Smoking will kill up to a billion people worldwide this century!

Steve Connor, The Independent, 28 October 2012
It is described as the biggest public health disaster in the history of the world, with its perpetrators likened to terrorists. Smoking will kill up to a billion people worldwide this century, unless governments across the world stamp down on the half-trillion-dollar tobacco industry.

These are the words of John Seffrin, chief executive of the American Cancer Society, who was speaking this weekend at a high-level forum of the world’s 100 leading cancer experts gathered in the Swiss resort of Lugano, who issued a stark warning to governments worldwide. They said governments must do far more than they have done to control the global tobacco industry, either by raising cigarette prices dramatically, outlawing tobacco marketing or by taxing the multinational profits of the big cigarette firms.

Smoking kills more than half of all smokers, mostly from cancer, and yet despite it being the single biggest avoidable risk of premature death, there are about 30 million new smokers a year, scientists have calculated.

If current trends continue, with cigarette companies targeting the non-smoking populations of the developing world, then hundreds of millions of people will be dying of cancer in the second half of this century, they said.

Some of the experts attending the World Oncology Forum went further by calling for an outright ban on cigarettes and for the tobacco industry to be treated as a terrorist movement for the way it targets new markets with a product that it knows to be deadly when used as intended.

“We have a major global industry producing a product that is lethal to at least half the people who use it. It will kill, if current trends continue, a billion people this century,” said Dr Seffrin, who leads the US national society dedicated to eliminating cancer.

“It killed 100 million in the last century and we thought that was outrageous, but this will be the biggest public health disaster in the history of the world, bar none. It all could be avoided if we could prevent the terroristic tactics of the tobacco industry in marketing its products to children,” Dr Seffrin told The Independent.

“There is a purposeful intent to market a product that they know full well will harm their customers and over time will kill more than half of them. The industry needs to be reined in and regulated,” he said.

The science showing that tobacco is the single biggest cause of cancer is now well established, following the publication of the earliest evidence in the 1950s by the late Sir Richard Doll, the Oxford epidemiologist who was born 100 years ago yesterday.

Worldwide, tobacco causes about 22 per cent of cancer deaths each year, killing some 1.7 million people, with almost 1 million of them dying from lung cancer. Yet the numbers of new smokers among the young is rising faster than the numbers giving up.

The latest study into the health effects of smoking, published last Saturday in The Lancet, involved 1.3 million women. It showed tobacco is even more dangerous than previously supposed, but the benefits of giving up smoking are greater than expected.

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Come Up!

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You’re charging [ahead] with at least one major problem (probably several) eating away at your nerves.

What do you do?

It’s better to face your problems than to run from them. Everyone knows that.

But for those of us [who believe that] the supernatural favor of God is working toour advantage for His glory, might I suggest … there’s a third, and infinitely better, option:

Make the Spirit-led decision to elevate above your problem before you deal with it at all. Whatever you have to deal with today, first determine to access the perspective shaped by the promises and presence of Christ.

Now you’re ready to deal with your issue from the highest level—the very altitude and airspace of God. Your doubts and worries won’t loom so large from up there.

If you stand toe to toe with your issue, addiction, deficit, fear, or temptation, you’ll be intimidated by what you see and shut down before you get the chance to fight.

But if you get up above the issue, and refuse to wrestle around with it in the mud of self-centered thinking and faithless strategy, everything about your approach will change.

I love how, in the book of Revelation, in the midst of unbearable persecution and mind-boggling uncertainty, Jesus gave John a simple first step: “Come up here…”1

See, Jesus knew something about John that is just as pertinent to you and me:

If we get up where Jesus is, we’ll see what He sees.

When we see what He sees, we’ll know what He knows…

And we’ll be empowered to do whatever He calls us to do.

When we take our seats in heavenly places with Christ by focusing on Him, surrendering to Him, and trusting in Him, it positions us to descend on our problems with a divine confidence.

Lots of times, our main problem isn’t our problem. Our biggest problem is our perspective on our problem.

Get up above the domain of hand-to-hand combat today. You’re not strong enough to take much ground grappling like that.

Instead, take it to the Lord in prayer. And launch an aerial assault on the devil that will blow him back 10,000 miles away from the plans God has for you.—Pastor Steven Furtick

*

Rising above means that things which seem they would be a certain way don’t haveto be that way; you’re not held back or held down by physical circumstances; your surround­ings or even the situation you’re in doesn’t dictate your reactions, your victory, your fruit, your anointing, or your happiness.

Of course, there are rough moments. There are times when you’re affected by your circumstances, or you feel the press or the strain of the situation that you’re in. That’s human and normal. But you always have the choice to rise above. You always have that option, because I’ve made it available to you. There’s never a time when you’re destined to be bound to the things of the earth, because you have the power to always overcome.

You always have the choice to look up and let the connection that we share pull you up.

You have to choose to look up to My face. You have to choose to take your eyes off of the circumstances and conditions, even though they might be demanding, depressing, worrisome, or are begging you to give them your attention. You have to choose to look past it all, up to Me. When you do that, we share a powerful connection.

Your decision to look past it all, to look up to Me in faith, makes our connection strong. Even if you don’t feel the faith, your obedience to look to Me is a step of faith or a statement of faith, and then I am able to lift you up, to join your spirit with Mine so that you see things more as I see them, feel things more as I feel them, and in a greater way have My heart and My Spirit within you. This gives you greater faith, greater anointing, a broader perspective, and the peace and trust that you need.

The fact of the matter is, if you could see things more like I see them, you’d have so much less cause for worry and concern. You would joy in My perfect plan. You would rejoice at each new step that I bring into your path. You would rest securely in My care and foresight and protection. The way to keep that attitude of faith and realism—seeing things the way they truly are in the spiritual realm—is to keep rising above.

