Reconciliation, forgiveness and more stuff…

I had good intentions of keeping this blog up to date but lack of internet and general exhaustion have sapped my enthusiasm for blogging recently. So much has happened in the last month, but to summarize…

• A week on what it means to be on a YWAM DTS – the big picture of why we are, which is to bless the nations.
• A week of teaching by Carl Stauffer in Harpenden (near London) on reconciliation. Carl has been involved in reconciliation efforts in many African countries, and had so many eye opening stories.
• A week on forgiveness by our own YWAM Belfast Forgiveness Team. Learning how to express hurt and anger, and journey through the process of forgiveness.
• A week on ecumenism learning how we can work together with our Christian brothers and sisters from different denominations.
• Several days of teaching on the history of Northern Ireland and the troubles, and how the Reconciliation DTS came to be.
• Started local outreaches, including Breakfast Club – making breakfast for children at a local primary school.

Besides all of the teaching, we’ve all been learning the hard lessons of how to live as a community.

One of the highlights so far was the day trip to London…

I also passed my PhD viva a week ago, so I’m Dr Seymour now. Was it worth it? Haven’t yet decided.

So I’ve survived thus far. It’s been a crazy week (and a bit) of getting to know my fellow students and the staff, but it’s been good.

One of the things I was least excited about before the DTS started was sharing a room, but it’s working out nicely, and it struck me the other day how lucky I was to be sharing a room with a guy from the US and a rapper from Palestine.

We haven’t had many lectures yet, but we did get some teaching on the second day about hearing from God that I really found useful, mostly because we had to put it into practice there and then.

We spent Wednesday to Friday on a retreat to farmhouse in south Armagh where we were kept busy helping out with jobs around the garden and house. It was great getting to know people while cutting down trees with them and building a monster bonfire.

Today was a day off – a much needed Sabbath which was mostly spent in a café drinking coffee and using their wireless.

On her web page you can see how her art has developed since the age of 4. One of her paintings that really moved me was The Forbidden Fruit (below). She describes her inspiration for the painting…

After my prayer I began painting a young woman’s portrait. next to a branch of fruit. Suddenly I felt God say, blend all the races, because this is Eve, the mother of all mankind…

She is a truly inspiring person, especially given the fact that her parents were atheists. Her visions of heaven leave me very much wanting to be there!

Having just finished reading Moondust, I’ve been thinking about the moon quite a bit. It was such a feat of human ingenuity, such a risk, such a financial cost to get there ($100bn in today’s dollars), and nothing has come close to it since. Why did we do it? Why is it still so mesmerizing to see those photos of our planet from the moon? Why do so many people devote themselves to the idea that it was a hoax? Will we ever make it to Mars?

I thoroughly recommend Moondust if you’ve forgotten what was so amazing about the Apollo moon landings. The author interviews many of the guys who walked on the moon (there are only 9 of them alive today) and tries to get an answer to the fundamental question: what was it like to walk on the moon?

There is a documentary film coming out soon called In the Shadow of the Moon which is all about the moon landings, though I’m not sure if it will end up in any of cinemas here. I live in hope.

I still have one more week of work and then two weeks off before my DTS (Discipleship Training School) starts, but I’ve moved up to the Belfast YWAM base which is where I’ll be for the next 6 months. It came as a bit of a surprise to realise that my friends weren’t speaking figuratively when they said it was on the peace wall – it literally is part of the peace wall between the Shankill and Falls with metal grills over every window.

It’s taking a bit of getting used to; having to remember at what times the gates in the peace wall open and close. I honestly thought such things were in the past, which probably just shows how sheltered I’ve always been from the troubles in this country.

I’m really enjoying living in the house with the YWAMers. I think there are about 9 guys living in the house at the minute which includes a team from Hawaii, so it’s a bit hectic trying to get into the bathroom sometimes, but there is something great about being around fired up, healthy Christians. It’s contagious.

I know this is where I’m meant to be and I’m excited.

It might be hard enough to believe anyone reads this blog, let alone searches in google for “can you buy mountain dew in belfast” and find this blog. I hope that person got some mountain dew. It’s important that people have mountain dew.

Here’s what recent searches have led people here…

Sometimes I wonder if there are not more important things for me to be concerning myself with than Darwinism vs ID vs Creationism vs whatever. Afterall, the core message of the Gospel is much more important than the physical processes of how we got here. The majority of my Christian friends are content to accept the perceived mainstream consensus of scientists that we have evolved from the first life forms over billions of years, with a vague assertion that God “started it all”, and often will tell me of their support for evolution with great pride – as if to say – “I’m enlightened too!” or “I’m not one of those fundamentalist Christians”.

What troubles me most about this, is that the definition of evolution they have accepted is profoundly different to the definition of evolution generally accepted by the scientific community – largely due to the fact that the word “evolution” can mean many different things – change over time, common ancestory, Darwinism etc. Evangelical Darwinists have often exploited this vagueness to give the perception that anyone who opposes evolution, opposes well substantiated and completely uncontroversial ideas such as biological change over time.

So what does evolution mean to most scientists? Darwinism. It means that all life on earth has evolved from a common ancestor, through the process of natural selection acting on random genetic mutations (RM+NS). Moreover, there is no element of design to the world around us and every attribute of a human being exists only because it aided our ancestors in reproducing and passing on their genes.

It should be obvious to a Christian that this definition of evolution is completely incompatible with any variant of our faith. Regardless of time scales or common ancestory, the idea that we are solely the result of chance, conflicts completely with the idea that we were made with purpose in the image of God. Put simply, if Darwinism is correct, Christianity is fundamentally wrong. However, for an athiest the reverse is true. If RM+NS cannot explain all of the life forms on earth, then atheism is in big trouble, because no-one has proposed a plausible alternative explanation. Dawkins once said that Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fufilled atheist – clearly if Darwinism fails, the “intellectual” argument for atheism is gone.

Without even looking at the evidence for or against Darwinism one can see how much is at stake in this argument. To question the creative power of RM+NS is to question a theory which has become a core doctrine of atheism. To truly accept Darwinism is to accept the implication that all design and purpose is an illusion. The credibilities of two competing worldviews hang in the balance.

So please lets not be naive. We might regularly hear people denouncing creationism and intelligent design, calling their adherents stupid, but those people are not being objective. Scientists may have a reverential position in our supposedly enlightened society, but they are just people, with pride, prejudices and beliefs just like everyone else. We need to ask ourselves why we believe what we believe about human origins. Is it because we’ve been taught since our school days that only crazy people believe in creationism? Have we studied the facts for ourselves or have we just accepted the ideas of people who refuse to believe in God?

For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. –2 Timothy 4:3-4

From Ananova …

A German pensioner who won £2 million on the lottery refused the cash because he didn’t know what to do with it.

The 70-year-old man from Hameln, Lower Saxony, went to the HQ of the German lottery association in Hanover after finding out about his win and told them he did not want the money.

He reportedly said: “What would I do with so much money? My wife has already passed away, my parents are dead, I have no children and no other relatives. I don’t want it.”

He said he had only bought the lottery ticket out of a habit because his late wife had been a passionate player.

Lottery officials said they were trying to persuade him to keep the money.

1. Interviewer asks Dawkins for an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome.
2. Dawkins thinks for a while…
3. Dawkins goes off on one about fish and reptiles…nothing to do with the original question.

I’m sure we could all be a bit more graceful, except this is a man who is now forging a career out of making TV programs depicting all religious people as stupid or evil.

The idea of random mutations and natural selection producing limited beneficial changes in a species is completely uncontroversial. The idea of the same mechanisms producing the human genome from nothing is fantasy, but it’s a fantasy that forms the cornerstone of materialism, so it persists.