The Windhover: The Kestrel is Back

This morning after I had watered my gallardia flowers out in the golden greenbelt and was climbing up the little hill just south of the now dry headwaters of Calaboose Creek, I saw a bird on top of the power pole on the brow of the hill. I thought it might be a red-shouldered hawk so I watched it closely as I climbed and then stopped to observe it. Finally, the bird dove from the top of the pole and showed his blue-gray bow of wings--not the red-shouldered buteo hawk but the kestrel, the smallest of falcons.

Gerard Manley Hopkins saw in this bird a sacramental representation of Christ as it appears in his poem, "The Windhover," which begins:

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing,
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, --the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act. . . .

My "Confessions" Is No Bedtime Story

In the first reader review of my Confessions of a Demonized Christian on Amazon.com, Mitsi wrote, "I was literally attacked by some unseen forces while napping after reading a few chapters. I screamed,"GO!!!!" in Jesus' name of course, and the terrifying forces left!!! Perhaps they did not want me to read the author's story. "

I had neglected to warn readers that they might be subject to demonic attacks and to tell them what they should do if they were attacked. Well, Mitsi did it just fine.

So if you read my book, be ready to rebuke the devil in Jesus name if you are a believer. If you are not a believer and are abruptly convinced by such an attack that you need his protection, then call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who loved you, died in your place for your sins and was raised back to life for your justification.

"For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,'" as the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 10:13. He also writes, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your hert that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). Do keep in mind that "Lord" means "Master," the "Boss."

Confessions of a Demonized Christian: Introduction

Many people have written of their affliction by demons, but my Confessions of a Demonized Christian is unusual in being a frank, first-person account of how my own sins and a demonic lie led to my occupation and affliction by demons while I was already a Christian.

One of my purposes in writing these confessions is to show other afflicted Christians how to tell whether or not they have received demons into their bodies. Then, by telling my story of how—by God’s grace—I overcame my demons, I want to help similarly demonized Christians overcome theirs. Finally, by exposing the demons’ methods of operation, I want to help yet others entirely avoid invasion by demons.

Christian Writer Since 1973

My track record as a Christian writer since 1973 shows my seriousness of purpose and the absence of sensationalism in my writing. And all my Christian writing was done after having been demonized in 1970. My first major Christian publication was my exposé in Christianity Today (December 21, 1973) of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s deceptive presentation of Transcendental Meditation (TM) as non-religious in order to insinuate it into public schools in the United States. That was followed by InterVarsity Press’s booklet on TM (1974) and by TM Wants You! (Baker, 1976) which I co-authored with Vail Hamilton (Carruth), a former teacher of TM.

My degrees include a BS in Engineering from UC Berkeley and an interdisciplinary MA in Politics and Literature from a small liberal arts university in Texas. With this academic background, I have published articles on subjects ranging from quantum mechanics (Touchstone, September 2003) to the rescue of Jews in Le Chambon, France. In addition, I have critiqued some of the Harry Potter books for American Spectator Online and the pro-life journal, Celebrate Life. My most recent essay, on the surprising morality of Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,” appeared in Touchstone, January/February 2012.

Demonization Defined

The New Testament Greek word “demonize” (daimonízomai) denotes being under the power of a demon or demons. I suffered demonization as a pervasive occupation of my body and a devastating affliction of my soul by demons, in which they subjected me to agonies of fear and anxiety and various physical afflictions. Forms of this Greek verb are usually translated as “demon-possessed,” but the demons never succeeded in suppressing my mind and gaining complete control of my body. For this and other reasons given in Chapter 20, I prefer to use “demonized,” the corresponding English form of the Greek verb, to describe any demon occupation of a human being.

Although not demonized to the point of complete demon control, I did have one Hell of a fight because my body was already thoroughly occupied by evil spirits before I realized that they were demons. Nevertheless, despite their determined efforts to destroy me, God’s grace was sufficient. And what I learned through my experience in using the Scriptures and other means of grace against them will be helpful to any demonized Christian.

I received these demons at first gradually and imperceptibly through habitual sexual sin and later rapidly and palpably through false mystical experiences. But there are many other avenues to demonization of believers because sins such as hatred, unforgiveness, occultism, and drug use have the same temporal consequences for Christians as for pagans: demonization. This to-some unpalatable reality has been recognized by many Christian scholars and leaders including Dr. Neil T. Anderson, Dr. Keith M. Bailey, Dr. Mark I. Bubeck, Dr. C. Fred Dickason, Dr. Ed Murphy and the late Dr. Merrill F. Unger. I share their view of this controverted subject not only from my experience, but also on the basis of the Scriptures. (See Chapter 20. Bible Evidence that a Christian Can Have a Demon, p. 109 ff.)

Why Such Frank Confessions?

The purpose and form of my Confessions require me to reveal the sins that allowed demons to come into my body. This is humbling, and I would not do it were it not necessary to make clear how sexual sin makes us vulnerable to entry by demons. In addition, to show exactly how demons entered my life requires that I expose the sins of other family members now dead, something that filial piety would forbid were it not for the importance of this material in enabling readers to understand 1) How the devil operates in families and 2) How our sins can harm others in our families.

I don’t dwell on my sins more than necessary, but my discussion of them may yet disturb those for whom the “M-word” is a taboo. Indeed, one pastor suggested to me that perhaps the reason the publishers I contacted did not publish my manuscript was my frank discussion of masturbation (as sin). If that is true, perhaps one reason that alarming numbers of Christian men and even pastors are said to remain addicted to pornography is that they are unwilling to confess their sin of lust under the humiliating name of the activity for the enhancement of which they pay good money to pornographers. Perhaps they are not desperate enough to admit just what they use their pornography for. But the most crucial reason for continuing addictions among Christians may be that they have not recognized and gotten rid of the demons they picked up through their sins and that continue to bind them to their sinful addictions.

