[Editor's Note: This article is adapted from Ken Ham's 28 May 2010 letter to supporters of Answers in Genesis, and is published with the permission of Answers in Genesis (www.answersingenesis.org).]

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May 28, 2010

What does “conservative evangelical” mean? Frankly, at Answers in Genesis, we don’t know any more! And the fact that we don’t know should be a dire warning to church leaders and parents concerning the future of our young people—including the colleges (and seminaries) many of them will attend.

A couple of months ago, Professor Bruce Waltke, acknowledged to be a world-renowned Old Testament scholar and considered to be a “conservative evangelical,” resigned his position at a “conservative evangelical” seminary (Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando). It happened, it seems, over the issue of his public endorsement of evolution.

Dr. Waltke made statements that became very public, especially through a video that had appeared on a theologically liberal website: the BioLogos Foundation. He subsequently asked for the video to be removed from the site, but not before his pro-evolution statement had become widely known. It helped lead to his resignation from the seminary.

So what did Dr. Waltke say in that video? Well, here are some excerpts:

“I think that if the data is overwhelming in favor, favor, of evolution, [then] to deny that reality will make us a cult, some odd group that’s not really interacting with the real world, and rightly so…

“We’re at almost, to my mind, the pinnacle of history. We’re aware of these things, and to deny the reality would be to deny the truth of God in the world, and would be to deny truth … It’s also our spiritual death in our witness to the world—that we’re not credible, that we are bigoted, we have a blind faith, and this is what we are accused of.

“So I see this all as part of the growth of the church … And I think it’s essential to us, or we’ll end up like some small sect somewhere that retains a certain dress or certain language and then end up marginalized, totally marginalized, and I think that would be a great tragedy for the church, for us to become marginalized in that way.”

Many in the church were shocked by these comments from Dr. Waltke. After all, he is known as a leading “conservative evangelical” scholar, and yet here he is endorsing the possibility of evolution as God’s method of creating.

But sadly, this should not be all that shocking! You see. Dr. Waltke has been teaching such things for many years in his “conservative evangelical” seminary. In fact, when you look at what he has written, you wonder: how do you define “conservative evangelical” any more?

For years, our Answers in Genesis ministry has been warning the church about the consequences of compromise regarding biblical authority—which is rampant in most of today’s Christian colleges and seminaries. Yet many Christian parents are completely unaware of this massive problem of compromise and how deep and widespread it is, until some of them learn it first-hand from their children who go to such colleges.

Parents and their children need to be equipped with the truth so they can recognize compromise when they hear it (like some of Dr. Waltke’s teachings, which I’ll describe in a moment). This is why AiG produces dozens of new teaching resources every year, including the exciting new 96-page pocket guide Apemen that separates fact from fiction on human origins.

So just what has Dr. Waltke been teaching in his writings and to his students in his classes? In his book An Old Testament Theology, he endorses theistic evolution:

“… the God of Israel,… within his providence allowed the process of natural selection and of cataclysmic interventions—such as the meteor that extinguished the dinosaurs, enabling mammals to dominate the earth—to produce awe-inspiring creatures, especially Adam; by direct creation made Adam a spiritual being … allowed Adam to freely choose to follow their primitive animal nature and to usurp the rule of God instead of living by faith in God ..“

And in a journal published by Regent College in 1991, Dr. Waltke made the following statements (excerpted from his article):

“Is it [Genesis] myth? Here the answer may be ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ depending on one’s definition of myth … Is it [Genesis] history? Here our answer is both a qualified ‘yes’ and ‘no.’

“A straight forward reading of the Genesis prologue is improbable in the light of its supplementary account of creation. To be sure the six days in Genesis creation account are our twenty-four hours days, but they are metaphorical representations of a reality beyond human comprehension and imitation.”

Is your head spinning? What did he just say? What does it mean?

I do not question Dr. Waltke’s Christian faith, but I could go on and on about what he teaches. His compromise beliefs would make Bible-believing Christians gasp.

Herein lies a major problem within the church, and it is exposed in the Waltke resignation. Christian leaders (including highly respected “conservative” Christian leaders) would honor Dr. Waltke as a renowned “conservative evangelical” scholar! So I ask again: what does “conservative evangelical” mean?

Now, if Dr. Waltke had been teaching what we quoted above for many years, then why did his video clip, which actually states nothing new about his beliefs, cause such a stir? Personally, I wonder if it’s because what he really believes and teaches had simply become too public!

You see, we have discovered that many Bible colleges and seminaries want to be seen as “conservative evangelical,” but they really don’t want their financial supporters (or unsuspecting parents who are thinking of sending their children to these colleges) to know what is really being taught in their classrooms.

One of our supporters recently told us that he visited a number of Christian colleges, some of which would classify themselves as “conservative evangelical.” At one such “conservative” college, he found that he had to ask the head of the department a series of specific questions to really ascertain what the school taught regarding science and biblical issues, It was as if the professor didn’t want the person to know what was really being taught at his supposedly “conservative” college.

In fact, the Florida seminary from which Dr. Waltke resigned allows beliefs in an old universe and that physical death occurred before Adam  sinned, Many of its professors teach the compromise position of the “framework” hypothesis in order to attempt to marry millions of years to the Bible; And surely, the seminary leadership knew Dr. Waltke’s position on evolution and his compromising approach to Scripture in other areas.

We are living in interesting and troubling times. I have noticed the battle lines in the culture are becoming clearer. The chasm between what is Christian and what is not Christian is widening before our eyes.

As more and more Christians are being taught to stand uncompromisingly on biblical authority beginning in Genesis, as we have urged them to do, it is becoming more obvious that we have a problem in the majority of our seminaries and Bible colleges.

There are two more important matters for us to consider:

1)      As I wrote above, many Christian parents would be shocked if they really knew what most Christian colleges and seminaries are teaching their children, Sadly, many parents just take the college’s word that they are theologically “conservative.” Most parents don’t really know how deep they have to go to discover what’s really being taught, and to what degree the college is actually indoctrinating their children to have a relatively low view of Scripture. Thankfully, I see more and more parents beginning to awaken to this massive problem.

2)     I really believe that the ministry of Answers in Genesis is having a growing and significant impact in Christian education. As parents become increasingly educated about the compromise with millions of years/evolution and how it is an attack on the authority of Scripture, they are becoming more discerning: they are understanding that they have to be wise to the efforts by so many colleges to pull the wool over their eyes.

In response to Dr. Waltke’s resignation (which received wide publicity in both Christian and secular news sources), one website touted, “Why Bruce Waltke’s Resignation Signals the End of Creationism.” The author went on to say, “It is past time for the Church to stop dividing over petty issues and stop building ridiculous walls of ‘orthodoxy’ that are actually only tangential to the gospel.”

And my reply? Actually, you will see more such “dividing,” as more and more Christians are waking up to the fact that compromise with millions of years/evolution is actually undermining the authority of Scripture. And as more and more parents are having to cope with a horrible exodus of so many young people from the church and also viewing the collapse of Christianity in the culture, they will be calling Christian leaders and colleges to account!

Answers in Genesis is at the forefront of a battle to call the church and Bible schools (and the culture as a whole) back to the authority of the Word of God. We need a new reformation and a cleansing of the church. Indeed, before a holy God, we need repentance over compromise regarding the authority of the Bible.

Continue to be vigilant! The battle is going to heat up more and more in the fight over the authority of the Word of God! Are you prepared?

Sincerely in Christ,

Ken Ham, President

Answers in Genesis

by Dr. Grady S. McMurtry – Full-time International Creation Emissary, Biblical Scientific Creationist, Apologist, and Director of Creation Worldview Ministries – a missionary association taking the truths of biblical foundations to the Church, both domestic and foreign, and to the secular world — an evangelistic and discipling ministry seeking to bring salvation and maturity in Jesus Christ, by lifting Him up that He might draw all people unto Himself.

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The unsubstantiated, unfounded and unprovable theories of evolution are believed by ardent followers whose faith would make the faith of most Christians pale by comparison. Evolutionists believe in evolution in spite of any logic, facts or scientific evidence that may be provided to them demonstrating that evolution theories are not true. For evolutionists, evolution is a religion and they are “very religious in all respects.” (Acts 17:22)

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Evolutionists believe in evolution because they chose to believe in evolution!

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What is the definition of the word religion? The definitions of the word would fill volumes. The spectrum of definitions goes from sharply specific to meaningless generality. In 1974, the Webster’s Dictionary defined the word religion as: “A commitment or devotion to a faith; or, an institutionalized system of attitudes, beliefs, and practices.” In a general way, we may say that a religion is all physically unverifiable beliefs which attempt to answer the questions: Where did life come from? What is life’s purpose? What is life’s final destiny? How should people behave while they are here?

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Ultimately, the word religion refers to the foundational worldview of the individual believer; it dictates their attitudes, thoughts, habits, behaviors, actions, emotions and characteristics.

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The Apostle Paul [and I] stipulate that evolutionists are “very religious in all respects.” (Acts 17:22) To prove that point, please read the following quotes from devout evolutionists.

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[Dr. Mary Leakey (February 6, 1913 – December 9, 1996) was a British archaeologist and anthropologist; wife of Dr. Louis Leakey, mother of Dr. Richard Leakey, mother-in-law of Dr. Meave Leakey - all adamant believers and researchers trying to prove human evolution.]

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“All those trees of life with their branches of our ancestors, that’s a lot of nonsense.”
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Dr. Mary Leakey, Associated Press, Dec. 10, 1996.
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Evolutionists want to incorrectly define science as being only that which is naturalistic, mechanistic and random.

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“Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.” [Emphasis added]
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Dr. Scott Todd, Kansas State University, Nature 401(6752):423, Sept. 30, 1999.
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Evolutionists know that what they teach is wrong, and they do not know what is correct.

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“We have no acceptable theory of evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain. I teach the synthetic theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it’s good, we know it is bad, but because there isn’t any other. Whilst waiting to find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact, which is a first approximation …” [Emphasis added]
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Professor Jerome Lejeune, in a lecture given in Paris on March 17, 1985, translated by Peter Wilders.
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“We have long known about stasis and abrupt appearance, but have chosen to fob it off upon an imperfect fossil record.” [Emphasis added]
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Gould, Stephen J., “The Paradox of the First Tier: An Agenda for Paleobiology,” Paleobiology, 1985, p. 7.
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“In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match the pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated, the pattern was judged to be ‘wrong.’ A circular argument arises: interpret the fossil record in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn’t it?” [Emphasis added]
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Kemp, Tom S., “A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record,” New Scientist, vol. 108, 1985, p. 66-67.
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“Stasis, or non-change, of most fossil species during their lengthy geological life spans was tacitly acknowledged by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly because prevailing theory treated stasis as uninteresting non-evidence for non-evolution. … The overwhelming prevalence of stasis became an embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a manifestation of nothing (that is, non-evolution).” [Emphasis added]
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Gould, Stephen J., “Cordelia’s Dilemma,” Natural History, 1993, p. 15.
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“Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their fossils as they pursued them up through the rock record. … That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin. Darwin himself … prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search … One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin’s predictions. Nor is the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong. … The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor’s new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin’s predicted pattern, simply looked the other way.” [Emphasis added]
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Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p. 45-46.
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Evolutionists reject the truth of what is contained in the ground, because it contradicts their faith, their “religion.”

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“It is as though they [fossils] were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. … Both schools of thought (Punctuationists and Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and both agree that the major gaps are real, that they are true imperfections in the fossil record. The only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation and (we) both reject this alternative.” [Emphasis added]
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Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1996, p. 229-230)
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“In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation.” [Emphasis added]
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Ridley, Mark, “Who doubts evolution?” New Scientist, vol. 90, 25 June 1981, p. 831.
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“The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualist accounts of evolution.” [Emphasis added]
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Gould, Stephen J., ‘Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?’ Paleobiology, Vol. 6(1), January 1980, p. 127.
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“Given that evolution, according to Darwin, was in a continual state of motion … it followed logically that the fossil record should be rife with examples of transitional forms leading from the less to more evolved. … Instead of filling the gaps in the fossil record with so-called missing links, most paleontologists found themselves facing a situation in which there were only gaps in the fossil record, with no evidence of transformational intermediates between documented fossil species.” [Emphasis added]
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Schwartz, Jeffrey H., Sudden Origins, 1999, p. 89.
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“All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel that it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did.” [Emphasis added]
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Urey, Harold C., quoted in Christian Science Monitor, January 4, 1962, p. 4.
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“If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces and radiation, how has it come into being?… we must … admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it.” [Emphasis added]
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H. J. Lipson, “A physicist looks at evolution” Physics Bulletin, 1980, Vol. 31, p. 138.
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“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the gradual transformation of its ancestors: it appears all at once and ‘fully formed.’” [Emphasis added]
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Steven Jay Gould (Harvard University), Evolution’s erratic pace, Natural History 86(5):14, May 1977.
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Charles Darwin knew of the problematic fossil record and wrote about it in his most famous book.

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“As by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed. Why do we not find them embedded in the crust of the earth?” (p.139)

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“Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?” (p. 143)

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“But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?” (p. 144)

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“Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed.” (p. 149)

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“Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.” (p. 230) [Emphasis added]

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Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 1859
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“Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin’s argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.” [Emphasis added]
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Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda’s Thumb, 1980,pp.179-181.
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“Many evolutionary biologists since Darwin’s time, and even Darwin himself, have been struck by how few sequences of fossils have ever been found that clearly show a gradual, steady accumulation of small changes in evolutionary lineages. Instead, most fossil species appear suddenly, without transitional forms, in a layer of rock and persist essentially unchanged until disappearing from the record of rocks as suddenly as they appeared.” [Emphasis added]
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Campbell, et al., Biology Concepts and Connections, 3rd Ed., p 290, 2000.
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“In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found – yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks.” [Emphasis added]
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Dr. David M. Raup (U. of Chicago – Field Museum), “Evolution and the Fossil Record,” Science, Vol. 213 (July 17, 1981), p. 289.
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“The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms that lie between species, the more they have been frustrated.” [Emphasis added]
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Newsweek, November 3, 1980.
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“Honest” evolutionists do exist, and they are willing to admit the problems in the various evolutionary theories; even if they are not willing to change from an acceptance of evolution to an acceptance of creation.

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I admired one such evolutionist, the late Dr. Colin Patterson (1933 – 1998), a lifelong evolutionist, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, London. He staggered his evolutionary colleagues by expressing serious doubts about the theory of evolution in a November 5, 1981 lecture presented to the Systematics Discussion Group at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Although lengthy, the following extract from his comments is accurate and enlightening:

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“… I’m speaking on two subjects, evolutionism and creationism, and I believe it’s true to say that I know nothing whatever about either … One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, well, let’s call it non-evolutionary, was last year I had a sudden realization.”

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“For over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up, and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it.’”

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“That was quite a shock that one could be misled for so long …”

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“… I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people: ‘Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing you think is true?’”

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“I tried that question on the geology staff in the Field Museum of Natural History, and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time, and then eventually one person said: ‘Yes, I do know one thing. It ought not to be taught in high school.’”

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“…It does seem that the level of knowledge about evolution is remarkably shallow. We know it ought not to be taught in high school, and perhaps that’s all we know about it … about eighteen months ago … I woke up and I realized that all my life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way.”

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Patterson took the words of Neal C. Gillespie alleging that the “pre-Darwinian creationist paradigm” was “‘… not a research-governing theory, since its power to explain is only verbal, but an anti-theory, a void that has the function of knowledge, but conveys none’” and suggested “… It must seem to you that I’m either misguided or malicious to suggest that such words can be applied to evolutionary theory.”

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“… Most of us think that we are working in evolutionary research. But is its explanatory power any more than verbal? … I feel that the effect of hypotheses of common ancestry in systematics has not been merely void, not just a lack of knowledge - I think it has been positively anti-knowledge.”

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“… What about evolution? It certainly has the function of knowledge but has it conveyed any? … It is true, evolution does not convey any knowledge, or if so, I haven’t yet heard it.”

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“Well, here we all are with all our shelves full of books on evolution. We’ve all read tons of them, and most of us have written one or two. And how could it be that we’ve done all that, we’ve read these books and learned nothing from them? And how could I have worked on evolution for twenty years, and learned nothing from it?”

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“… There is some sort of a revolution going on in evolutionary theory at the moment … It concerns the possible mechanisms that are responsible for the transformation … natural selection is under fire, and we hear a rash of new and alternative theories …”

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Again quoting Gillespie accusing that those “‘…holding creationist ideas could plead ignorance of the means and affirm only the fact,’” Patterson countered, “That seems to summarize the feeling I get in talking to evolutionists today. They plead ignorance of the means of transformation, but affirm only the fact: ‘Yes it has … we know it has taken place.’”

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“… Now I think that many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years, if you had thought about it at all, you’ve experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith. I know that’s true of me, and I think it’s true of a good many of you in here …”

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“…Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge, apparent knowledge which is actually harmful to systematics …” [Emphasis added]
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Any knowledgeable evolutionist knows that the lack of physical evidence is their biggest problem.

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Darwin struggled with the issue of the total lack of evidence to support his theory. As noted earlier, his famous book is full of references to the void of physical evidence. Fossils certainly exist in the ground, but they are simply the remains of animals, plants and human beings that once existed. Fossils cannot tell you when they lived, how they lived or what chemicals were in them when they died.

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“Scientists concede that their most cherished theories are based on embarrassingly few fossil fragments and that huge gaps exist in the fossil record.” [Emphasis added]
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Time magazine, Nov. 7, 1977

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“What I did say was that there are gaps in the fossil graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms but where there is nothing whatsoever … No paleontologist writing in English (R. Carroll, Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, 1988), French (J. Chaline, “Modalites, rythmes, mecanismes de l’evolution biologique: gradualisme phyletique ou equilibres ponctues?,” reprinted in Editions du CNRS, 1983), or German (V. Fahlbusch, “Makroevolution, Punktualismus,” in Palaontologie 57, 1983), denies that this is so. It is simply a fact. Darwin’s theory and the fossil record are in conflict. There may be excellent reasons for the conflict; it may in time be exposed as an artifact. But nothing is to be gained by suggesting that what is a fact in plain sight is nothing of the sort.” [Emphasis added]
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David Berlinski, A Tour of the Calculus, Pantheon Books, New York, 1995, p. 28.
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Where did the arthropods come from?

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According to the late Marxist and preeminent evolutionary propagandist Dr. Stephen J. Gould of Harvard, arthropods are the largest animal group.

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“As Darwin noted in the Origin of the Species, the abrupt emergence of arthropods in the fossil record during the Cambrian presents a problem for evolutionary biology. There are no obvious simpler or intermediate forms – either living or in the fossil record . . .”
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Osorio, Bacon & Whitington, American Scientist, May/June 1997, p. 244.
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Where did all the fish come from?

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“Yet the transition from spineless invertebrates to the first backboned fishes is still shrouded in mystery, and many theories abound . . .”
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Long, J. O., The Rise of Fishes, John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore MD, 1995, p. 30.
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“The higher fishes, when they appear in the Devonian period, have already acquired the characteristics that identify them as belonging to one or another of the major assemblages of bony or cartilaginous forms.”
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Stahl, Barbara. 1974. Vertebrate history: Problems in evolution, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. p. 126
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“Both these groups [bony and cartilaginous] appeared in the late Silurian period, and it is possible that they may have originated at some earlier time, although there is no fossil evidence to prove this.” [Emphasis added]
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Colbert. E. H., M. Morales, and E. C. Minkoff. 2001. Evolution of the vertebrates: A history of the backboned animals through time, 5thed., New York: Wiley-Liss, Inc. p. 53
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Where did all the birds come from?

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“The true origin of birds is still up in the air.”

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Alan Feduccia, New Scientist, 16 December 2000, p. 25.

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“In the absence of fossil evidence, paleontologists can say little about the date at which these [sixty-nine living families of Passeriformes] … appeared.” [Emphasis added]
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Stahl, Barbara. 1974. Vertebrate history: Problems in evolution, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. p. 386
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“Of all the classes of vertebrates, the birds are least known from their fossil record.” [Emphasis added]
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Colbert. E. H., M. Morales, and E. C. Minkoff. 2001. Evolution of the vertebrates: A history of the backboned animals through time, 5thed., New York: Wiley-Liss, Inc. p. 236.
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Where did all the whales come from?

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“. . . the evolutionary origin of whales remains controversial among zoologists.”
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Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia, 1996.
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“As with most tetrapods secondarily modified for aquatic living [the supposed evolution of cows into whales], ascertaining the terrestrial stock from which whales came is exceedingly difficult.”
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Stahl, Barbara. 1974. Vertebrate history: Problems in evolution, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. p. 486
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“Like the bats, the whales (using this term in a general and inclusive sense) appear suddenly in early Tertiary times, fully adapted by profound modifications.”
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Colbert. E. H., M. Morales, and E. C. Minkoff. 2001. Evolution of the vertebrates: A history of the backboned animals through time, 5thed., New York: Wiley-Liss, Inc. p. 392
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Where did all the amphibians come from?

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“Since the fossil material provides no evidence of other aspects of the transformation from fish to tetrapod, paleontologists have had to speculate how legs and aerial breathing evolved.” [Emphasis added]
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Stahl, Barbara. 1974. Vertebrate history: Problems in evolution, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. p. 195
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“This is certainly a logical explanation of the first stages in the change from an aquatic to a terrestrial mode of life. We can only speculate about this.” [Emphasis added]
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Colbert. E. H., M. Morales, and E. C. Minkoff. 2001. Evolution of the vertebrates: A history of the backboned animals through time, 5thed., New York: Wiley-Liss, Inc. pp. 84-85
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Where did all the snakes come from?

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“The origin of the snakes is still an unsolved problem.” [Emphasis added]
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Stahl, Barbara. 1974. Vertebrate history: Problems in evolution, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. p. 318
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“Unfortunately, the fossil history of snakes is very fragmentary, so that it is necessary to infer much of their evolution.” [Emphasis added]
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Colbert. E. H., M. Morales, and E. C. Minkoff. 2001. Evolution of the vertebrates: A history of the backboned animals through time, 5thed., New York: Wiley-Liss, Inc. p. 154
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Where did all the turtles come from?

