Restricted Rights at the Early Learning Centre

Unlucky if you've just bought Mrs Potato Head or Mr Happy.

True Worship

Truth — not music, not bare passion, and certainly not ritual — deserves the place of prominence in worship.

God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)

God is spiritual in his very essence and therefore he must be worshipped with spiritual worship: worship in the energy of spirit; worship that engages and employs our entire spirit, not just the motions of our hands and the words we form with our lips; not bare ritual; but a true expression of the heart and soul.

Jesus makes a deliberate contrast between the worship God seeks and the typical kind of worship that is dominated by human tradition, obscured by empty ritual, and buried under meaningless layers of pomp and ceremony.

"Worship in spirit and truth" is a much abused and widely misunderstood principle today. Jesus is not calling for the kind of shallow passion that responds to the music and the atmosphere. He's not saying we should aim at working ourselves into a frenzy of feeling and passion devoid of any rational content.

Authentic worship is concerned with truth, not bare passion.

It's a common misconception today that worship in the spirit requires us to empty our minds of anything rational.

We can use music and atmosphere to build raw passion to a crescendo. And lots of people think that's the purest form of worship: when you are so overwhelmed with emotion that your mind is unattached and unengaged in any kind of rational thought. In fact, music is so important to the process that when you use the word "worship" today, most Christians assume you are talking about music.

But notice that Jesus gives truth, not music, the place of prominence in worship: God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.

That's loaded with implications. "Truth" here stands in contradistinction to bare ritual. It also contrasts with raw passion. Jesus is saying that sound doctrine, a clear conscience, and a true heart are infinitely more important for authentic worship than the place where we worship, the forms with which we worship, the style of our music, or any of the other things people usually want to talk about and fight over whenever the subject of worship comes up.

What's important in worship is what you believe, not what tribe you belong to. Authentic worship is about how you think of God, not just how you "feel" when you sing about him. It's about lifting up your spirit and opening your heart before him, not merely raising your hands and closing your eyes.

Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:28)

(This is a cut-down and lightly edited version of an original post by Phil Johnson.)

Don't Worry 17 - Share it with Other Believers

17. Share it with other believers

In the last post in this occasional series (some time ago now!) I recommended seeking Christian fellowship as an antidote to worry, even if this seems counter-intuitive at the time.

I could go further: why not share your concerns with other believers and ask them to pray?  As British people we find ourselves very reluctant to do this but it can be a great help to know that someone else is aware of the struggle that you’re facing and is praying for you and supporting you.

Paul, even though he was an apostle, often requested others to pray for him, conscious of the help this gave:  I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me.  (Romans 15:30)  Pray also for me.  (Ephesians 6:9)  And pray for us, too ...  (Colossians 4:3)  Brothers, pray for us.  (1 Thessalonians 5:25)  Finally, brothers, pray for us ...  (2 Thessalonians 3:1)

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  (James 5:16)  Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.  (Galatians 6:2)

Matthew Henry Reworked - Zecharaiah 10:12

I will strengthen them in the LORD and in his name they will walk, declares the LORD. (Zecharaiah 10:12)

God will keep his people strong and enable them to carry out the work they do for him without difficulty

I will strengthen them in the LORD, strengthen them for their walk and work, as well as for their warfare.

It is the God of Israel who gives strength and power to his people. It is he who strengthens all their powers and abilities for spiritual work, strengthens them above what they are capable of by nature, and enables them to overcome their tendency to sin.

How are Christians enabled and invigorated to do their duty?

I the LORD will strengthen them — in the LORD, in the Messiah. He is Yahweh our strength, as well as Yahweh our righteousness.

Strength is stored for us in Christ, and from him it is given to us. It is through Christ strengthening us that we can do all things, and without him we can do nothing.

His strength is to be used for this purpose. Summon your power, O God; show us your strength, O God, as you have done before. (Psalm 68:28)

How should Christians make use of the strength that God gives them?

They will walk in his name.

If God strengthens us, we must be active, we must carry out all the duties required of us as Christians, we must be active and busy in the work of God, we must be hard-working — losing no time, and letting slip no opportunity.

But we must always walk in the name of Christ; we must do everything under his authority and in dependence on him, with an eye to his word as our guide and his glory as our goal.

To us, to live must be Christ; and all that we do or say must be in the name of the Lord Jesus; otherwise God's strengthening grace is useless.

Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised up for yourself. Then we will not turn away from you; revive us, and we will call on your name. Restore us, O LORD God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved. (Psalm 80:17-19)

R C Sproul on Creation

In our time a considerable number of theories have arisen denying that the creation, as we know it, took place in twenty-four hour days. Common to these theories is the acceptance of the dominant scientific view that the earth and life on it are very old. Many consider the biblical account to be primitive, mythological, and untenable in light of modern scientific knowledge.

This crisis has resulted in several attempts to reinterpret the Genesis account of creation. We are reminded of the sixteenth century, when Copernicus and his followers repudiated the old Ptolemaic view of astronomy. They argued that the center of the solar system is not the earth (geocentricity), but the sun (heliocentricity). It was a sad chapter in the history of the church, which had believed for more than fifteen hundred years that the Bible teaches geocentricity, when it condemned Galileo for believing and teaching heliocentricity. Both Luther and Calvin opposed Copernicus’s views, believing them to undermine Scripture’s authority.

