No. 429A
In the beginning of the New Year, we give thanks and praise to our Lord for His overruling providence in the past year. “Praise ye the Lord. 0 give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” (Psa. 106:1) “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.” (Psa. 107:31)
“A new partnership of nations has begun...A new world order... stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace... A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path of peace... where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility... and... the strong respect for the rights of the weak.” (President Bush, Orlando Sentinel, November 9, 1990)
It has been over a year since the President made the above statement. Since that time the “strong” have oppressed the weak, and we are no nearer peace with all countries than we were a year ago. Even if the President had accomplished unity and peace with all nations, we would still have no peace with crime continuing to escalate. Great efforts have been made to stop crime such as murder, rape, burglary, etc., but crime continues. Diseases are rampant also. Medical science hasn’t found a cure for ALZHEIMERS, AIDS and other dread diseases. So ailments of all kinds plague the people. We are grateful for the good doctors who can cure some diseases and alleviate the pain of other diseases. of course, it is impossible for man to cure all these ills, or accomplish peace with all nations.
So we continue to pray the prayer our Lord gave us: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is done in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10) Man is not able to bring peace on earth, altho it is commendable for him to try. At present “Men’s hearts are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven [ecclesiastical order] shall be shaken.” (Luke 21:26) But we have the comfort of the sure promise that our Lord will bring justice, peace, health and happiness to the human family in the Kingdom. (Acts 17:31) “And I shall shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord.” (Hag. 2:7) We see that shaking going on all around us. “The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.” (Is. 24:20) “Hear ye, 0 mountains [kingdoms], the Lord’s controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.” (Mic. 6:2)
We are in the Time of Trouble described in Dan. 12:1 and Matt. 24:21. Our Lord prophesied of this trouble: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” (Matt. 24:21) We thank God for the last phrase. After the Time of Trouble the Lord will inaugurate His Kingdom, and there will be a peace on earth as was never known before.
IN FINANCE
If you were asked, “Are you better off financially today than you were one year ago?” most people would answer “No.” Daniel foretold that there would be a Time of Trouble such as never was since there was a nation. And the Lord stated further that “then there would be great tribulation.” (Matt. 24:21)
There is trouble in our country and in all the countries in the world – in all phases of society, financial, political, religious, military, social, moral, ethical, legal, etc. But we will now confine our remarks to finances.
Our country is financially indebted to the degree that many financiers say that the debt will never be paid. When we borrow money to pay the interest on debt, conditions are serious. It has been well stated that “debts are not all paid but all are liquidated.” The signs of the time are so self-evident that in spite of some politicians forecasting “better times are just ahead,” it seems that our present recession, or “double dip,” or depression, may be with us for some time – maybe until our economy goes bankrupt, in the further phases of the Time of Trouble.
Layoffs in the thousands continue ‘ (often in the large organizations. Jobless claims continue to surge. In October, 1991, the unemployment rate rose to 6.8%. One newspaper article stated, “The double dose of bleak news led analysts to suggest the midyear rebound had been a false start – a blip on an underlying trend of a sick economy.”
From the Associated Press we read, “Mass layoffs pushed jobless claims to a six-month high this month (November) as 454,000 Americans sought unemployment help in a one week period, the Labor Department said recently. The number of people filing first-time claims surged by 33,000 during the week of November 2.”
U.S. News and World Report states, “Even more ominous, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation predicted that additional bank failures could triple the amount of money needed to rescue the nations troubled financial institutions.” At the present writing the rate of interest on credit card debts is being debated. Some feel that 20% is much too high. Many banks state that if the rate were lowered, it would slash an important source of income.
The London Financial Times reports, “There is no clearer symbol of the Soviet Unions determination to move to a market economy than its achievement of associate membership of the International Monetary Fund. In fact, there is no clearer symbol that little is going to change economically, especially under the advice of the IMF. The Soviets will get their aid, enough to survive temporarily, and the U.S. has sold out by agreeing to make the Soviets full members of the IMF. That gives them direct access to the wallets of American citizens.”
Inflation in Russia is already at 100% a year - going stratospheric. Some at the world bank estimate it will reach 1000% in 1992. This year alone the government will print an estimated 150 billion rubles more than all of the rubles in circulation at the beginning of the year, rendering the currency practically worthless. (A recent newspaper article states that civil war is a definite possibility in Russia in 1992.)
