The “Conservative Bible Project”: not a hoax, apparently

Such are the extremes of the Christian far-right that it was initially hard to tell whether The Conservative Bible Project was a hoax. Surely, the idea that current Bible translations require “correction” to explain the “full free-market meaning” of Jesus’ parables must be a joke—sly self-parody from Conservapedia, the Wikipedia alternative based on the notion that knowledge itself must be kept ideologically pure. Right?

Well, apparently not. Their translation of the Gospel of Mark is already on-line and clearly meant to be taken seriously. To be fair, they don’t seem to have altered the text in quite as ludicrous a way as originally suggested. That makes you wonder, though, why they are bothering in the first place. Perhaps it is a publicity stunt after all.

Christians observing Ramadan

Is there a difference between pursuing peace with neighbors and assimilation? Is this what being ‘all thing to all people’ looks like?

“This year, a group of “Emergent Christians,” led by one of the United States’ most influential pastors, Brian McLaren have announced they will actually be ‘observing’ the Muslim holy month, along with a Muslim ‘partner,’” writes Joel Richardson in a WND commentary today. “Ramadan is the month that Muslims thank Allah, their god, for revealing the Quran to Muhammad, their prophet. On McLaren’s personal blog, he recently announced his intentions: ‘We, as Christians, humbly seek to join Muslims in this observance of Ramadan as a God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness.’”

Paul reminded the Colossians: “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations — ‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’…These have indeed an appearance of wisdom…” This message may be lost somewhere in the translation to expressing peace.

source: WND, via dana

Africa: inmates ‘dig’ farming their own food

Prisoners in Mozambique are growing their own food and even selling some of the extra vegetables locally to help pay some prison bills — and they’re happy about it.

“The idea is very good and positive,” says Sergio Matsinhe, who is serving a three-year sentence for stealing money.

“The more we produce, the better we’ll be able to vary and improve our diet. At the moment it consists mainly of beans, rice or stiff porridge,” he says.

The Tinonganine Prison farm is a 100-hectare plot where the prisoners are growing potatoes, pumpkins, lettuces and other vegetables.

It’s no wonder that these inmates enjoy the work — conditions in Mozambique prisons are notoriously unsanitary and the government admits that they can not afford to feed prisoners properly.

Some human rights observers wondering whether governments should be using so-called forced-labor or how profits should be used. As always there is a fine line between what is a productive and redeeming rehabilitation through work and on the hand forced labor.

For now, it seems to be a positive direction.

Fellow inmate Daniel Muchate, who is serving a three-year jail sentence for burglary, also gives the project the thumbs-up.

“The idea to farm the land is a good one, because when you think of it, it’s better for a prisoner to be out on the land producing food than sitting in a cell all day,” he says.

“It’s a really great opportunity for us. We feel privileged.”

source: BBC

Gang-reforming bakery ‘needs dough’

After being in a gang and serving time in prison, Mr. Rivera is now a supervisor at the bakery. picture: BBC

Homeboy Industries, sounds like a rapper’s place of business but it’s actually a place where ex-gang members looking for a way out in LA find work and new lives — through baking, installing solar panels, and silk screening.

But the ministry is running out of money, even as more are coming for help — 12,000 reports the BBC.

Forty per cent of the budget comes from private foundations and corporations and as Father Greg puts it, that money has evaporated in the recession.

Father Greg Boyle started the ministry in 1988 in reponse to rising gang violence. picture: BBC

“They [the donors] say, boy, we can’t do it this year, probably not even next year,” he says.

Trying to keep the place going at the moment is “a white knuckle ride. I don’t sleep very much at night, we’re just going from payroll to payroll,” he says.

source: BBC via grace

Chimps appear to be more evolved than humans.

Saw this Ad floating around on BBC.

This is ground-breaking news in the life-as-spontaneous-combustion theory circles. Lucy, if you recall, was more chimp like and scientists believe she walked around on all fours unlike Ardi who might have been on two feet. But the scientist date Ardi’s skeleton BEFORE Lucy.

Time puts it this way,

“So what does that mean? Based on Ardi’s anatomy, it appears that chimpanzees may actually have evolved more than humans — in the scientific sense of having changed more over the past 7 million years or so.”

Leaves us pondering — hadn’t we better find a way to stop all this evolving business?

Africa: The gospel torn — lovingly

Good news in Africa.

