Amazing Newton

Aitken biography examines a giant on his own terms.

From the CT Liveblog

The latest on the wildfires, and the Huckabee candidacy.

Taking Bible Stories Literally

According to a new poll conducted by the Barna Group, a substantial majority of Americans believes in the literal truth of six key Bible stories. For those of us worried about how to communicate biblical truth in our increasingly postmodern and pluralistic culture, the findings indicate that many folks continue to accept the Word of God at face value.

Here are the overall results among adults to the question of whether they thought a specific story in the Bible was “literally true, meaning it happened exactly as described in the Bible”:

Christ’s crucifixion, burial, and resurrection (75%);

Daniel in the Lion’s Den (65%);

Moses parting the Red Sea (64%);

David and Goliath (63%);

Peter walking on water (60%);

God creating the universe in six days (60%).

When you break down the numbers, it gets even more interesting. Several factors are correlated with less belief in a literal resurrection: high education, mainline vs. non-mainline Protestantism, Catholicism vs. Protestantism, and white vs. black. So, statistically speaking, a highly educated white Catholic or mainline professor from the Northeast would likely be more skeptical than a blue-collar African-American Protestant from the Midwest or South.

Further, the more skeptical you are about the Bible, the more likely it is that you are a political liberal. On the flip side, the more you take these narratives literally, the more likely you are to be a conservative:

There were very consistent patterns related to people’s political inclinations. Of the six stories examined, just one story (the resurrection of Christ) was considered to be literally true by at least half of all liberals. In contrast, among conservatives, only one of those stories was taken literally by less than 80% (the 76% who embraced the six day creation as absolute truth.) Similarly, the data showed that Republicans were more likely than either Democrats or Independents to accept each of the stories as literally accurate. For all six narratives, Independents were the voting group least likely to hold a literal interpretation, an average of twenty percentage points lower than the norm among Republicans.

This hints, to me at least, that the national Democrats, despite their recent rediscovery of people of faith, have an uphill climb ahead in winning their trust—and their votes. Certainly they have done so with African Americans. It remains to be seen if they will be able to get the much larger numbers of white Protestants to also believe in them.

Dazed by DNA

James Watson, with Francis Crick back in 1962 one of the co-discoverers of the DNA double -helix, is in rhetorical hell for saying in an October 14 interview that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."

Watson also said he sees no reason to believe different races in different parts of the world should have evolved identically, and that while we may hope all groups are equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."

Now faced with the cancellation of his British book tour (Watson has written a new book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science) and an international outcry, a "mortified" Watson, 79, is now busily apologizing "unreservedly."

"I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said," Watson said during an appearance at the Royal Society in London. "I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways that they have."

"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."

Interesting. This is the same un-boring Watson who in the past has been the author of any number of provocative comments that seek to reduce human life down to the size of the double-helix. Watson has said, "You know, the only people who say that stupid people don't exist are people who are not stupid. We know that if we go to homeless people there is an underclass with a very strong mental disease component. Those people can't pull themselves together, the brain just won't allow it. So it is not that they are weak in character, they are seriously unequal."

Watson is a persistent advocate of eugenics--improving human capacity through genetics. As practiced under people such as Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler, eugenics also became a convenient excuse to eliminate "undesirables." Watson thinks we can do eugenics right this time, though.

Should Hitler harm us for the next 200 years by saying that we cannot do genetics? People say to me that 'you are acting like Hitler'. People have accused me of being a Nazi just because I won't accept raw evolution, because I wanted to filter it a little and try to improve the quality of human life," he says. "We can say that we want to improve human beings genetically but we don't want to do it by the ways that were attempted in the past."

As William Dembski slyly comments, "Anybody willing to offer predictions about when Darwinists will be getting back big time into the eugenics business?"

For Watson now to wonder how he could have said such things seems disingenuous. The comments track very well with his reductionistic, materialistic scientism. Yes, it's good that he has apologized. But it seems odd that a man of such great learning and accomplishment would be so scientifically naive. Almost any debate in science has a nature vs. nurture component, and for Watson to boil everything down to DNA seems myopic at best. If differering "races" have different IQ or test scores, could some of that difference be explained by life experiences, nutrition, and educational opportunities? Why so quickly resort solely to biological explanations?

Certainly Watson's bias is for materialistic answers to life's questions. As he said once,

"The book of the DNA sequence would in time be regarded as more relevant to human life than the Bible.

"It tells us who we are," he says, adding without a hint of irony: "I've never read the Bible, so I'm not sure I've missed much."

One hopes that in the coming days Dr. Watson will figure out what he has been missing.

Maybe the Sky Isn't Falling

A new United Nations report, "State of the Future," points to signs of progress across many measures of human development. The document concludes, "People around the world are becoming healthier, wealthier, better educated, more peaceful, more connected, and they are living longer." According to an analysis by Stephen Moore:

World-wide illiteracy rates have fallen by half since 1970 and now stand at an all-time low of 18%. More people live in free countries than ever before. The average human being today will live 50% longer in 2025 than one born in 1955.

To what do we owe this improvement? Capitalism, according to the U.N. Free trade is rightly recognized as the engine of global prosperity in recent years. In 1981, 40% of the world's population lived on less than $1 a day. Now that percentage is only 25%, adjusted for inflation. And at current rates of growth, "world poverty will be cut in half between 2000 and 2015"--which is arguably one of the greatest triumphs in human history. Trade and technology are closing the global "digital divide," and the report notes hopefully that soon laptop computers will cost $100 and almost every schoolchild will be a mouse click away from the Internet (and, regrettably, those interminable computer games).

It also turns out that the Malthusians (who worried that we would overpopulate the planet) got the story wrong. Human beings aren't reproducing like Norwegian field mice. Demographers now say that in the second half of this century, the human population will stabilize and then fall.

Yet despite all this progress, much of what hear these days in the mainstream media seems designed to scare us about global warming, environmental destruction, crumbling families, rampant crime, Islamofascism, and global terror. And while these dangers may (or may not) be real, certainly it can't be un-Christian to give thanks to the One who rules unseen in the affairs of human beings, causing his rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Many of the causes of these good gifts result from the influernce of Christianity, including political freedom, economic growth, and the rise of modern science. Surely a person of faith can see the glass as half-full, at least sometimes. We don't always have to claim the sky is falling.

Granted, the world still has major problems (such as the fact that more than a billion people subsist on a dollar a day or less). But what does Christianity, which calls the poor blessed and offers mankind real peace, have to say to a world that increasingly feels rich and unthreatened? What do Christians who seek to meet felt needs to introduce people to Christ do when people feel no needs? If your main appeal is helping people to feel better in the here and now, what do you say when they already feel good? And given the fact that the church often grows amid suffering, what happens when there is no suffering? Yes, the kindness of God is intended to lead us to repentance, but sometimes it seems as if few are so led.

Certainly felt needs do not always match real needs. And Christianity teaches that our real, most basic need (whether we know it or not) is forgiveness of our sins in order to have life with God. No matter how much comfort and convenience ths world offers, it cannot give us a relationship with God. Only Christ can do that. How do we communicate the Good News in this context? It hasn't worked out too well in affluent Western Europe, has it?

One final thought: This talk of human progress and development is eerily reminiscent of talk a hundred or so years ago that the 20th century was to be the "Christian century." Then came the Great War. Then Hitler. Then Stalin. What started so brightly turned to chaos in the space of a few years. It all reminds me of the Scripture that basically says, "They will be saying 'Peace' and 'Safety,' when sudden destruction will come upon them."

With the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the decoding of the human genome (with all its potential for good and ill), may the same history not repeat itself in our day. But there are no guarantees.

Christian bookstore manager martyred in Gaza City

Rami Ayyad received death threats after store bombing in April.
By Deann Alford

Clinical Deception

Officials of Aurora, Illinois, have given their approval for a massive new abortion clinic run by Planned Parenthood to open today. Yesterday the county states attorney found that PP had committed no criminal wrongdoing despite hiding the true nature and ownership of the $7.5 million facility while applying for a permit. In a report in today's Chicago Tribune, PP supporters were jubilant--and unrepentant about their misdirection--while opponents promised to continue the fight:

"This is not just a victory for Planned Parenthood, but also a victory for women and families in that area who want access to health care," said Steve Trombley, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area.

Opponents said they intend to continue to fight the clinic in court, at the City Council, and with round-the-clock protests and prayer vigils.

If all this facility provides is health care, I wonder why PP had to resort to stealth tactics to get it approved. What would supporters say if a bar, a casino, or a strip club moved into their neighborhood using such methods? I'll bet they wouldn't be crowing about "access."

In Sickness and in Health?

A new study out of Norway suggests that cancer doesn't make divorce more likely--unless the diagnosis is for testicular or cervical cancer. According to a report in the Chicago Tribune:

In research presented Thursday at a meeting of the European Cancer Organization, Norwegian experts found cancer patients were no more likely to get divorced than people without cancer, except for those with cervical and testicular cancer. The divorce rate actually dropped slightly in the years following diagnosis for most cancers, they said.

But the study showed women with cervical cancer had a 40 percent higher chance of getting divorced than other women. Men with testicular cancer were 20 percent more likely to get divorced than similar men without cancer. Both types of cancer are curable and are diagnosed at younger ages than other cancers.

A number of reasons are suggested: (1) the marriages are younger and not as established; (2) the diagnoses can interfere with couples' sexual lives, which further undercuts their emotional bonding; and (in the case of cervical cancer) such diagnoses may lead to suspicions of infidelity.

The good news is (1) cancer is not usually a marriage-killer, and (2) the divorce risk for these two forms of cancer seems to decline with age:

Women with cervical cancer had nearly a 70 percent greater risk of divorce at the age of 20, a level that fell to 19 percent at 60. For testicular cancer, the divorce risk was 34 percent at 20 and 16 percent at 60, it said.

Something for Christians to keep in mind when cancer comes to church. The attack comes not just against our bodies, but against our marriages. Ministry to families facing cancer should thus be holistic, encompassing body and soul.

Iraq Ministry Surge

Three groups find embattled Christians reaching out to each other and an oasis in the country's north.
By Susan Wunderink