Table of Contents
Volume 41, Number 4
July - August 2010

Significant Trends
James Lutzweiler

The Ten Penny Proof for God. I’d like to repent right here and now for being so hard on atheists. For years I have been clubbing them with the exponential improbability of 100 monkeys cranking out a sonnet of Shakespeare – make that a single line from such a sonnet – by giving them all a typewriter and letting them hammer away for a few million years.

The logistics themselves of such an exercise are immense (where to get the monkeys, how to feed them, where to get the typewriters, who to oversee the project, etc.). For the record, the chances of them doing so are represented by a fraction the numerator of which is one and the denominator of which is a number greater than the number of atoms in the universe. But for some atheists I have known, that’s still a pretty good probability.

After reading a stimulating byte from a recent issue of the Hite Report, I have concluded there is a far simpler, more powerful and more practical way to eviscerate these philosophical parasites. Ten pennies ought to do the trick – and in far less time. You no doubt already see where I am going with this.

Simply take ten pennies of ten different dates and let the thinker lay them out on a table (or even on top of a copy of The Origin of Species, whatever) in any order of his choosing. Then have him put them in his pocket and begin trying to pull them out in the same order in which he placed them on the table. The chances are far better than the monkey exercise but still functionally improbable.

Nickels will also work, and dimes and quarters and silver dollars. Even counterfeit money will work. Give those folks every chance to do it their way.

Fundamentalist Erwin Lutzer Gives Cold Water to Thirsty Atheist! Yes, It’s True! Speaking of atheists, I had occasion recently to sup and visit with Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago. As we walked past the Newberry Library to an appointment, he told me about Bughouse Square there. In short, Bughouse Square is a city block in Chicago where people can mount a soapbox and declaim whatever they want to declaim. Google it for more interesting information.

For several years, Lutzer has gone to an annual event (coming again in July) at Bughouse Square to proclaim the everlasting gospel. He also listens to the other speakers with a view toward engaging them in evangelistic discussions.

On one such occasion Chicago’s notorious atheist, Rob Sherman, was declaiming his delusions. As he waxed on, his voice began to give out. Lutzer, like Elijah before the prophets of Baal, gave Sherman his bottle of water so he could finish his foolishness.

Lutzer is not the first to give a theological enemy a break. According to University of Tennessee PhD candidate, Keith Lyon, the fundamentalist T. T. Martin did something similar during the Scopes Trial. He once “furnished his [own] outdoor pulpit one night ... to a pro-evolution Unitarian minister who had been prevented by threats of violence from giving a scheduled talk in a local church,” explaining to the mystified liberal that he wanted “to see you get a square deal.”

In the process, Martin earned the respect of H. L. Mencken, no friend to fundamentalists. I suspect Sherman is still pondering Lutzer’s gift of cold water to an enemy who thirsted.

Faraday a Fundamentalist. It is fashionable among some “scientists” to pick on fundamentalists as anti-intellectual bigots and southern yokels (yokels, by the way, whose souls and personal value are still estimated by Jesus to be worth “the whole world”). The usual foil is the Catholic Church and its treatment of Galileo.

This tripe is beginning to wear a little thin. Let me withdraw that estimate and state that this tripe went out of style with the covered wagon. Maybe even before. Strange it is that these same folks never invoke the name of Michael Faraday, one of the most renowned scientists in world history.

I came across Faraday again recently when reading a book entitled Empire of Light. The book is about the battle between Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse as to who was going to be the first to light up America – and the world for that matter. To a large degree all of their work was rooted in the researches and experiments of Faraday, whose fundamentalism did not seem to impair his frontal lobe.

I weary of the hegemony that many professional scientists feel they have over Christian thinkers. No real estate imperialists that I know of rank with these intellectual imperialists. When I think of them, I am reminded of a professor of science at the University of Tennessee who once told his class that in ten years at least half of what he was telling them then would no longer be valid. Then he added, “And I’m not sure which half!”

Jesus told us to love God with all of our minds and to be the light of the world. At the practical level we could not do much better than to emulate Faraday the fundy.

Emerson and his Gallows. In a lecture at Tremont Temple back in 1859, Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to John Brown as “The Saint, whose fate yet hangs in suspense, but whose martyrdom, if it shall be perfected, will make the gallows as glorious as the cross” (emphasis mine). Knowing full well that this statement is absurd, I have pondered over it for many years nevertheless.

My pondering was amply rewarded in Chicago on the same trip mentioned above. I had occasion to visit the Chicago Historical Society which is right across the street from Moody Church. There under glass and very easy to overlook I saw on exhibit a tiny gallows the size of a necklace pendant. It is the first gallows I have ever laid eyes on except for the real ones in pictures. But before this day is over, I might see a dozen crosses hanging from the necks of women (and men) or crosses on steeples (except for the chapel at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland, where the doltish trustees replaced the cross with a lightning rod! Go figure) or even on sweatshirts.

So, was Emerson among the prophets? I think not. The cross remains incomparable. And so with the hymn writer and with Faraday and Lutzer and T. T. Martin,

In the cross of Christ I glory,

Towering o’er the wrecks of time.

All the light of sacred story

Gathers round its head sublime.

When the woes of life o'ertake me,
Hopes deceive, and fears annoy,
Never shall the cross forsake me:
Lo, it glows with peace and joy.
When the sun of bliss is beaming
Light and love upon my way,
From the cross the radiance streaming
Adds new luster to the day.
Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure,
By the cross are sanctified;
Peace is there that knows no measure,
Joys that through all time abide.