There will always be things surrounding you that are difficult to bear. There will always be things that the Enemy tries to distract you with. There will always be things that I allow in order to keep you humble and desperate with Me. But you’re not to stay down in them, wallow in them, or be held down by them. You’re to rise above them! In so doing, you’ll find that you’re even stronger than before.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy2

*

Let the Divine Mind flow through your own mind, and you will be happier. I have found the greatest power in the world is the power of prayer. There is no shadow of doubt of that. I speak from my own experience.—Cecil B. DeMille

*

The difference between a mountain and a molehill is your perspective.—Al Neuharth3

*

Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene.—Arthur Christopher Benson

*

Life's battles are fought in the Secret Place,
Where we meet with the Saviour face to face—
Where the stubborn will is by Love subdued,
And our lagging faith by His pow’r renewed.

Life's vict’ries are won in the Secret Place,
When we cease from struggling and trust His grace:
When for our own weakness, His strength we claim,
And go forth to conquer in His blest name.

Oh the glory that waits in the Secret Place,
Where our pleading cries become hymns of praise—
Where we learn the wonder of being still,
And yielding all to His blessed will!

Oh keep me, Lord, in the Secret Place!
Oh keep my eyes on Thy blest face!
Oh keep me looking alone to Thee
For grace and power and victory.
—Avis B. Christiansen

Published on Anchor November 2012. Read by Simon Gregg.
Music by Daniel Sozzi.






1 Revelation 4:1.

2 Originally published November 2001.

3 American Publisher/Columnist/Founder of USA Today.

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Who Lost the World?

By Ira Chernus, TomDispatch, Oct. 30, 2012
Who lost Libya? Indeed, who lost the entire Middle East? Those are the questions lurking behind the endless stream of headlines about “Benghazi-gate.” Here’s the question we should really ask, though: How did a tragic but isolated incident at a U.S. consulate, in a place few Americans had ever heard of, get blown up into a pivotal issue in a too-close-to-call presidential contest?

My short answer: the enduring power of a foreign policy myth that will not die, the decades-old idea that America has an inalienable right to “own” the world and control every place in it. I mean, you can’t lose what you never had.

This campaign season teaches us how little has changed since the early Cold War days when Republican stalwarts screamed, “Who lost China?” More than six decades later, it’s still surprisingly easy to fill the political air with anxiety by charging that we’ve “lost” a country or, worse yet, a whole region that we were somehow supposed to “have.”

The “Who lost…?” formula is something like a magic trick. There’s no way to grasp how it works until you take your eyes away from those who are shouting alarms and look at what’s going on behind the scenes.

The curious case of the incident in Benghazi was full of surprises from the beginning. It was the rare pundit who didn’t assure us that voters wouldn’t care a whit about foreign affairs this year. It was all going to be “the economy, stupid,” 24/7. And if foreign issues did create a brief stir, surely the questions would be about Afghanistan, Pakistan, or China.

Yet for weeks, the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans became the rallying cry of the campaign to unseat Barack Obama. What made this even more surprising: when news of the tragedy first broke, it appeared to be stillborn as a political issue.

The day after the attack on the consulate, as the news about the killings was just coming out, Mitt Romney rushed to blast his opponent: “American leadership is necessary to ensure that events in the region don’t spin out of control.” A president must show “resolve in our might” and a readiness to use “overwhelming force.” Barack Obama had failed on all these counts, Romney charged, and the deaths in Benghazi proved it.

The Republican presidential candidate was duly blasted in return for “politicizing” the incident. It seemed like almost everyone chimed in critically. Even longtime Republican stalwart Ed Rogers wrote that “Romney stumbled,” while “the president said the right things and had the right tone.”

Romney never retracted anything he said on that first day—and somehow the same words, once scorned as unfitting and “unpresidential,” were mysteriously transformed into powerful arguments against reelecting the incumbent. A month later, a new story dominated the headlines: Romney’s criticisms on Libya were now said to be hitting the target, changing the dynamic, playing a major role in his campaign’s resurgence.

This change of tune surely reflected in part the media’s primal need for a close presidential contest to keep the public’s interest. At the time of the Libyan incident it was generally agreed that Obama was beginning to pull ahead in the race, potentially decisively, and anything that might boost Romney’s chance was undoubtedly welcome on an editor’s desk.

No matter how hard editors try, though, some stories just don’t stick. But the Libya story stuck. It struck a chord somewhere in the hearts and minds of a lot of Americans. You have to wonder why.

A big part of the answer lies in the power of the key words in Romney’s first statement: “might” and “control.” His strategists grasped a fundamental truth of American politics: The public has an endless appetite for gripping stories about challenges to America’s global might and its right to control the world. So they doubled down and sent their man out to tell the story again.

In his first major foreign policy speech, Romney absolved his opponent of any direct responsibility for the four American deaths, but he pilloried Obama for a far more grievous sin. By a wild leap of imagination, he turned this one incident into the spearhead of a vast assault on America: “Our embassies have been attacked. Our flag has been burned… Our nation was attacked.”

The president’s job is to protect us by dominating our enemies, the challenger proclaimed. It’s our consistent record of victory as well as our values that make America “exceptional”—and on Obama’s watch, as the incident in Benghazi proved, America and its exceptionalism had gone down for the count.

This was not simply an exaggerated indictment of presidential “weakness.” As he had on that first day, Romney was again raising a question even more crucial to any popular narrative of American foreign policy: Who’s in charge here?

