The Bible and the Dancing Doll

My beloved and I were sitting on the couch, enjoying some intimacy after switching off the TV, when, very unexpectedly, there was a sudden "clink". I turned round to see that an empty pint glass had apparently moved on its own and then fell to its side. Thank goodness there was no liquid in it. My immediate reaction was, Oh dear! Did I accidentally kick it? I looked down. My nearest foot was about a metre away from the glass, and I can't recall moving either my foot or the glass.

We both looked at each other in surprise. Memories came back to when our hi-fi system turned itself on during the small hours of the morning whilst we were both in bed. This had happened two or three times, and on each occasion, I had to creep downstairs, bleary-eyed, to turn off the unit. 

Okay, I have watched such phenomena on YouTube. But having the video camera already set up and running before the object moved has made me query its genuineness. After all, some people would do anything for a few minutes of fame by attempting to scare us out of our wits! A fine nylon thread or a length of white cotton on the white worktop can achieve miracles.

Or at a seance. If sitting around the table, things you expect to happen does happen, then the best thing to do is to ask for your money back. Trickery - such as bare-toe touching under the table - a stray foot and - viola! A supernatural occurrence! The same for any ghostly sound or music coming from behind the closed curtain or from the ceiling. You can guarantee that it's all fakery. You go home with a sense of uncertainty whilst the "medium" heads for the bank.

And there's always the story I once made up when I contributed to a website forum:

It's Halloween and you're at a funfair. The central attraction is the Haunted House, very similar to the Haunted Mansion that sits in the heart of the New Orleans section of Disneyland. As you walk through the gloomy corridors and enter musty rooms, you see the closed curtains move, hear weird noises coming from odd places, dolls whose heads turn as their eyes follow you as you walk past, the lid of a coffin opens, cackles, and so on. Suddenly, all goes completely dark and utter silence bathes the house. Nothing moves. Nothing is heard. Even the dolls now ignore you. Amidst the silence, a moan is heard. It came from the corridor wall right beside you. It was a moan of genuine distress. This time, you feel your blood running cold and your hair stand on end. No rotor or electric-powered gadget this time. The moan was too real.

You notice a faint outline of a door where the sound came from. You push on the door, and it flies open to reveal a couple of people in the control room, each sitting in front of a blank computer screen and moaning about the sudden power cut...

Not so unrealistic. During my late teens and twenties, I went alone to the cinema purposely to watch a horror movie. Movies such as Dracula and Poltergeist. The story might have been utter nonsense, but the plot contained some frightening scenes. There is something about desiring fright, especially among courting or married couples watching the film. One of the benefits of a scare is that both partners are in each other's arms - the one wanting protection and the other wanting to protect, hence enhancing the relationship - according to some psychologists.

But the end always provides relief. Like in the Dracula movie. In the end, the open coffin in which the Count lay was mistakenly left outside just as the sun rose. The camera zoomed onto the sun with the sound of a thunderous hum. And the body in the coffin wilted in the sunlight, turning to ashes, never to come to life again. The force of the powerful sun had melted away any fears I might have had, and I left the cinema feeling both relieved and entertained.

Back in the nineties, a group of us from our church spent a day at Thorpe Park, a permanent fun resort near the River Thames, and surrounded by lakes. The pre-teenage son of one of the elders wanted to ride on the Ghost Train. But his father refused to let him board the ride. I was walking nearby, and I said to him that it's nothing more than a group of plastic dancing dolls powered by hidden rotors, accompanied by sounds from hidden speakers. But the father was insistent. No ghost train rides.

I have, ever since, wondered how the son took it all. Did he grow up without ever considering a ride in the ghost train, and perhaps later, instruct his own children never to go near the ride? Or did he wait a couple of years, and then spent a day at Thorpe Park with his friends, and included a ride on the ghost train?

Perhaps it's much to do with temperament. Maybe with one child or adolescent, a genuine fear of such rides may keep him away for life. Or, as in my case, a sense of curiosity overriding any warning given, and boards the ride. Such is the curiosity satisfied. Or he may go away with a feeling that these "scare rides" was not as "cracked up" as first imagined. That was my thoughts after a ride on the ghost train at the Battersea Park funfair. The ghost train wasn't scary enough for me to come out shaking. Unfortunately, the funfair closed permanently in 1974 following a fatal roller-coaster accident in 1972. 

