(If you're on the front page of the site, click the title of this post to see the cartoon.)

These guys are using the bible to hold God hostage. They are using the bible to affirm their own ideas about God, then imposing these ideas on God. Their God is not free, but a god who does everything they believe and say.

Convenient and rampant. But catastrophic.

nakedpastor is David Hayward. David is an artist, cartoonist and writer. Go to nakedpastor.com for more cartoons, blog posts, art and insight from a former pastor who's stark naked honest about church life.

Kai ABC Proteins Re-invigorate the Watchmaker Argument for God’s Existence

Suppose I discover a Rolex™ watch lying on the sidewalk in front of the Reasons To Believe offices. Without hesitation I would pick it up. My lucky day! My first inclination would be to keep the watch. But, I would like to think that after the initial excitement of finding such a valuable time piece, I would decide to make a reasonable effort to find the person who lost the watch.

Apart from a sense of right and wrong, my motivation to find the watch’s owner would fundamentally stem from the conviction that the watch didn’t simply come into existence spontaneously from the materials in the environment through the outworking of the laws of physics and chemistry. If it did, why should I feel compelled to try to find the watch’s rightful owner?

But, at some level, I would feel obligated to try to find the owner. Why? Because I know that the watch must have belonged to someone who purchased it with his or her hard-earned money from a store or vendor. More than likely, the merchant got the watch from a distributor; and the distributor from the manufacturer. Ultimately, the watch traces from buyer to manufacturer. The manufacture of the watch, of course, required the work of a watchmaker.

The Watchmaker Argument The reasoning that hopefully would lead me to seek out the watch’s owner undergirds one of history’s best-known arguments for God’s existence: the Watchmaker Argument. This argument was posited by 18th-century Anglican natural theologian William Paley (1743-1805). In the opening pages of his 1802 work, Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature, Paley sets the stage for his famous Watchmaker Analogy.

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer, that for any thing I knew to the contrary it had lain there for ever…But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for any thing I knew the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone; why is it not as admissible in the second case as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, namely, that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive—what we could not discover in the stone—that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, or placed after any other manner or in any other order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it…

This mechanism being observed…the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker?that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which, we find it actually to answer, who comprehended its construction and designed its use…

For Paley, the characteristics of a watch and the complex interaction of its precision parts for the purpose of telling time implied the work of an intelligent designer. Paley asserted, by analogy, that just as a watch requires a watchmaker, so too, life requires a Creator, since organisms display a wide range of features characterized by the precise interplay of complex parts for specific purposes.

According to the watchmaker analogy:

Watches display design. Watches are the product of a watchmaker.

Organisms display design. Therefore, organisms are the product of a Creator.

The Skeptics’ Challenge

The Watchmaker Argument hasn’t fared well over the centuries. Skeptics often point to David Hume’s critical analysis of design arguments, which appeared in his 1779 work Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion as devastating to Paley’s case for the Creator. Hume leveled several criticisms against design arguments. The foremost, however, centered on the nature of analogical reasoning.

Based on Hume’s arguments, skeptics curtly dismiss the Watchmaker Argument, maintaining that the two things compared—organisms and watches—are too dissimilar for a good analogy. (See pages XX.) Hume asserted that the strength of an analogical argument depends on the similarity of the two things compared, insisting that

whenever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty.

The merit of the Watchmaker Argument then rests on two questions: Do living systems resemble man-made machines enough to warrant the analogy between the two? If so, how strong is this analogy and, consequently, the conclusion that can reasonably be drawn from it?

Molecular Motors Revitalize the Watchmaker Argument

The discovery of biomolecular motors and machines inside the cell gives new life to the Watchmaker Argument. In many instances, this molecular-level biomachinery stands as a strict analog to man-made machinery and represents a potent response to the legitimate criticism leveled by Hume and others. The biomachines found in the cell’s interior reveal a diversity of form and function that mirrors the diversity of designs produced by human engineers. The one-to-one relationship between the parts of man-made machines and the molecular components of biomachines is startling. Paley’s case for the Creator only becomes stronger with every new example of a biomotor that biochemists discover.

As remarkable as these biomachines are, perhaps none are as provocative as the biochemical timekeeping devices discovered in cyanobacteria.

Paley’s Biochemical Watch

Just as William Paley might have “pitched [his] foot against a watch” while “crossing a heath (field),” Yale biochemist Jimin Wang stumbled onto a mechanical molecular clock inside cyanobacteria (photosynthetic blue-green alga) while performing a structural analysis of the Kai proteins.

The KaiA, KaiB, and KaiC proteins play an integral role in the circadian oscillation that regulates the metabolic processes of cyanobacteria.

The biochemical activity of cyanobacteria varies periodically in response to the light-dark cycle, with certain metabolic activities repressed, or shut down, during the night. The KaiC protein is key to the cyanobacterial circadian rhythm. When its levels are high inside the cell, it represses gene expression. When its levels are low, gene expression is stimulated.

At night, the KaiC protein forms complexes with the KaiA and KaiB proteins. During daylight hours, the KaiABC complexes dissociate. Six KaiC proteins interact to form a ring-like structure. Two copies of the KaiA protein interact to form a structure that operates like a rotor inside the KaiC ring. A spring-loaded mechanism causes the KaiA protein duplex to alternate between two forms (like the opening and closing of a pair of scissors), one that interacts with the KaiC complex channel and one that does not. The KaiB protein functions like a wing nut that fastens the KaiA duplex to the bottom of the KaiC complex.

The KaiA duplex rotates within the channel, with the KaiB wing nut controlling the rotation rate of the KaiA rotor. As the KaiA rotor steps through the KaiC channel, a cam sequentially causes changes to each of the KaiC proteins. This mechanical action causes phosphate chemical groups to attach to the KaiC proteins. When fully phosphorylated, the KaiC complex dissociates. The formation and dissociation of the KaiABC complex regulates the KaiC levels inside the cell, which, in turn, controls the cyanobacterial circadian oscillation.

Once the KaiABC complex is assembled, it’s the mechanical clock-like rotary action of the KaiA duplex within the KaiC channel that controls its stability through the phosphorylation of the individual KaiC proteins.

According to Wang,

The Kai complexes are a rotary clock for phosphorylation, which sets up the destruction pace of the night-dominant Kai complexes and the timely releases of KaiA.

In Paley’s words,

This mechanism being observed…the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker.

Dr. Rana has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and he's the vice president of research and apologetics at Reasons To Believe. Click here to listen to his recent appearance on SBE.

“Like Bob Dylan, the authentic American genius is a synthetic personality. They’re all hybrids, hence, inevitably, charlatans. It’s the chameleon nature of the American hero—the confidence man, the hustler. His solution to the question of identity is that of the three-card monte player. Anyone looking for the Grand Unifying Theory of Bob is just going to have to keep looking.”—David Dalton, Who Is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s not an easy man to pin down. He confounds the public, at one moment a sage and a prophet decrying materialism and war, and the next an eccentric aging musician doing gigs for Victoria’s Secret. His music is equally unpredictable, at times so insightful it resonates on the deepest level of your being, and the next barely tolerable—especially when, as John Jurgensen describes it in a piece for the Wall Street Journal, it is couched in his “always-raspy voice, now deteriorated to a laryngitic croak.”

For almost half a century, Bob Dylan has been a primary catalyst in rock’s shifting sensibilities. He has starred in and been the subject of major films; his work is taught in over 200 college courses; and few American artists are as important, beloved, and endlessly examined as he is. Yet he remains something of an enigma. Who, we ask, is the “real” Bob Dylan? Is he Bobby Zimmerman yearning to escape Hibbing, Minnesota, or the Woody Guthrie wannabe playing Greenwich Village haunts? Folk Messiah, Born-again Bob, Late-Elvis Dylan, Jack Fate, or Living National Treasure? In Who Is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan (Hyperion, 2012), David Dalton, cultural historian, screenwriter, novelist, and a founding editor of Rolling Stone, paints a revealing portrait of the rock icon, ingeniously exposing Dylan’s chameleon-like persona.

Dylan’s life in music, song, film and art, as Dalton recognizes, is really a metaphor for America. “Like most American geniuses, he’s a synthesizer,” Dalton writes. “America is a polyglot: a patchwork, a hodgepodge, a crazy quilt pieced together by our imagination. A work of fiction.”

For those who came of age in the Sixties, however, Bob Dylan was the voice crying in the wilderness—the conscience of a generation. He set to music what many were struggling to put into words and in so doing, he gave the civil rights movement some of its greatest anthems. Classic protest songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Desolation Row,” “Chimes of Freedom” and “Masters of War” set the mood for a youth-driven cultural revolution whose anthems were about peace and love and fighting oppression. In fact, as Dalton writes, Dylan “was seen as an antihero ready to lead an army of freaks to pull down the walls of Babylon, and amphetamine is sprinkled over Dylan’s mid-’60s albums like volcanic dust.”

Powered by idealism, the Sixties generation purported to reject materialism, helped put an end to racial segregation, opposed the military establishment and its never-ending wars, brought down a president (Richard Nixon) and essentially put a halt to the Vietnam War. And Dylan provided the soundtrack for all of it. As the legendary Judy Collins observed:

We wanted so much to change the world; we all wanted to stop the war; we wanted to stop social injustice. They were good causes because they had an innocence about them. But there was something about what Dylan was doing, a certain sophistication, that deepened our understanding of what’s really going on here. Bob dragged us from literary immaturity and made us grow up emotionally. He dragged us into the world of alliteration and metaphor in a way that nobody else could do. He was our higher education.

From the beginning, Dylan’s songs taught that there is an incestuous relationship between authoritarianism, social evils, militarism, and materialism and that the solutions to corruption are spiritual. Dylan proclaimed the existence of a God who brings judgment, a “hard rain” as one of his songs puts it, on those who perpetrate evil. Dylan’s topical songs mixed the power of Beat poetry with the folk style of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger—all with prophetic overtones. Although his songs often incorporated real events, they went beyond mere journalism to the moral underpinnings.

Bob Dylan was one of the few pop singers of any real influence who clearly articulated political ideas in his music. But, as if in midstream, Dylan abandoned politics. Perceptive enough to realize that politics is never a real answer, Dylan knew the times were not changing as he had expected.

The initial sign that Dylan was becoming disillusioned with the left and the political movements of the Sixties came late in 1963. Only days after the country had been traumatized by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Dylan was invited to the grand ballroom of the Hotel Americana in New York to accept an award for his work in the civil rights movement. The result was a disaster. An intoxicated Dylan felt alienated from his adoring audience, which included many aging activists from the left-wing movement. He first appeared to insult them, saying, “It’s not an old people’s world.” He then simply baffled them with his speech, in which he spoke about race, class and the establishment.

I look down to see the people that are governing me and making my rules—and they haven’t got any hair on their head—I get very uptight about it…. And they talk about Negroes, and they talk about black and white…. There’s no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there’s only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I’m trying to go up without thinking of anything trivial such as politics…. I got to admit that the man who shot President Kennedy, Lee Oswald, I don’t know exactly where—what he thought he was doing, but I got to admit honestly that I, too—I saw some of myself in him…. I saw things that he felt in me—not to go that far and shoot. [Boos and hisses] You can boo, but booing’s got nothing to do with it. It’s a—I just, ah—I’ve got to tell you, man, it’s Bill of Rights is free speech….

Dylan’s drunken rant reflected his growing view that all people are victims of those who control the system and that even the African-American hierarchy had compromised to gain political power. The speech caused an uproar, and Dylan left the hall amid a mixture of boos and applause.

“I don’t want to write for people anymore. You know—be a spokesman,” Dylan told Nat Hentoff in 1964. “From now on, I want to write from inside me.” Thus, by 1965, Dylan had abandoned the civil rights campaign and moved beyond political activism. In fact, although he had participated in key civil rights events, Dylan was not present for the final and most grand civil rights event where black and white protesters and musicians came together—the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in March 1965. There, over 5,000 people sang Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin.’”

On the musical front, Dylan abandoned the acoustic folk sound and became a rocker. By the time he went electric with his breakthrough album Bringing It All Back Home, it was clear that Dylan had assumed a new role. He had abandoned the shabby rambling-man look and assumed the countenance of a pained and scrawny ascetic.

Painfully obvious by now was the fact that drugs were driving the content of much of the rock songs of the Sixties—including Dylan’s. Dalton writes: “And in the USA of 1965 Dylan knew you needed drugs to be able to penetrate the fog of lies, barbecues, suburbs, and security.” However, while most of the Sixties generation would soon choose flower power, love and the fallacy that drugs were going to create a new society, Dylan saw the apocalypse approaching. A pivotal song is his 1965 masterpiece “Desolation Row,” which cries for humanity to renounce materialism or face destruction and alienation.

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row.

“Desolation Row” brought Dylan to the level of the great apocalyptic poets such as T. S. Eliot. Moreover, Dylan became a prophet whose main concerns are moral, not political. And he condemns virtually all he sees.

Dylan’s conversion to Christianity in the late seventies didn’t soften his views on the nature of the world. As late as 1991, when asked about the apocalypse, Dylan replied: “It will not be by water, but by fire the next time. It’s what is written.”

Unfortunately, in recent years, we’ve seen less and less of Dylan the prophet and more of Dylan the self-promoter and entertainer. Yet not even his appearance in a Victoria Secret’s commercial, surrounded by scantily clad, winged lingerie models, or reports of his being picked up by police after being mistaken for a wandering vagrant managed to diminish his impact on those who have taken his music to heart.

Strangely, however, Dylan’s ever-changing façade has inspired many. In a tribute piece for AARP in honor of Dylan’s 70th birthday on May 24, 2011, Bono shares:

When I was 13, Bob Dylan started whispering in my ear…it was a hoarse whisper, jagged around the edges, not-too-plain truths…ideas blowing in the wind about how the world could be a better place if we could just get it out of the hands of the hypocrites. When I was 16, Bob Dylan whispered in my ear about how the real enemy was not flesh and blood, but of a spiritual nature. At 21, with the slow train of faith having picked up a little too much speed, I stood at a religious crossroads and heard “Every Grain of Sand” stop time. When I got married at 22, Bob Dylan was whispering in my ear about love and infidelity. When I had my first child at 29, Bob Dylan wrote “Ring Them Bells” and “What Good Am I?” When I ran out of gas in the late ‘90s, I had Time Out of Mind to hold on to. When the world crumbled around two shining towers, and New York had its two front teeth knocked out, I had Love and Theft to hang on to. Now, having faced 50, I’m realizing I knew much more then than I do now. I’m returning to the brutal truth that “The Times They Are A-Changin’” — but you don’t have to let them change you. In short, all my life, Bob Dylan has been there for me.

Still, despite the glowing tributes, Dylan received his fair share of criticism for “playing it safe” during his 2011 concerts in China and Vietnam. “Bob Dylan, whose rasping songs of protest were once the definitive clarion-call for activism and dissent, belted out an unmistakably neutered version of his world-famous repertoire last night as he made his concert debut in Beijing”, reported Leo Lewis for The Times. “Although ground-breaking and heartily welcomed by fans, the long-awaited concert bore the hallmarks of compromise with authority—precisely the sort of accommodation the 69-year-old singer railed against with such venom in his earlier days.”

Mind you, this is the same man who walked off the Ed Sullivan Show in 1963 rather than submit to a censored song list. Then again, perhaps Dylan the activist who once claimed that a hero was “someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom” has simply given up the fight and wants only to be Dylan the musician. As he once remarked, “Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that.” After all, why should Dylan be any different from the rest of his once idealistic generation, many of whom have now become part of the very establishment they once opposed?

As Daniel Blackburn points out in the Spectator:

Western governments have largely ignored Beijing’s clampdown, which began in February as democratic activism spread from Cairo to Chinese websites. No trade sanctions or UN Resolutions are being issued here, just stern communiqués. Given that it’s nearly 50 years since Dylan purposefully stopped being the ‘voice of conscience,’ his reticence does not come as a shock… Why should Dylan do what we are too timid and politic to do? Besides, what could he achieve? Dylan’s words might be welcome to some Western ears, but he’s just one man selling records. He does not command divisions, even in the metaphorical sense. Human rights violations in China are for governments to challenge. Perhaps Dylan’s silence expresses that.

But should we really be surprised that any entertainer, no matter how Herculean they may appear, is in the end a human being like you and me? After all is said and done, Bob Dylan is and has always been an entertainer. As David Dalton tells us:

Godlike as he is, Dylan, like everybody else in the entertainment business, was subject to the three-year cycle of fame. In the ‘60s and on through the ‘70s, Dylan reinvented himself brilliantly, along with revolutionary new musical genres. But you can only reinvent yourself (and the music) when you’re on the beam; then you can multiply yourself as often as you like. Otherwise it’s just changing sets and costumes—and the outfits of the last three and half decades have left a lot to be desired: funny getups, top hats, plastic cowboy hats, gloves, hoodies, fake beards, and wigs.

