Now Are We In Christ Jesus ?

When you accepted Jesus as your Lord, and actual creation took place. The old man - your unregenerated spirit man - was replaced by a new man, created in Christ Jesus. Old things passed away and all things became new. The new birth that occurred in you was done by the creative power of God. It took place inside you - in your spirit.

The "creation" that ocurs at the new birth is the same type of "creation" that took place in the first chapter of Genesis. The word translated created in Genesis 1:1 gives the impression that before God brought heaven and earth into existence, there was nothing like it anywhere else. The same is true with the "new creation in Christ Jesus." You are a "new species of being that never existed before."

As a born-again believer, sin has no dominion over you. It can't dominate you. It has to leave you. Satan is a defeated foe; he is not your god. James 4:7 says that if you resist him, he will flee from you.

You need to see yourself "in Christ" and know the reality of it. If you ask some people today, "Are you a son of God?" They'll say, "Who me? Certainly not!" When you ask, "Are you saved?", they'll say, "Oh yes, thank God, I'm just an old sinner, saved by grace." No , you are not! You were a sinner; you got saved by grace! You can't be both at once. You are a new creation in Christ Jesus. You have been born into the kingdom of His love. As far as God is concerned, you are holy, blameless, and beyond reproach. So quit thinking, speaking, and acting like the world. Let go of all those religious "sin tags." Begin confessing that you are the righteousness of God in Christ.

Everything Jesus received when He was raised from the dead, everything that has happened to Jesus since He was raised from the dead, is yours - not just part of it, all of it!

When Jesus was raised from the dead, He received a glorified body. You will get one, too.

Where did Jesus go when He was raised? To the right hand of the Father. That's where you are now! Ephesians 2:6 says, "And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Jesus was raised from the dead by the mighty power of God and was seated at His own right hand in the heavenly places. That same mighty power of God worked in you when you made Jesus the Lord of your life. It raised you up and set you in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

He is in you and you are in Him. His inheritance and your inheritance are one in the same. You are a joint-heir with Him.​………However, you will never receive any portion of your inheritance until you begin to acknowledge it. With your thoughts, your words, and your actions, you acknowledge the fact that you are in Christ Jesus, that you have received an inheritance, that you have the right to walk in all the blessings and promises of God's Word. Acknowledge the things of God and allow the assurance of them to enter into your heart. Then see them become a part of your life in every area.

How have you been approaching God...on the level of a king or on the level of a beggar? Are you backing your way into the presence of God, hoping to get a handout?

When you made Jesus your Lord, He made you able to stand in the presence of the Father God as a king and a priest, not as a beggar - as the righteousness of God in Christ, not as a sinner. You have been redeemed out of the kingdom of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. You have been redeemed into kingship and priesthood. You are a king and a priest in Christ Jesus!

Read Kenneth Copeland's full article

A question of justice

Suppose a serial killer like Jeffrey Dahmer enjoys a lifestyle torturing, killing and cannibalizing people for fun. He eventually gets caught and goes to prison. In prison he becomes a born-again Christian and all this sins are absolved from him. He then gets killed and goes to heaven since the mere act of conversion into Christianity cleanses him of all previous wrong doings. Some of this victims however were not Christian when they were murdered and so they go to hell when they die. So not only are the murder victims tortured and murdered in this world, they get sent to hell to be tortured even worse, but now it is forever, while their murderer enjoys everlasting peace in heaven

​Click to read more:

Three Views: Why Confess Sins in Worship When It Seems So Rote?

​T​

he value of corporate confession comes simply from the fact that we are doing it with people—those we've been glad to share ministry with, and those we find more difficult to appreciate. A person in the next pew may have slighted us; we may have just learned that a person across the aisle was insulted by something we said. Corporate confession is a time to air it all out and reflect on our regrettable tendency to harm one another. It is a great equalizer, reminding us that we are all guilty of sinful actions and omissions, and that we all need forgiveness.

In his classic rule for monastic living, Benedict recommends that the community recite the Lord's Prayer together several times a day to help uproot the thorns of contention that spring up in community life. I believe that corporate confession on Sunday mornings can work in much the same way.

Of course, anyone can sleep walk through confession. You may begin to pray with good intentions, and may even be painfully conscious of having done something regrettable, when suddenly you are preoccupied with whether or not you took out the dinner rolls to thaw.

