My Time In The Rebellion

“My Time In The Rebellion” was a short story I wrote some years ago in a series of stories called Secfenia Dark, based on a role-playing game my best friend and I started in the mid-1990’s that dealt with the fortunes of a small border province that had become a nation after it rebelled from a corrupt and decaying empire ruled by meglomaniacs. The story follows the perspective of a certain Natonito Albright, Directrix (second-in-charge) of the Empire of Secfenia, as he entertains some guests at a favorite restaurant of his in his hometown of Bravia just before the shotgun wedding of his foster daughter (and the orphaned younger sister of his wife) and his nephew, by whom she had gotten pregnant. Most of the story consists of flashbacks as to how a young Senator from the backwater province of Secfenia had helped lead a rebellion and then forced the surrender of the army which had been sent out to punish the rebellion. Crucial to the story, and to the series of stories that I wrote about this particular fictional kingdom, is the concern with the legitimacy of government, dealing with the consequences of sin and the need for redemption, the responsibilities, moral and otherwise, placed on leaders, and the ambition of brave and stubborn people to rise above the status of their birth and the misfortunes of their childhood and fulfill the destiny to which God put them on this earth. These weighty concerns have as well been among the chief and consistent concerns of my own life.

A Young Rebel In Training

The concern with the legitimacy of government in all forms was a habit learned forcibly and often during my childhood. The abuse of power, either through direct action by those authority figures, or through the neglect of teachers, pastors, and other authority figures in my childhood to protect the innocent from the harassment and bullying of peers was a frequent occurrence during my entire childhood beginning in the first year of my life and continuing without abatement through high school. The divorce of my parents, with the division that brings to a family, also gave me early lessons in doubting the legitimacy of the governments over me. My father, on the one hand, was a consistent proponent of one-man rule, a firm believer in the necessity of centralized power to thwart the chaos that threatened him, though he felt uncomfortable with being that one man in rule. My mother, on the other hand, encouraged the questioning of authority and unacceptable nature of the answer “because I said so” when unsupported by reason. Between these conceptions I grew up, in tension between a proclivity to abhor disorder, proclaim and strive aid the abiding rule of God’s law in all aspects of this world, including my own actions, and long for a stability and security that has long eluded my grasp, and an independence of thought and action that has long irked whatever people have been in charge over me and has at times crossed over from prickly independence into actual rebellion.

Some examples should suffice for this tendency of mine throughout my life, and they do not appear only in my writing (although much of this rebellion has taken place through the written word, either through manifestos or blogs or my fictional writings). I have always delighted in correcting the errors of teachers and presenters, a habit I have tried in recent years to restrain in public so as to avoid attacking the credibility of the speaker (which is not my intention, at least not now). The first time I remember this habit being of difficulty is in the fourth grade, where my teacher, Mrs. King, erroneously proclaimed that Ottowa, Canada, was in the Canadian province of Quebec. Knowing better, as my maternal grandmother was born in Ontario, I corrected the teacher in front of the class. I can even remember this habit being evident as a student in the Ambassador Bible Center where a certain minister gave a presentation on Generations which I was in agreement with, and an area of my own where I have read deeply and written upon, but where I corrected a few typographical errors of his in front of the class, and then compounded my error some months later when he gave a slightly different version of his presentation at my congregation and I corrected him again on some errors that remained. Needless to say, despite the fact that I agree with what he says, he has plenty of reason not to be particularly fond of me.

This sort of attack on credibility of those in positions of leadership was not limited merely to implicit attacks based on their errors, but was sometimes much more direct and therefore hostile. My career in the politics of outright rebellion began, not surprisingly, in high school. As a sixteen year old high school student I, with some help from a slightly younger classmate, wrote an anonymous manifesto called the “IB Exception” where I protested that the failure of the high school administration to adequately provide books and classroom buildings to its best and brightest students made their administration illegitimate and unable to enforce stricter rules on student behavior, and that those students that brought money and honor to the school should be accordingly exempt from any such restrictive rules. Now, it should be noted that the two aspects of my personality normally in tension were here united to dangerous purpose. Most of my classmates in high school just disobeyed the rules, ignoring them altogether. However, given my nature, I could not simply ignore the rules and disobey them out of willful ignorance. Rather, the various twists and turns of my nature forced me to face what I took as illegitimate and tyrannical rule publicly and to justify my opposition to it by pointing out the failures of that leadership to adequately handle its obligations to me and to others. This need for justification and explanation, and my chronic inability to be quiet in the face of what I find to be unacceptable, cast me as a public revolutionary and as a rebel against authority.

