Ranting about blue laws

Two Sundays ago, I was at Kroger shopping for a few last minute items in preparation for the Saints game. Some friends were coming over, and I decided to grab a few beers. But alas! I had forgotten. No beer sales on Sunday.

Does anyone understand the logic behind blue laws? Why is alcohol singled out and restricted? Is it more sinful to drink on Sunday than on any other day of the week? If these laws are religiously motivated (and I know they originally were), is it not a violation of church and state to keep them? Why is the government interfering with my personal choices? And what about the rationale behind the prohibition of hard liquor and wine in some counties? Why does the grocery store in other counties have to have a separate store for selling wine and liquor?

So there you go. A lot of questions about some silly laws that I wish my neck of Mississippi would get rid of. Come on, Mississippi. Let’s repeal.

Why I Came To Accept Evolution

When I first started to read about how faith and evolution relate to one another, I found a book by Darrell R. Falk called Coming To Peace With Science:  Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Science. This was one of the most readable books I discovered when it came to presenting the laymen with evidence for evolution, and it was there that I came across one of the most convincing proofs for evolution that helped me embrace common descent.

The unique mammals of Australia are almost exclusively marsupial, i.e., they give birth to their offspring early and incubate them in pouches. At the time that Australia broke away from Antarctica and South America, the small mammals that existed were marsupials, according to the fossil record from that time, which is admittedly pretty scarce. The fossil record from South America indicates that most animals were placental, and today all species there, with the exception of possums, are placental.

What is interesting is that in Australia, there is an animal called Mymecobius uniquely fit for finding and eating ants. It has a long snout, strong paws for digging through mounds, and flat teeth suited to chewing ants. South America has the anteater, of course, with similar features but no pouch.

    

Australia has the marsupial wombat; South America the placental groundhog. Australia has marsupial squirrel-like animals, some that fly. Australia has been home to the Tasmanian wolf (now exstinct), a marsupial; rabbit-like marsupials; marsupial mice and moles; and at one time, it even had a marsupial cat. The rest of the world has these animals, of course, but they are placental.

     

(Wombat)                                                                                                      (Hedgehog)

Common descent explains this situation. As the original marsupial mammals met a specific environment, they changed to adapt, but they remained marsupial. Conversely, as the original placentals of South America or North America met similar environments, they also changed to adapt, many of them turning out to have very similar bodies to their counterparts in Australia, but they remained placental.

Now, if not evolution, then what? Am I to honestly believe that God made one wolf in North America with a placenta and another wolf in Australia with a pouch? Or that god made the wolf “kind” capable of developing pouches? Does anyone have more patience than I to search Answers In Genesis to get a reply?

Meeting With the Mormons, Some Impressions

I just finished the last of four or five meetings with the Mormons. Here are some of my thoughts from our conversations:

1. From the beginning, I tried to take charge of the meetings. I was not interested in hearing a pre-packaged message or being led through a series of questions that they had been trained to ask. From the outset, I set the amount of time I was willing to meet with them, and I asked the questions. The advantage to this approach was that it put us on equal footing. I was not in the position of being asked questions whose answers and scripture citations they had been diligently trained to know. They were being put on the spot, and I got more natural conversation.

2. I received and talked to them courteously. I asked them questions about themselves and tried to learn about the mechanics of what a Mormon missionary does. If you do a quick search on the internet, it won’t take long before you find someone talking about how annoying the Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses are and how someone relished slamming the door in their faces. What gives anyone the right, however, to treat another human being with rudeness, regardless of how obtrusive or annoying his missionary efforts may be? Doesn’t the gospel teach us to treat others with kindness? Doesn’t it tell us that Mormons, too, are in need of the love and forgiveness of Christ?