After all, what’s the point of being the global superpower if not to keep control of events around the world? As Romney put it succinctly: “It is the responsibility of our President to use America’s great power to shape history.” And on that most crucial count, he insisted, Obama had failed dismally and a U.S. ambassador had paid for that failing with his life.

The debates gave Romney a chance to sharpen his attack. In the second of them, Obama deftly deflected the charges about Libya (though he never actually answered them). By the time the third debate rolled around, Romney’s strategists apparently saw no benefit and lots of risk in pressing the Libyan question. But they still saw plenty of benefit in keeping the broader issue alive. So Romney rushed past Libya, saying, “We’ve seen in nation after nation a number of disturbing events.”

He built his case using fearful images: “I see the Middle East with a rising tide of violence, chaos, tumult… You see al-Qaeda rushing in.” Power in Washington needed to be restored to the right hands so that, wearing “the mantle of leadership,” the U.S. could “help the Middle East” turn back “the rising tide of tumult and confusion” and subdue the terrorists.

Translation: For decades nearly all the governments in the Middle East, the energy heartlands of the planet, were our allies (more precisely, our clients, though that word was never used in polite company). We could build up their militaries, support their autocratic regimes, and count on them to quell any expressions of anti-American sentiment. Now, under Obama, this crucial area of the world, once well under our thumb, was spinning out of control. Lose control by failing to exercise our might and we lose our safety.

Strength, control, and national security are all parts of the same package; nothing matters more to America—and Obama was letting it all go down the drain. So the Republican story went (with copious document leaks on the Libyan “cover-up” and the like from Congress). What had been considered an Obama strong suit—he was, after all, the man who took out Osama bin Laden—suddenly seemed to have been trumped.

The Democrats actually responded by putting out a remarkably similar story about (as the president termed it in the third debate) “strong, steady leadership,” which, they claimed, was preventing the Middle East from spinning out of control. In other words, we hadn’t really lost Libya at all. But that was the only point in dispute.

The debate between Republicans and Democrats wasn’t about goals in the Middle East, where support for autocratic friends like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain is assumed, and both sides agree on the need for democratic elections, religious pluralism, a free press, empowering women, strengthening free enterprise capitalism, and destroying Islamist terrorists.

More broadly, both sides agree, as they have for decades, that Washington’s overriding foreign policy goal must be to shape history, control the world, and make it mirror American values and serve American interests. This mythic vision of American foreign policy is a rare example of long-term bipartisan consensus.

When I call it myth, I don’t mean it’s a lie. I mean it’s a foundational narrative of American power that expresses our most basic assumptions about the world, a story in which every nation on the planet is, theoretically, ours to lose.

To most Americans (though not to much of the rest of the world), this narrative does not reflect sheer hubris and intoxication with imperial power. It’s just good common sense. Throughout our history, at the heart of the dominant national mythology has been the assumption that the U.S. should be the world’s “locomotive” and all the other nations “the caboose” (as President Harry Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, once said). The reason for this was simple (at least to Americans): we were the first and greatest nation founded on the universal moral truths that are supposedly self-evident to any reasonable person.

Sure, controlling the world would serve our self-interest in all sorts of tangible ways. However, our primary self-interest, so the myth maintains, always was and always will be the moral improvement—perhaps even perfection—of the entire world. By serving ourselves we serve all humanity.

The only question worth debating, then, is how we can use our preponderant power and wealth most shrewdly to maintain effective control. Most Americans expect their president to know the answer. At the same time, most Americans worry that he might not. A more recent pillar of the bipartisan narrative, the myth of homeland insecurity, suggests the opposite.

According to that myth, no matter how much military strength we have or control we exert, there is always “a rising tide of tumult” somewhere that threatens our national security. At every moment, somewhere in the world, we have something crucial to lose. The name of the threat can change with surprising ease. But the peril must always be there. It’s essential to the story.

And that story, in turn, is now essential to every presidential contest. As New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd once wrote, “Every election has the same narrative: Can the strong father protect the house from invaders?” (Think of Ronald Reagan and the Iran captivity tale or George W. Bush and 9/11.) If one candidate is the incumbent, the question becomes: Has he been a strong enough father to control the world and thereby protect the house?

Every challenger plays on that anxiety, picking the most obvious or convenient example of the day as a hook on which to hang the perennial charges of weakness and peril. Since the “Who lost China?” days, Republicans have played this card especially skillfully.

This year it seemed that a Democrat who “surged” in Afghanistan, killed bin Laden, and personally ran a drone assassination campaign from the White House had, for once, successfully protected his right flank against the predictable GOP attack. Then fate sent the Libyan killings to the Romney campaign, the newsrooms, and a big portion of the American public. Give Romney’s people credit: they sensed the opportunity from day one.

Mitt had to demand “Who lost Libya?” and then transform it into “Who lost the Middle East?”—not merely to boost his chances but because a big slice of the public yearns for such a “debate.” After all, every time the question of “Who lost [fill in the blank]?” arises, it reaffirms both the reassuring promise that we deserve to control the world and the disturbing anxiety that we might lose what is rightly ours.

What was, for all its tragic dimensions, a minor event in Libya became a central campaign issue because it proved to be this season’s code word for the whole mythological package. For many Americans, the deepest reassurance may come simply from sensing that our traditional mythology—the familiar lens through which we view our nation and its role in the world—is still intact.

On the horizon, though, we can dimly see a new question rising: How much longer can this mythology survive? It suffered a major wound in the Vietnam War era, when the fantasy of global control was rudely punctured by reality. That wound has been ripped open again by fruitless wars and conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

Now, there are so many unsettling changes around the world that we can’t predict, much less control, them. Soon enough—perhaps by 2020, or even 2016—the political battle cry may be: “Who lost the world?”

