A public domain Bible map

Most Bible maps are copyright and it's hard to get permission to use them.

My wife has drawn one for me to use at the college I'm teaching at, and it's in the public domain for you to use as you please, here:
http://david.dw-perspective.org.uk/resources/

Encouraging news for creationists... I gave my students a questionnaire about what they believed so I could know more about where they're coming from. The questionnaire covered various areas of Christian belief, and revealed a variety of beliefs amongst the students. But on two questions they were totally unanimous; Noah's flood was world-wide, and the theory of evolution is false.

Some great articles on theism and science, especially mathematics

Whilst doing a little research, I've come across a web page giving an index of a number of articles by Professor John Byl, head of department of Mathematics at Trinity Western University in Canada. I reviewed his excellent book "The Divine Challenge: On matter, mind, math & meaning" last March, here.


To whet your appetite if this area interests you, I've copied-and-pasted the titles below. The page itself is here.

Does Mathematics Need a Worldview? (2008)

Models and Presuppositions in Science and Theology (2008)

A Christian Perspective on Math (2008)

A Christian Perspective on Physics (2008)

Matter, Mathematics, and God (2007)

Freewill and Responsibility (2007)

Chance, Choice, and God (2006)

Can Science Dispense with Religion? (2004)

Deriving Special Relativity from Electromagnetic Clocks (2003)

Mathematical Models and Reality (2003)

Indeterminancy, Divine action and Human Freedom (2003)

Naturalism, Theism and Objective Knowledge (2002)

On Michael Ruse and Reductionary Illusions (2001)

On Numbers in Numbers (2001)

Theism and Mathematical Realism (2001)

On Life in the Universe (2001)

On Resolving the Littlewood-Ross Paradox (2000)

Special Relativity via Electromagnetic Clocks (1999)

Preliminary Considerations: On Scientific and Theological Method (1998)

The Role of Belief in Modern Cosmology (1996)

On Craig's Defence of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (1996)

On the Natural Selection of Universes (1996)

On Pascal's Wager and Infinite Utilities (1994)

Cellular Automata and the Origin of Life (1989)

General Revelation and Evangelicalism (1989)

Scripture and Geologists (1989)

Instrumentalism: A Third Option (1985)

The baptism of Jesus

Matthew 3:13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to Jordan to John, to be baptised by him. 14 But John forbade him, saying, "I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?" 15 And Jesus answering said unto him, "Permit it to be so now: for thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness." Then he permitted him.

Q. Why was Jesus baptised?

A. Christ came and entered into our damnation, that we might enter into his glory. He went under the waters of baptism, because he was to undergo the waters of death. He went under, that we might be brought up with him and raised to the glory from which he had come down.

So, about those would-be pastors ...

The results of my questionnaire at the Bible college I've begun teaching a course at were ... interesting!

A small number of answers seemed to be carefully constructed to avoid saying "No" directly, but... of a class of twenty-five 4th year students mostly training to be pastors or missionaries, the number who could unambiguously say that yes, they had read the entire Bible was... ten. The number who had read it more than once was... four. The number who had read it more than twice was... one - this star pupil had managed five times. On average these students are 29 years old, have professed faith for 14 years, and have been preaching publicly for 8 years. They have all completed secondary school. If these Christians had read on average just one page of the Bible each morning and evening since being converted, they would by now each have read the Bible through 9 times.

The next thing (next week) is a Bible quiz to ascertain more accurately the level of actual Bible knowledge...

Most amusing misunderstanding of the question:

Q. Do you preach? How long have you been preaching for?
A. Yes. About 25-40 minutes.

The New President

I listened to the Kenyan coverage of the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States yesterday. This event is of course of particular interest to Kenyans as President Obama's father was a Kenyan national and his paternal grandmother is still alive and well - quite close to where we are.

It's a historic and inspiring moment; the most powerful nation in the world is presided over by a man partially of African descent; indeed whose gran is still living a traditional African village life. As the president himself said, it is something remarkable that a man who only a generation or two ago would have been refused service in local restaurants, has now been chosen to the highest office in the land.

Having been thus inspired, though, here in no particular logical arrangement are a few thoughts on the speech I heard on my radio:

• President Obama seems to be a follower of what Doug Wilson calls the "American Civic Religion", which is not a positive thing. It's that Christ-less, non-Trinitarian, salvation-less generic tipping of the hat to some generic "God" most frequently invoked in "God bless America" or being spoken of as creator or giver of rights, but who's very much otherwise kept in his place. He's not got any particular thoughts or agenda concerning the present, or long-range plans for history that are intended to interfere with the normal flow of politics... he conveniently leaves that all to present fashion and culture.
  
  
• For all the talk of a new non-partisan politics, I couldn't help notice the many partisan digs at the "previous lot"... seemed very much "business as usual" to me. And talk of a politics not driven by ideology makes me roll my eyeballs... it might make for good soundbites but it'll get you a fail in sophomore philosophy.
  
  
• Whilst the President may believe in a counterfeit God, he very much believes in man and in the unlimited power of his politics to bring in the millennial kingdom. I realise that we're so used to politicians promising the earth in a new era of cooperation and freedom, but it's still idolatrous folly none the less.
  
  
• Put another way, the new President clearly didn't believe in the doctrine of original sin. Our problems are apparently caused by bad politics (that means - the guy before me) and the solution will be found in a wonderful display of self-generated will-power bringing in a new era of good politics. People must do good things, and we'll all pull together being inspired by our common values and there it'll be. We'll get back all the good old American values (though, as we now follow the American Civic Religion instead of Christianity, we delude ourselves into forgetting that it was the latter brought with divine grace and power that made such things American values in the first place, and not just a humanistic display of will-power).
  
  

The President is an inspiring orator. We hope that God will give him wisdom to translate this into being a wise governor who rules in God's fear. Amidst all the hype it's worth remembering that as yet President Obama has never ruled anything, and whether he'll be a genius or a total dud is something we as yet have no evidence of past experience to judge by. The occasion and style of his speech were electrifying. I'm sad to say, though, that this shouldn't delude anyone into ignoring the fact that it's content was vacuous and from a Christian point of view, heretical. Original sin is real and can't be successfully ignored, whether you choose to articulate the doctrine in self-consciously Christian form or not. For that reason you don't need to be a prophet to foresee that in a few years the new President will either be explaining why he wasn't able to bring in the golden age he promised (the "previous lot" will have bodged it more extensively that he can fix in a few years; or the world situation made it too hard; or the goal-posts get shifted to explain why he did fix it and we're just being too negative... the usual political excuses...). "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool". It's vain to trust in man; and the programme that the President set out was one explicitly and unambiguously based on the wisdom and self-saving efforts of man. Hasn't worked before... won't work this time either, because it can't work. Original sin exists; will-power alone won't fix it. America needs the gospel, and when sinners are brought to repentance, that's when real change will come. And in that sense indeed may "God Bless America".

Teaching at a new Bible college

I'm starting teaching a course at a nearby Bible college next week. I've never clapped eyes on the place or the students. The below is a questionnaire I'm planning to give the students to help me get to know them. What would you ask? Other than where they get their lecturers from, that is.

Get-To-Know-You Questionnaire!

1. What is your full name and your telephone number?
   

2. Are you married, and how many children do you have?
   

3. What would you like me to call you in class?
   

4. Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Since when?
   

5. What level of education have you had before coming to Bible college?
   

6. Why did you come to Bible college?
   

7. What do you intend to do after finishing Bible college?
   

8. What are the Christian books you have been most blessed by?
   

9. Do you preach? How long have you been preaching for?
   

10. Have you read the whole Bible through? How many times?
    

11. What do you understand by the doctrine of “justification by faith alone”?

More on the atheist bus campaign...

I don't spend that much time thinking about whatever slogans are being slapped upon buses in a country I don't live in, honest.

But, I was just reflecting on the reasons given by the founders of the "atheist bus campaign" for the inclusion of the word "probably" in their none-too-catchy slogan, "There is probably no God. So stop worrying and enjoy life".

The reason, amusingly, is that if they dropped the "probably" then they might fall foul of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). What's behind this is that ASA requires that claims in advertisements have to be at least reasonably believable. Seems that the claim "there is no God", in the opinion of the atheists' funding the advert themselves, doesn't meet that standard and they'd get into trouble if they tried it.

Ha, ha, ha.