their own groups, well, that may need to be the way to go. But we all desperately need a holy discontent which will make us restless with the status quo, impatient with the ordinary, and sick of the mediocre.

As A. W. Tozer once said, “We are too comfortable, too rich, too contented. We hold the faith of our fathers, but it does not hold us.” And again, “We must have a new reformation. There must come a violent break with that irresponsible, amusement-mad, paganized pseudo religion which passes today for the faith of Christ and which is being spread all over the world by unspiritual men employing un-scriptural methods to achieve their ends.”

It seems that William Booth, Salvation Army founder, had it right when he said in the late 1890’s, “The chief danger of the twentieth century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, and heaven without hell.”

Catholic Herald By Simon Caldwell

The bishops of England and Wales have set up a commission to prepare the ground for an exodus of possibly thousands of disaffected Anglicans into the Catholic Church.

The move was announced in London as Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, protested in person to the Pope over the way the Vatican announced plans to receive Anglican converts en masse.

Pope Benedict XVI has been accused of attempting to “poach” Anglicans unhappy about the ordination of women and sexually active gays as priests and bishops.

In response to requests from about 30 Anglican bishops around the world for “corporate reunion” with the Catholic Church, he has permitted vicars and their entire congregations to together defect to Rome while keeping many of their Anglican traditions – including married priests. He issued the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus which envisages the creation of Personal Ordinariates, similar to military dioceses, for groups of Anglican converts.

In a 20-minute meeting on Saturday Dr Williams complained to the Pope about the lack of consultation which had left him in an “awkward position”.

A day before their meeting Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster told a press conference in London that the bishops had agreed at their November meeting in Leeds to appoint a commission to try to iron out obstacles to the group reception of Anglicans.

It will include Auxiliary Bishop Alan Hopes of Westminster, the most senior Anglican clergyman convert in the Catholic Church in England and Wales, as well as Archbishop-elect Bernard Longley of Birmingham and Bishop Malcolm McMahon of Nottingham, all of whom are highly experienced in ecumenical dialogue.

Archbishop Nichols said: “The Apostolic Constitution gives us the end game but not the process. It is up to us, working with the Church of England, to look at the process.”

He added that Dr Williams had already ruled out the purchase of Church of England buildings as “impossible”.

The defection of large numbers of Anglo-Catholics grew increasingly likely after traditionalists failed to secure concessions over women bishops to help them to stay in the Church of England. The General Synod’s revision committee rejected proposals for a structure that would allow them to be served by “flying bishops” in preference for a “code of practice”.

Forward in Faith, the largest Anglo-Catholic group, has estimated that 450 parishes are considering the Pope’s offer and as many as 200 of them might accept it.

Anglican Bishop John Broadhurst of Fulham, chairman of Forward in Faith, said: “We have 1,000 priest members in my organisation and there are many others who agree with us. The main issue for many Anglican priests is now the ownership of parish churches.”

Understanding the attachment of Anglo-Catholics to their church buildings, many of which are listed or historic, the Catholic commission is expected to look at the possibility of church-sharing and also the chances of taking out 100-year leases of some Anglican parishes, including a commitment to maintain and repair them.

Fr Anthony Symondson, a former Anglo-Catholic vicar who became a Jesuit priest, doubted however whether mass conversion was inevitable. He predicted that if an English Ordinariate relies on “shared churches and temporary buildings” he felt it would “represent a very small number of people with a very limited future”.

“None of us really know how the Church of England is going to respond to it and how the Church Commissioners are going to respond to it in terms of letting property go,” he said. Congregations are likely to be split by the decision and may be tempted to experiment with parish-sharing, he said, but he explained that when this was tried at a church in west London in the 1990s it was soon halted by Cardinal Basil Hume because of divisions between Catholic converts and the resident Anglican congregation.

Fr Symondson added: “A lot of divorced and remarried Catholics go to these churches because they are effectively excommunicated from the Catholic Church and the last thing they want is to be under the jurisdiction of Rome again because it will put them back in the situation that they have tried to escape.”

Last weekend the vicar of an Anglo-Catholic church received a threatening phone call warning him of violence if his parish converted. His noticeboard had the words “C of E No Pope” daubed across it in white paint. Fr David Waller of St Saviour’s, Walthamstow, east London, discovered the vandalism on Sunday morning.

