Bonhoeffer & Slagle

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes ... and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
German pastor and philosopher (1906-1945) imprisoned and executed for his attempt to overthrow Adolf Hitler.

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[God speaks]; And what about your tantrums? I never took them seriously. They certainly never offended Me. As is often the case with My children,, the frustration expressed by your lips had nothing to do with the deeper faith of your heart, expressed by your will. When you told Me you were trusting Me and then willed to walk on with Me, I took you at your word. I admit, you did askyour fair share of hard questions. But consdier My servant Job. Did he not do the same/ my assessment is this: in all your railing and falailing you never sinned, though We both know your patience did wear thin at times. Dangerously thin. But after, all you were being stretched to your very limits, were you not? I think so.

From, From the Father's Heart, by Charles Slagle, pg 47.

Expelled - Ben Stein

There's a new film available in the States called Expelled, which aims to align Darwinism with Naziism, to disprove the theory of evolution and promote Intelligent Design, to claim that scientists and university lecturers who don't agree with evolution are sidelined in their careers.

Of course the film is being heavily promoted amongst Christians, especially on various evangelical sites and blogs. So I did some checking out, since part of the aim of this blog is source good DVD material for use in churches and amongst home groups. I started by watching (or trying to watch) the extended trailer, but for some reason it doesn't want to download properly. However I got enough of an idea of it to want to check out things further.

Ben Stein, who 'stars' in the movie (it's more a doco than a feature), is anti-Darwinism - not in itself a bad thing - and so are the producers of the movie. Clicking further back and forth across the web I eventually came across a writer who says he's a passionate moderate Christian who is a member of a United Methodist congregation. His name is Henry Neufield. Henry's no slouch, he's no fly-by-night blogger, and he seems pretty sane.

He slams the movie for six reasons:
It misrepresents evolution;
First amendment issues are badly confused;
Academic freedom doesn't guarantee you a job or tenure;
The problem for intelligent design is not that it hasn't been considered;
The connection of Hitler with evolution;
Lastly, the one that annoys me most, is the lie that accepting the theory of evolution is the equivalent of atheism.

I don't have space here to give the detail from Henry's post, so I recommend you check it out on his blog.