Bible College in prison

Angola is a high security prison in Mississippi. It was notorious for its violence in the 1970s. Significant improvements have come about in the last 2 decades after a local seminary offered theological training.

In Mr. Cain’s view, the biggest change came in 1995 when, as he took over the prison and faced drastic cuts in school funds, he invited the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to open a seminary. To his surprise, he said, the eminent seminary agreed, covering the costs with outside donations.

“The Bible college was the game changer,” said Mr. Cain, 71, a portly man with granny glasses and a shock of white hair. “It changed the culture of the prison.”

Some other experts say the college is one of many factors, but the softening effect of religion on life here is evident.

Beyond the bachelor’s degrees, the college has granted hundreds more certificates or associate degrees, producing a cadre of men who lead churches, provide informal counseling in their dorms and take on what many describe as their hardest task — informing fellow inmates when a loved one on the outside has died. 

Candidates must have highschool qualification, which they can gain in prison, be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years, and have a record of good behaviour. The 4-year bachelor degree is rigorous and includes Greek and Hebrew. They have had 241 graduates so far. The seminary also offers a range of diplomas.

The cost is covered by the college, that is donations to the seminary; not government. This seems preferable and should allow the college to set course requirements as it would on its non-prison campus.

As to Warden Cain's comment about changing the culture of the prison: 2500 inmates attend church weekly.

The grace of God extends to the most wicked of men if they repent of their evil and follow him. May he continue to bless the men who have found forgiveness in jail and may many more at Angola and elsewhere turn to him.

Pyongyang University of Science and Technology

James Chin-Kyung Kim is a South Korean-American who set up a university in North Korea. From 2009,

Kim, who had emigrated from South Korea to the United States in the 1970s, had been a frequent visitor to Pyongyang over the years in pursuit of what, to many, seemed at best a quixotic cause. He wanted to start an international university in Pyongyang, with courses in English, an international faculty, computers, and Internet connections for all the students. 

Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) is the first private university in North Korea.

It is most impressive that Kim has been able to do this after he was held in a North Korean prison as a spy.

Priesthood and teaching

Micah speaks against rulers in Israel

Its heads give judgment for a bribe;/
its priests teach for a price;/
its prophets practice divination for money; (Micah 3:11)

Micah address the 3 ministries of kingship, priesthood, and prophet. Kings administer justice, priests represent people to God, and prophets represent God to people. Heads are leaders, kings and apostles are in similar positions. All 3 are rebuked for offering their services for money.

I have previously written about the role of fathers as priests. What I found interesting in this passage was the connection between teaching and priesthood. Part of our role as priests—the ministry of representing people to God—is to teach these people about God. While a prophet may bring a special message to a person or a people from God, it is the priestly role which is to be a teacher. So priest does not merely intercede for people before God, but teaches the same people what God requires of them. This differs from the prophet who brings specific demands to a person or people, often in connection with judgment. The priest teaches the general expectations God has for his followers.

Israel were to have been obedient to God thus set apart from the other nations: a kingdom of priests and a holy nation; teaching them the ways of God. This is a role that we have as the people of God.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9 ESV)

As a father it is in our role as priests that we teach to our children. As such it is not optional but a necessity. There may also be a connection between the position of elder and priestly duties given the focus on teaching ability as a qualification for eldership (1Ti 3:2; Tit 1:9), although eldership is also a leadership role.

New Zealand adults lack literacy and numeracy skills

freedigitalphotos.net

This is concerning,

Close to 1 million working age adults in New Zealand lack the literacy and numeracy skills needed to function in a modern workplace.

To put it another way, about 4 in 10 (that's 2 in 5) adults have difficulties with reading, writing, maths and communication.

New Zealand only has about 4 million people with a good number of them children (presumably excluded from the analysis).

It is somewhat ironic that many people, including teachers, complained about the introduction of national standards (national testing and comparison) in numeracy and literacy some years back. The teaching focus for primary aged children should be the foundational subjects—numeracy and literacy. And this is what many parents want.

It will be interesting to see if the introduction of charter schools (possibly secondary level) will improve our nation's performance.

On reading Scriptural passages repeatedly

I have come across this advice several times, and while it may be of some use to some people, I would like to register my dissension.

I believe I first came across this concept from John MacArthur, though cannot remember the context. But he either recommended it or stated that he himself did this; or, quite possibly, both did and recommended reading thru a passage of Scripture multiple times. The rationale of such an exercise was perhaps to commit it to memory, or to better understand the passage in question.

I have since come upon this recommendation several times. Jamsco suggested it, Justin Taylor and Joe Carter referenced it. These go back to a suggestion by James Gray in his 1904 book, How to master the English Bible.

Variants on number of times thru a book are 30 times, 20 times, as many times as needed to master the book.

