Defending The Faith The Truth about the World #3 Developing a Macro View of Culture February 3rd, 2016 The Shoreline Church theshoreline.

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1 Defending The Faith The Truth about the World #3 Developing a Macro View of Culture February 3rd, 2016 The Shoreline Church theshoreline.org Share with another person two concepts that impressed you from chapter 6, The Science of Common Sense in Total Truth. Prior to this session read Chapter 7 in Total Truth, Today Biology Tomorrow the World, p Underline key thoughts from his chapter and communicate two of them to a friend. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to every one who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, - 1 Peter 3:15, 16 NIV Historically and presently the Church has done a pretty good job in teaching people to love God with all their heart and soul. Loving God with our heart and soul will emphasize habits like a personal quiet time, Scripture memory, church attendance, godly relationships and treating people with the love of Christ. Worship (or more accurately, praise) also appeals to our heart and soul as the body of Christ sings praises to our God. All of the above are essential, but we are also called to love God with our minds (Matthew 22:37). We must equip and train ourselves to think and respond to the intellectual and hostile challenges that we face in the classroom, marketplace, and other areas of life. Before high schoolers leave home they should be well acquainted with the many isms they will encounter in college. From Marxism to Darwinism to Postmodernism, it is best for young believers to hear about these ideas from trusted parents, pastors, and youth leaders before they encounter them in the classroom. It will take real courage for parents, pastors, and church leaders to build this kind of training into the life of our homes and churches in hopes of impacting future generations. The problem is not to win souls but to save minds. If you win the whole world and lose the mind of the world you will soon discover you have not won the world. - Charles Malik HOW DO WE DEFEND OUR FAITH? BY AND A TOTAL TRUTH WORLDVIEW Based on what you learned from Week 2, quickly summarize (2 sentences at most) the total truth view of the world as it relates to: 1

2 CREATION: FALL: REDEMPTION: On your tables, you have a handout titled, The Eye is the Lamp of the Body. Look at the pictures of the faces on this page. Discuss what each image is saying about how many in our culture view the world? Which picture best describes you or your family? For everything comes from Him and exists by His power and is intended for His glory. All glory to Him forever! Amen - Rom. 11:36 NLT (emphasis added) Biblical Christianity is Truth concerning total reality And the intellectual holding of that total Truth and then living in the light of that Truth - Francis Schaeffer Schaeffer s continues The central reason Christians have not been more effective in the public square is that we tend to see things in bits and pieces. We worry about things like the family breakdown, violence in schools, immoral entertainment, and abortion. But we don t see the big picture that. And what is the big picture? All these forms of cultural dissolution have come about due to the shift in worldview. This worldview is the final reality as impersonal matter or energy shaped into its current form by impersonal chance. - Francis Schaeffer In other words, everything hangs on one s view of origins! If you start with impersonal forces operating by chance naturalistic evolution) then over time you will end up with naturalism in moral behaviors, social constructs, and political philosophy. BY 2

` FALSE EVOLUTIONARY CLAIMS. 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.

3 ` FALSE EVOLUTIONARY CLAIMS. 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation [uniformitarianism] 5 For they deliberately overlook [willfully ignorant KJV] this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. - 2 Pet. 3:3-6 ESV When I first started studying, I saw the world as composed of particles. Looking more deeply I discovered waves. Now after a lifetime of study, it appears that all existence is the expression of information. - John Wheeler What does Wheeler mean? How does this ring true for you personally? Darwin himself never denied the evidence for design. His goal, however, was to show that the same evidence could be accounted for by purely natural forces. In other words, he hoped to demonstrate that living things only appear to be designed, while actually being products of noncognitive forces. Natural selection was proposed as an automatic and mechanistic process that could mimic the effects of intelligence. He clearly had no notion that design originates in the heart of a personal all-knowing Designer! FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT DARWIN S FINCHES One of the most widely cited pieces of evidence for evolution is the variation among finches on the Galapagos Islands off the coast of South America. The finches are small, rather dull-looking birds, whose main claim on our interest is that their beak size differs according to the habitats where they live suggesting that they have adapted to differing conditions. Virtually every biology textbook repeats the story of Darwin s voyage to the Galapagos as a young naturalist, and contemporary biologists have gone back to confirm his theory. Sure enough, one study found that during a period of drought, the average beak size among the finches actually increased slightly, approximately the thickness of a thumbnail. Yet it was hailed enthusiastically as confirmation of Darwin s theory. As one science writer exulted, this is evolution happening before our very eyes. 3

