In a televised debate with Alan Keyes, Alan Dershowitz argued that he did not believe in God, while maintaining that people who do not believe in God can establish and do what is right, and there is no need to invoke God for us to be a moral society. He said repeatedly in one form or another, all we have to do, is do what is right. That became his mantra for refuting the idea that we need God to know right and wrong. All we need to do is what is right, he would say.
The question from the audience for Dershowitz was this, “What makes something right?” Following is his response.
It’s a question I’m actually writing a book about. It’s called “Doing Right.” In my book, I reject natural law. I also reject simple legal positivism. If something is right, you have to struggle over that. It’s very, very difficult. There are no simpleminded answers. It’s not because God says so. Certainly I don’t hear the voice of God. I don’t believe any human being has ever heard the voice of God. But what is right is very difficult. What’s right is what experience has taught us over generations is right. In my book, I say it’s much easier to know what’s wrong than to know what’s right. We know what absolute evil is. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen it in the name of Secularism: Nazism. We’ve seen it in the name of atheism: Communism. We’ve seen it in the name of religion: the inquisitions and the crusades. We know what evil is. We know what wrong is. Right is a process. Right-ing is a process. A process of eternal search, beginning from the first human beings, moving through the Greek philosophers, through religious leaders, through civil leaders. I don’t know what’s right. I know what’s wrong. But I have something else to tell you folks. You don’t know what’s right. The minute you think you know what’s right, the minute you think you have the answer to what’s right, you have lost a very precious aspect of growing and developing. I don’t expect ever to know precisely what’s right, but I expect to devote the rest of my life to trying to find out. (italics added)1
Now I am really perplexed, if no one knows what is right, then why did he write a book about it–whatever it is? If one does not know what right is, then how pray tell may one know what is evil since evil is the absence of right? Moreover, how does Dr. Dershowitz know that no one else knows what right is, for that seems to make him all knowing and able to determine that someone does not possess what he cannot even identify. A fortiori, why should anyone read his book, which by his own admission is not right since he does not know what is right and has no intention of ever knowing?
Lastly, while I do agree that Dr. Dershowitz has never heard the voice of God, which is undeniably true since he does not know what is right; I take exception to his averring that “[no other] human has ever heard the voice of God” since he gives no evidence for such a Brobdingnagian claim.
It seems quite clear to me when faced with the option of believing Dr. Dershowitz’s claim—having already conceded that he does not know what is right—or believing Jesus’ claim, to not only know truth, but to be truth (John 14:6), for which he gave ample supporting evidence, it makes little sense to side with Dershowitz.
Did you know, “…that the British High Court ruled in a lawsuit that Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, “is scientifically flawed and has nine significant exaggerations and factual errors.” Among those exaggerations are the claims that sea levels could rise 20 feet by the end of the century, and that polar bears are disappearing because of global warming (in fact, they are not).”1
Not likely to hear this in school or on most media outlets. These and other challenges to the seemingly unbridled hype about man-made global warming are unveiled in a new movie, “Not Evil Just Wrong” produced by the Cornwall Alliance. You can purchase the movie directly from them. Also you may want to check out Chuck Colson’s commentary on the film.
Why should Christians be concerned about the excessive hysteria over man-made global warming? To mention a few, first, contrary to the claims of many environmentalists and the actions of some others, man is not an intrusion into the environment, a detriment, but actually God’s capstone to the environment, and given by Him the authority to rule over it (Gen 1:26-29). Their distorted view of man’s place in creation causes them to choose to save some creature like a snail darter over human life, stop technological advancements via fiat, or cause economic strangulation via environmental regulation, effectively perpetuating poverty and pollution in poor countries, for example, where dung is used for heat. They make man who is “created in the image of God” not only less than man, but less than an animal.
Second, truth matters, and when the truth is distorted in one area, it eventually will lead to distortions in other areas.
Third, many of the environmentalists have an agenda that is far more in line with socialism, Marxism, and any system of governmental redistribution of wealth, which I believe always has a deleterious impact upon the family unit.
Those of you who know me know that I am deeply concerned about not only false teaching, but particularly the shallow insubstantial teaching of the Scripture in a growing number of our evangelical churches. This leaves this generation of Christians un-equipped and the next generation with very little knowledge of the Christian faith to not only follow but to pass down to the next generation.