Tanzania: They tore the Gospel apart, and that is good

A Wycliffe Bible translator in Tanzania reported the following incident. Returning home to his village for the funeral of an uncle, this translator took with him the most recent draft of the death and resurrection of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel (Mark 14-16). This passage was newly translated into Rangi, the language spoken in that area. While in the village, the translator’s neighbors and family called on him to read God’s Word in Rangi over and over again. And when it was time for them to return to their home villages, they pleaded for copies of the Gospel.

But he had only the one. So he tore his copy apart, page by page, to satisfy the people’s unquenchable thirst for the Water of Life. That way one person from each of the many surrounding villages could have a least one page of God’s precious Word.

tanzanian fisherman, photo: eliza barclay

The need for Bible translation in Africa is great. Wycliffe’s project ‘Scripture Access for All’ in Tanzania is part of a larger, worldwide ‘Last Languages Campaign’ to provide for “the least, the last, and the lost” who still hunger for the Scripture in their language.

Source: Bob Creson, Wycliffe via JNI

which came first the chimp or the human?

"Ardi" in Science Magazine.

Evolutionists have long believed that first came the chimp which then evolved into man. One obstacle to proving their theory however, has been a lack of evidence for the intermediary steps between chimp and man. Now, they’ve discovered “Ardi” — and “Ardi” is turning their theory human-side up. Now some experts are thinking chimps evolved from humans.

“It is probably the most important find we have had yet,” says Owen Lovejoy, a biological anthropologist at Ohio’s Kent State University.

“It’s transformative. This is a lot closer to anything that you’d call the missing link than anything that’s ever been found,” says Lovejoy, one of the primary authors on the journal package.

Among other things, research on the 4.4 million year old creature suggests that humans are far more primitive in an evolutionary sense than the great apes — like chimps and gorillas — of today.

“In a way we’re saying that the old idea that we evolved from a chimpanzee is totally incorrect,” he says. “It’s more proper to say that chimpanzees evolved from us.”

(Could that line of thinking evoke howls of outrage is some creationist quarters? “Oh God yes,” Lovejoy laughs.)

Source: grace, via the Star

on courage

“Courage, contrary to popular belief, is not the absence of fear. Courage is the wisdom to act in spite of fear.” John-Roger and Peter McWilliams

and I would add, the wisdom comes from abiding in the blessed assurance,

“BUT BE OF GOOD CHEER; I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD.” Christ Jesus

New life from within maximum security prison

USA: Faith-based prison changes hardened criminals

In Texas, faith is proving to be the antidote to crime. The state has 156,000 people behind bars, each costing taxpayers $18,000 a year. Within three years of their release, nearly half are back. Yet, one maximum security prison in Tennessee Colony, Texas, is changing those statistics by changing the hearts of hardened criminals. The unit is called Beto 1, where 100 tiny cells are stacked three floors high. It seems just like any other cellblock, until the men start talking.

‘E’ wing is the faith-based cellblock, one of two at the prison that are trying to use faith to get 400 hardened convicts to change. Rev. Casey Miner leads the program. To get into E wing, inmates promise to obey strict rules and practice their religion. Casey and a team of volunteers spend time, earn trust and teach that faith is the antidote for a life of crime. Three nights a week they meet for lessons in the chapel. In the two years the program has been in existence, there have only been five major rule infractions, four of them for tobacco use. Even better, 46 men have been released on parole and only one has returned.

Source: Carolyn Castleberry, CBN, via JNI

Living truth

A good word I read this morning that resonates with our fellowship and discussion time last night about Truth being a living reality — beyond the letters on a page:

Revival: The Fire Falls

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, “These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: ‘I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.’” –Revelation 3:1-2

For a long time I have believed that truth, to be understood, must be lived; that Bible doctrine is wholly ineffective until it has been digested and assimilated by the total life….

We must be willing to obey if we would know the true inner meaning of the teachings of Christ and the apostles. I believe this view prevailed in every revival that ever came to the church during her long history. Indeed a revived church may be distinguished from a dead one by the attitude of its members toward the truth. The dead church holds to the shell of truth without surrendering the will to it, while the church that wills to do God’s will is immediately blessed with a visitation of spiritual powers.

Theological facts are like the altar of Elijah on Carmel before the fire came, correct, properly laid out, but altogether cold. When the heart makes the ultimate surrender, the fire falls and true facts are transmuted into spiritual truth that transforms, enlightens, sanctifies. The church or the individual that is Bible taught without being Spirit taught (and there are many of them) has simply failed to see that truth lies deeper than the theological statement of it. That Incredible Christian, 92-94 — A.W. Tozer.

“Lord, send the fire today. Amen.”