We are moving!

This blog site is moving out of the clutches and cloaking of Google to a stand alone site www.donkeysview.info

The site is having a remake, but it will look good, eventually. In the meantime, you will continue to read stimulating articles.

God worship

A few years ago in Singapore some friends took me to the Hindu Temple in Little India where we were able to watch a worship service.

A couple of musicians were making much more noise than you would expect, and the drumming and blowing and singing reverberated around the interior of the concrete building. In the centre was a fire, fuelled by oil that others poured out. There was much bowing and scraping and worshipping.

At the climax, a lifesize image of a god was removed from its prominent niche and paraded on shoulders around the building. Then it was returned, and sand and flower petals showered upon it.

Recently the head of the Roman Catholic version of the Church visited Australia and addressed huge crowds in an outdoor stadium, completing the events with a mass, shared by all. The old man, supposedly Christ's representative on Earth, looked god-like as he walked around in his white and red robes. His message to the people of Australia and anyone else watching was to turn to "Christianity."

That is the substance of the good news of Roman Catholicism.

The two events I have described are strikingly similar. Both set the atmosphere; both paraded the god. Both recommend him—or it.

True Christianity, in which Christ is in all his followers, parades Jesus Christ around all the time. In Christ the whole of the godhead dwells...and you are complete in him, Paul taught. That's right. I just hope he can be seen, or our evangelism—our recommending Jesus Christ the Saviour— will be much like the messages of dead religion.

Sightings fit dinosuar descriptions

An Australian creationist explorer, Brian Irwin, has published two accounts of sightings of animals that fit two dinosaur types. They were seen in 2005 off the coast of New Britain.

Initially unwilling to reveal too much for fear of people overwhelming the witnesses and the location, Brian is now happy to publish the information. He has taken supporting photographs of all concerned, except, unfortunately, the beasts themselves, which have long disappeared into the ocean.

Brian contacted me because of my website and offered the first account, which I published (see my entry here for March 27). He has recently returned from a second visit to New Britain to confirm his evidence.

Why should we get excited about the possibility of living dinosaurs? It would knock a few theories off their trolleys, such as evolution, the numerous extinction theories, and evolutionary geology.

The evidence would counter the belief that humans evolved long after the dinosaurs had become extinct and back up the claim that all species, including Man, were created at one time and co-existed.

More power to Brian Irwin and his tribe! Read all about it at: www.fairservicenz.com And while you are there, follow your nose and read about other dinosaur sightings.

Zimbabwe: the wrong man has been sacrificed

Robert Mugabe is yet another African despot thrown up by a culture that deifies strong leaders, however bad they are. The last bad one I remember is Idi Amin, the Ugandan president who butchered anyone who got in his way. He got away in the end and spent the rest of his days in luxury in Saudi Arabia, where he finally met his Maker. In the meantime, he had killed an estimated 100,000 to 500,000 people and driven out the Asians who were the economic backbone of Uganda.

It beggars belief that Zimbabwe could plunge from its British colonial affluence and stability to a field of oppression and bloody control without its jelly-belly neighbours doing anything about it. This shows that the Old Man of the anti-colonial days is actually revered throughout Africa. He can do no wrong, evidently, while driving out the Opposition and despising the rising tide of international megaphone politics.

Thus, Africa's ethics owe nothing to Christianity, which has been present for hundreds of years in the modern era, and historically since the liberation of the gospel from the Jews by the apostles of Christ. Africa remains a mission field for the gospel.

Zimbabwe is at a crisis today, this week, with the withdrawal of the Opposition's intention to fight. Tsvangirai has said that it would not be a fair and free election (I believe him) and it would cost many more lives. He has made a great sacrifice. One man has "died" for the people.

This was a dilemma faced by Caiaphas, the High Priest of Israel, when the vexed question of the life and ministry of the rabbi Yeshua came to his notice. Rome did not like disorder. The Jews were jealous of the Temple. Jesus Christ upset the order. "Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it would be good if one man died for the people" (Luke 18:14). He didn't know how right he was!

I am surprised that the whole Zimbabwe mess has not been sorted out long ago--the trouble is that the wrong man has been sacrificed.

Your zones of control

The writer, Gary Dix, is a teacher of computing. He also has a degree in psychology.

There are three zones around you: an outer zone—the fence—a middle zone, and finally at close quarter, the inner zone.

In self defence each zone has its own moves, which serve different purposes. The outer zone is to keep people out; it's where you keep the scary people.

The closer you get the more moves you have available to use but the more vulnerable you become. The mid range, the sparring range, is where you measure yourself off against your opponent, trying to judge his abilities. In the closest zone your weaknesses become evident and your vulnerabilities obvious. It’s a place where the other persons is ‘in your face’, it's sweaty, can be smelly and physically dangerous.

This concept of zones can also be seen in our relationships with each other. We have an outer zone of contact with others, with few moves, that are often used just to maintain distance, in this case social distance. We keep in the outer range those that scare us, the big guys, the bad guys, people we can’t handle, people we don’t want to get close to. What passes for a ranging kick, may be a morning ‘hello’.

We also have a mid range of relationships, with whom we have more techniques. We let into the mid range those we are equals of, those we know we can handle, and those we are familiar with. We have social niceties and verbal parries. "How was your weekend? How’s your day going?"

Finally the close inner zone. We have many different techniques; in this zone it gets personal; you get up close with your partner, it's sweaty, can be smelly and sure is painful. But you come away really knowing something about the person, knowing where their limits are, and knowing what their weakness is. Knowing too how vulnerable you are, and being known, being revealed, to others.

Just where are we with each other as colleagues and workmates--are we parrying each other off at a distance, dismissing with a few moves, or closer in, engaging each other? Is there someone who reaches the inner zone, someone you relate to who knows your strengths and weaknesses?

