Whilst the pagan priests neglect the poor, the hated Galileans devote themselves to works of charity, and by a display of false compassion have established and given effect to their pernicious errors. See their love-feasts, and their tables spread for the indigent. Such practice is common among them, and causes a contempt for our gods.

In response, Julian The Apostate launched government philanthropic programs in an attempt to render the Christian message impotent.

The astute Christian reader will already see where this is going.   We must ask the question:  “Do the numerous government programs aimed at ‘helping’ people actually serve to undermine the Christian faith?”  Some might argue that that is too conspiratorial.  Let us set aside the question of intent then and deal strictly with the question of effect.

In doing this, we might approach a question like government funded welfare not by saying, “This was meant to undermine the Church” but instead by saying, “Whatever its intent, does it undermine the Church?”   I would answer the latter resoundingly as a ‘YES!’

For the great many Christians that vote Democratic and have over the decades such a determination probably comes across as a slap in the face.  Christians who vote Democratic tend to have genuine concern for the oppressed, the poor, and the desperate.   Do we suppose that the Christians during Julian the Apostate’s reign cared any less?  So what would be the difference?

The difference is clear:  the Christians then used their own money, their own resources, and their own time to help the poor.  They did not relegate the duties clearly given to them by God to the government.  And lucky thing, too, for Julian would have been happy to take on the task.  No happier, I suppose, then the Democrat party is today.

I note again that these duties were given to the Church by God.  I trust that I do not need to document this but for example, when the early church was getting ‘bogged down’ with ministering to the poor they didn’t ring up the leaders of Jerusalem to take over the task.  They appointed seven godly men from within to take over.  (Acts 6)

A sincere Christian might protest that it should make no difference who is helping the poor so long as they are being helped.  Wrong.   It makes a huge difference.

Consider this one very big difference:  the good deeds done by the Church are accomplished by men and women freely giving up their own time, talents, and money;  the ‘good’ deeds done by the Government which accomplishes the deed by coercing, by threat of fines, confiscation, and imprisonment, resources from the community.

More succinctly:  The Christian Church gives away was was freely given to begin with.  The Government gives away what was forcibly taken.

This is all the difference in the world.

From the outset, then, we see that there is no way that ‘helping the poor’ is the same no matter who does it.  The Government achieves it by robbing the rich(er).  The Church achieves it by the rich(er) joyfully responding to God’s work on their behalf.

There are many other differences, too.  For example, the Christian who cares about the poor and believes that the Democrats  can help might disagree with the liberals that subsidizing abortion on demand helps the poor.

Too bad!  Live by the Government, Die by the Government.  You opted to use the Government to do ‘good’ and that’s exactly what it did- ‘good’ as it perceives it.  Guess what.  Your hard earned dollars are now subsidizing the murder of thousands and millions of the unborn.  Oops.

Well, what did you expect to happen?  Did you think that the Government was going to be filled forever with stout Christians?  Hey, don’t let it bother you too much.  Besides subsidizing abortion, you’re also paying your ‘fair share’ for embryonic stem cell research, eugenics, euthanasia, condoms, etc, etc.  This is your bed you made.  Lie in it.

I would like to briefly deal with one likely objection:  “But the Government must help people because clearly the need is there and the Church is not stepping up.  It is better for these people to receive flawed help then no help at all.”

Setting aside the problem that in America, the kind of help the government often envisions  is EVIL, we find ourselves returning to the issues raised by my citation of Julian the Apostate.  If the Church today was doing its duty, there would be no room for the argument that the secular, humanistic, godless, liberal Government needs to be doing it.  What Julian had hoped to achieve has been accomplished in our age, with Christians complicit in the affair.

But here is the rub:  has the involvement and support of the Democrat party by so many Christians over the decades improved the reputation of the Gospel and Christians?  Nope.  Ostensibly, supporting these social causes were a manifestation of the Gospel but in fact the effect was to undermine the power and witness of the Gospel.

No other consequence should have been expected.  Who needs the Gospel when you have the Government?  And why should you believe the Gospel when all the Christians you know seem to be stingy and just as worldly as anyone else?  It isn’t like Christians are paying more taxes then anyone else, right?  Christian Bob and Secular Joe, living on the same street, are paying the same ‘fair share’ of taxes to support the same government programs.  How can we distinguish between their respective ideologies?

You can’t.

It seems like the very opposite of compassion, but Christians need to extract themselves from this vicious cycle of using the Government as the tool to ostensibly carry out the duties that belong to them.  This is not a call for being dismissive regarding social issues.  It is a call to meet them on our own terms.

Barker’s response could have easily been slimmed down to 5 to 10 pages, easily. It is filled with inaccuracies, diversions, and tangents. The main objection is not easy to pick out against all of the background, but we can sum it up I think this way:

Pastor Kingsley achieves his harmonization by breaking up Matthew 28:1-8 in a way that is unsustainable given Matthew’s use of time. On this basis we can see that Matthew 28:1-8 “is a discrete, unbreakable element of Matthew’s story.”

There is an obvious flaw in this objection. Namely, Barker is asking for a plausible harmonization, which by definition requires a blending of the four Gospels, but setting himself up as the judge, jury, and executioner, as far as how and when a portion from one book can be spliced between the passages of another book. Barker consistently says that one can indeed do such splicing and just as consistently rejects any and every attempt. Why should we accept that Matthew 28:1-8 is a ‘discrete, unbreakable element’? Because Barker says so, that’s why.

I am not calling for slicing and dicing regardless of ‘common sense.’ When I look at Matthew 28:1-8 I see several places where there could be room between the clauses. For example, I see no time marker that requires dismissing any notion of time between verse 1 and 2. In fact, to me, 2-4 seem more like a ‘discrete element’ to me. Another place would be within verse 8, on the plausible possibility that the disciples were actually scattered throughout the region and couldn’t all be reached within a short period of time.

Barker writes as though in 1st century palestine it was a simple matter to hop into a car and drive out to Peter’s place while dialing up John on the cell phone to let him know.   Barker insists that we take Matthew on Matthew’s terms alone (sort of throwing cold water on notions of harmonization) and if we did that we’d see that Matthew tells us nothing of the disciple’s locations.  If one reasonably supposed that each disciple was sleeping in their own place, than one plausibly suppose that the women are going to have to track down 11 different people in 11 different locations.  Or, they were all together- the text of Matthew is silent on the point, which means that there could be all sorts of time, or little at all, bundled into verse 8 alone.

For that matter, beginning in verse 1, one can plausibly suppose that the women had their own homes, too, and weren’t all necessarily traveling together.  Indeed, they may have arrived at different times coming from different directions.  And how much time does it walk through a city bloated to the brim on account of the Passover?  Again, there could be plenty of time involved here, but Barker will allow nothing of the sort.  Matthew 28:1-8 is a discrete unit.  The events described in it must have hit on each other BAM BAM BAM BAM.

Barker pins this analysis on the use of time in Matthew’s account and in doing so proves exactly the opposite.  Barker is insistent that the whole story happened in successive sequence, all with the narrative goal to get the disciples to Galilee forthwith so that they can finally see Jesus (for the first time).   So for example, he contends that in verse 16 where it says, “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee” this happened that very day.  I mean, how ambiguous is ‘then,’ right?