4 But that was not the end of the story. Eventually, the rains returned restoring the original range of seeds. And what happened then? The average beak size returned to normal. In other words, the change that Darwinists were so exited about turned out to be nothing more than a cyclical fluctuation. It did not put the finches on the road to evolving into a new kind of bird; it was simply a minor adaptation that allowed the species to survive the dry weather. It did not demonstrate that they originally evolved from another kind of organism, or that they were evolving into another kind of organism, or that they are evolving into anything new. When the National Academy of Science (NAS) put out a booklet on evolution for teachers it decided this story really needed a more positive spin. The booklet did not mention that the average beak size returned to normal. Instead, it speculated what might happen if the change were to continue indefinitely for some two hundred years whether the process would ever produce a new species of finch. As Johnson comments in The Wall Street Journal (August 16, 1999), "When our leading scientists have to resort to the sort of distortion that would land a stock promoter in jail, you know they are in trouble." The problems with Darwinism are so well known that, as long ago as 1980, the news had even hit the popular press. Newsweek reported at a macroevolution conference held at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History that paleontologists announced their belief that fossil records fail to confirm the gradual, continuous change Darwin predicted. Instead, the overall pattern in the rocks, or what Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould called "the trade secret of paleontology, consists of sudden appearances of new life forms with no transitional forms leading to them, followed by long periods of stability. FURTHER EXAMPLES OF MISINFORMATION PROPAGATED BY EVOLUTIONISTS At your tables, summarize what you ve previously read in the examples below. Could you see yourself sharing these with others? Dysfunctional Fruit Flies p. 160 Doctored Moths p. 161, 162 Most Famous Fake: Haeckel s Embryos p Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching - 2 Tim. 4:2 NLT Turn to someone in your group and share your understanding of one of these subjects FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT MANKIND EVOLVING FROM APES Video: That s a Fact 4

5 SHORT COMMENTS I MAKE IN DAILY ENCOUNTERS: 6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, -Col. 2:6 NASB (walk = perepateo: to walk in one s way making progress by making use of opportunities ) Chaos never produces complexity Energy plus elements (matter) does not equal life or order. It takes energy, matter, PLUS information (intelligence, or data) to produce order or life. When scientists attempt to prove evolution by creating life in a petri dish, the scientist is acting on the elements to bring about some sort of result. Therefore, the creation principle (matter +energy+knowledge) is scientific because it is verifiable, repeatable, and knowable. Irreducible complexity is the principle that the whole can only function when all the parts are in place. This means that the parts must appear simultaneously, not by any gradual, piece-by-piece process as evolution claims. (see p. 186 of Total Truth.) Darwin expressed his horrid doubt by saying: With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. p. 243 in Total Truth The Second Law of Thermodynamics (Energy is becoming less available) contradicts evolution because every thing is going down hill not evolving to a higher state. If you don t believe this just look in the mirror each year. One of Darwin s greatest concerns about his theory was the fact that there are were no transitional fossils that show the evolution for one species turning into another species. Apple seeds ALWAYS produce apples. They never produce pears or peaches. The greatest friend to evolution is TIME! In fact, to an evolutionist time is always the solution to the challenges of the theory. The key to Darwin s theory is extrapolation. It assumes that the same kind of small-scale changes that are seen in nature can be extrapolated backward in time, allowing us to explain the major differences between taxonomic (classification groups) by the slow accumulation of minor changes. (see p. 160 in Total Truth) 5

