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News

New study: Universe may be younger (or older) than scientists previously thought

The Associated Press headline read, "Study finds universe might be 2 billion years younger." While that wasn’t a complete come-to-creationism capitulation – even running with the new estimate would leave secular science more than 11 billion years off the biblical timescale – it seemed an encouraging development. Hey, they’re moving in the right direction!

But it turns out the headline, while technically accurate, should have had the “might” underlined, italicized and bolded since there was quite the margin of error. Yes, Inh Jee and his team from the Max Plank Institute in Germany think the universe might be 11.4 billion years, which is down 2 billion from the conventionally held 13.7.  But her margin of error is so large that the upper range of her team’s estimate would actually make the universe even older.

Shucks.

What’s still noteworthy, though, is simply that the age of the universe is still being debated. Did you know that was happening? Secular science is represented in the press and classrooms as having it all figured out. But this is another instance in which they’ve been left looking for their erasers, readying themselves for another correction to their ever-changing textbooks.

In contrast Christians can be grateful for, and confident in, the unchanging source of truth God has given us in his Word.

News

Saturday Selections - August 24, 2019

The Joel Osteen sermon that changed Oprah's life (13 minutes) While we prefer to focus on what's good and right and true (Philippians 4:8), Joel Osteen's sermon here is of-a-kind with the "Christian" theology that's everywhere available: on blogs, podcasts, and yes, YouTube sermons too. That makes Tim Challies' takedown of Osteen's sermon instructive for us in our everyday reading, listening, and viewing. Canadian gov't is subsidizing the mainstream media to the tune of $600 million over 5 years Ted Byfield warns that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Should Christians be capitalists? (10 min. read) "In 2019, the absolute poor numbered 750 million, which is a lot but, proportionally, is less than 10 percent of the world’s population. 200 years ago, you couldn’t find close to 10 percent who weren’t living in absolute poverty." FREE E-BOOK: Titus for you This is a recommendation sight unseen but the company it comes from has published some great books. Titus for You is available for free until the end of the month. You do have to give them your email address but if you don't like getting emails from them it's easy to unsubscribe. Parents: pleasant words are healing words Christian parents know better than to insult their children, but just because we aren't saying really nasty things doesn't mean we're saying good things. "Do it because I said so" is adequate, from a justice perspective – children should listen to their parents simply because we are their parents – but is it a patient way of saying things? Quit social media (14 min) This would be a fantastic video for parents and teens to watch together and discuss. We might not make the same decision as this TED talk presenter, but he gives us lots to think about. ...

News

Saturday Selections - August 17, 2019

What to expect when your kids head off to college  "Hundreds of years of bad philosophy are about to immerse your child." World magazine's Andrée Seu Peterson warns parents that they better get ready to answer the challenges their child is going to come home with. Time to kiss New Calvinism goodbye While New Calvinism got a lot right, what it got wrong has been destroying it - its view of the church has been too ad hoc, taking more inspiration from the business world than it has from the Bible. The problem with "Just do something!" Another shooting in the US has people calling on the government to "do something." But this call assumes the government is both able, and competent to address what's wrong. And what's clear from the many debates going on right now is most people don't even understand what is wrong. Why I fell out of love with Marie Kondo's minimalism "Popular minimalist blogs give helpful tips for 'converting' one’s maximalist partner. To set an example, I downsized my own clothing in the hopes that he would willingly give up some of his ratty t-shirts, and I constantly donated books I never planned on reading. 'See!' I would shriek, while maniacally stacking old casserole dishes in a cardboard box because they didn’t 'spark joy.' 'See how happy this is making me?'” FREE BOOK: A modernized edition of John Owen's On the Mortification of Sin It's a favorite of John Piper, Tim Keller, and J.I. Packer. But John Owen's 1656 classic On the Mortification of Sin is also really old, and Owens was never known as a concise writer. So there was a pressing need for a modernized version. A few years back Aaron Renn did the work, and now, for the the next two weeks (until Labor Day) he's offering his updated version for free. You can download a helpful pdf outline here, and get the free Kindle (Mobi) version here, or the free EPUB version here. Why everybody is suddenly allergic to everything these days One possibility this secular video/article doesn't get into is whether the apparent increase in allergies is caused by accumulated mutations. As Dr. John Sanford has noted, each new generation has approximately 100 more mutations than the previous one. This is a point that a secular article wouldn't raise, because this precarious mutation rate doesn't fit with evolution's long ages. This rate would indicate that Man was fitter in the very recent past (a few thousand years) and is heading for demise in just a few thousand more. ...