It’s even possible to imagine that someday Americans will engage in the debate we really need—about choosing a new paradigm for foreign policy that fits today’s world, where the fantasy of global control has become irrelevant because the facts so obviously contradict it, as American power declines while other nations steadily gain strength.

Don’t expect the old mythology to disappear quietly, though. Old myth versus new myth is the fiercest political battle of all.

Ira Chernus is professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, a TomDispatch regular, and author of Mythic America: Essays.

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Sistine Chapel ceiling at 500

By Eric Marrapodi, CNN, Oct. 31, 2012
Michelangelo’s fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, one of the world’s most iconic pieces of art, will celebrate its 500th anniversary on Wednesday in Vatican City. Pope Benedict XVI is set to mark the occasion with the celebration of Vespers in the chapel on Wednesday evening.

Nine centered panels in the ceiling fresco show stories from the book of Genesis, fanning out from the center of the ceiling with the iconic “Creation of Adam” that shows God reaching down from heaven and touching the finger of Adam. The vaulted ceiling also features images of biblical prophets and ancestors of Jesus.

Work on the ceiling began in 1508 when Pope Julius II della Rovere decided to make some changes to the room including the ceiling alteration. He commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling and the lunettes, which are the upper parts of the room. According to the Vatican, Julius dedicated the newly decorated space with a Mass on the Feast of All Saints Day, which falls on November 1.

Michelangelo painted over a starry sky scene put on the ceiling between 1477 and 1480 according to Vatican records.

British Art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon writes in his book “Michelanglo and the Sistine Chapel,” that the artist did not want to paint the 12,000-square-foot ceiling, which is 68 feet high, because he thought it was a ruse by his enemies to get him to fail on a grand stage. “As they well knew he was a sculptor, not a painter, and would be bound to make a fool of himself,” Graham-Dixon wrote.

“He kept turning it down saying ‘I’m not a painter; I’m a sculptor,’” said Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, a Georgetown University professor who has studied the work extensively. She said Michelangelo had come to Rome to sculpt the tomb of Julius II, which he thought would be his masterpiece.

Originally the idea from the papal commission was to have Michelangelo paint the 12 apostles on the ceiling, but somewhere along the way the plans changed. “He was up on the ceiling, and the concept just was not working for him,” Apostolos-Cappadona said.

Apostolos-Cappadona said correspondence at the time suggest the subject shifted to Genesis after conversations related to the writings of Saint Augustine between the artist and a prominent theologian, Egidio da Viterbo.

It took a full four years to complete the sweeping painting which stretches out above the chapel’s 40.23 meters in length by 13.40 meters in width footprint, dimensions which are thought to mirror Solomon’s Temple as described in the book of Kings.

“He created paintings, that in many ways, the figures seem three dimensional. That’s something he does that other painters of the day did not do. From the ceiling you need the mass and volume,” Apostolos-Cappadona said.

Pope John Paul II called the Sistine chapel, “the shrine of the theology of the human body,” in a homily following restorations for the space in 1994.

“This is a priceless cultural and universal heritage,” the late Pope John Paul II said at the time. “This is confirmed by the countless pilgrims from every nation in the world who come to admire the work of the supreme masters and to recognize in this Chapel a sort of wonderful synthesis of painting.”

Visitors today can still see the Michelangelo’s fresco as the crown jewel of the Vatican Museum tour. The chapel space is still used by the Vatican for worship services, which museum staff loudly remind chatty patrons to keep quiet and not take pictures.

The chapel is also used for the secret conclave to elect the new pope. The College Cardinals, whose job it is to elect the new pope, gather there to cast ballots for the man who would become the next pope.

As cardinals cast their secret ballots they walk under the painted ceiling through the steps of the creation story and put their ballot in an urn on the altar. Above the altar is another gigantic Michelangelo fresco, “The Last Judgement,” which takes up the entire wall and was finished in 1541.

“The ceiling is almost a background for that extraordinary picture of “The Last Judgement,” Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop emeritus of Washington, told CNN. McCarrick was a member of the conclave that elected Pope Bennedict the XVI in April 2005.

“The ceiling sort of prepares you for that with the creation of man and all that. When you come to the altar, and you look right behind the altar is this extraordinary painting of “The Last Judgement,” he said.

Standing in front of the painting and casting a ballot for the next pope he said, “ceases to become an election and becomes more of a discernment, a discernment of what God wants you to do. A discernment of what you think God wants you to do, to pick the man God needs for the church today.”

“All those things go through your head when you’re in that extraordinary building, that extraordinary chapel. You are about to do an extraordinary thing,” he said.

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Because Jesus Identified with Us!

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Leslie and I burst into tears—and I mean that literally: we erupted into sobs when the grim-faced doctors broke the news to us at Leslie’s bedside. There was something terribly wrong with our newborn daughter [Alison].

The next several days were a stomach-churning blur. It was agonizing to see our firstborn child hooked up to machines and monitors, with an intravenous needle in her ankle. What’s worse, we weren’t Christians at the time—and without God, there was really nowhere to turn.

In the midst of that horror, I was walking in despair down the hospital corridor when a telephone on the wall rang. A nurse picked it up and then looked around. “It’s for you,” she said.

On the line was David, a man I had known years earlier but hadn’t seen in a long time. At first I was puzzled why he would be calling me, especially there. The truth is that in the course of interacting with David in the past, I had lied to him, misled him, made fun of him, broken promises to him, and ruthlessly criticized his church and everything it stood for. But he was a committed Christian, and that’s why he was on the phone that day.