In spite of tensions, both the Pope and Dr Williams publicly reaffirmed their commitment to “consolidate the ecumenical relationship”. The pair also discussed the third round of study by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), the body for theological dialogue.

Dr Williams told Vatican Radio that media presentations of the Constitution as a “dawn raid on the Anglican Communion” were simply wrong. “People become Roman Catholics because they want to become Roman Catholics, because their consciences are formed in a certain way and they believe this is the will of God for them. And I wish them every blessing in that,” Dr Williams said.

“But I don’t think it’s a question of the Roman Catholic Church, as it were, trying to attract by advertising or by special offers.

Rosh Pina Project

Larry Derfner of the Jerusalem Post reports:

A nun in her 60s who’s lived in an east Jerusalem convent for decades says she was spat at for the first time by a haredi man on Rehov Agron about 25 years ago. “As I was walking past, he spat on the ground right next to my shoes and he gave me a look of contempt,” said the black-robed nun, sitting inside the convent. “It took me a moment, but then I understood.”

Since then, the nun, who didn’t want to be identified, recalls being spat at three different times by young national Orthodox Jews on Jaffa Road, three different times by haredi youth near Mea She’arim and once by a young Jewish woman from her second-story window in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter.

But the spitting incidents weren’t the worst, she said – the worst was the time she was walking down Jaffa Road and a group of middle-aged haredi men coming her way pointed wordlessly to the curb, motioning her to move off the sidewalk to let them pass, which she did.

“That made me terribly sad,” said the nun, speaking in ulpan-trained Hebrew. Taking personal responsibility for the history of Christian anti-Semitism, she said that in her native European country, such behavior “was the kind of thing that they – no, that we used to do to Jews.”

News stories about young Jewish bigots in the Old City spitting on Christian clergy – who make conspicuous targets in their long dark robes and crucifix symbols around their necks – surface in the media every few years or so. It’s natural, then, to conclude that such incidents are rare, but in fact they are habitual. Anti-Christian Orthodox Jews, overwhelmingly boys and young men, have been spitting with regularity on priests and nuns in the Old City for about 20 years, and the problem is only getting worse.

[...]

Yisca Harani, a veteran Jewish interfaith activist who lectures on Christianity to Israeli tour guides at Touro College, likewise says the change for the worse came about 20 years ago. She blames the spitting attacks on the view of Christianity that’s propagated at haredi and national Orthodox yeshivot.

“I move around the Old City a lot,” she said, “I come in contact with these people, and what they learn in these fundamentalist yeshivot is that the goy is the enemy, a hater of Israel. All they learn about Christianity is the Holocaust, pogroms, anti-Semitism.”

Read it all.

Great analysis (as usual) from Prof Barry Rubin, don’t forget to subscribe to his blog:-

For a couple of years it has been visible; for months the opposition has been talking about it. What’s happening is the gradual takeover of a huge amount of power by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Iranian government has generally been radical since the revolution, 30 years ago. But now the most extremist faction of all has taken over, pushing out its rivals.

Of course, Spiritual Guide Ali Khamenei is the most powerful man in Iran. But obviously he has no problem with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being president and the IRGC becoming the power behind the throne.

This is important because the IRGC is the most fanatical and risk-taking part of the regime. It is very much committed to expanding the revolution and maintains the regime’s links with foreign revolutionary and terrorist groups.

Oh, and it will also be the institution that will have actual possession of Iran’s long-range missiles and nuclear weapons.

Not only are these people nobody can make a deal with, but they are also the ones most likely to make a war some day.

The BBC reports that the IRGC now controls one-third of Iran’s economy, either openly or through front groups. This is probably too high. But more than one-third is controlled either by the IRGC or foundations under the control of regime hardliners so the basic idea isn’t far off. Moreover, Ahmadinejad has been appointing former IRGC commanders to a lot of top jobs, including cabinet ministries and provincial governorships.

Now the group has won a $2.5 billion contract to build a big railroad project. And the IRGC is taking control of intelligence, running key prisons, and taking custody of political prisoners.

This is one reason why foreign observers can underestimate the regime’s stability. With the IRGC playing such a central role, so well-armed, united, and ready to fight, any serious threat of a revolution or internal collapse would be blocked, no matter how much bloodshed it takes. The opposition and those critical of the regime are also aware of that fact.

Another reason why this is important regards Iran’s intentions after getting nuclear weapons. Whether or not it would fire off such armaments, Iran will certainly use them to become more powerful, threatening, and influential throughout the region. The loser here will be the United States, its interests, and policies.

