Pentagon May Court Martial Soldiers Who Share Christian Faith

The Pentagon has released a statement confirming that soldiers could be prosecuted for promoting their faith: “Religious proselytization is not permitted within the Department of Defense…Court martials and non-judicial punishments are decided on a case-by-case basis…”.

The statement, released to Fox News, follows a Breitbart News report on Obama administration Pentagon appointees meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein to develop court-martial procedures to punish Christians in the military who express or share their faith.

(From our earlier report: Weinstein is the head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and says Christians–including chaplains–sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military are guilty of “treason,” and of committing an act of “spiritual rape” as serious a crime as “sexual assault.” He also asserted that Christians sharing their faith in the military are “enemies of the Constitution.”)

Being convicted in a court martial means that a soldier has committed a crime under federal military law. Punishment for a court martial can include imprisonment and being dishonorably discharged from the military.

So President Barack Obama’s civilian appointees who lead the Pentagon are confirming that the military will make it a crime–possibly resulting in imprisonment–for those in uniform to share their faith. This would include chaplains—military officers who are ordained clergymen of their faith (mostly Christian pastors or priests, or Jewish rabbis)–whose duty since the founding of the U.S. military under George Washington is to teach their faith and minister to the spiritual needs of troops who come to them for counsel, instruction, or comfort.

This regulation would severely limit expressions of faith in the military, even on a one-to-one basis between close friends. It could also effectively abolish the position of chaplain in the military, as it would not allow chaplains (or any service members, for that matter), to say anything about their faith that others say led them to think they were being encouraged to make faith part of their life. It’s difficult to imagine how a member of the clergy could give spiritual counseling without saying anything that might be perceived in that fashion.

In response to the Pentagon’s plans, retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, who is now executive vice president of the Family Research Council (FRC), said on Fox & Friends Wednesday morning:

It’s a matter of what do they mean by “proselytizing.” …I think they’ve got their defintions a little confused. If you’re talking about coercion that’s one thing, but if you’re talking about the free exercise of our faith as individual soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, especially for the chaplains, they I think the worst thing we can do is stop the ability for a soldier to be able to exercise his faith.”

FRC has launched a petition here which has already collected over 30,000 signatures, calling on Secretary Hagel is stop working with Weinstein and his anti-Christian organization to develop military policy regarding religious faith.

**UPDATE**

The FRC petition has now exceeded more than 40,000 signatures at the time of this update.

Breitbart News legal columnist Ken Klukowski is senior fellow for religious liberty with the Family Research Council and on faculty at Liberty University School of Law. 

Courtesy of http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/05/01/Breaking-Pentagon-Confirms-Will-Court-Martial-Soldiers-Who-Share-Christian-Faith

American Pastor Imprisoned in Iran Given Ultimatum to Deny Christ or Remain in Prison

An American pastor who was sentenced to eight years in an Iranian prison for planting house churches in the country says that officials in Iran have given him the ultimatum to either deny Christ or remain incarcerated.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which has been working for the pastor’s release, reports that they have obtained a new letter written by Saeed Abedini, which outlines the pressure that he is facing behind bars.

“‘Deny your faith in Jesus Christ and return to Islam or else you will not be released from prison. We will make sure you are kept here even after your 8 year sentence is finished.’ These are the threats that prison officials throw at me,” the pastor writes. “My response to them is Romans 8:35-39.”

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” the Scripture cited by Abedini reads. “As it is written, ‘For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

“The reality of Christian living is that difficulties or problems do arise in our lives,” he continues. “Persecution and difficulties are not new occurrences, but are seen often in the Christian life. It is through the suffering and tribulations that we are to enter the Kingdom of God.”

The ACLJ outlines that while Abedini’s physical strength is growing weak because of the brutal conditions in prison, his faith remains strong and is “what is keeping him alive.”

As previously reported, 32-year-old Abedini, who resides in Idaho with his wife and children, has been incarcerated in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison since late September for allegedly threatening the national security of Iran by planting house churches in the country a decade ago, and for attempting to turn youth in the nation away from Islam and toward Christianity. He had traveled to Iran to build an orphanage last fall, and was about to return to the states when he was taken into custody.

“When I saw my family for the first time behind the glass walls, I could see my mom four meters away. As she approached me and saw my face, she broke down and could not get closer. She was crying,” he wrote in a letter released last month. “I understood what she felt because after weeks of being in solitary confinement in Evin Prison, I also got to see my face in the mirror of an elevator that was taking me to the prison hospital. I said hi to the person staring back at me because I did not recognize myself. My hair was shaven, under my eyes were swollen three times what they should have been, my face was swollen, and my beard had grown.”

The ACLJ is asking for Christians around the world to send a note of encouragement to Abedini while he is incarcerated.

“We must let him know that we will never forget him and will never stop working for his release,” it states, noting that 20,000 people have already submitted correspondence for the pastor. “This has already quickly become one of the largest letter writing campaigns ever.”

Information on the Save Saeed campaign may be found at savesaeed.org.

Courtesy of http://christiannews.net/2013/04/14/american-pastor-imprisoned-in-iran-given-ultimatum-to-deny-christ-or-remain-in-prison/

Religious Free Speech Victory at Sinclair Community College in Ohio

March 12, 2013 — Sinclair Community College (SCC), of Dayton, OH, agreed to settle a federal lawsuit brought by the Thomas More Society and Ohio attorneys Curt C. Hartman, Christopher P. Finney, and Bradley M. Gibson, in response to actions by the college to prohibit students from distributing literature and displaying signage on campus.

“We are pleased that Sinclair Community College decided to join with its students to promote free speech instead of silencing or trying to control the content of their speech,” said Peter Breen, executive director and legal counsel of the Thomas More Society. “At its core, the university campus provides a place for students to debate and grapple with ideas, including ideas that may not be popular in certain quarters. Freedom of expression is an absolutely fundamental value in a democratic, self-governing society and indispensable to the educational process.”

The case was filed last summer in U.S. District Court, on the heels of a “Stand Up for Religious Freedom” rally opposing the U.S. Health and Human Services conscience-oppressing abortifacient-sterilization mandate. The rally had been organized and sponsored by members of the student body of the Dayton-based school.

Sinclair’s campus police forbade student-generated signage during that rally, and the lawsuit by the Thomas More Society and Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) alleged that the campus police had continued to engage in systematic censorship of free speech as at previous student-led rallies. The suit also alleged that students had been barred from distributing informational brochures to their classmates.

The lawsuit alleged that police stated the practice of disallowing signs and brochures was supposedly intended to comply with a school policy barring “disruptive behavior,” even though censoring the content of signs or brochures was nowhere addressed in the actual wording of the policy cited. It is fundamental First Amendment law that the content of free speech, no matter how “offensive” it may be to certain onlookers, deserves the very highest degree of legal protection, despite the fact that some of those hearing or seeing the speakers’ message may be “disruptive” and seek to impose their “hecklers’ veto” against the speakers. Here, the police — as is all too common — were the sole folks within hearing or sight of the pro-life messages displayed on the “offensive” signs who sought to enforce their own “hecklers’ veto.” In every such case, the Thomas More Society will hasten to support the right of pro-life speakers to have their “say,” loud and clear, in America’s public forums!

As a result of the lawsuit, SCC has adopted a new policy recognizing and allowing for the exercise of broader First Amendment Rights of students and groups hosting expressive activities on campus. The college also agreed to pay $9,000 to cover the plaintiffs’ costs and attorneys’ fees.

Thomas More Society recognizes and applauds the fine legal work provided by lead attorneys Chris Finney and Brad Gibson of the law firm of Finney, Stagnaro, Saba & Patterson Co., L.P.A., based in Cincinnati and Columbus, OH, and Curt C. Hartman, of Amelia, OH, which led to this very positive result. In addition, the Thomas More Society appreciates the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education for writing to SCC President Steven Lee Johnson last year, asking Sinclair Community College to disavow the censorship of TVC’s event by the SCC police and to promise never to enforce such a ban against signs in the future.

A copy of the settlement letter can be found here.

Courtesy of https://www.thomasmoresociety.org/news/

Missouri Atheist Group Says It Will Take Part in St. Patrick’s Day Parade Despite Ban

An atheist organization in Missouri banned from taking part in a citywide St. Patrick’s Day Parade has stated that it will participate despite the ban.

