God's Undertaker: has science buried God?

2007 John C Lennox – Reader in Maths at Oxford University
ISBN 978 0 7459 5303 8

A Christmas present from my wife, probably the most convincing book I have read about the Creation – Evolution debate. But not for the fainthearted. On the way the book answers various comments made by Richard Dawkins among a host of others. The cover says:

If we believe many modern commentators, science has squeezed God into a corner, killed and then buried him with its all-embracing explanations. Atheism, we are told, is the only intellectually tenable position, and any attempt to reintroduce God is likely to impede the progress of science.

In this stimulating and thought-provoking book, John Lennox invites us to consider such claims very carefully. Is it really true, he asks, that everything in science points towards atheism? Could it be possible that theism sits more comfortably with science than atheism? Has science buried God or not?

The titles of the chapters are:

• War of the worldviews
• The scope and limits of science
• Reduction, reduction, reduction...
• Designer universe
• Designer biospere
• The nature and scope of evolution
• The origin of life
• The genetic code and its origin
• Matters of information
• The monkey machine
• The origin of information

I enjoyed reading this book and will read it again in a little while to let it sink in further. As a seeker after truth, I have the responsibility to educate myself against the false doctrines that are in the world. If God has said that He made everything, which He does, I have a responsibility to deal with any remnants of doubt that may linger, and to align myself totally with everything He tells me. That's precisely why books like this are written.

The day that I realised, through attending a Creationist presentation, that God has done what He says He has done, it was as though something dirty fell away from me; I suddenly felt clean. That speaks volumes.

Amazon.co.uk reviews of this book

Christmas 2009 News

How wonderful to receive Newsletters from dear friends at and around Christmas. And how grateful we are that they have not given up when we have failed to reciprocate!

Mike
Although he was supposed to hand over responsibility for the UK World Outreach office at the start of October, six and a half years of development work takes time to document, especially since development continued right up to the end. So it was on December 17 that the final version of the 180 page Operations Manual was sent to the new Operations Director in Market Harborough.

Christmas was a peculiar time for Mike; a massive anticlimax with plenty to do but no energy to do it. Janet said 'Relax, and enjoy having some time', but it's not so easy when all you've been doing has suddenly stopped.

• No longer is he waking up in the middle of the night and writing a list of jobs to do the next day.
• No longer does he suddenly realise a better way to program something and go out to the office to bury himself for hours till the changes are made.
• No longer will he wake up at 4.30 in the morning with a brilliant idea that prohibits further sleep so he starts work that day at 5am.
• No longer will he still be out in the office at 9pm because 'there's still something he must finish'.
• No longer will he have to be in the office for several days over month-end to ensure that all financial transactions are up to date and all month-end transfers to missionaries have been made. It has meant that holidays and trips always had to kept away from the end of the month so as not to impact office schedules.

Janet serving the meal

Much of the work has had nothing to do with processing donations or liaising with supporters, but much more to do with development work, something that will not need to be repeated by those who come after. It would have been a doddle if there had been no development. But that's how it was, and he's completed it now.

Janet
Always supportive and understanding; always gentle and kind. Her father is 83 and doing very well. We try to go to see him at regular intervals, but our visits have not been as frequent as we would have liked, although Janet rings every week.

Tim
Continues to share a house with a number of other young professions a mile or two from home and calls in for a meal at least once a week. He is doing well working for the Civil Service and is no stranger to hard work. He enjoys regular visits to the gym and football twice a week with friends.

Ben
Has returned to enjoy the pleasures of home life for a season, though we realise that next time he moves out it will be permanent. He is working hard for an American company in Bracknell after suffering for a while in a post that seemed to be going nowhere. When Ben is motivated, nothing can stand in his way and he is doing well.

Kik, Ben and Tim enjoying a
traditional Christmas meal

We enjoy watching our sons, now 27 and 25 respectively, growing up into fine young men and pray that God will make them well-pleasing to Him.

