This Week's 66/40 Radio Broadcast

Articles and Commentary

• The Ultimate Valentine - (Read)
• Evolution and Academic Freedom - (Read)
• Same Old Dog, Same Dirty Tricks - (Read)

Important News Headlines

Memory Verse of the Week

THE ULTIMATE VALENTINE - (Print)

This week happy couples around the country will exchange tokens of love and affection in celebration of Valentine's Day. If this week has put you in the mood for a little romance, we recommend you take a look at what has to be the most charming little book in the Bible.

The book of Ruth is often studied (even in secular colleges) as a masterpiece in miniature for its romantic elegance and literary value - and its charming glimpse into life in ancient Israel. It is a classic love story of loyalty and devotion, and yet it also contains some surprising insights that go far beyond the historical narrative itself.

One of the principal characters is Naomi, a Bethlehemite, who, because of a famine, migrates with her husband and her two sons to distant Moab. The two sons take Moabite women for wives. During the ten years that follow, Naomi's husband and both her two sons pass away, leaving her destitute.

Upon hearing that things have turned for the better in her native Bethlehem, Naomi decides to return home. She encourages the two young girls to make new lives for themselves among their own people. However, Ruth refuses, insists upon remaining with Naomi. Her declaration of loyalty to Naomi is one of the most elegant and well-known passages in the Holy Scriptures:

"Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me."

Ruth's story yields an incredible overview of God's plan of redemption. Her persistent and devoted commitment to her mother-in-law leads to a dramatic romance, a prophecy of the coming King, and her being included in the family tree of the Messiah.

Ruth is one of the most significant books in the Old Testament for the Church. And it’s interesting that the book traditionally is read by rabbis on the Feast of Pentecost, when the Church was born. It explains, like no other book in the Scripture, the role and mission of the Kinsman Redeemer. This book is an essential prerequisite to understanding the book of Revelation. Before you study Revelation 5, you need to understand the book of Ruth.

This little book is more than a love story between Ruth and Boaz, it is a foreshadowing of another love story, the greatest story ever told. The ultimate "valentine" was written in blood on a wooden cross, erected in Judea two thousand years ago.

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EVOLUTION AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM - (Print)

Nearly 150 years after Darwin published Origin Of The Species, his theory of evolution continues to cause controversy. This next week the Florida Board of Education will vote on the state's new science standards, including what will be required in the area of evolution education. In the meanwhile, a professor at Iowa State University recently lost an appeal after arguing his tenure was denied because he supports Intelligent Design.

While many people believe that the evolution controversy is about religion, many closely involved believe it is more about the academic freedom of a scientific minority - a minority that argues that evolution is insufficient to explain the well-engineered complexity of life on earth.

Florida

Florida's time for the science standards battle has arrived. On February 19, the state board will finalize its decision on how to handle the prickly subject of evolution in the state's science standards. If left as they are, the standards would promote microbes-to-man evolution as basic scientific fact.

The board held a final hearing Monday to allow differing views to be expressed. Concerned citizens traveled from the far nooks and crannies of Florida to voice their opinions and nearly 80 people spoke over five hours. Significant numbers expressed concern that evolution should not be promoted as a fact but as a theory, while others argued that a soft approach on evolution would set the state back and would fail to prepare the students for college.

The chairmen of various district school boards joined the fray.

Chairmen like Debra Walker of the Monroe County School Board argued that the science standards should remain the same. Walker asserted that there would be little controversy over evolution if people were better educated in science.

On the other hand, Patricia Weeks, chairman of the Baker County School Board argued that, "The standards deny academic freedom to students and teachers." Her local school board had voted to request revised standards in which "evolution is not presented as fact."

While the state board has given all sides freedom to speak, only the votes next Tuesday will show whether the open forum had any effect on the science standards.

Iowa

In the meanwhile, Guillermo Gonzalez believes that he was wrongly denied tenure at Iowa State University because he supports Intelligent Design.

Gonzalez, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State, appealed the decision to deny him tenure last spring. He argued that the decision was based not on his research and his teaching, but on a smear campaign against him because he supports Intelligent Design.

The Iowa Board of Regents voted 7-1 to deny his appeal on February 7. Gonzalez, however, had not been allowed to give oral arguments to the board. He believes that if he had been able to do so, he might have proved his case. Emails between professors and administrators at Iowa State justified his position.