Thorpe Park has modernised since the 1990s!

I have read about Christians staying away from the cinema and hence, fulfilling their evangelistic duties. Perhaps the Christian parent at Thorpe Park thought that his son riding a ghost train would open the door for demonic influence. Maybe he had a point. But I tend to lean on the idea that temperament should determine whether one should ride a ghost train or watch a horror movie, rather than mere Christian restrictions. For example, a child or adolescent may prone to be fearful. He may or may not have Christian parents. Therefore, Dad should still advise him that going on the ride could do him some emotional damage. On the other hand, he could warn the older brother not to go to such rides "on Christian principles" - regardless of his own religious beliefs - but his son will go, nevertheless, and feel none the worse afterwards.

And so, with tons of fakery associated with stories of the supernatural, I have wondered whether, among all the stones on the stream bed, a lump of coal might just be discovered. Hence my perception of these ghost stories, photos, and videos. Mostly fake. I remember, when I was an adolescent, a photo of a ghost was apparently snapped inside the Newby Church of Christ the Consoler, North Yorkshire, in 1963. Furthermore, the spectre was actually posing at the camera in readiness. And so, the Sunday national newspaper headline blazed the question, Did the Reverend snap a ghost? across the front page.

Although an excellent work of art, even at a young age, I had some suspicions - although I also shook with fear at the time. Looking closely, the two eyeless sockets looked more like two holes cut in a sheet than that of a decomposing corpse. And the sheet - minus a nose and mouth - looked as if it was draped over a tall, rigid stand and dressed in monk's clothing. 

Later in life, as I grew in experience with photography, I have worked out how it could be done - the double exposure trick. The sheet, with the two holes for eye sockets, is draped over a stand, and it's then dressed in dark grey clothing. A picture is then taken of it with a black background. Then the inside of the church is taken without winding the film, hence, creating a double exposure. So convincing was the result, either the paper thought it was genuine, or knew of the fakery - and published it as a money-spinner. Good thinking! But how much of the nation actually fell for it?

Although with the case of our hi-fi turning itself on during the night, that is, around 2.00 am on each of the three nights, along with the sudden movement of the pint glass, were genuine cases or not, I prefer not to say. Simply, we do not know. However, history does tell us that John Wesley, during the middle of one night, woke up to see Satan sitting at the foot of his bed. Wesley then said, Oh, it's just you, rolled over and went back to sleep. His knowledge that the Devil was defeated by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ had released him from any fears. And when my wife showed alarm at the pint glass, I repeated the mantra: He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world - 1 John 4:4. 

This seems to confirm that the Bible supports the issue of discarnate spirits. Jesus himself had come across many of them during his ministry. And so did the apostles, especially Paul.

According to Creation Ministries International, the origin of demons were not actually the fallen angels themselves, but rather the discarnate spirits of the Nephilim  - the offspring between fallen angels and "the daughters of men", that is, human women alive before the Flood, as narrated in Genesis 6:1-6. As they carried only half of the human genome, that is, their mother's 23 chromosomes, and the other 23 from the fallen angel, hence, they weren't fully human. When Jesus Christ arrived, he came as fully human, apparently with just 23 X-chromosomes from his mother, and with just one Y-chromosome from God the Holy Spirit. This result in the hypostatic union - the eternal combination between human and divine, hence allowing humans to be redeemed through him. I have even read that St Augustine of Hippo believed and taught that the sinful nature of every human being is inherited from the 23 chromosomes in the father's sperm. Whether that is upheld by science or not, it does make a lot of sense!

The spectre at Newby Church, Yorkshire.

This goes to show the importance of accepting the record of the early chapters of Genesis. The Flood occurred just in time. Had the Messianic Line between Adam and Noah had been invaded by the genes of a fallen angel, even by one generation, then with the line spoilt, Jesus wouldn't be 100% human and thus, unable to save sinful mankind. I have wondered whether one of the real purposes of the Flood, other than to judge the antediluvians, was to preserve the Messianic line from Adam to Christ. After the Flood, there was to be no more mating between fallen angels and human women. And their offspring, discarnate since the Flood, were allowed to roam the Earth and influence mankind to deny the truthfulness of the Gospel.

