The Never-dying Confusion over the Never-die Promise of Jesus

"Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world." John 11: 23-27 [KJV]

These words of Jesus, that those who believe in him will never die, have been appropriated many times in the thousands of years since he spoke them by cult leaders who offer their followers the same promise. Never mind that every one of Jesus' disciples died, typically by violent means; it's incredibly easy to found a cult on this premise, and, contrary to what one would think, these typically continue without all that much of a hitch following the deaths of their founders. That is, Never-die movements never seem to die, so strong is the temptation to appropriate this promise as one of eternal life in this present age. 

But what did Jesus actually mean by “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” [ESV]? Well, commentators have taken different approaches to solving this, with various Bible translators following their leads. One of the easiest ways out has been to focus on the eschatological context of Martha's affirmation, and interpret Jesus as meaning, “When I return, everyone who is then alive, of those who have believed in me, will be immediately translated into eternity in a resurrection body.” Convenient as that is, I don't see it coming across in any of the dozens of versions I checked.

What many translators do instead is to modify 'will never die' with some emphatic modifier like “really.”

And everyone who lives and believes in me will never really die. [ERV]

That, I guess, gives some room for the expositor to further address the problem of Jesus' disciples actually dying, but doesn't really say how that works. Nor does it actually translate the Greek.

Some play around with the conjunction a little, without coming up with anything new, other than perhaps to emphasise that one actually has to be living as a beliver to appropriate this promise:

And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. [NIV]

As can be expected, the Amplified finds room for a couple of these options:

And whoever continues to live and believes in (has faith in, cleaves to, and relies on) Me shall never [actually] die at all.

The Message basically combines all of them:

And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all.

But I'd like to direct you to that last clause, with a word not found in any of the dozens of other versions: ultimately. This actually translates the final clause of Jesus' statement in Greek, εισ τον αιωνα, literally, 'unto the age'. What readers of most English versions miss out on is that 'die' is actually negated three times in this verse, which is so difficult to express in English that only this hyper-paraphrase actually manages to translate all three of them. 'ου', 'εισ τον αιωνα' and 'μη' become 'does not', 'ultimately', and 'at all'.

I think the key to understanding this is that third negation expressed in the original, εισ τον αιωνα. That is, anyone who believes in Jesus (and I think the NNIV may even be on to something here: anyone who lives by believing in Jesus, or to expand it a bit, believes in Jesus whilst he still lives—there being no second chance once earthy life is over) will only be “mostly dead” when his body succumbs to mortality; but not “all dead,” because that body awaits a future resurrection. And to prove this, Jesus will shortly resurrect the body of Lazarus, purposely left to stew in the grave long enough for decomposition to begin.

So don't get tripped up by this passage, or trapped by the claims of a cult founder: Jesus promised, not a never-ending life stuck in a sinful human body, but something far better: an eternity in a resurrection body. All that is required is that your physical death, when it does come, finds you believing in him.

The Duggar Disaster deepens

 I see that this blog is drawing in a number of people seeking information on Josh Duggar, so it's time for another update. First of all, Blogspot has announced that as of July, they will no longer be sending email updates whenever I post on this blog, so this may be the last such announcement you get. Google continues to limit my exposure, since I refuse to participate in this for mutual gain, so anything I post here will get a diminished number of views at any rate. 

Now, on to the Duggars. Josh Duggar turns out to be an incorrigible sexual addict after all, having found a way to work around every limit put on him to date. This is of course a source of deep grief to his parents; his wife appears to still be in denial (she is currently expecting their seventh child--which, if he ends up serving anywhere near the prison term he faces, is likely their last). 

Now, what can I say to all that. Well, a few things. First of all, I'm glad he got caught. As careful as he was, clearly the feds have ways of locating people who seek out and share material online that's not protected by the Bill of Rights. I'm rather astounded, though, that it was Homeland Security who investigated the matter. Obviously this sort of crimes occurred before HS was a department of the federal government, but for some reason the investigation of these crimes has been taken away from the FBI at some level and transferred to them. It is a bit of concern that a cabinet department, familiar to those in totalitarian countries as focusing on defending the ruling party from the members of the opposition, is now in charge of investigating unprotected speech. 

Secondly, I receive a lot of inappropriate emails, with (usually somewhat blurred) obscene suggestions right in the subject line. They all go directly to Spam, and I never open the images in them, or click on any link in them. But the mere fact that they are emails addressed to me means that, from the perspective of someone monitoring traffic on my server, it's possible that I look like someone who is viewing illegal material. And such material could well be sent to me disguised in such a way that I would unsuspectingly open it to view--this did happen once, several years ago. So don't be too quick to judge someone who comes under such an accusation. Josh Duggar, on the other hand, had clearly structured his computer in such a way as to hide what he was doing--even going so far as to set it up on his work computer, where he could close his office door and indulge without the risk of his wife or kids catching him in the act.

Lastly, a brief comment on the costs of fame and fortune. When the Duggars embarked on their public career, it was in the realm of politics: Jim Bob ran for an open Senate seat. He lost, big time, but the fame that ensued catapulted him into the State House, and from thence to a gig on cable television. The Duggars thought the exposure was worth the opportunity it gave them to proclaim the virtues of a godly lifestyle to the world. But was it? Less than quarter century in, it certainly doesn't look like the gain has been worth the loss. Once nice thing about poverty is that it puts a lid on one's ability to get deep into certain sins. If one has to choose between putting food on the table and purchasing an inappropriate magazine, or getting an internet subscription, it limits the temptation. So, the riches that fame brought to the Duggars did come with an intrinsic cost. And it was the laptop of a political operative that first yanked Josh out of his sheltered world and introduced him to the siren call of online pornography, so the politics that catapulted them to fame also held a hidden bite. It turns out that raising your children in an extremely sheltered environment may leave them totally unprepared for handling the real world when they are set loose in it.

I grieve with the Duggars--all three generations. It looks like those seven kids are going to pretty much grow up without a daddy, or at least with a very distant one, adultery having long ceased to be a capital offense on this continent. I grieve for the missed opportunities to have done something different, with different results.  I grieve for the failed experiment in having a lifestyle worth proclaiming to the world. But I am relieved that fame and fortune have eluded me, and my family. Whatever mistakes we have made, whatever opportunities we have missed, whatever failures we have been--it all could have been worse, far worse, had fame and fortune intervened. 

I pray for Josh--that he will not be out of the reach of full repentance. And that it will reach him before his prison term begins. 

A review of Contact, an alleged work of science fiction: Part One

I recently had the opportunity to view Contact, a movie that was released over two decades ago—almost the amount of time it would take for a transmission of it to reach the Vega system. I was struck from very early on in the production by the similarities between it and Isaac Asimov's famous story, Nightfall. I have written several posts reviewing that story, which are available here. I suggest reading them now, for background, before going any further. 

Now, I'll start out by saying that although I was aware of the movie when it came out, and that it was discussed in the Christian Media at the time, I've had no thoughts about it whatsoever for the past twenty plus years, so I trust that everything I say here will be uninfluenced by any other reviews. As I review Contact, I'll continue to allude to my earlier observations on this topic, which remain very relevant. Inasmuch as it's a long movie, I'll probably do this review in several installments. But, to begin at the very beginning:

The movie opens with the iconic roar of the MGM lion, framed by the Latin motto, Ars Gratia Artis--Art for Art's Sake. Not a single frame of the actual movie has yet been shown, but already we are being set up to believe that what follows is just pure entertainment--science fiction. But is it? Might there also be a deeper agenda, Art for the Sake of Persuasion? 

