Tajikistan bans the Truth!!!

Tajikistan has banned Jehovah's Witnesses throughout the country, including stripping the organisation of its legal status and giving it a notice that they should stop all of their activities. A Culture Ministry official cited as reasons for the ban including that they refuse military service and proclaim their faith in public. It appears Tajikistan has cemented their status as a backwards country and religious persecutor.

For more information on this, visit Forum 18.

Elders

Over at the blog 'The Assembling of the Church', Alan Knox has written some excellent posts on Christian elders and if they should be paid for their ministry according to the Bible. I recommend them as a good read, and they fully vindicate the policies of Jehovah's Witnesses on eldership. Here they are in chronological (as in when they were posted) order:

1) What about work

2) What about work for elders/pastors

3) What about honor for elders/pastors

Mandeans

The NY Times has an article about the Mandeans of Iraq that I blogged about a while back. Apparently they are wishing to come to America so they can set up communities here to prevent them from dying out. The article also points out that their religion prevents them from carrying weapons, even for self-defence, so they have been "easy targets" over the years, which has helped their existence!

Appendix deserves to be Chapter 1 instead!

In the past the appendix (the body part, not the book part) has been used by anti-intelligent designers as a body part that has no purpose, and therefore proof that humans are not intelligently designed. Interestingly, reports now show that the appendix indeed does have a purpose. Apparently it acts as a safe house for good bacteria used to boost the immune system.

New Age Intelligence

The Council of Europe has recently adopted a resolution against the teaching of intelligent design or creationism. In reading about this I came across a blog post by a New Ager who believes in intelligent design and non-materialism. I found it interesting to read the feelings on this issue from a non-religionist/revelationist. The blog post is here.

A Christian nation?

Contrary to popular opinion, Jon Meacham at the New York Times has remineded America that a nation of "Christians" is not a Christian nation. He points out:

According to Scripture, however, believers are to be wary of all mortal powers. Their home is the kingdom of God, which transcends all earthly things, not any particular nation-state. The Psalmist advises believers to “put not your trust in princes.” The author of Job says that the Lord “shows no partiality to princes nor regards the rich above the poor, for they are all the work of his hands.” Before Pilate, Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” And if, as Paul writes in Galatians, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in
Christ Jesus,” then it is difficult to see how there could be a distinction in God’s eyes between, say, an American and an Australian. In fact, there is no distinction if you believe Peter’s words in the Acts of the Apostles: “I most certainly believe now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears him and does what is right is welcome to him.” The kingdom Jesus preached was radical. Not only are nations irrelevant, but families are, too: he instructs those who would be his disciples to give up all they have and all those they know to follow him.

The article is a great read and I recommend it to all. Check it out here.

Sunday

Christianity Today magazine has an interesting article about Craig Harline's new book called "Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Superbowl". The article contains an excerpt from the book, which shows how so-called Christians adopted the pagan 'Sun Day' into their worship. Here is a sample:

And when Christianity moved into northern Europe, "Sunday" was so common among Christians that the new northern converts simply used that name exclusively. Just as pagan forms had been conquered and appropriated, now the greatest pagan day was absorbed as well. Emerging vernacular languages around the mediterranean, where the early church was born and raised, certainly retained "Lord's Day" in common usage, but a good Christian in either north or south could now find as much Christian imagery in "Sunday" as they pleased, and thus uttered the word without a second thought. Only the later vernacular languages of eastern Christianity, and Portuguese in the west, would reject all planetary names for the days of the week as offensively pagan.

Has Dawkins been used?

A few years ago in a video interview, Richard Dawkins was asked about the origins of genetic information, and after a long silence he finally made an apparently irrelevant answer. The Creationists making the video made a big deal about him being stumped by the question. Later on the magazine 'The Skeptic', after consulting with Dawkins, published a piece about how Dawkins was conned into appearing in the video interview and the video was edited to substitute a different question for the one that was asked. After the video makers released the raw footage, the accusations were dropped. You can read more about this incident here.

Now, once again, it appears Dawkins is making the same claims about the makers of the film 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed'. Read all about it at the New York Times.