Last week Dr. R. C. Sproul conducted an interesting interview with Ben Stein about his soon-to-be-releasted film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” (for a short clip of this film, click this link). Earlier this morning, I listened to a two-part audio presentation of this same interview.

Based upon some of my research about this documentary film, the point of it is to expose the rampant prejudice in the place of supposed academic freedom, the government-funded university. Though public universities claim that professors and students are free to follow scientific evidence to its logical conclusion, the hypocrisy of this claim in many university settings is that advocates of Intelligent Design are being persecuted for their belief that there is irrefutable scientific evidence that can only be explained by an Intelligent Designer rather than with an evolutionary hypothesis. Though in my estimation the Intelligent Design view is inadequate for explaining the Genesis account of creation, I am convinced that any government-funded university’s denial of its professors or students’ academic liberty in science undermines that school’s credibility in claiming academic freedom and freedom of speech. Further, from an apologetic perspective, Intelligent Design can be used to show an unbelieving evolutionist that the presuppositions of his worldview cannot account for reality in science, as well as logic and morality, and that the presuppositions of Christian theism offers a biblically informed explanation. If a believer can convince a Darwinist about his inconsistent worldview, he is in a position to present the gospel message with its demands for repentance and faith in Jesus Christ (for a theologically informed review of Intelligent Design advocate Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, download Brian Jones’ Review of Darwin’s Black Box).

Because of the significance of this interview, let me encourage you to check it out. You can access the interview either by watching a video or listening to the same interview broken up into a two-part audio presentation. To access the video, go to Ligonier’s blog entry “R. C. Sproul Interviews Ben Stein” and scroll down to the video. To access the two-part audio, you can initially click “Interview (Pt. 1) Expelled (the Movie) and Intelligent Design” and then “Interview (Pt. 2) Expelled (the Movie) and Intelligent Design.” I am confident that you will find the interview worthwhile.

Creation on the Web posted a brief interview that Drs. Don Batten and Jonathan Sarfati conducted with Dr. Don Johnson, a retired research scientist and professor with a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry and a second one in Computer Science.

In this interview Dr. Johnson explains “that evolutionists have an impossible problem explaining the origin of the information in living things: ‘Information cannot arise by chance, no matter how long you have. It just can’t.’” Though brief, you do not want to miss reading “Double Doctor Doubts Darwinian Dogma.”

This past Wednesday, March 19, Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary had its 2008 William R. Rice Lecture Series. This year we were privileged to have Dr. Andrew David Naselli lecture on “Keswick Theology.” Andy is currently pursuing his second PhD at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Theological Studies with an emphasis in New Testament Exegesis and Theology. This year’s lecture at DBTS is an outgrowth of his 2006 PhD dissertation from Bob Jones University’s seminary: “Keswick Theology: A Historical and Theological Survey and Analysis of the Doctrine of Sanctification in the Early Keswick Movement, 1875–1920″ (see the 2006 entry on his website’s publication page).The thesis of Andy’s lecture is that Keswick theology’s view of sanctification is theologically erroneous (a thesis that DBTS has been supporting for some time). His lecture has three sections. Part 1 involves a historical and theological survey of the early Keswick Movement from 1875 to 1920 His second and third sessions present a theological analysis of Keswick Theology. His historical research and theological analysis reflect the type of biblical scholarship that serves as a good example to those in attendance at this year’s lecture. To obtain his material, place your cursor on handout and power point presentation. To listen to the three sessions of his lecture, click here, here and here. In addition to the material from Andy’s DBTS lecture, I would also recommend that you regularly consult his excellent blog.

Advocates of non-literal interpretations of Genesis 1 [show]Genesis 1 The Creation of the World [1:1]In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [2]The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. [3]And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. [4]And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. [5]God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. [6]And God said, "Let there be an expanse(1) in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." [7]And God made(2) the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. [8]And God called the expanse Heaven.(3) And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. [9]And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. [10]God called the dry land Earth,(4) and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. [11]And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants(5) yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth." And it was so. [12]The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. [13]And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. [14]And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons,(6) and for days and years, [15]and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. [16]And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars. [17]And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, [18]to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. [19]And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. [20]And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds(7) fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." [21]So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. [22]And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." [23]And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. [24]And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds--livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. [25]And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. [26]Then God said, "Let us make man(8) in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." [27]So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. [28]And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." [29]And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. [30]And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. [31]And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (ESV) Footnotes 1. [1:6] Or 'a canopy'; also verses 7, 8, 14, 15, 17, 20 2. [1:7] Or 'fashioned'; also verse 16 3. [1:8] Or 'Sky'; also verses 9, 14, 15, 17, 20, 26, 28, 30; 2:1 4. [1:10] Or 'Land'; also verses 11, 12, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30; 2:1 5. [1:11] Or 'small plants'; also verses 12, 29 6. [1:14] Or 'appointed times' 7. [1:20] Or 'flying things'; see Leviticus 11:19-20 8. [1:26] The Hebrew word for 'man' ('adam') is the generic term for mankind and becomes the proper name 'Adam'
often support their position by contending that the first three days of the creation week could not have been literal since it is impossible to have a literal evening and morning without the presence of the Sun, which was not created until Day 4. In his brief article opposing a figurative understanding of the creation days, Andrew S. Kulikovsky explains that God created a temporary light source to separate “light” from “darkness” on the first three days of creation and provides a contextual argument that “the term ‘evening’ refers to the beginning of the period when God was inactive, and the term ‘morning’ refers to the termination of God’s inactivity and the beginning of the next day’s work.” With this contextual argument “the occurrence of evenings and mornings before the creation of the Sun on Day 4 provides no reason to doubt the truth of Scripture in general and the Creation account in particular.” Check out his helpful article “Evenings and Mornings.”

Two to three weeks back, one of our assistant pastors from Inter-City Baptist Church, Dan Winnberg, returned from a two-week mission trip that he and his wife, Meredith, made to Mwanza, Tanzania in order to assist the Howell family in various phases of their complex ministry, such as Dan teaching in the Grace Baptist Institute as well as helping with the church planting work and Meredith assisting with the Tumaini Children’ Home. When Dan returned, he brought back the nice soapstone dish pictured above as a gift from the Howell family and the students from Grace Baptist Institute.

As you look at the plate above, the names of the Institute students are painted on the top of the plate and “Taasisi Ya Kibaptisti Ya Neema” [Grace Baptist Institute], Mwanza, Tanzania, 2007″ is on the bottom. In reference to the details of the plate, the two men are traditional warriors of East Africa, known as Masai, and are also nomadic cattle herders. The warrior on the left has a spear in his left hand and a shield in his right. The man on the right with a staff in his hand is standing by a tree. As nomadic cattle herders, the three animals between the two men are cows. The two huts above the men are traditional huts made out of mud and grass. The picture of the huts is something of an anomaly since the traditional Masai huts are made of dung with a flat dung roof.

When I went to Mwanza last summer, my desire was to be able to minister to the Institute students and members of the three churches at Sweya, Shadi and Nyagaliro. As it turned out, I believe this group of believers did more to minister to me than I to them (to check out pictures my trip, click here). When I received plate, I was humbled by the thoughtfulness of the Howell family and the students at Grace Baptist Institute. I also thank my sovereign God who in his sovereign electing purposes is saving out a people for his name sake from among the people of Tanzania, as well as throughout the earth (Rev 5:9 [show]Revelation 5:9 [9]And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,
). To my friends in Mwanza, thanks so much for your thoughtfulness.

As many of you who read my blog already know, I am a little cynical about global warming (see “Polar Bear Update and Alaska’s Concerns“). However, my cynicism has increased based upon the 8 to 10 inches of snow that I woke up to this morning (see “March Winter Storm“). It has been many winters since I have seen this much snow linger in Allen Park, Michigan. In reference to the severity of this winter in certain parts of the northern hemisphere, Noel Shepherd, a contributing editor to NewsBusters, correctly notes that “in fact, all kinds of cold and snow-related records are occurring all over the supposedly warming planet this winter despite continued claims by climate alarmists that the world will come to an end if we all don’t immediately reduce our emissions of that awful — naturally occurring and necessary for most life on earth! — gas, carbon dioxide.” Since global warming has become something of a religion in the US, I wonder if our “objective” media is going to either ignore or spin the facts of this winter. Sheppard addresses this type of issue and more (while also noting that snow has returned to Mt. Kilimanjaro, in East Africa). Do not miss reading “Will Media Ignore Harsh Winter of 2008 to Preserve Global Warming Myth?“