More Christian YouTube Material: Os Guiness and Frank Turek

I'm seriously addicted to YouTube.  I think my preferred method of learning is through the tube.  I used to love reading but with my reading time taken up by Elements of Earth Science 210 and Theology 350 II, my joy reading is squeezed to a minimum. So I'll share some powerful presentations with you to enjoy from some incredible minds on the scene of planet Earth today. Check out the YouTube Ministry page for a list of great YouTube channels for Christian content.  Enjoy!


Os Guinness on the Importance of Christianity to Western Liberty

Frank Turek on Intellectual Predators on College Campuses

Declaration of Worldview (What we Believe)

The God of the Bible created the world in six days, and rested on the 7^th.  Everything we see therefore is created by God, or constructed by God’s creations.  The observable universe is a brief and limited description of the incredible depth of character, glory, power, and ability within the character of the Author of Life, Jesus Christ who is God.  Nature is a picture of the beauty of God.

God created the universe, all the galaxies, time, space, reality, and even the small marble called Earth.  On Earth, with great care and love God built the first humans Adam and Eve.  God gave the greatest gift imaginable when he gave free will, the ability to choose right or choose wrong.   

The first humans existed in a state of spiritual and physical perfection, in the direct presence of their Father, God, who had made a garden on the surface of the Earth for their dwelling and relationship.  

In addition to the divine God of the universe and the first humans developed by God, there were also spiritual beings called angels which God had created, given the gift of free will, and freely served their heavenly Father as well.  One of these angels was named Lucifer whom is described here:

Ezekiel 28:11-19 (NIV) ¹¹ The word of the Lord came to me: ¹² “Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“‘You were the seal of perfection,
    full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
¹³ You were in Eden,
    the garden of God;
every precious stone adorned you:
    carnelian, chrysolite and emerald,
    topaz, onyx and jasper,
    lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl.^[a]
Your settings and mountings^[b] were made of gold;
    on the day you were created they were prepared.
¹⁴ You were anointed as a guardian cherub,
    for so I ordained you.
You were on the holy mount of God;
    you walked among the fiery stones.
¹⁵ You were blameless in your ways
    from the day you were created
    till wickedness was found in you.
¹⁶ Through your widespread trade
    you were filled with violence,
    and you sinned.
So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God,
    and I expelled you, guardian cherub,
    from among the fiery stones.
¹⁷ Your heart became proud
    on account of your beauty,
and you corrupted your wisdom
    because of your splendor.
So I threw you to the earth;
    I made a spectacle of you before kings.
¹⁸ By your many sins and dishonest trade
    you have desecrated your sanctuaries.
So I made a fire come out from you,
    and it consumed you,
and I reduced you to ashes on the ground
    in the sight of all who were watching.
¹⁹ All the nations who knew you
    are appalled at you;
you have come to a horrible end
    and will be no more.’”

"Moreover the word of the LORD came to me: Mortal, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord GOD: You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, carnelian, chrysolite, and moonstone, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald; and worked in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. With an anointed cherub as guardian I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you. In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and the guardian cherub drove you out from among the stones of fire. Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you. By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade, you profaned your sanctuaries. So I brought out fire from within you; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever" (Ezekiel 28:11-19) - See more at: http://www.allaboutgod.com/story-of-lucifer.htm#sthash.7ObNuCnU.dpuf

"Moreover the word of the LORD came to me: Mortal, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord GOD: You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, carnelian, chrysolite, and moonstone, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald; and worked in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. With an anointed cherub as guardian I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you. In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and the guardian cherub drove you out from among the stones of fire. Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you. By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade, you profaned your sanctuaries. So I brought out fire from within you; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever" (Ezekiel 28:11-19) - See more at: http://www.allaboutgod.com/story-of-lucifer.htm#sthash.7ObNuCnU.dpuf

"Moreover the word of the LORD came to me: Mortal, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord GOD: You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, carnelian, chrysolite, and moonstone, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald; and worked in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. With an anointed cherub as guardian I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you. In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and the guardian cherub drove you out from among the stones of fire. Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you. By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade, you profaned your sanctuaries. So I brought out fire from within you; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever" (Ezekiel 28:11-19) - See more at: http://www.allaboutgod.com/story-of-lucifer.htm#sthash.7ObNuCnU.dpuf

This spiritual being corrupted by his own desires for pleasure came into the garden and suggested to the first humans that they ought to be their own gods, accountable to no one and so the first humans sinned and fell under the dominion of Lucifer, also known as Satan the evil one.