Actually the Bible does not explicitly teach geocentricity anywhere. Scripture describes the movements of the heavens from the perspective of someone standing on earth: the sun moves across the sky, rising in the east and setting in the west. We use that same language today. The church thought that because the Bible uses this kind of descriptive language, it was therefore teaching something about the relationship between the sun and the earth. This is a clear case of scientific knowledge correcting the church’s interpretation of the Bible.

There are two spheres of revelation; the Bible (special revelation) and nature (general revelation). In the latter, God manifests himself through the created order. What God reveals in nature can never contradict what he reveals in Scripture, and what he reveals in Scripture can never contradict what he reveals in nature. He is the author of both forms of revelation, and God does not contradict himself.

The church has always taken the position that all truth meets at the top, and that science should never contradict Scripture. Scientific discoveries, however, can correct the theologian’s faulty understanding of Scripture, just as biblical revelation can correct faulty speculations drawn from the natural order. When the scientific consensus on a particular point is on a collision course with the unmistakable teaching of Scripture, I trust Scripture before I trust the speculations and inferences of scientists. That is consistent with the history of the church and Christianity. We believe that sacred Scripture is nothing less than the Creator’s truth revealed.

We have a problem not only with a six-day creation, but also with the age of the earth. Is the earth a few thousand years old or billions of years old (as scientists today insist)? Although the Bible clearly says that the world was created in six days, it gives no date for the beginning of that work. It would be a mistake to become embroiled in too much controversy about the date of creation.

In a Massachusetts college I taught Introduction to the Old Testament to two hundred and fifty students. Because the class was so large, we met in the chapel. Once I opened the old pulpit Bible to Genesis 1, and at the top of the page I read “4004 B.C.” I did some research to see how that date had been determined. In the seventeenth century an archbishop, James Ussher, made some calculations based on the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 and other chronological clues in the Old Testament. He even pinned down the day of the week and the time of day when creation occurred. I hasten to tell my students that we must be very careful to distinguish between the text of Scripture and additions to the text. In defending the biblical authority, we are not obligated to defend a theory based on the speculations of a bishop in times past.

If we take the genealogies that go back to Adam, however, and if we make allowances for certain gaps in them (which could certainly be there), it remains a big stretch from 4004 B.C. to 4.6 billion years ago. We also have the problem of the antiquity of the human race. It seems as if every time a new skeleton or skull is discovered, scientists push back the date of man’s origin another million years.

Scholars have proposed four basic theories to explain the time from of Genesis 1–2:

1.the gap theory,
2.the day-age theory,
3.the framework hypothesis, and
4.six-day creation.

GAP THEORY
The gap theory was made popular by the Scofield Reference Bible (1909), which more than any other single edition of Scripture swept through this country and informed the theology of an entire generation of evangelicals. It became the principal instrument for propagating dispensational theology throughout America. In this Bible, Genesis 1:1 reads, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and verse 2 reads, “And the earth became without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Other Bibles read, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Verse 2 describes what most scholars consider to be the as-yet-unordered, basic structure of the universe—darkness, emptiness. Then the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters (v.2) and God says, “Let there be light” (v.3). Thus came the light and then the creation of the heavens, fish, birds, animals, and so on.

The Hebrew word in verse 2 translated “was” is the very common verb hayah, which ordinarily means “to be.” Hayah means “to become” only in special circumstances, which are not present here. The Scofield Reference Bible translates verse 2 as “became” instead of “was” in order to facilitate the gap theory. As a result, only verse 1 refers to the original creation. Verse 2 then refers to a cosmic catastrophe in which the originally good and properly ordered creation became chaotic, dark, and fallen. After this period of darkness (the “gap”), God recreates the universe which could have been created billions of years ago, followed by a gap of billions of years (including the “geologic column” of immense ages), after which God returned to his distorted creation and renovated or reconstituted it relatively recently. The gap theory has also been called the restitution hypothesis, meaning that the creation narrative in Genesis is not about the original creation, but about the restitution of a fallen creation.

An entire generation was fed this theory through the Scofield Reference Bible. However, Scripture nowhere explicitly teaches that the original creation was marred and then after many years reconstituted. The broader context of the whole of Scripture militates against the gap theory.

DAY-AGE THEORY
According to the second approach, the day-age theory, each “day” of Genesis 1 may be an age. After all, one day in the Lord’s sight is like a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8). Also, expressions like “in the days of Noah” and “in Abraham’s day” can refer to open-ended periods. The Hebrew word yom, translated “day” in Genesis, can mean something other than a twenty-four-hour period, as it must in Genesis 2:4, which refers to “the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” Accordingly, each “day” in Genesis 1 may refer to a thousand years, and perhaps even to millions of years. This will at least ameliorate some of the difficulties we have with those who argue for a gradual evolution of life-forms on this earth.

However, the day-age theory, like the gap theory, ignores the immediate context as well as the large biblical context. It ignores the fact that each of the six days of creation consists of an evening and a morning. If yom here means something like ten million years, then we need to give the words evening and morning the same kind of metaphorical meaning. From a literary, exegetical, and linguistic perspective, the day-age theory is weak. As a Christian apologist, I would not want to defend it.