We then move into the opening sequence, which is a juxtaposition of animated video and archived audio. The animation is a zoom-out that begins with a satellite view of Cape Canaveral, tracking westward as the sun overtakes it from the east. Meanwhile the audio track is a montage of news broadcasts interrupted by brief bursts of contemporary music, working backward from the present day as the camera recedes from Earth, both tracks accelerating: the animation rapidly passes the Moon, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, Ceres, and Jupiter—already moving much faster than the speed of light—as the audio track has already reached a quarter century before present, to the Watergate Scandal of President Nixon, then immediately on to M.L. King's March on Washington. By the time Jupiter and its moons recede into the background we can hear an announcement of the assassination of President Kennedy. Then, as Saturn fades into the distance, we race through another two decades, passing through the McCarthy Era all the way to the beginning of the American involvement in World War Two. What is being hinted at is that news broadcasts are traveling into space at the speed of light, with the very earliest broadcasts leading the way into the rest of the galaxy. A bit of a stronger hint comes after the disappearance of Saturn, as the sun itself blinks out and we see a rapidly receding series of stars and galaxies as the audio takes us back through the Thirties to the earliest days of Radio. Then the audio itself gradually fades to background static, as we continue to back our way through a dusty nebula and into intergalactic space, where total silence reigns. Other galaxies zoom by with increasing rapidity, until the screen becomes a total blur which resolves into the left eyeball of our protagonist, the young Ellie Arroway. Meanwhile, the audio picks back up again as background static, resolving into the signal of a ham radio she is operating, with her voice now in real time, attempting to make contact with “anyone out there.” Thus the stage is set for a lifetime of hovering over a radio, seeking not only a signal from another rational being, but, most importantly, the opportunity for interaction therewith. And we see her determination as she scans the dials in search of a response, getting encouragement from her father to keep trying—then, when she finally lands a station out of Pensacola, he congratulates her for achieving the “farthest one yet.”

Okay, at this point in the actual screen-acting, we already move from the realm of science to science fiction, because that's just not how the propagation of ham radio waves works. One does not start out pulling in nearby signals, then progressively move to the outer limits on the country, then farther out into the hemisphere, and finally, with “a big enough antenna,” to the other side of the world. The propagation of radio waves on the frequencies of the amateur bands is such that one is actually more likely to land a station a thousand miles away, than an hundred. But, not to let the facts of science get in the way of a good story, the scriptwriters expect us to believe that Ellie will start small, and keep progressing until she is at the point of asking radio operators on the other side of the Universe to “come back.” 

But that's not Ellie's only goal: in the very next scene we see her asking her father, with growing excitement, how far out it is possible to hear: California? Alaska? China? The Moon? Jupiter? Saturn? Suddenly she grows reflective, and asks her dad the question only a ten year old could ask: Could we talk to Mom?

Ah, now the subject of Religion intrudes, because young Ellie is asking an existential question, one immeasurably beyond the reach of the technology that so fascinates her. Science she knows, geography and astronomy she is beginning to understand, but of the Eternal State, she is much the innocent child, asking questions far beyond her ken. Here her father fails her—being unable to give her the answer she wants—because he, like her, only believes in Science, and Science has no answers to any of the deeper questions of life. And here the movie reveals its main argument. Having, at the behest of her father, dismissed the possibility of making contact beyond the grave, Ellie turns to the next best thing: making contact beyond the Solar System. And here we stop to consider the implications.

”Hey Dad, do you think there's people on other planets?” she asks, again in all innocence. “I don't know Sparks, but it seems like if it's just us, that would be an awful waste of space.” And is precisely here that the movie lands on its main theme: this phrase will be repeated at crucial points in the plot, to drive the message home that somewhere, on a cosmic scale, there is a sense that it would be wrong for Earth to be the only populated planet. This doctrine is never proven, nor is there ever even seen any need to prove it. Ellie simply accepts it on faith, and goes on to make it the guiding belief in her life's work, which is to search for, and find, signs of intelligence in outer space. She will run into many obstacles in that quest—the entire plot of the movie consists of her overcoming them, one after the other—but she will never be shaken in her core belief that there MUST be someone else out there—and an unstated corollary to that belief is that they MUST be so immeasurably greater than humankind, both in intelligence and technology, that they will be able to bridge the unbridgeable gulf between us, and make meaningful contact. It only remains for us to let them know we are here, and to devotedly await their response.

Do you see where this is headed? One thing this movie does, and does well, is to demonstrate that humankind is incorrigibly religious: everyone is forced by their very nature to believe in a higher order of beings, ones whose powers and understanding are beyond our comprehension. And the movie will go on to demonstrate our absolute impossibility of approaching these beings using our own abilities, or of comprehending them using our own understanding. Atheistic Science is turned on its head, and shown to be just another religion after all. 

I think that's enough for the first installment; we are now fully seven minutes into a two-and-a-half-hour movie, and in the next scene we will see Ellie instantly transition to Dr. Arroway the astronomer, having finally achieved the ultimate in her muttered ten-year-old goal of "get[ting] a bigger antenna."

The Zodhiates and Miller Sentences

Okay, here's the straight scoop; there will be a lot of details provided later. First of all, Philip Zodhiates won't be going to prison quite yet. By filing an appeal, he was able to bail out for the duration of the appeal process, however long that may be. The specific sentence he's appealing is 36 months for conspiracy to commit international parental kidnapping, with enhancements for coordinating and obstructing, and 36 months for accessory, to be served concurrently, and 1 year supervised release on both charges, to be served concurrently. He was also assigned the minimum fine of $100 for each charge. This was the minimum sentence.

 Timo has been fined $100 and released for time served to 1 year parole in Pennsylvania, where his family will be living until that is over. This was actually below the minimum sentence, both the government and the court having taken into account his 6 weeks of 'hard time' served in Nicaragua.


Timo, freshly changed out of shackles and prison orange, with his family outside the federal courthouse in Buffalo. Refusing to leave his wife's side for their youngest son's birth was the impetus of his 10 months imprisonment. Photo provided.
By the way, all of Timo's financial needs have been supplied, and he has two jobs to pick from waiting for him.

I will start with Timo's sentencing, since that was the shortest--but I won't be able to resist making some mention of the previous hearing along the way.

It's been noted that the Mennonite community has come out in force for these Miller Kidnapping Trial proceedings--with the glaring exception of those related to Philip Zodhiates. It makes one wonder, if Lisa Miller ever comes to trial, whether any Mennonites will see fit to show up--or maybe they will, if at the time she's caught she is still living as a Mennonite. Well, at any rate, about 100 Mennonite men, women, and children (mostly men) showed up this time, barely fitting into the gallery of the courtroom.

I suppose we should start with the Status Conference held last August 27 before Hon. Richard J. Arcara in Buffalo. The Prosecution informed the court that it considered defendants Timothy Miller and Lisa Miller to be fugitives who would not appear. This despite the fact that Timo's lawyer, Jeffrey Conrad, had been in constant contact with the court regarding Timo's willingness to appear if needed, but desiring to have Mr. Conrad represent him in the mean time so he didn't have to keep flying back and forth from Managua for every last hearing. This is quite common; even some of the lawyers involved in this case, spread out as they are across four states, have often appeared by telephone. But once the government declared Timo a fugitive, his name started appearing on wanted lists--Interpol, for instance--which has an office in Managua.When local authorities in Nicaragua came looking for Timo, they were assured that he was quite willing to come with them, if they just contacted him personally.

But they had a strange way of doing that.  Two weeks later, Timo was dragged off his bicycle on a city street and hauled off to Managua's notorious Chipote Prison. When friends arrived to visit him, they were told he wasn't there. This run-around was to continue for the next five days, until his wife was finally allowed in to see him.

TO BE UPDATED . . .

So sorry, folks, I'm taking so long to finish this. I probably bit off more than I could chew, so I'll break into the detailed narrative to give the upshot: Timo was sentenced to time served and a year of supervision; Philip was sentenced to 3 years, on bail pending his appeal. Ken was finally released from federal prison on March 6, 2018.

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2018

Timo's year of parole has ended, but he's keeping a rather low profile at present, so I don't have nay news of his latest whereabouts. Having served out their sentences, he and Ken are no longer active participants in the story. But Philip is. As noted above, Philip Zodhiates had appealed his sentence to the Second Circuit, which was unsuccessful, and he has been scheduled to be sent to prison. His lawyer, Robert Hemley, has appealed the case now to the United States Supreme Court, and requested the imprisonment be further stayed pending the outcome of that appeal. So now the case is in the hands of the Supreme Court.