So I have given this a go. When I first came across the idea I tried James, though not certain if I managed to get thru the full 30 readings. I have also tried it with Jude, Ephesians, and the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7; getting thru each book or passage at least 20 times.

My conclusion, this method is overrated. It may work for some people. If it does, continue. And reading thru more than once has some benefits, not the least being an overview of the book which is sometimes less appreciated when we focus on smaller passages of Scripture. Focused exegesis mindful of a larger context is very useful. But I have not found the reading of a passage multiple times to add significant insight in the 18th or 19th reading. Frankly, 5 times is probably plenty. I think it would be more useful to read the book a few times then come back at a later stage when you have delved into several other books.

I am not saying this is a bad practice, or that it won't work for you. Rather this is to temper others' enthusiasm that you will obtain awesome insights on the 20th reading that you missed on the previous 19.

Wanting to defend the YEC position

HS writes that she is concerned about the potential effect evolutionary teaching could have on her grandchildren as they grow up. She is also surprised at the considerable buy-in to evolution by fellow Christians, and is is aware of her own shortcomings about this topic in the scientific arena.

I would like them to be better equipped to deal with it than I was. I am frustrated that I don’t think quickly on my feet, so when challenged in discussion, I am chaotic in marshalling the facts and make a real hash of defending the YEC [Young Earth Creationist/ Creationism] position. One thing I have concluded in my studies so far, is that I actually want to defend the YEC position because of what it says about God.  To me, the theology seems crucial. Yet in my studies, I have to admit there are huge obstacles to overcome.

There are several issues to cover here including

1. Understanding creationism from a biblical perspective
2. Understanding creationism from a scientific perspective
3. Appreciating how one's worldview affects one's interpretive framework
4. Dealing with theistic evolutionists
5. Teaching children and grandchildren in an antagonistic world

Firstly, it is important to understand that while you can always increase knowledge, there will always be someone who understands more in a specific area. When you encounter a person more conversant in a specific domain is it usually inadequate for him to declare victory based on education. In esoteric topics it may be that you really lack the basics to hold a useful conversation; but the skilful person knows how to talk in mutually understood terms, clarify issues, and use appropriate analogies. Remember the knowledgeable person may hold several false assumptions. To win an argument solely on a claim of expanded information storage capacity is a hollow victory.

Next, in discussing creationism with individual theistic evolutionists there needs to be willingness by both parties to acknowledge and defend their assumptions.

Understanding creationism from a biblical perspective

Expanding knowledge here is a useful thing. As a Christian the command to grow in understanding of things spiritual means that reading material on the importance of creationism in the Christian worldview is a worthwhile effort, and for the creationist a mandatory one. If you think that creationism is a true description of reality then reading and viewing material on the biblical perspective of creationism is a sensible use of time.

It is this aspect of creationism that I am increasingly drawn to. Despite the fact I became a creationist based on scientific considerations, I now think that the biblical considerations are of greater importance. The effects of the Fall, the nature of man before the Fall, the appeal to Jesus as the second Adam, the association of sin with death; these all considerably affect how one interprets Scripture. They also argue strongly for the YEC interpretation of Genesis. Hermaneutics that attempt to marry Darwin to Genesis (either while maintaining inerrancy, or denying it) have led to major interpretative errors that are highly detrimental to Christianity. A greater understanding of these issues and how your ideas on Genesis affect exegesis is imperative to the creationist, and indeed all Christians; even if your knowledge of the science is a little lacking.

Understanding creationism from a scientific perspective

While useful, this depends on: the importance of the issue to you; the time you have to study; and, to a degree, your ability with science.

Several broad issues are useful for you to gain a thorough grasp on

• The distinction between operational and historical science
• Distinguishing between data and interpretation
• Awareness of incomplete scientific knowledge
• The importance of differential weighting of facts and beliefs
• Awareness that the same data can be interpreted by different paradigms
• Understanding the nature of information, and how it differs from matter

Having a good understanding of what is meant by all these statements will make an enormous difference to your approach to understanding scientific creationism.

Appreciating how one's worldview affects one's interpretive framework

It is immensely helpful when you can see the how and why people view an issue the way they do. This includes having a clear perspective on your own presuppositions. It allows you to know what is primary. It allows you to see at what points your opponent disagrees with you.

More importantly it shapes how you interpret new data, especially data that is interwoven with theory that you dispute. You can sieve out the observations and interpret them in light or your own framework. Such observations can challenge your framework, but they do so by the nature of what was observed, not because neutral observations were bundled in an anti-biblical package.

Dealing with theistic evolutionists

I think you need to consider what approach should be taken with each person. There is little doubt of my position by many in the church who know me well, even if I have not talked about creationism with them. Though I have had some conversations with a variety of people when it comes up.