But this just proves CS Lewis’s statement that if you can’t read books written for grownups, you shouldn’t talk about them.   Before I lay bare the tremendous silliness of this supposition, let’s get Barker’s words out here for all to see:

And finally, the disciples (who by now most certainly got the message) do as they were told: “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.” (Matthew 28:16) Notice that although there is a time marker here, it is relative. Matthew didn’t say, “Jesus told his disciples to meet him in Galilee and on the sixth hour of the second day of the third week after that, they went up there to meet him.” Matthew says “Then.” This is clearly right away, not days or weeks later.

If you doubt this (I’m sure you do, based on what you wrote), then back up and look at Matthew’s whole story, in context. He uses the word “Galilee” four times: Galilee, Galilee, Galilee, Galilee—Jesus said it to the disciples, the angel said it to the women, Jesus said it to the women, then the disciples went to Galilee to meet Jesus. Ignoring, for the moment, what any of the other writers may have written, we have to determine what Matthew meant to say: the appearance of Jesus to his disciples in Galilee was the first post-mortem appearance. Anyone who is reading Matthew, and Matthew alone, can come to no other conclusion. If that is not what really happened—if Galilee was not the first appearance—then Matthew has grossly deceived his readers. (emphasis mine)

Grossly deceived?  Or perhaps Matthew could never have envisioned a scenario where a reader would not only be ignorant of the geography of Palestine but wouldn’t stop to think looking at a map might be wise.  Let’s do that now.

Here is a very large map if the one I’ve provided doesn’t do it for you.  What I want you to notice is that Jerusalem is in the south, nearer to the Dead Sea, while Nazareth in Galilea, is in the north, nearer to the Sea of Galilee.  Just spit balling it on the distance here, we’re talking about 80 to 100 miles (we are not told where in Galilee).

On Barker’s reckoning, they went up to Galilee that very day, or if we are being charitable, maybe the next day.  He said:  “This is clearly right away, not days or weeks later.”

I would just like to ask my reader how fast they think they could make 80 miles if they had only their feet.  Let us remind ourselves that the disciples would not have been able to hop onto a plane, or grab a train, or even bike.  Let us remember that they were in Jerusalem with their families, for the Passover.  Let us remember that hundreds of thousands of God fearing Jews had been doing the same thing and now were also on their way home.  Let us remember that these people are not making their way through the crowds on nice Interstate high ways, but on mountain paths and on roads that are nothing like the roads we’ve come to think of.  Then I ask you again, how long do you think it would take you to make 80ish miles?

Could you do it today?  Could you do it by tomorrow?  Could you do it in three days?  You may be nodding at that one- but what if you had to wait up for your wife and kids, your parents and in-laws, your brothers and sisters and their kids, etc, etc?  I will tell you what, if I had to travel on foot with my bundle of kids it would take me a solid month or more to make 80 miles!

So, what to make of vs. 16 and the immediacy suggested by ‘Then’? Anyone with any common sense and the ability to read a map will see right off that it can’t be as sudden as it sounds.  Probably, since Matthew we are told was writing for Jews, it would have been unnecessary to spell out the logistical realities involved here.  The original audience wouldn’t have dreamed of interpreting ‘Matthew’s Story’ as though the disciples pulled up stakes that day and immediately began the trek to Galilee, making it in a day or so.

But see now what has happened.  Instead of Matthew’s narrative suggesting a series of events all happening one on top of the other, common sense and a little research shows that in one place where he uses an ‘immediate’ time marker, he’s really passing over 2-4 weeks in time.  If Matthew is willing hasten over a great deal of time at the end of the chapter, what about at the beginning?

In short, we take Barker’s statement:

Look at [Matthew's] habit. He’s telling us a story, and he has been careful to follow a style not only in the material before 28:1–8, but also in the material that immediately follows. We must conclude, based on what (and how) he has been communicating to the readers, that there is no temporal break in those verses. (pg 25, emph mine)

and must come to the opposite conclusion for the same reason he gives.  The material that immediately follows shows Matthew sprinting past whole weeks with the brief marker ‘Then.’  It shows the opposite of what Barker says.  Not only can we not say that there is no temporal break in those verses, plain reason requires us to acknowledge that there is a huge temporal break involved here.  And if he uses that narrative device at the end, why not at the beginning?  Right?  That’s Barker’s reasoning, not mine.

In conclusion, while we need not suppose that there were weeks between the leaving of the women to tend to Jesus’ body and the earthquake, we need not suppose either that there was ‘no temporal break.’  One might even infer that Matthew is pretty much indifferent to time and sequence altogether.  Maybe 28:2-4 are a parenthetical.  Or, maybe they happened at the exact same time the women left for the tomb, and understanding that the women probably had a 30 minute walk in front of them, maybe it actually happened exactly how it is listed.  There are all sorts of plausible possibilities here.

Notice that I have not sought to argue for Kingsley’s proposed harmonization here.  Even if I debunk Barker on this point it is still possible that Kingsley didn’t nail it.  But we must remember that the challenge demanded only plausibility.  It is not too much to ask that the one authoring the challenge shouldn’t in turn issue his own implausibilities in his attempt to paint Kingsley’s (or other’s) attempt as implausible.  To help make the point, I hereby issue this challenge:

If Dan Barker can set out on foot from Madison to a point that has reasonably been determined to be equal to the distance between Jerusalem and ‘the mountain’ in Galilee, and arrive no later than the second day (for the third day would be ‘days’ and Barker insisted it was not ‘days later.’  I am being generous giving him even the second day), I will withdraw my argument.  I will partially withdraw my argument if he can do it on horseback.  I will generously allow him to travel alone, which, though probably not at all how it happened at the time, is a plausible possibility.

Name the day, Mr. Barker.

Having only read excerpts of Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals, I was pleased to have the opportunity to sit down and read it for myself in its entirety.  Knowing how influential Alinksy was for the young Obama (and many others who now occupy seats of power) I am more worried than I was before now that I’ve actually read this book.   Go to the library and pick up the book.  You need to read it.

The subtitle of the book is “A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.”   It is not an inappropriate subtitle.  Alinsky is all about pragmatism and realism.  Alinsky is dismissive of ethical questions related to the question “Does the end justify the means?”  He says:

The practical revolutionary will understand Goethe’s “conscience is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action”; in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one’s individual conscience and the good of mankind.  The choice must always be for the latter.  Action is for mass salvation and not for the individual’s personal salvation.  He who sacrifices mass good for his personal conscience has a peculiar conception of “personal salvation”; he doesn’t care enough for people to be “corrupted” for them.  (pg 25, chapter titled: Of Means and Ends)

I believe that pretty much the entire book is distilled into this paragraph.  Alinksy’s basic belief is:  Say what has to be said and do what has to be done.

Do you have to believe what you say?  Not at all.  Say what people want to hear.  What matters is achieving your objective.  As for achieving your objective, every tactic is on the table.  As Alinsky says, what matters is “Does this particular end justify this particular means?”

Now, there is some validity to this clarification.  In fact, I believe he is right.  The problem runs much deeper to his notions of ‘the good of mankind’ which is referenced in the long quote above.  What Alinksy fails to include at any point in his book is any clear framework for deciding what represents ‘mass salvation.’