A leading economist writes regarding “Cashlessness.” “To erect a cashless society, the Federal Reserve is preparing for more financial record keeping.” The Dallas Federal Reserve alone will build a brand new headquarters – 15 stories and 750,000 square feet. Despite the recession, government building is not slowing. Researchers at the University of California have invented a tiny laser-based device to store up to 6.5 trillion bits of information. This is the equivalent of a million novels in a memory chip the size of a sugar cube. This great technology will be used by the Federal government to control and monitor our every transaction.
In the U.S. an astounding 80% of all corporate net after-tax profit, now goes to service debt. A weakening economy, higher inflation, steeper interest rates, burgeoning oil costs are causing the sinking of heavily indebted U.S. companies. In 1990, corporate bankruptcies jumped 64% in the Middle Atlantic region alone. In the 24 months ahead, heavy leverage will open the floodgates and force many more companies to travel the sorrowful road of defaults and restructuring.
It is not just the government and the greedy corporations, individual Americans, too, are in debt up to their eyeballs. For every dollar we have to spend, we have 80 cents in debt. And the worst part is we can’t pay. Personal bankruptcies are already double what they were in the depths of the ‘82-’83 recession. In New England bankruptcies were up 45% in the past 12 months alone. Fully half of all FHA mortgages are now on the delinquent list. And the collapse of ‘91-’92 is just getting started.
Germany is having a major problem economically and socially absorbing East Germany. One day the world will wake up and all the markets will panic when it’s realized that debt-ridden economies cannot be bailed out with government monetary and fiscal stimuli.
The 12-nation European Community (EC) has been in development for several years. Together the EC, scheduled to be completed by the end of 1992, will preside over 340 million consumers. A central bank and a single currency is proposed, as well as a political union. A unified foreign policy under EC would give the U.S. serious trade competition.
As we move further into the Time of Trouble we realize conditions must get worse before it can get better - before the long sought peace is a reality when Christ’s Kingdom is established on earth. From the Scriptures we know that the conditions prior to the birth of the Kingdom are likened to travail before a natural birth when the pangs come more frequently and more severely until the birth. We expect world-wide revolution to increase in magnitude leading to Anarchy until the final phase of Jacob’s last trouble is upon us.
As Brother Hoefle has often said of these troublous times, “If the Lord doesn’t hold us by the hand, we are in serious trouble.” Zeph. 2:3 tells us to “Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.” (Contributed)
IN RELIGION
Billy Graham: Someone asked Billy Graham, “Do you think the world is going to get better and better in the future?” His answer: “The Bible doesn’t promise that the world is going to get better and better. in fact, it indicates that ‘there will be terrible times in the last days.! (2 Tim. 3:1)
“Yes, we may see (for example) more scientific or medical progress as time goes on, or even periods of relative peace, and we should be thankful for this. But at the same time we may devise more ways of killing each other. Jesus warned ‘You will hear of wars and rumors of war... Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom... Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of many will grow cold’ (Matt. 24:6,7,12)
“Our greatest need is to turn to Christ and allow him to change our hearts – for only Christ can replace our hate and selfishness with love and compassion. And yes – some day our world will know peace, when Christ comes again to establish his kingdom of righteousness and peace.” (Orlando Sentinel, December 7, 1991)
We commend Dr. Graham for giving the comforting message that the world will have peace in Christ’s Kingdom. Even though, as he truly says any period of peace before the end of this Time of Trouble will be temporary because man cannot accomplish permanent peace to the world. So we continue to pray the prayer the Lord gave us: “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is done in heaven.”
God loves the world and He knows that the Adversary, who is the prince of this world, is blinding the minds of the people (2 Cor. 4:4). “Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.” (Isa. 60:2) It will be different in that glorious Kingdom. “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab. 2:14) “He shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.” (Psa. 9:8)
“Because He hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31) God’s promises are sure. He is faithful that promised (Heb. 10:23).
That day will not come until after this Time of Trouble is over. God has a controversy with the powers that be. “And I will shake all nations, and the desire [for peace] of all nations will come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord.” (Hag. 2:7) The earth is God’s footstool and He will make His footstool glorious.
