Salvation, part 1

My friend Edward Oleander recently asked me a rather straightforward question: "Tom, tell me, briefly, what separates Christianity from the rest of the religions. What makes it special and unique?" It is a common understanding of many people that all religions want their followers to act righteously, and not to hurt others. And the impression of this viewpoint is that God is primarily concerned with how we act – He wants us to act kindly, and to stay away from doing evil.

But is this the core of Christianity? Let me answer this question by reviewing recent events at the church my family and I belong to – Hosanna Lutheran Church in Lakeville, Minnesota. Our church recently voted to start the process to leave the governing denomination it belongs to, the ELCA. The ELCA is the largest Lutheran denomination in America. There was strong unity at Hosanna in the vote to leave the ELCA with over 90% of the members wanting to leave. Although there are a number of reasons for Hosanna's decision, the most recent lightning rod for the vote was this past summer's decision by the ELCA to allow the ordaining of homosexual Pastors and the blessing of homosexual unions.

But why do I bring Hosanna's decision to leave the ELCA up? I am told that one of the members at Hosanna asked Pastor Bohline the following question: Will Hosanna still be Lutheran if we leave the ELCA? And this was a good question, because it highlights that except for the denomination, it is often difficult to know what the core beliefs of a church are. Despite Pastor Bohline's assurance that Hosanna will remain "Lutheran" even after leaving the ELCA, it is hard to know what now exactly makes us a "Lutheran" church.

And so, let me spell out my understanding of what it means to be a "Lutheran". And by this, I hope to also answer Ed's question of what sets Christianity apart from other religions.

What Makes Someone Lutheran / What Separates Christianity from Other Religions?

Sin and Redemption

All people are sinners unable to do anything to save themselves. All of our actions are so selfish, and so vile, that if God judged us this day, we would receive the ultimate penalty – loss of our life. Yet, God the Son was sacrificed and took this death punishment upon Himself, to save us, and to redeem us that we might individually have relationship with God, through God's Grace and by faith.

 

Justification is only by God's Grace, through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Scripture is the primary authority. I really like Luther's summary of the importance of Scripture: Luther himself regarded the Bible to be "so much like himself [God], that the Godhead is wholly in it, and he who has the word has the whole Godhead."(from Pelikan and Lehman's "Luther's Works') The summary of these 'sola's" is by these wonderful Latin phrases:

 

sola fide (faith alone)

sola gratia (grace alone)

sola Scriptura (Scripture alone)

soli Christo (Christ alone)

 

Baptism, including infant baptism (see my previous post on this topic)

Christians will mission to those who do not call Jesus their Savior, give freely their service, and use of gifts provided by God, the Holy Spirit, out of gratitude/thankfulness, and not as a way to obtain salvation.

Faith in Jesus' return and Judgment

A complete rejection of Global Warming.

OK, I'm JOKING on the last one. And so, I see God as more interested in saving people through the Crucifixion of God the Son, and through this faith, changing people through the work of the Holy Spirit, rather than having people try their best to act righteously. This is not meant as a listing of all of the foundations of Christianity. Instead, this is my attempt to show the different important doctrines that separate Lutherans from other religions. I hope this provides you with a good starting for our discussion. /s/Tom

Four (4) Winged Fruit Fly

Go Vikes! Wouldn't it be great if the Vikings were able to make it (and win?!) the Super Bowl? I am still in the afterglow of last week's Vikings victory, and a wonderful evening at Alpha. But today's topic has nothing to do with football, but instead is the ubiquitous fruit fly. I am once again responding to my oft-commenting friend Edward Oleander's request for me to provide evidence of what Darwinism can do in an organism. Although it is very clear from scientific studies that organisms like E-coli, malaria and HIV/Aids can mutate to develop very helpful resistance to medications, although its' ability to mutate appears very small. And so, perhaps the mutation rate for living creatures (like the fruit fly) is much higher than for malaria. I started (see January 3, 2010 post) by showing that although evolution is helpful in providing something like malaria with resistance to Chloroquine, the mutation rate is far too small to accomplish anything more significant. In this post, I will take a look at the fruit fly to see if Darwinism can more easily modify something more significant like body shape (called a morphological change) in a living creature.

The fruit fly is a two (2) winged insect that is one of the most intensively studied organisms in biology and genetics. It is widely studied because of its short lifespan, and the fact that the heredity of a fruit fly can easily be studied because it has a short generation time of about 10 days. The female lays about 100 eggs each batch, and up to 2,000 during its lifetime. It also only has four (4) pairs of chromosomes, which makes it an ideal study for studying genetic changes from generation to generation. With 10 day generations and 100 offspring the application of these genetic studies is obvious – they can replicate changes / mutations with an eye toward longer lived animals (like mammals), to see what Darwinism can really do, especially for changes to an organism's body.

So can Darwinism make the sort of large scale changes to an organism's body (called morphological changes) as Darwinism predicts? My conclusion is that the fruit fly experiments show that through the scientific study and expertise of genetic study, we can manipulate a two (2) winged fruit fly to have four (4) non-functioning wings, but otherwise Darwinism once again fails to show the possibility that large scale genetic changes can take place. Again, as I asked after reviewing the malaria studies, is that it? I was hoping for something that would help me to believe that we can go from a squirrel in one generation to a kitten in the next. Or at least a significant step in that direction. But as I will show, the four (4) winged fruit fly studies show that random mutation + natural selection (this is the core of Darwinian belief) is NOT the mechanism for the claimed changes of Darwinism, and even with intelligently designed manipulation of the fruit fly's DNA, a body shape can be changed over several generations, but only in a harmful way. The question is straightforward, what changes do we see in living creatures in the world around us?

The bodies of fruit flies are divided into segments. What is cool about the genes of a fruit fly is that they divide into segments just as is shown in the fruit fly's body. The anterior (forward) section has the wings. In 1978, California Institute of Technology geneticist Ed Lewis reported his findings from an extensive study of the genes of a fruit fly that he conducted: he was able to manipulate the fruit fly's genes over three generations, where he was able to grow a second set of wings, but this time on the fruit fly's posterior (rearward) compartment. A single mutation cannot cause the second set of wing's mutation. Instead, only a fly with three mutations (called anterobithorax, bithorax, and postbithorax mutations – these mutations affect a single large gene called Ultrabithorax) will have the second set of wings. Dr. Lewis was able to manipulate the Ultrabithorax genes regulatory sequences so that the rearward compartments wings rather than halters (minute appendages that appears on the normal fruit fly) would appear.

This picture or sketch of a fruit fly with four wings is a common example in textbooks of an example of what Evolution can do in a living organism. But is this really something that Darwinists can show as proof of what Darwinism does? No, what Dr. Lewis has shown is that even with intensive, intelligent manipulation of the fruit fly's genes, through successive generations, that four wings can be added to a creature with two wings. But this is a horrible example of Darwinism because the second set of wings don't work. The genetic manipulation by Dr. Lewis is impressive, but apparently is possible through intelligent engineering. And even with this genetic manipulation, the changes that were done did not include muscles for the fruit fly to use with this second set of wings. Dr. Lewis' four-winged fruit fly could not use the second set of wings because it did not have the muscles to use these extra wings. Instead of showing that body changes are possible through Evolution, the four-winged fruit fly shows that major changes to a living creature are much more complicated, involving more than just adding extra wings. It also takes changes to the muscles, the circulatory system (if needed), and the additional instructions for the creatures brain, etc. In Dr. Lewis's study he has only added the second set of unusable wings, an evolutionary disadvantage. There is no survival of the fittest advantage here.

So in summary, living organisms face the same mutation problems shown in my previous post on malaria. Morphological changes are much more complex, and involve more than even what Dr. Lewis' genetic manipulations adding a second set of wings to a fruit fly over three generations. The second set of wings were unusable, because there was no muscles, and so no way for these wings to be used. And the observed natural mutations of a fruit fly again reveals that Darwinism cannot accomplish the large scale changes needed. If large scale changes cannot take place in the fruit fly which has 10 day generations, what hope is there for Darwinism to show large scale changes in mammals, where there are years of generations? Again, the fruit fly shows that Darwinism cannot turn a squirrel into a kitty, or even a significant step in that direction, and so something else is needed. My hope is that the reader of this blog will start looking at the evidence and see that Darwinism isn't the reason why you are here today. There are big questions in life. Why are we here is a one of the biggest. Where are you looking for these answers?

