If I was King for a Day

A thought-experiment
They say that power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts. So to become King of the World for a day would do no-one any good.

However, I have sometimes pondered, as a thought experiment what I might like to change, were I King for a day.

Give dignity to the unemployed
Here's a low-key change: having worked with many unemployed young men over the years, who have no motives or incentives to go to work, because the state provides extortionate amounts of money for them, I would insist that all who are able to work do so. The state should be there to help those who genuinely cannot provide for themselves, but by far the greatest proportion of unemployed young men I have known - and loved - could do some work. It may not be much work for some, it may not involve full days for others, but most could do SOMETHING.

And working would do them a world of good - love is the motive behind this King-for-a-day suggestion. Work would give them self-esteem, it would give them an opportunity to bless their society, it would at a stroke eradicate eons of personal time which presently is so easily used for ill ends, for the Devil finds work for idle hands.

This is no right-wing rant, it's a compassionate call for common sense. It is compassionate to encourage people to work, since we were created to work. In recent years, I have come across a number of cases where the Government has given thousands of pounds of back-pay to some single men. The result? Nothing but grief, for these men have no idea how to handle £10K - so it is wasted, squandered, or worse, turned into drugs/drink.

We give dignity to the habitually unemployed by putting up significant barriers to income support, such as, "You will get this week's rent after you have done XX hours of YY work this week."

Space Studies
A second low-key change I would make, if I was King for a day, would be to change the direction of space research, strange as that may seem. At the moment most of the investigations are aimed, not at finding out what is out there, but in finding the answer to one narrow question: is there life out there? By which they mean, is there a planet out there on which life could be found, an earth like planet?

There is only one reason for this question: it would give satisfaction to the atheists: "see, evolutionary theory must be true. If life evolved elsewhere, it is not unique and special on earth, not the work of a Creator, but the work of blind forces."

Due to this narrow agenda, we are failing to gather lots of information about the amazing universe around us, preferring to focus in only on this narrow quest.

Contrast (not similarities) between the animals and Mankind
The third change I would make, would be to institute new research committed to a study of all the many differences between humankind and the animals (and for scientific reasons ban the foolish notion that we are just one species of animal). Because the theory of evolution is the reigning creation myth of our culture, scientists blinded by this paradigm only seek one thing: how similar are the animals to humans? Since we are simply one step further along the biological chain the focus is on comparison not contrast! Virtually-infinite-contrast is downplayed or simply ignored.

I was reading a paper recently comparing the facial expressions of chimps and humans. Instead of the summary pointing out the radical differences between chimps and humans, it timidly and lamely focused on similarities - though the paper continually pointed out one radical difference after another!

We could go on and on! How about honest and unbiased research on the difference between men and women? It would courageously point out the vast differences all the way down to the cellular level. Although most of the genes (the codes for building the different molecular machines which run our bodies) of men and women are the same, because of the difference between male and female chromosomes, those genes are read differently in male and female bodies.

For example, Dr David C Page, a Professor of Biology at MIT has "argued that researchers and health care practitioners need to fundamentally change how they approach the study and treatments of disease to reflect differences between males and females that exist within every cell of their bodies. 'Until and unless we arrive at an appreciation of how males and females read their genomes differently — we will continue to be surprised every time we encounter a sex difference in disease incidence, severity, or response to therapy,' Page said. 'And I think we have to do something about that.'"

We live in a culture where the reigning philosophies of the day bind the hand of science! I am sure that there are scientists out there who are totally fearful of saying:

• this wonderful solar system we live in is radically different from any other we have found!
• there is a nigh-infinite chasm between animals and humans!
• there is a wonderful and significant difference between men and women

And I haven't even begun to touch on the untouchable subject - that one kind of sexual behaviour (monogamous heterosexual) is the only and best expression of sexuality, both from a compatibility and a  health point of view - you will not be able to find an affirmative answer to that question anywhere in the Google University Universe: the researcher would sacked, then hung, and drawn and quartered.

I guess what I am saying, is that if I was King for a day, I'd like the myths and lies of Western culture exposed for what they are - harmful lies.