Paul's belief in such entities had inspired him to write about our defences against these forces which he refers to as the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:10-18). He then likens our stand against them to that of donning the armour of a Roman soldier, quite likely the one guarding him as he sat in prison.

As for the fallen angels themselves, the Bible gives an answer. Apparently, according to 2 Peter 2:4, they are all confined to a special prison consigned to them, this gloomy darkness is known as Tartarus. It does look as though all the fallen angels are confined there except Lucifer, for only the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was able to defeat him.

The Cell Phone, Eugenics, and Darwin

One example of forgetfulness occurred last week when my wife and I booked into a hotel in London for a couple of nights. It was late on the first evening when that characteristic and instantly recognisable sound began to issue from within my rucksack at approximately ten-minute intervals:

Bleep...Bleep...Bleep...Bleep...

"Oh no!" I exclaimed. "The cell phone battery is dead and do you know what? I have forgotten to bring the charger."

After a while, as my wife and I were together in bed, she asked,

"Can you remove the battery? I can't sleep with that sound."

I was reluctant at first, as I'm one of those people, where anything is involved, after taking something apart, I always find it impossible to put back together again. So instead, I arose, took the rucksack and wrapped the Vodaphone in thick clothing and placed it back inside the bag. No use. The bleep has that capacity to penetrate any material, regardless of how thick the wrapping may be. Therefore, I managed to pry the phone open and removed the battery from its place. At last, no more bleeping.

Only to replace the battery once back at home, and seeing no response after connecting with its charger. And so, what was wrong? Was it the phone? Well, the unit screen lit up and it started to bleep again, confirming that the battery and back cover were both replaced properly. So could it be the charger itself? Or even the wall socket? So I plugged the charger into another socket. Still no response. And then the phone beeped. It never does that during the powering-up process. So I guess the fault must be with the charger.

Oh, the mystery of technology! It's as if the length of wire had taken offence at being left behind at home, and decided to call it a day at that particular weekend. After making several inquiries at different outlets and getting nowhere, I decided to buy a new cell phone altogether. After all, I had the present one for several years already. And I wanted a phone - yes, just a phone, a device for making calls and to speak to the person at the other end. None of this smartphone lark, which is basically a miniature mobile computer, complete with the Internet.

Never in a million years would I look like and act like a zombie, walking with half-glazed eyes fixed on the device held in front, not looking where I'm going, and being totally unaware of a fast-approaching cyclist or a crushingly-dumb dog-walker who, in all his wisdom, had decided to let his Staffie off its lead in public. Neither would I ever carry an Internet terminal with me wherever I go. After all, I have recently read that Google is able to track you down through the smartphone, no matter where you may be. After all, I don't feel comfortable having someone gawking at me whilst having a pee at a public restroom.

Therefore, a new mobile phone I was after. As I approached the Vodaphone outlet, this woman, half my age but considerably taller, sprinted to the door just as I was about to enter. I was furious! But all I did was mutter under my breath. British stiff upper lip? Or rather I did not want to create a scene. After a couple of minutes, an assistant appeared from the stockroom behind the shop, and he approached me. I directed him to the tall lady who was browsing nearby. At least she was decent enough to realise what she had done was wrong, or that her conscience was bothering her, because she redirected the assistant back to me, and I proceded with the purchase of a new phone.

With my wife, I spent a couple of nights at a rather expensive hotel in London. It has nothing to do with poshness, this particular hotel was step-free from street to our room, a necessity for one confined to a wheelchair. There are many cheaper hotels around, especially in Pimlico, but all have a flight of steps leading to the front door, and furthermore, each being set in a former Victorian residence, lifts were never included in its design. 

This trip was made to attend a two-day Creation International Conference held at the beautiful and large Emmanual Centre, not far from the Houses of Parliament. Three of us attended, a very good friend of ours from another church, my wife and myself. All three of us are devout Young-Earth Creationists, and this conference was in full support of what is taught in the Bible. Just to add, this was not our initial meeting. Creation International had its first ever conference two years previously at the same venue. Back then, as this time, the talks delivered were very edifying.

