The Opioid Issue: Part 4

August 9, 2018August 13, 2018 / The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

Part Four: Taking It to the Streets

1280px-Homeless_woman

The opioid epidemic doesn’t stay behind closed doors. It’s spilling into public life, spurring crime and homelessness.

The opioid crisis has hit hard in Macomb County, Michigan. Composed of 27 Detroit suburbs, the county has the state’s second-highest opioid-related overdose death rate, more than double the national average. District Court Judge Linda Davis has been on the bench 17 years. She sees the consequences pretty much every day. “When I look at the docket I handle, I’d say 70 percent is addiction-related,” she says, not counting low-level traffic offenses like driving on a suspended license. “We’ve definitely seen a rise in thefts with this opioid surge.”

22SCI-NUMBER-articleLarge

Although opioid addiction often starts out legally, recent years have seen a shift toward illegal opioids. It’s an all-to-familiar story: People get hooked on prescription painkillers, often moving on to heroin, which can be cheaper on the street. Since 2011, as prescription opioid overdose deaths leveled off, heroin overdoses started rising. Starting in 2014, illicit fentanyl deaths began spiking upward. Whatever the substance, the cost mounts up fast. So many users resort to theft. They’ll steal from family, friends, acquaintances or strangers. They’ll shoplift, commit fraud, rob pharmacies, break into homes or cars. Even commit armed robbery. And whether or not they’re committing those crimes themselves, their desperate dependency can feed some even worse ones.

Lethal Combination

In 2015, the nation’s homicide rate rose sharply (11 percent) after decades of decline. The uptrend continued in 2016, climbing another 8 percent. Some observers looked for racial reasons for it. There could be one, says Richard Rosenfeld, an emeritus professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. But he thinks there’s more to the story. When Rosenfeld looked into the data, he quickly saw homicides had jumped among several ethnicities—and it was very pronounced among whites.

“The increase is quite abrupt, quite recent and quite large, at levels we hadn’t seen since the early 1990s outside of 9/11,” Rosenfeld says. “The ‘Ferguson Effect’ doesn’t explain that. So what might explain it? The opioid epidemic, for one thing—which crosses racial lines, but is most concentrated among whites. Drug-related homicides rose more than 21 percent in 2015, a rate far higher than other common categories of homicide, which rose between 3 and 5 percent. Rosenfeld said it stands to reason that there’d be a connection between the spikes in opioid use and lethal violence.

Shell Casing and Sign.jpg

“It’s not opioid use per se that sparks violence, but the markets,” Rosenfeld says. “When disputes arise between sellers or buyers, they can’t be settled by police or courts or the Better Business Bureau. As the number of buyers expands, so does the number of disputes that turn deadly will also go up.”

Just how big a role do opioids play in driving the rise in homicides? That calls for more research, Rosenfeld says. But he sees ample evidence to sound the warning and to call for addressing the root causes. “Policymakers and law enforcement are framing this as a public-health crisis more than as a criminal-justice crisis, and I’m very much in favor of that,” he says. “The bottom line is: If we reduce demand, we reduce crime.”

“We Don’t Want Those People Here!”

Reducing demand for opioids would likely reduce other social pathologies too. Like homelessness. “For those of us who’ve been providing health care to people who are homeless, this is not a new problem,” says Barbara DiPietro, senior policy director for the National Health Care for the Homeless Council. “We’ve been seeing opioid addiction and overdoses for decades.

Homeless and Hungry Please Help.jpg

“When people are in a spiral and aren’t getting the help they need, oftentimes they lose their jobs and their ability to pay rent. Before you know it, you cycle through family and friends, and you’re in a shelter or on the street.” Of course, not all people who are homeless have addiction issues, but those that do have a harder time getting into treatment once the stability of housing is gone. Living on the street could easily drive anyone to substance abuse. Maybe you started with alcohol, but once you were on the street, you found other things. It’s very hard to get well when you’re homeless.

Federally-qualified health centers provide care to 1.2 million people a year, and the Council provides technical assistance to help improve quality and access. DiPietro says homeless service providers often see clients who never expected to be in this situation. “We see a lot of clients who come from construction work or other hard-physical-labor jobs, who got hurt and got prescriptions for legitimate reasons,” she says. “We see a lot of people who’ve experienced trauma in their lives—child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault. So they self-medicate to deal with the pain.” And on the street, their problems are much more visible than those of people who engage in their addictive behavior behind closed doors.

“They’re living their private lives in a public space,” DiPietro says. “They’re subject to public scrutiny, arrest and incarceration at a much higher rate. And once you have an incarceration history, it’s hard to get housing assistance or a job again.”

While more medical facilities and first responders are being equipped with opioid-overdose medications like naloxone (Narcan), that’s just an emergency measure, not a solution. DiPietro says what people struggling with addiction and homelessness need most is stable housing where they can get effective treatment. Health care providers the Council works with can help, but not enough to meet the scale of the problem.

Right now, communities don’t have the capacity desperately needed to get people into treatment. Another big obstacle is the attitude known as NIMBY—Not in My Back Yard. “Everyone believes treatment is important, but no one wants the services near them,” DiPietro says. “When that’s proposed, they rise up in community meetings and say, “We don’t want those people here.”

We’ve simply got to get beyond that attitude.

A Parting Thought

I spent forty years in active addiction. It started simple enough: A case of beer and an ounce of Colombian Gold. Eighteen months later I was serving 3 to 10 in state prison. Drug and alcohol abuse continued throughout parole and into my thirties, forties and early fifties. My drug use ran the gamut, from weed to cocaine to crack to opiates. When I couldn’t get enough oxycodone through doctors, I began stealing it from friends and family. My addiction cost me plenty, yes, but it also cost my children, my two ex wives, my brothers, my sister, and my parents. I lost jobs, cars, apartments, friends and family. I blew every penny I made, bounced checks, embezzeled, fenced stolen goods. I was enslaved to addiction. Not only did my family disown me for nearly two years, my youngest son didn’t talk to me for five years.

It’s not only the family of addicts that can become fed up and turn their backs on their loved ones struggling with addiction; society has become rather fed up and impatient. One of our local television stations airs a nightly feature called “Talkback 16,” where viewers call to voice their grievances, pet peeves, and, yes, an occasional compliment. Several days after a news story aired about plans to build a drug and alcohol treatment center in the Pocono Mountains (Pennsylvania), a viewer called to complain about the plan, adding, “Not in my neighborhood. [Addicts and alcoholics] can’t be trusted. Besides, they did it to themselves.”

Truly, this attitude must change.

The Opioid Issue: Part 3

August 5, 2018August 7, 2018 / The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

Part Three: A System on the Brink

Already under tremendous strain from a lack of qualified homes and social support, the American foster care system is staring down its toughest opponent yet: the opioid epidemic. Typically, when a mother or father in active addiction has young dependent children, agencies such as Children and Youth or Child and Family Services will remove the children from their parents. Of course, family court judges nearly always focus on possibly reuniting the children and their parents after they become clean and sober.

Consider the mother of a child who was born addicted to opiates. The court removed the infant from the mother’s care and placed him in foster care. After the mother was able to stay clean for one year and put her life back together, the child was returned to her. Sadly, the mother ultimately relapsed, and the child’s health and welfare were put in jeopardy. He would need to reenter the foster care system, this time with the goal of being adopted permanently. Foster Care Collage According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), nearly half a million children nationwide were living in foster care arrangements in 2016—and that number has been rising for the last four years. One could say the very heart of the nation’s foster system is aching for any sort of relief.

A Century-Old Practice

Since creating a Children’s Bureau in 1912, the U.S. government has played a critical role when parents can no longer care for their minor children due to illness, death, criminal activity and/or substance abuse. That care—provided mainly by individual foster families or relatives, but also through group homes and institutions—has at times extended to other nations, such as the more than 8,000 European refugee children who were fostered in American homes during World War II.

Foster Kids Hugging.jpg

Though it has successfully kept millions of children fed, clothed, educated, sheltered and safe over the last 106 years, the American foster system hasn’t been foolproof. In 1972, when President Richard Nixon declared a “National Action for Foster Children Week” to recruit more foster families, the system has been highlighted mostly for its deficits: Too few willing foster parents, too many kids, too little funding and support, too hard on the heart for everyone involved.

Margie Nielsen deals with those shortcomings daily. As the director of Foster Care & Adoption Ministries at Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home (LBCH)—a nonprofit ministry founded in 1899, more than a decade before official government foster care was created—Nielsen’s organization is an official partner of the Louisiana Department of Children & Family Services. Certified foster parents run residential “cottages” that each accommodate up to six children between the ages of 5 and 17. LBCH exists to educate, inform, encourage, support, and strengthen current and prospective foster parents.

