 In October of 2009, the journal Science published a ground breaking article by P. Sargent Bray and Ken B. Anderson bearing the exciting title of “Identification of Carboniferous (320 Million Years Old) Class Ic Amber.” Well, maybe that doesn’t sound all that exciting after all, but it should. You see, this article presents evidence which turns the theory of plant evolution completely upside down.
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 In recent years, I have been blessed with the opportunity to become actively involved in our nation's political system. I've been given opportunities to work for a few campaigns, write for a couple of political action groups and just generally do a few minor things here and there to make a difference. In the process of all this, I was astonished to meet with opposition from other Christians, and I soon learned that there are a significant number of Christians who sincerely believe that we should not be involved in the government in any way at all.
 I was reading through the records of the Continental Congress yesterday when I came across a letter written by Elias Boudinot to his 18 year old daughter, Susan. At the time that this letter was written, Boudinot was the President of the Congress. The war with England was coming to a close, and within six months, Boudinot would sign the Treaty of Paris to bring about the official end of the Revolutionary War. In the years following, Boudinot was elected to the first Congress where he helped frame the Bill of Rights. Many people are familiar with Boudinot’s statement that:
 In my previous article, I referenced the experiments of Guy Bethault demonstrating that multiple layers of strata can be laid down simultaneously in the presence of a current. An additional proof of the rapid deposition of the layers of the Earth’s crust can be seen in the existence of fossils known as polystrate fossils. Polystrate fossils are fossils that cross two or more layers of strata. These fossils would be impossible if the layers had been laid down through the gradual accumulation of sediment that is proposed by old earth geologists. The fact that such fossils exist supports the creation model in which many layers of sediment were laid down quickly during the flood and its aftermath.
 The geologic case for an old earth rests on three principle – the principles of superposition developed by Nicolas Steno in 1669, the principle of faunal succession presented by William Smith in 1816, and the principle of uniformitarianism developed by Charles Lyell in 1833. Using these three principles, old earth geologists constructed a hypothetical geologic column in which successive layers of rock each represent long ages of time in Earth’s history. However, when these principles are actually tested in the field or in the laboratory, they are often found to disagree with observations.
 After posting my recent articles on the biblical view of homosexuality, I was once again confronted with the argument that the biblical writers had no concept of same-sex love and, thus, could not have been condemning the type of homosexuality that is prevalent in America today. The primary claim made in this argument is that first century Roman culture viewed homosexual activity as being the result of wildly uncontrolled lusts. Supposedly, the Romans of that time period had never considered the possibility that people could have a sexual orientation which causes them to be genuinely attracted to members of the same sex.
 Certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth, fit to take rank as one of the coordinate States of the Union, than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guaranty of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement.
 One of the most common responses to the claim that the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin is the counter claim that the word arsenokoitai used in I Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:9-10 is not a reference to homosexuals. Those making this claim have proposed a range of alternative translations for arsenokoitai ranging from male pederasts to the assertion that “we just don’t know what it means.” Over the past ten years, I’ve been confronted with this claim on several occasions, and I’ve put together a short list of resources that I turn to whenever it comes up.
 The second appeal to authority which dominates the old earth creationist perspective is an appeal to the Church Fathers. Now, whenever one reads the writings of the Church Fathers, it is important to remember who these men are. It is improper to think of these men as being on an equal plane with the writers of Scripture. The Church Fathers are merely the entire collection of Christian leaders from the first five hundred years of church history whose writings have survived to this day. These writings are not authoritative in any sense, and in many cases, they contain doctrines which contradict Scripture and are rejected as heretical by the vast majority of Christians.
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Bill Fortenberry is a Christian philosopher and historian in Birmingham, AL. Bill's work has been cited in several legal journals, and he has appeared as a guest on shows including The Dr. Gina Show, The Michael Hart Show, and Real Science Radio.
Contact Us if you would like to schedule Bill to speak to your church, group, or club. "Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning." (Proverbs 9:9)
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