Creation International Conference 2018, Emmanuel Centre.

The opening talk I found very powerful. How the authority of the Bible was destroyed in Western society by the advent of Darwinism. For me, this is very serious stuff! Because, although hard it may be to believe, I do see a connection between Darwinism and the behaviour of the female at the entrance of the Vodaphone outlet, namely in a sense, being part of her struggle for survival and with such belief, blocking her mind from the truth of the Gospel.

This also brings grief to me. Yes, I have a concern when I looked in an old edition of The Guinness Book of Records which featured a photo of the largest crowd on Earth, which was made up of Hindus gathering for a national festival in India. The crowd was massive. I thought about babies born, grew up, and living a normal life there, without any opportunity to hear and believe the Gospel of Christ. It was easy for me to be grateful that I was born in a Christian country where the Gospel is, or meant to be, available at any mainstream church I called at, regardless of denomination. What hope is there for these Hindus? Or for that matter, having been born in a Middle Eastern country where Islam has full reign? Or even born in Soviet Russia, or in China, back then both under the grip of atheistic Communism?

Really, what is happening in the world? Why such hostility against the truth of the Bible and the Gospel of Christ? It seems as though there are invisible forces in the air, carrying a ferocious hatred of the Truth, and ensuring that mankind as a whole either rejects the Gospel or kept in ignorance of it, so I was reminded at the conference. Europe under Christian influence? This might have been the case during the 18th Century when the Reformation was underway and sporadic revivals took place. But in the 19th Century, something incredulous happened. How could a tiny acorn grow into a mighty oak tree which branches had covered the entire globe? 

It was at the conference, which boasted a Christian bookshop based mainly on Creationism, that I bought a book, Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview, by Jerry Bergman. A fascinating book, it confirms what I have already suspected, and featured in one of my previous blogs, that there is a direct connection between Darwin's theory of evolution, the survival of the fittest, and natural selection. Darwin's book, On the Origins of Species, was read and absorbed by Darwin's cousin, Englishman Francis Galton, who transferred the universal biological idea of survival of the fittest to social evolution. He wrote, Hereditary Genious, a book on eugenics which became very popular among German scientists and academics. His work was about humans who are physically, mentally or psychologically weak, along with the deformed, the cretin, the homosexual, the non-white, even the politically deviant, all must be wiped off this planet in order to make way for the strong, that is the Aryan Race, which is the tall, white, intelligent German society.

One thing which struck me whilst reading Bergman's book. That is if Darwinism, along with Galton's writings, had never taken off or even ever published, the chance was there would have been no World War II, neither would the Holocaust had ever taken place.

Survival of the fittest involves the mass death of "the weak" in order to make room for "the strong". Not only does this mean the elimination of up to six million Jews, but also the elimination of five million Slavic peoples, making a total of eleven million innocent people exterminated at Nazi death camps during the War. The idea of all this was to allow the German Aryan race thrive and prosper, allowing them to spread across the globe under intense nationalistic and imperialistic beliefs.

Kill the weak! Exterminate the deformed! Put an end to the mentally handicapped! Also, destroy all other "subhumans" including non-Caucasians! Make sure all Jews are exterminated! Make way for the strong! Be patriotic for Germany! Build a worldwide Empire! How diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ all that is!

Academics, particularly Darwin, Galton, Hitler and many of his educated supporters hated the teachings of Christ, even if both Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler, along with others, might have put on a religious front to suit their own purposes or to advance their cause. Yet, Darwinism with its evolutionary theories, the concept of survival of the fittest through natural selection dominates our thinking to the extent that only a tiny minority here in the UK accept the Bible as factual history, whilst the evolutionary concept is constantly pushed as fact by the likes of David Attenborough, Andrew Marr, Brian Cox, and others.

At the opening talk, Creation International Conference 2018.

The only way to combat such deadly heresy is to accept the Bible as the true and historic Word of God. And that includes the historicity of the first chapter of Genesis:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth - Genesis 1:1.

