You are the 1%

One thing which is lost in the “1% vs 99%” class warfare debates here in the U.S. is this...America is absurdly wealthy. Even our poor and lower middle class are considered wealthy everywhere else.

Don’t complain about how the rich aren’t helping the poor around the world.

You are the rich. You are the 1%.

Don’t believe me?

·         In 2010, the “poverty line” in America was $23,050. If you’re a single-family income making less than this, you are considered “poor” and qualify for government assistance. By comparison, only 21 countries in the entire world have an average annual salary above this line. This means that if you are on food stamps here in the U.S., you are considered “middle class” or higher in 175 of the 196 countries in the world.

·         If you make $34,000…you are in the upper 1% in the entire world. Let me repeat that:  $34,000—not that much above what we consider poor—is the threshold for being in the upper 1% of wealthiest people in the entire world.

·         In fact, if you only make $12,000 per year…about half of the poverty line…you are richer than 90% of the world’s population.

·         In most of the world, 95% of those working earn less than $10 per day.

·         The poorest 5% of Americans are better off than 2/3 of the world population.

·         Only the richest 3% of Indians are above the poverty line in America.

And these numbers are adjusted for buying power. In other words, these are not offset by high local cost of goods—these are equalized, purchasing-power dollars.

Today, of our poorest Americans:

•       99% have electricity, running water, flushable toilets, and a refrigerator
•        95% have a television
•        88% have a telephone
•        71% have a car
•        70% have air conditioning

We love to moralize about how we shouldn’t support ‘sweatshops’ but in my experience traveling internationally, those are the jobs people fight for, the jobs people aspire to for their kids.

We have lost perspective, people.

And it’s hard to imagine Jesus returning and being all that happy with us as a result.

Reboot the Pentateuch: Series Conclusion

This is part 20 of 20 in a series about the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. In it we will explore the context of the book, specifically its relationship to the Egyptian culture of its day.

Click here to read the entire series.

I hope that this series has been as useful for you as it has been for me. Long, in-depth studies like this are actually the toughest thing for me to write: due to their nature, I generally write them weeks (or months) in advance, doing 5-6 in one go. This in turn takes a huge effort up front, and (generally) they are among the least-read and commented upon of my posts. So I often find myself, halfway through, regretting having started the series and feeling like no one but me is getting anything from them.

That said, even if literally no one reads these words but me, I can honestly say that I am far better for having done this series. I for one did not know all that I learned through commentaries and reflection in this series, and I now have a much different view of the works of Moses than I had when I began.

Key Learnings

To me, the key learnings from this series all revolved around context: you wouldn't read a phone book the same way as an owner's manual for your car or as a book of poems...and you need to take that same mindset into account when reading the Scripture.

This is particularly true of the books of Moses, for the Pentateuch is a combination of a variety of different purposes and styles--and failure to understand this is a big, big mistake. Few books in the Bible are misunderstood worse than the Pentateuch, if taken out of context.

With that in mind, I felt that there were several key findings from this series, which I hope you take with you in the future:



1. Genesis 1 should be read as a direct refutation of the Egyptian cosmology, proving that there is only one God (YHWH) and that the objects of nature (moon, river, sea, etc.) are things, not competing gods.

2.  And, consequently to #1, Genesis 1 is not written in the style of a history or scientific text, but rather as a Creation Song meant to give glory to God and disprove the Egyptian gods. To read too much into it about dating the Earth would be a tragic mistake.

3.  The book of Genesis is a collection of ten Sagas handed down to Moses and selected by the Spirit--not an exhaustive history of everything that ever happened in the entire world. There are gaps in the record, and that is okay. Its point is to show how the Hebrews ended up in Egypt, despite having been promised land in Canaan.

4.  A key feature of Genesis--showing up both in Genesis 1 and in the story of Joseph--is that man is supposed to be the Vizier/governor of God on Earth. In Egyptian society, the Pharaoh held this role and slaves were nothing in the gods' eyes. Moses' writing to the freed-slave Hebrews shows the opposite: that not only is man special among Creation, but the Hebrews are a special subset even of mankind.

