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Saturday Selections - Nov. 3, 2018

Do you read the Bible literally?

Stand to Reason's Greg Koukl on how reading the Bible literally isn't the same as reading it woodenly (10-minute read).

Tortured for Christ – a free film everyone needs to see

Wurmbrand: "If I speak now, you will have no husband."
His wife: "I don't need a coward for a husband."

Tortured for Christ is a must-see film about Richard Wurmbrand's courageous and faithful stand against the Communists when they took over Romania. This is not family viewing, but it is a film older teens and up should see to understand how much more outspoken we should dare to be, and how faithful God is to his children in the most desperate of circumstances. In that way it is an incredibly encouraging film. While the subject matter includes torture, it does so with as much delicacy as is possible. But there is a reason they left it at only one hour – it would be too much if it was longer.

It can be viewed at the link above - they ask you to consider a donation, but there is a link to watch it for free (near the bottom or on the right-hand side) on that page.

Are women real?

Our society, on one hand, holds that men can never understand women’s struggle and, at the same time, insists that men can become women. Clearly, something has to give.

Motherhood and the "Wage Gap"

Women, averaged overall, make less than men, but that's because they have prioritized something else over making money – having children. Society is presumptuous to act like that is a choice that needs correcting.

Why sex is the best argument for creation

The director of Is Genesis History? presents an attention-getting argument for God's design. For another aspect of the incredible design evident in sexual reproduction, check out Dr. David Menton on The Placenta.

World War I in color

Director Peter Jackson (best known for his Lord of the Rings trilogy) has created a documentary on the First World War using the original footage, first cleaning it up, then colorizing it, hiring lip readers to figure out what the soldiers are saying (the original footage is silent), and hiring Hollywood actors to give these soldiers a voice again. The film has already played in Britain, and won't play in North America until later this year, but even the trailer is fascinating for how it makes these men – these boys – come back to us as real people.

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Woman identifies as a man who identifies as a dog

Any journalist knows there's nothing newsworthy about a dog biting a man, but when a man bites a dog then you have headline material! So you can imagine the excitement at the Daily Mail when they discovered a woman who identifies as a man who identifies as a dog. The British tabloid's Oct. 12 headline read: "Transgender man identifies as a DOG..." The article goes on to detail how the woman, Tony McGinn, loves to play fetch, run around on all fours, and be told by her husband and "handler" that she is a "good boy." What's interesting is how the newspaper has only partially bought into the transgender philosophy that "thinking makes it so." When it came to McGinn telling them she was a man, the Daily Mail was happy to agree that, just because she thought she was a man, she must be one – they consistently described her as a he. But when she said she was a "human pup" they were willing to go only so far. The difference was evident even in the headline where they describe her as a transgender man but don't describe her as a dog – no, they note that this is how she "identifies." So which is it, Daily Mail; does thinking make it so? If a woman can become a man simply by thinking it, why can't she become a dog the same way? The newspaper isn't the only one confused here. Even the couple – Tony McGinn and her husband – switch between talking of Tony as a "real dog" and talking about this being a "fantasy" with her "pretending," "imagining" and "playing" at being a dog. Why the confusion? Because, at least for the moment, everyone knows that people are not dogs and can never become dogs. They understand that when it comes to species, thinking doesn't make it so. But when it comes to gender they draw a different conclusion. Why? At its root, this is about Man saying it is our thinking, not God's, that creates the world around us. And if that is what they insist, then we need to compare and contrast their confused claims with the clarity God's Word offers - "...in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them" (Gen. 1:27). God's thinking decides our species and gender. They say otherwise. But can they practice what they preach? Can they live it? As a witness to the world, Christians need to highlight their inconsistency and demand that they either renounce the idea that thinking makes it so, and stop saying people can switch genders... or they need to fully adopt this philosophy and everything that goes with it.  Then women can become dogs. And then we need to treat these new dogs the way we treat all others. If they are dogs, why would we treat them any differently than other dogs? This is what transgender people demand, after all – to be treated as if they are the gender they claim to be. So if people can become dogs then we should require them to get dog licenses, eat kibble, fly in the airplane luggage compartment, and, of course, stop driving cars, stop shopping online at Amazon, and stop using the toilet for anything other than a drinking bowl. And the next time a classroom of kindergarten students thinks two plus two equals five, we should expect the teacher to nod in agreement....