​Click to read​

Q+A: Why Rowan Williams Loves C.S. Lewis

To many American readers, it probably doesn't seem strange that a British Christian leader would write a book about C.S. Lewis's Narnia. But as former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams himself notes, Lewis's children's stories have always been more popular in America than in Britain, especially among intellectual elites. Williams has published several significant volumes of theology and poetry, but earlier this year he released a relatively slim volume on how the Narnia books can reinvigorate readers' understanding of the Christian message. While working as CT's editorial resident, Melissa Steffan interviewed Williams as she reported a separate story on new interest in Lewis in the UK. (Meanwhile, the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College is today hosting a conference on why Lewis has had more influence in the U.S. than in his own country

​.

Click to read​

Waiting with Our Response

Choosing life instead of death demands an act of will that often contradicts our impulses. Our impulses want to take revenge, while our wills want to offer forgiveness. Our impulses push us to an immediate response: When someone hits us in the face, we impulsively want to hit back.

How then can we let our wills dominate our impulses? The key word is wait. Whatever happens, we must put some space between the hostile act directed toward us and our response. We must distance ourselves, take time to think, talk it over with friends, and wait until we are ready to respond in a life-giving way. Impulsive responses allow evil to master us, something we always will regret. But a well thought-through response will help us to "master evil with good" (Romans 12.21).-

​Nouwen's resources​

Chaos and Grace in the Slums of the Earth

​F​

or the first time in history, one of every two people lives in a city. Some 860 million of these city-dwellers reside in slums—uncertain, cramped, and frequently cruel. Most are there by necessity.

A small number of Christian missionaries live in slums too. They are there by choice.

About 100 of them, mostly from the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, met near Bangkok this past April. They gathered under the banner of "New Friars."

The New Friars don't seem to merit high-profile attention. Their efforts to alleviate poverty are small next to the work of many missionary and nonprofit groups and the problems they address.

Yet we do well to listen to the New Friars, because of the way they themselves are listening to God and neighbor, to suffering and hope on the crowded margins of society. They address vital questions about missions today, and about how all Christians might practice our vocations with sacrifice, devotion, and hope.

​Click to read​

Is Family Decline Behind Religious Decline?

​E​

very pastor knows that having kids has a way of bringing young parents inside the church doors. Or, at least, every pastor used to think so. Today, it's less clear. There was a time when you could almost count on young people whose attendance had dropped off after they left Mom and Dad's watchful eyes to return when they became parents themselves. But increasingly, young people who leave aren't coming back. What's going on? According to Mary Eberstadt, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, it has a lot to do with the fact that fewer young people are getting married and having kids.

And if they do finally settle down to start a family, it's much later than it used to be. For Eberstadt, there's an intrinsic link between faith and family, and the decline of the family in Western society has a lot to do with the shrinking size of our churches. In fact, that's How the West Really Lost God, as the title of her new book puts it. "As the family goes," Eberstadt argues, "so go the churches." In North Atlantic societies, the family has not done well in recent years, and to her mind that's been the single most important factor driving secularizing trends in the Western world

​...

Click to read​

The Mystery of Original Sin

​L​

egend has it that G. K. Chesterton, asked by a newspaper reporter what was wrong with the world, skipped over all the expected answers. He said nothing about corrupt politicians or ancient rivalries between warring nations, or the greed of the rich and the covetousness of the poor. He left aside street crime and unjust laws and inadequate education. Environmental degradation and population growth overwhelming the earth's carrying capacity were not on his radar. Neither were the structural evils that burgeoned as wickedness became engrained in society and its institutions in ever more complex ways.

What's wrong with the world? As the story goes, Chesterton responded with just two words: "I am."

His answer is unlikely to be popular with a generation schooled to cultivate self-esteem, to pursue its passions and chase self-fulfillment first and foremost. After all, we say, there are reasons for our failures and foibles. It's not our fault that we didn't win the genetic lottery, or that our parents fell short in their parenting, or that our third-grade teacher made us so ashamed of our arithmetic errors that we gave up pursuing a career in science. Besides, we weren't any worse than our friends, and going along with the gang made life a lot more comfortable. We have lots of excuses for why things go wrong, and—as with any lie worth its salt—most of them contain some truth.

​Click to read​

Why Are Mathew and Luke Genealogies Different?

At face value it may seem strange that Matthew and Luke record different genealogies of Jesus. Many, including Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, and Islamic apologist Shabbir Ally (Further Reading 4), have alluded to this comparison when accusing the Bible of contradiction.


However, these genealogies can be better understood with some general background information:

Biblical Genealogies

Biblical genealogies have different properties from the family trees that we are familiar with today.

