Evolution and my ostrich mentality

• Did God take billions of years to create the universe?
• Mutations could have created many new species over time, couldn’t they?
• Were there human-like creatures before Adam and Eve?

Today I answer, “No, no, no,” to these questions with much clarity and confidence.

When I was growing up, in India, evolution was taught in schools. But it did not shake my faith even one teeny bit because none of my teachers believed in it. But the theory of evolution was sneakier than our teachers realised. Terms like adaptations and modifications soon became second nature to us all, teachers and taught alike. In reality, the monster was too crafty for ordinary people to handle. We did not know what to do with concepts like radioactive dating, Neanderthal man, Cambrian explosion, and the myriad others that we came across.

I believed that ordinary people need not worry themselves about these matters that were best left to Christian scientists to deal with. At the same time I believed resolutely, that the Bible will eventually be proved right. For all my zeal for the Lord, I was like the proverbial ostrich, imagining that if I did not think about the problem, it would go away.

Madurai’s wall of shame

I find it hard to believe that such a wall exists. But it’s true. The city of Madurai is tense because police broke a portion of this wall yesterday. It is a 100-meter wall that was built 20 years ago to keep “low caste” people from entering the “upper caste” area of a village.

Caste is a very complex matter in India, a monster that clings so closely to us even 60 years after Independence. I worry for the children who are caught in the crossfire, those growing with the wrong notion that they are in some way superior, and those growing up believing that they are inferior.

My great grandfather’s father converted to Christianity from one of these very same castes that built this wall. So I am a pure-blooded one-of-these-castes person. I am in no way inherently superior to any one else—not superior to a Dalit or any other Indian or Asian or European or anyone else.

What does the Bible say about such divisions among human beings?

How does one get into a relationship with Jesus?

Very few tapes have we enjoyed together as a family as much as this one. It’s called Irreconcilable Differences, that features host John Ankerberg and a panel comprising John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, and James Kennedy.

The issue discussed is a document that sets out with the noble aim of bringing Roman Catholics and Evangelicals together, but falls short because it overlooks and glosses over vital differences in the doctrines of salvation of both communions, resulting in implicitly compromising the five solas, so precious to us.

• Sola scriptura (”by Scripture alone”)
• Sola fide (”by faith alone”)
• Sola gratia (”by grace alone”)
• Solus Christus (”Christ alone”)
• Soli Deo gloria (”glory to God alone”)

I have many close Roman Catholic friends; how wonderful it would be to fellowship together. But I now know that it is not as simple as saying: Let’s forget our differences and get together. Coming together is going to have to involve much study of the Bible, church history and other material, much prayer, courage, and brutal honesty.

Feminist Geography

I can hear Roger Whittaker singing: Something’s going wrong with the singer and the song / And the music isn’t gentle anymore . . .

In the recent NCEA examinations for the geography paper for year 13, the students were given several images and asked to explain each from a feminist perspective. One of the pictures was that of a hill, one was a view of Hagley Park and the Christchurch CBD, and so on. It is difficult for me to understand what a feminist perspective has to do with geography.

The story in today’s NZ Herald mentions that some parents objected and includes the opinions of some “experts” in the field.

Feminist geographer Dr Julie Cupples, of Canterbury University, said feminist geography had been around since the late 1970s.

It incorporated women’s experience in a male-dominated area.“It’s really good if you can start to understand how gender shapes people’s lives and our world in different ways,” Dr Cupples said.

The suburbs could be highly gendered in that many women were at home with children “and the interesting stuff that is happening downtown they are excluded from”.

Dr Wendy Lawson, head of the geography department at Canterbury University, said the exam question, while sophisticated, was “perfectly legitimate”.

She suspected parents who regarded the question as politically correct were “taking a certain definition of feminism, and feminist, that is a colloquial understanding of that term - rather than an academic or intellectual understanding of that term”.

