Indus Apologetics Journal

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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Doin’ Good Ain’t Bad, Shawn T. Roberson

Sola Gratia! Sola Fide! Reformation battle cries, these two phrases show the emphasis placed upon a correct view of justification. With Paul, the Reformers declared that salvation is solely by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8). Their fight continues today, as many still attempt to give man credit for some small contribution to the work of salvation. Salvation is sometimes illustrated by pictures of a dying man simply having to open his mouth to accept a healing medication from the hands of Christ, or of a drowning man reaching for a lifeline thrown his way by Christ. Problems with these illustrations arise when we consider the fact that Paul says we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1) — not sick or dying. Dead men cannot open their mouths or swallow medicine. They cannot reach out for a rope. All they can do is lie motionless. The condition of death itself prohibits action. If anything is done for a dead man, someone other than himself must do it.

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Philosophy: The Need For It: Who Needs Philosophy? Once a person understands that philosophy is a set of ideas and insights that meaningfully relate life and existence on the earth, he realizes that philosophy is an essential subject related to life and survival. Yet many shrug their shoulders and say they do not need philosophy. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Human life is a complex phenomenon. A person makes hundreds of thousands of conscious and unconscious decisions during his life, and a good number of those decisions are related to the ultimate realities of life. Nobody can make a right decision without the right philosophy. Consider a schoolteacher in a difficult subject like physics. It is in his power to make the subject easy and interesting, or tough and traumatic. The question is, what motivates him to work hard and do his best, especially if mediocrity is sufficient to keep his job? Further, since he determines the final grades of students in physics, he could easily give the highest possible grades to every student, keeping the students as well as the school management happy. What would motivate him to opt for the tougher path of hard work, good teaching, and honest grading? One might say that the rules imposed upon this person should get the job done, but there are several problems with that approach. First, rules only apply pressure. They do not provide motivation. Second, why should people make rules in the first place if there is no philosophy about essential duties in the first place?

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Cuneiform and the Bible, Lesley Adkins

In the early nineteenth century, the Frenchman Jean-François Champollion embarked on deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, because he was fascinated by the origins of the world and thought he might gain access to texts that were far older than the Bible. In this he was successful, and the full story is told in my book The Keys of Egypt, including his dramatic breakthrough in 1822, followed by his tragically early death a decade later. Had he lived, it is curious to think that he would certainly have followed with interest and energy the last great linguistic challenge – the decipherment of cuneiform – and would have entered into correspondence with the man who did the most for decipherment: Henry Creswicke Rawlinson. I have recently turned my attention to Rawlinson’s story, published as Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon, a story that is full of adventure, linguistic challenges and the discovery of civilizations that were to prove the veracity of Old Testament stories.

Letter sent by the high priest Lu’enna to the king of Lagash (maybe Urukagina), informing him of his son’s death in combat. Terracotta, c. 2400 BC, found in Telloh (ancient Girsu). [http://en.wikipedia.org]

Rawlinson was born in 1810 at Chadlington in Oxfordshire, England, and so was twenty years younger than Champollion. At school, he proved himself very able at Latin and ancient Greek, but decided that he did not want to go to university, but preferred to enter the army. At the age of seventeen he went to India as a military cadet in the East India Company, but his interest in languages did not flag, and he began to learn Hindustani, Marathi and Persian. He was so proficient at Persian that he was sent with a military mission to Persia, nowadays called Iran, where he came face to face with cuneiform inscriptions, initially at the ancient city of Persepolis, but later on he discovered inscriptions carved on rock faces. Many of them were trilingual – written in three languages. The most crucial inscription was on the face of a mountain at Bisitun in western Persia, close to the border with modern-day Iraq, which was an enormous monument carved on the orders of Darius the Great. It was regarded as inaccessible, because the path to it had been quarried away after the inscription was finished. Nobody had reckoned on Rawlinson, though, who by chance was posted to the remote town of Kermanshah, just twenty miles away. Rawlinson had not only become obsessed with cuneiform, he was also an excellent and daring mountaineer.

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The Idolatry of Rationalism, Jeremy Swanson

“It is not sufficient for everyone to obey and to listen to the Divine message of the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City. In order to propagate that message among the heathen, nay, in order to understand it as clearly and as fully as is humanly possible, one must also consider to what extent man could discern the outlines of that City if left to himself, to the proper exercise of his own powers.”
– Leo Strauss, The City and Man

These words of prominent twentieth-century political philosopher Leo Strauss are a clear manifestation of his rationalistic spirit, of his rationalistic desiderata. But let’s make this personal: I fear that the impure, unsubmissive, hidden corners of our hearts find a certain needfulness or security in the desiderata of Leo Strauss’ rationalism. May the Holy Spirit be with us as we compare the spirit of these words of the man Leo Strauss with the Word, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May the Word of God pierce to the bone and marrow; may the contact not be mere external superficiality, mere “argument.”

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Dr. Johnson C. Philip will be offering a series of classes on “What Is Wrong With False Cults” in a one-day program at Peechi, Trichur.

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Apologetics And Polemics: An important companion of Apologetics is Polemics. While Apologetics deals with objections and attacks originating from people outside the Christian faith, Polemics deals with attacks originating from within the Church. Many of the readers might be surprised when we mention attacks from “within” the church because none of us expects our own people to attack our blessed faith. However, people have always existed within the Jewish and the Christian faith who have attacked the Old and the New Testament.

These attacks come in two forms. First, in the form of distorted Bible interpretation. Second, through those false cults who claim that they are a true Christian group.

People who attack the Bible from inside the Church would include everyone who teach perverted doctrines. During the New Testament period this included the Ebionites, Pelegians, Montanists, Nestorians, Arians, and many others from within the Church. At the dawn of the twenty-first century this would include the radicals, the ecumenists, the Christian New Agers. This would also include those who teach salvation through baptism, those who attack the person of Christ (Smithism/Poonenism), and those who Hinduize Christian doctrines (Prajapati Proponents, Christian Vedantists), etc.

False Cults which claim to be Christian but who still attack the fundamentals of the Christian faith include, Jehovah Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, TPM (Ceylon Pentecostal Mission), Roman Catholics, The Toronto Movement, etc. Their number is growing constantly, and the leaven of their erroneous teachings is also spreading.

Though Apologetics and Polemics are two different activities, their ultimate purpose is one and the same: to refute error and to establish truth. Till a few decades ago they could easily be separated from each other so that those who practice Apologetics did not need to know about Polemics, and those who specialized in Polemics did not have to study apologetics. But no more ! All kinds of attacks against the Christian faith now borrow insights from each other, so that today every apologist must be an expert in polemics, and every polemicist must be an expert in apologetics.