3. I focused at first on the Book of Mormon. My plan was to read it book by book and raise my objections. So I started with 1 Nephi and was struck by its total inauthenticity. I objected to the Mormons about the strangeness that a book written (or “translated”) in the 1800’s would use the Old English of the King James Version; that it failed at capturing that Old English; and that some of the names (“Sam”) did not exactly seem Hebrew. The main point that I pushed again and again was that the Book of Mormon was given to the LDS by a single man. No one else read the plates. The Bible, on the other hand, was definitely written by different authors, and there were multiple witnesses to the event of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Ultimately, however, I did not have time to read the Book of Mormon and bring a point-by-point objection.

4. I pushed the Mormons to tell me just how the gospel or the church was corrupted from the time immediately after the apostles to the coming of Joseph Smith. I asked them to tell me how the Mormon church was different in doctrine from my own. Over and over, I heard, “We believe basically the same thing.” I queried them about God being a human at one time, about Jesus and Lucifer being brothers, and about the possibility of becoming a god of one’s own universe in the afterlife. They down-played these as things that are unclear or things that some Mormons believe and others do not. I got the impression that they were not being straight up with me, as if the goal was to convince me that Mormonism and orthodox Christianity are basically the same.

5. I tried to speak the gospel and say clearly what I believe it means.

I am praying for these guys, hoping that God will use something out of what was said for good. Ultimately, we agreed that there was no chance of progress and we parted ways amicably.

What are your experiences with the Mormons?

Is there such a thing as a Christian Sabbath?

The Westminster Confession of Faith says this about the Sabbath:

[God] has particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week: and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called the Lord’s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath. (WCF 21.17)

What I want to examine in this post is the scriptural basis for stating that the Sabbath was moved from Saturday to Sunday. The WCF cites the following verses:

¹Now about the collection for God’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. ²On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. (1 Corinthians 16:1-2)

⁷On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. (Acts 20:7)

¹⁰On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet… (Revelation 1:10)

These passages do indeed indicate that the churches in Galatia, Corinth, and Ephesus were worshipping on the first day of the week, but that is all. They say nothing about the Sabbath itself being moved. It seems strange to me that the WCF can make so bold a claim based on such scanty, non-conclusive evidence. To be sure, they have ample evidence in the Old Testament that the Sabbath is a perpetual ordinance:

¹⁶ The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. ¹⁷ It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.’ (Exodus 31:16-17)

Does the above reference apply to Christians, however? Or just to Israelites? And is “forever” to be taken literally, or simply to mean that this is an ordinance that all Israelite generations are to observe?

The references to the Old Testament are the strongest points of the WCF, in my opinion. The Sabbath is indeed a creation ordinance, and it is found in the ten commandments. However, I find it utterly unconvincing that the New Testament teaches that the Sabbath was moved to Sunday. The New Testament has a great deal to say about whether circumcision and the other ceremonial ordinances of the Law still apply, and the answer is an emphatic no. Is the Sabbath included in these Old Testament observances that no longer apply? The following passage from Colossians 2 seems to be saying that very thing:

¹³When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, ¹⁴having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. ¹⁶Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Emphases are mine.)

When the conflict over the observation of the Law came to a head, the church in Jerusalem rendered the following judgment:

²⁸It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: ²⁹You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.” (Acts 15:28-29)

Notice they did not require them to observe the Sabbath. It is true that they do not mention a lot of things from the Law (like murder, theft, etc.), which are obviously still applicable, so perhaps this is not a valid point. I would think, however, that the observance of the Sabbath would have been one of those things that were foreign to Gentile converts and that the proponents of the Law were requiring them to observe.

In conclusion, it seems far from certain that the Lord’s Day is synonomous to the Sabbath. In fact, the Colossians passage seems to indicate that its observance is optional, but I am not a theologian. Care to add your two cents?

A question for Old Earth Creationists who reject evolution…

Why do you accept an old earth and not evolution? Is it for scriptural reasons? Scientific objections?