Justification Denied

The desire to justify led naturally into a search of what the Bible said about authority, with the specific intent of finding out if and how the Bible dealt with the subject of how people are to respond to abuses by authority, and whether the failure of leaders to perform their God-ordained duties absolved their subjects of obedience to and respect of them. I did not find that anywhere in the scriptures, not even in those passages like Amos 7 or Deuteronomy 14 or 1 Kings 12 or 1 Samuel 8 that are the harshest towards the abuse of power. Of course, I did not find either a belief that leaders could do what they wanted without accountability, or that people had to obey whatever their leaders told them, but rather I saw that respect for office and the pointed criticism of the moral flaws of leadership, as well as an obedience to laws that did not contradict God’s laws, were all biblical requirements. While tyrants find little comfort in the prospect of eternal judgment or in what happened to Nebuchadnezzar or the Pharaoh, rebels find little comfort in the Bible, given that rebellion is universally condemned in scripture in the harshest of terms. God is not a God of rebellion, but rather a God of resistance to evil while respecting authority. In fact, it may be said that all sin is in fact rebellion of God’s sovereign authority and His unique position of defining right and wrong.

While my initial goal of finding a justification of rebellion was thus frustrated spectacularly, it was a useful lesson nonetheless. Thanks be to God that my desire to understand obey His word surpassed by desire to justify rebellion. In the process, in the course of much reading and writing, I learned a lot about the way in which the Bible handles situations that fall short of God’s ideal, including slavery and the abuse of power and so on. For one, the Bible seeks a model of gradual change based on conversion and then progressive sanctification in all aspects of life, both on an individual and a societal level. Christians are not to be threats to good government because to be a follower of God is to be obedient to His laws and to respect authorities, for even pointing out the flaws of our leaders is to be done so that they may repent of their sins and become converted to the truth, rather than to condemn them. Even criticism, therefore, demonstrates true loyalty, because we are loyal to their eternal best interests rather than enabling them to sin without knowledge of the result of their actions. So, my studies of how the Bible deals with such things may not have made me less irritating to those in charge, or less questioning, but it changed the motive of the actions—to serve to the glory of God rather than justifying my own rebellious will.

In examining the proper role of such criticism, I came to realize that the purpose of our actions is to build up godly institutions, rather than merely to criticize and tear down what is imperfect, and what is imperfect is both within us and all around us, since our own lives and everything in this world reflects the impact of our fallen state. Therefore, even more so than to critique, my interests changed into seeking to help build up these godly institutions. Having had rather negative experiences with my own family, I saw that I had the responsibility to break cycles that have lasted for generations in my family, to provide a legacy and a tradition of love and obedience rather than continue along paths that only led to misery and destruction. Having seen the results of corrupt institutions in churches and businesses and schools, I saw that I had to do what I could to help reform and replace where I had influence, either through my actions or through my support of others engaged in such work. Rather than being content to criticize the flawed legacy left to me by my forefathers, I had the responsibility to preserve the best of what it held (and indeed there was much I found was good about it) and to improve it so that I may bequeath it to others in a better state than I found it.

If it is a burden that I thus far bear alone, I hope that may not always be the case. Last October, I had the chance to visit Mendoza, Argentina, and some conversations I had with a young man helped me see an ideal of respecting authority that I realized was sorely lacking in my own experience. Very recently, in another conversation, a friend of mine wished to talk with the same minister of whom my other friend had spoken to give him and his wife the news of her relationship with another friend of mine before informing the general public, because she saw them as her parents, having lived with them and being introduced to the truth while living with them. I realized, with some regret, that I had never felt that close to most of my pastors, and have pondered often on what may be done about that situation. How do we rebuild the waste places, and turn the smoldering ruins of the past into a glorious new city, like Nehemiah did in Jerusalem some 2450 years ago?