According to Fox 4 of Kansas City, the leader of the Kansas City Atheist Coalition announced earlier this week that his organization would hold an event along the parade route titled “Ask an Atheist.”

“We want to help people understand that atheism is not a negative worldview,” said Josh Hyde, vice president of the KCAC, in a statement.

“As atheists, we believe it is up to us – not a deity – to make the world a better place, which is why we do volunteer work, raise money for charity and work to promote equality and human rights.”

Last month, the KCAC submitted an application to be part of the city’s annual Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, set to be held Sunday.

However, the application was rejected. Sarah Hargreaves, a member of the KCAC, told Fox 4 that the rejection was “discrimination.”

“The idea that they are presenting now that this is a very Catholic event and they were celebrating the patron saint and his Christian legacy, I think makes for a good response but I don’t think that’s their reason,” said Hargreaves.

“I think people on the parade committee are personally offended by atheists in a similar way that there are people in this country that are offended at the existence of people who are gay.”

Organized by a group of private volunteers since the 1970s, Kansas City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade is listed on its website as a nonprofit 501C3 corporation.

In addition to the parade, festivities included in the celebration include a Gaelic Mass at Redemptorist Catholic Church and a food drive. Fr. Patrick Tobin will be this year’s Grand Marshall.

Erin Kiekbusch of the parade board of directors forwarded a statement to The Christian Post from the 2013 Parade Co-Chairs Sharon Bundy and Anne McKeown.

“Kansas City’s parade celebrates the Feast Day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, and the Christian teachings and beliefs that he lived and suffered for. The Atheist Coalition’s published mission is to advance godlessness through activism,” reads the statement.

“[Its] stated intent regarding the 2013 parade was to carry banners with phrases such as ‘positively godless’ and ‘morals without mythology.’ It was with respect for the legacy of St. Patrick that the parade committee turned down the Atheist Coalition’s application to participate in this year’s procession.”

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/missouri-atheist-group-says-it-will-take-part-in-st-patricks-day-parade-despite-ban-91982/#2clzsT10wFhSc0D7.99

School Forces First Grader to Remove “God” From Poem

A North Carolina elementary school forced a first grade student to change a poem she had written for her grandfather for a Veteran’s Day Event because a line contained the name of God in it.
The student, who attends West Marion Elementary School was selected to read the poem as part of a special school event. Her poem was a tribute to her grandfather, a Vietnam war veteran. The line that caused the controversy said: “He prayed to God for peace, he prayed to God for strength.” (source).

According to reports, a parent of another student of the school became aware of the line in the poem and complained to school officials about the religious language.

“We had one parent concerned with the use of the word ‘God’ in this program,” school employee Chris Greene explained during a recent Board of Education meeting. “This parent did not want the word ‘God’ mentioned anywhere in the program.”

As a result, school officials to the student to remove the line from the poem.

“We wanted to make sure we were upholding the school district’s responsibility of separation of church and state from the Establishment Clause,” Superintendent Gerri Martin, who made the decision along with the principal and vice principal, told the Hickory Record.

“As a principal of a public school, I must put aside my personal religious beliefs and follow the law,” added West Marion Elementary principal Desarae Kirkpatrick, “which upholds that we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but that we, as public schools, cannot endorse one single religion over another.” (source).

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal advocacy group that works all over the United States defending Christians in issue of religious liberty, issued a letter to the school informing that they violated the student’s rights in their actions:

“America’s public schools should encourage, not restrict, the constitutionally protected freedom of students to express their faith,” said Matt Sharp, legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, in a statement. “Students should not be censored when speaking about their faith or honoring those who valiantly served to protect our freedoms. … The censorship of this young student’s poem about her grandfathers is repugnant to the First Amendment rights of all students and sends an impermissible message of hostility towards religion.” (source).

In their letter, the Alliance Defending Freedom informed them that if they did not change their policy and allow religious speech of this manner, they would pursue legal action.

Continue in prayer for this school, the student and the ADF for a resolution that allows free expression, even if it is in reference to the God of the Bible. Parts of society, especially the public school system have become so hostile to God that even a reference to the name “God” in a poem results in censorship. This attitude of enmity with The Lord is all prophesied in the Bible. Jesus Christ said:

Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. – John 15:20-21.

Christians will continue to see the world increase its hostility to the faith. And the response should be to continue to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and pray for revival in the hearts and minds of the unsaved world to see the light and truth of Jesus Christ, who does not just give a soldier strength, He gives eternal life to all who will believe on Him. It is sin that has caused such a gulf between humanity and God. And the only remedy to have peace, forgiveness and reconciliation with God is faith in Jesus Christ who died for the sins of the world so that there would be a chance for forgiveness and eternal life.

This is the message Christians need to continue to proclaim and it is a blessing that a first grader has set such a fine example.

Courtesy of:

http://beginningandend.com/school-forces-first-grader-to-remove-god-from-poem/

The Queen James Bible and ‘Homophobic’ Interpretations

In case you haven’t heard the news, there is a new edition of the King James Bible that rewrites eight key verses that speak against homosexual practice. It’s called the Queen James Bible (I kid you not), and the editors state that, “We edited those eight verses in a way that makes homophobic interpretations impossible.”

Yes, you can now practice homosexuality and read your Bible without feeling condemned, although you still have to deal with the hundreds of verses affirming only heterosexual marriage and family (including one of the Ten Commandments that says, “Honor your father and mother” rather than, “Honor your father and father”).

And then there are the thousands of verses that assume the importance of male-female gender distinctions, beginning with the first chapter of the Bible, which states, “God created man in His own image … male and female He created them”(Gen. 1:27). But why quibble?

On the genuinely positive side, it is good see a hunger for the Scriptures in the LGBT community, and the editors boast that the Queen James Bible (QJB) “is the perfect Bible for ceremony, study, sermon, gift-giving or simply to put on display in the home or church.”

On the totally negative side, to the extent professing LGBT Christians believe this translation to be accurate, they are deceiving themselves. And that would be tragic.

Take a moment and put yourself in the shoes of a Christian struggling with homosexuality. You want to follow Jesus and obey the Scriptures, but you find yourself attracted to the same sex, through no conscious choice of your own. You pray for God to change you and often cry yourself to sleep, only to wake up the next morning with the same unwanted attractions.

You wonder if God hates you and has singled you out for condemnation: God, why won’t you change me and make me normal?

You hit rock bottom and are considering suicide when someone tells you that your homosexuality is a gift, that God made you this way, and that preachers are misinterpreting the Bible when they say you can’t be a practicing homosexual and a Christian at the same time. Then they hand you your very own copy of the QJB, and voila, all those negative verses are gone.

Can you imagine how tempting it would be to embrace this new “revelation”?

So, Leviticus 18:22 doesn’t say, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination” (King James Version). It really says, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind in the temple of Molech: it is an abomination” (QJB; Molech was a pagan idol).

And Paul didn’t actually write that “men who practice homosexuality” will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9; ESV). What he really said was that neither “morally weak, nor promiscuous” people will inherit God’s kingdom (QJB).

The problem, of course, is that the original Hebrew of Leviticus and the original Greek of 1 Corinthians do not say what the QJB says. Not a chance.

The editors have simply changed the Bible to fit their sexuality, opening up a Pandora’s Box of potential mistranslation. It would be like changing “Thou shalt not commit adultery” into “Thou shalt not commit adultery unless you are deeply in love and willing to divorce your spouse to marry your adulterous partner.”

Interestingly, the QJB editors recognize the difficulty of translating the Hebrew word to’evah in Leviticus 18:22 with something less than “abomination.” But they bypass this difficulty by claiming that the abomination was not a man having sex with another man. Rather, it was only an abomination for two men to have sex if they did it as an act of pagan worship in the temple of an idol.

Really? Well, the very next verse (Lev. 18:23) condemns bestiality, calling it “perversion” (tevel). Using the same logic, would the QJB editors argue that bestiality is only wrong if carried out in an idolatrous temple?

