This Blog Has Moved and Changed Names!

In my effort to upgrade and coordinate my efforts, all content from PerryAir has been moved to:

The True Horizon Blog

Please follow me over there and check out my associated website here:

True Horizon

Thanks for following!

Is The Sky Falling?

The following is the lead-in to an article entitled, "The Coming Evangelical Collapse," that appeared in the March 10, 2009 edition of The Christian Science Monitor. Just as background, the author, a guy named Michael Spencer (the "Internet Monk"), is a well-educated, orthodox Christian pastor and writer of one of the most widely read and highly respected religious blogsites in the world.

If this doesn't pique your interest in discipleship, I'm not sure what will. I would suggest going to read the article but if you don't have time, at least read this intro. My plan is to do a short series in response to this piece. It has been very thought-provoking for me. Here is a summary of Michael's prognostication. Check it out ...

"We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close."

Keynesian Theology

I'm no economist but I am familiar enough with the basics of economic theory to recognize when I'm being sold a bill of goods. My aim here is to point out that the economic solutions that have been rammed down our collective (pun intended) throats over the last few months with the promise of "keeping a financial crisis from becoming a catastrophe" (in the words of a famous politician) are rooted in an outlook that sounds awfully familiar to me. See if it all sounds familiar to you too ...

Let me begin by offering a quote from a real economist and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, Mr. Alan Reynolds, whose article on the financial stimuli and bailout programs, "Faith-Based Economics," appeared in National Review's February 9, 2009 issue. This is the pull quote from the piece that jumped off the page at me:

A theory that can explain everything explains nothing. If Keynesian theorists refuse to accept any evidence as contradicting their theory, they are practicing secular theology, not science

Mr. Reynolds' analysis of the economics behind the recent government spending extravaganza centers on the fact that the policies that have been implemented are based on the theorizing of John Maynard Keynes, an interventionist economist who was all the rage in the aftermath of the Great Depression. In the latter half of the 20th century however, when economists began to develop computer modeling and statistical analysis that allowed them to dig deep into the historical actions that were taken and determine the effects of those actions, Keynes' theory -- that governments should fight economic downturns with heavy spending -- were found to be detrimental to recovery and the general economic health of a nation. Keynesian economics it turns out, didn't work the way the experts claimed it did. It was Keynesian economics that led us into the stagflation of the 1970s.

By the 1990s, when our economy was booming, the claim by those who praised our success was that Keynesian "fiscal stimulus" and heavy spending of did not work and should be avoided. Interestingly, some who defended that view (Robert Rubin, Peter Orzag, and Douglas Elmendorf for example) in writing at the time, have since been tapped to be economic advisers, directors and managers in the Obama administration, and are leading the charge to implement Keynesian solutions -- the exact opposite strategy they previously denounced. Some of these individuals, who warned that the sky would fall with deficit spending of well below 5% of GDP under Reagan and Bush, have become cheerleaders for Obama's deficits that will grow to, and rapidly exceed, 10% of GDP!

So if Keynes' ideas have been proven not to work, why have those who had previously rejected them (when it was politically convenient to do so) suddenly seem to have not only reconsidered, but to have begun actively pushing policies that are derived from them? Why have Keynes' ideas found a sudden resurgence in recent months?

Even though economic circumstances have changed, those who desire centralized control of the world ignore or manipulate the story for their own purposes. Historical data becomes irrelevant because their ideology overrides all else. They already know what they want to do and believe -- who are we to confuse them with the facts? The perpetuation of their own power and control is the trump card that anchors their view of the world and the means they use to uphold it. Those who operate this way have elevated the primacy of power and influence into the religious affirmation of their own god-like status. They are the idol they believe in.

In other words, they are practicing theology, not science ... just like the Darwinists.

Darwinism is also a theory that can explain everything and therefore nothing. If gradualism doesn't work, insert punctuated equilibrium. If homology turns out not to explain common ancestry, assume genetics does the job -- even if you have to assume the common descent in order to prove it. If intricately interwoven systems appear in completely unrelated species, call it convergence. If complex biological systems appear to have been designed, attribute the ability to do so to a blind, purposeless process (natural selection) and never miss a beat. After all, everybody knows that Darwinism has to be true.

When human autonomy is your god and the answer to every question, evidence that your worldview defies actual reality becomes an inconvenient truth that is easy to ignore.

Finally, Some Good Pro-Life News!

Unfortunately, most of the discussion I've offered here has to be categorized as negative responses to the way things are headed in our culture on the value of human life. Not so this week! This past Thursday, Japanese researchers announced that a "Study of IPS Cells Draws Nearer To Finding Cures."

What are IPS cells? IPS is an acronym for Induced Pluripotent Stem cells. The diagram above gives a visual summary of the process involved, but the exciting thing about this technology is that it seems to offer the creation of pluripotent cells without the destruction of human embryos!

If you need a reminder of the definition of pluripotent, I discussed it earlier (here), but the gist of it is this:

• Totipotent are very early stem cells that are only available extremely early in the embryo's development (1-3 days) -- so early that they are the kind of cells that create complete human beings -- like twins. Though they have the ability to produce every kind of cell, these stem cells are nearly impossible to obtain or control.


• Pluripotent stem cells are the cells of a blastocyst that develop at 5-14 days and are capable of producing more than 200 different kinds of different cell/tissue types. Because of this wide range of possibility, these are highly sought after but require embryo destruction to obtain. They are hard to control.


• Multipotent stem cells have already differentiated into specific tissue types as fetal, cord blood, adult cells. Because they are already differentiaed they are easier to control and can be obtained without embryo destruction.

It is interesting to note that multipotent stem cells have produced the only successful therapies (more than 73 at last count) while embryo-destroying therapies, even as they have been promised as literal "cure-alls," have produced exactly ZERO successes.

But now comes IPS. They beauty of IPS is that it has promise for producing a wide array of cell-types without destroying an embryo. This process uses regular skin cells that are "induced" to produce pluripotent stem cells!

The promise of this research is great news for those of us who would love to have success at treating a wide variety of disease while also honoring the moral imperative to not destroy some living persons in order to help others.

Let's hope the news we've heard so far turns out to be as good, and promising, as it sounds.

A Final Word

Though there are many more issues to consider, and much more in-depth material with which to do so, I have tried to offer a broad overview of the pro-life position as I understand it. If you want more information or food for thought, please see my list of resources (here), or Scott Klusendorf's recent suggestions (here) at the Life Training Institute blogsite.

My point has not been to repeat empty slogans like the one you've seen a thousand times on signs like this one. My point is to show that signs like these do not contain empty slogans. My point is simply to make those who do not necessarily share my worldview see where I am coming from -- that the actual pro-life position is not just emotionally based, and need not even be Biblically based (though it is intrinsically consistent with what the Bible says). It is a common sense view of the value of human life from beginning to end. When I began this, I also hoped to challenge those who already claim to agree with the pro-life position to consider why they do. Too many of us can say that we are pro-life but not why we are. That's not good enough anymore, and here's why ...

We live in a culture that has this kind of thing going on:

"In the Miami area, a woman named Sycloria Williams went to get an abortion. She was 23 weeks pregnant, and she paid $1,200. As she sat in the chair, waiting for her abortion, an accident happened: She gave birth to a girl. The doctor had not yet arrived. And here we quote the Associated Press:

What Williams and the [Florida] Health Department say happened next has shocked people on both sides of the abortion debate: One of the clinic's owners, who has no medical license, cut the infant's umbilical cord. Williams says the woman placed the baby in a plastic biohazard bag and threw it out. Police recovered the decomposing remains in a cardboard box a week later after getting anonymous tips." (National Review, 3/9/09, p. 12)

For a similar, more graphically shocking video of a similar incident, buy the DVD, 22 Weeks. I won't belabor it here, but Charles Colson's commentary on this video is shocking enough in itself. I can't imagine how the movie would affect someone who saw it -- talk about "opening up the casket" -- this movie shows the stark brutality of a woman's abortion at 22 weeks (and is also available in a less graphic form).

