Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • Eschatological Living

    I’ve been doing some discussion of the prophecies of the book of Daniel recently on the Compuserve Christian Fellowship Forum. The discussion there is about the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of the investigative judgment and the time prophecy of Daniel 8:14. But that is not what this post is about.

    As I reviewed the many related prophecies about the time of the end, I couldn’t help but see the strong emphasis on one source of hope–the writers of Daniel and Revelation held up for themselves and their readers the hope that God was going to intervene and that everything was going to turn out all right. This kind of thinking is often described with the term “eschatological” which simply means that it has to do with the end of all things. In particular, eschatological thinking, speaking, and writing in theology refers to the notion that things will not end naturally as they run down due to the normal course of nature, but that there will come a point when things appear utterly hopeless, but at that point God will intervene and things will change.

    For many Christians today, guided by the book and movie series Left Behind, this type of eschatological view is pretty much the only view. It is so pervasive that few understand that there are any alternatives. Now my topic is not these alternatives, but in order to understand what I’m about to say, you will probably need to realize that there are such alternatives. Many Christians believe that the kingdom of God will grow in the world and that the end comes by the victory of God in the world by means of the people of God. Even though this does deal with what might be called “end times” it is not generally thought of as eschatological thinking, because evil disappears slowly, forced out by the good, rather than suddenly at the other end of a major battle.

    Often these kinds of thinking are contrasted. One either holds that the good of the kingdom is to be accomplished now, by us doing our duty in the world, loving our neighbors, and being witnesses. The kingdom of God, in this case, functions like seed, and grows like a plant, slowly displacing the wrong. On the other hand, eschatological thinking is supposed to take us away from the things of this world to a place where we spend our time thinking entirely of heavenly things, and looking for the count of souls that we have won, so that when God does intervene, the largest possible number will get taken to heaven.

    Scholars in the search for the historical Jesus tend to see Jesus as either eschatological, based on Mark 13/Matthew 24/Luke 21, or they may see him as a wisdom teacher based on the many parables of the kingdom. If the kingdom grows like yeast (Matthew 13:33), then it’s sort of the non-eschatological view; if it comes violently, the eschatological.

    And there is, of course, a substantial difference between the two views. One has the world getting very bad, and then being rescued. The other has the world slowly getting better.

    But there are two similarities that I have noticed right away between the two views:

    1. Hope
      Both views emphasize hope, even certainty of a good final conclusion.
    2. Endurance
      Both views call for current good, kingdom building behavior, though for different reasons.

    What does this mean to individual Christians? It means simply that no matter what view we take of the end, whether we are premillenial, postmillenial, or amillenial, or whatever prefixes we add to the word “tribulation,” we all have the same requirements on us now. Those requirements are stated in the two great commandments to love God and love our neighbor, and in the gospel commission to be a witness.

    I think that the problem frequently is in what we believe “witness” means. The eschatological view often seems to make people think that their form of witness must be to vigorously force people onto the list of those headed for heaven. The non-eschatological view tends to emphasize how we change people’s behavior here and now. But the Biblical view, even in the eschatological books, is that our primary witness is in our living a kingdom type of life here and now. Read Daniel 1 and 6, for example, to see the type of action that this definitely eschatological book is calling for.

    The bottom line here is that as Christians we have hope. However it is accomplished, good is going to win. And no matter whether we believe God will intervene in a spectactular manner, or if we believe the kingdom wins by slowly growing and displacing people, our task as Christians is the same–be the body of Christ for the world.

  • How Inspiration Works

    There are quite a substantial number of theories about how God inspires people to write his message. Several people have suggested recently that I collect some of my own essays in order to provide a coherent discussion, not just about the results of inspiration, but also the process. I don’t think I’ve written enough about that. (For those who are interested in my prior material, Inspiration, Biblical Authority, and Inerrancy, and my shorted, more edited items, The Authority of the Bible, and What is the Word of God?)

    Before I go on, though, I must note that this essay is about looking at inspiration after you believe that a particular work, in this case the Bible, is inspired. There is nothing obvious about this conclusion, and I intend to write some more about why one might regard a particular work as inspired.

