
The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-01/04/2006

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CULTURE DIGEST: NBC’s ‘Book of Daniel’ mocks Christian families; Catholics consider abolishing ‘limbo’; ads add to teen drinking
by Erin Curry Roach
Date: January 04, 2006 - Wednesday

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--NBC is set to debut what it calls an “edgy” new drama starring a drug-addicted Episcopal priest who has a wife who downs mid-day martinis, a 23-year-old son who is a homosexual Republican, a 16-year-old daughter who sells marijuana and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sexual relations with the bishop’s daughter.

Though most Christians would see this as a mockery, NBC contends “The Book of Daniel,” which premiers Jan. 6 at 10 p.m., is a serious portrayal of an average American family.

“None of us are perfect,” Jack Kenny, a homosexual who created and produced the show, said in The Boston Globe Jan. 1. “We all have secrets, things we don’t want our spouses or lovers to know we did, whether it’s that extra martini or reliance on prescription painkillers.”

Kenny, who considers his current spirituality a private matter, said the children in the series are like “every teenager I grew up with. Honestly, I’ve had more people tell me, ‘This is so my family.’”

Beyond the dysfunctional family, troubles at the main character’s church include a major financial scandal and a lesbian secretary sleeping with his sister-in-law. And the priest, Daniel Webster, talks often with a flesh-and-blood Jesus, portrayed as a reasonable best friend with a beard and wearing a white robe.

The Christian watchdog group American Family Association is calling on people to protest the show by contacting their local NBC affiliates, sending e-mails to NBC and spreading the word about its content via church bulletins and newsletters.

“You’d be hard pressed in America to find that type of dysfunctional family, and yet NBC is going to portray it as normal,” Randy Sharp, director of special projects for AFA, told The Globe. “They take our Savior Jesus Christ and reflect Him as an everyday Joe. How disrespectful. ... We will be recording this show, reviewing it and contacting the advertisers who put their dollars behind this kind of disrespect to the Christian community.”

The last time AFA went after a television show that spoofed Christianity, it resulted in the show being canceled, The Globe noted. In 1998 ABC aired a show about a renegade Catholic priest called “Nothing Sacred,” which was short-lived despite positive reviews.

Kenny insists he didn’t mean for his show to be about religion.

“I have no faith-based agenda,” he told The Globe. “I do think Jesus is always talking to us. I think God is all around us. ... I was always raised to have a personal relationship with Jesus, but I never knew what that meant.”

CATHOLICS CONSIDER ABOLISHING ‘LIMBO’ -- A Roman Catholic tradition that has been around since the Middle Ages may soon be no more. Limbo, the place somewhere between heaven and hell reserved for unbaptized babies, was discussed among 30 top theologians last month at the Vatican and, because it has never been an official church doctrine, could eventually be tossed aside.

The controversy over limbo began with St. Augustine, who believed baptism was essential for salvation and that unbaptized babies would go to a mild level of hell, according to a report by The New York Times Dec. 28. Later, in the Middle Ages, theologians devised a place called limbo, where infants would be in neither heaven nor hell but would enjoy eternal happiness.

“Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer either,” Pope Pius X declared in 1905.

But limbo, which has no scriptural basis, has long been considered by many within the Catholic Church to be unnecessarily harsh, The Times said, and even before he was pope, Benedict XVI said he would be in favor of discarding it as a church tradition.

“Limbo has never been a definitive truth of the faith,” then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in 1984. “Personally, I would let it drop, since it has always been only a theological hypothesis.”

The issue is particularly sensitive when connected with abortion, The Times noted, because if unborn babies are humans, then their souls must go somewhere once they’re killed. And as the Catholic Church grows in popularity in regions of the world such as Africa and Asia where the infant mortality rate is high, limbo becomes an increasingly unpopular idea.

Times reporter Ian Fisher reflected, “While the concerns of the experts reconsidering limbo are more theological, it does not hurt the church’s future if an African mother who has lost a baby can receive more hopeful news from her priest in 2005 than, say, an Italian mother did 100 years ago.”

The leaders currently considering the issue have not said what doctrine would replace limbo, and their final opinion on the subject is not expected for at least another year.

ALCOHOL ADS CONTRIBUTE TO TEEN DRINKING -- Despite what the alcohol industry says, a new study has found that alcohol advertising contributes to increased drinking among youth.

The study, released in the January edition of the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, was meant to test whether alcohol advertising expenditures and the degree of exposure to alcohol advertisements affect alcohol consumption by youth.

Researchers randomly surveyed people ages 15 to 26 between 1999 and 2001 and found that youth who saw more alcohol advertisements on average drank more -– with each additional advertisement viewed, the number of drinks consumed increased by 1 percent. They also discovered that youth in markets with greater alcohol advertising expenditures drank more -- each additional dollar spent per capita raised the number of drinks consumed by 3 percent.

Youth in markets with more alcohol advertisements showed increases in drinking levels into their late 20s, but drinking plateaued in the early 20s for youth in markets with fewer advertisements, the study said.