“I heard what’s going on with your little girl,” David said, his voice laden with concern. “What can I do for you? Can I come down there and be with you for a while? Would you like to talk? Can I bring you anything? Can I run some errands for you? Lee, just give the word and I’ll be there as soon as I can. In the meantime, I’ll be praying for your daughter, and so will my friends at church.”

I was incredulous! I couldn’t believe he had bothered to track me down and was willing to drop everything, take time off from work, and drive sixty miles just to help me. Or that he and some strangers in a church were willing to get on their knees and plead to their God for the recovery of a child they had never met—the offspring of an avowed atheist, no less. There’s no way in the world that I deserved that.

I thanked David, although I didn’t take him up on his offer. Then after ten tense days, Alison simply recovered from her mysterious illness. The doctors didn’t know what to make of it and, by God’s grace, to this day she has never exhibited any lingering effects from it.

Since then Leslie and I have tried to forget the trauma that we went through when Alison was hospitalized. Yet today, more than three decades later, I could take you back to the precise spot where I received that call from Dave. That’s how deeply it’s seared into my memory.

David’s actions illustrate the kind of impact that Christians can have when we’re willing to go beyond mere words and put the love of Christ into practical action. After all, talk is cheap. Look at Jesus: he didn’t just say he loved the world, he showed his love by becoming a servant.

When we serve others as Jesus would, when we sacrifice for others as Jesus did, and when we put our love into tangible action as Jesus modeled, then this can open the hardest of hearts that would otherwise be impervious to the message of Christ.

Words evaporate quickly. Most of what a pastor says in a sermon will be forgotten before dinner. But people remember a selfless act of servanthood forever. I can attest to that because I’ll never forget David.—Lee Strobel1

*

I remember visiting a friend before surgery. He wasn’t especially close to God, and I knew he was nervous. I promised to stop by and see him before the operation, and I ended up praying with him, right in front of his wife, who was also not so close to God. It was a tiny bit awkward at first, but after I stumbled through a question, “Would it be okay if I said a prayer for you?” and received a quiet nod, it turned out fine.

In the hallway, his wife met me. “Elisa, pray with me too!” she begged through fearful and tearing eyes. I was more than surprised. Here was a woman who’d insisted she had little room for God in her life, asking me to pray for her. She was in a dark place and needed light to find her way. I prayed.

Through his light in our lives, God offers emergency lighting to those in dark moments of crisis. Whether cancer, unemployment, floods, divorce, teen rebellion, or death, crisis creates in people a need for hope and an openness to hear where they can find its source.

Those of us who’ve walked in light a long time sometimes forget this fact. Familiar with the steady beams of hope, we overlook others who are feeling their way through the darkness and are instinctively attracted to the hope we take for granted. Similarly, we who walk in light may sometimes grow indifferent to it. Stubbing a toe on life’s speed bumps, we look about and wonder what we have to offer another.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Or time-consuming. Or expensive. Simple gestures of comfort offer hope. A card to a friend after a miscarriage. A meal to a family with a hospitalized child. A visit to a neighbor whose dog was hit by a car. Go ahead and share a book or a CD or a scripture or a quotation that has meant something to you during a similarly painful time. Listen to God’s voice prompting you to express His love for another in word or action. Be amazed at what God will do through your little light!

When people are in crisis, they crave light. All around them are dark moments of unconfirmed diagnosis, unclear decisions, unthinkable circumstances. They can’t see themselves to the next minute, much less through the next step they need to take. They extend their arms blindly, wishing they’ll bump into something that will help them out of their misery.

We, who live in the light, are in the light. Remember, a little light goes a long way. I can offer help and hope to those in crisis. And even when we ourselves struggle to find our way in a moment of twilight, our twinkle is bright enough for another to find and follow.—Elisa Morgan2

*

Before we can help people connect with God … we must first connect with them on some shared level of interest and understanding. Sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ begins with the search for common ground—some point of recognition and connection, some way of identifying with a person. It is what W. Oscar Thompson, in his bookConcentric Circles of Concern, called “building bridges.”

Becoming one with and identifying with people makes our witness believable and authentic. If we see ourselves as better than and superior to those “poor sinners,” a true connection will be impossible to achieve.

If, on the other hand, we consider ourselves fellow strugglers and pilgrims, common ground has already been discovered. Because Jesus identified with us in our needs and hurts, we can identify with other hurting people at the point of their need.—Woody D. Wilson3

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There’s someone sad and lonely
Who lives along the way,
You’d like to go and visit
But you’d not know what to say?
My friend, you needn’t worry;
If good-will you have to spare,
You’ll do the job that’s needed
By simply being there.
—Author unknown

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One of the best soul winners I know does not know she is a soul winner. In fact, if I mentioned it to her, she would probably laugh out loud. Lori does not know how to witness in any conventional way. She is not a part of any program of evangelism training or outreach. She is not a Bible scholar. What is her secret? She has lost friends and she wants them to be saved

Her approach? She takes it one person or one family at a time and stays with it until they gladly receive the Lord. She has discovered or rediscovered the biblical principle of investing her life into the lives of others. She does it by being a friend and doing what friends do, but with a different goal in mind. She does not view the friend as a means to her own fulfillment or to meet some need in her own life. She truly wants that friend to know the Lord.—Woody D. Wilson4

*

The world has changed, is changing, and will continue to change. To be effective in reaching others with the Gospel, it’s necessary to adapt to these changes, to find out what language people are speaking today and deliver the message to them in that language.

It pays to learn to understand their culture and relate to them within their culture—meaning both their national culture and the culture of the times. What are the people where you live talking about? What are their passions, worries, and concerns? What motivates them. What makes them tick? What principles do they hold? What are their value systems? What is their personal world like?