News

Saturday Selections - June 29, 2019

John MacArthur: Calvinism vs. Arminianism (6 min) How can God be sovereign over everything and we still be responsible for our sin? John MacArthur gives the classic Calvinist answer with his own unique style. What are some of the best evidences against the Big Bang and Old Earth theories? Dr. Jonathan Sarfati gives a short answer to this question, but with links to a dozen other articles that provide the longer version. How could heaven not have sex? "...lifelong commitment to a spouse in marriage is...one of the greatest joys to be had in this world. Why would it not endure into the next?" Vaccines, sunscreens & the “sneaky lie” moms need to stop believing We do have to care for our children's physical wellness, but there's something far more important, and we also need to get our priorities straight. Sorry, banning plastic bags won't save our planet While the author of this article isn't Christian, hearing his critique of one-use plastic bans lines up with Proverbs 18:17, where we're told that to know the truth, we really have to hear from both sides. So we hear a lot about the benefits of plastic bag bans, but what would a critic say? Here are two questions critics might ask: Will it fix what it's supposed to fix? In this case, will it have a significant impact on the plastics in the ocean? Will it cause other problems? Or, in other words, what are the tradeoffs? Do we have to rule out God to do good science? (4 min) This is an absolutely fantastic take-down of methodological naturalism - the idea that if we turn to God as an explanation for anything then we aren't doing science. But what would happen if we, before our investigation even began, ruled out the possibility that there might be a Designer? Imagine if we could only appeal to natural sources to explain the origins of the car? What sort of explanation would we come up for it, if, before our investigation even began, we ruled out the possibility that there might have been a designer? Obviously whatever explanation we came up with would be a very wrong one. So when scientists rule out the Supernatural, before they've even begun their investigation into our own origins, then they are showing themselves unwilling to go where the evidence takes them - they are ideologically blinding themselves so that they can't find certain answers. ...

News

Saturday Selections - June 22, 2019

Preparing parents for the sex talk This 11-minute video from a conservative Christian group has some great thoughts for parents to consider, including quotes like this: Your kids will talk to you about the things you talk to them about. Your kids won't talk to you about things you won't talk to them about. And: To put it simply: children and adolescents do not need one 100-minute (awkward and painful) sexual health conversation. They need 100 one-minute conversations. They need sexual and relational education delivered in many, many sound bits, weekly, across their entire childhood and teen years. Controlled vs. controlling: the difference parents need to understand Our children need limits and rules for their safety, health, and spiritual well-being. But they also need to be able to experiment, grow, take responsibility, fail and recover, and learn how to learn on their own. So how can parents create a controlled environment, without crafting a micromanaged one? Why we need English class: reality isn't whatever we want it to be If students want to know why they have to study English, there is no better illustration than this article. The battle over the dictionary – how we use words, and how we define them – is a matter of life or death. Some try to use words to reshape reality, and while our words don't have that power (Ps. 33:9), we can use them to deny reality. We can call men "women" and vice versa, and babies "fetuses," and blessings "privileges," covetousness "justice," and more. However, as John Stonestreet notes, when we deny reality the victims pile up. The economics of climate change: what universities won't teach college students We don't often hear about the economic harm climate agreements may cause. And we rarely hear about how little impact these agreements – even according to their advocates – are expected to have compared to doing nothing. Pride parades: pros and cons A Manitoba Christian philosophy professor, writing in his local town paper, crafted this careful and courageous take on Pride Parades. You are more than your brain (7 min) When atheists deny the supernatural, that leaves them with only the natural – only the material – to explain everything around them. Thus the only logical conclusion for them to draw is that all we are – our personality, consciousness, preferences, opinions, etc. – is what we find in the three pounds of material that make up our brain. But as this creative video highlights, the evidence shows that materialism doesn't measure up. ...

