A wise person hungers for truth, while the fool feeds on trash. Prov. 15:14
And what does that say about so much of our modern newspapers and the society they market to?
Ancient wisdom and modern news
August 29th, 2010Torah as changing bones
August 11th, 2010I was just thinking about how can the Torah be eternal, like the Tanakh says, and yet have changing iterations (eg Abraham – if you want to count that, then the Sinai covenant, then alterations ready for the land in Deuteronomy, and then the change in emphasis brought in by Yeshua), and the best analogy I have come up with is that the same God who gave Torah is the same God who made our bones. Our bones always stay in the same position and perform the same function, but when our lifestyle changes, the bones will totally rebuild themselves to fit the circumstances. So if you go from a sedentary lifestyle or job to something not so sedentary your bones will quickly change shape to fit the new circumstances. Torah is just like that. This is why Yeshua can uphold the law (see Matthew 5) and yet alter some parts of the practice of it, and the early church followed in his footsteps with the adjustments they made to deal with fellowship and eating with Gentiles who had come to faith in Yeshua. Think about it, and I think you will like the analogy….
No Amen
July 11th, 2010Have you ever heard a sermon that you really felt you couldn’t say ‘Amen’ to?
I did today. It’s the joys of having an interregnum in the local church. Retired and other local priests take in turns to take the service, and we have what we might call ‘the battle of the sermons’. When we have the charismatic evangelical priest (definitely more my cup of tea) then we get sermons about the power of the Spirit, and we even had a sermon a few weeks ago that mentioned being ‘born again’ and relationship with Jesus – shock horror.
Then we have a more recent offering from another priest whose favourite themes are the environment and various applications to modern situations. Today was typical – from the characters in the reading (the story of the Good Samaritan) we get lessons on the way that big corporations are laying waste to creation round the world, accompanied by extensive quotes from Native Indian letters to US presidents in the last century. I’m all for caring for creation, but great prominence was given to pagan views of the world rather than Christian ones.
But the bit that really had my jaw on the floor and me shaking my head was when he said something like ‘And religion too has it’s dirty tricks department…. using guilt…. It’s called ‘being saved’….. It is totally selfish – my soul is saved rather than concern for the world’ .
This is what happens when our church leaders loose their biblical roots. The outer shell of Christianity might be retained, but it is stuffed full of hollowness or of pagan beliefs – words and priorities and concepts are redefined and re-prioritized until pagan texts get more prominence than the core Christ-honouring and saving faith passed down from our spiritual forefathers and mothers.
I think it was the same priest who several months ago in a similar creation-care themed sermon quoted a German theologian who said of the incarnation that ‘Christ was the mutation of evolution’ . But more on that later….
Stupid ASA decision
April 20th, 2010The Advertising Standards Authority – supposed to be non-political – has made a very stupid political decision, banning the Israeli Tourism ministry from using a picture of the Wailing Wall (the remains of Herod’s Temple from Jesus’ time) in their brochures.
Dear Sir, I am emailing about the ridiculous decision made by the ASA regarding the Israeli tourism brochure. Whilst the political situation regarding Jerusalem is complex, there are several points to be made
Regarding Eastern Jerusalem as not part of Israel proper is understandable – however, it seems that the ASA decision in effect pre-empts the final-status discussions regarding the situation of Jerusalem.
The fact that Jerusalem is a disputed city is well known. However, any brochure that neglected to show the holiest site in a nations ancient history is, as the Israeli ministry contended, itself essentially dishonest and a distortion of truth. The picture in question is of the Temple Mount and the Wailing Wall, the holiest point for Jewish / Israeli life for 3 MILLENIA!
Granted the site is disputed, but surely the fact that it is well-known, dare I say universally known that there is a situation wherein the Jewish Wailing Wall and the Mosques on the Temple Mount are a flashpoint, so anyone looking at the picture is likely to have that understanding in mind, and it is even more reasonable for the Israeli tourist ministry to assume that this would be understood.
So, the situation is that a complaint (a single complaint, I understand) was made, and I am writing because it seems to me that the ASA has upheld a tendentious line of argument. Given the well-known situation at the Temple Mount site, and the fact that this was not some political assertion about the situation, but a tourist brochure using a photo of an iconic site to advertise the sights of the country, surely a lot more caution would have been in order before the ASA made such a politically charged decision.
The ASA upheld this single complaint, so here is my single complaint against that decision – but I strongly suspect it won’t be the only one. I strongly urge the ASA to revise this highly flawed decision
Yours sincerely
Nathanael Lewis
Young Caves, Old Misconceptions – Event
April 13th, 2010A former head of the worlds first Speleological Institute (Speleology means the study of caves), is coming to speak in Newcastle on May 6th. Yes, that is the election night, so if you want to avoid the fever between voting and watching the results come out, this might be just the distraction you are looking for. A dry old talk about caves? Well, actually dry and old are the last words to describe this talk. Wet and young is more appropriate by far! Dr Emil Silvestru hails from Romania, where he earned his PhD, and headed up that Speleological Institute, but now lives and works in Canada. He has several areas of expertise, including karstology (the study of a spectacular form of limestone and dolomite formations), and cave glaciology. During his time he has published over 40 articles in science journals as well as having written ‘The Cave Book’ and co-authored several other books, and oh yes – he became a young-earth creationist – hence old and dry are not the words to use about the talk he is giving, since it involves demonstrating that the timescales usually used to depict the formation of caves are wrong, due mainly to the effects of the global flood described in Genesis. And since a large proportion of the world’s caves are in Karst areas, he is well placed to talk on the topic.