Judging from his statements, President Obama seems to have the following picture of Iran: There are many factions; the supreme guide really runs the show; Ahmadinejad is just a noisy front-man without much power. Iran should be judged by its past record, which has often shown caution. In this conception, it is possible to engage Iran, appeal to its interest, and find some relative moderates or pragmatists who will make a deal.

One could argue this position two years, perhaps even a year ago. But it no longer applies. The Iranian regime has changed to become far more hardline and risk-taking.

My personal view is that Khamenei is preparing for his departure from the scene by putting the revolution into the hands of those who he trusts not to dilute it. While Iran is a country of endless factional bickerings, this analysis means that the power of Ahmadinejad and the IRGC will grow greater in the coming years. That provides still another reason why soft diplomacy won’t work and that a world where Iran–meaning Ahmadinejad and the IRGC–have nuclear weapons and long-range missiles is far more dangerous.

That doesn’t mean that Iran will immediately attack Israel with nuclear weapons. Even in the radical worldview that would be foolish. What is more likely is that Iran will systematically try to turn much of the region into Islamist satellite states, putting off any confrontation with Israel to the future. (This is parallel to the strategy of Arab nationalist regimes–despite their 1967 miscalculation and 1973 attempt at revenge–over the last half-century.)

Do you think the Arab states will choose to appease Iran or stand firm in the belief that President Barack Obama will go to war on their behalf?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Oh, I thought it was generally accepted nowadays that Jesus, coming from an upper middle class family, obviously came to England to attend one of our prestigious universities and obtain a nice ‘cut glass’ English accent, although, I think that this was before he travelled to the US.

BBC

Jesus Christ could have come to Britain to further his education, according to a Scottish academic.

Church of Scotland minister Dr Gordon Strachan makes the claim in a new film entitled And Did Those Feet.

The film examines the story of Jesus’ supposed visit, which survives in the popular hymn Jerusalem.

Dr Strachan believes it is “plausible” Jesus came to England for his studies, as it was the forefront of learning 2,000 years ago.

“Coming this far wasn’t in fact that far in the olden days,” Dr Strachan told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One. “The Romans came here at the same time and they found it quite easy.”

Dr Strachan added that Jesus had “plenty of time” to do the journey, as little was known about his life before the age of 30.

The legend that Jesus Christ came to Britain was popularised in a poem written by William Blake in the early 19th Century and made famous as a hymn 100 years later.

Now the first words of the hymn – “And did those feet” – are the title of a new film based on a book researched by Dr Strachan, who lectures on the history of architecture at Edinburgh University.

“It is generally suggested that he came to the west of England with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, who was here for tin,” said the academic.

Dr Strachan claimed Jesus Christ could have come to England to further his education.

“He needed to go around to learn bits and pieces about ancient wisdom, and the druids in Britain went back hundreds if not thousands of years. He probably came here to meet the druids, to share his wisdom and gain theirs.”

Among the places Jesus is said to have visited are Penzance, Falmouth, St-Just-in-Roseland and Looe, which are all in Cornwall, as well as Glastonbury in Somerset – which has particular legends about Jesus.

“St Augustine wrote to the Pope to say he’d discovered a church in Glastonbury built by followers of Jesus. But St Gildas (a 6th-Century British cleric) said it was built by Jesus himself. It’s a very very ancient church which went back perhaps to AD37.”

The film And Did Those Feet is being screened on Friday in central London.

Cross post from the superb Atheism is Dead Blog:-

Enough with the erudite pretentions already; it is simply time to state that Richard Dawkins simply cannot defend his assertions—period.

Richard Dawkins has brought it upon himself by first claiming that he will not debate “creationists” (a category into which he places everyone from young Earth creationists to Intelligent Design theorists) and then going on to debate “creationists.” As an aside: I wonder if he would consider Francis Crick a creationists because, although an atheist, believes that aliens created life or David Berlinski who, although an agnostic, is also an Intelligent Design proponent.

I will surely miss some but let us quickly review his taking leave from debating creationists, those whom he has specifically refused to debate and those whom he has debated.

Dawkins Begs Leave

Dawkins worded a self-satisfying excuse in, Why I Won’t Debate Creationists. Therein, he breaks one of his very own New Ten Commandments (of which he lists fifteen) as #8 reads, “Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent.”