News

Saturday Selections – June 8, 2019

Dude Perfect's does more than bottle flips If you and your family don't already know about Dude Perfect, these guys provide some good clean and free fun with their creative videos. FREE COMMENTARY ON JAMES We haven’t read this commentary, but others in this commentary series have been well worth recommending. The ebook of Sam Allberry's James For You is free all June (but you do have to give them your email address). The theological legacy of Rachel Held Evans The popular blogger made it easier for people to express their doubts. But she didn't help them find answers. How to talk to your children about climate change This article highlights two important points we need to pass on to our children: wishing doesn't make it so, and the government does not have God-like expertise. Young people calling on the government to fix things need to understand that even the US's best-known proponent for government-directed environmental intervention, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, doesn't know what sort of change is needed, or possible, or at what costs. Eve was just like Adam, except completely different This is a fun short piece on the meaning of the Hebrew word kenegdo, translated as "suitable" in Genesis 2:18–21, but which more literally means "like" and "opposite." So, when this passage speaks of Eve as a "suitable" partner for Adam, we can understand it as saying she's a "similar" but "opposite" partner for him. And isn't that a great description of what spouses are in a good marriage: like-minded, yet completely different? Rent control is a feel-good policy that does bad (5 min) Christians will sometimes support rent control – the government legislating whether and how much rents can increase – thinking that it is a compassionate way to provide affordable housing for poor people. But rent control means that the government wrests control of these rental properties from their owners and decides for them what they are worth. If that's not what we'd like the government to do with our own property (our house, our car, our business, etc.), then, as Jesus instructs in Luke 6:31, we shouldn't ask the government to do that to others. And what this video shows is that "compassion" like this actually hurts the poor. That brings to mind another lesser known passage: "...but the mercy of the wicked is cruel" (Proverbs 12:10b) – politicians may continue to back it, even understanding the harm it does, because it makes them seem compassionate. ...

News

Hostility to Unplanned helps get its message out

Unplanned tells the true story of how Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director, changed her mind and now fights for the unborn. Her story hit cinema screens in late March and had already made $18 million, or three times what the film cost to make. But that success has been hard won. Shows abortion isn't just another surgery First, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced they were giving Unplanned a restricted or “R rating” which meant the trailer could only run before other R-rated films and anyone under 17 would need to be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian to see it. That put a big dent into its potential audience. The rating was a controversial one because the film received no cautions for profanity, nudity, or sex. While the MPAA’s listed caution is for “disturbing/bloody images,” the only such scenes involve abortion. The film’s writers/directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman shared with MovieGuide.org how “ironically, the MPAA seems to be indirectly endorsing the pro-life position: namely that abortion is an act of violence.” The Washington Post’s Mark Thiessen echoed that thought: “They would not give it an ‘R’ if it depicted a tonsillectomy.” Can't see, but can do? Solomon and Konzelman went on to detail how the R rating was doubly ironic. “…many teenage women in this country who can legally obtain an actual abortion without parental permission will be prohibited from going to see our film containing simulated images of abortion, without obtaining parental permission.” A different sort of roadblock was used in Canada, where both major movie chains, Cineplex Odeon and Landmark, are refusing to show it. However, there is demand for the film, as was evident in mid-May when the film had a successful private showing in Edmonton for a crowd of almost 3,000. Turning evil to good A third irony? Even as the movie industry seems intent on preventing people from seeing Unplanned, their efforts are aiding in its publicity. Articles have appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, Hollywood Reporter, and Fortune (not to mention countless conservative and Christian sites) and they touch on more than just the controversial rating – many of them raise, and attempt to rebut, what the film says happens behind Planned Parenthood clinic doors. Hollywood may have stopped some people from seeing this film but God is using their efforts to get many more talking and learning about what abortion does to the unborn....

News

F.R.E.E.D. – an acronym to help us defend and use our religious freedom

If you're pro-life, you know the value of a good acronym. For years S.L.E.D. has helped us remember there are just four differences between the unborn and us, and none of them would justify killing the unborn. Size – They are smaller but so what? Smaller adults aren't seen as less human. Level of development – The unborn are less developed than adults, true, but so are prepubescent children. Why would that make either of them less human? Environment – The unborn are in a different environment but since when does where we are determine who we are? Degree of dependency - They are highly dependent, but so are people who need dialysis and that doesn’t make them any less human. For years John Stonestreet has wished there was a similarly useful acronym to help Christians remember what to say when it comes to defending our religious freedom. In his May 16 Breakpoint column, he shared how his colleague Shane Morris has done just that with the acronym F.R.E.E. with each letter representing one point in a compelling argument for religious freedom. Forcing – Many in the world still recognize that “forcing people to go against their beliefs for no good reason is a bad thing.” Reason – “Is there a good reason to force a religious person to go against his or her belief in the case you’re discussing? And are there less burdensome alternatives to squashing this freedom, like using a bakery down the street or an adoption agency across town?” Examples – Offer examples that make your point. “Should a Muslim t-shirt designer be forced to create shirts mocking the prophet Muhammad? Should an Orthodox Jewish club at a university be forced to admit Christians as officers?” Equality – Complete the argument by asking, why shouldn’t Christians get the same freedoms we’d give to the Muslim t-shirt maker or the Orthodox Jewish club? It’s a helpful tool, made even better with one addition. Underpinning these four points is the idea that we should do to others as we would want done to us. That’s from the Bible (Matt. 7:12) and that worth noting because, as much as defending our freedom of religion is important, it’s even more important to actually use it. So let’s give God the glory with a fifth point that we can call “D, as in Divine.” That’ll be a reminder for us to show how the core of our argument rests on a solid biblical principle. And in explaining that this is not our insight, but God’s, we can point our listeners to Him. Let's never forget to use our liberty to tell people how they too can be freed....