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“Turtles are so different from any other reptile that their peculiarities are practically useless as a guide for distinguishing among potential ancestors, and the origin of turtles remains one of the great unanswered questions of evolutionary biology … the possible choices for the original turtle span almost the entire range of reptiles, living and extinct.” [Emphasis added]
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Orenstein, R., Turtles, Tortoises & Terrapins: Survivors in Armor, Firefly Books, Buffalo, NY, p. 26, 2001.
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Where did the flowering plants come from?

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“The origin of the angiosperms, an ‘abominable mystery’ to Darwin, remained so 100 years later and is little better today.” [Emphasis added]
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Patterson, Williams and Humphries, 1993 Congruence between molecular and morphological phylogenies. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 24:153-188
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Where did eyes come from?

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“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”
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Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London, 1971, p. 167.
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Where did people come from?

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Dr. Richard Leakey, discoverer of Skull 1470 (Homo habilis), one of world’s foremost paleo-anthropologists,said in a PBS documentary in 1990:

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“If pressed about man’s ancestry, I would have to unequivocally say that all we have is a huge question mark. To date, there has been nothing found to truthfully purport as a transitional specie to man, including Lucy, since 1470 was as old and probably older. If further pressed, I would have to state that there is more evidence to suggest an abrupt arrival of man rather than a gradual process of evolving.” [Emphasis added]
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Dr. Donald Johanson, discoverer of “Lucy” (Australopithecus afarensis), wrote:
“No one can be sure what any extinct hominid looked like with its skin and hair on.”
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Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey, Lucy – the Beginnings of Humankind, New York: Warner Books, Inc, 1981, p. 286.
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“Fossil evidence of human evolutionary history is fragmentary and open to various interpretations. Fossil evidence of chimpanzee evolution is absent altogether.”
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Henry Gee, “Return to the Planet of the Apes,” Nature, Vol. 412, 12 July 2001, p. 131.
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“Unfortunately, the fossil record for hominids [the half-human pre-humans] and pongids [the ape family] is almost totally blank between four and eight million years ago – an irresistible tabula rasa [an erased tablet; a clean slate] on which to inscribe belief, preconception, and personal opinion.” [Emphasis added]
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A. Zihlman and J. Lowenstein, “False Start of the Human Parade,” in Natural History, August 1979, pp. 86, 88.

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“The main problem in reconstructing the origins of man is lack of fossil evidence: all there is could be displayed on a dinner table.” [Emphasis added]
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New Scientist, 20 May, 1982.
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Perhaps one of the most revealing statements concerning the supposed evolution of human beings from apes was made during an interview of Dr. Richard Leakey after the discovery of Skull 1470. In an interview for the National Geographic Magazine he said:

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“Scientific explanation is challenged on the basis of observation, not of whim or fancy. ‘Either we toss out this skull or we toss out our theories of early man,’ asserts anthropologist, [Dr.] Richard Leakey of this 2.8 million-year-old fossil, which he has tentatively identified as belonging to our own genus. ‘It simply fits no previous models of human beginnings. . . . (it) leaves in ruins the notion that all early fossils can be arranged in an orderly sequence of evolutionary change.’” [Emphasis added]
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National Geographic, June 1973, Vol. 143, No. 6, p. 819.
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Similar truth and confusion abounds amongst those who believe in the evolution of human beings.

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“The various australopithecines are, indeed, more different from both African Apes and humans in most features than these latter are from each other.”
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Dr. Charles E. Oxnard, Fossils, Teeth and Sex-New Perspectives on Human Evolution, University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 1987, p. 227
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“There are not enough fossil records to answer when, where, and how Homo sapiens emerged.”
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Takahata, Molecular Anthropology, Annual Review of Ecology & Systematics, 1995, p. 355
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“The australopithecines known over the last several decades … Are now irrevocably removed from a place in the evolution of human bipedalism … All this should make us wonder about the usual presentation of human evolution in introductory textbooks . . .” [Emphasis added]
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Charles Oxnard (Professor of anatomy and leading expert on australopithecine fossils), “The Order of Man: A Biomathematical Anatomy of the Primates,” 1984, p. 332.
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“The fossils provide much more discouragement than support for Darwinism when they are examined objectively, but objective examination has rarely been the object of Darwinist paleontology. The Darwinist approach has consistently been to find some supporting fossil evidence, claim it as proof for ‘evolution,’ and then ignore all the difficulties.” [Emphasis added]
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Philip Johnson (Graduate of Harvard U., Law Professor at U. of California, Berkeley), Darwin on Trial, 1991, p. 84
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“Most textbooks avoid showing comprehensive tables of the discovered human fossils – doing so exposes the contradictions.” [Emphasis added]
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James Perloff, Tornado in a Junkyard, 1999, p. 106.
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In 1978, Dr. Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin wrote a book entitled People of the Lake. Although over 30 years old, most of their statements would require little change if written today. These quotes give some excellent insights into their faith-based belief in the evolution of human beings. The following are excerpts from the book:

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Pg. 17 “If someone went to the trouble of collecting together into one room all of the fossil remains so far discovered of our ancestors (and their biological relatives) who lived, say, between 5 and 1 million years ago, he would need only a couple of large trestle tables on which to spread them out. And, if that were not bad enough, a not unusually commodious shoebox would be more than sufficient to accommodate the hominid fossil finds of between 15 and 6 million years ago!

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[Today, it would take three tables and two shoeboxes. That is not a lot of evidence.]

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Yet with a confidence that may strike the uninitiated as something close to supernatural – if not to plain madness – prehistorians can now construct a view of human origins that is anything but crude, and may even bear some resemblance to the truth!”

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[That really strikes confidence into the reader.]

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Pg. 19 “What the fossils tell us directly, of course, is what our ancestors and their close relatives looked like. Or rather, to be more accurate, they give us some clues about the physical appearance of early hominids, because until someone is lucky enough to come across a complete skeleton of one of our ancestors, much of what we can say about them is pure inference, guesswork.”

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[Pure inference, guesswork?]

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Pg. 20 “The human mind has shown itself to be particularly fertile for generating notions about the nature of mankind, but only when those notions are subject to the scrutiny of different scientific disciplines can the more fanciful theories be weeded out. In learning about hominid history we have to be imaginative, but not fanciful, the inputs and caveats offered by the psychologists, taphonomists, and others create the right condition in which to be responsibly imaginative.”

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[Well, after all, who would want to be irresponsibly imaginative?]

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Pg. 26 “The last of these, Ramapithecus, a small creature (perhaps close to three feet tall), is currently favorite as the first true hominid.”

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[Ramapithecus is now considered to be an extinct pygmy chimpanzee and no longer in the supposed line leading to humans; but, it was hot stuff in 1978.]

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Pg. 27 “Now, if we are absolutely honest, we have to admit that we know nothing about Ramapithecus; we don’t know what it looked like; we don’t know what it did; and naturally, we don’t know how it did it! But with the aid of jaw and tooth fragments and one or two bits and pieces from arms and legs, all of which represents a couple of dozen individuals, we can make some guesses, more or less inspired.”

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[Shouldn’t we be asking by whom or what they are being inspired?]

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Pg. 45 “Because, for several reasons, the period between 8 and about 4 million years ago is a fossil void, we can only guess what our ancestors were up to then. Nevertheless, the structure of human evolution is clear: . . .” [Emphasis added]

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[No reasons are specified and when did a void constitute absolute proof?]

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Pg. 169 “During the past few million years human brains have enlarged, but they must have increased in internal complexity too. . . There can never be any direct evidence to support this statement.” [Emphasis added]

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[Finally a statement that we can all agree on: “There can never be any direct evidence to support this statement.”]

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Where did life come from?

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Dr. Paul Davies [staunch evolutionist] was once described by the Washington Times as “the best science writer on either side of the Atlantic.”

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“Nobody knows how a mixture of lifeless chemicals spontaneously organized themselves into the first living cell.” [Emphasis added]
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Dr. Paul Davies, Australian Centre for Astrobiology, Macquarie University, Sydney. New Scientist 179(2403);32 12 July, 2003.
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Previously, he had written:

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“… just as bricks alone don’t make a house, so it takes more than a random collection of amino acids to make life. Like house bricks, the building blocks of life have to be assembled in a very specific and exceedingly elaborate way before they have the desired function.”
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Davies, P., Life force, New Scientist 163(2204):27-30, 1999; p. 28.
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What have other evolutionists said about the origin of life?

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“The first living cells emerged between 4 billion and 3.8 billion years ago. There is no record of the event.” [Emphasis added]
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Biology The Unity and Diversity of Life, Wadsworth 1992 p. 300.
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Going all the way back to 1952, Dr. Richard Goldschimdt, the inventor of “The Hopeful Monster Theory” wrote:

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“Practically all orders and families known appear suddenly and without any apparent transitions.”
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Dr. Richard B. Goldschmidt, “Evolution as Viewed by One Geneticist,” American Scientist, January 1952, p. 97.
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Today, we know that all phyla are found starting in the Cambrian [supposedly 488 to 542 supposed millions of years ago]. There are no transitions from one phylum to another phylum to be found in the ground.

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“Both the origin of life and the origin of the major groups of animals remain unknown.”
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Dr. A. G. Fisher, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 2003 (fossil section).
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Evolution is accepted by its adherents on a purely philosophical basis, not a scientific basis.

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There is no scientific basis for the evolution of nonliving material into living organisms, nor for living organisms to change from one “kind” into another “kind.”

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“Is evolution a theory, a system, or a hypothesis? It is much more – it is a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must henceforth bow and which they must satisfy in order to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all lines of thought must follow – this is what evolution is.” [Emphasis added]
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Jesuit Priest Fr. Pierre T. de Chardin, as quoted by F. J. Ayala, Journal of Heredity 68:3-10 (1977); and, as quoted in Mankind Evolving, Theodosius Dobzhansky (Yale), March, 1962.
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Physicist and information theorist, Dr. Hubert P. Yockey wrote:

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“Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already been authoritatively accepted … What remains to be done is to find the scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which this happened. One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom, a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written.” [Emphasis added]
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Yockey, H. P., A calculation of the probability of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology 67:377-398, 1977.
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Noted science journalist, author and anthropologist Roger Lewin wrote the following two comments:

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“It is, in fact, a common fantasy, promulgated mostly by the scientific profession itself, that in the search for objective truth, data dictate conclusions.” “Data are just as often molded to fit preferred conclusions.” [Emphasis added]
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Lewin, Roger. As quoted in Bones of Contention, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1987, p. 68.
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“The problem is that because we know the ‘end of the story’ (that evolution is true), we tend to interpret earlier events as if their sole purpose was to reach that end.” [Emphasis added]
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Lewin, Roger. In the Age of Mankind, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 1988, p. 22.
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Evolution is believed in by its adherents, in spite of the fact that to believe in evolution you have to have incredible faith.

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“Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists, not because it has been observed to occur … or can be proved by logical coherent evidence, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.” [Emphasis added]
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D. M. S. Watson, “Adaptation,” Nature, Vol. 123, p. 233 (1929).
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“Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.”
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Sir Arthur Keith as quoted in Criswell, W.A. (1972), Did Man Just Happen?, Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, p. 73.
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“…there is an important difference between going to the empirical evidence to test a doubtful theory against some plausible alternative, and going to the evidence to look for confirmation of the only theory that one is willing to tolerate.” [Emphasis added]
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Johnson, Phillip. Darwin on Trial, Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1991, p. 28.
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The late Canadian entomologist William R. Thompson, FRS, was asked by J. M. Dent & Sons to write the Introduction to its 1967 Everyman’s Library edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species.

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“Darwin considered that the doctrine of the Origin of living forms by descent with modification, even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory unless the causes at work were correctly identified, so his theory of modification by natural selection was, for him, of absolutely major importance. Since he had at the time the Origin was published no body of experimental evidence to support his theory, he fell back on speculative arguments. … Personal convictions, simple possibilities, are presented as if they were proofs, or at least valid arguments in favour of the theory. … It is without scientific value, since it cannot be verified; but since the imagination has free rein, it is easy to convey the impression that a concrete example of real transmutation has been given. … This was certainly a major reason for the success of the Origin. Another is the elusive character of the Darwinian argument. Every characteristic of organisms is maintained in existence because it has survival value. But this value relates to the struggle for existence. Therefore we are not obliged to commit ourselves in regard to the meaning of differences between individuals or species since the possessor of a particular modification may be, in the race for life, moving up or falling behind. On the other hand, we can commit ourselves if we like, since it is impossible to disprove our statement. The plausibility of the argument eliminates the need for proof and its very nature gives it a kind of immunity to disproof. Darwin did not show in the Origin that species had originated by natural selection; he merely showed, on the basis of certain facts and assumptions, how this might have happened, and as he had convinced himself he was able to convince others.” [Emphasis added]
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Thompson, W. R., “Introduction,” in Darwin, C. R., The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Sixth Edition, 1872, Everyman’s Library, J. M. Dent & Sons: London, 1967, reprint, p. xi.
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Evolutionary philosophy is accepted dogmatically by religious faith!

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“…One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task [i.e., of explaining how life began by chance, editor] to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are – as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.” [Emphasis added]
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George Wald, Scientific American, vol. 191, August 1954, p. 46.
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“When it comes to the Origin of Life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!” [Emphasis added]
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George Wald, (Harvard University evolutionary biochemist and Nobel Laureate), “The Origin of Life,” Scientific American, 191:48, May 1954.
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“The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory – is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation – both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof.”
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Matthews, L. H. Introduction to the 1971 edition of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species”
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“In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it, and many are prepared to ‘bend’ their observations to fit with it. To my mind, the theory does not stand up at all … If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces, and radiation, how has it come into being? … I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is Creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it.” [Emphasis added]
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H. S. Lipson, FRS, Professor of Physics, University of Manchester, UK, “A Physicist Looks at Evolution.” Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, May 1980, p. 138.
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“It results from this explanation that the theory of evolution is not exact … Evolution is a kind of dogma which its own priests no longer believe, but which they uphold for the people. It is necessary to have the courage to state this if only so that men of a future generation may orient their research into a different direction.” [Emphasis added]
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Paul Lemoine, Director of the National Museum of Natural History; editor, French Encyclopedia, Societe de Gestion de L’Encyclopedie Francaise, Volume 5, circa 1957.
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“I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.” [Emphasis added]

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Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980, p. 43.

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Sir Dr. Karl Popper was one of the most influential philosophers of science in the 20th century. He was known for repudiating the classical observationalist account of the scientific method and advancing empirical falsification in its place. He wrote: “Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program.”

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Dr. T. N. Tahmisian, physiologist for the Atomic Energy Commission wrote:

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“Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact.” “[Tahmisian called it] a tangled mishmash of guessing games and figure juggling.” [Emphasis added]
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Fresno Bee, August 20, 1959, p. 1-B.
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“I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: for a long time now people discuss evolutionary problems in a peculiar ‘Darwinian’ vocabulary – ‘adaptation,’ ‘selection pressure,’ ‘natural selection,’ etc. – thereby believing that they contribute to the explanation of natural events. They do not … I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science.” [Emphasis added]
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Soren Lovtrup, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, New York: Croom Helm, 1987, p. 422.
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Consensus is not the same as truth. Consensus is not data, and it is not the same as a scientific fact!

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Michael Crichton, the novelist and science fiction writer of Jurassic Park fame, and I disagree adamantly about many things. He did, however, have an appreciation for the importance of dissenting views within the scientific community and was a keen observer of how some in the scientific community use rhetoric to quash minority scientific viewpoints. He wrote:

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“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.”

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“Let’s be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”

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“There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period. …”

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“I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.” [Emphasis added]
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Michael Crichton, “Aliens Cause Global Warming,” reprinted in Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2008.
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The acceptance of evolution is in order to promote a religious agenda!

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“Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion – a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint – and Mr. Gish [Dr. Duane Gish] is but one of many to make it – the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.” [Emphasis added]
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Dr. Michael Ruse, professor of philosophy and zoology at the Florida State University
www.omniology.com/HowEvolutionBecameReligion
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“The concept of evolution was soon extended into other than biological fields. Inorganic subjects such as the life-history of stars and the formation of the chemical elements on the one hand, and on the other hand subjects like linguistics, social anthropology, and comparative law and religion, began to be studied from an evolutionary angle, until today we are enabled to see evolution as a universal and all-pervading process.” [Emphasis added]
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Julian Huxley, Evolution and Genetics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955.
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“It is essential for UNESCO to adopt an evolutionary approach . . . the general philosophy of UNESCO should, it seems, be a scientific world humanism, global in extent and evolutionary in background. . . . Thus the struggle for existence that underlies natural selection is increasingly replaced by conscious selection, a struggle between ideas and values in consciousness.” [Emphasis added]
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Sir Julian Huxley, UNESCO Its Purpose and Its Philosophy (1946).
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“Evolution comprises all the stages of the development of the universe: the cosmic, biological and human or cultural developments. Attempts to restrict the concept of evolution to biology are gratuitous. Life is a product of the evolution of inorganic nature, and man is a product of the evolution of life.” [Emphasis added]
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Huxley, Julian “Introduction” in Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin, New York, Mentor Books 1958 479 p. 409.
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“The myth is to the savage what, to a fully believing Christian, is the biblical story of Creation, of the Fall, of the Redemption by Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross.” [Emphasis added]
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Malinowski, Bronislaw Magic, Science and Religion and other Essays. Boston, The FreePress, 1948, p. 78.
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“Man’s worldview today is dominated by the knowledge that the universe, the stars, the earth and all living things have evolved through a long history that was not foreordained or programmed.” [Emphasis added]
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Ernst Mayer, “Evolution,” Scientific American 239 (Sept. 1978): 47.
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“I am taking a new look at the Darwinian revolution of 1859, perhaps the most fundamental of all intellectual revolutions in the history of mankind. It not only eliminated man’s anthropocentrism, but affected every metaphysical and ethical concept, if consistently applied.” [Emphasis added]
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Ernst Mayer, “The Nature of the Darwinian Revolution,” Science 176 (June 2, 1972): 981.
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Darwinism is promoted by some of the largest “scientific institutions,” such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS USA). They shove the naturalistic agenda down the throats of people and call it science.

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The NAS USA declares: “The meaning of science must involve only natural things and processes.”

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“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption… The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in metaphysics, he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves… For myself… the philosophy of meaningless was essentially an instrument of liberation… sexual… [and] political.” [Emphasis added]
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Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World), Ends and Means, 1937, p. 273.
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Their acceptance of evolution as religion is a total commitment!

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“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science [evolutionary science] in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.” [Italics in the original] [Emphasis added]
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Richard Lewontin, Billions and Billions of Demons, The New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 31.
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Dr. Will Provine, Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell Univ., teacher of evolution wrote:
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“ … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.”

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“… belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.”

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“There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.” [Emphasis added]
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Provine, W. B., Origins Research 16(1):9, 1994.
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The Religion of Evolution is at war with the Religion of Christianity!

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“The conclusion I have come to is this: the law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution … Nay the two laws are at war with each other …” [Emphasis added]
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Keith, Sir Arthur. Evolution and Ethics (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons), 1947, p. 72.
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No one understood this better that Richard Bozarth writing in the American Atheist.

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“These ‘creation-science’ textbooks, if allowed in our schools, can only serve to increase that mental anguish by teaching that the Genesis gibberish is a legitimate scientific theory.”

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“Christianity is – must be! totally committed to the special creation as described in Genesis, and Christianity must fight with its full might, fair or foul against the theory of evolution.” [Emphasis added]

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G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution,” American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 19

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“Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.”

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“Atheism is the philosophy, both moral and ethical, most perfectly suited for a scientific civilization. If we work for the American Atheists today, Atheism will be ready to fill the void of Christianity’s demise when science and evolution triumph. Without a doubt, humans and civilization are in sore need of the intellectual cleanness and mental health of Atheism.”

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“The day will come when the evidence constantly accumulating around the evolutionary theory becomes so massively persuasive that even the last and most fundamental Christian warriors will have to lay down their arms and surrender unconditionally. I believe that day will be the end of Christianity.”

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“It becomes clear now that the whole justification of Jesus’ life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam’s fall into a life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.” [Emphasis added]
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G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution,” American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 30
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The war is being fought vigorously in the school classroom.

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“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These [sic] teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level – preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new – the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism.” [Emphasis added]
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John Dunphy, A Religion for a New Age, Humanist, Jan.-Feb. 1983, p. 26
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Sherwood Taylor, Curator of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, said:

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“In England it was geology and the theory of evolution that changed us from a Christian to a pagan nation.” [Emphasis added]
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Taylor, F.S., Geology changes the outlook; in: Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians, Sylvan Press Ltd, London, p. 195, (one of a series of talks broadcast on BBC radio), 1949.
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Christians have been and always will be at war with evolution!

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Throughout the 2,000 years of the Churches’ existence Christians have fought the atheist evolutionary worldview. The Apostle Paul fought it in Romans 1:16-32, and Acts 17:16-34. The Apostle Peter fought it 2 Peter 3:3-7. Martin Luther fought at the time of the Reformation:

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“I would advise no one to send his child where the Holy Scriptures are not supreme. Every institution that does not unceasingly pursue the study of God’s word becomes corrupt. Because of this we can see what kind of people they become in the universities and what they are like now. Nobody is to blame for this except the pope, the bishops, and the prelates, who are all charged with training young people. The universities only ought to turn out men who are experts in the Holy Scriptures, men who can become bishops and priests, and stand in the front line against heretics, the devil, and all the world. But where do you find that? I greatly fear that the universities, unless they teach the Holy Scriptures diligently and impress them on the young students, are wide gates to hell.” [Emphasis added]
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Martin Luther, “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate, 1520,” trans. Charles M. Jacobs, rev. James Atkinson, The Christian in Society, I (Luther’s Works, ed. James Atkinson, vol. 44), p. 207 (1966)
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More recently the great C. S. Lewis wrote:

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“There are all sorts of different reasons for believing in God, and here I will mention only one. It is this. Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen for physical or chemical reasons to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It is like upsetting a milk-jug and hoping that the way the splash arranges itself will give you a map of London. But if I cannot trust my own thinking, of course I cannot trust the arguments leading to atheism and therefore the reason to be an atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought or anything else: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.” [Emphasis added]
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Lewis, C. S. The Case for Christianity. Macmillan. New York: New York. 1943.
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So, then, how are we to live our lives? Mark 12:28-31

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One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

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by John W. Robbins

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Trinity Review Editor’s note: This lecture was originally delivered at the Evangelical Theological Society meeting at Westminster Theological Seminary in 1994. It was first published in Freedom and Capitalism: Essays on Christian Politics and Economics in 2006. Originally given in 1994 during the Clinton attempt at socialized medicine, this essay is needed even more today, as fewer seem opposed to it today than in 1994.

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“Many Americans don’t realize that any national health plan is based on planned scarcity. Although most Canadians have no trouble getting routine medical care, they tolerate what Americans would regard as unbearable waiting lines for things like bypass surgery, MRI scans, and hip replacements. National system s of health care eventually become bureaucratic, unresponsive to patients, and finally they bring rationing and waiting lines…. The worldwide experience over the last generation seems to show pretty clearly that when government economic controls are applied to health, they prove – in time – to be detrimental. The controls are based on planned scarcity and lead to an erosion of quality, innovation, and creativity.

“I think it ironic that at a time when socialist regimes are collapsing all around the world and American disenchantment with politics and government seems at an all-time high, so many Americans clamor for the government to take over the health-care mess.” – C. Everett Koop [1]

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Two Stories

I would like to begin my talk on the ethics and economics of health care by telling two stories, one of which I am sure you have already heard.

A certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

He  said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”

So he answered and said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

And he said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”

But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Then Jesus answered and said, “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

“Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side.

“But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion on him , and went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn and took care of him.

“On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’

“To which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among thieves?”

And he said, “He who showed mercy on him .”

Then Jesus said to him , “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:25-37).

Christ’s parable is a gold-mine of instructions about the ethics and economics of health care. Let me unpack a few of its implications.

First, the possession of health and the administration of health care are always individual. There are no such things as “national illness” or “national health care,” for nations cannot and do not get sick or injured; nations cannot and do not care; only individuals can and do.

Second, the politico-religious establishment, represented in the parable by the priest and Levite, is uninterested in actual health care. Perhaps the priest and the Levite were hurrying to a national health care discussion.

Third, the good Samaritan appears to be a businessman on a business trip: He had an animal; he was carrying oil, wine, and money; and he was making a round trip.

Fourth, the Samaritan businessman used his own resources and spent his own time helping the victim.

Fifth, the Samaritan businessman paid the innkeeper for his trouble. He apparently did not think that the innkeeper had an obligation to help him or the crime victim without being paid. The good Samaritan was not an altruist who believed that need creates an entitlement to the property of
another. He acted out of compassion, not compulsion, and he did not try to compel anyone else to be kind.

Sixth, the Samaritan businessman spent the night in the inn with his victim, making sure he would recover, and after the emergency was past, he continued on his trip, leaving the victim in the care of the innkeeper. The good Samaritan did not organize a lobby to agitate for a National Health Plan, for that has nothing to do with love for one’s neighbor. Instead, he continues on about his business. This traveling Samaritan was the good neighbor by sharing both his own goods and his own time with the crime victim, and it is his example, not that of the political and religious
leaders, that Christ commands us to imitate.

Now let me turn from the New Testament to American history with a story about Congressman Davy Crockett from his biography, The Life of Colonel David Crockett.

Crockett, as a member of the House of Representatives, once voted to give [US]$20,000 to the hom eless victims of a fire in Georgetown. One of C rockett’s constituents, Horatio Bunce, told Crockett he would not be voting for him in the coming election because of that vote.

Crockett objected, “Certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of [US]$20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing treasury.”

Mr. Bunce proceeded to explain why the vote was wrong:

“It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes…. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man. While you are voting to relieve one, you are drawing money from thousands….

If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give [US]$20,000,000 as [US]$20,000. If you have the right to give to
one, you have the right to give to all; and as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other.

“No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual Members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that
purpose….There are about 240 Members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over [US]$13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given [US]$20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving what was not yours to give.

“So, you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people.”

Moral Values

In these two stories we see two opposite solutions to health care problems: the Christian solution and the political solution. Dr. C. Everett Koop, who will be our featured speaker this evening, has challenged everyone to debate political health care, and I rise to accept his challenge. Dr. Koop supports the President’s Health Security Plan. In his advocacy of politicized medicine, Dr. Koop has written:

“Before we can enact the sweeping reform that I think must take place, I think we have to agree on the basic values and ethics upon which our health care system, and our whole society, indeed, is based and from which we draw our moral power. I am convinced that if we could reach an ethical consensus, m any of the economic and political problems would fall into place rather easily.” [2]

In focusing first on ethics, Dr. Koop has correctly recognized the more important part of the health care debate. Economics is at best secondary, and I shall discuss it in second place. Ethics is of greater importance. Theology is of first importance.

Now what precisely are those basic values and ethics upon which our “whole society is based and from which we draw our moral power?” Certainly the single most important moral value – the moral value that has given the United States whatever moral authority it has had and still has in
the world, the moral value which has attracted tens of millions to our shores and created the most humane society of modern times – is individual liberty. Individual liberty logically and historically depends on several other values, among which are the following:

1. The sovereignty of God. In political terms this means that God – not the state, society, race, class, Volk, or church – is the source of security. The modern idolatry of state and politics, for which the economist Ludwig von Mises coined the word “statolatry,” is the cause of the
horrific government- caused suffering that has afflicted the modern world, making the twentieth century the bloodiest century in the Christian era. The medieval idolatry of the church, ecclesiolatry, is responsible for most of the suffering and persecution of Christians during the Middle Ages.

2. Limited government. The sovereignty of God entails the limited power and authority of all human institutions. The Constitution of the United States created a government of enumerated and limited powers. W ithin that government, there is a separation of powers, so that no man or
department exercises all the power of even a limited government. Only God, not men, is to be trusted with power. A night-watchman state, such as that suggested by the Apostle Paul in Romans 13, is a basic moral value of American society.

3. The primacy of the individual. The importance of the individual – rooted in the Reformation’s recovery of the Bible’s doctrines of individual election, individual regeneration , individual justification, individual sanctification, individual responsibility before God at the final judgment, personal immortality in Heaven (or Hell), justification by belief alone, and the priesthood of all
believers – is a basic value of American society. From it are derived all the various individual freedoms and protections we enjoy: religion, press, speech, association, privacy, private arms, no self-incrimination, trial by jury, no double jeopardy, and freedom of contract.

4. Private property. The mention of freedom of contract calls to mind the idea of private property. No one can seriously deny that private property is one of the basic values of both the Bible and American society. It has been under heavy attack in the twentieth century by atavistic and criminal collectivists who wish either to abolish it or to redistribute it by political means. “Thou shalt not steal” applies to all, both rulers and private citizens. Rulers routinely violate the commandment by taxation, expropriation, and inflation.

5. The Protestant work ethic. What Max Weber called the Protestant work ethic is itself a bundle of economic virtues: Honesty, punctuality, diligence, obedience to the Fourth Commandment – six days you shall labor; obedience to the Eighth Commandment, you shall not steal; and obedience to the Tenth Commandment, you shall not covet. A recognition of the significance of productive work as glorifying God grew out of the Bible and the Reformation.

6. Individual responsibility. The Bible clearly makes each man responsible for himself, both in this world and the world to come. In economics, Paul says that he who will not work shall not eat. Paul recognized no entitlement to the property of another based on need.

7. Generosity. Perhaps no people has been as generous to those unable to help themselves as Americans. This is a consequence of two factors: Christianity and capitalism. But compassion, generosity, and capitalism have been under attack throughout the twentieth century by those
who wish to substitute envy and compulsion. Compulsory charity is, of course, a contradiction in terms.

8. The rule of law. The rule of law, based upon legal principles found in the Bible, includes three major ideas: (1) that settled law, not executive decrees, regulations, or ordinances, is the only proper guide for social conduct; (2) that laws must be both clear and non-absurd, that is,
capable of being understood by all and non-contradictory; and (3) that the laws apply equally to all, including rulers.

9. Federalism. Modeled on Presbyterian church government, the federal system is a system in which no government has a monopoly of jurisdiction. This division of powers, like the separation of powers, is designed to fragment political power so that it cannot threaten the lives, liberties, and property of the people.

10. Republicanism . Republicanism entails not only the idea of limited government, but the notion that monarchies are not proper forms of human government, that they are in fact rejections of divine kingship, and that proper human governm ents are elected by the people. It was not only the nation of Israel that sinned by asking for a king, but pagan nations around them and throughout history have sinned that way as well.

These are the moral values of America, which have given America whatever moral power and authority it has enjoyed and still enjoys in the world. If we subvert or abandon these values, we will have lost both our moral power and our society. National health care, such as that proposed by the Clintons and Dr. Koop, opposes and subverts every one of these moral values.

Dictators and National Health Care

The fact that national health care is inimical to individual liberty should be obvious, but since som e always seem to miss the obvious, let me belabor the point. I shall begin by remarking that every dictator in this century has been an advocate of national health care.

Chancellor O tto von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, Lenin and Stalin of the U.S.S.R., Salazar of Portugal, Mussolini of Italy, Franco of Spain, Yoshihito and Hirohito of Japan, Peron of Argentina, Hitler of G ermany, Tito of Yugosalvia, Castro of Cuba, Mao Tse-Tung of China – all of these autocrats, Fürers, and dictators have been advocates of national health care.

Writing in 1949, the economist Melchior Palyi pointed out that the concept and mechanism of the welfare state –

“the systematic dispensing, through political channels and without regard to productivity, of domestic wealth – were at the very core of the Greco-Latin city states, of the medieval city, and of the post-Renaissance absolute monarchy…

“France’s Henry IV in the sixteenth century promised a chicken in every pot. Her brilliant Colbert in the seventeenth century and Prussia’s enlightened Frederick the Great in the eighteenth, these forerunners of modern dictators, gloried in calling themselves the first servants of the nation. Their police state used the welfare state as its instrument, facade, and justification, as do modern
dictatorships. In democracies the welfare state is the beginning and the police state the end…

“Bismarck’s fundamentally significant role in modern history is rarely understood. His middle-of-the-road socialism was the connecting link between the old autocrats and the coming totalitarians…

“The health, or rather sickness, propaganda employed by Bismarck elevated that aspect of social welfare to a prime political issue…such ruthless men as Bismarck and Hitler [were] profoundly
interested in the physical well-being of their subjects….

“…all modern dictators – Communist, Fascist, or disguised – have at least one thing in common. They all believe in social security, especially in coercing people into governmentalized medicine…” [3]

Adolph Hitler

Hitler, for example, established compulsory health care in occupied Holland in 1941.
The February 1920 Nazi Party Manifesto, the Twenty-five Points, included the following statements:

7. We demand that the State shall make it its first duty to promote the industry and
livelihood of citizens….

15. We demand extensive development of provision for old age.

21. The State must see to raising the standard of health in the nation.

Vladimir Lenin

The March 1919 declaration of the All-Russian Communist Party, written under the guidance of dictator Vladimir Lenin, includes these paragraphs:

“The dictatorship of the proletariat has already made it possible to carry out a series of measures, the realization of which was impossible in bourgeois society: the nationalization of drug stores,
of large private medical institutions, of health resorts, compulsory work for all medical men and women, and so on.

“In conformity with the above the All-Russian Communist Party sets as its immediate task:

“(1) To carry out in the interests of the workers, sanitary measures on a large scale, such as

“(a) Sanitation of centers of population(guarding of soil, water and air);…

“(c) The organization of measures preventing the development and spreading of infectious diseases;

“(2) The struggle with social diseases (consumption, venereal diseases, alcoholism, etc.);

“(3) Free trained medical assistance and medical supplies accessible to all.”

It seems that universal access to health care is not a new idea.

Joseph Stalin

Article 120 of the 1936 Constitution of the U.S.S.R., written under the guidance of dictator Joseph Stalin, established a right to social security and health security:

“Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to maintenance in old age and also in cases of sickness and disability. The right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of factory and office workers at state expense, free medical service for the working people, and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.”

Fidel Castro

Ten years ago the dictator of Cuba wrote:

“Health is an essential right of all men and a responsibility of society as a whole… It is
absolutely necessary to promote mother and child welfare care programs, the control of communicable diseases, environmental protection, distribution of foodstuffs for children… extend health care services, train the required technical personnel and guarantee the essential
basic medicines which such conditions demand.

“As long as health fails to be considered a fundamental right of man and a duty of the community; as long as the responsibility of the State and of society in regards to health- care fails to be recognized; as long as inequalities in the distribution of health resources, both internationally and
domestically, fail to disappear; as long as poverty, hunger, ignorance and squalor fail to be directly fought against, little will be achieved in improving human health in the underdeveloped world.” [4]

Someone might object that despite the unanimous enthusiasm of twentieth-century dictators for national health care, it is not necessarily subversive of individual liberty and limited government. Certainly democrats as well as dictators have advocated national health care. C. Everett Koop is no Nazi. The question then is, who is consistent, the democrats or the dictators? The answer is
clearly the dictators. There is something in the idea of national health care itself that is incompatible with individual liberty and all its constituent moral values.

Government Planning

The book summ arizing President Clinton’s H ealth Security Act is titled The President’s Security Plan. Government planning is incompatible with individual liberty, human wellbeing, and a civilized society.

The Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek, writing in his 1944 book The Road to Serfdom, noted that “The first of modern planners, Saint-Simon, …predicted that those who did not obey his proposed planning boards would be ‘treated as cattle.’” [5] Saint-Simon recognized that planning is incompatible with individual liberty.

In the 1930s the British Labour Party theoretician Harold Laski raised the question whether “in a period of transition to Socialism a Labour Government can risk the overthrow of its measures as a result of the next general election.” [6] Laski recognized that planning is incompatible with
democracy.

Hayek concluded: “Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity.” [7] In other words, there is a necessary connection between
altruism and totalitarianism. It is no accident that the dictators have been enthusiastic advocates of national health care. What is difficult to explain is how democrats can fail to see that connection.

It is obvious that if its plan is to work, the State cannot tolerate any deviation from it. Laski suggested that that entails the end of democracy. In logic it does, and in history it has. Certainly the Clinton health care plan, which “guarantees” coverage that can “never be taken away”
implies that no one, Congress or the people, can be permitted to repeal national health care. Government planning is necessarily incompatible with individual freedom and democracy. Paraphrasing national health care advocate Vladimir Lenin, “The whole of society will become a single [doctor’s] office and a single hospital with equality of care.” And all will be guaranteed care for life.

Leon Trotsky, who understood quite clearly what government monopolies entail, might be paraphrased: “In a country where the sole physician is the State, opposition means death by health care rationing. The old principle, who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a
new one: W ho does not cooperate shall not recover.”

The use of the welfare state to enforce the policies of the police state should be too well-known to be questioned at this late date in history. Physicians in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany acted as employees of the government when they imprisoned dissenters in psychiatric prisons,
euphemistically called hospitals; physicians in Nazi Germany, paid by the government, performed experiments on people without their consent; and physicians and scientists in the United States, paid by the government, have conducted radiation, chemical, and drug experiments for the Central Intelligence Agency, the Veterans Administration, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the Pentagon.

Lest you think the dangers of medical killing in America are remote, let me remind you that there are Nazi doctors and scientists among us in 1994 who think nothing of killing unborn children as a form of preventive medicine; who think nothing of experimenting on fetuses, harvesting their ova and brains for medical and scientific purposes; who think nothing of infanticide and euthanasia; who think nothing of killing rather than healing; and who long for the day when their views will be enforced by the guns of government. National health care will give them the sanction they want.

Those who advocate national health care advocate an immoral system. Their much praised concern for others is ersatz: They do not wish to spend their own time and money, but to force others to spend their time and money. They confuse compulsion with compassion. It is this
mentality that has caused the bloodiest century of the Christian era. At least a hundred million people have died by the hands of this century’s rulers, all of whom have justified their killing by saying they were doing it for the good of others. The N azi regime in particular carried out its
killings for public health reasons.

The Nazi Doctors

In The Nazi Doctors, Robert Jay Lifton describes how the national health care system in Germany killed children in the 1930s:

“The structure served to diffuse individual responsibility. In the entire sequence – from the reporting of cases by midwives or doctors, to the supervision of such reporting by institutional heads, to expert opinions rendered by central consultants, to coordination of the marked forms by Health Ministry officials, to the appearance of the child at the Reich Committee institutions for killing – there was at no point a sense of personal responsibility for or even of involvement in the murder of another human being. Each participant could feel like no more than a small cog in a vast, officially sanctioned, medical machine.” [8]

Dr. Marc Micozzi, director of the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D. C., has argued that the Nazi medical experiments and holocaust were made possible only because Germany had been developing a political-medical complex for 50 years before the Nazis came to power:

“The German social insurance and health care system began in the 1880s under Bismarck. Ironically, it was part of Bismarck’s “anti-socialist” legislation, adopted under the theory that a little socialism would prevent the rise of a more virulent socialism.

“The increasing involvement of the German government in medical care and funding medical research established a government- medical complex that the National Socialists later used to execute their extermination policies.

“By the time of [the] W eimar [Republic], German doctors had become accustomed to cooperating with the government in the provision of m edical care. The reforms of the Weimar Republic following the medical crises of World War I included government policies to provide health care
services to all citizens. Socially-minded physicians placed great hope in a new health care system , calling for a single state agency to overcome fragmentation and the lack of influence of individual
practitioners and local services. The focus of medicine shifted from private practice to public health and from treating disease to preventive health care….

“Medical concerns which had largely been in the private domain in the nineteenth century increasingly became the concern of the state. The physician began to be transformed into a functionary of state initiated laws and policies. Doctors slowly began to see themselves as more
responsible for the public health of the nation than the individual health of the patient….

“Where traditional individual ethics and Christian charity had once stood, the reformers posited a collective ethic of the benefit of the general population.”

“Private charity and welfare were nationalized…

“Politicized medicine is not a sufficient cause of the mass extermination of human beings, but it seems to be a necessary cause. The Nazi holocaust did not happen for some inexplicable German reason; it is not an event that we can afford to ignore because we are not German or not Nazis.
The history of Germany from 1914 to 1945 is a telescoping of modernity – from monarchy, war, and collapse to democracy and the welfare state, and finally to dictatorship, war, and death.” [9]

The End of Charity

But the loss of freedom for all – freedom for patients, freedom for physicians, freedom for taxpayers – is not the only consequence of national health care. The attempt to impose politicized charity subverts genuine charity. Even Dr. Koop has adm itted that:

“When I first entered medicine and for many years thereafter, I and most physicians did not expect to be paid for everything we did. Donating care to some people who couldn’t afford it was
something expected of the profession. All that vanished with the coming of entitlement programs like Medicare. [10]

Historically, Americans have been a generous people. In the early nineteenth century, Tocqueville contrasted the spontaneous generosity of Americans and their “free institutions” with the welfare states of Europe where the “state almost exclusively undertakes to supply bread to the
hungry, assistance and shelter to the sick, work to the idle, and to act as the sole reliever of all kinds of m isery.”

Another nineteenth-century observer declared, “New York is, I firmly believe, the most charitable city in the world. Nowhere is there so eager a readiness to help, when it is known that help is worthily wanted; nowhere are there such armies of devoted workers.” [11]

After decades of the welfare state, New York City has quite a different reputation. In 1938 an editor of The New York Times wrote an essay in The Atlantic Monthly titled “The Collapse of Conscience.”

He lamented the fact that:

“personal conscience in the United States has fallen to a new low in our history as a nation. It has been largely lost to our sight in all the din and dither that have been raised about that other moral concept, the social conscience, which we are constantly reminded, has a nobler and more widely embracing function. And, the more we hear of the one, the less we hear of the other. The personal conscience has been steadily submerged; the very foundation upon which any broader conception of individual responsibility toward society must rest is being washed away….”

“There is a distinct flavor or cant about much of the talk concerning social conscience. The phrase slips readily from the tongue; it offers a large and easy generalization, and substitutes a vague
beneficence for defi n ite individual responsibility.” [12]

An important part of the process of replacing personal charity with so-called social justice involved changing the meaning of charity. Before the twentieth century, altruism, the notion that the poor were somehow entitled to the property of others, had no place in America. This was as it
should be, for the Bible itself teaches no unconditional duty to help others simply because they need help.

For example, there is Paul’s command, already alluded to, that he who does not work, neither shall he eat. Paul makes no mention of adverse economic conditions as an excuse for joblessness. As a good economist, Paul knew that there is always plenty of work to be done. Paul says that there is no duty to support anyone who can work and does not. The Bible knows nothing of either legal or moral entitlements to the property of another, simply because one needs help.

Paul’s command, if obeyed, would mean the immediate end of the welfare state. It is not the Bible but the nineteenth-century socialist Edward Bellamy, in his very influential novel Looking Backward, 2000-1887, who advocated the notion that “The basis of his claim [to the property of others] is the fact that he is a man.” The epigrammatic Karl Marx said, “To each according to his
need, from each according to his ability.” The Bible says, “You shall not steal.”

Second, there are Paul’s rather detailed instructions about how churches are to dispense charity:

“Do not let a widow under sixty years old be taken into the number, and not unless she has been the wife of one man, well reported for good works; if she has brought up children, if she has lodged
strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work.

“But refuse the younger widows….”

Here Paul quite clearly says, do not even support widows unless they meet certain qualifications, foremost of which is a lifestyle test. All charity is to be governed by the moral lifestyle of the recipient. Paul not only imposes a means test, he imposes an age test and a morals test that must
govern charitable giving. Anyone who advocates legal or moral entitlements, anyone who advocates promiscuous political or private giving, anyone who asserts that some people deserve help simply because they are human beings is disobeying God. Paul says: “Do not feed….” “Do
not let a widow….” “Refuse younger widows….”

If one is reluctant to obey Paul’s commands – though a Christian should not be – perhaps pondering Christ’s healing ministry will help. When Jesus Christ walked on Earth 2,000 years ago, he had the power to end all types of sickness and illness. Yet he did not do so, because he was
unwilling to do so, not because he was not all-powerful. He restricted his healing ministry to those in a tiny corner of the world, and not even all of them were healed.

There are three conclusions to be drawn from this practice of Christ: First, since Christ never sinned, it was not a sin for him to fail to heal everyone, even when he had the power to do so. Second, Christ had one instrument for healing: belief. If a person lacked belief, he did not heal
him . His miracles mirrored his salvation: health, justification, and sanctification come through belief of the truth alone. Third, Christ did not want any disciples who were interested only in his ability to feed and heal them. He obviously considered belief of the truth to be more important than physical well-being.

The modern ethic that all must be saved physically –anything less is socially unjust, we are told – reflects the modern theology that requires that all be saved eternally. Theological universalism and ethical universalism are twins. Neither one is Christian; neither one is true.

Our Calvinist fathers understood Paul and Christ quite well, but their ch ildren have been so overcome by a vicious and sentimental universalism and altruism that they find Paul’s commands to withhold charity, to refuse help to some people, as shocking as the notion that some people
are going to Hell. But in 1686 the Scots Charitable Society declared that “no profane or dissolute person, or openly scandalous shall have any part or portion herein.”

Sixty years later (1752) in America minister Charles Chauncey told the Society for Encouraging Industry and Employing the Poor that the Society was restrained as to the distribution of charity;
not being allowed to dispense it promiscuously, but obliged to take due care to find out suitable objects; distinguishing properly between those needy people who are able, and those who
are unable to employ themselves in labor….

In 1821 New Hampshirites Woodbury and  Whipple reflected the thinking of their time and of the Bible by saying that “the poverty which proceeds from improvidence and vice ought to feel the consequences and penalties which God has annexed.”

In nineteenth-century America “charity organization societies considered ‘worthy of relief’ only those who were poor through no fault of their own and unable to change their situation quick ly.” [13]  Our fathers distinguished, just as Paul did, between the deserving and the undeserving poor.

From Limited to Unlimited Government

Since charity is a private responsibility, government has no role in providing it. President Grover Cleveland, at the end of the nineteenth century, vetoed a bill to give disaster relief to farmers in Texas and sent the following veto message to Congress:

“I return without my approval House Bill No. 10203, entitled, “An Act to enable the
Commissioner of Agriculture to make a special distribution of seeds in the drought-stricken counties of Texas, and making an appropriation [of [US]$10,000] therefore.

“It is represented that a long-continued and extensive drought has existed in certain portions of the State of Texas, resulting in a failure of crops and consequent distress and destitution.

“Though there has been some difference in statements concerning the extent of the people’s needs in the localities thus affected, there seems to be no doubt that there has existed a condition calling for relief; and I am willing to believe that, notwithstanding the aid already furnished, a donation of seed grain to the farmers located in this region, to enable them to put in new crops, would serve to avert a continuance or return of an unfortunate blight.

“And yet I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan as proposed by this bill to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose.

“I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering, which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadily resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people.

“The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.”

Government’s role in society is well-defined by the Bible: Its purpose is to punish evildoers. Since by its nature government involves the use of force, government is restricted to activities where the use of force is appropriate: the punishment of criminals. This night-watchman state has no role in the economy, even less in charity. The welfare state, and national health care, are sinful.

Government Is Force

This brings us to the central recognition that government is force. Two centuries ago George Washington warned that government is not reason nor eloquence, but force. Like fire, government is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. The United States is operating under the delusion that government is benevolent by nature and that public officials act only in the public interest.

Here are some of the ways force will be applied to the American people under the Clinton Health Security Plan:

1. If it becomes law, you will be forbidden from purchasing basic health insurance of your choice, even if you pay the premium for a government plan first.

2. You will be forbidden from receiving any treatment that the government considers unnecessary or inappropriate, even though you and your doctor might disagree. [14]

3. Unless you get Medicare, military or veterans’ benefits, or work for a company with 5,000 or more employees, you must join a government monopoly called a health alliance. If you do not, you will be assigned to one.

4. You will be denied medical care unless you are a member of an alliance. You will be required to carry a health passport which electronically encodes your medical history.

5. You will be forbidden to pay the doctor yourself; he can be paid only by a government-approved health-care plan.

6. Your doctor will be compelled to provide all your medical information to a national data bank which will keep files on all Americans. [15]

7. State governments and insurers must make “automatic, mandatory, nondiscretionary reductions in payments” to doctors, nurses, and hospitals to “assure that expenditures will not exceed their budget.” Health care will be rationed.

8. Approved health-care plans will be forbidden to deny enrollment to anyone.

9. Doctors and patients will be compelled to accept government-set fees for services.

10. Offering a doctor an extra payment is a “bribe” punishable as a crime, including denial of health care. He who does not cooperate shall not receive health care. [16]

11. If a state government fails to cooperate with the National Health Board, which is the Supreme Health Soviet, it will lose all federal health appropriations and new federal taxes will be imposed on all employers in that state.

12. The government-approved health plans are forbidden to discriminate among applicants on the basis of individual characteristics, health status, anticipated need for health care, occupation, or affiliation with any person or entity. [17]

13. Medical school applicants will be accepted or rejected by governm ent boards and assigned to a specialty of the government’s choosing. [18]

14. Heavy new taxes will be imposed to fund the plan. [19]

The results of this sort of totalitarian medicine were described thirty years ago by a liberal political scientist:

“Medicine in the Soviet Union is socialized; complete medical care is available to all citizens free of charge…

“Soviet doctors, on the whole, are rather poorly paid. Some augment their salaries, semi-legally, by engaging in private practice. Since this pattern seems sufficiently widespread, we can say that
people who have wealth or positions of authority receive better medical care than the majority, because they can engage physicians for private service.

“…he [the doctor] is the only person in the social system who has authority to excuse people from work to which they have been assigned. In a society where heavy duties are imposed on all, sickness is one of the few legitimate escapes from obligations….

“This…encourages the citizen, at times, to simulate illness, exaggerate his troubles, or, in real desperation, deliberately induce disease or injury. In turn, the physician’s task is complicated by the need to weed out malingerers…. He is, after all, not only the healer of the sick, but also an officer on the staff of the government which is interested in getting socially desirable work
done…. Medical care, in short, is a means to promote economic growth. [20]

The Promises of National Health Care

Meyer’s description of the Soviet health care system suggests that the realities of totalitarian m edicine are quite different from its promises:

# National health-care plans promise universal access, [21] but they invariably deny access to some, frequently for non-cooperation with the authorities.

# National health-care plans guarante e equality of care, [22] but those with political clout always get more and better care.

# National health-care plans prom ise adequate care, but what they always deliver is rationing. [23]

# National health-care plans promise high quality care, but what they invariably deliver is cookbook medicine, with treatments approved by government officials, not by patients and their
doctors.

# National health-care plans promise cost savings, but they invariably break the budget. [24]

# The Health Securit y Act claims to increase competition, but it actually creates monopolies. [25]

The whole apologetic for national health care is based on deception. That deception extends even to the deliberate misuse of certain words by proponents of national health care.

The Misuse of Language

In his essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell explains how politics corrupts language. That corruption can be clearly seen in the deliberate misuse of words by advocates of national health care.

The first instance of the m isuse of language is the word “crisis.” Whenever some twentieth-century political faction in America has wanted to push its program through or get elected, it has attempted to scare the American people with talk of a crisis. Candidate John Kennedy did it in 1960 with his warnings about a “missile gap.” Socialist Michael Harrington and President Lyndon Johnson did it in the mid-1960s with their warnings about a poverty crisis. In the 1970s and ‘80s it was the energy crisis. In Germany in the 1930s, it was the Reichstag fire.

The past behavior of socialist politicians should make everyone skeptical of any new crisis politicians might announce. Rather than jumping on command, we should try to discover how the latest alleged crisis will be used to increase political power.

There is no health care crisis. Eighty percent of the American people report that they are “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with their present health care. The uninsured, whose numbers are far less than the 37 million the press reports, receive almost as much health care as the insured. A more accurate number of the chronically uninsured is 5 million. Of the uninsured, more than half are
members of families with full-time workers, forty percent have incomes over [US]$20,000 per year, and ten percent have incomes over [US]$50,000 per year. They simply choose to spend their money on other things. Thirty-seven percent of the uninsured are under twenty-five; and those with incomes less than [US]$20,000 spend several times as much on alcohol, tobacco, and entertainment as they do on health care. Only one percent of those under sixty-five are uninsurable, that is, they cannot easily purchase health insurance. There simply is no health care or health insurance crisis.

Here is a second example of the misuse of language: the word insurance. What is being discussed is not insurance at all. The notion of insurance includes insurers weighing risks, accepting or rejecting risks, and setting premiums based on risks accepted, but all are specifically forbidden
by the Health Security Act. Franklin D. Roosevelt used the same tactic to get Social Security passed in 1935.

Third, the taxes collected to fund this health security plan are not called taxes, but “contributions.” Of course, this is not a new misuse of language either; it is at least as old as
the Social Security Act. No one pays Social Security taxes; we all make “contributions.” Try to stop making those “contributions,” and you will find out exactly what they are.

Fourth, the phrase “universal access” is itself a deception. Today, everyone in the United States has access to health care. Statistics show that the uninsured receive almost as much medical care as the insured. What the phrase “universal access” really means is compulsory participation. The Health Security Act provides that “Implementation involves the enactm ent of a statute adopting federal program standards, formation of regional health alliances, and imposition of requirements for employers and individuals to obtain coverage.” Notice the phrase, “imposition of requirements.”

Finally, the biggest deception of all is “equality.” We know that all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. What a politicized health care system means is that anyone with political connections or pull will get better care than those without pull. Care will flow to those who wield political power, and the powerless will suffer.

The American Health Care System

One can agree that there are serious problems with the present health care and health insurance systems in the United States. Nothing in this paper should be construed as a defense of the status quo. But those serious problems arose because of government interference in the insurance and care systems.

Costs

In 1993 total spending on health care in the United States was about $940 billion, about 14 percent of our gross national product. In 1950 the amount spent per American on health care was [US]$82; in 1986 it was [US]$1,837; in 1993, over [US]$3,500; and it is projected to be [US]$5,500 in 2000.

Dr. Koop has written: “During the past 30 years…health care expenditures have risen in the United States from four percent to fourteen percent [of GNP].” [26]

W hy have costs risen so fast in the past thirty years? Thirty years ago, the federal government became heavily involved in medicine: It enacted Medicare and Medicaid, creating a higher demand for medical services and driving costs up. At the same time, it took steps to restrict the
supply of drugs, personnel, and medical devices.

Employment-Related Insurance

One of the major criticisms of today’s insurance system is that insurance depends on employment. Health insurance is tied to employment only because of government tax policies from 1942 to the present.

Prior to 1930, most Americans paid m ost of their medical expenses out of their own pockets. (By 1930 the United States had as many or more medical, nursing, and dental schools and hospital beds per capita as it has today.)

Employer-provided health insurance emerged during the 1940s. The price and wage controls illegally imposed during World War II, plus an illegal military conscription, brought about a shortage of civilian labor. Employers were forbidden from increasing salaries to attract workers. In 1942 the War Labor Board decided that fringe benefits up to five percent of wages would be perm itted. Employers began to offer health benefits as a way of providing additional compensation and attracting needed workers. Enrollment in group hospital plans grew from less than 7 to about 26 million subscribers from 1942 to 1945.

At the same time, the Internal Revenue Service made two rulings: (1) the purchase of health insurance for workers was a legitimate cost of doing business and could be deducted from taxable business income; and (2) workers did not have to include the value of health insurance benefits in calculating their taxable income. Those tax provisions are still a part of IRS rules.

Labor unions, themselves privileged by federal law, began to demand employer-provided insurance in their contracts. In 1948 the National Labor Relations Board ruled that health insurance was a legitimate subject of collective bargaining, and this encouraged the spread of plans.

State Restriction of Insurance

There are almost 1,000 state laws restricting insurance policies that may be offered to customers. In 1970 there were only thirty state-mandated benefit laws nationwide. They are a major reason why many people lack health insurance: State-mandated benefits increase the cost of insurance and price many people out of the insurance market. One study shows that as many as one out of every four uninsured people lack health insurance because state regulations have increased the price. Assuming the figure of 37 million uninsured is correct, this means that as many as 9.3 million people lack health insurance because of state government restriction of the types of policies that may be offered. [27]

Drug Regulations

In 1962, amendments to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act imposed a requirement that new drugs be shown to be safe and effective before they were marketed. Since then the process by which a new drug receives approval from the FDA has become increasingly complicated, lengthy, and costly. In 1994 the average new drug takes eleven years and [US]$231 million to bring to market. In 1980 the same standards were applied to medical devices. The federal requirements for drug testing, by delaying the introduction of new drugs, have caused the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of Americans in the past thirty years. These deaths were the result of a policy of politicized “compassion” and consumer “protection.”

Inflation

Since 1960 the federal budget has been balanced only once, and the official national debt has increased by four trillion dollars. The Federal Reserve has increased the money supply; the last silver has been removed from our coins; silver certificates were removed from circulation; the last gold backing for our paper currency was abolished; the solemn promises of the government to pay gold and silver on demand were broken; and consumer prices have increased about 500 percent. All of these government policies have affected the cost of health care since the 1960s. Creating a new health care bureaucracy and new spending, when the federal government has no money, must result in higher taxes and more inflation. Both are form s of institutionalized stealing by government.

Licensing

The American Medical Association, an industry cartel, which, in cooperation with government, controls the licensing of physicians and nurses, has restricted the supply of medical personnel for much of this century. Occupational licensing has no beneficial economic effects; its principal effect is to restrict the supply of services and thus raise prices.

The Department of Veterans Affairs

The United States already has one national health care system: the Department of Veterans Affairs. In September 1990 the television show Primetime Live filmed conditions at some VA hospitals. They found blood-stained needles lying openly on tables, and old and broken equipm ent in the Cleveland hospital. Patients told reporters that the nurses hadn’t shaved or bathed them for three weeks. Several had been lying in their own feces for hours. One VA hospital employee described the system as “Bad facilities, incompetent doctors, and medications that are ordered but don’t get there.” Some nurses reported that doctors did not change their gloves and routinely spread dangerous bacterial infections.

Primetime hid a camera in the room of a Vietnam veteran. According to nurses and staff the patient did not receive prompt treatment when he entered the hospital, and as a result, surgery became necessary. His family accused the hospital of failing to treat his spinal abscess in time, and now the patient is quadriplegic. The camera showed that although the food was brought to the patient, no effort was made to feed him, and he went without food for three days until another patient wandered into his room and fed him.

Patients at the Washington, D. C., VA Medical Center sometimes “walk around with a catheter for three or four months” awaiting prostate surgery, states Chief of Medicine James Finkelstein. “It makes them vulnerable to infection and discomfort,” he says. “We’re doing the same thing they do in Great Britain.” A World War II veteran had all his upper teeth pulled by the Denver VA in September 1988, but he didn’t receive his dentures until November 1989.

The New York Times reported that six men treated at the VA Medical Center in North Chicago during 1989 and 1990 died due to inadequate care. Two died from undiagnosed aneurysms, one from undiagnosed heart blockage, one from hemorrhage following surgery, one from a
misdiagnosed ulcer, and another from an artery nicked during prostate surgery. During one of the emergency surgeries to repair the aneurysm, the small intestine and an artery were torn by a clamp. The torn artery was not discovered until the autopsy. The m an who died from heart
blockage was given Maalox for indigestion. The fatal hemorrhage following vocal cord surgery was observed by a doctor, who did nothing to stop the bleeding.

Even Dr. Koop admits that “the federal track record in the health-care business is dismal.”

Conclusion

Our consideration of the ethics and economics of health care leads us to several conclusions:

1. The proposed Health Security Plan, and indeed any political health-care plan, is subversive of the fundamental moral values that have given the United States whatever moral authority it has in the world. Government planning is incompatible with freedom of choice in health care, freedom of contract, private planning, limited government, federalism, the rule of law, individual responsibility, the work ethic, and Christian charity.

2. The proposed Health Security Plan is inim ical to the Biblical ideas of the sovereignty of God; the primacy of the individual; the proper function of the state; the sinfulness of theft, idleness, and envy; and the exercise of Christian charity.

3. The proposed Health Security Plan is no different in principle from the various plans advocated by the dictators of the twentieth century.

4. The creation of a political-medical complex as proposed by the Health Security Plan is a necessary condition of a totalitarian state, as illustrated by the history of Germany.

5. The Health Security Plan is antithetical to the Christian idea of charity and is based on the Marxist credo: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

6. The Health Security Plan involves the sinful use of force against patients, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, drug companies, and taxpayers.

7. The promises of the plan – universal access, equality of treatment, high quality of care, low cost, adequacy of care, and so forth – are false. Both economics and history demonstrate the necessary failure of politicized medicine.

8. The language used by proponents of the Health Security Plan, as well as some of the statements they make, are deliberately deceptive and false.

9. The origins of most if not all the problems perceived in our present health-care system – rising costs, lack of insurance coverage, shortages of personnel – are the previous actions of both state and federal governments.

We must conclude that the proposed Health Security Plan – and every Plan that involves government in medicine – is both sinful and impractical. That implies, of course, that our present system, which already suffers from severe government interference, does need to be reformed. But the reforms needed have not been suggested by either President Clinton or the Republican
Party. They include the following:

1. The abolition of all government health-care programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

2. The repeal of all taxes used to support such health care.

3. The repeal of all regulations on drug testing and licensing.

4. The repeal of laws requiring certain drugs to be prescribed only by a physician.

5. The repeal of all occupational and institutional licensing laws.

6. The repeal of all state restrictions on insurance plans.

7. The modification of income tax rules to allow full deductions to individuals for insurance and medical care. Better yet, the repeal of all local, state, and federal income tax laws.

The present health-care system needs reform, but improvement will come only with less government interference, not more. These seven measures will make the government more compatible with Christianity and America’s fundamental moral values.

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[1] C. Everett Koop “is one of the most thoughtful, courageous, and independent health care leaders in the nation…. For many years, Dr. Koop has campaigned to reform the health care system. He has been a passionate advocate of primary and preventive care, of universal coverage and cost containment” (Hillary Rodham Clinton, The White House, September 20, 1993). The Koop quotation is from his book, Let’s Talk, 102-104.

[2] C. Everett Koop, “Will the Crisis in Healthcare Deprive Us of Its
Opportunities?” Transactions and Studies of the College of
Physicians of Philadelphia, Ser. 5, Vol.15 (1993), 58.

[3] Compulsory Medical Care and the Welfare State (Chicago 1949).

[4] Fidel Castro, The World Economic and Social Crisis (Havana:
Publishing Office of the Council of State, 1983), 215, 188.

[5] University of Chicago Press, 24.

[6] As quoted in The Road to Serfdom, 63.

[7] The Road to Serfdom, 149.

[8] New York: Basic Books, 1986, 55.

[9] “National Health Care: Medicine in Germany, 1918-1945,”The Freeman, November 1993, 416-420.

[10] C. Everett Koop and Timothy Johnson, Let’s Talk, 133. Oddly, Dr. Koop thinks Medicare is one of the “most noble” things the U.S. government has done.

[11] As quoted in Marvin Olasky, The Tragedy of American Compassion, 1992, 100-101.

[12] J. Donald Adams, “The Collapse of Conscience,”The Atlantic Monthly, January 1938, 56.

[13] The Tragedy of American Compassion, 104. The previous quotations are taken from Olasky as well.

[14] Dr. Koop says: “…treatments for individual patients should not be based on ‘society values’ but on ‘patient values,’ which often differ from society values and even from physician values” (Let’s Talk, 121). But of course the Plan Dr. Koop supports eliminates “patient values” from consideration.

[15] Dr. Koop says: “Nothing is more important to me than doing what I can to restore a trusting doctor-patient relationship.” Who will be able to trust his doctor knowing that everything must be
reported to the government?

[16] Dr. Koop says: “The federal government should follow the lead of states that prohibit any physician from owning a facility to which a patient could be referred with financial profit going back to the referring physician” (Let’s Talk, 91).

[17] Dr. Koop says: “Pre-existing health conditions should not exclude people from insurance coverage” (Let’s Talk, 111).

[18] Dr. Koop says: “We need a rational plan for the training and allocation of physicians…”(Let’s Talk, 92). Also: “We can no longer be the only industrialized nation that does not subsidize or
completely pay for the education of its physicians.”

[19] Dr. Koop says Congress should “slap a hefty tax on cigarettes” and impose new taxes on alcoholic beverages, handguns, and ammunition. He goes on to advocate the politics of avarice:
“Instead of blindly opposing the [US]$2 cigarette tax, tobacco-state Members of Congress should be fighting for their share of the pie to help move their states into the economy of the 21st century” (The Washington Post, September 21, 1993).

[20] Alfred Meyer, The Soviet Political System, 1965, 366-368.

[21] Dr. Koop says: “All Americans must have access to basic health insurance for primary and preventive care, and catastrophic health insurance” (“Will the Crisis in Healthcare Deprive Us of Its Opportunities?” Transactions and Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, ser. 5, vol. 15, 1993).

[22] Dr. Koop says: “Some things – like universal access – are not negotiable, and that’s exactly the way it should be… When I read the first draft of the [Clinton] plan, … was supportive of the plan, even if there were specific issues with which I disagreed” (The White House, September 20, 1993).

[23] Dr. Koop says: “The real problem is that far too many Americans have too much health care.” He favors politically restricting the health care available to Americans – that is, rationing.

[24] Alain C. Enthoven, Professor of Economics at Stanford University and a leading proponent of managed competition, has criticized the Clinton plan as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” deceptively hiding behind the language of market competition while creating a “complete federal takeover in health care.” The National Health Board is “a huge power grab” and the financing plan “puts
the federal budget at risk.”

[25] The German Marxist Rudolf Hilferding explained the role of prices in a socialist economy almost a century ago: “What a government economy does is precisely to abolish the autonomy of
economic laws; it is not a market economy, but an economy for use. What is produced, and how it is produced, is no longer determined by the price but by the state planning commission [in
this case, the National Health Board], which fixes the character and extent of production. To outward appearances, prices and wages still exist, but their function has completely changed. They no longer determine the course of production. That is directed by the central government… Prices and wages are now only instruments of distribution determining the share that each individual shall receive out of the sum total which the central government allots to the whole population. Prices have now become the technical means of distribution, a means simpler than would be a direct order stipulating the amount of the various products (which have ceased to be ‘commodities’) to be received by each individual. Prices have become symbols of distribution, but they are no longer the regulators of the nation’s economy. While the form has been maintained, the function has been completely changed.” As for the state of competition among American drug
companies, the top five drug companies supply thirty percent of the market. The top five beer companies supply ninety percent of the beer market. The top five car companies supply eighty percent of the automotive market.

[26] “Reducing Health Care Costs by Reducing the Need and Demand for Medical Services” (New England Journal of Medicine, July 29, 1993).

[27] Dr. Koop says: “State legislature should eliminate state-mandated insurance benefits… People should be able to pick a plan that best suits their individual and family circumstances” (Let’s Talk, 111). But of course the Health Security Act, which Koop supports, prevents people from picking a plan that suits them best..

