The Threat to Liberty Posed by Gay Rights

We have several times throughout our two and a half years of existence at Viewpoint argued that legalizing gay marriage would have the almost inevitable consequence of opening the door to the legalization of any union which any combination of persons wished to form. Marriage is currently the union of one man and one woman, but once the gender of the persons in the union no longer matters neither will the number. There would be no logical reason why the number of people entering into marriage should be limited to two. Once the Rubicon of gay marriage is crossed courts would eventually and ineluctably compel legislatures to legalize polyamorous unions.

Now comes an article by Maggie Gallagher in the Weekly Standard which claims that another consequence of legalizing gay marriage, or at least legitimizing the arguments which culminate in legalized gay marriage, will be the erosion of both religious liberty and our freedom of speech. As one lawyer puts it in the article "when religious liberty and sexual liberty conflict sexual liberty should almost always prevail because that's the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner". Despite the fact that the First Amendment of the constituition guarantees freedom of religion and despite the fact that there is no corresponding constitutional guarantee of sexual liberty, this lawyer asserts that the latter should nevertheless trump the former. This is more than a little disturbing.

A prelude to the coming storm occured last March when Catholic Charities in Boston decided it was getting out of the adoption business because the courts decreed that they had to allow gay couples to adopt children. This violated the teaching of the Catholic church, and so, rather than accede to what they saw as immoral and unbiblical policy, they simply stopped serviung as an adoption agency.

The consequences will not be limited, however, to adoption. Read this excerpt from Gallagher's very informative column:

Consider education. Same-sex marriage will affect religious educational institutions...in at least four ways: admissions, employment, housing, and regulation of clubs. One of (general counsel for the American Jewish Congress, Marc) Stern's big worries right now is a case in California where a private Christian high school expelled two girls who (the school says) announced they were in a lesbian relationship. Stern is not optimistic. And if the high school loses, he tells me, "then religious schools are out of business." Or at least the government will force religious schools to tolerate both conduct and proclamations by students they believe to be sinful.

Stern agrees...that public accommodation laws can and should force truly commercial enterprises to serve all comers. But, he asks, what of other places, such as religious camps, retreats, and homeless shelters? Will they be considered by courts to be places of public accommodation, too? Could a religious summer camp operated in strict conformity with religious principles refuse to accept children coming from same-sex marriages? What of a church-affiliated community center, with a gym and a Little League, that offers family programs? Must a religious-affiliated family services provider offer marriage counseling to same-sex couples designed to facilitate or preserve their relationships?

"Future conflict with the law in regard to licensing is certain with regard to psychological clinics, social workers, marital counselors, and the like," Stern wrote last December--well before the Boston Catholic Charities story broke.

Will speech against gay marriage be allowed to continue unfettered? "Under the American regime of freedom of speech, the answer ought to be easy," according to Stern. But it is not entirely certain, he writes, "because sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace principles will likely migrate to suppress any expression of anti-same-sex-marriage views." Stern suggests how that might work.

In the corporate world the expression of opposition to gay marriage will be suppressed not by gay ideologues but by corporate lawyers who will draw the lines least likely to entangle the company in litigation. Stern likens this to "a paroxysm of prophylaxis--banning 'Jesus saves' because someone might take offense."

Or consider a recent case at William Paterson University, a state school in New Jersey. A senior faculty member sent out a mass email inviting people to attend movies with a gay theme. A student employee, a 63-year-old Muslim named Jihad Daniel, replied to the professor in a private email asking not to receive messages "about 'Connie and Sally' and 'Adam and Steve.'" He went on, "These are perversions. The absence of God in higher education brings on confusion. That is why in these classes the Creator of the heavens and the earth is never mentioned." The result: Daniel received a letter of reprimand for using the "derogatory and demeaning" word "perversions" in violation of state discrimination and harassment regulations.

Precisely because support for marriage is public policy, once marriage includes gay couples, groups who oppose gay marriage are likely to be judged in violation of public policy, triggering a host of negative consequences, including the loss of tax-exempt status. Because marriage is not a private act, but a protected public status, the legalization of gay marriage sends a strong signal that orientation is now on a par with race in the nondiscrimination game. And when we get gay marriage because courts have declared it a constitutional right, the signal is stronger still.

