Harambe the gorilla with the four year old boy who fell into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo, 5/28/16.
Stories of interest for scripturalists can pop up anywhere. They can be on the other side of the world, or right in our backyard. And it just so happens that this week there were two noteworthy items right here in river city. Let’s kick off this week’s This ‘n That with…
The Shot Heard ‘Round the World
Unless you spent this whole last week in a cave or out protesting Donald Trump, you’ve probably heard a little bit about the shooting of Harambe the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo.
Just to recap, last Saturday a four year old boy climbed into the Zoo’s gorilla exhibit, fell ten feet into a moat, and quickly found himself a person of interest to Harambe, the Zoo’s 450 pound, alpha-male lowland gorilla.
While the boy’s mother frantically watched, the animal grabbed the boy and dragged him about. When things appeared to become life-threatening, the Zoo have the go-ahead for a sharpshooter to put an end to the standoff.
The episode ended with a dead gorilla and a living boy.
Only it really didn’t end there.
As news spread, it didn’t take long for the animal rights crowd to start up with an irrational two minutes hate directed at the Zoo and the mother of the boy. Check these sample tweets from the compassionate man-haters on Twitter,
- “You shoot & kill a member of an endangered species to save a member of a species that has over seven billion?”
- “I don’t understand this you kill an endangered species to save a human child, we can make more of those”
- “Gorillas are one of the most endangered species in the world. BUT, we KILLED it to save 1 of our 7 billion humans.”
- “you [reference to the boy’s mother] have been reported to child welfare. Hopefully, your boy will be removed from your neglected care.”
It didn’t take me long to find these, so doubtless there’s plenty more nonsense out there. And from these comments it is abundantly clear that not a few members of my own species lack the discernment to understand the vast difference in value between a brute beast and a person made in the image of God.
The Scriptures tell us that God made man a little lower than the angels and set him over the works of his hands. It was God himself who gave man dominion over the earth.
We could wish that things had turned out better for the gorilla. But when it comes to the life of a person or the life of an animal, it’s the animal that goes every time.
The Bible tells us that no man yet ever hated his own flesh. With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder how the social media shriekers would react if it were their lives that were on the line and not that of another. Not that I can prove it, but I rather suspect they’d be singing a different tune.
Blinded by Science
Ark Encounter, a theme park based on the Biblical account of Noah, is set to open next month in Williamstown, Kentucky, not far south of Cincinnati. And this past week the Cincinnati Enquirer weighed in on the subject, running a guest column with a rather negative outlook on both on the park and on Christianity in general.
The piece, titled “Ark makes the U.S. look ignorant,” was written by a resident of northern Kentucky by the name of Carlos Ramirez. Ramirez, it turns out is an engineering student at Columbia University, which makes him both a lot younger and a lot smarter than me.
That said, with age comes wisdom , or so the saying goes. If so, perhaps I can still manage to muster a few points in opposition to him.
In his column, Ramirez raises the issue of the park receiving an, “$18.5 million tax incentive from the state of Kentucky, despite the issues raised with the age-old questions concerning the separation of church and state.”
Now if Ramirez is referencing the First Amendment to the US Constitution, the one which prohibits the establishment of religion, the original and only proper understanding of which is that the US federal government may not set up a national church. It was never intended to prohibit states from doing so.
Now whether states should set up state churches, as some did, or give tax incentives to Bible-based theme parks, that is a separate question. But the Constitution does not prohibit their doing so.
But given the overall tone of the article, the Ramirez’ concern regarding the separation of church and state, which actually is a Christian idea, is really not his main issue with the park.
What he really dislikes is that there are really, actually are people who believe what the Bible teaches about creation and the early history of the world.
In Ramirez’ mind, believing in Noah’s flood makes you stupid. And if you teach such ideas to your kids, you’re guilty of making them stupid as well. That really seems to be the thought behind his comment, “When the United States is already lagging behind many prominent nations in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the creation of the ark can only be detrimental to our nation’s standing because of the false information it presents.”
The is basically the same argument that Bill Nye “The Science Guy” used in his debate with Ken Ham a couple of years ago. And it’s one I find especially annoying.
The thought seems to be that one cannot be a both a Christian and a scientist. But logically there is nothing that prevents this.
Perhaps Nye and Ramirez could start by reflecting on why it has been in the Christian West, the portion of the world that is heir to the Protestant Reformation, where science and technology have flourished the most.
But more troublesome than their implied insult to the intelligence of Christians is the threat to liberty espoused by both Ramirez and his mentor Bill Nye, whom Ramirez approvingly quotes.