6 Darwin was not dogmatic about his theory of evolution as long as any other theory was fundamentally naturalistic. If I have erred by exaggerating the power of natural selection, he wrote, I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations. BY FALSE WORLDVIEWS AND IDEOLOGIES... in the defense and confirmation of the gospel [Good News]. - Phil. 1:7 ESV Apologetics involves not only defending the Christian faith, but critiquing other faiths or worldviews. We ought to be able to show people how these worldviews fail to stack up against reality. Just as Isaiah had to argue against the wooden idols of Old Testament times (Isaiah 44:6ff.), so today we have to deconstruct the conceptual idols that hold so many people captive. Part of evangelism is to free people from the power of false worldviews. We must then instruct Jesus followers about how to give an adequate defense of the good news of God s Kingdom. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ - Colossians 2:8 NASB CRITIQUING MARZ WITH THE THREE FOLD TEMPLATE Now, let s critique Marxism with the three categories of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. Some may ask why would you critique a dead German? Though the Iron Curtain has fallen, Marxism retains a powerful influence in many places of the world especially on American university campuses. Actually, the best place to find a Marxist is on a university or high school campus in America! All of us encounter various leftist movements such as multiculturalism, socialism, feminism, and political correctness. (Look to the definition of terms at the end of this series.) These liberation movements are sometimes called neo-marxist because they apply Marxist forms of analysis to groups identified by race or gender, urging them to raise their consciousness and throw off their oppressors. The characters may change, but it s still the same play. (Also look to my short paper on Liberation Theology). Marxism: CREATION: Matter itself has the ultimate power of motion, change, and development. The Prime Mover was within matter itself. The result being the universe became a self-originating, self-operating machine, moving inexorably toward its final goal of a classless society. Matter is the ultimate reality the way we relate to it, and make things out of it to meet our needs is accomplished through production. This is why Marx s materialism explains why he embraced economic determinism and why he regarded everything - from politics to science to religion - as mere superstructure built upon economic relations. FALL: Humanity fell from its original state of innocence into slavery and oppression because of the creation of private property. From this economic Fall arose all the evils of exploitation 6

7 and class struggle. Notice, Marx does not identify the source of evil as moral failure, for that would imply that humans are morally culpable (to blame). REDEMPTION: comes by reversing the original sin in this case, destroying private ownership of property. And the redeemer is the proletariat, the urban factory workers, who will rise up in revolution against their capitalist oppressors. In simple terms, redemption is manifested in revolution! Dinesh D Souza in one of the best sources for understanding the mindset and the expansion of Neo-Marxism in present day America. I recommend three books that are simply essential for every serious Christian. The Roots of Obama s Rage; America; and Stealing America. I desire to help save our republic and redeem our culture! The cultural mandate of Genesis 1:26-27 is still God s strategic plan-of-operation, which means we are to be salt and light in our society. Critiquing Islam The religion of Islam, with its expansive and aggressive plan for world dominance, must be addressed more in our Christian circles. Please expose yourself to Muslims and begin to understand what they believe and tell them about Jesus Christ. The influence of radical Islam, which is rooted in the Quran, will influence our way of life as nothing we have seen in our lifetime. Video of Alex Ghods. EXAMINING ISLAM WITH THE THREE FOLD TEMPLATE CREATION: Muslims believe that Allah (god) is one. Allah is described in the Quran to have 99 names or attributes such as: Omniscient, Omnipotent, Sublime, Everlasting, Holy, etc. There is no attribute that describes Allah as love or loving. The Quran stresses that Allah only loves those who are good, that he does not love those who are bad. Allah is considered the direct author of both good and evil and the direct cause of each. Allah cannot be known and, therefore, is not known personally and cannot be personally experienced. FALL: The Fall for Mohammed and his followers was and is the fact that all people do not adhere to the tenets of Islam, which means Submission. In Mecca where Mohammed first received his vision from Allah, his followers were weak in number and the people of Mecca did not receive Mohammed and his teachings. In Mecca he spoke of compassion and peace while condemning violence, injustice, and the neglect of the poor. When he moved to Medina, however, his followers grew in strength and number, and he became a relentless warrior, intent on spreading his religion by the sword. And he did! The earliest and very brief writings in the Quran were words of forgiveness and peace. The later writings which have replaced the earlier teachings, have now superseded the message of peace. 1 1Check out the books: Islam Unveiled, by Abdullah Al-Araby p It Is About Islam, by Glenn Beck, and Unveiling Islam, by Ergu Mehmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner. 7

