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Thoughts From Vienna

John Parenteau December 15, 2015 Authors, Blogs, John D. Gibbon

By John D. Gibbon

This week I am in Vienna at the Wolfgang Pauli Institute (University of Vienna) speaking at a fluid turbulence meeting. The grand and beautiful Viennese baroque palaces tell the story of a once powerful Empire that ruled over half of Europe before its sudden collapse in 1918. At that time, the Europeans considered their Empires to be almost eternal, yet their demise began a period of unprecedented and accelerated political, cultural and technical change. My mother died in late 2013 but when she was born in 1915 the German Kaiser, the Russian Tsar and the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef still sat on their thrones, while the sun had not yet set on the British Empire.

One example of accelerated cultural change has been the aggressive secularization undergone by western societies in the last generation. Some changes have been welcome, some have crept upon their victims like an illness in the night, while others have had an even stronger negative influence. The effect of secularization on western societies has been like the rolling shell-fire of WW1. When the dust and noise have subsided, a ruined, pot-holed, spiritual landscape has emerged. The grass and trees may re-grow and the birdsong may re-start, but the contours of the land have changed forever. Secularism has been trustingly ignored because its championing of personal freedom above all else has beguiled us into thinking that it is a benign or, at worst, a neutral force. In reality, the sheer scale of its blanketing fire has changed our societies and forcibly re-moulded many areas of the church to such a degree that they are almost unrecognizable from a generation ago.

As biblical influence on western societies has been discarded, a strange melange of not only religiously-tinged populist physics but much cruder forms of sci-fi beliefs concerning aliens, multi-faith religions, eastern mysticism and astrology have been sucked into the vacuum. The result has been a blurring of any perspective on the ultimate biblical questions regarding the origin and destination of humankind. The canvas of public opinion has thus become open to the painting of any shape or form that appears to be the fashion of the moment among a people whose minds have been formed by influences totally different than their ancestors. When mixed together with extreme versions of materialistic individualism, a Jackson Pollock-like painting has emerged which represents what popular western culture thinks of as ‘theology’ which is unrecognizable to the Christian.

In “Science and the Knowledge of God” I have endeavoured to sketch some of the new results and ideas that have swirled around the scientific world in the 21st century. To the usual favourites such as cosmology, astronomy and high energy physics, we could also add newer areas such as artificial intelligence, theories of the mind, genetic engineering and editing, astro-biology and complex computer networks. All of these have been much hyped by the science writers of the day and have tickled the popular imagination. In the media, the millions of regular technical papers and results are rarely mentioned for understandable reasons, but the phenomenon of what I call ‘populist science’ has turned into a form of anti-religious propaganda put out by a small set of celebrity scientists who, while extremely distinguished in their own fields, use their professional positions to propagate their own opinions on the existence or non-existence of God, the future of the human race or the validity of religion. This material is shaping the minds of this generation who think they are being led into a new world of thought unspoiled by more conventional and (in their eyes) tarnished religions. Numerous examples of this influence lie in cosmology, complexity and evolutionary biology. On occasion some well-known name cannot resist the impulse to appoint himself or herself a high-priest-scientist — a familiar stereo-type — by moonlighting as a philosopher or secular prophet. The resulting book is usually couched in popular scientific language but propagates ideas that lie well beyond the rigorously established results of the author’s technical expertise and, more often than not, contains quasi-religious personal opinions. The book reviewer Brian Blank once acidly referred to this style of writing, common-place in cosmology, as “science fiction with academic cachet”.

How are Christians to deal with this? The old Puritan adage about “preaching to the condition of your hearers” ought to be taken seriously. If your hearers are steeped in a culture driven by secular values that may, in part, be hostile to the Gospel, how will you be able to talk to them and answer their questions unless you have understood how their minds have been formed? Whatever the situation in which we find ourselves, serious Christians ought to use the minds they have been given to understand the issues and grapple with them in a way that is both intellectually rigorous and also faithful to the Bible.

Check out Science and the Knowledge of God here.

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Lampion Conversations: Steve Sullivan

John Parenteau December 14, 2015 Lampion Conversations

Steve Sullivan is a New Testament professor at College of Biblical Studies in Houston, Texas, who has recently finished a Ph.D. at the prestigious University of Wales, Lampeter. His dissertation on Romans 9-11, an excellent analysis of these chapters. Steve will be working with me on the Logos Evangelical Exegetical Commentary series on the book of Romans.

Steve and I had a good visit in Houston, where we sat the stage to produce his dissertation that will add important insight into Romans 9-11, a central portion of Paul’s treatise to the Roman Christian, regarding God’s purposes for the Gentiles and the Jews. The work will not be out for a while, but we look forward to its publication.

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Let’s Talk About Noah

John Parenteau December 10, 2015 Authors, Blogs, R M Huffman

By R.M. Huffman

I’d like to talk about Noah for a second.