    Typically, Christians have found proof texts in scriptures that make comments about inspiration. “All scripture is inspired (or God-breathed) . . .” (2 Timothy 3:16). “No prophecy of the scripture came by human will . . .” (2 Peter 1:21). These texts are not only used to prove the inspiration of scriptures, ignoring the circularity of using a Bible verse to prove that the Bible is inspired, but they also provide the foundation for an understanding of how inspiration worked. (Again, I’ll go into that issue in another post. Right now I’m working at a point after one has jumped into the circle and concluded that the Bible is inpired in some way.) I most commonly hear 2 Timothy 3:16 quoted in this connection. I ask someone what inspiration means. “All scripture is God-breathed,” comes back the answer. “God-breathed” is supposed to be obvious, but somehow the passage doesn’t enlighten us as to what God breathes and how. Another answer, that prophets speak as they are carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), doesn’t really answer the question either.

    The process of inspiration is important not only in terms of how we understand God to behave in connection with people, but also in telling us what we would expect to result. For example, those who believes that God dictates the precise words that a prophet or other inspired writer puts on paper must in turn believe that those words, and not just the message they express, are important, and that they must always be the best words for the purpose. On the other hand, someone who believes that people receive impressions from God and then express them in human words will place a greater emphasis on the human side of the equation. The message is important, and it may be illuminated by knowing the person who speaks along with his or her cultural background and spiritual experience.

    As the author of Hebrews expressed it:

    1In old times God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets in many portions and in different ways. 2In these last days, however, he has spoken to us through a Son, one whom he has made heir of everything, and through whom also he created the universe. 3This Son is the brightness of his glory and the exact representation of his real essence. He sustains everything by his powerful word. He performed a cleansing from sins and sat down at the right hand of majesty in the {spiritual/heavenly} heights.

    — Hebrews 1:1-3

    God’s message came at different times and in different ways, a process that the author of Hebrews states culminated in God’s message coming through a person, Jesus. In Hebrews 4:12 he continues by calling the Word “alive and active” again referring to the Word of God as portrayed in Jesus. Those who place a heavy emphasis on the words, rather than the message, should give serious consideration to the view of revelation expressed in the book of Hebrews. According to this one scriptural author, whom most scholars leave unidentified, inspiration doesn’t always work the same way.

    I would suggest that instead of looking for statements about how inspiration works in the scriptures, we should look at the scriptures themselves. There is no good reason to assume that those who experienced inspiration would also feel it necessary to define it. In fact, when we look at the scriptures we see no real effort to provide us with a theory of inspiration. There were simply people who claimed that they had a message from God, and they expressed it with some force under their various circumstances.

    It doesn’t seem that in many cases we have words dictated by God. Other than Moses bringing the tablets of the law from Mt. Sinai, we don’t seem to have material actually written by God. Moses himself has various scribes chronicle the activities of the Israelites as they travel through the wilderness (Genesis 17:14, for example). This would appear contradictory to the notion that Moses himself wrote the Pentateuch, or that it was delivered as a whole by God to Moses. What need of scribes to record the details if God had provided the words already?

    Elsewhere in scripture we have communication given through dreams, visions, direct prophetic oracles, and research. The books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles make reference to previously existing sources. Luke, in his gospel, makes a point of the research that he provided. John the revelator seems to have concocted a special form of Greek, unless one assumes he simply made an exceptional number of grammar errors, in writing the book of Revelation. I would suggest it is because he is so excited in the emotional state that results from receiving the vision, and that he struggles with words as he tries to describe what he has experienced. This seems far from verbal dictation.

    We have prayers and stories that seem to express ungodly views (Psalm 137:8-9 and Judges 4-5, for example). We have variations in similar stories that can be observed by comparing Samuel-Kings and Chronicles, or the four gospels in many cases. Clearly there is something more than verbal dictation going on here. In fact, there seem to be quite a number of “somethings” going on.

    If you accept the Bible as your sacred book, you will likely also have to come to the conclusion that God has spoken in times past in very many different portions and in very many different ways.

    (In my next few posts I will be connecting this idea with the incarnation as I discussed it in my pre-Christmas posts, the basic issue of what literature is inspired, and the idea of a Biblical canon. Who decides what is authoritative and in what way?)

  • Medicine Cabinet Christianity

    17So that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have gone, everything has become new.

