Notices 22nd April 2012 - chchindbaptist.co.nz · Pledge to Mortgage: - IItemsN ewsI A rticle Israel – 28th January Josh and Anna - 31st January . 5 | P a g e Church of England

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SERVICE TIMES

SUNDAY SERVICES: Morning 11am Evening 5:30pm

SUNDAY SCHOOL & ADULT BIBLE CLASS: 9:45am – 10:30am

(SCHOOL TERMS ONLY)

BIBLE STUDY / PRAYER MEETING: Wednesdays 7:00pm

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2 1 s t J a n u a r y 2 0 1 8

leads this morning’s worship

Musical Prelude by

Call to worship

Worship Hymn: 13 Crown Him With Many Crowns Welcome and Opening Prayer

Announcements

Worship Hymn: 613 Trusting Jesus

Tithes & Free will offering – Pastor

Bible Reading: Philemon 16 - 21 Worship Hymn: 534 ‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus

Bible Message

Closing Hymn: 775 Joy in My Heart Closing Prayer

Benediction – Pastor

See back page of the Hymn book

If you have been a visitor today, we hope that you will worship with us again

Theme: Let me have the joy of thee in the Lord – Philemon 20

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This morning’s service – “Let Me Have the Joy of Thee in the Lord” – Philemon 20. Pastor will introduce our theme for this year 2018. Pastor is looking forward to introducing this to you. The theme will present a promise to one another and the church as a whole. You will receive themed bookmarks, 2018 desk calendar, fridge magnet, “My church Companion” notebook (One per family), “My Sermon Notes” (for all that wish to have one), a pen, and Bible in one year reading plan.

Evening services recommence today at 5:30pm. Pastor will begin a series through the minor prophets beginning with Hosea. Minor prophets are not minor at all but are considered minor in the sense of the amount of the written word. In fact the minor prophets are often major in their prophetic writings. After this series pastor will begin a series entitled “The Antichrist and the Spirit of Antichrist”. We don’t know who the antichrist is or who he will be however the spirit of antichrist is alive and well today. What are the signs of the Antichrist and the signs of the spirit of Antichrist which is in the world today.

No Sunday school till 11th February 2018.

Prayer time before the morning service as usual.

No Choir practice – start date will be next Sunday 28th January for both adult and children’s choirs in preparation for Chris Hustler’s visit.

Music lessons – Start date and times will be announced closer to the time when pastor has received his school timetable.

Regular Prayer meeting this Wednesday.

Please continue to pray for all our church family – in particular for Elizabeth James and the Emnas family flying to Philippines soon.

Church working bee Saturday 27th January – DV (DV = Deus Volente = "God Willing") and weather permitting.

“More than Conquerors” resumes Thursdays commencing 8th February.

February 1st 2018 – Our church will celebrate 20 year anniversary since it officially constituted as a church. Sadly Peter Marsman is unable to come and celebrate this event with us.

Saturday 3rd February 6pm - Fellowship meal (ladies a plate please). Sunday 4th February Celebration Church Service and cutting the cake followed by a church picnic and devotional.

Coming up

“For a Time Such as This” – Pastors Fellowship and Bible Conference: 5 – 7th February 2018 in

Wellington Sunday School resumes Sunday 11th February 2018. Adult study topics will be distributed to

various men to teach. If there is a particular topic you wish to be taught or if you wish to teach a particular topic please speak to the pastor. Importance is growing for this.

Evangelist Chris Hustler will be here Wednesday 21st - Sunday 25th February 2018. He will be in Nelson and Blenheim Sunday 4th March. Please be in prayer for this event.

You are invited to take part in The Booties Project. We would like to have sufficient pairs of booties (12,000) by 1 June 2018, to form a public display on Parliament grounds within weeks of the 2017 abortion figures being publicised. Please pass baby booties onto Dale by April 2018. Following the display, all booties will be distributed to maternity wards & birthing centres in towns & cities all around New Zealand. (See Poster or speak to Dale if you require more information.)

Our Prophecy Conference with Peter Jackson from Herald of Hope will be August 3rd to 5th 2018. Please be in prayer for this event.

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Today: Next week: Song Leading Eric Jason

Song Leading Evening

Jason Josh

Door Johann Josh

Morning Tea & Dishes

Anita Jessie

Crèche Dale & Abby Kim & Krystal

Church Cleaning

Morgans - Jan Harveys - Feb

Tithes and Offerings Tithes &

Offerings $1215.40

Missions: $10.00

Pledge to

Mortgage: -

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Israel – 28th January

Josh and Anna - 31st January

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Church of England

apologises to Darwin Anglican Church’s neo-Chamberlainite

appeasement of secularism

By Creation Ministries International

www.creation.com

This weekend’s feedback is in response to a

number of queries about the Church of England

(Anglicans) officially apologizing to Darwin.