While there are many families who clearly are not called to foster, everyone can and should be involved in supporting the families who are. In James 1:27, God’s Word teaches, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (NIV). It is our duty as the Body of Christ to help foster families to understand the call God has placed on their lives and to help equip them to answer that call. A joy, yes—but the last few years have greatly expanded the need for people to answer that call.

With opioid addiction soaring to crisis level, it certainly calls for more information to be disseminated. And while drug addiction of any kind affects everyone, the nation’s opioid crisis has upped the ante. The necessity of developing preventive strategies is felt more than before.

Little Victims

While the connection between drug abuse and children needing foster care is nothing new—think heroin in the 1970s, cocaine in the 1980s, and meth in the 1990s—what has changed the game for today’s foster care system has been the sheer percentage of Americans struggling with opioid addiction across all demographics. The cold hard truth: That number staggers at more than two million, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, a 60-year-old professional society for treatment providers based in Maryland.

According to the National Institute of Health, 21 to 29 percent of patients suffering from chronic pain misuse their prescription opioids, and that often puts them on the path to harder drugs; about 80 percent of people who use heroin first abused prescription opioids, Tragically, around 116 people in the United States die from an opioid overdose every day—that’s one death every seven minutes—translating into tens of thousands of dead Americans annually. In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports more than 200,000 people died from prescription opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2016.

It stands to reason that a significant portion of those people who died, as well as the millions living with addiction, were or are parents of minor children. Indeed, HHS reports 30,000 more children were living in foster homes nationwide in 2015 than in 2012, and substance abuse (including, but not limited to, opioids) was cited as a reason in about one-third of those placements. Drug addiction does not discriminate; sadly, it can hit any family at any time. And often, when it does, children of those struggling with addiction enter the already-pressed foster system.

Nearly One Third.jpg

Simply put, there are not enough foster homes in the United States to accommodate the burgeoning number of kids needing short- and long-term care. In California, for example, the Los Angeles Times reports the number of available beds in qualified foster homes fell from 22,000 in 2000 to just 9,000 in 2016. Massachusetts had more than 6,100 foster children in 2016, but less than 4,800 foster homes, according to The Boston Globe. Such shortages have led to reports of foster children sleeping in government offices and even hotels around the nation while their social workers scramble to find willing families.

But it’s not just the dearth of available foster parents that concerns child welfare advocates. Though government reports show about one-quarter of all formal foster care placements are with relatives (sometimes called kinship care), the vast majority of foster families are strangers to foster children. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, 88 percent of the 25,000 children who reported ran away from home in 2017 were in foster care at the time. Many of those runaways become the victims of sex traffickers.

We need to pray that as each day passes these foster children (who have had their tiny world shattered by drug abuse) survive—indeed, thrive—and that they live with hearts full of love and hope. Sadly, the future is yet unclear regarding America’s opiate epidemic. Moreover, we don’t know the full scope of opioid crisis’ on the foster system still has yet to be revealed. These little victims never had the choice to be exposed to the drugs. They can’t Just Say No.

Thousands upon thousands of little Americans are waiting to be seen, helped and healed.

The Opioid Issue: Part 2

August 2, 2018August 5, 2018 / The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

Part Two: Collateral Damage

As the nation grapples with opioid’s hold over millions, its smallest victims cry out to be heard, held, and healed. No Child Left Behind is a familiar battle cry. But to foster parents helping to care for children of parents addicted to drugs, those words have nothing to do with a political agenda or advertising campaign. One foster mom reported quietly watching another baby detox from opiates, its high-pitched wails unique with the sound of drug-induced anguish, and whispering, “A whole generation is being lost from the opioid epidemic. A whole generation.”

opioid-crisis-word-cloud

That generation—with hundreds of thousands of America’s youngest feeling its physical, mental, and emotional impact, sometimes from the moment of conception—is staring down what doctors call Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS). The condition is not something that can be cured with a pill. There are so many children growing up without their parents that the long-term ramifications are still unforeseen. The United States has certainly faced its share of social and public health problems over the years, but when it comes to the opioid crisis, child advocates around the country warn, it’s a strange and scary new world.

Agony in the Womb

According to a study released by the University of Minnesota this spring, one baby struggling with NAS is born in America every 15 minutes. Furthermore, almost 90 percent of pregnancies among women struggling with opioid addiction are unintentional. When a woman takes opioids while pregnant—even exactly as a doctor might instruct, according to the March of Dimes—she runs the substantial risk of harming her unborn child.

One Baby Every Half Hour

Prescription painkillers like codeine, fentanyl, hydrocodone, morphine, and oxycodone (as well as the street drug heroin) are all classified as opioids and all negatively affect children in the womb. Common risks of opioid use during pregnancy, the March of Dimes says, include miscarriage, preterm labor, premature birth, birth defects, low birth weight (defined as weighing less than five pounds, eight ounces), and NAS. NAS is its own beast. The completely preventable condition can grip babies with tremors, fever, chills, weight loss, seizures, and even death. Dr. W. David Hager, member of Focus on the Family’s Physicians Resource Council (PRC), believes 55-94% of newborns delivered to women who used opioids in pregnancy suffer from NAS.

Clearly, it is nearly impossible for an unborn child to skate past the consequences of his or her mother’s opioid use, no matter how slight. Yet damage isn’t usually intentional. Instead, Hager says, addiction to opioids reaches far beyond the initial physical pleasure to something much deeper.

It All Adds Up

That’s a familiar story for J. Scott Moody and Wendy Warcholik, a married pair of economists. As the directors of Family Prosperity Institute (FPI), a New Hampshire-based think tank focused on measuring the health of the American family, Moody and Warcholik frequently hear about opioid-related crises—and have watched their own loved ones succumb to substance abuse along the way. Warcholik, for example, grew up in a family fragmented by her parents’ collective five divorces. Of all her siblings, she was the only one to have fully escaped the negative consequences. The others have experienced unemployment, substance abuse, government dependency, low educational attainment, unwed childbirth, and divorce.

FPI has created a family prosperity index—a formula-driven rankings list that measures the strength and prosperity of families and the nation by combining the most important economic and social data into a single number and then ranking those states based on which create the best environment for families to thrive. The index fills in the gaps around other measures like the gross domestic product, assembling all the pieces of the prosperity puzzle into a complete picture of the economy. No other measure takes into consideration both the economic and social choices of people in a state to create a holistic measure of human behavior in the States.

The latest FPI index ranked Utah first and New Mexico last. FPI’s formula calculates things like average welfare utilization, children in married households, religious attendance and infant mortality rate. That last category is most disconcerting because as opioid use has risen, so has infant mortality rate. (The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines that as the death of an infant before his or her first birthday), while the infant mortality rate is the number of infant deaths for every 1,000 live births.

Drug Dependent Newborns.png

Between 2010 and 2015 twenty-one states saw an increase in their infant mortality rate. So many states, in fact, that while the national average dropped 16 percent between 2000 and 2015, the last five years only saw a decrease of 1.6 percent. Clearly, if trends continue, the country could see an increase in the infant mortality rate in the near future. Keep in mind that a rising infant mortality rate is typically only found in Third World countries. Besides the physical, emotional and mental cost to America’s children, opioid addiction doesn’t come fiscally cheap, either. For example, in 2015 Ohio paid more than $133 million to care for approximately 2,000 NAS babies born that year.

The True Cost

Interestingly, FPI’s research shows that devout beliefs and behaviors (consistent church attendance, daily prayer, Bible reading, etc.) reduce illicit drug use. The converse holds true as well. Moody says, “It is clear that people in despair who don’t turn to God for help will try to numb their pain some other way, whether it be with drugs or sex. Unfortunately, at least for the last decade, we’ve been seeing more and more people turning to drugs and sex than God. We have to reverse this trend.”

Ultimately, America truly has no idea what the long-term consequences of opioid addiction on our most innocent citizens will be. “We read horrifying stories in New England about parents shooting up their own children just to keep them quiet, or left in a freezing car with their parents passed out in the front seat,” Warcholik says. How far are we, as a society, willing to go in elevating adult desires over the health and well being of our children?

That is a question far beyond the scope of any research team—but one the Church must rise up to help answer.

The Opioid Issue: Part 1

July 30, 2018August 9, 2018 / The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

Part One: Dangerous Prescriptions

The opioid crisis seems to hit everyone, everywhere, regardless of socioeconomic class, geography, age, profession, or religious affiliation. Overdosing on drugs, especially opiates and heroin, is now the most common cause of death for Americans under fifty years of age. I spent forty years embroiled in active addiction. It started innocently with a case of beer, but quickly led to marijuana, cocaine, and inhalants. The longer I struggled, the more hopeless I became. Friends stopped calling me or inviting me to parties. Family felt they could no longer trust me given the hundreds of broken promises and countless runs on their medicine cabinets for opiates. Although I was able to stop drinking and taking street drugs in 2008, I battled with benzodiazepines (Xanax, Ativan) and oxycodone for another eight years. I am blessed presently with nearly two years without taking narcotics.