The Reason For It All

I have some ideas of how this may be done, in part, but to be quite honest, I am concerned that given my (not entirely undeserved) reputation as a rebellious troublemaker that the ideas I have will be viewed unfavorably because they come from me. I see institutions, like the family and church, that are in dire need of some structural repairs, but wonder if my own actions and experiences have made me permanently unqualified to offer some assistance in the necessary and urgent repair work. To give but one brief example, in reading on and pondering the issue of congregational discipline, I have thought that having what amounted to a judicial system within congregations with various appeals courts going up to a final appeals court within a denomination with records kept of the evidence and testimony involved with the decisions made by one church accepted by other organizations that judge according to the same biblical standard might reduce the problem of church shopping by members. In addition, I have thought that where sanctions are given to members, that there should be the following sorts of elements present: what is the specific sin the member is guilty of (with biblical citations), what is the punishment, and what sort of action would be required in order to restore the member to a position of being in good standing in the congregation again. Too often this last element is missing, even if it may be implicit in what is decided. I know in my own life there is an example where this last element seems completely missing. I know I myself have been sanctioned for offenses including the publishing of very nasty allegations towards people (that, to be honest, I see no credible evidence of or reason for anyone to believe, though at the time I thought it acceptable to comment that the allegations had at least be made, something that in a later light I see as unwise and unnecessary), but these sanctions were open-ended, and still exist, and I honestly have no idea what I could have done or could still do at this point to end those sanctions. In other examples I have seen, an unbaptized member living with a non-member has been disfellowshipped, but there was no mention made that either marriage or ceasing to live with the other person would end the disfellowshipment. This led to embitterment, when the real purpose of Christian discipline is to restore people to good graces and lead to repentance and obedience, not to condemn them to damnation and embitterment against God and the Church. Too often this point is not made sufficiently clear when ministers hand out punishments, and it is a serious problem that needs correction. Again, though, I worry that my own history in the matter makes it difficult for other people to hear what I may say on the matter. Where is the rebel to go when he wishes to build a better world instead of destroy the good in what exists in this one?

On Constrained Optimization: Some Scientific and Theological Implications of Intelligent Design

As someone who has long been interested in the Intelligent Design movement, both as an occasional writer, a frequent reader of books, and as someone who enjoys attending conferences and seminars and colloquia on the subject, I have deeply mulled over the implications of Intelligent Design to both science (given my training as an engineer) and religion (given my intense interest in theodicy--the justification of God's ways). Last night I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Dr. Steve Fuller, a philosopher of science who appeared in Ben Stein's film "Expelled," who has written a couple of books on the debate between Darwinism and Intelligent Design, and who has appeared as an expert witness in vairous trials relating to the instruction of Intelligen Design. The conversation involved the topic of constrained optimization, a phenomenon that exists both in divine and in human designs, and a subject that therefore has implicaitons on both the scientific and theological aspects of the Intelligent Design paradigm. This particular essay cannot be exhaustive, so it may be taken as well as an example of constrained optimization also.

Some Scientific Implications of Constrained Optimization or, How Intelligent Design Is Not A Science Stopper

The first aspect in which constrained optimization, a corrolary of Intelligent Design, has implications is in the field of science. In viewing biological artifacts (like, say, the outboard motor of the flagellum, or the blood clotting cascade process, and so on) as artifacts of design, we must also grapple with the nature of those designs and the constraints those designs face. Before we criticize a biological artifact as defective, we must examine the physical limitations those artifacts face, in terms of size, enery consumption, efficiency, and the purpose of the organic machines themselves. The first task, therefore, is to determine the initial conditions that must be met by a given structure (such as the eye, or the Panda's thumb). Once the initial conditions are determined as rigorously as possible, then we may fairly seek after the optimal solution to these constraints. If the given structure meets the test of constrained optimization, then it may be judged as an optimal design. If it is not judged as an optimal design, then one has the responsibility to judge how the given structure falls short of optimality given the stringen initial conditions, and suggestions for improvement can be determined. At this point as well it may be necessary to examine the effects of dysteleology, because it is possible that the present state of the artifact reflects corrpution from a more pristine and optimal original state. Instead of criticisms that amount to wishful thinking, this sort of disciplined analysis serves to provide a rational and fair-minded perspective on the sorts of biological designs we see around us. Furthermore, understanding the constraints present in the biological world may aid us in a practical sense in our own attempts at nanotechnology, and may encourage us to take advantage of biological nanotechnology in order to further our own technological designs.