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Saturday Selections - October 13, 2018

Conservative group confronts students with a smile and a $100 bill Campus Reform offered college students $100 to name just one time that conservatives shut down a liberal speaker on campus - no one could do it. Campus Reform is not a Christian group, but if you've ever wondered what Christ meant when he sent out the twelve with instructions to be "shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matt. 10:16) this may well be what that looks like. Campus Reform's quiet, confident, and humorous questioning approach allows the students to discover for themselves that what they believe about liberals being more tolerant simply isn't so. The power of gentleness Parents, are you gentle? Or to ask the same question another way, parents, do you want to be the one your children turn to when they have problems? British bakers win case against at the UK Supreme Court level In 2014 Gareth Lee requested that Ashers Baking Company make a cake with Ernie and Bert on it, and the message "Support Gay Marriage." The Christian couple who owns the bakery refused, and this past week the UK Supreme Court sided with them, though at a cost. Some scientists fudge facts - the fall of Brian Wansink Science is sometimes given God's place as the final arbiter of Truth. It's good, then, to be reminded that Science is the findings of fallible men. And sometimes those men are not only fallible, but dishonest. The New Fall TV Season - should we tune in? What would happen if we watched TV with our kids and hit the pause button now and again to discuss what we were seeing? Sign up to watch "Tortured for Christ" online for free Oct. 22 and Oct 23 Voice of the Martyrs has made a movie about their founder, Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, who spent 14 years in a Communist camp for preaching the Gospel. From the trailer this looks like a well-done and important film to see, and for two days – Oct. 22 and 23 – you can do just that if you provide them with your email address at the link above (they will add you to their email list, but you can always unsubscribe later). In the trailer below, Wurmbrand explains to his wife the cost of telling others about God: "You know if I speak now, you will have no husband." Her answer? "I don't need a coward for a husband." ...

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Ninja's take on the "Billy Graham rule"

Tyler Blevins is known around the globe as "Ninja," an online gamer making $500,000 a month by streaming his game play to his millions of fans – people are paying to watch him play video games.  Blevins is most associated with Fortnite, an online multiplayer build-and-battle game, that was released in 2017 and has already pulled in more than 100 million players. For those who don't play, it might be best known as the very first video game banned by a professional hockey team. Vancouver Canuck players have been told to keep their competitive focus on the ice. Blevins' video game skills are his major claim to fame, but he made news this past August for a very different reason. In an August interview he let it be known that as a rule he didn't play with female gamers. This "Ninja rule" echoed one adopted by US Vice President Mike Pence (and first crafted by evangelist Billy Graham) that he would never meet alone with a woman other than his wife. Like Pence before him, Ninja was criticized for how his rule limited opportunities for women. A lot of important work is done in the lunches and dinners before and after meetings, so if women couldn't dine alone with the Vice President, but men could, then it might well limit those women's opportunities to interact with the boss. When it comes to Ninja, teaming up with him brings a lesser-known gamer increased attention, and his rule means that only men can gain from Ninja's fame. But Ninja was unapologetic. In a September interview with ESPN he explained that he will play in groups with women, but not one-on-one because that can involve two people talking for hours on end, which is "very intimate in a way." And he doesn't want to do that with anyone other than his wife. "This is my spouse. This is the person I vowed to spend the rest of my life with....The fact that anyone feels they can judge how I'm protecting my relationship and try to make it political ... really?" The "Ninja rule" and "Mike Pence rule" do have their downsides for the women around them, but there is also an upside. No one can accuse any of them of the wrong-doings bringing down so many in so many other fields. Their marriages are protected not only from sin, but even from the appearance of sin. In an ideal world, this sort of trade-off – an unblemished reputation, at the expense of limiting some opportunities for women – wouldn't be necessary. But in our sin-stained world, that does seem the choice that's out there. And while it isn't clear if Blevins is a Christian or not, for Mike Pence and Billy Graham, the choice they made has allowed them to offer a Christian witness to the world that has been free of any hint of marital scandal. God is glorified in their work in a way that He wouldn't have been if sexual scandal had brought them low. Now Blevins is following in their footsteps, not for God, but for his wife. That choice also seems a hard one to criticize....

