Aug 10, 2018 | Apologetics, Explanatory Power
Back in 1968 as the sexual revolution was raging, Pope Paul VI wrote a profoundly counter-cultural encyclical called Humanae Vitae. One of the things that made it so profound (and something completely missed by the Evangelical leaders of the day) was its appeal to natural law, or telos in nature. If you are not familiar with the word telos, in Greek it means purpose, and it was used as an important means of understanding the world for the ancient Greeks, especially Aristotle. Evolution News recently had a piece that connected the Pope’s arguments of telos in nature, and Intelligent Design (ID). The latter is a very simple, biblical, assertion that there is evidence of design in nature, and thus a designer. I know, shocking! I’ll explain why ID, and thus telos, is so “controversial” in a moment, but Paul tells us in Romans 1 that God, thus design, thus telos is obvious from his creation:
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 that people are without excuse.
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Aug 4, 2018 | Apologetics
I’d never heard of this movie with Ben Stiller until a few days ago, and when I read the premise and learned it was on Amazon Prime I figured we’d give it a go. Brad’s Status is about a 50-something middle class man watching his only son explore college, Harvard no less, before he leaves the nest. The title of the movie has to do with Brad’s obsession with his own status in life, or the lack thereof. And an obsession it is. He sees everything in his life as an indictment of his own failure to live up to his successful college friends who seem to “have it all.” If only he “had it all” he’d be just as happy and fulfilled as he thinks they are. Of course they’re not, which only adds to the irony of his obsession.
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Jul 31, 2018 | Parents and Family
When I saw the announcement of our latest Supreme Court Justice nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, I couldn’t help notice that this practicing Catholic family had only two kids, daughters. As precious and cute as they were, I wondered why only two. Not too many years past, Catholic families were known for their large families, but in the 21st century two kids is the norm. In fact, 40 years ago the number of families with four children (40%) was the same as the number of families today that have two (41%). That is a striking turn around. Why might this be? One could point to any number of causes, but the triumph of secularism has to be at the top of the list, and Christians have too easily adapted to the secular norm.
It so happens that July 25 was the anniversary of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI’s “encyclical on the integrity of love and the appropriate means of family planning.” Not too many days prior to the 25th I read a sad, to me, commentary on the state of child bearing in 2018 America titled, “The Extinction of the Middle Child.” I’m a middle child, and I guess we’re going extinct. The author, from a strictly secular perspective, bemoans the implications of what one less child in a family means for American society. Some years back, I read an article about the implications for extended families that have two verses three children, and how fewer cousins means fewer significant relationships to support that family. And it’s not only relational issues in the family that feel the impact of fewer children, but in a liberal welfare state, fewer with younger people there are not enough income earners to take care of the old who can no longer earn.
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Mar 10, 2018 | Culture
You can tell from the title of this post, that I won’t be running for political office anytime soon. What’s wrong with public schools? Why would I think they should be abolished? Many would call me crazy, but my argument is based on the first amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . .” The public schools have an established religion, the religion of secularism/agnosticism, and thus they are unconstitutional. On second thought, maybe I will run for office. That would be a great campaign slogan! But I’m deadly serious. The whole idea of public schools (i.e., government schools) in a pluralistic society is problematic. Why?
In a pluralistic society God must be bracketed as persona-non-grata (to keep the government appearance of neutrality to all the different religions and worldviews), so the schools are promoting a worldview that is hostile to Christianity, or any other religion for that matter. And the idea that government schools can be “neutral” to all religions and worldview is so obviously false it’s a wonder anyone has ever believed it. But believe it they have, and most still do. It’s not that the idea of a “secular” space in society that allows for people of all religions to get along by putting their religion on the shelf is a bad thing in itself. In fact, in most of our interactions with our fellow citizens it’s a very good thing. But the presumption that we could apply it to the education of our children is naive, dangerously so.
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Oct 8, 2017 | Culture
When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, the big concern and among fear-mongering apocalyptics was over-population. One best-seller at the time, published in 1968 by Stanford University Professor Paul Ehrlich, was subtly titled The Population Bomb. It predicted that there would be starvation on a mass scale by the 1980s because there would just be too many people. He starts his book this way:
The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate . . .
Not only did Ehrlich’s hysterical predictions prove laughably false, in the 21st century demographers are telling us the exact opposite is the problem. Population decline is now the fear. All over the Western and much of the Asian world, women are not having enough children to replace current populations. Unlike the apocalyptic fear-mongers (yes, that in includes you, Al Gore) who see human beings as leaches on society and the natural world, demographers understand that human beings are a net resource; fewer human beings, fewer resources. More human beings, more resources.
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