On an even larger scale, we may view the universe itself as a giant example of constrained optimization. Scientists who have sought to explore the cosmological constants of this universe have often been surprised by the extent to which the physical universe appears to be perfectly designed for mankind. This phenemonon, known as anthropic principle, has restored the centrality of mankind to the universe that was lost in previous centuries. Not all of the scientists who have discovered and expounded on these principles have even been designed theorists (see note 1 below). Given that the properties of so much in this universe, both materials and constants, is subject to such a narrow range of values in order to allow for the existence of life, much less intelligent life as ourselves, it behooves us to examine the purpose of constraints in this universe. Given that the entire physical world is subject to constraints, and that we find in our own experience the same constraints between candor and politeness, freedom and equality, size and efficiency (and so on), exploring the reason why everything in our existence is constrained, and how to maximize our own well-being given these constraints, is a useful scientific task. Rather than being a science stopper, the principle of constrained optimzation allows us an even more profound understanding of the nature of the universe we live in, and thus better able to turn our theoretical knowledge to practical effects in such fields as medicine, engineering, nanotechnology, urban planning, political science, economics, and education, to name but a few fields where the implications of constrained optimization are particularly vital.

So, rightly viewed, Intelligent Design is a science starter, not a science stopper.

Some Theological Implications of Intellignt Design or, Teleology For Dummies

As a rational person, the question why is always quick on my lips. From my earliest existence I have been driven to understand and explain why my life and the world around me was the way it was. This lifelong exercise in theodicy (of which the biblical books of Job and Ecclesiastes are notable examples), which shows no sign of ending as long as my lungs draw breath, itself relates to Intelligent Design in unusual ways. Intelligent Design theory, in fact, springs from a long and noble history within the field of Theodicy. Paul, in Romans chapter 1, considers truths drawn from the physical universe as sufficient in determining the morally fallen nature of mankind and our universal need for salvation. That is, the Bible assumes that as the physical universe was created by the same being who created us in His own image, with the task of developing His righteous character, greater understanding of that universe has moral implications on our lives. A universe designed especially for mankind would indicate that the purpose of the physical universe would be a testing ground for intelligent, rational beings who are to develop mastery over their surroundings while under submission to God's law, manifest in the physical creation itself as well as in the happenings of our own lives. To put it another way, our purpose is to become children of God, to take on His nature, and we have been placed in a universe that is designed for us to make analogies between the different aspects of Creation, to learn righteousness through the making of choices in which there is always cost, and where we must always weigh priorities and examine whether taking advantage of present opportunities is worth closing off future ones.

It is here where constrained optimzation has moral implications. Every decision brings with it a cost. An hour I spend writing or reading is an hour I cannot spend playing a game, practicing singing or my viola, or talking on the phone with friends. An hour I spend driving to see someone is an hour I cannot spend sleeping or eating. Our limtations of 24 hours to each day, seven days to each week (one of which is dedicated to God), and so on forces us to prioritize our time. What is the most important use of our time. Is working overtime to earn more money to be preferred to spending the evening with our loved ones? Is spending hours a week studying for a degree to be preferred to mastering Rock Band 2 or seeing all the movies that come out each weekend? We are constrained by our limits to time. We are also constrained by our limits of money. Do we buy the biggest house we can afford, or buy a smaller house we can furnish well with furniture and books. Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, must weigh the choices of the resouresthey possess. How much do we plan for tomorrow, provide for our old age, and save as an inheritance for our children, and how much do we consume, live for today, and spend in our amusements in the here and now. The choices we make reflect our own "optimal" solutions to the constraints we face, and reflect moral (or immoral) decision-making processes. Furthermore, if our solutions are shown to be suboptimal we will pay for it, and thus we can become trained through the constrained nature of the world we live in to be more responsible, better stewards of the talents given to us by God. Therefore, the constrained nature of our world reflects the purpose of this world in training up wise and chastened children of God.

Concluding Thoughts

One cannot escape implications. What we do reflects ideals and priorities in our minds and hearts that we may not even consciously articulate. Likely, living according to the ideals we articulate have serious consequences that we must face because we live in a world where everything is connected and where choices must be made, and where costs must be paid. In the end, true science and true religion are not enemies, and science properly understood exists as the servant of religion, the tool of dominion for godly people to exercise godly rule over a physical creation that is designed to serve as the laboratory for our moral development. Intelligent Design, in particular, the fact that the entire universe is heavily constrained, has both scientific and moral implications. Properly understanding those implications allows us to improve both our material existence as well as our development of righteous character, and to better imitate our Heavenly Father, who created us in His own image and likeness.