In his excuse making he restricts thought and blocks us from following evidence were it leads by asserting that only science premised on atheism is “real science.” As to his specific reason for not debating creationists, he mockingly states it this way as he plays the part of the creationist, “Look at me, I’m having a debate with one of the big boys. Doesn’t that just prove that creationism is being taken seriously in the universities?” He further states, “we don’t do debates with creationists, and encouraging other scientists to refuse for the same reason.”

It seems ironic that while he initially thought oh, so very highly of himself that he thought that creationists would gain notoriety by debating him we are to the point at which, by now, people are gaining notoriety by not debating him, “Look at me, one of the big boys refuses to debate me”—as it were.

Dawkins Debate Denials

He has refused to debate Stephen Meyer:

I will have a discussion with somebody who has a genuinely different scientific point of view. I have never come across any kind of creationism, whether you call it intelligent design or not, which has a serious scientific case to put. The objection to having debates with people like that is that it gives them a kind of respectability. If a real scientist goes onto a debating platform with a creationist, it gives them a respectability, which I do not think your people have earned.

He has refused to debate William Lane Craig:

I’ve never heard of William Craig. A debate with him might look good on his resume, but it wouldn’t look good on mine!

Logically, if he never heard of Craig how can he know whose resume their debate would enhance? That he has never heard of Craig shows just how far out of the loop Dawkins is as Craig has been studying, teaching, lecturing, publishing and debating in the USA and UK for decades. Craig even debated one of the most famous and influential atheists of the 20th century; Anthony Flew. Ok, ok, why should Dawkins be aware of Craig who is outside of Dawkins’s own field of biology? Exactly, he should remain within his field and debate zoology/biology.

He has refused to debate Dinesh D’Souza:

He did so basically by correlating D’Souza’s cadence to that of Adolf Hitler in a comments that was wrong on various levels. For his part, Dinesh D’Souza nails him for it in stating the following in his article, Richard Dawkins Compares Me to Hitler:

I suspect that Dawkins has come up with this pathetic reductio ad Hitlerum in order to justify his cowardice in not debating me…Isn’t the real problem that Dawkins has used his zoologist’s credentials in order to wander into fields (physics, astronomy, history, philosophy, anthropology, theology) where his knowledge is embarrassingly limited? I suspect he’s worried that in a debate I will exposure his ignorance and make him an international object of ridicule. Why not prove me wrong, Richard? Come out from under your desk and take me up on my invitation to debate.

Terry Eagleton wrote:

Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince….

The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster.[1]

Dawkins Debate Acceptances

Well, of course Richard Dawkins can come up with whatever excuse he pleases—no matter how illogical, obviously evasive or maliciously ad hominous—and his adherents will applaud him as they excuse his every deed and word. Yet, why then does he break his own refusal to debate creationists and goes ahead to debates some of those people?

He has debated Francis Collins in a TIME Magazine forum/interview.

He has debated Rabbi Shmuley Boteach whom, along with D’Souza, he compared to Adolf Hitler (a debate which Dawkins denied ever took place).

He has debated John Lennox (Has Science Buried God?) and even had a follow up conversation.

He “debated”/was interviewed by, Ben Stein (whom I believe to be an agnostic yet who’s discussion consisted of question Dawkins about God related issues).

He has also had a public conversation/interview with Alister McGrath who wrote:

…But when I debated these points with him, Dawkins seemed uncomfortable. I was not surprised to be told that my contribution was to be cut. The Root Of All Evil? was subsequently panned for its blatant unfairness. Where, the critics asked, was a responsible, informed Christian response to Dawkins? The answer: on the cutting-room floor.

This has since become available in video form here and audio here.

Some have attributed the extinguishing of the fire for debate in Dawkins’ belly to the late Arthur Ernest Wilder-Smith who was an organic chemist and pharmacologist who also taught Chemotherapy and earned three doctorates (amongst his very many accomplishments). He and Edgar Andrews debated Richard Dawkins and John Maynard Smith in 1986 at the Oxford Union (the audio of which is found on Dawkins’ web site). Much controversy has resulted from the debate and its mysterious outcome (some background can be found here, here and here). This is another debate that Dawkins claimed never occurred.