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Saturday Selections - October 6, 2018

Alberta's NDP says Christian school cannot state that God's authority supersedes human authority If the idea that a Canadian provincial government would try this strikes you as unbelievable, don't just read the article linked up above, but also the Christian school's "Safe and Caring Policy" as marked up by the government. You can find it here. What the 9th commandment would have us do in a social media world Tim Challies applies the 9th Commandment (and the Westminster Shorter Catechism) to Twitter, Facebook, and more. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 here. Keeping technology in its proper place: An interview with Andy Crouch Andy Crouch is the author of the Tech-Wise Family. Parents will find a lot of advice here worth considering. Gender ideology over science The American Academy of Pediatricians has "made a monumental decision" recently to embrace transgenderism, and as the folks at Breakpoint show, it has nothing to do with evidence, or science, but is instead about blind unthinking obedience to an ideology. Suppressing politically incorrect science on gender...and on intelligent design This is a long read, but if you know someone who thinks science is the ultimate standard, this might be a helpful one to point them to, to highlight just how biased scientists, and published "science," can be. Answering Ehrman - one of the Bible's skeptics gets answered in bite-size chunks Dr. Bart Ehrman is one of the best known critics of the Bible, and now a number of Christian scholars have come together to answer his charges one by one, in bite-sized videos, at EhrmanProject.com. This is a great resource if you or anyone you know is being confronted with Ehrman's work, but discernment is needed as some answers are better than others. ...

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Saturday Selections - September 1, 2018

Pet clones - on the edge of human cloning? and The IVF needle baby The folks at Breakpoint.org have consistently solid, thoroughly biblical, commentary on the news of the day, with these two stories serving as great examples: 1) Pet cloning is a reality so what might distraught parents be willing to do if they learned a clone would bear an 85% resemblance to their dead child? 2) IVF and how "the redefinition of sex gave us the redefinition of marriage which is now leading to the redefinition of children." Delayed gratification: 3 simple ways to teach your kids about it The big double standard on child sex abuse no one is talking about Recent news articles have revealed how child sex abuse was covered up by the the Roman Catholic church but there's an even bigger story we're not hearing about: the child sex abuse being committed by public school teachers. Politician to transgender activists: You want woke? Fine, I’ll give you woke A politician shows how sometimes the perfect response to an absurdity is to embrace it fully. Are Western wildfires due to global warming? E. Calvin Beisner of the biblical stewardship group, the Cornwall Alliance, weighs in with an alternate explanation, and Kenneth P. Green of the Fraser Institute notes that even with the smoke, air quality in Canada is much better than it was in the past. A different sort of pro-life apologetic Prov. 26:4 warns us of the danger in answering a fool (or foolish argument): it can legitimize his argument, making it look like his is a respectable, reasonable position, comparable to our own. That's why satire, in these situations, is the more appropriate response: satire treats ridiculous argument as ridiculous. Recently some pro-lifers at Choice42 have taken up the challenge of answering a fool in his folly the right way, leaving no room for him to see himself as wise (Prov. 26:5). In their latest below they take on the argument that, when it comes to abortion and the unborn, men should just shut up, since they can't get pregnant. ...

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Saturday Selections – August 25, 2018

Colorado Civil Rights Commission is after Jack Phillips again! A baker, who had to take his case all the way to the Supreme Court to be allowed not to bake cakes for same-sex weddings, is now facing charges from the same human rights commission for declining to bake a cake for a transgender transitioning celebration. Today, more than ever, read beyond the headlines Tim Challies on how even conservative or Christian media and bloggers can use headlines that are not telling us the full truth. That's why we need to do more than skim article titles. Susan Pevensie lives! If you were disturbed by Susan's absence in The Last Battle, the concluding book of the Narnia series, you'll enjoy this explanation of where she's ended up (10 min. read). Two atheists walk into a bar... Atheists will get upset when it's claimed they can't account for morality: "We can be as moral, kind, and helpful as anyone else. Many an atheist is the model neighbor, friend, and citizen." This claim may be true enough, but it isn't relevant. The point isn't whether atheists act moral, but whether their worldview provides any reason for them to do so. A Christian may well kill and steal (think of King David), even as that atheist over there spends his life helping little old ladies across the street. But the point is that when a Christian steals and kills he is breaking God's Commandments – he is not living according to his worldview. But if an atheist were to do the same thing, what atheist creed or principle would they be violating? What morality does atheism teach? School is here again - parents, watch out for the performance trap "The gospel is about grace; School is about performance. The gospel is about receiving compassion; School is about earning grades....The gospel and school. There is a disconnect, but it doesn’t have to exist." Truth is compassion: a grown man cannot become a little girl Just five years ago, almost no one took transgender claims seriously. Now folks are getting fired for insisting that God created us male and female. Why are we are losing this debate? One reason is because too many are afraid to even offer up the truth. Compelling, thought-provoking presentations of the truth are available, like this one below. But they are only useful if Christians use them, sharing them on our social media feeds. If no one will speak the truth – if we won't speak the truth – it shouldn't be surprised when the lie gains ground (3 min). ...