That is no myth, it's history. As much history as the facts about Henry VIII and his six wives. The early chapters of Genesis are not a myth, neither should it be equalled with the legends found in the Babylonian Enuma Elish with its mythical tale of Creation, or from the Gilgamesh Epic, also Babylonian, depicting the legendary version of Noah and the Deluge. Earlier this year we had a graduate preach on the equality of Genesis with the Enuma Elish, thus denying the historicity of the Biblical version and relegating it to mythology.* That is a very dangerous road to take! Perhaps without the graduate realising it, it's not far from believing in Theistic Evolution and eventually to apostasy.

My plea to this graduate and his ilk is: Renounce any mythical dimension of the Creation story and accept and preach the historicity and truthfulness of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. None of these chapters is myth, legend or fable. They are as much factual history as any textbook on British history.

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*For my blog in direct referral, click here.

An Example of Inter-Class Friendship.

A few months ago, a long-standing friend who I knew for the better part of thirty-five years, handed me a leaflet after the end of the morning service. It advertised a coming Creation Ministries Conference which would be held over two days at the Emmanuel Centre in Central London, quite close to the Houses of Parliament. This friend of mine, who is also my Financial and Pensions Advisor, has always been a keen Creationist, to the extent that while filling out some Private Pension forms at my home, he spotted a book on our bookshelf, The Last Two Million Years, a publication from the Readers Digest series of books and magazines, and questioned our commitment to the Biblical truth of Divine Creation, including a Young Earth, as opposed to the popular notion of the planet being billions of years old.

I explained, truthfully, that the book was given to us as a gift by someone else who didn't really want it any more, and we simply kept it. Other than that, we (Alex and I) assured him that we are committed Creationists. 

Emmanuel Centre, London

That had not always been the case. Up to 1973, at twenty years of age, I was a committed Evolutionist, having been fanatical about Dinosaurs during my school days of the mid-sixties. It was when alone in the house during a thunderstorm outside that I decided to pick up a Bible and find out for myself how it all began. I was very moved as I read through the first three chapters of Genesis, and becoming tense when I read through the verses on how first Eve, than Adam took the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, against God's own instructions. I needed no more persuasion. Immediately I had converted from an Evolutionist to a Creationist at an instant, as a result of reading these three chapters, and praying, asking God to forgive me for all those years as a believer in Darwinism.

But there was a dilemma, one I would have considered quite serious: the reconciliation of the existence of the Dinosaurs with the Young Earth theory. From that night of conversion, I have found no problem with the Biblical view that early mankind must have co-existed with Dinosaurs, especially before the Deluge of Noah's day, which gives an adequate answer not only to these creature's sudden demise and extinction, but also explain the quick formation of fossils, as it is agreed among Palaeontologists and Geologists that water was the agent for all fossil formation, where ever they are found. But I was already laughed down for advocating this concept, with atheistic scientists such as Richard Dawkins comparing the time scale with New York bordering onto Los Angeles. Therefore, it's not too much of a surprise to have seen various pictorial literature of Creationism tending to associate the rise of "beasts of the Earth" on the sixth day as consisting of a modern horse, elephant, sheep, and cattle, along with any species alive at present, as if the artist was too embarrassed to include long-extinct species such as what we now refer to as Dinosaurs. All this didn't help, along with the rather curious assumption that the sun, moon, and all the stars of the entire Universe were all four days younger than the Earth itself, leaving me to wonder how the planet was illuminated in the first place, with day and night already existing. How was I to tell my Darwin-believing friends what I now know to be true, without being made the laughing-stock of a company I was working for? 

So began a long process of re-learning, which provided such a challenge to me back then. Like the time when one mocker asked me who was Cain's wife, if only he existed on the entire planet, along with his brother Abel, and their parents Adam and Eve. Although unable to answer at the time, such a challenge spurred me to dig into the Bible itself and bring out the clues which readily answers who Cain's wife was. And such a question could be easily answered by reading Genesis chapter four and five. Cain slew his brother Abel, and not long after that, Eve gave birth to a replacement for the Messianic Line: Seth. Then in chapter five, we read that Seth was born 130 years after Creation, which gives ample time for Eve to give birth to many other sons and daughters before the murder, an idea backed up by Cain's own fear of repercussions for the killing, along with is ability to "build a city" named after his son Enoch. If true, then this brings up the idea of humans having superior genome early in history, in addition to Eve's birthing prowess, also providing the answer to the question I have long been asking: How on earth could Abimelech King of Gerar take such an interest in the aged Sarah, Abraham's wife, while she was already in her nineties? (Genesis 20) - unless Sarah's superior genome caused her to remain astoundingly beautiful and youthful-looking, even at her apparent old age.