    — 2 Corinthians 5:17 (TFBV)

    For I did not choose to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

    — 1 Corinthians 2:2 (TFBV)

    One morning as I approached the cabinet in the bathroom, often known as the “medicine cabinet

  • Birth to Resurrection

    Typically we talk about salvation around Good Friday and easter. We are saved by his death and his return to life. And there is certainly something to be said for that. But this constant focus on the sacrifice of Jesus being largely in his death sometimes obscures other meanings that the Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection have for us. I’ve recently seen some folks argue that the death wasn’t a sacrifice, because he came back to life, while Christians responded, “But it was a sacrifice! It was! It was!”

    But the sacrifice of Jesus was not solely in his death. It was in his birth, his life, his death, and finally in his resurrection. In my book, Not Ashamed of the Gospel before the chapter titled “I Am Not Ashamed” (p. 17), I include this quote, in my own translation:

    Though he was in the divine form,
    He did cling to his equality with God,
    But he emptied himself,
    Taking the form of a slave,
    Becoming human in form,
    And being found in human pattern,
    He became obedient to death,
    Even death on a cross,
    So God has exalted him,
    And given him a name above all names,
    So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow
    Heavenly, earthly and beneath the earth,
    And every tongue should confess
    That Jesus Christ is Lord
    To the glory of the Father

  • Ministry of Reconciliation

    I’ve been kind of beating around the bush about the doctrine of the incarnation and what it means as a challenge to Christians. So let’s get down to business.

    The roots of my view here are in the two commands of Jesus–love for God and love for one’s neighbor (Matthew 22:34-40). These commands are defined by the way in which God acts towards us (1 John 4:10-11). God carries out the intent of the two commands from his perspective as we are to do from ours. That’s God’s end of the incarnation–God love, God sent, God saved.

    But there’s another element: God challenged. While this idea is rooted in the teachings of Jesus, I think it is best summarized in the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21. I’m going to summarize even more. “God was in Christ” is the incarnation. Through the incarnation God crossed the gap from the infinite to the finite in the incarnation. That act reconciled God and humanity, that is, it brought us together. Then God gave us the work and the principle (word) of reconciliation. That’s the challenge.

    When Jesus said, “Love one another just as I have loved you,” (John 15:12) he passes on that challenge to us.

    Now for many Christians, possessing the “correct” doctrine of the incarnation is part of what makes us special. It’s what gives us–people who believe in Jesus–the exclusive hold on salvation. And I do, indeed, believe that it was the incarnation that made salvation possible; even better, it showed that it was possible by showing that God could and would indeed cross the boundary between the finite and the infinite, and would do so both ways. It showed that God would become kin to finite and imperfect human beings (Hebrews 2:10).

    But does that really make us “special” as compared to all other people? I think what it does is make us challenged. We are challenged to love in the way that God loved. That means that we need to become gap-jumpers. To love as God does, we need to recognize that there is no gap that cannot be crossed, and that we are called to cross those gaps. Jesus was a reconciler and God has called on the followers of Jesus to be reconcilers–gap jumpers.

    And that’s the other end of the incarnation.

  • Metaphor of Incarnation

    It’s unlikely that anyone has failed to notice that I have spent no time thus far in trying to demonstrate that the doctrine of the incarnation is true. I’ve just been playing with its meaning.

    In fact, I generally don’t find it appropriate to try to prove a mystery in the first place. Let’s just face the fact that a person who is 100% divine and 100% human doesn’t really make any sense to us as such. Personally, I think that if it does make sense to you, you have a problem. In one sense, the mystery is a metaphor to help us understand the divine presence in the life of Jesus. (If that sentence doesn’t either twist your brains or give you some problems, then perhaps you should read it again. Go ahead! Have problems with it!)

    For me, the key to deciding whether a metaphor, mysterious or not, is valuable is in the fruit. Does it help us improve in keeping the two greatest commands (love God and love our neighbors) or not? And in my view the incarnation does help us fulfilled. In the incarnation, God crossed the greatest gap that there could be between any two entities. God is infinite, we are finite. No matter how much you subtract from infinity, infinity is not diminished. God has bridged an infinite gap in coming to dwell with us.