For more information on the talk you can see here – this is the site of the group hosting Dr Silvestru. For more on Dr Silvestru, see here including details of his scientific publications.
The event details are
7:30pm Thursday 6th May.
St Stephen’s Church, Clumber Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 7ST
Here is a map – which includes links for directions for those coming from the South and the North (aren’t one-way systems fun!)
Hope to see you there!
Comments policy
April 12th, 2010Grand sounding, but – here goes. Nothing offensive or gratuitous will be posted (except gratuitous pandering of my ego – and maybe not even then) and anything of that nature, or that looks remotely like spam will be promptly deleted.
Beauty Bare – An Easter Song
April 4th, 2010O perfect love, that sets me free
O sacrifice that speaks to me
Of my Fathers love and care
That lays God’s beauty bare
O my soul, feast on this
Make his love your bliss
Tender God who with fierce fire
Endured hell to lift me higher
A fighting love that drove the Son
To suffer till heaven’s wrath is done
And in his flesh sin’s shame is turned
To glory, as good for evil God returned
Guardian does it again!
March 18th, 2010The Guardian does it again. It seems like they have managed to twist reality with selective facts in their article ‘Jerusalem issue ‘a red line’ says Jordan’s king’ on 17 March 2010. Admittedly it was about Arab reactions to an event, but even so…. talk about one-sided. The event in question is the rebuilding of a synagogue on a site where there had been a synagogue 1800 years ago. (The article says 17th Century, and it is true that a synagogue was rebuilt at that time, and has been destroyed and rebuilt several times since then, but the history goes way back, to more than 300 years before Mohammed and Islam). It reports only that the Palestinians and Muslims are regarding this as a great provocation and an ‘attack on Muslim holy sites’ and agitating for action, stirring up riots over the issue (Hamas at the forefront). There is no balance to the article – nothing about the reality of the situation – that a rebuilding of an ancient synagogue most recently destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948, at the heart of the Jewish quarter of the city, 700 metres from the supposedly ‘under threat’ Al Aqsa mosque that Muslims are being urged to defend. Although even in the Guardian article, you can see that the riots are an orchestrated attack. This is just like the Infitada that started when Israel opened a second tunnel entrance for some archaeological digs (with prior agreement with the Palestinians) a long way from the disputed holy site, with pre-arranged rocks ready for ‘spontaneous riots’. What Arafat has done at least once, Hamas is trying to repeat again…. And the Guardian is virtually repeating the propaganda verbatim by the looks of it.
Fishy breath and sexy evolution
February 12th, 2010Let’s talk about the evolution of fish to amphibians. I got to thinking, let’s just isolate one factor – change in breathing from gills to lungs, from underwater breathing to air breathing. If you have some kind of half-way stage, then I’d say you have a survival of the fittest problem. According to evolutionary theory, as I understand it, the first amphibians and their immediate predecessors would have no land or air based predators. So at the halfway stage, Mr Fish-amphibian is water-based but somewhat restricted to surface or near surface environments. That rather restricts his movement and range. If I was a fish predator, that means that I don’t need to waste energy chasing regular fish, who can go to the surface, or evade me to the deeps, all I need to do is feast on those critters at the surface who can’t escape in 3D, only in 2 dimensions – easy meat. Or, if our half fish-half amphibian friend was a predator, he has a distinct disadvantage, because he is limited only to the near-surface area. Evading him is easy, advantage to fish who can swim deep to avoid being lunch – one hungry surface-tied predator. Either way, I don’t think that the survival of the fittest test is passed, natural selection leads to extinction of the ‘half-and-half’ creature.
Kind of reminds me of my biology teacher back in the day at Spalding Grammar School. Mr Searle by name, surly (and crude) by nature. I have never forgotten his lesson on the evolution of sexual intercourse. It went like this. Amphibians come fully out on to land. Problem is that Mrs reptile’s eggs dried out in the sun. So she put a calcium shell round them to stop them drying out. ‘That’s no good’ says Mr Reptile, ‘my sperm are going to need ruddy pneumatic drills to get in there!’ So Mr and Mrs Reptile go into deep thought mode over this vexing problem, and then a big grin spreads over Mr Reptile’s face. ‘I know’ he says, ‘Let’s have a bit of leg-over’.
And that was it.
I kid you not.
And it probably succinctly encapsulates all of the problems with the development of sexual intercourse in evolutionary theory.
I sure hope the teaching of evolution in biology has improved at Spalding Grammar School since my day.
Oh, wait, I’m not sure I do hope that……
Roswell and God
February 7th, 2010I’ve been watching the last episodes of Roswell series 2. Not a good use of my time I’ll admit, but the closing line of the final episode struck me. Here’s Max Evans, the steely leader making hard moral choices, he’s just banished his pregnant wife whom he has learned killed a good friend as part of a grand betrayal to the land of his enemies, and then when asked ‘What are we going to do now?’ answers ‘I am going to save my son’ (from his enemies). Determined, moral, natural. But it occurred to me to contrast it with God’s response to our grand betrayal, who answered the same question by saying ‘I am going to give up my son to save his enemies’. So why do I spend my time watching Roswell, rather than seeking this great King and Father? Go figure…..