5.  Exodus through Deuteronomy are meant to be read together, and show how God builds a nation and kingdom to Him.

6.  The plagues were chosen to show that God has authority over the alleged Egyptian gods, to prove to the Hebrews that YHWH was indeed real and powerful. Each plague applies to one particular Egyptian god.

7.  The Jewish religion was not invented until Moses led God's people out of slavery, and the Laws associated with it are a covenant between their descendants and Him--not the world at large. Leviticus holds a record of many of these rules.

8.  That said, the Council of Jerusalem in the first century AD agreed that in Jesus' teaching, Gentile Christians are responsible for upholding two portion of Jewish law:  bans against idolatry, and bans against sexual immorality.

9.  The overwhelming feeling of God's design of the Jewish religion is one of being set apart. To approach the Creator of the universe is not something to be done lightly: one should examine himself, prepare himself, and understand that he walks on sacred ground. The worship building was designed to set one apart from the world, with unique sights, sounds, and smells--when one entered, he knew he was engaging with God. (Unlike the modern church today, which goes out of its way to seek samenesswith everything around us, and feel no different from a mall or concert auditorium.)

10.  Deuteronomy is a formal legal document, outlining the suzerain covenant between God and man in the most direct method possible. If you wish to understand Torah, Deuteronomy is the best place to look: basically, it is the "key text" of all of Moses' writings. Everything from Genesis through Numbers is summed up in it. 

A must-watch debate on homosexuality in the Church

Today I wanted to share an absolutely brilliant debate about homosexuality and the Church. Mega-pastor Rob Bell argues for acceptance of homosexuality within the churches, while British theologian Andrew Wilson argues for the traditional, orthodox position.

What I love the most, I think, is how Andrew discusses it. He manages to present his case thoroughly and brilliantly and Biblically...but also kindly and non-judgmentally. You can be firm and clear without compromising on the truth. And for me watching it...Bell is on the ropes during this entire interview. He simply does not have actual arguments to bring to the table that can hold up to Andrew.

My favorite point, and Andrew makes it brilliantly, is where he points out that the texts on sexual morality have been consistently interpreted as anti-homosexual by every Christian theologian in every culture for 2,000 years. He then says, "The humility of orthodoxy is to say, 'I'll stay with the Church unless I'm sure that the Church has always been wrong about this. And in that sense, I want to understand what arguments you're bringing to the table to suggest the Church had always been wrong about it."

Make sure and watch the whole thing, it's very well argued.

Genetic Complexity and the Origin of Life

I found a recent study done by MIT really interesting. (Read overview here.)

This study done by geneticists found that, based on the fossil record, information in the genome increases exponentially--just like Moore's Law predicts for other forms of information capacity.

Moore's Law was developed to predict integrated circuit capacity, and found that it doubles roughly every two years. Looking at recent data and using this rule of thumb in reverse, you can predict the date at which the first integrated circuit was born--and you come up with the 1960s, which is exactly right. Using the same concept, you can look at the number of scientific publications, which double every 15 years or so...working backward, this puts the start of scientific publication at about 1710, the era of Isaac Newton and dawn of modern science.

The point is that systems which use information seem to follow an exponential curve. Interestingly, geneticists found that DNA follows that exact same pattern between different types of creatures: it seems that the complexity of genetic code doubles roughly every 375 million years or so. Even more interestingly, when plotted on a log scale you see that this concept perfectly predicts the complexity of the genome with almost no error (see graph below).

What's the point? Well, geneticists were very surprised when they ran this calculation, because it turns out...life could not possibly have evolved randomly to this point given the age of the Earth. In order for the genomic complexity we find today, the Earth needs to be between 7.2 and 12.2 billion years old! In other words, the 4.5 billion year old Earth is about half the age it needs to be for evolution to be true!