I hope I've given you something to think about. In Christ, /s/Tom

Odds n’ Ends, #17

1).    God's Grace. From the website 'Of First Importance': "For there is no calm haven where our minds can rest until we come to God's free love."- (John Calvin, NT Commentary on John p75)

2).    End of the World Coming May 21, 2011. It seems as though these are times of great urgency, no matter one's viewpoint. The challenging times of our world include issues such as Global Warming, the economy in crises, famines, wars, natural disasters, the possibility of the Packers going to the Super Bowl, etc. This sense of urgency is now appearing more frequently. Here is a Harold Camping, a Christian radio talk show host's prediction that the world will end May 21, 2011. And note that despite there being clear Scripture that no one knows when the end will come (here), Mr. Camping uses a very strained interpretation of the Bible, mathematics, and numerology to come up with the May 21, 2011 date:

The number 5, Camping concluded, equals "atonement." Ten is "completeness." Seventeen means "heaven." Camping patiently explained how he reached his conclusion for May 21, 2011.

"Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.," he began. "Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that's 1,978 years."

Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days - the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year.

Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500.

Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500. Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.

"Five times 10 times 17 is telling you a story," Camping said. "It's the story from the time Christ made payment for your sins until you're completely saved. "I tell ya, I just about fell off my chair when I realized that," Camping said.

3).    Child Sacrifices on Rise in Uganda. Witch doctors in Uganda have admitted their part in human sacrifice amid concerns that the practice is spreading in the African country. Story is here. One man said he had clients who had captured children and taken their blood and body parts to his shrine, while another confessed to killing at least 70 people including his own son.

The latter has now given up the ritual and is campaigning to stamp it out, according to BBC News.

The African country's government claimed human sacrifice was on the increase.

According to officials trying to tackle it, the crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity - and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly…

    Tom's Thought – There is nothing more precious than children. And so, when people are willing to sacrifice children, a universally evil act, in order to obtain financial gain, it is a sign that some switch has gone on that is causing people to lose their senses. And a question to ask ourselves during the financial crises that our country is facing, is what are you willing to do in order to keep a roof over your family's head, or food on the table?

 

4).    Dolphins Should Be Treated as Non-human Persons?. Story here. Dolphins have been declared the world's second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as "non-human persons".

Studies into dolphin behavior have highlighted how similar their communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high intelligence…

    Tom's Thought – The legal implications of this are mind-boggling. Does this mean dolphins are entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? Should a boat captain be arrested for hitting a dolphin? Should the ACLU be able to represent them? Should it be a criminal act to defeat the Miami Dolphins in an NFL game?

 

5).    Top 10 Religious Blogs. According to the Technorati website (here), the top 10 religious websites are:

I haven't checked out, or heard about these blogs, except for the last two, and so who knows what these sites might contain. But I thought it was interesting to see that someone came up with a list like this.

1.

What Does The Prayer Really … http://wdtprs.com/blog/ Recent: The Feeder Feed There was a lot of snow and a lot of cold and a lot of wind. The birds are doing their best. Post from: …

Religion Auth: 971 Change +1 Top 100 living

2. moved up 3 places

Tall Skinny Kiwi http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/ Recent: Winkie Pratney's Communication Secret Winkie Pratney just suffered an aneurysm last week and " apparently is not doing very well ." His speech …

Religion Auth: 900     Top 100 living

3.

Jesus Creed http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed Recent: Weekly Meanderings It's been a cold week in Chicago, our home town.  But that doesn't mean Chicagoans can't have some fun …

Religion Auth: 893     Top 100 living

4.

Justin Taylor http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/ Recent: Thomas Sowell's New Book: Intellectuals and Society If Thomas Sowell writes a book, I get it. I find his writings invariably insightful and helpful. Paul …

Religion Auth: 891     Top 100 living

5. moved down -3 places

TheResurgence http://theresurgence.com Recent: Featured Media: Leadership Lessons from Nehemiah In this series from the Acts 29 2007 regional conference in Seattle, Mark Driscoll answers twenty leadership …

Religion Auth: 888     Top 100 living

6.

Apprising Ministries http://apprising.org Recent: TONY JONES TRACES THE CORRUPTION OF YOUTH SPECIALTIES In his post An Open Letter to YouthWorks  Tony Jones, heretical "theologian in residence" at the emerging …

Religion Auth: 884     Top 100 living

7. moved up 2 places

Beyond Babylon http://beyondbabylon.blogspot.com Recent: God is reproducing Himself! Re: Hebrew midwives #13. To: BobCeleste (#6 ) Or perhaps a follower of Armstrong. But whatever, as one who …

Religion Auth: 880     Top 100 living Top 100 world

8. moved down -1 places

Creative Minority Report http://www.creativeminorityreport.com Recent: Something Happened on the Way to Damascus Why do I despise the Republican Party? Charlie Crist is as good an answer as I can come up with right now. …

