I just caught a couple minutes of a Discovery channel program entitled “Expedition Unknown: Mysteries of Jesus,” and was once again appalled at the way the “stars” of the show misled the unwary viewer.
 
The onscreen expert was apparently flying the host to Galilee where, he said, Jesus may have been born rather than Bethlehem. The host quickly pulled out his pocket Bible to verify the possibility. He turned to and read a verse that said something along the lines of “Jesus from Galilee.”
 
“Ah,” said the host, assuring us that he always checks these things against the Bible, “the gospels contain conflicting information.” Or something like that. I didn’t have a pen in hand, poised to take notes, and my fury over this deliberate deception may have distorted my memory of his exact words.  
 
But his message was clear: The gospels can’t even get Jesus’ birthplace straight. How can you possibly trust anything they say?
 
Never mind that the gospels are clear: Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea; Joseph and Mary had gone there for the census. After a detour to Egypt to escape the murderous Herod, they headed back to Israel with the infant Jesus  and settled in Nazareth of Galilee—the town where Jesus grew up, lived and worked. Hence, subsequent references to Jesus said He came from Nazareth or Galilee. 
 
It’s not really rocket science. I was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, but if someone asks me today where I’m from, I name my current town.
 
But the host of “Expedition Unknown”didn’t bother to investigate. Instead, he left hanging the implication that the Bible is inaccurate.
 
“Don’t pretty your little heads about the Bible,” he might as well have said. “It’s filled with error. We’ll tell you all you need to know about this Jesus.”
 
I’ll bet 90% of the audience for this program consists of people who have some level of interest in Jesus Christ, and almost no knowledge of scripture. And I’ll bet that very few, having watched this hatchet job, will bother to crack open a Bible in the future.
 
In short: mission accomplished, Discovery channel.   
 
It’s hardly the first time such deception has distorted coverage of the Bible. I’ve blogged about such incidents in the past – for instance, one that occurred on the History Channel and another perpetrated by our local newspaper. And I’m sure someone out there is amassing daily examples of such blasphemous reporting.
 
I suppose we'd better get used to it. Satan knows he’s running out of time, and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep his disciples from consulting the word of God. 

To create a coherent picture from jigsaw-puzzle pieces, you have to have all the pieces in hand. Or most of them, anyway; we have learned that it is possible to complete a puzzle even after the cats have fed the dogs a half-dozen or so.

Trouble is, when it comes to biblical Christianity, you aren’t going to get most of the pieces unless you search them out. Jesus has been banned from our public institutions, and the news media are largely silent on any topic that might paint the Bible in a positive light.

Dr. Hitchcock’s book got me to thinking about news coverage of topics related to faith – especially, since it’s sort of my thing these days,  the play given to pronouncements by evolutionists. And here’s the truth: Every couple of weeks, I see or hear a prominent story on some new evolutionary discovery that promises to be the missing link. At the same time, pronouncements about vast ages – the old “millions and millions of years” bit – are presented as fact, with nary an attribution to provide even a hint of opinion being mixed in with fact. 

I grumble to Dave about this regularly over the morning newspaper.

“Listen to this,” I usually begin, forcing him to bear witness to yet another unattributed paragraph or two.

He normally just sips his coffee and nods and buries himself further in the section he’s reading, no doubt hoping I’ll be quiet. Neither of us likes to be read to, especially not from a story we’ll soon have the opportunity to read ourselves, or one we’ve already taken a pass on. But I usually toss such concerns aside when I’m hot on the trail of yet another evolutionary fairy tale.

“What kills me,” I then say, “is that when they finally figure out this isn’t what they thought it was, we won’t see any follow-up stories to let us know we’ve been misled by these clowns. And the clowns themselves don’t care; by that time they’ll have used this alleged discovery to get themselves fat new grants.”

“Terrible,” Dave typically agrees, wise enough to let me run with it.

“And in the meantime, the public is left with the impression that evolution is fact.”

“They should really all be shot, just as soon as possible.”

He doesn’t mean this, of course. But it always makes me laugh, putting an end to my complaint.

But it doesn’t put an end to this problem of the news media presenting paleontologists’ just-so tales as fact. Even when the claims are highly controversial – for example, there’s no small debate raging about whether Lucy was a human relative or simply an extinct chimp – conventional news channels never bother to point it out.

This would be somewhat tolerable if news relating to Christianity received the same treatment: Unquestioning publicity, with no follow up if things turn out to be not quite as they seemed at first blush.

But as long as I’ve been watching, I haven’t seen that happen, not once.

For instance, the ossuary that might have contained the bones of Jesus’ brother James, unearthed in Israel in 2002, was reported on amidst repeated charges of fraud. Whether or not it was genuine didn’t matter; readers were left with the impression that biblical artifacts should be viewed with suspicion that is rarely leveled against evolutionary claims.

Or consider the 2006 discovery of a 400+-foot object in the mountains of Iran, more than 13,000 feet above sea level. Its finders believe it might be the remains of Noah’s Ark. They had it tested by a Houston lab – one that the Smithsonian itself uses – and supposedly learned that it is indeed made of petrified wood, complete with fossilized sea critters buried inside.

I have no idea if this discovery will turn out to be anything more than another false alarm. But what’s really interesting about it to me is the lack of interest it has generated in the news media. For weeks after the initial announcement, which I came across via a Christian news service, I searched the Internet diligently to see how the nation’s big news organizations handled the story.

Surprise: Most ignored it.

Why is that?  A few bones can be declared evidence that we evolved from slime, and the newspapers are all over it; an archeological finding may prove the story of the Genesis Flood true, and it’s greeted with a big yawn.

There’s definitely something wrong here.

–From Heaven Without Her, pages  260-262

Okay, so I’m admittedly obsessed with Adoniram Judson and his wives, missionaries to Burma in the first half of the 19th century. You can read my comments on two books about them here and here. I won’t say much more about them right now (although I intend to reread To the Golden Shore this winter, Lord willing, and reserve the right to say a lot more on the subject by spring).
 
But I didn’t want to close this chapter on my mania without highlighting a fascinating passage from Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons, published in 1855—a passage that underscores the fundamental difference between Christianity and man-made religion. Here, on pages 20-25, author Arabella Stuart provides a fabulous description of the allegedly impregnable Buddhism that Adoniram and first wife Ann encountered when they arrived in Burma. 
 
Some excerpts:
 
“A curious feature of Buddhism is that one of the highest motives it presents to its followers is the ‘obtaining of merit.’ Merit is obtained by avoiding sins, such as theft, lying, intoxication, and the like; and by practicing virtues and doing good works.  The most meritorious of all good works is to make an idol; the next to build a pagoda … If they give alms, or treat animals kindly, or repeat prayers, or do any other good deed, they do it entirely with this mercenary view of obtaining merit.”
 
Why, one might ask, would a Buddhist want to obtain merit? Stuart tells us:
 
“This ‘merit’ is not so much to procure them happiness in another world, as to secure them from suffering in their future transmigrations in this; for they believe that the soul of one who dies without have laid up any merit will have to pass into the body of some mean reptile or insect, and from that to another, through hundreds of changes, perhaps, before it will be allowed again to take the form of man.”
 
Granted, it seems a silly worldview, especially since there’s absolutely no evidence that it’s true. But if everyone is working towards the goal of not waking up as a cockroach in the next life, at least it must make for a loving and selfless culture?
 
Not exactly, according to Stuart:
 
“This reliance on ‘merit,’ and certainty of obtaining it through prescribed methods, fosters their conceit, so that ignorant and debased as they are, there is scarcely a nation more offensively proud. It also renders them entirely incapable of doing or appreciating a disinterested action, or of feeling such a sentiment as gratitude. If you do them a favor, they suppose you do it to obtain merit for yourself, and of course feel no obligation to you.”
 
The result?
 
“The simple phrase, ‘I thank you,’ is unknown in their language.”
 
Stuart goes on to quote the Foreign Quarterly Review, which reported that the highest rank to which a Buddhist can obtain is “no other than that diseased animal, the White Elephant.”  This creature supposedly houses “a blessed soul of some human being, which has arrived at the last stage of the many millions of transmigrations it was doomed to undergo, and which, when it escapes, will be absorbed into the essence of the Deity.”
 
Stuart concludes her account thusly:
 
“Such was the stupendous system of superstition and ignorance, which two feeble missionaries armed like David when he met the Philistine with ‘trust in the Lord his God,’ ventured to attack, and hoped to subdue.”
 
For many Burmese, this trust was enough. When he died in 1850, Adoniram Judson left behind more than 8000 Burmese converts to Christianity. And thanks in large part to his work, today there are over 4 million believers in Burma (now Myanmar)—approaching 10% of the population (per Christian History, Issue 90, Spring 2006, pages 35-37). That’s an enormous army of men and women who have turned from wishing on White Elephants to trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
And just think: as believers ourselves, one happy day we’ll get to hear, first-hand, precisely how He set them free!

More than 300 years ago, French mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal identified the human spirit’s main problem. He called it the “infinite abyss,” and said it can be filled “only by God himself."
 
Pascal was right: life doesn’t work apart from God. It’s not supposed to. He created us for Himself, after all. If we are not walking with Him day in, day out, we are missing our very reason for being.  
 
Until we realize this, our lives can be empty -- or miserable.
 
We may hide it well, even from ourselves, by worshipping idols of our own making.
 
For some of us, that means working long hours, trying to prove our worth through the praises of employers or clients or through steadily growing bank accounts.
 
Others may drown their troubles in alcohol or drugs, or obsess over relationships, especially those involving romantic love.  
 
Then there are those who live for entertainment. That might mean a non-stop merry-go-round of theater, ballet, symphony, films, and literature. It might mean parties galore, or dinner with different friends every night, or Ph.D.-level study of professional or college sports (or both). It might mean traveling to increasingly exotic locales, or reveling in nature, music, art or pets.
 
And don’t forget those who are consumed with health or gastronomy. They may interrogate everything that passes the lips, or shop and cook artfully and extravagantly. (Was the apostle Paul including such folks when he wrote of those whose “god is their belly” in Philippians 3:19?)
 
I’ve only scratched the surface, of course. Turn this way and you’ll see people indulging in frenzies of home remodeling; that way, and you’ll find jam-packed clothes closets larger than most living rooms or gardens filled with small fortunes in exotic plants or kids playing endless video games. 
 
Anything to fill the void.
 
And still, nothing on this earth really satisfies. Nothing comes close to freeing us from Pascal’s “infinite abyss.”
 
I know whereof I write, having pursued some of these idols myself in the decades before Jesus Christ transformed my heart and my life.
 
The good news is that He’s willing to transform anyone's. We need only seek God; He has promised that, if we do, we will find Him.
 
“And you will seek Me and find Me,” He said through His prophet Jeremiah (29:13), “when you search for Me with all your heart.”
 
When we do this, we can kiss our idols goodbye.
 
Are you ready to find Him? There's no better place to start than the Bible. ​

One of the most wonderful things about being a born-again Christian is the absolute certainty that eternal joy is just around the bend—and that in heaven, we will be reunited with all our beloved believers who’ve gone on ahead.  Here’s what two elderly Christian friends had to say to each other as they faced an imminent, albeit temporary, separation. 
 
They sat in companionable silence for a while, letting their minds drift.
         
Finally, Sadie reached out and took her friend’s hands in her own.
         
“Beulah, my dear, I just wanted to say that you have become my dearest friend in these last few months, and I’m so grateful for you.” She swallowed hard; somehow she hadn’t imagined this as being a difficult monologue. “Will you please remember that?”
         
Beulah’s eyes were wide with surprise.
         
“Sadie Sparrow, are you trying to tell me something? Are you going on ahead?”
         
“I think so,” Sadie said, smiling tenderly at her friend. “I think it will be soon. I feel it in my bones, as my mother used to say.”
         
Beulah squeezed her hands. “Well, that’s just fine, Sadie. I will miss you, but it will only be for a little while.”
         
“That’s right, Beulah. Just a short time, in light of eternity.”
         
They smiled at each other, not attempting to hide the tears in their eyes.
         
“Sadie,” Beulah said finally, “once you’ve had a chance to see Ed and your folks and everyone, would you do me a favor? Find my Norbert, and tell him that I’ll be with him just as soon as I can. And tell him that Bunny’s wonderful. Will you do that for me?”
 
--From The Song of Sadie Sparrow, pages 167-168