However, they don’t speak for all attenders of this

church, since many of them are still faithful to

Scripture and are appalled by their ‘leaders’. There

are numerous mistakes in the article by the official

Church of England (CoE) representative, a Rev. Dr

Malcolm Brown, on the official CoE website, and

Jonathan Sarfati replies point-by-point.

Good religion needs good science by Rev Dr

Malcolm Brown, Director of Mission and Public

Affairs Church of England

The trouble with Homo sapiens is that we’re only

human. People, and institutions, make mistakes

and Christian people and churches are no

exception.

Indeed, as the CoE has officially shown with this

craven apology—as if apologies for the past are

meaningful, given that both Darwin and those who

allegedly wronged him are long dead. And who

does he really speak for? Certainly not the large

numbers of Anglicans who still believe the Bible.

When a big new idea emerges which changes the

way people look at the world, it’s easy to feel that

every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and

then to do battle against the new insights.

Such superficial psychologization may be touching,

but in reality, philosopher Daniel Dennett calls

Darwinism a universal acid that ‘eats through

virtually every traditional concept’—mankind’s

most cherished beliefs about God, value, meaning,

purpose, culture, morality—everything. The church

made that mistake with Galileo’s astronomy, and

has since realised its error.

It can get tedious to see compromising churchians

trot out the Galileo affair as an excuse for their

compromise. The church indeed made a mistake

with Galileo, but exactly the opposite of what Brown

thinks. The church’s trouble was adopting the

prevailing scientific framework of the University

Aristotelians, and adjusting their theology to fit.

When Galileo challenged the prevailing scientific

framework, his scientific enemies persuaded the

Church that he was attacking the Bible, which he

was not.

Some church people did it again in the 1860s with

Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Some did, i.e. refused to make the same mistake

as the Church in Galileo’s day, of marrying their

theology to the current scientific fad, which merely

results in widowhood in the next generation. But far

too many

appeased

Darwin, with the

same

disastrous

effects as

Chamberlain’s

appeasement

of Hitler 70

years ago.

Note that natural selection is not Darwin’s theory; it

was discussed by the creationist, Edward Blyth,

and today is an important part of the creation

model. Natural selection has nothing to do with

turning moths into motorists or bacteria into

biologists, because the changes are in the wrong

direction, i.e. removing information instead of

adding it as goo-to-you evolution requires.

So it is important to think again about Darwin’s

impact on religious thinking, then and now—and

the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth in 1809 is a good

time to do so.

-6-

We quite agree—hence our international

‘Challenging Darwin in 2009’ documentary film

project.

Theories raised moral questions

But if Darwin’s ideas once needed rescuing from

religious defensiveness, they may also now need

rescuing from some of the enthusiasts for his ideas.

A scientist has a duty to the truth: he or she is called

to be fearless in discovering the way the world

works.

Indeed. But so often, Darwinians accept

materialism as a dogma (like Richard Lewontin) or

as ‘rules of the game’, so reject a design

explanation a priori even if all the evidence

supports it (like Scott Todd).

But how a scientific theory is used, and the ways in

which ideas can be deployed politically or

ideologically, are the responsibility of a less easily

defined constituency. ‘Darwinism’ has become

something bigger than Darwin’s own theories, and

raises many moral questions. This doesn’t make

the church of the 1860s right to have attacked

Darwin, but it does suggest that the question is

deeper than deciding whose side you would have

been on in that historic debate between Samuel

Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and Darwin’s

supporter, Thomas Huxley.

It would help to separate the facts from the myth

about this as well.

Nothing in scientific method contradicts Christian

teaching

We agree. Indeed, the founders of modern science

were creationists, while science doesn’t need goo-

to-you evolution.

Darwin was, in many ways, a model of good

scientific method. He observed the world around

him, developed a theory which sought to explain

what he saw, and then set about a long and

painstaking process of gathering evidence that

would either bear out, contradict, or modify his

theory.

This is simplistic—see also Darwin and the search

for an evolutionary mechanism, which shows the

historical and philosophical influences on Darwin’s

ostensibly scientific theory. However, Darwin did

largely follow some erroneous methods of Francis

Bacon, an errant creationist.

As a result, our understanding of the world is

expanded,

Certainly, Darwin’s research on the role of

earthworms in soil was a great contribution, as

were his meticulous studies on carnivorous plants

and barnacles, and could truly have said to

expanded our understanding. But when it came to

evolution, even many evolutionists admit that his

book went way beyond the evidence. For example,

one of his highly qualified contemporaries,

Professor Johann H. Blasius, director of the Duke’s

Natural History Museum of Braunschweig

(Brunswick), Germany, was highly critical:

‘I have also seldom read a scientific book which

makes such wide-ranging conclusions with so few

facts supporting them. … Darwin wants to show

that Arten [types, kinds, species] come from other

Arten. I regard this as somewhat of a highhanded

hypothesis, because he argues using unproven

possibilities, without even naming a single example

of the origin of a particular species.’

but the scientific process continues. In science,

hypotheses are meant to be constantly tested.

