UNDERSTANDING THE TIMES
The Newsletter of Contend for the Faith, Inc
1 Chronicles 12:32

SEPTEMBER 2005

Apologetics Equips Young & Old

I recently returned from a trip to Camden, Delaware, where I spoke four times at a missions conference in an effort to equip attendees on various apologetic issues.

I spoke on truth and logic, matters of taste vs. matters of truth, and the problem of evil.

While several people commented to me about how helpful the information was, one person stood out. A young man named Joseph, who is 13 years old, came to thank me after I spoke the first evening, telling me how much he appreciated learning how to think in order to defend his faith. He also told me that he has been reading [1] True for You, But Not for Me by Paul Copan, a book which I highly recommend because it gives excellent answers to the most common challenges leveled against Christianity.

It is unusual to meet a 13-year-old who is keenly interested in learning to contend for the faith. Sadly, too few adult believers share this same desire. But through this ministry we are trying to change that by demonstrating that Christianity can be defended by using logic, reason, science, history, and evidence, as well as Scripture.

Joseph and many others in attendance were preparing to go witnessing door to door in their area after the conference. I can’t wait to hear what happened when they did.

Please Pray for Brian

I received a call from a woman whom I had met when I spoke at her church last year. She is very concerned about her brother who had recently spent two weeks over seas on what he intended to be a missions trip. When he returned from this trip, Brian began telling his sister and his parents about his discovery of numerology, which is the idea that there are hidden important messages included in the Bible which can be found when one understands the code God used.

Brian has come to believe that God has revealed this special understanding to him so that he can now proclaim these hidden messages to the world. But when it comes to understanding God’s message to us in the Bible, we must realize that it is found in the text, not behind it or between the lines.

I have been asked to meet with Brian soon to try to help him understand this truth. Please pray that Brian will be able to see the errors of his thinking, and please pray for me as I will try to answer all of his questions concerning what the Bible really means.

Apologetics Conf. Coming Soon

The annual National Conference on Christian Apologetics is taking place on Friday and Saturday November 11 th and 12 th. This year the event will be held at [2] First Baptist Church of Indian Trail.

The conference is always excellent and this year promises to be no exception. Nationally know speakers Janet Parshall, Kerby Anderson, converted Muslim Dr. Ergun Caner, and Dr. Norman Geisler will be featured this year.

[3] Register soon to ensure your spot at the conference. The Friday evening sessions are free, so invite your friends to attend.

SPEAKING SCHEDULE 2005

October 5, 2005

Truth or Contradictions, Part 2 Mid-week Elective Class, Room 231, Calvary Church, Charlotte, 6:45 – 8:00 pmwww.CalvaryChurch.com

October 16, 2005

Postmodernism and the Church, Part 1 Educational Hour, Room 204, Southern Evangelical Church, Charlotte, 11:00 amwww.SouthernEvangelicalChurch.org

October 23, 2005

Postmodernism and the Church, Part 2 Educational Hour, Room 204, Southern Evangelical Church, Charlotte, 11:00 amwww.SouthernEvangelicalChurch.org

October 30, 2005

Postmodernism and the Church, Part 3 Educational Hour, Room 204, Southern Evangelical Church, Charlotte, 11:00 amwww.SouthernEvangelicalChurch.org

November 6, 2005

Postmodernism and the Church, Part 4 Educational Hour, Room 204, Southern Evangelical Church, Charlotte, 11:00 amwww.SouthernEvangelicalChurch.org

November 11-12, 2005

National Conference on Christian Apologetics, [4] First Baptist Indian Trail www.nationalapologeticsconference.com

www.ContendfortheFaith.org

CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH

UNDERSTANDING THE DEBATE OVER INTELLIGENT DESIGN

On September 26, 2005 in a Federal District Court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a [5] trial began that will likely be the next great battle in the ongoing culture war in America.

In October 2004, the elected representatives on the school board in Dover, PA, voted 6-3 to require high school biology students to hear a brief statement about intelligent design (ID) as an alternative to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Any student can opt out of hearing the required statement on ID.

As you could have guessed, a group of Dover parents who disagreed with that decision decided to sue [6] (Download PDF Brief Here) the school board and the district, and the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State were only too willing to help them. These groups are arguing that to allow ID to be discussed in school somehow violates the First Amendment’s restriction against the establishment of a national religion (otherwise referred to popularly and erroneously as the “separation of church and state”). The plaintiffs claim that the school is trying to instruct the students in religious matters by mandating ID.

WHAT IS ID?

Intelligent Design is defined by one leading proponent, [7] Dr. William Dembski, as being three things: “a scientific research program that investigates the effects of intelligent causes; an intellectual movement that challenges Darwinism and its naturalistic legacy; and a way of understanding divine action.”

The point of the ID movement is simply this: that biological entities (plants, animals, humans) give evidence of intricate design, therefore it is logical to conclude that they were in fact designed by an intelligent designer.

But this seemingly benign and obvious reasoning has led to the latest hysterical reaction from hardcore evolutionists, atheists, and secularists.

DESIGN DETECTION

Contrary to what some might think, evidence for design in nature is admitted by theistic scientists (those who believe God exists) and atheistic scientists (those who deny God’s existence).

The best known Darwinist in the world today is Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University. Dawkins, an avid atheist, is a vigorous proponent of evolution and a vociferous opponent of Christianity and ID, yet he readily admits to the presence of intricate design in living things.

On the first page of one of his [8] books Dawkins writes,

“Complicated things, everywhere, deserve a very special kind of explanation. We want to know how they came into existence and why they are so complicated. . . . Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”

He then spends the rest of the book asserting that complex organisms arose as a result of purposeless chance mutations. Chance and eons of time replace God in the atheist equation of origins.

FLAWS IN THEIR ARGUMENTS

There are major flaws in the arguments opposed to the teaching of intelligent design.

First, critics say that ID is not science. This is patently false.

Evolutionary fundamentalists say that the idea of a designer is not scientific because of the way they define science. Their philosophy of science is naturalism – that is, that everything must be explained in terms of natural processes only. Any supernatural cause is ruled out of bounds, therefore God is defined out of existence. As evolutionist [9] Richard Lewontin has put it, “materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

The truth is that their view of science is itself unscientific. Science is a search for causes – what causes gravity, rain, and volcanoes? Using science we must also look for adequate causes for plants and planets, molecules and man.

When it comes to the origin of living organisms and the universe itself, their thinking is irrational. They recognize the laws of physics and they admit to design in biology, but they say it is unconstitutional to discuss the possibility of a designer.

Suppose you were hiking in the hills of South Dakota, enjoying the beauty of nature. As you hike around the side of a mountain, you look up and are startled by what you see. At the top of the mountain next to you are four giant faces protruding from the rock. If you had never seen or heard of Mt. Rushmore before, would it be rational to conclude that these faces, which happen to look just like four US presidents, were formed by wind and water erosion? Of course not. The design found in these faces demonstrates there was a designer. Natural processes do not produce specific and complex designs. Persons with minds do.

But the secularists are saying, in effect, that no one is allowed to discuss the possibility of a designer of Mt. Rushmore, even if all the evidence points to it. That position is unscientific and unreasonable.

Second, foes of ID say that to discuss a designer of life is religion, not science. This too is simply false.

Religion is defined as “man’s expression of his acknowledgement of the divine.” It is a system of beliefs and practices relating to the sacred. It is man’s response to God.

But a discussion of whether or not God (or a Designer) exists is not a religious question. It can be a question of philosophy, ethics, science, and history. However, a debate over whether there is a God is not the same thing as discussing what is our duty to the God who is there. We have no religious duty to a God who does not exist.

The crucial point is this: while intelligent design does not depend upon religious presuppositions, there may be religious implications of ID. It is these implications that the dogmatic evolutionists, atheists, and secularists seek to avoid at all costs.