NOAH Children

 

No, not that one. The Noah in the book of Genesis is described in Ezekiel 14 as one of the three most righteous men (with Daniel and Job) in history up to that point, and in Hebrews 11 as one of the great heroes of faith. HAPPY SMILING NOAH may be the version commonly taught in Sunday School, but he’s most definitely a watered-down (flood joke!) version of the historical figure, whose story, properly told, isn’t really appropriate for small children.

Let’s back up and look at the earth in which a young Noah lived. The geography was different; both secular and Christian geologists accept the concept of a single supercontinent (called “Rodinia” in modern scholarship), which broke apart in the cataclysmic, literally-earth-shaking global flood described in Genesis, when “the fountains of the great deep burst open.” A few of this original earth’s features are mentioned in Genesis 2; we know that four rivers – Tigris, Euphrates, Gihon, Pishon – arose from headwaters in the land of Eden, and we know that there existed such places as Havilah, Assyria, Cush, and the city of Enoch in Nod. Beyond that, we have no Biblical details, but one can hardly conclude that a human population commanded to “be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” would have failed to spread about the globe in the 1600 years between Adam’s creation and the destruction of the antediluvian world. Most else is conjecture – did the mists that God caused to rise from the ground entirely replace the role of rainfall today? – but it’s a near-certainty that the earth lost in the flood would be utterly alien to us.

Let’s consider what sort of man Noah was. “Righteous.” “Obedient.” Yes, but I mean what sort of human he was. From the genealogy in Genesis 5, we see that he and all his forebears except for his great-grandfather Enoch (translated into heaven at age 365) and his father Lamech (died at age 777, which is curious – see below), lived to be around 900 years old. The lifespan of his father overlapped Adam’s, and the lifespan of his son Shem overlapped Jacob’s. Noah didn’t have children until he was 500 (as opposed to his forefathers, who procreated within the first two centuries of life – also curious). Speaking of children: Genesis 6:1-4 mentions human women bearing the progeny of the “sons of God” (bene Elohim) called the Nephilim, so there’s a powerful Scriptural case to be made that Noah lived concurrently with, yes, a population of half-angel giants. He also lived in a world where existed every kind of animal created, including the monstrous creatures only known to us by the fossil record; although there isn’t any way to know his interaction with the animal world in six centuries before the flood, he certainly became familiar with all of its members during his year on the ark, from picture-book standbys like sheep and oxen to (almost certainly juvenile) pairs of sauropods, theropods, paraceratheriums, chalicotheres, and rauisuchians.

Now, imagine this world – this antediluvian world with angel-blooded Nephilim and tyrannosaurs, with technology of unknown sophistication (comparable to Egyptian? Roman? Medieval?), created by men who lived ten times as long as we do now – going bad. I don’t mean “making fun of Noah as he builds an ark in the desert” bad (where did the whole “desert” idea come from anyway? It’s commonplace, but it isn’t in the Bible). I mean: take the worst elements of the most evil human practices in history. Ethnic cleansing, child sacrifices, cannibalism. The Nazis, the Huns, Rome under Caligula. It’s my belief that followers of God would likely have been hunted down and slaughtered (was Lamech’s death five years prior to the flood a result of some sort of pogrom against believers?), but no doubt Noah also watched men and women – friends? family? – succumb to evil over time, possibly over centuries, until they were so warped and twisted that their just Creator had no recourse but to utterly destroy them. The Nephilim are described as “heroes of old, men of renown,” but certainly they wouldn’t have been regarded as such at the time of the flood’s judgment.

Noah, though, remained faithful to God throughout the devolution of humanity into an universally-irredeemable monstrosity and its complete destruction, along with everything and everywhere Noah had known for longer than Europeans have been aware of the Americas. I’m sure he was grateful beyond words for his and his family’s salvation. I very much doubt that he was happy and smiling about it.

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Love

John Parenteau December 9, 2015 Authors, Blogs, Louis Markos

By Louis Markos

God is not the Platonic Form of love; He is love in action.

Louis Markos talks about the 12th chapter of his recently released book “From A to Z in Narnia with CS Lewis”, in which he relates an idea or aspect of CS Lewis’ writing to a unique letter in the alphabet.

Click ‘play’ on the video below to watch.