We live in a culture where one of the most powerful politicians on earth, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, can, without any sense of shame, offer the following as an explanation for why America needed more "family planning" funds in congress's recently passed stimulus package:

Well, family-planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now an part of what we do for children's health, education, and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those -- one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government. (National Review, 2/23/09, p. 8)

You have to realize that, to politicians like Pelosi, "family planning" entails using every means to reduce the number of children that are born -- from contraception to infanticide. To Pelosi, children have only instrumental value and as such they amount to a fiscal drag on the economy. In Pelosi's world, the existence of fewer kids is better for us all.

I disagree. I believe that killing a fetus -- or an embryo -- for any reason, is no different, and requires no more explanation, than removing a bothersome cyst from your elbow ... IF ... that fetus or embryo is not a living human person. But if it is, there is no defense adequate to justify it. And if you're not sure what it is, you err on the side of protecting the preciousness of that life.

We live in a culture that, as William Luse put it in the March 2005 issue of Touchstone, "If you don't know what it is, you can kill it. We pretend not to see what is before our eyes. We live in an age when the denial of the obvious has become a virtue."

For all these reasons, we owe it to our Creator to: educate ourselves on the issues; be able to articulate and defend them; and take a stand against the cheapening of human life. This does not mean that we can participate in the cheapening of human life by violent or harmful action toward those with whom we disagree. But it does mean that we should, by any non-violent means necessary, defend life.

Recently I heard that the attempt by our president to force even those in the medical profession who have conscientious objections to the taking of innocent human life, will be forced to do participate in it or risk losing their jobs. In response, the Catholic church has said that it will either:

1. Openly defy the decree or ...
2. Close every Catholic hospital in the U.S. (this apparently amounts to more than a third of all hospitals in this country)

This is exactly the kind of stand we need to take! Kudos to the Catholics -- may we all muster the same kind of courage in our own little spheres of influence -- and may we all be prepared to stand strong for life.

The character of our culture and our country depend on it.

Not Dead Yet

Another issue that directly impacts the end-of-life discussion is one that has been brought to the forefront by both the advancement of medical technology and a pragmatic approach to the value and "dignity" of human life -- organ donation.

Both Anita Kuhn (Touchstone, October 2008, p. 46) and (Salvo, Spring 2009, p. 33) provide similar, complementary reflections on this topic and the moral questions that it brings to bear on the value of human life.

If you are anything like me, you may have considered it an altruistic act to check the little box on your driver's license form that designated you as an "organ donor." It could well be -- but you need to understand a few things before you do so ... like what being an organ donor entails. The catch is that dead organs are useless for transplantation. The few minutes that you wait to determine that someone (or you) is indisputably dead may be hugely meaningful in defining the difference between waiting on a person's death -- and killing him.

Here's what I mean.

Traditionally, organ donation has assumed that the donor in question be dead. Now, this may seem like an obvious prerequisite to you as a potential donor but it is not so clear-cut to the physician who is looking to harvest an organ. The key word here is "dead." What does it mean to be dead?

It used to be that the criteria for determining death, cold, blue and stiff, was pretty simple. But, as medical technology advanced to the point that organ donation became more viable, transplant medicine demanded that vital organs not be degraded beyond a useful state -- a state that "cold, blue and stiff" often violates. So, in 1968, a Harvard committee proposed a more updated definition of death based on the brain dead criteria that has become a part of the national lexicon.

Though we may cavalierly refer to those who annoy us as having already met this criterion while still seeming to be completely alive, the humor in that comparison vanishes when the actual definition of a patient with "devastating neurological injury" comes into play. The reason being that those who meet the brain dead criteria with entirely ...

intracranial [injuries may] look very much alive: they are warm and pink; they digest and metabolize food, excrete waste, undergo sexual maturation, and can even reproduce ... the arguments about why these patients should be considered dead have never been fully convincing.

So, more recently, yet another definition of death has been put forward for organ donor candidates -- the notion of cardiac death that is defined as an "irreversible cessation of cardiac function." But, once again, what does that mean? Is a patient whose heart has stopped really in an irreversible state if that same heart can be transplanted into another person who goes on to live with it beating in his/her chest? As Kuhn points out, "the word 'irreversible' has [come] to be interpreted to mean 'we won't try' to resuscitate rather than 'we can't.'"

Consider this:

In March, 2008, 21-year-old factory worker Zach Dunlap of Frederick, Oklahoma, was declared dead after horrific head injuries following an ATV accident. Doctors had confirmed there was no blood flow to his brain, but just before they connected the life support to begin the [organ] retrieval process, his cousin, a nurse, got a reflex response when he scraped a knife across Zach’s foot. Dunlap later told the Toronto Star that he heard the doctors declare him dead! It was obviously a simple misdiagnosis -- but how often does that happen? Of course, if the patient has vital organs cut out of him first, who would know?

The upshot of this discussion is that you must understand what organ donation entails before you or someone you love makes the decision to be an organ donor. You must understand what criteria the attending physician is applying to your case before they decide whether or not the donor is "dead enough" for their taste. Remember, the removal of vital organs kills the patient and doctors today are doing just that simply because they have the patient's permission. Those of us who value human life from beginning to end must be very careful before we grant anyone that permission. In today's world, if a doctor is taking one patient's organs to use on another patient, he/she is doing so precisely because the first patient is not really dead yet.

The ethical tradeoff is always given as a balance between saving one life and the higher moral objective of making multiple organs available to allow that many other lives can be saved. But the removal of vital organs is a completely different question than the more common debate about withdrawal of life support. The former is a "surgical invasion of the patient and a directly lethal action" while the latter involves only the "removal of something exterior to the patient."

Offering another the vital organs that may prolong their life is an admirable goal. But ending another valuable human life to do so must be done with full awareness of the issues in question.

Think before you check the box.

Live And Let Live

Though abortion and stem cell research monopolize a lot of the pro-life energy, the principles and moral questions they raise do not stop after the child is born. The same moral issues, and the same questions, come into play at the end of life also. What is a person? How and why do we value life? Will we protect the most vulnerable among us?

There are scientific questions about when life ends, philosophical questions about what constitutes personhood, and political questions about how our society chooses to codify where we will take a stand. We can't do much about Presidential political appointees, but when it comes to policies and voting on issues, we most certainly can -- and we must. Consider what happens when we don't ...

Imagine that you have lung cancer. It has been in remission, but tests show the cancer has returned and is likely to be terminal. Still, there is some hope. Chemotherapy could extend your life, if not save it. You ask to begin treatment. But you soon receive more devastating news. A letter from the government informs you that the cost of chemotherapy is deemed an unjustified expense for the limited extra time it would provide. However, the government is not without compassion. You are informed that whenever you are ready, it will gladly pay for your assisted suicide. Think that's an alarmist scenario to scare you away from supporting "death with dignity"? Wrong. That is exactly what happened last year to two cancer patients in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal.

This is the kind of scenario we end up with when we let the emotion of the "death with dignity" argument overwhelm the intellectual arguments for life and humanity and personhood. Combine that with the push for a government run health care system that needs to be "cost efficient" and you have a moral recipe for disaster.

Charles Colson reports that legalizing so-called "assisted suicide" has led to instances like the "... man who had to wake his father, who was groggy from pain pills given to him by a hospice worker, in order to take the extra pills that would kill him. [The man] admitted that his father might not have finished taking the pills had he, the son, not fed them to him." That man, author John West, also wants to "assist" his mother in the same way, and is busy lobbying in California to legalize the same for everyone else. The fact that his actions are not legal in California (where he did it) does not dissuade him in the least because, as he puts it, "everyone in the medical world knows that it happens all the time."

I certainly happens in Oregon, where "assisted suicide" is legal. Wesley Smith, writing about how "The Right To Die Can Become The Duty To Die," notes that ...

A study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine last year, for example, found that doctors in Oregon write lethal prescriptions for patients who are not experiencing significant symptoms and that assisted suicide practice has had little do with any inability to alleviate pain – the fear of which is a chief selling point for legalization.

Silence equals consent. But not always. In the Netherlands, where euthanasia was legalized years ago, studies show that nearly 20% of patients who die by this method are "assisted" without their knowledge.

Yes, politics matters. And the slippery slope that leads to these kinds of outcomes only gets more slippery when the politicians who control them are pouring grease on top of the ice.

We all need to pay more attention, think about what is really going on, and let our voices be heard.

The Politics of Life

Politics Matter

Our President is in the process of appointing nominees to fill the executive branch of our government. This is crucial to watch. The President may offer rhetorical flourishes about his policies but his appointees are the ones who work where the rubber meets the road. Our new President is arguably the most anti-life President in history, and a look at a couple of his nominees is a good indicator of how his views will translate into policy.

For instance, his Justice Department nominees include Thomas Perrelli who, before becoming the President’s nominee for Assistant Attorney General, served on Michael Schiavo’s legal team in the Terri Schiavo case. He helped fight the successful battle to allow Michael to have Terri starved to death, even though she was not suffering from any terminal illness and even though her parents offered to assume the entire burden of her care (Source: Charles Colson). Though the President voted to disallow the starvation of Terri Schiavo, the vote seems to have been for politically expedient purposes. Now he is nominating a lawyer who fought for the opposite cause to a position of immense power that will potentially have far more influence than any long-forgotten vote to the contrary -- not just for end of life issues, but for who-knows-what-else will come up on his watch.

A few offices down the hall at the Justice Department, President Obama has also nominated Indiana University Law professor Dawn Johnsen to head the department's Office of Legal Counsel. Among her qualifications, Johnsen is a Yale educated, ACLU trained veteran of the Clinton administration (nothing surprising so far) who also happened to work as Legal Director of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL -- since been renamed NARAL Pro-Choice America). During her tenure there, Johnsen, argued before the Supreme Court of the United States in, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, in a case that involved a Missouri law that restricted the use of state funds and resources for abortion (note: the law did not ban abortion).

In that case, Johnsen argued that any restriction that makes abortion less accessible is:

tantamount to "involuntary servitude" because it "requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state's asserted interest [in the life of the unborn] ... [a woman, therefore] is constantly aware for nine months that her body is not her own: the state has conscripted her body for its own ends ... such forced pregnancy" violates the Thirteenth Amendment. (Source: National Review, 3/9/09 p.17)

If you don't have your Constitution in front of you, you may have forgotten that the Thirteenth Amendment is the one that prohibits slavery.

But that's not all. Along with equating pregnancy with slavery, Ms. Johnsen opposes: 24-hour waiting periods, parental consent requirements for minors, and all laws against partial birth abortion. In fact, Johnsen believes that agreeing with her on these issues should be a litmus test for judicial nominees because "the notion that legal restrictions [are] some kind of 'reasonable compromise' -- perhaps to make abortion 'safe, legal, and rare,' prove nonsensical."

So no, I have no desire to get my apologetics all tangled up with my politics. But when it comes to moral issues, there are some things that we just cannot avoid. If these are the kind of political appointments we can expect out of Mr. Obama, we have no choice but to get involved.

How Bad Do We Want To Win?

:: Cross-posted at the LTI-Blog ::

Though I haven't posted here for quite some time, I enjoy observing the way the Scott, Serge, and Jay respond to the issues that they address both here and in the new LTI Podcast format. For anyone who pays attention, it soon becomes obvious that there are no better advocates for the pro-life position than these three. Maybe the reason I don't post here too often is because I'm afraid I'll make some dunderheaded comment that will in some way detract from their message. Or maybe it's just intimidation -- I know that whatever meager addition I hope to make to the conversation will be underwhelming in comparison to the nuanced thought they each offer every day. I am humbled that they even allow me the option to share their forum.

But sometimes, being a "regular" guy pays off. Sometimes it is beneficial to all the other "regular" folks out there to hear the message that gives them reason to think they can make a difference too. I think this past month solidified that notion for me. I just finished teaching a 5-week course at my local church titled, Defending Life. We covered abortion, stem cell research, death criteria, euthanasia and even talked about the Bodies Exhibit that recently passed through our city. It was an encouraging reminder to me about just how powerful the pro-life message is to those who have lived in blissful ignorance about what is going on in this world and about how we regular folks can prepare ourselves to engage it.

Don't get me wrong -- I didn't come up with a single original idea. I stole stuff from Frank Beckwith and Robert George right and left (always giving credit, of course). I taught them the S-L-E-D Test. I "trotted out the toddler." I analyzed the RH Reality Check video that Scott and Serge ripped in Podcast # 4. I replayed Scott's talk at Gordon College about his encounter with the lady at the swingset. I let them see Bill Clinton yammer on about the moral imperative that we only use "embryos that have not been fertilized" (huh?) when we do ESCR. I opened up the casket on abortion.

In short, I was not too proud or too shy to use anything I could get my hands on from the heavy-hitters ... and I was equally uninhibited about what subjects might be "off limits." The response was astounding.

There were people who admitted never knowing the distinctions between stem cell research and embryonic stem cell research. There were people who had never seen the clear evidence we find in embryology textbooks that life begins at conception; never seen the developmental stages of a human embryo; never heard the morally vacuous and arbitrary attempts to distinguish between human beings and human persons. There were people who left the room in tears. After five short hours, people were able to recognize and counter many of the common, but ludicrous, statements we hear from the abortion-choice crowd and their political apologists. It was one of the most rewarding classes I have ever taught.

Please hear me. The last thing I mean to do is toot my own horn. Far from it. I have no horn to toot (remember, I am admitting to open plagiarism here!). My only hope in daring to post here again is to remind every one of us of two vitally important things:

1. There would be no hope of promoting the pro-life view without the clear, careful thinking of those who do the heavy intellectual work like what you find here at LTI.


2. At its core, our message is simple and powerful because it is true -- but too many of our brothers and sisters are unaware of it and untrained to defend it.

On the last day of class, a gentleman stopped me and thanked me for tackling this subject. But along with his compliment came this: "I have never heard most of these arguments anywhere before. And I have never been in a church that would allow this kind of material to be taught." It is sad but true. And I am embarrassed to admit that this was the first time I have ever attempted to broach this subject. But it won't be the last.

Scott and Serge and Jay can't be in all of our little spheres of influence -- but their material can be -- and so can we.

How bad do we want to win this?

Opening The Casket

The political landscape has changed in this country. The consequences of these changes -- especially for the unborn -- are not hopeful. They are horrific. We need to stand up and do something about it. I don't say that to lay a guilt trip on anyone. I say it to offer a reality check.

I want to offer a challenge to the pro-life among us (and that includes me) who are educated and aware of the horror of abortion but continue to sit quietly by as it goes on. To do so, I will offer the same challenge that Scott Klusendorf does both in his talks and in his new book, The Case For Life. I want to challenge anyone who reads this to open up the casket on abortion. Here, in Scott's own words, is that challenge:

In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14 year-old Black youth, traveled from Chicago to visit his cousin in the town of Money, Mississippi. Upon arrival, he bragged about his white girl friends back in Chicago. Now this was surprising to his cousin and the cousin’s friends because blacks in Mississippi during the 50s didn’t make eye contact with white people, let alone date them! Both actions were considered disrespectful. Later that day, Emmett, his cousin, and a small group of black males entered Bryant’s Store where, egged-on by the other males, 14-year old Emmett flirted with a 21 year-old white, married woman behind the counter. After purchasing candy, he either whistled at her or said something mildly flirtatious. (Reports vary) The cousin and the others warned him he was in for trouble. A few days later, at 2:00 a.m., Emmett was taken at gunpoint from his uncle’s home by the clerk’s husband and another man. After savagely beating him, they killed him with a single bullet to the head. Emmett’s bloated corpse was found three days later in the Tallahatchie River. A barbed wire fan had been shoved over his head. His face was partially crushed and beaten almost beyond recognition. The local Sheriff placed Emmett’s body in a sealed coffin and shipped it back to his mother in Chicago. When Mamie Till got the body, she made a stunning announcement: There would be an open-casket funeral for her son Emmett. People protested and reminded her how much this would upset everyone. Mamie agreed, but countered, “I want the whole world to see what they did to my boy.” The photo of Emmett’s mangled body in that open casket was published in Jet magazine and it helped launch the Civil Rights Movement in America. Three months later in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus when ordered to do so. She said the image of Emmett Till gave her the courage to stand her ground.

Most Americans are blissfully unaware of the reality of abortion. Their knowledge of it is intellectual (at best) and far removed from anything concrete. So I agree with Scott. Unless people see the reality of abortion, they will never be truly motivated to end it. I offer the following links as a way to bring that reality to the forefront. Click on any one of them and be prepared to gag with revulsion ... and then consider what we all can do to stop it.

"Looking Abortion in the Eye": Father Frank Pavone

Life Training Institute Video and Still Shots

The Abortion Gallery

That's enough ... but there is plenty more. The question is:

What will we do?

Hall of Fame Guitar Heroes

Coach 'K' looks pretty into it ...

Empty Political Yammering

[This is a re-posting from August, 2006 concerning the political argument that is often raised to defend Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Since that time, the congressional candidate I responded to has won election to the U.S. House of Representatives and is currently serving as a freshman Congressman from the 29th District of NY. Unfortunately, his views are still as vacuous as they were 3 years ago ... only now he actually gets to impact the debate by voting. Just another thoughtless politician who uses empty rhetoric to defend his own moral cowardice.]

My former college roommate, who is running for Congress in the 29th District of New York, issued a press release about his stance on Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR) to which I am compelled to respond. I understand Mr. Massa’s zeal for pursuing medical solutions and being “pro-cure” (as he calls himself). As a cancer survivor, Mr. Massa’s sensitivity to these issues is perfectly understandable. I share them. So, I should preface my remarks by saying that I, and many like me, do not in any way oppose stem cell research – as long as it does not entail the destruction of human embryos.

Mr. Massa said that his opponents hold "an extreme, politically convenient belief system that favors frozen, microscopic cells over living human beings. How pro-life is that?" I believe this statement is loaded with inaccuracies and deserves a reasoned response:

Clonefusion on ESCR

Closely related to the ESCR debate is the issue of human cloning. If you don't understand why that is, take a minute to read this piece on the "Confusing Moral Logic of Embryonic Stem Cell Research" by Greg Koukl on the Stand To Reason website.

The gist of it is this: In promoting ESCR as the means to cure every disease, its proponents fail to mention where they will get the embryonic stem cells in which they place so much hope. Simple logic tells us that embryonic stem cell research requires ... embryos -- lots of them. And the way you get lots of embryos is to mass-produce them. This requires lots of eggs from women who get paid to donate them. It also requires that those eggs become fertilized to form the embryos needed to do the research.

The best, most efficient way to produce lots of embryos then, is to create them by removing the egg cell nucleus (which only contains half the DNA needed for a fully formed embryo) and replacing it with a complete set of DNA from the nucleus of a body (somatic) cell -- that is, to insert the somatic cell nucleus into the the de-nucleated egg cell. The scientific term for this procedure is perfectly descriptive of the process -- somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). You may not recognize this term but I can promise you that you have heard it talked about in another way. It is also known as cloning.

Because cloning has such an eerie, science-fiction sound to it, its proponents either avoid using the word altogether or stick softening adjectives in front of it to make it sound more acceptable. So we are conditioned to differentiate between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning, the former being the (so far) unacceptable option that conjures images of a horror film, while the latter offers hope for curing all disease. "It's therapeutic, isn't that cool?"

Here's the thing. There is absolutely no difference in the process that leads to reproductive or therapeutic cloning. They are the same thing. The only difference between the two is in the future of the embryos created by that process. And here we expose the most bizarre immorality of the whole thing: Reproductive cloning is illegal. Therapeutic cloning is just fine. In other words ...

If you artificially create human embryos with the intention of allowing them to live, you will be prohibited from doing so.

But ...

If you artificially create human embryos with the intention of destroying them by tearing them apart to do research, go right ahead.

Don't buy the rhetoric. Remember what the embryo is -- an unborn, unique human person. ESCR is morally repugnant for the same reason abortion is -- it destroys that person. And "therapeutic" cloning is an oxymoron -- especially if you happen to be the embryo whose cells provide the desired "therapy."

Stems Sell

Let's be clear about this issue: No one that I know of is against stem cell research. No one.

Disagree? Confused?

That is probably because you have listened to the press report on this issue in ways that are deliberately meant to marginalize the pro-life view as being heartless to those for whom stem cell research (SCR) promises cures. To hold such a view is to be "anti-science" and everyone knows that those who hold to such a view are the same religious zealots who are also "anti-choice" and the same backwoods Neanderthals who think the Earth is only 6000 years old. Anti science no doubt.

Forget the straw man argument against the Creationist label (as a side note, this is why I never refer to myself as a "creationist" when being challenged by someone who wants me to defend my view. They just can't get past the picture in their mind that goes with the title, "Creationist." For that reason I tell them that I am an "Intelligent Design Progressivist" when it comes to the history of life on Earth. They have no idea what that means so invariably they continue to listen, if for no other reason, so that they want to figure out what the heck I'm talking about). Let's just look at a summary of the facts about stem cells ...

The first thing we have to do in the discussion of this issue is be very clear about differentiating between stem cell research (SCR) and embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). All the issues that go into the "when does life begin" discussion as it applies to abortion are exactly the same as those that should be in play with stem cell research. The moral problem is not with stem cells per se, it is with embryonic stem cells. The reasons for this are obvious. Embryonic stem cells come from embryos! What is an embryo? It is not a "thing," it is a stage in the development of a thing -- namely a unique human being.

Embryonic stem cell research destroys unborn human beings. It's as simple as that.

When President Bush signed an executive order that stopped public funding for the creation of new lines of embryonic stem cells (he allowed the 21 lines in existence at the time of his order in 2001 to remain), he agreed to a compromise that allowed continued research on those lines that were already in play. He did not, in any "anti-scientific" way, prohibit stem cell research that was not embryo-destructive.

Our new president recently rescinded Bush's executive order so that ESCR will no longer be prohibited. Why would he do that? I believe there are several reasons, most that are related to the idolatry of human autonomy. It is a historically verifiable fact that we humans don't like anyone to tell us what we can or can't do. We're rebellious when it comes to anyone placing moral limits on our actions. Some refer to this human tendency as "The Fall of Man" and to the consequences of this trend "Human History" but that's a topic for a larger discussion.

In this case, some believe we should pursue this scientific area of research simply because we can. But that is not what they will tell you. What they say instead is that the research shows promise for curing all kinds of horrible diseases and that it is therefore a moral imperative we continue with ESCR for that reason. But once again the facts get in the way of the desire. And the facts are these ...

Even if you choose to ignore the most damning reason for allowing ESCR -- the immorality of it -- you still have to contend with the fact that what researchers find most attractive about embryonic stem cells is actually the biggest obstacle to the hope for their success. The cells that are capable of becoming the widest array of different tissues (totipotent and pluripotent stem cells) are also the hardest to manipulate and control. They have been found to create tumors and are actually destructive.

Meanwhile, the more differentiated kinds of cells (multipotent) which are derived from cord blood, placenta and adult tissues, are actually giving the most promising results. Chuck Colson recently commented on this topic (here) but the list of successes that have come from adult stem cells is extensive (detail here) and includes:

• Spinal Cord Injuries
• Heart Tissue Regeneration
• Corneal Reconstruction
• Autoimmune Disease Treatment: Diabetes, Lupus, Crohn's, Multiple Sclerosis
• Parkinson's Disease
• Anemias, Cancers, and Immune Deficiencies, and Other Diseases

From the most recent count I've seen, the final tally is this:

Successful Adult Stem Cell therapies -- 73 (and rising)

Successful Embryonic Stem Cell therapies -- 0

So, if both morality and progress work against the pursuit of ESCR, why is it still pushed so hard? That's a question you have to ask yourself. But when you do, remember that grant money and the promise of financial payoff carry a lot of weight with those who also practice the idolatry of human autonomy. When you add those two motivators together, morality and success quickly become irrelevant.

The S-L-E-D Test

If you are ever in a discussion with an pro-abortionist who attempts to make the case that the unborn are in some way different from other human beings and therefore fall under a category that does not require the protection we give to those who actually can defend themselves, there is an easy way to help them clarify the indefensibility of their position. It's simple to remember and it goes like this ...

The differences between you and an unborn human being can be summarized as falling under one of the following four categories, none of which qualify as justification for taking its life:

Size
Yes, the unborn is smaller than you. But you are also smaller than Shaquille Oneal. Does that mean you are somehow less valuable than Shaq? Does the size of a thing define its worth? Let's hope not.

Level of Development
Yes, the unborn is less developed than you. But so is a 3 year-old little girl less developed than her 35 year-old mother. Does her level of development make the 3 year-old less worthy of life than her mother?

Environment
Location, location, location. It may define value in real estate, but it certainly does not do so in the measure of our humanity. Does where you are define what you are? If I move from the family room to the driveway, am I somehow less valuable as a human being? The answer is obvious -- just as obvious as the fact that moving several inches down the birth canal does not somehow increase the value of the human being who, moments before, resided in his mother's womb.

Degree of Dependency
Yes, the unborn is more dependent on its mother than a grown man. But how does one's level of dependency change one's value as a human being? Left alone in the woods behind your house, your 3 year-old child would most certainly die of exposure and starvation. He is fully dependent on you, his parent, to survive. How is it that you would charge someone who did such a thing with negligent homicide, yet you use the same logic to rationalize abortion?

Obviously, these four criteria do not in any way serve to define a difference in value between those the pro-abortionist will not protect and those they will -- those, say, like themselves. The SLED test is a quick and powerful way to make that point.

The Philosophical Case For Life

If the scientific case is so airtight, how do pro-abortionists justify their position? They do so by a disguised appeal to a philosophical issue that they believe makes the scientific case irrelevant. They try to make a distinction between a human being and a human person. Though common sense would seem to make this a distinction without a difference (have you ever met a human being who was not a human person?), this is a distinction we must address.

So, what is it that they claim makes someone a "person"? Most everyone I have heard/read about claims that self-awareness or consciousness is the instrumental property that constitutes personhood. That is, unless you are aware that you are alive and kicking in some fashion, you cannot be a human person. Consider the consequences that follow from such a claim ...

If I am asleep, I am not a human person. If I get knocked out in a boxing match, I am not a human person. If I am under sedation for surgery, I am not a human person. You get the picture. One could think up an enormous number of situations in which our acceptance of this argument as justification for taking the life of an unborn human being can also logically lead to justification for taking your life in situations when it would clearly be wrong to do so. It sure sounds like there must be something inherently wrong with this kind of argument. What is wrong is that those who use this argument to justify abortion are misapplying the properties that make human being valuable at all.

Notice above that I emphasized consciousness as an "instrumental" property -- that is an accidental property (like skin color, sex, age, reasoning ability, height etc.) that does not define our value us as human beings based on what we are but rather defines our worth based on what we can do or how we look. This is an important distinction. The pro-life claim (which, by the way, does not depend on the Bible to support it) is that human beings are valuable in virtue of the kind of thing they are -- their ontological status in philosopher-speak. So, in the case of the unborn, their status as a member of the human family prohibits the unjustified taking of their life, not the fact that that they may, or may not, be conscious.

Very few abortion rights advocates are capable of living with the ramifications of their stated view. But one is. His name is Peter Singer. Dr. Singer, in his book Practical Ethics, argues that infants, based on the fact that they are not yet "conscious," can be killed by the attending physician (or anyone else) for any reason from the moment of birth for 30 days. One has to wonder how Mr. Singer draws the arbitrary line at 30 days? Why not 45 days? Or 90? Or 365? His view is horrific but at least he is consistent. If consciousness is the criteria for personhood there are a lot of people at risk as we speak who have probably never considered that those who would kill an unborn baby, if they were also consistent, could use the same justification for murdering them.

Next time, a simple argument that shows the power of the pro-life position as it relates to any pro-abortion argument based on the instrumental value of human beings ...

Bizkit the Sleep Walking Dog

No explanation required

The Scientific Case Against Abortion

Recently, over at the LTI-Blog, the team critiqued an RHReality Check video that, in part, claimed that "there is no actual scientific moment at which life begins." Really?

Instead of listening to empty assertions about science, let's just look at ... oh, I don't know ... what the scientists trained in these areas actually have to say about it:

• "[The Zygote] results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm ... unites with a female gamete or oocyte ... to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual." (The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th ed. Keith L. Moore, Ph.D. & T.V.N. Persaud, Md., (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998), pp. 2-18)
• "It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual."(Human Embryology, 3rd ed. Bradley M. Patten, (New York: McGraw Hill, 1968), 43.)
• The zygote thus formed represents the beginning of a new life." (Biological Principles and Modern Practice of Obstetrics. J.P. Greenhill and E.A. Friedman, (Philadelphia: W.B. Sanders, 1974), p. 17)
• "Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition." (Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant, 3d ed. E.L. Potter and J.M. Craig, (Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975), p. vii)
• Prior to his acceptance of unrestricted abortion on demand, Planned Parenthood’s former president Dr. Alan Guttmacher was perplexed that anyone, much less a medical doctor, would not know this. “This all seems so simple and evident that it is difficult to picture a time when it wasn’t part of the common knowledge.” (Life in the Making, Viking Press, 1933.)
• Dr. Landrum Shettles, the first scientist to successfully achieve fertilization in a test-tube, writes that, "Fertilization confers and defines life."
• Prominent feminist Naomi Wolf, in an article for the New Republic, said to her fellow pro-choice advocates: "Clinging to rhetoric about abortion in which there is no life and no death, we entangle our beliefs in a series of self-delusions, fibs and evasions." ("Our Bodies, Our Souls,” New Republic, Oct. 16 1995)
• Psychologist and pro-choice advocate Magda Denes wrote, "I do think abortion is murder – of a very special and necessary sort. And no physician ever involved with the procedure ever kids himself about that." (“The Question of Abortion” Commentary 62, December 1976)

There are more, but the point is this: Scientists know exactly when life begins. If you are ever challenged with the old canard, "No one really knows when life begins," please do not let it pass without a firm rebuttal. Your average person may not realize it but the abortion choice crowd certainly does (especially those like the young lady who appears in the RHReality video linked above): This is nothing but a smokescreen meant to avoid the issue. This is not the opinion of the pro-life advocate and it certainly is not a claim from the Bible. This what doctors are taught in their embryology text books.

Scientifically, the embryo is a unique, distinct, whole human being from the moment of conception. Where the abortion choicers have learned to shade the issue is not in the scientific debate, it is in the philosophical debate about the difference between a human being and a human person.

More on that issue next time ...

Pro Life Resources

As I approach the topic of pro-life apologetics this month, I also want to offer a list of good resources that you can use to follow up on some of these issues for yourself. Below are some of the best I know about. Click on any of the blue links to go directly to the resource listed. Please feel free to recommend additions to this list ...

Books

Beckwith, Francis. Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice
Klusendorf, Scott. The Case For Life (Coming March 31, 2009!)
George, Robert. Embryo: A Defense of Human Life
Fredenburg, Michaelene. Changed

Video/Audio/Presentations

Life Training Institute: Presentation resources
LTI Podcast: Weekly podcast addressing pro-life issues in the news (also available on iTunes)
Stand To Reason: Comprehensive list of bioethics papers, commentaries and other resources
Evidence For God: Papers and Powerpoints on Pro-Life topics
STR YouTube Videos: Search for the topic of your choice
Common Ground Without Compromise: Steve Wagner (of STR) offers techniques for discussing abortion
Making Abortion Unthinkable: Koukl & Klusendorf demonstrate how to articulate the pro-life position

Websites

Life Training Institute: The website of Scott Klusendorf - information, documents, speaking schedule
LTI-Blog: Blogsite of the Life Training Institute
JivinJehoshaphat: A young pro-lifer's blog -- good takes on the issues
Jill Stanek: Former nurse who witnessed abortion firsthand, now a committed pro-life activist
LifeSiteNews.com : Worldwide news source on life issues
Abortion Changes You: Michaelene Fredenburg's site - focus on the personal impact of abortion
Abort73.com: Practical information on the case against abortion and ways to help

Jonathan Krohn Addresses CPAC

If Obama doesn't need a birth certificate to prove his nationality, does this kid need one to prove his age?

KROHN 2012 !

I Am Pro-Choice ... But Please Keep Reading

My friend Scott Klusendorf is among the best pro-life apologists on the planet. I say 'among the best' only because I haven't heard them all -- but he's the best I've ever heard speak. His new book, The Case For Life, will be out in just a few weeks and, after getting a sneak preview of it, all I can say is that anyone who wants to promote and advance the pro-life cause to save the unborn has got to read it. Scott makes the complex simple, and the pro-life case clear.

What may be surprising to many is that Scott is unabashedly pro-choice. I share that view with him and you can see him defend it here: (Scott at Gordon College)

I believe that women should be free to choose their doctor, their profession, their husband, their recreational activities, where they live ... They should be free to choose everything about their lives. Everything, that is, except choices that are morally wrong ... choices that deny others the same kinds of liberty women enjoy for themselves ... choices like having an abortion. So, to those who attempt to label the pro-life movement as being "anti-choice," your objection rings hollow. Abortion is not a question of freedom of choice. It is a question of moral right and wrong.

Because there aren't enough Scott Klusendorfs in this world, I have taken it upon myself to try to articulate the pro-life position through my own little sphere of influence. This month I am teaching a 4-week course at my church about "Defending Life" and I am using a lot of Scott's material. In that class we started out discussing the fact that the Bible doesn't seem to help us out much on the issues of life. For instance, the Bible never specifically mentions: when life begins, abortion, stem cell research, or euthanasia. The question is: Does that mean that the Bible is silent on these issues?

I think not.

There is no doubt that the Bible unequivocally promotes the value of human life from beginning to end. We Christians believe that value to have its source in our being made in God's image. Through the words of David in the Psalms, the prophets in the Old Testament, and Jesus himself, there is no doubt about this fact. Being made in God's image is what sets us apart from the rest of the creation. It is what allows us to contemplate the divine and have a relationship of any kind with our Creator. It is what makes us unique -- and valuable. So, if you are a Christian, the Imago Dei is enough. But it is not enough for everyone.

Those who rely on the Bible alone to make the case for life will be in deep trouble when they try to take that case outside the church. But take the case outside the church we must. To do so requires that we not rely so much on the Bible. Some folks cringe when I (or others) say that but I don't see any way of getting around it. Those who promote abortion on demand don't care what the Bible says. So our work is cut out for us.

But that's OK -- we have science, philosophy and politics on our side too.

Spinning Darwin

As I referenced here before, Dr. Fazale ("Fuz") Rana recently published an article titled, "What Darwin Didn't Know," that addressed such topics as: the difficulties of abiogenesis; the incredible design and information content we find in living systems; a fossil record that completely contradicts everything that Darwinism is supposed to stand for; and the inexplicable appearance and uniqueness of humanity. In his piece, Fuz makes the case that we Christian apologists often make about the signs of intelligent design we see in nature. Those who disagree with us are quick to call such reasoning a "God of the Gaps" argument. That is, we don't know how it happened so we insert God as the explanation for it all. But nothing could be further from the truth.

We don't make these arguments from ignorance. We make them from experience. Each of the issues Rana discusses have parallels in the world that we do observe and understand. Each of these aspects of the world strongly resembles the kind of thing we only find arising from an intelligent source -- a mind that purposes to bring them about. Though some try to take these kinds of arguments too far, no good apologist would claim any of these as concrete "proof" that God exists. Our argument is that they are perfectly consistent with a theistic understanding of the world. We don't claim to be able to identify Him using science as our only tool -- we use other means to make that case. We simply see signs that His fingerprints are on the work.

What I find ironic, is the way in which the Darwinists use the exact same information. Here's what I mean.

Published simultaneously with Fuz's article, National Geographic's cover story for February 2009 was entitled -- you guessed it -- "What Darwin Didn't Know." (I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. And, in case you think one or the other of these was deliberately playing off the other, articles published in magazines must be submitted many months in advance). It would be tedious to attempt to address every point made in the NatGeo piece because, frankly, there isn't much there. We are treated to the same old story about Darwin's being a "highly attentive fieldman, greedy for specimens, learning as he went" who was "intrigued" by the "most interesting facts" in the similarities between the extinct fossil specimens he found and the living species he observed. We are fed the same tired and overused example of the finches of Galapagos that has been disabused time and time again as constituting "proof" of Evolution "in real time," only this time an "expert" tells us that he "reckons it might take only a few such episodes before a new species is established." We are motivated to accept Darwin's explanation "because it seemed more economical, more inductive, and more persuasive than the creationist scenario" that preceded it.

Nothing new there.

What I want to point out is the way in which the Darwinian view appeals to speculation about things that we never see in the real world -- and does so with religious overtones of the same kind that we theists are accused using. "Modern Darwins," you see, "don't have to guess. They consult genetic scripture."

Genetic scripture. Get it?

From the genetic scripture we have found that the FOXP2 gene "is critical for the normal development of both speech in people and song in birds." We have found that "a single letter change, from A to G, on the long arm of chromosome 15, which dampens the expression of a gene called OCA2," serves to darken eye color so that "Darwin may have gotten his blue eyes because of a single misspelled letter in the DNA in the baby of a Neolithic farmer," and that that "spelling change that causes blue eyes is not in the pigment gene itself, but in a nearby snippet of DNA scripture that controls the gene's expression." We have found that "Evolution works not just by changing genes, but by modifying the way those genes are switched on and off."

The writer, in what he apparently believes is some earth-shattering new insight, actually offers this gem to awe us:

Over the past decade, as scientists compared the human genome with that of other creatures, it has emerged that we inherit not just the same number of genes as a mouse -- fewer than 21,000 -- but in some cases the very same genes. Just as you don't need different words to write different books, so you don't need new genes to make new species: You just change the order and pattern of their use.

Indeed, these are monumental discoveries and fascinating to learn. I don't doubt that they are true. What I doubt is that they somehow constitute new proof of Darwin's theory. How so? Is a finch not still a finch with a different sized beak? Does the song of that finch bear any resemblance to a human voice or the meaning that can be conveyed with it? Did Darwin's eye color somehow advance or stunt his fitness for survival? Most importantly, does the author of this piece not see that, in his comparison of DNA to words in a book, he completely misses the fact that every book ever written has an author? That some of the most boring and trivial essays you ever read differ from the works of Shakespeare only by the pattern and order of the author's use of the very same words!?

What Darwin Didn't Know was that his philosophical descendants would be forced to appeal to "reckonings" and "mights," and forced to equate intelligently designed "switches" and metaphorical authors with the random, mechanistic actions of a blind process in order to continue to make his case. What Darwin Didn't Know was that the more science we learn; the more evidence we gather, the more his theory would evolve toward extinction, no matter how carefully his protege's spin their "scripture."

We theists don't have to resort to such tactics. We let the evidence speak for itself.

How Does It Do That?

When Darwin was theorizing about the mechanism that would drive his theory he called it "natural selection." He also believed that the cell, the "building block" of all life, was nothing more than a blob of protoplasm. Given his ignorance about the inner workings of the cell and the existence and complexity of the DNA language by which the cell operates, we can't blame him for basing his evidence on what we now call phenotype (think "phenomenon") -- or the observable traits by which we recognize an organism. In Darwin's mind, the physical traits were what varied among populations and those that were beneficial to the organism were more successful in surviving. They conferred an advantage that allowed the most robust variant to carry on. It's where we got the term "survival of the fittest," though, as I understand it, Darwin never used that term. And it's why species that looked alike were assumed to be members of the same branch of the family tree.

The key is that Darwin concentrated on what the organism looked like but he had no idea what physical mechanism could actually make such a thing work. We now know that that phenotype is an "expression" of genotype (think genetics), and that the genetic differences are what make different species different. This more recently learned fact has changed the game considerably and led to what we call Neo-Darwinism -- the The Neo-Darwinists work on completely different assumptions than Darwin worked under.

This advance in scientific knowledge has been breathtaking in scope and explanatory power -- but that doesn't mean it helps Darwinism. Though we now know that genetic variation can be the object on which natural selection works, this new discovery requires that Darwinism first explain the origin of the genetic code itself. How is it that such a rich and powerful information system can arise from a purely mechanistic process?

Not only that, but how does Darwinism explain the fact that similar looking organisms are not genetically related? Stephen J. Gould was fond of saying that Evolution's randomness demands that, if it were possible to start over again, would never turn out the way it has in the actual world we live in. Computer models meant to verify this claim have proved that Gould was indeed correct. Yet we have discovered completely unrelated organisms that have acquired physical traits (eyes, sensory receptors etc.) that are exactly the same. Somehow, Evolution would seem to have reached the same end under completely different circumstances. Conversely, genetics have shown us that Neanderthals, always proposed as human precursors and our distant relatives (and still equated with politically conservative males), are completely distinct from us in the only way that matters under a Darwinistic explanation -- their genetic makeup.

More hauntingly, a purely naturalistic understanding of Evolution would be deterministic. That is, natural selection acting on purely random mutations, would be the only means to determine who we are, what we think, and where we are going. There could be no such thing as free will. Yet human experience tells us that such a thing is ridiculous. Our thoughts, hopes, fears and imaginings can be about things that have never happened -- and never will. We can change what we believe and alter the course of our lives. Twins don't end up in the same place. Genetics, in other words, does not determine everything about us. For one thing, it cannot explain our ability to reason. The irony is that, if it did, we would have no reason to accept the claims of Evolutionists about reality as being any more reliable than our own.

OOL

The first -- and biggest -- evidential obstacle that Darwinism has to hurdle is the Origin Of Life (OOL), also referred to as abiogenesis -- the origination of life from non-life. By definition, any purely naturalistic (non-supernatural) Darwinian explanation for abiogenesis must be able to explain how inanimate molecules could somehow form themselves into self-replicating chemicals. It is also interesting to note that Darwinists do their best to completely avoid this reality and divorce Darwinian Evolution from OOL issues. When you press them on it, their response is always some form of the following: "Evolution is about the origin of species, not the origin of life."

Of course they are correct in saying that. But that doesn't let them off the hook. If, as the Darwinian purists insist, everything has a completely materialistic explanation, they must come up with a completely materialistic explanation for first life. Darwin himself was rightly baffled as to how such a thing could have occurred and never addressed it in his now-famous theory. He did speculate on the issue however. In an 1871 letter to his friend, Joseph Hooker, Darwin famously wrote that he envisioned that such a thing:

"But if (and Oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed"

Thus was born the notion of the Primordial Soup. I won't go into it here, but researchers have tried in vain to recreate such a "soup" and every experiment designed to do so has proven fruitless. Though Darwinists still tout the Miller-Urey experiment that was thought to be the answer in the 1950s, we have since learned that the initial conditions assumed in this experiment do not match what we have learned the early Earth to be like. There was no primordial soup -- at least none like what scientists have assumed. Moreover, what we do know about the conditions of the early Earth (yes, the actual evidence -- that pesky little thing you are supposed to use in science) proves corrosive to the ability of life to ever begin ... no matter what kind of soup it happens to be. Fazale Rana summarizes ...

Oxygen’s presence, either in the atmosphere or dissolved in oceanic or subterranean water, shuts down prebiotic chemistry pathways … Ironically, oxygen’s absence would also have turned off prebiotic chemistry … either way, in the presence of oxygen or in the absence of oxygen, the soup is ruined because prebiotic molecule formation is stymied ...

Oops.

The evidence that has emerged since Darwin's time leaves us with very little to go on. Obviously Darwin could not have known this. But modern Darwinists do. As a result, they are forced to promote theories like this fascinating admission on the topic. Here, "New Atheist" Richard Dawkins explains how life could have originated on Earth (click here: Dawkins Interview). Please take a couple of minutes (literally) to go watch this short clip.

Notice that Dawkins demands that the aliens who probably planted us here must have originated by some purely Darwinian means. Why? Because he says so.

But note that in his assumption, Dawkins is evading an explanation for how life on this Earth originated through purely naturalistic mechanisms, by touting a "theory" (if you can call it that) that appeals to the notion that it just happened somewhere else. And we are supposed to take this seriously? Though it is not shown here, in the same interview Dawkins also mentions the idea that life could have first originated "on the backs of crystals" with no further explanation given.

The origin of life is a mystery that will probably never be solved. But it is worth noting that in the 150 years since Darwin published his book, we are no nearer to doing so. In fact, when all the evidence is taken into consideration, we are much further away than when Darwin speculated about it in the letter mentioned above. One thing is obvious, however. No matter whose side you are on, the explanation you are forced to appeal to includes the idea of the work of a mighty clever intelligent agent.

Atheist Richard Dawkins on the Origin of Life on Earth

Dawkins explains how life could have originated while simultaneously decimating any possibility of Intelligent Design.

Brilliant!

Peering Into Darwinism's Black Box

Thirteen years ago, Michael Behe published Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, in which he argued that certain structures and systems in the biological realm defy naturalistic explanation. Such systems exhibit a property that Behe coined "irreducible complexity" (IC). IC, simply stated, refers to the fact that the structure or system in question could not have "evolved" by gradualistic change -- as demanded by Darwinism -- because the precursors to the final system would be useless, if not fatal, to the continued survival of the organism of which they are a part. The title of his book was meant to point out that, in Darwin's time, the inner workings of the cell, most importantly those that take place on the DNA/molecular level, were quite literally impossible to observe. The cell was, for all intents and purposes, like a magical "black box" -- a gob of protoplasm that no one could peer into, let alone understand.

A lot has changed since Darwin's time.

Now we can see what goes on inside the cell and, most importantly, within the DNA that defines and orchestrates everything that makes living organisms work. PhD Biochemist Fazale Rana of Reasons To Believe, recently published an article titled, "What Darwin Didn't Know" that starts out like this:

A sage once said, "It's not what you know you don't know that's the problem; it's what you don't know that you don't know." ... When Charles Darwin advanced his theory of biological evolution, there was a lot of biology he didn't know. Some of it he recognized. But there was much he never even thought about.

Rana goes on to touch on some of those things. I would like to use this month to consider them and the implications that flow from what Charles Darwin didn't know about life in the world we live in. Darwinism has changed considerably from the thing it was when its namesake put the theory forward in 1859. To his credit, Darwin was well aware of some of those things and was quite prescient about that difficulties that have served to poke holes in his theory -- no matter how vehemently our modern Darwinists may claim otherwise. But the key to each of those things lies inside the black box that Darwin couldn't pierce -- the cell. If Darwinism is true it must be able to explain the origin of life, the information content therein, the fossil record with which all life is associated, and the order of magnitude differences that so obviously separate humanity from the rest of life. Every attempt by Darwinism to explain those things has fallen short.

The Darwinists may appeal to future discoveries to eliminate those deficiencies, but in doing so, their appeal is no different than the "blind faith" they accuse we theists of having. They have no proof. They have no evidence. They are wishful thinkers.

But science isn't about wishful thinking.

This past Wednesday, I gave an hour-long talk to the weekly Navigator's meeting at the University of Cincinnati. The topic was "Responding to the New Atheists."

What a treat.

It was a real pleasure to interact with young adults who are serious about wanting to understand the faith they claim and who want to pursue the truth. They seemed to enjoy the content and asked some great questions both in the Q&A session immediately afterward, and via email in the days that followed.

Talking about all the various serious (and ridiculous) claims of the so-called "New Atheists" is impossible in a one-hour presentation but I did my best by using the summarization that Greg Koukl offers about how to approach their arguments. The new atheists believe that reason, science and morality are on their side. But it turns out that none of the three pan out.

They talk trash and engage in lousy logic. Ad hominem attacks on the character and intelligence of theists do nothing to disprove their actual beliefs. The new atheists give answers that do not apply to the questions that are being asked. Their conclusions don't follow from the evidence and premises they offer.

They claim that science has "disproved God." Not only is that an impossible task (science is a materialistic enterprise that cannot, even in principle, rule out the existence of an immaterial being), but the actual scientific evidence is far more consistent with theism than atheism. Not only that, but the scientism in which they engage disallows theistic implications before they even analyze their data.

Finally, they claim that the existence of evil in general renders the existence of a good God an impossibility, while the existence of religious evil delegitimizes the morality theists claim and is the "greatest source of evil in the world." But when we examine the evidence, it turns out that the reality of evil is one of the strongest arguments for the existence of God, while the claim that religious evil is the greatest evil in the world is demonstrably false.

I just want to thank the leadership of the UC Navigators for their willingness to have me visit. I sincerely appreciate the risk they took in having me come in and speak and the fact that they are serious about encouraging the students at UC to know and embrace their faith for themselves -- to not just know that they believe, but why. I hope to do more of this kind of thing in the future and, if this experience is any indication, I will thoroughly enjoy myself.

Nothing Personal

This month marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth so I'm going to spend a few posts commenting on what Darwinism says, and where Darwinism is these days. Before I do however, I just want to set the tone by expressing my true admiration for the man, Charles Darwin.

I am no scientist but I greatly appreciate the scientific enterprise and the brilliance of those who demonstrate real scientific expertise. Charles Darwin certainly falls into that category. He was an extremely intelligent man who, I genuinely believe, was sincerely seeking to find the truth through his scientific investigations. Anyone who claims that Darwin was just a nasty atheist hell-bent (literally) on disproving the existence of God and undermining theism simply hasn't read much about him. But I have to wonder, when I consider his background, how his view of the world may have tainted his ability to examine things.

For starters, Darwin was brought up in a non-conformist, Unitarian, "freethinker" family that couldn't help but have left him with an unorthodox theological view of God in general and Christianity in particular, and a modern Enlightenment mindset wherein reason alone is seen as the only way to truly know anything (senses and revelation are deemed suspect and therefore unreliable). Darwin actually went to Cambridge to study to become an Anglican clergyman, and doesn't seem to have doubted the literal truth of the Bible as an authoritative source of morality. It seems that he was most assuredly not an atheist. In fact, Darwin said himself that "an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind." Though he thought of religion as community survival strategy, Darwin still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver. He did seem to be suspicious of the Bible's historical reliability, but I do not think it is appropriate to label him as a anti-theistic monster. So I don't.

What I do believe, however, is that Darwin suffered from a serious case of the God-I-Believe-In-Wouldn't-Do-That mentality that many others still share. In short, Charles Darwin could not handle the Problem of Evil. He could not, for instance, accept that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent Deity would be involved in all the pain and suffering he saw in the world. He could not accept that such a God would create a wasp that stung a caterpillar to paralyze it so that the caterpillar could act as an incubator, and then food source, for the wasp's soon-to-be-hatched eggs.

More importantly, Darwin could not accept that such a God would allow the death of his beloved 10-year old daughter, Annie. His pain in living with Annie's death followed Darwin for the rest of his life and is palpable in this passage from Milton's poetry that was found marked in one of Darwin's favorite books ...

Surprised by joy – impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport – Oh! With whom
But thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind –
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss? – That thought’s return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Annie died in 1851. From that point forward, Charles Darwin labored to remove God as Grand Designer and replace Him with some natural explanation for it all. He wrote On The Origin Of Species in 1859.

Charles Darwin was a very smart man who has probably been more maligned by the religious faithful in modern times than he deserves. I think we should be charitable to the man and, instead of demonizing him, we should extend him a gracious benefit of the doubt. Maybe the unacceptability of evil led Charles Darwin to attempt to explain its obvious reality in a way that would relieve God of the responsibility for allowing such a thing. Maybe Charles Darwin did so because he respected God too much to lay the blame on Him.

There is no doubt that later atheists and haters of God have used what has come to be known as Darwinism as a scientific explanation to support a Naturalistic Worldview that needs no God. But let's not blame Darwin for that. People like Richard Dawkins claim that religious people suffer from a psychological disorder that is delusional and a crutch for stupid, weak minds. I disagree with them. But even if they are right, my stupidity has no bearing on the truth or falsehood of theism in general or Christianity in particular.

So let's not do the same to Darwin. Let's play fair. Maybe Darwin did manufacture his theory because of a psychological inability to deal with the pain he saw in the world, but that does not make his view false. We all have to admit we struggle to accept the existence of a good God along with the reality of evil, but that's another question for another time.

Instead, let's just evaluate Darwin's theory in scientific terms. That is where I differ with Darwin. The evidence just doesn't support his case. We are to be respecters of men, but not of ideas -- especially ideas that are both harmful and untrue. I prefer to disagree with Darwinism and leave poor Charles Darwin out of the discussion.

Logos, Pathos, Ethos

My final thoughts on the issue of doubt and apologetics is really not some new insight. It is as old as Christianity itself. But it is something about which I think we need to be constantly reminded -- especially those of us who are drawn toward science, concrete evidence, proofs, logic, and the intellectual aspects of the apologetic project.

I fully admit that I am biased toward appeals based on these aspects of the art of persuasion. I don't apologize (pun intended) for any of them. But I am also fully aware that these are not the only -- or sometimes even the most effective -- means available. Persuasion consists of more than throwing what you believe are indisputable facts out in front of people and waiting for them to marvel at your brilliantly constructed argument, then fall prostrate in awestruck agreement with you.

Persuasion is a multi-faceted art. Aristotle called it rhetoric and it consists of a triangular (Logos, Ethos, Pathos) approach that cannot stand with any one side removed. As it plays into the discussion of doubt, these aspects of persuasion are perfectly suited to appeal to wherever that doubt may originate.

LOGOS

It is interesting that the Greek word logos consists of much more than our modern English translation into the single word which appears in capital letters in John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word (logos) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." That the logos was existent before the beginning of the world and became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth takes on a whole new meaning when we realize that the Greek concept of logos included the entire life of the mind (re: William Dembski, Intelligent Design):

• The way by which inward thought is expressed (speech)
• Inward thought or reason itself (reason)
• Reflection, deliberation (choice)
• Calculation, reckoning (mathematics)
• Account, consideration, regard (inquiry)
• Relation, proportion, analogy (harmony, balance)
• A reasonable ground or condition (evidence, truth)

In other words, Jesus brought the mind of God into the flesh with all the wisdom and knowledge that goes along with that concept. The logos is no doubt vital to any attempt to defend the faith. This is the aspect of persuasion that most apologists gravitate toward. It is the appeal to the intellect that, in my humble opinion, must accompany every apologetic appeal at some level. After all it is in the renewing of our minds, Paul tells us, that our transformation toward Christlikeness begins (Romans 12:2). But it does not stand alone. It cannot.

PATHOS

This is the emotional aspect of our persuasive package. It can be expressed through true stories about ourselves or those we are close to that personalize our experiences and bring our real-world contact with God into places where those we are talking to may be able to relate. For a skeptic or doubter who holds their view for emotional reasons -- and, as we have seen, this is quite a prevalent reason -- this can be a powerful way to break through those emotional barriers.

ETHOS

This is the authority by which the speaker influences the audience as a result of his/her honesty, trustworthiness and respectability -- it is the measure of their character. In his book, Reasonable Faith, William Lane Craig refers to this as the "ultimate apologetic," the most effective and practically persuasive facet of the Christian faith. According to Craig, the ultimate apologetic involves two relationships: the apologist's relationship with God and their relationship with others. The former should be our preoccupation in life; an infatuation with God that seeps out into everything else we do. The latter should be the fruit of the former; a loving attitude that draws people toward us but, more importantly, toward God. This may be the only way that those who have rejected God for volitional reasons may ever come to know Him.

I have listed these in the order they seem to emerge from most apologists (perhaps I should only speak for myself). What is telling is that we regularly seem to have it completely backward. For all the accusations that we absorb due to the hypocrisy of many of our fellow followers of Christ (which, no doubt, includes me), the ethos of the apologist can do much to disarm the negativity that precedes our attempts to persuade. As someone once said, "What you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you say." Through our pathos we can appeal to those who may have emotional reasons, especially with regard to the ever-present problem of evil, for their doubt or disbelief. Those who are persuaded by emotion can be led by it in either direction. And finally, the logos gives us the evidence and factual information that builds the foundation for our case.

Maybe there is no "right" order to these methods of persuasion. I don't know. But I have come to realize, mostly through my own failures, that each of them is vital to the apologetic enterprise. We owe it to those who doubt to meet them where they are. And since we have no way of knowing where that is -- especially during a short encounter -- we must be prepared in every way to do so. As ambassadors we also owe it to the Sovereign we serve.