Author Archives: Clarke Morledge

About Clarke Morledge

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Clarke Morledge -- Computer Network Engineer, College of William and Mary... I hiked the Mount of the Holy Cross, one of the famous Colorado Fourteeners, with some friends in July, 2012. My buddy, Mike Scott, snapped this photo of me on the summit.
September 23, 2013

Generous Justice

By Clarke Morledge
Is there a connection between the Bible's teaching on justification by faith alone and living a life that promotes justice? Tim Keller says, "Yes!"

“Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is never alone”.   This quote, often attributed to the Protestant Reformer John Calvin, reveals an important truth that pastor/author Tim Keller wants everyone to know.

A lot of people experience injustice.   A lot of people find themselves on the receiving end of life’s bitter struggles. Then along comes some Bible-toting Christian saying that “all you need is Jesus“.  Well, how does Jesus help you when you can not pay your medical bills, you lost your job, or when your spouse ran off with someone else and left you in thousands of dollars of credit card debt?

Is the Christian faith just some pie-in-the-sky hope for an eternal future or does it mean something for the here and now? Ouch.

Meet Timothy Keller.  Keller is a pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.  This fall our church is doing a six-week study on his book Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just.   Many critics of historic, orthodox Christian faith complain that the Bible stands in the way of really making progress towards eliminating injustice in our world today.   Others find that efforts to promote “social justice” in the church are undercutting the message of the Bible.

In his book, Tim Keller is attempting to make a crucial connection between the experience of God’s grace on the one hand with a life empowered to live justly with our neighbor on the other.   The following is a 30-minute talk where Keller summarizes the message of his book based on the teachings he finds in the Bible.  Does he succeed in making that crucial connection?

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September 17, 2013

Navigating the Young vs. Old Earth Debate

By Clarke Morledge
James Ussher (1581-1656), Ireland Archbishop who calculated from the Bible that the earth was created on Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C. Throughout church history, most (but not all) Christians have embraced such a view of a "Young Earth" as taught within the pages of Holy Scripture (Wikipedia, painting by Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680).

James Ussher (1581-1656), Ireland Archbishop who calculated from the Bible that the earth was created on Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C. In the 21st century, very few young people in the developing world still accept the concept of a “Young Earth”.  But is there a way to reconcile the teachings of the Bible today with the findings of modern science? (Wikipedia, painting by Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680)).

A recent informal survey at the social networking website, Reddit.com, was conducted that asked atheistic young people who left the Christian faith, what were their reasons for leaving the faith. By far, the most common response from over 50% of the respondents was concerning “Christian teachings that conflict with [the] findings of modern science.”    Though not a definitive be-all, end-all conclusion by any means, I find this to be an incredibly disturbing trend explaining what is draining people out of evangelical churches.  In my view, the heart of the controversy centers on the debate over the age of the earth.

So, how old is the earth? Is it relatively young, say between 10,000 to 6,000 years old as many Young Earth Creationists would argue? Or is it really old, some 4.54 billions of years according to many Old Earth Creationists?

Evangelical Christians are deeply (and rightly) concerned about the erosion of biblical authority undercutting the proclamation of the Gospel. Yet for many, any departure away from a specifically Young Earth perspective is a compromise of biblical authority. This is a serious claim. For if adopting the modern scientific consensus of an Old Earth is against the clear teaching of the Bible, then surely every Bible-believing Christian should reject that scientific consensus and embrace creation science, based on a literal six 24-hour day understanding of God’s creative act in the first few chapters of Genesis.

But is this the only way to understand the timing of creation as taught in the Bible?  The Old Earth Creationist, on the contrary, makes the claim that the teaching of modern science is instead compatible with a high view of the Bible’s divine inspiration. The Old Earth advocate argues that the Young Earth community is driving an unnecessary wedge between faith and science, thus harming the integrity of the evangelical witness of the church. Mmmm… Which perspective is the right one?  How does a Christian navigate through these competing ideas regarding the age of the earth?
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September 11, 2013

Dover Design Debate Debacle

By Clarke Morledge
Dover, Pennsylvania. Symbol of the defeat of Intelligence Design as scientific theory..... or a tragic setback for the advancement of scientific discourse?

Dover, Pennsylvania. Symbol of the defeat of Intelligent Design as scientific theory….. or a tragic setback for the advancement of scientific discourse? (photo credit: msnbc)

Should Intelligent Design be taught as science in the classroom?

