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Why Do We Need a Bible Answer Man or a Christian Research Institute Today?

Why do we need a Bible Answer Man broadcast or even a Christian Research Institute today? Can we not just be spiritual people without getting bogged down by religion? Well, does truth matter? Yes it does. Life’s ultimate quest is more than just some subjective feel good experience, or existential bliss. What we ultimately believe determines how we live. If what we believe corresponds to what is ultimately true, then we can live a robust life. If what we believe does not correspond to what is ultimately true but rather to some faulty idea of reality, the consequences can be devastating. The Bible Answer Man broadcast and the Christian Research Institute strive to equip Christians to know what they believe and why they believe it because Truth matters.

Each day this week on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, Hank will be discussing some of the most important issues related to Christian apologetics, including the orgins of life, the resurrection, the divine origin of the Bible, prayer, and spiritual warfare. Elliot Miller, who is the Editor-in-Chief of the Christian Research Journal, will also be Hank’s guest at the end of the week.

The issues that will be discussed are befitting for times like these. Postmodern relativism with its denial of absolute truth, its all embracive acceptance of all belief systems, and vilification of anyone who makes a claim to absolute truth has become a stumbling block for many both outside and inside the walls of the church. Skepticism also continues to challenge the faith, like Stephen Hawking’s irrational notion of that “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.” Popular culture also takes shots at Christianity, like Bill Maher who in his motion picture Religulous, writes off the account of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection as mythology—a mythological fairy tale copied from ancient pagan mystery religions concerning dying and rising gods. Blaise Pascal captures the spirit of the age in saying, “Truth is so obscure in our day and lies so well established that unless we love the truth we shall never recognize it.”

Christian apologetics is more than just a cerebral exercise of getting a bunch of cold data that can be labeled, categorized, and organized into a system of beliefs that has nothing substantial to offer for practical living. One of the points that Hank has stressed on the Bible Answer Man broadcast and in the resources offered through the Christian Research Institute is that the Bible has been the soul of Western society. All that the ancient world had gained from Greek philosophy was not enough to serve the common good. The world remained divided by race, slaves remained in shackles, and women were denied their dignity. It is only through the divine revelation of Holy Scripture and the transformative power of God’s Spirit that we have come to know the truth: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28, NIV). These words of Paul along with the rest of Scripture offered revolutionary ideas that shaped and benefited the Western world—such things as representative government, hospitals, public education, liberation of women, emancipation of slaves, and art and science. Should society embrace secularism, and reject the Bible as its divinely inspired source of truth, then it shall be severed from the very source of its greatness.

The Bible Answer Man along with a multitude of other apologetic resources offered through the Christian Research Institute, such as the Christian Research Journal, the Equip newsletter, podcasts, YouTube videos, the Web site, books, DVDs, free resources to prison inmates, articles, perspectives, fact sheets, and tracts come through our faithful friends who offer their prayers and support that allow us to continue equipping Christians with reasonable answers to the most pressing questions of our day. Please consider joining us in our battle for the truth.

— Warren Nozaki, Research

Journal Topics

Injunction Funding for Stem Cell Research by Bob Perry

On Monday August 23, 2010, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. pronounced an injunction on the use of federal funding for embryo destructive stem cell research. The New York Times’ (for one example) reaction to the announcement was one of stunned indignation:

“The ruling came as a shock to scientists at the National Institutes of Health and at universities across the country, which had viewed the Obama administration’s new policy and the grants provided under it as settled law.”

What the Times failed to note in its story was that Judge Lamberth was not the first federal official to strike a legal blow against President Barack Obama’s stem cell policy and thereby block federal funding of embryo destructive stem cell research. The first such move actually occurred on March 11, 2009. That move was made by … President Barack Obama.

The fact is that Judge Lamberth’s ruling is perfectly consistent with the law. While the administration, with great public fanfare, claimed to have “lifted the ban” on ESCR with his March 9, 2009 Executive Order (EO), Mr. Obama quietly overrode his own EO just two days later when he re-signed (as has every president since 1996) the Dickey-Wicker Amendment to a federal appropriations bill. This amendment bans public funding of research that destroys human embryos. Mr. Obama signed it. He didn’t call a big press conference to herald the occasion because doing so would not fit the narrative he is trying to sell about his forward looking faith in comparison to the Luddites who oppose ESCR.

The dirty little secret here is that the stem cell research EO Mr. Obama and those in his administration have called “policy” and referred to as “settled law” is a hollow document that carries no legal force. His signing of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment into law is binding and the unquestionable basis on which Judge Lamberth rendered his decision.

The reality of that fact is something pro-lifers need to soak in. Though it is becoming a fading memory, it serves to remind us of another EO Mr. Obama issued during the health care debate. In exchange for the votes of so-called “pro-life Democrats,” Mr. Obama issued an EO proclaiming there would be no federal funding of abortion in the health care bill. They bought it. He signed it. And now we are left with an EO on abortion that contains the same amount of legal power we find in his EO on stem cell research.

None.