This is intentional on his part.  He says as much.  He says:

This is not an ideological book except insofar as argument for change, rather than for the status quo, can be called an ideology;  different people, in different places, in different situations and different times will construct their own solutions and symbols of salvation for those times. (emphasis mine)

Later in the paragraph (pg 4) he says,

To diminish the danger that ideology will deteriorate into dogma, and to protect the free, open, questing, and creative mind of man, as well as to allow for change, no ideology should be more specific than that of America’s founding fathers:  “For the general welfare.”  (emphasis mine)

Left utterly unexplored, then, is what principles should help you come up with your notions of  ‘mass salvation’ and ‘the general welfare.’  Alinsky’s moral relativism is blatant and explicit and he is unembarrassed by it.

But clearly if you want to pursue the ‘good of mankind’ you should have some clear idea on what that means?  Clearly if you want people to go along with it, you should be up front with the moral and ideological principles that drive your concept?  HA!  For the ‘community organizer’ the community being organized is on a ‘need to know basis.’  As Alinksy later argues, it is rare that you can ever get people to do the ‘right’ thing for the ‘right’ reasons.  More often, they do the ‘right’ thing for the ‘wrong’ reasons, and for your purposes- achieving your objective- not only is that acceptable, that is all that can realistically be expected.

In fact, one of his later points is that policy comes after power.  In his estimation (and here I don’t necessarily disagree) people are not inclined to think about policies or issues until they have the power to do something about them.  As a practical matter, that is quite true.  It is a truth about human nature.  However, the ‘community organizer’ is instructed to remember that “what we fight for now as matters of life and death will be soon forgotten, and changed situations will change desires and issues.  It is common for policy to be the product of power.” (pg 106)

In other words, it is not very important to know what you believe, or why, or what you would do with power when you’ve got it, compared to the necessity of actually getting hold of power in the first place.  The entirety of the ‘community organizer’ agenda is thus simply that:  achieving power.

To the extent that Obama had actually communicated his real agenda prior being elected, we can only suppose that if Alinksy was an influence in his thinking (and we know that it was), then in some respects Obama didn’t actually know himself what he believed, or why, and what he would do with power once he had it.  And since you only tell people what they want to hear in order to acheive your objective, the only real way to get insight into Obama’s real thinking is to watch what he does.

We already have ample evidence of this.  For example, he promised the left that he was going to close Gitmo.  What has he actually done?  He is keeping it open.  He promised the left that he would end torture and hold those who did it accountable.  He ended ‘torture’ but apparently won’t be doing the latter.  He vowed to get us out of Iraq according to a particular time frame.  This is unlikely going to happen, either.

He said these things in order to get the radical left behind him.  The radical left should have known better.  They shouldn’t be surprised one bit.

Alinsky urged his organizers to gain power and then determine policy.  This seems to be Obama’s play book, but we are left wondering about the critical question:  what does Obama believe the ‘good of mankind’ consists of?  Clearly, if it is a question of whether or not this particular means justifies this particular end, it is imperative to know precisely what end Obama hopes to achieve.  Obviously.  Yet, we have no idea.  You can’t even believe what he’s said.  You’ve got to look at what he’s actually done.  What has he actually taken stands on, not just verbally, but in action?

Suddenly Obama’s numerous ‘present’ votes while an Illinois senator, in particular on questions of abortion, are understood in a new light.  It’s just part of the plan.  Don’t you remember:

“But there surely is some common ground when both those who believe in choice and those who are opposed to abortion can come together and say, “We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and that they should not be engaged in cavalier activity, and providing options for adoption, and helping single mothers if they want to choose to keep the baby.”

That’s what he said.  That’s what people wanted to hear.  There was a collective, national, “awwwwwwwwwwwww” when he said this.  And then what did he do?

Immediately upon taking office he did everything he could to make it easier to get abortions.  If the ‘common ground’ mantra is ’safe, legal, and rare’ he did everything within his power to negate ‘rare.’  It is absurd to believe that his Sotomayor will not support a pro-abortion agenda, if in fact we can discern what Obama really believes from what he has actually done.

Obama’s is clearly utilizing other Alinksy tactics as well.   In Alinksy’s chapter on Tactics, two of them seem to be in play regarding the murder of Tiller:

The fourth rule is:  Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.  You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.

The pro-life community is the most law abiding ’social’ group out there, and when new rules are added to control their ‘hate speech’ Obama will appeal to the fact that the Bible urges submission to authorities.

The second principle that seems to apply is:

The thirteenth rule:  Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Obama immediately released a firm statement with polarizing language regarding the Tiller murder.  In contrast, the statement released many days later about the killing of the American soldier by a Muslim convert was much more passive- the opposite of polarizing.  Clearly, when you are on the way to Cairo to pander to the Muslim community the last thing you want to do is polarize them.  You only polarize your target.

One can guess that it will soon be open season on the pro-life community and as long as Islamic radicals don’t screw it up by doing something too audacious, they’ll be able to literally get away with murder.

Reading this portion about polarization made me physically ill.  I’ve been reading and hearing complaints about the polarization in this country as a bad thing- from liberals and democrats- when all along, one of their founding ‘rule books’ seeks to achieve just that.

This is demonstrated very well by the quote from the speech above about finding common ground in the abortion debate.  The ones who really were interested in common ground are the Christians, and utilizing such language, Obama got more than half of the Catholic vote.  A lot of people who considered themselves moderates appreciated Obama’s ‘moderate’ view on questions like partial birth abortion.  When push came to shove, though, we see clearly that Obama is perfectly happy to come out and ‘freeze’ the pro-life community over the death of a person who carried out the very kinds of abortion he deplored ‘except for the life of the mother.’  (Tiller performed, by his own estimation, some 9,000 elective later term abortions).

I have gone on about the abortion topic as it very well could be where he turns his gaze, but by utilizing the principle that we can only know Obama by his actions and not his words, there are many other things that look dark on the horizon.  His fascist takeover of GM, his firing of CEO’s, his advocacy of ‘hate speech’ legislation, ie, his actual exercise of power as we’ve seen it already, are positively frightening in their own right.

But what makes it all the worse is that we don’t really know what Obama thinks constitutes ‘mass salvation.’   We don’t know what Obama means by ‘the good of mankind.’  We don’t know the ideological basis for what he considers the ’symbol of salvation’ for this time.  We just don’t know.  We only know that he will say what people want to hear and then do whatever is necessary to achieve his particular end.  And only God and Obama knows what that might be.  I take that back:  it is possible that neither of them know, for what Obama believes (if Alinksy is any clue) is adaptable, formless, and flexible.  And God, though omniscient, can only know that which can actually be known.

In conclusion, I found there were actually many things in Alinksy’s book that rang true to me.  I was a little surprised to see that.  For example, he acknowledged the historical fact that that great pacifist, Ghandi, would have used force if he had thought it would work.  Alinksy quotes Ghandi complaining in 1930, “Spiritually, compulsory disarmament has made us unmanly…” (pg 39)

Alinksy correctly sums up Lenin’s position on peace while not yet in power as:

“They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot.  When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet.”  And it was. (pg 37)

Alinsky actually has a lot of good ideas- pragmatically.  Unfortunately, in light of the amoralism he believes and promotes, this can only be a cause for concern if/when it falls into the hands of people who are amoral, just like he is.

Citizens, behold thy president.