I can only go back to my pet conclusion. Whenever the Bible is honoured in a country, that nation advances and becomes a good and safe place. The coming of Ziegenbalg and William Carey to India resulted in an end to many evil practices such as Sati and polygamy and a renaissance of language and thought. Now in this new country of mine, the Bible is leaving, and I see change in a certain direction. I am afraid for New Zealand.

Something Tamil got here 500 years before us

Before you can appreciate the Tamil object that got here so many years ago, I must tell you something about the person who discovered it.

Can it be the still small Voice of the Spirit?

God speaks to us through the word of God, the Bible. This word is immutable and true. All our experiences and knowledge cannot stand up against its authority. Under its light, God speaks to us through our experiences and situations. Under its light, God speaks to us very clearly through the words of an anointed preacher. Under its light, God speaks through the spiritual songs we sing. Under its light, God speaks to us through good examples and even through bad examples and models. Under its light, God speaks to us through our conscience.

It is this last method that I want to focus on today.

Knives can kill; ban them

Recently New Zealand got a new anti-smacking bill. Even before this bill, it was illegal to hit children. But if we were arrested for smacking our children, we could defend ourselves by saying that we were using reasonable force to correct their behaviour. Using reasonable force to correct a child was not an offense. Apparently this provision was being misused, and some felt the need for a new bill.

With the new bill, police are expected to make a distinction between the offense of smacking as a correctional tool by good parents on the one hand, and the offense of violent acts by irresponsible parents on the other. After making that distinction, they are asked to ignore the former offense. Prosecuted or not, smacking a child for correction is an offense according to the law of the land. How tragic is that!

Smacking, like a knife, is a tool. It can cause devious harm in the hands of the wrong person.

Knives can be used to cut a capsicum or chop a tomato; they can also be used to stab someone. We prefer to teach people to use knives responsibly rather than ban them. Irresponsible and violent parents must be brought to book. This law will not serve that purpose; instead it will harm some of the best families in NZ. Eventually our society will pay the price.

My children, all three of them, have all been smacked at some time or the other. It hurt their father and me to smack them more than it hurt them. I have watched some Supper Nanny episodes and have always felt that the ‘naughty spot’ tool was a bit of a hassle. I was able to achieve the same result with a tight little smack in the calf. The lesson was learned quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

What does the Bible have to say on this subject? You know, how I tremble to think that these are the words of the Most High God.

As a child

I sit on His knee
‘Fore the Book open wide,
At the place
Where the Lord
Calmed the storm,
Stilled the tide.

Turn the pages
And a young man
With a stone
Felled a giant;

Turn again
To see angels
Close the mouth
Of hungry lions;

Split the sea
The enemy’s routed;
Fall the walls
When triumph shouted;

A queen saved her people
In a faraway land;
Against God’s will
Whoever could stand!

What a Book!
What a Lord!

As we travel the sod,
Do we need to every worry
Flustered in a frenzied hurry?

What a show!
What a sight!
What a Savior
And what might!

And to think
As a child
On His knee,
I sit still
‘Fore the Book open wide,
As my heart drinks its fill.

Here I’ll stay,
Here abide,
All my life,
As a child.

-n-

Miss Emma Norton Horton

On 23 June 2007, Miss Horton will celebrate her 90^th birthday with family and friends in Victoria, BC, Canada.

She must have been nearly 65 when I got to know her. When I asked her why she had not married, she said that she had still not met her Prince Charming, and that she was still waiting. To the best of my knowledge, she has not married in the intervening years.

When I grumbled at home that I found reading the Bible boring, my father thought for a moment and said, “Tell God that you want to read His word and will do so, but that you find it boring. He has made the reading of His word so delightful to me, and He can for you too, if you ask Him.” I did pray. Today the word of God is delightful to me too, but between then and now, God used many circumstances and people to acquaint me with His word. One early person that He used was Miss Horton.

John Piper heard God actually speaking!

Can we hear God speaking, I mean really speaking, today? Read what Pastor John Piper has to say about his experience. Please read the article completely or you may miss the point.
Link to: The moring I heard the voice of God