This goes along, of course, with something I have often said:  evolutionists hate the Big Bang model (once they really understand it). Darwinian evolution arose in an era where most scientists believed the Earth was infinitely old ("Steady-State model"), and opposed most cosmologies which put a creation date in. In fact, the phrase "Big Bang" was developed by evolutionary steady-staters in an attempt to discredit the theory (which they found uncomfortably close to Genesis 1's account of creation).

So here we have our genetic evidence telling us that there is no way random evolution could happen given the age of the Earth--it isn't even close. How is this not headline news to every Christian? It is a fantastic evidence of our faith!

(Of course, the authors of the study do not convert to Christianity as a result of the study...rather, they suppose that life must have started on some asteroid and stayed frozen in ice until luckily landing on the Earth. Somehow that explanation manages to make evolution even less plausible than it already is!)

No, this is clear evidence of what I have long said: the genome is far too complex, and carries far too much information, for life to have happened or evolved randomly. Have animal bodies changed/evolved throughout history? The fossil record says yes, definitely. The question is not whether creatures adapt to their environment, but whether this happens randomly (evolutionism) or purposefully (creationism)?

And here we have yet another great piece of evidence that shows how ridiculous the theory of randomness really is--don't let it pass unsaid!

Reboot the Pentateuch: A New Constitution is Ratified (Deut 1-24)

This is part 19 of 20 in a series about the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. In it we will explore the context of the book, specifically its relationship to the Egyptian culture of its day.

Click here to read the entire series.

After rescuing His people (week 16), forming a nation with its own secular laws (week 17), inventing a religion to worship Him (week 18), and helping His people inhabit a new land (last week), we reach the conclusion of God's work in the time of Moses. In this last book of the Pentateuch, we have Deuteronomy--literally, "second Law" or a  "second telling" of what God did before.

This entire book is a formal, legal code of the ancient world: a suzerain covenant between God and man, with Moses as the intercessor. If you read here you will see that I have discussed this particular covenantal structure at length before, and I will not repeat it. But to give a summary, here is how to read all of Deuteronomy:

Preamble: Deut 1:1-4
Establishes God as the sovereign, Moses as the mediator, and the Israelites as the vassals.

Historical Prologue: Deut 1:5-4:43
This recalls how God led the Israelites to possess their land and helped them overthrow their enemies. It serves as evidence for remembering why it is right for God to be the sovereign/suzerain in the agreement.

Conditions and Terms: Deut 4:44-26:19
This is a long sermon in which Moses lists every command given by God, as well as expounding on them in sermon style. He lists the conditions and terms of the covenant, recalling instances where the Jews have failed and instances in which they have succeeded. 

Witnesses: Deut 27:1-10
In this section, the Hebrews build an altar to the Lord and inscribe the words of the Law, to form a witness to their covenant with God. After this is completed, Moses says, "You have now become the people of the Lord your God." (v.9). This is the final approval of the covenant.

Cursings and Blessings: Deut 27:11-30:20
This section completes the covenant formula, describing in detail both cursings for disobedience and blessings for obedience.

Appendix: Deut 31-35

The final chapters of Deuteronomy (31-34), are an appendix recounting the death of Moses and the anointment of Joshua as his successor as chief Judge of Israel. 

This is, for all intents and purposes, their Constitution: just as we Americans formally ratified our Constitution in 1789 and put it into effect, so too is Deuteronomy the formal ratification and implementation of what God had been doing among the Jews for a full generation.

Demons run, when a good man goes to war

As I have mentioned before, I am a fan of Doctor Who. I am not quite completely obsessed like some people I know, ahem, Niki, but it is a fantastic show--and I know I have at least gotten one loyal reader hooked on it. Another person I've gotten hooked is my seven-year old son Alex (though of course he is only allowed to watch about one in four episodes).

Alex's favorite episode is, "A Good Man Goes to War." In this episode, the Doctor's companion Amy Pond has been abducted by some of the Doctor's enemies. They have stolen Amy's child and intend on raising her to be an assassin against the Doctor.

