RIP Charlie 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Yesterday it started: Charlie's friends and fans pouring out what he meant to them. Here are a few posts that I saw on my X account: handling an encounter with a trans person with love and truth; sharing the gospel; and my personal favorite, this one, where he cites evidence showing that America had a Christian founding.

To my regret, it never occurred to me to pray for his safety before yesterday. But he knew there was danger from those who hated who he was and what he stood for, so he actually had a security detail.

He's with his Creator now. Rest in peace, Charlie; your life was a blessing to us.

RIP Charlie

Yesterday Charlie Kirk was doing what he so often did and loved to do: dialoging with people who disagreed with him on a college campus. He would invite questions/challenges and then respond respectfully, with civility, with honest and frank answers. 

Thousands of fans came out to watch and hear the debate at Utah Valley University. One individual came with evil purpose in his mind and hate in his heart.

Charlie was murdered. At the age of 31, he leaves behind his wife and two babies.

Grok talks 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

If you watched yesterday's video, you found that the interviewer started with interesting science topics like the origin of life and the evolution of all species of life. Here are just a few of the questions he posed to Grok 4, and its responses:

• What is the mathematical probability that the first life cells could have formed by natural processes alone? A - "the mathematical probability of a minimal genome about 200-300 genes self-assembling through naturalistic processes is less than one in ten to the power 200 based on observed chemical constraints . . effectively impossible."
• What is the most logical conclusion about where life came from and the biodiversity of life forms on the planet? A - "the most logical conclusion . . is a directed process implying intelligent design. The evidence for an intelligent designer is overwhelming."
• Is it rational to say that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth? A - Yes.

If science, logic, mathematical probability and observational science mean a lot to you, you will have to deal with this conclusion.

Grok talks

Is faith in the Christian God the most reasonable conclusion you could come to? 

Since artificial intelligence is seemingly going beyond mere human intelligence, this Christian believer had the idea of submitting that question to AI. 

He specifically told Grok 4 to consider only "strict logic, mathematical probability and observational science" (not religious faith or ideology). Based on scientific data, he asked it to answer some factual questions.

Eventually Grok 4 concluded that . . it is.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Dig for truth

Christians in America are waking up to a couple of modern facts: our views and our churches don't enjoy near-universal approval anymore, and we need to re-think our response to our culture in light of that.

Modern life is confusing. American culture has been disrupted by people who don't share our values. 

This journalist (below) is a Christian. He challenges both himself and the rest of us to be careful to tell the truth rather than just play for hits and likes on social media, to do things God's way rather than the selfish way. He challenges all of us to respond with restraint and kindness even when confronted with opposition and hate.

We 're all going to have to "dig for truth" in this environment. Think things through.

Seattle battle

A Christian organization submitted a request for a permit to hold an outdoor event in Seattle. Their application specified a venue request for Pike Place Market. The city denied that request and directed them to Cal Anderson Park. 

So they complied and held it there on May 24. Maybe that was a mistake. 

The park is "in the heart of the Queer community," according to a group called "Radical Women Seattle" which turned up to protest against "fascist family values."

 

Many hundreds of protesters tried to disrupt the event with bullhorns, shouting, signs, heckling. Police made 22 arrests.

It turned out that the mayor of the city is solidly behind the protesters.  He made a public statement:

"Seattle is proud of our reputation as a welcoming, inclusive city for LGBTQ+ . . . Today's far-right rally was held here for this very reason – to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city's values, in the heart of Seattle's most prominent LGBTQ+ neighborhood."

Somebody is lying about the choice of this park, and it should be easy to verify. The FBI is looking into it.

from CBN

Ancient 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Natural disaster or economic collapse may motivate large groups to emigrate out of their homeland. But what drove hundreds of thousands of Syrian Christians to leave was something else. 

Civil war broke out in 2011 and everything changed. The previous tolerant Muslim regime fell last December and militant factions (including ISIS) are in power.

"In village after village . . Christians were kidnapped, tortured, sometimes ransomed, and often executed. Monasteries were turned into battle stations. Churches were bombed. In Maaloula, jihadists entered homes and demanded that families convert to Islam or die. Some were killed in their doorways for refusing. 

"ISIS went further, targeting Assyrian villages in the northeast, executing men, enslaving women, and erasing churches that had stood since the fifth century."