Bob Dylan’s influence has been immense and his mythology will continue to haunt the cultural landscape long after he bites the dust. That influence—quirks and all—is brought to life by David Dalton in Who Is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan. David took some time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions about the enigmatic one.

David Dalton

John W. Whitehead: Dylan grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota—an out-of-the-way place. Many devout Jews live there. Dylan was a Jew. In 1954, at his bar mitzvah, young Bob read from the Haphtarah which is a selection of readings from Jewish prophets. He read in Hebrew. Bob talked of his moral duty of being a Jew. How in the world do you get from reading the Torah in 1954 to writing and singing “Blowin’ in the Wind” in the early Sixties?

David Dalton: In America, we are a culture of outsiders, and Dylan is basically a double outsider. He was a Jew from a very remote part of America. Thus, Dylan’s view of the United States is of somebody who had almost a foreign vision. I mean, America is something he desperately wanted to be part of and identify with, yet he himself was part of an estrangement that has colored everything he has done. Dylan basically made himself an American through the reams of music he produced. At the same time, however, there actually is an interesting phenomenon in the folk movement—that is, there were a lot of Jews who were folk singers. Even from the 1940s on, the folk movement was thought to be a way of becoming part of the American community. This was through communal singing and involvement in the folk movement.

JWW: But it wound up being a critique of America in the end.

DD: Yes, of course. At a certain point, folk music and the protest movement merged. Very specifically, in the early 1960s, it merged with the Civil Rights movement, led by people such as Pete Seeger. Seeger, of course, was part of the Weavers who were part of the first folk movement. They had some hit songs.

JWW: “Goodnight Irene” and all those songs.

DD: Yes, and others. Those songs were not overtly political. The model, however, for all of this, of course, was Woody Guthrie. Guthrie had “This Machine Kills Fascists” written on the face of his guitar. It was Guthrie who fused American folk music with protests against union busting, opposing war mongers and so on.

JWW: And the corporations.

DD: And the corporations.

JWW: Which in Guthrie’s day would have been the banks.

DD: Guthrie is the model for the first phase of Dylan’s career. When Dylan came to New York City, he was looking, as all young people were, for some forbearer. So Dylan went to the hospital where Woody Guthrie was suffering from Huntington’s Chorea. Guthrie was so sick that he was basically unable to speak or correspond. Thus, nobody knows whether he really understood what Dylan was saying to him. But the general idea is that Guthrie passed on the folk mantle to Dylan. This is according to Dylan’s mythology.

JWW: Mythology is the right word. As you point out in your book, Dylan’s various transformations emerge from standing in the shadows of other people. In Dylan, you have a fusion of James Dean and Woody Guthrie and others. Is that how you see it?

DD: Definitely, he fused with James Dean who was, oddly enough, a hero of the Beats. You would have thought that the Beats might have seen Dean as a product of Hollywood. Jack Kerouac of On The Road fame once called himself the “James Dean of bebop” or something like that. James Dean is an important element in all of this.

JWW: Again, as you point out in your book, on the cover of his album Freewheelin’, “Dylan is trying to look like James Dean walking down a New York street.”

DD: That’s right. Dylan is actually the James Dean of the 1960s. American culture shifts often after a cataclysmic war such as World War II. It needs a new persona, a new character to identify with. The new sensibility—the sensibility that James Dean projected—was a teenage sensibility. The teen culture erupted with James Dean and the year after his death, of course, Elvis Presley came along who was another admirer of James Dean. Elvis was also another idol of Dylan, oddly enough. And interestingly so, Dylan basically serves the same James Dean function in the 1960s. There was all this turmoil and everything happening and here was somebody who embodied all of these other personas. Dylan embodied a James Dean-like quest for stardom. He was unabashedly ambitious with folk music, which represented authenticity. Eventually rock music would serve the same change of persona function. Rock music’s secret function was its subtext, which was “we can change the world.”

JWW: How does Buddy Holly fit into all this? Dylan has a strange fixation with Holly. As a young man, Bob went to a Buddy Holly concert and he actually thought that he and Buddy Holly had connected somehow. Holly, as you know, had a big influence on other groups like the Beatles. How does Buddy Holly figure in with the complexity that is Bob Dylan?

DD: Buddy Holly had a different influence on the Beatles. Buddy Holly represents the group which was a new phenomenon in rock-and-roll when the Beatles were coming onto the scene. Throughout the 1950s, there were singers who had bands, but they weren’t identified with those bands. Buddy Holly and the Crickets were a unit. They finally quarreled and broke up, but their inheritance for the 1960s was the rock group—the rock group as a sort of a gang. For Dylan, Buddy Holly’s influence was that he combined basically folksy tunes with a rock rhythm. Moreover, Holly was the first identifiable teenage rock star. There was Eddie Cochran. There was Gene Vincent. But none of these people were like Holly. There was something more accessible about Buddy Holly.

JWW: Unlike Elvis.

DD: Elvis to most people was really an oddity. He was a kind of southern hillbilly or an alien character as far as a northern, middle-class kid such as Dylan was concerned. Buddy Holly was somebody that you could imitate in the same way as James Dean. You could put on a red windbreaker and jeans and look sullen and angry and you were James Dean overnight. But Elvis was something else. The gold suits and the whole country western oddity of Elvis was harder to mimic.

JWW: The thing that drew me to Dylan in the Sixties was he saw right away that there was an incestuous relationship between authoritarianism, social evils, militarism, materialism and the corporate state. Dylan, whether he was mimicking James Dean or Woody Guthrie, was speaking to that in those early songs and even into his electric phase.

DD: Yes. Absolutely. Dylan came to Greenwich Village with all these early songs. They come out of a genuine impulse.  In fact, his first album was marvelous, but his first album was also a failure and Dylan, although he denies it, was extremely ambitious. There is a definite element of opportunism in his involvement with the protest movement. I don’t mean he didn’t believe in what he was saying, but there are many songs that he subsequently admitted he wrote because that was what people were looking for.

JWW: But it had an unintended effect. Dylan helped create that great resistance movement we saw in the 1960s.

DD: Absolutely. With “Blowin’ in the Wind” (aside from the fact that it really doesn’t say anything) Dylan had hit upon a very successful formula—that is, to take these old songs and add a political impetus to them. But, of course, eventually the popularity of this new kind of protest—folk rock and/or protest song—actually destroyed the folk music that had created them. Dylan was very astute about not repeating himself because his innate paranoia has to do with his insecurity about being Jewish and coming from this obscure mining town.

JWW: I don’t think he wanted to be pigeon-holed.

DD: Exactly.

JWW: It was 1963 and Dylan was honored at the Thomas Paine Awards. Bob was receiving a civil liberties award, but he vented with a drunken rant and drew the audience’s wrath.

DD: That was so amazing. Dylan actually identifies with Oswald.

JWW: Yes. Exactly. But Dylan was showing his left-leaning fans that he was not going to be pigeon-holed. Then in 1964 he tells Nat Hentoff, “I don’t want to write for people anymore. I don’t want to be a spokesman. From now on I am going to write inside of me.” So after that, things change. Next up we get Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. Dylan becomes, as you show in your book, our Electric God.

DD: Well, actually Dylan combines that with a messianic presence. Dylan is basically, in a way, the last great flowering of Beat literature. He took the Beats and the source of the Beats inheritance—which is Rimbaud—and he put that to rock music. It was an unbelievable fusion.

JWW: As you note in your book, Dylan made rock music literature.

DD: The diehard Dylan fans call Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde the “Holy Trinity.” And those albums are inscrutable and profound. Nobody has ever really transcended what Dylan did.

JWW: What about the effects of drugs in all this? The 1960s was awash with LSD, amphetamines and so on. Drugs, as some argue, open alternative views of reality. Wasn’t Dylan affected by drugs as he moved on through his journey?

DD: Absolutely.  Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders, who was a good friend of Dylan’s, said it was basically amphetamines that led to Dylan’s breakthrough.

JWW: And Dylan also lived an alternative reality in who he really was.

DD: Yes. What happened is he was exposed in Newsweek as not being who he seemed to be. His name wasn’t Bob Dylan. It was Robert Zimmerman. He hadn’t grown up in the circus or with the Sioux Indians or all these stories he made up.

JWW: He wasn’t an orphan.

DD: He wasn’t an orphan. All these crazy, wonderful stories.

JWW: Dylan’s father said that his son’s persona was an act.

DD: Right. He said that his son was a corporation or something like that. In my book, Who Is That Man, what I emphasize is that to take his mythology as seriously as the facts of his life is a mistake. As Dylan says in the Martin Scorsese documentary, No Direction Home, he may have been born from the grooves in some 78 records that his parents found when they moved into a new house. He acted as if he were a foundling. Dylan basically functioned as someone who lived between the fictions he created and the actual situations of his life. The problem with many Dylan biographies is you can’t just treat him like he did this and he did that. You cannot treat Dylan’s life the way you would George Washington or Barack Obama.

JWW: Dylan has created a myth around himself.

DD: That’s right, and that myth is as potent as any literal fact about himself. Dylan is really that character. Not only are albums like Freewheelin’, Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde such classic creations, but the person singing them, with the curly hair, the shades, the polka dot shirt and the whole thing is also a classic creation. Look at the famous interview that he did with Nat Hentoff. It is fantastic. I mean, we had never heard anybody except maybe the Beatles who had this wonderful humorous sort of surreal way of talking. For example, John Lennon was asked, “How do you find America?”

JWW: —and Lennon responded, “Turn left at Greenland.”

DD: Yes. That was great, but Dylan took this to a high art. You can see this in Dylan’s book Tarantula.  He is incredibly verbal. He is almost supernaturally talented in spinning words and images, and nobody had ever heard anybody at a press conference do this except maybe Marlon Brando. If you listen to Marlon Brando’s early interviews, he does the same thing. Like Brando, when Dylan was asked direct questions, he gave very elusive, funny responses to them.

JWW: In June 1967, the Beatles debuted Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The reaction to that album was phenomenal. As one writer notes, “The world stopped and listened.” The reviews of the album were astounding in that the critics said the Beatles had created rock music as art. At the same time, however, Dylan was getting ready to release John Wesley Harding, which was juxtaposed against the psychedelic electric sound of the Beatles. Was Dylan looking for guidance?  Was he doing that on purpose? What do you think?

DD: I think what happened was he was on a suicidal course in 1966. He was obviously taking a lot of amphetamines. He was not sleeping. But Dylan always had a basic compass to his life that came from his family where he realized he had to stop or he was going to die. John Wesley Harding came from the times when he supposedly stopped doing amphetamines, stopped roving around the world and settled in Woodstock. If you look at the pictures of him in Woodstock, it is almost as if somebody had kidnapped him.

JWW: It looks like he grew up in 1860.

DD: Yes, he looks like a rabbinical student. I think that he had to reconnect. Dylan realized before anyone else that the 1960s had basically run its course. He no longer had the ambition of transcending rock or folk music as did of a lot of singers of the 1960s. The Sixties had exhausted itself, and it had now become pretentious.

JWW: Do you think that led to his religious conversion—that huge schismatic conversion that happened in 1978? Dylan thought it was real, don’t you think?

DD: Oh, absolutely. There is no question about it. John Lennon, Keith Richards and others made some snide remarks about it, but Dylan was totally genuine. Dylan’s marriage broke up and he was suddenly adrift. He had always basically focused his emotional life on women and love. When that fell apart, he desperately needed something just as overwhelming to take its place.

JWW: And that was God.

DD: Yes, God. Dylan’s religious, right-wing rants during that time are nutty, and there is a lot of nonsense in them. However, people who saw him in concert during his Christian period have said he was at his absolute intensity, and those songs are still great.

JWW: Slow Train A Coming is a good album.

DD: That is a great album, and the two that followed were good. I know people over the years who apologize for Dylan when he came out with lame albums. If, however, an unknown person had produced them, they would say that they were unbelievably talented. Slow Train is great. But of course, Slow Train was preceded by Street Legal which is the first time Dylan used a gospel chorus and apocalyptic imagery.

JWW: Dylan seems to be obsessed with the apocalypse.

DD: Dylan has always been a possessed character, and I think the religious phase is something that was always there. I mean, he spoke of “flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark” in “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).” That kind of conviction was always there. He simply took it a lot more literally in his Christian phase. And he sang one of those songs in his recent China tour.

JWW: You have closely studied Dylan. What are his religious beliefs? Didn’t he slide back into Judaism?

DD: He was involved with Hasidic sects in the early seventies. The problem with the Christian thing for Dylan was that he felt it was a betrayal of who he was and where he had come from. All kind of apocalyptic themes run through Hasidic beliefs. In a profound sense, it is basically not all that different from apocalyptic Christianity.

JWW: Dylan had a heart attack in 1997. I actually saw him perform live right after that. Before that, I had seen a few concerts where he mumbled. You could not understand a thing he was saying. But in that 1997 concert, he sang everything clearly. He took roses on stage. He did a little dance. He smiled. Do you think his heart attack changed anything about him?

DD: Dylan is a collective entity. The reason that Dylan is so confusing now is that Dylan is partly him, partly his creation and partly what we have made of him. Near the end of my book, I invoke this idea of the group soul. This comes from the way certain insect colonies act. All the insects in the colony function as different parts of the same body and mind. They all function as one sort of unit. This is somewhat true of any rock concert. However, with Dylan, it’s more so because he has siphoned off religious apocalyptic political ideas that all fuse together and fuse us together.

I have seen Dylan concerts in recent years that were just horrible. I was really appalled at Cooperstown when he sang virtually every one of his songs, including “Just Like A Woman.” These kids standing in the audience, 18-year-old kids, were saying, “Isn’t he great?” I didn’t say anything to them, but I just was horrified. Then, in 2011, I went to Bethel which is the site of the original Woodstock concert. His performance was unbelievably good. He had a kind of claw-like attack to the piano keys, but the concert was unbelievably inspiring. Everybody was tuned in, and I think he reacts to that. I think that when he comes on stage, he reacts to the audience. At Bethel, everyone in the audience—old and new fans—were fused together. We all identified with him because, in a way, he is us. We all think of the ideal human being, and it is like Thomas A. Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ. Whether it is a religious image or a popular image, we always look for the person that we think is the exemplary character who embodies our best thoughts, impulses and emotions. I think that is who Dylan is. He is us.

JWW: How do you square the Dylan who sang about “flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark” and the Dylan who did a Victoria’s Secret commercial?

DD: Dylan wasn’t a poor boy in the way that a lot of rock singers were, but he has an absolute obsession with money. Why did he do the film Streets of Fire? He asked an actress friend of his to be in it and she said, “Why would I want to be in such a horrible thing”? He reportedly said, “Well, it’s a million dollars.”  People say every time Dylan puts out a record he buys a new apartment building. He is very …I don’t know…

JWW: Very American.

DD: Yes. Very American in the same way that he idolizes Woody Guthrie and Dion and Elvis and Liberace at the same time. He is a very promiscuous character, and he is also very American. Dylan believes in the whole idea of success in the same way that, for instance, James Dean and Hank Williams did.

JWW: Or Barack Obama.

DD: Or Muhammad Ali and so on. They don’t see any difference between success and financially supplementing their talent. The Beatniks and the abstract expressionists and the folk people disdained fame and money. Dylan embraces it all. Money is plasma in American society.

JWW: In your book, you say Dylan is basically a charlatan and that America is a fake. Explain.

DD: America is a country that we basically invented. It is very different from Europe. We are always pretending to be something we are not. We have never really grown up. We are these teenagers who are perpetually acting out a fantasy. In fact, that fantasy and charlatanism is the basis of American culture. It is the basis of the music. Writing songs is totally make-believe charlatanism. Every time you get on stage, you are pretending to be someone. The movies are our kind of dream world, our fantasy, our charlatanism. There are people up there on the screen pretending to be Alexander the Great or Thomas Edison, and they are fakes. However, that is the brilliance of American culture and its profound belief in its own charlatanism.

Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and author of The Change Manifesto. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

John W. Whitehead's weekly commentaries are available for publication to newspapers and web publications at no charge. Please contact marketing@rutherford.org to obtain reprint permission.

I have terrible timing. I left the Groundlings comedy troupe, to pursue an MFA in screenwriting so I could learn to write stories beyond the “three-minute sketch with wigs.” Six months later, several of my cast mates got hired on Saturday Night Live, as actors and writers. I finished my MFA at age 34, whereupon a writing guru told me that if you don’t make it as a comedy writer by 30, you’re considered over the hill. I moved to New York to pursue a writing job that promptly fell through. Years later, I moved back to LA to revive my acting career, just as the movie Searching For Debra Winger was released – a documentary featuring a bunch of A-list actresses who couldn’t get work after age 40. I had just turned 41.

I did get a book published in 2009. I just found out 2009 was one of the worst years to release a book – after the Wall Street meltdown, consumers didn’t have the money to buy and publishers didn’t have the money to publicize them. I told myself that’s why my book made only “respectable sales” and why my publisher passed on my second book. It’s not enough to be respectable; you need to be a hit. I’m considering taking a nom de plume and writing Amish fiction. Or Amish vampires.

