Posted on Feb 21, 2007 | by Erin Roach

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Prompted by the media attention being given to the “Blasphemy Challenge” website urging people to deny the Holy Spirit, a seminary president has issued a challenge to atheists who want to ask relevant questions about the existence of God.

“Our faith is hooked to the God who created all logic and all knowledge,” Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Va., said Feb. 7. “I’m telling you lazy Christianity will not change one person. It takes a heart committed to the cross, a mind committed to learn, a mouth committed to stand and speak, and a person committed to the simple act of courtesy in answering honest questions.”

The “Rational Response Squad” is behind the Blasphemy Challenge website that urges people -- especially teens -- to submit videos in which they “damn themselves to hell” by stating the phrase “I deny the Holy Spirit.” More than 1,000 videos reportedly have been submitted.

Caner said the Blasphemy Challenge is an ideal opportunity to answer the legitimate questions of skeptics while emphasizing the intellectual defenses of Christian theology, according to a news release from the seminary Feb. 8.

“They’re asking questions because they see a gap between faith and reason,” Caner said.

So Caner, a converted Muslim and a church history professor, invited leading atheists to participate in an intellectual dialogue concerning whether God exists.

“To any one of you I say, ‘Bring it,’ because I believe that by using rational, coherent rules of logic and law that the God who created those rules of law will manifest Himself,” Caner said at Liberty University’s Campus Church.

He addressed the Rational Response Squad directly when he said, to the applause of more than 4,000 college students, “You asked for Christians to prove what we believe. So we accept this challenge. If you want answers, we’ll give them to you. Invite your most brilliant colleagues and we’ll bring ours. We only ask three things: 1) That we all follow the rules of logic; 2) that we agree that the Bible is an old book; and 3) that we treat each other respectfully.”

Caner has exchanged e-mails with Brian Sapient, leader of the Rational Response Squad, about appearing on the group’s radio program in early March in the first of possibly three forums for discussion. Caner told Sapient he takes seriously the genuine questions the group raises and he doesn’t want to answer them by shouting platitudes.

For updates and podcasts of Caner’s talks at Liberty’s Campus Church, visit www.liberty.edu/lts.

‘MISS AMERICA’ CONTESTANT PROMOTES MODESTY -- The Miss America Pageant, a decades-old tradition in American culture, continues to push the envelope in order to grab coveted viewers who have been tuning out the broadcast in recent years.

The parade of bodies has become so risqué that this year Miss Utah, Katie Millar, decided to take a stand for modesty by choosing to wear a less revealing evening gown and a one-piece swimsuit. And she finished in the Top 10, despite some criticism from her fellow contestants.

“My message as Miss Utah expands beyond just the pageant world,” Millar told the Daily Herald in her hometown of Highland, Utah. “I hope that I am an example to all young women that you can uphold traditional values and be successful at the same time.”

Mary Mohler, whose husband R. Albert Mohler Jr. is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was pleased with Millar’s decision to not give in to pressure about what she should wear.

“While the issues behind why one would enter a pageant like this anyway are certainly up for debate, I think Katie Millar is to be commended for her brave stand for modesty in the Miss America Pageant,” Mohler, who has led workshops on modesty, said in a statement to Baptist Press. “Her swimsuit clearly stood out among the others as modest but was certainly stylish and feminine as well. Her evening gown was elegant in every way but did not cross the line that the vast majority of her contenders did.

“I find it interesting that she was subjected to ridicule by fellow contestants who were aghast that she would seemingly forfeit any chance of advancing by opting for modest attire,” Mohler, director of the Seminary Wives Institute at Southern, added. “Imagine their disbelief when she was selected to be among the top ten.”

Millar’s stand, Mohler said, proved that, first, modest attire is available and can be both fashionable and flattering.

“Secondly, secular judges in a pageant were forced to honestly recognize that this woman’s external beauty was evident, and in fact, outstanding, even though she didn’t succumb to worldly standards of fashion to display it,” Mohler said. “We can only hope that impressionable young women, as well as more seasoned women who have unwisely thought otherwise, will take note of these profound lessons and run with them.”

BUSH ADDS MILLIONS TO ABSTINENCE FUNDING -- President Bush included a $28 million increase in federal funding for abstinence programs in his proposed 2008 budget, and he did not increase funding for “safe sex” education, according to the Family Research Council’s Action Update Feb. 12.

“If the measure succeeds, the government’s commitment to abstinence programs would reach an unprecedented $191 million. Although many believe the idea will be dead-on-arrival in the new Congress, it does suggest that the White House is willing to fight on issues that affect the family,” FRC Action said. “If the new Congressional majority wishes to make good on its promise to reach out to the faith and family community, we urge it to take the first step by affirming the President’s plan.”

The $191 million, which is part of the Health and Human Services budget, would support community-based programs that teach and encourage sexual abstinence among adolescents ages 12 to 18.

But one of those programs has drawn headlines in Montgomery County, Md., where the Rockville Pregnancy Center has been barred from teaching its abstinence curriculum called “Worth the Wait” after using a controversial object lesson.

“To illustrate the effects of peer pressure and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), leaders passed out a piece of gum and asked students to take turns chewing it (some did),” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, wrote in his Washington Update Feb. 13. “The demonstration was completely voluntary, said teachers, and the obvious purpose was to use the student’s wariness about sharing gum to demonstrate the risks of sexual intimacy.”

After a parent complained to school officials, the pregnancy center, which had been speaking at the school for nine years and is faith-based, was told not to return.

Deputy superintendent Frieda K. Lacey wrote a memo to school board members Jan. 12 assuring them that all future speakers for lessons on human sexuality and disease prevention will face a content review. She called the gum game “repulsive,” according to The Washington Post, and said the employees who approved the pregnancy center’s visit are “no longer employed.”

“Every effort will be taken to prevent this from happening again,” Lacey wrote.

Pregnancy center workers are concerned a dangerous void will be left because they spoke to 6,500 students last year and now a strong message about abstinence will be absent.

“In the end, the real lack of judgment lies not with ‘Worth the Wait’ but with school officials who overreacted to one lesson and threw the baby out with the bathwater,” Perkins wrote. “Surely most parents would agree that given the choice, they would much rather have their children swap a stick of gum than a deadly infection.”
--30--