The Doctor, generally speaking, is extremely non-violent. He does not use guns or weapons, but rather relies on his wits and persuasion to make things turn out well. This stems from a past in which he was involved in a brutal war and made a terrible choice which killed most of his race, in order to also destroy the universe's most evil alien race.

He is so averse to violence now that there are few times do we see him as angry as when his friends or allies resort to violence to solve a problem. As the Doctor said in one episode, "Don't you see? Violence doesn't end violence. It extends it."

This comes into play during A Good Man Goes to War. Seeing no option other than a massive assault, the Doctor starts assembling an army out of people whom he has helped and attacks the asteroid where Amy is being held.

In a key scene, he comes face to face with Amy's kidnapper, and the two have the following exchange:

The Doctor:  "I'm angry. That's new. I'm really not sure what's going to happen now."
Madame Kovarian:  "The anger of a good man isn't a problem. Good men have too many rules."
The Doctor:  "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

You know what? The Doctor is right: good men don't need rules. We weren't given the Law by God because we were such good men: we were given so many rules precisely because we are not good men. We are capable of extraordinary evil, and therefore we are given a great, great many rules.

Indeed, every ancient religion saw this. Every ancient religion, whether polytheist or monotheist or philosophy, regardless of the continent, does the same basic two things:  (1) define rules to live by, and (2) provide some form of sacrificial system to atone for after you break one of those rules.

This is what is so wonderfully subversive about the Gospel of Christ. He calls us "good men" and removes these rules--long before we have done anything to earn such a title. (In theological terms we call this "imputed righteousness"...we are treated as good even though we have not yet shown it, having received an alien-to-us righteousness of Christ.)

Being (in God's eyes at least) "good men," our rules (the Law) are removed from us. We no longer, like the Doctor, have to have strict rules in place to protect us from ourselves.

Now, many people freed in this way respond to grace in one of two equally wrong ways: they either turn to hedonism (using freedom from the Law as an excuse to live in continual sin), or they return to works (creating a new set of Christian Law to define "goodness"). For the wrongness of the former, see Eph 5:1-20; for the wrongness of the latter, see Gal 3:1-22. Both these were written by the same man, and he exposes the flaws in both lifestyles.

How then shall we live? We live not by trying to create a list of works but rather by cultivating the qualities of a godly life. We seek not to be able to list all the great things we've done (Matt 7:21-23), but rather to become people who live a quality of life like Jesus--specifically, a life defined by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). These are not specific works done or undone, but rather values of living that define how we react in situations.

Remember, good men don't need rules--and the God of the Universe decided that all believers are "good men." Further, He promised that He gave you the qualities of a good man (2 Pet 1:3). Who are you to argue with Him--either by starving the qualities He gave you in hedonism, or blaspheming Him by finding them insufficient and thus in need of having more rules added?

You don't need rules. You are a tree planted by living water (Ps 1:3), who has all the qualities of Godliness (2 Pet 1:3), and all you need to do is get your sinful nature out of the way and let Him carry out the good work He has already begun in you (Phil 1:6).

A Grief, Observed

Do you have any of those friends who, even if you haven't seen each other in a decade, you can meet up and feel like nothing at all has changed--your friendship just picks back up where it left off? One of those men to me is a friend named Brian. When I was an engineering intern 12 years ago, Brian and I worked together and we struck up a friendship. I learned a little about drafting, and a lot about living as a Christian in the workplace, from Brian. How he dealt with tragedies taught me a lot about how to be sincere with your emotions and yet still find God's grace in difficult times.

Now, unfortunately, Brian and I are mostly just Facebook friends. But I have followed and prayed along as he lost his father and mother within a matter of a few months. A few days ago, still mourning the passing of his mother, Brian wrote about it on his Facebook wall. It was such a raw and beautiful and painful and Christ-filled reflection that I wanted to share it. Being the open man he is, he of course gave me permission to share.

If you have lost a parent, you should read the below to reflect on their life. If you haven't, you will...so read the below to prepare.