Regret can destroy you. You will spend your life like Lady Macbeth, trying to wash away the evidence of your guilt and failure. You will look for others to blame or blame yourself. You will tell yourself you’re a loser.

I have been able to teach. It doesn’t assuage the longing to do the thing yourself, but you get to help others and your own work improves in the process. Over the years teaching, I’ve gotten to know Jack – that writing guru who sounded the post-thirty comedy death-knell. Jack wanted to be a screenwriter and never made it; but he became a well respected teacher and mentor. At one point he ran the Warner Bros. writing workshop. Two years ago I started teaching at the same Christian college where he had become a fixture. And I started to catch a glimpse of the scores of hopeful writers he taught, prodded, mentored, and loved.

The day before my milestone birthday, Jack emailed to say he couldn’t make my party; he’d come down with pneumonia. I decided to visit him the following week. I’d had plenty of casual encounters with Jack, from church retreats to writing seminars to group lunches in the college cafeteria. But this time I could sit with him a while, share stories, and pray for him. And it might be the first one-on-one conversation I’d had with him in years.

The day before I was due to stop by Jack’s place, our mutual friend Jan texted me to say she was taking Jack to the hospital. I couldn’t visit him there, his immune system was shot and couldn’t risk additional bacteria. Over the next few days Jan sat vigil at the hospital, keeping his friends updated, getting out the word to pray. By the end of the week a thousand-member facebook group was praying for Jack to get better.

But Jack got worse. I asked Jan if I could come to the hospital to visit her: she’d been there nearly 24/7 the past five days. She and her husband were on a writing deadline, trying to shuttle kids to and from school, and not fall apart.

I arrived on a Sunday afternoon during a downpour. Jan’s husband arrived a while later. Jan was pacing the halls, trying to unlock the password on Jack’s phone. She needed to call Jack’s friends, she said. They needed to come to the hospital. They needed to say goodbye.

We prayed for a miracle. The world needed Jack. The world and all the young hopeful writers who needed someone with Jack’s wisdom and decency, who’d tell them the truth about their work, and how not to miss those deadlines and how to be a decent human being in a field where decency was scarce. But sometimes you don’t get the miracle you asked for.

It was my turn to go in. I told him how angry I was with myself about that time I’d seen him in the cafeteria, sitting alone reading, but didn’t go sit with him because I didn’t think I had anything interesting to say. I asked Jack to go look up my father and my mentor Les, a comedy writer who’d come to Jesus just a year before his death. I know they would have a lot of laughs together. I also asked Jack if he would go find my cat, Honey and pet her, and tell her I would see her soon. And then it dawned on me, what if these precious ideas we have about heaven are just that? Ideas? What if there is no resurrection from the dead? Then we are all screwed. And this is it. This is the last moment I will ever see this man.

The ICU waiting room began to fill up with Jack’s friends. I knew some of them fairly well, some not at all. But we recognized each other: we shared the same face, slackjawed shock and impending grief. And we all shared the same mark on the inside: we’d all been mentored or loved by the same man.

Jack died Monday night. Tuesday afternoon I had to go teach his classes. We spent the time sharing what we’d learned from Jack. One student said that Jack could always find the thread of gold in the mountain of garbage that was his script. Another one said she didn’t know if she could write at all. But Jack told her she had talent and she needed to work at it – because she was worth it.

A few nights later a group gathered to share our memories about Jack. Two stand out to me. The first was something Jan’s husband, Lee, said back at the hospital. “Jack was Best Man at our wedding. I don’t know if I was Jack’s best friend, because he had so many. But he was definitely mine…” He paused a moment. “Jack was George Bailey.”

George Bailey is Jimmy Stewart’s character in “It’s A Wonderful Life.” George sacrificed his dreams while others got theirs. Suicidal and on the brink of bankruptcy, George wishes he’d never been born. So an angel Clarence shows George just what that would look like: a mean, horrible place.

Lee was right. Jack was George Bailey. Without him we’d all be living in Pottersville.

The other was shared by a TV comedy producer who’d known Jack when they were both at Warner Bros. Fred is Jewish and hadn’t had much exposure to Christianity. But as a child he’d seen the film, Green Pastures, a black gospel musical. God was played by William Warfield, the commanding baritone who sang “Old Man River” in Show Boat. “I met William Warfield years later. When I saw him I thought, that’s what God looks like! And when I met Jack Gilbert I thought, that’s what Jesus looks like.”

There’s an old short story by J.R.R. Tolkein titled, “Leaf By Niggle.” Niggle is an artist; a painter. He is obsessed with a tree he sees in his mind. The tree is magnificent and expansive, harboring birds, and through the branches he can glimpse the mountains beyond. But he can’t get the tree onto the canvas. He’s got bits and pieces here and there. One beautiful leaf he’s able to draw. But he keeps getting interrupted by people who need him. There’s the farmer down the road who needs his help; his wife is sick and needs to be driven to hospital some miles away. And then his neighbor’s roof leaks, and it’s making his wife dangerously ill. So the government comes and takes Niggle’s canvas to patch up the neighbor’s roof. Time goes by, Niggle never gets the painting done. His neighbor dies and so does the wife. Niggle does eventually. He never finished the painting. All that remains is one exquisitely painted leaf. A library has the artwork framed. But then it’s lost in a fire. There is nothing left on earth of Niggle.

But up in heaven, there is Niggle at home, and the neighbor he loved into heaven. They sit under the tree – the real tree Niggle imagined in his mind is there, in all its magnificent glorious reality: birds nesting in its branches and magnificent mountains shining in the distance.

If there is no resurrection from the dead we are more to be pitied. But I imagine right now Jack is collaborating with Les on some screenplay soon to begin filming. Maybe my father is laughing along, adding a joke here or there, delighted to know his daughter made sure Jack looked him up.

Susan Isaacs is a writer, actor, and comedienne with TV and film credits including Planes Trains & Automobiles, Scrooged, Seinfeld, The Drew Carey Show, My Name Is Earl and more. She is an alumnus of The Groundlings Sunday Company and the author of Angry Conversations With God: A Snarky But Authentic Spiritual Memoir.

Click here to listen to Susan's most recent appearance on SBE.

I am frankly amazed at how quickly we move away from this simple core conviction. Theology matters! In fact it matters profoundly because we are always in danger of losing our way in regard to rightly confessing the core mystery/truth that Jesus is Lord. Other lords seek our allegiance and bad theology can mislead us, even causing us to leave the Lord who redeemed us. But all of this does not negate the simple fact that we are saved by confessing Jesus, not by knowing which church is right, or which creed we accept or what doctrines we agree/disagree about.

I am well aware that some extremely progressive Christians deny the most basic truths that support a credible confession of Christ when they deny his death, burial and resurrection. I am aware that some progressive Christians deny the essential truth of Jesus's two natures (divine and human) in his one person. In other words there are some professing Christians who deny what is stated in the creed as essential to the faith of the earliest followers of Jesus. I am also aware that the majority of liberal and progressive Christians do not deny these core truths at all. They "see" a Jesus who looks and sounds more like a progressive (modern) liberal and this prompts them to adopt views of the faith that I find, at some points, unacceptable. Yet I also believe that far too many conservatives "see" a Jesus who looks much like a modern conservative rather than the Jesus that we actually encounter in reading the four Gospels of the New Testament. If for no other reason this makes me cautious about these labels. For some time I have accepted people on the basis of what they confess and not "read" my views into them in terms of my relationship with them as brothers and sisters. This has not been an easy road to follow. Honestly, it is extremely challenging. The further I go down this road the more I have learned to accept and love people who confess Jesus as Lord but this has not always been without significant challenges to my mind and spirit.

What I said in my chapter "Christ the Center" is rather simple. It is, in the best sense, basic. But it is not easy or simplistic. We too easily think that what is simple is simplistic. Not so.

This was one reason, among several, that I was drawn to the book, Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A Catholic and Evangelical Christologyy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), by my friend Fr. Edward T. Oakes. Oakes is the associate professor of systematic theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois. I have visited this seminary campus a number of times and have many friends on the faculty, including the extremely popular teacher and preacher Fr. Robert Barron, whose Catholicism video series I have warmly recommended.

Oakes maintains that at the heart of all ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Evangelicals is their fundamental agreement on Christology. (Oakes was an original writer and member of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together Committee, an esteemed group which includes J. I. Packer, Timothy George, John Woodbridge, and other good friends, who are all respected evangelical academic leaders.)

Oakes has written a 459-page book to show how this common confession of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and unique Savior of the human race is the core of our common "evangelical" faith. In this magnum opus he surveys the Christian teaching on the person and nature of Christ and looks at the many doctrinal and historical issues essential to the study of Christology.

Oakes draws on recent scholarship in New Testament studies and patristic Christology as well as key medieval and major Protestant voices. He also includes major contemporary Catholic theologians and magisterial statements from Vatican II. By presenting two millennia of thinking about the Christian paradox of an infinite God who is a finite human person he concludes that poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was right to speak of "Infinity dwindled to infancy."

Timothy George, in his endorsement on the back cover of this important book, writes: "Oakes, one of best and most literate theologians, has given us in this volume a masterpiece of Christological reflection. Evangelicals and Catholics share together a common faith in Jesus Christ the Lord, the one and only Savior of the world."

But here is the is point of it all. George adds, "The closer we are drawn to Jesus Christ, the closer we come to one another." (He says this book will help us do both!)

I believe that statement. The closer we are drawn into Christ, the more we exalt him and worship him and write about him the closer we are drawn toward one another. This is the key to understanding my journey in missional-ecumenism. Seek Jesus Christ first and draw near to him. He is "the way, the truth and the life." We have significant differences about authority, the nature of the church and our understanding of how grace works sacramentally, to name only a few, but we share this: a common love for the Lord Jesus Christ. Before we discuss anything else I suggest we go back here and begin anew.

John H. Armstrong is founder and president of ACT 3, a ministry for the advancement of the Christian Tradition in the third millennium. He is a former pastor and church-planter, of more than twenty years, the author/editor of eight books, and the author of hundreds of magazine, journal, and Web based articles. John has served as the editor-in-chief of ACT 3 Review: A Journal for Faith, Church and Culture since its origin in 1992. But most importantly, he is our go-to professional religionist.

But on the cross, all their claims of being agents of goodness were stripped away. The principalities and powers were exposed as the power-hungry agents they really were (see Col. 2:15). The cross showed how the depraved nature of demonic powers can be expressed through the rulers of this age. It also demonstrated the love of God in its most perfect form. On the cross, power was confronted by sacrificial love.

On Good Friday, it looked as though power had won. The demonic hosts must have danced in celebration. But they had counted the spoils of their victory too quickly. Two days later, the stone was rolled away and the incarnation of sacrificial love was resurrected. History, from then on, would have hard evidence that love ultimately triumphs over power. The resurrection proves that love is greater than all the power man and Satan together can muster.

The resurrected Christ still endeavors to effect change through love. He does not coerce us into His kingdom, but lovingly entreats us. He does not force Himself into our lives, but instead says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).

One of my favorite old gospel songs has as its first line, “He could have called ten thousand angels.” This so wonderfully explains the style of Jesus. As He hung on the cross, the Pharisees and priests mocked HIm, yelling that if He was the Son of God, He should come down from the cross–and then they would believe in Him (see Matt. 27:40-42). There is no question that He could have done just that. What is more, He could have snapped His fingers and had 10,000 angels in shining raiment appears instantaneously by His side, armed to the teeth, to wreak destruction on those who had mocked Him. But that was not His way. Love kept Him nailed to the cross. He refused to use His power so that He might reveal the love of God in its ultimate expression.

There will come a day when He will come again. On that final day, a trumpet will sound and He will unleash His power on the earth. But on that Good Friday 2,000 years ago, it was not His power, but His sacrificial love that was at work.

Tony Campolo joins us regularly on Steve Brown Etc. He's professor emeritus at Eastern University and the founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, an organization that develops schools and social programs in various third world countries and in cities across North America. He's the author of over 35 books, blogs regularly at his website, redletterchristians.org, and can also be found on both Facebook and Twitter

But most importantly, Tony is Our Favorite Lib. Click here for Tony's latest appearance on Steve Brown Etc.

It's the question that gets asked whenever an alleged comedian on HBO goes a bit nuts on the subject of religious believers.

It's the same question people asked when some NFL players mocked Tim Tebow's love of public prayer.

It's the same question conservative Catholics, and others, asked when the hierarchy at The New York Times made the decision to run a full-page anti-Catholic advertisement that urged liberal and nominal Catholics to pack up and quit their church.

It's the question that tends to draw mocking laughter in the GetReligion comments pages whenever a reader dares to ask it.

The question, of course, is this: Would the powers that be in mass media have dared to approve x, y or z if this particular advertisement, comedy routine, cartoon, Broadway show, movie, music video or whatever had focused its attack on Muslims?

It's a question that is not — for me — directly connected to the journalism work that we do here at GetReligion. Please hear me say that.

However, there was a headline the other day in The Daily Mail linked to this controversial topic that was just a bit too close for comfort, for me. I am referring to the one that, with its stacked sub-headlines, proclaimed:

Christianity gets less sensitive treatment than other religions admits BBC chief

* He suggested other faiths have a ‘very close identity with ethnic minorities'

* But added that religion as a whole should never receive the same ‘protection and sensitivity’ in the law as race

I don't know about you, but I had a simple reaction when I read all of that: The head of BBC said that near an open microphone?

Here's the top of that Mail report:

BBC director-general Mark Thompson has claimed Christianity is treated with far less sensitivity than other religions because it is "pretty broad shouldered."

He suggested other faiths have a "very close identity with ethnic minorities," and were therefore covered in a far more careful way by broadcasters. But he also revealed that producers had to consider the possibilities of "violent threats" instead of polite complaints if they pushed ahead with certain types of satire.

Mr. Thompson said: "Without question, 'I complain in the strongest possible terms,' is different from, 'I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write.' This definitely raises the stakes."

But he added that religion as a whole should never receive the same ‘protection and sensitivity’ in the law as race.

Now the minute I read that — especially all of those short, edited, punchy quotations — I immediately assumed that Thompson had been quoted out of context. What kind of journalist could say things like that, especially one who is committed to accurate journalism, free speech, religious liberty and various other values and rights that tend to be cherished in free societies?

I told my GetReligion colleagues that I really wanted to see the whole interview, or a transcript, or both. As it turns out, that information was a few clicks away on a site linked to a rather authoritative educational brand name — Oxford. Click here for the .pdf of the interview or watch the video that is attached to this post.

By all means, read it all. The give and take is rather complex, at times, but I think that the triple-decker Mail headline is accurate, if rather blunt (in the style of Fleet Street). I immediately asked my fellow GetReligionistas if we could hold off on this story long enough for me to write a Scripps Howard News Service column based on the full interview. My goal was to put some of those blunt snippets into a broader context, if I could.

So, here is a sample of what came out of that. I began with the New York Times decision to run the anti-Catholic advertisement from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, but not the mirror-image anti-Muslim advertisement that was immediately cranked out by Stop Islamization of America.

Should Catholics have been shocked?

Truth be told, the offended Catholics had little reason to be shocked if members of the Times hierarchy based their decisions on convictions similar to those recently aired by the leader of the BBC, another of the world's most influential news organizations.

For BBC director-general Mark Thompson, the key is to understand that Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews and believers in other minority religions share a "very close identity with ethnic minorities" and, thus, their beliefs deserve to be handled with special care.

Meanwhile, he said it's acceptable to subject Christians to more criticism and satire, to treat their beliefs with less sensitivity, because Christianity is a powerful, secure, majority religion — even in an increasingly secular age.

"I think it is very different to talk about Christianity in the United Kingdom: a very broadly, literally established, but also metaphorically established, part of our kind of culturally built landscape," said Thompson, in an interview recorded for the FreeSpeechDebate.com project produced by St. Antony's College, Oxford.

Christianity, he argued, is a "broad-shouldered religion, compared to religions which in the UK have a very close identity with ethnic minorities, where, you know, it's not as if as it were Islam is randomly spread across the UK population. It's almost entirely a religion practiced by people who may already feel in other ways isolated, prejudiced against, and where they may well regard an attack on their religion as racism by other means."

The bottom line, said the BBC leader, is that Muslims tend to be literalists on matter of faith and they are much more likely to be offended by criticism or satire of Muhammad than most Christians are of similar media products about Jesus. At least, that is what Thompson thinks, as a self-identified moderate, practicing Catholic. Thus, he said:

"For a Muslim, a depiction — particularly a comical or demeaning depiction of the prophet Muhammad — might have the force, the emotional force, of a piece of a grotesque child pornography. One of the mistakes seculars make is, I think, not to understand the character of what blasphemy feels like to someone who is a realist in their religious belief."

And that stunning AK47 quote?

Here's the context. You will not be surprised to know that it follows a reference to Salman Rushdie, his "The Satanic Verses" novel and a global fatwa calling for his death.