The current hate speech legislation coming through Congress (Matthew Shepherd Act) aims to draw exactly this kind of connection, though of course this legislation is related more to homosexuality.  The idea is the same, though:  if anyone person commits a crime and it can be tracked back to someone who can be perceived to have ‘instigated it’ the person who did the ‘instigation’ is equally guilty and consequently should be punished under the law.

In today’s perusal of the web I found more evidence of this attempt to condemn the entire pro-life movement because of this single event.  The irony is that the day after Tiller was killed, an American soldier was gunned down at a recruitment center by someone we now know was acting on Islamicist principles.

Besides there being little media attention about that, it should be noted that the Left does not apparently have an interest to condemn all Muslims because of this single event.   There is clearly a lack of perspective here:  in ten years one abortionist was killed but in that same ten years thousands of Americans died at the hands of Islamicists and numerous attacks have been thwarted.  But let’s not make any unwarranted generalizations, shall we?  Unless it’s pro-lifers.

But about that evidence I was referencing.  This article on Newsmax describes how the Left is attempting to link the Tiller killing to Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the pro-life movement.   This article on LifeSiteNews illustrates some of the same.  Here is a quote from the article:

Bonnie Erbe of U.S. News and World report announced on the magazine’s website that “Tiller Murder Is Terrorism, and All Pro-Life Extremists Are to Blame.”

“Let George Tiller’s murder be the last straw. It is time for America’s pro-choice majority to stop standing idly by as extreme so-called pro-life advocates murder obstetrician-gynecologists (OB/GYNs) who are providing women with the legal right to terminate pregnancies,” opined Erbe adding that, “I am careful to note I am referring here to EXTREMIST pro-life advocates, people who refer to abortion as ‘baby-killing’ and other inflammatory rhetoric.”

As I said in yesterday’s post, in the liberal mind, this is how the entire pro-life movement is guilty for the Tiller killing because of course all pro-lifers believe that abortion is, in fact, ‘baby-killing.’  The LifeSiteNews article makes the same point I did:  “The problem is, however, that the whole pro-life movement is based upon the premise that the unborn child is a human being with an inherent right to life.”

This is not me over-reacting.  This is a real trend.  This is a real way of thinking among the Liberal Left and it is soon to be codified in some way in the coming hate speech legislation.  When the DHS says it is worried about ‘right wing extremists’ I personally have little doubt that it means the same as what Erbe, quoted above, means by ‘EXTREMIST pro-life advocates.’

In the meantime, real threats are getting a pass.  Showing Al Qaeda’s willingness to work with those of a different philosophical bent, Islamicists are talking about crossing the Mexican border to work with white supremacists.  This is shocking, I know, because of course we know that if Al Qaeda wouldn’t work with Hussein we know it wouldn’t work with American white supremacists like McVeigh, right?  Right?

Ah, but there I go again.  Expressing concern about the border is just one more example of how I am a racist extremist myself.  How dare I object to illegal immigration.

Perspective and proportion, my friends.  On Sunday, one abortionist was killed after a decade of pretty much nothing.  But if Al Qaeda has its way, they’ll knock off 330,000 Americans in a single go.

I’m just saying:  perspective and proportion.

I have my reasons.

We can go back to a post that I made not too long ago that suggested that a ‘right-wing extremist’ attack was not merely inevitable, but something that the current administration actually wants to happen.

Here is a little quote:

Here is what I think.  I think that the recently admitted NSA over-collection of American domestic communications revealed that people- even decent people- are really, really, really, really, really, POed about the way things are and the way they are going.  I think that material helped drive the DHS report, but I think the DHS was just looking for an excuse.

This report is likely to produce the very thing it is warning about.  With this report, every conservative American became subject to the Thought Police and a target of scrutiny by the Federal government.  I believe it will put some people over the edge.   I believe the intent was to put them over the edge. I think they want a ‘right wing extremist’ to engage in some sort of attack so that the Obama administration can then use the sensibilities of all those law-abiding citizens to turn public opinion against anyone with strongly held views about abortion and government and ‘hate.’  They will use any kind of incident as a justification for the imposition of the gun laws we know that the Obama administration would like to pass, and then, when people react, they can point to that reaction as justifying the need for the gun laws.  It will also be used to justify increased monitoring of the ‘extremist groups,’ as well as any number of measures which if they were proposed today would make even the tea party participants blow their top, but if passed after an ‘incident’ would compel them to re-consider.  Because they are decent people.

And decent people are the easiest to manipulate by authorities.

I’m not sure that the murder of a single abortionist after a decade of no similar attacks is enough to persuade most Americans to go along with draconian measures, but it is clear that the wheels are already in motion that direction.  Certainly, the National Organization for Women are ready to capitalize on this incident in exactly the way I expressed concern about.

For reference sake, here is what NOW (National Organization for Women) said:

Bringing the killers to justice is not enough - the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security must root out and prosecute as domestic terrorists and violent racketeers the criminal enterprise that has organized and funded criminal acts for decades. We call on the new attorney general Eric Holder and head of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to treat these murders in the same way they would treat politically-motivated domestic terrorism of any other kind and put the full resources of their two departments behind that effort.

Having read extensively both before and after this incident, I know that by ‘politically-motivated domestic terrorism’ liberals and leftists are happy to include anyone who believes that taking the life of the unborn is murder.  This is ‘hate speech.’  The general principle at work in these minds was distilled nicely by late term abortionist Warren Hern, who said:

“Dr. Tiller is dead by an anti-abortion assassin, and this is the absolutely inevitable consequence of 35 years of anti-abortion fanatic rhetoric and intimidation and assassination violence and exploitation by the Republican Party of this movement”

And ‘anti-abortion fanatic rhetoric’ simply means the belief that deliberately ending the life of the unborn is murder.  Far from being extreme, of course, that belief is really part and parcel of the definition of being ‘pro-life.’   The Left believes this ‘fanatic rhetoric’ is prima facie evidence of right wing extremism.  That it resulted in the murder of Tiller is not extraordinary in their minds.  They already believe it is wrong and immoral and fanatical to consider abortion as murder at all.

Here is their general view:  you can be against abortion if you want, but you can’t impose your views on other people, and if you happen to be against abortion because you think there is a little person involved, you can believe that, but to take the next obvious step and attach the same label to ending the life of that little person that we give when any other person’s life is taken, that is ‘hate speech.’  That is ‘anti-abortion fanatic rhetoric.’  That is ‘politically motivated domestic terrorism.’

Thus, all pro-lifers are culpable for the actions of one because all pro-lifers believe that abortion is murder.

Pro-life groups are ‘criminal enterprises’ because even though they don’t call for violence, and in fact repudiate it, they refuse to abstain from associating moral values with the abortion issue.  For liberals, abortion is just a ’social issue’ like smoking.  Good people can disagree about it and implying that those on the other side condone murder is inflammatory and improper in a tolerant society.   You see?

That’s why it is important to maintain perspective and proportion here.  I am not speaking to the ultra liberals but to the mass of decent but often not very well informed Americans in the middle who find it easy to form their opinions based on headlines and reporting that makes it sound like we’ve got an epidemic here.  There isn’t.  There isn’t a group out there that exhibits better restraint and self-control than the pro-life community.  You need to know that.

I would be happy to provide examples of the conduct of other activist groups out there but I’m sure if you are as reasonable as you think you are you’ll already know what I’m talking about or will after a fair investigation.

I found my thoughts reflected well in this Worldnetdaily article:

Think of it: As government excesses and corruption become ever more brazen, with “hate crimes” laws effectively criminalizing the Bible and kindergartners brainwashed with radical “gay rights” propaganda, with America’s currency being continually devalued and entire industries taken over by the federal government, pretty soon some group may decide it can’t take it anymore. Its members might become so enraged that they conclude it’s time to start the next armed revolution. Seeing their nation being raped and envisioning no solution other than violence, they delude themselves that they’re the modern counterparts of America’s revolutionary founders. Making explosives and conspiring in secret – all the while quoting Jefferson to each other about “watering the tree of liberty” from time to time with “the blood of patriots and tyrants” – they murder some federal judges or blow up a government office building in an attempt to fight back. In reality, all they succeed in doing is murdering and maiming a bunch of their fellow Americans (or, as McVeigh did in Oklahoma City, massacring a room full of toddlers in daycare – which he later coldly termed “collateral damage”).

And what would follow? A massive official crackdown on “domestic terrorists” and a severe assault on freedom in America.

A single act of violence has the potential of undermining the legitimacy of millions of Americans in the eyes of millions of other Americans.  This is to those other Americans:  keep it in perspective.   For every ‘right wing extremist’ who might actually do something there are a dozen Islamicists who actually are doing something.  For every ‘right wing extremist’ out there who might do something, there are thousands of murders going on all the time, run of the mill stuff, if you will.  It is hugely unlikely that you, or almost anyone for that matter, is going to be a victim of a ‘right wing extremist.’  There is a greater chance that you will die in a car accident.  Or get mugged on the street.  Or have your house robbed.  Or even have your coffee shop blown to smithereens by an Islamic terrorist.  At the far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far end of the scale are the risks and dangers posed by ‘right wing extremists.’

Because they are decent people and of all people the most likely to follow the law.

But you wouldn’t know that from watching the news or reading reports from the DHS.

A 1 to 150,000,000 ratio comes pretty close to a ‘rule’ to me.

I’m just saying.

The first thing we need to do is make it illegal to have guns in churches in Kansas.

Then we need to make it into a crime to single out abortionists for murder.  We should tack it onto the Hate Crimes legislation coming down the pike.  There is nothing worse than hate inspired murder.

After that, I think we should take the National Organization of Women’s statement today and run with it.   They said:  “Bringing the killers to justice is not enough - the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security must root out and prosecute as domestic terrorists and violent racketeers the criminal enterprise that has organized and funded criminal acts for decades.”

Yes, let’s root them out.  The Department Of Homeland Security clearly had the right idea when it labeled pro-lifers as right wing extremists.  This extensive pattern of singling out abortionists must be dealt with quickly and firmly.  To that end, I propose that we confiscate all firearms belonging to anyone who is pro-life.  We can then melt down the guns and form yellow crosses that pro-lifers must afix to their clothing and garments so as to alert everyone to the danger that lurks everywhere.

To facilitate this, every GPS marked home in America should be additionally labeled so that people know when a pro-lifer lives nearby.  We already do this with sex offenders and the epidimec of abortionist-murdering clearly rises to the same level.  We must be prepared to do what is necessary for the good of society.

Finally, any left over scrap from melting down the guns of pro-lifers should be used to create devices that can be implanted beneath their skin for easy tracking.  No longer can we risk allowing right wing extremists un-monitored movement in our society.

If pro-lifers are as ‘law abiding’ as they say they will without hesitation turn in their weapons, wear the yellow cross, and report for implantation.  *smirk*  Law abiding *smirk*

After the oppressed people of Gitmo are released, that would make a natural place to put any pro-lifers who can’t see fit to do what is necessary for the good of society.

As always, middle eastern men with box cutters and bulky coats that could be concealing anything and long knives for beheading their wives stalking Danish cartoonists should be left alone barring anything suspicious enough about them that could rise to the level of  ‘probable cause.’  Racial profiling and gross generalizations based on race and religion is inappropriate for a tolerant society like our own.

These are my humble opinions on what to do with the tragic spate of murders of abortionists in this country.

It is not hard to find insinuations and outright accusations that these killings represent a ‘fascist’ right wing extremist movement.  Today, the self-described last in the world late-term abortionist, Dr. Warren Hern, said:  “The anti-abortion movement message is, ‘Do what we tell you to do or we will kill you,’ and they do. This is a fascist movement.”

The statistics, however, do not bear this out, do they?  In thirty-five years, just 8 abortionists have been killed.  Between 1980 and 1989, 304 gas station attendants were killed.  115 liquor store workers were killed.  806 grocery store workers were killed.  56 Jewelry store workers were killed.  You get the idea:  It is more dangerous to work at a gast station, liquor store, grocery store, or jewelry store (or drive a taxi, etc) than it is to be an abortion ‘doctor.’

Since Roe vs. Wade, thousands have been killed by Islamic terrorists.  Just a couple of months ago a man beheaded his wife- right here in America.

Since Roe vs. Wade, hundreds of thousands have died in automobile accidents.

Yet, when 8 people are killed over the course of 35 years, that is a sign to some that the pro-life movement is out of control.  If this were a sane world, this low figure would prove the opposite- that a group of people who believe that the unborn are no less persons than the Jews who were exterminated by the millions by Hitler (another group deemed ‘non-persons’ by social convention) nonetheless has done a bang up job working legally. 

Compared to real extremists, pro-lifers are not extreme at all.

I wondered to myself about the unique dynamic on display in this latest killing.  The Internet is afire with commentators on all sides.  The Internet was certainly around in 1998 but I don’t recall the kind of discussions I’m seeing right now.   Arguments like the one above that urges people to be rational and have a sense of proportion can be lodged in real time whereas a decade or more ago if the news media presented something that basically became reality.

And such arguments are necessary when there are those prepared to brand an entire group as ‘extremists’ and call down the Justice Department and the Dept. of Homeland Security upon them as NOW has done.  Necessary, yes, but will they be effective?  DHS has already come out and labeled people ‘right wing extremists’ if they are pro-life, are against illegal immigration, and the like.   8 people murdered in 35 years and in the minds of some this is proof positive for the need for a crackdown.

Actually, it is proof positive that a large segment of America’s population is clean out of their mind.  Oh, and they’re in charge.  That’s awesome.

For reference sake, here is what NOW (National Organization for Women) said:

Bringing the killers to justice is not enough - the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security must root out and prosecute as domestic terrorists and violent racketeers the criminal enterprise that has organized and funded criminal acts for decades. We call on the new attorney general Eric Holder and head of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to treat these murders in the same way they would treat politically-motivated domestic terrorism of any other kind and put the full resources of their two departments behind that effort.

I mean, wow.

Nonetheless, it is an undeniable fact that at the turn of the last century evolutionists were advocating eugenics with enthusiasm with great public support.

You’ve heard the current skeptical talking point that Christianity certainly can’t be true because if you had been born in Pakistan you’d have been a Muslim.  Certainly the same thinking applies here, where we might say that evolutionists today who deny the logical connection between evolution and eugenics, if they had been born in 1890, would have been Eugenicists.  Right?

What I find remarkable is that in point of fact, all of the arguments for eugenics from the past are alive and well today.  The only thing that has happened is that it has been re-packaged.   After all, in light of the horrific abuses witnessed during World War 2, it is bad PR to have your own ideology associated with the ideology that led up to it.

In fact, it is safe to say that there is currently an ideological war going on over the true sources and influences that led to the concentration camps, gulags, killing fields, etc.   No one wants to be the one left holding the “my ideology led to the holocaust” card.  Hence, the need to demonstrate that Hitler was not a Christian.  So too the need to distance eugenics from evolutionary theory.

I am constantly reading the writings of those people who worked in the generations after Darwin’s Origins up through the conclusion of the second world war.   Any kind of exploration of the ideological, etc, conditions that led up to the millions of corpses, especially when linked to modern manifestations of those same ideologies, is often shrugged aside as an example of Godwin’s Law.  I continue to read these writings because I am convinced that seventy years is not so long ago that such events can be chalked up to ‘ancient history’ with no possibility of ever happening again.

Moreover, since I am constantly reading these writings, I am constantly noticing similarities with what is currently under discussion now, especially among Liberal Left…

So, if it is the case that eugenics is not a logical consequence to evolutionary theory, by all means, we should wonder how it came to be so strongly associated in the first place.  It isn’t enough to righteously deny a connection.  For decades the most learned people on the planet believed there was.

To help promote such an investigation, I submit for your reading the positions of a certain Jacob Appel, a modern evolutionary bio-ethicist in support of eugenics, and a book called Applied Eugenics by Paul Popenoe,writing in 1918.  Skip to around chapters 7 and 8 and see if you can spot the similarities between Popenoe’s arguments and Appel’s.   (Earlier in, Popenoe credits the Germans for their innovation…)

For example, there is this juicy bit:  “The science of eugenics is the natural result of the spread and acceptance of organic evolution, following the publication of Darwin’s work on The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, in 1859.”  Page 148.

So, where did the world’s smartest men go wrong in the early part of the 20th century?  And why do their arguments sound so similar to what we hear coming out of today’s politicians urging us on to ‘make sacrifices’ ‘for the good of society’?

Or maybe they weren’t wrong at all, and the only difference between the evolutionists of this generation and the evolutionists of the last is that the last generation had the courage of their convictions.

Mr. Appel declares at the end of his article, “These skeptics equate all forms of eugenics, even benign and socially-beneficial programs, with Nazi sterilization laws and unscientific theories of racial superiority.”

What makes them unscientific?  If Mr. Appel had been born in 1930 Germany he would have believed them scientific indeed.  What changed?

————————————

From a speech by Adolf Hitler, 1935.  National-Socialist Party Conference:

The Party never had the intention, and it has not the intention now, of engaging in any kind of hostilities against Christianity in Germany.  Our aim has been quite the opposite.  We have sought to unite the various regional Prostestant churches, whose conditions of existence were impossible, and create one great Evangelical Church throughout the Reich, without interfering in the slightest with questions of religious belief or practice.

…

But under no condition whatsoever will the National Socialist State permit religious denominations to engage in political activities, whether these activities be a continuance of the old tradition or something started afresh.  And here I should like to issue a definite warning against the entertaining of any illusions whatsoever in regard to the fixed determination of the Movement and the State.  We have already fought the clerical politicans and forced them to leave Parliament.  It was a long struggle during which we held no public power whatsoever, whereas the others held all the power in their hands.

I am linking to it because I think there is a fair bit of truth in it, actually.   I doubt it will wake anyone up.  While I know a great deal of people who are not happy with the current trends and are not the ’sheeple’ referenced by the editorialist, I can think of a fair number who scoff at the notion that fascism or socialism could happen here… when in fact it isn’t a question of whether or not it could happen, it is happening.

By the time these scoffers wake up it will be too late.  And then there are of course the scoffers who actually desire a Marxist state but prudence requires that they deny that they desire it every step of the way even as they work to make each of those steps a reality.

One of those persons is the man a majority of Americans voted for president in the last election.

Here is the article.  Enjoy.

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/

(Note that there are two pages to the article)

Probably the fundamental issue exposed by Barker’s reply is that Barker has set himself up as judge, jury, and executioner as far as deciding whether or not his challenge has been met.  Personally, I believe in the future, Mr. Kingsley or any other would-be answerer should insist that an impartial panel be the judge.  You’ll get an idea why by the end of this post…

1.  Barker’s Challenge explicitly says:  “…without omitting a single detail…write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension… [it] does not have to pretend to present a perfect picture- it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts. … The important condition to the challenge, however, is that not one single biblical detail be omitted.”

Who among us is surprised to hear that by ‘plausible’ Barker basically means ‘naturalistic explanations’?  Even I, I mean, even I, was shocked to hear Barker dismiss the plausibility of Kingsley’s chronology because, well, one must adopt a naturalistic perspective of what counts as ‘plausible’!  Unbelievable!  Consider this exchange leading into Part 2:

Dan: Yes. But we’re not there yet. In order for your evidence to be admissible, you have to produce a coherent, noncontradictory, plausible version of it.
Elizabeth: And that is the point of your Easter Challenge. I understand. So the only way for us to proceed is to assume that we are both naturalists, simply looking at the details of the stories themselves, on their own merits.
Dan: Yes. That’s all I was trying to say.

By ‘on their own merits’ Dan means ‘in naturalistic terms.’  Wow.  So, it isn’t enough to put the encounters with ‘angels’ into chronological order.  You have to also recast them in naturalistic terms.  That isn’t one of his examples but that is clearly what such a thing must mean.  It is evident that such thinking lies in the back of most of Barker’s rebuttal.  That seems mighty odd, to me, since I didn’t realize that a ‘plausible, chronological account’ also means ‘plausible as believed by hard core atheists when they consider any supernatural account.’

2.  Barker’s concept of ‘plausibility’ is shown to be truly irrational and unfair when he insists that the person who answers his challenge no only put things into chronological order but explain why different accounts mention different things and not others.  From a fictional dialog in his Part 1 (pg 17):

Elizabeth: Matthew tells us: “And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.” (Matthew 28:2) So, yes, we have to keep the earthquake.
Dan: Why didn’t any of the other gospel writers mention this “great earthquake”?
Elizabeth: I don’t know, but that’s irrelevant to your challenge. Maybe they didn’t think it was important. Or perhaps only Matthew knew about the earthquake.
Dan: It’s irrelevant to “telling the story,” but it is not irrelevant to “telling a plausible story.” You think the earthquake was so “great” that it caused a tomb to open, and nobody but Matthew felt it? The NIV translates it “violent earthquake.” No other historian, author or other gospel writer mentions this earth-shaking event.

I mean, wow.  So you see, not only does one have to find a plausible place to put the earthquake chronologically, one has to explain why nobody but Matthew reported it.  I say ‘reported’ it because of course Barker’s insinuation above that since only Matthew reported it only Matthew felt it is a wholly unjustified assumption.  But that is besides the point.  We discover here that one of the ‘biblical facts’ that must be plausibly accounted for is why it was only reported in one of the accounts.  So much for asking for a mere harmonization.

Lest you think I’m making more of it than Barker did, Barker in fact harps on it for another 2-3 pages.

3.  This is not by any means the only time he requires such outrageous demands for the would be answerer.  On page 58 he says:

The story in Matthew 28:11–15 (reported on page 55) of the chief priests bribing the Roman soldiers to lie about the body is not plausible. On their face, before you attempt any harmonization, some stories in the New Testament sound like flimsily manufactured alibis.  … This story is simply not plausible.

Mr. Kingsley, in attempting to provide a plausible chronological harmonization that doesn’t omit any biblical fact, should not have to also justify why we should also believe why those facts actually happened.  The answerer is not asked to defend the veracity of any of the facts in the original challenge, only arrange them in a certain fashion.  But we find when Mr. Barker gets out the red pen, one has to also prove that the events themselves could ‘plausibly’ have happened.

Good grief.

Again, lest you think this is random, Barker provides numerous other such instances.  For example, he spends a fair bit of time pointing out that the chronology contradicts Jesus’ statement that he would be in the belly of the earth for ‘three days and three nights.’  (Page 49) Of course, Jesus did not make this statement within the passages the Challenge encompasses.  I guess nuances like that are unimportant to Mr. Barker.

Granted, a great deal of these come in Barker’s Part 3 which he says is less important commentary, but we are supposed to believe that somehow they tie in with Kingsley’s failure to meet the challenge: “…below I will show instances where you also failed to integrate elements into a single narrative, but I think you agree that all I need is to produce at least one example…” (pg 46).

4.  It takes nearly 50 pages before he finally gets around to what I perceive to be the really weak point in Kingsley’s attempt, which is the idea that Jesus had already appeared to Mary Magdalene once before she joined the rest of the women on the way to yet another visit to the tomb.

5.  There are so many ridiculous things in this rebuttal that I really don’t have time to get to them all.  There are also numerous assertions of fact of highly dubious quality.  They come out of the skeptical playbook and get a lot of traction among the hyper-skeptics but not much anywhere else.  At this point, I’m not going to treat them for the same reason Barker should have not said them (besides being inaccurate):  they are irrelevant to his challenge.

I have deliberately left out an assessment of the ‘at least one example’ that he says is all that is needed in order to show the answer to be a failure.  This is his insistence that Matthew 28:1-8 must be taken as a single ‘element.’  You thought this was a harmonization, which meant by definition splicing passages together from all the Gospels, but in fact it means adopting Barker’s views as to what constitutes discrete ‘elements’ that other passages/elements must work around.  This demand is flawed, and is a good example of the dangers of letting Mr. Barker be judge, jury, and executioner.

I will at some point nonetheless address this, and also his strange reading of the emphasis on Jesus’ command to the disciples to meet him in Galilee.  But this is enough for now.

If that is the consensus it may be a surprise to hear someone (me) suggesting that it is neither forgery nor interpolation, but rather genuine and authentic.  As I am a real free thinker, those who know me I don’t think are surprised at all. 

You may wish to consult the Wikipedia page on the subject which I think does a good job of covering all the relevant arguments, with the exception of there being no attempt to connect the dots for an argument in favor of its authenticity.  This post should not be considered an attempt to speak exhaustively on the subject or an attempt to give a ’scholarly’ look at it.

My guiding principle here is ‘what does the evidence say?’  When we turn to the textual evidence, we find that our oldest Greek copies date from c. 1,000.  Our oldest quotation of it comes from Eusebius, who quotes it more or less the same as we find it 700 years later.    A separate, c. 1100 AD Syriac translation of the quotation turns out to be identical to Jerome’s Latin translation of the Greek TF.  As Jerome did his translations  c. 380 AD we gain, possibly, another independent attestation to the quote as reflected in our oldest Greek copies.

So precisely where is the textual evidence to suggest a forgery or interpolation?  Is there a fifth century of Antiquities floating around that does not have the TF?  Has a Syriac version appeared that doesn’t reflect the TF?  No.  The truth is that all of the arguments against the authenticity of the TF up until the discovery of an Arabic version have been based on specious ruminations about the integrity of Eusebius or time-traveling telepathic explorations of Josephus’s brain so as to know what Josephus would or would not have really said.

The very best argument requires reading Origen’s mind:  he apparently had read Antiquities but did not reference the TF, or if he did, appears to reject the implication that the quotation has that Jesus was the Christ.  There is no way to know what Origen was thinking except when he says what he was thinking.  If we are free to imagine reasons why he really ought to have cited the reference we are free to imagine reasons why he chose not to.

When you get into mind reading, anyone can say anything.  When one is constrained to evidence, it appears that the evidence supports the prima facie acceptance of the quotation.

So what about the Arabic version which seems to dampen the overtly pro-Christian allusions in the text?  Here at least we have something textual in hand, so that’s an improvement.  The Arabic version also takes the full forgery hypothesis out at the knees.  If the Muslims had a form of the TF in their editions, it is hard to imagine that there wasn’t originally SOME reference to Jesus.

But this really brings me to the heart of the matter.  Yes, its true that even an interpolation is enough to corroborate Jesus’ mere existence, even if it can’t be trusted to give us details.  So why bother protesting?

Well, it just amazes me that skeptical and liberal scholars are happy psycho-analyzing Christian writers of the past, imputing to them all sorts of horrid desires:  suppression of other ideas, deliberately tampering with texts, fabricating evidence whole cloth, etc, but the Muslims!  The Muslims would never have the same kind of fanatical motivations to tamper a text so as to better support their case!

I have often found it fascinating that skeptics cannot allow Christians even the tiniest shred of a factual basis for their views.  It isn’t enough that they reject the Gospel or find it ridiculous, or unfair, or whatever, they’ve got to go after everything within reach:  the selection of the NT books as canonical, the content of those books, the authorship and dating of those books, etc, etc, all the way back even to whether or not Jesus existed.  I mean, it almost comes across as though there is something in Christianity that is so threatening to them that they can’t even grant that its founder even existed.  They are perfectly happy to grant that Paul existed, because with Paul they can weave the dream that it was Paul who invented Christianity.  You see how it works.  I don’t have to spell it out for you.

Much, though of course not all, of the argumentation against the legitimacy of the TF seems to be born of this kind of hyper-scrutinizing that can’t allow any fragment of fact to remain standing if it supports Christianity.  This kind of scrutiny is rarely, if ever, applied to other historical areas.

I have no real objections to considering the possibility that the TF is an interpolation or even a forgery.  I just want better evidence than mind reading that operates on the unspoken assumption that Christians of the past were busy altering the record, beginning of course with the Gospels themselves.  A seance seems a strange way to do scholarship, but that’s exactly the sort of thing I think you’d need in order to have any actual evidence for many of the arguments against the TF (to name one example).

While I complain about this kind of hyper-scrutiny, I should be clear about why.  Very simply, its just not reasonable to apply to ancient Christian texts a standard that is higher than we apply to other ancient texts.  I for one am skeptical of the conclusions of those who are perfectly content to do so.  On the other hand, given the amount and kind of scrutiny applied to even the tiniest jot and tittle that appears to support Christianity when things emerge that even the atheists, skeptics, and liberal scholars can’t dispense with, that’s saying something.  The Testimonium Flavianum is such an example.

The discovery of this ‘missing link’ comes as I’ve been ruminating on the role of secularism in our society, science, and education.  Secularists insist that those who want to involve themselves in goverment have to frame their desired policies, legislation, etc, in secular terms, or else be ‘unconstitutional.’  Secularists really believe that this approach constitutes being ‘neutral.’  And of course, secularists get to decide what secularism entails.

(For a fascinating exhibition of this, I submit this thread on my discussion forum.)

It is nonsense to believe that secularism is ‘neutral.’  For the purposes of this post, though, what I want to contend is that there isn’t such a thing as ‘neutrality.’  In today’s post-modern world, I wouldn’t think that is controversial.   What we find, however, is that there are huge areas of our experience that we are told really are neutral.   Here again, the ‘neutralists’ are the ones who decide what fits into this category.  The rest of us don’t get to have a say.

The government is one such instance.  Science and education are two others.

To make my point plain before I begin:  I believe that the ideal government won’t insist on ‘neutrality’ (which is impossible) but rather allow everyone to come to the table on fair terms.

Secular education, we are informed, is devoid of ‘religious’ content.  This is why they feel like they can distribute condoms and have Planned Parenthood come in and offer ’services.’  You see how it works:  if you are against abortion, that’s religious.  If you are for it, that’s secular.  If you are for the sexual morality theoretically embodied in traditional marriage, you’re religious.  If you could care less, that’s secular.   You have two sides of the same coin, and instead of acknowledging that the whole coin is ‘religious’ the secularists have decided that only one side is- the side they disagree with- and oh, by the way, don’t you remember that only secularists perspectives are allowed in the public schools?

Likewise, science we are informed is ‘neutral.’  One must keep religious content out of science at all costs!  To do otherwise is to establish religion!   The interesting thing about what passes as science today is that you can break it up into two basic parts.  One part, the part really supported by the scientific method, really is neutral in the sense that they represent brute facts.  The temperature at which water boils has no moral implications.  The other part, the part with a more modern approach to science where observation and direct experimentation is not critical, very often does have moral implications.

It seems that the less empirically demonstrable the claim, the more moral are the implications.

Take for example the question of when human life begins and is entitled to the rights of human beings.  It is easy to find secularists contending that their views are scientific whereas those religious nutjob pro-lifers have a religious view.  On the secularist’s own terms, though, when you choose (as a society) to grant human rights is basically just societal convention.  How interesting that they wish to decide what the societal convention really says?  The fact that half of America’s population is pro-life is irrelevant.  Why?  Because their perspective is religious, that’s why.  But ask them to scientifically demonstrate when a human life begins and when it deserves the rights we accord to humans and you are not going to get anything empircally demonstrable.

The number one example of a so called scientific theory that is loaded with moral and religious implications is of course evolution itself.  There was a time when people were more willing to admit this.

The famous Scopes Monkey trial resolves around the state of Tennessee saying that evolution could not be taught in science classrooms.  The horror!  But we forget what evolutionism entailed at the time.  For example, the textbook that was at the center of the Monkey Trial presents some interesting things as ’science.’

Quote from the textbook:

Eugenics. When people marry there are certain things that the individual as well as the race should demand. The most important of these is freedom from germ diseases which might be handed down to the offspring. Tuberculosis, syphilis, that dread disease which cripples and kills hundreds of thousands of innocent children, epilepsy, and feeble-mindedness are handicaps which it is not only unfair but criminal to hand down to posterity. The science of being well born is called eugenics.

or,

If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried success fully in Europe and are now meeting with success in this country.

I discuss this more in this post discussing one professor’s claim that we have a moral obligation to abort our potentially disabled children.

These comments are from the science book that Tennessee wanted kept out of their classrooms!  The horror!

For you see, there was a day when the implications of evolutionary theory were more obvious and more openly admitted.   Margaret Sanger, the founder of the aforementioned Planned Parenthood, openly urged abortion as a method of eugenics.  And of course, since this was all science, and science is ‘neutral’, it should follow naturally that religious people can raise no objections.

Today of course eugenics has a bad rap.  We can thank Hitler for that.  But that doesn’t mean the implications have changed or that there aren’t ‘neutral’ scientists and secularists who advocate for eugenics today.  People aren’t as dumb as secularists would like them to be.  When you promote ’survival of the fittest’ as the guiding biological principle the inevitable conclusion is that we have the moral obligation to utilize that principle according to our own terms. You just aren’t supposed to say it out loud…

It is common to hear secularists insist that the science and sociology of the 1930s was ‘false science’ or things of the like.  Of course, if they were alive at the time they would have believed exactly the same.  But to my point, they have this in common:  both believe that they pursue and promote a ‘neutral’ science based platform and that religion has no right to insert itself- unless it is farmed in their ‘neutral’ terms- in the affairs of governments large and small.

What to say except that the secularists are winning?  Where will it end?  History provides clues:  and it ain’t pretty.

It never crossed my mind to try to actually correspond with Barker.  I assumed the whole thing was just some sort of cheap shot.   Having read Kingsley’s book I see that was a mistake.  He documents how Barker and other hyper-skeptics really thought they had something here and took the alleged silence of Christians as telling.

I am glad, therefore, to see that Pastor Stephen Kingsley has taken up the ‘challenge.’  According to Kingsley, he has contacted Barker with the ‘answer’ but Barker has demurred and hasn’t yet responded.

Has Kingsley done it?  Has Kingsley really and definitively reconciled and harmonized the Easter accounts?  Probably not.  However, that’s not what Barker’s challenge asked for.  Barker’s challenge says:

…without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when; and where these things happened. Since the gospels do not always give precise times of day, it is permissible to make educated guesses. The narrative does not have to pretend to present a perfect picture–it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts.

Does it do that?  Does it give a simple chronological narrative of the events that is a plausible account of all of the facts?  Absolutely.

As far as the construction of that narrative goes I have minor quibbles here and there.  Of course, Kingsley has actually taken the time to meet the challenge so he’s got an advantage over me in those regards.  Quite possibly, if you study the question for yourself, you will come up with your own ideas.  We must remember the terms of the challenge:  a plausible chronological narrative.  Kingsley provides just that.

I appreciated Kingsley’s fresh look at passages that I for one haven’t thought too much about.  They become part of the background of your thought for the Passion story, the furniture of the mind if you will, but on further reflection they turn out to have more import than previously supposed.  In this respect I imagine that Barker’s ‘Challenge’ serves a good use, getting us to reflect on things we otherwise might not have.  I disagree to some extent with Kingsley on the merits of the Challenge, though:  even if no plausible chronological narrative construction could be made this would not seriously undermine our confidence in the story.  Kingsley would agree with me, I think, in pointing out that contradictions and brazen inconsistencies definitely would.

In my view, we simply lack the necessary information to construct a definitive chronological narrative.  Nonetheless, we have sufficient information to construct a plausible chronological narrative, and Kingsley does just that.

Mr. Ralph Nielsen, a Barker supporter put an ad in the newspaper daring people to take up the challenge.  He didn’t require people to prove that their harmonization was absolutely true.  He merely asked people to “List all the events from the Resurrection to the Ascension of Jesus without omitting any detail.”  He adds, “If you can do this with no contradictions I will pay you a $1,000 reward.”

Nielsen apparently rejects Kingsley’s narrative on the grounds that he thinks that one translation of a word is better than Kingsley’s offered translation- even though Kingsley’s suggestion is in the lexicon and translators have used it for the very passage in question.

That sound you hear is the goal posts being dug up and moved.  Nielsen, like Barker will likely do, has decided that it isn’t enough to have a plausible and consistent account- it must be demonstrable and definitive.   That is nonsense.

Mr. Nielsen, you owe Mr. Kingsley $1,000.

Pastor Kingsley’s book is available at www.easteranswer.com