In the Faith Age the way is “narrow” and difficult, and “few there be that find it.” (Matt. 7:14) Our Lord is selecting a people for His Name (Acts 15:14) to bless the world in the Kingdom. God has prepared an easier way for the world – a Highway of Holiness that all can walk who learn to love righteousness and hate iniquity.
“And an highway shall be there, and a way [the Messiah], and it shall be called The way of holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it: but it shall be for those the wayfaring men, though fools [the atheists – Psa. 14:1], shall not err therein.” (Isa. 35:8) Those who will not obey that prophet will be cut off from among the people (Acts 3:23).
Jehovah’s Witnesses – In the Watchtower of May 1, 1991, the Witnesses give their version of the “pure language” of Zeph. 3:9 as follows: “The pure language is the truth of God found in his own Word, the Holy Scriptures. It is the particular truth regarding God’s Kingdom which will bring peace and other blessings to mankind.” (pp. 12,13)
Of course, the truth is “pure language” in any Age. But the truth given when due for the Household of Faith is not the whole truth. Enough truth is given in each Age for the Household of Faith to make their calling and election sure. But the “pure language” of Zeph. 3:9 is the entire truth as described in Rev. 20:12 to be given in the Kingdom. Many of the Lord’s faithful people in the Dark Ages knew very little truth. But they were given enough truth to be faithful in their standing before God. They will know all the truth in the First Resurrection. The Lord’s people in the end of the Age were given much more truth ‘ enough for them to be faithful. They were given the truth on the two salvations and other important truths to witness to the world the Plan of Salvation for all mankind. They, too, will be given all truth in the First Resurrection so they will be capable ministers for the world under the New Covenant.
All truth is a matter of the future in the Kingdom. The faithful Restitutionists will know more truth then than we now know. Brother Russell said the whole Bible will not be understood by the faithful now – but enough for them to make their calling and election sure. “And I saw the dead [world], small and great, stand before God; and the books [the Bible] were opened (understood]: and another book was opened, which is the book of life [for Restitutionists]: and the dead [world] were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” (Rev. 20:12)
All Bible Students know that the dead are the world which includes those who have gone into the grave and those living. Some of the dead world will survive the Time of Trouble into the Kingdom when it is inaugurated. The Bible clearly says that the violent phase will be cut short, otherwise there would be no flesh saved (Matt. 24:22). Just nothing says that only Jehovah’s Witnesses Great Crowd will be saved, but there may be some of the Witnesses who will live through along with others of the surviving dead world.
The Witnesses say the “pure language” is the particular truth regarding God’s Kingdom which will bring peace and other blessings to mankind. It is that “particular truth” regarding God’s Kingdom that they have grossly perverted. They tell us they are God’s organization, but God’s organization does not present error. He has no organization in this “evil day” (Eph. 6:13) to separate the sheep and the goats – the good and the evil of this present generation. In that day (Acts 17:31) he will “judge the world in righteousness” – when righteousness shall prevail. Today unrighteousness prevails. There are so many systems of error, the Witnesses included, which keep the people confused. And not many are able to “endure sound doctrine” (2 Tim. 4:3). But in His Kingdom there will be no error taught. “For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.” (Isa. 11:9) “When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” (Isa. 26:9)
In the Faith Age it is a narrow way, but in the Kingdom there will be a Highway of Holiness. (Isa. 35:8 – Isaiah Chapter 35 is a beautiful picture of the Kingdom.) The Scriptures clearly teach that there will be a Time of Trouble before God turns over a “pure language” to the people.
“Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them my indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent” (Zeph. 3: 8, 9)
There are many more Scriptures we could quote, but these are enough to refute this gross error of the Witnesses. They are now teaching the “pure language” of Zeph. 3:9, according to their claim. They are saying by their acts and teaching that “The Lord Delayeth,” and they have set up a kingdom of their own - a counterfeit kingdom. The Witnesses blaspheme the Name of the Lord when they teach that all who do not join them before Armageddon will be annihilated in Armageddon – never to receive a resurrection.
Dear Sister Hoefle: Warmest greetings in the bonds of Christ!