“This study is the strongest piece of evidence yet that ... if kids see a lot of alcohol advertisements, they are more likely to drink more,” David H. Jernigan, research director of Georgetown University’s Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, told The Washington Times. He added that the findings “call into question the industry’s argument that its roughly $1.8 billion in measured media expenditures per year have no impact on underaged drinking.”

RHODE ISLAND LEGALIZES MEDICAL MARIJUANA -- Rhode Island became the 11th state to legalize medicinal marijuana Jan. 3 when the state’s House of Representatives overrode a veto by the governor 59-13 to allow people with illnesses including cancer and AIDS to grow up to 12 marijuana plants or purchase 2.5 ounces of the drug in order to alleviate their symptoms, the Associated Press reported.

Although federal law prohibits the use of marijuana altogether, Maine, Vermont, Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington permit its use for medicinal purposes.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people who use marijuana for medicinal purposes can still be prosecuted under federal law despite their state’s law, though federal authorities say it is unlikely such action will be taken.
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Ind. House Speaker refuses to defy judge's prayer ruling
by Michael Foust
Date: January 04, 2006 - Wednesday

INDIANAPOLIS (BP)--Rejecting requests to defy a judge's order banning the use of Christ's name in legislative prayers, Indiana's speaker of the house said Jan. 4 that instead of opening the 2006 session with a "government-approved" prayer, the house of representatives would have no formal prayer at all.

Addressing legislators on the first day of the new session, Indiana Speaker of the House Brian Bosma said that while the judge's ruling is being appealed, members would have "informal" and "uncensored" prayers on the floor of the House before each legislative day begins -- but not a formal prayer from the podium.

Those prayers on the floor, he said, can invoke Christ's name without defying the court order. In fact, before Bosma even spoke, members prayed together at the back of the House. Democrat Peggy Welch used "Holy Spirit" in her prayer, while Republican Eric Turner invoked the name of Christ.

But the 189-year-old tradition of having a formal prayer at the beginning of each session will take a hiatus -- at least for now, Bosma said. It was the first time that the House had met since the Nov. 30 ruling.

"We will continue to fight this order by every constitutional means available until it is overturned," Bosma said, adding that the ruling is being appealed to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

Although Bosma is Republican, the issue has brought together members of both parties. When he was done speaking, he received a standing ovation.

The controversy began Nov. 30 when U.S. District Judge David F. Hamilton ruled that legislative prayers could not invoke "Christ's name or title or any other denominational appeal." The prayers, Hamilton said in his 60-page decision, must be "non-sectarian." Hamilton was nominated by President Clinton.

"All &#91;ministers&#93; are free to pray as they wish in their own houses of worship or in other settings," Hamilton wrote. "The individuals do not have a First Amendment right, however, to use an official platform like the Speaker's podium at the opening of a House session to express their own religious faiths."

On Dec. 28 Hamilton refused to prevent the ruling from going into effect. State attorneys had filed a brief with Hamilton, asking him to reconsider. 

The lawsuit was brought against Bosma by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, the Indiana affiliate of the ACLU.

Bosma said he decided the ruling must be obeyed, even if he didn't like it. Some had called on Bosma to disobey it. 

"After talking about this with my own children, I determined that the message this sent was completely inappropriate," Bosma said. "We are a nation of laws -- even laws we disagree with. What message would a defiance send to an abusive husband who disagrees with the restraining order to stay away from his estranged wife and children?"

In recent days, Bosma said, his staff asked four Christian ministers who had previously prayed to come and pray again. All four refused, saying they could not in good conscience do so, Bosma said. He asserted that the ruling would force him to inquire "about the individual's theology" and "their beliefs regarding prayer" and force him to make a "theological determination."

"Numerous Supreme Court decisions hold that public officials like myself cannot make such religious judgments in our public work," he said.

Christian ministers, Jewish rabbis and Islamic imams all have opened the legislature in prayer, Bosma said.

"Some mentioned Jesus Christ, some chose not to. Some mentioned faiths other than Christianity, some did not. Others made reference only to God and others chose not to mention Him in any way.... The point is that we did not all agree, perhaps, on the theology of those prayers. But we all agreed and respected the individual's right to pray openly, freely without coercion or without censorship," Bosma said.

Hamilton's ruling, he said, was "intolerable and inconsistent with religious liberty and free speech."

"&#91;F&#93;or the first time in two centuries, the speaker of the house has been placed in the position of seeing to it that only government-approved theology will be offered on the house floor," Bosma said. "Requiring people to pray in accordance with a government-approved theology directly interferes with the freedom of conscience and speech that each of us holds so dearly.

"... I pledge to continue to fight with each of you, and &#91;I&#93; know that I speak for most of you, that by God's grace, we will not faint from this task."
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Baptist Spanish Publishing House celebrates centennial
by Kay Madaris
Date: January 04, 2006 - Wednesday

EL PASO, Texas (BP)--On Nov. 17, 1905, J. Edgar Davis published his first book in Spanish on a foot-powered press in his kitchen in Toluca, Mexico. From that humble beginning, the Baptist Spanish Publishing House has become a modern, fully equipped enterprise now printing and shipping Bibles, books and other literature throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

Around 1910, Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa took note of the ministry at a time when he was in desperate need of paper and learned the only supply in Toluca was in Davis’ possession. Arriving at Davis’ home, Villa demanded use of the paper, even offering to pay for it.

Davis knew he would not be able to acquire any more paper without the revolutionary’s consent, so he proposed a deal. Davis would sell Villa half his supply of paper and even print Villa’s propaganda, if Villa would allow him to continue using his kitchen press for his own religious purposes. Villa agreed. Davis’ young son, Frank, recalled sitting on Villa’s lap as his leaflets came off the press.

As Villa promised, Davis was able to continue printing his Christian literature.

The city of El Paso officially proclaimed Nov. 17 as Baptist Spanish Publishing House Day in honor of the centennial of the world’s oldest Spanish Christian publishing house.

The publishing house, which relocated to El Paso in 1916, was operated by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board for its first 94 years. Since 1999, it has been self-supporting with assistance from the Foundation of the Baptist Spanish Publishing House and oversight by an international board of directors.

As part of the centennial celebration, the publishing house opened its new Joe T. Poe Historic Center relaying the ministry’s history via various displays of original furnishings, printing presses, books and other printed materials, photographs and other memorabilia. The center also features an interactive, hands-on program for children on the publishing house’s history.

The history center is named for former director Joe T. Poe, the ministry’s current historian who has been involved in various aspects of the work for 44 years. Missionary Alicia Zorzoli was in charge of the center’s development.

The publishing house’s bilingual centennial service was held at First Baptist Church and attended by Ted Driggers and Mary Wheat, grandchildren of J. Edgar Davis, along with present and former employees, missionaries and individuals involved in various related ministries.

Following an invocation by general director Jorge E. Diaz thanking God for 100 years of service, flag-bearers filled the El Paso church’s aisle with a colorful parade of flags of many of the nations where Baptist Spanish Publishing House materials now are distributed. The flags were carried by people representing those nations.

Diaz presented former directors and wives who attended the celebration: Tom and Connie Hill, Aldo and Dora Borda, Robert and Margaret Tucker, Roberto and Noemi Garcia-Bordoli, Joe and Eleanor Poe and Ted and Mary Stanton. He also introduced Jimmie Ross, whose late husband, Wilson, once served as director.

The centennial celebration included sermons by Jerry Rankin, president of the International Mission Board, and Luis Gabriel Cesar, pastor of First Baptist Church in Ciudad Satelite, Mexico.

Rankin said he sees evidence of the work of the Baptist Spanish Publishing House everywhere he travels in Latin America.

“Remember the past, as you honor those who have gone before, but also celebrate the future,” Rankin exhorted. “Rededicate yourselves to continue this work because of the millions of unreached people in Latin America.”

Rankin noted that King David could not rest in his own house until he built a house for God.

“Therefore, we must not rest until Christ is known throughout the whole Spanish-speaking world,” Rankin said.

Cesar noted that the purpose of the publishing ministry is to change lives and invest in eternity.

“Do not stop doing it now,” he said. “I remind you that the ministry in which you have invested your lives is long-term. This is a wonderful time to celebrate, but it cannot compare to the glory that is to come.”
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Kay Madaris is a retired missionary to Mexico, now living in Ruidoso, N.M.


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C.S. Lewis scholar hopes ‘Narnia’ helps postmoderns find God
by Kyle Smith
Date: January 04, 2006 - Wednesday

Updated Feb. 24

WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP)--When Michael Travers first read C.S. Lewis’ writings as a teenager, he “didn’t think much” of Lewis’ legendary “Mere Christianity” and felt his “Screwtape Letters” were “not as impressive to me” as they were to others.

Admittedly, his disinterest had more to do with his spiritual condition at that time than the quality of Lewis’ work, said Travers, an English professor and C.S. Lewis scholar at Southeastern College at Wake Forest, the undergraduate school of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.

Travers’ interest in Lewis has led him to speak at four C.S. Lewis conferences, and he has been asked to contribute two chapters on Lewis in an upcoming major four-volume scholarly work by Bruce Edwards.

After his conversion in his mid-20s, Travers, then a doctoral student studying John Milton, decided to give Lewis another try while he was in the process of “rethinking my whole discipline from a Christian perspective.” Travers re-read Mere Christianity and, among other works, the seven-volume “Chronicles of Narnia” series for the first time. He continued pouring through much of Lewis’ work in the years to come, which he credits as seminal in shaping his thinking on many issues, most notably how to integrate his academic discipline and his faith, as Lewis did so well.

Travers found in Lewis a talented apologist, brilliant fiction writer and courageous academician, willing to stand behind his Christian beliefs even when vilified by colleagues.

Perhaps in no other venture did Lewis receive more criticism from his Oxford peers than when he decided to write the Chronicles of Narnia, a series of children’s books from a Christian perspective.

However, after reading the Narnia series, and re-reading them to his children as they were growing up, Travers takes from the books an altogether different impression.

“I think they are the premier children’s fantasy stories of the 20th century,” Travers said unreservedly.

“Whether you’re Christian or not, I think these are must-reads for kids -– and older kids,” he added with a smile, referring to those his age who still enjoy being transported into the world of fantasy that Lewis created.

Travers said Lewis’ days of greatest influence may yet be ahead as many are becoming acquainted with him through the film, “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe,” released in theaters Dec. 9 and which continued to lead in box office receipts over the New Year’s weekend.

The film, based on the 1950 book with the same title, is co-produced by Douglas Gresham, Lewis’ stepson who plans to convert the children’s series into five major motion pictures.

Done correctly, Travers said, the Narnia films have a tremendous potential for impacting American culture by acquainting people with a biblical worldview and a story with enough similarities to the Gospel to enable people to more readily comprehend it in the future.

Fiction, he said, can be an extremely effective vehicle for smuggling biblical truth into the minds of a skeptical culture.

“I think that strategy is probably extremely effective,” Travers said, “particularly in our postmodern culture, where people tend to think narratively rather than propositionally, and particularly for the masses and for the non-Christian who doesn’t want to hear a theological discourse on substitutionary atonement.... It has the promise of working very well. It does in the books.”

Lewis’ own strategy for the books was that they serve a pre-evangelistic purpose, Travers said.

“&#91;Lewis&#93; used the word ‘supposal,’” Travers said. “‘Suppose there were a world of talking beasts. What would Christ look like in such a world? Well, He’d be a lion -– what do you expect?’ So Aslan is Christ in Narnia, rather than a symbol of Christ in this world. The way he put it in a letter to a child was, ‘If you will recognize Aslan in Narnia, you will be perhaps better prepared to recognize Christ in our world.’

“Rather than a full-blown, ‘Go and see this movie and get convicted of your sins and become a Christian’ –- now, that can happen -– rather than that, what he saw in his books was he is clearing away some of the rubble of modernity and presenting the Gospel in symbolic form so that people are ready to hear the Gospel when it is presented to them.”

The film can give believers a golden opportunity to follow up on it by sharing the Gospel, Travers said.

“I think &#91;opportunities&#93; will be huge, and I think if we don’t take advantage of it, it’s our fault,” said Travers, who spoke to a group of children at a public middle school about Narnia even before the film’s release. “I think people in churches will be able to use this film as an opportunity to present the Gospel. People are asking questions. I think there are all kinds of opportunities for Christians to speak to non-Christians about Christ because of this film. And secondly, I think there are going to be a lot of opportunities for parents to talk to children about spiritual things.”

Travers is confident that Lewis has as much to say to this generation of unbelievers as he did to his own. In addition to preparing them to recognize the Christ of the Bible after seeing a fictional character with similar attributes, Lewis drives home the reality of man’s sinfulness, an essential component of the Gospel message.

“One of &#91;Lewis’&#93; earliest critics called him ‘an apostle to the skeptics,’” Travers said. “That still holds. He argues in Mere Christianity and ‘The Abolition of Man’ and he shows us in his fiction that every human being ever born has a moral code, even if he denies it. He’s with &#91;the Apostle&#93; Paul in Romans chapter 1 and Romans chapter 2. And so he presents the moral code, our responsibility to obey it and the fact that no one has ever obeyed it fully.

“And that’s a problem in our modern culture. Modern people don’t see a problem. They don’t see themselves as being lost. Almost the first full three chapters of Romans present the problem -– there’s a sin problem here; you’re lost -– before the Gospel is presented in 3:21 and following. Lewis is good at getting the unbeliever to understand that there is a problem. There’s a moral code, ‘and I don’t adhere to it. What’s the solution?’”

The solution is the Gospel, taken by believer-emissaries to the lost, Travers said. However, Lewis’ value lies not only in what he has to say to the lost man, but also his relevance to the believer, and for this reason Travers teaches a course on Lewis at Southeastern College at Wake Forest and Southeastern Seminary.

“I think C.S. Lewis is certainly one of the most important Christian writers of the 20th century,” Travers said. “We have the theologians who take their place, but this man’s influence is perhaps broader than just about anybody else, even Francis Schaeffer. So I think it’s important for our students to know what he wrote.... I think it will help them to speak to the culture in which we live. I think Lewis is brilliant at speaking to modernism, and he saw postmodernism coming ... and he addressed it. So, I think by reading those works, our students are better equipped to address the people they’re going to meet in the marketplace.”

Travers’ own life has been shaped by Lewis in a number of ways. In Lewis, Travers found an example of a scholar willing to broaden his field of study to include other areas of interest, something he himself aspired to do.

“&#91;Lewis&#93; was helpful to me in the middle of my career because I found myself increasingly drawn to write on the literature of the Bible,” Travers said. “But I didn’t have a degree in the Bible, and how dare I write about such a thing? But Lewis wasn’t an expert in the Bible, and he wrote a book on the Bible, ‘Reflections on the Psalms.’ He wasn’t an expert in theology. He wrote ‘Mere Christianity,’ ‘Abolition of Man’ and ‘The Problem of Pain.’ So he gave me some courage to look at other areas, think them through and write about them. He galvanized my career at a time when I needed him....”

Travers also credits Lewis with giving him the courage to speak the Gospel to other academics, “people in English and American Literature in secular academies who don’t care anything for a Christian perspective and think it’s antiquated and cute, maybe at best.

“But he speaks to the issues of the human condition from a Christian perspective,” Travers said. “And he’s also a respected literary scholar, and so he gave me an entree there as well.”

Most significantly, Travers credits Lewis with helping him sharpen his own views on how his discipline relates to the Bible.

“That’s probably the most important thing,” Travers said. “We talk a lot about integrating faith and learning. How does the Bible relate to my subject of English, for instance? How does the Bible relate to my life as a Christian outside of the church? It’s C.S. Lewis who got me thinking about how the Bible permeates and relates to every area of life. First Corinthians 10:31 says, ‘Whatsoever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.’ That means the way I teach my classes. That means the way I grade my papers. That means the way I write my articles and books, and Lewis was the one who challenged me with that, I think, most of all.

“As he said in one of his books, ‘I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.’ And it’s that ‘by it’ -– Christianity puts everything into perspective. And Lewis did that for me.”

However, despite all of the platitudes he might direct toward Lewis, Travers encourages his students to read his work critically rather than blindly affirming everything Lewis believed.

“Lewis wouldn’t make a good Southern Baptist,” Travers cautioned. “He doesn’t hold to the inerrancy of Scripture, at least not a plenary inspiration of Scripture in any way. His view of the atonement is less than precise and you could go on through some of his theology. The evangelical community has, by and large, bought into C.S. Lewis. I think we have to be more critical; we have to be more careful. So I think it will help us sharpen our thinking. I’m not trying to vilify the man. He is extremely helpful, but let’s not idealize him, either. Let’s be realistic about him.”
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Once a challenger to Tiger Woods, now a co-laborer with Christ
by Michael McCormack
Date: January 04, 2006 - Wednesday

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (BP)--If a SportsCenter trivia question asked, "Which golfer finished high school ranked No. 2 behind Tiger Woods?" most people would scan the PGA Tour roster for possible answers. But they would be looking in the wrong place.

The answer, instead, was among the Dec. 17 graduates of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary: Brad Zwetschke, who, if featured in a SportsCenter segment, would have plenty to tell about the way God led him to seminary and in the way God cared for him and his family following Hurricane Katrina.

Zwetschke, originally from Chicago, was introduced to golf at age 3, began playing on courses at 4 and competed in his first tournament at 6. He was traveling to tournaments at 8 and touring the country at 13.

Such intense play at a young age allowed him to grow up competing against many of the golfers presently on the PGA Tour, the most notable being Tiger Woods. In 1991, Zwetschke came within a shot of beating Woods at the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship.

As Woods took the fast track from college golf to the PGA Tour, Zwetschke began tournament play with the hopes of eventually making the circuit, but God had other plans in store.

In the midst of his first year as a professional golfer, Zwetschke began to see God at work in his life. He was surrounded by some Christian men who invited him to Bible studies and to church. When Zwetschke's father had a heart attack on the golf course during one of his tournaments, God provided someone in the crowd who was able to perform CPR until help arrived. The experience changed his life, and during that tough time, Zwetschke turned to Christ.

Another change came not long afterward when Zwetschke met Christina Mauldin, a pastor's daughter from the south side of Chicago. The couple married about a year and a half later. After their wedding, they moved to Florida where Zwetschke continued his golf career.

"When we first got married, we'd go &#91;to tournaments&#93; together," Zwetschke said. "Sometimes the hotels were too expensive to stay in for four nights and we would sleep in the van in the parking lot of the clubhouse. Depending on how expensive some things were, we had to make do with what we had.

"But that's the typical lifestyle of somebody who's trying to make it. There's a lot of eating out and sandwiches on the road and trying to find a place to do laundry. It wasn't glamorous by any means."

As the young couple traveled together to tournaments across the United States, they attended churches in the cities where they were staying. Zwetschke's practice of attending church while away from home became an avenue by which God revealed His plans.

"I was at a qualifying in Australia and I was gone from my family for three weeks," Zwetschke recounted. "I had been there for a week and I decided to go to this little church." Zwetschke and his wife had been praying for a year about God’s will for their lives. If he placed high enough in the qualifying, there was a chance the family would move to Australia for him to play in the tour there. The pastor knew a lot was riding on his performance in the tournament.

"He brought me up in front of the church and the church leaders prayed over me," Zwetschke continued. "He ended up preaching this sermon on John 21. I heard God speaking to my heart about how Peter had spent some time with Christ and that it was time for him to give up fishing."

The parallel between Zwetschke and the disciple became suddenly clear. He, like Peter, had spent his life focused on a trade -- golfing.

"He spoke to my heart, saying 'This is all you've done. This is all you've ever known. I need you to take care of My sheep and feed My lambs," Zwetschke said. "I came home and told my wife, 'I don't know what this means. But I know that God is doing something with us.'"

Before long, while traveling to a tournament in Canada, Zwetschke heard the same message from John 21 on the radio. He said he practically turned the van around -- the decision was made.

Almost immediately, Zwetschke began attending the NOBTS extension center in Jacksonville, Fla., and nearly three years ago, Zwetschke and his family moved to New Orleans to live and study on campus.

As of last August, Zwetschke had just one semester left before graduation and also did not know for sure where God would lead his family next. Zwetschke and Christina were expecting a child in September -- their third. Then came Hurricane Katrina.

As in countless other situations, God used the hurricane to plant the Zwetschke family exactly where He wanted them. When the storm drew near, Zwetschke took his family to Beatrice, Ala., along with several other seminary families. A church there was gracious to look after them for a couple weeks. 

Foremost on his mind was finding a hospital for Christina to have the baby, so they called the doctor in Sarasota, Fla., who delivered their other two children. Shortly thereafter, Christian Thomas Zwetschke was born on Sept. 27.

From there things just fell into place.

Zwetschke went by Colonial Oaks Baptist Church in Sarasota to see if the church had a place where he could serve. They did. For about a year, the church had searched for an outreach and student minister. Almost at the very moment Zwetschke walked in the door, someone from the church was dialing the seminary's number in hopes of offering it to a New Orleans seminary student. Zwetschke was a perfect match.

When classes started up again in October, he enrolled in the three classes he needed before graduation. The Internet-based threaded discussion classes were challenging, but Zwetschke persevered.

"I knew Hebrew was going to be the toughest online, but I was able to get that done," he said. "It was very, very difficult."

But he said that his Dec. 17 graduation in Birmingham, Ala., was worth all the tough work.

"The ceremony at graduation was incredible," Zwetschke said. "It was closure to us, because we didn't go back to campus &#91;during the post-Katrina, post-flood move-out days&#93;. We knew we lost everything. To see everyone at graduation was just closure."
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FIRST-PERSON: Whose miracle will the new New Orleans be?
by Joe McKeever
Date: January 04, 2006 - Wednesday

NEW ORLEANS (BP)--Last summer, my son Neil told his three children that he planned to take them to the park the next day. "Pray it won't rain," he said.

The next morning, they piled into the truck and were driving across town when he said, "It's such a beautiful day. Who asked God for this? Grant, did you?"

"No," the 11-year-old said. "I forgot."

"Abby, did you?"

"No, I forgot, too."

"Oh, good," said Erin, her 8-year-old twin, "then it was my miracle."

At church, I see Graham Waller, so bravely dealing with the blindness which resulted from surgery for a brain tumor over four years ago. We still pray for his healing. I've told his parents, Ed and Sherri, that one reason I pray is that when the healing comes, "I want it to be my miracle."

My college roommate and best man in our wedding, Joel Davis, and his wife, Wilma, have a daughter-in-law who is fighting a severe kind of cancer. She spends many weeks in the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston undergoing all kinds of harsh treatments and bizarre tests. I've never met Tina, but every time I read an update on her situation, I pray for her again. And I think, "Lord, when she gets well, I want it to be my miracle, too."

Now, imagine a day in the future, perhaps a decade from now, when the city of New Orleans is a different place. Perhaps the population is 75 percent of what it was here before the storm, but now there are no slums, no hotbeds-for-crime housing projects, fewer drugs, less violence, safer streets, better schools and Christian churches that are the marvel of the nation, where all the pastors love each other and work together, where God's people are loving and ministering and blessing. Imagine a new kind of city, one unlike any this country has seen in our lifetimes.

Whose miracle will that be?

That miracle will belong to Texas Baptists. They are coming in here in droves (appropriate for Texans, I would think); they are working and witnessing and giving sacrificially to help us rebuild. And they are praying; my, how they are praying.

That miracle will belong to Missouri Baptists. They've been all over this city from the earliest days after the storm, feeding thousands, operating chain saws, climbing on top of houses, witnessing to our people, giving of themselves. And those who couldn't come have been praying and giving.

The miracle of the new New Orleans will belong to Arkansas Baptists. They came in to work when no one else was allowed in and they're still here. You'll find them outside our churches slaving beside the massive steamers preparing thousands of meals a day, blessing our people everywhere in the name of Jesus. You'll find teams of them sleeping in churches and working in our neighborhoods, showing the love of Jesus Christ to people who stand in awe of this kind of dedication.

The miracle will belong to God's people in at least 41 states, and maybe more. That's how many states have been represented in the disaster relief teams that have come our way post-Katrina, the last time I checked the North American Mission Board’s website.

And the miracle will belong not to Baptists only, of course. God has drawn His people from every sector of this nation to this sunken spot on the globe, all for the single purpose of serving a needy humanity in Jesus' name.

The miracle of New Orleans will belong to the good folks from Peachtree City, Ga., and Hendersonville, Tenn., who were covering parks in different sections of the city on a recent Saturday, bearing a witness, ministering to folks, loving and giving and laughing. And the wonderful people of Greenville, S.C., and Charlotte, N.C., who donned their worst clothes and did the dirtiest work known to man, mudding out our ruined churches, then huddling around the pastor and lifting him and the church family to the Father.

The miracle of this new city will belong to a singing group that met in a West Virginia church soon after the storm and took up several hundred dollars to help a needy pastor in New Orleans. I was delighted to hand it personally to two men of God who were thrilled to receive the tangible encouragement.

The miracle will belong to those who came from Florida and all over Louisiana and walked the streets with us on a recent Saturday, praying for the coming back of the city, asking God that it may be restructured according to His blueprint and not man's. And it will belong to those who sent word that, unable to join us for the prayerwalk, they would pray in their cities, in their homes.

The miracle will belong to the Korean pastors who boarded a plane a couple of weeks after the storm and flew across the ocean to do what they could to assist and encourage our people and our churches. The language barrier disappeared when they walked in; their very presence spoke eloquently of the Lord's nearness.

The miracle of New Orleans will belong to those precious individuals who send us notes saying things like "I pray for you every day" and "I used to belong to such-and-such a church in your city. I want you to know we've taken up an offering, we're sending a team, and our people are praying."

Mostly, the miracle of the rebuilding and renewal and revival of this old city will belong to those who stay to the end, seeking heaven’s blessing in prayer for all who live here and labor and witness and make those key decisions which will affect everything else.

The Father knows. He can sort it all out. And one fine day, one day when the family all comes together for the first time, we who call ourselves the new New Orleanians will be in the audience applauding as the Father calls out the names and hands out the honors. Many who made all the difference we never knew, never talked to and never met. But their prayers, their gifts, their work was used of the Father to turn the tide. They were faithful and their diligence made the difference.

Allow me to get the jump on the rest of my friends who will be applauding you and cheering you that day, and tell you now, "Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you for loving and coming, for giving and praying, for working for us and weeping with us. Thank you."

Thank you so very much.
--30--
Adapted from a weblog by Joe McKeever (at www.joemckeever.com), director of missions for the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans.


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FIRST-PERSON: Darwin’s dangerous idea -- no middle ground
by R. Albert Mohler Jr.
Date: January 04, 2006 - Wednesday

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Daniel C. Dennett is one of the world's most influential evolutionary scientists, and unlike many of his colleagues, Dennett doesn't run away from Darwinism's logical conclusions. Instead, he describes Darwin's theory of evolution as a "universal acid" that completely reshapes reality, destroying those truths previously held to be enduring and unchanging.

"Whenever Darwinism is the topic, the temperature rises, because more is at stake than just the empirical facts about how life on Earth evolved, or the correct logic of the theory that accounts for those facts," Dennett asserts.

In a recent interview with Germany's Der Spiegel, Dennett dismissed the concept of Intelligent Design, arguing that all intelligent persons simply must accept Darwin's theory at face value. Nevertheless, Dennett does understand the logic of Intelligent Design. As he sees it, many persons reject evolution because it "goes right to the heart of the most troubling discovery in science of the last few hundred years." This is "the idea that it takes a big fancy smart thing to make a lesser thing. I call that the trickle-down theory of creation. You'll never see a spear making a spear maker. You'll never see a horseshoe making a blacksmith. You'll never see a pot making a potter. It's always the other way around and this is so obvious that it just seems to stand to reason."

Nevertheless, Dennett believes this reasoning to be profoundly wrong. Interestingly, he suggests that the idea of Intelligent Design, at least in its fundamental form, may be even older than the human species. He offers the suggestion that what he identifies as earlier species of hominids might have created objects and then "had a sense of being more wonderful than their artifacts." Then, Dennett simply suggests that Homo sapiens, capable of creating a seemingly endless array of objects, would assume that they, too, were the products of an intelligent creator. 

Amazingly, Dennett, along with his colleague Richard Dawkins, uses the reality of complexity and apparent design to argue against a designer. In one sense, Dennett simply turns the idea of design on its head, arguing that greater design means, in effect, less proof of a designer. As Dennett claims, "not only can you get design from un-designed things, you can even get the evolution of designers from that un-design. You end up with authors and poets and artists and engineers and other designers of things, other creators -- very recent fruits of the tree of life. And it challenges people's sense that life has meaning." Well, of course it does.

Dennett does believe that human beings are unique as a species. This special status is essentially a function of linguistics. Dennett, who serves as University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University, as well as director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at the university, has devoted himself to the understanding of human consciousness and linguisticality.

The ability to use language, Dennett explains, means that human beings can learn, not only from their own experience, but from others, both living and dead. Thus, "human culture itself becomes a profound evolutionary force. That is what gives us an epistemological horizon which is far, far greater than that of any other species. We are the only species that knows who we are, that knows that we have evolved. Our songs, art, books and religious beliefs are all ultimately a product of evolutionary algorithms. Some find that thrilling, others depressing." 

Dennett's ideas are worth a close look. After all, he boldly accepts what so many other evolutionary scientists deny -- that Darwin's theory means the impossibility of any belief in God. While evolutionists such as the late Stephen J. Gould argued that evolution and religion could be considered as "non-overlapping magisterium," thus allowing each to operate in separate spheres, Dennett explicitly rejects this argument. He directs specific criticism at evolutionist Michael Ruse, accusing him of "just trying to put the implications of Darwin's insights into soft focus and to reassure people that there is not as much conflict between the perspective of evolutionary biology and their traditional ways of thinking."

When it comes to the human soul, Dennett insists that it must be no more than human consciousness operating as a part of our physical bodies. Dennett's physicalism means that he rejects any concept of the soul as independent of the chemical operations of the brain. As he told Der Spiegel, "The brain is no more wonder tissue than the lungs or the liver. It's just a tissue." 

Committed to a radical form of naturalistic materialism, Dennett understands belief in God to be nothing more than an artifact of the evolutionary process. The death of God, Dennett explains, "is a very clear consequence" of Darwinism.

On this point, we should at least be thankful that Dennett is more intellectually honest than many of his evolutionary colleagues. He allows that belief in God may be culturally acceptable, but only insofar as this God has nothing to do with our origins or our lives -- past, present or future. 

"One has to understand that God's role has been diminished over the eons," Dennett instructs. "First, we had God ... making Adam and making every creature with his hands, plucking the rib from Adam and making Eve from that rib. Then we trade that God in for the God who sets evolution in motion. And then you say you don't even need that God -- the lawgiver -- because if we take these ideas from cosmology seriously then there are other places and other laws and life evolves where it can. So now we no longer have God the lawfinder or God the lawgiver, but just God the master of ceremonies. When God is the master of ceremonies and doesn't actually play any role anymore in the universe, he's sort of diminished and no longer intervenes in any way." Put simply, "the job description for God shrinks."

In his 1995 book, "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," Dennett began by reciting a Sunday School song he had learned as a child. The song, "Tell Me Why," asks why the stars shine, why the ivy twines, and why the sky's so blue. As the song assures, these things are so because God made them so. "This straightforward, sentimental declaration still brings a lump to my throat -- so sweet, so innocent, so reassuring a vision of life!" Dennett remembers. Nevertheless, he doesn't believe that it is true. "The sweet, simple vision of the song, taken literally, is one that most of us have outgrown, however fondly we may recall it. The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us (all creatures great and small) and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight -- that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether."

The only concept of God that can survive the emergence of Darwinism is God as an intellectual concept who simply offers a mythopoetic means of appreciating grandeur and beauty. 

Theism, the belief in a personal and self-existent God, must go the way of the Dodo bird, he argues. "A faith, like a species, must evolve or go extinct when the environment changes. It is not a gentle process in either case. … We preach freedom of religion, but only so far." He continues: "It is nice to have grizzly bears and wolves living in the wild. They are no longer a menace; we can peacefully coexist, with a little wisdom. The same policy can be discerned in our political tolerance, in religious freedom. You are free to preserve or create any religious creed you wish, so long as it does not become a public menace."

Well, we have been warned. Dennett clearly understands traditional Christianity to be just the kind of public menace he fears. Nevertheless, he is absolutely certain that he and his cherished theory of evolution will win -- and fairly soon. Darwin's theory of evolution will, he confidently asserts, come to occupy a "secure and untroubled place in the minds -- and hearts -- of every educated person on the globe."

Dennett's excitement about Darwinism goes back to his childhood, when he and his friends would speculate about the existence and effect of a substance they called the "universal acid." "Universal acid is a liquid so corrosive that it will eat through anything! The problem is: what do you keep it in? It dissolves glass bottles and stainless-steel canisters as readily as paper bags. What would happen if you somehow came upon or created a dollop of universal acid? Would the whole planet eventually be destroyed? What would it leave in its wake? After everything had been transformed by its encounter with universal acid, what would the world look like?" 

As an adult, Dennett now seizes upon Darwinism as the very universal acid that had fascinated his imagination as a boy. This universal acid is not a liquid substance, but an intellectual idea.

"Little did I realize that in a few years I would encounter an idea -- Darwin's idea -- bearing an unmistakable likeness to universal acid: it eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways."

Transformed indeed. Dennett understands that every important idea and pattern of thought is instantly transformed if Darwinism is accepted as true. The evolutionary worldview of Darwinism, based in purely materialistic and naturalistic explanations of all phenomena, leaves no room for transcendent meaning, human dignity, morality or hope. Human beings, along with the rest of the cosmos, are simply the accidental byproducts of vast cosmic forces. 

Daniel C. Dennett understands all this, but exults in Darwin's "dangerous idea." Indeed, he suggests that he would award Darwin "the gold medal for the best idea anybody ever had." Remember Dennett the next time you hear the argument that evolution and Christianity are compatible. The basic incompatibility of Darwin's theory is the one facet of Dennett's thought we can truly appreciate. Now, if only his evolutionary colleagues would be equally candid.
--30--
This column was adapted from Mohler's website at www.albertmohler.com. Mohler is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. For more articles and resources by Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, visit www.albertmohler.com.