Saint Quadratus

While working through the historical fiction novel Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar, I noted with interest that Hadrian says a Christian bishop named Quadratus presented him a defense of the Christian faith, prompting him to learn about the founder of this “sect.” I wasn’t sure if that was fiction or fact, so I searched that most reliable of sources, Wikipedia, and found an entry for Saint Quadratus of Athens. The earlier Christian historian Eusebius wrote that he was a disciple of the original twelve apostles, and the Eastern Orthodox Church counts him among the original seventy apostles of Luke 10, which can’t be true since he gave his defence in 124 or 125. This defense is not extant, except for the following small passage:

1 After Trajan had reigned for nineteen and a half years Aelius Adrian became his successor in the empire. To him Quadratus addressed a discourse containing an apology for our religion, because certain wicked men had attempted to trouble the Christians. The work is still in the hands of a great many of the brethren, as also in our own, and furnishes clear proofs of the man’s understanding and of his apostolic orthodox. 2 He himself reveals the early date at which he lived in the following words: “But the works of our Saviour were always present, for they were genuine:-those that were healed, and those that were raised from the dead, who were seen not only when they were healed and when they were raised, but were also always present; and not merely while the Saviour was on earth, but also after his death, they were alive for quite a while, so that some of them lived even to our day.” Such then was Quadratus.

Fascinating. I love church history, especially that period right after the apostles. Imagine knowing someone whom Jesus raised from the dead!

The Sinner’s Prayer In Four Words Or Less

I suddenly became aware of the condition of my soul at twelve years old. I vividly recall lying on my back during many long nights, working my way through the sinner’s prayer that I had learned from my dad, and trying to understand its various elements. What does faith mean? What does it mean for Jesus to be a savior and lord? Thankfully, God guided me through my inner turmoils to an understanding of what salvation means.

However, there were a few unhelpful folks along the way. All you preachers who compared faith to sitting on a chair and trusting that it would hold you up–you should know that you didn’t really help me at all. I was only confused about how to put that same sort of trust in Jesus. How do I get from trusting a chair to trusting Jesus? Maybe if I concentrated really hard and somehow exercised faith in Jesus.

Oh, and all you guys who describe the sinner’s prayer in terms of accepting Jesus into your heart, please stop. Stop it right now. What the heck does that even mean? How does inviting Jesus to come live in your heart equal looking to Jesus for your forgiveness? Where in the Bible do any of the apostles invite their hearers to just ask Jesus into their hearts? You are only confusing little boys and girls by using such meaningless imagery.

I shake my head now as I remember how confused I was over something so simple. Thankfully, the Bible (of all things) cleared it up. What did the tax collector say when he was weighed down by all his sin? “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Seven little words, all of them easy to understand. What does Paul say? “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).  Gone are the mysteries of just how we exercise this vague thing called “sitting-on-a-chair faith” when one understands that all that it means is that you are asking for mercy.

I love the movie Luther. There is a scene at the beginning where Martin Luther is struggling with his sin before the unrelenting wrath of God. His priest and mentor hands him a cross and commands him to pray, “I’m yours. Save me.” I like that. I’m yours; save me.

19 Things I’m Thankful For

…in no particular order.

1. My wife, who is my best friend, helper, confidante, and adviser

2. Coffee

3. Imported Beer

4. Inexpensive (though not cheap) wine

5. Hot showers

6. Good stories

7. My baby boy, who smiles everyday when I come home

8. Winter clothes

9. C. S. Lewis

10. The blogosphere

11. Regina Spector

12. My job as a teacher, that allows me to keep on learning

13. Netflix

14. The library

15. The power of myth

16. All the holidays that I have off as a teacher.

17. The church calendar

18. Chick-fil-a chocolate milkshakes

19. Celtic music

James 1:17:  Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Does Evolution Lead To Racism?

YE creationist blogger Sirius Knotts has posted about a recent case of racism in my home state of Louisiana. I completely agree with him on the ugliness of this sin, but I find his concluding paragraph a bit confusing.

I think we need to toss the word “race” into the garbage can.  The idea of human races is an evolutionary by-product. The Bible teaches that there is only one human race, born of Adam and Eve.