Help and Hope for the Demonized

Because habitual sexual sin gives place to the devil just as much as do hatred, unforgiveness, occultism, and drug use; this book will be helpful to those addicted to pornography as well as to those with other addictions. Since overcoming any of these sinful practices may require exercising the authority of the name of Jesus against the demons involved, recognition of their presence may be the missing link necessary for complete and permanent victory.

And there is certainly hope in Christ for all such habitual sinners and addicts, just as there is for other demonized Christians. So this book is addressed to all Christians afflicted by the devil as well as to those called to minister to them. For the cautionary yet hopeful story of how I became demonized and then, through the blood of the Lamb, the word of my testimony that Jesus is Lord and the power of God’s word, was restored to effective service in Christ’s kingdom; read the book.

39 Years of Mayhem, 55 Million Dead Are Enough!

After New Hampshire’s presidential primary, National Review reported that pro-life presidential candidate Rick Santorum had made three telling points about abortion: 1) Science demonstrates that human life is a continuum from conception until death; 2) The debate is about whether it is ever right to withhold the protection of the human community from a class of human beings, the unborn; and 3) Repeal of Roe v. Wade would put this debate back “in an arena where the American public can make this decision.”

Roe v Wade, in denying the protection of the Constitution to an entire class of human beings, hearkens back to the Dred Scott Decision that denied such protection to African-American human beings. And while reversal of Roe v Wade might not afford any legal protection to the unborn in California, for example, the choice would be democratic instead of elitist, the still controverted decision of seven black-robed men.

So I’m in for Santorum, a statesman who has never waffled on abortion.

Pat Robertson: Relativist and Gnostic

Pat Robertson's acquiescence in divorce for a philanderer married to an Alzheimer's victim was sharply criticized in Christianity Today and warmly defended by Slate.com. I read the Slate.com article, and I think that they got it right when they said that Robertson was just thinking like a Liberal (i.e., a human being?) instead of like a Fundamentalist (i.e., any orthodox Christian). They cited his support of China's One-Child Policy and of the right of a woman to get an abortion in the case of rape by, say, a syphilitic as similar examples of Robertson's right (humane, Liberal) thinking.


In reality, Robertson's Relativism in these three instances parallels that of Albus Dumbledore's argument by which he convinced the hesitant Severus Snape to join in a murder-suicide pact to kill him (Dumbledore) in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." In the case of the wife with Alzheimers, Robertson adds to his Relativism the heresy of Gnosticism. He declares the woman dead already because of the functional loss of her mental faculties. But though the communicaton lines between body and soul are down, the human person and image bearer of God remains until physical death separates body and soul. And since the vow made before God and man is, "Til death do us part," a minister of the Gospel has no right to minimize the obligation of fidelity to the vow for anyone. Those who accept this inconvenient truth and remain faithful to their vows in such a gut-wrenching situation glorify God and model the self-sacrificial love of Christ for his church before the watching world. The men and women who remain faithful to their wives and husbands to the end are real defenders of the institution of marriage and of the power of God's agape love.
 

Confessions of a Demonized Christian: How I received another "Jesus"

“‘For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope’” (Jeremiah 29:11, ESV).

[The Introduction to my forthcoming book, to be published online, follows.]

Many books have been written about demon affliction, but my Confessions of a Demonized Christian is unusual in that it is a frank, first person account of the sin and folly that led to my occupation and affliction by demons while I was already a Christian. Although my Confessions do not rise to the level of Augustine’s Confessions, neither do they descend to the level of the Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, it is said, tried to justify himself by admitting the bad things he had done. My purpose in writing my book as a confession is, first, to help similarly afflicted Christians recognize that they have suffered demonic incursion. Then, by telling the story of how—by God’s grace—I overcame my demons, I want to help demonized Christians overcome theirs. Finally, I want to help others avoid such demon incursion. Therefore, I believe that my Confessions are more akin to Augustine’s than to Rousseau’s because I share with Augustine the goals of the edification of the church and the glory of God.

I think my 38-year track record as a Christian writer shows my seriousness of purpose and the absence of sensationalism in my writing. And all my Christian writing was done after having been demonized in 1970. My first major Christian publication was my exposé in Christianity Today (December 21, 1973) of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s deceptive presentation of Transcendental Meditation (TM) as non-religious in order to insinuate it into public schools in the United States. That was followed by InterVarsity Press’s booklet on TM (1974) and by TM Wants You! (Baker Book House, 1976), a book on TM co-authored with Vail Hamilton (Carruth), a former teacher of TM.

I prepared for these publications by interviewing people involved in TM, often sharing the gospel with them. While maintaining respect for the humanity of TM’s practitioners, I was able to calmly expose the deceptive presentation of Hindu-based TM as non-religious, reveal the anti-biblical character of Eastern spirituality and warn against the dangers of demonic incursion from its practice.

My academic degrees include a BS in Engineering from UC Berkeley and an interdisciplinary MA in Politics and Literature from a small liberal arts university in Texas. With this background, I have published articles on subjects ranging from quantum mechanics (Touchstone, April 2004) to the rescue of Jews in Le Chambon, France. In addition, I have critiqued some of the Harry Potter books for American Spectator Online, and I am working on a literary appreciation/critique of Jack London’s “To Build a Fire.”