UPDATE DECEMBER 8, 2018
Philip Zodhaites is now in a federal prison in Kentucky. After federal appellate judges refused to hear Zodhiates’ last appeal in October of this year, his attorneys began to prepare an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and asked the court for a stay of sentence pending the filing and the court’s ultimate decision. Although Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg turned down the request for a stay of sentence, Justice Neil Gorsuch decided to place the petition for the stay of sentence on a list of conference items for January 4 of next year, allowing all the justices to vote on the matter. In the meantime, it appears, Zodhiates will remain in federal prison. The composition of the Supreme Court has certainly changed since this case was first brought before a judge, and that may make all the difference. I'm almost certain, for instance, that before this legal battle is over there will be one less homosexual advocate on the Court. But we'll see.

Update December 22, 2018
Since any people come directly to this page from a link, I'm writing here to let you know that I put up a new post today with links to an interview with Philip, in which he disclosed some of the financial cost of his legal battle: he's spent over a million dollars on lawyers, and some of his customers apparently have been taking advantage of his situation not to pay him what they owe for his services. He also states that Lisa Miller's lawyers could have done a lot better job keeping her in legal custody of Isabella.

Timo's Trial

Things are happening pretty fast on the Miller Kidnapping Case, so I'm starting another post here for information on Timo's trial as it comes in. Word is that Timo is in Buffalo awaiting a pretrial hearing, and we will let you know how that goes as soon as we can. The prosecution may look on this as an opportunity to add to Ken and Philip's prison time by trying to put them on the stand against Timo. This, of course, would be only for spite, as they already have plenty enough evidence against him--he was first arrested for this crime over five years ago.

Timo's detention hearing was scheduled for 2:00 p.m. on October 12--then bumped to that time on the 14th. Carl Swartzentruber sent in this report: “God was very good to us, and he did answer prayers in the court hearing. The judge was very friendly and gracious. The decision was to not ask for pre-trial release for now. Jeff Conrad, Timo’s lawyer, talked to Timo about this and Timo agreed. At this point they are going to pursue a plea-agreement and negotiations are ongoing. Timo was in good spirits. He looked in good health and good condition all the way around. He was very happy to see us all there and came out with a big smile on his face. It was good to see him again as well. The judge also asked that Timo be moved to a prison closer to Lancaster County for Jeff Conrad’s sake. That was interesting and very gracious. We just felt like God was there and blessed. There was a good spirit in the whole proceeding. Now we need to pray for the ongoing negotiations so that God works everything out the way he wants it.”

A website has now been set up to collect donations for the expenses associated with Timo's legal process. Of all things, it was false charges of child pornography that got Timo whisked off a Managuan street in thrown in the dungeon. What a case of projection.

“We probably couldn't have extradited you. But that doesn't mean we couldn't get you. When we really want somebody, we work with our friends, in whatever country we happen to be. A few phone calls, a little back-and-forth, tit for tat. We get them to cancel your immigration status, and next thing you know, you're being deported.”  --American officer David Foster in Straight Flush by Ben Mezrich

UPDATE NOVEMBER 30
Timo had his day in court, and Carl has sent in another report:

"The hearing today went very well overall with good spirit among everyone involved. Timo's day had started at 3am when he was taken from the prison to go to the courthouse, but in spite of a tired body he was in good spirits as well. The early part of the day was spent in private discussion among the attorneys and Timo. During that time, Timo had a special opportunity for some very positive personal interaction with the lead prosecutor and expressed his love and goodwill for him and his desire for the well being of his soul.  It was a rather touching moment for Timo.  

"When the status hearing began the judge was informed by the prosecution lawyers that they had reached a plea agreement. The judge was favorable to that and suggested that they could hold the plea hearing later in the afternoon rather than scheduling it for another time. They recessed while the court addressed another case on the docket and then Timo's case was recalled and they proceeded with the plea hearing.  The judge was very gracious and took time to explain everything thoroughly.  Timo pled guilty to one of the two charges against him and the other charge was dismissed.  A reduced sentence was recommended and the judge set March 23 for the sentencing date when he will finally rule on the sentence.  He has guidelines to follow in sentencing but has discretion in following them as well. That should become a fresh matter of prayer.  Timo will remain in prison while he awaits sentencing.  

"There were approximately 60 people from several surrounding states who attended the court hearing in support of Timo.  It was very encouraging for Timo to see that support and it was impressive to the court staff as well.  They had opportunity to pray together in the courthouse hallway and sing together on the courthouse steps.  There was goodwill and a good spirit all around. . ."

UPDATE MARCH 1
Timo's wife and children have been provided a home in Lancaster County, PA which is still quite a ways from the Youngstown, OH prison where he has settled down for the time being. This is his address:

Timo Miller 78268083
North East Ohio Correctional Center
2240 Hubbard Road
Youngstown, Ohio 44505

Living in the Underground Church

I'm beginning another post on the topic of the month, but this will be very general, with lessons learned drawn from a variety of situations.

I've been watching a film produced by the underground Russian Baptist Church a full generation ago, at the very height of persecution, but less than a decade before it ended. When this video was recently shown to believers in Mongolia (where the church emerged only after the fall of Communism), this was their recorded response: 

They looked at the faces in that video and saw people who had genuinely given themselves to Christ in the face of the great risk of prison camps and torture. They commented that such real conviction was entirely different from the sort of 'Christianity' seen in Mongolia, where nominal adherence to Christianity and easy believism has been spread by missionaries and now by Mongolians who are encouraged by missionaries to travel the world and sow the same seed where-ever. The Mongolians who saw the video felt highly embarrassed that the character of Christendom in Mongolia is completely different from those shown on the film who wholly dedicated themselves to Christ in spite of the tremendous danger and cost. 

We in the West have much to learn from these saints, now mostly living in our midst, who can still tell us how their faith was able to thrive despite living their entire lives under incremental state opposition. For example, their leader since 1965, Gennadi Kryuchkov, went into hiding in lieu of sure imprisonment--and, for an incredible twenty years, lived in a totalitarian country tantalizingly beyond the reach of the mighty KGB, who were so frustrated in their vain attempts to bring him to ground that one of them said it almost made a believer of him. His fugitive status outlasted the KGB itself, as he led the church that entire time from behind a curtain of invisibility until he at last emerged triumphant. In fact, in an incredibly bold move, he even emerged briefly after 19 years to address a national conference, only to disappear again while the communist regime concluded its death throes.

I'd like to quote the opening paragraph of Gennadi's obituary (posted in The Guardian), and I trust my readers will see the parallels to recent show trials in the American Northeast:

It was past midnight at the end of the second day of the trial of Russian Baptist pastors Gennadi Kryuchkov and Georgi Vins. Having been denied his request for seven supporting witnesses and a proper defence counsel, Kryuchkov exercised his right to a "final address", using the dock virtually as a pulpit. "I'm happy to stand before you as a Christian ... Those brethren who are in prisons and camps are suffering, not for having broken Soviet law, but for having been faithful to God and his church. They suffer for Christ, who called them to a new life. Among them are reformed criminals."

Developing . . .

The Plight of the Righteous Defendant: the case of the Miller Kidnapping Trials

In my previous post, I promised to provide another post on the Miller Kidnapping Case, in which I would  share more than the bare facts of the trial.

Here it is.

I first of all refer my readers to a post from 2007, which I ended as follows:

 When what used to be considered wrong becomes lawful, sooner or later what used to be considered right becomes unlawful.

It's happening. 

This truism is no better exemplified than in the Miller Kidnapping Case, which is--contrary to the federal government's claims--all about a girl being kidnapped from her mother. Well, yes, that is what the government says it's all about, but they have the wrong mother in mind.