"I don't see how they come to reach an informed decision without all of the relevant facts," Gonzalez said. He believes the vote was a "major blow to academic freedom."

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SAME OLD DOG, SAME DIRTY TRICKS - (Print)

Following a series of very public and very appalling scandals, the United Nations has come under increased scrutiny. In recent years it has promised to clean up its act, and has enacted new policies and procedures meant to restore its credibility. Unfortunately, it would seem those reforms have done little to purge the international organization of corruption and waste.

Last year, in an attempt to reform its corruption-rife procurement system, the UN blacklisted a number of vendors. Among them was an Italian company called Corimec, which gave bribes to UN officials in exchange for lucrative contracts. However less than one month after it was removed from the UN's list of approved vendors the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) purchased several million dollars worth of goods from Corimec. According to FOX News, the UNDP knew that Corimec had been blacklisted, but decided to use them anyway: "…UNDP officials declared that as a legally separate UN agency, they were not bound to honor the Procurement Service sanction…[this is] particularly significant, because the UNDP is the premier agency through which the UN operates on the ground in most of the 160 countries that it services." These events prompt us to wonder if the UN is really serious about cleaning up its act.

The procurement service scandal is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The pattern of corruption in the UN is widespread. A recent internal audit of the UN mission in Sudan, conducted by the UN Office for International Oversight Services, found that the organization has wasted tens of millions of dollars over the past three years. Auditors found "potential fraud indicators and cases of mismanagement and waste" as well as "dozens of irregularities" in how the money was spent - money that should have been used to help the people of Sudan. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, "UN officers in Sudan have squandered millions by renting warehouses that were never used, booking blocks of hotel rooms that were never filled, and losing thousands of food rations to theft and spoilage."

Hundreds of thousands of people in the Darfur region of Sudan have been slaughtered, and millions have been forced to flee their homes. The Islamic government that controls Sudan has been accused of genocide, but the United Nations has yet to take decisive action to stop the bloodshed. For the past five years they have done little but deliberate, procrastinate, and make empty threats.

The United Nations was created to maintain international peace and help solve the world's economic and humanitarian troubles, but the UN has failed time and time again to accomplish its primary objectives. The UN is plagued by scandal, widespread corruption, favoritism, and financial mismanagement. Furthermore, through its misconduct, negligence, and complacency the UN has aided terrorism and oppression worldwide.

It should come as no surprise, that amidst the scandals that have engulfed the UN, the organization has announced plans for a massive overhaul. The huge reforms will be unlike any changes made since the organization was founded in 1945. Historically, government never downsizes voluntarily; it always increases its power and minimizes accountability to its citizens. Government reinvention is frequently an effort to avoid the consequences of failed policies in the past, or to justify a government's continued expansion by posing solutions to the problems it has created.

Over the last decade, the United Nations has unabashedly pushed for what it calls "global governance." The UN is positioning itself for real global power and it has become evident that they will use the scandal and the ensuing "reforms" to advance closer to that goal.

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US Deficit Running at Twice Last Year's - February 12, 2008
The federal budget deficit is running at a pace that is more than double last year's imbalance through the first four months of the budget year. The deficit totals $87.7 billion so far this budget year, double the $42.2 billion imbalance recorded during the same period in 2007. MSNBC

Russian Bombers Buzz US Naval Vessel - February 12, 2008
US fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers flying unusually close to an American naval vessels in the western Pacific. A US military official says that a Russian bomber buzzed the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz twice, at a low altitude of about 2,000 feet, while another bomber circled about 50 nautical miles out. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the reports on the flights were classified as secret. FOX News

Rising Foreclosures Pressure Housing Prices - February 12, 2008
A growing share of home sales are from foreclosures, especially in states hardest hit by the housing bust. In some parts of California lately, nearly 50 percent of home sales come from foreclosed houses. MSNBC

Russia Threatens the Ukraine - February 12, 2008
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to target its missiles at Ukraine if it joins NATO and accepts the deployment of the US missile defense shield. BBC

Chinese Spies Arrested - February 11, 2008
A Defense Department analyst and a former engineer for Boeing were charged Monday in separate spy cases for allegedly handing over US military secrets to the Chinese government. The information stolen included every planned US sale of weapons or other military technology to Taiwan for the next five years as well as information on Boeing's defense contracts and space program. FOX News

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Psalms 51:6 KJV

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32

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