We need to learn all we can about a people as well as become one of them—in fact, in order to become one of them—so we can truly communicate with them in a language they understand so that they get the message loud and clear.5

Seek the Lord about how you can both show and tell the story of His love for those around you in a manner they will understand. Pray about whether your current delivery methods are relevant and effective in reaching people. Ask Him to show you what actions, what symbols, what words you can use that will make it possible for them to comprehend the love God has for them.

Ask Him to help you to relate, to become enough like them that you may win them. Similar to Paul, certainly one of Christianity’s greatest witnesses, let’s be able to say, “I have become as one of the people of the country I live in, in order to win them. I have learned to understand them, to sympathize with them, to live like them to the point where I can say I am one of them, that I may win them. I have become one with the people in my workplace, my school, my neighborhood, my club, in order that they may get to know me; and in knowing me and feeling the Holy Spirit within me, they can get to know Him who gave His life so that they may have life eternal.”

Do what you can, when you can, to let God’s light shine through you, so that you may lead others to Him.—Peter Amsterdam6

Published on Anchor November 2012. Read by David Salas.


1 The Unexpected Adventure (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2009).

2 Twinkle: Sharing Your Faith One Light at a Time (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Revell, 2006).

3 The Shadow of Babel (CrossHouse Publishing, 2009).

4 The Shadow of Babel.

5 David Brandt Berg, March 1973, “Become One,” 208:14.

6 Originally published January 2012.

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EM SEIS DIAS - Por Que 50 Cientistas Decidiram Aceitar a Criação

http://www.scb.org.br/
Autor: John F. Ashton, Ph.D.
Páginas: 324 - coloridas

Este é um livro que, desde há cerca de 10 anos, estava sendo traduzido e editorado para ser impresso na primeira ocasião em que a SCB dispusesse de recursos suficientes para a sua publicação.

Seu autor é o Dr. John F. Ashton, criacionista australiano com quem os Editores mantiveram contato em congresso realizado na Austrália no ano 2000, e que gentilmente concedeu à SCB os direitos autorais para a publicação desse seu livro.

A tradução para o Português deste livro de autoria de John F. Ashton, originalmente publicado na Austrália em Inglês, foi efetuada pela Profa. Ieda C. Tetzke, e a revisão final procedida por uma equipe coordenada pela Sociedade Criacionista Brasileira, contando com a colaboração técnica dos Professores Mestres e Doutores Eduardo Ferreira Lütz, Nahor Neves de Souza Júnior, Queila de Souza Garcia, Tarcísio da Silva Vieira, Urias Echterhoff Takatohi e Wellington dos Santos Silva. A todas essas pessoas a SCB apresenta seus agradecimentos pela preciosa colaboração.

Foram inseridas nesta edição do livro várias ilustrações pertinentes, e sem dúvida ele será de leitura agradável e muito interessante por narrar a experiência pessoal de 50 cientistas que aceitaram a Criação da forma como ela é apresentada na Bíblia.

Por que alguns homens de ciência, muito bem preparados, ainda acreditam na Criação? Por que preferiram não acreditar na evolução darwinista ou mesmo na evolução teísta, na qual uma inteligência todo-poderosa é vista como direcionando os processos evolutivos? Poderiam cientistas

acreditar que a vida na Terra tem provavelmente menos de 10.000 anos de idade? Como eles lidariam com as evidências do registro fóssil e as eras sugeridas pela datação radiométrica de rochas que contariam milhões ou bilhões de anos?

Os ensaios apresentados nesse livro levantam questões que são debatidas acaloradamente entre

cientistas e educadores, e oferecem uma perspectiva diferente em nossa abordagem para a educação científica.

No livro, 50 cientistas explicam suas razões para a escolha dessa perspectiva criacionista. Todos

eles têm doutorado obtido em universidades públicas de prestígio na Austrália, EUA, Reino Unido, Canadá, África do Sul ou Alemanha. São professores universitários e pesquisadores, geólogos, zoólogos, biólogos, botânicos, físicos, químicos, matemáticos, pesquisadores biomédicos e engenheiros.

Pela primeira vez todas essas áreas estão sendo cobertas simultaneamente em uma só publicação

com os testemunhos pessoais de cientistas criacionistas.

Vale a pena ler !

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Depois do Dilúvio

DEPOIS DO DILÚVIO http://www.scb.org.br/

Autor: Bill Cooper B. A. Hons.

Publicado em Português pela SCB

206 páginas

Formato: 14,7 x 20,7 cm

ISBN: 978-85-88611-13-9

O Autor concatena impressionantes evidências que indicam como os primeiros europeus registravam sua descendência desde Noé, na linhagem de Jafé, em documentos meticulosamente preservados; como conheciam tudo sobre a Criação e o Dilúvio; e como tiveram encontros com criaturas que hoje chamaríamos de dinossauros. Esses registros de diferentes nações imprimem aos capítulos 10 e 11 de Gênesis um grau de precisão que os destaca de todos os demais documentos históricos do mundo antigo. Em seu livro, fruto de mais de 25 anos de pesquisas, ele traça o desenvolvimento da controvérsia entre Criação e Evolução que grassou no mundo antigo, e detona muitos dos mitos e erros dos críticos bíblicos “modernistas”.

Bill Cooper é membro do Conselho e curador do Creation Science Movement, é casado e tem duas filhas. Recentemente recebeu o Honours Degree da Kingston University por seus estudos interdisciplinares em História das Idéias (Religião, Filosofia e Teoria Política) e Literatura Inglesa. Tem feito conferências sobre a “Tabela das Nações”, sob os auspícios do Creation Science Movement, na Alemanha e na Bélgica e em muitas ocasiões na Inglaterra, inclusive na Leeds University.

