Under The Sun

With rising tension in Iraq and Iran, the IPCC report on climate change and, for us in Britain, bird flu in a Norfolk turkey farm, Michael Spencer has a timely post on Christian anxiety about the “End of the World”

Christians should be a community who looks at any apocalypse with hope. Not just hope that there is a resurrection beyond, but hope that Christ gives us victory over fear in the here and now. The likelihood of a nuclear detonation, viral epidemic or environmental catastrophe may be real, but Christians have always been able to minister, serve and love in the midst of the worst of times precisely because they believed all these events were under the control of the Lord of history and could not, ultimately, take anything of real value away from us.

Creationism — as a belief — is to be included in the syllabus for some state secondary schools in the UK. OCR, one of the three UK exam boards, will ask teachers to “explain that the fossil record has been interpreted differently over time (e.g. creationist interpretation)”. Creationism will not be taught as a scientific theory but as a “scientific controversy arising from different ways of interpreting empirical evidence”.

Academics fight rise of creationism at British universities

Most of the next generation of medical and science students could well be creationists, according to a biology teacher at a leading London sixth-form college. “The vast majority of my students now believe in creationism,” she said, “and these are thinking young people who are able and articulate and not at the dim end at all. They have extensive booklets on creationism which they put in my pigeon-hole … it’s a bit like the southern states of America.” Many of them came from Muslim, Pentecostal or Baptist family backgrounds, she said, and were intending to become pharmacists, doctors, geneticists and neuro-scientists.

The trend has prompted the Royal Society to confront the issue with a forthcomimg talk entitled Why Creationism is Wrong, to counter what it sees as a growing tendency to irrationality.

Or as The Register spins the story: Creationists want your children.

Among climate change skeptics, this article by Steve Camp is possibly the most willfully ignorant, scientifically illiterate and uncharitable piece by a respected Evangelical writer I have been embarassed to read.

Update: Steve has revised his article, as he explains:

I like using humor and sarcasm in driving home a point–it is an effective tool in communication especially when dealing with issues like this. BUT, after receiving some off-forum (and a few on forum) comments from those whose opinions I do value, I have decided to update this article calming down the sarcasm significantly, but still dealing with the heart of this important issue. Please forgive me for the needless offense my original entry caused any of you. 2 Cor. 6:3-10

I still think he’s wrong on the science, but I respect his application of Christian principles to the argument.

Incidentally, an unofficial “Steve Camp Page” demonstrates the potential for embarassment when using hosting services with context-based advertising. I doubt that either the website owner or the eponymous subject would approve of the advertisment that the Yahoo software decided was a good match for “Christian” and “Camp”!

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

“Yes, he does,” he replied.

When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own sons or from others?”

“From others,” Peter answered.

“Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.” Matthew 17 verses 24-27

This little episode contains rather more than at first appears. It doesn’t have anything to say about the rights or wrongs of paying taxes to the civil authorities (Jesus adresses that question elsewhere). Jesus has a much more important lesson for Peter, and hence for us.

The two-drachma (half shekel) tax was a voluntary contribution that every pious adult male was expected to pay, for the general upkeep of the temple. Jesus and the disciples had just returned to Galilee from Jerusalem, and their payment was 6 months overdue. The tax collectors question may have been a leading one, questioning Jesus’ commitment to the temple worship, but as rabbis and teachers were exempt from the tax they may just have been unsure of Jesus’ standing at the temple.

Peter is quick to answer on his master’s behalf, but Jesus has something unexpected to say to Peter in private.

Leona Helmsley famously claimed that “only little people pay taxes”, and in the case of Kings and their families this is true. Jesus explains to Peter that he is exempt from the tax, not as a rabbi or a priest, but as the Son of God, the King of the temple. However, Jesus was not going to assert his rights when this would be misunderstood by others. Payment would be provided.

Finding a coin in a fishes mouth is actually not as bizarre as it sounds. In the Sea of Galilee there is a species of fish, Sarotherodon galilaeus galilaeus, which hatches its eggs in its mouth. When the fry have grown and left the parent, it will often instinctively take any shiny object it finds — such as a coin — into its mouth in their place. Old Jewish tales suggest that someone catching such a fish would consider the find to be a gift from God.

The catch may have been natural, but its finding was a miracle. Peter needed faith to carry out Jesus’ remarkable instruction. The outcome is unrecorded but can be taken as read.

The origin of the half-shekel tax can be found in Exodus 30:11-16. It was applied in the context of taking a census of the people of Israel, and is described as a “ransom for the soul” and a “memorial for the Israelites before the LORD, making atonement for their lives”.

So this is the lesson that Jesus had for Peter: God has come into the world in the person of Jesus, the Son. Through him, the servant king, the ransom-payment for his people would be paid, a miraculous gift from God received through faith.

That’s quite a message in a small, fishy tale.

Wired News: RFID Foes Find Righteous Ally

There are many good reasons to be wary of RFID chips, but the “mark of the beast” isn’t one of them.

S.M. Hutchens at Mere Comments is sick of vacuously sentimental “worship” songs that make him a “liar” to God:

The worst is perhaps making me tell Jesus I love him or confess that “he’s my all,” for I am quite sure that I do NOT love him in the way this sounds in most of the music where I find this expression. He excites in me no sentimental interest whatever, and these songs are for the most part sentimental. And dare I stand before the Lord who knows my sins and inform him in a pleasant little tune that he’s everything to me? He’s not that, either, although he has every right to be.

I know what he means.

[via]

The Register: One third of Americans believe in ghosts

The article notes, with some puzzlement, that there is a left/right and young/old correlation to belief in the paranormal: 42% of “liberals” vs. 25% for conservatives, and 45% for 18-29 year olds vs. 22% of the over 65’s.

I rather suspect that what makes the difference is Christian belief, more prevalent in older and conservative Americans. In the words of G. K Chesterton’s famous (and probably apocryphal) observation, “When a Man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.”