Friday, August 15, 2008
Alright, it was stupid to think the candidates might be willing to debate
scientific issues just because the survival of civilization is at stake.
Tomorrow, at the 22,000 member Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA,
they will appear separately to talk about "values" in a nationally
televised "Civil Forum on the Presidency" (CNN and MSNBC). The moderator
will be famed evangelical mega pastor Rick Warren, author of the
bestselling The Purpose Driven Life, and a passionate opponent of choice.
Warren is seen by many as the successor to Billy Graham as the nation's
pastor in chief. Let me put it this way, of those who click on the Civil
Forum rather than the preseason Jets game with their new old-quarterback,
Brett Favre, most will do so to see Rick Warren rather than the two
presidential candidates trying to out-Jesus each other. The overwhelming
majority of young (and old) evangelicals have identified with the GOP, but
a front page story in the Washington Post today says that both sides are
now courting the young evangelical vote.
Todd Bentley, 32, is a revival preacher from British Columbia, who for
several months has been conducting a twice-daily revival he calls the
Outpouring in Lakeland, Florida. His gimmick is one of the oldest in the
revival profession: Todd Bentley is a reformed bad boy. He looks the part
with full-body tattoos, facial piercing, and clothes to match. Are there
any laws to protect people from faith healers? There are few laws to
protect people from any kind of health quack, least of all faith healers
who wrap themselves in the first amendment. It's almost always a question
of intent. Bentley says he gets visits from the apostle Paul, but who is
to say he doesn't. Up to 10,000 people a day flock to a baseball stadium
to be revived. But this week Bentley's Fresh Fire Ministries announced
that he is separating from his wife and will be ending his Florida revival.
To feed a burgeoning population, the world embraced the Green Revolution,
using science to increase food production beyond anything imagined.
Norman Borlaug, who is credited with having led the Green Revolution,
offered a warning in his 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Address. "We are dealing
with two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and
biologic power of human reproduction." Reproduction always wins. Runoff
of phosphorous and nitrogen fertilizers produces algae population
explosions in coastal waters. Dead algae sink to bottom where they feed
masses of oxygen-depleting bacteria. A global survey of the resulting
dead zones finds they are doubling every ten years; more evidence that we
are already past the point of sustainable population. But science has
also given us cheap, effective, contraceptives, the easy availability of
which must be made a part of all humanitarian aid. It's not like we have
a choice; our planet is finite.
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