Firstly, Biblical genealogies use the terms 'son' and 'father' loosely. They can mean either direct descendant or distant descendant. For example, we read in Luke 3:8 and John 8:39 that a group of religious teachers said to Jesus, 'Abraham is our father', which is absurd in the modern sense, since Abraham lived thousands of years before. Similarly, Jesus is described throughout the New Testament as 'the son of David' (Matthew 1:1), who lived hundreds of years before Jesus was born.

Click to read

Feminist Perspectives on the Body

In terms of the history of western philosophy, the philosophy of embodiment is relatively recent. For much of this history the body has been conceptualised as simply one biological object among others, part of a biological nature which our rational faculties set us apart from, as well as an instrument to be directed and a possible source of disruption to be controlled. Problematically for feminists, the opposition between mind and body has also been correlated with an opposition between male and female, with the female regarded as enmeshed in her bodily existence in a way that makes attainment of rationality questionable. "Women are somehow more biological, morecorporeal, and more natural than men" (Grosz 14). Such enmeshment in corporeality was also attributed to colonised bodies and those attributed to the lower classes (McClintock 1995, Alcoff 2006, 103). Challenging such assumptions required feminists to confront corporeality in order to elucidate and confront constructions of sexual difference.

Click to read

Animal Rights and Buddhism

From a Buddhist perspective, it seems to me the tricky part of this question is not "animals," but "rights." The concept of rights developed in western civilization over many centuries and came to fruition during the 17th century or so, in the work of Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke.  But there was no such concept in the world 25 centuries ago, during the time of the Buddha.

Click to read

Advaita Vedanta - Adi Sankara's views

Adi Sankara's treatises on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras are his principal and almost undeniably his own works. Although he mostly adhered to traditional means of commenting on the Brahma Sutra, there are a number of original ideas and arguments. He taught that it was only through knowledge and wisdom of nonduality that one could be enlightened.

Sankara's opponents accused him of teaching Buddhism in the garb of Hinduism, because his non-dualistic ideals were a bit radical to contemporary Hindu philosophy. However, it may be noted that while the Later Buddhists arrived at a changeless, deathless, absolute truth after their insightful understanding of the unreality of samsara, historically Vedantins never liked this idea. Although Advaita also proposes the theory of Maya, explaining the universe as a "trick of a magician", Sankara and his followers see this as a consequence of their basic premise that Brahman is real. Their idea of Maya emerges from their belief in the reality of Brahman, rather than the other way around.

Sankara was a peripatetic orthodox Hindu monk who traveled the length and breadth of India. The more enthusiastic followers of the Advaita tradition claim that he was chiefly responsible for "driving the Buddhists away". Historically the decline of Buddhism in India is known to have taken place long after Sankara or even Kumarila Bhatta (who according to a legend had "driven the Buddhists away" by defeating them in debates), sometime before the Muslim invasion into Afghanistan (earlier Gandhara).

Although today's most enthusiastic followers of Advaita believe Sankara argued against Buddhists in person, a historical source, the Madhaviya Sankara Vijayam, indicates that Sankara sought debates with Mimamsa, Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika and Yoga scholars as keenly as with any Buddhists. In fact his arguments against the Buddhists are quite mild in the Upanishad Bhashyas, while they border on the acrimonious in the Brahma Sutra Bhashya.

The Vishistadvaita and Dvaita schools believed in an ultimatelysaguna Brahman. They differ passionately with Advaita, and believe that his nirguna Brahman is not different from the Buddhist Sunyata(wholeness or zeroness) — much to the dismay of the Advaita school. A careful study of the Buddhist Sunyata will show that it is in some ways metaphysically similar as Brahman. Whether Sankara agrees with the Buddhists is not very clear from his commentaries on the Upanishads. His arguments against Buddhism in the Brahma Sutra Bhashyas are more a representation of Vedantic traditional debate with Buddhists than a true representation of his own individual belief. (See link: Sankara's arguments against Buddhism)

Click to read

Spe Salvi facti sumus……in hope we were saved

In the encyclical about hope running into about 75 pages, Pope Benedict is not proposing a facile hope in heaven undoing injustices of life on earth. Indeed, this is where he brings in Dostoyevsky. The Pope asserts that "the last Judgment is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope". A world without God is a world without hope, and "God is justice". Only God can provide the justice that sustains hope in the better future—the eternal life—for one and all. "God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner relationship."