Kik
Our Japanese friend Kikuyo joined us again in the middle of December to our great pleasure. She had stayed with us before for 5 years from about 2002 to 2007 so the whole family know her well.

Since this is going on a blog, there is no need to tell you about other events that have taken place during the year. These will be the subject of other entries.

It’s Our Turn to Eat: the story of a Kenyan whistleblower

2009, Michela Wong
ISBN-10: 0061346586
ISBN-13: 978-0061346583

If you have an interest in Africa and why most of the people of African continue in utmost destitution and poverty while their rulers drive around in luxury cars, you need to read this book.

It is the story of Kenya, and how since independence successive governments have succeeded in milking the system. Michela Wong writes brilliantly and with insight about the situation in Kenya, and about John Githongo who was appointed by the new Kenyan president in 2002 to expose corruption, and the process by which he realised that the president was running the corruption, and using John as a ‘clean’ front-man. The UN and the British government, as usual, come out of book as parts of the problem. Africans are rarely able to be really corrupt without the help of their foreign friends.

A review in the Economist (Feb 28, 2009) says 'This gripping saga is a down-to-earth yet sophisticated exposé of how an entire country can be munched in the clammy claws of corruption. It is also a devastating account of how corruption and tribalism reinforce each other, as clannish elites exploit collective feelings of jealousy or superiority in an effort to ensure that their lot wins a fat, or the fattest, share of the cake. Hence the book’s title: “It’s our turn to eat”'.

Amazon.co.uk reviews of this book

The end of the (World Outreach) line

Early in October 2009 I hand all the work of World Outreach UK Operations Director over to John Ball, one of the other WOUK trustees. I think it would be hard to find a more suitable man than John. As an ex-Publishing Manager of Scripture Union with links to Bible Society, he will bring valuable expertise to the job in areas of management, publicity and much more.

Now that what I began to do in 2003 is complete, that is developing and documenting office systems for World Outreach, it is clearly the right time to hand over.

Janet, my wife, reminds me that beginning in Summer 2003 when I began the initial work to take over the administration of World Outreach UK from the office in Dorchester, which employed 3 people, I had to work very hard to get everything going. The aim was to take all the records that were needed for the continuance of the trust from the 3-storey office in Dorchester, and to compress them into a form that could be held by a PC and filing cabinet in a small office in Reading.

During June 2003 I had made a whistle-stop visit to World Outreach offices in Singapore, Brisbane and Auckland to evaluate their computer systems and had learnt that none of them could be utilised to provide accounting and office systems for the UK office. Researching the software market in the UK also revealed that there was nothing available that was not either simplistic or over-complex for the task we faced. It seemed remarkable to me that with thousands of UK charities with similar requirements (or so I imagined), there should be nothing suitable for us in the marketplace.

So, apart from having to convert existing supporter records into a form that we could use, it was necessary to write a fair amount of software to interface to the hybrid QuickBooks package that was providing core accounting. As the months went by, the software expanded and generated work because we able to do more with the data than we had ever done before. We began to discover which supporters were interested in what and to write to them to keep them informed about their interests.

In time the World Outreach UK website was developed and it became difficult to keep all the balls in the air, especially because the office system continually developed as my understanding of VB6 programming and web systems increased. We moved to web platforms for forex transfers which greatly reduced the cost of sending money to missionaries. This development was spurred on by the comment made by one forex bureau that banks made 60% of their profits from foreign exchange. I don't know how true this is.

So while this was all going on, a lot of normal living had to be on hold. Although we managed to take holidays away at least once a year, it did mean that for 6 years the house did not get painted and the garden did not get dug, all the jobs that a man's muscles do better! Janet proved her mettle in allowing me to get on with the job and supporting me in manic working while onlookers sometimes assumed that because she didn't go out to work time must weigh heavily on her hands.

So it is going to be a great relief to pass the responsibility on to someone else. The office routines are set up, all systems are now frozen, and it only remains to complete the online documentation for 'those that shall come after', because John will eventually pass the work on to someone else.