Finally, and most important, there is a third area which operates with zones as well. That is the area of your relationship with God. In the outer zone, are you keeping distance from the things that God wants, but you find threatening or different?

Maybe God is in your middle zone, a place where he visits on Sundays, funerals and Easter. A socially and culturally structured relationship. Or maybe you have let God into your inner zone, where he works to expose your strengths and weaknesses, and where by his grace you are made strong.

Is he there, close-quarter grappling for your thoughts, for your motivations, for your love? Do you let him in that close, where he knows your weaknesses, where he anticipates your thoughts, your moves, or do you hold him off, afraid who would win, comfortable in a place where you can keep him at arms distance?

Jacob wrestled with God when he was in fear of his life after cheating his brother out of his birthright God revealed to Jacob his weaknesses and Jacob, afraid he was going to die, wrestled in his innermost being. The result transformed him into the nation of Israel.

The tragedy of World Environment Day

Today is World Environment day, as if such a declaration were going to make much change at all. In Wellington, a Green Party group persuaded a lot of people to stop in the street for five minutes. Presumably they wouldn't breathe quite so much, and thus reduce the injection of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

If that is the profundity of Green movement thinking, they have a long way to go in understanding life, the universe and everything.

New Zealand's population is growing, over four million people now. It was 2.5 million when I came here in the fifties. With the increase in population and economic growth and demand for goods and services it is inevitable that we make more waste, including carbon dioxide. I have written about CO2 before, and what nonsense it is to believe that it, and we who cause it, are the reason for global warming.

The problem for the Greens is not just persuading people to economise, and stop breathing bit by bit, then altogether; it is to look well ahead and consider the implications of their philosophy.

Like microcosm New Zealand, the world population is rising. Even if everyone we were to save and scrimp and reduce economic activity and demand and lower our standard of living, we would run into that population problem. If the Greens were to be consistent, they would legislate mandatory euthanasia (killing), about which movies have already been made. And legislate they would, if their shrill whinings and attempts to legislate are anything to go by. Not a few times in the past year have I heard the sentence from Greens, "We need to have a law against..."

The Greens would then become the stalinists of the 21st Century. And you know what Stalin did. He headed a command economy. Millions died of famine and stress. He killed those who opposed him.

Back home, I have just attended a Royal Society meeting at which a Department of Conservation officer mourned the possible loss of unique habitat at a limestone ridge called Mount Cass, in Canterbury. The area is being sought by a power company so that they can construct a big wind farm there, making roads and manufacturing concrete in situ. The DOC man said one significant thing in his presentation: "There are many wind farm sites, but there is only one Mt Cass."

How do we get into such a conflict? It is simple. The Government sees wind farming as part of the solution to New Zealand's demand for electricity. Unlike Singapore, we do have other bountiful options—geothermal energy, wave power, solar power, coal, oil, possibly hydro, and nuclear. However, Green hysteria has told us we may not use coal, oil or nuclear. So we end up poised to destroy a critical biological and geological feature of our past, something they and I would philosophically preserve.

God gave Adam and Eve the job of tending to the Garden of Eden. Mankind has instead raped it. I can't see our changing Mankind's thinking much, so we are galloping headlong into a series of tragedies, fuelled by false assumptions, misinformation and the exclusion of data.

So I will run my car, if I can afford it, as much as I need and think of China.

God out of the box

Among the exaggeration and false claims among certain sections of the church it is rare to hear an authenticated, verifiable account of a healing. In over 40 years, this is the first one I have heard, and I heard it in person.

Jack (a name we will use) is a contractor, which in our country means someone who has access to a lot of machinery and knowhow, and who does work for other people. Jack was suffering terrible and immobilising back pain. He was accepting fewer contracts because he couldn' t cope with some of the work, and his income was falling, which was bad news for his family. On one occasion he asked two of his men to lift him into a mechanical digger in the morning and out of it in the evening.

Jack then visited an orthopaedic surgeon, who ordered a CT scan which revealed that two lower vertebral discs had ruptured, sending sinovial fluid into the spinal column. It was a real mess. The only solution was a spinal fusion, which would immobilise the area, but might later just reflect the problem up the spine again.

Then a friend suggested he go with him to a healing meeting. Jack went, though not very hopefully. To cut a long story short, he went forward to the stage on invitation and duly submitted to the usual hocus pocus. Nothing happened. When he returned to his seat high in the auditorium, he found himself running up the stairs! He had been freed from the immobilising pain.

In due course he returned to his specialist who ordered another scan. It showed no damage to his discs. "I can't explain this," said the specialist. The specialist, by the way, was a Christian. Nevertheless he was a scientist and would not let his prejudices get in the way, especially with the two-scan evidence.

That was all many months ago. Now all Jack can say to people is, "Do you know what happened to me?" And that was how I got to hear his story, related in a private conversation at a church lunch.

Some sceptical church members, however, wouldn't countenance this event as a healing. Despite the before-and-after medical evidence and the principle in Leviticus 13, they maintained, "Miracles are not for today." They, as New Zealand Christians, had previously been chided by native pastors from overseas for not having faith. In their country, they said, people were being raised from the dead. No resuscitations, like Lazarus, were acceptable to this couple because of Hebrews 9:27: "...it is appointed for man to die once..."

I asked if they thought Mark 16:9-20 should be in the Bible? Yes. So I noted that there the disciples of Christ were to undertake healing.

Weren't they putting God in a box? "Yes," the wife replied without hesitation.

Later, I thought again of the list of spiritual workers in 1 Corinthians 12:29, which includes healers and workers of miracles. If miracles are not for today, why is Paul writing to the church about miracle workers in the mandatory New Testament?

Jack's story, I am told, is all over the town. I hope he has identified the Lord Jesus Christ as the worker of his miracle.