The dumbing down of the church is dishonoring to God, harmful to Christians, and consigns future generations to either perish without the truth or to live only principles of Scripture without knowing God in a way that allows them to teach the generation that succeeds them—if there is such a generation.
Simply put, one cannot teach what one does not know, and if the church abrogates her teaching responsibility, those who should be learning the faith to pass it on will be no more than emotional Christians.
C. S. Lewis (1898 – 1963) taught at Oxford for 29 years and later held the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge until his death. He saw the necessity and importance of correct teaching and spoke pointedly about it in one of his God in the Dock Essays.
He said, “This very obvious fact—that each generation is taught by an earlier generation—must be kept very firmly in mind . . . None can give to another what he does not possess himself. No generation can bequeath to its successor what it has not got. You may frame the syllabus as you please. But when you have planned and reported ad nauseam, if we are skeptical we shall teach only skepticism to our pupils, if fools only folly, if vulgar only vulgarity, if saints sanctity, if heroes heroism.
Education is only the most fully conscious of the channels whereby each generation influences the next. It is not a closed system. Nothing which was not in the teachers can flow from them into the pupils. We shall all admit that a man who knows no Greek himself cannot teach Greek to his form; but it is equally certain that a man whose mind was formed in a period of cynicism and disillusion, cannot teach hope or fortitude. A society which is predominantly Christian will propagate Christianity through its schools: one which is not, will not. All the ministries of education in the world cannot alter this law . . . “1
- C. S. Lewis, “On the Transmission of Christianity,” God in the Dock: Essays on Theology & Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1972), 116-117. [↩]
Hitler’s animosity and inhumane atrocities against the Jews are well known. His venom against them and his plan to use his own oratorical abilities to exploit them in order to resurrect Germany is a theme running though Mein Kampf. However, one should never forget how effective his devilish, albeit intellectually doltish, scheme was. Moreover, there are more than a few today who seek to eradicate from the globe the Jews, Christians, and other groups they deem to be corrupting influences.
The following quote reminds us of how one can use a group in order to accomplish a dastardly political end.
“My object is to guide first-rate revolutionary upheavals, regardless of what methods or means I have to use in the process. Earlier revolutions were against the peasants, or nobility, or the clergy or against dynasties and their network of vassals, but in no case has revolution succeeded without the presence of a lightening rod that could conduct and channel the odium of the general masses . . . [W]eighing every imaginable factor, I came to the conclusion that a campaign against the Jews would be as popular as it would be successful . . . Disproportionately to their small number they account for an immense share of the German national wealth, which can be just as easily put to profitable use for the state and the general public as could the holdings of monasteries, bishops and nobility. Once the hatred and the battle against the Jews has been really stirred up, their resistance will necessarily crumble in the shortest possible time. They are totally defenseless, and no one will stand up to protect them.”1
Even though Hitler died, there are still several “Hitlers” on the political landscape who will use whatever means possible to ruthlessly conquer the weak maugre all political agreements and niceties.
- Josef Hell, Aufzeichnung, 1922, Z.S. 640, p. 6, Institut für Zeitgeschicthe in Frankfurt. Quoted in Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 28-29. Cited in Philip Rieff, My Life among the Deathworks (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006), 160-161. [↩]
Intentionalists believe that the Constitution should be understood in the way it was understood by the Founders. Consequently, it is a fixed document with static meaning; therefore, it means today what it meant then. The only way one can properly interpret it is by studying the authorial intent of the signatories.
In contrast, progressives believe that the Constitution is to be understood as a living document, which not only allows but requires that each generation interpret the Constitution in light of current needs and changes. They argue that the meaning must be ever changing in order to keep the Constitution relevant and adaptable to the issues of the day. Therefore, the interpretations and adjudications of the Supreme Court, which are not explicitly sanctioned by the Constitution, are not only appropriate, but essential.
Thus, the question of which approach is the correct one? Well, if the latter was the desire of the Founders, then I would ask, why did they include an explicit process for amending the Constitution? For the amendment process seems glaringly superfluous if the Founders intended for the Supreme Court to change, add to, or reinterpret the Constitution according to their modern opinions regarding the need to change.
Moreover, one may even go so far as to suggest that both of the legislative houses are, if not extraneous, at least marginalized in significance since legislators were/are actually the nation’s lawmakers.