Historian Timothy Garton Ash, who conducted the Oxford interview, said this threat of violence is a "rather nasty ace" that can be played by those who are willing to say, "I feel so strongly about that; if you say it or broadcast it, I will kill you."

Thompson responded: "Well, clearly it's a very notable move in the game, I mean without question. 'I complain in the strongest possible terms' is different from 'I complain in the strongest possible terms and I'm loading my AK47 as I write.' This definitely raises the stakes."

So there you go. How does this Thompson proclamation apply to the work of journalists who want to do accurate, balanced reporting on religion-news stories linked to blasphemy, heresy and sacrilege?

It seems to me that, much like that advocacy journalism sermon delivered last October by former New York Times editor Bill Keller, the BBC leader is essentially saying that there is one set of rules for news and then there is a different set of rules for religion news. In the end, race trumps religion.

And one more thing: Did Thompson actually say that it doesn't matter if Christianity is no longer, on a typical weekend, the majority religion in England in comparison with Islam? It still deserves harsher treatment?

Read it all. Please.

Professor Terry Mattingly writes the nationally syndicated On Religion column for the Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C., which is sent to about 350 newspapers in North America. He's also a regular contributor at GetReligion.org and the author of the book Pop Goes Religion: Faith in Popular Culture.

(Read the full article here.)

The doctors have diagnosed him with “Brief Reactive Psychosis,” and he has been admitted to a local mental hospital for more evaluation and treatment.

Interestingly enough, the initial response from the christian community has been the assumption that he was drunk, or on drugs. It is almost as if we need it to be something external – demonic forces, perhaps – something easily identified, tagged, and understood.

The reality is that Jason suffers from mental illness. It doesn’t matter that it is “brief” or “reactive” – in the psych ward all psychosis looks pretty much the same (And I know this from experience).

As with all mental disorders and diagnoses, this is a very real and tangible thing. It is not a spiritual nor character flaw, nor is it simply an excuse to “get away with” acting strangely just for the sake of having fun — it is an impairment that has affected Jason, and it will take time and medicine to ease him back to reality.

Recently I was taking part in a spiritual exercise. The idea is that when you have a piece of bread in the morning, you think of and thank those down the line who have brought this bread to your table. So many parts involved in even such a simple thing, so many to thank, so much to be aware of.

I noticed as I familiarized myself with these thoughts, I found that it was also affecting how I viewed people. Instead of seeing a single homeless man, I thought of all the things that I don’t know and all of the people I’ll never meet who played a part in his life.

It humanized him, somehow.

Therein lies the reality — we are all human. I happen to have a diagnosed mental illness, and now Jason has one. Some people I know do not have a diagnosis, other people do. Each of us is susceptible to the elements, to the illnesses and diseases that exist, and regardless of our faith (of lack of), the illnesses affect us. They exist. For all of us.

If there’s anything I hope that people can glean from Jason Russell’s breakdown, its this: Nobody is too good for mental illness. Mental illness strikes without discretion or bias. It isn’t a result of some hidden sin or some terrible flaw.

We all have brains.
We all have our own struggles.
We are all humans.

To judge each other as anything less is to disrespect that which was created and called “good.”

Renée Altson is the author of Stumbling Toward Faith, a photographer, and a web developer. She lives with her husband, daughter, and 2 cats in Southern California. Click here to listen to Renée on Steve Brown Etc.

“If you listen carefully to the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to His commands and keep all His decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you.”

Exodus 15:26

Which has benefited humanity more, science or religion? Most atheists would say science. The hard-fought advances in knowledge, won by the unrelenting application of the scientific method, have consistently improved humanity’s lot—enabling us to live longer, healthier lives.

Skeptics often ask, “Can Christianity, or any religion for that matter, boast of the same accomplishment?”

In this context a skeptic recently asked me, “If there was a deity who made and loves humanity, and communicated with humans through the Bible, why wouldn’t he provide information that would help human beings live healthy lives?”

According to the questioner, if people had to rely on religious systems exclusively, we would still be living in the medical “dark ages.” And thanks to science we don’t.

But, as it turns out, the Bible does impart medical wisdom that allows humans to live long, healthy lives, as cutting-edge advances in the war on AIDS attest.¹

Male Circumcision and the Spread of AIDS

Researchers have discovered that African boys, who are circumcised as part of the rite of passage to adulthood, contract AIDS at a much lower rate than those who aren’t circumcised. In fact, the odds of contracting AIDS are reduced by about 57 percent.

Based on these promising statistics, thirteen countries have implemented programs to try to get 80 percent of men in Africa circumcised by 2015. If successful, this mission will not only dramatically reduce the number of AIDS cases, but also will save almost $17 billion compared to the current treatments that involve the lifelong administration of antiviral agents.

Male Circumcision and Cancer of the Penis

Male circumcision confers other benefits as well. The medical community has observed that the incidence of penile cancer is practically nonexistent among men who have been circumcised. While medical experts are still uncertain why removal of the foreskin protects against cancer, a significant amount of statistical data supports the prophylactic benefit of the procedure.²

Male Circumcision and Cervical Cancer

New research has determined that male circumcision also promotes female health as well. For example, a recent study discovered that the incidence of cervical cancer in women is reduced when their partners have been circumcised.³

None of These Diseases

In the classic work, None of These Diseases, physician S. I. McMillen demonstrates that the commandments given to Israel thousands of years ago serve as an extraordinary manual of preventive medicine.⁴ Clearly, the commands given to Israel had purposes other than the medical benefits they would provide. Still, the fact remains that by adhering to these laws, God’s chosen people derived very real health benefits.

Such is the case when it comes to circumcision.

God commanded Abraham to perform circumcisions on the eighth day after birth (Gen. 17:12). As McMillen points out, this is the ideal time to carry out the procedure because it ensures that the infant’s blood readily clots after circumcision. For the first four days after birth, an infant has a limited amount of vitamin K and clotting factors in its blood. On day five, the level of these materials increases, reaching the maximum level on day eight.

Additionally, God commanded that a flint knife be used to perform the circumcision (Josh. 5:2). According to McMillen, this practice is significant because when a flint knife is sharpened the surface layer is removed, leaving behind uncontaminated stone that would have minimized infection.

To be certain, the Bible does not focus on healthy living or on dispensing medical advice. It is a book about God’s plan of redemption. Still, the commands that God gave to the Israelites—instructions designed to reveal His plan for humanity—if carefully followed, provide (as a secondary consequence) protection against the diseases that plagued Egypt. And as medical science advances, the wisdom found in the pages of Scripture is substantiated again and again, giving believers confidence of its divine inspiration.

Endnotes:

1. Katherine Harmon, “Can Male Circumcision Stem the AIDS Epidemic in Africa?” Nature from Scientific American (November 30, 2011): doi: 10.1038/nature.2011.9520.

2. Brian J. Morris et al., “The Strong Protective Effect of Circumcision against Cancer of the Penis,” Advances in Urology (2011): Article ID 812368, doi: 10.1155/2011/812368.

3. 3. Salynn Boyles, “Male Circumcision Cuts Women’s Cervical Cancer Risk,” WebMD (January 6, 2011).

4. S. I. McMillen, None of These Diseases, revised, updated, and expanded edition, ed., David E. Stern (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1984).

Dr. Rana has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and he's the vice president of research and apologetics at Reasons To Believe. Click here to listen to his recent appearance on SBE.

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Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and author of The Change Manifesto. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

John W. Whitehead's weekly commentaries are available for publication to newspapers and web publications at no charge. Please contact marketing@rutherford.org to obtain reprint permission.

“Mardi Gras” is French for “Fat Tuesday.” The Anglicans call it “Shrove Tuesday” and celebrate by eating pancakes. I wondered if “shrove” was Anglican for “fat.” Pancakes make you fat; just look at the church’s founder, King Henry VIII. But when I looked up “shrove” in the dictionary, it said it meant “the past participle of “shrive.” Oh, right; how could I forget? Okay, so then I looked up “shrive,” which means to confess and be absolved of guilt. So there it is: pancakes eaten on Shrove Tuesday have been absolved of calories. Everybody wins.

My husband and I have attended an Episcopal church for four years. We had aged out of the hipster church model and needed something less prone to celebrity pastor flameouts. I grew up Lutheran, so the liturgy feels grounding to me. Of course it has its annoyances. One Sunday the choir sang a tortuously dull hymn whose sole value was that marked the 14th Sunday after Pentecost. I actually longed for a Chris Tomlin rock anthem. But I do love the liturgy, and I’ve come to appreciate the church calendar. And my favorite church season is Lent, which continues through Holy Week and ends on Easter Sunday. You can read last year’s post on Holy Week here.

I started observing Lent a few years ago when I sensed God asking me to give up one specific thing: Driving While Righteous. Hey, I live in Los Angeles, a city crowded with überrich primadonnas and the angry blue-collars who take out their trash. I’ve watched BMW’s plow through red lights and use the emergency shoulder to get a single car length ahead. I’ve been the object of road rage for driving the speed limit in the slow lane. I fantasize about shooting out their tires. Driving While Righteous has been on my Lenten abstinence list for six years running. I’m not learning the lesson very well.

This will be the second Lent that I’m giving up Facebook and Twitter. This one is actually a blessed relief. There’s too much pressure having to “like” someone’s band or hide one political extremist friend from another. Besides, I waste far too much time on those sites – time I could spend praying, writing, or dealing with my righteous indignation before I get behind the wheel.

Before you dismiss abstaining from social media, think about the amount of spiritual energy generated around the globe from the simple act of prayer. Visualize it as a huge, electrical grid connecting the world with light and heat of the Holy Spirit. Now, visualize Mark Zuckerberg in his black hoodie, throwing the switch and causing a global spiritual brown-out. We can even monetize that energy drain: Facebook’s impending IPO could net over a hundred billion dollars. A hundred. Billion. Dollars.

Imagine what God could do with a hundred billion dollars worth of our prayers.

I headed to Ash Wednesday service, already gearing up for my social media blackout. But Reverend Anne said something that got my attention: Lent is not a self-help program. It’s a crash course in getting real with God.

One: why do we have ashes imposed on our forehead? To remind us of the truth we only think about when a child is born or an old person dies: we belong to God. He is who we came from, and he is to whom we will return. What shape we return in depends on what we do with all those in between years.

Two: take an inventory. What is that one sin you have a hard time giving up? I knew what mine was: entitlement. I did all this awesome stuff for God, so why didn’t he bless me, the way he’d blessed everyone within my arms length? Why couldn’t he bless me with the chance to make a living at the thing I’m best at doing? I didn’t want to go out and buy a BMW with a machine gun mounted on it. I wanted to adopt a boy from Ethiopia. How can these be extravagant dreams?

“Or maybe it isn’t a sin,” Reverend Anne continued. “Maybe it’s a deep wound in your soul that is so enormous you cannot let anyone near it, least of all God.”

Bullseye. I knew exactly what it was. It was the wound that regularly shows up in my dreams, in the hours I cannot sleep, and in the dread I feel at the first hint of waking. It is that deep sorrow over a lifelong dream that God seems to have kept out of my reach. It leaves me feeling unblessed, uncherished, unloved by God. My reaction in my dreams is always the same: rage and grief that destroys everything and everyone. My reaction when I wake up is the same, too: get coffee, turn on the computer and cover it up, with productivity, busywork, facebook or amazon.

An actor friend I talk to about three times a year emailed me last week. He had been praying that morning and God gave him a word about me. The gist was, there’s something you’re afraid to do, but God wants you to do wholeheartedly. I knew what it was: a creative project I’ve been procrastinating on, for fear that God will refuse to bless it, my lifelong dream will die and I will have to become a legal secretary. This is the wound that is so overwhelming I won’t let God near it.

And you know, God doesn’t have to bless it, does he? How many of us want good things: to be married, or to have children, or to adopt a particular boy in Ethiopia, or get out of debt, or (insert that longing you have here). How many of us have done as much as we can and we live on the edge of having our hearts utterly shattered?

It has been five days since Ash Wednesday. Every day I have woken up to that dread, got my cup of coffee, and opened not my computer but a blank journal. The journal is filled with anger and tears. The first two days I was so angry I didn’t wait to hear what God had to say in reply. And I don’t know if he will. The upside is, I’ve been getting work done on that project I’ve been putting off.

This Lent is going to be difficult for me. It’s going to be about opening the wound my hard heart is so sure God does not care enough to heal. But what other choice do I have? What choice do any of us have? Sometimes you get to a place in your life where you can no longer NOT do that thing you know you were supposed to do. Even if you die trying.

It’s going to be a long forty days. I pray I’m not the same person come Easter morning.

Susan Isaacs is a writer, actor, and comedienne with TV and film credits including Planes Trains & Automobiles, Scrooged, Seinfeld, The Drew Carey Show, My Name Is Earl and more. She is an alumnus of The Groundlings Sunday Company and the author of Angry Conversations With God: A Snarky But Authentic Spiritual Memoir.

Click here to listen to Susan's most recent appearance on SBE.

Now we have another hotly-debated court case about prayer in our schools in the headlines. Jessica Ahlquist, an atheist high school student in Rhode Island, was recently part of a successful lawsuit to remove a longstanding printed prayer on the wall of her school auditorium. The response to Jessica has been nothing short of amazing. She has been threatened on-line and ostracized at school. She has stood before angry crowds of parents who have attacked her for her public stand. It has gotten so bad that Jessica needs police protection at school.

What should Christians think and do about this situation?

First, it would help if we had a much better grasp of the legal and Constitutional issues. Jessica is arguing for freedom of religion from the state, but in a way that appears to many to be an attack on religion. In fact I think the decision underscores the protection that our state gives to all religious expression. As we become even more religiously diverse I believe this reality will be more important to serious Christians. Let me explain.

What is being challenged here? A prayer posted on a wall asking for mental and physical growth, for kindness and good sportsmanship and for students to bring credit to their high school. It is, in simple terms, a rather innocuous prayer. It is not, to put this plainly, a deeply Christian, Christ-centered expression of faithful belief and practice. It is an expression of civil religion. It is a relic of our culture, a culture that is rapidly changing.

Do we believe that it is the role of the state to be the custodian of our faith in some public way? If you want to trace this argument go back to Emperor Constantine, where Christianity was granted official state protection and wedded to the state in a manner that gave it preference over Roman deities. The results of this marriage have been, at best, very mixed. Religious wars and major shifts in cultures have resulted from this arrangement. In America we separated church and state, primarily to protect the church from the state. Over the course of 225-plus years we have been working out what this actually looks like in a society that was predominantly Christian, at least in a cultural sense. When the state sponsors or supports any expression of faith, Christian or otherwise, what we get is civil relgion. Why do we fight so hard to protect this form of civil religion when the clear facts are that it is not working as it once did? Further, is civil religion really the friend of vibrant, prophetic, radical discipleship in public? I think not.

But the more intriguing question in the Jessica Ahlquist story is what Christians are actually doing, or not doing, in regards to this student? Those who are attacking this girl call themselves Christians. (The town is heavily Roman Catholic.) As these citizens embrace their expression of civil religion they show just how meaningless and misguided this approach is by their daily actions.

Think about this for a minute. If the parents and students at this school want to defend biblical Christianity they should pour out true love for Jessica. They should stand by her in this very difficult time. Yet this girl needs police protection. She is not even able to receive flowers from well-wishers who have tried to send them to her from local florists. Jessica is a neighbor but she has been turned into an enemy. Nothing could be further from the clear commands of Jesus.

What is being confirmed in the minds of millions who watch this story unfold? I believe many will draw the conclusion that Christianity is about power and getting our way. Rather than being about love for neighbor it is really about meaningless, divisive speech, a form of speech that further reduces the church's power to spread the good news. Through the actions of people in Rhode Island, and far beyond, multitudes show that faith is more about a prayer on a school wall than about a suffering girl who is threatened and vilified.

In microcosm this story reflects what is going on in our culture. Civil religion is still very strong, make no mistake about that. But brick-by-brick this cultural house is coming down. It seems to me that we have several ways we can respond. One is to fight these battles through protest and partisan political struggles. (Christians invest millions of hours and dollars in these efforts!) Another response is to work for a new public square where all religions have their place. In this context Christians can use this puiblic square to openly witness to the love of Christ through words and actions that are consistent with a robust missional faith. We can even share the gospel. This is what my son's mission, Crossroads Kids Club, is doing inside public school buildings every week. (Most Christians protest taking a prayer off the wall of the school yet they care very little about sharing the story of Christ's love with the kids inside the schools when you actually show them that it is both legal and easy for a local church to do!)

So which will it be? Will we accept what has happened to civil religion and adjust to this new reality of a plurality of faiths in America? Will we go inward and be silent or simply protest these decisions of the courts? Or will we love the Jessica Alhquists of the world and show them how much God actually loves them through our words and actions? Will we actually adopt a missional mindset that is in line with what Jesus taught and use the freedom of religion that we still have in this great country to make disciples of Jesus?

John H. Armstrong is founder and president of ACT 3, a ministry for the advancement of the Christian Tradition in the third millennium. He is a former pastor and church-planter, of more than twenty years, the author/editor of eight books, and the author of hundreds of magazine, journal, and Web based articles. John has served as the editor-in-chief of ACT 3 Review: A Journal for Faith, Church and Culture since its origin in 1992. But most importantly, he is our go-to professional religionist.

It’s always a good idea to settle problems by going to Jesus. Certainly Jesus had something to say about the kinds of music that we utilize in church worship, even if He did not speak to it directly. In Matthew 13:52, we read that Jesus said, “The kingdom of Heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure chest things new and things old.” There you have it! There has to be room for the new music, and there has to be room for the old music, too. Any worship service that is all the new stuff is not the kingdom of God. Any worship service that is all the old stuff is not the kingdom of God. There needs to be balance between the two if it’s to be representative of the kingdom that Jesus wills for us to enjoy.

Some churches have tried to settle this conflict by having two different services—one which uses contemporary worship music and one where the music is traditional. The problem with this is that it tends to create two separate congregations with two different perspectives on the faith. Music does condition the way in which we understand our Christianity and the way we live it out. I, personally, would like to see in each church a blended service that makes room for both the old and the new, so that those who relate to contemporary worship music will feel an opportunity to express themselves and those older folks (and it’s usually the older folks) who want the traditional hymns will find that there is a place in the worship service for their music as well.

Jesus had it right and we should follow His suggestion and evidence something of the kingdom of God by having both the old and the new when we gather together as a body of believers for worship.

Tony Campolo joins us regularly on Steve Brown Etc. He's professor emeritus at Eastern University and the founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, an organization that develops schools and social programs in various third world countries and in cities across North America. He's the author of over 35 books, blogs regularly at his website, redletterchristians.org, and can also be found on both Facebook and Twitter

But most importantly, Tony is Our Favorite Lib. Click here for Tony's latest appearance on Steve Brown Etc.

I think someone may have had a journalistic epiphany on the whole Health and Human Services thing.

But before we go there, stop and, for a moment, join me in contemplating the following journalism puzzle.

The Obama administration's new HHS regulations — click here for a sample of GetReligion coverage — continue to cause an electric buzz here inside the Beltway. At the moment, people continue to focus on the Catholic angle of this story.

That's logical. I get that. I mean, why would a Democratic candidate want to tick off Pope Benedict XVI in what will almost certainly be a tense election year?

Keep thinking. If this battle over the HHS rules is merely a "Catholic" story, it's logical to think that it is essentially a story about birth control. This logic has been leading reporters to another semi-logical conclusion. They're thinking: Most Catholics use birth control. Thus, most Catholics are not going to care about the HHS rules. The pope and the bishops are all just blowing smoke and this story is no big deal — other than to a few crazy Catholics (none in the typical newsroom, naturally) who actually care about church doctrines about sexuality.

However, if this is simply a story about birth control, logical journalists will need to figure out why so many liberal Catholics are currently so upset with the White House for picking this fight at this moment in time.

This leads us to the fact that U.S. bishops and the pope see this as a battle over issues much bigger than birth control. They see these rules as a direct attack on the religious liberty of Catholics and other believers. They see this as a First Amendment story in which the government is forcing religious groups — the institutions, not individual believers — to commit or fund acts that are sinful and evil, according to the doctrines proclaimed by these religious groups.

Seen from this angle, the ruling on birth control is simply the point on a much larger spear. The next thing you know, the U.S. Justice Department will be trying to get involved in decisions about who is hired and fired by religious groups. Wait a minute. That sounds familiar.

Please hear me say that there is no way to cover this story without hitting the birth-control angle and hitting it hard. However, there is no accurate, balanced way to handle this story without covering the larger religious-liberty angle, as well.

I also know that the potential impact of the HHS rules IS HUGE when you look at the Catholic numbers. What percentage of the nation's health care (especially for the poor) is provided by institutions with Catholic roots or ties? Then there is the fact that the nation contains nearly 250 allegedly Catholic colleges and universities. This is big stuff, folks.

The big question for journalists is this: Which angle frames the story? Which drives the coverage?

So stop and think. If this is primarily a story about birth control, then it's safe to say that only pro-Vatican Catholics will be screaming bloody murder these days. But that isn't the case, is it? Instead, leaders in a wide variety of religious groups are mad as hades, because they see the larger legal picture. They are asking: Is America a place in which people have freedom of worship or freedom of religion?

Finally, I think that we have a national-level story that has found a way to frame this story accurately.

Here is the top of religion-beat veteran Rachel Zoll's report for the Associated Press:

The Obama administration's decision requiring church-affiliated employers to cover birth control was bound to cause an uproar among Roman Catholics and members of other faiths, no matter their beliefs on contraception.

The regulation, finalized a week ago, raises a complex and sensitive legal question: Which institutions qualify as religious and can be exempt from the mandate?

For a church, mosque or synagogue, the answer is mostly straightforward. But for the massive network of religious-run social service agencies there is no simple solution. Federal law lays out several criteria for the government to determine which are religious. But in the case of the contraception mandate, critics say Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius chose the narrowest ones. Religious groups that oppose the regulation say it forces people of faith to choose between upholding church doctrine and serving the broader society.

"It's not about preventing women from buying anything themselves, but telling the church what it has to buy, and the potential for that to go further," said Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, representing some 600 hospitals.

Keehan's support for the passage of the Obama health care overhaul was critical in the face of intense opposition by the U.S. bishops. She now says the narrowness of the religious exemption in the birth control mandate "has jolted us." She pledged to use a one-year grace period the administration has provided to "pursue a correction."

I am bringing all of this up, again, for a logical reason (or two).

For starters, it will not surprise regular listeners of our "Crossroads" podcast that this issue was the subject of this week's discussion. You can find it at iTunes or simply click here to listen online. However, the main reason we talked this through — again — is that this story is not going away. Instead, it's taking on a life of its own on op-ed pages and in news reports (and not just because GOP types think it's a nice reason to wound the White House).

Oh, we also spent a few minutes discussing that whole GetReligion turns eight thing.

Enjoy the podcast.

Professor Terry Mattingly writes the nationally syndicated On Religion column for the Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C., which is sent to about 350 newspapers in North America. He's also a regular contributor at GetReligion.org and the author of the book Pop Goes Religion: Faith in Popular Culture.

I don’t make new year’s resolutions anymore. After decades of broken promises and disappointed efforts, I started picking a new year’s word to remember and operate from for 12 months. I’ve had some interesting words since starting this, but I never make the conscious choice–the word always comes to me.

One year I was surprised by the word “Genesis.” I saw the theme of “beginning” played out throughout that year in countless ways, and because I was tuned in to the concept, I found a lot of connections that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

This year my word was slow to emerge, but when it did, I was flabbergasted.

Embrace.

Uh, really?? I questioned the air. Embrace is kind of a lame old-fashioned way of saying “hug” — right? After going through my local dictionary, I found the usual meaning I had expected: to hold or clasp with the arms in affection. I also found some other definitions, but nothing that really stood out as important enough to be my New Year’s word.

Then I heard the still small voice.

“embrace your life”

I started to feel uncomfortable. There is much that is hanging out beyond my reach; dark and scary and pushed away out of my own necessity. It is some of the ugly stuff of life; certainly terrifying, and definitely not embraceable.

I spend a lot of time wishing I was someone else. I wonder what a different existence would look like; what I could be if I had pursued more of my dreams.

“embrace your journey”

My journey?? Well, I have no more journey, I protested. It was chronicled in a book, and then left there.

I knew this was not true. I know that much of my journey has continued after Stumbling Toward Faith. It’s just that I’m afraid of angering people or discouraging people — the journey I’ve been on could be considered heretical or blasphemous.

I worry about that. I worry about people reading my book, and then freezing me as that same person. It’s been eight years since it was written. Things do change, and our journeys do continue.

“embrace yourself”

I snorted. I am often disrespectful and unkind to myself. Care for myself is difficult; why would affection be any easier?

“embrace the now”

This is when I started thinking that this word was doable. I have been studying mindfulness and attending to the present for several years, and I’ve become rather good at it. I am able to stop a situation in the midst of itself, reflect on how/what I can do, and often talk myself through any existing anxiety or frustration. I’m not perfect, and too many times I find that I choose to engage in the negative things rather than momentarily step outside of them.

But dealing with a moment at a time (or even a day) is a good way of being aware–aware to your own self, and to others.

It’s been only a month since the word embrace came to me, but I am discovering chances to live differently as a result. I am a fighter–I am stubborn–and don’t give in easily. Sometimes, trying to embrace feels unbelievably selfish. Sometimes “the now” is so screwed up I can’t even choose it through my feelings of overwhelm, anger, and despair. I grew up learning that I had to push things away in order to survive. I had to fragment things, make divisions; do anything I could just to keep going.

Now I am trying to live at the other end of the spectrum. Now I am acknowledging that there is another way to live, and that this kind of life includes coming close to things I’d rather push away. It’s connective, this embracing, and it involves ruthless trust.

Renée Altson is the author of Stumbling Toward Faith, a photographer, and a web developer. She lives with her husband, daughter, and 2 cats in Southern California. Click here to listen to Renée on Steve Brown Etc.

Oh, the years I spent in spiritual anguish because I'd been taught that I had to earn then keep The Love.

Then the light went on by some Mysterious Hand and revealed to me that there was nothing to be earned. Nothing to be kept. I couldn't be loved any more than I already was.

Love is All.

(Ps: You can check out all my art and cartoons for sale HERE.)

nakedpastor is David Hayward. David is an artist, cartoonist and writer. Go to nakedpastor.com for more cartoons, blog posts, art and insight from a former pastor who's stark naked honest about church life.

This question has become more poignant in the last few years as biochemists, molecular biologists, and origin-of-life researchers make significant strides in their quest to create life in the lab. Attempts to produce artificial life fall under the purview of a new discipline called synthetic biology, a fusion of engineering and the life sciences.

One of synthetic biology’s goals is the design and manufacture of nonnatural life-forms—man-made constructs—unlike anything found in nature. Typically, those interested in creating these artificial organisms focus on engineering novel microbes (bacteria, yeast, etc.) or producing protocells, chemical supersystems that assume many, if not all, of the properties of life.

Among other benefits, these man-made life-forms could potentially provide huge technological advantages. Researchers envision synthetic microbes and protocells as bioreactors that could use inexpensive raw materials and solar energy to generate extremely valuable materials, like biomedicines, vaccines, biofuels, bioplastics, etc. These novel life-forms could also be used to clean up contaminants from the environment and find use in agricultural applications.

Despite such exciting possibilities, the creation of artificial life raises questions, some of a practical nature and others of a more philosophical and theological orientation.

- Will the creation of synthetic life-forms eliminate the need for a Creator? Will synthetic biology make it all the more reasonable to think that life emerged via chemical evolution?

- Is this type of work safe? If artificial cells “leak” from the lab will they cause a disaster of “biblical” proportions?

- Is it ethical to create artificial life?

- Are researchers “playing God”?

I find that many Christians summarily condemn this type of research without thoughtful deliberation. Others simply ignore it, as if by not paying attention to the work, it will “go away.” They bank on the notion that scientists won’t really be able to accomplish their goals. But, as I discuss in my book Creating Life in the Lab, it is just a matter of time before scientists achieve success. In fact, I anticipate that in the next decade researchers will succeed in creating a variety of forms of artificial life, using a number of different approaches.

Whether we like it or not, scientists will create life in the lab. Christians need to wrestle with the questions posed by this endeavor and be a part of the process. Most importantly, we need to develop a framework to help us think through these issues—we need a theology for synthetic biology.

Before I propose such a theology, I would like to address several questions that people typically ask about synthetic biology. My responses serve as an introduction to this new discipline and provide a status report of progress to date.

Can scientists really create life in the lab?

This question comes up whenever I talk about advances in synthetic biology. Many Christians and non-Christians, alike, are skeptical about scientists’ ability to create even the simplest life. In part, this skepticism is fueled by the increasing recognition that even in its most minimal form, life displays astounding complexity.1 Many wonder how scientists could ever replicate such intricacy and elegance?

This is not an unreasonable question. But the fact remains that scientists understand enough about how life’s structure and basic level functions to parlay that insight into genuine advances in synthetic biology.

What have synthetic biologists actually accomplished?

When scientists try to create life in the lab, they employ one of two approaches: the top-down or bottom-up. The top-down strategy involves re-engineering existing microbes (sometimes in radical ways) to generate artificial life. The bottom-up approach focuses on combining relatively simple chemicals into increasingly complex super-chemical systems that assume the properties common to life on Earth.

To date, the greatest progress toward creating artificial life is due to the top-down approach. However, researchers working with the bottom-up method have also made significant advances.2 In the next decade, I believe researchers employing both approaches will have success in making artificial cells and life-like protocells, respectively.

Does the creation of life in the lab eliminate the need for a Creator?

Many Christians view the attempt to create life in the lab as a thoroughly atheistic endeavor. This is because many synthetic biologists and origin-of-life researchers assert that if we can make life in the lab, it will mean life is not special. According to this view, life is merely a physicochemical system. Therefore, we can, in principle, replicate this chemistry and physics in the lab. If this is the case, then a Creator is not needed to explain life’s genesis. Without the need for a Creator, it makes it all the more likely that life emerged on early Earth (or elsewhere) via chemical evolutionary processes.

However, as I demonstrate in Creating Life in the Lab, work in synthetic biology, whether from the bottom-up or top-down, actually leads to the opposite conclusion.

Whether it’s on early Earth or in the lab, life cannot come from non-life or be significantly transformed from one form into another without the direct involvement of intelligent agency. The generation of artificial cells and protocells requires the work of highly trained scientists who rely on several hundred years of scientific advance. In the process, these researchers develop sophisticated strategies and elaborate protocols. These steps are executed carefully in the laboratory, in many instances, with highly sophisticated laboratory instrumentation. In other words, artificial life is intelligently designed.3

The Christian faith has nothing to fear from advances in synthetic biology. God is more necessary than ever before in order to explain the origin of life. But should human beings engage in the creation of artificial life at all? Is it safe? If it is safe, is this an activity that Christians should support? Should we play God?

The scriptural basis for a theology of synthetic biology

I maintain that Genesis 1:26–31 is the most relevant biblical text for a theology of synthetic biology. This familiar passage teaches, first and foremost, that human beings were made in God’s image. The Bible never defines what the image of God entails, but it is clear from Genesis 1 (as well as Genesis 2:19–20 and Psalm 8) that this quality distinguishes humans from the animals.

Because we are image-bearers, God granted us authority (dominion) over the Earth. This gift comes with responsibility. God commanded humans to multiply and fill the Earth so His image covers the entire surface of the planet. He also instructs us to subdue the Earth and tame the wild creation (at the same time, we receive provision from the creation under our control). Finally, God commands us to care for the planet so that all life may benefit. All of these tasks bring glory to the Creator. Because God endowed us with His image, we are able to serve as His viceroys among creation.

Exerting dominion over creation—in the lab

In my view, the attempts to create artificial life can be seen as human beings exerting legitimate dominion over the creation. Conceptually, creating artificial cells and protocells is no different than domesticating plants and animals.

Throughout history, humans have used selective breeding practices to create new plant and animal species—nonnatural, “artificial” organisms with desirable properties that we have exploited for our benefit. Evidently, the Creator has no problem with farming and animal husbandry. Instead of condemning Cain and Abel for cultivating “fruit from the soil” and raising flocks, the Lord implicitly endorsed their activities and even expected a first-fruits offerings from both brothers (Genesis 4:2–5).

With synthetic biology, sophisticated methods of genetic and biochemical engineering replace the cumbersome and crude practices associated with domestication. Still, the outcome (or potential outcome) is the same: human-engineered life-forms with benefit for humanity.

Synthetic biology’s benefits

The creation of artificial life will be a boon for humanity in many ways. In the life sciences, it will help shed light onto life’s fundamental structures and processes and will also provide insight into the very nature of life itself. Synthetic biology will even help scientists define what life is. With this insight, life’s elegant design will become increasingly evident and highlight the Creator’s majesty and glory.

The ability to create novel, nonnatural life-forms from scratch and redesign and re-engineer existing microbes could also represent a revolution in technology. Artificial life-forms will have industrial applications and uses in agriculture and biomedicine that, at this juncture, seem limitless. From a Christian perspective, there is every reason to desire these types of technological advances. It is possible that artificial microbes could produce renewable sources of clean energy. Such advancements would help us to carry out the mandate to care for creation.

Furthermore, the possibility of biomedical advances via artificial life provides the means to “love our neighbors as ourselves” by continuing to strive for better treatments for disease and injuries. Artificial microbes will play a role in finding new treatments and possible cures for sicknesses that, as of now, can’t be effectively treated.

In other words, there are many good reasons for Christians to be excited about the advances that will result from synthetic biology. It would be wise to support efforts to create artificial life—yet there are still legitimate concerns over synthetic biology that need addressing.

Is synthetic biology safe?

When people think of scientists creating life in the lab, images of Frankenstein’s monster likely come to mind. Will scientists make organisms that “turn on their creators”? Will these artificial organisms run amok, causing a disaster of biblical proportions?

On the surface, these are not unreasonable concerns. However, at this point, work in synthetic biology is safe. Furthermore, there is no reason why advances in this field should ever pose a genuine threat to safety.

The protocells developed to date are fragile, metastable systems that cannot survive long even under the most optimal laboratory conditions. As they learn how to develop more robust systems, researchers could potentially design these systems in such a way that they can thrive under controlled conditions, but not outside the lab.

Likewise, the artificial microbes that Dr. Craig Venter and his collaborators are attempting to create from the top-down pose no safety hazard. These cells will be based on the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium, an obligatory parasite incapable of surviving apart from its host. If the genes critical for mediating the host-parasite interaction are removed from M. Genitalium’s genome, then it will not survive outside the manufacturing facility.

The scientific community has a very good track record when it comes to regulating its activity, at least in these types of disciplines. Genetic engineering and recombinant DNA technology were synthetic biology’s forerunners. After some early success in recombinant DNA research, scientists voluntarily placed a moratorium on this work until safety protocols and other guiding principles could be established. (These guidelines and regulations were developed at the Asilomar Conference in 1975, organized by Paul Berg, a pioneer in recombinant DNA technology.) Scientists willingly adhere to these guidelines. To my knowledge, no significant incident involving recombinant DNA technology has occurred over the last 35 years or so.

There is no reason why something like the Asilomar Conference guidelines couldn’t be developed for artificial cells and protocells. With effective regulations in place, work in synthetic biology can be carried out in a safe manner.

Should scientists “play God”?

Christians’ concerns over synthetic biology extend far beyond ethical and safety considerations. They are worried that scientists are trying to usurp God’s role.

From my perspective, however, as human beings we have no choice but to play God—because we are made in His image. Whenever we create, design, invent, etc., we are manifesting the image of God. And we are also mimicking the Creator, albeit imperfectly.

If God is the Creator of life, then it is just a matter of time before we try to create life as well. Our ability to even attempt to create artificial life stems from the image of God. And if our desire is to use synthetic biology to take better care of the planet, to use resources more wisely, to help the sick, to improve the quality of life for people all over the world, then I maintain that there is nothing wrong with playing God.

The problem is not in playing God. The problem occurs when we try to usurp God’s authority. This was the sin committed at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–8). As I understand it, the construction of a tower reaching to the heavens, in and of itself, was not the problem. It was the motivation behind it. The builders desired to be like God, to take His place.

Unfortunately, this is the attitude of some—not all—of the scientists who work in synthetic biology. They see their work as pounding another nail in God’s coffin. This arrogance is the reason why Christians need to engage synthetic biology. This is why Christians in science need to become active in this field. If we don’t, we will have capitulated this very important technology into secular hands.

Endnotes:

1. See these articles for more details on life’s complexity: “Biochemists Ask, ‘How Low Can Life Go?’”, “More Complex than Imagined, Part 1 (of 2),” and “More Complex than Imagined, Part 2 (of 2).”

2. Here are two articles that give a good sense of the progress in the quest to make artificial cells: “The Celebrity of Artificial Life” and “Artificial Life: Ready or Not Here It Comes.”

3. See note 2 for articles in support of this conclusion.

Dr. Rana has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and he's the vice president of research and apologetics at Reasons To Believe. Click here to listen to his recent appearance on SBE.

It was a year of populist uprisings, economic downturns, political assassinations, and one scandal after another. But as I point out in this week’s vodcast, on the civil liberties front, things were particularly grim.

(If you're on the front page of the site, click the title of this post to see the video player.)

Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and author of The Change Manifesto. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

John W. Whitehead's weekly commentaries are available for publication to newspapers and web publications at no charge. Please contact marketing@rutherford.org to obtain reprint permission.

Having acknowledged this real problem towards being trendy I retain a deep and growing concern that churches (in general) have very little idea about how much the shifts in values and religious practices have impacted the mission field that we call the United States of America. There can be no serious doubt that the religious makeup of our population is shifting very rapidly. And there can be no serious doubt that most Christians understand very little about what these trends actually mean for the future of mission in America. One of the core values of a missional church is that the whole church will seek to incarnate the whole gospel in ways that serve the people who are their neighbors. The church does not so much do mission as the church IS mission. For this to happen we need to equip people to exegete culture. And this requires us to teach some basic principles of contextualization. I am not suggesting that we need to teach academic courses on mission to the congregation, as I studied such issues in doing a degree in mission in 1973. But I am suggesting that we need to teach people who their neighbors really are and how they really live and think. We do this when people go to a far away land as missionaries but we forget that the same is increasingly needed in America. I was reminded of this by two recent Barna Research Reports about changes in American religious views and practice.

In a November 3 report Barna noted that 15% of Americans say their experiences with religion have caused them to question God, a sentiment most common among 20-somethings, college grads, unmarried adults, non-Christians, and unchurched adults. Similarly, 16% of Americans have been hurt by experiences in churches. This perception is most common among women, Boomers, and divorced adults. This report does not surprise me since I've noticed this through my own ministry over the past five years.

In a November 19 Barna report we learn that 1 in 9 young people who grow up with a Christian background loses their faith in Christianity. 4 in 10 become nomads and wander away from the institutional church. They still call themselves Christians but are far less active in church than they were during high school. Another 2 in 10 young Christians feel lost between the "church culture" and the society they feel called to influence. "I want to be a Christian without separating myself from the world around me" typifies this group. Only about 3 in 10 young people who grow up with a Christian background stay faithful to church and to faith throughout their transitions from the teen years through their twenties. Read that again. Only 3 in 10 young people who grow up in Christian homes stay faithful to the church through the transition years between their teens and twenties, thus our failure to truly disciple our own young people is very evident. Will churches consider these extremely important facts in their plans for ministry to teens and young adults?

John H. Armstrong is founder and president of ACT 3, a ministry for the advancement of the Christian Tradition in the third millennium. He is a former pastor and church-planter, of more than twenty years, the author/editor of eight books, and the author of hundreds of magazine, journal, and Web based articles. John has served as the editor-in-chief of ACT 3 Review: A Journal for Faith, Church and Culture since its origin in 1992. But most importantly, he is our go-to professional religionist.

At this seminar, I found that there were bright and gracious people from most of the major religions of our time. There was a strong representation of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. While other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism had limited representation, there were enough present that their voices could be heard.

Those at the gathering represented the voices of moderation from these various religious traditions and that was the problem. By the end of the meeting, I had the sense that we could all stand together, holding hands in a circle, and sing “Kum Ba Yah.” There was a good feeling and sense that we were all committed to encouraging a better understanding across religious lines, and also committed to finding ways to work together to create a world marked by peace and harmony, on the one hand, and an end of oppression and poverty, on the other. The unacknowledged elephant in the room was that the problem was not with the various segments of religious communities that were there represented. The problem was (and we are reluctant to talk about it) that in each of these religious traditions there are fundamentalist extremists who will settle for nothing less than the annihilation of those whom they believe to be competitors in the marketplace of religious ideas and forms of worship.

Christianity isn’t the only group that has fundamentalists. We are well aware that in every one of the religious traditions there are extremists groups and little was said as to how to establish communications with these groups so as to facilitate non-destructive modes of behavior that would leave room for deep commitments to the core beliefs of the respective faith traditions, while finding common ground wherein a unified humanity could be established. There was a failure to see that in today’s world, the voices of moderation are becoming fewer and fewer, while extremist groups are growing in size and are flexing more and more political muscle. It should be obvious to those of us who are Christians that the reality is that attendance and membership for mainline churches is in rapid decline, whereas fundamentalist churches are growing in size and significance. It is also obvious that similar tendencies are evident in other religions. It is imperative in a world in which religion is increasingly the basis of militaristic conflict that communication be established with the growing sectors of fundamentalist communities so that a dialogue that creates understanding and respect for those who differ becomes an ongoing reality.

Among the issues that were not discussed, but should have been discussed, is the fact that in several Muslim countries, such as Malaysia, interfaith dialogue has become impossible. Muslims are allowed to share their faith with Christians, but Christians are not allowed to share their faith with Muslims. If Christians dare to do this, they risk their lives. There is even the possibility of capital punishment in sharing one’s beliefs with Muslims. Little was said about what each group of moderates in that room would be able to do to diminish the extremism in their respective religions.

What is especially important is addressing the question of how religion can be enforced through political means and what can be done to create a political environment that, on the one hand, acknowledges the role of religion in society, while on the other hand does not impose one religion on the populace at the expense of all others.

It has been said that people never do evil with more enthusiasm than when they do it in the name of God. Samuel Huntington, the Harvard political scientist, predicted that unless something is done about the problem which I have cited, the 21st century will be marked by religious wars and, because of the instruments of war that are now available, will be the most deadly and ferocious of all time.

I am looking for suggestions on what we can do about extremists within our own society? They cannot be ignored. Edmund Burke once said that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. It is important that people with deep commitments to their own spiritual traditions figure out ways of connecting with the extremists within their faith orientations and get the discussion going as to what love and justice require for their religious brothers and sisters and those brothers and sisters in other traditions.

Tony Campolo joins us regularly on Steve Brown Etc. He's professor emeritus at Eastern University and the founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, an organization that develops schools and social programs in various third world countries and in cities across North America. He's the author of over 35 books, blogs regularly at his website, redletterchristians.org, and can also be found on both Facebook and Twitter

But most importantly, Tony is Our Favorite Lib. Click here for Tony's latest appearance on Steve Brown Etc.

There is a lot of faking cheer this season; people looking to fit in, people wanting to “be good,” people unable to feel what is really inside of them, people intentionally distracted by the bells and lights and ribbons and bows.

For decades, I have felt like other people minimize my pain or experience. Every time someone says one of any number of cheery bible quotes, encourages me to “think on the bright side!”, or tells me to “just snap out of it!” I internally foam at the mouth.

My fear and disgust reached a point where even if someone who knew me well, someone who cared about me and knew my story, began to suggest any kind of positive thinking or ideas of gratefulness, I was offended. I felt hurt and minimized, as if they really didn't understand anything. I would spin into a whirlwind of feeling broken and angry and upset. “You just don't get it!” I would say.

Lately, a particular person in my life has been encouraging me to think more positively. I would have flipped him out at one point, but his genuine care and kindness toward me has slowly begun to wear down my rage. He acknowledges my pain and suffering, he does not minimize it, but at the same time encourages me to look for the positives, for the light.

I never realized how angry and defensive I was against positive thinking until this past week. After a conversation, all I could do was sit in my car and seethe. I wanted to run away, to escape the pressure. But somehow my ears finally heard “It does not take away from your experiences, but it enriches your life” sentiment from someone I trusted, and who I know wants what is best for me.

My therapist couldn't say it so that I could hear it. I would sit in the chair across from him and stick my tongue out every time he tried. But he has been wearing down my resistance, also. Slowly, over time, I am learning that it can be okay to be okay. My story is not minimized by my choosing to see some light in the world. Even though many people decide to give this kind of unsolicited advice, I have people invested in my life who give it, as well. With a consistent gentleness that I am finally beginning to hear.

My spiritual exercise this advent has been to seek out the smallest goodness, to revel in it as if it were the only thing in existence, to acknowledge that there are wisps of moments where something may even bring joy. I choose to count my blessings, to imagine joy, to find the good.

As I start to name things, I realize that my internal self rebels. Everyone will think you're all better, it whispers. You won't be able to still be broken, it promises.

I try to name things anyway. I try to choose the positive. I choose to hope, even though the world inside (and outside) of me feels bereft.

Renée Altson is the author of Stumbling Toward Faith, a photographer, and a web developer. She lives with her husband, daughter, and 2 cats in Southern California. Click here to listen to Renée on Steve Brown Etc.

"It's the closest that a man will ever come to experiencing the pain of childbirth," the attending nurse proclaimed with a noticeable glee in her eyes. Her comment only added to my misery as I writhed in pain on a stretcher in the emergency room, waiting to pass a kidney stone.

Mineral deposits such as those that formed in my kidneys develop in one out of ten people during their lifetime and account for nearly ten out of every 1,000 hospital admissions.¹ Stones can result whenever a chemical imbalance occurs in the kidney. The type of stone that forms depends upon the exact nature of the chemical imbalance and reflects different etiologies (causes). Calcium oxalate stones, the most common type, result from dehydration or excess levels of oxalate in the diet. (Oxalate is found in certain vegetables, nuts, berries, chocolate, and tea. ²) Sodium urate stones, a second type, are caused by an inborn error in metabolism that leads to excessive production of uric acid.³

Uric acid is the breakdown product of adenine and guanine (key components of DNA and RNA). As a normal metabolic activity, the cell turns over biomolecules-continually replacing "older" molecules with newly synthesized ones, thereby maintaining structural and functional integrity. The cell recycles most of the adenine and guanine generated from the breakdown of nucleotides (the building blocks of DNA and RNA) through what biochemists call the salvage pathways. Still, the cell targets a significant portion of adenine and guanine for breakdown and secretion in the form of uric acid.⁴

Uric acid possesses low solubility in blood serum, causing it to readily precipitate into the urinary tract if the body dehydrates or generates an excessive amount of the product (which can occur if the enzymes of the salvage pathway are defective).⁵

Except for primates, including human beings, all mammals further metabolize uric acid to a more soluble derivative. Evolutionary biologists suggest that the enzymes responsible for this transformation were lost in the evolutionary process that gave rise to primates (and humans).⁶ For these scientists, the elimination of adenine and guanine in the form of uric acid argues potently for evolution, since it appears to reflect poor design.⁷ Why would an all-powerful and all-knowing Creator put into place an imperfect biochemical process that leaves human beings so susceptible to kidney stones (and other disorders, like gout)? Evolutionists would maintain that the adenine and guanine elimination pathways represent nothing more than an evolutionary "kluge" job, an imperfection that barely gets the job done-not a Creator's perfect handiwork.

This perspective fails to consider, however, uric acid's full range of metabolic properties, some of which are beneficial. This compound is a potent antioxidant that scavenges the chemically corrosive hydroxyl free radical, singlet oxygen, and superoxide anion, all produced by the metabolic pathways that the cell uses to harvest chemical energy.⁸ The high levels of uric acid in the blood serum, though precariously poised to form stones in the urinary tract, also help prevent cancer and contribute to long human life spans. For other mammals, the conversion of uric acid to more soluble forms before elimination deprives them of a key antioxidant and limits their life spans.

When considered more broadly, it turns out that the primate adenine and guanine elimination pathways reflect an elegant, rather than a poor, design that finds an important use for a waste product. Though inborn metabolic error in the salvage pathway enzymes accounts for the less-common type of kidney stone, the more-common type is largely preventable by a balanced diet-which seems a small price to pay for cancer prevention and long life spans.

When the pain-killers finally took effect and I'd had a chance to research and reflect on what happened to me, I was able to muster thanks to God for kidney stones. But I don't think anyone will want me to share my story at the Thanksgiving dinner table this year.

References

1. http://www.yourmedicalsource.com/library/kidneystones/KS_whatis.html
2. http://www.urologychannel.com/kidneystones/index.shtml
3. Lubert Stryer, Biochemistry, 3d ed. (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1988), 619-22.
4. Stryer, 619-22.
5. http://www.urologychannel.com/kidneystones/index/shtml, accessed March 11, 2003.
6. Stryer, 619-22.
7. Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1980), 19-26.
8. Stryer, 619-22.

Dr. Rana has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and he's the vice president of research and apologetics at Reasons To Believe. Click here to listen to his recent appearance on SBE.

(If you're on the front page of the site, click the title of this post to see the video player.)

Time will tell whether the Occupy protests amount to anything more than an expression of discontent on the part of the 99%. However, as I point out in this week's vodcast, what has been made clear, is that the 1% is protected by its own security force—the police—funded ironically enough by the very 99% against whom they are waging war with pepper spray, rubber bullets, tear gas and other instruments of compliance.

Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and author of The Change Manifesto. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

John W. Whitehead's weekly commentaries are available for publication to newspapers and web publications at no charge. Please contact marketing@rutherford.org to obtain reprint permission.

An extremely important part of Christian faith is the hope of triumph over death. It is common to most people, even in other religions and systems, to believe that they will live again after this life is over. There is no evidence that any other creature has such a belief or practice as humans. But what must be continually kept in mind is that there is all the difference in the world between a hope that has reasonable grounds and a hope that is a simply wishful thought. J. B. Phillips said, “In plain sober fact, our hope of passing through death to share in God’s eternal life rests upon Christ’s own demonstration with the enemy, his rising from the dead. It is the crux of the Christian faith.” If Christ was not raised then all his claims are false or irrelevant.

Sooner or later you have to make up your mind. Do you accept as sober historical fact the resurrection of Jesus from the dead? If you think at all you will soon realize there is little basis for your own life after death, and certainly for your own resurrection and the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21 – 22:4), unless Jesus was truly raised as claimed by the early disciples.

What launched the Christian Church into the ancient world? When I stood in an ancient second century church meeting place in Rome, back in March, I realized in a wholly different and powerful way that these believers gathered in this spot, over the remains of the cult of Mithraism, precisely because they believed Jesus was alive and still with them by the Spirit as he had promised.

John H. Armstrong is founder and president of ACT 3, a ministry for the advancement of the Christian Tradition in the third millennium. He is a former pastor and church-planter, of more than twenty years, the author/editor of eight books, and the author of hundreds of magazine, journal, and Web based articles. John has served as the editor-in-chief of ACT 3 Review: A Journal for Faith, Church and Culture since its origin in 1992. But most importantly, he is our go-to professional religionist.

In Revelation 3, the Lord speaks and refers to those in the church at Laodicea as being neither cold nor hot, but instead so lukewarm that He says, “I will spew thee out of my mouth.” The prophecy preachers not only see the verses about Laodicea in Revelation 3 as referring to a church in the first century, but also see Laodicea as representing the last stage of history prior to the Second Coming.

They point to verse 17 and its reference to the growing materialism that causes people to turn away from God and feel that they are in need of nothing, when in reality, they are “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” In summation, there is a consensus among Evangelicals that the world is getting worse and worse and worse until it gets so bad that the trumpet will have to sound and Jesus will then, out of necessity, bring this perverse and disintegrating world to an end with His Second Coming.

The reality is that those prophecy preachers are half right. Evil has never been more evident in the world than it is today. The forces of darkness have never flexed their muscles and threatened the wellbeing of the people of God as they do in this present time. Wars are more devastating; sexual perversity has never been more evident; corruption in the political/economic systems of the world has become so pervasive that there are social scientists who ask whether the political/social systems of this world will be able to last for another generation.

In addition to the prophecy preachers who see only negative things ahead for us, there are also the secular alarmists who declare that we are facing an environmental crisis which will make life on the planet impossible. They tell us that global warming continues. We will be inundated by flooding and such extreme meteorological conditions that people will have to face the possibility of a coming ice age. Some of my friends who are very concerned about nuclear disarmament predict that it’s only a matter of time before the elements for making hydrogen bombs will be in the hands of terrorists with the inevitable results being massive destruction. In short, you don’t have to be religious to be a prophet of gloom and doom.

I believe that we ought to get our vision of the future from Jesus, especially from what He says as recorded in Matthew 13. From verses 24 through 30, Jesus gives His view of historical developments. He makes it clear that the Kingdom of God is like wheat planted in a field and, as it grows, the evil one (i.e., Satan) comes and plants tares (weeds). The wheat and the tares are growing up together and the servants of the Master come to him and say, “What shall we do? Shall we pull out the weeds?” The Master tells them, “You can’t do that without destroying most of the wheat.” The Master goes on to say, “Let the wheat and the tares grow up together until the end. Then shall come the separation of the wheat from the tares.”

Jesus makes it clear in this parable that the tares are representative of the kingdom of evil, and thus He would agree with those persons who see evil on the increase everywhere they look. Indeed, He would affirm those who would declare that the kingdom of evil has never been stronger or more evident than it is in today’s world. However, Jesus goes on to point out that the wheat is also growing, which is to say that the Kingdom of God is also on the increase and will continue to grow and manifest itself in history until the Second Coming of the Lord. That’s the good news—that in the midst of the threatening growth of the kingdom of evil, the glorious growth of the Kingdom of God occurs simultaneously.

To those who say they don’t see the Kingdom of God on the increase, I have to answer, “That’s because you are myopic. You only see what’s going on in North America.” Within the United States and Canada, the Church is in decline. Fewer and fewer people are into the things of God. The breakdown of the family is everywhere evident. Pornography pervades all forms of entertainment, from magazines to movies to television. Corruption in the business sphere seems to be on a greater scale than ever before. Everywhere there is evidence of people turning away from God. All of this is true, and we tend to think that North America represents what’s going on in the rest of the world. It doesn’t. The Church is growing in Africa at such a rate that there are over 50,000 baptisms every week. In Latin America, Evangelicalism is exploding so that this past Sunday there were more people in Evangelical churches than in all other kinds of churches combined. The largest congregation in the world is not Saddleback Church in California, but the church in Korea where there are over a million members and as many as 700,000 in attendance on Sunday morning. Outside of the North American continent, there is an ingathering of converts that exceeds anything hitherto known in human history. Add to that the tremendous social progress that has taken place, especially at the hands of the Church. For instance, 25 years ago, one out of every six persons on the planet had no access to clean drinking water. Today, studies reveal that it is one out of twelve that have no access to clean drinking water. In case you didn’t figure it out, the situation has improved 100 percent and that is largely due to church groups going to developing countries and drilling wells so the people can have clean drinking water.

Extreme poverty has been cut in half since the 1980s. Life expectancy around the world has doubled in the last 100 years. Thirty years ago, 80 percent of the population of the planet was illiterate. Today, statistics reveal that illiteracy rates have dropped to 25 percent of the world’s population.

Decent housing has been provided for a huge portion of the world’s population, and the median income of people around the world has increased dramatically over the last century.

None of those social scientists who have studied this incredible progress will deny that the Church of Jesus Christ has played a major role in these positive developments. So I say that while evil may be on the increase, so is God’s Kingdom. My interpretation of the parable of the wheat and the tares is not simply a subjective interpretation. If you read Matthew 13:36-43, you will discover that I am only restating what Jesus declares as the meaning of the parable.

The good news is that, as strong and as evident as evil proves to be, God is at work in the world through His Church and, as Billy Graham has said, “If you read the Bible, you will discover ‘WE WIN!’”

Contrary to T.S. Eliot’s statement that the world would not end with a bang, but with a whimper, we declare what Scripture says and boldly tell the world, “The kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our God and He shall reign forever and ever!”

Jesus is coming back and, as it says in the first chapter of Philippians, the good work that He began in us, He will complete on the day of His coming. The future is bright because we have the promise of Jesus that His Kingdom will grow until the end, and at the end all that is evil and perverse will be destroyed. His Kingdom will come on earth as it is in Heaven. Faith, as you know, is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. To be Christian is to have faith and, thus, be people of hope in the midst of a world where evil is all too evident. Missionaries working in Third World countries; churches sharing their resources with the poor and oppressed of developing nations; church growth, seldom seen in North America, is evident around the world. Praise God for what the Church and its missionaries have accomplished in His name and through His power.

Tony Campolo joins us regularly on Steve Brown Etc. He's professor emeritus at Eastern University and the founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, an organization that develops schools and social programs in various third world countries and in cities across North America. He's the author of over 35 books, blogs regularly at his website, redletterchristians.org, and can also be found on both Facebook and Twitter

But most importantly, Tony is Our Favorite Lib. Click here for Tony's latest appearance on Steve Brown Etc.

"On July 29, 2008, my family and I were terrorized by an errant Prince George's County SWAT team. This unit forced entry into my home without a proper warrant, executed our beloved black Labradors, Payton and Chase, and bound and interrogated my mother-in-law and me for hours as they ransacked our belongings… As I was forced to kneel, bound at gun point on my living room floor, I recall thinking that there had been a terrible mistake. However, as I have learned more, I have come to understand that what my family and I experienced is part of a growing and troubling trend where law enforcement is relying on SWAT teams to perform duties once handled by ordinary police officers."—Maryland Mayor Cheye Calvo in testimony before the Maryland Senate

Insisting that the "damage done by drugs is felt far beyond the millions of Americans with diagnosable substance abuse or dependence problems," President Obama has declared October 2011 to be National Substance Abuse Prevention Month. However, while drug abuse and drug-related crimes have unquestionably taken a toll on American families and communities, the government's own War on Drugs has left indelible scars on the population.

Indeed, although the Obama administration has shied away from using the phrase "War on Drugs," its efforts to crack down on illicit drug use—especially marijuana use—have not abated. Just consider—every 19 seconds, someone in the U.S. is arrested for violating a drug law. Every 30 seconds, someone in the U.S. is arrested for violating a marijuana law, making it the fourth most common cause of arrest in the United States.

So far this year, approximately 1,313,673 individuals have been arrested for drug-related offenses. Police arrested an estimated 858,408 persons for marijuana violations in 2009. Of those charged with marijuana violations, approximately 89 percent were charged with possession only. Moreover, since December 31, 1995, the U.S. prison population has grown an average of 43,266 inmates per year, with about 25 percent sentenced for drug law violations.

The foot soldiers in the government's increasingly fanatical war on drugs, particularly marijuana, are state and local police officers dressed in SWAT gear and armed to the hilt. These SWAT teams carry out roughly 50,000 no-knock raids every year in search of illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia. As author and journalist Radley Balko reports, "The vast majority of these raids are to serve routine drug warrants, many times for crimes no more serious than possession of marijuana… Police have broken down doors, screamed obscenities, and held innocent people at gunpoint only to discover that what they thought were marijuana plants were really sunflowers, hibiscus, ragweed, tomatoes, or elderberry bushes. (It's happened with all five.)"

Take the case of Philip Cobbs, an unassuming 53-year-old African-American man who cares for his blind, deaf 90-year-old mother and lives on a 39-acre tract of land that's been in his family since the 1860s. Cobbs is the latest in a long line of Americans to find themselves swept up in the government's zealous pursuit of marijuana. On July 26, 2011, while spraying the blueberry bushes near his Virginia house, Cobbs noticed a black helicopter circling overhead. After watching the helicopter for several moments, Cobbs went inside to check on his mother. By the time he returned outside, several unmarked police SUVs had driven onto his property, and police in flak jackets, carrying rifles and shouting unintelligibly, had exited the vehicles and were moving toward him.

Although the officers insisted they had sighted marijuana plants growing on Cobbs' property (they claimed to find two spindly plants growing in the wreckage of a fallen oak tree), their real objective was clear—to search Cobbs' little greenhouse, which he had used that spring to start tomato plants, cantaloupes, and watermelons, as well as asters and hollyhocks. The search of the greenhouse turned up nothing more than used tomato seedling containers. Incredibly, police had not even bothered to secure a warrant before embarking on their raid of Cobbs' property—part of a routine sweep of the countryside in search of pot-growing operations that had to cost taxpayers upwards of $25,000, at the very least.

Thankfully for Cobbs, no one was hurt during the warrantless raid on his property. However, that is not the case for many Americans who find themselves on the wrong end of a SWAT team raid in search of marijuana. For example, on May 5, 2011, a SWAT team kicked open the door of ex-Marine Jose Guerena's home during a drug raid and opened fire. Thinking his home was being invaded by criminals, Guerena told his wife and child to hide in a closet, grabbed a gun and waited in the hallway to confront the intruders. He never fired his weapon. In fact, the safety was still on his gun when he was killed. The SWAT officers, however, not as restrained, fired 70 rounds of ammunition at Guerena—23 of those bullets made contact. Guerena had had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home.

Tragically, Jose Guerena is far from the only innocent casualty in the government's War on Drugs. Botched SWAT team raids have resulted in the loss of countless lives, including children and the elderly. Usually, however, the first to be shot are the family dogs. As Balko reports:

When police in Fremont, California, raided the home of medical marijuana patient Robert Filgo, they shot his pet Akita nine times. Filgo himself was never charged. Last October [2005] police in Alabama raided a home on suspicion of marijuana possession, shot and killed both family dogs, then joked about the kill in front of the family. They seized eight grams of marijuana, equal in weight to a ketchup packet. In January [2006] a cop en route to a drug raid in Tampa, Florida, took a short cut across a neighboring lawn and shot the neighbor's two pooches on his way. And last May [2005], an officer in Syracuse, New York, squeezed off several shots at a family dog during a drug raid, one of which ricocheted and struck a 13-year-old boy in the leg. The boy was handcuffed at gunpoint at the time.

Clearly, something must be done. There was a time when communities would have been up in arms over a botched SWAT team raid resulting in the loss of innocent lives. Unfortunately, today, we are increasingly coming to accept the use of SWAT teams by law enforcement agencies for routine drug policing and the high incidence of error-related casualties that accompanies these raids.

What's more, the government is providing incentives to the SWAT teams carrying out these raids through federal grants such as the Edward Byrne memorial grants and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants. As David Borden, the Executive Director of Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet), pointed out, "The exact details on how Byrne and COPS grants are distributed has not been studied, at least not to my knowledge, but an examination of grant applications by one of my colleagues found that they overwhelmingly focus on the number of arrests made, particularly drug arrests. Byrne grants also fund the purchase of equipment for SWAT teams."

Unfortunately, while few of these raids even make the news, they are happening more and more frequently. As Borden notes, "In 1980 there were fewer than 3,000 reported SWAT raids. Now, the number is believed to be over 50,000 per year…About 3/4 of these are drug raids, perhaps more by now, the vast majority of them low-level." Balko's research reinforces this phenomenon. Based on more than a year's worth of research and culled only from documented SWAT team incidents, Balko cites "40 cases in which a completely innocent person was killed. There are dozens more in which nonviolent offenders (recreational pot smokers, for example…) or police officers were needlessly killed. There are nearly 150 cases in which innocent families, sometimes with children, were roused from their beds at gunpoint, and subjected to the fright of being apprehended and thoroughly searched at gunpoint. There are other cases in which a SWAT team seems wholly inappropriate, such as the apprehension of medical marijuana patients, many of whom are bedridden."

Despite the government's current fanaticism about marijuana, America has not always been at war over the cannabis plant. In fact, in 1619, all farmers of the Jamestown colony were required to grow cannabis for rope and other military purposes. Over the next 200 years, a variety of laws required hemp harvesting. In some cases, landowners could be imprisoned for neglecting their duty to grow hemp. Oftentimes, a surplus of hemp could be used as legal tender, even for paying taxes. In 1850, there were 8,327 hemp plantations in the U.S.

It was only later, during the early 20th century, that the government embarked on an all-out assault on marijuana, largely due to corporate business considerations that favored the production of cotton over hemp and racist policies that tied Hispanics and blacks to marijuana use. For example, even though blacks only account for 15% of the drug using population (with whites making up a growing part of the market), the vast majority of drug arrests and convictions affect black drug users. Incredibly, more than 70% of prisoners convicted of nonviolent drug offenses are black or Latino.

The time has come to put an end to the government's racially-weighted, militant war on marijuana. It is a failed, costly and misguided program that has cost the country billions. As critics rightly point out, the war on marijuana has also resulted in a massive increase in incarceration rates. According to Joe Klein, writing for Time, "We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all drug arrests are marijuana-related."

Worse, the government's War on Drugs seems to have actually exacerbated the drug problems in this country, funding criminal syndicates and failing to restrict its availability or discourage its use. Indeed, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health revealed that as recently as 2005, 58% of the public found marijuana readily available, with 50% of 12 to 17 year olds declaring it easy to get.

A growing number of legal scholars, including Bruce Fein, who served as a high-ranking Justice Department official during the Reagan administration, are calling to end the prohibition on marijuana and treat it like alcohol by regulating and taxing it at the state level. Their rationale is that instead of allowing marijuana to flourish as a profitable black market crop, it should be taxed and regulated in a manner similar to tobacco and alcohol, which many in the medical community believe to be far more harmful than marijuana. Not only would that lessen violent criminal activity associated with the manufacture and sale of marijuana, but it would also provide an economic boost to ailing state and federal coffers. As it now stands, marijuana is the United States' largest cash crop (it brought in an estimated $35 billion in 2005), with a third of this production coming from California where it is the state's largest cash crop.

Recently, over 500 economists led by Nobel Laureate George Akerlof, Daron Acemoglu of MIT, and Howard Margolis of the University of Chicago, signed an open letter to the President, Congress, State Governors, and State Legislatures expounding the immense economic benefits of legalization. They pointed out that if marijuana sales were taxed at the same level as cigarettes and alcohol, the government would make up to $6.2 billion annually. Additionally, a repeal of the prohibition of marijuana would save federal, state, and local governments an estimated $7.7 billion annually by ending the need for enforcement of drug laws.

Acknowledging the medical benefits of marijuana, especially for those who suffer from Alzheimer's, HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis, 16 states as well as the District of Columbia have also legalized it for medicinal purposes. Most recently, the California Medical Association, which represents more than 35,000 physicians statewide, called for the legalization and regulation of the plant.