Opiates in Pill Bottles

This epidemic has reached every corner of the United States. This is the first in a series of blog posts regarding opiate addiction in America. This series will address dangers of opiate prescriptions, collateral damage, impact on the nation’s foster care system, homelessness and addiction, troubling developments in drug rehabilitation, addiction and crime, and a Christian response to the crisis.

Current medical opinion indicates the reason the U.S. is experiencing a disastrous epidemic of opioid abuse can be summed up in two words: pain avoidance. In the 1990s there was a proliferation of health care professionals trying to address the symptom [of pain] and not so much the underlying causes of the pain a person has. In 2015, opioid-related deaths stole the lives of over 33,000 Americans. To put this number into perspective, this outnumbers fatal car crashes and gun deaths during the same year. According to the federal government, in 2016 the nation mourned close to 64,000 deaths from drug overdoses. Two-thirds of those involved the misuse of opioids. Karl Benzio, M.D., a Christian psychiatrist and member of Focus on the Family’s Physicians Resource Council (PRC), fears the toll could reach 80,000 deaths in 2018.

We wouldn’t be here if opioids weren’t so effective. Americans want something for their pain—regardless of whether that pain is physical, mental, or emotional. We live in a psychologically compromised society that is impatient and entitled, whose citizens feel there should be no pain in life. Accordingly, greater demands have been made on providers to eliminate all pain with medication. The problem is—and I know this all too well firsthand—once a patient gets a taste of the relief, some develop a dependence that leads them down a dark path. Ironically, that path leads only to deeper struggles. For some, the exit will only come in the form of fatal overdoses as opioids shut down the body’s ability to breath.

It is time we start helping patients deal with life’s pain and its root causes head-on, rather than masking it through medication.

How it All Began

Chronic Pain The Silent Condition

The current crisis can be traced back nearly forty years. Medical researcher Hershel Jick and graduate student Jane Porter of Boston University Medical Center analyzed data from patients who had been hospitalized there. Close to 12,000 had received at least one dose of a narcotic pain medication during their stay. Of those, Jick and Porter’s analysis found only four had developed a well-documented addiction. Jick sent the findings to the New England Journal of Medicine, who published his analysis as a letter to the editor in 1980. “Despite widespread use of narcotics [sic] drugs in hospitals, the development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction,” Jick wrote. Unfortunately, this quote was given far more merit than it deserved. Moreover, the conclusion had not been subjected to peer review.

In 1990, Scientific American called the Jick/Porter research “an extensive study.” About a decade later, Time proclaimed it “a landmark study.” Most significantly, Purdue Pharmaceuticals, maker of the popular narcotic OxyContin, began a promotion asserting less than one percent of patients treated with their time-released opiate medication OxyContin would become addicted. In the 1990s, pain was correlated with a greater probability of a patient having ongoing health issues. So the medical community elevated it to the position of the fifth vital sign along with heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and respiratory rate. The medical community, thinking that reducing pain would help long-term patient satisfaction, health and outcomes, started to prescribe more pain meds.

pain-management-word-cloud-e1453101800676

The ’90s also saw the development of stronger and more effective opioid painkillers. As the decade drew to a close, the opioid epidemic was ignited. It took some time for most of the country to realize the metaphorical fuse had been lit, but the numbers back up this concern. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), between 2000 and 2017 opioid prescriptions increased 400 percent. Between 2000 and 2010, misuse involving noncompliance with prescription instructions or using medications prescribed for another person doubled. Now, the results are playing out in heartbreaking fashion nationwide, which are impossible to ignore. Overdose deaths—116 per day, according to federal statistics—are shaking Americans of all incomes, ages, and ethnicity. From the rural back roads of Appalachia (Kentucky, West Virginia) to the urban sprawl of New York and Los Angeles, the epidemic is cutting a path that threatens to leave no family unscathed.

The Blame Game

It’s become quite popular (if not convenient) to lay the blame for the epidemic squarely at the feet of the big pharmaceutical companies. For example, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times in May of this year, more than 350 cities, counties, and states had filed lawsuits against makers and distributors of opioid painkillers. The LA civil action accuses drugmakers and distributors of deceptive marketing aimed at boosting sales, claiming the companies borrowed from the “tobacco industry playbook.” One of the companies most frequently put under scrutiny has been Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin.

oxycontin pills.jpg

In May The New York Times called Purdue “the company that planted the seeds of the opioid epidemic through its aggressive marketing of OxyContin.” The Times article uncovered a disturbing report on OxyContin compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice, which found that Purdue Pharma knew about and concealed significant incidents of abuse of OxyContin in the first years after the drug hit the market in 1996. The article further noted that Purdue Pharma admitted in open court in 2007 that it misrepresented the data regarding OxyContin’s potential for abuse.

Overdose Deaths Not Just Related to Opiate Prescriptions

Government reports have recently stated that today’s increase of fatal opioid-related overdoses is being driven by abuse of heroin and illicit fentanyl. A study prepared by the National Institute on Drug Abuse last September found that overdose deaths from heroin and other drugs laced with fentanyl increased 600 percent between 2002 and 2015. Street dealers have increasingly been cutting their drugs with fentanyl—a particularly dangerous and relatively inexpensive substance 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine—to boost their profit margins. In most cases, the users don’t even realize they’re buying fentanyl-laced products.

Heroin and Fentanyl in Bottles.jpg

It is important to note that although many people believe Big Pharma is complicit in fueling the epidemic and should shoulder the loin’s share of the blame, Dr. Benzio sees it differently. “Pharmaceutical companies only make the meds,” Benzio says. “Only about 6 to 8 percent of people who take an opioid will misuse or overuse it in a destructive way. It is the doctors who over-prescribe and a society that is looking for a quick fix and can’t tolerate any discomfort [that’s to blame].”

The Road Ahead

The opiate epidemic may have grown somewhat quietly, but the nation’s attention is riveted to it now and policymakers aren’t sitting still. In 2016, Massachusetts became the first state to limit the duration for painkiller prescriptions at seven days. Since then, more than two dozen other states have also established limits. In my home state of Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf initiated a statewide prescription drug monitoring system to help prevent prescription drug abuse. Of concern is the practice of “doctor shopping,” which involves a patient visiting multiple doctors and emergency departments in search of opioids. Unfortunately, this is something I did quite often while in active addiction. This practice often necessitates filling prescriptions at multiple pharmacies. The governor’s new policy includes the monitoring program, a standing order for naloxone (Narcan, used to reverse the effects of an opiate overdose), a patient non-opioid directive (which allows patients to opt out of opioid pain medicine in advance) a “warm hand-off” where ER attending physicians and other providers can set up a face-to-face introduction between a patient and a substance abuse specialist, and revised prescribing guidelines relative to opiates.

22SCI-NUMBER-articleLarge

At the federal level, President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency in 2017, and formed a commission to fight it. Meanwhile, HHS now has a multi-pronged strategy to get the crisis under control, including getting better data through research and improving prevention, treatment, pain management, and recovery services. The federal crackdown is estimated to cost $13 billion to $18 billion over the next two years. Dr. Benzio believes this is “a good start,” but said providers must resist the urge to automatically jump to the quick fix of narcotics for those in pain. “There are many ways to combat pain through physical therapy and fitness, relaxation, better sleep and nutrition,” says Benzio. It seems likely that we will not get a significant handle on opioid abuse until the core issues that lead people to the drugs are addressed.

The Christian Perspective

W. David Hager, M.D., a member of the PRC, notes three principle root issues in addiction: rejection, abandonment and abuse. Hager has been a facilitator for the Christian program Celebrate Recovery. He said, “Unless we enable [people] to identify their root issue and deal with it first, the rates of relapse are high. When they are able to deal with their root issues by offering forgiveness, making amends, and seeking a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we find that large numbers are able to enter and maintain sobriety.” That is why the Church has the unique ability to make a difference in combating the opioid crisis.