The Power of the Gospel
But that is what the Gospel does. When the human heart is turned towards God, that person's mind is turned towards truth. And so as the Gospel is preached minds are changed, and all that a Christian would love to see changed, happens, one life at a time.

So instead of King for a day, we should instead strive to share the powerful Gospel every day.

Your Body is You

Circuit Diagrams, Roman Ruins and Books
On a recent holiday in France, I spent many happy hours sight seeing, drawing circuit diagrams and reading.

2000 year old Pont du Gard

The ancient city of Nimes is home to the best preserved Roman arena in the world. It was supplied with water from an aqueduct whose most famous bridge is the Pont du Guard. A most stunning 2000 year old water bridge.

2000 year old Nimes Arena

My electric go-cart (for the kids, not for me - not yet) needed a complete overhaul electronically, so I redesigned the circuit. Nothing complex, but relaxing to the mind.

Books
Then there were the books... a biography of Billy Graham, a book about thermodynamics... and one in particular. It's been on my shelf for a while now, so time to read it. Written by an American Christian by the name of Nancy Pearcy, it is called "Love Thy Body."

Nancy tries to explain why our western society believes that we can kill babies in the womb and is willing to kill the aged, why it believes that you can choose your sexual and gender identity at will, and why it approves of homosexual behaviour.

She finds all these modern practices stem back to a false view of the person, of who we are - a false anthropology if you like big words.

Two-part People
Nancy explains how all of these modern practices and beliefs stem from a single source: a belief that there is a division between the body and the self. Modern culture has divided the body and the self into two different things. The body, since it is the product of evolutionary processes is just a bit of matter with no meaning - or value for that matter, since it has not been created by God.  The self, or mind, or whatever you want to call it, has nothing to do with the body (apart from being housed in the material brain) and can decide and choose whatever it wishes to do with the body. It is not really connected in any meaningful way to the body.

This of course is a weird belief - to say that we are two part people whose different parts are completely disconnected from each other. But it is the foundation of all the tragic,  false and enslaving beliefs and practises of our day.

Take abortion and euthanasia. If the body is the product of evolution, then the body has no value on its own. Until it has some imposed attributes - which we ourselves make up - then we can treat it like a scab or a wart or placenta or any other disposable biological matter.

Take gender. Why pay any attention to your meaningless and worthless body? You decide what gender you want (today).

Take sexual desires. What does your (disembodied self) want? Allow your feelings to dictate your sexual behaviour, don't allow your worthless and meaningless sexed-male-or-female-at-birth body influence that decision. Ignore the stunning - and scientific - fact that a man's body is designed for a woman's body and visa versa.

Love Thy Body
At root of all these tragic modern beliefs and practises is a very low view of the human body, which is the inevitable consequence of evolutionary theory. A very similar low view of the body reigned in the 1st century Graeco-Roman world - though for other reasons.

The Christian view is so wonderfully liberating. It treats the body with great seriousness as a creation of God - and a very good one at that. It also teaches that we can learn from our bodies, though they are fallen. Creation speaks. Since everything God made is imbibed with reason and purpose we can work out from the body what we are and how we are supposed to behave. Instead of imposing our fallen desires on our fearfully-made bodies, we should look at and listen to our bodies. What do they say about sex, gender and roles?

We ought to regard our minds and bodies as one entity which should not be divided from one another, should not be pitted against one another, though the fall of man has tried to divide the two.

Since bodily life unmistakably begins at conception, we should not abort an unborn child. Since life continues until we die, we should not take life. Since our sexed bodies tell us that men and women are different from one another, we should not seek to to confuse gender. And since those same bodies tell us that a woman's body is designed for a man's body in sexual union, we should follow the evidence, reject homosexual behaviour and advocate monogamous heterosexual marriage.

We need to direct our feelings in the path of the evidence of our bodies. We need to love our bodies more.

This is a wonderful book to read. It is so positive. It shows how much better, how much more scientific, how much more satisfying is the Christan worldview over the secular one.

It shows that when Jesus sets us free from the lies of our culture, we really become free indeed.