View “From A to Z in Narnia With CS Lewis” here

View the the Lampion Press YouTube channel here

Titles From This Author

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Final Solutions, Then and Now

John Parenteau December 8, 2015 Authors, Blogs, Wayne Braudrick
By Wayne Braudrick
“And when he learned of Mordecai’s ethnic identity, Haman decided not to do away with Mordecai alone. He planned to destroy all of Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout Ahasuerus’s kingdom …”It is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. If the king approves, let an order be drawn up authorizing their destruction.”
(Esther 3:6, 8-9 HCSB)
 
Haman’s “final solution”
Haman’s dedicated hostility is astounding. The Jews have been conquered, their land stripped away. Only a small part of what God gave them is back in their hands and new peoples control almost all of the Middle East. Israel is just clinging to a tiny area and are totally surrounded by hostile forces. Most Jews don’t live in Israel and most of them are not at all religious. Only a few, like Mordecai, trust YHWH.
And yet they are all at risk because of hatred and racism. Haman is only the tip of the spear. A decree like this doesn’t get implemented if anti-Semitism weren’t widespread.
The latest “final solution”
Doesn’t this sound familiar? Surely you have noticed the insane rise in anti-Semitism – especially on US college campuses, in the Middle East, and in Europe. The talented journalist Brett Stephens has. In his weekly world affairs column, “Global View,” Mr. Stephens notes this chilling reality:
Daniel Polisar, an Israeli political scientist, recently published a fascinating study in Mosaic magazine of Palestinian public opinion based on 330 polls conducted over many years. It makes for some bracing reading.
“When asked hypothetically if Israel’s use of chemical or biological weapons against Palestinians would constitute terror, 93 percent said yes,” notes Mr. Polisar. “But when the identical question was posed regarding the use of such weapons of mass destruction by Palestinians against Israelis, only 25 percent responded affirmatively.”
Other details: In December 2014, 78% of Palestinians expressed support for “attempts to stab or run over Israelis” in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Only 20% were opposed. Palestinians have also consistently supported terrorist attacks against Israelis within Israel’s original borders, “often by as much as six to one.”
As for the idea of sharing the land, only 12% of Palestinians agreed that “both Jews and Palestinians have rights to the land.”…Most Palestinians also think Israel won’t be around in 30 or 40 years, either “because Arab or Muslim resistance will destroy it” or on account of its “internal contradictions.” Where is the sense in agreeing to relinquish through negotiations…what be yours in deed tomorrow? – Brett Stephens in The Wall Street Journal 10 November 2015
That’s Haman! He sees no need to negotiate with or understand Mordecai because he feels confident he can get the world power to just wipe those Jews out. Think, friends. Both modern Israel and Jewish persons are capable of all kinds of wrong and must be held accountable. Yet, when the rhetoric stems from a dedication to deny Hebrew people life and land, we must note and repudiate the work of Haman and his ideological progeny.

 

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Lampion Conversations: Tim Chaffey

John Parenteau December 7, 2015 Lampion Conversations

On my recent trip to Baptist Bible Seminary to attend the Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics, I also had the opportunity to meet novelist Tim Chaffey, who has endorsed the new release by R. M. Huffman, entitled Leviathan, book 1 of The Antediluvian Legacy. The Tolkien-like novel has been written by R. M. Huffman, a medical doctor and fiction author.

Lampion Press is excited that his book on Noah, the first of three volumes, has finally been printed and will be available soon. Some of you may remember the recent movie Noah, that had wonderful cinematography, well-known actors, but had a horrible plot. R. M. Huffman’s novel on Noah and his times is greatly different. It has well-developed characters, a fascinating plot, lots of ferocious monsters and evil beings. It is an exciting read that maintains consistency with the biblical account of Noah and his times, but twists a tale that will keep you guessing.

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Kingship

John Parenteau November 26, 2015 Authors, Blogs, Louis Markos, Wayne Braudrick

By Louis Markos

We all yearn to honor and serve something greater than ourselves.

Louis Markos talks about the 11th chapter of his recently released book “From A to Z in Narnia with CS Lewis”, in which he relates an idea or aspect of CS Lewis’ writing to a unique letter in the alphabet.

Click ‘play’ on the video below to watch.

View “From A to Z in Narnia With CS Lewis” here

View the the Lampion Press YouTube channel here

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Jesus

John Parenteau November 23, 2015 Authors, Blogs, Louis Markos

By Louis Markos

The gospels are not fanciful myths or legends, but sober biographies.

Louis Markos talks about the tenth chapter of his recently released book “From A to Z in Narnia with CS Lewis”, in which he relates an idea or aspect of CS Lewis’ writing to a unique letter in the alphabet.

Click ‘play’ on the video below to watch.

View “From A to Z in Narnia With CS Lewis” here

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Influence

John Parenteau November 20, 2015 Authors, Blogs, Louis Markos

By Louis Markos

We view the universe as our house; the Medievals saw it as their home.

Louis Markos talks about the ninth chapter of his recently released book “From A to Z in Narnia with CS Lewis”, in which he relates an idea or aspect of CS Lewis’ writing to a unique letter in the alphabet.

Click ‘play’ on the video below to watch.

View “From A to Z in Narnia With CS Lewis” here

View the the Lampion Press YouTube channel here

 

Titles From This Author

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Lampion Press visits Jerusalem

John Parenteau November 17, 2015 News & Events

Recently, President & CEO H. Wayne House had an opportunity to visit Jerusalem.

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