News

Saturday Selections - May 11, 2019

The world is rated R (50 minutes) It is a parental impulse to shelter our children. But is our end goal to give our children comfortable lives? Or do we want children who can take a hit, who'll talk smack with giants (1 Sam 17:45-47), who'll demolish inflated opinions (2 Cor. 10:5), and who'll just generally be itching to get out there and glorify God no matter how many bruises will result? How to say "This is cr-p" in different cultures If you can overlook the crudity in the article's title, it offers an insight useful to "plain-spoken" Dutchmen who are surprised when folks from other cultures find us brusque or rude. Rachel Held Evans (1981-2019) This article has been pulled, so an additional item has been added below. How the government might take your children This is not a clickbait headline. "Imagine if tomorrow, a judge in the most liberal state in the country announced children no longer belong to their parents... From henceforth, says the decree, kids belong to the state. Outraged parents would take to the streets! Angry and refusing to capitulate. "Well, that’s not how it goes. Instead, parental rights are taken a little at a time." McDonald's and the minimum wage Unskilled workers used to always be able to find a job at the fast food giant. But after the US government mandated increased benefits and salaries for McD's workers, the restaurant chain has had to get more out of each employee to pay for those increases. That's meant turning to automation. And that's meant a dramatic drop in the number of McDonald's employees. Christian: If evolution is true, life is meaningless Evolutionist: How dare you sir! Eric Metaxas recently said, "If you actually believe we evolved out of the primordial soup and through happenstance got here, by accident, then our lives literally have no meaning.” In response, a prominent evolutionist said that was a "crock" and that he had hundreds of people giving him responses explaining the meaning and purpose they find in their lives. But a look at those responses makes Metaxas's point. A wonderful example of getting the unborn heard! When New York State passed a law increasing access to late-term abortions the question for pro-lifers was, how can we protest as loudly as possible? Focus on the Family responded by broadcasting a live ultrasound in the world's busiest intersection, Times Square. They called the event "Alive from New York." https://twitter.com/FocusFamily/status/1124798996818612225...

News

Saturday Selections – May 4, 2019

The 16 most amazing nests built by birds The amazing tailorbird crafts camouflage for its nest by using grass or spider silk as thread, and then it actually sews leaves together. But that's not the only crafty bird God has made – here's 15 more with the unique nests they build or borrow. In 2018 at least 1.12% of deaths in Canada were due to euthanasia "According to the latest figures, about 3,000 Canadians were euthanized in 2018." 6 biological evidences for a young earth Here are 6 very fun, very quick, evidences that point to a young age for the earth. Sabbath rest: not just for grown-ups (10-minute read) Our kids need to understand that we aren't saved by our output. 18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day 2019's Earth Day has come and gone, and in the lead-up to it we heard dire predictions like this one from congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez: "...The world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change..." This 12 year figure is being batted about so it's important that we: Mark their words. They are prophesying, and the way to tell a false prophet from a real one is whether their words come true. Remember – as the linked article does – all the false prophesies of the past. FREE FILM: The Fool – the true "banana man" story (65 minutes) This is the true story of how evangelist Ray Comfort was mocked and ridiculed by atheists the world over for a silly joke he made that fell flat. But even as Ray was brought low, God was using Ray's humiliation: these same atheists started inviting Ray onto their shows, podcasts, and stages sand they let him say anything he wanted. So he used these forums to share the Gospel with hundreds and even thousands of atheists at a time. Some atheists even took Ray's books and read through them on their YouTube channels, all in attempt to mock him. But the end result was they themselves read out a Gospel presentation to their listeners. As Ray asks, "Who but God could take atheists and not only have them listen to the Gospel, but have them proclaim it?" ...

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