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Adam Ford wants you to bypass social media

Adam Ford was a wildly successful Christian cartoonist (Adam4d.com) before he mostly gave that up to start a wildly successful Christian satire site (BabylonBee.com) that he has also mostly given up. So what’s next for Mr. Ford? He’s started a Christian news aggregator site (ChristianDailyReporter.com) with links to Christian perspectives on the most important news stories of the day. Only time will tell whether this too will be wildly successful. But it won’t be for lack of passion. As Ford explains in a “manifesto” he’s included on the site: The majority of people get their news from social networks. We rely on Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram, YouTube, etc. to such a degree that we allow them to decide what content we consume, what issues we consider important, what news is news, what is and is not allowed to be said, what's true and what's not. These companies shape the way our brains think by controlling what our eyes see every day…. Now they increasingly shut down content that they don't approve of. At their own discretion, by their own definitions and values….We have given them extreme power over the flow of information. For a few companies to have the power to control the way billions of people think is terrifying and dangerous. It is unacceptable. The control that Facebook has, is control we’ve given it. Consider Reformed Perspective as an example. As much as 90% of our website traffic comes via Facebook – almost no one goes directly to our website itself. That becomes a problem when Facebook won’t let us promote a post, which has been happening on a still rare, but increasing, rate. When it does happen, it means very few people will see the article show up in their Facebook feed, which means very few will read it on the website. In a very real way Facebook controls whether Reformed Perspective articles will get read. Ford wants to bypass these social media sites altogether by having folks come directly to ChristianDailyReporter.com each day. And we, of course, would love people to visit ReformedPerspective.ca directly too. It’s an old fashioned idea – typing websites into our browser’s address bar – but if we want our news from a Christian perspective, then we need to go directly to the source, and not let Facebook, Twitter, and others, act as a filter....

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Why do more today feel like have-nots?

Back in 1988 a Pew Research poll of Americans found that a majority thought they were doing quite well, describing themselves as “haves.” Just 17% said they were “have-nots.” Twenty years later there was quite the change: a 2011 Pew poll found that self-identified have-nots had doubled to 34%. So, why this pessimistic turn in Americans’ self-assessment? Is it because things have gotten so much worse? Well, no. Things have improved in big ways and little since 1988! Consider, for example, how many Americans had cellphones in 1988. It was under 5% of the US populace. Today 95% of Americans have a cellphone, and more than 75% of them have a smartphone. In other words, three quarters of the population are walking around with a device in their back pocket that their 1988 forbearers couldn’t even have imagined, but if they did, they would have thought this music-playing, direction-giving, movie-showing, call-anywhere, super computer would have to be a tool reserved for only the super rich. And yet we all have one. And when it comes to the basics, in 1988 necessities used to eat up 39% of the average American worker’s income. In 2013 that had fallen to just 32%, meaning more disposable income for most everyone. So, again, why do more people feel like they are bad off when, in general, things are actually improving? Well, maybe it has something to do with the growing popularity of the term “income inequality.” By one measure, this term is used almost twice as often as it was in 1988. And focusing our attention on how much more our neighbor has than us can make it hard to appreciate our own blessings (Prov. 14:30)....