    The theological term “kenosis” or “emptying” describes what was happening in the Christmas story. Read Philippians 2:5-11. Jesus gave up everything, becoming a human and accepting human conditions. That means that he had to live as we do. Often we think of Jesus having many special powers and full knowledge of how his life would go, but for him to live like us, to be tested as we are (Hebrews 4:14-16), he needed to work largely with powers that we have. At the same time we call him fully divine. Now that’s a mystery!

    Interestingly we celebrate this emptying at the winter solstice, in one sense the low point of the year. We make it a joyful celebration, but at the other end of the two-ended cord, it’s an emptying, an end.

    Christians often complain of the association of Christian holidays with pagan ones, and Christmas is a good example. It’s pretty unlikely that Jesus was actually born on December 25, but the celebration certainly fits the event. There’s no dishonor in sharing a theme with paganism. Not all pagan ideas are bad. There’s no reason to believe that every myth from another religious is filled with falsehood. (See http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm for some information on other winter solstice celebrations.)

    Myths, metaphors, and celebrations can be great, and they can help us grow.

  • YOU Teach Your Children

    There are plenty of comments on the Dover decision going around right now. I’d like to recommend just a couple of them, though these are only examples of many good comments. Both provide some good links to more information.

    I believe that the result of this trial was pretty much a foregone conclusion. There was little doubt that the Intelligent Design (ID) movement was essentially a religious movement, and there was no doubt at all that there was no theory of ID, certainly not one that was ready for the High School science classroom. We need to teach basic science, well-established science in our high schools, and we have very little time to accomplish that. New ideas need to establish themselves, go through the rigor of scientific debate, and gain a consensus before they become part of the public school curriculum.

    But I want to address another issue. Many people who share my Christian faith are concerned tonight because they feel that religion is under attack. Those who accept one or another of the views involving special creation feel that their children can attend public school only at the risk of their faith. “Godless evolution” has won the day, and they don’t even get a hearing, not even a tiny disclaimer. I could tell them how well evolution is established as a scientific theory, and I would be right. I could tell them how bad an idea it is to trust religious education to the government, and I believe that’s a good point. I could point out the evil things that have taken place when government took distortions of faith and applied them by force, and that would be valid as well.

    But none of those things are likely to move that fairly large group of people right now. I think it’s unfortunate that more dialogue and education does not take place in this area. More people need to realize how many people of faith, such as myself, and how many church leaders do not see a conflict between evolution and faith.

    Let me suggest something that I think should strike home, not only for those opposed to the decision, but also for all other people of faith who support it. We need to look at reforming religious education. In our churches we have a substantial amount of time available in which to educate our children, to supplement the education that they receive in public schools or even in private schools. In many churches in my area we have Sunday School, one or two youth meetings per week, and a Wednesday night teaching program. That’s a great deal of time. Right now, we’re using most of that time to tell a few stories and make them feel good.

    Parents have even more time. They can get involved in helping their children with homework. If you believe that there is a place where faith needs to be introduced into the study of science, you have the power to do it. At the same time as you’re doing it, you will be spending more time with your children, building your bond with them, and increasing the chance that they will become productive citizens. I have some ideas of what should be taught, but even if what you teach is repugnant to me, you have a right and even a duty to take the time and effort to teach it.

    It’s very simple.

    You want your children taught intelligent design? Get with your church’s education program and get some programs on it. I teach such a program for those who hold to a theistic view of evolution through Pacesetters Bible School, and I have produced a tract on the subject called God the Creator. Those who object to any form of evolution will not like my programs, but there’s no shortage of folks willing to teach other viewpoints.

    You want your children to pray? Student led prayer is legal right now. Teach your children to pray–that is, after all, a function of parents and churches–and then release them to work and lead in their own way. You really aren’t prevented from any of this. (I teach this one too. See my book I Want to Pray! co-authored with Rev. Perry Dalton.)

    You see, I don’t think the courts are taking away your right to educate your children about your faith. Not at all! What they are taking away is your right to be lazy and to expect somebody else to do your job, whether you are a religious educator or a parent.

    So get out there, get active, and exercise the rights you have.

  • What God Gets in the Incarnation

    We’re so used to talking about what God gives in the incarnation that my title may almost seem sacreligious to some readers. God’s gift cannot have a selfish aspect, can it? Does the cord really have two ends in this case as well?