In point of fact, all of Leviticus 18 deals with forbidden sexual unions (according to Leviticus 18:24-30, these practices were wrong for both pagan nations and Israel), with only one reference to the practice of sacrificing children to idols (Lev. 18:21). And there is not a hint in the chapter that adultery or incest or bestiality or homosexual practice are condemned only if committed in a pagan temple. Strikingly, even though all of these practices are called to’evot, abominations, in Leviticus 18:26-29, only homosexual practice is singled out as a to’evah, abomination, within the chapter.

Other reviews have exposed additional, serious errors in this new mistranslation of the sacred Scriptures, but, to sum things up, we can say that the Queen James Bible accomplishes the exact opposite of what it sets out to do: It provides eloquent testimony that the Bible and homosexual practice are incompatible.

Does Jesus love the homosexual? Unequivocally yes. Does he affirm homosexuality? Unequivocally no. The Bible (as in the real deal, not the QJB) tells me so.

Michael Brown is the author of The Real Kosher Jesus and the host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show The Line of Fire on the Salem Radio Network. He is also president of FIRE School of Ministry and director of the Coalition of Conscience.

Courtesy of http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/35014-the-queen-james-bible-and-homophobic-interpretations

George Washington Turning Over in his Grave as Pentagon Celebrates Sodomy

On March 14, 1778, George Washington, then Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, approved the sentencing of LT Enslin on attempted sodomy of another soldier.  General Washington called it an infamous crime to be viewed “with Abhorrence and Detestation”.  He ordered Enslin “to be drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return.”

Morality in the military is changing.

This week, Pentagon officials announced they will participate in June’s Gay Pride month and host a first-ever event honoring gay and lesbian troops.  Defense Secretary Leon Panetta feels it is important to recognize the service of gays in the armed forces. Details of the Pentagon event have not been released.

Since the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), homosexual activists have accelerated advances of their homosexual agenda within the Armed Forces, including recognition of gay marriages, performance of marriages in military chapels, and gay pride celebrations at U.S Military academies.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, “We will continue our fight to overturn the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and are ready to represent those chaplains who refuse to perform same-sex marriages on religious grounds.  This new law will ultimately destroy unit cohesion and morale, reduce the number of heterosexual volunteers, and considerably degrade the ability of the military to defend our nation, their first responsibility.”

Since November 2010, the Thomas More Law Center has submitted 41 Freedom of Information Act requests to all branches of the Armed Forces, including the Inspector General’s Office, to assist in overturning the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Allowing open homosexuality in the Armed Forces had nothing to do with enhancing the combat effectiveness of our military, and everything to do with pandering to the homosexual lobby.  To accomplish this political objective, Pentagon officials utilized rigged military opinion polls, leaks of false information and muzzling of combat commanders who opposed the repeal.

In its findings supporting the 1993 Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law, Congress affirmed:

• there is no constitutional right to serve in the armed forces;
• military life is fundamentally different from civilian life;
• the prohibition against homosexual conduct is a long-standing element of military law;
• the presence of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards or morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.

Concluded Thompson, “Those findings have not changed, but the law has.  Our military men and women, our sons and daughters, should not be subjected to an involuntary social experiment which will damage our national security. That’s why we will continue our efforts to oppose this immoral law.”

Courtesy of Thomas More Law Center: Copyright © 2012 Thomas More Law Center, All rights reserved.

Who is playing make-believe? (Atheists or theists)

By Scott Youngren

It is common to observe atheists making comments such as the following on online forums: “I don’t believe in God, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, fairies, unicorns, hobgoblins, or any other such make-believe creatures!”

But the truth is very much opposite to the atheist rhetoric. It is actually disbelief in God that requires adults to play games of make-believe …games that rival those of those of children in their measure of naive credulity.

This point is perhaps best illustrated by the contorted mental gymnastics that those who are ideologically inclined towards disbelief in God will resort. In his book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist, Norman Geisler notes:

It was 1916 and Albert Einstein didn’t like where his calculations were leading him. If his theory of General Relativity was true, it meant that the universe was not eternal but had a beginning. Einstein’s calculations indeed were revealing a definite beginning to all time, all matter, and all space. This flew in the face of his belief that the universe was static and eternal. Einstein later called his discovery “irritating.” He wanted the universe to be self-existent—not reliant on any outside cause—but the universe appeared to be one giant effect. In fact, Einstein so disliked the implications of General theory that is now proven accurate to five decimal places—that he introduced a cosmological constant (which some have since called a “fudge factor”) into his equations in order to show that the universe is static and to avoid an absolute beginning.

But Einstein’s fudge factor didn’t fudge for long. In 1919, British cosmologist Arthur Eddington conducted an experiment during a solar eclipse which confirmed that General Relativity was indeed true—the universe wasn’t static but had a beginning. Like Einstein, Eddington wasn’t happy with the implications. He later wrote, “Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature is repugnant to me. . . . I should like to find a genuine loophole.” By 1922, Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann had officially exposed Einstein’s fudge factor as an algebraic error. (Incredibly, in his quest to avoid a beginning, the great Einstein had divided by zero—something even schoolchildren know is a no-no!)

…He subsequently described the cosmological constant as “the greatest blunder of my life,” and he redirected his efforts to find the box top to the puzzle of life. Einstein said that he wanted “to know how God created the world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.”

Einstein, in a nutshell, was forced by the weight of the evidence to abandon his desire to disbelieve in God….a desire apparently so intense that he was willing to resort to such a desperate measure as dividing by zero! Fortunately, the weight of the evidence eventually overcame Einstein’s “irritation” at the concept of God, and, in a display of integrity, he revised his views. The law of causation (without which science would be impossible) dictates that everything with a beginning requires a cause. This is why those ideologically inclined towards disbelief in God have clung so tenaciously to the idea of a “static,” or eternally existing universe.

Fast forward to the current day. The most famous living physicist, Stephen Hawking, in his book The Grand Design, attempts to demonstrate that the universe requires no such Grand Designer. He writes, “Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing…Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God…”

Oxford University mathematician John C. Lennox responds in his book God and Stephen Hawking:

…His [Hawking’s] notion that a law of nature (gravity) explains the existence of the universe is also self-contradictory, since a law of nature, by definition, surely depends for its own existence on the prior existence of the nature it purports to describe. …Thus, the main conclusion of the book turns out not simply to be a self-contradiction, which would be disaster enough, but to be a triple self-contradiction. Philosophers just might be tempted to comment: so that is what comes of saying philosophy is dead! [Hawking says this in The Grand Design] In the above, Hawking is echoing the language of Oxford chemist Peter Atkins (also a well-known atheist), who believes that “space-time generates its own dust in the process of its own self-assembly”. Atkins dubs this the “Cosmic Bootstrap” principle, referring to the self-contradictory idea of a person lifting himself by pulling on his own bootlaces. His Oxford colleague, philosopher of religion Keith Ward, is surely right to say that Atkins’ view of the universe is as blatantly self-contradictory as the name he gives to it, pointing out that it is “logically impossible for a cause to bring about some effect without already being in existence”. Ward concludes: “Between the hypothesis of God and the hypothesis of a cosmic bootstrap, there is no competition. We were always right to think that persons, or universes, who seek to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps are forever doomed to failure.” What this all goes to show is that nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world-famous scientists. What serves to obscure the illogicality of statements is the fact that they are made by scientists; and the general public, not surprisingly, assumes that they are statements of science and takes them on authority. That is why it is important to point out that they are not statements of science, and any statement, whether made by a scientist or not, should be open to logical analysis. Immense prestige and authority does not compensate for faulty logic.

…In the world in which most of us live, the simple law of arithmetic by itself, 1+1=2, never brought anything into being. It certainly has never put any money into my bank account. If I put £1,000 into the bank, and later another £1,000, the laws of arithmetic will rationally explain how it is that I now have £2,000 in the bank. But if I never put any money into the bank myself, and simply leave it to the laws of arithmetic to bring money into being in my bank account, I shall remain permanently bankrupt.

So this is what Einstein meant when he said that “the man of science is a poor philosopher!” Even if one were to grant that all of Hawking’s science is 100% correct (which is a very, very big “if”, as this video featuring Hawking’s former colleague, the Oxford University physicist Roger Penrose, explains), Hawking’s attempts to do away with God fall apart with even the most rudimentary philosophical inquiry, as Lennox demonstrates. Hawking clearly knows this (at least subconsciously), which is surely why he disparages philosophy in his book. He writes, “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.”

Now, philosophy 101 students, what is wrong with the statement, “Philosophy is dead”? This statement is itself philosophical! (as Lennox points out). Therefore, it is no less ridiculous and self-contradictory than the statement, “I cannot speak a single word of English,” spoken with a perfect British accent. Hawking’s philosophy is that “philosophy is dead.” One should wonder who taught him philosophy!

Back to Santa Claus…it’s time to administer a little thought experiment so as to establish a measure of make-believe reasoning: Two kids sit under the Christmas tree waiting to open their presents. The first kid says, “Santa put the presents there.” To this, the second kid replies, “No he didn’t. There is no Santa Claus. The law of gravity caused the presents to create themselves from nothing.” Although the second child is using adult language to express his views, they involve a far greater degree of make-believe reasoning.

The law of causation (without which science would be impossible) dictates that everything with a beginning requires a cause. Forget for a moment the fact that, as Lennox above explains, physical laws are not creative, but rather merely descriptive and predictive. At least the first kid in the above example understands the law of causation. He may have gotten the cause wrong (it was actually his parents who put the presents under the tree), but at least he understands that a cause cannot bring about an effect unless that cause is already in existence.

Put another way, the second kid’s “nothing” is actually a version of something. The law of gravity is something, not nothing. Either the universe emerged from nothing or it emerged from the law of gravity. One cannot have it both ways.

And even if the universe emerged “spontaneously” from the law of gravity, the question immediately becomes, “Where did the law of gravity come from?” Further, how can it be that matter follows natural laws so consistently if the the universe is fundamentally material?

Readers will recall from my essay titled What It All Boils Down To that, historically, there have been two basic meta-scientific worldviews underlying science. One worldview (called naturalism or materialism) says that matter comes first (or is fundamental) and that minds such as our own are an eventual product of unintelligent, natural processes. The opposite worldview (which includes theism) says that mind (read: God’s mind) comes first and that matter is the product of this fundamentally existing mind.

In the theistic worldview, it is immediately clear why these natural laws (such as the laws of physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, etc.) exist and why matter so consistently follows them: The same mind which produces matter also directs it.

But the naturalist/materialist worldview severely struggles with these two questions: Where did the natural laws come from in the first place, and why is it that matter so consistently follows such laws? The only answers that naturalism/materialism can provide are “they just are” and “it just does,” respectively. How much explanatory power exists in either explanation? Absolutely none whatsoever. This is why the naturalist/materialist worldview, upon which atheism depends, is rooted in make-believe, just-so storytelling.

In my essay titled Is There A God? (What is the chance that our world is the result of chance?), I mention the topic of the extremely exquisite fine tuning of our universe that was necessary for life forms such as ourselves to exist. In order to get around this, atheists (including Hawking and many others) have proposed the existence of multiple universes. So many universes exist, so the theory goes, that it is not surprising that one of these universes happened to randomly have the fine tuning necessary for the existence of life. A copy and paste of two citations from that essay:

Distinguished former Cambridge University quantum physicist John Polkinghorne notes in Questions of Truth:

“Answering an argument by a suggestion is hardly conclusive. One problem is that we don’t just need a hundred other universes, or even a billion, but an utterly immense number—some string theorists suggest that there are up to 10 to the 500^th power other universes. If you are allowed to posit 10 to the 500^th power other universes to explain away otherwise inconvenient observations, you can “explain away” anything, and science becomes impossible.”

Further, as Oxford University Professor of Philosophy Antony Flew facetiously observes in There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind:

“If the existence of one universe requires an explanation, multiple universes require a much bigger explanation: the problem is increased by the factor of whatever the total number of universes is. It seems a little like that case of a schoolboy whose teacher doesn’t believe his dog ate his homework, so he replaces the first version with the story that a pack of dogs—too many to count—ate his homework.”

None of this is to suggest that there cannot be multiple universes. Rather, it is to suggest that, philosophically speaking, it is absurd to suggest that the existence of multiple universes can be used to explain away the exquisite fine tuning of our universe necessary for the formation of life. Even, if there are 10 to the 500th power universes, what was the mechanism that caused our universe to be so very, very extremely fine tuned? Further, what is the reason that ANY of these universes exist in the first place? How is it that we can assume that these universes are at all different from one another, so that one universe is fine tuned and the others (or most of them) are not?

Adult make-believe may be different from child make-believe, but it is make-believe nonetheless.

For more examples of adults playing make-believe in order to try to do away with God, please read my essay titled Why Life Could Not Have Emerged Without God. In this essay, I describe how atheists (including Richard Dawkins) have resorted to such explanations for the origin of life as intervention from space aliens, and piggyback rides on crystals. These are not typos.

Courtesy of http://www.godevidence.com/2012/01/who-is-playing-make-believe-atheists-or-theists/

When Was Christ Born? The Bible Says September 11, 3 B.C-the Day of the Feast of Trumpets

The birth of Jesus Christ is the one of the most significant events in all of history and when we understand the truths regarding the true date of his birth it will thrill and inspire your heart.  Tradition has made December 25^th the birthday of Jesus. but the Bible clearly reveals he was not born on that day. It was not until the 4^th century after Christ that December 25^th began to be celebrated at the day of Christ’s birth. It was the old pagan holiday celebrating the winter solstice and the birth of the sun god and celebrated when the days began to get longer.  In Rome it was the festival called Saturnalia and later the Roman Empire baptized it and began to celebrate the birth of Jesus. All biblical scholars know that Jesus was not born on December 25^th. Tradition is never an accurate measurement for truth. 

God has a significant meaning in everything He does and this does not exclude the birth of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. The subject of the entire bible is Jesus Christ and his first coming was prophesied first in the book of Genesis right after Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden.  This prophecy of the future coming of Christ became the polestar of the Old Testament. When it seemed that all was lost and the devil had succeeded in ruining Adam and Eve, God promised a coming Savior, who will redeem mankind from the penalty of sin and ultimately crush the devil into oblivion. This was a promise of hope, goodness, and salvation, as God would not leave the world helpless, but would give them His only begotten Son. What a God of love and goodness to promise this to His children who had just committed high treason against Him. God threw the glorious light of His Word right back at the serpent, as the coming redeemer would not only restore everything Adam and Eve lost in the garden, but utterly destroy the devil and all his works. This was the final death blow of the curse of God on the devil that was boldly pronounced in the garden. God heralded forth this good promise so every fallen angel, including the devil himself, would hear about His magnificent goodness and shudder about their ultimate defeat. 

Genesis 3:15 (Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible):

And enmity shall I put between thee and the  woman, and between thy seed and her seed,-

He shall crush thy head, but thou shall crush his heel. 

This is a declaration of war! This verse sets forth the fulcrum point of all history and defines the ceaseless battle that has raged since Adam’s fall in the Garden of Eden. This verse is the central theme of all scriptures, as the red thread of the coming Redeemer is interwoven into every book of the Old Testament. Its message is even written in the heavens, as each night the stars proclaim the sufferings and glorious triumph of Christ.

Who is the seed of the woman? In conception the seed comes from the male, but God’s Word clearly refers to the woman’s seed here. Seed implies birth, and this verse indicates a virgin birth of a man who would crush the arch-enemy of God. This man is the Savior, the Redeemer, the Liberator, the Messiah, the Second Adam, and the Conqueror over sin and death. This man is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Satan has raging hostility toward the second Adam, for he knows that his head will be crushed by him. This is a fatal blow from which there is no recovery. Once a serpent’s head is crushed, he cannot inject his poison into the world anymore or operate his schemes and deceptions on all mankind. The devil knew that there was a genealogical Christ line that would pass through Eve, as the seed of the woman would have to be born. Later, the Word of God was more specific that this Christ line would pass through Abraham and King David. The entire Old Testament is a record of the fierce attempts of the devil to wipe out the Christ line, and prevent Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman, from ever being born. It is a record of God’s magnificent works and actions that repeatedly delivered the Christ line from extinction. Sometimes the survival of the Christ line rested on the faith of one individual like Noah, Joseph, Abraham, and Esther. Read the Old Testament with this truth in mind, and the Word of God will come alive in new and wonderful ways.

There is not enough space in this article to go into detail of the countless schemes and plots of the devil to destroy this Christ line, and God’s miraculous protection of it. The salvation and redemption of the human race depended on the preservation of the Christ line.  The devil started with the murder of Abel and was absolutely relentless to try to destroy the Seed of the woman who would utterly crush and defeat him. He was not going to go out without a vicious and violent battle where he marshaled all his evil forces to bring about the destruction of the Christ line.

O what a day his birth would be! It had been anticipated and prophesied about for about 4000 years.  How glorious it must have been when the angel of the Lord pronounced to the shepherds in the fields:

Luke 2:11-14 (NIV 1984):     

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to  you; he is Christ the Lord.                                                                                                                                       This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host  appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,                                                                                      “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace  to men on whom his favor rests.”

The question becomes when was the “Today” that the angel proclaimed his birth? The book of Revelation gives us critical information in determining the day of the birth of Jesus Christ and it is so amazingly accurate that we can pinpoint the birth of Jesus Christ to a specific day and even that it occurred sometime within a time frame of eighty one minutes during that day.

Revelation 12:1-5 (KJV):

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon  under her feet, and upon her head a crown of  twelve stars:

And she being with child cried, travailing in birth,  and pained to be delivered.

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and  behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

The Greek word for “wonder” in verse 1 means “sign” and God’s Word declares that there will be a sign in the heavens when Mary went into labor and gave birth to Jesus Christ. The Word of God is written across the heavens and in the stars. The signs of the Zodiac were originally not used in astrology but each one signified a characteristic of the life and ministry and kingship of Jesus Christ, the promised Savior and Son of God. The sign of the women that the Bible is referring to here is to the constellation Virgo and the twelve stars are the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Revelation 12 further states that this woman was “clothed with the sun” another celestial body. The sun, as it appears to travel through the ecliptic each year, enters into the mid-body between the neck and the knees of the constellation Virgo, clothing her with the sun for approximately a 21 day period during any given year. In the year 3 B.C. which we later show by other celestial events in the heavens to be the year of the birth of Jesus Christ, the sun was in this position from August 27^th through September 15^th. Revelation also declares that “the moon was under her feet.” With these two specific details, we can pinpoint the birth of Christ very precisely. In 3 B.C. the sun and the moon in Virgo occurred on only one day and that was September 11. The configuration of the sun and the moon was visible inPalestine between sunset and moonset, this twilight period being called “night” in the Bible. On September 11, 3 B.C., sunset was at 6:18pm and moonset at 7:39pm. Jesus Christ was born on September 11, 3 B.C sometime in that eighty-one minute span of time between 6:18pm and 7:39pm. Amazingly this corresponds to Tishri 1 on the Jewish Calendar which is the First day of the festival of the Feast of Trumpets.  We will discuss the wonderful significance of this in a minute but I also wanted to share that was another significant astronomical display on September 11, 3 B.C.

From sunset of September 11, 3 B.C. to September 11, 3 B.C. Jupiter and Regulus could be seen approaching conjunction before dawn. Although the precise astronomical conjunction occurred on September 14, the angle of observation and Jupiter’s slow apparent motion would have made their close rendezvous obvious as early as the predawn hours of Thursday, September 12, within hours of the Messiah’s birth. At that time the king planet Jupiter could be seen approaching the king star Regulus in the constellation of Leo, the sign ofJudahfrom whose seed the Messiah, the promised seed came.  

Exactly one month before (on August 12) the world would have witnessed the close conjunction of Jupiter (reckoned astrologically as the Father) and Venus (the Mother) when they were only .07 degrees from one another when they appeared as morning stars on the eastern horizon. This was a very close union. But then, nineteen days later (August 31), Venus came to within .36 degrees of Mercury in a very similar astronomical display. Then, on September 11^th, the New Moon occurred which represented the Jewish New Year. This happened when Jupiter (the King planet) was then approaching Regulus (the King star). And, on September 14, Jupiter and Regulus came to their first of three conjunctions in this extraordinary year. Then, over an eight month period, Jupiter made its “crowning effect” over the King star Regulus. There could hardly have been a better astronomical testimony to the birth of the new messianic king from the Jewish point of view. Why? Because every one of these celestial occurrences I have mentioned happened with the Sun or planets being positioned within the constellation of Leo the Lion (the constellation of Judah — from whence the Messiah was destined to emerge) or in Virgo the Virgin. The apostle John may have seen importance in these extraordinary occurrences when he symbolically showed that Jesus was born at the New Moon of Tishri, the Day of Trumpets (Revelation 12:1–3).

Jesus Was Born on the Day of Trumpets

If one can realize that the New Testament shows Jesus born on the Day of Trumpets (the first day of Tishri ― the start of the Jewish civil year) an impressive amount of symbolic features emerge on the biblical and prophetic scenes. Before the period of the Exodus in the time of Moses, this was the day that began the biblical year. It also looks like this was the day when people were advanced one year of life ― no matter at what month of the year they were actually born.

Notice that the patriarch Noah became 600 years of age “in the first month [Tishri], the first day of the month [later to be called the Day of Trumpets]” (Genesis 8:13). That was the very day when “Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry” (v. 13). This was not only Noah’s official birthday, it became a new birth after the Flood for the earth as well.

There is more. Even the first day of creation mentioned in Genesis 1:1–5 could be reckoned as being this very day. The early Jews discussed whether the actual creation took place in spring or in autumn. But since the autumn commenced all biblical years before the Exodus (Exodus 12:2), and since all the fruit was then on the trees ready for Adam and Eve to eat (Genesis 1:29; 2:9, 16–17), it suggests that the month of Tishri was the creation month, beginning near the autumn. If so, then the first day of creation mentioned in Genesis was also the first of Tishri (at least, Moses no doubt intended to give that impression). This means that not only was this the birthday of the new earth in Noah’s day and what was later to become the Day of Trumpets on the Mosaic calendar, but it was also the day which ushered in the original creation of the heavens and the earth.

As shown before, among the Jews this day was called Rosh ha-Shanah (the Feast of the New Year). The majority belief of Jewish elders (which still dominates the services of the synagogues) was that the Day of Trumpets was the memorial day that commemorated the beginning of the world. Authorized opinion prevailed that the first of Tishri was the first day of Genesis 1:1–5. It “came to be regarded as the birthday of the world.” ¹ It was even more than an anniversary of the physical creation. The Jewish historian Theodor H. Gaster states,

“Judaism regards New Year’s Day not merely as an anniversary of creation ― but more importantly ― as a renewal of it. This is when the world is reborn.” ²

Gaster’s insight is so germane to the interpretation of the significance of biblical festivals that I will be referring to his research several times in my following references.

When Was the “Last Trump”?

The matter does not stop there. Each of the Jewish months was officially introduced by the blowing of trumpets (Numbers 10:10). Since the festival year in which all the Mosaic festivals were found was seven months long, the last month (Tishri) was the last month for a festival trumpet. This is one of the reasons that the day was called “the Day of Trumpets.” The last trump in the seven months’ series was always sounded on this New Moon day. This made it the final trumpets’ day (Leviticus 23:24; Numbers 29:1).

This was the exact day that many of the ancient kings and rulers of Judahreckoned as their inauguration day of rule. This procedure was followed consistently in the time of Solomon, Jeremiah, and Ezra ³ The Day of Trumpets was also acknowledged as the time for counting the years of their kingly rule. Indeed, it was customary that the final ceremony in the coronation of kings was the blowing of trumpets.

• For Solomon, “Blow ye the trumpet, and say, ‘God save king Solomon’” (1 Kings 1:34).
   
• For Jehu, “And [they] blew with trumpets, saying, ‘Jehu is king’” (2 Kings 9:13).
   
• At the enthronement of Jehoash, “The people of the land rejoiced, and blew with trumpets” (2 Kings 11:11).

There could well be a reflection of this symbolic feature in the New Testament. The Day of Trumpets was the time for the start of the seventh month (since the time of Moses), and the time for the “last trump” to introduce festival months. Note that in the Book of Revelation, we have the record of a heavenly angel who will blow the seventh and last trumpet blast. And recall what happens at the exact time this “last trump” is sounded.

“And the seventh angel sounded [blew the last trump]; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever [for the ages of the ages].’”Revelation 11:15

In New Testament parlance this shows the time of the coronation of Jesus, and it

In New Testament parlance this shows the time of the coronation of Jesus, and it happens at the seventh (or last) trump in the Book of Revelation ― the Day of Trumpets.

Further Significance of the Day of Trumpets

The early Jews also recognized that the Day of Trumpets was a memorial day for considering those who had died. It was not a simple type of “Memorial Day” that we moderns are accustomed to. Gaster said it was a symbolic time when “the dead return to rejoin their descendants at the beginning of the year.” ⁴ Such a day was a time when Israel would rally to the call of God for the inauguration of God’s kingdom on earth. Gaster also states this was the time that became “a symbol of the Last Trump.” ⁵ Since the apostle Paul was Jewish, it is possible that his reference to the “Last Trump” and the resurrection from the dead was also connected with the same biblical theme. The “Last Trump” of the early Jews was when the dead were remembered. To Paul the “Last Trump” was the time for Jesus’ second advent and the resurrection of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16).

Truly, the Day of Trumpets theme is that of kingship. There may even be a reference to this in the elevation of the patriarch Joseph to kingship on this New Moon day which began the month of Tishri. Notice that he had been in a dungeon for “two full years” (Genesis 41:1). It was not simply a two year period which Moses was intending, but the passage of two full years. The implication is that the story of Joseph’s rise to kingship happened on a New Year’s Day. This is manifest in Psalm 81, a New Year’s psalm commemorating Joseph’s royal enthronement (Genesis 41:40). As with Jesus, in Revelation 11:15, the kingdoms of the world became Joseph’s on the day intended for coronations ― the day that later became the Day of Trumpets. Of course, Pharaoh retained top leadership, but as the New Testament shows, God the Father still maintains supreme rule over Jesus even when Jesus is prophesied to rule the kingdoms of this world.

The Crowning of Kings

As we have shown from the Bible, the blowing of trumpets was the sign that kings could then begin to rule (1 Kings 1:34; 2 Kings 9:13; 11:11). Jewish authorities long acknowledged this royal import to the Day of Trumpets. Gaster states, “The Sovereignty of God is a dominant theme of the occasion [and] it is one of the cardinal features of New Year’s Day.” ⁶ The main issue that prevailed in the significance of the day was the triumph of God as a king over all the forces of evil. The symbolic motif of the Day of Trumpets, as Gaster shows, was God

“continually fighting His way to the Kingdom, continually asserting His dominion, and continually enthroning Himself as sovereign of creation. At New Year when the world was annually reborn that sovereignty was evinced anew.” ⁷

The theological thrust of the early Jews within their synagogue services for the Day of Trumpets was the fact that God rules over all and that he is the King of kings. On Trumpets it was common to quote Zechariah 14:16. “The king, the Lord of hosts.” Indeed, some scholars have suggested that psalms which begin “Yahweh is become king [or ‘The Lord reigns’]” (Psalm 93 and 97) were originally designed for recitation at the New Year festival.” ⁸ Recent study shows this to be true. It is postulated by many scholars that in Israel, Yahweh was crowned annually at the “New Year feast of Yahweh.” The scholar Mowinckel has argued that the “enthronement psalms” (Psalms 47, 93, 96–99) in which Yahweh reigns were a part of the liturgy of the ancient synagogues. ⁹ There is no doubt that this is true. This was also the very day when Jesus was born.

Jesus as the King of Kings

The central theme of the Day of Trumpets is clearly that of enthronement of the great King of kings. This was the general understanding of the day in early Judaism and it is certainly that of the New Testament. In Revelation 11:15, recall that the seventh angel sounds his “last trump” and the kingdoms of this world become those of Jesus. This happens at a time when a woman is seen in heaven with twelve stars around her head and the Sun mid-bodied to her, with the Moon under her feet. This is clearly a New Moon scene for the Day of Trumpets.

And note: Professor Thorley who reviewed the first edition of my work has shown that there are exactly twelve stars surrounding the head of Virgo as we see them from earth. And indeed there are. If one will look at Norton’s Star Atlas, twelve visible stars will be seen around Virgo’s head. They are (according to astronomical terminology): (1) Pi, (2) Nu, (3) Beta (near the ecliptic), (4) Sigma, (5) Chi, (6) Iota — these six stars form the southern hemisphere around the head of Virgo. Then there are (7) Theta, (8) Star 60, (9) Delta, (10) Star 93, (11) Beta (the 2nd magnitude star) and (12) Omicron — these last six form the northern hemisphere around the head of Virgo. All these stars are visible and could have been witnessed by observers on earth.

Thus, the description of the apostle John describes a perfectly normal heavenly scene that could be recognized by all people. Here was Virgo with twelve stars around her head, while the Sun was in uterine position and the Moon under her feet. And again, the only time this could have occurred in 3 B.C.E. was on the Day of Trumpets. This is when the “king of kings” was born.

Another explanation of the Twelve Stars around the head of Virgo is that it represents the headship position (the “head” of Virgo is situated in the last ten degrees of Leo) for the beginning of the story found within the Twelve Constellations as reckoned in the biblical Zodiac. In the biblical Zodiac, the tribe of Judah (the Lion, or Leo) was situated around the Tabernacle directly east of its entrance. This meant that half of the tribe of Judah was south and the other half north of the east/west line from the Holy of Holies through the court of Israel and then eastward through the camp of Israel (in this case, Judah) to encounter the altar outside the camp where the Red Heifer was burnt to ashes. This means, unlike some Gentile reckonings which started their zodiacal story with the zero line between Cancer and Leo (that is, at the very commencement of Leo), the biblical Zodiac that Drs. Bullinger and Seiss were talking about began with the 15^th degree of Leo (ofJudah). This signifies that the first constellation to be met with in this celestial story would have been the “head” of Virgo the Virgin which occupied the last ten degrees of Leo. So, John began his story at this point.

The Significance of Being Born on New Year’s Day

The Day of Trumpets in the biblical and Jewish calendars is New Year’s Day for commercial and royal reckonings (just as we have January the first on our Roman calendar as the start of our New Year). This New Year’s Day signified a time of “new beginnings” to all those in Israelwho accepted the teachings of the Bible. As a matter of fact, the Jews over the centuries have held to the belief that the Day of Trumpets was a cardinal date in the history of Adam (our first parent). It was the very day when Adam and Eve came to the recognition of whether to obey God or to defy him (see The Complete Artscroll Machzor, p.xvi). But that was not all that occurred on that day. No day in the year could be reckoned as being of more esteemed value and symbolic influence than Rosh Ha-Shanah. That day is important for the birth of the Messiah in several ways that are very profound in Jewish symbolism.

The book The Complete Artscroll Machzor gives some chronological details that the early Jewish theologians and scholars worked out from indications in the Old Testament to show when important individuals were born or major events happened in association with their lives. And what an array of significant things occurred on the Day of Trumpets and the month of Tishri. The book gives a summary of accounts found in the Jewish Talmud (Rosh Ha-Shanah 10b–11a).

Note what the Machzor states about this particular Day of Trumpets. The quotes are interesting and of value,

“The Patriarchs Abraham and Jacob were born on Rosh Ha-Shanah. Abraham was a new beginning for mankind after its [mankind’s] failure to realize the promise of Adam and Noah. Jacob was a new beginning for the Jewish people, for it was with him that Jews advanced from the status of individuals to that of a united family on the threshold of nationhood”

• Artscroll Machzor, p.xvi, italics and bracketed word mine

The Machzor does not stop with Abraham and Jacob. Look at the following quote,

“On Rosh Ha-Shanah God remembered three barren women, the Matriarchs Sarah and Rachel, and Hannah the mother of the prophet Samuel and decreed that they would give birth. Not only was Rosh Ha-Shanah a turning point in the lives of these great and worthy women, but the births of their children were momentous events for all Jewry, because they were the historic figures Isaac, Joseph, and Samuel.”

• Ibid., italics mine

If the Jewish people would realize that the New Testament in the Book of Revelation (chapter 12:1–5) also places the birth of Jesus on the very same Day of Trumpets, they might begin to understand just how important Jesus is in a Jewish sense as well as to the world. The New Testament states that he is the Messiah. He shares many similarities with the births of Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, Joseph and Samuel. People should begin to realize the significant coincidences of the birthdays of these prominent men as understood by the Jewish people. And standing out above them all, is the teaching of the apostle John that Rosh Ha-Shanah is also the birthday of Jesus.

More Significance of the Day of Trumpets

Jewish chronological evaluations show other important events associated with the Day of Trumpets (Rosh Ha-Shanah). The Machzor continues,

“On Rosh Ha-Shanah, Joseph was freed from an Egyptian prison after twelve years of incarceration. He became viceroy of Egypt, provider to the world during the years of famine, and the leader of Jacob’s family. God’s plan called for Joseph to set in motion the years of exile and enslavement that were the necessary preparation for Israel’s freedom, nationhood, and emergence in a blaze of miracles to accept the Torah and march to the Land of Israel.”

• Ibid.

This shows Rosh ha-Shanah as a day of freedom. There is more on the theme of freedom. The Machzor continues:

“On Rosh Ha-Shanah, the Jewish people in Egypt stopped their slave labor [they began their time of liberty and freedom], while they waited for the Ten Plagues to play themselves out so that Moses could lead them to freedom”

• Ibid., words in brackets mine

The Final Festivals of Israel

As I stated, this day at the beginning of the month of Tishri was the day when the seventh trump (or the last trump) was sounded to introduce the final month when the festivals of God ordained at the time of Moses would be held. This last trump is mentioned by the apostle Paul as heralding the events associated with the Second Advent of Christ back to this earth (1 Corinthians 15:52 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). This last or final trump is also mentioned by the apostle John in Revelation 11:15 as the warning sound that theKingdomofGodwill soon be coming to earth. And soon after, the seven angels of the Book of Revelation will bring on the seven last plagues (in the same fashion as the Jewish analyzers of chronology saw that from the same day of Rosh Ha-Shanah the Ten Plagues were sent forth on Egypt in the time of Moses).

What is certain is the fact that the Book of Revelation (with its teaching that Jesus was born on the Day of Trumpets) is giving us in a symbolic way the time for the nativity of Jesus whom Christians considered to be the king of the world. He was prophesied to lead all people into a time of freedom and profound peace. This is the central reason why the apostle John in Revelation 12:1–5 shows that the birth of Jesus occurred within the first few minutes (the twilight period) of the Day of Trumpets that works out to be September 11^th in 3 B.C.E.

Tishri 1 (Sept)
The Feast of Trumpets

This occurs on Tishri 1 in the Fall (Sept.-Oct.). On this day the High Priest blows the ram’s horn announcing the beginning of the New Year. Jewish Tradition gives this day a fourfold meaning:

1. New Years day.
2. The day of remembrance.
3. The day of judgment.
4. The day of blowing the Shofar.

On this day Isaiah 60-61 is read in the Synagogues to teach the lesson that eventually the Lord will be revealed as King and be accepted as the ruler of the world. Isn’t it amazing that Jesus read from section of scripture in the synagogue atNazareth for his first sermon as he described his ministry?

Luke 4:16-21 (NIV): He went toNazareth, where he                                     had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went                                    into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to                               read,

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.  Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to  proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight  for the blind, to set the oppressed free,

To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant  and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue  were fastened on him.

He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

So on September 11, 3 B.C. Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son was born inBethlehem. Unknown to the people, the trumpet sounds which blew from morning to evening inJerusalemheralded the birth of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. What a glorious day in the redemption of mankind for unto this world a Savior was born.

Why I Don’t Go to Church Anymore

By Wayne Jacobsen

Dear Fellow-believer,
    I do appreciate your concern for me and your willingness to raise issues that have caused you concern. I know the way I relate to the church is a bit unconventional and some even call it dangerous. Believe me, I understand that concern because I used to think that way myself and even taught others to as well.
    If you are happy with the status quo of organized religion today, you may not like what you read here. My purpose is not to convince you to see this incredible church the same way I do, but to answer your questions as openly and honestly as I can. Even if we don’t end up agreeing, hopefully you will understand that our differences need not estrange us as members of Christ’s body.

Where do you go to church?

I have never liked this question, even when I was able to answer it with a specific organization. I know what it means culturally, but it is based on a false premise — that church is something you can go to as in a specific event, location or organized group. I think Jesus looks at the church quite differently. He didn’t talk about it as a place to go to, but a way of living in relationship to him and to other followers of his.
    Asking me where I go to church is like asking me where I go to Jacobsen. How do I answer that? I am a Jacobsen and where I go a Jacobsen is. ‘Church’ is that kind of word. It doesn’t identify a location or an institution. It describes a people and how they relate to each other. If we lose sight of that, our understanding of the church will be distorted and we’ll miss out on much of its joy.

Are you just trying to avoid the question?

I know it may only sound like quibbling over words, but words are important. When we only ascribe the term ‘church’ to weekend gatherings or institutions that have organized themselves as ‘churches’ we miss out on what it means to live as Christ’s body. It will give us a false sense of security to think that by attending a meeting once a week we are participating in God’s church. Conversely I hear people talk about ‘leaving the church’ when they stop attending a specific congregation.
    But if the church is something we are, not someplace we go, how can we leave it unless we abandon Christ himself? And if I think only of a specific congregation as my part of the church, haven’t I separated myself from a host of other brothers and sisters that do not attend the same one I do?
    The idea that those who gather on Sunday mornings to watch a praise concert and listen to a teaching are part of the church and those who do not, are not, would be foreign to Jesus. The issue is not where we are at a given time during the weekend, but how we are living in him and with other believers all week long.

But don’t we need regular fellowship?

I wouldn’t say we need it. If we were in a place where we couldn’t find other believers, Jesus certainly would be able to take care of us. Thus, I’d phrase that a bit differently: Will people who are growing to know the Living God also desire real and meaningful connections with other believers? Absolutely! The call to the kingdom is not a call to isolation. Every person I’ve ever met who is thriving in the life of Jesus has a desire to share authentic fellowship with other believers. They realize that whatever they know of God’s life is just in part, and only the fullest revelation of him is in the church.
    But sometimes that kind of fellowship is not easy to find. Periodically on this journey we may go through times when we can’t seem to find any other believers who share our hunger. That’s especially true for those who find that conforming to the expectations of the religious institutions around them diminishes their relationship with Jesus. They may find themselves excluded by believers with whom they’ve shared close friendship. But no one going through that looks on that time as a treat. It is incredibly painful and they will look for other hungry believers to share the journey with.
    My favorite expression of body life is where a local group of people chooses to walk together for a bit of the journey by cultivating close friendships and learning how to listen to God together.

Shouldn’t we be committed to a local fellowship?

That has been said so often today, that most of us assume it is in the Bible somewhere. I haven’t found it yet. Many of us have been led to believe that we can’t possibly survive without the ‘covering of the body’ and will either fall into error or backslide into sin. But doesn’t that happen inside our local congregations as well?
    I know many people who live outside those structures and find not only an ever-deepening relationship with God, but also connections with other believers that run far deeper than they found in the institution. I haven’t lost any of my passion for Jesus or my affection for his church. If anything those have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years.
    Scripture does encourage us to be devoted to one another not committed to an institution. Jesus indicated that whenever two or three people get together focused on him, they would experience the vitality of church life.
    Is it helpful to regularly participate in a local expression of that reality? Of course. But we make a huge mistake when we assume that fellowship takes place just because we attend the same event together, even regularly, or because we belong to the same organization. Fellowship happens where people share the journey of knowing Jesus together. It consists of open, honest sharing, genuine concern about each other’s spiritual well being and encouragement for people to follow Jesus however he leads them.

But don’t our institutions keep us from error?

I’m sorry to burst your bubble here, but every major heresy that has inflicted God’s people for the last 2,000 years has come from organized groups with ‘leaders’ who thought they knew God’s mind better than anyone around them. Conversely, virtually every move of God among people hungering for him was rejected by the ’church’ of that day and were excluded, excommunicated or executed for following God.
    If that is where you hope to find security, I’m afraid it is sorely misplaced. Jesus didn’t tell us that ‘going to church’ would keep us safe, but that trusting him would. He gave us an anointing of the Spirit so that we would know the difference between truth and error. That anointing is cultivated as we learn his ways in his Word and grow closer to his heart. It will help you recognize when expressions of church you share life with becomes destructive to his work in you.

So are traditional congregations wrong?

Absolutely not! I have found many of them with people who love God and are seeking to grow in his ways. I visit a couple of dozen different congregations a year that I find are far more centered on relationship than religion. Jesus is at the center of their life together, that those who act as leaders are true servants and not playing politics of leadership, and that all are encouraged to minister to one another.
    I pray that even more of them are renewed in a passion for Jesus, a genuine concern for each other and a willingness to serve the world with God’s love. But I think we’d have to admit that these are rare in our communities and many only last for a short span before they unwittingly look to institutional answers for the needs of the body instead of remaining dependent on Jesus. When that happens do not feel condemned if God leads you not to go along with them.

So should I stop going to church, too?

I’m afraid that question also misses the point. You see I don’t believe you’re going to church any more than I am. We’re just part of it. Be your part, however Jesus calls you to and wherever he places you. Not all of us grow in the same environment.
    If you gather with a group of believers at a specific time and place and that participation helps you grow closer to Jesus and allows you to follow his work in you, by all means don’t think you have to leave. Keep in mind, however, that of itself is not the church. It is just one of many expressions of it in the place where you live.
    Don’t be tricked into thinking that just because you attend its meetings you are experiencing real body life. That only comes as God connects you with a handful of brothers and sisters with whom you can build close friendships and share the real ups and downs of this journey.
    That can happen among traditional congregations, as it can also happen beyond them. In the last seven years I’ve meet hundreds if not thousands of people who have grown disillusioned with traditional congregations and are thriving spiritually as they share God’s life with others, mostly in their homes.

Then meeting in homes is the answer?

Of course not. But let’s be clear: as fun as it is to enjoy large group worship and even be instructed by gifted teachers, the real joy of body life can’t be shared in huge groups. The church for its first 300 years found the home the perfect place to gather. They are much more suited to the dynamics of family which is how Jesus described his body.
    But meeting in homes is no cure-all. I’ve been to some very sick home meetings and met in facilities with groups who shared an authentic body life together. But the time I spend in regular body life I want to spend face to face with a group of people. I know it isn’t popular today where people find it is far easier to sit through a finely-tuned (or not so finely-tuned) service and go home without ever having to open up our life or care about another person’s journey.
    But ultimately what matters most to me is not where or how they meet, but whether or not people are focused on Jesus and really helping each other on the journey to becoming like him. Meetings are less the issue here than the quality of relationships. I am always looking for people like that wherever I am and always rejoice when I find it. In our new home in Oxnard, we’ve found a few folks and are hopeful to find even more.

Aren’t you just reacting out of hurt?

I suppose that is possible and time will tell, I guess, but I honestly don’t believe so. Anyone who is engaged in real body life will get hurt at times. But there are two kinds of hurt. There’s the kind of pain that points to a problem that can be fixed with the right caresuch as a badly sprained ankle. Then there’s the kind of pain that can only — be fixed by pulling away&emdash;as when you put your hand on a hot stove.
    Perhaps all of us have experienced some measure of pain as we have tried to fit God’s life into institutions. For a long time most of us hung in there hoping if we tweaked a few things it would get better. Though we could be successful in limited ways during moments of renewal, we also discovered that eventually the conformity an institution demands and the freedom people need to grow in Christ are at odds with one another. It has happened with virtually every group formed throughout the history of Christianity.

Are you looking for the perfect church?

No, and I don’t anticipate finding one this side of eternity. Perfection is not my goal, but finding people with God’s priorities. It’s one thing for people to struggle toward an ideal they share together. It’s another to realize that our ideals have little in common.
    I make no secret of the fact that I am deeply troubled by the state of organized Christianity. Most of what we call ‘church’ today are nothing more than well-planned performances with little actual connection between believers. Believers are encouraged toward a growing dependency on the system or its leadership rather than on Jesus himself. We spend more energy conforming behavior to what the institution needs rather than helping people be transformed at the foot of the cross!
    I’m tired of trying to fellowship with people who only view church as a two-hour a week dumping ground for guilt while they live the rest of the week with the same priorities as the world. I’m tired of those who depend on their own works of righteousness but who have no compassion for the people of the world. I’m tired of insecure people using the Body of Christ as an extension of their own ego and will manipulate it to satisfy their own needs. I’m tired of sermons more filled with the bondage of religion than the freedom of God’s love and where relationships take a back seat to the demands of an efficient institution.

But don’t our children need church activities?

I’d suggest that what they need most is to be integrated into God’s life through relational fellowship with other believers. 92% of children who grow up in Sunday schools with all the puppets and high-powered entertainment, leave ‘church’ when they leave their parents’ home? Instead of filling our children with ethics and rules we need to demonstrate how to live in God’s life together.
    Even sociologists tell us that the #1 factor in determining whether a child will thrive in society is if they have deep, personal friendships with nonrelative adults. No Sunday school can fill that role. I know of one community in Australia who after 20 years of sharing God’s life together as families could say that they had not lost one child to the faith as they grew into adulthood. I know I cut across the grain here, but it is far more important that our children experience real fellowship among believers rather than the bells and whistles of a slick children’s program.

What dynamics of body life to you look for?

I’m always looking for a people who are seeking to follow the Living Christ. He is at the center of their lives, their affections and their conversation. They look to be authentic and free others to hurt when they hurt, to question what they question and to follow his voice without others accusing them of being divisive or rebellious. I look for people who are not wasting their money on extravagant buildings or flashy programs; where people sitting next to each other are not strangers; and where they all participate as a priesthood to God instead of watch passively from a safe distance.

Aren’t you giving people an excuse to sit home and do nothing?

I hope not, though I know it is a danger. I realize some people who leave traditional congregations end up abusing that freedom to satisfy their own desires and thus miss out on church life altogether. Neither am I a fan of ‘church hoppers’, who whip around to one place after another looking for the latest fad or the best opportunity to fulfill their own selfish desires.
    But most of the people I meet and talk with are not outside the system because they have lost their passion for Jesus or his people, but only because the traditional congregations near them couldn’t satisfy their hunger for relationship. They are seeking authentic expressions of body life and pay an incredible cost to seek it out. Believe me, we would all find it easier just to go with the flow, but once you’ve tasted of living fellowship between passionate believers, it is impossible to settle for anything less.

Isn’t this view of church divisive?

Not of itself. People make it divisive when they demand that people conform to their revelation of truth. Most of us on journey are accused of being divisive because freedom can be threatening to those who find their security in a religious system. But must of us aren’t trying to recruit others to leave their congregations. We see the body of Christ big enough to encompass God’s people however he calls them to gather.
    One of the things often said about traditional church is that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in American culture. We only meet with people who look like we do and like things the way we do. I’ve found now that I have far more opportunity to get with people from a broader cross-section of his body. I don’t demand others do it my way and I hope in time that those who see it differently will stop demanding we conform to theirs.

Where can I find that kind of fellowship?

There’s no easy answer here. It might be right in front of you among the fellowship you’re already in. It might be down the street in your neighborhood or across a cubicle at work. You can also get involved in compassionate outreaches to the needy and broken in your locality as a way to live out his life in you and meet others with a similar hunger.
    Don’t expect this kind of fellowship to fall easily into an organization. It is organic, and Jesus can lead you to it right where you are. Look for him to put a dozen or so folks around your life with whom you can share the journey. They may not even all go to the same congregation you do. They might be neighbors or coworkers who are following after God. Wouldn’t that kind of interconnection among God’s people yield some incredible fruit?
    Don’t expect it to be easy or run smoothly. It will take some specific choices on our part to be obedient to Jesus. It may take some training to shake off old habits and be free to let him build his community around you, but it is all worth it. I know it bothers some people that I don’t take my regular place in a pew on Sunday morning, but I can tell you absolutely that my worst days outside organized religion are still better than my best days inside it. To me the difference is like listening to someone talk about golf or actually taking a set of clubs out to a course and playing golf. Being his church is like that. In our day we don’t need more talk about the church, but people who are simply ready to live in its reality.
    People all over the world are freshly discovering how to do that again. You can be one of them as you let him place you in his body as he desires.

Copyright © 2001 Wayne Jacobson. This article appears on the site: http://www.peterwade.com/ and http://www.lifestream.org/.