While millions of refugees (photo) fled the country, it also became "a targeted campaign of cultural and religious cleansing," and the rest of the world let it happen according to this Middle Eastern writer.

from "The Vanishing Light"

Ancient 1

"The Christian golden age of Syria has ended . . . And it will not return."

Did you know that the nation of Syria had a Christian golden age? Me neither. Christian culture in this place has 2,000 years of history, but today we Westerners know almost nothing about it. 

Paul the Apostle was confronted by Jesus on the way to Damascus (the country's capital today). That means it goes way, way back. As one of the "original heartlands of Christianity," there were bishops, theologians, martyrs, and three actual popes.

About 300,000 Christian Syrians (photo) are still there, compared to over 1.5 million at one time. Their presence "was not a minor thread in the nation’s tapestry, but was woven into every aspect of culture, language, and national identity" along with other threads including Islam.

But most are gone now. "The Christian families that once ran shops in Aleppo, taught in schools in Homs, and prayed in the ancient basilicas of Damascus are now rebuilding their lives in Berlin, Detroit, and Melbourne."

from "The Vanishing Light"

(cont'd tomorrow) 

Brain≠Mind 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

If you literally are your brain, like some say, what hope would there be for a girl born with only half of a brain? A brain surgeon in the video below told her parents that there was little hope for her. But twenty years later, she is a vibrant young woman, functioning normally.

The neurosurgeon was at that time a materialist, like so many. It's not that he made a conscious choice, but rather that worldview dominates in our culture and you just pick it up from school and media. Over his professional experience of doing 7,000 surgeries, he changed his mind.

He believes we have souls or immaterial minds, and that they use the brain. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, mapping of the brain shows that the brain does control movement, sensory perception, emotion, and memory. But no part of the brain has been shown to control abstract thought (like doing math or understanding history) or your free will.

Gen Z & church

Polling in America has told us for decades that the number of people claiming no religious affiliation (the "nones") is rising. But that's leveled off. Bible sales are increasing and Christian entertainment has grown.

Generation Z (born 1997-2012) is a significant part of this trend. They generally seem to be curious about Christianity and are looking for hope.

 

It's especially interesting that young men lead the trend. Gen Z men go to church more than Gen Z women. 

Similarly, the Bible Society in partnership with a research team in Britain says:

"We found that the Church is in a period of rapid growth, driven by young adults and in particular young men . . . [Y]oung adults are more spiritually engaged than any other living generation, with Bible reading and belief in God on the rise."

from USA Today

Eucatastrophe

from Tolkien Gateway

If your only experience with author J. R. R. Tolkien is to watch the movie versions of his masterpiece Lord of the Rings, you may not know that he invented this word: "eucatastrophe."

An Oxford professor and scholar in the mid-20th century, he wrote "high fantasy" fiction that is always counted among the most popular books of the whole century.

He was a genuine Christian living in the skeptical Oxford culture, who influenced the young atheist C. S. Lewis. Tolkien believed that the Christian narrative is true and it gave his work a hopeful, positive nature. Here's what he says about the resurrection of Jesus Christ that we celebrated yesterday on Easter:

"I coined the word 'eucatastrophe': the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy . . it is a sudden glimpse of Truth . . this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. . . The Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible . . Christian joy . . comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love."

Outrageous

This is Easter weekend. A re-post from 2014:

Easter is a national holiday in America. Even "nones" (identifying with no religion) can celebrate Easter as the return of spring, life returning to the landscape (if you have winter at your location). 

Hey, me too - I love the green coming back to nature. But this Christian holiday is actually the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As this author says: it's a stunning, outrageous claim.

He looked ordinary, used only his culture's technology (2000 years ago), and gathered around himself a relatively small band of followers. The apostle Peter explained why they followed him: "You have the words of eternal life."

Everything he did went to benefit other people. What mythical god ever lived a selfless life or went to his grave to redeem human beings? "[T]here’s nothing in any myth that comes close to the self-sacrificial love Jesus displayed when He went to the Cross."

from Stream

Out of atheism

Avi Snyder was an angry man in his younger days. He didn't believe that God exists, and he hated what followed from that fact: his belief that everything is meaningless and there's no point to life at all. 

He screamed at the ceiling, "How dare you do this to me??" The thought came back, "So you're angry. Who are you angry at? I thought you were an atheist."

There's more to his story, but all this is in the first 4 minutes.

However God meets you in your own life, your spirit is re-born when you respond to Jesus. Be thrilled with the life change [this man had].