With justice comes grace, yet "grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on Earth ends up being of equal value. Dostoyevsky, for example, was right to protest against this kind of Heaven and this kind of grace in his novel "The Brothers Karamazov". Evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing had happened."

Click to read article

Vatican welcome to Anglicans boldest move since Reformation

The Vatican launched an historic initiative Tuesday to make it easier for disgruntled Anglicans worldwide to join the Roman Catholic Church. The church said the move was not a swipe at the Anglicans but it could nevertheless result in hundreds of thousands of churchgoers unhappy with openly gay and female clerics defecting to Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI gave his approval to a new framework to bring back into the fold Anglicans who oppose their church's liberal stance on gay marriage and the ordination of women priests and gay bishops while allowing them to retain some of their separate religious traditions.

The move comes nearly 500 years after Henry VIII's desire for a divorce led him to break with Rome and proclaim himself as the head of the newly formed Church of England in 1534. The framework is the Vatican's most sweeping gesture toward any schismatic church since the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century and the Thirty Years' War that followed it in the 17th century. That war ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which acknowledged the right of monarchs rather than the Vatican to determine their national faiths, prompting Pope Innocent X to declare the document "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time."

Click for full article

A BALANCED APPROACH TO CHANGE

Introduction:

    1. "Change" is the word for the 90's.  To some change means progress; for others it poses a threat.  On the one hand it seems that some among us think that any change would be better than what we have and they are ready to try almost anything as long as it is new.  Others of us, however, see this as a very dangerous attitude because we see some of the suggested changes as being departures from the Biblical pattern.  Obviously there are some changes which are harmless and may be helpful, but we need to be cautious about changes that might affect doctrinal purity.  Extremes in either direction can be hurtful.  To favor change simply because it is change may lead to a rejection of New Testament authority.  To oppose a change simply because it is different from that to which we are accustomed can be a repudiation of Christian liberty.

    2. We have chosen Phil. 3:4-16 as the framework for "A Balanced Approach to Change."  Of course, Paul was not dealing with identical circumstances, but the text will show us some principles that can help us with the issue of change.


Discussion:

I. It will be Helpful for Us to Reflect on what We Left behind in our Pursuit of Pure Christianity.

     A. Phil. 3:4-6 describe Paul's former religion. In the eyes of the world, in the eyes of popular religion, his position was impressive. What is clear, however, is that he had no desire to go back to those things. The Pharisee "denomination" was something Paul had known from the inside, and he saw no merit in its traditions.

     B. Some of us have personally came out of certain denominations to embrace Biblical truth. This should have the effect of making us especially cautious in regard to changes that would move us toward the errors that we left.

     C. One thing necessary to help us to keep a balanced perspective regarding change is, therefore, that we keep in mind that the faiths and practices of denominationalism, though sometimes appealing on the surface, are worthless and destructive. We have no more reason for wanting to be like modern sects than Paul had for wanting to be like the Pharisees.


II. As We Consider Changes We must Make Sure We are not Pursuing the Wrong Goals.

    A. While the text expresses it in several ways, the only thing that mattered to Paul was that he please Christ, being acceptable to Him (Phil. 3:7-11).  The context names things especially related to his Jewish heritage (Phil. 3:4-6), but "all things" are meaningless compared to being accepted by Christ.

    B. There is a particular temptation to make and our religious practices more compatible with things considered "important" to the world.  However, here are some things we must guard against:

    1. An inordinate obsession with numbers and budgets.  It sometimes seems that "church growth" has become an end in itself.

    2. The desire to be intellectually sophisticated.  Is this what is behind the idea that a "new hermeneutic" must replace what is considered to be "simplistic pattern theology"?

    3. Pressure to be "politically correct."  For example, to continue to forbid women to preach will label us as "sexists."

    4. Compatibility with culture.  Proposed changes in music would (allegedly) be more appealing to an entertainment-oriented society.  Some are asserting that drama is more preferable to preaching sermons.


III. But a Balanced Approach regarding Change also Requires that We Understand that Some Changes will always Be in Order.

    A. Paul did not claim perfection (Phil. 3:12-14).  Where there is room for growth, there is room for change.  This is not always what those calling for change mean, of course, but personally we must admit our lack of perfection.

    B. In one sense, therefore, we can speak of a completed restoration. On the other hand, we should realize that restoration is never complete, so long as we have not "already attained, neither were already perfect."