Janet Jenkins is not Isabella's mother, nor has she ever been. She did not conceive her, did not nurture her either in her womb or at her breast, did not give birth to her, did not sign her birth certificate, was never even named on her passport application. Lisa Miller is the only mother Isabella has ever had or known, and this kidnapping has always been about Janet using the full force and power of the United States Government to steal a child away from its mother through the legal fiction of declared parenthood. Now that we've clarified that, we can continue with our evaluation of the trial.

So far the parties to this case have decided to go with jury trials. This is usually good business for the lawyers, as jury trials always take a lot longer then bench trials. But it's not usually very good business for the defendants, as we can see from the very recent results of some celebrated trials in Baltimore. I quote:

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams acquitted Rice in a bench trial. Williams also has acquitted Officers Edward Nero and Caesar Goodson in separate bench trials. Officer William Porter's trial ended in a hung jury in December.

Notice that the one defendant who put himself at the mercy of a jury barely escaped, while those who put themselves directly at the mercy of a judge were all acquitted. There's a reason for why this could happen, and it's called voir dire. That's the legal name for the process by which the prosecutor systematically excludes everyone from the jury who might be counted on to acquit. Since this process isn't perfectly predictable, and prosecutors don't always know exactly what questions to ask every time, every once and a while a rogue juror slips through to throw a spanner in the works. But in most cases the prosecutor ends up with exactly the jury he wants--and needs--to secure a conviction.

Mr. Grimshaw was convicted in a bench trial back in 2007, but it wasn't his point to be acquitted. He wanted to preach holiness in the courtroom, and not having a jury to preach it to detracted very little from his goal. Now, there has been some open mention of the gospel in the Miller proceedings, but usually by a witness, and only tangentially by an attorney; never by the defendant in a closing statement to which the opposition cannot easily object. In a trial where conviction is pretty much a foregone conclusion, a righteous defendant forfeits a powerful pulpit by exercising his right to silence, and I hope that future righteous defendants--and there will be many--will take heed to the new way of doing things, and take their lead from Mr. Grimshaw, not Mr. Zodhiates.

The lawyers carefully hired by Philip Zodhiates mostly fell into the trap of trotting out their usual tricks, and I have to say to his credit that Prosecutor Paul van de Graaf easily ripped them to shreds before the jury (when the judge himself wasn't, after dismissing the jury yet again, reprimanding the defence for even attempting them). Yes, the prosecutor used some tricks of his own, but with such class and style that none of them even met with immediate objection. Even the perfunctory motions to acquit for lack of a case, duly offered by every defence attorney since time immemorial, showed, in this case, a disconnect with the reality that the defence did not dispute the facts that had been presented by the prosecution. This is what happens with defence lawyers who have made a career of trying whatever tricks they can to win acquittal for someone who is actually guilty of evildoing. But people need to learn a new way of doing trials in this new world where wrong has become right, and the sooner the better.

What this will require is a new breed of lawyers. I was most impressed in this trial, at least on the defence side, by the performance of David Boyd. He's been cited as "a rising star" by the legal profession and, once he has his own law firm and doesn't have to toe the line drawn by the old school, I can see him excelling at the new reality. For example, from the time the prosecution rested until the closing arguments had ended, the only motion floated by the defence that was even entertained by the judge (other than a few of the many objections being sustained, as could have been expected) was Mr. Boyd's claim of a legal falsehood in Mr. Van de Graaf's closing argument.

Mr. Van de Graaf had to demonstrate to the jury that Mr. Zodhiates, although never having set foot in Vermont in the commission of his crime, was still bound by the decisions of Judge Cohen in the Vermont family court. He dismissed all the legal decisions in Virginia--nineteen in all, extending from 2004 all the way to 2010, after the facts on the ground had already rendered them moot--as having no bearing on the case. They were "a dream, a wish, even a prayer."

But after all the arguments were over and the jury had been sent home for the day, Mr. Boyd pointed out to Judge Arcara that Lisa Miller's case against the state of Vermont had been referred [as the Constitution stipulates it should] to the Supreme Court, and had that august body ruled her bound to the the laws of the state in which Isabella lived, rather than the state in which Janet Jenkins had been ruled to be Isabella's parent, it would in fact had rendered all six Vermont decisions inapplicable. Had the Supreme Court not declined to hear the case (poised as it was to overthrow all bans to parental claims such as Janet Jenkins asserted, like the one in question in Virginia), this trial may well never have happened. The judge was caught off guard by Mr. Boyd's citation of USC 1204 and its case law stipulation that only the laws of the state of residence are to apply in international kidnapping cases, and agreed to consider including that information in his charge to the jury--for all the good it may have done, as we have seen. But it does show the wisdom of hiring someone who closely followed the prior trial, where this argument was previously made.

There were four co-conspirators indicted in this case; so far, we have only seen the trials of half of them. I trust the others will find my admonitions helpful in the future, whether immediate or distant.

And I do believe there will be at least one more post on this topic, regarding the sort of evidence that came up in the first two trials, and what it says about the investigative powers of the federal government.

Oh, one more thing: at a subsequent trial, it would be interesting to see if anyone is allowed to offer testimony in support of "affirmative defense under this section that . . . the defendant was fleeing an incidence or pattern of domestic violence."

UPDATE MAY 2021: Way back in 2019, Philip Zodhiates filed a petition to Judge Acara claiming that his legal team (he only specifically mentioned James Grable and Robert Hemley) gave him ineffective counsel as to the use of the "affirmative defense." Even though Philip has now been released to home detention, Judge Acara has yet to rule on the petition. But you read it here first. In other news, Janet Jenkins (apparently she no longer uses the surname Jenkins-Miller) will have to wait until the resolution of Lisa Miller's international kidnapping case before her civil lawsuit can go forward. If she lives that long.

Aslan is on the move!

After one hundred years of always winter and never Christmas (as unlikely as such a situation is to conceive, without total starvation), things seemed as grim as they could get. Of the four humans sent into Narnia for some unknown purpose, one had already defected to the White Witch, and the other three were being hunted for their very lives. The beaver's home had been raided and his comrades turned to stone. How much worse could it get? Yet it was being whispered that despite all the bad tidings, a fundamental shift was taking place: Aslan was on the move!

Things are pretty discouraging right now on the front of religious liberty in the Western Hemisphere.  Whispers come at us from every direction. Whispers of Ken Miller being threatened with more hard time for refusing to testify against Philip. Whispers of Timo Miller being dragged off his bicycle on a Nicaraguan street into a waiting van and hauled off to who-know-where--perhaps the notorious Chipote Prison? Whispers of Interpol being involved, but no one willing to confirm anything officially. It's looking pretty grim.

Aslan is on the move. Yes, there is yet no outward evidence of it--only those whose undying loyalty he holds can sense it. But as the cycles of time wheel around to line up in their ultimate configuration, the current regime under which the whole world groans is developing unseen cracks. It's going down.

At first it may only look like a thaw, but Spring is coming; nothing can hold it back.

Take heart. Stand firm. Aslan is on the move.

UPDATE August 17: To those of you, especially in Nicaragua, coming here for an update on Timo Miller, I'm not going to be sharing everything I know. You probably have access to pretty much the same sources I do, and things are too up in the air to be drawing any conclusions from the data that is available. The main point is that while we may not know what is going on, God does. I will say I expect that when the kidnapping trial opens in Buffalo in the coming weeks, Timo will be present.

A review of The Demands of Christian Citizenship, a sermon by Adrian Rogers

I recently heard a sermon by the late Southern Baptist President Adrian Rogers, on The Demands of Christian Citizenship. Now, I like Adrian Rogers, and appreciate a lot about the man and his ministry. But some of what he teaches in this sermon concerns me, inasmuch as it calls into question my Christian credentials; there are demands in the sermon that I have no intention of meeting (although, as it happens, in an earlier life I actually did things to have met them fully). I've written elsewhere on how I would now differ from the Baptist view on such things (although there was a time in my life when I didn't), so in this post I'll only be briefly critiquing the main points of his sermon, which follow. I think there were six in the audio sermon, but no online source seems to list more than four--this is a compilation of the five I can remember (I think the sixth may have been Protect the Government, which see under my posts on warfare).