    First, at the simplest level, all relationships have more than one side to them, otherwise they could not be relationships. A mother loves her child, and in most cases will continue to love that child whether or not her love is returned, but she certainly wants, even needs to see her love returned. There will always be an emptiness if there is no response from the child.

    When we state that God doesn’t really need our worship or our prayers, it sounds like we are talking about how complete, absolute, and sovereign he is. But it also makes God seem distant and unreal. Worship and prayer are both part of our communication–our two-way communication–with God. And God needs to hear from us, as he needs us to hear from him. Isaiah 66:4 says that God is going to choose to mock the people, because when he called, “nobody answered!” God looks for two-way communication.

    In the same sense as the mother will always miss the love of her child if it is not given, so God will eternally miss our love, if we do not give it to him.

    Now in several essays I’m going to discuss the distance God crossed in the incarnation, but for now let me say simply that there is at least one thing that a being that is essentially infinite cannot have experienced, and that is being finite.

    And this is where I see God “getting something” in the incarnation.

    14Since we have such a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us grasp our confession. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, since he has been tested in all things in the same way we have, but without sin. 16Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we might receive mercy and we might find grace in time of need. — Hebrews 4:14-16 (TFBV)

    If we take seriously the concept of Jesus as God in the flesh–the fundamental Christian doctrine of the incarnation–we also see here God taking on the testing and trials of finite humans, living with our limitations, experiencing what it was like to be human. Now I admit this concept is a bit hard to grab hold of. It keeps my concept of the trinity pretty seriously stretched out. But nonetheless I think it follows directly from our doctrine of the incarnation and trinitarian theology.

    I want to warn you where I’m going with this. Because there are two sides to the conversation and two sides to the relationship, I think that the incarnation is a challenge to us in our daily lives on earth. God gave, God crossed over, God experienced our life. As those who received the benefits of this (on this end), we are challenged in the way we think and act.

    I’ll expand on that in my next entries, as I look at how the incarnation challenges us to God-like activity in worship, prayer, relationships, and charity.

  • The One-Ended Cord

    Some years ago I worked for Radio Shack. One function of a salesman is to match the customer to just the right item or part. An elderly lady, clearly not too comfortable with technology, came in to buy a “telephone cord.” Now at the time, “telephone cord” could mean any of a number of things. One type of cord would connect the handset to the base unit. A few different types of cords could connect the telephone to the wall jack as well. It took a few minutes for me to get it clear that the cord she wanted connected the phone base unit to the wall jack. I was hoping both ends would be RJ-11 or 14 plugs, but just to make sure I said, “What does the other end look like? Let me show you the possibilities.”

    “It doesn’t have any other end,” she replied.

    Now I want you to know that I did figure out the correct “other end” for her cord, and she went home as a satisfied customer. But I think that many people tried communion with God, whether through personal prayer, meditation, or the scriptures, as a sort of one-ended cord.

    I’m going to post a few entries about the Christian doctrines of the incarnation and salvation this Christmas, but first I wanted to examine this problem with our understanding of communication with God, as I see it.

    I think we often see God’s action in relation to humanity as a one ended cord. On the one hand, many conservative Christians see the one and only critical element to be the sovereignty and power of God. In the Calvinist position, God chooses who will be saved and then saves them. We talk about human activity, but there is no point in the process at which Calvinism allows human activity to be significant. The cord has just one end! It may be people who are saved, but the people don’t really matter.

    On the other hand, many liberal Christians put the focus so thoroughly on humanity that the only thing that matters is what a human being can do and become. God is again effectively outside of the loop. The cord has one end–it’s just the opposite end.

    Now please don’t remind me that many Christians, Calvinists, conservatives, liberals, and others, are not at the extremes I’ve described. I know that. That’s why they are extremes. But I do know that the extremes exist, and I believe there are many who might not like the description who nonetheless behave as though the cord has only one end.

    In terms of Biblical inspiration, the doctrine of inerrancy tends to the treat the cord as having only one end. Inerrancy is attributed to the autographs, but we have no autographs. Errors are OK in the text of the Bible, just so long as they were not introduced by the original writers. Anyone can make a mistake except for them. Why are errors more important if they are introduced when God speaks to a prophet, than they are if they are introduced by a copyist? I believe the reason is simply that inerrancy is designed more to protect the doctrine of God than it is to protect the integrity of God’s communication with humanity. God’s communication must be perfect.