Note 1: Among the works that have uncovered the anthropic principle have been Michael Denton's Nature's Destiny , Guillermo Gonzales and Jay Richard's Privileged Planet: How Our Place In The Cosmos Is Designed For Discovery, and Joel Primack and Nancy Abram's The View From The Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place In The Cosmos (the last coming from an evolutionary perspective) all examine in detail the precise and narrow contraints this universe is subject to as well as man's place in the ideal location to understand the phenemona of the universe. Needless to say, the fact that the road is narrow to life in the universe has moral implications as well.

The Sons of Martha

I have written (and spoken) about the Sons of Martha several times, as it was the title of my first civil engineering textbook as an undergraduate, the title of a pointed poem by Rudyard Kipling (which inspired both the title of the textbook and the title of a lengthy short story (or short short novel) I wrote about a young engineer in training). Nonetheless, I wish to write again about this subject because there appear to be two forms of confusion about the story of Mary and Martha, one of which the poem represents (by far the rarer form of confusion), and the other a lack of personal responsibility present in the lives of many Christians that is by far the more dangerous of the misunderstandings.

Let us begin with the poem, by Rudyard Kipling, because the poem is rather shocking to the sensibilities of many people, although it has long been an inspiration to engineers, for reasons that will soon be clear:

"The Sons of Martha" by Rudyard Kipling (1907)

The sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.

They say to mountains, "Be ye removed." They say to the lesser floods, "Be dry."
Under their rods are the rocks reproved-they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit-then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.

They finger death at their gloves' end where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his terrible stall,
And hale him forth a haltered steer, and goad and turn him till evenfall.

To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden - under the earthline their altars are-
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again at a city's drouth.

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to drop their job when they dam'-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's day may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat -
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that!
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed - they know the Angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet - they hear the Word - they see how truly the Promise runs.
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons!

The importance of this poem and what it means to engineers can scarcely be overestimated. The poem is, in fact, the source of one of the more bizarre rituals that engineering students (including myself) have participated in. Not coincidentally, the Ritual of the Calling of the Engineer, which involves engineers wearing a ring (formerly iron but now steel) and reciting a rather serious oath much like the Hippocratic oath promising good conduct as an engineer and the service to one's fellow man, springs from this poem, and was actually started by Rudyard Kipling himself, who was invited in 1922 to develop this ritual by seven past presidents of the Engineering Institute of Canada who were meeting together in Montreal. Kipling accepted the invitation, and developed the ritual rather quickly based on the ethos of his poem. So, it may be said that all engineers are the sons of Martha, burdened with heavy responsibilities that most people are more than happy to surrender up. Certainly some of us more thoughtful engineers have reflected often upon the burden our knowledge has given us in a world that takes labor, both intellectual and physical, far too much for granted.

The poem is, of course, somewhat hostile to the sons of Mary (the rather nonchalant mass of humanity that cares not how things work, or what must be done to maintain our infrastructure, but rather takes it all for granted), and by implication to the Bible as well. This is due to a misunderstanding, or rather, to a reaction to a more serious misunderstanding by (probably) most people in the Victorian era and thereafter. The verses referred to in the poem are in Luke 10:38-42, which reads (in the English Standard Version): "Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."

Now, before we address the two misconceptions held, one by Rudyard Kipling, and the other by most people, it is first necessary to determine what this passage does and does not mean. In context, this passage follows directly after the parable of the Good Samaritan, which tells in a rather pointed way that love for one's neighbor involves the taking on of heavy responsibilities. Why then, immediately afterward, does Jesus chide Martha for being too troubled with serving him? The reason, interestingly enough, may be found in Matthew 10:41-42, which reads (in the New King James Version): "He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward." This passage certainly has other applications, but one of its applications is to the nature of the responsibilities Mary and Martha had towards Jesus Christ. For one, Jesus did not demand a great and lavish banquet for himself, nor did he command such for his followers. A cup of cold water refreshes someone on a journey, and is not that difficult or burdensome to provide. What Jesus is telling his believers is that they were not required to provide lavish service, but rather such service as was useful (a cup of cold water after a journey) or necessary (the help provided to the wounded man by the Good Samaritan), rather than lavish and sumptuous service, as Martha was distracted with while Mary chose the good part of listening to the teaching of Jesus Christ, which was the point of his presence there. Our service should not prevent us from learning God's way or from obeying God's law--if so, our service distracts us from our calling rather than serves as an aid to others in bringing glory to God's name.