It has been almost ten years since the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case in Dover, Pennsylvania. There a group of elected school board officials, spearheaded by some Christians favoring Young Earth Creationism, sought to have a particular biology textbook removed from the classroom. The biology textbook was co-authored by Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University, a practicing Catholic, and an outspoken advocate of what some call “theistic evolution.” Instead, a different textbook developed by the Discovery Institute, Of Pandas and People, would be used. The Discovery Institute is a think-tank that advocates Intelligent Design as opposed to Darwinian Evolution, among other important cultural and intellectual interests. A lawsuit ensued, and while it was not as big and spectacular as the famous 20th century Scopes Monkey Trial, the Dover case still became a media sensation. In the end, the court ruled that teaching Intelligent Design in a public school science class is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The court reasoned that Intelligent Design (ID) is not science and therefore cannot be uncoupled from its Creationist, and therefore religious, antecedents.

It was a devastating blow to the movers and shakers behind Intelligent Design. I pretty much thought that the ID movement was dead in the water after that. However, the issues behind the controversy are still with us.
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September 5, 2013

Christians in Assad’s Syria

By Clarke Morledge
Maaloula, St. Takla Convent, Syria. Refugees from the Syrian civil war are hiding here as of early, September, 2013. Residents of this village still speak a dialect derived from the ancient Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke.

Maaloula, St. Takla Convent, Syria. Refugees from the Syrian civil war are hiding here as of early, September, 2013. Residents of this village still speak a dialect derived from the ancient Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke.

As of early September, 2013, the world has been shocked by reports of chemical weapons being used in the civil war in Syria.   Numerous reports in the media argue that President Bashar al-Assad was behind these attacks. This horrible tragedy surely deserves at least some response.   But what kind of response?

Philip Jenkins is a renowned evangelical historian at Baylor University.   He has studied extensively the history of Christianity in the Middle East and the rest of the Mediterranean region.    Jenkins recently wrote an editorial piece giving his view that the lessons of church history should give American leaders caution in their response to the situation in Syria.  In particular, will a military intervention in Syria help or hurt the existing Christian community in Syria?

Jenkins’ position is that military intervention in Syria will not only hurt the Christians, it could ultimately lead to the annihilation of the Christian community in that country.  Pretty strong words.

Sadly, many American Christians are largely ignorant about the history of Christianity in this part of the world.  As I have tried to show with the recent situation in Egypt, the issues are exceedingly complex.   Frankly, I am not sure what the clear answer is on what to do.   But what I do know is that most Christians in the Middle East and particularly in Syria itself oppose outside intervention into Syria’s internal problems.   Assad is not the nicest guy in the world.  That much is over-abundantly clear.  But Christians in the region have looked to Assad and his family for many years for at least some protection from Islamic extremists.   What will happen to an already persecuted church if the country is further destabilized?

Perhaps you might have a completely different view.   Perhaps Jenkins is mistaken. There is much that I do not know.  Nevertheless, as a Christian in America what I do know that it is my duty and responsibility to listen to my brothers and sisters in Christ in Syria and make a better effort to fully understand their history and appreciate their situation today in view of the present crisis.

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August 26, 2013

C.S. Lewis: Christian Champion … or Contrarian?

By Clarke Morledge
C.S. Lewis. Died on the same day as President John F. Kennedy and author Alduous Huxley.

C.S. Lewis. Died on the very same day that President John F. Kennedy was shot.  The author of Brave New World,  Aldous Huxley, died on that day as well:  November 22, 1963 (Wikipedia image, photo by Arthur Strong, 1947)

In 2013, we remember the 50th anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis. Though his death back then was overshadowed by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, I would argue that at least for followers of Jesus, C.S. Lewis has had a far more profound and lasting influence than even JFK…. but how well did he do as a theologian?

Lewis was clearly the most popular Christian apologist of the 20th century. His works have been cited as a major factor in the conversions to faith of numerous prominent Christians, ranging from the scientist and U.S. National Institutes of Health director, Francis Collins, to the British atheist and molecular biologist turned theologian, Alister McGrath. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia books remain bestsellers among children’s fiction, several of the books having been portrayed in big-budget, major motion pictures. He was a member of the Inklings, a group of Oxford scholars that included such literary luminaries as J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit, and (indirectly) Dorothy Sayers, the inspiring visionary of the classical Christian education movement. Lewis’ classic introduction to Christian faith, Mere Christianity, is also the slogan for a major Christian magazine, Touchstone, and his writings form part of the “canon” of many homeschooling curriculums.

For any Christian living in the past fifty years or more, Lewis has been big stuff. However, where does Lewis stand now in the mind of 21st century Christianity? Oddly enough, his legacy is somewhat controversial among some Christians.
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