The day-age theory tends to accommodate a theory of biological macroevolution that is incompatible with the Bible and purposive creation—the creation of all living things by the immediate agency of the sovereign God. Macroevolution teaches that all life has developed from a single, original cell, and that this happened through a somewhat fortuitous, chance collision of atoms, without an intelligent planner or Creator orchestrating the emergence of these species. Those who favor the day-age theory often link themselves with a position called theistic evolution, which grants the basic premises of biological evolution, but says that God, not chance, guided the process of evolution.

Macroevolution differs from microevolution. While the former teaches that all living things have developed from one original cell, the latter teaches that, over period of time, species undergo slight changes in order to adapt to their environment. Microevolution is not in dispute, either biblically or scientifically. Macroevolution has never been substantiated by observation or experiment, and it places its faith in an endless string of extremely improbable, yet beneficial chance mutations.

A frequent argument for macroevolution is the principle of common structure. All forms of life are made up of the same basic substances: amino acids, proteins, DNA, and that sort of thing. Because all living things have similar constituent parts, the argument goes, they must have developed from common ancestors. A common substance or structure, however, does not necessarily imply a common source. The fact that all forms of life are made of the same basic building blocks neither negates the possibility of evolution nor substantiates it. One would expect an intelligent Creator to have made all life-forms with a similar design—one that works on this earth.

When teaching a university course to thirty upper-level philosophy students, I asked who believed in macroevolution. Almost all the students raised their hands. I then asked them to explain why they believed in it. Their only argument was “common substance, therefore common source.” Most said they believed it because they had been taught in school, and they assumed their teachers knew what they were talking about.

Macroevolution, in the final analysis, is not a question of biology or natural science, which rely upon experimented verification, but of history, which tries to interpret evidence left from the past in a coherent fashion. The discipline of paleontology, which studies the fossil record, claims to put evolution on a scientific footing, but it performs no experiments to substantiate evolutionary processes. It simply lines up similar fossils and infers that one creature must be related to another by common decent.

In the recent past in Russia, leading international scholars who favor macroevolution met. While comparing notes, they found that the weakest evidence for their theories is the fossil record. I remember reading the Royal Society’s bulletin at that time and thinking, “What other source matters?” The fossil record is the one that counts, and yet that is the one that militates against their theory. I read an essay recently in which a professor argued for macroevolution on the basis of certain geological formations. He argued for an old earth on the ground that stratifications in the rocks contain fossils, which indicates a uniformitarian process that took millions of years to produce the whole formation. He then determined the age of each stratum by determining the kinds of fossils contained in each. This is a blatant example of what logicians call begging the question. It is circular reasoning to date the fossils by the rocks, and then date the rocks by the fossils. That just will not work.

We now have good evidence that stratification of rocks proves the antiquity of nothing. Within days after the Mount St. Helens explosion had subsided, scientists discovered that the cataclysmic upheaval of that volcanic explosion had laid down exactly the same rock stratification that had been assumed would take millions of years to develop. In other words, Mount St. Helens proved that catastrophic upheavals can produce the same empirical data as twenty million years of gradual deposition. We will not get into uniformitarianism or catastrophism here, except to say that they have been attempts to accommodate macroevolution. This tends to support and popularize the theory of theistic evolution, and it also uses the day-age theory of Genesis—a dangerous thing to do.

FRAMEWORK HYPOTHESIS
The third approach, called the framework hypothesis, was originally developed by the Dutch scholar Nicholas Ridderbos. He argued that the literary form of the book’s first few chapters differs from that of its later chapters. Certain basic characteristics found in poetry are missing from historical narrative, and certain characteristics found in historical narrative are missing from poetry. For example, the book of Exodus, with its account of the Jewish captivity in Egypt, has genealogies, family names, real historical places, and an unmetered literary style (i.e., lacking a particular rhythm), making it clearly prose and historical narrative. After the account of the exodus, the book’s author inserts the song of Miriam, which is in metered rhythm and is therefore clearly poetry. The literary structure before the song manifests all the characteristics of historical narrative, as does the structure following the poem.

Therefore, it is usually not difficult to distinguish between poetry and historical narrative in the Old Testament. But the opening chapters of Genesis, according to Ridderbos, exhibit a strange combination of literary forms. On the one hand is a discussion of the creation of a man and a woman who are given names that thereafter appear in genealogical accounts. In Hebrew literature this clearly signals historicity. The Garden of Eden is said to be set among four rivers, two of which we know were real rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates. The style of writing is not metered or rhythmic, as Hebrew poetry normally is. All this indicates that the opening chapters of Genesis are historical narrative.

There are some anomalies, however. We find trees in this garden with strange names: “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and “the tree of life” (Gen 2:9). Had they been apple or pear trees, there would have been no problem. But what does a tree of life look like? Is the author of Genesis telling us that a real tree was off limits, giving it a metaphorical meaning as the tree of life? We are also introduced to a serpent who speaks. Because of these two features, some have argued that the literary structure of the opening chapters of Genesis was self consciously and intentionally mythological, or at least filled with legend and saga.

