Indus Apologetics Journal

Biblical Reasoning against Human Cloning By Eugene Newman: You should know that the ethical issues regarding human cloning have been addressed in print by an advisory board to Advanced Cell Technology (Worcester, MA). The gist of their moral reasoning is (not surprisingly) a cost/benefit trade-off analysis; a pragmatic theory which assumes that human beings have no intrinsic moral value; which permits them ethically, to measure the worth of a human being by the benefit they can be to others. If they can measure that benefit in some tangible or empirical way, then they have an objective justification to assert that their actions are morally desirable or sound. That benefit can take the form of creating, buying, or selling human biological parts used to treat disease.

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South Dakota Pediatrician Says His Experience Shows Abortion Is Unnecessary In Any Situation: Dr. Don Oliver, a pediatrician in Rapid City, South Dakota, has had an opinion piece published in The Dakota Voice. Well worth reading in its entirety, the following are excerpts from his letter:

I have been a pediatrician in Rapid City for 26 years now. During those 26 years it has been my job and privilege to attend the births of many infants whose pregnancies were complicated in various ways: prematurely, infections, toxemia, and multiple births among many others.

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The New Age Movement By Dr. Johnson C. Philip & Dr. Saneesh Cherian: “New Age” is a term seen frequently in personality-development books and magazines these days. They claim that we are in an age when humans can take total control of their bodies and minds. Contrary to what the name suggests, the New Age Movement is a very ancient Cult, and they claim it to be “New” only to deceive people. Plenty of Christians have become spokesmen and agents of this movement without realizing it for what it is. The New Age Movement has its origin in Satan who promised to Eve that by eating the forbidden fruit, she would become “like God”. Realizing this promise is the basic promise and quest of this movement.

The pursuit to become like God became an organized movement with Nimrod and the Tower of Babel. There one observes the seeds of the first one-world religion and government, both contrary to the course of human history as decreed by God. Consequently, God dispersed this movement. Yet Satan, the architect of this movement, continued in his struggle to raise up another all-world religious and political union. The story that unfolded in the millennia that followed is quite complex, but what one needs to know took place only in about one century.

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Ritualistic Abuse: Fruit of Neo-Paganism and Target of Christian Reconstruction: The manifestation of Neo-Paganism (e.g., nature worship, self-worship, Satan worship) in many world cultures today has brought with it the ghastly phenomenon of ritualistic abuse. Ritualistic abuse, a term almost unheard of in some ministerial circles, is the lawless mistreatment of persons against their will during or as a result of pagan religious rites or exercises. Ritualistic abuse occurs in either cultic or occultic (secret worship) ceremonies. God declares ritualistic abuse to be sin and reveals in Deuteronomy 18:10: “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire [ritualistic abuse], or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer.…” Furthermore, in Scripture, the Lord identifies the ritualistic abuse perpetrated by Mannasseh, King of Judah, who “did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.” The passage continues, “For he rebuilt the high places…raised up altars for Baal…worshipped the host of heaven…made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums…” (2 Kings 21:1-6).

This scriptural account not only reveals that ritualistic sacrifice occurred, but also that its gruesome prevalence is correlated with various idolatries and witchcrafts. Today, adult and child human sacrifice, ritualistic abuse, torture, and rape occur in America just as it did during the days of the Canaanites, all correlated with satanic worship and the occult, invisible in their underworld incidence in this culture and worldwide. The Christian church must become more aware of the reality of ritualistic abuse. Furthermore, all of the church must, with godly wisdom and sacrificial love, work together to reform this cultural subversion by the standard of God’s law.

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Envy , Pavel Bartos

Thou shall not envy! Thou shall not fear envy, nor shall thou feel guilty for the envy of others!

While there are several theories suggested as to the motivation of the suicidal killers who destroyed the lives of thousands in New York and Washington on September 11, very, very seldom do I hear the word “envy” uttered in the official pronouncements from the government authorities, the media, or even in the expert opinions of professional psychologists, sociologists, or theologians in this respect. Yet, I am not only convinced that it was ultimately a certain kind of envy standing behind these terrorist acts as the most fundamental cause, but also that there is a causal relation between envy as the ultimate motivational ground and the horrors of World War I, Hitler’s national socialism, Stalin’s international socialism, as well as all other wars and revolutions, civil or international, all around the world now and in history. In other words, I suggest that envy reaches way back to the original sin representing the main constitutive element thereof, as well as the main perpetual constitutive factor, of the hereditary sin of mankind. This seems to be the main reason for the linguistic tabooization of the term “envy” in human popular speech and communication, especially in the twentieth century and onward.

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The Peril of the Past in the Present, P. Andrew Sandlin

Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? For thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this. — Ecclesiastes 7:10

The contemporary dismissal of history is of epic proportions, not only in the broad culture but also within the Christian church. The Danish philosopher-theologian Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “Truth is Subjectivity” and limited meaning largely to the individual’s momentary experience. Today, human history and tradition are considered not so much irrelevant as unreal - they are not within the purview of the reality in which most of us live.

In conscious reaction to this New A-Historical Reality, many conservative Christians and churches have deliberately recovered a profound sense of the historical. This is exhibited, for example, in a healthy interest in the founding of America, the burgeoning of the “classical Christian” educational approach, and the intensity of ecclesiastical confessionalism (a return to the early ecumenical creeds and Reformational confessions). Each of these trends in its own way reflects a creditably sharp rebuke of the absence of the sense of history in the modern world and the Christian church. The first often identifies with the “heroic” definition of history, bringing to the fore such great Christian heroes of the past as John Knox, George Washington, Stonewall Jackson, the Scottish Covenanters, and others. The second perceives great value in the medieval synthesis of Christian and Greco-Roman education, which was Western education for centuries. The third interprets the doctrinal laxity and unbelief in today’s church as a result of apostasy from the precise theological statements of Faith, mainly from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Buttressing each of these (and other history-recovering enterprises) is the healthy motivation to counter the evident depravities of the modern world that spring from a denial of the authority of the past.

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The Reformed Pastor in a Post-Modern World, Rev. Tristan A. Emmanuel

The Office: An increasing dilemma for pastoral ministry in the post-modern world is inculcating a proper view of office. Egalitarian sensibilities have produced two very dangerous tendencies among the churched. It has manifested itself in rampant individualism; the assumption that we are all equals has led some Christians to reject the idea of mutual accountability. In contradistinction to this tendency is the ironic development of co-dependency, the belief that I can’t function as a Christian without someone directing every facet of my life. And so, while one rejects the legitimate ministry of Christ through men, the other replaces Christ with a man. Both are dangerous, both radically undermine the authority of Christ, and both are indicative of a cultural antipathy with office.

The solution is found in the Biblical view of office. Office has reference to a calling, a position. It is not an inherent dignity or virtue. As pastors, men function as Christ’s representative to the flock under their direct charge, not because they are more dignified or innately holier than the flock, but because they’ve been set aside by God’s call. It is God’s call that grants the dignity.

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