Try to establish how important the issue is for them. The person who is uncertain about the topic, who could be described as a theistic evolutionist, may have little interest in the topic.

Those who are evangelistic about theistic evolution may be antagonistic. See if they will engage with creationism. Have they read creationist material directly, or just refutations of it? If you are well read in various creationist materials you may well have an idea what specifically may challenge them and lend them that book. Pray that they will be gracious with others and that God will help them understand the Bible according to God's perspective (not yours, even if you happen to think correctly).

Many may not be strongly committed to a view. Discuss various issues from scientific perspectives and scriptural ones. Show how the views of: all men are descended from Adam, curse on the world after Adam, and no death prior to the Fall; all seriously impinge on the logical conclusions of theistic evolution.

Teaching children and grandchildren in an antagonistic world

One needs to consider how best to teach you children. Parents are responsible to God for what and how they teach. This does not mean that some teaching cannot be delegated, rather that parents remain responsible for how the children are educated. It seems that in same circumstances directly teaching children and opting out of schools may be the best option. Nevertheless, teachers work for the parents whether or not they think they do. It is good for children to know this.

My children are publicly educated. I do not know if this is the best choice. We have had a relatively positive experience thus far, though there are some negative social implications of public education. What I do teach my children, when they get contradicting information from adults in authority, is that many people do not know Jesus and this can affect what they think is true. I do not diss their teachers, but explain why people can think differently. They are to respect their teachers while knowing that their teachers are incorrect in some things they teach. This is not too hard for kids to grasp. Introduce them to the idea that not all people think the same therefore some (all) people have some incorrect beliefs. If 2 teachers teach their classes mutually contradictory things then logically at least one of the teachers must be wrong. If kids realise that their teachers will be mistaken from time to time it is not difficult to challenge kids about what they are taught when the need arises. Encouraging children to pray for their teachers in this context is beneficial.

Faculty of Resentment Studies

Interesting perspective on resentment by Theodore Dalrymple

One way and another, I have spent a lot of my life in the study of resentment, my own and that of others. I doubt whether there is any human being who has passed his life totally without feeling it; I know of many who, on the contrary, have spent their whole lives nourishing it.

And he concludes it is detrimental, potentially infinite, needs to be consciously rejected, and is "fundamentally egotistical".

Though what I found amusing was his connection to education

But another cause of resentment, I feel sure (though I cannot prove, again because of the deficiencies of character bequeathed me by my parents) is the spread of tertiary education, especially in such subjects as sociology, psychology, and anything to which the word ‘studies’ may be attached. Indeed, it seems to me that they might all usefully be joined in one great faculty, to be called the Faculty of Resentment Studies. It would undoubtedly be the largest faculty in any self-respecting university, and would easily pay for itself. Professors of Resentment could teach such subdivisions of their subject as the art of rationalisation, rhetorical exaggeration, preservation of a lack of perspective, suppression of a sense of irony or humour, and so on and so forth. Of course, entry requirements would be minimal. All you would have to do to gain entry is to denigrate your parents at a public examination, and there could hardly be found a child nowadays not able to do that.

Over the entrance to the faculty will be written not the motto of the Academy, ‘Know thyself,’ but rather ‘Talk about thyself,’ ‘Reveal nothing,’ ‘Remember that there is always someone better off than you’ and, above all, ‘Distinguish not between unfairness and injustice.’

Math examiners fail logic

Mathcounts is a US national mathematics competition for grade/ year 6 to 8. ChristianNewsWire reports on a bizarre decision.

Math Counts, a national math competition for teams and individual students in grades 6-8, will not allow homeschoolers to form teams and compete in the 2010-2011 school year.  The Math Counts board unanimously decided to exclude homeschoolers in response to a few situations in which "super teams" were formed by pulling certain gifted students from public schools and labeling them as homeschool teams.

So a group of public schooled students lie by claiming to be homeschooled. Presumably this is to get bright kids from different schools on the same team rather than under the banner of their school? And the decision is not to punish the dishonest public schooled children but the honest homeschooled children.

Clearly the idea of banning every school which has a student claiming to be homeschooled required exceptional intellect and was not considered.

Teaching children about money

Randy Alcorn gives advice on how to teach your children about money. This is an interesting post in that much of what he talks about is not money management per se (though there is that), but how to get them to think rightly about money. His 10 points cover spending time with your children, teaching them about giving, saying "no" to themselves. I thought this gem was useful.

Take a field trip to a junkyard. How can we teach our children the emptiness of materialism in a memorable way? Take them to a garage sale and show them how things that people spent great amounts of money on are now sold for pennies.

Or, take them to visit a dump or junkyard. Show them all the piles of “treasures” that were formerly Christmas and birthday presents. Point out things costing hundreds of dollars, that children quarreled about, friendships were lost over, honesty was sacrificed for, and marriages broke up over. Show them the remnants of battered dolls, rusted robots, and crashed cars. Let them look at the expensive furniture and electronic gadgets that now lie useless. Point out to them that nearly everything your family owns will one day end up in a junkyard like this.

Then read, or ask them to read, 2 Peter 3:10-14, which says when Christ returns the whole world “will be destroyed by fire” and “the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” Ask them the ultimate question: “when all that you owned lies abandoned, broken, burned and useless, what will you have done that will last for eternity?”

What will survive the coming holocaust of things? The answer is, only God, His Word and people. Explain to your children how life should be invested in the eternal. Read to them Matthew 6:19-25, where Jesus says, “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” Tell them “you can’t take it with you,” but according to Jesus, you can send it on ahead!

Worth a read.

The change wrought in the moral sentiments of Christendom

I was discussing with a fellow blogger the effect of Christianity on Western culture. It reminded me of a recent post by John C. Wright where he denied that increasing wealth has led to increasing freedoms. He argues that it is not wealth and education, or civility and law, that effects good social change, rather the Christian worldview which is in stark contrast to world it arrived in. It may be tempting to think the West was always like it was but this merely betrays historical ignorance. The West may be in decline now but its height was not a product of the evolution of European culture, it was the transformation of it by Christian belief.

I propose a radically different reading of history from yours. I propose that Christ introduced a view of man so remarkably different from that known in the ancient world, or in the East, as to be without compare or parallel. The change wrought in the moral sentiments of Christendom was so significant and widespread that you and every other scion of Christian philosophy have not even any awareness of it.

The Greeks with their infanticide, divorce, and slavery, held men to be innately unequal. Barbarians were fit only for servitude. The Romans, even worse, held it to be noble to condemn gladiators to fight to death for the amusement of idle crowds. Lavish executions by slow torture were commonplace. The idea of killing a man quickly, painlessly, even offering him a blindfold and cigarette so that he will not die without dignity is as alien to the ancient mind as non-Euclidean geometry. It is literally something from another universe.

The Indians with their caste system and the Chinese with their Confucianism and Legalism held the same view of man. Rulers rule. Servants serve. Slaves slave. Women bear children, which, when unwanted, are killed.

Imagine the scene of Jesus, a man of a conquered people, standing in chains before Pilot, the epitome of Roman power, law, and dignity. In the eyes of the ancient world, by the philosophy of the greatest and noblest sages of East and West, that scene would look like a clown confronting a demigod, with Jesus, the slave, in the role of the slapstick clown, someone whose role was to be hit with a pie or blown up by dynamite, and Pilot, speaking with the divine authority of Caesar, as the voice of heaven. The idea that the slapstick clown, whose mission in life was to die in torment for the amusement of the mob, was somehow greater than the voice of Caesar was inconceivable, radical, paradoxical, and backward by every ancient standard.

The Jewish notion that God was good is radically different from the Greek notion -- in Greek myth, after all, Cyclopes is the child of Neptune, and the gods are not always on the side of humanity -- just ask Ulysses. The Jewish notion that creation is GOOD is a radical defiance of the Greek notion that the world arose from chaos without purpose.

The adoption of the Christian world-view is what led to notions like the separation of church and state, the subordination of kings to the laws they make, the equality of men in the eyes of God, and so on. Without these ideas, the additional ideas of the security of property and the equality of slaves and women could not have surfaced. They are not natural ideas; they are not even rational ideas; they are mystical ideas having roots nowhere but Christendom.

The industrial revolution, the rising capital base, the specialization of labor, the rule of law and all other things you name or might name as sources of the increased felicity of man are products of nothing but Christendom.

Why did the industrial revolution happen in Europe, and nowhere else?

Why did modern science arise in the so called Dark Ages, and not earlier?

Why did the modern university system, with the notions of free inquiry and academic freedom, arise in Christian countries, and no where else?

Why did no one, no one, no one except the Christians ever free slaves, and why does slavery reappear within a few years in any land where Christians powers once ruled and now have withdrawn?

Why is Monogamy the rule, rather than the exception, in Christian lands, and why does the ruthless exploitation of women reappear within a few years in any land where Christians powers once ruled and now have withdrawn? -- We have God Damned HONOR KILLINGS happening in the United Kingdom these days. Is that just a coincidence or happenstance that this arose just when England moved sharply and clearly away from Christianity?

I humbly submit that you are conflating cause and effect. The cause of the improvement of man is the rise of highminded moral sentiments informing the laws and customs of man, producing such minor side effects as respect for reason, rights, and property, and which do not long last in the absence of the underlying moral sentiments.