Ridderbos contended that the beginning chapters of Genesis are a mixture of historical narrative and poetry, with part of the poetic structure being the repeated refrain, “So the evening and the morning were the first day” (Gen 1:5), and so on. Ridderbos concluded that Genesis gives us not a historical narrative of the when or the how of divine creation, but a drama in seven acts. The first act ends with the statement, “So the evening and the morning were the first day.” The author of Genesis, then, is trying to show that God’s work of creation took place in seven distinct stages, which incidentally fit remarkably well into the stages identified by the modern theories of cosmic evolution.

Therefore, the framework hypothesis allows one to step into a Big Bang cosmology while maintaining the credibility and inspiration of Genesis 1-2. This is not history, but drama. The days are simply artistic literary devices to create a framework for a lengthy period of development.

In America Ridderbos’s work was widely disseminated by Meredith Kline, who for many years taught Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, then at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and then at Westminster Seminary California. Because Kline endorsed the framework hypothesis, many people, particularly in the Reformed community, have embraced it, provoking a serious crisis in some circles. Some Reformed pastors today hold to a literal six-day creation, while others hold to the framework hypothesis, and yet they otherwise hold to the same system of orthodox theology.

SIX-DAY CREATION
For most of my teaching career, I considered the framework hypothesis to be a possibility. But I have now changed my mind. I now hold to a literal six-day creation, the fourth alternative and the traditional one. Genesis says that God created the universe and everything in it in six twenty-four-hour periods. According to the Reformation hermeneutic, the first option is to follow the plain sense of the text. One must do a great deal of hermeneutical gymnastics to escape the plain meaning of Genesis 1-2. The confession makes it a point of faith that God created the world in the space of six days.

Original post: What Is R.C. Sproul’s Position on Creation?

Severe Weather Warning - 2 Feet of Snow

Information Overload

I went to an interesting lecture organised by the London Central Branch of the BCS last week, by Ian Price from Grimsdyke Consulting and the Information Overload Research Group.

He started off by comparing Churchill's 1953(?) vision of the future work/life balance with the reality now. Apparently Churchill predicted that the "working man" would soon need to work only 4 days a week because of productivity increases, and hence would have plenty of leisure time. ("You've never had it so good" — or was that Macmillan?).

Of course we know that the picture today is very different. People are tied to their laptops and BlackBerrys in the evenings and at weekends. They feel the need to continually monitor and respond to their email even when "relaxing" or on the move. Tony Blair is quoted as saying, "Today my Blackberry is everything to me, so much so that one day Leo asked me: 'Dad, who do you love more, me or the phone?'"

He outlined the effects of this addiction. Up to 12% of payroll costs are spent on inefficient use of email. Reading just-arrived emails interrupts our flow of work and sometimes completely sidetracks us for long periods. And such interruptions even seem to have a negative effect on our IQ. Further time is wasted because of the temptation to use social networking sites or to play games when we should be working. People read their email in the bedroom and bathroom — even while driving. (BMW has teamed up with BlackBerry so that you can now monitor your emails from the driving seat.) People feel inadequate and insecure if they're not on the phone or dealing with email when they're in an airport lounge.

It is recent technological advances that make more-or-less instant communication possible, of course. The speed of person-to-person communication did not change much, perhaps, from the use of clay tablets in around 3,000 BC to that of internal company memos in the 1980s.

I was disappointed in Ian's analysis of the reason for such addiction. He turned to evolutionary theory and suggested that the need to know snippets of information stems from man's Stone Age past. Knowing the latest gossip would put you at an advantage within your tribe — which only goes to show that you can use evolution to prove more or less anything you like about human behaviour. He didn't seem to notice the significance of his later remark: "Our wiring hasn't changed over 100,000 years".

However, he did make some useful suggestions about how to deal with this information overload — which is why I thought this post might be useful. (We've got there in the end! Thanks for staying with me so far.)

Organisations should set rules for the use of email (and enforce them):
* There is no such thing as an urgent email. (Emails may not be read; they aren't guaranteed to arrive. Why not pick up the phone or go and talk to someone?)
* Don't use email as the first resort for internal communications. (Have a meeting first, and then send an email to summarize.)
* Don't email out of hours. (If the CEO writes emails on Sunday afternoon, he puts pressure on others to act in the same way.)
* Don't use email for negative feedback or "flaming". (I'm sure I'm not alone in having a weekend ruined because of a negatively-phrased email — even if was unintentionally so.)
* Don't use email for complex debates. (Set up a wiki instead.)
* Only copy people on emails if it's absolutely necessary.

He also helpfully suggested how individuals can avoid many of the problems that excessive use of email brings by:
* Tackling emails only in focused bouts, two or three times a day.
* Being ruthless with deleting and filing.
* Aiming to see the bottom of your inbox at the end of each day. (Leaving lots of emails to deal with another time only fills your mind with useless clutter, and you'll feel guilty about not dealing with them sooner.)
* Turning off all new email indicators.
* Closing down your mail client when doing something else.

And, finally, Ian suggested some tools that might help:
* (for Outlook) xobni
* AwayFind
* (for gmail users) Priority Inbox

Outlook 2007 Rules Not Firing Automatically

I use rules extensively in Outlook at work to sort and filter emails as they arrive, so it was a bit frustrating that they stopped working a day or two back. They ran OK with the "Run Rules Now..." option, but wouldn't fire automatically. (By the way, we use Microsoft Exchange Server and I use Cached Exchange Mode to reduce the effect of connection problems.)