This embarrassment over Creationism could be the reason why, during Religious Education lessons at school, the Biblical chronology began with the call of Abraham, totally ignoring all pre-Abrahamic Scriptures. It left the door wide open for mockery from scoffers, who insists that Darwin's Evolutionary processes were the only way we got here in the first place. So re-learning was a long process, which included my first backpacking visit in 1976 to the Holy Land, where I fell in love with the ancient city of Jerusalem, after discovering to be the most important city in the entire Bible, and therefore in the whole of human history. There was even one archaeological marvel, an ancient water conduit now referred to as Hezekiah's Tunnel, which was dug through solid rock under the city itself under the direction of the king of Judah in 700 BC, which I have explored in 1976, and again in 1993. It is mentioned twice in the Old Testament: 2 Kings 20:20, and 2 Chronicles 32:30.  Simply this: If the city which the entire Bible has put such emphasis actually exists, and can be physically located, then why deny the historicity of Divine Creation?

Inside Hezekiah's Tunnel with one other companion, 1976 

The Bible is true. The same tunnel with myself out of the way!

Last week the three of us made our way to London to spend the night there. My wife and I boarded the train, along with a third person who also has a passion for Creationism, and is a subscriber of the Creation Ministries website. He was willing to join us after I invited him. The biggest difference between him and me was not so much the wide age difference as the fact that he is a Doctor, a post-graduate who, I believe, has specialised in genetics, and therefore able to call himself a Geneticist. So three people went merrily to London - a Doctor, a Housewife, and a retired Window Cleaner. And we even stayed overnight at the same hotel. There was not a hint of social, national, or racial superiority among any of us during the weekend, but we looked on each other as fully equal. If anything, I probably was the leader, not to make up for my apparent academic deficiency compared to my friend, but out of age and experience.

That is in-keeping with Creationism, as opposed to Evolution which lies behind social class and inequality, as well as being the stigma behind racism and national superiority, all three I had suffered from time to time as a victim throughout life. I recall the 1970's, when I was still young physically, and a lot younger spiritually, that any major clash with fellow church-goers had much to do with social class - a semi-skilled factory machinist thrown into a group of University graduates. Despite their efforts to be social and accepting, somehow in their subconscious, I was never perceived as equal to them. I even offended one of them in an opposing group when I managed to answer correctly a higher proportion of questions from a trivial quiz game. He didn't like that at all!

I have discovered back then that these graduates embraced Theocratic Evolution, that is, Darwinism under the control and supervision of God himself. Notwithstanding the blatant flaw of Adam and Eve having ape-men as ancestors. According to this theory, Adam's parents and grandparents must have been as equally human as they were, and going back quite a number of generations, maybe hundreds of generations. Yet each pre-Adam generation died. They were all mortal. What a contradiction that is to Romans 5:12-14 and 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, where Paul insists that through one man sin has entered into the world, and therefore through one man's sin death came to all men (from Adam onwards). What I have found astonishing is that these young church-goers were graduates, with IQ's higher than mine, strongly supporting their level of education and middle-class standing, yet unable to work out this simple Biblical principle! 

The three of us attended the seminars. It was the first lecture, delivered by Engineer Stuart Burgess, which arose my surprise and amazement. He quoted atheist Richard Dawkins having greater respect for the Young-Earth Creationist who wholeheartedly holds to the literal six-day Creation, than he would to a theologian who embrace Theocratic Evolution. As Dawkins would have insisted - Creation and Evolution are mutually exclusive. One cannot favour one without the compromise of the other. So had Richard Dawkins showed up at our trivial quiz contest, he would have shown a greater respect for me above the others in the same room, much to the shock of all present.

Richard Dawkins.

And so how great minds goes. One of the worst aspects of our culture is the undue respect given to the higher educated, especially when standing at the pulpit. The more clever the professor is, the greater respect he receives. Thus I have seen the most damnable heresy infect the intellect of Christians around me, simply because this particular perpetrator had studied at Cambridge University and "Knows the Bible inside out." He was even referred to as "A prophet of God on the level of Isaiah" by other Christians - even if there's no proof of any Biblical basis for this, and to be fair, the man referred to has never, according to my knowledge, made such an admission about himself. Rather, the honour was bestowed to him by other Christians enamoured by his professionalism. And so the same applies to Darwin's advocates.

One of the most amazing train of thinking among Evolutionists and Atheists is the theory that everything must be subject to Science - the knowledge of man about everything in the world, including Evolution. According to them, Evolution itself remains beneath man's technology. Now if Evolution was an undisputed fact, this would indeed be true. There are scores of records where Evolution had got it wrong: Mutations, redundant organs, disease, mild illnesses, early death, malformations, extinctions, and so forth. For technology to function properly, every part must be fully functional and in its right place. The computer is a good example. Any fault with the internal wiring and the computer would not function. Likewise, if any of the binary digits in the software was misplaced, the program would crash. But for one who believe in Creationism, all these "Evolutionary defects" are more likely the result of the Fall and the Edenic Curse. As testified in the case of both Eve and Sarah, the human genome was at a much more stable condition nearer the time of Creation than at present.

And the lack of adequate reference to the genome was something I felt was missing from the Conference. Because the sheer complexity of the cell and its nucleus would be enough to shatter Evolution altogether. The dizzying complexity of the DNA molecule, the RNA, the Ribosome, the Golgi Apparatus, and many other minuscule parts all playing their role in the production of protein, makes the cell evolving by chance to be mathematically impossible. An example of this was noted by Fred Hoyle, Atheist, Astronomer, and Mathematician. I am aware that I have mentioned this already in recent blogs, but since this is about our inter-class unity at a Creation Ministries Conference, it's well worth giving another mention here.

Hoyle worked out that just part of the protein chain, the enzymes with each of its amino acid parts carefully folded in proper sequence, the chance of such a chain alone evolving by chance is one out of one, followed by 40,000 zeroes! Even the estimated age of the Universe does not come even close! Knowing such a result, instead of acknowledging Intelligent Design, as the Scriptures testify, Hoyle dreamt up the theory that first there was never a Big Bang, rather the Universe has always been eternal, giving the hope that the cell might have evolved elsewhere in the eternal past, and arrived at the primeval Earth embedded in a meteorite in the relatively recent past. Such a theory is known as Panspermia and it seemed to be widely accepted by Evolutionists to this day.

Despite the lack of positive evidence, Evolution continue to be upheld by the learned, and the rank-and-file bow the knee. This includes Social Evolution, the idea that some cultures are more advanced than others, and even the belief of various stages of inequality within a culture. As I see it, the social class divide is evil, just as racism is evil, along with national superiority. As these three were the underlying basis for the Holocaust, when six million Jews were needlessly slain, along with homosexuals and the mentally handicapped. According to the Nazis, such slaughter was based on Evolution, and their own efforts in "giving evolution a helping hand" in the selection of their superior Aryan race.

I have seen that social class divides the church, the evaluating of a person's worth depending on education, wealth and social standing rather than on character and spiritual maturity. The sort of stuff that was also going on during the days of the apostle James. So bad it was, the the apostle gave one of the sternest rebukes, (James 2:1-7) short of the rebukes delivered by Jesus himself (eg, Matthew 23). Believing in Creationism, the Fall, and Redemption is the Great Leveller. As I like to put it: Standing under the Shadow of the Cross. Under such a Shadow, every form of prejudice, favouritism, and personal status just blows away, like shrivelled leaves caught in the wind.

A Doctor, a Housewife, and a Window Cleaner, each Divinely Created, each recognising their own shortcomings, each in need of redemption. This is how all churches should be. Each person seen as one begotten of the Father through faith in Jesus. Each person seen in the same way as God sees him, as one imputed with the righteousness of Christ. Each person in the fellowship seen as possessing eternal life, with Heaven as the eternal home for all. Each person seen with all sin forgiven, therefore having no basis for judgement. The recipe for sweet fellowship and hospitality. No special credit given for higher education, social class, or nationality, nor anyone looked down for lacking any of these.

It's a weekend I will not forget easily.