As Christian citizens, the Word of God directs us to these responsibilities to our country:

1. Pray for government 1 Timothy 2:1-3
Well, of course I can't dispute this, being a man, and given that Paul would that all men lift holy hands in prayer for those in authority, that we may live quiet and peaceable lives in all piety and integrity. I can only thank Dr. Rogers for encouraging me on to more frequent and fervent prayer.

2. Pay for government. Romans 13:1-7
Again, this is something for which I needed encouragement. It does get a little complicated, though, given that the government's desire is to pay me. So his argument begins to break down when faced with modern reality. He says, "simply no loophole when it comes to paying taxes. Jesus did it, so must we."  But in paying his taxes, Jesus himself said that as sons of the king, we really didn't have to. Sounds like a major loophole to me! So, no net benefit to me from this point.

3. Praise government. 1 Peter 2:17
Well, he does have some biblical precedent for this: Paul respectfully addressed Agrippa, and Peter did tell us to honour the king. I would have to admit that this point still needs emphasis, in a digital age where it is so easy to post satirical criticism of one's president or legislator. Definitely, that's not honouring the king. And he does balance this point out with the next one, so I'll grade this point as being well worth hearing as often as is needed for it to sink in.

4. Preach to government. Ephesians 4:15
He gives the example of John the Baptist, who was respectful enough in delivery to gain Herod's hearing, but hardline enough to get executed for the message itself. So, another good point to go along with the previous one--rebuke when necessary, but still in a respectful way that doesn't detract from the message. So far, I'm finding a lot to appreciate and apply from this sermon.

5. Participate in government. 1 Peter 2:12
Here is where Dr. Rogers makes a gigantic leap, both in hermeneutic and logic. Nowhere in the Bible are Christians actually commanded, or even recommended, to participate in government--so he has to quote Daniel Webster rather than Scripture for this point. Jesus certainly never participated in government (he fled when they would make him king), nor did any of the apostles. Government figures in Christian Scripture are generally the bad guys, to be respected or rebuked, even rewarded, but never to be joined in their governance. Furthermore, he says nothing of the alien, the felon, even the citizen lacking a social security number or otherwise disenfranchised for exercising his religions beliefs--none of whom are able to participate in government even at the lowest level of voting. So while I vehemently part ways with Dr. Rogers on this point, I propose that by diligently carrying out the first four duties, a Christian has fully discharged his responsibility to participate in government, and no civic limits apply to any of these.

So, a good sermon overall--just ignore his final point, and strive to apply the first four. That should keep you busy enough!

Ken Miller Update

Ken Miller has, like the dangerous criminal the US Government believes him to be, been ordered to a Medium Security federal prison (but in his home state rather than in the state he was tried). He begins his 2 year minimum terms on March 22nd, 2016. You can send him letters of encouragement at:
Pastor Ken Miller

FCI Petersburg Medium 

1060 River Rd. 

Hopewell, VA 23860

UPDATE:
The good news is that at the last minute he was reassigned to minimum security. And, of course, no prisoner can receive mail by name, just by number. Here is the corrected contact information:

FCC Petersburg Low
Kenneth L Miller 08464-082
P.O. Box 1000
Petersburg, VA 23804

Faith

I have a couple of stories to tell this morning—one from the world of the Bible, which you already know well, so I won’t spend much time on it—and one from our own world, which you’ve probably never heard. Then I’ll tie them together with the song we just sang, and leave you with something you can take home with you.

In 1981 a baby girl was born to the Moceanu family. This couple had been gymnasts in Romania, a country famous in the 1970’s for its world-class female gymnasts. But the oppressive Communist government in Romania made the whole country like one big prison, and they wanted to make a life for themselves elsewhere. So they had left Romania and moved to America. Life was looking good for them when their first child turned out to be a daughter. They named her Dominique, and decided to give her every opportunity to excel as a gymnast.

As soon as Dominique was able to stand up, they started her training, putting her little hands around a clothesline to see how long she could hang from it. By the time she was four years old, she was already competing, and by the time she was six, she was winning gymnastic contests around the country. They knew she was great.

Then something terrible happened—at least they thought it was terrible. Mrs. Moceanu gave birth to a second child—another daughter—but something had gone wrong, and she was born with no legs. This child, surely, had no hope of following in her parents’ footsteps. This child had no place in a family of world-class gymnasts. Mr. Moceanu’s decision was firm, and it was irrevocable: without ever giving his wife a chance to hold her baby in her arms, he insisted on putting her up for adoption. They would try again, and sure enough, two years later they had another daughter. Little Dominique never realized that she had two sisters—the little cripple was never spoken of again.

Without the distraction of a disabled daughter, the Moceanus poured themselves into Dominique. She got the best gymnastic schools, the best coaches. They even moved to a different state to put her under the tutelage of a pair of Romanian coaches who took only the best as their pupils. Dominique won again and again, until at the age of 14 she reached the pinnacle of success as a gymnast—an Olympic medal. She was still young enough, there was no reason why she shouldn’t be able to continue completing all the way to the next Olympics, four years later, and maybe beyond, if her body held out that long.

But what about her disabled sister—the one she didn’t even know she had? Well, in fact, she didn’t have a disabled sister. The little girl with no legs had been adopted by the Brickers, a couple who already had three sons, and decided to give her a chance to be part of a normal family. They named her Jennifer, and determined to never tell her that she was disabled. They never allowed her to say “I can’t.” She learned to crawl at the normal age, and by the time others were toddling around on their legs, she was crawling circles around them using just her arms and hands. The Brickers got her a bicycle that she could pedal with her hands, and taught her that anything others did with their feet, she would just do with her hands. But what did she want to do, more than anything else? She wanted to be a gymnast, just like her hero, the famous medal-winning Dominque Moceanu.

Dominique, meanwhile, ran into some trouble. The intense schedule of training and competing had stressed her young body to the point of almost crippling her. Again and again she fell down during her performances, and the chance of winning another Olympic medal seemed more and more elusive. Still, she kept on, refusing to give up. But one thing she could not endure was the pressure from her father, who constantly demanded that she be perfect. Her best was never good enough for him, and finally, at the age of seventeen, she gave up trying. She sued for emancipation, testifying in court what a horrible man her father was. The court granted her independence, and Mr. Moceanu, the man who rejected a disabled daughter in secret, found himself publicly rejected by a daughter he had driven to the point of disability.

But his other daughter wasn’t crippled. Her loving parents never let her think of herself as disabled. Once she made the decision to become a gymnast, they supported her all the way. And, incredibly, she started to succeed—winning contests against other gymnasts who did have legs. She specialized in tumbling, and without any legs to get in her way, she was able to leap somersaults around the other gymnasts. One day, when she was the age at which her sister Dominique had rejected their parents, she decided she wanted to find out more about them. What sort of family had she come from, she wondered. So she decided to ask her mother.

I can tell you, Mrs. Bricker responded, but you’d better sit down first. “Mom, I’m always sitting down. You sit down.” So she sat down and gently told her adopted daughter, Your parents were the Moceanus. Dominique is your biological sister.” As the truth began to sink in that Dominique, her hero, was her sister, she realized that her parents must have rejected her because they thought she would never be able to be a gymnast like her sister. Then the irony hit her—Dominique, at the tender age of twenty-three, was already in decline as a professional gymnast. Repeated injuries to her legs had caused her to miss the previous Olympics—in fact, because of her the Olympic committee had decided not to allow any more gymnasts to compete at such a young age. The Moceanus had rejected the daughter who didn’t have any legs to get injured—didn’t have any legs to get in her way to success as a professional gymnast—and along the way had lost their golden girl, the one who showed so much promise—but rejected them. The daughter they didn’t want was happy, confident, and successful—while the daughter they wanted now didn’t want them.