    C. As an over-reaction against radical calls for change we may resist even Scriptural and helpful improvements.

    1. It is folly not to accept changes in the way we do things when such changes are Scriptural and expedient.  History will show that things now generally found to be useful were historically resisted because they represented change.  (For examples, Sunday classes, individual communion cups, etc.)

    2. It is the heresy of presumption to condemn others for changes that are not violations of Scripture, even though they are different from that to which we have been accustomed, and even though we may doubt their value (cf.  Deut. 18:20.)


IV. It Is Essential, however, that We never Give Up what has already been Attained in Faith and Practice.

    A. The NASB renders Phil. 3:16, "However, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained."

    B. The principle applies to both personal holiness and the practice of the church.  Today we should be committed to New Testament Christianity. We should insist that the Bible be our only standard.  Appropriating the words of Paul, the point is that we must be faithful to what we have already found to be right (cf. 2 John 1:9.)

    C. Our concern for this will make us cautious.

    1. Some changes which at first seem acceptable may be, in actuality, stepping-stones to error.

    2. Things may be in the realm of judgment, but would be bad judgment.


Conclusion:

    Certain key questions are always in order when changes are suggested: Is it Scriptural?  Is it safe?  Is it really profitable?  And, do others have a Scriptural right to choose this change, even if it is not my personal choice?

Ideas expressed by David Pharr

Why Does the Date for Easter Change Every Year

Why does the date for Easter change every year? Have you ever wondered
why Easter Sunday can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25? And
why do Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Easter on a different day
than Western churches? These are all good questions with answers that
require a bit of explanation. In fact, there are as many
misunderstandings about the calculation of Easter dates, as there are
reasons for the confusion. What follows is an attempt to clear up at
least some of the confusion.

In Western Christianity, Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday
immediately following the Paschal Full Moon date of the year. I had
previously, and somewhat erroneously stated, "Easter is always
celebrated on the Sunday immediately following the first full moon
after the vernal (spring) equinox." This statement was true prior to
325 AD; however, over the course of history (beginning in 325 AD with
the Council of Nicea), the Western Church decided to established a
more standardized system for determining the date of Easter.

In actuality, the date of the Paschal Full Moon is determined from
historical tables, and has no correspondence to lunar events.

As Astronomers were able to approximate the dates of all the full
moons in future years, the Western Christian Church used these
calculations to establish a table of Ecclesiastical Full Moon dates.
These dates would determine the Holy Days on the Ecclesiastical
calendar.

Though modified slightly from its original form, by 1583 AD the table
for determining the Ecclesiastical Full Moon dates was permanently
established and has been used ever since to determine the date of
Easter. Thus, according to the Ecclesiastical tables, the Paschal Full
Moon is the first Ecclesiastical Full Moon date after March 20 (which
happened to be the vernal equinox date in 325 AD). So, in Western
Christianity, Easter is always celebrated on the Sunday immediately
following the Paschal Full Moon.

The Paschal Full Moon can vary as much as two days from the date of
the actual full moon, with dates ranging from March 21 to April 18. As
a result, Easter dates can range from March 22 through April 25 in
Western Christianity.

Historically, western churches used the Gregorian Calendar to
calculate the date of Easter and Eastern Orthodox churches used the
Julian Calendar. This was partly why the dates were seldom the same.

Easter and its related holidays do not fall on a fixed date in either
the Gregorian or Julian calendars, making them movable holidays. The
dates, instead, are based on a lunar calendar very similar to the
Hebrew Calendar.

While some Eastern Orthodox Churches not only maintain the date of
Easter based on the Julian Calendar which was in use during the First
Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 325 AD, they also use the actual,
astronomical full moon and the actual vernal equinox as observed along
the meridian of Jerusalem. This complicates the matter, due to the
inaccuracy of the Julian calendar, and the 13 days that have accrued
since 325 AD. This means, in order to stay in line with the originally
established (325 AD) vernal equinox, Orthodox Easter cannot be
celebrated before April 3 (present day Gregorian calendar), which was
March 21 in 325 AD.

Additionally, in keeping with the rule established by the First
Ecumenical Council of Nicea, the Eastern Orthodox Church adhered to
the tradition that Easter must always fall after the Jewish Passover,
since the death, burial and Resurrection of Christ happened after the
celebration of Passover. Eventually the Orthodox Church came up with
an alternative to calculating Easter based on the Gregorian calendar
and Passover, and developed a 19-year cycle, as opposed to the Western
Church 84-year cycle.

Since the days of early church history, determining the precise date
of Easter has been a matter for continued argument. For one, the
followers of Christ neglected to record the exact date of Jesus'
resurrection. From then on the matter grew increasingly complex.