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Republished with permission from a 19 February 2010 article on Dr. Mohler’s blog (www.AlbertMohler.com/blog), and with thanks to Dr. Mohler from the Christian Observer.

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“It is well and good for the preacher to base his sermon on the Bible, but he better get to something relevant pretty quickly, or we start mentally to check out.” That stunningly clear sentence reflects one of the most amazing, tragic, and lamentable characteristics of contemporary Christianity — an impatience with the Word of God.

The sentence above comes from Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today in an essay entitled “Yawning at the Word.” In just a few hundred words, he captures the tragedy of a church increasingly impatient with and resistant to the reading and preaching of the Bible. We may wince when we read him relate his recent experiences, but we also recognize the ring of truth.

Galli was told to cut down on the biblical references in his sermon. “You’ll lose people,” the staff member warned. In a Bible study session on creation, the teacher was requested to come back the next Sunday prepared to take questions at the expense of reading the relevant scriptural texts on the doctrine. Cutting down on the number of Bible verses “would save time and, it was strongly implied, would better hold people’s interest.”

As Galli reflected, “Anyone who’s been in the preaching and teaching business knows these are not isolated examples but represent the larger reality.”

Indeed, in many churches there is very little reading of the Bible in worship, and sermons are marked by attention to the congregation’s concerns – not by an adequate attention to the biblical text. The exposition of the Bible has given way to the concerns, real or perceived, of the listeners. The authority of the Bible is swallowed up in the imposed authority of congregational concerns.

As Mark Galli notes:

It has been said to the point of boredom that we live in a narcissistic age, where we are wont to fixate on our needs, our wants, our wishes, and our hopes—at the expense of others and certainly at the expense of God. We do not like it when a teacher uses up the whole class time presenting her material, even if it is material from the Word of God. We want to be able to ask our questions about our concerns, otherwise we feel talked down to, or we feel the class is not relevant to our lives.

It is well and good for the preacher to base his sermon on the Bible, but he better get to something relevant pretty quickly, or we start mentally to check out. Don’t spend a lot of time in the Bible, we tell our preachers, but be sure to get to personal illustrations, examples from daily life, and most importantly, an application that we can use.

The fixation on our own sense of need and interest looms as the most significant factor in this marginalization and silencing of the Word. Individually, each human being in the room is an amalgam of wants, needs, intuitions, interests, and distractions. Corporately, the congregation is a mass of expectations, desperate hopes, consuming fears, and impatient urges. All of this adds up, unless countered by the authentic reading and preaching of the Word of God, to a form of group therapy, entertainment, and wasted time — if not worse.

Galli has this situation clearly in his sights when he asserts that many congregations expect the preacher to start from some text in the Bible, but then quickly move on “to things that really interest us.” Like . . . ourselves?

One of the earliest examples of what we would call the preaching of the Bible may well be found in Nehemiah 8:1-8:

And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand, and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people stood. And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord. Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading with their faces to the ground. [English Standard Version]

Ezra and his companions stood on a platform before the congregation. They read the scriptural text clearly, and then explained the meaning of the Scripture to the people. The congregation received the Word humbly, while standing. The pattern is profoundly easy to understand — the Bible was read and explained and received.

As Hughes Oliphant Old comments, “This account of the reading of the Law indicates that already at the time of the writing of this text there was a considerable amount of ceremonial framing of the public reading of Scripture. This ceremonial framing is a witness to the authority of the Bible.” The reading and exposition took place in a context of worship as the people listened to the Word of God. The point of the sermon was simple — “to make clear the reading of the Scriptures.”

In many churches, there is almost no public reading of the Word of God. Worship is filled with music, but congregations seem disinterested in listening to the reading of the Bible. We are called to sing in worship, but the congregation cannot live only on the portions of Scripture that are woven into songs and hymns. Christians need the ministry of the Word as the Bible is read before the congregation and God’s people — young and old, rich and poor, married and unmarried, sick and well — hear it together. The sermon is to consist of the exposition of the Word of God, powerfully and faithfully read, explained, and applied. It is not enough that the sermon take a biblical text as its starting point.

How can so many of today’s churches demonstrate what can only be described as an impatience with the Word of God? The biblical formula is clear — the neglect of the Word can only lead to disaster, disobedience, and death. God rescues his church from error, preserves his church in truth, and propels his church in witness only by his Word — not by congregational self-study.

In the end, an impatience with the Word of God can be explained only by an impatience with God. We — both individually and congregationally — neglect God’s Word to our own ruin.

As Jesus himself declared, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

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Mark Galli, “Yawning at the Word,” Christianity Today [online edition], posted November 5, 2009. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/novemberweb-only/144-41.0.html

Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, vol. 1, “The Biblical Period” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 98-99.

© 2010, All rights reserved, www.AlbertMohler.com

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Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., serves as the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary-the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world. Dr. Mohler also serves as the Joseph Emerson Brown Professor of Christian Theology at Southern Seminary.

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In addition to his presidential duties, Dr. Mohler hosts The Albert Mohler Program, a daily live nationwide radio program on the Salem Radio Network. He also writes a popular blog and a regular commentary on moral, cultural and theological issues. Both can be accessed through Dr. Mohler’s website, www.AlbertMohler.com. Called “an articulate voice for conservative Christianity at large” by The Chicago Tribune, Dr. Mohler’s mission is to address contemporary issues from a consistent and explicit Christian worldview.

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Dr. Mohler is a theologian and an ordained minister, having served as pastor and staff minister of several Southern Baptist churches. He came to the presidency of Southern Seminary from service as editor of The Christian Index, the oldest of the state papers serving the Southern Baptist Convention.

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Dr. Mohler was a Faculty Scholar at Florida Atlantic University before receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. He holds a Master of Divinity degree and the Doctor of Philosophy (in systematic and historical theology) from Southern Seminary. He has pursued additional study at the St. Meinrad School of Theology and has done research at Oxford University (England).

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(Republished with the permission of ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net), and with the thanks of the Christian Observer)

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EL PASO, TX (ANS) – A missionary couple’s son was born with a serious heart defect. With the help of great doctors and miraculous surgeries, he survived birth. Even though he was physically handicapped by his heart condition, this boy remained one of the most spiritually alive kids anyone could ever meet. To everyone he was a beacon of joy that loved to give.

Charlie Stewart some years ago with other missionary kids in Guatemala

Sam and Janey Stewart’s son Charlie at age 5 went to school one day proudly carrying the lunch his mom had made. When his mom went to check on him at lunchtime, she found him sitting next to his new friend, Micah. Micah was eating Charlie’s lunch and Charlie had the biggest smile on his face. Charlie had given his lunch to his new friend. And while he must have felt a little hungry watching Micah eat, Charlie’s smile told the story. He loved to give and watch the joy it brought to others.

This generous action of giving and sacrificing became the pattern of Charlie’s life throughout many years. As Charlie would accompany his dad to minister to the poor in Guatemala City and the surrounding communities, he would always come home with less than he took, giving whatever he could to a needy child.

On February 1, 1996, three weeks short of his 13th birthday, Charlie’s heart just couldn’t hold out any longer, and he went home to be with the Lord. A great gain for Charlie, but for his family, and for others he left behind, there was a tremendous sense of loss. Lunchtime was an especially painful time for Charlie’s mom because there were many special memories of lunchtime together as she had home schooled Charlie.

One day, around lunchtime, as Janey recounts of sharing her emptiness and grief with the Lord, there was a knock at the door. When she opened it, she found two little boys begging for a piece of bread. In that instant, Janey felt the Lord was telling her, “Give them Charlie’s lunch.” And so she did. Instead of giving them bread, she made them a very special lunch.

Each day, for several months, these children, and more, came to the door, asking for bread. Everyday they received instead, a special lunch – a lunch good enough for their son Charlie. Although she invited the children to stay and eat, they always took the lunch with them. As it turns out these kids were in turn sharing their lunch – Charlie’s lunch – with other kids and their families.

As Jesus had used a young boy’s five loaves and two fish to feed 5,000, Sam and Janey, were confirmed in their hearts that God could use this simple act of providing lunch to the hungry, shared what God was doing with their family and multiply “Charlie’s lunch” to feed thousands of hungry children all over the world. God could turn a heart-breaking tragedy into a hope and a blessing.

Thus the conception of Charlie’s Lunch began.

Working out of El Paso Texas, Charlie’s Lunch has begun what it began as a simple sack lunch now has feeding centers in countries such as India, El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Zambia and Honduras.

What are in these sack lunches you might ask?

According to Charlie’s Lunch Website, in countries like Guatemala, a meal often consists of beans, rice, tortillas, vegetables, chicken or beef, a vitamin-enriched drink called Incaparina and a piece of fruit. Normally, the children eat meat just once a week. These children consider Charlie’s Lunch a feast as they are accustomed to eating only a bowl of beans or a couple of tortillas or a small bowl of rice for an entire day. It’s amazing to see the difference in these children after eating Charlie’s Lunch for a year!.

Charlie’s Lunch Feeding Center in Guatemala

The children are always fed a balanced, nutritional meal. By working closely with nutritionists, each Charlie’s Lunch is able to serve meals targeted to the specific needs of the children. Meals are prepared to supplement meals received at home. Unfortunately, because of extreme poverty, meals from Charlie’s Lunch are often not just supplemental in nature. They are the primary source of nutrition – the only bridge from starvation in many cases.

Charlie’s Lunch also provides in some cases, formula for their infant brothers or sisters and food for the mothers of the Charlie’s Lunch kids who are asked to take a turn in preparing and distributing a meal once a month.

The involvement of the mothers of children in the program has proven effective as these women who often have no husband and 5-10 children under their care for have learned about personal hygiene, parenting skills, proper cooking, nutrition and the Word of God. They are encouraged by the pastor and/or his wife and shown how important they are. In turn, they gain back dignity and worth in Christ for the first time in their life.

During distribution of Charlie’s Lunch, the members tell Bible stories, songs, personal cleanliness, respect and lots and lots of love. These children are given lots of hugs and smiles with every meal. But they also have the chance to just be kids, surrounded by love and compassion in a positive setting. And most importantly, they are given the opportunity to learn about Jesus and to develop a personal, lifelong relationship with Him. They are taught that, no matter what the circumstances, God loves them, and cares for them and that God knows them by name.

What about Christmas you might ask?

In Charlie’s Lunch they have Charlie’s Christmas, which is an annual event and celebration that takes place in each feeding center across the world. The celebration includes a Christmas service, prayer, a meal, and the distribution of gifts like food, canned goods, medicine, hygiene products, tools, clothing, shoes and toys! The gifts are given not only to each child enrolled in Charlie’s Lunch, but to their family as well! Charlie’s Christmas is an excellent way to communicate that message to the children, families, and whole community.

As Proverbs 22:9 states “A generous man will himself be blessed for he shares his food with the poor.”, If you would like to partner up with Charlie’s Lunch and receive newsletters of the blessings that God has been doing through the ministry, you can donate and read more about them at www.charlieslunch.com.

Karen Gonzalez is a freelance journalist and a frequent contributor to ASSIST News Service. She resides in Southern California with her husband Raul and their one-year-old son David.

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The Johnstown-Windber Congregation

Fifty-five years ago in Trinity Reformed Church in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, the Rev. Kovacs was ordained by the Pittsburgh Synod of the Evangelical and Reformed Church. He recently
served for eighteen years at the Hungarian Reformed Church of Woodbridge, New Jersey, which honored him with election as Pastor Emeritus. He is a graduate of Elmhurst College (Illinois) and Lancaster Theological Seminary (Pennsylvania). He was President of Pennsylvanians for Human Life and also of Pro-life Protestants of Pennsylvania. Rev. Kovacs and his wife Theresa have been married fifty-five years and are the parents of three children and grandparents of four young ladies.

The Johnstown-Windber Congregation is a result of the merging of the Windber and Johnstown (Pennsylvania) Congregations after the Windber church was lost in a fire some years ago.

The Johnstown-Windber Congregation is observing its 110th Anniversary in 2010, and remembering the nearly five generations of families that have worshiped there.

Many of the founding church members were coal miners who immigrated from Eastern Hungary. These coal miners worked under very dangerous conditions in the Pennsylvania coal mines, extracting coal to fire the furnaces that made the steel - that in turn went into building the infrastructure of this country at the turn of the 20th Century.

Mining disasters in those early days were an everyday occurrence.

(Still considered to be the worst coal mining disaster in US history is the Darr Mine Explosion of 19 December 1907, which killed at least 239 coal miners in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, the majority of the dead being Hungarian men. The mine explosion and subsequent cave in left 136 widows and 273 children without husbands and fathers. During the month of December 1907 alone, over 3,000 miners died in US mining accidents - the worst month in US mining history to this date.)

These were the days before Social Security, disability payments and so on. Many of the miners and their families lived in coal company towns, in coal company houses. More often than not they were paid with coal company scrip (not money) so they shopped in coal company stores, which were the only places that accepted the scrip. So if a worker was injured on the job or killed in a coal mine explosion, his wife and children would be in the street before the dust settled, many times without more than the clothes on their backs.

It was very very difficult work - and what really touches me about the historic Hungarian Reformed Churches like Johnstown-Windber, is that the coal miners and their families usually collected money and bought land and built churches even before they had earned enough to buy their own homes. These early folks began their churches under very difficult circumstances yet they have remained true to their Reformed faith. They have passed on this tenacity to the people who have come after them, who have kept the churches going generation after generation for the good of God. To me it’s very humbling and inspirational all at the same time.

So – my hat is off to the Johnstown-Windber Congregation for keeping the faith going for almost 110 years. For that Congregation, I know that their Reformed faith and church-community means a lot to them and also to the Rev. Kovacs who serves them.

My hope is that God continues to bless all of their lives as they work together in His name and for His good.

From left to right: The Rt. Rev. K.K. Ludwig, Bishop, Calvin Synod; Mr. Nicholas Kovach, Chief Elder, The Hungarian Reformed Church of Johnstown-Windber, Pennsylvania; the Rev. Imre Bertalan, Dean, Eastern Classis of the Calvin Synod; and Rev. Albert W. Kovacs, newly elected Pastor of The Hungarian Reformed Church of Johnstown-Windber, Pennsylvania.

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Ms. Tunde Garai, Editorial Assistant, Calvin Synod Herald – Amerikai Magyar Reformátusok Lapja

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By David Robertson, Minister, St. Peter’s Free Church of Scotland, Dundee, Scotland – republished with permission from David’s Blog on the St. Peter’s website: http://www.stpeters-dundee.org.uk/node/190

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This is an updated version of an article I wrote a number of years ago on the Free Church website. It received a lot of comments, especially from some Southern Baptists friends, whose website was critiqued in the article. They were very gracious and said it had helped them. I am very thankful for those Americans who have come to help us in Scotland. I want to see more – which is why the comments below still apply. Feel free to make your own comments.

“Over paid, over sexed and over here” was one common saying concerning the American GI’s during the Second World War. I doubt that this is the appropriate description for the growing number of American missionaries who are coming to Scotland today in order to take part in a different kind of warfare – the spiritual battle for Western Europe. This is a subject dear to my heart – I have been involved with American missionaries for over ten years and continue to encourage them to come to Scotland. Bear that in mind as you read the rest of this article. I am writing from the perspective of someone who wants American missionaries here and who believes moreover that we need American missionaries here.

Cross cultural mission is difficult. There are dangers as well as opportunities. I believe that for American missionaries to be effective over here they need to have a passionate realism, a people centered ministry, a Biblical God centered theology and a willingness to work in partnership.

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A Passionate Realism

Avoid the danger of Romanticism. Scotland is not the land of Mel Gibson, Brigadoon, quaint wee redheaded Highland lasses, Eric Liddell running in the Glens and John Knox preaching in the pulpits! Equally Scots going over to America sometimes get the ‘grass is always greener on the other side of the fence’ syndrome. To be in large churches, with extensive programs and great wealth, who also seem to be making a significant impact upon their community – that is quite an experience and one which sometimes leaves the Scot feeling:

a) inferior and,

b) thinking ‘this is it. This is the way God wants us to work’.

The result is that some of us come back with the notion that the Americanisation of the Church will be its salvation. That is patently not true. Likewise American missionaries who come over here thinking that all Scotland needs for revival is for things to be done the way they are back home, will not get very far. Having that attitude will do a great deal of harm – not least by causing an opposite reaction whereby anything new is seen as American and thus de facto to be rejected. Cultural sensitivity is a basic requirement for any missionary.

Another aspect of realism is to avoid stereotyping and to seek to understand the culture you are coming to. A few years ago I looked at the Southern Baptists missionary website on Scotland (it has considerably improved since then!) – it was appallingly inaccurate – almost to the point of being offensive and laughable. The scary thing is that this information is what Southern Baptist missionaries come armed with. According to the website:

– Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism are infiltrating the country through ‘ambitious East Indian businessmen.’

- Mormonism and the religion of the JW’s are taught in public schools

- ‘Scots enjoy football (soccer), rugby, cricket, golf and Highland Games. On a sunny day beautiful parks are filled with families and their dogs…’

All this is fairly patronizing and harmless but when it comes to the report of the Celtic Languages team it becomes farcical – according to this report Scotland’s population is seven million of whom 150,000 are potential Gaelic speakers. “The Celtic languages team targets the minority population of Scotland who speak Gaelic, an ancient Celtic language…At present there are few (literally to be counted on one hand) or no evangelical Gaidhlig-speaking churches with a Gaidhlig outreach in Scotland. It would be estimated that there are probably fewer than fifty fluent Gaidhligh- speaking evangelicals in Scotland” – lest those of you from Back (with several hundred Gaelic speaking believers) cry foul at this it is only fair to point out that the Missionary organisation goes on to helpfully inform us that that there are currently no Gaelic speaking Baptist churches in Scotland. The implication is obvious. Real Christians are Baptist. Pity that no-one told Knox or Chalmers…or Eric, Alexander, or Iain D. Campbell (one of the fifty?).

As well as avoiding romanticism and stereotyping, realism means grasping and understanding the spiritual state of the nation. Scotland is in a bad way spiritually – but it is not helpful to act as though there were no evangelical Christians in the country nor is it helpful to come across with a superior mindset which screams ‘I am here to tell you how it should be done’. There is a distinct lack of humility in some of the presentations I have seen. I once looked at a missionary team where young girls hardly out of high school were described as providing ‘church leadership.’ Everyone wants to have a ministry that is considered ‘significant’ by their peers (It is a good job that Christ was not like that – he emptied himself). A worthwhile ministry is not achieved by downplaying or ignoring the number of fine native Christians who are already labouring in this part of the vineyard.

It is also helpful to be realistic about what you can do. I have met men who tell me with a straight face that their mission is to bring revival to Scotland and Ireland; to unite the churches, to ‘disciple tomorrows leaders today,’ and ‘develop a CPM (church planting movement) that will envelop the whole nation for Christ.’ Much of this is the Christian equivalent of spin and corporate business talk. Meaningless except to those schooled in the jargon. It is better to be honest. I know that saying you are running a pensioners club in a rundown area of an inner city is not quite the same as ‘bringing revival to Scotland,’ but it is more realistic. Of course your work could result in far greater blessing, but you cannot promise that and you do not know that. The trouble is that American missionaries are often funded by individuals or churches who want to know what their money is achieving. Plus there is a lot of competition for a limited amount of cash – and when there is any kind of recession, it is missionary work that often gets hit first – so each missionary is in the unenviable position of having to sell their work in order to obtain funds to continue it. In such circumstances it is not surprising that jargon and exaggeration come into play.

And the passion? Realism can sometimes come across as lifeless defeatism. That is not what we need. We need people who recognise the need, who have moved beyond the ‘Braveheart’ kilt and heather view of Scotland, who know their own weaknesses but who are passionate about Jesus Christ, his Gospel and the people of Scotland. And who are self-effacing.

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People-Centred Ministry

Which brings us on to the question of methodology. Why are the Southern Baptists seeking to plant churches in Dingwall and Tain? These are hardly unchurched places – both small towns having good Free Churches, evangelical Church of Scotland’s, the APC and charismatic groups etc? What is the thinking and the strategy behind that? The thinking is betrayed in their websites view of other churches – real Christians are Baptist, (and real Baptists are Southern) or at least they should be because their churches are dead. At best the strategy seems to be non-existent. At worst it is a blatant attempt to plant a church, not in one of the many urban housing schemes where there is little or no gospel, but rather in an area where it is easier to get disaffected ‘Christians’ from the already established churches.

In terms of methodology – combine the system of raising finance; with Arminian theology, cultural insensitivity, and a business ‘success’ model, and you have real potential for a disaster. Why? Because these factors combined together mean that there is an enormous pressure on the missionary to be seen to be successful. Those who are funding you demand results – that means bottoms on seats. It means numbers. In order to be able to report home that God is at work through you and therefore people should be supporting you, you need to highlight the growth and the numerical increase. For that to happen in postmodern Scotland the easiest way is to go to an area where there are a significant number of churches (which you consider to be pretty dead) and poach. Given the manpower and money it only takes a modest level of competency to gather 50 plus people. You can then send reports of how you have established a church (or to use the jargon – ‘how God is working through you’) and your supporters back home will be happy. But at what cost? I do not deny that the Lord can and does bless even through such methods. Of course there are people who are genuinely converted but there is also harm done – some churches are weakened, others are tempted to try such short-termism, and overall the impact of the gospel on the community is severely weakened.

The methodology adopted should not be that of the commercial venture but rather that of the Lord. He came to save people and to glorify his Father. In many ways he was a disaster in terms of what the world would regard as success. For us, following Christ means that we will be people centered rather than programe centred. And I don’t mean that just as a soundbite or a neat turn of phrase. I am tired of being offered this program for church revitalization, or that proven method of evangelism, or this program to ‘reach Scotland for Christ.’ Of course there is value in looking at different methods and strategies. Of course there are new ways of doing things. And, of course some of these programs are excellent. But we really do need to beware of the program mentality. It is often easier to sell a method than it is to live Christ. It is also sometimes far more lucrative – especially for the author. Several people have written, phoned and even visited offering ‘their’ particular brand or program. They come with all the right words (‘we are your servants…we want to help you reach Scotland) and as far as one is allowed and able to judge these things, their motives are admirable, but their agenda is very limited. They are answerable to a higher authority and it’s not the Lord. Their church or their mission board has told them they must use this program and that any help offered is conditional upon that. So what do you do if you are a Scottish minister in desperate need of help and someone comes and offers you untold riches – the only catch being that you must do it their way? If you think that what is offered is harmful or not appropriate then you must refuse. That is not easy.

