Lincoln, Luther, and King

I recently ran across a blog written by a person who had lost their faith. They were talking about prayer and stated, "It became obvious to me that I was talking to the air- no answers, no response of any kind...Being a scientist, I dug into the literature for any studies on the efficacy of prayer. Lo and behold, there were actual, controlled studies that had been done. And the result? Drum roll, please….. nada, nil, zip, zilch, zero… no efficacy at all." Below was my response.

I hate Santa Claus. Every year when Christmas comes around, I can't help but think that Santa is next to the devil. Before you flame me, please realize I'm not saying that Santa is bad, or that "Saint" Nicholas was not a good, godly man.

"If God didn't want us to eat cows, why'd he make them out of beef?" - Michael Tobias Vegetarian and Vegan are all the rage today. It's considered politically correct to eat no meat, since we now seem to care about animal's feelings more than we care about unborn humans. This, despite the fact that God specifically stated after Noah's flood that he has given us animal meat for food. Ironically, Mister Rogers, a vegetarian, died of stomach cancer at age 75.

Want to evangelize during "Halloween"? Need a Christian Pumpkin idea? Here's how to carve your own Jesus Defeats Death pumpkin. I made this pumpkin in 2002 using the 3-shade method of pumpkin carving. You can actually do this with any picture by using a picture editor to convert your picture to 3-tone (white/gray/black). When you actually carve your pumpkin, you carve just the outer skin off for the gray areas, and carve all the way through to the inside of the pumpkin for the white areas. Tip: As you expose pumpkin flesh, it immediately starts to dehydrate and shrink. I'd suggest after carving your pumpkin, to lightly coat exposed areas with some clear coating like petroleum jelly to preserve your pumpkin (AS LONG AS WHATEVER YOU USE IS NOT FLAMMABLE!)

Check out this resource on logically defending the faith . The great thing about this resource is in how it utilizes questions to get to the heart of the issue. (See the "Toolbox of questions" section) Another equally good resource is an article entitled "Back to School Toolbox" by Dr. Dan Karow.

I personally don't celebrate Halloween. Since Jesus came to give us life and light (guidance) in this world, I can no longer in good conscience participate in a holiday that celebrates death and darkness (and every evil thing conceivable). Here in Detroit folks use it as an excuse for vandalism the night before Halloween, calling it "Devil's night", despite the fact that the night belongs to (and exists because of) God. So on October 31, I encourage people to celebrate something better - "Reformation Day."

Since one of my pet peeves is undefined acronyms, please be advised that CCM in this post stands for "Contemporary Christian Music". Satire mode on. Today I'm Martin Luther and Paul the Apostle combined. I’ve finally figured it out! I’ve discovered the key to 21st century Christianity! Yes! I’ve discovered that to be a spiritual role model in the church that Jesus Christ started 1977 years ago, you have to be sexy ! That’s right! Just look at all the beautiful Christian music artists out there. Oooh they’re hot! Boy, I could just watch them onstage all day. Forget what they’re singing…I just want to watch them! They are sizz-lin’! You see, we’ve finally discovered that the key to Christianity is outward appearance . The world’s been saying it all along, and we’re finally catching on. To become great in the kingdom of God, you gotta be SEXY!

I'd just like to point out that my post from yesterday was intended to portray one side of an issue. As a comment to the post astutely pointed out, using skits etc. can be an effective means to communicate truth. Personally, I am not against using anything that can be an effective tool to evangelize and make disciples of Jesus Christ in our modern culture. (My own sister is part of a Christian mime ministry called Mimeistry.) But I have to qualify that statement. In my mind, when the church of Jesus Christ resorts to Bingo nights, lotteries, 50/50 tickets, serving beer, playing Fear Factor, and Friday night fish frys, we are inadvertently communicating that the gospel of Jesus Christ is irrelevant. Instead we should be communicating the gospel of Jesus Christ as the "hook". When we have to invite our neighbors to a church-sponsored Super Bowl Bash instead of a Bible study, this implies the Bible is superfluous to Christianity. When we woo non-Christians with fun and games

A post at Cerulean Sanctum on “ Spiritainment ” brings up an interesting topic. A topic that puts me in Martin Luther mode. I’m sorry this is going to be a long post. But this is actually a sore spot for me after weathering a church split a few years ago. I am now of the opinion that the majority of American Christians, though sincere, have very little depth to their roots. Sure, we’re all smiles and hugs and love when the winds are fair. But when adversity comes, we wither, flee, give up, stop attending church, go away, fail to make a stand, and give in to satanic pressure like a wet paper bag. We live in a modern culture where our god is no longer the God who created the universe. Instead, our god is our own convenience. And the enemy of our souls is no longer the devil and his worldly systems. Instead, the enemy is offending someone. The unpardonable sin of the 21st century is to offend a church-goer in any way. And I’m not talking about the kind of offense that Paul mentioned whe

Stunning new animation has been developed that visualizes the automated molecular machinery which Jesus Christ has created, and on which your life depends. Do you want scientific evidence for the existence of God? Well, first you must be honest with yourself about the information you observe, instead of artifically imposing naturalistic limits on the origin of information-rich systems. Limiting our explanatory powers to such naturalistic causes cannot account for the existence of a PC or Ford F-150, because these systems required intelligent designers to produce them. In the same way, we must not presume that an explanation that invokes intelligent design cannot account for the similarly sophisticated systems found in molecular biology. Besides, there is no empirical scientific evidence proving that life  did not have a designer. So keep your mind open to the possibility as you watch this video, and ask yourself if the existence of these systems makes sense from an evolutionary worl

We're all familiar with the caveman myth. You know, the idea that the earliest humans all lived in caves, carried clubs, wore animal skins hung on one shoulder, and grunted back and forth to each other with intelligence only a bit higher than apes. The ancients were smarter than a lot of folks give them credit for being. Not every ancient man lived in a cave and scratched his flea-infested armpit with hairy, dung-covered fingers - it just so happens that other homes the ancients lived in didn't last as long as the caves. So if the oldest human habitations we discover are caves, then all I can say is...duh! Do you expect an 5,000-yr-old straw house or animal-skin tent to still be standing in Mesopotamia? (Or a wood boat on Mt. Ararat?)

The week is the only unit of ancient time that has no explainable origin other than God himself. The origin of the 7-day week can only be attributed to 'religion' - to God's instruction to mankind to rest every 7th day. The 7-day week is not of natural origin, because there is no observable natural pattern to base it on. As we attempt to find some natural occurrence to base a week on, we might as well choose a 5-day week or an 11-day week. The 7-day week just doesn't make sense from any naturally observable phenomena. Some have theorized that the 7-day week is based on the observation of 7 "wanderer planets" (6 planets plus the moon thrown in for an even 7). This theory makes no sense. The ancients knew the difference between the moon and the planets. That's why the ancient month is based solely on the moon's cycle. To then turn around and include the moon as a wandering planet (and the basis for a 7-day week) would be double-counting the moon but si

In the article Would Immortality be Ethical, it is stated, "...in the United States, the right to life is considered something that every person is entitled to..." This statement is incorrect because the United States judiciary (no, not the legislature) has declared an entire class of persons to be non-citizens, and therefore not protected under the constitutional rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The cumulative number of these non-citizen persons whose lives we have collectively murdered in the U.S. exceeds 33 million. UPDATE: 50 million. This makes the holocaust look like a walk in the park. I am speaking of the unborn - killed not to save the life of a mother, but killed for the sake of convenience. It is another example of using the exception (saving a handful of women who would die from illegal abortions) to justify the rule (abortion for convenience). No wonder the wrath of God, prophesied in the book of Revelation, is coming.