Subsequent generations have built on Darwin’s

work but have not significantly undermined his

fundamental theory of natural selection.

Why would we want to undermine natural

selection? We would merely want to undermine the

additional claim that it is a creative force rather than

a culling force.

There is nothing here that contradicts Christian

teaching.

Unless Christian teaching is divorced from Christ’s!

He clearly taught that ‘Scripture cannot be broken’,

and said, ‘it is written’ to settle an argument—for

Jesus, Scripture said = God said . He affirmed the

special creation of man and woman ‘from the

beginning of creation’ (not billions of years later,

from pond scum via the animal kingdom), and the

global Flood, as well as other Scriptures that

skeptics love to mock.

Jesus himself invited people to observe the world

around them and to reason from what they saw to

an understanding of the nature of God (Matthew

6:25–33).

-7-

So our Rev. Dr decides that he does believe some

of the Scriptures—a cafeteria Christian who

decides which parts of the biblical ‘menu’ he likes.

But Jesus never told people to reason in a way that

contradicted ‘it is written … ’.

Christian theologians throughout the centuries

have sought knowledge of the world and

knowledge of God.

Indeed, but their priorities are different from the

Rev. Dr Brown’s. Because of Adam’s sin, the

creation is cursed (Genesis 3:17–19, Romans

8:20–22), man’s heart is deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9)

and the thinking of a godless man is ‘futile’

(Romans 1:21). But although Scripture was penned

by fallen humans, these humans were moved by

the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20–21:), so Scripture itself

is ‘God-breathed’ (2 Timothy 3:15–17). Therefore,

Scripture is the only source of revelation not tainted

by the Fall.

So a biblical Christian should not reinterpret the

perfect, unfallen Word of God according to fallible

theories of sinful humans about a world we know to

be cursed. As the systematic theologian Louis

Berkhof approvingly explained about the views of

some leading Reformed theologians:

‘… Since the entrance of sin into the world, man

can gather true knowledge about God from His

general revelation only if he studies it in the light of

Scripture, in which the elements of God’s original

self-revelation, which were obscured and perverted

by the blight of sin, are republished, corrected, and

interpreted.’

Berkhof’s own view was:

‘Some are inclined to speak of God’s general

revelation as a second source; but this is hardly

correct in view of the fact that nature can come into

consideration here only as interpreted in the light of

Scripture.’

For Thomas Aquinas there was no such thing as

science versus religion; both existed in the same

sphere and to the same end, the glory of God.

Note that Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) agreed with six-

day creation, as shown in his classic Summa

Theologica (or Theologiæ):

Thus we find it said at first that ‘He called the light

Day’: for the reason that later on a period of twenty-

four hours is also called day, where it is said that

‘there was evening and morning, one day.’

Nothing entirely new was afterwards made by God,

but all things subsequently made had in a sense

been made before in the work of the six days.

Some things, indeed, had a previous experience

materially, as the rib from the side of Adam out of

which God formed Eve; whilst others existed not

only in matter but also in their causes, as those

individual creatures that are now generated existed

in the first of their kind.

Whether all these days are one day?

…

On the contrary, It is written (Genesis 1), ‘The

evening and the morning were the second day …

the third day,’ and so on. But where there is a

second and third there are more than one. There

was not, therefore, only one day.

I answer that, On this question Augustine differs

from other expositors. His opinion is that all the

days that are called seven, are one day

represented in a sevenfold aspect (Gen. AD lit. iv,

22; De Civ. Dei xi, 9; AD Orosium xxvi); while

others consider there were seven distinct days, not

one only. Now, these two opinions, taken as

explaining the literal text of Genesis, are certainly

widely different.

…

Reply to Objection 7. The words ‘one day’ are used

when day is first instituted, to denote that one day

is made up of twenty-four hours. Hence, by

mentioning ‘one’, the measure of a natural day is

fixed. Another reason may be to signify that a day

is completed by the return of the sun to the point

from which it commenced its course. And yet

another, because at the completion of a week of

seven days, the first day returns which is one with

the eighth day. The three reasons assigned above

are those given by Basil (Hom. ii in Hexaem.).

And Aquinas is hardly an isolated example. Most

biblical scholars before the rise of long-age geology

accepted Genesis as written, including Josephus

and later Jewish scholars, most church fathers

including Basil the Great, and all the Reformers

including Luther and Calvin.

-8-

Whilst Christians believe that the Bible contains all

that we need to know to be saved from our sins,

they do not claim that it is a compendium of all

knowledge.

This is so. Francis Schaeffer pointed out that the

Bible is ‘true truth’ but not exhaustive truth. But our

Rev. Dr disbelieves the former.

Jesus himself warned his disciples that there was

more that he could say to them and that the Spirit

of truth would lead them into truth (John 16:12–13).

Yes, but the Spirit of Truth would not contradict

what He had already revealed in Scripture;

evolution most certainly does, as shown in the

articles under Why is evolution so dangerous for

Christians to believe?

There is no reason to doubt that Christ still draws

people towards truth through the work of scientists

as well as others, and many scientists are

motivated in their work by a perception of the deep

beauty of the created world.

Indeed, there are many highly qualified scientists

who believe the Bible as written, such as Dr

Raymond Damadian, one of the leading pioneers

of MRI. Every issue of Creation magazine features

one (and of course is edited by a number of such

scientists).

Nevertheless, it is worth remembering that

scientific theories can be overtaken in their turn

even as old ideas prove to have an enduring

quality. Most of us get by with some version of

Newtonian physics and understand little of

Quantum Theory. Newtonian ideas suffice for most

of our everyday needs—but we now know that we

can’t push them too far as there is plenty that they

do not adequately explain.

This is true. Similarly, Newtonian physics was

replaced by Einsteinian relativity for very high

speeds, and this in turn seems likely to be replaced

by Carmelian relativity.

But all these examples concern operational or

observational science, while Darwinian evolution

concerns origins/historical/inferential science (see

Naturalism, Origins and Operational Science).

Reaction now seems misguided

Darwin’s meticulous application of the principles of

evidence-based research was not the problem.

Yet as shown above, he went way beyond the

evidence. His theory caused offence because it

challenged the view that God had created human

beings as an entirely different kind of creation to the

rest of the animal world.

It contradicted the clear biblical teaching that God

did make man as a separate creation, to have

dominion. Denying this has led to absurd

elevations of animals as deserving of ‘human’

rights—see Going ape about human rights: Are

monkeys people, too? And many of the loudest

supporters of such ideas, such as the antitheistic

evolutionist Peter Singer, downgrade humans, to

promote bestiality, infanticide and euthanasia—

see Blurring the line between abortion and

infanticide?

But whilst it is not difficult to see why evolutionary

thinking was offensive at the time, on reflection it is

not such an earth-shattering idea.

And even at the time, the church had already

appeased secularism when it came to geological

history. That is, they had abandoned Scripture on

the history of the earth in favour of the

uniformitarian dogma of Hutton and Lyell, ignoring

the scientific problems and spiritual warnings of the

Scriptural Geologists.

This appeasement enabled Darwin to link slow and

gradual geological processes with slow and

gradual biological processes. Worse, the long ages

implied that the fossil record showed creatures

suffering and dying for millions of years of death

and suffering, rather than as a result of the Fall. So

Darwin rejected the inconsistency of this notion of

God using millions of years of death and suffering

to bring about a ‘very good’ creation (Genesis

1:31), especially as death is called ‘the wages of

sin’ (Romans 6:23) and ‘the last enemy’ (1

Corinthians 15:26).

This rejection was poignant when Darwin lost his

daughter Annie to a disease, because the

prevailing appeasement doctrine implied that such

disease-causing features were ‘very good’. The

problem of harmful creatures has bothered later

apostates like Charles Templeton.

-9-

This is a blind spot among both theistic

evolutionists and long-age creationists—who

believe basically the same as those appeasers in

Darwin’s day who were so ineffective. And our Rev.

Dr really is clueless about this key objection to

marrying Darwinism with Christianity—the biblical

teaching that death came through sin.

The proper answer is that the fossils were largely

caused by the Flood, while harmful features and

behaviours are the result of the Fall, as explained

in How did bad things come about? from the

Creation Answers Book.

Yes, Christians believe that God became incarnate

as a human being in the person of Jesus and

thereby demonstrated God’s especial love for

humanity. But how can that special relationship be

undermined just because we develop a different

understanding of the processes by which humanity

came to be?

That’s not hard to answer. Luke tells us that Jesus

was a descendant of a real historical first man,

Adam (Luke 3:23–38)—so the Apostle Paul calls

Him ‘the Last Adam’ (1 Corinthians 15:45). This is

vital, because Isaiah spoke of this coming Messiah

as literally the ‘Kinsman-Redeemer’, i.e. one who is

related by blood to those he redeems (Isa. 59:20,

which uses the same Hebrew word גואל (gôēl) as is

used to describe Boaz in relation to Naomi in Ruth

2:20, 3:1–4:17). The Book of Hebrews also

explains how Jesus took upon Himself the nature

of a man to save mankind, but not angels (Heb.

2:11–18). But without the common descent of all

mankind from Adam, this vital kinsman-redeemer

concept collapses.

Thus Darwinism and millions of years have baneful

implications for the Australian Aborigines: if they

have been here for 40,000 years, they can’t have

come from Adam, which means they can’t be

saved by the Kinsman-Redeemer, the Last Adam.

See also an article about another apology,

discussing the problems with such evolutionary

teachings. And the Rev. Dr Brown had a Darwin-

admiring predecessor in the CoE, clergyman

Charles Kingsley, who wrote:

‘The Black People of Australia, exactly the same

race as the African Negro, cannot take in the

Gospel … All attempts to bring them to a

knowledge of the true God have as yet failed utterly

… Poor brutes in human shape … they must perish

off the face of the earth like brute beasts.’

Secular Darwinists were even worse, snatching

Aboriginal people as specimens of ‘missing links’

for museum displays (see Darwin’s bodysnatchers:

new horrors)

It is hard to avoid the thought that the reaction

against Darwin was largely based on what we

would now call the ‘yuk factor’ (an emotional not an

intellectual response) when he proposed a lineage

from apes to humans.

Does it matter what our Rev. Dr thinks is the

reason? I have provided the scriptural reasons.

Elsewhere I have counselled against emotional

appeals to ‘yuk factor’ arguments.

But for all that the reaction now seems misjudged,

it may just be that Wilberforce and others glimpsed

a murky image of how Darwin’s theories might be

misappropriated and the harm they could do (see

the section Darwin and the Church).

Which section is grossly misleading about Darwin’s

views about Christianity—see Darwin’s arguments

against God: How Darwin rejected the doctrines of

Christianity.

Even if they were blind to the future, it remains that

the legacy of Darwin (rather than Darwin’s own

achievements) has had a shadow side.

Social misapplication of Darwin

Who says it’s a misapplication?

If evolution is continuing, and humanity as we know

it is not the final summation of the process, it is not

difficult to slip into a rather naïve optimism which

sees the human race becoming better and better

all the time. Despite our vastly expanding technical

knowledge, even a fairly cursory review of human

history undermines any idea of constant moral

progress.

Of course. And the decline in following absolute

moral law is hardly surprising when scientistic elites

and their churchian allies undermine belief in an

absolute moral Lawgiver who has revealed His law

in the Bible. One excellent treatment of the way

morals have declined because of a faulty worldview

is contained in the book The Vision of the Anointed

by Dr Thomas Sowell. This does not come from a

-10-

Christian perspective, but he points out the fallacy

of assuming the perfectibility of humans through

human effort, and ignoring the inherent

imperfection of mankind, which Christians would

attribute to the Fall, a teaching undermined by

Darwin.

Humanity’s advance in terms of technical prowess

and achievements has not, to most people’s eyes,

fully liberated us from our burdens. Christians

believe that all of us are constrained by sin and that

only through the death and resurrection of Jesus

can we move beyond what constrains us, to a fuller

and more human way of living.

Indeed, although one must wonder what he means

by these things; liberals are fond of double-speak

to hide what they really believe.

But Christians are not the only ones who are

sceptical of the idea that evolution means moral

progress.

Mainly because the failures of Darwin-based

Nazism and Communism showed how disastrous

it was to try to create a paradise on Earth by

sacrificing humans in the way.

Natural selection, as a way of understanding

physical evolutionary processes over thousands of

years, makes sense. Translate that into a half-

understood notion of ‘the survival of the fittest’ and

imagine the processes working on a day-to-day

basis, and evolution gets mixed up with a social

theory in which the weak perish—the very opposite

of the Christian vision in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–

55).

Yet this Rev. Dr says that God created in a

diametrically opposed way to that revealed in this

self-same Christian vision. The atheist Jacques

Monod was not impressed:

‘The more cruel because it is a process of

elimination, of destruction. The struggle for life and

elimination of the weakest is a horrible process,

against which our whole modern ethics revolts. An

ideal society is a non-selective society, is one

where the weak is protected; which is exactly the

reverse of the so-called natural law. I am surprised

that a Christian would defend the idea that this is

the process which God more or less set up in order

to have evolution (emphasis added).’

This ‘Social Darwinism’, in which the strong flourish

and losers go to the wall is, moreover, the complete

converse of what Darwin himself believed about

human relationships.

Has this Rev. Dr even read Darwin? As we show in

Darwin was indeed a Social Darwinist , anti-

creationist Peter Quinn pointed out:

‘Sounding more like Colonel Blimp than Lieutenant

Columbo, Darwin envisions a far grimmer future for

races or sub-species less fit than the Anglo-Saxon.

“At some future period, not very distant as

measured by centuries, the civilized races of man

will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the

savage races throughout the world,” he predicts.

“At the same time the anthropological apes … will

no doubt be exterminated. The break between man

and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will

intervene between man in a more civilized state …

even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as

a baboon, instead of now between the Negro or

Australian and the gorilla.”’

From this social misapplication of Darwin’s theories

has sprung insidious forms of racism and other

forms of discrimination which are more horribly

potent for having the appearance of scientific

“truth” behind them.

It is hardly an accident that such widely dispersed

cultures as Germany and America could come up

with similar applications of Darwinism: America’s

racist eugenics program, and the Nazi undermining

of sanctity of human life, eugenics and the

Holocaust. Note that eugenics was invented by

Darwin’s first cousin, Francis Galton, who justified

it by Darwin’s evolutionism. And in 1912, Darwin’s

son Leonard gave the presidential address at the

First International Congress of Eugenics, a

landmark gathering in London of racial biologists

from Germany, the United States.

Darwin’s immense achievement was to develop a

big theory which went a long way to explaining

aspects of the world around us. But to treat it as an

all-embracing theory of everything is to travesty

Darwin’s work. The difficulty is that his theory of

natural selection has been so effective within the

scientific community, and so easily understood in

outline by everybody, that it has been inflated into

a general theory of everything—which is not only

erroneous but dangerous.

-11-

The real travesty is the willingness of so many

churchians to embrace Darwin’s hypothesis,

ignoring the clear evidence of design and

Darwinism’s inability to explain the encyclopaedic

quantities of information in all living creatures, and

abandon Scripture.

Capacity to love consistent with Darwin

Christians will want to stress, instead, the human

capacity for love, for

altruism, and for

self-sacrifice. There

is nothing here

which, in principle,

contradicts Darwin’s

theory.

No, but Darwinian

theory would explain

this as the result of

selfishness, either

among creatures or

genes—see

Altruism and kin

selection.

Humanity has acquired the capacity to reflect, to

imagine, and to reason from what is known to what

is not yet known. Some animals may have these

features in a very rudimentary form, but the human

capacity is so much greater as to be effectively

unique. It is our capacity to imagine other people

as more than bodies, but as persons, which marks

us out. It is that, above all, which has enabled the

human mind and will to achieve so much. And if this

capacity—which we can characterise as the

capacity for love—is consistent with Darwin’s ideas

of natural selection, it suggests that our capacity as

a species to act in ways which appear to be against

our personal interests has, paradoxically, enabled

us to survive as “fitted” to our context and

environment.

But then there is no objective reason for

unselfishness, given that it can be only an illusion

that really fosters an underlying selfishness.

So the pseudo-Darwinian reductionism, which

elevates selfishness into a virtue and celebrates

power and dominance, is not only a

misunderstanding of Darwin but may even

contribute to human decline by eroding those

aspects of being human which have given us such

a natural advantage.

Hardly a ‘misunderstanding’: selfishness is at the

root of Darwinism; treating altruism as a means to

an end does nothing to soften it.

Even the more sophisticated versions of ‘Social

Darwinism’, which interpret all human behaviour in

terms of the struggle for dominance and the

maximisation of genetic advantage through the

generations, risk presenting us with an image of

being human which makes us slaves to some kind

of evolutionary imperative, as if we are

programmed in ways we cannot over-rule. But the

point of natural selection is that it is precisely by

being most fully human that we demonstrate our

fitness. And being fully human means refusing to

abdicate our ability to act selflessly or lovingly and

to challenge thin concepts of rationality which

equate “being rational” to material self- interest.

But Darwinism can select only for survival value,

not for altruism per se. It also can’t provide any

basis for calling unselfishness objectively good and

selfishness objectively wrong; all it can do is

assess their selective advantages.

It is vital that Darwin’s theories are rescued from

political and ideological agendas that are more

about controlling human imagination and

unpredictability than about good science.

Translation: Darwinism should be sugar-coated to

hide its real evils from unsuspecting churchgoers

and parents.

Discerning where culture threatens Christianity

All that I have said so far will remain contentious in

some circles. Some Christian movements still

make opposition to evolutionary theories a litmus

test of faithfulness and—the other side of the

coin—many believe Darwin’s theories to have

fatally undermined religious belief and therefore

reject any accommodation of one by the other. Why

should this be?

Because they really are incompatible, despite the

political waffling by compromisers. Note that we

don’t claim that one can’t be a Christian and a

biblical errantist (or evolutionist or long-ager). Many

people are saved despite ‘blessed inconsistency’—

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there is no hint in the Bible that the ability to hold

mutually contrary thoughts in the same skull is an

unforgivable sin. People are saved by grace

through faith, not by works (Eph. 2:8–9), and the

content of this saving faith is that Jesus Christ, the

God-man, died for our sins, was buried and rose

again (1 Corinthians 15:1–4).

The Church of England in 1860 was already facing

challenges to its former pre-eminence.

Freethinking and non-conformist Christianity were

confronting the power of the established church—

and then came Darwin. These were nervous times

for Anglicans, and when worldly power is thought

of as God-given, threats to power are perceived as

attacks on God. What was true for Anglicans in

1860 is largely true for all kinds of Christians today,

although (depending where you are in the world)

the threat may be perceived to come from radical

Islam, secularism, consumerism or atheism.

This doesn’t apply to those churches not connected

with the State. But it’s notable that many

evolutionized clergy not only have appeased

secularism but also appeased radical Islam: the

leading cleric in the CoE, the Archbishop of

Canterbury, Rowan Williams, stated earlier this

year that adoption of sharia law in the UK seems

unavoidable. Then in the manner of liberals

everywhere, he claimed that he had been

misunderstood.

The cultures within which Christians try to be

faithful are widely seen to be hostile, at least in

some respects, and discipleship means, at some

level, standing against some social trends. The

problem for all Christians is discerning where the

surrounding culture is really a threat and where it is

compatible with our understanding of God.

This much is true: but the means for discernment

should be comparison with God’s written Word, the

Bible. What does the Rev. Dr offer but the shifting

sands of episcopal opinion?

Because “science” has been widely regarded as

offering a total theory of everything; because some

scientists have encouraged this claim; perhaps

because we all know how reliant we are on

scientific ideas which we barely understand and

which make us nervous of our ignorance; and

perhaps because the churches have not been good

at equipping people to see God at work in the

contemporary world—

How about, the appeasement of much of the

church to secularism and failure to equip their flock

with reasons for their faith (1 Peter 3:15) and ways

to demolish opposing arguments (2 Corinthians 1-

:4–5).

For all these

reasons and

others, a parody of

science has

become a focus for

certain forms of

social unease. In

so far as the

practice of science

has its hubristic

side, there is a

case for science to

answer.

But why should they? The church has already

appeased secularists about world history, so why

shouldn’t they wait for further appeasement? For

example, secularists claim that dead men don’t rise

and virgins don’t conceive, and that miracles are

impossible, so should we appease them by

denying the bodily Resurrection, Virginal

Conception, and miracles of Christ? And in the

areas of morality, some evolutionists claim that

homosexual behaviour and adultery are in the

genes, so should we throw out biblical morality as

well? Actually, a number of ministers in the CoE

(and certain other denominations) have ‘reasoned’

precisely this way, such as the former American

Episcopalian bishop John Shelby Spong.

In so far as ‘Social Darwinism’ has diminished our

sense of being human and being in relationships,

there are real problems to address. But first it is

important to recognise that the anti-evolutionary

fervour in some corners of the churches may be a

kind of proxy issue for other discontents; and,

perhaps most of all, an indictment of the churches’

failure to tell their own story—Jesus’s story

But in the Rev. Dr’s case, ignoring the parts that

contradict his seeming idol of Darwinism. But Jesus

told Nicodemus (John 3:12): ‘I have spoken to you

of earthly things and you do not believe; how then

will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?’ If

Jesus was wrong about earthly things (like a recent

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creation and a global flood, as above), was He also

wrong about a heavenly thing like John 3:16, only

four verses later? If not, why not?

—with conviction in a way which works with the

grain of the world as God has revealed it to be, both

through the Bible and in the work of scientists of

Darwin’s calibre.

God doesn’t contradict Himself, so real science will

back up the Bible.

Rapproachment between Darwin and Christian

faith

At a university in Kansas, I asked a biology

professor how he coped with teaching Darwin’s

theories to students whose churches insisted that

evolution was heresy and whose schools taught

creationism. “No problem,” he replied, “the kids

know that if they want a good job they need a

degree, and if they want a degree they have to work

with evolution theory.

Yet some have whinged that the movie Expelled

was lying about the overt discrimination practiced

against creationists. Indeed, even evolutionists

who even so much as suggest that creation should

be discussed in school science classes have lost

their jobs, such as the Royal Society’s director of

education, Rev. Professor Michael Reiss a few

days ago (see Reiss resigns as Royal Society

stifles debate on evolution).

The leading misotheist Richard Dawkins has no

time for those who try to marry evolution with

Christianity, saying:

‘Oh but of course the story of Adam and Eve was

only ever symbolic, wasn’t it? Symbolic?! Jesus

had himself tortured and executed for a symbolic

sin by a non-existent individual. Nobody not

brought up in the faith could reach any verdict other

than barking mad!’

I.e. he has as much contempt for churchian

appeasers of evolution as Hitler had for

Chamberlain.

Creationism is for church, as far as they’re

concerned. Here, they’re Darwinists.” Perhaps he

was over-cynical.

Or deceitful, like evolutionary educrat Bora

Zivkovic, who bragged about misleading students

about this ‘non-overlapping magisteria’ (NOMA7)

view:

Yes, NOMA is wrong, but is a good first tool for

gaining trust. You have to bring them over to your

side, gain their trust, and then hold their hands and

help them step by step. … Better NOMA-believers

than Creationists, don’t you think?—

But he was also pointing to young lives which could

not be lived with integrity—the very opposite of how

Christians are called to live. There is no integrity to

be found either in rejecting Darwin’s ideas

wholesale or in elevating them into the kind of

grand theory which reduces humanity to the sum of

our evolutionary urges. For the sake of human

integrity—and thus for the sake of good Christian

living—some rapprochement between Darwin and

Christian faith is essential.

Rather, real integrity comes from accepting the

Bible as true—including the history that underpins

faith and morality. The real double-mindedness

comes from trying to hold mutually contradictory

ideas in the same skull, as one of CMI’s Ph.D.

biologists, Dr Don Batten explains.

And now comes the pathetic apology:

Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the

Church of England owes you an apology for

misunderstanding you and, by getting our first

reaction wrong, encouraging others to

misunderstand you still. We try to practice the old

virtues of ‘faith seeking understanding’ and hope

that makes some amends. But the struggle for your

reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not

just your religious opponents but those who falsely

claim you in support of their own interests. Good

religion needs to work constructively with good

science—and I dare to suggest that the opposite

may be true as well.

On a lighter note, but very relevant to this sad situation, we believe that most visitors to this page, including our many C of E/Anglican friends and supporters, will appreciate the satire of the Church of England’s accommodation of liberalism in the episode ‘The Bishop’s Gambit’ (1986) from the classic British comedy series Yes, Prime Minister. No, we are not thereby endorsing everything in that clip, or series, or any other secular item we might refer to, but it is interesting to note that the ‘world’

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can sometimes see things more clearly than we think.

Ten Ways Every Christian Can Strengthen Their Church by Paul Chappell | Jan 15, 2018 | Christian Life

In the early days at Lancaster Baptist Church, I gave a “Visit with the Pastor” almost every Sunday night in which I tried to infuse our young church with the DNA of New Testament Christianity. Usually these were a brief topical lesson on topics ranging from how to lead someone to the Lord to having family devotions to encouraging new Christians. Now fast forward thirty years. This past fall, one of our early members, Denise Lofgren, went to be with the Lord after a sudden battle with cancer. Denise and her husband, Gary, came to Lancaster Baptist in 1987 and have stayed for these thirty years as they raised their three boys here. Shortly after Denise went to be with the Lord, her husband Gary found the handwritten outline below on a scrap of paper in her files. It was from a Visit with the Pastor titled, “How to Build a Great Church.” In the top right corner, she had written, “May 1988.” And in the top left corner, “Read Bk. of Acts.” Below was a list of ten basic principles I had given that night on how every Christian can help build their church. I look at this list now, and I smile a little at the alliteration and even the order in which I listed some of these. But I also thank God for people like Gary and Denise Lofgren who took these biblical principles to heart and lived them. The truth is, these are what builds a godly church. These are the attributes of church members who

are growing in the Lord and helping to strengthen their church family.

1. Stay—Learn to stick. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.—Hebrews 10:25 (Obviously, there are times God moves people. But don’t allow an offense with another Christian or backsliding in your own heart to keep you from your church family.)

2. Sweet Spirit—Love your church. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:—Hebrews 10:24

3. Stewardship—Give liberally to God and man. But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.—2 Corinthians 9:6

4. Separation—Live in a way that is distinctly for God

in this world. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,—2 Corinthians 6:17

5. Stick with Scriptures—Read, study, and hear the

preaching of God’s Word. Make it your ultimate

authority. For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.—Hebrews 4:12

6. Sold out—Be fully committed to the things of the

Lord, your marriage and family, and your church

family. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.—Luke 9:62

7. Soulwinning—Go to others with the message of

salvation. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.—Luke 19:10

8. Spiritual—Live in a way that is holy, godly, pure,

and clean.

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If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.—2 Timothy 2:21

9. Sensitive—Be responsive to the needs of others,

especially your church family. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.—Galatians 6:10

10. Stand—Take a stand for the things of God. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:—2 Timothy 4:7 I was twenty-six years old when I wrote this list, and I had been pastoring for not quite two years. I’m now fifty-five, and I have been pastoring for over thirty-one years. And I can still say that every one of these points are needed. From pastor to pew, if you want to help build your church, I still would encourage you to read the book of Acts and to invest yourself in the ways listed above.

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1. RECOGNISE YOUR CONDITION “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) God’s Word says that we are ALL sinners. No one is good enough to get into Heaven.

2. REALIZE THE PENALTY FOR SIN “For the wages of sin is death...” (Romans 6:23) Just as there are wages for good, there is punishment for wrong. The penalty for our sin is eternal death in a place called Hell.

3. BELIEVE CHRIST DIED FOR YOU “But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) Christ showed his love when he died on the cross to pay our debt.

4. TRUST CHRIST AS YOUR SAVIOUR “But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:3) Everlasting life is a gift purchased by the blood of Jesus and offered freely to those who can call on him by faith.

Dear Lord Jesus, I realise that you died on the cross to take my

punishment I deserve, please forgive me of my sins. I believe that you

rose from the dead. I ask you now, Lord Jesus Christ, to save me from

my sins and to be in my life. Thank you for your gift of eternal life, in

Jesus Name, Amen

Contact Details

Pastor: 021 237 5566

Church address 9 Burwood Rd

Christchurch

Postal Address: PO Box 19971

Christchurch 8241

New Zealand

Email: [email protected]

Web Address: www.chchindbaptist.co.nz