In summary then our methodology is to be people centred and focused not so much on what the ‘folks at home’ might think. It needs to be relevant and culturally appropriate in Scotland. And Biblical. Which brings us onto the third requirement.

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Biblical God-Centred Theology

There is a tendency in some of our churches to divide the world into those who are theological and those who are mission minded. That is a fatal error. For both theology and mission. In terms of the latter it often leads to people saying that theology does not really matter – all that matters is getting the gospel/Jesus to people. The problem with that statement is that the gospel is theology and theology is Jesus. When theology becomes a dry academic discipline, used only to justify church division then it becomes blasphemous. When it is full of Christ then it is essential.

In terms of mission in Scotland we do not need any more Arminian evangelism. I do wish Reformed Christians would stop being emotionally bullied into supporting any and every work that claims to be Christian (providing it only sells itself well). I know the Lord can and does use it (I met a lovely Arminian Baptist from Alabama the other day – I am sure that the Lord will continue to use him. His grace and humility shone threw) but that does not mean that we should give into the notion that Reformed evangelism is a misnomer. There are far too many ‘Reformed’ Christians who think that we can evangelise like Arminians and then teach like Calvinists. Again the success model and the pressures thereof sometimes force us to act in that way.

I find it ironic that you will get mission teams ‘bringing the gospel to Scotland’ who think that they have done so by going and singing in St Giles in Edinburgh. St Giles is a bastion of theological liberalism. It is the church where Jenny Geddes flung her stool at the preacher when he tried to use Laud’s liturgy. Yet now her Presbyterian descendants celebrate their Scottishness and their Knoxian heritage by supporting a church which Knox would not be seen dead in! I question how theologically valid it is to send mission teams over to ‘prayer walk’ the Highlands. Why not just come on a walking holiday and don’t use the ‘mission tag’? I have been offered clowns and drama groups, choirs and basketball players. Again don’t get me wrong – I actually believe there is a place for clowns and drama groups. That place is the circus and the theatre – or perhaps the school and the market place. I don’t say that to be facetious. We need more Christians involved in the popular arts. My objection is to calling that mission or evangelism – just because it is done in ‘a Christian way’ or tracts are handed out. I believe that Christians should be involved in the wider culture and that there is a place for the fine Christian groups in the US who are involved in these things to come over here on culture trips.. But we need a lot more than that.

We also need a lot more than short term mission teams – which are often more for the benefit of the people who come and the sending church than they are for the recipients. Sometimes Congregational Mission Committees even use these as ‘vision’ trips to stimulate interest. But mission should not be sold like that. Certainly let people come on ‘vision’ trips to see what the need is and what might be done – but again please do not call that mission. For any sending Church the criteria must not be – what can we get out of it, but rather what can we put in? Again let me stress that I support the idea of short term mission teams. We have had several very beneficial ones in St Peter’s. I have led about twelve teams to other churches. However the ‘hit and run’ type of outreach as so often exemplified by these teams is one of the least effective form of outreach one can do. Or at least it is if it is not part of a longer term relationship which gives a boost to the ongoing work and which can therefore be continued and followed up. Which brings us on to the last point.

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Partnership

The key to work in Scotland is for the American Presbyterians/Baptists/Pentecostals to come and partner with us. Scots must resist the temptation to think that we do not need help and we must also resist the temptation to see the American Church as some kind of cash cow – that we have to woo or sell the ‘vision to. We must also avoid any kind of cultural or spiritual superiority or snobbery (we need to take the beam out of our own eyes before the take the spec out of our brothers). Americans on the other hand must avoid seeing us as a ‘project’. And they too must avoid cultural or spiritual superiority. It does not really matter if Europeans did not think that George W was the best thing since sliced bread or do not want to eat hormonised beef. American missionaries are not here to defend or proclaim American culture – they are here to proclaim and live Christ. The fact of a McDonald’s opening in Moscow should not be seen as an advance for the gospel! What is more important is that we can work together in partnership in the cause of the gospel. We can learn from each other as we proclaim Christ together and who knows, perhaps we Scots may be able to be of some help to our American brothers and sisters as well?

American Presbyterians owe us a debt of love. It was the Scots who took Presbyterianism over to the US and it was the Scots who helped fund and plant Presbyterian churches in the US. Now we need the favour returned. Not just by romantic ‘Scots celebration’ services in memory of Knox, nor by reading lots of books about the Covenanters, nor just by sending the occasional holiday tour/mission trip, but we need your help. We need commitment, sacrifice, prayer and trust. In the years since I first wrote this article I am aware of several Scottish ministers, theologians and students who have been ‘called’ to the US. I am not aware of any experienced American minister coming over here. Can I make a plea to the American church – if you are going to continue to cherry pick our best people could you in return heed the Macedonian cry to come over and help us? And please send us your best – no other sacrifice is good enough for the Lord.

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P.S. – I have to add this – given the reaction already. Firstly, this was not written about any specific individual (that should be obvious) – secondly, it is not just about any particular group (the Southern Baptists are only mentioned as one example) whether MTW, PCA, ARP’s new work in Leith, etc. I am talking about general trends and patterns. Thirdly, it should also be obvious that I am very grateful for those Americans (like John Wagner now an FC minister doing a great job in Inverness, or Terry Carlton who did a power of work here in Dundee, and several others too numerous to name) who have worked hard and sacrificially for the Lord here. However I am also aware that we have a reputation of sending home missionaries from Europe in general and Scotland in particular, in ‘body bags’. Unrealistic expectations, pressures from home, inexperience, the tough spiritual climate, lack of understanding are some of the many reasons why this happens. As we say in Scots ‘its a sair fecht’ (its a tough fight), but then as Christians what do we expect? I thought we were to take up our cross – not just go to the places and people that seem to be more attractive. I don’t think this is a problem that is particular to one nationality – it seems to me endemic in Western Christianity that our own personal comfort and situation is the priority (and I include myself in this). How can we do mission like that? Perhaps we need a deeper awareness of Christ and ourselves, before we think we can change the world?

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Another P.S. – here is an example of what I was writing about….just came across this today…”Scotland, we have found to be a spiritually cold nation. Many of its churches are practically empty with many of them being occupied by Muslims. Secularism is the modern day God. We have been preaching  and taking mission teams there since 2002. The Baptist Union has become quite liberal. It is also completely Armenian. There is no Reformed witness or churches within the Baptist Union. The state churches, Church of Scotland, etc. are very liberal. There is a Presbyterian presence, mostly through the Free Church of Scotland. But there is a very small Reformed Baptist presence in Scotland. We feel led to ask God to raise up Reformed Baptist Churches across Scotland, the U K and Europe according to His Will. ” It is really important that people get facts right….’many’ of Scotland’s churches are not occupied by Muslims, there ARE reformed churches and witness within the Baptist Union, the Presbyterians churches are not mainly through the Free Church, and not all the State churches are ‘very liberal’. ( on a slightly more amusing note I am intrigued that the Baptist Union is completely Armenian….personally I thought it was full of Turks!). There also seems to be the usual problem of equating the church of Jesus Christ with one particular group. Of course there then follows an appeal for money. Now I have nothing against this particular group and we do pray that the Lord will bless them in the particular situation they are in. But a great deal more humility, awareness of the situation, and a greater vision for the Gospel in Scotland (rather than just their own particular group) would be helpful. As indicated above we need more churches and groups committed to evangelism in Scotland….but this is not the way to win friends and influence people!

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The Difference Between Christian

Conservation and Environmental Terrorism

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by Dr. Grady S. McMurtry, Creation Worldview Ministries

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Environmental Issues and the Christian

God made man and gave him the mandates of dominion and stewardship over the earth. Today, environmental terrorists are attempting to convince everyone that unless we abandon our cars and stop further economic growth we will all perish and the earth with us. Are environmental terrorists to be believed? Is the earth heating up; is there an Ozone Hole; and, do we need to lock away all our natural resources so as not to allow those mean capitalists to get their greedy little hands on them? Is the Green Movement truly concerned about the environment or is it just the new home of Communism? What is the correct Christian response to be to all these allegations? Should Christians be preservationists or conservationists?

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Exactly What Did God Give Man When He Gave the Mandates of Dominion and Stewardship?

Dominion may be termed a Creation Ordinance or a creation command. The word dominion (radah) means: to have dominion, to rule, to have authority over, to subjugate, to administer, to take care of and to have superintendence. It does not mean: to rule with an iron fist, to lord it over in a tyrannical manner, to needlessly destroy nor to exploit.

The word dominion as it is used in Genesis means to exercise dominion under God’s supervision; following God’s direction and example. For example, God states that the principle of the Sabbath rest is to be extended to all areas of His creation. In Leviticus 25:1-7, the Sabbath rest applies to the earth and the agricultural land. In Deuteronomy 25:4, the Sabbath rest applies to the animals. In Exodus 20:8-11, the Sabbath rest applies to mankind.

Profit

Our God is a God of profit. The word “profit” when used of God doesn’t mean money. God doesn’t need money; He owns everything anyway. God’s use of the word “profit” means that He expects a return for effort, while denying exploitation or profit for profit’s sake. This kind of profit is to be for the glory of God and the good of His creation. The dominion mandate provides for the derivation of benefit while also being consistent with the second major Biblical principle, that of stewardship.

Stewardship

What is a steward? A steward is one who is paid to manage the estate or property belonging to another. A steward is one who is held accountable for his wise or unwise management of that property by the owner. Who is the Owner? According to Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it.” Stewardship then is the act of being a steward accountable to God, and God expects us to be good stewards. (II Corinthians 5:9 and Psalms 8:6) Stewardship, however, is not preservation, it is positive purposeful management. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) Even Christ’s death on the cross, a destructive act if only looked at on the surface, was required to usher in redemption. Stewardship is purposeful both now and in the future. It avoids the short term quick fix which yields long term disaster. An example would be the previous widespread sale and use of DDT without the consideration of the long term effects upon the worldwide environment. DDT caused the near extinction of the American Bald Eagle, the Brown Pelican and many other species of birds and fish.

Stewardship requires industry and toil. (Genesis 2:15) Man was to work in the Garden of Eden and care for it. When God put Adam in the Garden He made him the head horticulturist in charge of it. God illustrated industriousness in working six days during the Creation Week to give us an example, a type of how we were to live our lives. God condemns haste and waste. (Proverbs 6:6-11 and Matthew 25:26) In 1960, the schools were teaching “The Solution to Pollution is Dilution.” In God’s perspective “The Solution to Pollution is Prevention.”

Stewardship incorporates preventive maintenance and routine maintenance. Preventive maintenance is making sure that we do not intentionally put long term toxic chemicals into our world. Routine maintenance is the task of keeping balances between providing for human needs and the short term abuse or exploitation of our God given resources. Immunization from disease is a good example of maintenance. No one would argue that immunization against the spread of infectious diseases isn’t a good idea. Likewise, the reforestation of trees after timber harvest is wise maintenance.

Stewardship includes the prevention of waste. Waste usually results from bad management and irresponsibility, and ultimately, directly from sin. God does not waste a single thing. (Romans 8:28 and Ephesians 1:11) Prevention of waste requires hard work and energy. The prevention of waste, the minimizing of waste and the recycling of waste require effort.

Stewardship is personal. Our one and only absolute responsibility is to be faithful. (I Corinthians 4:2) We are to be faithful regardless of the amount with which we are entrusted. (Matthew 25:14-30) We are to be faithful with all with which we have been entrusted. (Romans 14:10-12, II Corinthians 5:9-10 and I Corinthians 3:12-14) Our reward is not based on the quantity of our profit; but upon our faithfulness, commitment and diligence in handling what we have been given to steward.

There are four benefits that a person receives for their faithful stewardship. First, they receive a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. (Matthew 25:21) Second, it develops character. Third, by understanding our position as stewards we can develop true contentment. Fourth, faithful stewardship yields financial order in your family and long term economic stability. On the other hand, the consequences of unfaithful stewardship are to be found in Luke 16:1-15.

How can you develop your mind in the area of good stewardship, or any other area for that matter? This can be accomplished by working through the outline that follows:

1. We condition our minds, in this case with the Word of God.

2. This leads to mental assent; we are to think in obedience to God.

3. We make a decision to change our thoughts to His thoughts.

4. Through repeated thought, we form a habit.

5. Through regular habit, we develop a pattern of thought.

6. From a pattern of thought, we develop an attitude.

7. From an attitude, we develop a consistent set of actions.

8. Our consistent actions become a firm behavior.

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Are the Environmental Terrorists Correct About the Various Environmental Issues?

Ozone Hole

Is there an Ozone Hole over South America created by Freon pollution? No. There is no “hole” in the atmosphere, only a thinning, depletion or “dip” which occurs every spring in the Antarctic and is filled back in after about six weeks. This event has been happening every spring over South America for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It is caused when the concentration of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs or Freon-type products) builds up during the cold winter night and in the spring, the warmth of the sun returning to the southern hemisphere, starts a chemical reaction in which CFCs and Ozone combine using up large quantities of Ozone. After about six weeks this depletion is filled back in through natural processes which produce Ozone and the problem is resolved until the next year.

The great fear which Ozone depletion brings with it is that without Ozone we are all unprotected from the very harmful UV radiation which comes to us from the sun. Without Ozone we will most assuredly die. Therefore, it would be critical to the world if Ozone levels did reach zero.

Recent research shows, however, that the UV radiation levels around the world have dropped not increased, in recent years. Surprisingly, this drop has been due to the “protective layer” of industrial wastes in the atmosphere, in the form of sulfur dioxide aerosols and others, which have been added to the atmosphere by man. These industrial wastes have caused sunlight to bounce off the top of the layer back into outer space and have caused the earth below to cool.

Besides, Freon and other CFCs are also made in nature, not just by men. CFCs are produced by macroalgae, marine invertebrates and volcanoes. Most of the CFCs, a full 80%, are manufactured by volcanoes. Can you legislate against volcanoes? Would you like to guess where one of the world’s largest CFCs producing volcanoes is? Right! It is under the “hole” at the south end of Chile . Do you think that there could be any coincidence?

It is estimated that we are going to spend One Trillion Dollars in the next few years for nothing, except to placate the consciences of environmental terrorists! Is it worth spending One Trillion Dollars to prevent only 20% of the entire world’s production of CFCs? Environmental terrorists are not the only ones with a motive, either. Could there be a profit motive for Du Pont, whose patent ran out on Freon, to want Freon R-12 banned off the market and their new replacement product, Suva R-134, to take its place?

Global Warming

Is the earth heating up? Are we all going to die from this heat causing the world to become a large desert? If we don’t stop using our cars will we as a society survive the coming holocaust? What is the truth?

The truth is that water moisture in the atmosphere is responsible for 98% of all global warming. This warming is caused when heat coming in from the sun is trapped in the atmosphere by the water moisture suspended in the atmosphere. Only 2% of global warming is caused by sunlight being trapped by the other “greenhouse gases.”

The earth is not warming up, it is cooling off! We all know that the earth is hot on the inside, very hot. The earth is like a white hot coal taken out of a bar-b-que pit and set aside to cool off. Eventually that coal will go stone cold to the center. We are not alive today because of the heat coming in from the sun everyday, but because of the heat coming in from the sun everyday and the heat passing by us on the way out everyday. The earth has a net loss of heat each day. This has been scientifically proven by satellite readings of the heat loss of the earth. When you take the incoming solar heat, and subtract the total radiation of heat from inside the earth into outer space, the net loss is the huge amount of 10¹² calories per second. Even a schoolchild may reason that out.

There is a second reason to know that the earth is cooling down, not warming up. The ejection of sulfur dioxides and ash from approximately 600 active volcanoes causes solar radiation to be reflected back into outer space and causes the earth to cool rapidly. This has been thoroughly documented in recent years by research data measured during the eruptions of Mt. St. Helens in 1980, Mexico’s El Chichon in 1982 and the Philippines’ Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. In January of 1992, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote that “the cooling effect of sulfur emissions may have offset a significant part of the greenhouse warming in the northern hemisphere during the past several decades.” Satellite measurements have shown earth temperatures dropping while surface measurements, taken by humans, have indicated a temperature rise. Could it be that there is a human bias in the “expected” results which the satellites do not have?

Agenda

What is the environmental terrorist’s agenda? The Green Movement is the new home of global socialism/communism. What the communists could not do through their military and political machinery they are now accomplishing through economic means. What they could not accomplish through brute force, they are now trying to accomplish by locking up the natural resources needed for capitalism to survive. As an example, they are against both pesticides and the use of biotechnology to increase crop yields, yet these things have tripled crop production since the end of WW II.

Environmental terrorists are attempting to lock away natural resources, supposedly “preserving” them for the future with the noble goal of protecting animal and plant species and their habitat But, this is actually an attempt to stop capitalism by removing the necessary resources for economic growth. Their main purpose is the abolition of personal property rights, which along with freedom of religion and speech, were primary reasons our forefathers founded the United States . Their final goal is the confiscation of all personal property because only the “government knows best,” not “The Father knows best.”

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What Is the Difference Between Environmental Terrorist Preservation and Christian Conservation?

“Preservation” means to preserve a biological system exactly as it is now and to protect it from human intervention of any kind. An excellent example of this would be the legislation which set up the National Park Service. The National Park system preserves land that it owns in its pristine state so that future generations may see these great natural wonders. The National Park system then builds as few roads and trails as possible in order to prevent people from seeing these great natural wonders. It allows fires to burn out of control destroying these great natural wonders because fire is “natural.” This happened several years ago when the National Park system refused to stop a relatively small fire which developed near Yellowstone National Park . Before the bureaucrats could mobilize themselves, they allowed 1,000,000 acres of Yellowstone National Park to burn to the ground.

How does one “preserve” a living system anyway? Is it possible or even desirable to “preserve” your baby as he was at, say, six months of age? The only way to “preserve” a living system, to keep it exactly the way it is at any given time, is to kill it and stick it in a bottle of alcohol! Living systems cannot be preserved; it is impossible! The preservation of trees today will never guarantee that these same trees will be seen by our grandchildren.

Living systems, such as a forest, are dynamic, ever-changing entities. There is a life cycle through which all forests will go. Bare ground is first covered by wild flowers and grasses. These are replaced by shrubs and fast growing conifers, like pines. Eventually, broadleaf hardwood trees, such as oak and hickory, will grow under the pines and will replace the pines. The hardwoods will continue to control the site until they die from old age. Once the hardwoods die off, the ground will once again be open and will be covered by grasses. This cycle will repeat itself as long as the world turns. It is God’s plan.

You cannot preserve a biological system. You may only manage it for Someone else!

Christian Conservation

Christian Conservation means to work with a long term view and multiple goals for the wise use of natural resources; to prevent waste, to maximize benefit, to stress the wise use of renewable resources.

An excellent secular example of this would be the legislation which set up the National Forest Service. The Forest Service manages the lands entrusted to it by the American people. The Forest Service plans for the multiple use of all the resources which it controls, allowing for hunting, fishing, camping, tourism, wildlife management and sustained yield timber production. Anything which would destroy these resources is dealt with quickly, such as putting out forest fires.

You cannot preserve a biological system; you can only kill it or conserve it. Conservation management by the Forest Service increases the total amount of wildlife and trees occupying the land, as well as their visibility and use by the public. The Forest Service attempts to exercise dominion and stewardship over the lands and resources entrusted to it.

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What Should the Christian Position Be on Preservation Versus Conservation?

Preservation is an ungodly principle which promotes man-centered philosophies. No one can create something which is greater than themselves. No human is capable of perfectly planning ahead and foreseeing all the environmental consequences of his actions. No one may lock up biological systems and reasonably expect them to stay the way they were at the time of preservation.

Christian Conservation is the Godly use of all the natural resources which God has entrusted unto us. It is not locking away the resources so that no one may use them as the unfaithful servant did. It is taking dominion and stewardship over that part of the creation which the Creator has given to us and giving it back to Him with an increase as our offering of thanksgiving for Who He is and what He means to us. Christians should favor good stewardship of all our God given natural resources, and need not fear the destruction of our planet, as the nonbelievers do. Jesus said that there would be Christians here to greet Him when He returns!

For further information on this subject I would recommend reading the following:

• Climate of Fear by Thomas Gale Moore, Cato Institute, 1998.
• Environmental Overkill: Whatever Happened to Common Sense? by Dr. Dixy Lee Ray, Regnery Gateway, 1993.
• In a Dark Wood by Alston Chase, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1995.
• The Redwood National Park: A Case Study in Legislative Compromise by Grady S. McMurtry, SUNY, Syracuse, NY, 1972.
• The True State of the Planet by Ronald Bailey, Free Press, 1995.
• The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjorn Lomborg, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• Hot Talk Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate by S. Fred Singer, The Independent Institute, 1998.
• The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming by Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Billing, Jr., Cato Institute, 2000.
• Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths, edited by Ronald Bailey, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Prima Publishing, 2002.
• Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists by Peter, Huber, Basic Books, Perseus Books Group, 1999.
• Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media by Patrick J. Michaels, Cato Institute, 2004.
• Challenging Environmental Mythology: Wrestling Zeus by Jack W. Dini, Scitech, Publishing, 2003.

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Creation Worldview Ministries (CWM) is a missionary association taking the truths of biblical foundations to the Church, both domestic and foreign, and to the secular world. CWM is an evangelistic and discipling ministry seeking to bring salvation and maturity in Jesus Christ, by lifting Him up that He might draw all people unto Himself.

The purpose of CWM is to provide biblical and scientific seminars in churches and public forums, i.e. universities, radio and TV broadcasts, etc.; to provide a resource center for information distribution, education, consulting, missionary evangelism and discipleship concerning the truths of biblical foundations, especially Biblical Scientific Creationism; to be a part of the revitalization of classical Christian intellectual activity for the preservation, promotion and propagation of a Christian Biblical World View.