Heartily we join with David’s expression of praise in Psalm 145! By this note we send you “Thanks” for the book, Pastor Charles Taze Russell, An Early American Christian Zionist. Chapter 2 deals with a resume of Pastor Russell and his approach to the Scriptures. If I remember correctly the book says, “God’s return to earth.” [The book does say that.] It is not clear to me whether this is a direct quote from the Herzl Yearbook or was an interpolation from the source used by Mr. Horowitz. Either way it is an unfortunate and misleading statement. Of course, we are not alone to recognize the implication of the Trinity in this statement. This foolish doctrine cripples everyone who espouses it... We commend the Jewish people for their belief that God is one – “HEAR, 0 ISRAEL THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE.” I know, dear Sister, you will agree with me in this. I know, too, that you can’t get the Herzl Yearbook changed! But perhaps with Mr. Horowitz’s permission, an “addendum of correction” might be inserted in subsequent distributions of the book. It would honor the character of our dear Pastor whose pursuit was “The Truth”; it would emphasize his and our separateness from Nominal Christendom; and it might suggest to the Jewish reader a basis of fraternal unity which we as Bible Students surely feel.
[To our readers who have the Pastor Russell book, please make the correction on p. 25, last line of par. 1, “God’s return to earth.” Instead of God, you may put our Lord or our Redeemer. “God’s return to earth” is not our Pastor’s teaching and is a dishonor to his name.]
An American family came to visit Tel Arad yesterday. At the conclusion of their visit the father began discussing the methods of dating antiquities, on the “days” of creation, the flood and finally expounded on the Valian Theory. I then made bold to ask him what was his faith? “I’m a Jehovah’s Witness,” he responded. I showed him the Pastor Russell book. Excitedly he called his family. The Young girl told me there were two families of Russellites in our town. I asked her if she would like to take the book to read. She seemed appreciative and eager to read it. Why is it, when I talk to J.W.’s I get the feeling they have studied to be super-salesmen – trained to foist on a gullible public a product neither useful nor desirable?
When you wrote that the Pastor Russell book had been the means of helping many J.W.’s, did you think I would put it to immediate usefulness? I would not have thought So!
Israel today, its infrastructure, its industries, its agriculture, are the result of toil and sweat – not on the part of the haredim but of secular and believing Jews. The last are trinitarians of a different sort: God, the Jews and the land of Israel. They pray, they labor, and they defend the country. Israelites indeed! It is not hard for me to imagine them seeing “Joseph” as their brother long before the fore-mentioned Rabbis are even willing to open their eyes.
There was a third point, but mercifully, dear Sister, I’ve forgotten what it was! Perhaps I will recall it for a later writing.
By Grace, Fervently in Christ, Brother Jack Campbell (ARAD, ISRAEL)
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Dear Brother Miles,
I feel I can call you Brother for after reading your book “Don’t Call me Brother,” I’m part of the family.
I was a Jehovah’s Witness for 21 and a half years. And though I never witnessed the sexual discrepancies you did, I’ve suffered the gossip and shunning you have. I was disfellowshipped after serving the Watchtower for all those years.
I truly believed it was God’s organization. My husband used to beg me to stop studying with these people, but I believed he was a “tool of Satan.” The reason I was disfellowshipped? Because I could not preach 1974 Armageddon. I can sympathize with you. But maybe Rose Marie will read the book. My husband is dead, so he will never know how sorry I was, and am. [Her husband will know in the Kingdom.] I was “chucked out” a year after he died. My daughter and grandchildren are told not to talk to me. They are still in “Bondage.”
I am afraid to trust any religion now. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ but I am too tired at 62 years old to study and learn. All I know is “He died for me,” and I don’t care where I go. If He wants to use me I’ve told Him, I’m willing. But how, when and where, is His decision. As long as He gives me strength and wisdom to do His will – not Man! Sincerely, I remain, Grace Gough.
PS - I’m thinking about writing a book entitled YOU USED TO CALL ME SISTER.
(SETTING THE CAPTIVES FREE, pp. 90,91, by Austin Miles)
Remarks by Austin Miles: “This is why, even after a severe burning and an earnest attempt to leave the church, the devotees will still try to hang onto religion, any religion. Church brainwashing is difficult to counteract. It takes real strength, and sometimes outside help, to break away.”
