Three approaches to Malaria

I have an interest in Malaria - having had a bout myself and helped at a funeral of a lively teenager who was taken away in a couple of days by an infection which got to her brain.

There are many approaches to trying to limit the damage. Here are three:

Corporate Route One: Rehabilitate DDT (yes, really!). There are nutty freemarketeers who think that that wiping out invertebrates and birds and leaving rising levels of DDT in humans are a small price to pay for “solving the malaria problem”. This is big news in the USA. If you want to see a “christian” version of the propaganda try this link The Kairos Journal but you will need to register. You can get a flavour of the arguments from this link from Pesticide Action Network.

Corporate Route Two: Fund the big drug companies and sponsor research into less harmful insecticides. This is the approach of Bill and Mrs. Gates. Yes, the man who brought you the Windows 95/8 blue screen of death and the open sesame to viruses and worms that is Windows XP is spending several of his ill-gotten millions on bribing the big drug companies to repent of years of neglecting this poor man’s disease. Here is a good link to that project.

A Human Scale Route: There is a herbal antimalarial that works, is cheap, and does not need a factory or bloated executives to make it work. Have a look at the work which Anamed (a tiny non-profit group) and many others have done. Needless to say, the big drug companies are highly unimpressed and are trying to take over production so that they can sell a highly purified and expensive version of the main ingredient. There is a real possibility that this could end up training the parasite to become resistant as it has to many other treatments (see this link).

Bible Authority - continued

Some searchers were disappointed with my previous post which was just basically a plug for a good article by Don Carson.

Click here for a good article by N T Wright on Bible Authority.

This article is much better than his later book.  He seems to be slowly turning into a Roman Catholic and now seems to see “the Church” (by which he seems to mean the Hierarchy, the teaching elite and their adherents) as being much more important than mere congregations .

You have probably guessed that I take an opposite view.

Nevertheless, his emphasis on the way God’s Authority works through the Biblical Story is refreshing and rings a lot of bells.

Dawkins - dazzling but dishonest

Richard Dawkins is a fanatic anti-supernaturalist anti-religionist who writes clever books. I suspect he is playing to his own gallery of fans rather than seriously discussing with anyone but here is a pretty fair minded review of his latest diatribe

http://ship-of-fools.com/Features/2006/dawkins.html

John MacArthur - from the horses mouth (well, keyboard I suppose)

The afformentioned Gent has caused a stir among the reformed by insisting that real faith is always born with real repentance and none lives in the renewed heart without the other. I think he is right but some have claimed he is smuggling in “works righteousness” which is an offence worse than selling your children in the eyes of some.

Here is a link to his current blog if you are interested (and I think you ought to be if you are in ministry).

Common questions about the Lordship position-part 1

How does God speak through the Bible?

This question must be one of the most important questions for a preacher. It will affect how and why he speaks in his sermons. It is also a live question in the minds of his hearers and they deserve a good answer.

I am currently reading “Scripture and the Authority of God” by N T Wright which gives a good but not completely convincing answer.

A Google search threw up a Gem of an article by Don Carson which reviews this and other recent books. I am grateful for people like Carson who read stuff and then summarise it and comment on it so well. It means I don’t have to

Here is the article:

http://www.reformation21.com/Past_Issues/May_2006/Shelf_Life/Shelf_Life/181/vobId__2926/pm__434/

and you might well like to check out the whole Site:

http://www.reformation21.org/