At this moment of prideful disobedience humanity turned on their God to pursue their own way.  God might've destroyed the first humans and been done with humanity at that moment forever, but he had mercy.  God set up a final chance for humanity, allowing the sin their hearts conceived of to spread through the garden, across the Earth and the universe itself.  At that moment the perfect universe became a crippled tangent universe destined for destruction, death, and rebirth. That is why the universe is so barren, why stars burn out, why seasons shift between fall, winter, spring and summer, all creation was affected by the curse of sin.  Death entered the human race.  And the natural inclination to sin, to plot a course outside of the sovereign God of the universe, became the natural state of all humans born into the line of Adam and Eve.  Lucifer attempted a rebellion to supplant God and place himself in charge of the universe but failed.  Satan's dominion was and is over all born into the line of Adam and Eve.  

God continued to interact with humanity, and pursue humanity, establishing the nation of Israel through the line of Abraham, as the descendants of Adam and Eve multiplied.  God gave Israel his laws.  Israel was unable to follow the laws.  So God gave himself, Immanuel, as an offering to allow his lost people to be rejoined to him as family, justified by faith.

We live by faith in God, who is Jesus Christ, and is also the Father, and is also the Holy Spirit, a succession of revealings of God the architect of the universe and originator of all human souls.

Faith is not blind, but is highly reasonable and coherent.  We believe in the radical notion of reasonable faith in God, the God of the Bible in the makeup of the universe, of Earth, in geology, in astronomy and all the sciences, as well as empirically, historically, and philosophically.  God’s existence, attributes and divine work are easily demonstrated as all the evidence points to the fact that an intelligent designer is required given the fine tuning of the observable universe, as well as the complex architecture of the human body, and the need for a prime mover outside of space and time.

We believe the Bible is the full and completed revelation of God to the whole of humanity.  The Bible, being the most extraordinary document in human history, contains the literal records of the origins of humanity, Israel, all the way to the literal birth of Jesus Christ, virgin born by the work of the Holy Spirit, who was Immanuel, God with us.  The Bible describes in perfect form the past history of humanity and the prophesied future of humanity.

The life of Jesus Christ is the framework and perfect example as to how Christians should live in the world today.  We believe in the most dedicated service to Christ and others, and refuse any notion of casual connection.

Philippians 2:1-11 (NIV) 2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is a historical fact given evidence and faith.  The work of Jesus Christ on the cross blotted out the sins of all who would put their faith in Him and repent of their sins, choosing consciously to follow him.  The work is complete and the resurrection of Christ pays for all sins of the believer, past, present and future.  

The only way to lose this gift is to consciously choose to withdraw faith in Jesus Christ.  Shipwrecked faith and falling away is too consistently mentioned in the scriptures to ignore.

The current ministry of Jesus Christ is in heaven where he literally lives, alive and well since his resurrection and ascension; these are recorded miracles with powerful empirical evidence to back them up.  Jesus Christ therefore sent the Holy Spirit the third revealing of God who currently, today, works among the nations of the planet Earth to do the will of God, whom he is. 

We know from the scriptures that humanity is no longer subject to the laws of Moses in the Old Testament, but the Old Testament is filled with great wisdom and teaching that ought to be thoughtfully applied to the life of the believer.  We believe the law of Moses is summed up best by Jesus when he said:

²⁹ “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^{[a] 30} Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’^{[b] 31} The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[c] There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:28-31 NIV

We believe in discipleship, missionary work, and consider the task of making disciples of all nations to be the primary imperative of the church of God on Earth.  

We believe this is best accomplished by a humble, humble, humble attitude of service, service, service, through love, love, and more love.

Amen. 

"All truth is relative!" "Really? Does that statement include itself or exclude itself?"

Is all truth relative?  Well, if all truth were relative and there were no absolute truth, is the statement "all truth is relative" an absolute statement?  I heard a friend try to sneak around that one by saying "sometimes all truth is relative, sometimes there are absolutes."  That's a contradiction.  Or if you mean some things are relative and other things are absolute then you're really conceding that there is absolute truth.  Really all truth can't be relative because the statement either includes itself, or excludes itself, if it includes itself it contradicts itself and if it excludes itself once again it contradicts itself because it's suggesting an absolute by claiming to be absolutely true.  Do you see where this leads?
There is no such thing as all truth is relative.  There are absolute truths.  And there are absolute morals.  People talk about cultural context affecting morality, it doesn't.  I haven't heard any good examples of relative morality.  There are indeed absolute moral truths.  It's just as wrong to kill a baby in the USA as it is to kill a baby in China, or France or Greenland or South Africa.  It's always wrong all the time.  Even if the person committing the immoral act is mentally ill and 100% believes that what they're doing is right, it's still morally absolutely wrong, all of the time.