And it is this that is the fundamental issue. We are called to serve, but our service must be in balance. Far too often people shirk their responsibilities--whether those responsibilities are to learn the Bible and apply it to every aspect of their lives, to be fruitful and productive and godly people capable of handling families, companies, congregations, cities, and nations under righteous administration, in binding the wounds of others damaged in this fallen world or in celebrating joyfully with others who have been blessed by God in their lives. All of these responsibilities we have, and all of them are to bring God greater glory and serve to point other people to His righteous commands and His perfect ways. But far too often we put our faith under a bushel and fail to act as the stewards of God on this earth, and as the ambassadors of God to the rebellious province of earth, who are to bring all things under subjection to God's law. Nonetheless, we are to undertake these responsibilities without being embittered, without becoming weary in doing good, and without letting the cares and troubles of this world separate ourselves from our eternal calling.

The failure of Christians to undertake their responsibilities as the viceregents of God on this earth has rather baleful consequences. For one, people are not educated as to their responsibilities and fail to uphold them, which means that instead of becoming mature Christians whose influence expands, we become immature Christians unable to be profitable servants of our Lord. This means that much work that we are called to do remains undone because people are too passive to do it. Someone must do the work, though (in whatever realm it may fall), and so those people who do the work often do far more than they ought to, and can even become embittered (as the poem "Sons of Martha" indicates is true for many engineers, even in the early 1900's, and just as true today) against the lazy masses who take their blood and toil for granted. The vacuum left by Christians not acting responsibly is often filled by those who are willing to perform the work in society that must be done and are hostile to a Christianity they misunderstand because the examples they see are so poor.

What then, must be done? Both misconceptions must be corrected. The self-proclaimed Sons of Martha, who glory in their labor and scoff at the believers who lazily drift through life must be educated that God does not sanction laziness (think of Paul's comment in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 [NKJV]: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat."). Therefore, they have no reason to be hostile to a Bible that in fact praises them for their efforts to bring the earth under dominion due to a mastery of the physical laws created by God. What they need to do, rather than praise themselves, is to offer gratitude to the God who gave them their gifts of diligence, as well as a strong mind and a healthy body to do that necessary work. It is to the lazy masses, though, that have a much more serious lesson to learn--and that lesson is that salvation and dominion require work. In working out our own salvation with fear and trembling we will automatically have influence over other areas, and are responsible for living our faith in our families, among our friends, in our workplaces, in our congregations, and in our societies. There is no area of this earth outside of the jurisdiction of God's law, and no undertaking that cannot benefit from Christians applying God's law to these realms, be they politics, engineering, law, medicine, agriculture, music, entertainment, literature, marketing, psychology/counseling, experimental science, or anywhere else that mankind's energies may turn. We are called to be kings and priests, and that learning starts here, on earth, in this life, where our application of God's law successfully leads to greater responsibilities and a greater sphere of influence.

In that way, may we all be sons of Martha (at least in part) in the way that Kipling speaks, diligent, capable, responsible, doing the work that God has set before us, without seeking credit for it, but rather giving glory to God, who has given us all that we possess. Let us also be sons of Mary in the way that the Bible speaks, not forgetting the service we owe God and others, but also not so caught up in the cares of this world that we neglect the most important aspects of our life, or fail to maintain our vision for the Kingdom of God that is to come, remembering that our present labor has an eternal reward.

An Exercise in Rhetoric

As a keen student (and occasionally able practitioner) in the art of rhetoric and argumentation, it pleases me greatly to report that on February 12, I will be a judge for the Florida qualifying for the NCFCA (National Christian Forensic Communicator's Association) tournament in Lutz, Florida. Of course, February 12th also happens to be the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, one of the ablest practitioners of the art of speech and debate that has ever graced this earth. So, in honor of this very pleasant occasion, I would like to give some of my thoughts about my own enjoyment of the arts of speech and debate as well as what I have learned from Abraham Lincoln on the limits of rhetoric, often through the seminal works of Dr. Harry Jaffa.