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Saturday Selections - July 28, 2018

How to help your daughter deal with mean girls Three tips on how to help your girls deal with - and not become - mean girls. Some cultures are better than others Some post-modern folk are so consistent with the outworking of their worldview, they'll argue that a culture that conducted ritual sacrifice daily is just practicing what they believe, and we shouldn't judge them. Thankfully, most post-modern folk aren't this consistent, and showing them something like this can help them see through the problem with their worldview. Facebook shuts down Christian ideas while allowing others to post threats  When CBC posted a video pushing homosexuality on what looked like kindergarten kids, a Christian professor posted a protest to his Facebook page. And got suspended by Facebook. Moreover, when folks share that they have been muted by Facebook, on Facebook - or their friends do - that can lead to further suspensions. Anne with an E is a PC fail Anne of Green Gables, everyone's favorite Canadian heroine, has been turned into an advocate for homosexuality, and an opponent of "domesticity and traditional social roles." What the Roman Catholic Church is still wrong: a helpful book R. Scott Clark reviews D.G Hart's new book Still Protesting: Why the Reformation matters. If you have a Roman Catholic in your life, this may be a good read. Another is R.C. Sproul's Are We Together: A Protestant analyzes Roman Catholicism. Is the Earth's climate unstable? A young earth creationist's thoughts (3 minutes) ...

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Saturday Selections - July 21, 2018

Differences between salvation in the Qur’an and the Bible Three key differences, including that the Qur'an teaches Jesus did not die on the cross. On the bad idea of a "guaranteed minimum basic income" For over 50 years now, an idea has been floated in Canada to guaranteed basic income. The key point? There would be no conditions – not even for abled-bodied recipients. Citizens would be guaranteed this sum (one proposal suggests $16,000/year) whether they tried to work or not. The article here isn't written from a Christian perspective, so to the insight offered there we can add another – in our sinful state, Mankind is prone to the temptation of laziness, and this guaranteed income would only encourage that temptation. Beware the "spiritual danger of doing good" “I have seen friends and mentors throw themselves into the causes of justice and do extraordinary work for Jesus. I admired their passion, their devotion, and their sacrifice. But despite their extraordinary dedication, things went wrong. Burnout. Infidelity. Lost faith. Financial compromise. Personal meltdowns. My heart breaks for these friends and for the ministries they worked so hard to build.” Cheap sex and the decline of marriage Even as most Americans still wanted to get married, they want to do it later, so they can have sexual freedom now. But it turns out that approach brings with it some unintended and unhappy consequences (and we're not even talking about the diseases). Or, in other words, God's way is best. Summer causes global warming hysteria The Cornwall Alliance's Roy Spencer on how the media is being encouraged to equate summer heat in specific spots with global warming. Todd Wood, on created kinds The folks who brought us the documentary Is Genesis History? (which we review here) are back with their second volume of follow-up interviews. Instead of the 1-2 minute chunks we get to see in the original documentary, Volume 1 and 2 of Behind Is Genesis History offer the full 20-some minute interviews with all sorts of experts. This one, with Todd Wood, introduces us to the concept of "created kinds" (17 min). ...

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The PCUSA and the need for more praise from the “mouth of babes”

This past June the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US – the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) – held their 223rd General Assembly. This is a denomination that already ordains sexually-active homosexuals so it's might not seem all that surprising when they make another departure from orthodoxy. But one observer, Dr. Mateen Elass, was surprised by just how comprehensive the departure has been. On his blog he shared the wording of a written prayer, handed out during the June 20 morning worship service at the Assembly: We praise you also for diverse faith among the peoples of the earth. You have bestowed your grace that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Practitioners of traditional religions and others may celebrate your goodness, act upon your truth and demonstrate your righteousness. As an average person in the pew, many of us are intimidated about evangelizing. We think we have to know everything about God before we can tell anyone anything about Him. Might we think differently if we understood what understood just how desperate the need is, and how great the poverty. Inside this 1.5 million member, formerly Reformed, denomination they don’t understand that serving other gods is not praiseworthy, but rebellion. This is a truth that their 20,000 ministers don’t seem to understand, but that we all know. All our children understand it. And if even our children know more than their ministers, then what excuse do we have for being too intimidated to speak? We might even be mere babes compared to some of the wise and knowledgeable theologians out there, but if God has called forth praise “from the lips of children and infants” (Matt. 21:16) – and He has! – then we can do likewise. The world – including many professing Christians too – need to hear about God from you and me....

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