Mary Fairchild

Proof' David slew Goliath found as Israeli archaeologists unearth 'oldest ever Hebrew text'

By Matthew Kalman

Astounding new evidence has been unearthed in Israel that could confirm the biblical story of King David.

Until now, almost nothing has been found  that would prove the biblical account of a shepherd boy from the 10th century BC who slew the giant Goliath and went on to become the King of Israel who founded Jerusalem.

But today Hebrew University archaeology professor Yosef Garfinkel announced the discovery of a tiny, but potentially invaluable, piece of pottery at the site of the ruins of an ancient fortified city south-west of Jerusalem dated to the time of King David.

Enlarge  

Yossi Garfinkel displays the ceramic shard bearing a Hebrew inscription that may be evidence supporting the biblical story of David and Goliath

Garfinkel said that it carried the earliest-known Hebrew inscription, some 850 years  earlier than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Scholars are still trying to decipher the full text of the inscription, but Garfinkel said they are excited at the prospect of a link to David because they have already translated the words for "king," "judge," and  "slave" , which he said suggested it was some sort of official note from the time of his reign.

Until now, scholars have been unable to say whether King David was indeed the  heroic, psalm-composing monarch depicted in the Bible or the local and unimportant leader of a small tribe.

Enlarge  

The archaeological site called Elah Fortress, or Khirbet Qeiyafa, seen in an undated aerial photograph, where the shard was found

Only one biblical-era inscription with the words "House of David" has ever been  discovered, leading some scholars to question whether King David existed at all.

The pottery fragment was inscribed with five rows of text in black ink divided by black lines written in an early Hebrew-Canaanite script.

 

More...

• '2,000-year-old Jesus box' may not be a fake, as Jerusalem forgery trial nears collapses

Archaeologists also found lamps, pottery jars and other items. Carbon-14 tests  carried out at Oxford University dated them to the 10th century BC, the era according to the Old Testament of King David and his son Solomon, who built the Temple in Jerusalem.

The ruins of the Elah Valley fortress was discovered  in 2003 near the modern Israeli city of Beit Shemesh in the Judean Hills, south-west of  Jerusalem. The huge complex is spread over nearly six acres and surrounded by a 700-metre long city wall built with stones weighing up to eight tons each. 

Bible come true? David with the head of Goliath by William Daniels

Enlarge  

Yossi Garfinkel is seen at the excavation site

Detailed excavations began only earlier this year.

The fortress would have controlled the ancient trading route from Jerusalem to the coast and overlooks the plain where David engaged in his legendary mortal combat with Goliath, giant champion of the rival Philistines.

Goliath's home town of Gath was unearthed just a few miles away to the south.

"The chronology and geography of Elah Fortress create a unique meeting point between the history, historiography and origins of the early Davidic Kingdom," said Garfinkel.

"This is the oldest Judean city  uncovered to date, and its very construction has unprecedented implications on our understanding of this era." 

Garfinkel said the sophistication and size of the city suggested it was part of  a strong, centrally-planned kingdom.

It has been a busy week for archaeologists searching for King David and his family. In Jerusalem, a researcher said she had found an ancient water drain mentioned in the Bible as the route used by David's forces to capture the city  from the Jebusites.

In Jordan, scholars said they had uncovered an ancient  copper excavation site that tests showed could be the legendary King Solomon's Mines.

What happened at Lambeth 2008

THE 2008 LAMBETH CONFERENCE of Anglican bishops in Canterbury July 16-August 3 was a milestone in this march of relativism. While nothing extraordinary happened - no fist fights or beatific visions - a number of prelates came away from Lambeth realizing the Anglican Communion no longer worked. Its structures were not a place for holy men, but for hollow men: bishops who knew in their hollow hearts they were stuffed with straw, trapped in a purposeless whirl of apathy and spiritual torpor called "dialogue." The Anglican Communion had finally broken, coming to an end "not with a bang but a whimper."

While past Lambeth Conferences have endeavored to speak clearly on matters of common concern as a guide to the global church, Lambeth 2008 was designed to, and did, decline to draw the line between the irreconcilable claims of the left and right. Gene Robinson's cry that "God is doing a new thing," and that the affirmation of his election as Bishop of New Hampshire showed that "God has once again brought an Easter out of Good Friday," was left to stand alongside the claims of traditionalists like Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker, who argued that the standard the church must use in moving forward with change was the rule of Vincent of Lerins: a once-for-all received faith, witnessed everywhere and by all. Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.