The New Testament term “demonize” (daimonízomai) denotes being under the power of a demon or demons. I suffered demonization as a pervasive occupation of my body and a devastating affliction of my soul by demons, in which they subjected me to agonies of fear and anxiety and various physical afflictions. They never succeeded in suppressing my mind and gaining complete control of my body, but I did have one Hell of a fight because my body was already thoroughly occupied by evil spirits before I recognized them as demons. Nevertheless, despite their determined efforts, God’s grace was sufficient. What I learned through my experience in using the Scriptures and other means of grace against them, however, will be helpful to any demonized Christian, whatever degree of control the demons may have gained.

I received these demons at first gradually and imperceptibly through habitual sexual sin and later rapidly and palpably through false mystical experience. But there are many other avenues to demonization of believers because sins such as anger, unforgiveness, witchcraft, occultism, and recreational use of drugs have the same temporal consequences for Christians as for pagans: demonization. This, to-some, unpalatable reality has been recognized by a growing number of Christian scholars and leaders including Dr. Neil T. Anderson, Dr. Keith M. Bailey, Dr. Mark I. Bubeck, Dr. C. Fred Dickason, Dr. Ed Murphy and the late Dr. Merrill F. Unger. I share their view of this controverted subject not only from my experience, but also on the basis of the Scriptures. (See Chapter 22.)

To show exactly how demons entered my life requires that I expose the sins of other family members now dead, something that filial piety would forbid were it not for the importance of this material in making readers understand 1) How the devil operates in families and 2) How our sins can harm others in our families.

The form and purpose of my Confessions also require me to reveal my sins that opened me up to demonic incursion, including details of my sex life. This is embarrassing and humbling, and I would not do it were it not necessary to make clear just how sexual sin makes us vulnerable to entry by demons. I don’t dwell on these sins more than necessary for this purpose, but this may be a problem for readers for whom the “M-word” is a taboo. Indeed, one pastor suggested to me that perhaps the reason none of the publishers I contacted was interested in my manuscript was my frank discussion of masturbation (as sin). If that is true, perhaps the reason that alarming numbers of Christian men and pastors are said to remain addicted to pornography is that they are unwilling to confess their sin of lust under the humiliating name of the activity for the enhancement of which they pay good money to pornographers. Perhaps they are not desperate enough to admit just what they use their pornography for. Another reason may be that they have not recognized and dealt with the demonic element of their addiction.

Thus, this book will be helpful to those addicted to pornography as well as to those otherwise demonized because habitual sexual sin gives place to the devil just as much as do anger, unforgiveness, occultism and drug use. Since overcoming any of these sinful habits will likely require dealing directly with the demons involved, recognition of their presence may be the missing link necessary for victory over these sins

And there is certainly hope in Christ for all such habitual sinners and addicts, just as there is for other demonized Christians. So this book is addressed to all Christians afflicted by the devil and to those called to minister to them. For the cautionary yet hopeful story of how I became demonized and then, through the Scriptures and other means of grace, was restored to effective service in Christ’s kingdom, read the book.

David Haddon, August 19, 2011, Redding, California

Reminiscences on the Life of My Brother: Earl's Last Hunt

My oldest brother Earl's 83rd birthday is today, June 11. Since both our birthdays are in June, and he was 10 years, 18 days my senior, I never forgot it as I sometimes did my other brothers’ birthdays. I had planned to mail him a home-made birthday card produced on my MS Publisher program with a hand-written message and a complimentary close of the one word, “Love.” Unfortunately, I was too late because he died suddenly last Sunday, June 5. Take heed.

He willed to me, among other things, his Winchester Model 94, .30-.30 carbine with which I killed my first deer on Red Mountain, East Fork, Trinity River, Trinity County, in 1956. I just realized that I had returned the favor by loaning him my Model 99 Winchester .308 with which he killed his last deer, probably sometime in the 1960s. After that exhausting hunt, he said he realized, "I don't have to do this." He came to prefer to see the beauty of the living animals and rather disapproved my continued willingness to hunt and kill them. Aesthetically, I agree with him, but like biblical Isaac I still have a yen for venison. I last hunted in 2009 and we didn't even see a buck--until we drove back through French Gulch where they hang around on the lawns even (or especially?) in the middle of deer season.

Henry David Thoreau had a similar development. While at Walden Pond he liked to catch and eat the pike. Later, he gave up such fare, but he admitted that if he returned to live on the Pond, he would be sorely tempted by those tasty fish. As a Transcendentalist (Pantheist) like Emerson, he probably had spiritual reasons for renouncing the killing of animals. As a Christian, I am free to take and eat meat, whether that of wild game or of livestock. Since the forgiveness of sins, my very salvation is based on the shedding of the innocent blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, I realize that in some circumstances, the shedding of blood is required for life to be preserved.

Thoreau thought that boys and young men should be allowed to pursue wild game because it brought them out into nature. But he viewed it as a stage through which they perhaps had to pass on the way to maturity. For myself, I'm not dogmatic, but I think those like my brother who renounce the chase have the better part. And perhaps those like my young Christian friend Brian, who never wanted to start hunting have the best of it.

Still, for some hunters, there is another aspect of hunting, the hunter's bond of trust formed over years of hunting together. You always put your life in the hands of your hunting partners and these relationships can become very close. Killing game becomes secondary to the ritual of the hunt, love for the wilderness in which you hunt and the relationships nurtured by the hunt.

Moreover, in gutting and skinning a deer, with blood at least up to your elbows, you get some sense of the reality of what happened to Christ on the Cross when he shed his blood for the sins of the world. And without the shedding of that blood, we all would be lost.

A Tale of Two Cities: New York and Paris

So French Eurocrat Dominique Strauss-Kahn, key official of the International Monetary Fund, stands accused of attempting to rape an African-immigrant housemaid at a luxury hotel in New York. And the left-wing in France is outraged according to this report on National Review Online: "In French press accounts, one distills a veritable caricature: 'How dare those backward Americans do this? Do they have any idea of who Strauss-Kahn is and what he represents, or how we civilized and sophisticated Europeans deal with these dime-a-dozen sort of low-rent sexual accusations against men of culture from mere chambermaids?'”

According to an international report in the Record Searchlight, Strauss-Kahn was widely expected to run for the presidency of the French Republic despite reports of his affair with a subordinate. Indeed, his reputation as a womanizer had given him the nickname, "the great seducer."

But what I find interesting about Dominique Strauss-Kahn's alleged sexual assault on the African housemaid in New York is its parallel with a key incident in Dickens's Tale of Two Cities. The sin that motivates the unjust accusation against Charles Darnay (Evremonde) in Dickens's story was the rape of a young peasant woman by his long-dead father, the French noble, Count Evremonde. It seems that the French elite have yet to learn the lesson that Dickens took from the French Revolution, that if you oppress the masses of ordinary people without limit and/or treat them with utter contempt, sooner or later your class (or you) will pay the price.

La plus ca change, la plus c'est la meme chose. N'est ce pas?

Mea Culpa! Mea Culpa! Mea Maxima Culpa!

Yesterday I was on the Shasta College campus here in Redding sharing the gospel with students to whom I hand out leaflets raising questions about Jesus Christ. It's easy because many of the students who pause to take a look at the leaflet are willing to volunteer their opinion of who Jesus is in response to my inquiry. By asking questions and listening first, I find that many students are willing to listen to what the New Testament says about sin, salvation and the Savior. And about every other time I go out there, at least one of the students has been prepared by the Holy Spirit to confess Jesus as Lord.

That didn't happen yesterday, but a couple of young men were willing to read from the Scriptures what the Bible says about Jesus and our salvation and let me pray for them. After several hours of leafleting and sharing, I went upstairs to a room off the balcony above the cafeteria where InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IV) was having a Bible study. We started small but soon an alumnus of Pelican Bay State Prison showed up with his guitar. The IV group leader seemed to identify with the visitor and mentioned that he was a former drug addict and a graduate of the Redding Mission's recovery program. A couple of black brothers came in and I found myself sitting beside a lovely young woman from Bethel's school of ministry who was from Romania and was reading the scripture from a bilingual Romanian-English Bible.

The Bible study was from Matthew 12, a chapter in which the Pharisees criticized Jesus disciples and Jesus himself, calling them Sabbath breakers because Jesus' disciples plucked some stalks of grain and ate the still tender grains and because Jesus insisted on healing the man in the synagogue with a withered hand on the Sabbath Day. Jesus defended his followers and himself summing up his argument by saying, "If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice' (Hosea 6:6), you would not have condemned the innocent" (Matt. 12:7).
The main point of the study seemed to me to be that God was more interested in our heart attitude towards him and towards our neighbors than in ritual obedience.

After discussing the Scripture, we joined in worship songs with help from the visiting guitarist and the young woman from Romania and prayed for one another. I went out to my table on the quad in front of the cafeteria to eat my lunch and distribute a few more leaflets. Almost immediately, I was tested on the study: Would I put mercy ahead of ministry?

A lovely young woman approached and since I didn't immediately recognize her, she reminded me of her name (say, Natalie) and that we had discussed the teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses with whom she has been studying. I instantly remembered her and began my apologetic demonstrating that Jehovah's Witnesses are polytheists. Their calling Jehovah "Almighty God" and Jesus "mighty god" (Isaiah 9:6) and "a god" (John 1:1, New World Translation only) leaves them with not one God, but two, a high God and a lesser god. This is rather like the situation of Greek mythology with Zeus as the high god and other lesser gods like Hermes. The Witnesses limit their god count to two, but they are, nevertheless, polytheists, not true monotheists.

But providentially, Natalie was interested in bigger game. She innocently asked me why we believe in the Trinity. Now I was ready to lead her to biblical answers to that question, but our guitarist, my brother from Pelican Bay, appeared and offered to help us out. I was none too pleased with his interruption of an ongoing witness I have been working on for a while, but he had a Scripture and Natalie wanted to see it. When I saw that he was taking us to 1 John 5:7 in his King James Version, I lost it.

In anger I told him (the truth) that the Jehovah's Witnesses would chew him up over that verse because it is not in the ancient Greek manuscripts (and therefore not in the original). He stood firm on his King James Bible, but in my anger I succeeded in driving him away. Amazingly, Natalie seemed not greatly affected by our altercation and I continued with my defense of the Trinity by pointing out that the Scriptures refer to three distinct persons as God and yet insist that there is but one God. Thus, God differs from us in that while there is but one person in the unity of each human being, God exists on the high order of Trinity in which there are three persons in the unity of the One Divine Being. I also shared on the personhood of the Holy Spirit from Acts 13:1-4 and on Jesus' claim of divinity in John 8:58 ("Before Abraham, I AM.") by identifying himself by the name God revealed to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:14.

Indeed, I was so caught up in my ministry to this endangered soul that it was not until she had left and I was ready to head home that I began to realized that I had just been tested on the teaching at the IV meeting. And that I had flunked the test bigtime. I had put my ministry ahead of mercy. What my brother needed was a little mercy from his more knowledgeable brother. Instead, I beat him up verbally and got rid of him.

Today, I went back to the college to see whether I could find my offended brother and ask for his forgiveness--to no avail. I pray that God will comfort him and that I will be able to find him next week to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. Meanwhile, I find myself to be the one most in need of mercy. Thanks be to God whose mercies never come to an end.

Happy Thanksgiving! But Whom Do You Thank?

Whom will you thank next Thursday on Thanksgiving Day? The Pilgrims thanked God the Creator, but what if you don't believe in the Creator? What then?

Well, you might thank your parents for giving you life. Especially, if you were born since 1973, since they could have offed you before you were born, all in accordance with the Law of the Land. But what if you're not even sure about the meaning and purpose of your life anyway? Whom do you thank then?--What about this man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth?

Graphic: See Albrect Durer's "Bearing of the Cross," 1512: www.backtoclassics.com/gallery/albrechtdurer/bearing_of_the_cross_no_10/

Yes, Jesus Christ, who loved us and "gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:2b). Why not thank him for what he did when he allowed himself to be humiliated, tortured and murdered out of love for us sinners?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

Hawking on Religion

It is true that if the Christian God is the infinitely wise and powerful Creator of our meticulously designed (to support advanced life forms) planet, solar system, galaxy and universe, then he must be transcendently different from us. And yet, the biblical revelation tells us that we are like him in significant ways, made in his "image and likeness" as personal beings. And this means at least that both God and we can think, choose and act, and love.

Stephen Hawking recently contrasted science and religion (see paste below) and said that religion is based on authority, science on observation and reason. This kind of statement suggests first of all that we should not passively accept his authority when he speaks on subjects outside his field of physics. And then, we must point out that Christian faith is based on reason and observation as well. For example, eyewitness John the Apostle begins his first letter, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Fathher and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:1-3).

While I would agree with Stephen Hawking that the Universe (the Book of the Creation) appears to be about 14 billion and the earth about 4.5 billion years old. On the other hand, I believe that the Bible is, as it claims to be, the Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16) and is therefore true when correctly understood.

The other essentials on which all Christians agree is that Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal God manifested as a man, that he died on the cross for our sins and was raised again from the dead. We are saved by believing this and confessing him as Lord, the Master, our final Authority. So again, Hawking has a point about authority, by faith in Christ we come into submission to and personal relationship with the final Authority, God the Creator and Redeemer, the Holy Trinity.


Hawking on God, Huffington Post, Nicolas Graham, 6/10/10
Stephen Hawking, known for his groundbreaking work in physics, told Diane Sawyer that when it comes to reconciling science and religion, there is only one outcome: "science will win because it works." He also elaborated on his views about God.
"What could define God [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking told Sawyer. "They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."
When Sawyer asked if there was a way to reconcile religion and science, Hawking said, "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."

The Great Granite Wall at the Head of Stuart's Fork, Trinity River

Caribou Lakes 55 Years Later

Late in August 1954, I climbed from Portuguese Camp on the Stuart’s Fork of the Trinity River the 2000 vertical feet up the to the pass on Sawtooth Ridge and then dropped down to Caribou Lake. I can't remember whether or not I spent a night on the lake, but that afternoon or the next, I took a look at the clouds, which threatened rain, and decided to go on down to Big Flat. Sixteen years old and having spent most of the last 2 months backpacking in the Alps with only my elder brother’s .38 special Smith and Wesson revolver for company, I walked on out in one afternoon and evening without any problem.

This July, fifty-five years later at 71, it took me 3 days to walk the perhaps 10 miles of the new trail from Big Flat back up to Caribou Lake. Quite a contrast! Being older and wiser, I had replaced the 4-pound revolver and holster with my beat-up, 4-pound guitar. But with grub for 6 days (i.e., about 12 pounds of dried foods plus a few delicacies), my load was heavier than that of the nearly empty-of-food GI rucksack I had carried out in 1954. This time, I had to pace myself to about 1 mile an hour to make it at all. So I camped Thursday night at Brown’s Meadow, perhaps 3 or 4 miles short of the first lake in the basin.

Friday, I rested, headed out after 3 pm and arrived at Snowslide Lake at about 6:30 pm. I cooked my dinner of mac and cheese and bedded down in a copse of black hemlock with red fir, lodgepole pine and western white pine all around. I got unduly upset at the little white-footed mouse trying to get at the granola in my pack and tossed a shoe his way. Happily, I missed, but I remember his big, dark, mouse-in-the-flashlight eyes contrasting with his white underparts. It would have been a shame to have hurt him. Fortunately, my sturdy internal frame pack seems impervious to small rodents.

Saturday, by-passing the trail down to the Lower Caribou Lake, I took only about 45 minutes to finally make it up to Caribou Lake, which lies at an elevation of about 6800 feet. Its heavily glaciated basin has little soil so that the red fir and black hemlock are scarce except on some parts of Sawtooth Ridge south of the lake. Immediately recognizable by its pendulous branchlets, one weeping spruce stands on the east side of the lake, a rather rare tree said to be a relic species unable to compete with other conifers except in very steep or rocky terrain. Another healthier specimen grows along the trail ascending from Snowslide Lake towards Big Flat.

Sunday, I rested again, but it threatened rain so I moved my camp further south from the outlet to a site on the granite that had room to set up my tube tent. The two young men camped there had welcomed me and my guitar the night before, and we had traded a few folk, pop and praise songs, including as I recall, “I Ride an Old Paint,” “Thou Art Worthy” and “He decidido seguir a Cristo.” They had headed back to McKinleyville earlier in the afternoon, leaving me alone on the lake as far as I could tell.

Monday, I climbed the 7700-foot peak southwest of the lake for the view of the glacial gorge at the head of the Stuart’s Fork of the Trinity River containing Emerald, Sapphire and Mirror Lakes and of the wall of granite beyond them. This magnificent scene speaks to me of the glory of the Creator. And I found myself calling on him for help as I descended by a different route through the cliffs on the west side of the Lake—a route I don’t advise for anyone not equipped for rock climbing. In the evening, I moved my camp back down to Snowslide Lake to give me a head-start on the long march back to Big Flat. It was warm for the mountains and my down sleeping bag was pretty hot, what with the hood closed down to a tiny nose hole to avoid being eaten alive by the many mosquitoes, which had been absent from the upper lake.

I took the new trail both ways given its gentler gradients, but horsemen prefer the old route. Although my pack was about 12 pounds lighter, Tuesday I was on the trail about 9 hours to get from Snowslide Lake to the Salmon River at Big Flat Campground. So on this trip I learned that I’m not the hiker I was 55 years ago, but the mountains remain magnificent.

Miles Stuart Compton, RIP

I returned Stuart Compton's copy of "The Wind in the Willows" to my friend Sunday afternoon. I took over a year to get around to reading it, but Stuart never reproached me for my tardiness. And whatever Kenneth Grahame's personal beliefs, his animal fable masterfully evokes those immortal longings we all have for the transcendent, longings that C. S. Lewis describes in his essay, "The Weight of Glory."

Stuart had been having severe stomach pain and later decided he wanted to go to the Emergency Room for treatment. I wound up spending the night with him there, not that he seemed to be very sick, but for a couple of other reasons. I don't entirely trust hospitals with older patients and Stuart had turned 80 just last week. I wanted to have a prolife advocate present if his condition became serious. And having just read "The Wind in the Willows," I had in mind the the loyalty of Mole and Rat to each other and to their friends. Jesus' words about visiting Him when he was sick also encouraged me. Consequently, I got to see the early summer sunrise when I finally left the hospital after 5:00 am.


But Stuart had a bad abdominal hernia ever since they removed part of his colon 6 or 8 years ago, and the doctor and the surgeon wanted to repair it. I discussed the risks of surgery with Stuart, but the hernia was troublesome and he wanted to get rid of it. So they repaired the hernia on Monday and I called him at the hospital that evening and Tuesday as I recall. We prayed Tuesday, but I talked with him only briefly because he was in a lot of pain.

Wednesday morning Stuart's immortal longings were suddenly and unexpectedly fulfilled. And this is a realistic way of understanding his death. For as Christians we do not sorrow as those who have no certainty about going to that place for which we all long, the kingdom of God where the Lord Jesus Christ rules and reigns.

On "The Wind in the Willows"

“‘It’s gone!’ sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. “so beautiful and strange and new! Since it was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to it forever. No! there it is again!’ he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound.

“‘Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,’ he said presently. ‘Oh, Mole! The beauty of it!! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of and the call in it is stronger even that the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us.’

“The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed. ‘I hear nothing myself,’ he said, ‘but the wind playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers.’

“The Rat never answered, if indeed he heard. Rapt, transported, trembling, he was possessed in all his senses by this new divine thing that caught up his helpless soul and swung and dandled it, a powerless but happy infant, in a strong sustaining grasp” (114, "The Wind in the Willows).

Well, is Grahame spoiling the Pagans of Pan, the “Piper at the Gates of Dawn’? I don’t know, but no matter. His masterful evocation of the ineffable longing for another world would be for C. S. Lewis a clue and invitation to seek that other, unknown world for which we long.

As an animal fable, the four main characters, Toad, Rat, Mole and Badger, represent the four humors or personality types of Sanguine, Melancholic, Phlegmatic and Choleric. Toad is certainly the Sanguine (‘expressive”) and Badger the Choleric (a leader who gets things done). I leave as an exercise Rat and Mole's classification although I think I've figured it out. But Grahame’s characters are like real people in that they sometimes act out of a humor other than their dominant one. For example, Mole's seizing the oars from Rat (and capsizing their boat) on their first outing is out of character for him (but might be expected of Toad).

What is remarkable is Grahame's evocation of those immortal longings we all have for something beyond our experience of this world, longings that tell us we are made for another world and that Lewis describes in his "The Weight of Glory." Grahame uses the Pagan Piper Pan to subcreate this experience in Rat and Mole during their mission of mercy to find the missing baby otter. The question I pose is whether Grahame is consciously using Pan for a Christian purpose or just describing the universal experience of longing for our home country of Paradise, the kingdom of God where the Son of God rules and reigns.

Exiles Longing for Our Native Land

Every scheme to establish human happiness founders on the rocks of our self-destructive nature and of this world as it is is not being the world for which we were made. On his "Writer's Almanac" yesterday, Friday, May 1, Garrison Keillor (surprisingly to me) read a poem by Anne Porter that powerfully expresses our exile's longing for our native land, a theme that C. S. Lewis developed in his essay, "Weight of Glory."

The address for Anne Porter's "Music" on "Writer's Almanac" is http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/05/01. Or ctrl-click here Anne Porter

for access to two of her poems and references to two others.