I first heard about this particular competition from some friends of mine at church who have and are homeschooling their six children (some of whom are now young adults like myself), who are all quite friendly, intelligent, and entertaining company. Reading about this competition online, I figured it would be good for me to see for myself the state of disputation and rhetoric among young people in my area who profess to be Christians. Given that I am usually pessimistic about the logical abilities of other people, I figured it might be salutary for me to seek out those who shared my interest in logical reasoning, so that perhaps I might find some reason to be hopeful about the future of intelligent, God-honoring thought. Perhaps I may find some young people who may become friends such that I can write to and talk to about serious matters, as I am fond of doing in both English and Spanish.

Since childhood, I have been interested in public speaking and rational disputation. My first public speech was when I was ten years old for Veteran's Day in Pinecrest, just south of Plant City. Though I was quite nervous, I found that people liked listening to what I had to say (I imagine it was especially gratifying for the mostly older audience to hear a young person speak about honoring the memory of our elders too.). Though I wished to be involved in speech & debate in high school, the events were on the Sabbath, so I was unable to do so, and my opportunities for public speaking have been mostly limited to church since then, and even these opportunities are somewhat more limited than I would wish.

It was as a student in college that I became aware of the works of Dr. Harry Jaffa (a fellow at the Claremont Institute in southern California) about Abraham Lincoln. Though I had, from childhood, been a great fan of Abraham Lincoln and his leadership in defeating the rebellious Southerners and in (finally) ending the curse of the tyranny of ethnic-based slavery in this nation (though the racism prevalent throughout the United States prevented a more egalitarian social structure from developing long after that), I did not know much about his argumentation. Reading the works of Jaffa about the Lincoln-Douglas Debates as well as about the 1860 election (both books I highly recommend: Crisis of the House Divided and A New Birth of Freedom) led me to think about the moral basis of our nation's government, and upon the threats it has faced from those who would deny the equality of all mankind under God (the conservative Darwinists) and those who would deny the responsibilities of mankind to obey the law (the "higher law" abolitionists and their social crusading liberal progeny). This moral focus was all the more interesting since Lincoln was not himself a particularly devoutly religious person, but the arguments he makes concerning the pivotal importance of the Declaration of Independence certainly imply that the only sure foundation of law is moral, which has strong implications for the sorts of laws we pass and the sort of society we struggle to achieve.

Whether the young speakers who I will be judging will know about Lincoln and his arguments, or will know it is Lincoln's birthday, I do not know. I do believe that if they are sufficiently serious about the Bible as well as about their skills in logical argumentation, then they would see clearly the moral basis of law and behavior, and argue accordingly. The need for debate and discussion never ends--even if we are all perfectly agreed in terms of the unchanging biblical standards of right and wrong, there still will be debate on the application of these standards in particular situations, and different perspectives that need to be addressed by the words and actions of others. These differences will remain as long as human beings have different experiences, different personalities, and different rational minds with different plans and interests and considerations. That is to say, for all time. So, as there will always be differences, and always be a need to debate and discuss wisely with others of like minds, these young people (ages 12-18) who will be speaking are learning an immensely practical gift, one that will hopefully lead them to a wiser understanding of the application of God's laws in time and on earth in our lives, families, businesses, congregations, societies, schools, universities, courts, and halls of government. From tiny acorns great oak trees grow. Perhaps there is a reason to hope in a better future for our society after all from those who have turned away from the fashionable humanism of our age.

On Bibles

For a while now, I have wished to write a bit about the Bibles in my library that I keep around to read. For some reason, probably because I like the feel of thumbing through pages, I prefer to read Bibles in book form rather than online (though I certainly make use of computer Bible programs as well). Although my collection of Bibles is not hugely extensive, I do think it has a lot to say about my religious interests. I have placed the Bibles I have in an ordinal ranking based upon their usefulness to me on a day-to-day basis. I also wish to comment on some of the Bibles I don't yet have but would like to add to my collection as time and resources permit.