After a fair amount of searching I eventually found an article at TechRepublic that provided the solution. This suggested that the rules might be corrupt and recommended recreating them to fix the problem. The process is quite simple and, whether my rules were actually corrupt or not, it fixed the issue:

• Select Tools then Rules and Alerts... to open the Rules and Alerts dialog.
• Select Options.
• Select Export Rules....
• Navigate to an appropriate folder and choose a file name. Select Save.
• Cancel the Options dialog.
• Select all your rules, and click Delete. Select Yes to confirm.
• You should now have no rules listed. Select OK.
• Exit and then re-start Outlook.
• Select Tools then Rules and Alerts... again.
• Select Options.
• Select Import Rules....
• Navigate to and select the file you just exported, then click Open.
• Cancel the Options dialog and select OK.

... and all should be fine!

Don't Worry 16 - Seek Christian Fellowship

16. Seek Christian fellowship

Avoid being on your own.  Don’t avoid meeting with other believers.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Heb 10:25 )

There’s a tendency when we’re worried to cut ourselves off from others, especially the people of God.  I don’t know if it’s because we feel inadequate, or because worrying makes us feel that we haven’t time for Christian fellowship.  Whatever the reason, it’s got to be unhelpful — if only because fellow Christians will help us to focus on the important issues and encourage us to stop thinking only about ourselves.

Don't Worry 15 - Recognise Satan's Purposes

15. Recognise Satan’s purpose to divide and weaken the people of God

In his first letter, Peter says, Cast all your anxiety upon him because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7).  It's surely significant that he then immediately goes on to say, Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

We've already seen that we can trust God in difficult times because he's all-powerful and all-knowing, he is present everywhere and he is dependable. By worrying we are affectively refusing to believe these truths, and that is bound to weaken us and make us more prone to attack from the devil.

Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls

This was posted in the ACM RISKS Forum a couple of weeks ago:

British game retailer *GameStation* has revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of online shoppers, thanks to a clause in the terms and conditions agreed to by online shoppers. On April Fools' Day they had added the "immortal soul clause" to the contract that you would sign before making any online purchases. It states that customers grant the company the right to claim their soul.

"By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non-transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions."

GameStation's form also points out that "we reserve the right to serve such notice in 6-foot-high letters of fire, however we can accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by such an act. If you a) do not believe you have an immortal soul, b) have already given it to another party, or c) do not wish to grant Us such a license, please click the link below to nullify this sub-clause and proceed with your transaction."

The GameStation folks apparently intended to make a very real point: No one reads the online terms and conditions of shopping, and companies are free to insert whatever language they want into the documents.

While all shoppers during the test were given a simple tick box option to opt out, very few did this, which would have also rewarded them with a 5-pound voucher. Due to the number of people who ticked the box, GameStation claims believes as many as 88 percent of people do not read the terms and conditions of a Web site before they make a purchase.

The company noted that it would not be enforcing the ownership rights, and planned to e-mail customers nullifying any claim on their soul.

Finchley and Golders Green in the Balance

Moral and ethical issues are often ignored during election campaigns. The focus is on how to solve the so-called "big issues" – problems with the economy, efficiency in the health service, etc. Yet the moral priorities of those who govern often have a deeper and longer lasting effect: witness the changes during the last decade, for example, in medical ethics, in opinions about marriage and the family, or in attitudes to religion.

So, through my church web site, I have been trying to find out the views of the prospective candidates in my constituency (Finchley and Golders Green) on a range of issues where important Christian principles are at stake. The results can be seen here.

According to this BBC article this constituency will be one of the closest fought in the capital during the coming election. It is currently a Labour seat but, because of boundary changes, the Conservatives hope to win – though they have a notional majority of just 241. What a good opportunity, then, for these important issues to play a more prominent role in the final decision.

Seeing is Believing

"I can't see God. He doesn't exist."

(Holding hands over eyes) "I can't see you!"



(The Pyromaniacs did it first and better.)

Keir Gets it Wrong

Yesterday the DPP published his guidance about assisted suicide. He doesn't seem to be thinking as clearly as Gordon Brown.

The scene: a typical suburban home. The date: a year or two in the future. A man has just murdered his wife with a lethal overdose. The interviewing police officer reviews the DPP's "public interest factors" with him ...

The 16 public interest factors in favour of prosecution:

1. The victim was under 18 years of age.
"She was my age."

2. The victim did not have the capacity (as defined by the Mental Capacity Act 2005) to reach an informed decision to commit suicide.
"Far from it; she had a very responsible job."

3. The victim had not reached a voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision to commit suicide.
"Of course she had."

4. The victim had not clearly and unequivocally communicated his or her decision to commit suicide to the suspect.
"She kept telling me she wanted to die."

5. The victim did not seek the encouragement or assistance of the suspect personally or on his or her own initiative.
"She begged me to help her do this."

6. The suspect was not wholly motivated by compassion; for example, the suspect was motivated by the prospect that he or she or a person closely connected to him or her stood to gain in some way from the death of the victim.
"But I loved her!"