“Episcopal Church Fears Schism By Traditionalists: New York – A traditionalist group has cast aside entreaties of head bishop in the Episcopal Church, vowing to proceed with a plan that has raised fears of schism. Leaders of the traditional group, the Episcopal Synod of America, say they will go ahead with plans to challenge structures of authority. The traditionalists are angry that liberal bishops have ordained women and practicing homosexuals in violation of church resolutions. In a statement released by Episcopal Church headquarters, Bishop Edmond Browning, top bishop of the Episcopal Church, did not say what disciplinary action, if any, might be taken against Episcopalians who form a new ?missionary diocese.’” (Orlando Sentinel, November 21, 1991)
‘The Word Of God: CAI has distributed 7000 free New Testaments in Southern Africa. These have been sent out in the mail over 10 years following advertisements in newspapers. Additionally 5000 Bibles were sponsored by a member through the Israel Bible Society. SA BIBLE DISTRIBUTION: In a nation-wide campaign R7.5M ($2.7M) was collected to buy 900,000 Bibles to be distributed free by the SA Bible Society. Many lives are bound to be transformed by having God’s Word to study.” (Christian Action for Israel, P.O. Box 5242, Cape Town 8000, SOUTH AFRICA – “Our Newsletter is free to all upon request.”)
“Ailing Pravda Sees The Light – It’ll Print The Bible: Moscow – After more than 70 years of opposition, Pravda, the giant and very official Communist party publishing house, has decided to give the masses their opiate. It plans to print the Bible. All in the name of capitalism, of course. “Business, “ explained Mikhail M. Troschin, Pravda’s deputy director, “is business.”
“Right now, business is bad. Pravda, the big party newspaper, dropped in circulation last year to 5 million from 10 million. Magazines such as Party Life and Political Self-Education also have stumbled.
“With the cost of paper rising daily, Pravda knew it needed a best-seller. Providentially, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexis II, told Pravda that he was interested in placing an order for Bibles. ‘Demand for the Bible is very great,’ Troschin said Thursday. He acknowledged that the desire for the Bible might always have been there, ‘but for some political purposes, it wasn’t published.’
“One of the political purposes just might have involved Lenin, who called religion a ‘deception, a fraud, which clogs the brains of the workers and peasants in the interest of the landlords and capitalists.’ Marx had called it the opiate of the masses.
“Today, the Communists are the landlords and are trying mightily to catch on to capitalism. The printing house wants to keep its 2 billion-ruble-a-year empire intact. The Bible looks like the answer to Pravda’s prayer.
“‘We could do 5 to 10 million and it would sell easily,’ Troschin said. ‘The demand is really great.’
“The officially set price, if prices are still officially set when the Bible comes out, will be about 15 rubles, or around $27. But, Troschin predicted, ‘it will immediately appear in the black market for 70 to 150 rubles.’” (Baltimore Sun)
“How interesting. I refer to Myriam Marquez’s comment in her column ‘Separation of church and state is simple – except to zealots.’
“To wit: ‘If atheists don’t believe in God, then you would think they would simply view the Bible as a collection of fairy tales written by men whose diet of wild desert berries caused all sorts of hallucinations. Indeed, how could the mere presence of the Bible – it’s not required university reading, after all – ‘insult’ anyone?’
“This is a very logical, secular observation. What makes it interesting to a student of Scripture is the knowledge that the Bible ‘ its words, its ‘presence,’ its very existence, from Genesis to Revelation – does indeed insult someone. That ‘someone’ is Satan.” (Karen Hanson, Orlando Sentinel, April 12, 1991)
The Man Who Dares To Doubt Darwin: Imagine what sort doubts Charles Darwin’s magisterial theory of evolution and what do you come up with? Hillbilly Bible-pounders in bare feet. Talks in tongues and handles rattlesnakes.
Yet here stands the polished and erudite Phillip Johnson, 50, who went to Harvard and clerked for Chief Justice Warren before joining the law faculty at the University of California at Berkeley. He’s the author of a small, elegant book that asks the question: Is evolutionary theory really a screwball idea promoted by fanatics?
The Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925, when Clarence Darrow made aged Bible literalist and windbag William Jennings Bryan look like a dope, formalized the status of “The Origin of the Species” as one of the intellectual pillars of the modern world view.
Darwinian theory holds that life started as a microbe, maybe in the primordial sea billions of years ago when a bolt of lightning made the water sizzle and started a chemical reaction producing something that looked like a germ.