Meth and exploring Darkness

An old friend came by a few days ago, someone from my past, before I experienced the very real spiritual regeneration inherent in the true Christian experience.  It seems like a dream when I look back on it, like something from another reality, something long ago.  But it wasn't so long ago.  

Kyle was my closest friend, and at the end, my only friend during the drug crazed days of 2008 to 2012, a time we affectionately referred to as the year of no-light.  It was a time when I worshiped at the altar of the tri-plateau tripping levels of the drug dextromethorphan.  If the human experience on Earth is disconnection from God, I walked in the opposite direction and explored the darkest night anyone could see.

I slipped into a deep dark forest, so dark I couldn't see a thing, and got lost.  But no one came to look for me.  And when I opened my eyes that forest had turned into a pseudo-spiritual yellow brick road.  It was highly convincing, and deeply intriguing.  One could explore such a forest their entire lives and never find all the trans-realities present, but absolutely none of them had anything to do with truth, or love, or peace.  Only pleasure, my own pleasure, and my own delusional god-less exploration of sensory warping.

Kyle had been there.  He saw how ugly it was.  Our mantra was always "Something dark is coming" a composition by Bear McCreary that haunted us every time we listened to it.  Maybe it was an addiction to being haunted, to feeling combinations of emotions, happy but sad, mellow but crazed, inspired yet perplexed, despairing and hopeful, magnificent and purple dark.   Maybe it was worshiping the darkness in the red room.

I had reached down for the bottom, the end all be all of mental anguish and on that rock, called upon Jesus.  How, why, I don't know, only that it wasn't me, it was Jesus, and I'm grateful to be step by step trudging on the Christian road, hopefully to walk one day through the thin door.  

Kyle continued in that dark scene, he did not have the spiritual experience that I did.  And I broke contact with him.  I tried to help him, I tried to introduce him to Jesus at first.  But I had just met him myself.  Not to mention, Kyle didn't care.  He just wanted to drink, and smoke pot.  No sermon could've been convicting enough, and no apologia reasonable enough.  So I broke all contact.

Fast forward to June 9th 2014, a few days ago.  And there he was, my old comrade in arms.  And he had a crazy story to tell.  A story that broke my heart.  Bone chilling.

He had fallen into the dark world of methamphetamine addiction.  I was shocked.  We had drank, smoked pot, and we had tripped endlessly on dextromethorphan.  But we never did crack, heroin, meth or the other hard drugs.  The "light" drugs had been bad enough.  

He told this terrible story.  His girlfriend left him and I broke contact right at the same moment.

In sadness he slipped off with a crazed meth addict named Anna to Minneapolis.  Halfway there he discovered he was transporting the meth king pin, codename "Dreamer" across state lines.  This "Dreamer" had introduced methamphetamine to the midwest in the 1990s.  From there things descended, and he ended up, after his first hit, cripplingly addicted to methamphetamine, a drug made by combining ephedrine, draino, battery acid and other household items, to make the drug.  

Poor Kyle.  This was the nerdy kid I ran the UW newspaper with.  This was the kid I used to walk with every night 2am to 5am talking about society, philosophy, and spirituality; during spring semester, carefully evading homework.  This was someone I deeply cared about, as a close friend and adviser.  

He told me he had met up with a transexual meth dealer, a man pretending to be a woman, and delivered drugs for him.  They had sex and became close.  He said one night he overdosed and called an ambulance, but when they came the police arrived as well, and caught him with drugs.  The police recruited him into a special task force searching out methamphetamine dealers in the Wausau area.  He became a citizen informant.  He wore a camera, got yelled at by police, manipulated, conned.  Eventually his information led to the arrest of 11 individuals and $10,000 of meth product confiscated by police. 

Oddly enough, he also said that some police officers assisted the meth dealers by giving them the names of informants.  The transexual guy found out about Kyle giving information to police.  Kyle had been found out, and the meth community, the subculture in the area were aware of him.  Kyle said for the past 6 months he's been smoking meth daily with the transexual drug dealer, making several thousand dollars a month as a driver.

Dark days.  And the things he described..  The children neglected... the drug dealers luring in girls in their teens, getting them addicted to "up" and then using them as sex toys.  The insanity of it all, the meth addicts shaking as they wait for the pipe.  The fights over the drug.  So very shocking.  