As always, the special interests have a lot to say in these matters, and it's particularly telling that those lobbying hard to keep the prohibition on marijuana include law enforcement officials and alcoholic beverage producers. However, when the war on drugs—a.k.a. the war on the American people—becomes little more than a thinly veiled attempt to keep SWAT teams employed and special interests appeased, it's time to revisit our drug policies and laws. As Professors Eric Blumenson and Eva Nilson recognize:

During the 25 years of its existence, the "War on Drugs" has transformed the criminal justice system, to the point where the imperatives of drug law enforcement now drive many of the broader legislative, law enforcement, and corrections policies in counterproductive ways. One significant impetus for this transformation has been the enactment of forfeiture laws which allow law enforcement agencies to keep the lion's share of the drug-related assets they seize. Another has been the federal law enforcement aid program, revised a decade ago to focus on assisting state anti-drug efforts. Collectively these financial incentives have left many law enforcement agencies dependent on drug law enforcement to meet their budgetary requirements, at the expense of alternative goals such as the investigation and prosecution of non-drug crimes, crime prevention strategies, and drug education and treatment.

Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and author of The Change Manifesto. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

John W. Whitehead's weekly commentaries are available for publication to newspapers and web publications at no charge. Please contact marketing@rutherford.org to obtain reprint permission.

The goal was to talk about the role that religion did or didn't play in the life and death of Steve Jobs, whose passing was marked with the kind of flood of digital and literal ink that is reserved for the most beloved members of the Baby Boom Generation.

Think about it. How many major editors and producers in this land of ours are 56 or close to it? This was the end of an era for legions of journalists.

Anyway, Wilken asked a question that rather shocked me. He recalled all of the key elements of the famous "Stevenote" addresses that Jobs so famously delivered at Macworld conferences and other media events announcing new products. You have the smooth and witty pitchman, the almost branded everyman clothing, the looming backdrop of iconic images and funny film clips, etc. A host of digital entrepreneurs have started copying this format, but no one pulled it off like Jobs.

But wait, there is another army of professionals who have mastered this method — big-box, multimedia megachurch pastors. The similarities are striking, although it's clear that Jobs came first.

What is really going on in this scenario? Quite frankly, it's a rite built on a kind of sacramental theology. The goal is to consume the product in an attempt to become as cool and successful as the pitchman/preacher. The goal is to be changed, to merge with the image and become a new person — purchase after purchase.

As the Jobs obituaries rolled out, I was fascinated by two major themes related to this. The first was the uncomfortable reality that Jobs was not, in the end, a very nice person or boss. He was so, so, so driven that he often crushed mortals in his path.

The headline on Religion News Service piece that ran in The Washington Post nailed this:

Epitaph for Steve Jobs: Too great to be good?

Here's a key passage in this piece by reporter David Gibson:

So was Steve Jobs a saint or a jerk? Maybe it’s not an either/or scenario. If greatness and goodness are not necessarily mutually exclusive, the history of actual saints (of the canonized variety) offers plenty of tales of holy men and women who were as hard-driving as Jobs and just as brusque.

St. Jerome, for example, the great fourth-century translator of the Bible, was notoriously testy. His disagreement with longtime friend Rufinus over certain points of theology prompted Jerome to say that Rufinus snorted like a pig and walked like a tortoise.

St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, could be withering in his criticism of the men under his command, and St. Catherine of Siena had no qualms about telling off the pope in the strongest terms.

Even Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the modern touchstone for sanctity, could be a sharp-tongued taskmaster. “Is this not a humiliation for you that I, at my age, can take a regular meal and do a full day’s work — and you live with the name of the poor yet enjoy a lazy life?” she wrote to sisters whom she deemed insufficiently industrious.

Ouch.

“That’s like Steve Jobs telling someone the prototype you presented isn’t up to snuff,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of “My Life with the Saints.”

The second subject that drove many of the Jobs hagiographies was the supposedly Zen-like quality that infused his work, which many journalists connected with the Apple czar's youthful turn toward the East and Zen Buddhism in particular. Once again, this is a man who narrated his life with quotes from The Beatles.

Thus, Jobs made the semi-Sixties pilgrimage to India and, many years later, a Zen master performed his wedding and served as the spiritual adviser to NeXT. That was the semi-successful computer company Jobs founded in between the Apple creation story and then his glorious second coming.

The problem, of course, is that no one knows the degree to which this supposed Buddhist influence played in this ultra-secretive man's life. We may have to wait for the biography (and the movie).

Then there was the actual philosophy that Jobs bluntly articulated as the Big Idea behind his life (cue the Stanford University commencement speech). Here's how I summed up this big question in a column for Scripps Howard:

Critics noted that Jobs was a relentless and abrasive perfectionist who left scores of battered psyches in his wake.

Whatever the doctrinal content of his faith, it seemed to have been a Buddhism that helped him find peace while walking barefoot through offices packed with wealthy, workaholic capitalists.

In his Stanford sermon, Jobs urged his young listeners to “trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

For Jobs, the bottom line was his own bottom line — even when death loomed on the horizon. His ultimate hope was that he, alone, knew what was right.

”Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking,” he concluded. “Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition — they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Buddhist? Or radical all-American individualist?

Enjoy the podcast.

Professor Terry Mattingly writes the nationally syndicated On Religion column for the Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C., which is sent to about 350 newspapers in North America. He's also a regular contributor at GetReligion.org and the author of the book Pop Goes Religion: Faith in Popular Culture.

This woman called me “evil” and refused to accept (or even consider) that I had any relationship with God as long as I was taking psychiatric medicines. When I told her that I had been on them at the time I wrote the book, she said I should have put a notice on the book regarding that, as I had been “under the influence.”

Even in the midst of this, the woman was telling me how much my book had helped her, how God had dropped it in her lap at just the right time, but that the person I was now had somehow cancelled all that out.

It was a messy conversation, and many of her words were all too familiar. She didn’t realize that she sounded exactly like some of those described in my book as being hurtful and damaging — she had read those words, but in her frustration she was sounding precisely the same way, without even really hearing herself.

I knew that I have been making progress when the words didn’t trigger me. In a not so recent past, those kind of statements would have me curled over on the floor, triggered, feeling guilt, shame and self-loathing.

Instead, I found myself initially furious, and responding that way. As I re-read her words however, my anger turned to compassion, and sadness.

I’m learning that is the difficulty with publishing something. It can’t help but define the writer, even as the book is written, but at the same time, the writer continues living beyond their work. And a life, unfortunately isn’t re-written and edited, it is simply lived.

My book was written 8 years ago, and while it is a piece of me frozen in transport, that’s also exactly what it amounts to.

A lot of things have happened in the past 8 years of my life; all which changed me in some degree or another, all which gave me new insights, new perceptions, new beginnings. Some of them have been very painful, and I have been shaken even more. My struggle has changed, become more complicated, more frustrating.

Do I dare expose these things without losing more people who have high expectations for me? I have been writing things down, trying to lay out my second book, trying to continue the authentic, open writing I am so known for.

I wonder, dear readers, have you considered the frozen flash nature of your favorite books? Someone as our beloved Steve, of course, spends time with his readers and listeners, and therefore, they are a part of his current life. To some extent, though, we can never really cage someone in. They are their own. Other writers, like me, only have facebook or a blog, and many things go unwritten in those places.

A book can only capture part of a story. A writer is deeper and more dimensional than simply one book. There are active lives being lived in between books, in between sentences and fragments and periods. There are many question marks.

If you have a favorite book or author, even, remember to have grace with them. Remember there is much you may not know outside of those marvelous hundreds of pages that changed your life. Remember that we are all human—subject to the whims and difficulties that change us, solidify us, or altogether redefine us. And most of all, please remember that we are all in this together.

Peace, love, patience, and understanding to all.

Renée Altson is the author of Stumbling Toward Faith, a photographer, and a web developer. She lives with her husband, daughter, and 2 cats in Southern California. Click here to listen to Renée on Steve Brown Etc.

Did Adam and Eve exist? A number of evangelical Christian are now arguing that they didn't. But I disagree. I think Adam and Eve did exist, and not just because I believe what is recorded in Scripture. In my opinion, good scientific evidence backs up belief in a literal, historical Adam and Eve.

Recently, a scientist from the University of Auckland in New Zealand used linguistic analysis of language to trace humanity's origin. In doing so, he provided independent confirmation of the Out-of-Africa model for human origins, and with it, support for the biblical creation model.¹

Numerous studies of genetic variability indicate that humanity originated recently (around 100,000 years ago) in east Africa (near where some theologians think the Garden of Eden existed) from a small population. Mitochondrial DNA studies suggest that all humanity traces back to a single woman. In like manner, studies of Y-chromosomal DNA indicate that all men can trace their origin to a single man. (See Who Was Adam?and the New Reasons to Believe e-Zine, pages 4–6, for previous discussions on this topic.)

Anthropologists tend to view these data from an evolutionary perspective (coining the term "Out-of-Africa model"). Yet, the data are provocative from a biblical standpoint. They reveal the type of pattern one would expect if Adam and Eve really existed and gave birth to all human beings.

Phonemics

The sounds of language—vowels, consonants, and tones—are referred to as phonemes. Linguists have discovered that languages spoken by larger populations tend to possess more phonemes than languages spoken by fewer people.

Quentin Atkinson at the University of Auckland wondered if phonemes could be used to study humanity's origin. What further motivated his idea is the phenomenon in genetics known as the serial founder effect. When a subpopulation breaks off of the main population, that smaller group displays much more limited genetic variability than the parent population. If the subpopulation, in turn, spawns another subpopulation, that resulting group of "break-a-ways" will display an even more reduced genetic variability.

When people began to migrate around the world, a small group left the point of humanity's genesis. Serial fracturing of the migrating population took place, consequently generating the serial founder effect. According to Atkinson's hypothesis, this phenomenon should be evident in the phonemes of the world's languages.

The Results: Something to Talk about

Atkinson analyzed 504 languages and discovered that African languages displayed the greatest number of phonemes. (African populations are the most genetically diverse and thought to be the oldest people groups.) He also determined that languages of people groups in South America and Oceania possessed the fewest number of phonemes. (These people groups are believed to be the youngest.) Atkinson also noticed a cline in phonemes (a gradual decrease in phoneme numbers) as the languages moved away from Africa and into Europe and Asia.

The phoneme patterns Atkinson discovered closely match the genetic diversity data, and independently support the Out-of-Africa model. It is encouraging that a number of separate lines of evidence (genetic, archeological, and now linguistic) harmonize with the biblical account of human origins. The scientific case for Adam and Eve is stronger today than it has ever been, in spite of what some evangelicals might think.

Endnotes:

Quentin D. Atkinson, "Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa," Science 332 (April 15, 2011): 346–49.

Dr. Rana has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and he's the vice president of research and apologetics at Reasons To Believe. Click here to listen to his recent appearance on SBE.

As technology grows more sophisticated and the American government and its corporate allies further refine their methods of keeping tabs on citizens, those of us who treasure privacy increasingly find ourselves engaged in a struggle to maintain our freedoms in the midst of the modern surveillance state.

The latest attack on our right to anonymity and privacy comes stealthily packaged in the form of so-called job protection legislation. Introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) in June 2011, H.R. 2885 (formerly H.R. 2164), the "Legal Workforce Act," is being marketed as a way to fight illegal immigration and "open up millions of jobs for unemployed Americans and legal immigrants." However, this proposed federal law is really little more than a Trojan horse, a backdoor attempt by the powers-that-be to inflict a de facto National ID card on the American people.

Created under the auspices of securing the borders and preventing illegal immigrants from being hired for "American" jobs, E-Verify challenges the rights of the individual, the rights of labor and the rights of industry. As such, this is not a left or right issue. Anyone who values civil liberties should be alarmed. In fact, E-Verify is being opposed by various civil liberties groups such as the ACLU, American Library Association, The Rutherford Institute, Liberty Coalition and others.

If approved by Congress, this legislation would make the federal government the final authority on who gets hired by American businesses and in the process create a bureaucratic nightmare for already over-burdened and over-regulated small business owners. In a nutshell, H.R. 2885 requires all employers to submit potential employees' names, Social Security numbers and other data to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for authorization before the employees can start work. The data would then be run through E-Verify, a government-run database and employment identification verification system.

In other words, the E-Verify system would require all those wanting to be employed by American companies to register the credentials of their citizenship in a government database. What this means, of course, is that in order to be able to verify an applicant's legitimacy, the government would first have to build a massive database to store the biographical information of the entire working population in the United States–a huge undertaking with numerous pitfalls and security flaws, as we have seen with many other government databases. If you think unemployment is a problem now, just wait until your employment hinges on getting government clearance. Under this legislation, if a worker's information is incorrect in E-Verify, he or she can't work until the problem is resolved.

Furthermore, due to the sensitive information contained in the database, it would be a huge target for hackers and identity thieves, while doing little to curb the flow of illegal immigration or illegal immigrants getting jobs. Indeed, with a stolen or faked identity, anyone could bypass the system and secure employment.

This legislation poses even greater threats to privacy, free speech and free association and potentially hinders Americans' ability to travel freely. Because the E-Verify system would apply to everyone eligible to work in the United States and will grow to include biometrics such as fingerprints, DNA and iris scans, it will be used for a host of other purposes by the intelligence community, law enforcement and corporate America.

Private employers will become extensions of the government in that they will eventually be required to verify whether employees are delinquent in the payment of federal, state or local taxes, in compliance with child support or alimony decrees, on a terrorist watch list or convicted or even accused of a crime. Employers, thus, would be enlisted as de facto law enforcement officers for the federal government. Furthermore, errors in the verification process would be practically immune from timely legal redress in violation of constitutional tenets of due process.

Recently, the prohibition in H.R. 2885 on using the E-Verify database for purposes other than employment verification was replaced with a new section that allows the system to be used to "protect critical infrastructure." That term is broadly defined and it's not clear what this would mean in practice–whether screening air travelers or controlling access to federal facilities–but it clearly signals a huge expansion of the program. In one paragraph in the legislation the government states that E-Verify will not be used just for employment but also can be used for verifying identify for national security. What this means is that American citizens would have to have their information correct in E-Verify not just to get a job but also potentially if they need to access "critical infrastructure"–i.e., any kind of public transportation. Ironically, this language comes right after the paragraph saying there will be no National ID card.

Despite assurances to the contrary, E-Verify will become a de facto National ID system. Such a database with vast pools of personal information directly tied to individuals shared across a multitude of government agencies would give the government an alarming amount of control over the average citizen. If government officials so chose, they could easily track any person who had registered in the E-Verify system for whatever reason.

Not only will government agencies know everything about American citizens, but private corporations will become policemen for this system. The E-Verify system–part of a broader trend in American politics, namely, the collusion of government and corporate interests–will allow government and corporate officials to repress dissidents and suspects simply by restricting their access to basic services. Once all of your information is tied together and placed in one grand database, any government or corporate agency can wreak havoc on your life. You might try to buy groceries only to find that your credit card has been denied. You might apply for a job, at ten, twenty, fifty corporations only to find that, despite your being very qualified, there just isn't any room for you at the company. Without a job, you might be forced to tap into the welfare system, only to find that your application was denied. Your property might be confiscated. When you try to move somewhere else and start anew, you might find you can't board the plane because you're on a no-fly list. Make no mistake, these are the tactics of a totalitarian society.

However, the idea of singling out and "identifying" individuals for the sake of national security is nothing new. National identity cards also carry with them a historic risk of oppression and persecution, as they have been used to identify and track ethnic, racial and religious groups and have facilitated oppression and persecution against these groups. And as recently as the 1990s, identity cards played an instrumental role in one of the worst genocides of the twentieth century, second only perhaps to the Holocaust.

With the introduction of an identity card that contains information such as ethnic origin, government agencies will be able to identify people on the basis of race or religion with considerable ease. For example, in the months following the 9/11 attacks, Muslim men from Arab or South Asian countries were rounded up on the basis of religion and ethnicity and detained indefinitely in the United States, often without access to an attorney or a judge. Imagine how much more far-reaching that government detention program might have been with a National ID in place.

Various laws have been enacted over time to guard against unreasonable intrusions by the government into our private lives. One such law is the Privacy Act, which was passed by Congress in 1974 and prohibits the government from forming a database. However, although the fear was that such a database could constitute an invasion of privacy, the law only prevents the government from creating a database, not accessing an already existing database.

At the time the Privacy Act was passed, Congress had no reason to suspect that private corporations would ever have the desire or means to create such databases. The emergence of data collection corporations, however, has enabled government intelligence and police agencies to circumvent the law and gain information on private citizens with the click of a button. Although such tactics clearly contradict the spirit of privacy laws intended to guard against government abuse, it is technically legal for the government to gain access to these databases. Government officials have taken full advantage of this loophole. Due to the fact that these databases are owned and operated by private corporations, they are relatively unregulated and fall outside the scrutiny of privacy watchdog groups. Reports of security breaches at numerous data brokerage companies only serve to fan concerns about the lack of oversight and regulation.

Rest assured that were Congress to approve this E-Verify legislation, it would constitute the ultimate end-run around the Privacy Act and open the door to a National ID. Thus, we have reached a crossroads. Either we limit the reach and power of the government (often in collusion with corporate power) or privacy as we have known it will become extinct.

Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute and author of The Change Manifesto. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

John W. Whitehead's weekly commentaries are available for publication to newspapers and web publications at no charge. Please contact marketing@rutherford.org to obtain reprint permission.