In another post on interracial marriage, Sirius does an excellent job showing that there is no scriptural basis for racism, despite the many attempts by others to misuse various passages to justify this sin. However, he makes a similar comment about evolution in one of the comments, when he writes:

I’m not sure what we expect here. We teach evolution in our schools exclusively which teaches that there are human races and that we’re in competition with one another. All of the tolerance teaching on the planet cannot overcome what we teach them about people groups in the name of science. We lay the foundation for racism in our science classrooms.

Is this a fair criticism of evolution? Is there a necessary connection between evolution and racism? Absolutely not.

In the first place, evolution is an explanation of how the variety of life came to exist. It is not a code of morality. We do not determine what is right or wrong based on what we see in the natural world. For example, some animals kill their own young; others assert their dominance over other males by sexually forcing themselves upon them. This obviously does not have anything to say about how we ought to treat other people. To assert that these phenomena occur is to merely describe what happens in nature, not to condone the behavior. We should not treat evolution any differently.

Second, both evolutionists and young earth creationists alike believe that all human beings have a common ancestor. YECs believe in two original human beings, and evolutionists believe in an original group from which we all come. Therefore, both groups can argue against racism by asserting that all of humanity is of the same blood. It can even be asserted that there is hardly any difference in our DNA.

Though the differences among red, yellow, black and white are small, there are still differences. I would venture to say that both YECs and evolutionists explain these differences through the separation of various groups and the subsequent changes that took place over time. To say that we should throw the term “race” in the garbage can is, I think, too sweeping a statement to make. Racial distinctions are both apparent and, in the field of medicine, are helpful in understanding diseases that affect certain races but not others. If by “race,” we mean separate species, then yes, throw that understanding in the trash. But I don’t think anyone believes that.

Let’s remember that YECs (at least those who adhere to AIG) do in fact believe in survival of the fittest and in change over time, which they term microevolution. It puzzles me therefore to read Sirius’ comment faulting evolution for leading to racism because it teaches that we are ”in competition with one another.”

Finally, before anyone starts giving me examples of people who used evolution to justify this monstrocity or another, let me remind him or her that just because someone uses a belief to justify his own racism does not mean that racism logically follows from that belief per se. We have had racism long before Darwin, and just as many people have used Christianity to justify this and a host of other sins.

Happy All Saints Day!

Before this year, I have never really celebrated Halloween. In fact, I was brought up with ideas of it originating from pagan, even Satanic practices. The church I am currently a member of wastes no energy making a righteous fuss over the holiday, but they do put on a Fall  (not a Halloween) Festival for the neighborhood that includes costumes, games, and candy. A lot of churches in my denomination host Reformation Day Parties, complete with pinning the 99 Thesis on the doors of the church of Wittenburg.

After reading a few posts from the Internet Monk, however, I realized that Halloween, or more specifically, All Saints Day, is a Christian holiday that celebrates the victory of the saints through Jesus Christ. It is a day to remember the souls of believers and of those whom God used in a mighty way to further his kingdom. Why would we not want to celebrate this?

Today, the baby was a little under the weather, and my wife graciously sent me off to church while she stayed with him alone. I decided to go to St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church instead of my home church because I knew that they observed the church calendar. How encouraging it was to remember the destiny of all saints! I’ll leave you with this passage from Revelation 7, part of which we read during the service.

⁹After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰And they cried out in a loud voice:
   ”Salvation belongs to our God,
   who sits on the throne,
   and to the Lamb.” ¹¹All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹²saying:
   ”Amen!
   Praise and glory
   and wisdom and thanks and honor
   and power and strength
   be to our God for ever and ever.
   Amen!”

 ¹³Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”

 ¹⁴I answered, “Sir, you know.”

   And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵Therefore,
   ”they are before the throne of God
      and serve him day and night in his temple;
   and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.
 ¹⁶Never again will they hunger;
      never again will they thirst.
   The sun will not beat upon them,
      nor any scorching heat.
 ¹⁷For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;
      he will lead them to springs of living water.
   And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”