Truth, Hamas, Evolution

A truthful witness does not deceive,
but a false witness pours out lies. (Prov. 14:5 NIV)

Last weekend there were two news stories that especially caught my attention, specifically for their relevance to Christian faith.

The first was an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "They Need to Be Liberated from Their God." ** Needless to say, the title first caught my attention. The article itself was about the son of one of the founders of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. This 32 year old Mosab Hassan Yousef was raised in a devout Muslim family but secretly embraced Christianity and became a spy for Israel. When asked "why," he replied that the motivation was to save lives.

"I converted to Christianity because I was convinced by Jesus Christ as a character, as a personality. I loved him, his wisdom, his love, his unconditional love. I didn't leave [the Islamic] religion to put myself in another box of religion. At the same time it's a beautiful thing to see my God exist in my life and see the change in my life. I see that when he does exist in other Middle Easterners there will be a change.

"I'm not trying to convert the entire nation of Israel and the entire nation of Palestine to Christianity. But at least if you can educate them about the ideology of love, the ideology of forgiveness, the ideology of grace. Those principles are great regardless, but we can't deny they came from Christianity as well."

Love, forgiveness, grace. Hmmmm....sounds pretty good for all of us, I think.

The second article was "Top Home-School Texts Dismiss Darwin, Evolution" *** on FoxNews.com. Because the home schooling community in the U.S. consists mostly of evangelical Christians - people who are likely to believe in Creationism - their textbooks do not take evolution as fact. The article says,

Two of the best-selling biology textbooks stack the deck against evolution, said some science educators who reviewed sections of the books at the request of The Associated Press.

"I feel fairly strongly about this. These books are promulgating lies to kids," said Jerry Coyne, an ecology and evolution professor at the University of Chicago.

As a mom and a Christian, I can say "fairly strongly" that the secular classrooms are "promulgating lies to kids" when they don't allow Creationism to be taught.

Probably the thing that unites these two articles for me is the concept of TRUTH. Yousef found the Truth of Jesus in an unlikely way - and then that played out in his life in some unusual and amazing ways. Secular schools and publishers embrace "truth" in hypothesis like evolution, not willing to see the possibility of Creation being Truth. But Jesus was very explicit that HE was the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. In fact, over and over he said "I tell you the truth..." So, let us seek God's truth as we seek to be God's Light, Grace, Forgiveness, & Love.

So, God we pray for revelation of your truth.

⁴ Show us your ways, O LORD,
teach us your paths;

⁵ guide us in your truth and teach us,
for you are God our Savior,
and our hope is in you all day long.

⁶ Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.

¹⁰ For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God.

¹¹ Teach us your way, O LORD,
and we will walk in your truth;
give us an undivided heart,
that we may fear your name.

¹² We will praise you, O Lord our God, with all our heart;
We will glorify your name forever.

AMEN.

(Psalms 25, 86 NIV, alt.)

** http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703915204575103481069258868.html

*** http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,588260,00.html