Also of note, with regards to his utterly running out of steam in taking on creationists, may be Richard Dawkins utterly pathetic review, critique or whatever it was supposed to be of the Atlas of Creation written by the Muslim creationist Harun Yahya. Here we had the masterful zoologist and biologist, the champion of atheism and Darwinism taking on a creationist book and he failed so very badly that I ran across his review/critique on one website, ran across it on another and finally had to check Dawkins’ own website. I honestly thought that I had only read excerpts since it was so very, very poor. It is no wonder that in his latest book The Greatest Show on Earth (see here, here and here) he is left to stating that if you doubt, even doubt, that humans are related to “bananas and turnips” you are to be likened to a Holocaust denier.

In fact, he has stated that in his new book he is “not trying to do is convert any real, dyed-in-the-wool young Earth creationists” and do you know why? Because, “That’s probably a lost cause, because those people don’t read much anyway.”[2] In other words; besmirch them and then claim to not be addressing them.

No wonder that most of his career as an activist atheist has consisted of bringing important and complex arguments to the level of a school yard spat with age appropriate taunts in place.
Bruce Chapman notes:

Dawkins doesn’t address his real adversaries. He simply ignores Stephen Meyer, whose Signature in the Cell is now leading the science book parade in several Amazon categories. He just dubs opponents creationist reactionaries and assumes that his haughty air will delight his claque and daunt everyone else. He has plenty of ringmaster bluster left, but nothing much to say.
Reviewer Olson, a relentless Darwinist himself, has to complain of Dawkins, “Implying that your audience is stupid does not qualify as a great new angle.[3]

Richard Dawkins: … It would be unseemly for me to enter in except to suggest that he’d save himself an awful lot of trouble if he just simply ceased to give them the time of day. Why bother with these clowns? [referring to YECists]

Francis Collins: Richard, I think we don’t do a service to dialogue between science and faith to characterize sincere people by calling them names. That inspires an even more dug-in position. Atheists sometimes come across as a bit arrogant in this regard, and characterizing faith as something only an idiot would attach themselves to is not likely to help your case.[4]

Steve Paulson: I’ve heard this from various scientists — hardcore evolutionists — who wish you would tone down your rhetoric, quite frankly.

Richard Dawkins: That is absolutely true.

Steve Paulson: They say this hurts the cause of teaching evolution. It just gives fire to the creationists.

Richard Dawkins: Exactly right. And they could be right, in a political sense…So what the scientists you’ve been talking to are asking me to do is to shut my mouth. Because for the sake of what I see as the war, I’m in danger of losing this particular battle. And that’s a worthwhile political point for them to make.[5]

Obviously, likewise statements about Dawkins’ childish belligerence could be multiplied ad infinitum. Luke Savage and Alixandra Gould note, “Yes, to the evolutionary thinker creationists seem ignorant, dogmatic, and small-minded, but calling them so won’t do any good.”[6]

In fact, Richard Dawkins has stated, “I would be glad if you didn’t use the word “strident.” I’m getting a little bit tired of it.”[7] Perhaps the lesson is; do not be strident and you will not be referred to as such.

Ultimately, he has dug his own hole and in refusing and then accepting debates with creationists it is becoming clear that he is merely being selective in not wanting to debate those who would challenge him on his own zoological/biological/Darwinian ground.

Add to this that Dawkins believes that science equals atheism and evolution equals atheism and it is no wonder that he all but remains cloistered in his imitation-ivory tower coming down only rare occasion to impress the college crowd or even younger children.

[1] Terry Eagleton, “Lunging, Flailing, Mispunshing,” London Review of Books, Oct 19, 2006
[2] Stuart Laidlaw, “Author pits evolution against creationism – Long-held disdain for Bible-based view surfaces in his new book,” TheStar.com, Sep 22, 2009
[3] Bruce Chapman, “The Greatest Show on Earth – Another Circus Comes to Town,” Evolution News, September 22, 2009
[4] Dan Cray, “God vs. Science,” TIME, Nov. 05, 2006
[5] Steve Paulson, “The Flying Spaghetti Monster,” Salon, Oct 13, 2006
[6] Luke Savage and Alixandra Gould, “Oh my Richard Dawkins!,” The Varsity, Sep 28, 2009
[7] Lisa Miller, “Darwin’s Rottweiler – Richard Dawkins on his tense relations with those who believe in God,” Newsweek, Sep 26, 2009

Hat-tip Anglican Mainstream

This hymn dates from the 12 century and perhaps even earlier….lovely!