CWM additionally makes secular presentations to promote intellectual honesty, circumspect views and critical thinking concerning the question of origins.

http://www.creationworldview.org

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by Dr. Grady S. McMurtry, Creation Worldview Ministries

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I have been studying the Global Warming/Global Cooling controversy since the 1960s. Even when I was an evolutionist scientist and teacher, I knew that neither was true. I am completely convinced that the controversy is 100% politically motivated and not based on good science. The promoters of either view are either extreme socialists or extreme communists. Their sole primary purpose in promoting either view is to destroy Christian capitalism and replace it with extreme socialism/communism based upon the religion of Secular Humanism. Those who advance this agenda want to force us into bigger government, higher taxes, and loss of all personal freedoms, liberties and property rights. I have wanted to write on this subject for many years, but felt that the time was not right. I want to equip every partner of this ministry with the information to destroy every argument that is used to promote this anti-Christian agenda.

Is “Global Warming” or “Global Cooling” a reality?

Is the earth heating up? Are we all going to die from this heat, causing the world to become a large desert? If we don’t stop using our cars, will we as a society survive the coming holocaust? What is the truth?Our awesome Creator God has much to say in the Bible about global weather and climate change from the time of creation 6,000 years ago, to the present time, and even in the future. Many Christians have failed to think of these Biblical Scriptures when trying to evaluate whether or not they should be concerned about these issues. In addition, there is a massive amount of solid science that refutes any claim that “Global Warming” or “Global Cooling” are true.

God promises that the earth cannot and will not be destroyed by Man: Genesis 8:22

The promotion of “Global Warming” is purely a political agenda of the Far-Left. These people may be accurately classified as Environmental Terrorists. It is believed in even though such a belief is irrational. Note this quote attributed to the former Democratic Senator from Colorado, Tim Wirth:

“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory is wrong, we will be doing the right thing – in terms of economic policy and the environmental policy.” [Emphasis added] (Fumento, Michael, Science Under Siege, 1993)

Further proof of the twisted philosophical reasoning of Environmental Terrorists is provided by “Global Warming” advocate Dr. Stephen Schneider. He is Professor, Department of Biological Sciences; Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for International Studies; Co-Director, Center for Environmental Science and Policy; Co-Director, Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources Stanford University; and, founder and editor of the journal Climatic Change.

In the October, 1989 issue of Discover magazine, he wrote:

“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”

He wants to be both effective and honest, a noble goal; however, when it comes to promoting “Global Warming” he is quite willing to “offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”

This article could be filled with just such quotes, but space does not allow this. Thus, as a third and final example of the mental state of the current “crop” of Environmental Terrorists, I submit this irrational, illogical, unreasonable and unscientific statement by one of the “head gurus” of Environmental Terrorism, none other than Mr. Al Gore:

“We are dumping so much carbon dioxide into the Earth’s environment that we have literally changed the relationship between the Earth and the Sun.” [Emphasis added] The Introduction to An Inconvenient Truth, 2006

God promises that the earth cannot and will not be destroyed by Man: Psalm 148:5-6

Is “Global Warming” True?

No! We are simply experiencing normal weather and climate fluctuations.

We are living at the end of the “20th Century Warm Period.” The “20th Century Warm Period” followed a time called “The Little Ice Age” that lasted from approximately 1250-1300 through 1850-1900. Prior to “The Little Ice Age,” the earth experienced a period referred to as the “Medieval Warm Period” (MWP) or “Medieval Climate Optimum.” The earth was significantly warmer during the MWP than it is today!

Even evolutionary climatologists have proven scientifically that the earth has experienced three periods of time much warmer than today’s warming trend. The various periods of warm and cold, that have been named, have been determined to be approximately:

The Minoan Warm Period – 1450 to 1250 BC

The Roman Warm Period – 250 BC to AD 1

The Dark Ages Cold Period – AD 1 to AD 800

The Medieval Warm Period – AD 800 to AD 1200

The Little Ice Age – AD 1250 to AD 1900

The 20th Century Warm – AD 1900 to AD 2010

Source: Grootes, P.M. (et. al.), “Comparison of oxygen isotope records from the GISP2 and GRIP Greenland ice cores,” Nature, 366 1993, pp. 552-4.

What is the historical evidence?

We have significant historical evidence with which to trace the major fluctuations in climate change over the past few millennia. These sources include, but are not limited to:

The thousands of years of records of the Nile floods

The 1st-century Roman wine production in England

The thousands of museum paintings that portray sunnier skies during the Medieval Warm Period

The thousands of museum paintings that portray the cloudier skies during the Little Ice Age

The physical evidence from oxygen isotopes, beryllium ions, tiny sea and pollen fossils, ancient tree rings, polar ice cores, sea and lake sediments, cave stalactites and stalagmites, glaciers, etc.

These and many other sources illustrate that the earth has had periods of climate much warmer than today.

God promises that Man cannot change the weather: Ecclesiastes 1:5-10

Is there scientific consensus that “Global Warming” is true?

NO! Consensus is not the same as truth. Consensus is not data, and it is not the same as a scientific fact.

NO! Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, former lead author of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC), wrote about global warming: “… the consensus was reached before the research had begun.”

NO! The current promotion of the global warming scare is purely a far left political agenda.

NO! “Global Warming” is simply the new home of socialism and communism.

NO! The earth’s temperature has been fluctuating up and down for thousands of years because of well established and documented variations in solar activity. These are:

The Schwabe Cycle: Sunspot activity follows an eleven year cycle that causes the sun’s temperature to fluctuate up and down 0.1%.

The Gleissberg Cycle: A cycle every 75 to 90 years.

The Suess Cycle: A cycle every 200 to 500 years.

The Bond Cycle: A cycle every 1,100 to 1,500 years.

NO! Dr. Timothy Patterson, Canadian geologist, wrote in the Canadian Financial Post, June 20, 2007:

“Climate stability has never been a feature of planet earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were lower.”

NO! Dr. Bert Bolin, Swedish meteorologist, for eight years the Chairman of the UN IPCC, noted: “The climate issue is not ‘settled’; it is both uncertain and incomplete.”

NO! Dr. Dennis Bray, Emeritus Professor, Department of Physiology, University of Cambridge, submitted the following to Science for publication on December 22, 2004 (but not accepted):

“The most recent survey [2004] of climate scientists … found that while there had been a move towards acceptance of [man-made] global warming, only 9.4% of respondents ‘strongly agree’ that climate change is mostly the result of [man-made] sources. A similar proportion ‘strongly disagree.’ Furthermore, only 22.8% of respondents ‘strongly agree’ that the [UN] International Panel on Climate Change reports accurately reflect a consensus within climate science.” [Emphasis added]

NO! In an “open letter” to the Canadian Government entitled “Open Kyoto to Debate,” published in the Canadian National Post in 2006, 60 scientists said:

“When the public comes to understand that there is no ’consensus’ among climate scientists about the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change, the government will be in a far better position to develop plans that reflect reality and so benefit both the environment and the economy.” [Emphasis added]

NO! Dr. Bob Carter, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Australia, wrote:

“[Al] Gore’s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commending public attention.” [Emphasis added]

NO! As reported in PRNewswire-USNewswire, Washington, DC, September 12, 2007:

An analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares. More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen warmings similar to ours, 2) present Modern Warming is linked strongly to the variations in the sun’s irradiance.

The list of these scientists may be found in the recent Avery and Singer book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.

The public needs to understand that there is no consensus among climate scientists about the relative importance of the various causes of global climate change.

Is there scientific consensus that “Global Warming” is true?

NO! Medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte examined all research papers on climate change published between 2004 and February 2007. The results were submitted to the scientific journal Energy and Environment.

NO! Of the 528 papers, only 38 (7%) strongly endorsed consensus. The total for implied endorsement was 45%.

NO! Only 32 papers (6%) strongly rejected consensus.

NO! However, 254 papers (49%) were neutral, neither accepting nor rejecting consensus.

NO! Only 1 paper (0.2%) made any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.

NO! THIS IS NOT CONSENSUS!

Avery and Singer note: “… we have compelling evidence of a real-world climate cycle averaging 1,470 years (plus or minus 500) … The climate cycle has above all been moderate, and the trees, bears, birds, and humans have quietly adapted.”

Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” – Is there any truth in it?

NO! The first casualty in this Environmental Terrorist movie is truth.

NO! The movie is full of half lies, lies and total misinformation.

Al Gore claimed that the drying up of Lake Chad was an example of global warming.

What is the truth?

The watersheds that feed Lake Chad – once the size of Vermont but now the size of Rhode Island – have been desiccated by drought since the mid-20th century. The reduction in the size of the Lake is a direct result of population increase, irrigation for agriculture, overgrazing and regional climate variability.

The Aral Sea dried up because the Russian government diverted 75% of the water going into it in order to irrigate agricultural lands.

Al Gore claimed that the disappearance of snow on Mt. Kilimanjaro was expressly attributable to human-induced climate change.

What is the truth?

Mt. Kilimanjaro is colder today than in 1970.

Studies reported in the journals Science in 2003; International Journal of Climatology in 2004; and, Journal of Geophysical Research in 2004 concluded that the snow cap of Mt. Kilimanjaro has been shrinking since 1880, the end of “The Little Ice Age,” because the forest around the mountain have been cut down, thus reducing the humidity needed to build the snow pack, and there has been a short term increase in solar heating.

Al Gore claimed that Hurricane Katrina was a direct result of global warming.

What is the truth?

It is impossible to link an individual hurricane to any type of weather or climate change. Single storms cannot be used to determine large scale long term changes. (Three strikes and you are out?)

The Environmental Terrorists are not primarily focused on the consequences of climate change. They are primarily interested in growing an industry that makes them very rich, very powerful and very famous.

Al Gore referenced the “Little Ice Age,” but not the Medieval Warm Period (“Medieval Optimum”) that preceded it.

Al Gore claimed that “… if you look at the hottest years ever measured in this atmospheric record, they have all occurred in the last 14 years. The hottest of all was 2005.” [Emphasis added]

What is the truth?

Actually, 1998 was perhaps the hottest year on record; however, since then ground temperatures have remained stable. In a similar way, ocean temperatures have not increased.

Dr. Bob Carter, noted that: “the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UK), [show] that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase.”

[“There IS a problem with global warming … it stopped in 1998,” Daily Telegraph (UK), April 9, 2006.]

It should be noted that Al Gore used the extreme Canadian and United Kingdom predictions of temperature increases of 14.4 F and 5.4 F by the year 2100.

Al Gore did not use the lower increase of 1.8 F predicted by the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other modelers at The National Center for Policy Analysis found the NCAR model is far more sophisticated than the Canadian or UK models. The measured rate is only 0.17 C/decade (0.306 F/decade) for the past 37 years.

If the earth is warming because of human action; why are the polar ice caps on Mars getting smaller, at the same time? Might not this indicate that an increase in solar activity was responsible and that any warming on earth was not due to human action?

Al Gore claimed sea-level would rise up to 20 feet [7 meters] because of melting ice in either Western Antarctica or Greenland. A significant length of his film was devoted to showing alarming predictions of flooding in major coastal population centers, specifically Florida, San Francisco, New York, Bangladesh, China and the Netherlands.

What is the truth?

Even the far-left UN IPCC has reported that: “No significant acceleration in the rate of sea-level rise during the 20th century has been detected.” The UN IPCC predicts that sea-level will rise only about 38.5 cm [15 inches] by 2100.

“[a] 2005 joint statement by the science academies of the Western nations, including the U.S. NAS, actually estimates a worst-case scenario of 35 inches.”

[P. Stanway, “An Inconvenient Truth for Gore,” Edmonton Sun, July 7, 2006]

Question: If sea-levels are rising rapidly, why is the Maldives Island government lobbying the European Union to help fund ocean front development there?

Melting sea ice does not raise sea-level (it lowers it); only ice melting off the land will raise sea-level. Ocean levels have been rising for centuries. Each year on average, 1 cubic mile (4 cubic Km) of Juvenile Water is added to the earth’s surface through geothermal events [volcanoes, mineral springs]. NASA found that the net ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica would raise sea-level 0.002 inches (0.05 mm)/year between 1992 and 2002: or, 2 inches (five cm)/1,000 years.

Greenland was about 1 C (1.8 F) warmer in 1925 than it is today. Yet this was only about 75 years after we came out of “The Little Ice Age.”

What is the truth?

Erik the Red sailed to uninhabited Greenland in 982 AD. Showing an intuitive flair for PR, Erik sent back word of a bountiful “green land” in order to entice others to follow him and colonize the southwestern tip of the island. Those Nordic settlements survived for nearly 500 years until disappearing at the beginning of the Little Ice Age.

An international team of scientists has drilled deep into the Greenland ice sheet and found DNA of spiders and trees. This indicates that Greenland’s ice is less susceptible to meltdown than had been predicted by computer models of climate change. “This may have implications for how the ice sheets respond to global warming. They may withstand rising temperatures.” [Emphasis added]

[Willerslev, Eske, evolutionary biologist, University of Copenhagen, Science, July 6, 2007]

An article reporting on ice core samples taken from 1.2 miles [2 Km] down (underneath the bottom of the ice cap) in Greenland found: “that the area [had once been] populated by diverse forests made up of alders, spruce, pine, and members of the yew family. Living in the trees and on the forest floor was a wide variety of insect life, including beetles, flies, spiders, butterflies and moths.” [Science, July 6, 2007, vol. 317, p. 11.]

Environmental Terrorists claim that the Polar Bears are dying from “global warming.” The truth is that Polar Bear populations are growing where it is getting warmer, and getting smaller where it is getting colder.

[Dr. Mitchell Taylor, Canadian Polar Bear Biologist, Depart. of the Environment, Gov. of Nunavut]

Grey Whale populations are also increasing in the warmer Arctic waters.

[J. Kay, San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, June 28, 2006]

Dr. Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service said: “Swimming 100 miles is not a big deal for a polar bear, especially a fat one.” [Emphasis added]

Al Gore claimed in his movie that Polar Bears were dying as a direct result of global warming.

What is the truth?

The four dead polar bears shown in the movie died when they were unexpectedly caught by a severe storm.

Al Gore claimed in his movie that some Pacific atolls had to be evacuated because of rising sea water levels.

What is the truth?

Pacific atolls have not been evacuated because of “rising” sea levels.

At a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill, Syun-Ichi Akasofu said that highly publicized climate models showing a disappearing Arctic were nothing more than “science fiction.”

[Syun-Ichi Akasofu, Director of the International Arctic Research Center, Fairbanks, AK, April 2007]

The Antarctic ice cap is not melting away. It is growing in its’ total amount of ice, only the surface area is changing.

“The net ice balance in Antarctica is positive; it is gaining ice.” Antarctica “will contribute to reduction in sea level because it is gaining ice … The net ice balance in Greenland is very close to neutral. … There have been three periods in the last 2,000 years in which Alaska was as warm as it is now.”

[Dr. Michaels, Climatologist] [Emphasis added]

The oceans have been cooling on average for the past 4,500 years; since the end of Noah’s Flood.

Al Gore claimed in his movie that glaciers around the world were all receding because of global warming.

The Upsala Glacier in Patagonia is retreating; however, 30 miles (50 km) away, the Perito Moreno Glacier is advancing. In fact, nearby medium-sized glaciers are stable and large-sized glaciers are advancing rapidly.

Pio XI, the largest glacier in South America is advancing very quickly.

The reason that glaciers are melting in some parts of the Andes: “climatic change in the Venezuelan Andes is linked to changes in solar activity during the Little Ice Age” and “… solar variability is the primary underlying cause of the glacier fluctuations.” [Emphasis added] [Dr. P. J. Polissar, “Solar Modulation of Little Ice Age Climate in the Tropical Andes,” June 1, 2006, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA]

Hint: It is variations in the Sun’s temperature, not Man-made global warming, that is causing fluctuations in the glaciers!

“Glaciers are advancing in the European Arctic. These are episodic events. The Arctic does occasionally get warmer and colder. Climate change is the norm. If you want something to worry about, it would be if the climate were static. It would be like a person being dead.” [Emphasis added]

[Dr. Richard Lindzen]

For every glacier that is receding, there is one that is advancing.

Concerning consensus on “global warming” Al Gore stated, “A survey of more than 928 scientific papers in respected journals shows 100 % agreement.”

First, if there were “more than 928,” just how many were there?

Second, the 928 papers Gore mentioned were not unanimous on the issue at hand.

Third, the 928 papers were carefully hand selected and represented less than 10% of the over 11,000 relevant papers published during that time frame (1993-2006).

Al Gore claimed in his movie that Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas that causes “Global Warming.”

Actually, temperature rise comes first, and then this causes Carbon Dioxide increases as more plants grow, and warmer oceans release more Carbon Dioxide than colder oceans.

NOAA has found no statistical increase in hurricanes, only the normal 40 to 50 year hurricane cycle. The increase in damages to man-made structures is due to humans continuing to build more and more buildings along coastlines and on known flood plains.

Al Gore claimed that hurricanes were continuously getting stronger and more frequent because of global warming.

The US National Hurricane Center found that 1941-1950 was the most active hurricane decade on record. Two-thirds of the largest hurricanes to hit the US between 1851 and 2004 occurred prior to 1950. Between 1961 and 2000 the number and intensity of hurricanes hitting the US fell significantly.

God uses weather to judge those who are His. [Amos 4:7]

In 2005, the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, made three points:

1) There is no established connection between greenhouse gases and the number of hurricanes.

2) Any future changes in hurricanes will be small and within normal variations.

3) The politics of linking hurricanes to global warming threatens to undermine support for legitimate climate research.

The Twentieth Century is neither unprecedented in its warmth nor historically aberrant.

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, November 2005, pp. 1571-75

Al Gore claimed in his movie that global warming was going to stop the Gulf Stream from flowing.

What is the truth?

In order for the Gulf Stream to stop flowing, the earth would have to stop rotating! Such claims are extreme hyperbole used to promote the irrational belief system of Environmental Terrorists, like Mr. Gore.

Al Gore claimed in his movie that drought was increasing worldwide and that deserts were getting bigger because of global warming. But, since the mid-1980s, the Sahara Desert has been receding along its southern border as more rain has fallen because of “global warming.”

Al Gore claimed in his movie that “The debate is over … The scientific consensus has settled the issue of global warming.” This is obviously a false claim; there is no such consensus among scientists. The debate is contentious and going strong.

In his movie, Al Gore gave lengthy tribute to his Harvard science professor, Dr. Roger Revelle, for enchanting him with the concepts of carbon dioxide emissions causing global warming. However, Dr. Revelle has utterly rejected Al Gore’s global warming extremism.

Al Gore claims to be pro-science. However, as Vice President of the US he fired any scientist in the federal government who dared to question even the most extremist pro-greenhouse doomsayers.

(National Review editorial, June 1994.)

Al Gore smears anyone who disagrees with him by calling them “pseudo-scientists,” accusing them of being bought off by the energy industry. Nothing could be further from the truth! Many competent scientists, many of them evolutionists, disagree with Gore about “global warming.”

Even Patrick Moore, the co-founder of the radically left environmental group Greenpeace, now says that we should be considering going back to clean nuclear energy.

It was the Clinton-Gore administration that, without Congressional approval, declared America’s largest deposit of clean, low-sulfur coal in southern Utah to be part of a national monument and off-limits to mining.

Dr. Don J. Easterbrook [a global warming proponent], Professor Emeritus of Geology, Western Washington University, gave remarks about Gore’s film to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in 2007. He said that Gore’s film has: “… a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

Gore claimed that: “our civilization has never experienced any environmental shift similar to this” threatened change.

Dr. Easterbrook showed a slide of temperature trends for the supposed past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 major swings, including the Medieval Warm Period. He noted that these swings were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”

In the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Richard Lindzen accused Gore of “shrill alarmism.”

Al Gore claimed in his movie that global warming was causing the spreading of infectious diseases, such as malaria, around the world. He implied that because of this, we were all going to die.

Dr. Paul Reiter is the Director of the Insects and Infectious Diseases Unit of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. In the International Herald Tribune, January, 2007, Dr. Reiter faulted Gore’s portrayal of global warming as responsible for spreading malaria.

“For 12 years, my colleagues and I have protested against the[se] unsubstantiated claims. We have done the studies and challenged the alarmists, but they continue to ignore the facts.” [Emphasis added]

Dr. Richard S. Lindzen made this prophetic statement:

“Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early twenty-first century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a rollback of the industrial age.” [Emphasis added]

Al Gore claimed in his movie that temperatures were at their highest level in 1,000 years.

The National Academy of Sciences USA reported that the current highs appeared unrivaled since only 1300, the tail end of a temperature rise known as the Medieval Warm Period. (NAS report, June, 2006)

to get the desired results.

How can environmental terrorists predict climate and weather conditions 20, 50 or 100 years from now, when these models cannot predict if it will rain next Thursday? More than 30 major computer climate models exist; no two agree on the results.

In the 1990s, “global warming” coincided with the closing of thousands of temperature reporting stations, mostly in the colder parts of Russia. If you leave out temperatures from the colder parts of the world, the average will obviously go up. [From 1989 through 2000, about two-thirds of the world’s temperature recording stations were closed, mostly in the former USSR. At the same time, the average global temperature, for the decade of 1990-2000, went up about two-thirds of a degree C.]

Weather stations in poorer countries are maintained differently than in wealthier countries. The “global mean surface temperature” means about as much as the “global mean telephone number.”

Global warming may produce the counter-effect of global cooling. Global warming would produce more evaporation leading to increases in rain, snow and perhaps trigger a sudden new ice age.

What Is The Historically Correct Perspective?

The earth was significantly warmer thousands of years ago. Many dinosaur fossils have been found recently near the South Pole. Dinosaur bones and tracks have been found on Svalbard (north of Norway); on the North Slope of Alaska; in northern Canada from the Yukon Territory to the Queen Elizabeth Islands; and, in central Siberia.

In 1883, fossil Breadfruit leaves and fruit were found in western Greenland. Breadfruit only grows between temperatures of 59 to 101 F (+15 to +38 C).

The Medieval Warm Period was produced by a “solar maximum” that occurs in roughly 1,000-1,500 year cycles. From 1350 AD to 1850 AD we had the “Little Ice Age,” Frost Fairs on the frozen River Thames, and in 1816 “The Year Without Summer.”

Another solar warm cycle began around 1850 and we are at the end of it now, with a cooling trend to be expected soon.

In 1999, Duck-billed dinosaur bones were found on the North Slope of Alaska. A duck-bill dinosaur tooth was recently found on James Ross Island. Eight types of dinosaurs have now been found on the North Slope in Alaska. All eight have also been found at lower latitudes.

In 2004, cores of the Alpha Ridge (bottom of the Arctic Ocean) proved that in the past the water temperature had been 59 to 68 F (+15 to +20 C).

