Dr Paul Allen

Moral equivalence has two purposes.  One is to enable the morally confused to hide their confusion.  The other is to allow the immoral to hide their immorality.  Here are two examples as applied to the Israeli-Arab conflict: 1. One is the assertion we hear regarding the latest Israel-Hamas war by members of the Western Left, Muslim supporters of the Palestinians and even by a few individuals on the right: “Palestinian babies are as precious as Israeli babies.” Professor Cornel West, a lifelong progressive running for president as a Democrat: “As I have said for the past 50 years, a precious Palestinian child has the same value as a precious Israeli child.” David Cronin, an editor at Electronic Intifada, a large pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel website: “Palestinian babies are just as precious as my new daughter.” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called the hospital blast a "devastating loss of innocent life".  Anthony Albanese calls for the protection of Israeli and

A Shinto priest kneeling before a shrine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) A young boy came home from his Japanese baseball practice exclaiming, “Dad, coach is making us worship the ground.” The coach had required them to bow toward the ground in worship. We called a Japanese pastor who said that this was indeed false worship. He reminded me that Japan is pantheistic, like Eastern religions generally. Everything is “god.” There is no distinction between the Creator and creation. In that worldview, it is proper to worship your playing field. This later became a problem for Danny at practice when he would not bow. The first error in Eastern religion is that there is no God with a big G. The gods are small and many, including ancestors, the emperor, statues, and thousands more. Atheists in the West do not believe in “God”; Japanese atheists do not believe in “the gods.” Islam has the opposite error —only a transcendent Allah with no immanence, no Emmanuel (“God with us”). In the West,

Image via Wikipedia Japan has never been very receptive to the gospel. Missions have met little response. The work of such men as Xavier and Nikolai was exceptional in bringing thousands to a Christian confession. The work of others has generally produced only handfuls of converts.  This is true not only of foreign missionaries but also of Japan's foremost homegrown missionary, Toyohiko Kagawa . Toyohiko Kagawa was born  on this day July 10, 1888,  into wealth, the son of a concubine. Both parents died while he was very young.  As a teenager he became a Christian under the influence of Presbyterian missionaries and was baptized. He took theological training at Kobe and at Princeton University. After almost losing his life to an illness, he vowed to help the poor. Kagawa is recognized as a successful author. His wrote a best-selling autobiographical novel,  Across the Death Line  and another  Before the Dawn.  His other writings include several pamphlets and meditation

Image by Getty Images via @daylife The following are a handful of Christian relief organizations who are responding to the earthquake and tsunami disasters in Japan . You can join in the effort by praying for them and by giving financially. Churches Helping Churches Churches Helping Churches (CHC) is working with  CRASH Japan  to establish a base camp near Sendai to distribute relief supplies to the community. They are appealing to their church network to take a special offering for Japan on the weekend of March 26–27. (A video will be available on their site for those who wish to show it in their services.) Food for the Hungry Food for the Hungry ( FH ) is working with local partners on the ground in northern Japan to initiate relief responses including provision of medical care, canned bread, rice and water to survivors. Currently the response is based in Sendai, a coastal city in northeastern Miyagi. FH’s focus is strengthening local churches to be conduits for relief se

Image via Wikipedia There can be few more frightening experiences than an earthquake, and last Friday’s quake that has devastated Japan will rank among the strongest ever recorded. Ranking 9.0 on the scale of magnitude, the Sendai , Japan quake ranks fifth among earthquakes in recorded history, coming after the 1960 quake in Chile (9.5), the 1964 quake at Prince William Sound , Alaska (9.2), the deadly Sumatra, Indonesia quake of 2004 (9.1), and the 1952 quake at Kamchatka, Russia (9.0). But then, adding misery and terror to the devastating damage caused by the earthquake, a massive tsunami caused by the quake inundated countless miles of Japan’s coastline, taking several villages completely out to sea. The loss of energy caused by the quake and tsunami then led to another looming disaster — at least a partial meltdown of the reactor cores at two, and possibly more, nearby nuclear power plants. As if all that was not enough, a volcano in southern Japan erupted on Sunday, underlining

As  Japan braces itself  for a possible further serious earthquake, and deals with the consequences of such massive devastation caused by the last one, not to mention the risk of a major nuclear incident, how should Christians respond? Please understand that none of this is intended to claim that we have all the answers to such a disaster.  In fact, like Job’s friends’ initial response,  often the best thing we can do is say absolutely nothing, and share people’s pain. I write this article with  many unanswered questions.  But, unlike those who allow suffering to drive them away from God , I am convinced that  only God makes sense of suffering.   For if the Japanese who died really were just the random fruit of evolution, why should it matter to us if they died? But if each of them are made in the image of their creator, and lovingly crafted together in their mother’s womb, our inherent feeling that  suffering is NOT welcome in this world  makes perfect sense.  We should n

Image via Wikipedia Before it does, make sure you read the book.  Unbroken  is, in a word, amazing—easily one of the best books I read in 2010. It’s written by Laura Hillenbrand who also penned  Seabiscuit . This new book has shot straight to #2 on the  New York Times  list of bestsellers just days after its release. Unbroken  tells the tale of Louie Zamperini, a character who is so much larger than life that I can’t believe I hadn’t encountered him before. Zamperini grew up in California in the 1930’s, a troublesome kid who was constantly stealing, constantly fighting, constantly getting into trouble. He was  that  kid, the kid who was known by the police, the kid who was every teacher’s nightmare. He was also lightning fast, eventually becoming a member of the 1936  U.S.   Olympic team where he ran the 5,000 meter race and even had the opportunity to meet Adolf Hitler . War came in 1941 and, like so many men his age, Zamperini joined up, enlisting in the United States Army Air