On the one hand, Ramirez acknowledges the need for religious tolerance, “Living in a world pumping with religious fervor, it is quite apparent that religious tolerance is an important facet of a modern society.”
But on the other hand, Ramirez tells us, one can be overly generous when it comes to the Bible thumping rubes. He writes, “It is in our best interest as a society to disallow the existence of institutions such as this [Ark Encounter] and collectively decide to not tolerate ignorance of the natural world.”
As a Christian, I am prepared to tolerate the wrong-headed opinions and illogical scientism of Ramirez and Nye – do they not understand that the foundation of science is a swamp of empiricist error coupled with the logical fallacy of asserting the consequent?; all scientific laws, all of them, are false – and to turn the other cheek at their insults.
But the implied tyranny of their calls to stifle those with whom they disagree – the “Science Guy” lets his inner tyrant out of the bag in this article where he seems to agree that, yes, climate change deniers ought to be prosecuted – is deeply disturbing.
Both Ramirez and Nye are blinded by the lie that science discovers truth. And in the name of scientific erudition, they have become advocates of tyranny.
Such “tolerance” as theirs ought to be denounced by all people of goodwill who cherish liberty.
It’s the Stupid Economy
Back in 1992, James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign manager, famously helped focus the candidate on the important overarching issue of the day with the catchy slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Well, twenty-four years later perhaps we could update Carville’s saying to “it’s the stupid economy.”
By nearly every measure, the US economy is faltering compared to historical standards of growth, opportunity and income equality.
President Obama called out his critics earlier this year by saying that anyone who denied that everything was awesome in America was “peddling fiction.” But consider the following charts – note well, the shaded areas represent Obama’s term in office – and ask yourself who’s the real fiction peddler.
Everything that should be going up in a healthy economy- median family income, home ownership, labor force participation rate – is going down. And those things we’d like to see going down – student loans, food stamps, the federal debt, etc. – well, those are all skyrocketing.
These charts explain a lot about the failure of establishment candidates in the current presidential election cycle and the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. People are upset, as well they should be. But the question is whether they can add discernment to their anger.
The real fiction peddlers – and this includes Obama and just about every other politician, academic economist and central banker – are those who try to convince the public that prosperity comes through the printing of fiat currency, deficit spending and government bureaucracy rather than through individual initiative, savings and sound money.
Constitutional capitalism, the economic and political system of the Bible, is what built this country and the other prosperous nations of the West.
But as the West has turned its back on truth of the Gospel of Christ and embraced the lie of socialistic humanism, that prosperity is rapidly slipping away.
Who is Like the Beast?
Revelation 13 tells of a seven headed beast. One of his heads had received a mortal wound, and yet it recovered. This prompted all who saw it to marvel and worship the beast saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” (Revelation 13:4).
John Robbins identified that beast, the one with the mortally wounded head, as the Roman Catholic Church-State. He wrote, “Roman Catholicism, after suffering a mortal wound by the Reformation in the sixteenth century, made a resurgence in the nineteenth century led by Thomas Aquinas, whom Pope Leo XIII named the official philosopher of the Roman Church-State” (Robbins, The Religious Wars of the 21st Century).
I was reminded of this recently when I read the remarks of Pope Francis I regarding Islam. The pope, it would seem, is working feverishly to bring the Muslims into Rome’s orbit. And to this end, he is willing to say just about anything to make it happen. The pope is quoted in the Daily Mail as saying,
It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam…It is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew’s Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.
Did you get that. According to this Jesuit pope, preaching the Gospel of peace is pretty much the same thing as carrying out jihad. So really, what’s all the big fuss about Muslim violence if not religious bigotry. We’re all just one big happy family.
This is nothing less than the voice of Antichrist speaking pompous words and attempting to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
Rome is on the rise, and yet hardly anyone, and this includes believing Christians in conservative churches, understands the Romanism for what it is, Satan’s masterpiece.
Antichrist has become so bold, and protestants so dull of hearing, that Zenit, the Vatican’s news agency, put out this story about the pope going to Sweden this October 31st to celebrate Reformation Day.
The Gospel of Justification by Belief Alone is the centerpiece of Christianity, the sine quo non of salvation. And it is this that Rome denies. As such, it is no church at all, but a synagogue of Satan.
Who is like the beast? On earth is not his equal. But those who trust in Christ have the right man on their side. The man of God’s own choosing.
Lux Lucet 
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