Ele tem escrito numerosos artigos para as revistas do Creation Science Movement e da Creation Science Foundation da Austrália, sobre a Tabela das Nações (Série sobre “A História Antiga do Homem”), sobre o Jonas histórico, e outros assuntos.

Este livro mostra como a História da Europa pode ser traçada desde o Dilúvio e os descendentes de Jafé, mediante relatos contemporâneos e a “Tabela das Nações”.

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Palestinians to seek UN recognition next month

By Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press, Oct. 28, 2012
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP)—The Palestinian president is moving forward with his plan to seek upgraded observer status at the United Nations next month, despite American and Israeli threats of financial or diplomatic retaliation, officials said Sunday.

The decision sets the stage for a new showdown between Israel and the Palestinians at the world body, following last year’s attempt by the Palestinians to seek status as a full member state. Although that initiative failed to pass the U.N. Security Council, it caused months of diplomatic tensions with Israel.

“We will go to the U.N. regardless of any threats,” said Tawfik Tirawi, a senior member of President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement. “I expect the Israelis to take punitive measures against us, if we win this status, but this is our choice and we will not retract it.”

This year, the Palestinians are seeking “nonmember state” status in the U.N. General Assembly, where passage is assured. The 193-member assembly is dominated by developing nations sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Officials say they are looking for what they call a “quality” majority that includes European countries as well, though Germany and Britain, for instance, have been cool to the Palestinian plan.

While upgraded status would not change the situation on the ground, the Palestinians say the move is still significant. They will ask for international recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.

They believe the U.N. vote would then require Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines or face international legal action. Israel rejects a full return to those lines, and says the borders between Israel and a future Palestine must be reached through direct negotiations.

The Palestinians also hope to use upgraded status to join additional U.N. bodies, such as the International Criminal Court, where they could attempt to prosecute Israel on war crimes violations. The Palestinians last year received membership into UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency. Over Israeli objections, they subsequently won recognition of the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem as an endangered heritage site.

The Palestinians last year decided to turn to the U.N. after years of deadlock in peace efforts with Israel. Negotiations have been frozen since late 2008, in large part over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians say they will not resume talks without a settlement freeze.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel has not yet decided how to respond, but he warned that U.N. recognition would “irreversibly poison the atmosphere” and make it impossible to resume peace talks.

“The Palestinians are openly declaring their intention to use this recognition as a weapon in an ever continuing diplomatic war they intend to wage against Israel,” he said. “If they are going to wage a legal and diplomatic war against Israel, what are the odds of returning to the negotiating table?”

Last year, Israel withheld millions of dollars in tax transfers to the Palestinians after their attempt to win full membership. That gambit was opposed by the United States, which threatened to use its veto power in the Security Council to block the bid.

The U.S. has not publicly said how it will respond this time, though Palestinian officials say Washington has also threatened to cut off vital financial aid to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority.

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Our Mysterious Past

By Bruce Malone: 

Just beneath the lush vegetation and majestic scenery of our planet is a massive worldwide graveyard. Plants and animals are buried by the billions under countless tons of mud and sediment which have subsequently turned to rock. How did all those organisms get there? The answer to that question is THE KEY to understanding our origin.

Starting in the early 1800’s geologists have chosen to interpret fossils and sediments based on a presupposition of slow accumulation, or more recently, multiple local catastrophes over billions of years (uniformitarianism). Thousands of geologists have been indoctrinated in this belief and have spent the last 150 years working to fit the evidence into this interpretation of earth history. Yet, many facts remain unexplained by this interpretation. Most of these “mysteries” disappear, if the reality of a recent worldwide flood is acknowledged. A jury looking for the truth starts with eye witness accounts. In addition to the Bible, which clearly presents the global flood as a factual event, every major culture in the world has a flood story. From the Aztecs to the Chinese...Aborigines to the ancient Greeks...all cultures have an ancient account of a universal flood. Many of these stories include details of a righteous man being saved on a floating vessel and attribute the event to judgment from God. If this really happened; people would have spread across the globe after the catastrophe. As centuries passed, the account of the flood would have become distorted. This is exactly what we find.

More evidence comes from fossils. The very existence of fossils is evidence of rapid burial. Fossils do not form today unless animals are rapidly buried. Yet many fossil deposits contain billions of tightly packed and intricately preserved creatures indicating that they had been washed together and rapidly buried. The extent, frequency, and lack of decay found in most fossil beds testify to the worldwide extent of the catastrophe.

The nature of the rock record is also a testimony to a worldwide flood. At many locations around the world, often resting just above those rock layers containing very few indications of life, there is a conglomeration of rocks and boulders. The Great Unconformity in the Grand Canyon is an example of this. The Great Unconformity represents a supposed 500 million years of missing earth history. But is there really any “missing” time? Along this interface great boulders of Shinumo Quartite are buried exactly as if they were transported into place by energetic flood waters.[1] The expected consequence of an extensive and energetic flood would be the rapid erosion of massive amounts of sediment and the redeposit of these sediments at other locations. Rocks and boulders would drop to the bottom of these flood waters and come to rest at the top of newly scoured surfaces. This is what we find between the Tapeats sandstone/Dox sandstone border in the Grand Canyon. Evolutionists assume there is a “missing” 500 million years at this border. Creationists see the evidence as a conformation of a worldwide flood with no “missing” time.

Creation geologists have only been working to explain the massive sedimentary rock layers of our planet by a worldwide flood for a few decades and there is still much to be explained. However, the creation model explains many problems which the uniformitarian model does not - despite 150 years of study from an evolutionary perspective.