The culture war against religion that the secular state has been waging at relatively low intensity for the last three decades is soon about to erupt into a very bitter battle. If gay marriage is codified it may well be unconstitutional to preach against it from the pulpit or to do anything which puts teeth into one's belief that it is incompatible with God's will for men and women.

This is why it's crucial that the next Supreme Court justice be an originalist, which is why it's crucial that the president who nominates this justice and the senators which confirm him or her be themselves constitutional conservatives.

Which is why your vote in November is so very crucial.

What's at Stake

Go to Michelle's blog and click on the video to see the new Republican ad. It'll get your attention. Michelle compares it to a Democrat ad that is best described as pathetic but symbolic of the current campaign. They have offered no answer to the question of what they'd actually do if they're returned to power in Congress. Their whole campaign seems to have been pretty much a plea to the voters to elect them for the single reason that they're not Republicans.

The Democrat ad is a good example of the vacuousness of this kind of politics.

The Twilight of the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis

"...the evidence that macroevolution has happened is all around us, in the patterns of biogeographical distribution of species and in the fossil record. What is not so obvious is the mechanism(s) by which such macroevolution has occurred. Prof. Giertych is probably right in asserting that the "modern synthesis" mechanisms grounded in theoretical population genetics are insufficient to explain macroevolution. However, scientists within the field of evolutionary biology have been saying the same thing for over a century." Allen MacNeill, Cornell University evolutionary biologist.

Well, they may have been saying this for over a century, but, if so, they haven't been very public about it.

At any rate, MacNeill isn't saying that evolution never happened. He believes quite the opposite. What he's saying is that the traditional Neo-Darwinian view that evolution is the product of a synthesis of natural selection and genetic mutation is an inadequate explanation. Large scale evolution (macroevolution) simply cannot be explained in terms of any purely mechanistic processes of which we are aware.

MacNeill is not known to be overly sympathetic to Intelligent Design, but what he's claiming is what ID theorists have been asserting for two decades to considerable resistance from the Darwinian establishment which, according to MacNeill, has largely been in agreement with them. That's pretty strange.

Read the rest of MacNeill's comment here.

Meanwhile, you can catch an audio interview with a leading ID proponent, Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, on The Sci Phi Show. To hear it go here and click on the link to Michael Behe on the Sci Phi Show.

Thanks to Uncommon Descent for posting the links for the Sci Phi shows.

The Imperiled French

Arnaud de Borchgrave at The Washington Times updates us on the state of the intifada in France. Here are a few excerpts from this deeply disturbing story:

An average of 14 policemen a day are injured in bloody clashes with jobless youths. France's Interior Ministry said 2,500 police officers had been "wounded" this year. The head of the hard-line trade union "Action Police" Michel Thooris wrote to Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to describe conditions in housing developments turned slums as "intifada." Police cruisers are pelted daily with stones and "Molotov cocktails" (gasoline-filled bottles with burning wicks that explode on impact) and Mr. Thooris said cops assigned to what was rapidly degenerating into "free fire zones" should be protected in armored vehicles. Entire tall buildings empty into the streets to chase police and free an arrested comrade.

"We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists," Mr. Thooris told journalists. Mr. Sarkozy, the leading center-right candidate for next year's presidential election, responded by dispatching cops in body armor, equipped with automatic weapons and rubber bullets, stun and teargas grenades into several Paris suburbs with orders to "restore control" from "organized crime."

Jean-Marie Le Pen's far right National Front (FN) appears to have opted for a can't-lick-'em-join-'em strategy, a rapprochement with France's large immigrant Muslim community -- with undertones of anti-Semitism. Mr. Le Pen's reasoning appears to be the recognition that Islamicization is in France to stay with 25 percent of France's under-20 population Muslim (40 percent in some cities), second- and third-generation North Africans.

FN's tough stance on immigration is tempered by support for Arab and Islamist causes in the Middle East (Hamas and Hezbollah are two favorites). There are an estimated 6 to 8 million Muslims among France's 62 million and Islam is now France's second religion. Mosques are well attended on Fridays; churches aren't on Sundays. More than 50 percent of France's prison inmates are Muslims.

Anti-Semitic incidents have proliferated in France in recent times, but the news seldom makes it across the Atlantic and when it does, it must still fight to be heard above the constant melodrama of constant trivia. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse attacked with Molotov cocktails; in Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish soccer team with metal bars and sticks; a bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers attacked three times in the last 14 months; synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseilles and a Jewish school in Creteil firebombed in recent weeks; in Toulouse, a gunman opened fire -- all ignored in mainstream U.S. media. The metropolitan Paris police tabulated 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents per day in the last 30 days throughout the country.

The No. 1 best-selling book in France is "September 11: The Frightening Fraud," which posits no plane ever crashed into the Pentagon. A similar book in Germany sold more than 1 million copies.

Neither multiculturalism nor integration of Muslim communities seems to be working anywhere in Europe. Moderate Muslim voices cannot rise above radical hubbub.

Nothing like this has happened yet in the United States but if the situation is allowed to fester and deteriorate in Europe it won't be long before the same troubles visit our shores.

I read an article recently, I can't remember where, that claimed that Europe is all but lost. Whereas today we look forward to enjoying a holiday in Paris, London, or Rome, that is a luxury our children will not have. By 2030, Europe will be predominately Muslim and very probably hostile to Americans. The secularist or Judeo-Christian European remnant will either emigrate or live out their years in dhimmitude (Enforced second class subservience to Muslims and Sharia law). Europe will be a much different place, a much more dangerous place, twenty years from now than it was twenty years ago.

Whether this prediction comes to pass or not it certainly does seem that the trend lines all point in that direction.

YEC v. ID

Sal Cordova at Uncommon Descent offers an answer to a reader's question about the nature of the rift between Young Earth Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates. Along the way he offers a list of the IDers (and ID sympathizers) who favor an old age (on the order of billions of years) for the earth.

It's an interesting post and it sheds light on a perplexing dispute between two groups which should be allies against the common Darwinian opponent.

Collateral Damage

A recent report on the number of Iraqi deaths since the war began has renewed discussion about the morality of any policy which entails the deaths of innocent civilians. The report, put out by Lancet, estimates that 655,000 civilians have died in Iraq as a result of both coalition and insurgent action since the war began.

The study is critiqued here, but on the face of it the number seems absurd. The math works out to a death rate of 15,600 civilians a month or 520 dead Iraqis a day since March of 2003. This seems preposterous. Other estimates place the figure closer to 60,000.

Nevertheless, whether the number is 60,000 or ten times that figure the fundamental questions are legitimate: Is a policy that entails civilian deaths moral, and, if so, at what point does it cease to be so?

One answer given by objectors to the war in Iraq is that our policy there is morally wrong because it is always wrong to be the cause of deaths of innocent people. We are therefore wrong to go to war, not just in Iraq but anywhere, if it is probable that civilian lives will be lost as a result.

This argument is problematic. To illustrate why consider a couple of extreme, but entirely plausible, scenarios where what the military euphemistically calls "collateral damage" is a certainty.

Suppose first that terrorist hijackers have commandeered an airliner and are guiding it toward a skyscraper in which thousands of people are working. There is only one way to prevent the impending mass murder and that is to shoot down the plane.

Second, historians tell us that during the early years of American involvement in WWII it was feasible to have bombed some of the Nazi concentration camps, effectively putting them out of operation and mitigating, perhaps substantially, the horrific carnage taking place in those camps. Had the order to bomb them been carried out, however, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of innocent prisoners might have been killed.

Should the order be given to shoot down the plane? Should orders have been issued to destroy the concentration camps? If either order had been given would they have constituted unjust, immoral or criminal actions?

If downing the plane and/or bombing the camps would have been justified, then causing the deaths of some innocents in order to prevent even greater harm cannot be ipso facto wrong. If someone were to say that it would not have been unjust or immoral or criminal to give those orders then he is agreeing that, as agonizing and heartwrenching as it may be, the sacrifice of innocent lives is sometimes necessary or justified in order to thwart an enemy's larger aims.

If one were to respond, on the other hand, that those orders should not be given and that, if they were, it would be morally wrong or criminal, it would be interesting to hear the rationale for he bases his reply upon.

If it is agreed that sometimes, under some circumstances, killing innocent civilians may be justified then the debate shifts to a consideration of what those circumstances would be, whether they obtained prior to the commencement of the war in Iraq, and whether they still do today.

Some might argue that the deaths of 60,000 Iraqi civilians, reagrdless of who is responsible for them, is too many, and it's time for us to get out. But how many is too many? On what do we base whatever figure we consider to be the limit?

These are important questions but they lead to a different discussion than the one based on the assumption that it's always wrong to kill innocent civilians.

George Smoot

University of California at Berkeley physicist George Smoot was recently awarded the 2006 Nobel prize for work he did with John Mather in clarifying some of the details of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.

Smoot, like a lot of others who study the fine structure of the cosmos, finds the cosmological evidence for intentional design hard to resist. He observes:

"There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the big bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing."

Smoot draws attention not only to the fact that his team had provided more evidence for the creation event, but for a "finely orchestrated" creation event. Stephen Hawking was so impressed with this finding that he called it "the most important discovery of the century, if not of all time."

"In order to make a universe as big and wonderful as it is, lasting as long as it is-we're talking fifteen billion years and we're talking huge distances here-in order for it to be that big, you have to make it perfectly. Otherwise, imperfections would mount up and the universe would either collapse on itself or fly apart, and so it's actually quite a precise job. And I don't know if you've had discussions with people about how critical it is that the density of the universe come out so close to the density that decides whether it's going to keep expanding forever or collapse back, but we know it's within one percent."

"The big bang, the most cataclysmic event we can imagine, on closer inspection appears finely orchestrated."

There are many similar quotes from other physicists at The Veritas Forum.

Thanks to Intelligent Design The Future for the tip.

Danielle Pletka

Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute takes on Bill Maher, Ben Affleck and an unsympathetic audience and acquits herself well. The Republicans should be getting this woman on television more.

Coddling the Freeloaders

This will astonish you. Or maybe not. Thousands of emigrants, including Americans, are migrating to England and claiming asylum. Why? Because they get free accommodations, free health care, and 35 pounds a week in free money. A lot of this story will sound familiar to anyone who has been following our own immigration controversy:

Britain is such a soft touch that even Americans are coming here to claim asylum and sponge off the state. The incredible revelation comes from immigration whistleblower Rory Clarke.

And yesterday the Government was forced to admit figures that backed him up. Disgusted Rory, 34, contacted The Sun to expose the true depth of the asylum shambles. He said:

"Britain is seen as such a soft touch that poor people from countries such as America are even coming here now. A couple of years ago I met two black guys from the States who were over here because they thought they could get a better standard of living. One was from Ohio and the other from Kansas. They claimed asylum because they said they were racially discriminated against at home. But they freely admitted they were here for the free healthcare and accommodation. It is an absolute joke. They could have been here for up to five years before their application was processed."

Last night the Home Office admitted five American nationals have claimed asylum this year alone. Rory also revealed a shocking catalogue of blunders by officials, and lying by applicants that is making our asylum system the gravy train of the world.

He spent five years heading a team evicting failed asylum seekers from their homes after applications were turned down. But [he] quit the Government's National Asylum Support Service (NASS) in disgust at what he encountered.

When he started the job he calculates 50 per cent of asylum seekers were genuine. But now he reckons that figure is five per cent. Those waiting for applications to be processed get immediate free healthcare, free accommodation and 35 pounds a week in benefits.

Rory maintains the deluge is dominated by freeloaders. These include fit young men from Middle Eastern countries who are here because they want to dodge compulsory military service back home, he added.

Rory - who does not want his face to be recognisable in our picture - said: "Working for NASS was like banging your head against a wall. For example, I helped evict 30,000 illegals from their homes. But they weren't taken to detention centres.

"Instead of them being kicked out of the country, we were told to let them go. We once rounded up 56 illegals and were told to send them to the detention centre at Oakington in Cambridgeshire. The Immigration Service said they didn't have the staff to take them there so they would have to make their own way. Unsurprisingly, only five ever turned up."

Government studies estimate 300,000 bogus asylum seekers are still in the country after having applications turned down. But Rory said: "The Government figures are just the tip of the iceberg. I reckon there are at least a million and that number is growing every day.

"What really scares me is that we have no idea who is coming into the country. Less than a third of those here illegally have official papers or any identification. We let people in and take their word for who they are and what they are doing in Britain. Nobody knows if they are murderers, rapists or even terrorists.

"If Osama Bin Laden got off a boat today and gave a false name and age he could be on benefits for three years without anyone being any the wiser. In the end I just became so angry I just couldn't hack it any longer."

The Home Office yesterday said the number of asylum seekers had fallen "dramatically" in the past year.

No wonder Europe is dying. I wonder if anybody in Washington has read this article?

Foley's Mistake

NewsBusters detects the pungent scent of media bias and hypocrisy in the differing ways in which Gerry Studds, who passed away last Friday, and Mark Foley have been treated. Studds, you will recall, was the Massachussetts congressman who was caught having a sexual affair with a 17 year-old male page back in the 1970s. Foley was the Florida congressman who was recently found to be conducting a lewd instant message correspondence with a 17 year-old male page. Studds was then, and is now, treated with respect and deference by the media and congressional Democrats like John Kerry (see here). Foley is treated with contempt and contumely. Why the difference between how they are treated? Evidently it's that Studds was a Democrat and Foley was a Republican.

Foley's "lapse in judgment" was not his decision to carry on an improper dialogue with a 17 year old boy, it was, presumably, his decision to run for office as a Republican. If he had been a Democrat we would doubtless be inundated by the media with articles deploring how the poor man, a devoted public servant, had been hounded out of office by the prudes and homophobes in the Religious Right and the Republican leadership.

How Long Would it Take?

Joe Carter asks how long would it take for all traces of humanity to disappear from the earth after humans went extinct. By way of an answer he links us to this graphic.

I suppose the graphic assumes that the extinction was caused by a natural loss of reproductive vitality, but the numbers would probably be different were the extinction caused by the effects of a large-scale nuclear war.

In any case the chart should give pause to those who sunnily assume that the meaning of anything we do here on earth is independent of whether there is an eternal destiny awaiting us. If there is not, if existence is transient, then whatever we accomplish, the graphic reminds us, is doomed ultimately to be reduced to nothing but overgrowth and decay. Our efforts only have meaning if our existence has permanence, and belief that our existence has permanence is a truly blind and irrational hope unless it is based on belief in the existence of God.

Not <i>Opus</i>!

How long until the imams of the Religion of Perpetual Umbrage issue a fatwa against Opus?

I just wish I knew what he meant by "bad dogs".

Thirty-eight Ways to Win

Telic Thoughts links us to an old piece attributed to Arthur Schopenhauer which the philosopher surely meant as satire. It's titled 38 Ways to Win and Argument, and it's clear that the goal is indeed winning and not arriving at truth. Here are a couple of tactics Schopenhauer "endorses":

8. Make your opponent angry. An angry person is less capable of using judgment or perceiving where his or her advantage lies.

14. Try to bluff your opponent. If he or she has answered several of your question without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow. If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.

18. If your opponent has taken up a line of argument that will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion. Interrupt the dispute, break it off altogether, or lead the opponent to a different subject.

21. When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character. But it is better to meet the opponent with a counter-argument that is just as superficial, and so dispose of him. For it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth. Example: If the opponent appeals to prejudice, emotion or attacks you personally, return the attack in the same manner.

32. A quick way of getting rid of an opponent's assertion, or of throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category. Example: You can say, "That is fascism" or "Atheism" or "Superstition." In making an objection of this kind you take for granted 1) That the assertion or question is identical with, or at least contained in, the category cited; and 2) The system referred to has been entirely refuted by the current audience.

38. Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand. In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. This is a very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect.

These and the rest of Schopenhauer's thirty-eight stratagems are certainly in wide use today in the political arena, in theological debates, and in the controversy between Darwinists and Intelligent Design advocates. Some things never change.

Wells vs. Shermer

C-Span will be airing next week a recent exchange at the Washington D.C. Cato Institute between atheistic Darwinian Michael Shermer and Intelligent Design advocate Jonathan Wells. Shermer's remarks were taken from his book Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design. Wells' address followed Shermer's and provided an excellent overview of ID. A transcript of Wells' talk can be found at Uncommon Descent.

If you don't want to wait for the C-Span showing there's a video of the whole event here. A critique of Shermer's presentation can be found at Evolution News and Views.

Challenges and Priorities

Christianity Today features a number of prominent evangelicals who discuss what they think are the challenges which will be facing our society and what should be our priorities over the next fifty years.

Orange Bowl Brawl

Video of Saturday's brawl between Miami U. football players and those from Florida International University can be seen here.

It's a disgraceful and pathetic scene, but despite professions of shock from everybody in the sportsworld whom I've seen or heard comment on it, I don't think anyone is really surprised. Big time college sports programs recruit semi-literate, semi-articulate non-students because they have the physical talent to win football and basketball games. No one should be surprised that out of every fifty such athletes a half dozen or so are genuine thugs.

There were at least that many players on the field at the Orange Bowl who should lose their "scholarships" and shouldn't play another game in the NCAA, and the announcer named Lamar, who seemed to warm so much to the action, should have just worked his last game in the braodcast booth as well.

The editor at the link has this comment:

The reaction of the Miami fans and organization might be even more shameful than the actual brawl. You have the announcer claiming he wants to go down the elevator and join the brawl. Quotes from Miami message boards include "I LOVED IT that may be the start of the U returning this will be a HUGE boost for recruiting", "we needed this in the worst way", "The reason we dominated the second half was due to the fight. Finally the players let out the emotion that has been controlled by a reserved Coker", and many more along the same lines. The fans in the Orange Bowl were cheering. The announcer wanted to leave the booth and join the brawl. Is this what Miami stands for? If so, the ACC should be redfaced that they were ever allowed to join the conference. Utterly ridiculous display by the Miami players, fans, staff and anyone associated with the program.

Viewpoint agrees.

The Flesh and The Spirit

Back in April I posted If I May as a response to Living Like Jesus and in that post I mentioned The Deeper Journey by M. Robert Mulholland. Here's a quote from the back cover of the book that sums up what the book is about:

Robert Mulholland exposes the false selves that we hide behind and helps us discover the true self that comes from being hidden with Christ in God. If the goal of the Christian journey is Christ-likeness, then we must reckon with the unhealthy ways that we root our sense of being in things other than God. Along the way, we will discover a growing sense of intimacy and abandonment to God. Not only will we encounter the joy of discovering our own self, we will also find a greater love for others and compassion for the world.

Mulholland also mentions that the apostle Paul spoke of the same concept by contrasting "life according to the Flesh" (the false self) with "life according to the Spirit" (the true self) in Romans 8.

I mention this simply to provide some background for the following from Great Cloud of Witnesses in Hebrews Eleven by E. W. Bullinger where he addresses the problem somewhat differently. Whether his is a more effective approach I'll leave to those of our readers who have also read The Deeper Journey to decide.

Interestingly, this gem is found in the end of the chapter entitled Sarah: Faith's Conclusion.

We have already remarked on the place which Sarah occupies in the Divine order manifest in this chapter. This is clearly seen from the structure on page 109 where Sarah is placed in direct correspondence with Rahab.

In these correspondences the same characteristic of faith is obviously emphasized by the Holy Ghost.

In Sarah and Rahab we have FAITH'S CONCLUSION. This is common to both women. Sarah "judged Him faithful Who had promised" (v. 11). Rahab said, "I know...for we have heard" (Josh. ii. 9, 10).

Moreover, both women stand in connection with the two examples of FAITH'S OBEDIENCE, forming two corresponding pairs, with Abraham and Israel respectively.

But we must now give the text in full (verses 11 and 12).

"By faith, Sarah herself also received power for [the] foundation of a posterity, and [that], after the ordinary time of life, since she esteemed Him faithful Who gave the promise. Wherefore, even from one, who was as good as dead as to such things, there sprang [a posterity] even as the stars of heaven for the multitude, and as sand which is by the sea-shore, which cannot be numbered."

...

The birth of Isaac was the introduction of a new element in Abraham's household.

It corresponds with the introduction of the New nature in the believer today. Ishmael corresponds with the Old nature, which, when the New nature comes, it finds in possession.

Its introduction at once brings to light, and arouses to greater life and strength, the activities of the Old nature.

There was no conflict in Abraham's house till Isaac was born "not of the will of man, or of the will of the flesh, but of God" (John i. 13).

"But, as then, he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him [who was born] according to spirit, even so it is now" (Gal. 1v. 29). "The flesh lusteth against the pneuma (or New nature) and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other" (Gal. v. 17).

"The mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. viii. 7).

In Abraham's house this enmity was at once manifest.

The birth of Isaac did not improve Ishmael, or change his character, or his activities.

There was only one remedy, and that was "cast out the bond-woman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with MY SON, even with Isaac" (Gen. xxi. 10). The bond-woman was an Egyptian, and savoured of Egyptian bondage; and the only remedy was to "cast out" both her and her son.

But what was possible in the allegory or type is impossible in the antitype.

The old nature cannot be "cast out" from believers now, but we have to reckon it to be so, by faith.

This is to be for us FAITHS CONCLUSION, Faith's reckoning (Rom. vi. 11), Faith's judgment (Heb. xi. 11).

This is what Abraham considered in Rom. iv. 19. "He considered his own body as already having become dead, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; but staggered not at the promise of God, through unbelief, but was strengthened by [his] faith, giving glory to God" (Rom iv. 20). This is to find its exact counterpart in us who believe God, as Abraham did.

This is to be faith's consideration, faith's judgment, faith's conclusion for us.

All that we are called on to do now, is to believe God; to consider our Old nature to be dead, and unable to conceive, beget, or to bring forth, or produce anything for God.

It requires great faith to do this; because, all the time we are conscious of its presence and its power. Our faith, therefore, has to be "against hope," as Abraham's was.

All the while they where believing God's promise, he and Sarah were faced with the undeniable fact that all was "against hope."

It is even so with us. We are faced with the ever present fact of the workings of the Old nature; and, therefore, we must, "against hope," "reckon ourselves to be dead [persons] to sin, but alive to God, through (or in) Christ Jesus."

To attempt to improve our Old nature is to give a flat denial to Rom.vi. 11.

To attempt to change Ishmael is direct disobedience to God (Gal. iv. 30).

To "consider" our Old nature as being alive and able to produce anything for God is a refusal to reckon it as being dead.

To "mortify" its members, in the popular sense, is to consider them as not being "already dead", but to recognizes them as being very much alive. But to "mortify" in the Scriptural sense is to consider them as good as dead! This is the meaning of the word in this connection, as is clear from our context, Heb. xi. 23 and Rom. iv. 19.

Abraham could not have considered his own body as already actually dead, or that he could mortify it by any activities which he could put forth; but only by considering it "as good as dead."

That is what we are called on to do in exercising FAITH'S CONCLUSION.

We are not to seek to improve our members by mortifying them by any process of rules for daily living. This is only to treat them as though they were alive. But we are to treat them "as good as dead," and as being as incapable of doing good, as they are capable of doing evil.

But this can be done only by believing God; and, by faith-obedience, reckoning ourselves as already dead in ourselves. Until this is done, there can be no peace. For it is as being "justified by faith, we have peace with God.". This is the conclusion of the whole argument of Rom. iv. as continued in ch. v. 1.

Until this is done, there can be no joy, no happiness, no "laughter".

As long as Ishmael was in Abraham's house there was only grief (Gen. xxi. 11). But when God's faithfulness was realized, then Sara could say "God hath made me to laugh" (Gen. xx1 6).

Yes, it is the same God Who hath "made us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light," Who makes us thus to laugh.

But if we stagger through unbelief, and do not come to FAITH'S CONCLUSION and believe Him, "against hope," and in spite of all our feelings and experiences, then there is only one alternative for us: we shall go on our way in grief and unhappiness, mourning for what we have done or not done, instead of "giving thanks unto the Father: for what HE HATH DONE (Col. i. 12). We shall sink under the burden of the incessant confession of our trespasses, because we steadfastly refuse to believe what we hear from God, that "you being dead in your sins...hath He quickened together with Him (Christ) HAVING FORGIVEN YOU ALL TRESPASSES" (Col. ii. 13).

Oh, that we may have Sarah's faith, and "against hope" be strengthened by faith, and have our mouths filled with God-given laughter, and give glory to God, because we have judged Him faithful Who hath promised.

CT's Top Fifty

Everybody enjoys lists of the top 10 of this or that (Well, maybe not everybody). Christianity Today offers a catalog of the top fifty books which have shaped the lives and thinking of Evangelicals. As with any such list you'll feel that they left some books off that they should have listed, including classics like Pilgrim's Progress and In His Steps, and that they included some that they shouldn't have. If you're an evangelical Christian and a reader - and if you're the first then surely you're the second - give it a look and see what you think.

Just War in an Age of Jihad

A friend links us to this article by David Aikman who writes that the moral criteria Just War thinking are teetering on the brink of obsolescence in an age in which one side regards such criteria with disdain. He argues that we must not discard the principles of Just War but that we need to rethink what "Just War" means in an age of jihad:

Just war principles work successfully only among nations that acknowledge the same moral laws at work, as in Europe, for example, in general before World War I. Now, however, we are all in a wider and starker conflict, in which ruthless Islamic ideologists are prepared to immolate their own children for the sake of ultimate victory. We should not be pressured by the enormity of the challenge they pose to civilized life to abandon our own rules of "just war." But we need to think through-and make public-how to cope with guerrilla adversaries who operate according to barbaric and totalitarian rules. Civilization is at stake-not only ours, but the world's. Do we have the moral imagination to oppose such adversaries without compromising the very integrity we fight to protect?

For my part I'm not sure exactly which Just War criteria are threatened by the Islamist assault upon the West (See here for a helpful discussion of Just War theory). I do agree, however, that we need to rethink some aspects of Just War theory. For instance, we need to clarify the concept of proportionate response, the question of who is a non-combatant, and what constitutes torture, but I agree with Aikman that the tradition of Just War and the principles which comprise it should not be abandoned.

Walid Shoebat

There is a CNN interview with Walid Shoebat at Hot Air that everyone should watch. Shoebat was a Palestinian terrorist who renounced terrorism and now tours the U.S. trying to educate Americans on the nature of Islamic jihad. It's a powerful piece.

Shoebat spoke last Wednesday night at Columbia University which, still smarting from the criticism they got for their miserable response to the near riot that prevented Minuteman Jim Gilchrist from speaking, decided to rescind some 77 invitations and admit only Columbia students to the lecture.

This was a very unpopular move (some are calling it gutless) since they withdrew the invitations by e-mail just two hours or so before the lecture, but at least the students at Columbia were able to hear him speak.

The Daily Infidel has an excellent report of the event at which Shoebat appeared. Apparently several former terrorists who have converted to Christianity told their stories and gave their opinions of modern Islam. There were a number of remarkable things said that evening, but one of the most interesting was a reply by one of the panelists to a questioner who pointed out that most Muslims, even clergy, are moderate. The former terrorist, a man who said that he had killed 233 people by the time he was 16, replied, "If you think your imam is moderate, ask him what would happen if his son converted to Christianity."

There's much more at The Daily Infidel.