7. The suspect pressured the victim to commit suicide.
"She told me she couldn’t stand it any longer."

8. The suspect did not take reasonable steps to ensure that any other person had not pressured the victim to commit suicide.
"It was definitely all her own idea."

9. The suspect had a history of violence or abuse against the victim.
"Our marriage was extremely happy."

10. The victim was physically able to undertake the act that constituted the assistance himself or herself.
"Unfortunately, she’d got to the point that she couldn’t even feed herself."

11. The suspect was unknown to the victim and encouraged or assisted the victim to commit or attempt to commit suicide by providing specific information via, for example, a website or publication.
"We’ve been married for years."

12. The suspect gave encouragement or assistance to more than one victim who were not known to each other.
"I’d never help anybody else in this way."

13. The suspect was paid by the victim or those close to the victim for his or her encouragement or assistance.
"Of course not! How absurd."

14. The suspect was acting in his or her capacity as a medical doctor, nurse, other healthcare professional, a professional carer (whether for payment or not), or as a person in authority, such as a prison officer, and the victim was in his or her care.
"Definitely not."

15. The suspect was aware that the victim intended to commit suicide in a public place where it was reasonable to think that members of the public may be present.
"She wanted to die peacefully, at home."

16. The suspect was acting in his or her capacity as a person involved in the management or as an employee (whether for payment or not) of an organisation or group, a purpose of which is to provide a physical environment (whether for payment or not) in which to allow another to commit suicide.
"No, I don’t approve of such organisations."

The six public interest factors against prosecution:

1. The victim had reached a voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision to commit suicide.
"She asked me over and over again, for months, to help her."

2. The suspect was wholly motivated by compassion.
"I loved her so much."

3. The actions of the suspect, although sufficient to come within the definition of the crime, were of only minor encouragement or assistance.
"I only did what she wanted to do; but she just couldn’t do it herself."

4. The suspect had sought to dissuade the victim from taking the course of action which resulted in his or her suicide.
"I kept on asking her if she was sure."

5. The actions of the suspect may be characterised as reluctant encouragement or assistance in the face of a determined wish on the part of the victim to commit suicide.
"I never wanted to do this, but she was so adamant that it was the right thing for her."

6. The suspect reported the victim’s suicide to the police and fully assisted them in their enquiries into the circumstances of the suicide or the attempt and his or her part in providing encouragement or assistance.
"I called you as soon as it happened."

"Don't you understand, it was because I loved her that I had to kill her?"

Gordon Gets it Right

It was good to see that the Prime Minister has written a piece in the Daily Telegraph today against assisted suicide. (And as I write that sentence it strikes me forcibly just how much the country has changed in my life time. In earlier and, at least as far as this is concerned, better, times the subject wouldn't even be discussed; the possibility that such an act could be legalised would have been laughable.)

He begins by saying...

Many times in the past 80 years, Parliament has considered – and rejected – the legalisation of assisted suicide. If, in the wake of revived debate on these matters, a new proposal were to come forward, I do not believe the outcome would be any different.

Cases dominating the public arena make for harrowing reading and the first and most obvious response is to say that something must be done. But when these complex, individual and distressing cases are considered in detail, a solution that at first might seem sensible – the right to die in a manner and at a time of one's choosing – swiftly becomes less straightforward and more worrying.

And rightly concludes (my emphasis)...

The law – together with the values and standards of our caring professions – supports good care, including palliative care for the most difficult of conditions; and also protects the most vulnerable in our society. For let us be clear: death as an option and an entitlement, via whatever bureaucratic processes a change in the law might devise, would fundamentally change the way we think about mortality.

The risk of pressures – however subtle – on the frail and the vulnerable, who may feel their existences burdensome to others, cannot ever be entirely excluded. And the inevitable erosion of trust in the caring professions – if they were in a position to end life – would be to lose something very precious. For when I think of the kind of care Sarah and I saw in our local hospice, where we worked as volunteers, I know in my heart that there is such a thing as a good death.

And I believe it is our duty as a society to provide the skilled and loving care that makes it possible; and to use the laws we have well, rather than rush to change them.

Now if only he could think as clearly about abortion, sex education and religious liberty we might be getting somewhere!

What's on Your Mind?

I came across a helpful post today on a mailing list that I subscribe to, which summarizes a good point made by Timothy Keller in a "Reason for God".

The Dawkins' argument that religion came about through evolutionary responses to fear of the unknown, etc., assumes on the one hand that the human mind created a "false thing" to understand the world (theism), and so cannot be relied upon. Yet the argument assumes on the other hand that the human mind has also created a "true thing" to understand the world (scientific naturalism), and in this instance the mind can be trusted. Stripping away all the rhetoric, all you end up with is, "My mind can be trusted, but yours can't".

Makes me want to read it ...

Making a .NET Dll COM-Visible

In this post, I want to explain how I created a dll in C#/.NET using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 that could be accessed from an Excel VBA program.

In order for VBA to access it, a dll has to be COM-visible. See Wikipedia; Component Object Model for more details. However, Microsoft's description at Exposing .NET Framework Components to COM is quite hard to understand. I hope this step-by-step explanation of an actual example will be easier to follow.