    But communication involves two persons. The cord has two ends. God cannot communicate perfectly if the message is not received perfectly. And if the message is only received perfectly by the original prophet (conveniently unavilable to check), but not by later readers, than how is that perfect communication? That, in my view, is the weakness in this doctrine. It does not deal with how we can know God’s will specifically, but rather deals only with God’s side of the equation. The only people assumed to know God’s will are the original recipients.

    Likewise salvation can be seen entirely as divine action, as simply part of our definition of who God is, or it can be seen as a way in which God interacts in people to produce a new kind of fruit.

    In my next entry I’m going to talk about the doctrine of the incarnation in terms of two ends for the cord. What did God accomplish through the incarnation?

  • Your Unforced Choice

    A few days ago my wife and I were showing books at a church craft show, when I was approached by a gentleman about my book What’s in a Version? “What was the right version to use?” he asked. Now when someone starts talking about the “right” version, rather than the best, I’m fairly certain where we’re going in the discussion. Usually the person is an advocate of the KJV Only position.

    This gentleman rolled out most of the major arguments for KJV Only. It’s translators were the most dedicated. More people have been brought to Christ through the KJV than through any other Bible version. (I’m not sure this number is even correct any more, but it wouldn’t be a valid argument even if the number was right.) Various modern versions water down the gospel. (I discuss many of these issues in my Bible Translations FAQ.

    But the key question for him, one to which he returned repeatedly was just this: “What is your final authority?” I needed to have a physical object, a text that was my final authority, or I was wide open to any wind of doctrine or any sort of moral failure.

    My answer to this question is this: “God.” He pointed out that anyone can claim that they heard from God, or that God said something was true, and anyone else can challenge it on the same basis. “What’s the standard?” he repeated.

    Now the problem I have is not with any particular answer, so much as with the question. Is there such a thing as an external standard that will hold us to the truth, to what is right? When I think about that question just a bit I consider the standard that this gentleman proposed: The King James Version of the Bible. If we froze the text of the Bible at the printed English of the current KJV, would we have a single standard by which everyone could check their doctrine and behavior and return with objective, verifiable data?

    We need only observe the doctrinal differences amongst churches who have used, and still use the KJV as their standard to realize that this is not the case. Limiting oneself to a single text does not guarantee agreement or certainty, because of the very nature of the Bible itself. Without an interpretive framework, it’s impossible to say precisely what is Biblical and what is not. Modern schemes include the notion that God is the author of every word, and that portions can be strung together at will (a method that generates a variety of interpretations itself), the dispensationalist view that divides texts that might otherwise conflict between different dispensations or periods of time in which God used different ways of dealing with people, and covenant theology, which tends to create a more coherent theological framework and progression in God’s revelation. It is quite clear that these widely different approaches to Biblical interpretation might well produce equally different results, and we see this in practice. Debates between people using the different schemes become quite heated.

    I believe the problem is simply that there is no meaningful, external standard that everyone of good faith can be guarateed to agree on. We are each called upon to choose right or wrong. We make these choices individually, and with the input of our community. We use different sources. I can say the standard is God, but you might also say that the standard is reality. I wouldn’t differentiate, because in my view God is the creator and maintainer of reality, the ultimate reality.

    Now we may choose wisely or poorly. We may get our input from good sources or bad. But no matter what we do, the choice is ultimately ours, and we have to take responsibility for it. “In my opinion” shouldn’t be a dodge by which we avoid taking responsibility to support that opinion. It should be the standard claim. What I say is my opinion. The question is whether I can support that opinion and communicate it to someone else. I even have to make the choice of how to communicate what I believe. I may accept, for example, that one should not commit murder because I believe it is God’s law. That doesn’t mean I have to claim that basis when communicating with someone who doesn’t believe in God. I can then discuss why a society in which murder was legal would have severe problems.

    Because I have this choice, I also have the responsibility to make it in the best way possible. No, I can’t force anyone to believe that. But I believe that reality will ultimately catch someone who violates its standards too much. Before that time, some of the rest of us may catch such persons before they get that far, so we can protect others from their stupidity.

    Each of us makes the choice. Each of us would do well to take responsibility for it.

    For some more information on my view of the Bible see What is the Word of God? and on choice, see Seven Kingdom Principles of Choice.