Jefferson said, “To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”1
- Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277, http://www.landmarkcases.org/marbury/jefferson.html [↩]
We like to consider ourselves a “civilized” and “humane” society, and I think that is true in many ways. However, the legalization and normalization of abortion reminds us of the darker side of our humanity. For in abortion, the strong summarily dismiss the lives of the preborn through methods that betray a narcissistic primal barbarism. I suspect that if an actual abortion was performed on television for all to see in cinematic detail, it would rival the cruelest and most heart wrenching of horror movies.
Recently, Landon Norton’s Round Table presentation succinctly reminded us of the inhumane process of an abortion. Please do not allow his admirable brevity to cause you to forget the heroic struggle of each little one caught in this human web of brutish and savage selfishness. Read the rest of this entry »
“Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” Proverbs 13:24).
“Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.” (Proverbs 23:13-14).
Spanking is viewed by secularists and Christian secularists1 as anachronistic at best and labeled by many as abuse.
However, the Bible is clear that spanking is actually an act of love.
To equate biblical spanking with abuse is to misrepresent spanking for emotive conditioning, and denotes the change of a culture’s view of child rearing to a non-biblical approach. Those who present spanking as abusive do so by comparing the event to someone beating or hitting another person or some such nonsensical comparison. However, equating the two is like equating muggers and football players because they both make physical contact with another human being; or comparing a police officer shooting an assassin with a thief killing his mark because in both instances a gun was used.
Similarities do not make two events morally the same if there are essential dissimilarities, e.g. suicide and martyrdom. To devalue spanking because someone takes it too far and thereby transforms it into abuse is as misguided as devaluing the automobile because of a hit and run driver. The problem is not the automobile but the abuse of it, and in like manner the problem is not spanking but the abuse of it either by flippantly labeling it abuse or calling genuine abuse spanking.
What sets biblical spanking apart is that it is commanded by God as a form of discipline for children, which God would never do if it were abuse. It is commanded in the book of Proverbs, which is a book devoted in large part to a father—parents—instructing their children and rearing them out of a devoted love and concern for the child’s well-being, which is the very antithesis of the motivation for abuse.
Particularly when children are young, they need to be taught right from wrong through feeling discomfort to their behind because pain is a part of the built-in warning system that humans have. Small children are not able to understand rational discourse well enough to protect them from harm; for example, a child needs to learn to associate NO from the parent with pain on their behind so that they will not injure themselves by touching hot stoves, running in front of cars, etc., because they will be able to immediately associate a parent’s NO with pain. Moreover, when the parent tells them that a certain behavior will hurt them so they should not do it, they have an immediate understanding of hurt, which they do not have if you merely give them a paper on the subject or interact with them through some democratic lecture.
As Christians, we do not believe that spanking is the only form of discipline, or even the best in every situation, but it is a loving part of child rearing when done in the loving spirit of the whole book of Proverbs. Opponents who extricate the teaching on spanking from its full biblical context expose themselves as shamefully unfamiliar with what they are talking about or so repulsively dishonest for political gain that their ramblings should be summarily dismissed. Spanking is from a loving parent for the benefit of the child’s full development and well-being, whereas abuse is a hurtful dispensing of adult anger or frustration upon a child for the narcissistic benefit of the parent.
My two daughters were spanked on a number many occasions. I suspect that at the time, they would have voted to outlaw spankings, and deemed them tantamount to being made to lay on a bed of nails while riding a camel in a rocky desert; however, today as grown women, they would extol the loving benefit of it and have every intention of carrying on the great tradition with my grandchildren. Why? Because they know we love them, they are better for it, and they want to love their children in a godly way.
My challenge to every secularist is simply this. I defy any one of them to find any, no matter how minute, damage to one of my daughters because of spanking them when they were little or to detect even the slightest lack of love between us because of such discipline. I would even say that those who think spanking is abusive or passé should meet my daughters and think again.
To wit, I have no regrets about spanking my daughters and if I had it to do all over again, I would not “spare the rod” because I love what both of my daughters have become.
- by which I mean a person who claims to be a Christian, but thinks like a secularist thereby disregarding the clear teaching of Scripture [↩]
This article includes an introduction to my views concerning the theological system of Calvinism, followed by a table of contents with links to articles on my thoughts regarding specific theological areas of concern or disagreement with Calvinism.
My prayer is that this article will help all of you who have asked me questions or are presently confused regarding biblical issues like election, predestination, sovereignty of God, free choice, faith and works, God’s love, hell, etc.