Mass burial

It's physically dangerous to be Christian in parts of the world. Nigeria is one of those places where disaster keeps happening. At least 60 were killed two days ago. 

A local pastor says, "‘Many of these attacks result in mass burials [photo]. The sight of numerous corpses and the frequent need to conduct mass burials is something no minister wishes to experience, yet it has become our reality. Daily kidnappings, molestation and rape of Christian women, particularly in rural villages across north-central Nigeria . . [are] disturbingly common.’

Another leader, eyewitness of another recent attack, adds: "What we are experiencing in Bokkos is so devastating . .

"They burned down the church, they burned down houses. They killed pastors, they killed people, they killed even women and children. I saw the corpses and I shed tears."

 from Barnabas Aid

Butch at home

It turns out that one of those "rescued" astronauts who returned from the ISS via SpaceX is a man of Christian faith. 

He's still getting used to earth's gravity but he's glad to be home. He says, "God is always good."

Exposed

All of us have a sense of "justice," a feeling that we should be treated fairly, according to what is right. We are frustrated when wrongdoing is covered up, when it's kept secret, whether it happens to us or to someone we care about. We want it exposed and set right.

(Of course, that drive for justice is much reduced when it comes to our own wrongdoing. We're not anxious for that to be exposed.)

What does God think about it? One appeal of Christianity is that God is going to set things right eventually. Part of Giuseppe Verdi's dramatic and beautiful requiem (1874) deals with God's final judgment:

The great book shall be unfurled,
Whereby God shall judge the world;
What was distant shall be near,
What was hidden shall be clear.

New life

Some of us Christians became believers by conventional means of a church service, some can't remember a specific point in time when it happened . . and some of us were on a rocky road when we called out to God.

For some in God's family, that road was very rocky. These prisoners (video) were saved to new life in Christ right in the midst of harsh circumstances. What is so compelling as a true and dramatic life story? 

However God meets you in your own life, your spirit is re-born when you respond to Jesus. Be thrilled with the life change these prisoners have.

Os speaks

Philosopher Os Guinness, now 83 years old, wrote or edited 30 books and has been a voice of influence for decades. He thinks and speaks about us, the people of Western Civilization, and how our culture is shaped by Christianity. 

From his talk last week at ARC's London conference:

• Lots of people are very uncomfortable with talking about religion, but it affects what everyone thinks and does
• A combination of Islamism and cultural Marxism has been trying to replace Christian faith (for over a hundred years)
• It has failed; it isn't good enough to be the foundation of our culture; it doesn't work
• Christianity is indispensable to our way of life, agreeing with Christian Ayaan, atheist R. Dawkins, and atheist T. Holland
• But we need leaders who go beyond mere approval of Christian principles - to genuine, powerful faith
  

 

Atheism 👎2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Influencers who now express approval of Christianity or religion also include Tom Holland and Richard Dawkins (both are still atheists to my knowledge). It's good to see the tone of our culture pull back from hostility to God. It means less pressure against young people who want to believe.

Intellectuals who have actually converted to Christianity from atheism include Ayaan Hirsi Ali  and her husband, historian Niall Ferguson, formerly British but now in America. They and their two sons were baptized in the Anglican Church in 2023.

"Though Ferguson sees profoundly the crisis of our times . . brought about by the abandonment of Christianity, this is not primarily a political conversion. 

"He is, in his own words, a lapsed atheist. Much more important, he's a believing Christian. . . It’s a deeply personal and deliberate turn to faith by a man who was formerly a lifelong atheist . . ."

Here's a video of Dr. Ferguson from 2019:

Atheism 👎

It's just not enough to claim that there's no God. That's atheism and materialism. It makes the claim that nothing except the material world exists, that our world and everything on it came into existence by natural laws, natural selection, random variations.

Human beings need more. Non-material things like love, purpose, and goodness drive our lives. Society needs more, too. The "vibe shift" in our country may includes not only political and attitude changes, but also a growing desire to look for God👍

As a New York Times and The Free Press writer reports, "If there is not yet a true religious revival in the Western world, there is clearly a desire for one . . the rising generation appears more religious than its predecessors."

 

Podcaster Joe Rogan (photo)used to mock Christianity, but just a year ago he said "We need Jesus." Last summer Elon Musk said "I'm actually a big believer in the principles of Christianity" and called for believers to bravely stand up for what is fair and right.

from "How Intellectuals Found God" 

(cont'd tomorrow)