While the liberal juggernaut has ground through The Episcopal Church (TEC) over the past generation, carrying prayer book revision and women's ordination with it across the 38-province Anglican Communion, Vincent's 5th century rule had been consistently applied to questions of sexual ethics. At the 13th Lambeth Conference in 1998, bishops of the Communion affirmed by a 7 to 1 margin the church's traditional teaching on human sexuality, as informed by Scripture and the church's unbroken teaching of 2,000 years.

The onus lies with those who seek change to convince the church of the need for it, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, explained after Lambeth '98. Listening to proponents of change acknowledges their honorable motives, he told the clergy of the Diocese of Central Florida in 2003, but entering into a conversation with them does not validate their arguments.

"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent," George Orwell once wrote of Gandhi, and the same standard applies in the development of doctrine, Lord Carey argued. However, the 14th Lambeth Conference under the presidency of Archbishop Rowan Williams said goodbye to all that.

AT LAMBETH '08, Dr. Williams lost the confidence of his fellow archbishops, and left the Communion millions in debt, and on the same trajectory as before the Conference began. Left and right have rejected his pleas for restraint, vitiating the renewed call in Canterbury for moratoria on gay bishops and blessings and cross-border episcopal actions, pending putative rescue by an Anglican Covenant at some uncertain date. New layers of bureaucracy suggested at Lambeth (e.g. a "Pastoral Forum" and "Faith and Order Commission") remain to be developed at a time when many saw stronger measures to restore order as overdue. Meanwhile, Roman Catholic and Orthodox representatives announced the effective end of talks aimed at corporate reunion and the recognition of Anglican orders.

Philosophically, the Lambeth Conference witnessed the retirement of the historic Anglican guides of Scripture, Tradition and reason in divining truth. Scripture was subordinated to experience and culture, reason rejected in favor of political power, and Tradition debased into equal parts antiquarianism and haberdashery.

Click to read full report

Church makes ‘ludicrous’ apology to Charles Darwin - 126 years after his death

In his Autobiography, Darwin wrote,

"Formerly I was led... to the firm conviction of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, 'it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind.' I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind."

In 1880, in reply to a correspondent, Charles wrote, "I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God"

If the church of England is offering an apology to such a person, it has drited too far and is seriously compromising its faith which is a pity for all members who call themselves Anglicans.

Church makes 'ludicrous' apology to Charles Darwin - 126 years after his death

By Jonathan Petre
Last updated at 10:45 PM on 13th September 2008

The Church of England will tomorrow officially apologise to Charles Darwin for misunderstanding his theory of evolution.

In a bizarre step, the Church will address its contrition directly to the Victorian scientist himself, even though he died 126 years ago.

But the move was greeted with derision last night, with Darwin's great-great-grandson dismissing it as 'pointless' and other critics branding it 'ludicrous'.

A meeting of minds: Charles Darwin and, right, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams

Church officials compared the apology to the late Pope John Paul II's decision to say sorry for the Vatican's 1633 trial of Galileo, the astronomer who appalled prelates by declaring that the earth revolved around the sun.

The officials said that senior bishops wanted to atone for the vilification their predecessors heaped on Darwin in the 1860s, when he put forward his theory that man was descended from apes.

The Church is also anxious to counter the view that its teaching is incompatible with science. It wants to distance itself from fundamentalist Christians, who believe in the Biblical account of the creation of the world in seven days.

An article to be posted on the Church's website will say: 'Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth [in 1809], the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still.

'But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests.'

The article has been written by the Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, the director of mission and public affairs of the Archbishops' Council, the Church's managing body, which is headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

Revolutionary: Darwin's best-known book, published in 1859

Dr Brown writes: 'People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and Churches are no exception. When a big new idea emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it's easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights.

'The Church made that mistake with Galileo's astronomy and has since realised its error. Some Church people did it again in the 1860s with Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.

'So it is important to think again about Darwin's impact on religious thinking, then and now.'

Dr Brown argues that there is nothing incompatible between the scientific theories adopted by Darwin and Christian teaching.

The English naturalist, geologist and collector, best known for his 1859 book On The Origin Of Species, scandalised Victorian society with his theory that all species of life evolved from common ancestors.

One of the most venomous clashes over his ideas took place in 1860 during a debate at Oxford University. The Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, asked the evolutionist and Darwin champion, Thomas Huxley, whether it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed to be descended from a monkey.