Now, this is all about faith. The Book of Hebrews says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We just sang about faith being there in the place of the evidence—it’s even better than that. Faith IS the evidence. When little Jennifer was born, there was no evidence that she would become a professional gymnast. But faith could have seen that it didn’t matter. Faith could have seen that Jennifer could do anything she set her heart on—even if that was becoming the only professional gymnast in the world with no legs. The Moceanus didn’t have that faith—but the Brickers did.

Now, I’m ready to tie this in with a story we’re all familiar with: Joseph. Joseph had dreams that his brothers would all bow down to him, and when he told his brothers about it, they didn’t like it. Now, faith would have seen this as a sign from God—a sign that Joseph had been chosen for something very special. But his brothers didn’t have that faith. His father didn’t even have that faith. The Mideanites, who purchased him for a paltry twenty pieces of silver, didn’t have that faith. Potifar, who threw him in prison on false charges, didn’t have that faith. But Joseph did. All through those years of struggle and setback, he never gave up his faith. If God had said he was going to be raised to such prominence that even his older brothers would bow down before him, then it was going to happen. He didn’t see any evidence that it was going to happen, but he didn’t need evidence. Faith was there in the place of evidence. His faith was his evidence.

Who else had faith in Joseph? Well, Pharaoh did. With Joseph just one good shower and a haircut away from a filthy prison cell, Pharaoh looked at him with eyes of faith and said, Here, Joseph, take my ring. Go to my closet and pick out the best clothes. Take my extra chariot and go do the job that only you can do—don’t let anyone in the kingdom stop you. When Joseph’s own father didn’t think he was fit to rule a country, Pharaoh, who had just met him ten minutes earlier, did. Joseph’s brothers, who scoffed at his dreams, fell down at his feet and gave him the honor God had told him, all those years earlier, that he would receive from them. And God did use him to do great things, just as He had promised when no one else but Joseph had the faith to believe it.

I think we all need to be reminded from time to time how important faith is. I know I need to—this sermon was for me. And the writer of Hebrews must have thought so to--he devoted an entire chapter to the subject. You see, we live in a sight-centered world- a world based on evidence. A world that looks at a baby girl with no legs and comes to the logical conclusion that there’s no future for her as a gymnast. A world that can’t see the promises of God, and in its blindness, not only doesn’t gain the blessings that await them through faith, but loses out on what God has already given it. Joseph lived in such a world, but he didn’t have his eyes on what was around him—his focus was on what awaited him.

Now, none of us know what is ahead of us in this life. We may experience success, we may have failure—there will be some of both in everything we do. But our number one goal is find out what God’s promise is for us, and to achieve it—never saying ‘I can’t.’ The whole eleventh chapter of Hebrews is devoted to one example after another of people who didn’t have evidence of God’s promise, but did have faith. And yet listen to this: These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

These all DIED IN FAITH! The ultimate promise of God for each one of them was eternal life, and even with all the setbacks they faced in life, they never lost hope of that promise. They knew that even if they lost their homes, their liberties, even their lives—they would never lose God’s promise of eternal life. Their faith WAS the evidence of what was to come.

Many people in this world won’t believe in what they can’t see—and scoff at those who do. They don’t have faith in the promises of God—or in the judgments of God. And there’s a perfect example in the Bible of what happens to someone who doesn’t believe in the judgments of God’

1Ki 2:36-46 And the king sent and called for Shimei, and said unto him, Build thee an house in Jerusalem, and dwell there, and go not forth thence any whither. For it shall be, that on the day thou goest out, and passest over the brook Kidron, thou shalt know for certain that thou shalt surely die: thy blood shall be upon thine own head. And Shimei said unto the king, The saying is good: as my lord the king hath said, so will thy servant do. And Shimei dwelt in Jerusalem many days. And it came to pass at the end of three years, that two of the servants of Shimei ran away unto Achish son of Maachah king of Gath. And they told Shimei, saying, Behold, thy servants be in Gath. And Shimei arose, and saddled his ass, and went to Gath to Achish to seek his servants: and Shimei went, and brought his servants from Gath. And it was told Solomon that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath, and was come again. And the king sent and called for Shimei, and said unto him, Did I not make thee to swear by the LORD, and protested unto thee, saying, Know for a certain, on the day thou goest out, and walkest abroad any whither, that thou shalt surely die? and thou saidst unto me, The word that I have heard is good. Why then hast thou not kept the oath of the LORD, and the commandment that I have charged thee with? The king said moreover to Shimei, Thou knowest all the wickedness which thine heart is privy to, that thou didst to David my father: therefore the LORD shall return thy wickedness upon thine own head; And king Solomon shall be blessed, and the throne of David shall be established before the LORD for ever. So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; which went out, and fell upon him, that he died. And the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon.

Turning to the New Testament, we see another case of a man unwilling to really believe the truth about the certainty of punishment. It's in the parable of the talents:

Mat 25:24 And the one who received the one talent also coming up, he said, Lord, I knew you, that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter;

Mat 25:25 and being afraid, going away, I hid your talent in the earth. Behold, you have yours.

Mat 25:26 And answering, his lord said to him, Evil and slothful slave! You knew that I reap where I did not sow, and I gather where I did not scatter.

Mat 25:27 Then you ought to have put my silver to the bankers, and coming I would have received my own with interest.

Mat 25:28 Therefore, take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents.

You see my friends, it's vitally important that we have faith in God's promises, whether they be for good, or for evil. And God has promised judgment to those who follow a false prophet—or a false prophetess. So be on the alert for such, and steel yourself against falling for their wiles. Don't stick around to argue with them—flee for your lives! John the Apostle is said to have fled naked from a public bath when he saw there one whom he regarded as an enemy of God—lest he be so near as to fall under the punishment which as sure to fall.

Hurrah for Snopes!

I've been hard on Snopes before, so I want to give credit where it is due: their article on "NASA and the missing day" is spot-on. Look how it ends:

To those who've given over their hearts to God and the Holy Word, this is a deeply satisfying legend. Faith is, after all, the firm belief in something which cannot necessarily be proved, a quality that can leave believers (especially those who find themselves in the midst of non-believers) feeling unsatisfied. As steadfast as their certainty is, they cannot prove the rightness of the path they tread to those who jeer at their convictions. And this is a heavy burden to shoulder. A legend such as the "missing day explained" tale speaks straight to the hearts of those who yearn for a bit of vindication in this life. Being right isn't always enough: sometimes what one most longs for is sweet recognition from others.

That recognition, and that satisfaction, is what this legend provides. Intoxicatingly heady stuff, that. No wonder this tale has survived from generation to generation and withstood the ravages of countless debunkings. Nonetheless, its factual details are wrong, the scientific processes it describes are dubious, and its premise of a "missing day" depends upon some very selective and questionable intepretations of scripture.

Authenticity matters little, though: our willingness to accept legends depends far more upon their expression of concepts we want to believe than upon their plausibility. If the sun once really did stand still for a day, the best evidence we'd have for proving it would be the accounts of people who saw it happen. That is what the Bible is said to offer. Some people accept that as sufficient proof, and others don't.
Read more at http://www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.asp#pWcH8rTcilmJTXzX.99

The Mennonite Modesty Mishap

I've earlier written about misplaced Mennonite modesty, but here comes a whole book on it, as excerpted in this blog post by a former Conservative Mennonite. I quote:

Biblical Mennonite Alliance (BMA) was the Mennonite conference that our family had been a part of before God told our family to leave the Mennonite church a number of years ago. BMA was started in 1998 because of the liberal drift of Conservative Mennonite Conference and other Mennonite groups. Their goal was to be the most Biblical Mennonite group, hence their name Biblical Mennonite Alliance. BMA’s motto was "The Bible plus nothing, and the Bible minus nothing".

The modest, conservative dress of these young girls did not protect them from the sexual advances of this man. The conservative modest dress did not help this man to control himself as we were taught in the Mennonite church that it would. What is significant is that this man did not fall into adultery with an adult; instead it was perversion with young girls.

It is significant that those who take advantage of girls in such a situation are always those who are the most strident in their demands that they dress modestly.

What can be done to rid conservative churches (whether they be Mennonite, Independent Baptist, or Family Centered) of this curse? There is only one solution: take off the heavy lid and expose the wickedness:

Then a lead cover was lifted, and there was a woman sitting inside the basket. “This is Wickedness,” he said. He shoved her down into the basket and pushed the lead weight over its opening. --Zechariah 5:7-8 HCSB

Hershberger did not have natural affection, but was sexually attracted to these "modestly" dressed young girls. He knew the judgment of God, but he did it anyway. God had given him over to a reprobate mind to do that which was not convenient.

Sadly, BMA did not follow the Bible in publicly rebuking their conference leader for his sin of sexual abuse. They covered it up and quickly scrubbed their website of Art Hershberger’s name and his leadership within the conference. They put other names in its place.  

The biblical model is to first expose the wickedness to the full light of day before deleting it. Who will do it?

The mess at ABWE HQ gets ever deeper, and it's not just ABWE being affected

This blog has been deluged for the past few days with searches for news on Donn Ketcham, so I knew something must have gone down. It took a bit of digging, but sure enough: another Baptist missionary has just been implicated in the abuse of missionary kids in Bangladesh.

There's a problem, though: he's the father of one of the founding members of the group of AMK's who set out to expose what went on back there in their childhoods--now a former member, and a vociferous opponent of letting this thing go any further.

It gets worse. ABWE limited GRACE to only investigating Donn Ketcham's peccadilloes, and that investigation continues to plod along. GRACE is accountable to the public, and must be thorough. But what they can't do, per ABWE restrictions on the investigation, is follow any evidence that leads to the exposure of any other missionary. That job has to be left to someone else.

That's the other problem. The "someone else" was a legal team directly hired by ABWE and is accountable to them alone. And furthermore, they managed in just a few months to 'investigate' a whole pile of cases, do all their interviews, and wrap up their final reports and recommendations--all without any public disclosure or outside accountability. Can you say "Damage Control?"

What's happened is that several heads have quietly rolled due to the "preponderance of evidence" raised by their investigations--all before GRACE has even released a preliminary report.

What does this all have to do with me? Well, as someone with close ties to the Western Missionary Movement, I've taken a hard look at The Way Things Were Done and wondered if the organizations that Did Things That Way could ever manage to pull out of the old paradigm and embrace the future. And this latest move by ABWE tells me that, at least as far as regular Evangelical Baptist Missions are concerned (and I use the term generally, now that the specific organization that held that name for 80 years has gone ignominiously bankrupt), the answer is, No. The Phoenix cannot be transformed; it must be burned to a crisp before any new life can arise from its ashes.

So, the Old Guard Missions are going away; what will replace them? Alas, I see only more of the same. As long as a missionary candidate can find 100 churches to support him for an average of $50 a month, Bible College graduates will continue to sign their names on the line to go forth and plant Fundamental Baptist Churches. Mission Hospitals will continue to be built. Some things will be different--boarding schools definitely are still on the way out--but the next iteration of Western Missions will be only marginally different than the last. At least at the beginning--whether this next generation will be able to go farther than the last is capable of remains to be seen.

Stay tuned for a report on how this sort of thing all falls out for a ministry based out of Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Ken Miller's piece about peace

Interest in the Kenneth Miller case is higher than ever. Most of what I've seen concerning the case is already online, but here, for those who haven't seen them, are excerpts from a letter he wrote following his conviction (he's approved it for publication):

"I asked my boys as we were preparing for bed in the motel room whether they would be comfortable sleeping in the same room as a convicted felon. They didn't seem to have any problem with it at all.

A convicted felon. As of August 14, 2012, that's what I am. What about all those prayers around the world today that didn't get answered--or did they get answered? I say yes, a thousand times YES, they got answered. For one, I and my family have felt so incredibly lifted up by all those prayers around the world that we are able to be irrationally happy in the middle of a conviction and now a civil action lawsuit.

Just after the verdict was read, while we were sitting there trying to absorb it all, Sara Starr--bless her (and I mean that)--walked over to the defense table where I was still sitting and served me another thick legal document which charges me along with about 10 other people and organizations with various racketeering charges in regards to Isabella's disappearance. That should have finished me off, but instead I felt irrationally calm and at peace. Right now I'm just about ready to head off to bed for a good nights sleep. And I intend to sleep real good.

I know that the prayers of people affected the outcome of the trial. I believe the prayers being offered were done in yieldedness to the will of God. We remember that throughout history advances in the Kingdom have almost always been preceded by struggle and tribulation. God works not in spite of persecution and tribulation, but by and through it. I don't know how God wants His kingdom to advance through this, but it will, mark my words, if we stay true to Him."

What can we say? Peer reviewed journals, supervised PhD's--junk?

Found online:

In one of the biggest cases of scientific fraud on record, a prominent psychologist has admitted fabricating data in dozens of studies.

Diederik Stapel, who was suspended from his post at Tilburg University in the Netherlands in September, was exceptionally productive. He was responsible for a succession of eye-catching studies on topics including stereotyping and discrimination, the effectiveness of advertising, and the circumstances in which people may perversely prefer negative feedback to praise.

Stapel was suspended after three junior researchers alleged scientific misconduct. But the extent of the problems became known only on Monday, when the university released an interim report concluding that dozens of papers, as well as 14 out of the 21 PhD theses Stapel had supervised, contain fabricated data.

"This is absolutely horrifying," says Laura King, a social psychologist at the University of Missouri in Columbia. "We are talking about research that has major impact in the field of social cognition." Social cognition is the field of psychology that investigates how our mental processes affect the way we relate to one another.

In terms of the sheer volume of research implicated, Stapel's is one of the worst cases of scientific misconduct on record. The chair of the committee that has examined Stapel's work at Tilburg University told Nature that some 30 papers have so far been found to contain fabricated data. If these are all withdrawn, they will exceed the toll of retractions of papers by Jan Hendrik Schön, whose groundbreaking work at Bell Labs, New Jersey, on electronic devices made from organic molecules was found in 2002 to contain widespread fabrication and manipulation of data.

The case leaves red-faced collaborators cursing themselves for being so trusting. "I was duped," admits Hart Blanton of the University of Connecticut in Storrs, who expects to have to retract two papers he published with Stapel examining how "priming" people by showing them a picture of Albert Einstein can make them feel less intelligent.

Some of Stapel's recent work was certainly provocative. A paper published in April in the journal Science claimed that disordered environments such as littered streets make people more prone to stereotyping and discrimination. Although the Tilburg inquiry has not yet identified the studies that contain fabricated data, Science has already published an expression of concern about this paper.

In a statement released to the Dutch media this week, Stapel admitted fabricating data and apologised for the damage done to his colleagues and the field of social psychology. "I have failed as a scientist," he said.

Hot news! Obama Birth Certificate released! But is it yet another forgery?

We now have two entirely different birth certificates for Barack Hussein Obama II. Both are agreed on the essentials: parentage, date and time of birth, race. But one is from Kenya; the other from Hawaii. Obviously, one was created fraudulently. But which one?
I would be willing to bet a year's allowance that the doctor who signed this form is safely dead.
(I just checked. He is.) And his widow is a consultant to the Hawaiian Heath Department.

Okay, first of all, let me say that releasing this long form birth certificate was a carefully calculated political move. As President Obama himself said when he released it, this won't convince everyone that he's a natural born US Citizen, but he hopes it will convince most people. In other words, he's responding to polls that show a shocking majority of Americans don't believe he was born in the USA. As one of those people, I must admit that I'm still not convinced that he was. He could have settled this issue 2½ years ago by releasing his birth certificate, and stubbornly refused to. Whatever his reasons--whatever he had to hide--haven't changed. As Aesop famously pointed out in "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," nobody believes a liar, even when he's telling the truth.