The poem is published as "Music" by Anne Porter from Living Things: Collected Poems. © Steerforth Press, 2006.

Truth Project: Rousseau's Revolution Redux

In my last blog, my unstated point was that Catholics had remained intellectually engaged with the problems of culture and society when American Fundamentalists and Evangelicals retreated to build a subculture disengaged from law, government, education and art. In so doing, we disregarded God's creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (with people) and to subdue it. The strong Christian foundations of American society and government and the social and religious conservatism of the American Revolution made this luxury possible for a long time, but the secularists and skeptics (such as Thomas Payne) were there from the beginning and their hostility to God and to Christianity eventually bore bitter fruit.

By contrast, Catholics were a somewhat despised minority in America and a target of the French style revolutionary thought that swept away the monarchies of continental Europe during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Therefore, they recognized the threat of the Revolution both to Catholicism and to the traditional structures of civil society. Their critique of the social effects of the Revolution was cogent, but their sometimes reactionary support of monarchy and the privileged position of the Roman church under it was flawed. In America, however, a Catholic thinker, Orestes Bronson, seems to have recognized the benefits of the ordered liberty experienced here and, I think, developed a Catholic political theory consonant with it. At any rate, American Catholicism adapted to American political freedoms and the result is that Evangelical Christians and many conservative Catholics stand shoulder to shoulder in defending them.

Another life experience that relates to the continuing Revolution recognized by the Truth Project was my time with Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF) in Berkeley. This countercultural Christian ministry was founded by two former Campus Crusade for Christ workers, Professor Jack Sparks and Pat Matriciano, in the late 60s in Berkeley. Some of the Christians in CWLF, such as I, had a traditional church background, but others came to Christ straight out of the Counter Culture with its sex, drugs, rock music, Eastern religion and Revolution. Most of these Christians soon shed their sexual immorality, drugs and Eastern religion, but the rock music and revolutionary politics were more enduring, especially, the politics.

The two ministries growing directly out of CWLF that still exist illustrate the division in its ranks: Right On!, (then a newspaper, now a journal) and Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP [an apologetics ministry]). Right On!, in view of the real injustices abroad in the world, tends to side with the revolutionaries, as exemplified by Barack Obama, the latter, with the traditional American political virtues as exemplified by Ron Paul.

For my part, the anti-Christian essence of the Revolution, makes the practical matter of choosing which side I come down in the context of American politics easy. I'll admit that if I were a Native American living in El Salvador, Guatemala, or Columbia (where their majority status makes them a threat to the white ruling class), I might see things differently. But one thing Jesus was not, was a violent revolutionary. Neither were the early Christians who triumphed through Roman persecution by faithfulness, flight and martyrdom.

Truth Project: So What?

By now I think that I've seen enough of the Truth Project to get the big picture and so have you if you think about it. Del Tackett raises a profound subject and cites Scripture to show how the Triune God of the Bible relates to that matter. The primary goal is to glorify God by showing that while he utterly transcends the material universe, he is present and active (in the fullness of his being) at every point within it. The secondary goal is to show that Christian faith relates to every area of life and to provide some guidance in how we should live in God's creation while not being part of the passing world system.

Focus on the Family and Del are well aware that some of their interpretations about origins and about the social and political implications will be controversial among their Evangelical Christian viewers. They (and Pastor Mark) view this as a good thing; we ought to be aware of our differences and be willing to discuss them without condemning those with whom we differ over issues that have not been settled by the ancient councils and creeds as heresies (e.g., the age of the earth, the best form of government). No doubt there is a correct answer to some of these issues, but we may have to await the return of our Lord for certainty about them.

Last night I realized that because I did my graduate work in Political Philosophy and Literature at a Catholic University, I have a perspective on the Truth Project that perhaps few Evangelicals share. Did you notice, for example, that as an authority on the economics of poverty, Del cites a Catholic scholar? And did you ever wonder why, when Bush wanted to please his conservative Evangelical base, he was able to nominate two Roman Catholic judges with the academic and intellectual credentials to overcome the opposition of the Democrats in the Senate and the elites who love the "Living Constitution" instead of the document as written and intended? And why the Evangelicals welcomed Catholics John Roberts and Samuel Alito with open arms?

The answers go back, in part, to the retreat of conservative Evangelicals from engagement with the intellectual, political, social and artistic spheres of American life in the wake of their rejection by the mainline denominations. Indeed, as I understand it, J. Gresham Machen was, in effect, excommunicated from the Presbyterian Church for his outspoken opposition to Modernism (Liberalism) at Princeton. Many of the "Fundamentalists," as those who maintained the essentials of the faith such as the deity of Jesus, his Virgin Birth and his bloody atonement were called, accepted the Dispensationalist theology that emerged early in the 19th Century with its portrayal of Christians as always and only a beleaguered minority on the periphery of society.

Their theme song was, "This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through" and this truth was taken to mean that Christians had no cultural mandate to fulfill as a godly leaven in every legitimate aspect of society. Evangelism and Christian ministry was the way to really serve God and the concept of farming or business or even education as a calling or vocation from God as Luther had seen it waned. Without realizing it, Fundamentalists and the Evangelicals who emerged as a distinct group after WWII, were living on social and political capital borrowed from the Christians among the founders and the frontier evangelists of the 18th and early 19th Centuries. Only when the anti-Christian agenda of the secularist elites became law through critical Supreme Court decisions in the 1940s through the 1970s did Fundamentalists and Evangelicals wake up to the reality that their retreat from a holistic living out of the gospel was having dire spiritual consequences. Only with the earth shaking consequences of the Roe v. Wade decision's disregard of the biblical view of the sacredness of human life, did Fundamentalists and Evangelicals begin to awaken to what was happening.

More later. Gotta gather and stack the wood before my neighbor rebukes me more firmly.

Blessed be The Tie that Binds

I just finished reading Second Corinthians and was struck by the use of a certain word in verses 9 and 11 of Chapter 13:

Your restoration is what we pray for. . . . Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you (ESV).

In Koine Greek, the verb form is katartizo, which in various translations is "be perfect" (KJV), be made perfect" (NIV), "aim for perfection" (NEB), "be made complete" (NKJV), "mend your ways" (RSV, JB), and "aim for restoration" (ESV).

The context of the letter is a Corinthian church that has been riven by divisions over the personalities of leaders, damaged by tolerance of egregious sin and guilty of disorder in the observance of the Lord's table. Indeed, a few verses before these Paul exhorts, "examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves" (v. 5a).

Given this situation, the translations "mend your ways" and "aim for restoration" seem better than, for example, "be made perfect." Katartizo has a wide range of meaning, but one of the first we see in the New Testament is at Jesus' calling of James and John to be disciples while they were "mending" their nets in the boat with their father Zebedee.

In verse 11 itself, the use of katartizo is followed by a series of exhortations to "comfort one another, agree with one another," and to "live in peace." The emphasis of these is on the loving unity that should reign in the body of Christ for "the God of love and peace " to be "with you." This happy state is followed by the command to "Greet one another with a holy kiss."

Given this emphasis on loving unity, I would use yet another signification of katartizo here, that of being knitted together or united completely (Perschebacher, The New Analytical Greek Lexicon). This is not a very novel insight since a similar passage in 1 Corinthians 1:10 is rendered in the NIV: "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought."

The passage from chapter13 made me think of that phrase from Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line": "I keep the ends out for the ties that bind." The singer makes an effort to keep his heart strings open to his absent lover in anticipation of their hearts being woven together when they are back together. I am thinking about how all this might be applied to our focus groups. It seems to me that it points in the direction of doing things together beyond our weekly meetings.

Any ideas about this out there?

The French Revolution Lives On!

The anti-clericalism of the French Revolution forced Catholic thinkers to recognize the distinction between state and society. The very existence of society as a complex entity of various social groups independent of the state and its government was called in question by the radical revolutions beginning with the French and continuing through the Bolshevik and subsequent revolutions including the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Cuban and the Cambodian. The revolutionary regimes claimed the right to suppress or control all of the groups that make up a flourishing society including church, family, labor unions, academic faculties, athletic organizations, charitable organizations, simply everything.

In response to this, according to Russell Hittinger, Catholic thinkers saw from Genesis that God had created different kinds of entities. The purely physical powers and objects, animals with a kind of organic unity of each individual and then, marriage, a society of more than one person with a unity and structure of relationships suitable for its membership of husband, wife and children. Other groups within society had their chosen goals but constituted something similar in that they were a unity of persons seeking common goals and were natural to human societies.

As Hittinger puts it, the Catholics looked with favor on all such groups with legitimate purposes and saw them in a hierarchy in which the church was the highest in that its goal of relating to God was the highest purpose, followed by the state, whose goals are temporal but important and then society with its pluriform associations of family and other groups. These thinkers defended the legitimacy of society as against the state, which had no basis for suppressing or controlling its entities in pursuit of their legitimate goals.

Because of the anti-clericalism of the revolutions that swept Europe after 1789 and on into the 20th Century, Catholic thinkers opposed the revolution, often in the name of monarchy, the main political force available to oppose it. Because the American Revolution did not overturn church and society on the model of the French, Americans were slow to recognize the problem of utopian revolutions bent on perfecting human society and human beings, whatever the human cost. But Catholic thinkers did see that they were defending society in its multiform variety when they opposed these revolutions.

Abraham Kuyper's concept of sphere sovereignty, it seems to me, recognizes the same reality that society consists of many legitimate human institutions besides the government that are directly ordained by God and thus have a sphere of action independent of control by the state. I think that sphere sovereignty clarifies the reality without imposing a hierarchy. What the Catholics have seen best is that the revolutionary spirit abroad in the world is bent on totalitarian control of society in order to accomplish its goal of perfecting humanity and creating the earthly paradise. The state must be sovereign over all. Rousseau's idea of a General Will determined by a majority vote has been used to promote totalitarian democracy, but this bears no relationship to the popular sovereignty of the American Republic of our Founders.

Marxism-Leninism was explicit about its goals. But I believe that the spirit of the revolution animates the secular intelligentsia throughout Europe and America. Although Soviet Communism was turned back, the revolutionary spirit has triumphed in Europe and that is why the European Union is unwilling even to acknowledge its Chrsitian heritage. This is what the Culture War is about in America: the revolution. I believe that Del Tackett and the Truth Project get it. But it's not obvious to most Americans and so Christians are bound to differ about issues ranging from gun control to early childhood education.

Education, secularization and gun control are key areas where state control must be advanced in order to bring about the revolution by peaceful means. Christians should be wise in advancing Christian initiatives in education and in resisting secularization and gun control. Hate crimes laws are the leading edge of suppression of religious speech at the moment. But education is the key to long-term success. And well over 90% of American children are in government schools. That is the biggest practical problem.

Of course, the underlying problem is our failure to be the church. That is why I believe--contrary to current appearances perhaps--that our focus groups are the most important thing we are doing. This is where the church will come alive when God visits us.