New King James Version: The Nelson Study Bible

I got this bible as a college student after some belongings of mine (including my Bible) were stolen at a grocery store where I attended college in Los Angeles. This particular Bible has provided me with much insight from its study notes and I have gotten much use from it. I would personally wish to see a parallel Bible for the NKJV showing the wording from the version as well as the NU-Text and M-Text (for the NT) and the Masoretic Text versus the Septuagint (for the OT). Nonetheless, while I disagree with some of the notes at the bottom of the text, this is the basic Bible I have used for years for studying and writing articles.

1599 Geneva Bible

This is the newest (no joke) Bible in my collection, as I've had it for less than a month, and it was published in 2007 by Tolle Lege Press. Best of all, it's not a facsimile version (see below). I am using this Bible for reading through the scriptures this year, and I have found the language very direct, and the notes quite powerful (the notes from the original 1599 Geneva Bible are included, and some of them pack quite a punch, demonstrating the power of the use of the Bible to contemporary society). I think that, along with the NKJV listed above, that this Bible will be used for many years. The Bible lacks maps and the study guides present in other Bibles, but it does have a handy glossary of Middle-English terms at the back in case someone cannot figure out the definition of vittles (food, or vitals).

The Interlinear Bible (4 Volumes)

At four volumes, the first three with Hebrew and an English translation by Jay P. Green, Sr., the fourth with the Greek and an English translation also by Jay P. Green, Sr, this book is a little too bulky to read as often as the two listed above. Nonetheless, I find it quite excellent when trying to figure out a difficult passage to consult this text, because its translations are literal enough that sometimes one can pick out a nuance that translators often neglect in the attempt to force some sense into a verse. Being able to find the Greek and Hebrew words in question directly also helps in word studies, especially in cases where Strong's is a bit lacking. When people call me on the phone asking for help in how to interpret a verse, I turn to this Bible to shine a little bit of light on it.

La Biblia De Las Americas: Biblia de Esudio

Esta biblia fue un regalo a mi desde mi amigo Ivan, y es una biblia muy excelente que uso mucho en paises (como Sudamerica) cuando tengo que escuchar a y seguir con mensajes en espanyol. Tambien uso esta biblia cuando quiero escribir ensayos sobre la biblia en espanyol por mis amigos latinos. Por estes razones, esta biblia es muy importante por mi porque hay versos en esta biblia que son mas cerca al original hebrero y griega de otras versiones en Engles, y cuando hay un emfasis interesante en esta version.

1560 Geneva New Testament (with Modern Spelling)

This handy New Testament, edited by David L. Brown and William H. Noah, was a delightful little find I picked up in 2006 at an exhibit on William Tyndale and the Bible, which helped spark my strong interest in Tyndale's Bible (see below) and the Geneva Bible (here and see above as well). This Bible completely lacks notes, is pretty easy to read, and my main difficulty with it is that it only has the NT. If it were a complete Bible, I would probably use it a lot more. Nonetheless, it is small and quite useful, helpful in demonstrating the continuing value and excellence of the work of Tyndale and other 16th century Bible translators.

The Facsimile Bibles: 1560 Geneva Edition and the 1526 New Testament translated by William Tyndale

These Bibles I keep mainly for historical purposes, as I am a fan of the work of Tyndale. Neither of these books are easy to read at all, in fact, both are near impossible to read. Nonetheless, they are nice to have around for other purposes, even if mostly to show my support for the work of Tyndale and others of his time and to be impressed at the amazing design work of the Bibles, even if they are near illegible.

The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible

This Bible is a sterling example of false advertising. The real fault with this Bible falls in the fact that its editors do not take the Bible seriously in their interpretations, only translate those verses that are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (making the Bible highly fragmentary), have a noted bias for variant readings, and include lots of unbiblical psalms and other material interspersed with biblical material, some of which has its order drastically changed. This Bible is of interest mainly in knowing what the Dead Sea Scrolls and three liberal theologians have to say about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and is just about useless, even less useful than the facsimile Bibles, which were at least translated by godly men with respect for the Word of God.

Bibles I'd Like To Have:

Though there are plenty of Bibles I don't have (my collection is pretty small), there are only a few that I'd really like to add to my collection. Where I feel my collection is a little weak is in the Hebrew-based Bibles, so I'd like to add a Tanakh and a Stern's Complete Hebrew Bible to the collection. If someone made a copy of the Completensian Polyglot (an excellent six-language parallel Bible) I would enjoy adding that too. If anyone thinks there are some Bibles I need to add to my collection, feel free to comment.