At this time, the Southern Hemisphere is cooling and the Northern Hemisphere is warming slightly.

At this time, the Antarctic is getting measurably colder! At the South Pole temperatures have fallen since 1957.

During the American Dust Bowl, people were talking about global warming, but the temperatures were dropping.

In 1895, the New York Times newspaper warned of a coming new ice age. Subsequently, it ran these five headlines:

The sinking of the RMS Titanic had a supposed link to a coming new ice age. On October 7, 1912, the New York Times headline was: “Prof. Schmidt Warns us of an Encroaching Ice Age”

Sept. 18, 1924: “MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age”

March 27, 1933: “America in Longest Warming Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-Year Rise”

May 21, 1975: “Scientists Ponder Why World’s Climate Is Changing; A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable”

Dec. 27, 2005: “Past Hot Times Hold Few Reasons to Relax About New Warming”

Wait a minute. If in 1895 and 1924 we had signs of a coming ice age, how in 1933 could we have the longest warming period since 1776; and, how could temperatures have been rising for 25 straight years (since 1908)? The first answer is simple. We had just come out of the Little Ice Age. The second answer is that this was the political agenda of Environmental Terrorists 90 years ago.

On April 11, 2007, Dr. Plimer (Geology Professor at Adelaide U.) spoke to the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: “When meteorologists can change the weather then we can start to think about humans changing climate.” [Emphasis added]

In 1801, British astronomer William Herschel reported that when sunspots were numerous, grain prices fell; when sunspots were few, grain prices rose.

In 2001, a study of cloud cover over the USA from 1900 to 1987, found that average cloud cover increased and decreased in lock step with the sun’s 11-year sunspot cycle. The most plausible cause, they said: changes in the UV light the sun delivers to the stratosphere.

The amount of cosmic rays that reach deep into the atmosphere change the amount of cloud cover. The valve controlling the flow of cosmic rays from deep in space is the sun’s magnetic field. The sun’s magnetic field fluctuates in direct proportion to the fluctuating strength of solar sunspot activity.

Clouds can cool the earth, or clouds can heat the earth. Depending on how thick and how high or low they are in altitude: low clouds cool the planet by reflecting sunlight back into outer space; high clouds act as a blanket and trap heat in the atmosphere.

Peak periods of sunspot activity deliver more sunlight to the top of the atmosphere than minimum periods of sunspot activity. During swings in sunspot cycles, the largest change is in UV light.

Much of this UV light is absorbed by ozone in the stratosphere (6 to 30 miles up). The rise and fall of UV light alters the amount of heat-trapping ozone. Instead of warming the troposphere (0 to 6 miles up), changes in solar UV output redistribute heat, cold, rain, etc. Clearly, it is the sun that is driving weather and climate fluctuations.

1970 – Birth of the Modern Environmental Terrorist Movement

The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970.

The EPA was formed in July, 1970.

The Clean Air Act was enacted in 1970.

The Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972.

The Endangered Species Act was enacted in 1973.

The environmental extremists of the 1960s and 1970s now hold powerful political positions and their ideas permeate public policy.

Since 1970, a flood of environmental propaganda and eco-myths have followed:

Hairspray is depleting the Ozone!

The internal (infernal) combustion engine is evil!

Technology contaminates the environment!

Capitalism is evil, evil, evil!

Humans are unnatural and a cancer on the land!

To the true blue environmental terrorist the issue is their irrational religion.

Friends of the Earth International (2007): “[T]he Earth is a creation to be honored and respected as our Mother.”

Their religion drives them into a form of insanity. For example:

Researchers in Norway claim that their national animal, the moose, is harming the climate by emitting over 2,000 kilos (over two tons) of carbon dioxide per year. (Spiegel, August 21, 2007)

But, Australian scientists are very happy because kangaroos produce almost no methane. (Fox News, December 6, 2007)

The environmental terrorist group, Optimum Population Trust, insists that children are the greatest threat to the planet; that parents should have one less child in order to stop global warming and save the planet. (The Australian, March 7, 2007)

In the 1970’s these Environmental Terrorists, and their ilk, told us boldly that we were about to enter the “Twilight Zone of Humanity” because we were heading irrevocably into the next “Ice Age.”

1974 Global Cooling Disaster Remembered

In 1974, Time magazine warned its readers that the world may be on the verge of a catastrophic climate disaster: Global Cooling! Time reported a three decade-long cooling and other “weather aberrations.”

In 1974, Time magazine, a University of Toronto climatologist [referring to global cooling] said:

“I don’t believe that the world’s present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row.” [Emphasis added]

On July 24, 1974, Time magazine published an article entitled: “Another Ice Age?” The first paragraph included:

“… However widely the weather varies … when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatologically Cassandra’s are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.” [Emphasis added]

The last paragraph of the article was:

“Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth’s surface could tip the climate balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.” [Emphasis added]

1975 Global Cooling Disaster Remembered

In Science Digest, 1975, Douglas Colligan wrote: “[T]he world’s climatologists are agreed. … Once the freeze starts, it will be too late.” [Emphasis added]

In 1975, Newsweek warned: “There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production … The drop in food production could begin quite soon. … The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.” [Emphasis added]

On April 28, 1975, Newsweek magazine printed an article entitled “The Cooling World” in which it quoted the National Academy of Sciences, USA:

“A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale.”

In 2006, US Senator James Inhofe, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, commented on Fox News that the current global warming climate scare had no more basis in reality than the last climate scare (Global Cooling 1954-1980).

“This whole concept of another Ice Age is probably the greatest single hoax ever perpetuated on the American people … And it was until this thing [meaning the current scare over “global warming”] came along.” [Emphasis added]

1976 Global Cooling Disaster Remembered

In 1976, Newsweek warned that because of global cooling: “… this trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.”

Back in 1954, Fortune, had published an article saying: “Despite all you may have read, heard, or imagined, it’s been growing cooler – not warmer – since the Thirties.” [Emphasis added]

In 1976, Lowell Ponte wrote in The Cooling:

“It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with … Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species.”

While using poor science and grossly overstated, he gives us the essence of the concern that Environmental Terrorists had about “Global Cooling” in 1976.

2006 Global Cooling Disaster Predicted?

In November 2006, the Russian Academy of Science warned about the ice age returning.

What Is The Historically Correct Perspective?

What causes climate changes?

In the September 2006 New Scientist they wrote that it was: “prolonged lulls in the sun’s activity – the sunspots and dramatic flares that are driven by its powerful magnetic field.” [Emphasis added]

The “sun still appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change.” [Emphasis added]

Svensmark, H. and E. Friis-Christiensen, The persistent role of the Sun in climate forcing, Danish National Space Center Scientific Report, March 2007

With apologies to the Democratic Party pundit, James Carville, maybe: “It’s the sun, stupid.”

What Are The Facts About Recent Global Temperatures?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has accurate US temperature measurements from 1895 to 2008. Things got warmer from 1895 to the 1940s. The steepest trend was from 1910 to 1935. This was before significant use of fossil fuels. The US cooled for the next three and a half decades, sparking the “global cooling” panic that ended in the late-1970s.

The rate of warming from 1910 to 1934 (a period of limited fossil fuel use) is steeper than the rate of warming from 1975 to 1998 (a period of significant fossil fuel consumption).

1934 and 1998 were the two hottest years on record: 1934 was the height of the Dust Bowl and 1998 was an extreme El Nino spike. From 1975 to 1998, the country warmed. During that time, fossil fuel consumption went up and solar heating increased because of an increase in sun activity.

There has been a slight cooling trend since 1998 despite fossil fuel consumption increases in China and India. In 2007, the U.S. absorbed more CO2 than it emitted, while the EU countries emission of CO2 has gone up steadily since the Kyoto Protocol was signed.

In summary, according to environmental terrorists:

From 1895-1930: We Experienced Catastrophic Natural Global Cooling

From 1930-1954: We Experienced Catastrophic Natural Global Warming

From 1954-1980: We Experienced Catastrophic Man-made Global Cooling

From 1980-2008: We Experienced Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming

NOTE: They change their opinion in 25 to 35 year cycles!

Man is not in charge of the climate and the weather. God is in charge of the weather!

“… for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew 5:45

What Are Some The Potential Benefits If Global Warming Were True?

1) The fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific would become a reality cutting shipping time in half. In August, 2005, the Russian ship Akademik Fyodorov, became the first ship to cross the North Pole without the use of an icebreaker.

2) If Arctic ice melted significantly, 25% of the earth’s oil and natural gas reserves would become available for extraction.

3) Less Arctic ice would open new fishing grounds and tourist destinations.

In 2001, Russia applied to the UN to annex one half of the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole, as a part of Russian territory based on the new ability to map the ocean floor. In 2007, two Russian research submarines attempted to plant flags on the Arctic Ocean floor in a bid to further the Russian claim to the North Pole as a part of their sovereign territory.

4) Melting icebergs calved from glaciers release nutrients yielding a five fold increase in phytoplankton and higher predators out to a distance of 2.3 miles. (Science News, July 7, 2007, Vol. 172, p. 13)

5) Perhaps the Vikings could reestablish their settlements in Greenland that they had to abandon 600 years ago at the beginning of the “Little Ice Age.”

6) Cold kills while heat kills less often. According to the UK Department of Health, if the southern UK warmed by 3 C by 2050, then 2,000 more would die from summer heat waves while 20,000 fewer would die from cold in the winter.

7) If the temperature in Canada were to rise only about 3 F, the wheat growing area would reach as far north as Hudson Bay, and grapevines could be cultivated in southern Canada.

8 ) If the Earth were warming, more water would be evaporating, producing more rain for food crops and timber production; and, producing more snow that would rebuild the polar ice caps; and, more glaciers would be advancing.

9) If the Earth were warming, there would be longer growing seasons and warmer winter nights.

Every global warming period of the past has produced a net increase in economic and social benefits!

“Two thousand years of published human histories say that the warm periods were good for people. It was the harsh, unstable Dark Ages and Little Ice Age that brought bigger storms, untimely frost, widespread famine and plagues of disease.” [Emphasis added]

(Avery, Dennis and S. Fred Singer, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years)

What Actually Causes Global Warming?

1) Natural processes such as sunlight, heat released by volcanoes and the heat released by radioactive decay in the earth’s crust.

2) The four solar cycles; combined with the increase and decrease in sun spots and the increase and decrease in the sun’s magnetic field.

“Humans have long known since the invention of the telescope that the earth’s climate variations were linked to the sunspot cycle, but we had not understood how. Recent experiments have demonstrated that more or fewer cosmic rays hitting the earth create more or fewer of the low, cooling clouds that deflect solar heat back into space – amplifying small variations in the intensity of the sun.” [Emphasis added]

(Avery, Dennis and S. Fred Singer, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years)

3) The Earth’s wobble and eccentric orbit exposes the surface to varying amounts of heat at different periods of time.

4) Snow and ice reflect heat, but water absorbs it.

5) A clear sky allows solar heating of surfaces.

6) Land use changes, natural or Man-made.

7) The older the Sun gets, the hotter it burns!

8 ) Surface temperatures rise in city areas as more asphalt and cement are poured in those areas. (Atmospheric temperatures are not increasing!)

9) “Greenhouse Gases,” such as naturally occurring water vapor (70%), CO2 (26%), methane (9%), ozone (7%) and nitrous oxide have a warming effect. CO2 is NOT a major “Greenhouse Gas,” it is a natural by-product of human beings and animals; it is released by plants upon death! Nitrous oxide is produced by microbes in the soil; methane is produced in swamps, bogs, rice paddies, cows and human beings.

“Greenhouse gases” are necessary for life to exist on earth, without them we would freeze to death!

Man-made combustion of fuels causes only 2% of the greenhouse gases that keep our atmosphere habitable – the other 98% are produced by purely natural causes!

THE WORLD NEEDS MORE CO2!

“‘There will be significant cooling very soon,’ asserted solar scientist David Archibald at the ‘Greener Skies 2008’ conference designed to persuade the airline industry to cut back on production of greenhouse gases to fight global warming. Archibald asserted climate change is mostly dictated by solar cycles, not CO2 levels, and he warned they should figure ways of increasing CO2 output. ‘In a few short years, we will have a reversal of the warming of the 20th century. There will be significant cooling very soon. Our generation has known a warm, giving sun, but the new generation will suffer a sun that is less giving, and the earth will be less fruitful … CO2 is not even a little bit bad it’s wholly beneficial.’” [Emphasis added] (World Net Daily April 03, 2008)

What Actually Causes “Global Cooling”?

1) Volcanic eruptions: In 1991-1992 Mt. Pinatubo, in the Philippines, cooled the earth 1.26 F (0.7 C) in only one year. The eruption dumped between 20 and 30 megatons of sulphur dioxide (SO2), other aerosols and gases into the atmosphere. These aerosols and gases encircled the earth between the tropics in only three months, blocking out and reflecting heat and light back into outer space. In addition, there was a loss of 15% of the Ozone Layer to record lows in 1992-1993.

2) Dust Storms: During the American Dust Bowl (1930 to 1938), the dust blocked out 15% of sunlight and dropped the temperature 1.8 F (1 C). The American Dust Bowl was caused by an extended El Nino.

3) The Variations of the Earth’s Orbit: The earth’s orbit isn’t a perfect circle; therefore the earth is slightly closer and or further from the sun at different times.

4) Smoke from Forest Fires: Whether started by natural causes (lightening strikes) or the activity of human beings, large quantities of  aerosols and gases are injected into the atmosphere by forest fires.

5) The Earth is Cooling Down: The earth is radiating more heat into outer space every day than it receives from the sun. The center core temperature of the earth is 13,000 F (7,200 C). The earth has consistently lost heat since it was created.

6) Variations in Solar Activity: The sun is not a totally uniform heat source. The sun undergoes periodic increases and decreases in sunspot activity and magnetic field activity! These variations have a direct, significant and demonstrable effect on weather and climate changes on earth.

Nature Is Not Pristine!

Volcanic eruptions are perhaps the worst “offenders.” Here is a quick review of some of the record holders:

1) The eruption of the volcano Laki, in Iceland, in 1783 is considered to be Britain’s forgotten disaster. The event was catastrophic. The volcano spewed out such a large amount of sulphur dioxide and sulfuric acid that Britain was enveloped in a thick smog and the sun was described as “covered like it was soaked in blood.” The naturalist Gilbert White said it was “unlike anything known within the memory of man.” The poet William Cowper lamented in the summer of 1783 that, “such multitudes are indisposed by fevers in this country that farmers have difficulty gathering their harvest, the labourers having been almost every day carried out of the field incapable of work and many die.”

The eruption lasted for weeks and covered much of Western Europe. About one third of the population of Iceland died. Recent research by Dr. John Grattan of Aberystwyth University, Wales, has established that it was the greatest natural disaster in modern British history.

2) The eruption of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815 killed 92,000 people, hundreds of thousands of animals, spewed ash up to 800 miles away, and produced “The Year Without Summer” in 1816.

3) The eruption of the Indonesian volcano Krakatau (Krakatoa), in 1883, produced “The Sound Heard ‘Round The World.” The sound of the eruption was heard in downtown London, England. The eruption killed 36,000 people.

Nature Is Not Pristine!

High winds are powerful, destructive and polluting.

On November 13, 1970, a hurricane hit Bangladesh: killing between 500,000 and one million people.

On March 18, 1925, a tornado touched down from southeastern Missouri, passing through southern Illinois and lifting up in southwestern Indiana staying on the ground for 219 miles. The result was that 625 people died, 2,000 more were injured and there was $1.7 billion in property damages (in 2007 dollars).

Nature Is Not Pristine!

Floods are powerful, destructive and polluting.

In 1887, the Huang He (Yellow River) in China flooded: between 900,000 and two million people died.

In 1931, the Huang He flooded: 1 to 3.7 million people died.

Nature Is Not Pristine!

Earthquakes are powerful, destructive and polluting.

In 1556, the earthquake in Shensi, China, killed 830,000 people.

On Boxing Day, December 26, 2004, an earthquake measuring between 9.1 and 9.3 occurred off the coast of Southwestern Indonesia killing over 230,000 people in 11 countries. The earthquake released 9,560 giga-tons (9.56 billion tons) of TNT energy (equivalent to 550 million times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima), or about 370 years of energy use in the United States at 2005 levels. Between 3,300 ft. and 16,500 ft. under water, it lifted a section of land 600 miles long upward 13 to 16 feet and sliding it 33 feet sideways.

Therefore, the question must be asked: “If volcanoes, winds, floods and earthquakes can accomplish so much in so little time, why is supposed human activity receiving the full blame for supposed and unproven global warming?”

One volcanic eruption may release more toxic gases in a given year than all human activity in that same year. Perhaps the blame is placed on human beings because you cannot tax nor legislate against a volcano or an earthquake. Could it be that the promotion of left-wing politics is the real reason that the truth is being withheld from the general population?

Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice Is Back! On July 10, 2007, it snowed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the first time since June 22, 1918 = 89 YEARS!

“The Northern Hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades. The snow cover is the greatest since 1966. … the one exception – Western Europe, which had, until the weekend of Feb. 16–17 when temperatures plunged to as low as -10 C in some places, been basking in unseasonably warm weather.

Around the world, vast areas have been buried under some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and Southern China, the US and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms. In China, snowfall was so heavy that over 100,000 houses collapsed under the weight of the snow.”

“Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman and northern Saudi Arabia reported the heaviest snow falls in years and below-zero temperatures. Baghdad had a snowstorm, the first in the memory of most residents.”

(Feb. 18 2008 London Daily Express)

At the same time; Athens News reported that a raging snow storm blanketed most of Greece, plunging the country into subzero freezing temperatures. The agency reported that public transport buses were at a standstill in the wider Athens area, ships remained in ports, public services remained closed, and schools and courthouses were closed.

Are the world’s ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just “scare mongering” by the advocates of global warming?

It is scare mongering! The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. The report reveals that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million sq. miles in Jan. 2007 to just 1.5 million sq. miles in October 2007 are almost back to their original condition.

The Feb. 18 2008 London Daily Express report showed that there is nearly one third more ice in Antarctica than usual; challenging global warming crusaders and buttressing arguments against global warming!

GLOBAL COOLING CONTINUES!

The Maldives are not drowning and sea levels are not rising according to Swedish geophysicist, Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner (March 28, 2009). He is Emeritus Professor of Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics, Stockholm University, and an expert on sea levels. He said that the alarming warnings of Al Gore and the UN’s IPCC are “the greatest lie ever told. … the sea is not rising. It hasn’t risen in 50 years.” He was asked to be an expert reviewer of the last two UN IPCC reports and was “astonished to find that not one of their 22 contributing authors on sea levels was a sea level specialist: not one.”

On March 9, 2009, England’s Prince Charles and the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the industrial west must send funds to the poor drowning people of the Maldives. The plea was totally unnecessary. Mörner reminds us of a real problem – the climate change debate has been hijacked by politicians and journalists.

The Antarctic Ice Cap is growing according to satellite imaging by the British Antarctic Survey (May 2/3, 2009). The Antarctic Sea Ice is growing by approximately 100,000 sq km (39,000 sq mi) per decade for the last 30 years. Ian Allison, head of the Australian Antarctic Division’s glaciology program, commented that there was no indication the Antarctic ice cap was melting. Given that 90% of the world’s ice is in the Antarctic this is even more important. The May report noted that the temp trend in the Antarctic has been “Cooling 0.45 degrees per decade.”

Australian Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett (responsible for Antarctica) claimed the breakup of the Wilkins Ice Shelf would cause sea-level rises of 6 m (20ft) by the end of the century, and that ice was melting across the continent. However, the photo used in support of his view was taken 13 months earlier (March 2008) and recent studies have revealed the ice is increasing. Some of his colleagues were annoyed at him for “weighing into the climate change debate with exaggerated claims;” and, Craig Emerson, Minister for Small Business has “cast doubt on the assertion that scientific evidence was conclusive for a catastrophic meltdown of the polar ice caps if global warming was not curtailed.” Hopefully this crack in political solidarity may let in some more truth that may hopefully restrain politicians from taxing people to solve a problem that doesn’t exist!

If global warming gets any worse we’ll all freeze to death!

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Creation Worldview Ministries (CWM) is a missionary association taking the truths of biblical foundations to the Church, both domestic and foreign, and to the secular world. CWM is an evangelistic and discipling ministry seeking to bring salvation and maturity in Jesus Christ, by lifting Him up that He might draw all people unto Himself.

The purpose of CWM is to provide biblical and scientific seminars in churches and public forums, i.e. universities, radio and TV broadcasts, etc.; to provide a resource center for information distribution, education, consulting, missionary evangelism and discipleship concerning the truths of biblical foundations, especially Biblical Scientific Creationism; to be a part of the revitalization of classical Christian intellectual activity for the preservation, promotion and propagation of a Christian Biblical World View.

CWM additionally makes secular presentations to promote intellectual honesty, circumspect views and critical thinking concerning the question of origins.

http://www.creationworldview.org

From the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) Christian Observer of 10 November 1859

Character of John Brown

In an address to the people of Richmond [Virginia], after his return from Harper’s Ferry, Gov. Wise gave the following account of Capt. Brown, the leader of the Conspiracy:

“They are themselves mistaken who take Old Brown to be a madman. He is a bundle of the best nerves I ever saw, cut, and thrust, and bleeding, and in bonds. He is a man of clear head, of courage, fortitude and simple ingenuousness. He is cool, collected and indomitable; and it is but just to him to say that he was humane to the prisoners, as attested to me by Col. Washington and Mr. Mills, and he inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man of truth. He is a fanatic, vain and garrulous, but firm, truthful and intelligent. His men, too, who survive, except the free negroes with him, are like him. He professes to be a Christian, in communion with the Congregationalist Church of the North, and openly preaches his purpose of universal emancipation, and the negroes themselves were to be the agents, by means of arms, led on my white commanders, When Col. Washington was taken, his watch, and plate, and jewels, and money were demanded, to create what they called a ‘safety fund,’ to compensate the liberators for the trouble and expense of taking away his slaves. This, by a law, was to be done with all slaveholders. Washington, of course, refused to deliver up any thing, and it is remarkable that the only thing of material value which they took, besides his slaves, was the sword of Fredrick the Great, which was sent to General Washington. And Col. Washington says that he (Brown) was the coolest and firmest man he ever saw, in defying danger and death. With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand, and held the rifle with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dear as they could.”

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