So very dark.

When I first started exploring darkness, it was like something in a dozen shades of dark, dark blue, dark purple, all in a black, murky sky.  Like a dark sunset.  And it was beautiful.  Even the pain was beautiful.  Isn't that always how it is at the beginning of some quiet, nasty pleasure?  Isn't that always how it seems, and what the road looks like at the beginning to entice us?  Yes, indeed it is.  It would be easy if these temptations felt terrible, but they don't feel terrible at first, they feel wonderful.  

It isn't until you're in so deep that you can't see a thing, that those beautiful colors fudge together into a brown black darkness, turning bright red and cutting into the soul with sharp blades.  That's where exploring darkness leads, the darkness indeed as they say, looks into you.  And later, it dismantles you, while tickling your fancies.. and at the end it finishes you off, and kills you spiritually.  And eventually it will cut you apart physically.  And you just fade away.

Kurt Cobain said it's better to burn out then fade away.  Maybe he was right.  But I'd rather be reborn, than burn out or fade away.  That's the lie of this society: Coke or pepsi, democrat or republican, mcdonalds or burger king, kill yourself or die slowly of drug addiction?  I refuse those options.  I choose the 3rd way, saving faith in Jesus Christ.  The option they never told me about.  I choose water, libertarian, organic food, and Jesus Christ.

They stole Kyle's dignity.  And the meth has turned my old friend into a monster.  Immorality, cussing, hours of manic "up-sex", as they call it, driving around drug dealers, working for the police, and abused and ridiculed by the police, some of whom work with the meth dealing community.  It's insanity.  

We were two middle class kids in the suburbs guzzling cough medicine, drinking, and getting into a lot of addicted trouble in the year of no-light.  But he's stepped into the hard drug world.  And I'm so afraid for my old friend.  Because I can just tell, he isn't ready to quit.  He knows he's addicted,  but.. he likes smoking the meth.  He likes what it does to him.  He's just not willing.

And I don't respond with judgment to that.  I understand how it is when you're addicted.  You just aren't ready.  It's so hard to summon the will.  If you're thinking about judging.. imagine never eating sweets again, or quitting television or the internet, or facebook.  Would it really be that easy?  No.  We are addicts as people, more than we might like to admit.  And the truth is, the drug problem in this country is something massive, expansive, and growing.  

On the eve of founders day, June 10th, today they officially legalized gay marriage in Wisconsin.  And this Friday is a full moon, Friday the 13th.  I spoke out against the gay marriage issue, and of course I was mocked and called ignorant and intolerant.  No surprise there.  Though it was surprising to have someone suggest that I must be subconsciously gay myself since I'm against it.  There's a new one.  

I reflect on where our society is moving.  Who could really be surprised by the growth of drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, school shootings, abortion, and on and on and on?  It's been invited in, perhaps even carefully orchestrated.  It's everywhere.  

And the class warfare, the attack on the middle class by corporate america pushes people down those roads in increasing numbers.  Couple that with the demise of the Christian message in the United States, and people have absolutely nowhere to turn when trouble rises up all around them.  This world has a million temptations and any one of them can run us ragged and put us on our knees before it's altar.  Time and patience is a powerful weapon of temptation. 

A lot of times in the Christian evangelical movement, I think we kind of exist in a bubble.  We don't see these things, even though they go on in the community day and night.  Terrible things.  I work at a homeless shelter remember, I get to see these things.  And I think my goodness, these are the people who need the Gospel message the most.  And I think churches need to be willing to engage, and put themselves in danger, to help people Jesus spent the most time with: the worst kinds of sinners.  We need to seek and save the lost.  We aren't doing that.  Not to the extent we should.  As Christians we exist in our protected churches, kinda staying there, and then we sit back and complain about the culture going to hell.  But what are we doing to stop it?  We think everything is fine, maybe.  But it's not.  I know.  I was there.  Evil is alive and well, growing, and recruiting people.  My friends.  But still we can't go?  Why can't we go?  Today?  

I would like to request prayers for Kyle.  He is in a dark place, he sees the extent of the chaos, but feels powerless to muster the will to change anything.  I will continue to encourage him, and tell him the things I learn about Jesus.  But please, pray, Please Lord Jesus, have mercy on him, like you had mercy on me, and had mercy on all of us sinners, one by one, helping us to the gates of heaven, one day at a time; in the same way show mercy and grace to Kyle.  Help him to call upon your name in his darkest hour.  In your name we pray, Amen.