Century Marks

Century Marks

Christian science?

May 10, 2013

A group of paleontologists capped off a conference by visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky. The museum’s mission is to “bring the pages of the Bible to life.” Some of the paleontologists present were Christians who were more saddened by what they saw than humored. “I think it’s very bad science and even worse theology—and the theology is far more offensive to me,” said Lisa Park, a Presbyterian who teaches at the University of Akron. She was particularly saddened by one exhibit that blamed wars, famine and natural disasters on belief in evolution. Daryl Domning, professor at Howard University said: “This bothers me as a scientist and as a Christian, because it’s just as much a distortion and misrepresentation of Christianity as it is of science” (AFP).

Fuel up

May 10, 2013

Leaders at the Pentagon are not among those who deny the reality of global warming. They’re working on strategies to respond the effects of climate change. They are also trying to reduce depen­dence on fossil fuels through the use of alternative energy. The Defense Depart­ment consumes 90 percent of fuel used by the federal government, at a cost of $16 billion in 2008. No wonder the Pen­ta­gon is ex­perimenting with fighter jets fueled by a combination of jet fuel, cooking grease and algae (Orion, May/June).

Rain down

May 10, 2013

From the heart of New Mexico to West Texas and Oklahoma, the pressures of drought have led Christian preachers and Catholic priests to encourage prayer processions and American Indian tribes to use their closely guarded traditions to coax Mother Nature to deliver some much needed rain. An interfaith service in Oklahoma City was held where Christian, Muslim and Jewish prayers were used for rain. The Catholic bishop in Lubbock is planning a special mass at which farmers can have their seeds and soil blessed. The archbishop of New Mexico’s largest diocese has turned to social media to urge parishioners to pray: “Look to our dry hills and fields, dear God, and bless them with the living blessing of soft rain. Then the land will rejoice and rivers will sing your praises, and the hearts of all will be made glad” (AP).

Food first

May 10, 2013

Nearly 260,000 people died during the Somalian food crisis of 2010–12. Over half of them were children under five. The deaths are attributed to an Islamist militia group that kept aid from getting to the area, warlords who stole food aid, and officials in the capital who diverted food aid. The U.S. war on terror is also to blame, because it and the World Food Program ceased giving aid to the region after the Islamist militia group was named a terrorist organization. A spokesperson for the aid group Oxfam said, “When . . . people are dying of hunger, politics should not play a part” (Chicago Tribune, May 3).

Guns galore

May 10, 2013

The growth in the number of civilians owning military-style guns can be traced back to a deal made in the mid-1980s between Rene Carlos Vos, a gun dealer, and Wayne LaPierre, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. They formed a company called Blue Sky to import from South Korea M-1 rifles that had been used in the Korean War. The legislation that made the project possible was an amendment to a Senate bill offered by Bob Dole, Republican senator from Kansas, which for the first time allowed the importation of U.S. military weapons as long as they were “curios and relics.” LaPierre soon pulled out of Blue Sky when it faced criminal charges, and Vos was killed in a plane crash in 1987, but the company opened a floodgate of guns. By 2012, one million of what gun advocates call “modern sporting rifles” were flooding the U.S. market each year, from both foreign and domestic sources (Washington Post, May 3).