In Brian's words:

"I've had a lot of people ask me in the last few days, 'How are you?' Well, I'm going to try and tell my story and hope that it explains it all. I'm not good at this so if something comes across wrong, blame it on my inability to express myself. 

OK, here goes.

Momma passing was a terrible shock. I knew that with her dementia and that with just her age against her, that she didn't have another 10 or 15 years but I saw no signs that she would go soon. Dad did. Dad knew she wouldn't live long after him. I guess that's because he knew if it were the other way around, that he wouldn't have lived long either.

Mom began fading away several years ago. It was small things at first, and we actually laughed about it then. I guess as more of a way of not accepting it than anything else. But as time wore on, Mom got steadily worse. Then one year ago today, Dad fell and it changed everything. 

Dad went through a lot over the next 7 months and over that time I grieved for him. I know it's odd to think that I grieved a loss that hadn't happened yet, but I did. I knew it was coming and I knew I wasn't ready for it. September...October...November...I watched my hero and best friend waste away. I physically hurt, not to mention the emotional toll. When December 23 got here, I was sure I was ready.

I was not. Losing Daddy was the hardest thing I've ever done...but it didn't just hurt because of me, it hurt because I had to watch Momma let him go. The love of her life was gone and so was that fire in her eyes. 

Momma's mind was gone long before Daddy passed. Dad was good at taking care of her and she listened to him. Everyone told me that Mom listened to me too...but not like Daddy. She leaned on him. Once he was gone, she had no reason to carry on, but knew she had to.
So we spent the next four months and nine days doing our best to do just that. The whole time we were repairing our hearts over the loss of Daddy, we were struggling to take care of someone who couldn't take care of herself any more. Somewhere along the line, I stopped grieving for Daddy and started grieving for Momma. There again, I was grieving for someone I hadn't lost yet.
Again, I knew it was coming but I never expected it to be this soon. Her father, Grandpa Charlie, laid for about 5 years with dementia and I saw no reason that Mom wouldn't do the same. I watched her rapidly descend into a state of living that no one should ever have to be in. She couldn't dress herself. Got lost in the house. Stayed confused. She would look through her purse 30-40 times a day and could NEVER keep up with her handkerchief.

It hurt to watch Momma. When I stayed the weekend with Mom, I would lay awake in bed at night and grieve for her. I cried for her. I begged God for understanding and for Him to show me how to deal with her. I tried to "get in her head" so I could understand how to talk to her and get her to understand us.

It didn't work.

So somewhere along the line I accepted that Momma was gone and that I just had to do the best I could. Then last week came, and Momma was trying to call her sister that passed away several years ago. My heart sank because I knew that was just another step in the process, and I knew the day was coming when she wouldn't know who we were any more.

Then Thursday morning came. Once the initial shock passed, I wasn't sure how to feel.

Momma, just like Daddy, had wasted away in front of my eyes and no longer had a quality of life....but yet, the other side of me screamed uncontrolled inside because she was gone.

I've had a few days now to digest it all and I'm still not sure how I feel. I tell everyone I'm okay, and that's the truth. I am. But how do I mourn someone who was gone a long time ago and is better off now? How do I cry for my Daddy or my Momma when neither of them was really themselves when they passed? I miss my Daddy and my Momma dearly but they were both gone long before they quit breathing, so how do I shed tears?

It's like a war is going on inside me, with a part of me screaming at the other part to "be human" and cry, while the other part is saying, "but they were gone a long time ago." I dunno. I'm not posting this to elicit sympathy or even response to the questions. I guess I'm posting it mostly to get it out of me and "vent" so to speak. 

I can't scream at God because how can I be mad at someone who made them better? And I can't scream at the rest of the family because it's not their fault and they are hurting just as much. So I guess this is my form of screaming. Please forgive me. I ask for all of your prayers while my twisted thoughts continue to try and sort this out. I can't make sense of it, and that is the hardest part I suppose. I love you all. Thank you for being there for us over the past 4 1/2 months. It's been an awful ride...and I'm ready to get off this "train" and just rest for a while. God bless."

Please join me in offering prayers to Brian and his family.