Summary

I created a dll, called MdJLibrary.dll, that defines a function WidthInPoints in the class TextFunctions. This function takes three parameters - a string, a font name and a font size - and returns the width of that string in points. When built and deployed, the function in this dll can be accessed from Excel VBA.

Step 1. Create the dll in C#/.NET

A. Create a new project

In Microsoft Visual 2008, select File, then New and Project. Choose the Class Library template. Set Name to MdJLibrary. Click OK.

B. Define the required function

Here is the initial code. Note that neither the class nor the method can be specified as static (since, as we will see later, the class will have to inherit an interface). Also, the method has to be public so that it can later be exposed to COM.

using System;
using System.Drawing;
 
namespace MdJLibrary
{
/// <summary>
/// Class defining functions on text
/// </summary>
public class TextFunctions
{
/// <summary>
/// Measure the width of a given string when drawn in a font of a given size
/// </summary>
/// <param name="text">string to measure</param>
/// <param name="fontName">name of font to use</param>
/// <param name="fontSize">em-size of font (points)</param>
/// <returns>width of string in points</returns>
public int WidthInPoints(string text, string fontName, Single fontSize)
{
//create a temporary Graphics object and set the measurement units to points
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(new Bitmap(1, 1));
g.PageUnit = GraphicsUnit.Point;
 
//create a Font object from the given name and size
Font f = new Font(fontName, fontSize);
 
//measure the given string when drawn with this Font
SizeF stringSize = g.MeasureString(text, f);
 
//extract and return the width (rounded to nearest integer)
return Convert.ToInt32(stringSize.Width);
}
}
}

C. Sign it with a strong name

This avoids versioning problems, and increases security. All shared dlls should be signed, even if they're not going to be deployed to the Global Assembly Cache.

Open the project properties (select Project then Properties...), and select the Signing tab. Click Sign the assembly and either create or choose an existing strong name key file.

Step 2. Test it

Create a separate, small .NET program to test the dll.

I haven’t included the test program listing here. The key thing is that the solution needs to include an explicit reference to the new library.

Step 3. Make the dll COM-visible

There are several stages to this.

A. Provide an explicit interface

It is possible to generate an interface by using the ClassInterfaceAttribute to automatically expose the public methods, etc., but the recommended way is to define an explicit interface. The type of the ClassInterfaceAttribute is then set to None, so as to stop this automatic class interface being produced.

The ClassInterfaceAttribute is defined in the System.Runtime.InteropServices namespace, so add this to the list of using directives:

using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

The interface definition has to contain an exact copy of the WidthInPoints method signature, without any access modifiers:

public interface ITextFunctions
{
int WidthInPoints(string text, string fontName, Single fontSize);
}

The class definition now needs to be modified to show that it is implementing this interface, with the ClassInterfaceAttribute as described.

[ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.None)]
public class TextFunctions : ITextFunctions
{
...

B. Define a default constructor

Define a default constructor for the class, so that COM clients can create objects.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 creates public default constructors automatically, but I prefer to make this explicit:

//default constructor
public TextFunctions() { }

C. Mark the methods to be made COM-visible

Perhaps the easiest way of doing this is to make the whole assembly COM-visible with the ComVisibleAttribute: In the project properties, on the Application tab, click Assembly Information... and check Make assembly Com-visible. Note that this changes the ComVisible setting in the AssemblyInfo.cs file (under Properties in Solution Explorer) to true:

[assembly: ComVisible(true)]

If there are any methods that you don't want to make COM-visible you they need to be marked explicitly as [ComVisible(false)].

However, the recommended alternative is to leave the assembly setting unchanged and to explicitly add [ComVisible(true)] to each class and method that you want to expose as COM-visible:

[ComVisible(true)]
[ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.None)]
public class TextFunctions : ITextFunctions
{
...
 
[ComVisible(true)]
public int WidthInPoints(string text, string fontName, Single fontSize)
{
...

D. Identify the dll with a unique class id

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 does this automatically by generating a unique GUID for the assembly. This can be seen in AssemblyInfo.cs:

[assembly: Guid("xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx")]

Here is the finished code:

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
 
namespace MdJLibrary
{
public interface ITextFunctions
{
int WidthInPoints(string text, string fontName, Single fontSize);
}
 
/// <summary>
/// Class defining functions on text
/// </summary>
[ComVisible(true)]
[ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.None)]
public class TextFunctions : ITextFunctions
{
//default constructor
public TextFunctions() { }
 
/// <summary>
/// Measure the width of a given string when drawn in a font of a given size
/// </summary>
/// <param name="text">string to measure</param>
/// <param name="fontName">name of font to use</param>
/// <param name="fontSize">em-size of font (points)</param>
/// <returns>width of string in points</returns>
[ComVisible(true)]
public int WidthInPoints(string text, string fontName, Single fontSize)
{
//create a temporary Graphics object and set the measurement units to points
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(new Bitmap(1, 1));
g.PageUnit = GraphicsUnit.Point;
 
//create a Font object from the given name and size
Font f = new Font(fontName, fontSize);
 
//measure the given string when drawn with this Font
SizeF stringSize = g.MeasureString(text, f);
 
//extract and return the width (rounded to nearest integer)
return Convert.ToInt32(stringSize.Width);
}
}
}

Step 4. Package and deploy the assembly

A. Register the component for COM interoperation

In the project properties, on the Build tab, check the Register for COM interop option.