All living things – bottom-feeding scum to finger-steepling Nobel Prize winner trace lineage back to that. Once emerged from the ooze, our ancestors survived by being fittest. They scaled evolutionary ladders, rung by slow rung, over so many millennia it makes the bead ache to think about it. Species branched off, which is why some living things are brain surgeons driving Mercedes today and others are dung beetles.
As a way of explaining things – God having gotten the hook in favor of a random chance by most lab guys in white coats – this theory seemed pretty good. In the nation’s school textbooks Darwin and his theory had, well, very nearly scriptural authority.
Those who questioned the orthodoxy generally got the horse laugh when they appeared before school boards and curriculum committees to enter their demurs. The California State Board of Education, though hard-pressed by creationist elements pushing the hand-of-God line, defined evolution theory as “an accepted scientific explanation and therefore no more controversial in scientific circles than the theories of gravitation and electron flow.”
Among learned classes, questioning Darwinian dogma is an invitation to professional suicide. Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins, one of the most influential modern new Darwinists, laid down the law: “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”
“I’m not easily intimidated,” says Johnson, author of “Darwin on Trial” (Regenery, $19.95). A book for laymen, it illumines what he describes as the grave doubts about Darwinism long entertained in scientific circles but not talked about in front of outsiders for fear of giving aid and comfort to religious zealots.
Johnson, a churchgoing Presbyterian and an expert in rhetoric and the techniques of argument, said he was struck by the way Darwinists defend their theory. For all the outer imperturbability, they seemed to him to have a nervousness of people who have something to hide.
When Darwin’s theory was published a century ago, there was one class even more hostile to it than the clergy. These were fossil experts, who pointed out there was no sign of the links connecting primitive with more advanced species that Darwin said would be in evidence of gradual evolution. His expectation, in fact, was that most fossils would fall into this transitional category.
Despite the passage of 100 years, Johnson says this still hasn’t happened. Johnson says neo-Darwinist paleontoligist Stephen Jay Gould concedes “the trade secret of paleontology” is “the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record.”
Rather than obliging Darwinian theory, the fossil record shows the sudden appearances of species, such as at the start of the Cambrian Age when complex life forms appeared during a relative wink of time. Further confounding the theory, Johnson says, life remained unchanged for millions of years rather than evolving. As tellingly, the rocks suggest species extinction was caused by catastrophes such as falling asteroids rather than by gradual obsolescence, as Darwinists expected.
“Plenty of fossils of intermediate forms have been found,” including a whale with what appears to be legs, says Thomas Jukes, a Berkeley professor of biophysics who has tangled with Johnson in the past and expects to give his book a good thumping in a forthcoming review for an alumni publication.
“Intermediate forms are also studied today by molecular evolution, which shows that all organisms may be “intermediate forms,” Juke says... “I think he hasn’t done his homework.”
Johnson has dug up some interesting tidbits. One is a lecture given in 1981 by British paleontologist Colin Patterson at the American Museum of Natural History:
Stepping From the Ranks: “Can you tell me anything that you know about evolution, any one thing... that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only thing I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar at the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, ‘I do know one thing – it ought not to be taught in high school.,”
The furious storm that followed the lecture caused Patterson later to recant, which Johnson said shows how dangerous it is to step from the ranks.
“One of the things I’ve learned from experience is that to establish an intellectual orthodoxy and keep it beyond criticism, you don’t need concentration camps and secret police. All you have to do is say that people will laugh at you and you’ll lose your prestige. This has an enormous effect in academic life, where prestige and the respect of other professionals is the coin of the realm.”
One major university, Johnson said, retracted an invitation to sponsor a debate of his views when no one could be found to take him on... Says Johnson, “I regard the cosmos and the living world as the product of a pre-existent, purposeful intelligence. This provides what I would call the metaphysical space for the proposition that life has a purpose outside what we might invent for ourselves and that value and aesthetic questions have right and wrong answers, so there can be an objective quality to statements about morality and ethics.”
Retorts Jukes: “Bring on the flying saucers, astrology and extrasensory perception. How sad that a professor of law should argue on behalf of a degradation of the intellect.” (By Jerry Carroll, Staff Writer, San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 1991)
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.” (1 Cor. 3:19) “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and opposition of science falsely so called.” (1 Tim. 6:20)
The creation of six days is a period of time and not 24-hour days. “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” (Psa. 90:4) “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8)
We have papers on Evolution and the Creative Days which we will be glad to send anyone, copies free, upon request.