Secondly, I will admit that I was duped. There is no reason now to believe that the short form COLB released in 2008 was a forgery, as I had been led to believe. The information on it is all backed up by the long form. Again, President Obama is responsible for my false belief by refusing to allow the media to actually see the COLB, thus fueling speculation that it was a Photoshop document.

BREAKING NEWS!!! May 17, 2011: This post contains links to sites showing that, when subjected to the same electronic scrutiny, the Long Form Obama Birth Certificate shows even more evidence of forgery than the Short Form. So I take back any concessions made in the previous paragraph: the long form was apparently based on the previously forged short form, so of course it had to contain the same forged information, and then some.

So, the evidence so far resolves into two roughly equal possibilities:

1) The Kenyan certificate is authentic; Stanley gave birth to Barack in Mombasa and traveled to Hawaii three days later, where the family conspired with Dr. Sinclair to file a fraudulent birth certificate form stating that Barack had been born at the Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital three days earlier, in order to guarantee him the U.S. citizenship for which they knew he didn't otherwise qualify. 

2) The Hawaiian certificate is authentic; staffers at the Mombasa Hospital put together a forged birth certificate in 2008/9 to present to the highest bidder to come snooping around looking for it; Lucas Smith turned up at the right time, and took the bait.

Happily, the Kenyan birth certificate is very easy to prove fraudulent. It contains a clear imprint of a child's right foot. All President Obama has to do is get his right footprint taken on live TV at a press conference, and have the camera zoom in on the print as soon as he removes his foot from the paper. Anyone with a computer file of both images can then compare them and, should the Kenyan certificate not have been produced at Obama's birth, it will hopefully be clear that the prints don't match.

The other possibility, should the footprint remain inconclusive, is to produce birth or postnatal records from Hawaii. Any forgers in Kenya would have had to make up the bodily dimensions listed on the certificate they produced, so they can't be expected to match those on Barack Obama II's actual medical record. Any discrepancy would lead to the conclusion that a Kenyan stand-in provided the information and impression on Barack's alleged Kenyan birth certificate.

That, my friends, would bring my puzzlement to an end; I guarantee it. Obama would then be my own president.

Every bit of information brought out into the sunshine makes the picture clearer, so I thank President Obama and his political advisers for taking this important step. It should be obvious, however, that it's still too little, too late to convince me that he's a natural born American. He needs to do more, and I suggest he do it soon.

UPDATE DECEMBER 21, 2011
According to Gallup, a majority of Americans still aren't convinced that Barack Hussein Obama II was born in the United States. I remain one of that number. I really do want to know where my alleged President was born, but yet another forged birth certificate, added to the two already released, won't do anything more to convince me.

As military chaplains are increasingly forbidden to offer actual spiritual counsel, this sort of thing can only increase.

Ex-Marine, advocate kills self after war tour
Yahoo News
By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press – Fri Apr 15, 3:47 am ET
WASHINGTON – Handsome and friendly, Clay Hunt so epitomized a vibrant Iraq veteran that he was chosen for a public service announcement reminding veterans that they aren't alone.
The 28-year-old former Marine corporal earned a Purple Heart after taking a sniper's bullet in his left wrist. He returned to combat in Afghanistan. Upon his return home, he lobbied for veterans on Capitol Hill, road-biked with wounded veterans and performed humanitarian work in Haiti and Chile.
Then, on March 31, Hunt bolted himself in his Houston apartment and shot himself.
Friends and family say he was wracked with survivor's guilt, depression and other emotional struggles after combat.
Hunt's death has shaken many veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those who knew him wonder why someone who seemed to be doing all the right things to deal with combat-related issues is now dead.
"We know we have a problem with vets' suicide, but this was really a slap in the face," said Matthew Pelak, 32, an Iraq veteran who worked with Hunt in Haiti as part of the nonprofit group Team Rubicon.
After news of Hunt's death spread, workers from the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors met with veterans visiting Washington for the annual lobbying effort by the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, or IAVA. A year earlier, Hunt had been with other veterans in dark suits calling on Congress to improve the disability claims process.
He had appeared in the group's ads encouraging veterans to seek support from an online network of fellow veterans.
Snapshots posted on Facebook reflect a mostly grinning Hunt. In one, he has a beard and is surrounded by Haitian kids. A second shows him on the Capitol steps with fellow veterans. There's a shot of him from the back on a bike using his right arm to help push another bicyclist who is helping to guide an amputee in a specially modified bike.
Friends and family say Hunt suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. But with his boundless energy and countless friends, he came across as an example of how to live life after combat.
"I think everybody saw him as the guy that was battling it, but winning the battle every day," said Jacob Wood, 27, a friend who served with Hunt in the Marines and in Haiti with Team Rubicon.
But some knew he was grieving over several close friends in the Marines who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"He was very despondent about why he was alive and so many people he served with directly were not alive," said John Wordin, 48, the founder of Ride 2 Recovery, a program that uses bicycling to help veterans heal physically and mentally.
In 2007, while in Iraq with the Marine's 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, Hunt heard over the radio that his 20-year-old bunkmate had died in a roadside bombing. Hunt later wrote online about sleeping in his bunkmate's bed. "I just wanted to be closer to him, I guess. But I couldn't — he was gone."
A month later, Hunt was pinned by enemy fire in his truck as a fellow Marine, shot in the throat by a sniper, lay nearby. Hunt wrote that seeing his friend placed in a helicopter, where he died, is "a scene that plays on repeat in my head nearly every day, and most nights as well."
Three days later, a sniper's bullet missed Hunt's head by inches and hit his wrist. He didn't immediately leave Iraq. His parents say Hunt asked to fly to a military hospital in Germany a day later so he could accompany a fellow Marine who was shot in both legs.
"I know he's seen some traumatic stuff in his time and I guess he holds that to himself," said Marine Sgt. Oscar Garza, 26, who served with Hunt in Iraq. "He was a very compassionate Marine, a very passionate person, one of the few people that I know that has a big heart and feels a lot of people's pain and makes it his own."
Hunt's mother, Susan Selke, said after Hunt was wounded, she'd hoped her son would get out of the military. Instead, he went to school to be a scout-sniper and went to Afghanistan. He seemed to do well. He was honorably discharged in 2009, married and enrolled at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
He was frustrated by the Veterans Affairs Department's handling of his disability claim. He also piled up thousands of dollars in credit card debt as he waited for his GI Bill payments. Hunt found an outlet to help improve the system by doing work with IAVA. He helped build bikes for Ride 2 Recovery and participated in long rides.
Using his military training, he went to Haiti several times and Chile once to help with the countries' earthquake relief efforts. He proudly told his parents of splinting an infant's leg, and after meeting a young orphaned boy in Haiti named D'James, tried to persuade his family to adopt him.
"If I had one thing to say to my fellow veterans, it would be this: Continue to serve, even though we have taken off our uniforms," Hunt wrote in an online testimonial for Team Rubicon. "No matter how great or small your service is, it is desired and needed by the world we live in today."
Hunt's friends say he was an idealist and voiced frustration that he couldn't make changes overnight. He also questioned why troops were still dying.
"He really was looking for someone to tell him what it was he went over to do and why those sacrifices were made," Wood said.
Last year, Hunt's life took a downward spiral. His marriage ended, he dropped out of school and he began to have suicidal thoughts, his mother said. She said Hunt sought counseling from the VA and moved in temporarily with Wordin in California.
Things seemed to improve for Hunt in recent months after he returned to his hometown of Houston to be near family.
He got a construction job, leased an apartment, bought a truck and began dating. He called friends to discuss the possibility of re-enlisting. In the days before he died, he hung out with friends, and he had plans the following weekend to do a Ride 2 Recovery bike ride. He even told Garza he couldn't wait to see him at a Fourth of July reunion with other Marines.
Then he was dead.
"Clay was always a fighter," Wordin said. "He was always a guy to stick things out and he basically quit life, and I was mad that he felt he had to do that at that particular time."
Hunt's friends and family count him a casualty of war — just like his buddies who died in the battlefield.