B. Deploy the dll

A convenient way of doing this is to use the assembly registration tool, regasm.

On the Build Events tab, add the following line to the post-build event:
%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\regasm $(TargetFileName) /tlb:$(TargetName).lib

%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 is the default installation path for regasm in v2.0 of the .NET Framework, which is the latest version available.

regasm registers all the public classes contained in the dll, and generates and registers the type library (.lib). You can use the /reglib option to generate a .reg file that contains the registry entries instead of making the changes directly to the registry.

Step 5. Use the dll

To complete the picture, here's how to use the functions provided by the dll in Excel.

A. Add a reference to the dll

In the Visual Basic Editor window, select Tools then References....

The new library name should appear in the Available References list. Select it and click OK.

B. Create an object of the required type and call the function

In a VBA module, call CreateObject to create and return a reference to a new instance of the class defined in the dll, and then call the appropriate method. In this case:

Dim obj As Object
Dim width As Integer
 
Set obj = CreateObject("MdJLibrary.TextFunctions")
width = obj.WidthInPoints("Mike", "Arial", 10)

Don't Worry 14 - Pray About It

14. Pray about it

If we can worry about something then surely we can pray about it. Commit your way to God. Ask God for wisdom and help. Ask that his will be done. But don’t prattle, going over the same things again and again; this can be a particular temptation when one's mind is in a turmoil. When you pray, do not keep babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:7)

Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden. (Corrie ten Boom)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

We should pray specifically:

... that we will not succumb to temptation when it comes. This is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven ... lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (Matthew 6:9-13)

... for God to meet our needs. Give us today our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11)

... that we will have wisdom in all circumstances. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault; and it will be given him. (James 1:5)

Who Made God?

From Professor Edgar Andrews’ forthcoming book Who made God?:

It’s a question commonly posed by those who would banish the very ideas of God and "creation". Richard Dawkins asks it repeatedly, in various ways, in his best-selling book The God Delusion. The logic runs something like this.

If God exists, then presumably he created everything (why else would we need him?) But if God exists, who made him? And since no one can answer that question, it does nothing to solve the riddle of the universe to say "God made it". We simply push the mystery one step further back and that is a pointless exercise.

No one can doubt that atheists regard their "unanswerable question" — "Who made God?" — as a formidable weapon in their war against faith, but there is more to the question than meets the eye and it crops up in a surprising variety of philosophical contexts.

So let’s look briefly at three such contexts — the "we made God" hypothesis, the "improbability of God" calculation, and the "unanswerable question" dilemma.

... missing out discussion about the first two ...

The third context in which "Who made God?" appears is the most obvious one. The question is deemed unanswerable because the only realistic reply is "no-one made God". And if no-one made God, then he can’t be there, can he? After all, for every effect there must be a cause. An effect that has no cause must be imaginary.

Once again, in their enthusiasm to prove their point, the proponents of this argument entangle physics with metaphysics. Cause and effect do indeed reign supreme in the physical realm — both science and normal life would be impossible unless they did. But why should they operate in the same manner in a spiritual realm (if such exists)?

We have a choice. Firstly, we can assert a priori that there is no such thing as a spiritual realm — that nothing exists that is not physical and open to scientific investigation. On this basis we can proceed to claim, with some logical justification, that every possible effect must have a cause, because that is how the physical world works.

But what we cannot do is use this claim to disprove the existence of God on the grounds that he doesn’t have a cause! Why not? Because our argument would be completely circular. We begin by assuming that no spiritual realm exists and conclude by "proving" our initial assumption. Big deal.

So let’s try to find a different route through the maze, this time without cheating. To avoid assuming at the outset what we want to prove, we must start by allowing that there might indeed be a spiritual realm.

Because cause and effect is only proven for the physical world, we can no longer insist that they are relevant to the origin of a spiritual entity like God. Therefore God doesn’t have to have a cause — he can be the ultimate uncaused cause, a being whom no-one made.

Don't Worry 13 - Get Your Thinking Straight (C)

13. Get your thinking straight: See the problem in perspective and be realistic

What’s the worst that can happen? And what is really likely to happen? I once prepared a Bible study about worrying — and then caught myself worrying about how it would be received! Whether it would be really boring and unhelpful for those attending, whether it would be too short or too long, and so on. Forcing myself to think realistically I realised that it would probably be at least of some use to them, because considering these things had helped me. It might be a bit boring, but I felt sure they could live with that! It didn't really matter how long it was. And even if I should completely dry up, or they found it too obvious or even completely wrong — I knew that they would be kind and supportive because we were brothers and sisters in Christ.

Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face. (Nelson DeMille)

I think Jacob fell into the trap of getting things out of perspective and losing a sense of reality, when he returned to meet Esau after 15 years or more with Laban. Perhaps there was some excuse for him because the last he’d heard from Esau were words of hate. Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, "The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob." (Genesis 27:41)  But Jacob had God’s promise: Then the LORD said to Jacob, "Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you." (Genesis 31:3)

We read in Genesis 32:7-8, In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape." At least he then prayed — but remember then how he sent his family and gifts of animals ahead of him to pacify Esau.

In the end, though, all his fears were unfounded. But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. (Genesis 33:4)