death

So far in August we've had two "one year anniversaries". First came the bridge collapse in St. Paul and today is the mine collapse in Murry, UT. While both of these casualties are worth mourning and remembering, the thing that struck me, is that it's already been a year. Even more radical is that next month we'll have the seventh anniversary since 9-11, and, for me personally, Robbie's second birthday and the second anniversary of my grandfather's death, all of which seem far more recent than the years indicate.

Have you ever felt like time was going by so quickly that you were missing life?

Last week I ran across this article, an interview with Tim Keller, in Christianity Today. This week in my blog I decided to look at the questions he was asked, pull a quote from his answers, and share some thoughts.

Q: Why have you avoided using arguments from intelligent design in your apologetics?

A: Two people said [last night at a Veritas forum]: "I can't believe in Christianity, because look at the fossils." And I was trying to say, "Because you believe in evolution does this mean that Jesus Christ couldn't be raised from the dead?" One said, "No, that has nothing to do with it." If he was raised from the dead, then you have to take seriously the Scripture and you have to work on all this.

This is one of the things I wrestle with, especially given some of the ways that Old Earth stuff is argued. At a basic level, I have no issues with what Keller says, and if somebody could present me a great Old Earth model that addresses my issues with it, I wouldn't have any. So, what are my "issues" (well, the issues that matter for this conversation at least)?

The biggest one is death. The quick rundown of the Biblical narrative has death invading the human condition with the Fall (and becoming our final enemy ... see 1 Corinthians 15:24-26). Then Christ, through his life, death, and resurrection, overcomes death and prepares the way for the New Heavens and the New Earth. In other words, death not being natural is key to the whole resurrection narrative.

So, anybody have an Old Earth model where death isn't natural?

As I begin, I think it's important to define intolerance. Essentially, it means to "not tolerate" someone or something else. Now, to tolerate means to put up with something that you disagree with. So, by definition intolerance demands that you disagree with something. I have no problem with people disagreeing, but I do have issues with intolerance because that means other views aren't just disagreed with, they're mocked, ridiculed, and even banished.

Moving on, yesterday I started to write a post titled, "The New Colonialism", but then, for whatever reason, I decided to stop. It began to argue that there is a new dominant worldview that, much like Colonialism in ages past, is intolerant towards all other worldviews. Colonialism was largely cultural and, because it viewed Western Enlightenment culture as the pinnacle of culture, it's set out to reshape, suppress, and destroy all other cultures.

So, what's the new Colonialism? It's called naturalism, which basically says that our knowledge and understanding of the world is limited to what we can experience in space and time.

I'm glad I stopped writing yesterday, because today I was sent the link previewing Ben Stein's new movie, EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed which explores the natural pointing us to something beyond the natural. Here's the preview:

It looks like I'm not alone in seeing the intolerance.