The truth can only be found if all of the evidence is examined. Does our current scientific and education establishment allow for this freedom of investigation?

Footnote:

1. Austin, Steve, Grand Canyon Monument to Catastrophe - Field Study Guide Tour book, pp.44,

ICR, 1993.

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Reaching “Pleasant Places”

By Amanda White

I love Psalm 23. Perhaps it’s because I especially love the verses about being in calm, beautiful, and peaceful situations. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”1

I was meditating on this Psalm and realized that it’s somewhat of a snapshot of life. In that short chapter, just six verses, you get a brief picture of the cycles of life—the highs and lows, the good times and bad, the peaceful and chaotic. Yet through it all, one thing remains: God’s presence. The enduring and unchanging truth: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”2

I’m a creature of comfort and routine. I like the times in my life when I’m resting in the green pastures and drinking from the beautiful still waters—those periods of time when everything is going well, when I’m seeing and feeling the blessings, when everything is chugging along pretty seamlessly.

I naturally feel the Lord’s presence more during times of peace and plenty. There’s not as much need; I feel more confident that He’s there and with me. Perhaps that’s why the psalmist didn’t need to remind himself that the Lord was with him in verse 2. We don’t often need to be reminded of God being with us during such times, because we already feel it—we’re in the green pastures and beside the still waters.

Sometimes, though, when things go haywire or not according to plan—the “dark valley” parts of life—I start to feel less like He’s with me, it’s easier to feel distant, and I have to keep reminding myself that He is there. Perhaps that’s why King David reminded himself of the Lord’s presence in verse 4, because he also had to boost his faith in times of difficulty: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.”3

The Lord is with us, He is comforting us, even if we can’t sense His presence as strongly when we’re in the dark valley parts of life. He’s there, even if the dark valley portion of our journey is a little bit longer (or maybe even a lot longer) than we had hoped.

I’m going through a dark valley time right now. And, unfortunately, I’m impatient. I want the challenge over and done with. I want the Lord to supply what I need right away. I want to move from the “dark valley” part to the “green pasture” part as quickly as possible. And then I have to admit that when I get to the “green pasture” months, I will want that portion of my life to last as long as possible before I’m interrupted by another time in a new “dark valley.”

I read a quote this morning that clearly expressed my natural inclination, and yet reminded me that God’s perspective and plan is so much bigger and better than mine. So often I want Him to be “done already!!!!” And yet it’s just going to take that little bit longer for Him to set everything in place as He has planned.

“God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don’t. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.”4

I’d like the stomach churning to end, but I also like the thought that God is loving this ride, that He’s somehow going to work things out for my good. And in the meantime, I hope that I will gain all that He has for me to experience before this off-road journey ends and I reach the green pastures again. I’m sure I will reach the green pastures at some point; we always do. I just need to be patient and wait for His timing.

This was His promise to my heart: “You can trust that I will lead and guide you into pleasant places. Those ‘pleasant places’ won’t be clear right away. There will be a period of time that will be pretty tough, that will be challenging, that will even be dark and bleak at times. But as you continue following Me, the ‘pleasant places’ will come, you will see.”

Another personal favorite promise that I love to claim during times of uncertainty or change is the verse “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”5 I know that verse is talking about what the Lord has prepared for us in heaven, but I like to also claim it for the things that I’m sure He has prepared for me here on earth as well. Since I love Him and He loves me, I know that He has good things lined up ahead.

Here are a few more of the promises that I remind myself of when I’m in a time of uncertainty or change, or am waiting for the Lord to supply a need:



The thoughts and intents of your heart are ever before Me. I have always been with you, caring for you and leading you in the way that you should go. My love for you is the same today as it was yesterday, and as it will be forever—and it will never change. It is the constant, unchangeable, and unmovable factor—the God factor—that you can depend on, both now and in the days to come.6

*

I will keep, support, and protect you, regardless of the circumstances or the conditions in which you may find yourselves, just as I have done throughout history.7

*

I will do whatever is needed, and use whatever means are available to care for you, and you will not be left comfortless or uncared-for.8

*

I am the one responsible to care for you and provide for you and see you through any circumstances you face. Everything else can come and go—but nothing changes or impacts My ability to care for you, or My knowledge of your needs as an individual. What you give, I give back to you. What you trust Me for, I provide in one way or another.9

*

Place your confidence and trust where it belongs—firmly in Me and in My leading in your life, in My strength for what I ask of you, in My supply when I’m directing you to take on a certain venture. I’m committed to you, and that’s the bottom line. You can bank on it.10

*

Place your faith and trust in Me, and know that as you have given to Me, I will give to you. As you have served Me, I will serve you. I might not do it in the ways you’ve anticipated, hoped for, or planned for, but I will not fail. I am a man of My word.11

*

Everything else can come and go and change, but My care for you, My promises to you, will outlast it all. My nature and My goodness and My care are not limited to a time or circumstance. They transcend all.12

*

For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of My people; My chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands.13

*

Those who seek the Lord shall not lack.14

*

My times are in Your hand.15

*

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.16


1 Psalm 23:2–3.

2 Psalm 23:1.

3 Psalm 23:4.

4 Tony Snow, “Cancer's Unexpected Blessings,” Christianity Today, July 20, 2007.

5 1 Corinthians 2:9 NKJV.

6 Originally published March 2010.

7 Originally published March 2010.

8 Originally published March 2010.

9 Originally published March 2010.

10 Originally published March 2010; adapted.

11 Originally published March 2010.

12 Originally published March 2010.

13 Isaiah 65:22 NIV.

14 Psalm 34:10 NKJV.

15 Psalm 31:15 NKJV.

16 Psalm 92:12–13, 15 NKJV.

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