8 REDEMPTION: comes in the form of the ultimate judgment of all non-muslims by defeating the infidel (any non-believers especially Jews and Christians) by the sword, which is usually accomplished by beheadings. The final result of the defeat of the infidel is a caliphate, which is global governance of Muslims that will impose Islamic law, or sharia, on any survivors. Islamism is the political totalitarian form of government in which Sharia Law must be enforced. At the present time, radical Islamists who interpret Quran based on the later teachings do not just believe that the day of Judgment is imminent (there are other religions that share this belief) they believe they are charged with playing an active role in bringing these things about. The bloodshed and terror are just means to an end to THE end, in fact. This is why they will never give up. (Later on I will be providing you with my paper, Islam, A Religion of Peace? ) Contrast the Total Truth Worldview with each of the above three ingredients from Marxism and Islam. A SOBERING REALITY The application of Darwinism to social and cultural issues is called evolutionary psychology, and it is spreading rapidly to virtually every subject area in our lives. Darwinists are shaping morality, ethics, and the definition of sin, religion, economics, law, education, medicine, mental health, business practices, sex, and genetics. The notion that evolution is simply a theory in the field of science is fast becoming passé. (see p. 209 in Total Truth) Evolutionary psychologists with their blatant, in-your-face application of Darwinism, are the shock troops of evolution. Darwinism has permeated the American mind at a very deep level even reshaping America s social, educational, and legal institutions. Darwinist are not content to confine naturalism to science only their goal is far reaching. Darwinism is the ideology that teaches man evolved through natural selection and that mutations aided in the survival of the fittest. In the following few paragraphs I will be drawing heavily from Total Truth. Please take time to read the pages that I reference. The rise of evolutionary psychology makes it clear that the debate over Darwinism is not just over scientific facts but over conflicting worldviews the mental maps we use to navigate the world. As Ernst Mayr, a devote evolutionist wrote, The Darwinian revolution was not merely the replacement of one scientific theory by another. But rather the replacement of a worldview, in which the supernatural was accepted as a normal and relevant explanatory principle, by a new worldview in which there was no room for supernatural forces. (p. 221) With evolutionary psychology the wall is crumbling between biology and culture. Scientists realize they can no longer put any arbitrary limit on the logic of evolution. Consistency requires that they apply it across the board to religion, morality, politics, everything! (p. 215) Worldview clashes are far too important to leave scientists to adjudicate (making the final judgment). All of us need to understand the debate over Darwinian evolution and be prepared to 8

9 discuss it with our family and neighbors, and in the public square. It is nothing less than a debate over how we should order our personal lives and our corporate lives and the stakes are very high! Once again, the only way for us as Jesus followers to respond to such aggressive information is to be equipped with a holistic worldview centered in the truth of Scripture. The proponents of evolutionary psychology desire to craft a single grand naturalistic worldview of man and all disciplines of life. The only way to stand against this naturalistic worldview is by articulating a total truth/biblical worldview that is equally comprehensive and far-reaching. We must prepare young people before they leave for college by teaching them that Christianity is not just religious truth but the Truth about all reality. It is TOTAL TRUTH! If our children are grounded in apologetics and know that Christianity is intellectually defensible, then we have an opportunity to help stem the tide of Christian defections from the faith. The latest statistics show that 70% of our youth in the church will never return back to church and in many cases abandoning the Christian faith altogether. If we are to win this battle at The Shoreline Church, it means that we, parents and grandparents along with our leadership, must pick up the ball and rigorously teach the next generation! I still am old fashion enough to believe that God s educational system is built into the family structure just as Deuteronomy 6:1-10 indicates. It takes fathers, mothers, and grandparents to engage with and teach the next generation. Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power. - Psalm 145:4 NLT What steps can you take now to be more prepared? How are your kids and grandkids progressing in their faith? What can you do to prepare yourself and your family? For Wednesday, February 10 th please read p from The Founders Bible. The Title is: The Ten Commandments: The Moral Law for Nations These pages are simply profound as they shed light on the definitions of the law. Come prepared on the 10 th to explain the four spheres of jurisdiction in the Bible, p Also please come prepared to explain the four types of law found in the Bible. Come next week with a couple of examples of how you have begun to integrate these truths into your life! On the top of p. 163 in The Founder s Bible, in the first paragraph, write in your own words what David Barton is saying with regard to the use of the law. 9

The Science of Creation and the Flood. Introduction to Lesson 7

The Science of Creation and the Flood Introduction to Lesson 7 Biological implications of various worldviews are discussed together with their impact on science. UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY OF LIFE presents