“We have to convince faith-based communities to get their hands dirty, to get involved and realize that this is an issue,” Benzio says. He suggests inviting laypeople to develop a working knowledge of dopamine, the brain chemical that provides the pleasure-inducing sensation many who use drugs are seeking. “There is only one [higher] power that can sever synapses in the brain that have been stimulated by a substance to achieve [a certain] dopamine level,” he adds, “and that’s the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Exactly how Christians appropriate the Spirit’s power to take on the opioid crisis will vary from case to case. The point, Benzio and Hager say, is that this needs to become a top-of-mind concern for the Church. But are North American churches up to the mission of addressing opioid use among their members? Pastors are in a unique position to proclaim and demonstrate the Gospel to individuals struggling with addiction. Many are too ashamed to confess an addiction to pain medication. As the opioid crisis deepens, so must the response of the local church. If the Christian church has anything to offer those hurting from drug addiction, it is hope and community. I was only able to break the bondage of addiction over my life through the Power in the Name of Jesus.

Power in the Name of Jesus

Programs such as Narcotics Anonymous and Celebrate Recovery have been extremely effective in changing lives, but it’s not always enough. Addressing the root of addiction is one of the most effective long-term solutions, which for Christians is about the heart. The church must be willing and capable of seeing those struggling with addiction as not merely a program of the church’s community outreach; these individuals are children of a God who loves them no matter their current condition. I believe America’s recovery can find its roots in the local church.

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That’s what love looks like. -St. Augustine

Partnering With Dentists and Oral Surgeons to Fight Opiate Addiction

July 25, 2018August 3, 2018 / The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

From the blog of Dr. Nora Volkow, Executive Director of NIDA, posted July 25, 2018

Reducing the reliance of doctors on potentially addictive opioid pain relievers has been one of the pillars of federal efforts to reverse the opioid crisis. Because many dental procedures such as extractions and other types of oral surgery often produce severe acute pain, dentists are among the largest prescribers of opioids. Thankfully, the dental profession has made significant progress in reducing opioid prescriptions. Two decades ago, when the opioid crisis was just starting, dentists accounted for 15.5 percent of all immediate-release opioid prescriptions; by 2012, they only wrote 6.4 percent of such prescriptions. Still, those in the oral health professions can play a key role in further improving the treatment of acute pain and making it safer.

Opiates in Pill Bottles.jpg

In March of this year, the American Dental Association (ADA) released a new policy on opiods, supporting limits on dosage and duration of opioid prescriptions and mandatory continuing education on their use, as well as recommending that dentists make use of their regional prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP). This policy is an important step toward protecting patients and their families from the potential harms of opioids. Following a meeting between representatives of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), and the ADA, NIDCR director Martha Somerman and Dr. Volkow wrote an editorial in this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association about how a partnership between NIH and oral health practitioners can continue to alleviate the opioid overdose epidemic.

Dental Xray.jpg

Increased knowledge of opioid prescribing practices among dentists, as well as among emergency department physicians when managing acute dental pain, is an important research priority. While dentists have reduced their opioid prescriptions, recent studies suggest the same is not true of emergency department providers when patients have dental pain. A study of Medicaid recipients showed that physicians in the ER prescribed opioids for dental pain five times more often than dentists in their own practices, and nurse practitioners in the ER prescribed opioids three times as often. Understanding the ways opioids are prescribed and the decisions underlying opioid prescribing can inform new clinical guidelines and policies to reduce the risks of opioid misuse.

Concluding Remarks

Dentists can play a role in minimizing opioid abuse through patient education, careful patient assessment and referral for substance abuse treatment when indicated, and using tools such as prescription monitoring programs. Research is needed to determine the optimal number of doses needed to treat dental-related pain. Besides reducing their prescribing of opioids, these practitioners can learn to screen for opioid misuse and opioid use disorders, ultimately referring patients to treatment when indicated. To this end, NIDCR plans to fund research studies of interventions in rural communities.

These practitioners cannot assume that their prescribing of opioids does not affect the opioid abuse problem in the United States. Dentists, along with other prescribers, take steps to identify problems and minimize prescription opioid abuse through greater prescriber and patient education; use of peer-reviewed recommendations for analgesia; and, when indicated, the tailoring of the appropriate and legitimate prescribing of opioids to adequately treat pain.

Ghost Story

July 24, 2018July 24, 2018 / The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

In a field near the lake
stands the ghost of a dead oak.
The ghost is black and very tall.
It never speaks or moves.
The sky wants to take it.
The earth wants to eat it.
But the ghost is strong, it does not want to move.
So it argues half its tongues into the dirt,
and grips hard against the sky’s glutton lung.
It whispers the other half into air,
and weathers the white earth’s thirst.
Like a frayed black suture it binds earth and sky together.
In this way the ghost stills its universe:
the sky can never rise nor the earth fall
out of their coupling’s grave jurisdiction.
The lake will breathe its atoms to the clouds,
the constellations will pageant
the lucky patterns of their composition
until they break and fade,
but the ghost will stand
contented with the silence,
with the snowfall,
with the stalemate of its own device.

-Art Zilleruelo

It’s a Thing Most Wonderful

July 24, 2018July 24, 2018 / The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

Jesus Crucifixion

Newsweek Special Issues recently published “100 People Who Shaped Our World,” featuring individuals who changed our world, for better or worse, through their actions, inventions, and (at times) their mistakes. With insight from historians in the fields of science, religion and pop culture, the 100-page issue explores the impact of the world’s most iconic leaders—from Jesus Christ to Mark Zuckerberg, Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Abraham Lincoln to Nelson Mandela. Unfortunately, the article did not show Jesus Christ in a good light. Interestingly, we are expected to be respectful in what we say about any other religion or revered religious leader—except Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, people feel free to malign, disfigure, and re-imagine Him as they choose.

The impact of Jesus of Nazareth, the itinerant preacher whose teachings became the basis of one of the world’s most practiced religions, is irrefutable. Today there are approximately 2.2 billion Christians in the world—this is nearly 31% of the total population. The nature of Christ has been debated time and time again as we view Him through the lenses of scholars. From a Christian perspective, the central contention set forth is that the Jesus of history is the Christ of faith. The Christian faith goes beyond simply declaring God exists—it claims that God became man in Christ Jesus, lived among us, and ultimately sacrificed His life in order to atone for our sins. Three days after His death, He would rise again, proving that He was the Son of God, the promised Messiah, and the Savior of the world.

jesus preaching sermon

Christianity is the only religion that places the entire weight of its credibility on a singular event, the resurrection. If Christ had not been raised, then Christianity would be completely discredited and unworthy of even a moment’s consideration. As the apostle Paul stated, “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17, NIV). Conviction about the reality of the resurrection is the only foundation that can withstand the onslaught of skepticism and unbelief. It is this fact that points to other critical truths, such as the authority of Scripture and the unique role of Jesus as Messiah and Savior.

No one’s life or death in the history of the world has been studied, analyzed, debated, and heralded to the world as much as Jesus. It’s definitely a daunting task to respond to all the theories and claims made by critics. During my research and writing, I felt a great sense of drama and significance regarding what’s at stake when studying whether the story of Jesus is true—or, as skeptics assert, merely a collection of tales attempting to propagate the Christian faith.

Answering the Great Question

The collective task of proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ has been called the Great Commission, a term coined by Christian theologians to describe the charge that Jesus gave His disciples to go into all the world and make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). In addition, the Great Commandment describes the premier commandment Jesus gave us to love one another (John 13:35). Jesus asked His disciples the Great Question, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15)—without a doubt, history’s greatest question, the answer to which affects everything. If we focus so heavily on the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, shouldn’t we be giving equal attention to the Great Question?

defending the faith

Preparing believers to give the reasons for their faith—this is the very essence of apologetics—should be the highest priority of all the efforts of those engaged in Christian ministry (1 Peter 3:15). If the truth of the message is in doubt, the whole doctrine of Christianity is in jeopardy. Of all the human rights we should be fighting for, foremost should be the right of every living person to hear the Gospel and have the opportunity to know Jesus. While there is amazing work being done around the world by people of faith to help the needy and heal the hurting, we are falling dramatically short in preparing people to have faith that thrives in the media-saturated, anti-faith twenty-first century. People are flooded with messages suggesting faith in God is at best irrelevant.

The end result is a large number of Christians being dazed and confused about how crazy the world has become, and how their values and beliefs are not just out of touch with mainstream society but to some are framed as bigoted and ignorant. This helps explain why only 3 percent of churches in America are growing through evangelism.

Faith or History?

When it comes to Jesus Christ, there has definitely been a higher standard, unreasonably high at times, for establishing the facts surrounding His life, works, and words. The specific criteria used by many of today’s leading scholars to verify the authenticity of Jesus have been so demanding that if applied to ancient history most of what is currently accepted would dissolve into oblivion. Imagine asserting, as skeptics do for the biblical records, that we could only know about ancient Rome from what we learn from non-Roman sources. In contrast, scholars who use trusted approaches fairly and consistently recognize that Christian beliefs about Jesus are solidly grounded in historical fact.

Historians use reliable criteria to establish the probability that an event happened in the past. For instance, claims are more likely true if they are reported by multiple, independent sources. By this standard, our knowledge about Jesus is superior to that of virtually every other ancient historical figure. Scholars have discovered more literary sources for the historical Jesus within the first hundred years after His life than all of the primary literary sources for Socrates, which, incidentally, are in far less agreement with each other than the Gospels.

When the historical process is arbitrary and inconsistent, the past becomes something people with a hidden agenda or bias can manipulate. This type of mindset leads to disregarding the miraculous accounts given by Jesus’ followers in the Gospels. Those accounts are replaced with historical profiles of what someone living at the time of Jesus would have probably been like. Others go so far as claiming that the followers of Jesus merely borrowed from the mythology of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Persians. As for the miracles? Scoffers simply say they didn’t happen because everyone knows there’s no such thing as miracles.

The roots of this culture of skepticism can be traced back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This period—known as the “Enlightenment”—could better be described as the age of skepticism. The mindset of this era is best summed up by René Descartes. He said, “In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.” For Descartes, the foundation of reality is our own thoughts (albeit doubts) about the fact of our existence. The seeds that Descartes planted grew over the next century into the Enlightenment era, which promoted the concept that “reason replaced revelation” in terms of the source of the culture’s epistemology.

The Resurrection Changes Everything

The claim that Jesus was resurrected three days after His death is not just an article of faith, but a statement that can be examined historically. Of course, if Jesus was not really raised from the dead, then the resurrection of Jesus has no meaning. Christianity is based on this central claim and is thus open to critical historical inquiry. In the same way that Charles Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection sought to establish the past history of living things through what he called inference to the best explanation, we can look at this event using the same process. In fact, the apostle Paul wrote that if Christ was not raised from the dead then the Christian faith would be false (1 Corinthians 15:14). Critics have long maintained that religious claims are simply statements of faith that have no basis in fact. Claims of science, they say, are more credible because they can be proven false. Yet this is exactly what Christianity declares. No other religion bases the entire weight of its credibility on a single event or miracle.

It was the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead that prompted the dedication and sacrifice of His followers. At the top of the list was Jesus’ command to love our enemies. It is highly unlikely that His followers would have remained faithful had Jesus’ life ended permanently at the cross with no resurrection. In fact, New Testament scholar N.T. Wright points out that none of the many self-proclaimed messiahs of the ancient world continued to have a following or influence once they died. It begs the question, What happened to make Jesus’ followers, from the very start, articulate such a claim and work out its implications? For us today, the desperate need is to recover the same conviction of the truth of the resurrection that the early disciples possessed.

Concluding Remarks

When it comes to the central issues of the Christian faith, the biggest dispute is not with the facts of history but with the presuppositions and worldviews of those who interpret those facts. As you hear and weigh the evidence, you will be able to know with confidence that He is the Son of God. There is overwhelming evidence that Jesus was truly a man of history, who was crucified, died, and was buried, and then rose from the dead. The Gospels are reliable historical accounts of Jesus’ life, ministry, and teaching.

Up until the last few years, the verdict of historians has been virtually unanimous that Jesus was a person of history. The rise of atheism in the last decade has seen the upsurge of prominent skeptics who simply assert their “doubts” that Jesus really existed without providing any credible evidence. For example, Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist and author of The God Delusion, is noted for saying, “Jesus, if He even existed…” It’s important to note that these men are not historians and simply assert this contention in apparent hopes that no one will challenge them because they are scientists. Dawkins, for example, is an evolutionary biologist. Incidentally, Dawkins has recanted and admits Jesus existed.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ gives authenticity to the Christian faith. Jesus remains the only figure in history who died and rose from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a revolutionary event in human history. It is what sets humanity free from sin; it is what gives humanity daily victory over Satan to live above struggles of life and achieve their destinies and goals; it is what will finally usher humanity into heaven to live forever with Jesus in that glorious kingdom awaiting those who believe, despite “critics” of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen, then is our preaching in vain, and your faith is also in vain. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain, ye are yet in your sins. If in this life only, we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” 1 Cor. 15:13-19.

Atheism: The End of Reason

July 23, 2018July 24, 2018 / The Accidental Poet / 4 Comments

There’s a new atheism taking root in America, a movement more powerful and subversive than the atheism of Madalyn Murray O’Hare in the 1950s and 1960s. This militant atheism is led by individuals such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. Harris’ bestselling Letter to a Christian Nation absolutely and unflinchingly attacks all religions—but is particularly hard on the Christian faith. Harris writes, “It is time for us as Americans to outgrow our religious beliefs.” His unwavering hatred for religion is laced with strong, condemning language and illustrations designed to convince the world that Christians are stupid for believing in God.

Commenting on Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, which takes a militant approach similar to that of Sam Harris, fellow atheist Michael Ruse, professor of philosophy at Florida State University, says, “The God Delusion makes me embarrassed to be an atheist.” And in response to Sam Harris, atheist and professor of psychology Scott Atran used almost identical words: “I find it fascinating that among the brilliant scientists and philosophers… there was no convincing evidence presented that they know how to deal with the basic irrationality of human life other than to insist against all reason and evidence that things ought to be rational and evidence-based. It makes me embarrassed to be a scientist and atheist.”

The Big Bang theory, along with Einstein’s theory of general relativity, implies that there is indeed an “in the beginning.” All the data indicates a universe that is exploding outward from a point of infinite density. We know quite well that this singularity is not really a point in the universe; it is the whole of three-dimensional space compressed to zero size. This, in fact, actually represents a boundary at which space ceases to exist. Even the terms plead for explanation. At the point of the universe’s origin, there is something rather than nothing—a mystery that leaves science totally silent.

Nothing From Nothing Leaves Nothing

Not only is there something, the laws of science actually break down right at the beginning. The very starting point for an atheistic universe is based on something that cannot explain its own existence. The scientific laws by which atheists want all certainty established do not even exist as a category at the beginning of the universe because, according to those laws of science by which atheists want to measure all things, matter cannot simply “pop into existence” on its own.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and atheist, said that the university is “just there.” But that clearly is not a scientific explanation by any stretch of the imagination. According to science, nothing that exists (or that is) can explain its own existence. Yet, according to their cosmology, we just happen to be here. This means that any purpose for our existence for our being is as random as any cause for our being. Atheist Stephen Jay Gould makes this observation:

We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures… because comets struck the earth and wiped out dinosaurs, thereby giving mammals a chance not otherwise available… because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age… because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a “higher” answer—but none exists… We cannot read the meaning of life passively in the facts of nature. We must construct these answers ourselves—from our own wisdom and ethical sense. There is no other way.

The Odds of So-Called Random Life

Francis Crick (1916-2004), a British molecular biologist and co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, regarding how life began, made the absurd comment, “Probably because a spaceship from another planet brought spores to seed the earth.” Carl Sagan believed the whole universe is “nothing more than molecules in motion.” He believed that some extraterrestrial entity would be able to explain us to ourselves and thereby justified the billions of dollars spend on listening in on outer space, watching and waiting for contact.

Donald Page of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Science has calculated the odds against our universe randomly taking a form suitable for life as one out of 10,000,000,000¹²³—a number that exceeds all imagination. Astronomers Fred Hoyle and N.C. Wickramasinghe found that the odds of the random formation of a single enzyme from amino acids anywhere on our planet’s surface are one in 10²°. They note that there are about two thousand enzymes, saying the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (10²°) ²°°°° = 10 to the 40,000th power, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. And this is just one step in the formation of life.

What about DNA and its origin, or of the transcription of DNA to RNA, which scientists admit cannot even be numerically computed. Moreover, no one has explained the process of mitosis or meiosis. The chance of the random ordering of organic molecules is not essentially different from a big fat zero. Remember, that’s the zero to which Sam Harris gives credit for everything; that’s his explanation for why we are here. And if we accept this explanation, the resulting pointlessness of existence is devastating to our desire to feel significant. Thankfully, this rhetoric does not faze billions of people who still seek a relationship with God.

Man’s Search for Meaning

If life is random, then the inescapable consequence is that there can be no ultimate meaning and purpose to existence. This consequence is the existential Achilles’ heel of atheistic belief. As individuals—and collectively in cultures around the globe—man has been searching for meaning for centuries. But if life is random, we have climbed the evolutionary ladder only to find nothing at the top.

The greatest disappointment you can feel is when you have experienced what you thought would bring ultimate in pleasure—and it has let you down. Pleasure without boundaries produces a life without purpose. That is real pain. No death, no tragedy, no atrocity—nothing really matters. Life is sheer hollowness. Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and philosopher, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, sometimes asked his patients who suffered from a multitude of mental torments, “Why do you not commit suicide?” From their answers he could find the proper guideline or approach for his psychotherapy. He called this approach logotherapy.

Frankl, along with Voltaire, Sartre, and Nietzsche, were honest and consistent in their views. They admitted the ridiculousness of life—the pointlessness of everything in an atheistic world. In contrast, contemporary atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, are so blind to the conceit of their own minds that they try to present this view of life as some sort of triumphal liberation. Sartre, as atheistic intellectual elites know but are embarrassed to acknowledge, denounced atheism on his deathbed as philosophically unlivable. Hear what Sartre said: ” I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.”

Morality and the Atheist

There is no way for militant atheists like Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins to argue for moral preferences except by their own subjective means—that is, their personal preference or environment. What is the objective moral framework these men adopt on which they build their objection to God? Harris said, “I can see no moral framework operating in the world, but what I do see is morally condemnable.” In philosophical terms, this is called a mutually-exclusive assumption. Therefore, the moral framework he is forced to adopt is, in reality, one he built himself.

Bertrand Russell admitted he couldn’t live as though ethical values were simply a matter of personal taste. He said, “I do not know the solution.” Russell tried to get around the existence of objective morality. When asked how he differentiated between good and bad, Russell answered, “I don’t have any justification any more than I have when I distinguish between blue and yellow… I can see they are different.” Consider this: You distinguish blue and yellow by seeing them, but you distinguish good and bad by what faculty? Russell’s response was, “By my feelings.” To simply say you do not see a moral order to the universe is to ignore the real issue. Rather than proof of the absence of moral order, this amounts to insistence on determining for oneself what is good and what is evil in spite of what we intuitively know to be true.

Concluding Remarks

Routinely, three tests for truth are applied: (1) logical consistency, (2) empirical adequacy, and (3) experiential relevance. We come to a real situation of determining how many levels of cause-and-effect it takes to explain all of existence. We cannot have an infinite series of causes in time, starting from the present of any completed state and moving backward in search of an ultimate cause, because if the sequence were infinite, we would never arrive at the present. A can of alphabet soup dumped onto a table implies that somebody made that soup. You would absolutely deny that those shapes just happened to be in the soup. And if the letters fell out of the can in sequence every time you would never even consider the possibility that it was accidental.

Something does not come from nothing.

The Lie: Evolution versus Creation

July 20, 2018 / The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

Raised in a Christian Home

I WAS RAISED IN A Christian home where the Bible was believed to be the infallible, inerrant Word of God. When I entered high school I came face-to-face with the idea of evolution. If Genesis was not literally true, then what part of the Bible could I trust? Genesis clearly details the creation of the world. One of my friends is a pastor. I recall him suggesting that I accept evolution, but then add it to the Bible—in other words, it is okay to believe that God used evolution and millions of years to bring all forms of life into being. Certainly, this is not what we’re told in Genesis. Another pastor friend of mine whose blog I follow commented that believing God’s creation was helped along by evolution is “a slippery slope.”

The Holy Bible.jpg

If God did not mean what He said in Genesis, then how could I put stock in the rest of the Scriptures? Not only this, but believing in evolution and millions of years meant allowing death, disease, fossils, thorns, animals eating each other, and suffering to be in existence millions of years before man! How could this be true given God’s proclamation that His creation was “very good” before the Fall?

Christianity is Under Attack!

We are living in challenging times. On the whole, our Western culture, once permeated by Christian thinking, is becoming increasingly anti-Christian. We are seeing steady increases in gay marriage, support for abortion on demand, unwillingness to obey authority, reluctance to work, marriages being abandoned, an increase in pornography, a growing level of lawlessness, and increasing promulgation of atheism. Christians are fighting for their own religious freedom and being labeled as the bad guys.

Under Attack

What has happened in society to bring about these drastic changes? Why is it that many people are cynical and seem to be closed to the Gospel when we talk about Jesus? There must be some foundational reason for this change. In 1 Chronicles 12:32, we read of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times. Do we have a good grasp of the times in which we live? What is the fundamental reason for the collapse of Christianity in America? Consider the recent proliferation of the phrase “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.” Nativity scenes, crosses, and the Ten Commandments are being banned from view in public places. Creation, prayer, and the Bible have largely been eliminated from the nation’s secular education system. Today we see culture invading and changing the church rather than the church having an impact on culture.

No Single Birthplace?

Secular researchers say it is time to drop the idea that modern humans originated from a single population in a single location. The origin of our species has long been traced to east Africa, where the world’s oldest Homo sapiens fossils were discovered. About 300,000 years ago, the story went, a group of primitive humans there underwent a series of genetic and cultural shifts that set them on a unique evolutionary path resulting in the human population we have today. You. Me. My mom. Your brother. Everyone.

Evolution Graphic

Recently, a team of prominent scientists called for a rewriting of this traditional narrative, based on a comprehensive survey of fossil, archaeological and genetic evidence. Instead, the international team argue, the distinctive features that make us human emerged mosaic-like across different populations spanning the entire African continent. Only after tens or hundreds of thousands of years of interbreeding and cultural exchange between these semi-isolated groups, did the fully-fledged modern human come into being.

Secular scientists note telltale characteristics of a modern human – globular brain case, a chin, a more delicate brow and a small face – seem to first appear in different places at different times. Previously, this has either been explained as evidence of a single, large population trekking around the continent en masse or by dismissing certain fossils as side-branches of the modern human lineage that just happened to have developed certain anatomical similarities. The latest analysis suggests that this patchwork emergence of human traits can be explained by the existence of multiple populations that were periodically separated for millennia by rivers, deserts, forests and mountains before coming into contact again due to shifts in the climate. Natural barriers such as theses created migration and contact opportunities for groups that may previously have been separated, and later fluctuation might have meant populations that mixed for a short while became isolated again.

Some experts paint a picture of humans as a far-more diverse collection of species and sub-populations than exists today. They allege between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago our own ancestors lived alongside a primitive human species called Homo naledi found in southern Africa, a larger brained species called Homo heidelbergensis in central Africa, and perhaps myriad other humans yet to be discovered.

Replacing Darwin

Unlike typical jigsaw puzzles, the puzzle of the origin of species does not come in a box. No cover exists. The final number of pieces is unknown. In fact, nearly all pieces must be actively sought. Consequently, with each new discovery, the potential for massive overhaul lurks in the background. I’m reminded of the comment I heard from a facilitator at a Werner Erhard seminar. He said, “There’s what we know, and there’s what we don’t know, but more importantly there’s what we don’t know that we don’t know.” Keeping with the jigsaw analogy, let’s consider the state of the puzzle prior to Darwin’s day. Just a century before Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, the first pieces were discovered.

In a jigsaw puzzle, edge pieces constrain the arrangement of the center pieces. Since species are defined by their traits, the origin of traits constrains the puzzle of the origin of species. The origin of leopards and cheetahs depends on an answer to the origin of spots. The origin of toucans relies on the answer to the origin of large, colorful beaks. The origin of the blue whale is bound up in the origin of baleen. The origin of scorpions and the origin of stingers go hand-in-hand. The answer to the origin of traits represents the edge pieces to the puzzle.

Exactly how does DNA control traits? The mystery of the how concealed the answers to several critical questions. Could the mechanism by which DNA controlled the behavior of traits be altered? Could it be changed to an entirely different program? Could leopards become whales? Could toucans change into scorpions? Could jellyfish become jaguars? These might sound like ridiculous questions, but the answers awaited the discovery of the mechanism by which DNA interfaced with traits. But alas, there are several paradoxes regarding this issue. In in each generation all traits are erased—only to be rebuilt again.

Consider what it takes to form a new species. For a fish to become a spider, significant morphological changes must occur—an endoskeleton must transform into an exoskeleton, fins must become legs, an aquatic form of respiration must transform into a terrestrial form of respiration. Prior to the discovery of DNA, scientists looked for various solutions to these paradoxes. One theory centered on physics and chemistry. For example, consider the physics of transforming a single cell into a complex adult. Many chemical and physical barriers would have to be overcome. Obviously, physical beings don’t spontaneously assemble themselves.

Darwin and Genetics

Darwin Portrait

Darwin wrote the following comment in a notebook in 1837: “One species does change into another” [Italics mine]. Yet his theory of natural selection lacked an adequate account of inheritance, making it logically incomplete. Lack of a model of the mechanism of inheritance left him unable to interpret his own data. Instead, Darwin proposed a rather bizarre developmental theory of heredity (which he called pangenesis). Essentially, he suggested that all cells in an organism are capable of shedding minute particles of inheritance he called gemmules, which are able to circulate throughout the body and ultimately accumulate in the gonads. The theory of pangenesis originated from the claim that characteristics acquired during an organism’s life were inheritable.

Many criticized Darwin’s pangenesis. To test the theory, Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton in London conducted a series of blood transfusion experiments. Galton transfused blood between different colored rabbits. Galton hypothesized that the blood contained gemmules that would influence the color of the offspring. By transfusing the blood from a white rabbit to a black rabbit, the black rabbit would have different colored descendants than normal black rabbits, which did not get transfused blood. But the result of the experiment contrasted Darwin’s prediction. Black rabbits with the blood from white rabbits produced offspring that were all black. Galton concluded that gemmules did not exist. Darwin’s comeback was perhaps gemmules existed in bodily fluids other than blood.

Creation and Religion

Biblical creation is based on the Genesis account of origins from the Word of God—the One who is a witness to all that occurred when the universe was created. Most non-believers have a difficult time with the concept that God is “outside of time itself.” God’s creation consists basically of a threefold view of history—a perfect creation, corrupted by sin, to be restored by Jesus Christ. This account is divided into seven distinct periods referred to by Ken Ham as the Seven Cs of Creation.

Creation: In six days God created the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them from nothing. Each part is designed to work with all the others in perfect harmony. God created the different kinds of plants and animals, and He made a special garden (the Garden of Eden) in which He created the first two human beings. When God completed His work of creation, He called it all “very good.”
Corruption: We no longer live in the world God originally created. Because our first parents (Adam and Eve) placed human opinion about God’s Word (as we still tend to do today), struggle and death entered the world, and God cursed creation. Charles Darwin called this “struggle to the death” natural selection and offered his idea as a substitute for an Intelligent Designer. Evolutionists later added accidental changes in heredity (mutations) to their evolutionary belief. But such processes as natural selection and mutations do not creat; instead, they bring disease, defects, and decay into the world God created. Paul describes this now fallen world in Romans: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8:22, NIV).
Catastrophe: After mankind’s sin and rebellion (the Fall), the earth became so filled with violence and corruption that God destroyed the world with a global Flood and gave it a fresh start with Noah, his family, and the animals in the ark. Fossils—billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth—remind us of God’s judgment on sin. Most of the fossil record is actually the graveyard of the Flood that occurred about 4,300 years ago. Of course, this same fossil record is used and manipulated by secularists as purported evidence for millions of years.
Confusion: In Genesis 11, we see that after the Flood, man disobeyed God’s command to spread out over the earth. Instead, they congregated together to build a tower to the heavens, likely to worship the heavens instead of worshiping and obeying the God who made the heavens. As a result, God simply confused their language so that groups began speaking in different languages. Family groups then began separating from each other and moving out over the earth to develop various people groups, which resulted in the diverse cultures and nations we have today.
Christ: It is unfortunate that despite the Flood the earth again became filled with violence, corruption, and death because of human sin putting man’s opinion above God’s Word. God had a plan from eternity promised back at the beginning (Genesis 3:15) to save man from sin and its consequence of eternal separation from God. God’s Son stepped into human history to become Jesus Christ, the God-man. Fully God and fully human, Christ came to heal and restore, and by His death and resurrection, He conquered death. We may be born again into eternal life as new creations in Christ. As Romans 10:9 tells us, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Cross: What was God doing on the cross? What was He accomplishing through the crucifixion? Unfortunately, there are growing numbers of Christians who are having an increasingly difficult time answering that question. There is a diminishing sense of God’s holiness, an increasing denial of man’s sin nature, and a disproportionate sense of self-worth. Both the shame and the shear brutality of the cross have become blurred. The Roman Empire was notorious for performing crucifixions. In fact, they coined the word excruciating to describe the horrible act. Excruciating is an adjective which means extremely painful, causing intense suffering. The Latin word excruciātus (derivative of crux cross) translates as “to torment or torture.”
Consummation: As surely as God created the world and judged the world with the Flood, our ungodly world will be destroyed by fire (2 Peter 3:10). For those who trust in Jesus, however, there awaits eternal life in the new heavens and the new earth. There will be no more corruption because God’s curse will have been removed. But for those who reject God’s free gift of salvation, the Bible tells us they will suffer a second death—eternal separation from God (Revelation 20:14).

Is Evolution a Religion?

Why do evolutionists not want to admit that the molecules-to-man evolution belief is really a religion? This is so because whatever you believe about your origins affects your whole worldview, the meaning of life, and so on. If there is no God and we are the result of chance, random process, it means there is no absolute authority. And if there is no one who sets the rules, then people can do whatever he likes or hopes he can get away with.

Evolution is a religion that enables people to justify writing their own rules. The sin of Adam was that he did not want to obey the rules God set. Instead, he wanted to do what he wanted to do. He rebelled against God, and we all suffer from this same sin: rebellion against the absolute authority of God. The evolutionary (millions of years) belief has become the so-called scientific justification in today’s world for people to continue in this rebellion against God.

In the beginning.jpg

The Book of Genesis gives us the true and reliable account of the origin and early history of life on earth. Increasing numbers of scientists are realizing that when you take the Bible as your basis and build your worldview upon it, then the evidence from the living animals and plants, the fossils, and the cultures fit with what this account details to us. This confirms that the Bible really is the Word of God and can be trusted completely. The secular humanists, of course, oppose this because they cannot allow the possibility of God being Creator. They have fought successfully to have prayer, Bible readings, and the teaching of creation forced out of the public school curriculum. They have deceived the public into thinking this is eliminating religion from schools and leaving a neutral situation. This is absolutely false! God’s Word states, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad” (Matthew 12:30).

How Old is the Earth?

The question of the age of our planet has produced heated debate for centuries. The primary positions are simply stated thus: (a) young-earth proponents believe the biblical age of the earth and universe is about 6,000 years; (b) old-earth proponents believe the age of the earth to be about 4.5 billion years and the age of the universe is about 14 billion years. Obviously the range between these two schools of thought are immense.

Where Did a Young-Earth Worldview Come From?

Simply put, it came from the Bible. Of course, the Bible doesn’t say explicitly anywhere, “The earth is 6,000 years old.” Good thing it doesn’t; otherwise it would be out of date the following year. God gave us something better. In essence, He gave us a “birth certificate.” Genesis 1 says that the earth says that the earth was created on the first day of creation (Genesis 1:1-5). From there, scientists are able to begin calculating the age of the earth. Ken Ham suggests a rough calculation to show how this works. The age of the earth can be estimated by taking the first five days of creation (from earth’s creation to Adam), then following the genealogies from Adam to Abraham in Genesis 5 and 11, then adding in the time from Abraham to today.

Ham tells us Adam was created on Day Six, so there were five days before him. If we add up the dates from Adam to Abraham, we get about 2000 B.C. (4,000 years ago). So a simple calculation is as follows: 5 days + ~2,000 years + ~4,000 years = ~6,000 years. Of course, the first five days are quite negligible. Cultures throughout the world have kept track of history as well. From a biblical perspective, we can expect the dates given for creation of the earth to align more closely to the biblical date than billions of years. The examples are provocative. The Anglo-Saxons believe there were 5,200 years from creation to Christ. Ancient British history indicates 5,228 years from creation to Christ. The Irish chronology shows creation occurring at approximately 4000 B.C. Historians have done meticulous work that cannot be ignored. Their dates of only thousands of years are good support for the biblical date of about 6,000 years, not billions of years.

The Origin of the Old-Earth Worldview

Prior to the 1700s, few believed in an old earth. The approximate age of 6,000 years was not really challenged until the 18th century. Opponents, as Ken Ham notes, essentially “left God out of the picture.” The idea of millions of years really got traction through geology. It is noteworthy that geologists believed geological layers were formed slowly over long periods of time based on the rates at which we see them accumulating today. James Hutton (1726-1797) is considered the father of modern geology. Hutton said, “The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now… No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle.”

This viewpoint is called naturalistic uniformitarianism. It ignores any major catastrophes like The Great Flood. Thinking biblically, we know that the global Flood in Genesis 6-8 would wipe away the concept of millions of years, for this Flood would explain massive amounts of fossil layers. Most Christians fail to realize that a global flood could rip up many of the previous rock layers and redeposit them elsewhere, destroying the previous fragile contents. This would destroy any evidence of alleged millions of years anyway. So the rock layers can theoretically represent the evidence of either millions of years or a global flood, but not both.

Concluding Remarks

When we start our reflection on these types of questions with God’s Word in mind, we see that the world is about 6,000 years old. When we rely on man’s fallible (and often demonstrably false) dating methods, we can get a confusing range of ages from a few thousand to billions of years, though the vast majority of methods do not give dates even close to billions. Cultures around the world give an age of the earth that confirms the Bible. Radiometric dates, on the other hand, have been shown to be wildly in error. The age of the earth, as well as questions regarding evolution versus creation, ultimately comes down to a matter of trust—it’s a worldview issue. The question is, will you trust what an all-knowing God says on the subject or will you trust imperfect man’s assumptions and imaginations about the past that regularly are changing.