I am forever grateful to God for the joy of shepherding the fellowship of Trinity Baptist Church. Read the rest of this entry »
The present rhetorical climate labels humans as “consumers”, which is true to a degree, but we are much more than just consumers. The value in such a label being used as the most apt for humans merely furthers the environmentalist’s agenda and miscasting of humans as intruders into an otherwise pristine universe.
The formula goes like this; the environment is damaged when there is an increase in population, affluence, and technology. The damage is caused from depleted resources and the emission of pollution. This formula was espoused by Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, which predicted in no uncertain terms that population would grow at such an enormous rate that hundreds of millions of people would die from famine. Although this did not happen, his formula1 is still relied upon by those who seek to stifle capitalism and eliminate human beings through the barbarism of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.
His equation, like that of other environmental alarmists and catastrophists, ignores the human component of being a producer as well as a consumer. For example, “While the population grew [in the United States] by 19% from 1976 to 1994, the index of air pollution fell by 53 percent. During the same time, affluence tripled, and technology also increased dramatically, with more and more computerization and automation not only in industry and commerce but even in private homes.”2
They fail to consider man’s enormous contribution to life by his use of the natural resources. They see only a consumer and miss that man is created in the image of God. Beware when you are referred to as merely a consumer and be quick to remind yourself and others that you should be most readily known as a producer.
Once a citadel of truth and training for Christian ministers, Harvard is today an enemy of the gospel and truth. Speaking at the 2002 fall convocation, Harvard President Lawrence Summers admitted that “things divine [had] been central neither to my professional nor to my personal life.” He then wondered out loud, “In what ways should Christianity be privileged, and not be privileged, recognizing the [Divinity] School’s traditions, strengths, and need for focus, and also taking into account growing religious pluralism?”1 Of course the commitment of his life and the decline of Harvard from the once bastion of orthodoxy gives us the answer to his question, none of significance.
The founders would have been astonished. They had put Christ’s name on the first seal and published this 1642 account of the school’s history, rationale, and order:2
After God had carried us safe to new England, and wee had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our liveli-hood, rear’d convenient places for Gods worship, and settled the Civill Government: One of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to advance Learning and perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministery to the Churches, when our present Ministers shall lie in the Dust3 . . . Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Iesus Christ which is eternall life, Joh. 17.3. and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning.4
Yale was founded in 1701 primarily because Harvard (founded in 1636) was seen to be too far away and becoming more and more liberal, a shift that was highlighted by a rift between the president of Harvard, Increase Mather, and the rest of the Harvard clergy, whom Mather viewed as increasingly liberal. Mather ultimately became very supportive of Yale in hopes that it would champion Puritan Orthodoxy and not travel the path to liberalism that Harvard had.
Harvard continued its descent into the abyss of liberalism when in 1805, the school appointed Henry Ware, a Unitarian minister, as Hollis Professor of Divinity. President Charles Eliot worked arduously to spread his Unitarian and Emersonian ideas throughout the university.
Concerning the biblical account of the Garden of Eden, Eliot said, “The conduct attributed to God in that story would be wholly unworthy of any man whose standards of conduct accorded with the average sentiments about right and wrong of civilized people today.”5 About Harvard’s doctrinal roots, he said, “No thinking person believes any longer in total human depravity. Everybody perceives that human society could not exist, and never could have existed unless the vast majority of mankind had been well disposed, affectionate, and trustworthy . . .”6
“Eliot embraced the anti-Christian Ralph Waldo Emerson and appointed such non-believers to the faculty as jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, philosophical pragmatist Charles Saunders Peirce, and evolutionist Chauncey Wright.”7
This descent into apostasy has been replicated thousands of times in schools and churches in the western world….It reveals once again the parasitic nature of liberalism, which seldom founds a country, school, mission, church…but soon finds its way in and then in leadership. This when the Biblicist forgets that eternal vigilance is the price of doctrinal fidelity!
- Lawrence Summers, “Convocation of the Divinity School of Harvard University 2002,” Harvard University: Office of the President Website, September 8, 2002, http://president.harvard.edu/speeches/2002/convocation.html (accessed December 27, 2004). [↩]
- Entitled New England’s First Fruits. [↩]
- Samuel Eliot Morison, The Founding of Harvard College (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935), 432. [↩]
- Ibid., 434. [↩]
- Henry Saunderson, Charles W. Eliot, Puritan Liberal (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928), 174. [↩]
- Ibid., 211. [↩]
- Kairos Journal [↩]