Huxley replied that he would not be ashamed to have an ape for his ancestor but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his gifts to obscure the truth.

In his article, Dr Brown writes: 'His [Darwin's] theory caused offence because it challenged the view that God had created human beings as an entirely different kind of creation to the rest of the animal world.

'But while it is not difficult to see why evolutionary thinking was offensive at the time, on reflection it is not such an earth-shattering idea.'

The Church's move will reignite the debate over creationism. In the United States, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin argues that it should be taught in schools.

In this country, the Rev Professor Michael Reiss, a biologist director of education at the Royal Society, provoked a furore last week when he called for creationism to be treated in school science lessons as a legitimate world view.

Ann Widdecombe: 'We've already apologised for slavery and the Crusades. When is it all going to stop?'

Last night, the Church, which apologised for its role in the slave trade two years ago, came in for fierce criticism for its latest mea culpa.

Former Conservative Minister Ann Widdecombe, who left the Church of England to become a Roman Catholic, said: 'It's absolutely ludicrous. Why don't we have the Italians apologising for Pontius Pilate?

'We've already apologised for slavery and for the Crusades. When is it all going to stop? It's insane and makes the Church of England look ridiculous.'

Andrew Darwin, a great-great grandson of the eminent scientist, said he was 'bemused' by the apology, which seemed 'pointless'.

'Why bother?' he said. 'When an apology is made after 200 years, it's not so much to right a wrong, but to make the person or organisation making the apology feel better.'

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Association, said: 'It does seem rather crazy for an institution to address an apology to an individual so long after his death.

'As well as being much too late, the message strikes me as insincere, as if there is an unspoken "but" behind the text.

'However, if it means that from now on the Church of England will say "No" to the teaching of creationism in school science lessons, then we would accept the apology on Darwin's behalf.'

A less critical tone was struck by Horace Barlow, 87, from Cambridge, who is Darwin's great-grandson.

He said he thought his ancestor would have been pleased to hear the Church's apology.

'They buried him in Westminster Abbey, which I suppose was an apology of sorts,' said Mr Barlow.

'Darwin was very concerned about offending other people as his wife Emma was a committed Christian. So I think this apology would have pleased him.'

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

 

Rev. Gabriel Burdett explains Intelligent Falling.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

Burdett added: "Gravity—which is taught to our children as a law—is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of course, he is alluding to a higher power."

Founded in 1987, the ECFR is the world's leading institution of evangelical physics, a branch of physics based on literal interpretation of the Bible.

According to the ECFR paper published simultaneously this week in the International Journal Of Science and the adolescent magazine God's Word For Teens!, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by secular gravity alone, including such mysteries as how angels fly, how Jesus ascended into Heaven, and how Satan fell when cast out of Paradise.

The ECFR, in conjunction with the Christian Coalition and other Christian conservative action groups, is calling for public-school curriculums to give equal time to the Intelligent Falling theory. They insist they are not asking that the theory of gravity be banned from schools, but only that students be offered both sides of the issue "so they can make an informed decision."

"We just want the best possible education for Kansas' kids," Burdett said.

Proponents of Intelligent Falling assert that the different theories used by secular physicists to explain gravity are not internally consistent. Even critics of Intelligent Falling admit that Einstein's ideas about gravity are mathematically irreconcilable with quantum mechanics. This fact, Intelligent Falling proponents say, proves that gravity is a theory in crisis.

"Let's take a look at the evidence," said ECFR senior fellow Gregory Lunsden."In Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, 'And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' He says nothing about some gravity making them fall—just that they will fall. Then, in Job 5:7, we read, 'But mankind is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upwards.' If gravity is pulling everything down, why do the sparks fly upwards with great surety? This clearly indicates that a conscious intelligence governs all falling."

Critics of Intelligent Falling point out that gravity is a provable law based on empirical observations of natural phenomena. Evangelical physicists, however, insist that there is no conflict between Newton's mathematics and Holy Scripture.

"Closed-minded gravitists cannot find a way to make Einstein's general relativity match up with the subatomic quantum world," said Dr. Ellen Carson, a leading Intelligent Falling expert known for her work with the Kansan Youth Ministry. "They've been trying to do it for the better part of a century now, and despite all their empirical observation and carefully compiled data, they still don't know how."

"Traditional scientists admit that they cannot explain how gravitation is supposed to work," Carson said. "What the gravity-agenda scientists need to realize is that 'gravity waves' and 'gravitons' are just secular words for 'God can do whatever He wants.'"

Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics.

"Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus."