iDNA: The Next Generation of iPods?

iPods from Apple started out with about 8GB of memory. Now they are being marketed with a 160GB memory or more. And people are rapidly filling up even this large amount of information.

Data proliferation is a widespread concern as more and more information technology applications demand more compact data processing and storage circuitry. Some technologists think that DNA represent a possible solution to these issues. ONE GRAM OF THIS BIOMOLECULE CAN STORE AS MUCH INFORMATION AS 1 TRILLION COMPACT DISCS!

DNA can serve as a storage medium because, in essence, this molecule is an information-based system. In fact, DNA’s chief function is data storage – housing the information necessary to make all the proteins used by the cell.

The cell’s machinery forms the chains of DNA (which twirl around each other to form a double helix) by linking together four different nucleotides, abbreviated A, G. C. and T. The sequence of nucleotides in the DNA strands represents information. (For example, the nucleotide sequence that specifies the production of a single protein chain is called a gene.)

This information closely resembles the organization of human language. Think of nucleotides functioning as alphabet letters, genes like words, and so on.

One recent study conducted by a team from Japan demonstrated that the genome (entire genetic makeup) of a living organism (the bacterium, Bacillus subtilis) could be used to maintain data. When stored within an organism’s genome, data exists in a more robust format than when housed in magnetic media and silicon chips. These two nonliving systems can be readily destroyed and their contents lost without constant maintenance. In contrast, living organisms can reproduce. As they do, the information stored in their genomes will be passed on to the next generation. This inheritance makes it possible to maintain information over extensive periods of time, perhaps up to hundreds of thousands of years.

The Japanese researchers treated sequences of nucleotides as strings of data. Using combinations of two nucleotides to represent the numbers of a hexadecimal system (4 squared =16) they employed DNA sequences to represent all the characters on a keyboard and, consequently, encoded a message within a DNA sequence. Using these representations, they were able to prepare a synthetic piece of DNA that contained the message: “E=mc squared 1905!”

The team then incorporated the laboratory-made DNA into the B. subtilis genome in multiple locations. This redundancy insured that mutations to the genome would not degrade or destroy the message. The repeated sequences also allowed them to recover the message in a fairly straightforward manner. The scientists showed that the message could be readily retrieved by sequencing the organism’s genome and performing multiple alignments of the sequence. Since the message was encoded within the genome multiple times, it can be easily distinguished from the “noninformation” within the genome.

Practical applications for DNA storage remains for the future. But, as this study illustrates, the advances needed to develop this technology are happening at a fast pace. And the payoffs could be huge.

In the meantime, the use of DNA as a digital storage medium carries more immediate significance – not technological, however, but theological.

DNA data storage makes it clear that biochemical information is truly information. And information serves as a potent marker for intelligent design. Human experience consistently teaches that information emanates from intelligence. Messages come from a mind. Information, in whatever form it takes, is not limited to communicating ideas, needs, and desires between human minds. Information is passed WITHIN living cells, and the information content of DNA makes it rational to believe that life must have come from an intelligent agent, a Creator.

It also makes it realistic for me to hope for a really juiced up iPod in the not-so-distant future.

[Back to Home]

Who Were the Heretics? Part Two

I have covered church history up to the Protestant Reformation in part one (to review click here.) We now come to the early reformers.

John Wycliffe can probably be considered the first reformer of the reformation era. He lived in the 14th century. He attended Oxford and his scholastic eminence was such that he probably had no equal in the England of his day. The most important aspect of Wycliffe’s teaching was that interpretation of Scripture is not the sole prerogative of any man or organization; the meaning of Scripture is made clear by the Holy Spirit to those who are enlightened of Christ and approach God’s Word in a spirit of humility and teachableness. When he gave the Bible to the English people in their own tongue, he was laying the foundation for the emergence once more of the church of apostolic times. For this he was declared a “heretic”.

William Tyndale lived in Henry VIII’s England of the 16th century and was declared a “heretic” by both the church of England and the Roman church for his accentuation of Bible reading by the “laity” and denunciation of clergy practices.

Martin Luther was the best known of the reformers of the 16th century. He was an Augustinian monk of the Roman church who spoke out against many practices of the Roman church. He found in Paul’s Roman epistle that salvation was by faith alone. The Roman practice of selling indulgences, Luther said, can remit neither guilt nor divine punishment. He denied the final authority of the Pope. He was excommunicated by Rome.

The Lutheran Church which he established was a compromise between his Scriptural ideals and his earthly loyalties to some form of ecclesiastical authority. It developed into something far from the churches of the New Testament. His reformation theology became watered down by adherence to a clergy/laity system.

John Calvin arose in France parallel with Luther in Germany. He stressed that the teaching of the apostles had been obscured by the teaching of salvation through the sacraments of the Church. Salvation, he maintained, is not bay works, as the Roman church taught, but bly faith through which the life of Christ is appropriated by the believer. That a believer lives a life of righteousness is a proof that he has entered into a vital relationship with Christ who is the guide to the Christian’s daily walk,

We find coming into prominence in the first half of the 16th century, groups of Christians who formed a third and increasingly powerful stream of religious life, totally independent of Catholics and Protestants alike. Being free from political association, These groups of believers generally called themselves simply by the name of Christians or brethren, but administered baptism only to those who had chosen regeneration through faith in Christ, and were stigmatized by the name Anabaptists, meaning “those who baptized again”. This referred to the fact that the brethren did not recognize the baptism of children as valid, and baptized a second time those who came into an experience of salvation through faith. And, of course, Anabaptists were recognized in history as “heretics” by both Catholics and Protestants. They did not have any organized system of Christian congregations. The different assemblies came into being in different ways through the ministry of different people, but had the one common bond of spiritual life which all alike had received through faith in Christ – this being similar to the apostolic times of the Bible. Faith, if it means anything at all, means the reception of the indwelling Christ, and Christ dwelling in mortal bodies means holiness.

Puritans was the name given to those who had been influenced by the Reformed faith as it was practiced in Switzerland and in France they were called Hugenots. They claimed that the church should be run in accordance with New Testament pattern, and objected to anything which did not find Scriptural warrant such as vestments, and kneeling for the reception of the bread and the wine at the Lord’s table which they feared was akin to the Roman practice of adoring the elements. This was a heretical concept.

Many known as Independents said that a church consisted of a company of believers who are united through their relationship with Christ. Each congregation sets apart the officers through whom it should be governed and is completely independent, yet owning a vital, spiritual link with every other company of born again people. “Heretics” again.

The “Pilgrim Fathers” aboard the Mayflower coming to America in 1620 were a mixture of a newer development in the history of the Church, that of churches gathering on specific doctrinal ground. One of the most common threats to the supremacy of Christ in the assembly is loyalty to a man, a great and spiritual man he may be, but a man nevertheless who receives some at least of the submission and dependence which should be accorded directly to Christ.

In the 17th century, many were attracted by the preaching of George Fox, and meetings of the “Friends” or “Quakers” as they were called were begun in many places. In America, William Penn fully associated himself with them. Fox laid great stress upon the inward witness of the Spirit through which God speaks to man. Again, “heretics” to both Catholics and Protestants.

Within the Roman church there had long been people, called Mystics, whose yearning after communion with God had led them to develop a life of meditation and strict temperance. One of the best known of the Mystics of the late 17th and early 18th centuries was Madame Guyon. Although finally imprisoned by the king of France in the Bastille, her influence continued to spread beyond the walls of her awful dungeon. She was primarily concerned with personal fellowship with God and felt that the ecclesiastical gatherings under clergy had become a system of power control. Another “heretic”.

There was much denominationalism formed during the 18th and 19th centuries with leaders such as John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Benjamin Newton, John Darby, George Muller – all looked on as “heretics” by the organizational church.

In conclusion, churches as they were in the times of the apostles have never ceased to exist, as we have seen, and wherever God works through the power of His unchangeable Word, people made partakers of the divine nature, anxious to obey the Word which has shed a flood of light into their souls, have gathered together and are gathering together as the disciples did in the Book of Acts.

The complexities of denominationalism and ecclesiastical authority have covered over the truth of what the Church was meant to be which is simply the unity of those who have received new life in Christ, not a unity determined by creeds, forms or ceremonies.

[Back to Home]

The World Says, "Don't Just Stand There - Do Something!"

We like to think of ourselves as active participants in life, able to make our way in the world, in full control of our destiny. Our North American society paints the perfect person as a can-do individual who is filled with buoyant optimism and brimming with energy. This is, says our culture, a society in which you can make just about anything happen if you “set your mind to it.”

When it comes to dealing with the physical issues of life, there’s a lot of truth in our culture’s traditional, conventional axiom, “Don’t just STAND there – DO something!” However, there are times when no planning or hard work on our part (or anyone’s) can solve the crisis we may face.

* We find ourselves sitting next to a loved one, in a doctor’s office or later, in a hospital room, as they hear the news that they are in a life or death battle with a deadly disease. We wring our hands, it seems that there’s nothing we can DO. We realize that “all” we can do is pray. We say, “Okay, God, can you help me? I don’t think I can deal with this one.”

* We visit an aged parent in a care facility and attempt to engage them in conversation, but Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia has them in its grip, and the only response we receive is a blank stare. That blank stare of diminished capacity taunts us, “there’s nothing you can DO!”

* We talk with an adult child who is in the grip of a chemical addiction, and while they have been in recovery and detox programs, it seems that they can’t shake the influence and command the chemical has over their body. We think, “Was it something I did or failed to do when my child was growing up? Is their slavery to this chemical my fault?” At these times it seems like there’s nothing we can DO.

* There are times when we must deal with what the insurance industry calls “acts of God.” If you live in California, you feel like it’s just a matter of time until “The Big One.” If you live in Florida, or other states bordering the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic, you know that hurricane season may mean that your home is directly in the path of a destructive hurricane. If you live in the Midwest as I do, the same potential exists in tornado season. Acts of God make us think there is nothing we can DO.

A similar spiritual experience can take place, and will, if and when we embrace and accept God’s amazing grace. At first in our spiritual walk, much of Christianity attempts to persuade us that our relationship with God is up to us – that if regimented steps and instructions are followed then a desirable spiritual outcome will be realized.

We later come to realize that the control we once thought we had was just an illusion – a mirage in the desert. GOD’S GRACE TEACHES US THAT THE CONTROL OF OUR LIVES IS IN GOD’S HANDS. When it comes to our relationship with God, the worldly wisdom of “Don’t just stand there – DO something” becomes a convenient tool for religious authoritarianism to control us. When it comes to our relationship with God, we find eternal wisdom in the very opposite: DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING – STAND THERE!

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not about our DOING. It is not a command for us to save ourselves – that we should “DO something” to extricate ourselves from our sinful ways, and somehow ingratiate ourselves, by our obedience, to God. The gospel is about what God DOES – what He has done, is doing and will do. DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING – STAND THERE!

As Christians we are in the same spiritual dilemma as the nation of Israel at the Exodus, with the mountains surrounding us, the sea in front of us and the army of Pharaoh pursuing us. We cannot save ourselves. Yes, we must walk forward in and with Him. But our decision to trust in Him and follow Him is not one and the same as saving ourselves. We cannot part the Red Seas of our lives. We must STAND in God’s grace. We must allow Him to do for us what we can never DO.

Before we can do anything of eternal consequence, or rather, before God can do anything of eternal consequence through us, we must STAND still long enough to 1) focus on Jesus, the Captain of our salvation, 2) receive His rest and grace and 3) enable God to transform us by a growing realization that Jesus lives right within us and He provides for us when we trust in Him.

When God says in His Word, “Be still and know that I am God!”, He is also saying, “DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE!” And then you will see how God works in your life.

[Back to Home]

Who Were the "Heretics"?

The Bible tells us that the Church of Jesus Christ is composed of those people who have chosen to accept Christ as Savior and Lord of their lives. This is very individually inclusive and is NOT denominationally exclusive. There are members of the Church throughout the ranks of every so-called denomination or non-denomination of Christianity.

With this in mind, let’s investigate the history of the Church down through the ages with an emphasis on who were the “heretics” described in Church history?

Early in the history of the Church (even starting within a century of the apostolic era), there began to take shape a form of the Church where hierarchy structure and ecclesiastic control was centered in a priesthood. This organizational Church became known as the “Catholic Church” or, with its leadership in Rome, the “Roman Catholic Church”.

Now, as I said, there have always been true believers and members of the Church of Jesus Christ in all sections of Christianity and this includes the Roman Catholic Church. But, even as described in the epistles of the Bible in the early churches, there have always been those who attempted control with unbiblical doctrine. And this Roman Catholic Church, although rising to great power, is an example of unbiblical doctrine.

Since the histories of the Church which have survived were largely written with a Roman Catholic slant, we see peoples who were called “heretics” and persecuted by the Catholic Church as enemies. In most cases, why were they called “heretics”? Because they opposed the hierarchy structure and unbiblical doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.

Let me name a few down through the ages who were called “heretics” by the organizational Church.

In the 2nd century, there were the Montanists. As organization increased, and more and more authority was exercised by the bishops, there was a consequent emphasis upon the spiritual efficacy of rituals performed by the bishops, particularly the rituals of baptism and the eucharist. The Montanists rightly saw this as a danger posing a threat to the Church’s whole spiritual life. The Spirit’s working, they felt, was being replaced by dependence upon organization and ritual. They laid great emphasis on the place of the Holy Spirit among the people of God. This view was much needed because of the inordinate occupation with form, and dependence upon hierarchy which was paralyzing the individual relationship with Christ.

In the 3rd century, there were “heretics” called Novationists, Cathars, Puritans and Priscillianists. Although differences existed among them, a common thread was that they lived lives which even their enemies had to admit were beyond reproach, and who claimed that the spiritual origin of their communities went right back to the days of the apostles themselves.

In the 4th century, there were the “heretical” Culdees. The Culdees were Christians whose history went back to the earliest days of Christianity in Britain. They professed the Lordship of Christ alone, not that of any Church system, refused luxury and extravagant living, maintained themselves by honest work, and were zealous in the ministry of God’s Word.

Let us now go into greater depth with one particular community of so-called “heretics” who were known as the Paulicians. In the 7th century, there arose a community of Paulicians who, among themselves owning only the name of “Christians" or “Brethren”, stood out strongly against the idolatry, sacramentalism, and other prevailing errors of the Catholic Church. They appear on the historical scene in the region of Mesopotamia. Why they were named “Paulicians” is not exactly known, but it may simply have been because of their respect for the apostle Paul and his writings. The Catholic Church ascribed to them all sorts of erroneous doctrines, if we can believe those whose lives denied the truths they professed, for to them practical holiness was of little account.

It is a sad commentary on the perversity of man’s nature that a Churchly system could ever emerge calling itself the Church of Jesus Christ in which was practiced every conceivable type of unbiblical error, yet which believed itself supremely to enjoy the favor of a holy God because of an orthodox form of words and doctrines to which it gave lip assent, and utterly repudiated in daily living. This same Church scorned the manifestly holy lives of men and women who sought to order their ways in humble obedience to Christ through His Word, and branded them heretics.

Whatever opinions may beheld about the Paulicians, it is generally conceded that they had a particular respect for the authority of the Bible, advocated a life of simplicity, were a devout and earnest people, and bore a strong witness against the unsavory practices of the Catholic Church. They claimed simply that they were in the succession of those people who still held to the teaching of the apostles, and with every scriptural justification, they denied the right of the ecclesiastical systems of Christendom to control the workings of the Church of Christ.

In assessing the character of the Paulicians and other groups which have appeared down through the centuries, historians have tended too readily to accept uncritically what has been said and written against them by their enemies. The history of the Roman Church in its dealings with those who refused to bow to its dominion is a tale of violence and persecution. Not only did it seek to destroy the persons of those who opposed it, but also to bring the very memory of their names into ignominy by the most gross accusations, and to obliterate what they themselves wrote or anything written about them in their favor. It is hardly surprising therefore that much more literature survives which condemns than commends them.

The Paulicians accepted no central authority to rule over the scattered assemblies. The local churches looked to Christ as their Head, and they were built up and strengthened spiritually by teachers who moved from place to place to minister in their midst in a manner similar to that of Paul and others in New Testament times. Since different groups came into being through the ministry of different people, they no doubt differed somewhat one from another, both in form and in emphasis. Their spiritual unity lay in the life which they had in union with Christ, a life which manifested itself in their daily walk and witness. They owned a profound respect for the Word of God, which they accepted as their guide and basis of spiritual growth.

The Paulicians repudiated the practice of infant baptism but held that the Church has a responsibility to pray for the children of believers, and the elders to exhort parents to their solemn duty to bring them up in holiness to know the Lord and His Word. Baptism, they said, should be given only to those who requested it, as a testimony of their repentance and faith. This again was opposed to the false Catholic idea that baptism was the means of redemptive grace being bestowed. To the Paulicians it was a witness to a work that God had already accomplished.
The Paulicians attracted men and women who had a passionate devotion to Christ. In the few facts concerning them which have survived, we can see the simple order and holy life of the earliest churches. We find in their midst men of humility and apostolic spirit who poured out their lives in the proclamation of the truth and died rather than deny their Lord.

Going on, we see the Dark Ages from approximately the 8th to the 12th centuries.

In the 12th century we see the “heretical” Bogomils and Waldenses. The Bogomils, which means simply “friends of God”, were from the area of the Balkan peninsula. They were the subject of wild accusations by the hierarchy of the Roman Church. They were accused, naturally, of being heretics, and quite justifiably of denying much that was peculiar to Roman dogma, including the usefulness of the Church’s sacraments and orders. To Mary, they gave no special honor, nor to the figure of the cross or other relics; the Lord’s supper was not celebrated in the Catholic Church according to Scripture, they said, and her priesthood was corrupt.

The Waldenses got their name from Peter Waldo, a rich businessman of Lyon, France. But there is, in fact, no precise record of the origin of the Waldenses. They themselves traced their beginnings back to apostolic times, and claimed that the faith which they held had been passed down from father to son from the earliest ages of the Church’s existence. It may well be that these congregations were the spiritual progeny of Christians who fled northwards during the early Roman persecutions at the close of the apostolic era.

The Waldenses were characterized by their marked reverence for the Scriptures in which they found their rule of daily living and church order. Their congregations were, therefore, simple, void of the highly developed rituals and ordinances which marked the Catholic Church. THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST’S DWELLING WITHIN BY THE SPIRIT WAS TO THEM A TRUTH OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE.

Salvation was through faith, and the Roman Church had authority neither to open nor to close the door to God’s grace. Baptism was a testimony to faith in Christ, and the Lord’s supper was a remembrance of His sacrifice.

We now come to the era of the Protestant Reformation which began in the 14th century. We see men such as Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin who were declared “heretics” by the Catholic Church. I will continue “Who Were the Heretics?” from the Protestant Reformation at a later date.

[Back to Home]

Historical Islam

In Old Testament times God not infrequently used heathen nations to judge the degeneracy of His own people. There are incidents in the history of the Church which may well be interpreted as a divine intervention to blot out that which had become a reproach to the name of Christ. By the seventh century, the organized, hierarchical Church had degenerated in its practices to the point that it was ripe for judgment. Did God use Islam to judge the Church?

Muhammad was born in Mecca in 571 of an elite family. In his youth he traveled with trading caravans along the main trade routes of the Arabian peninsula, and in Syria and Palestine had considerable contact with Jews and Christians. He was not impressed by his encounter with Christianity, mixed as it was with superstition and idolatry. A visionary, and one who was incensed by the degradations of the idolatrous polytheism of his own race, he embarked upon a life of reform. His efforts were spurred on by direct revelations which he claimed to receive from God and which were committed to writing to form the Qur’an.

Whatever may be said of Muhammad, and there can be no doubt as to the contradictions of his own character, he instigated on a social level a much needed reform among the Arabs of his day.

God, he said, was One, and he was His prophet. His fierce denunciations of idolatry and other blatant evils so stirred up opposition in Mecca that, with a company of his followers, he fled in 622 to Medina. From that year the Muslim era is dated, and indeed his flight, or “hijra” as it is called, proved to be the turning point of his career. By the time of his death in 632 practically the whole of Arabia lay at his feet.

Muhammad’s successors as Kaliphs took up the cause, and Islam spread with bewildering rapidity. Damascus fell to the Muslim forcers in 635, and then the great bastions of Christianity, Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria. Thousands of church buildings were destroyed or turned into mosques. The tide swept across North Africa practically obliterating Christianity. Few communities survived. Those who refused to deny Christ died, and of those who denied Him many served to sell the ranks of the Islamic forces. Across Spain and into France swept the apparently invincible tide, to be met at last by the determined forces of Charles Martel at Tours in 732. In one of the most important battles of all history, the invaders suffered a crushing defeat.

In less than a hundred years from Muhammad’s death, the dominion of Islam stretched from India to Spain, and its conquests were by no means over. That such a catastrophe should have overtaken the Church almost defies the imagination, yet it was not the spiritual movement of the Church that suffered near extermination, but the proud ecclesiastic hierarchy which claimed dominion over the souls of men and offered to sacraments and idols the reverence that was due to God alone.

ISLAM BEGAN AS A JUDGMENT UPON PAGAN IDOLATRY. IT GREW AS A JUDGMENT UPON CHRISTIAN IDOLATRY AS WELL.

So far had the Church departed from the teachings of Scripture, and so blatantly was idolatry practiced, that in 726 Leo III sought to deal with these abuses. He forbade that reverence be given to images and to pictures. This was strongly resisted by many, both common people and clerics. The dispute resulted in shameful violence on both sides, for neither had any appeal to spiritual motives.

Yes, just as God’s people, Israel, received judgment for their sins and disobedience from heathen nations like Assyria and Babylonia, it is highly probable that God used the uprising of Islam in judgment against the abuses that had developed within His Church.

[Back to Home]