by Kenneth Wieske

A woman walked into my study a few days ago. She was nearly naked, wearing only a bra and panties.

There is just one woman in the world who, while dressed like this, can be around me: my wife. But the woman who walked into my study a few days ago was not my wife. I was very embarrassed.

She, however, was not embarrassed at all. Let's call her: "Shameless." The reason Shameless was not embarrassed was because she had swallowed the lie of our modern society. This lie says the following: if the bra and panties are the same color and made of a fabric that can be used in water, then walking around in them is completely different than walking around in underwear because they are, after all, swimwear.

Shameless is a professing Christian, yet, because she has bought into this lie, she has no problem exposing her body to the whole world. I imagine she might be embarrassed to walk in the mall, or visit her grandparents, dressed only in her bra and panties. But for some reason, she does not see any problem in choosing a photo of herself dressed this way as her Facebook profile photo.

That's how she came into my office: by my computer screen.

Qualities dads should be looking for in anyone who wants to date our daughters

by Jon Dykstra

(A French version of this article can be found by clicking here.)

Here's a topic that's best to get to too early rather than too late - what sort of men should our daughters marry?

Dads are going to have a lot of input in this decision, one way or another. If we actively try to influence our daughters – by example, through conversation, and by requiring interested young men to talk to us first – we'll point them to a certain sort of man. And if we don't talk about what makes a man marriable, if we aren't a good example of a godly man and good husband, and if we have no role in our daughter's dating life, then we'll point them to another sort of man.

What kind of man do we want for our daughters? The answer is simple when we keep the description broad: a man who loves the Lord, and will be a good leader to his wife and children, who’s hardworking, and also active in his church.

But what does this type of man look like as a boy? If our daughters are dating, and getting married young, they'll unavoidably have a "work in progress." That's a description that fits all of us – sanctification is a lifelong process – but which is even more true for a boy/man in his late teens who hasn't yet shouldered the responsibilities of providing for himself, let alone a family. It's hard, at this point, to take the measure of the man he will become. How do we evaluate potential suitors when there isn't a lot of track record to look back on?

We need to find out how they react to light and to leadership.

1. Light

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” – John 3:19-21 

Does a young man love the light?

This is a characteristic that is easy for us dads check up on. It's as simple as asking his parents if they know where he is on Friday and Saturday nights. Does he think it's no big deal to tell his parents where he will be? Or does he want to keep what he's up to a mystery? Does he have a problem with having his parents around when friends come over? Or has he introduced all his friends to them? When he goes out to other friends' houses does his group pick homes where parents are home? Or do they want their privacy?

Scientific Reasons to be against Evolution

by Jon Dykstra

There is a clear biblical reason to be against Evolution – the first few chapters don’t leave a lot of room for that theory. But when I went to university I was confronted with evolutionary theory on an almost daily basis. My profs all seemed to assume that Evolution was such an established fact, it was beyond any rational questioning. So did being a creationist involve turning a blind eye to reason and logic? I couldn’t believe that was true, so I started searching for scientific reasons to be against Evolution. And if I was going to direct them at my profs, I needed to find compelling ones that were also simple and short.

This is what I came up with.

Two Pillars

On a basic level we all know what the Theory of Evolution says: once there was no life on this planet, but then simple cells formed in the primordial soup. After millions of years, and through the process of natural selection these simple cells eventually spawned more complex cells and even more complex organisms, until finally we arrived, Man. As Greg Koukl puts it, this is the “Molecule to Man Hypothesis.”

It’s a nice story, but if we are to take it seriously it seems that evolutionists would have to prove two things¹:

1. that life can come from non-life
2. that transitions from one kind to another do happen

These two ideas are so pivotal to evolutionary theory that if they can't both be shown to be true, it would seem reason to dismiss Evolution altogether.

Life from non-life

The idea that life came from non-life used to be known as Spontaneous Generation. Maggots, it was thought, were spontaneously formed in dead rotting meat, and many believed that mice and flies were formed the same way. After a bit of scientific investigation this was easily shown to be untrue.

But today the idea persists under a different name: Abiogenesis (literally life from not life). The idea that maggots could spontaneously be formed from non-living matter is a ludicrous thought these days. But what if the organisms formed were much simpler? What if it was only a single cell? And what if we gave it millions and millions of years to happen? Could it happen then?

Well, if you read the scientific literature you’ll hear again and again that yes, under those circumstances Abiogenesis could happen, and indeed did happen. But even though scientists are very sure it did happen, they will readily admit they don’t know how it happened.

Um, isn’t evolutionary theory supposed to explain the “how” part?

To be fair, they do have a variety of interesting ideas, but all of their proposals have serious problems. 

NOT FROM MY WORLDVIEW - The Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon

by Rob Slane

I have to begin this piece with a couple of confessions. The first is that I have not yet read Fifty Shades of Grey – the bestseller that “everybody” is talking about. The second is that I have no intention whatsoever of doing so. Somehow – maybe it’s the downright tawdriness of it all – it just doesn’t appeal. Nevertheless, after having read a good many reviews, it does seem to me to be the sort of book that is well worthy of Ambrose Bierce’s observation: “The covers of this book are too far apart.” About 380 pages too far apart, since you ask.

Everyone knows that it is bad form to review a book that one has not read so rather than fail miserably in the attempt, my aim is simply to look at the Fifty Shades phenomenon through a Christian worldview lens. If you are wondering why we even have to consider this sort of thing, the answer is simply this: the walls of the church and of families are probably more porous than they have ever been, and rather than light pouring out from them into the surrounding culture, the traffic is largely the other way. Stuff is getting in, much of which is not good. Pretending it doesn’t exist is not an answer. It does exist and its influence is huge. Even Christians are reading books like this, which is obviously not good, but even if they weren’t touching it, the influence of such stuff would still manage to find its way into Christian families and churches as once cultural taboos become cultural norms. The only way to stop its pernicious effects is to know what it is we are dealing with and to be fully persuaded that we have the antidote.

What is it?

Just in case you have managed to remain blissfully unaware of its existence, E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey is the biggest selling book in the world right now, having sold somewhere in the region of 40 million copies. It is also reputed to be the fastest selling paperback of all time, knocking J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series off the top spot.

Courting, dating, or "in a relationship"

by Sharon Bratcher

I’m noticing a problem with today’s type of courting/dating/relationship situation. It seems to cause some people a lot of pain, because they don’t realize the consequences of some of their actions. I’m hoping that my words might help some young people to avoid a few of the heartaches.

Let me start with an analogy. Let’s imagine that you head out to the local woods and choose and cut down a 3 foot tall Christmas tree for your living room. At home you string on hundreds of lights, fifty bulbs, two dozen gold-sprayed pine cones, and finally place a big star on top that tips the tree right over. It’s too much, too soon. The little tree wasn’t ready to handle all of that yet. Had you waited until it was tall enough, it would have been spectacular.

by Michael Wagner

The largest abortion provider in the United States is an organization called Planned Parenthood. It receives money from the US federal government and various state governments. It strongly supports the presidency of Barack Obama and he, in turn, strongly supports Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood also has a presence in most other countries of the world including Canada. Like the US, the Canadian federal government financially supports this organization. In both countries such government funding is strongly opposed by pro-lifers.

The founder of Planned Parenthood was a woman named Margaret Sanger (1879-1966). She is an icon of leftists throughout the English-speaking world, though she is probably most popularly known as a promoter of birth control. She was that, to be sure, but there is much more that should also be known about her. Sanger was a dedicated opponent of Christian principles and capitalism. Her legacy through Planned Parenthood continues to infect the world and influence countless people towards evil.

American author George Grant wrote an insightful biography of Margaret Sanger a few years ago entitled Killer Angel: A Short Biography of Planned Parenthood's Founder Margaret Sanger. From this account it would appear that Margaret Sanger’s contribution to humanity has been extremely harmful.

Convert to socialism

Margaret Sanger was born as Margaret Higgins in Corning, New York in 1879, one of eleven children. Her home life was hard and unhappy, in large part because her father was a miserable person. He was a religious skeptic. Her mother was a Roman Catholic who had Margaret baptized and confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church in her early teens.