Religion Auth: 864     Top 100 living

9. moved down -2 places

Parchment and Pen http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog Recent: A Grief Letter to My Sister Angie (1969-2004) Dear Angie, We just passed the 6 year anniversary of your death. I guess it was the evening of January 4, …

Religion Auth: 861     Top 100 living

10. moved down -1 places

AlbertMohler.com – Blog http://www.albertmohler.com Recent: NewsNote: The Death of a Feminist Radical theologian Mary Daly died Sunday at age 81, ending one of the most interesting and tragic careers

Malaria – The Evolution of a Killer

In my post on 'Apologetics', Edward Oleander commented that he would like further details on what Darwinism shows about evolutionary changes in a cell. Let me start our discussion by re-posting a previous post (with a few additions) on Malaria:

 

What Does Malaria Teach Us About What Evolution Can Do?

Malaria is the million person Murderer; it kills 1 million people each year, and makes 100 million other people sick. In some regions, it kills half of all children before the reach the age of 5. It is like Dracula, feeding on blood. It is carried by mosquitoes, and transmitted when they bite. Once inside a person they keep feeding until they reach the liver, where they stop to multiply. It attaches to a red blood cell, goes inside puts a protective covering on and feeds on the hemoglobin. The infected blood cell gets stuck in our veins and stops circulating. Malaria reproduces until about 20 copies are made, they then break out of the now trashed red blood cell and re-enter the bloodstream to go into more red blood cells. They multiply exponentially, so that within a few days there are a trillion new malarial parasites, which consume a large portion of the victim's blood. Because they are so numerous, and it has been studied so much, it is the best example of what evolution can do.

The modern fight against malaria began in South America with the discovery that bark from the cinchona tree was useful for treating the fever. Quinine is developed from the cinchona bark, and once it was discovered in the 17^th century that it could be used as a cure for malaria. But in the 1940's the active ingredient was isolated, and a compound developed called 'Chloroquine' that was even more effective against malaria. Because Chloroquine was effective, with few side effects and inexpensive to make it became the drug of choice for treatment of malaria for decades.

Malaria has 14 chromosomes, and the resistance part was recently discovered to be part of a 400,000 nucleotide region of one chromosome. It was further narrowed to 36,000 nucleotide region. The complexity of even a simple parasite like malaria is mind-blowing. The DNA for malaria encodes 5,300 proteins (proteins are essential to the operation of the cell, participating in every process of the cell. This includes being enzymes for metabolism, structural and mechanical functions – like forming the cell structure and building muscles, cell-signaling, immune responses and cell adhesion.) The PfCRT protein (for P. falciparum, a malaria species - Throughout my post when I use 'malaria', it is for P. falciparum) normally has 424 amino acids in a strict sequence. When there is a change in the amino acid sequence, the change commonly happens at position number 76 and 220 of the resistant proteins. These mutations are what have provided malaria's resistance to Chloroquine. This is what evolution can do in making an organism more resistant to an enemy like Chloroquine that is designed to destroy malaria.

So these two mutations at spot 76 and 220 of the amino acid sequence are what Darwinism can do – they provide resistance to the primary drug used to fight malaria; Chloroquine. Remember, that there are 1 trillion malaria cells in an infected person. And there are over 500 million people infected each year. Tom's Point: So with so many malaria cells (1 trillion in a sick person) and so many people infected with malaria (500 million each year), how often does a simple double protein "binding-site" mutation of the amino acid sequence happen to provide resistance to the top drug used to fight Chloroquine? One researcher has estimated that it has happened only 10 times over the past 50 years.

Resistance to Chloroquine has perhaps only appeared 10 times in the whole world in the past 50 years (!!!). And so, one writer estimates that if you count the number of malaria cells in a very sick person times the number of people who get malaria each year times the number of years since Chloroquine was introduced, we see that the odds of a parasite developing resistance to Chloroquine is roughly one in a hundred billion billion. Written in shorthand this is 1 in 10²⁰. This is why eminent geneticist Francois Jacob writes that Darwinian evolution is a "tinkerer" and not an engineer. I have made the claim that the evolution rates are many times too small to accomplish what Edward Oleander and other Darwinists claim. I make my argument based upon what we see in the studies of malaria, as well as other recent studies involving HIV/Aids and E-Coli.

 

If you would like the list of the studies relied upon by Prof. Michael Behe in The Edge of Evolution, I can send them to you. This is a topic I have a genuine interest in, and so, if you have information that is helpful in expanding the discussion, please post it.