The Peacemaker (Part 4)

July 4, 2018July 4, 2018 / The Accidental Poet / Leave a comment

The Peacemaker: A Biblical Perspective on Resolving Personal Conflicts and Letting Go of Resentment.

The goal of a peacemaker is to magnify the marvelous undeserved forgiveness that God has given to us through Christ, and to inspire people to imitate such forgiveness to others. We’re directed by Scripture to make peace as part of the plan to reconcile and restore the whole of humanity. Peacemaking never occurs in a vacuum. It is a purposeful act. In Part 3 we looked at the importance of pursuing peacemaking from a position of love. It is essential when working to resolve conflict that we are patient, especially while listening to what others have to say. We must avoid blaming, judging, or condemning.

Shipwrecked Faith.jpg

Correction is not a nicety; it’s a necessity. If we’re left to veer off-course and continue in the wrong direction, it can result in shipwrecked faith. I’ve had to work hard at confrontation most of my life. First, I avoided responsibility and resisted change as a teen and young adult. Second, I was convinced nothing untoward would ever happen to me regardless of my habits, choices, or lifestyle. No one could teach me a thing. I already knew what I needed to know, and had no plans to change.

Avoid Going It Alone

Why did Jesus send His disciples out in pairs (“two by two”) to preach the Gospel? Simply, two people provide a more valid witness than just one. The twelve disciples were more than companions for Jesus during His ministry; they served as witnesses to His teachings and miracles. They were called to give a first-person account of the ministry of Jesus. Paul told Timothy to never accept an accusation against an elder unless there are two or three witnesses (see 1 Timothy 5:19). Paul also noted in Hebrews 10:28 that it took the words of two or three witnesses to condemn someone to die for breaking God’s law.

Sent Two by Two.jpg

Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:15, “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over” (NIV). In the event they do not listen, Jesus said, “Take one or two others along so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses” (vs. 15).

Correct Others With Wisdom and Love

First, we must learn to pick our battles. Some quarrels are not worth having. 2 Timothy 2:23 says, “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels” (NIV). Of course, some doctrinal controversies are clearly important and worth defending. While we should not get into foolish and ignorant debates, we may need to confront the argumentative spirit of those promoting them. It is critical that believers learn how to give biblical correction to those who are in sin or in serious doctrinal error. It is unwise to allow fellow Christians to continue operating in a manner inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. Without correction, individuals—indeed, entire families—tend to run into a ditch.

Correction must be done gently and in love. We cannot correct someone for the purpose of showing his error rather than helping him. Correcting someone is not simply telling them that they are wrong. Our motive and intent should always be to promote repentance and restoration. Accordingly, our attitude is extremely important. Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (NIV). Taking this approach allows us to speak the truth in love. Paul tells us in Galatians 6:1 that we should restore one another gently. Christians are called to peace.

The Opportunity to be Like Christ

News stories are replete with crime, wars, terrorism, violence, hatred, and anger. I often ask myself how much longer this deepening trend can continue before God decides enough is enough. Where do we find a place of quiet rest, peace and tranquility in today’s world? Ephesians 2:16-18 says, “Christ brought us together through His death on the cross. The cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders” (MSG). Jesus was able to destroy the enmity that separated Jews and Gentiles. As a result, people of different cultures, languages, races, religions, and customs who had centuries full of war after war began to worship together, break bread together, and strive to change the world. This peace was made possible through the cross.

peace-onearth

Our role in this “peace process” is to reconcile others to God, with others, and with themselves. Jesus embraced even the worst sinner, touched the vilest leper, purified the most despicable prostitute, and reconciled people under the universal family of God. He saw peacemaking as a large part of his ministry. During His time on earth, the world was divided among nations, races, and religions. Hatred was the norm. Today, we’re faced with racial tension, murder, school shootings, terrorism, and religious bigotry. Human nature has not changed much over the centuries. Jesus said, “…I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me” (John 17:21, NIV).

Teaching Our Children to Become Peacemakers

If we teach our children how to resolve conflicts among themselves or with their friends or others they know, imagine how much better life could be for you and them. Of course, there are several key elements to peacemaking that we need to share with our kids.

Conflict is a slippery slope. Some children try to escape from a conflict, while others try to solve it by going back on the attack. This only serves to delay resolution and healing. Children often pretend a conflict doesn’t exist or refuse to do what it takes to address the problem. They are prone to play the blame-game, putting the onus on others for the problem, often lying or covering up the situation. Children are known to simply run away from conflict rather than work to resolve it. On the other hand, some children choose to attack others rather than work out a resolution. They respond with put-downs, talking about the other individual behind his or her back, or become physical.

Conflict starts in the heart. The choices we make to get our own way are deliberate. We make a conscious decision to be obedient or defiant, wise or foolish, caring or unloving. For good or bad, the choices we make will have an impact on us and others. Conflict is often the result of a choice we’ve made. Selfishness is unproductive and does not lead to peacemaking.

Conflict is not necessarily bad or destructive. Even when conflict is caused by wrongdoing, it can lead to good. We can use conflict to teach our children a valuable life lesson. Our kids can learn to glorify God by trusting, obeying, and imitating Christ. We can serve others by helping to carry their burdens or by confronting them in love. It is easy for children to overlook the upside to conflict because they’re more likely preoccupied with how to get out of or escape from what they perceive as an uncomfortable situation.

The 5 As of conflict resolution. Children, like adults, can learn to confess their wrongs in a way that demonstrates they are taking full responsibility for their part in a conflict. The following are key elements to conflict resolution. Admit what you did wrong, including wrong desires and bad choices. Apologize for how your choice affected the other person. Express the sorrow you feel. Accept the consequences for your wrongdoing without argument or excuses. Don’t rationalize what you’ve done. Ask for forgiveness. Alter your choices going forward. Think about how you’re going to act differently next time.

Final Thoughs

If it feels like the entire world is embroiled in conflict, instability, and war, that’s because it is. In fact, of 163 countries in the world surveyed by the Institute for Economics and Peace, only 11 are not currently involved in conflict. We live in a world that is essentially defined by conflict and violence. But world conflict doesn’t start just because one person woke up one day and decided to go to war. Before there are bombs and bullets, there are fists. Before fists there are words. Before there are words, there is the condition of our heart. Violence and conflict tends to originate in the heart.

As we look at the world and see all this violence and conflict, it can feel overwhelming. I find myself wondering what I can possibly do about it. Should I just sit on the sidelines and pray? How can I possibly change the world or make a difference? It is paramount that we remember the road to peace starts with you and me. The road to a world restored begins with each of us in our own way waging peace. Before we can wage peace in the world, we need to wage peace in our own hearts and in each of our personal relationships.

As we close, consider the words of the apostle James:

Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats. Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor (James 3:13-18, MSG).

	The Accidental Poet on Atheism: The End of Reaso…
	clubschadenfreude on Atheism: The End of Reaso…
	The Accidental Poet on Atheism: The End of Reaso…
	clubschadenfreude on Atheism: The End of Reaso…
	Mo Anand on Rowers on the Schuykill

Part Four: Taking It to the Streets

Lethal Combination

“We Don’t Want Those People Here!”

A Parting Thought

Share this:

Like this:

Part Three: A System on the Brink

A Century-Old Practice

Share this:

Like this:

Part Two: Collateral Damage

Agony in the Womb

It All Adds Up

The True Cost

Share this:

Like this:

Part One: Dangerous Prescriptions

How it All Began

The Blame Game

Overdose Deaths Not Just Related to Opiate Prescriptions

The Road Ahead

The Christian Perspective

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That’s what love looks like. -St. Augustine

Share this:

Like this:

Concluding Remarks

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Answering the Great Question

Faith or History?

The Resurrection Changes Everything

Concluding Remarks

Share this:

Like this:

Nothing From Nothing Leaves Nothing

The Odds of So-Called Random Life

Man’s Search for Meaning

Morality and the Atheist

Concluding Remarks

Share this:

Like this:

Raised in a Christian Home

Christianity is Under Attack!

No Single Birthplace?

Replacing Darwin

Darwin and Genetics

Creation and Religion

Is Evolution a Religion?

How Old is the Earth?

Concluding Remarks

Share this:

Like this:

The Peacemaker: A Biblical Perspective on Resolving Personal Conflicts and Letting Go of Resentment.

Avoid Going It Alone

Correct Others With Wisdom and Love

The Opportunity to be Like Christ

Teaching Our Children to Become Peacemakers

Final Thoughs

Share this:

Like this: