Sue,

I am intrigued by this article “Should a Christian Woman Wear a Headcovering?” by Daniel Botkin (enclosed by mail and also available online here) about headcoverings, and it makes sense to me, but I would really like your input as a woman.

I read the headcoverings article with a huge smile across my heart. Its an excellent article! . . . And I couldn’t agree more.

Before I go further, though, let me first state that Probe does not have an official position on this issue; my answer is about me and my response to this issue. For six years or so I struggled with the plain command of scripture [1 Cor 11:10 Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.] and finally gave in. I just could not get around the phrase “because of the angels,” which has absolutely nothing to do with cultural- and time-bound practices. So, about a year ago, I started wearing hats to church. Recently, I purchased a couple of scarves which I also use as a headcovering in worship and for public prayer.

It’s been interesting the strong response I’ve received from men, who absolutely love to see a woman in a hat, even though they usually don’t know it’s not a fashion statement for me. They just know something strikes them as very, very right about it. What startled me was the effect on ME: I have so enjoyed feeling so feminine! I have also enjoyed experiencing the peace that is the fruit of obedience.

I started out wearing lace doilies or some other kind of headgear when I was in Catholic grade school. In the 60s and 70s, there was a wholesale dropping of the headcovering in almost all Western churches (with the rise of feminist thought, and I think they are related). I never even thought about how quickly 1900 years of church history were overturned in a mere decade until I couldn’t come up with a single good reason to disobey scripture.

So there you have it! Thanks for sharing the great article with me!

Sue Bohlin

Hi Sue!!

Your response was such a blessing and encouragement to my wife and me! Thank you so much for taking the time to read it and respond. Because of your response actually, my wife went out and bought a couple of scarves today! 🙂 Well thank you for your faithfulness and may the Lord continue to guide you in His word and in His love.

Why do not all the religions of the world pray to God asking him and the Devil to get together and settle their differences? It is widely held that God answers prayers.

This type of praying would surely head the list of really important things to pray for. I believe it is written at one time God and the Devil were very good friends existing in Heaven together. I also believe it is written while they were living together they had a big argument. The devil lost, and was tossed out. Would not the World be a better place if they improve their relationship?

I am thinking of all the people killed during the Crusades, the 30 years war, the Holocaust, the Civil War, the list is endless. I am also thinking about future babies, who will be born in the future, with their souls, not subject to future damnation. At least their chances would be better.

I believe God has written “blessed are the peacemakers.” Would it be too much to ask for this? I have seen no answer to this question, your answer would be appreciated.

Interesting question!

I don’t think it would do any good to pray that God and Satan get together to settle their differences for several reasons:

1. God is 100% good; Satan is 100% evil. Good and evil cannot peacefully co-exist, because good will eventually destroy evil.

2. We need to read the Bible as our only resource on what is true in the spirit realm because God gave us this information (as revelation). From what we can gather of what the Bible says about angels and demons, these powerful spirit beings do not have the capacity to repent as we humans do. They don’t even understand what it is like to be forgiven and accepted back into friendship with God. Thus, to ask for Satan and the demons to change is like praying that black become white or negative become positive. It won’t happen.

3. God already knows what the future holds, and He has told us a certain amount of that information. He has declared that at the end of time, He will throw Satan and the demons into a lake of fire for all eternity. What God has declared and has recorded in scripture will not change because God already knows what He will do.

God cannot improve his relationship with Satan because Satan cannot and will not become other than what he is. And just as the nature of sunlight is to destroy mold, and the nature of boiling water is to destroy harmful bacteria, the nature of God’s holiness is to destroy rebellion and sin. They cannot be reconciled.

Hope this helps.

Sue Bohlin

I would appreciate hearing your views on The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. If you’ve not yet seen it, this is a rather disturbing book which was brought to my attention at a recent dinner I attended on campus last month. During the dinner conversation I heard discussion between Dr. Rita Colwell (Director of the National Science Foundation) and Larry Smarr (Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications) that really took me by surprise. To hear some of today’s most influential scientists discussing the reality of software taking over humanity within the next century was a more than a little disturbing. Their consensus seemed to be that “the software takeover is inevitable.” The discussion was prompted by a recent article by Bill Joy in Wired Magazine titled “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us.” You can read the article online at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html (Bill Joy is the cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems).

I’d really appreciate some clear thinking from a Christian-minded perspective on this subject.

Thank you for your e-mail about “The Age of Spiritual Machines.” I have not read this article by Ray Kurzweil, but plan to do so in the future. That is an ominous statement about software taking over humanity.

In the meantime, I thought I might forward a portion of my recent book on a related subject. In Moral Dilemmas, I have a chapter on technology and address the issue of computers and the computer revolution. Here is section I wrote on the interface of computers and human intelligence:

________________________________

Fourth, computers should not replace human intelligence. In The Society of Mind Marvin Minsky, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that “the mind, the soul, the self, are not a singly ghostly entity but a society of agents, deeply integrated, yet each one rather mindless on its own.” (Richard Lipkin, “Making Machines in Mind’s Image,” Insight, 15 February 1988, 8-12). He dreams of being able ultimately to reduce mind (and therefore human nature) to natural mechanism. Obviously this is not an empirical statement, but a metaphysical one that attempts to reduce everything (including mind) to matter.

The implications, however, are profound. Besides lowering humans to the material process, it begins to elevate machines to the human level. One article asked the question, Would an Intelligent Computer Have a “Right to Life?” (Robert Mueller and Erik Mueller, “Would an Intelligent Computer Have a ‘Right to Life?’” Creative Computing, August 1983, 149-161). Granting computer rights might be something society might consider since many are already willing to grant certain rights to animals.

In a sense the question is whether an intelligent computer would have a soul and therefore access to fundamental human rights. As bizarre as the question may sound, it was no doubt inevitable. When seventeenth-century philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz first described a thinking machine, he was careful to point out that this machine would not have a soul–fearful perhaps of reaction from the church. (Danny Hillis, “Can They Feel Your Pain?” Newsweek, 5 May 1997, 57). Already scientists predict that computer intelligence will create “an intelligence beyond man’s” and provide wonderful new capabilities. (Robert Jastrow, “Toward an Intelligence beyond Man’s,” Time, 20 February 1978, 59). One of the great challenges in the future will be how to manage new computing power that will outstrip human intelligence.

The Bible teaches that humans are more than bits and bytes, more than blood and bones. Created in the image of God, human beings have a spiritual dimensions. They are more than complex computers. Computers should be used for what they do best: analyze discrete data with objective criteria. Computers are a wonderful tool, but they should not replace human intelligence and intuition.

______________________________________

Thanks for writing. I will continue this discussion in the future.

Kerby Anderson
Probe Ministries

Please help me answer this question?

I am a single parent (40 yrs old) of three children 16, 14, and 9. I have decided to live with my current boyfriend. I have taken all the pros and cons into consideration. So far it is going well. The only draw back so far has been my sister, her husband and 2 children. My sister and I are very close and spend a lot of time together. But since I have started dating again, 2 years with this one person (the only person I have dated by the way), I am not allowed to bring my boyfriend to her house. We are not allowed to do things with her children at all. I can understand that they would not want their children to spend the night or us to spend the night over there. I do not however understand why we can not spend time together as a family as we have in the past. Going to Six Flags, etc…. We do not hug or kiss, we may on occasion hold hands. I understand this is a moral issue, living together.

Can you please explain why I can’t spend time with my niece and nephew?

P.S. My family is Catholic. When I married the first time I married into a different church. My family is Catholic. I was married for 19 years. Been divorced for about 2 1/2 years and have been dating my current boyfriend for much of that time.

Dear ______,

I’m sort of wondering why you’re asking US instead of your sister. . .??!

My guess is that your sister is extremely uncomfortable with your choice of an immoral lifestyle and she is concerned that doing things together as if you were married might communicate to her children that immorality is okay. Many people are not confident that their kids can handle (or that they can teach) both the belief that “we love our family member” and “that family member is doing wrong things that we deeply disagree with.”

I noticed you used the term “moral issue,” but my guess is that your sister is thinking of it as an IMmoral issue. Which, to be blunt, it is. Living together outside of marriage is sin. You said you took all the pros and cons into consideration, but apparently you didn’t, since you could not possibly foresee how other people would react to your choice.

I hear the hurt in your “voice,” and I am sure that it weighs very heavily on you. Unfortunately, that’s one of the consequences of making choices that do not align with God’s intentions and commands for us. Sin causes pain and always ends up affecting more people than just ourselves. Your sister may be concerned about the effect of your lifestyle choice on your children as well, since you are teaching them that living with someone you’re not married to and not committed to is a good thing. As a mother, your sister may be concerned about the impact your children’s attitude and perspective may have on HER children as a result of what you’re modeling to your own kids.

By the way, I don’t think this issue has anything to do with denominations. It’s a people issue and it’s a moral issue. You could substitute any mix of religious traditions and have the same heartbreak over this situation.

If you were looking for comfort, I’m sure this isn’t what you were hoping for, but it DOES align with what the Word of God says. He grieves over your choice just as He grieves over the pain you are experiencing because of it.

I hope this helps.

Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries

With all due respect, you really haven’t got a clue about what “A Course in Miracles” says. Jesus was way too nice of a fellow to have people like you confuse His Love with hate, fear, and death. That is why He channeled the Course.

By the way FYI, the Jesus of the Course is not the Jesus of the New Testament. This might be a good place for you to start your research on ACIM….:-)

Thanks for your reply to my article on The Course. I appreciate your spiritual astuteness. Perhaps you could help me understand who Jesus is? I must be confused. Could it be that the channel of The Course is an alter ego? That could possibly answer the dilemma.

As I am most assured, you are undoubtedly familiar with The Course’s use of biblical language. The Course refers to the Son frequently (pages 290, 301, 357, 557, 620). In most circles when the term “son” is written Son of God, there is a strong inference of deity and singleness. In other words, there is only one, not many.

Marianne Williamson—I’m sure you are familiar with her—in her book A Return To Love uses biblical references to make her points about Jesus and His teaching (page 16 for one). She, along with the author of The Course consistently refer to the Holy Spirit, a clear biblical reference and not found in other religious texts. Therefore, one would rightly make the assumption that the Jesus being referred to in the text is the Jesus of the Bible. Marianne makes at least one reference to the Bible (see page 66) where she references the creation of Eve. She makes numerous references to biblical material, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the beatitudes, to name only a few.

Now, either the Jesus of the Bible is the primary individual referenced in The Course or Marianne Williamson, as the foremost spokesperson of The Course, along with the author (channeller) of the text is intentionally attempting to deceive the masses. Help me out, I remain confused. You can’t have it both ways.

If you can shed further light on the above ideas I would welcome your input. Otherwise, I wish you well on your spiritual journey and peace.

Russ Wise
Christian Information Ministries
(formerly with Probe Ministries)

My two teenage daughters are interested in the goth, punk and emo sub-cultures. I’m not sure how to deal with this. Could you give me some good Christian parenting advice?

I asked a couple of Christian counselors for advice about your question.

The first came back with this response:

The best overall reference I’ve seen for teens is the book Age of Opportunity by Paul David Tripp because it makes it clear the target for change is their HEART, not just behavior — otherwise we just create cooperative rebels (work the system to make life easier for “me”) or religious Pharisees. There is an audio series by the same name, available from Resources for Changing Lives, 1-800-318-2186 – web site www.ccef.org.

The second, who is a child psychologist, made these suggestions:

1. First of all, DON’T come down heavy with the hammer, telling them they are not allowed to pursue these interests. It will only backfire.

2. These lifestyles and values are meeting a need in your daughters. There is no shame in having needs; God gives us needs for others to meet, and for Himself to meet. Your job is to find out what need goth/punk/emo is meeting, and then subtly provide other, healthier ways for them to get those needs met.

3. Don’t communicate that you’re going to change your children and they’re going to have to stop this behavior. It won’t work; we don’t have the power to change other people. We do, however, have the power to gain understanding about WHY they behave as they do, and then adjust our response to it.

4. Seek to understand your daughters’ thinking and feeling about this. Many kids feel alienated from their parents, believing that their parents don’t really care about how they think and feel (which is, unfortunately, all too true in many families). So make a plan to meet for 5-10 minutes each night, for a week, to LISTEN. Ask, “Please help me understand why goth/punk/emo is important to you. Tell me one thing that you like about it.” Draw them out with unjudgmental questions; the goal is to understand, not to change them. Each night, try to get another part of the big picture.

5. After a couple of weeks, when you have learned something about what these cultures are doing for your daughters, see if you can find other ways to get those needs met at times that interfere with activities that mean more involvement with their questionable friends. Many times, it’s an esteem issue. Looking like the other people in that sub-culture makes them feel accepted and gives them a sense of belonging. . . legitimate, God-given needs that are better met in the family and with friends whose values are consistent with the family’s and with God’s.

6. Pray, pray, pray. Pray for wisdom to be loving without being controlling. Pray that you will see what YOU need to do to make sure your daughters’ emotional needs are being met. The hard thing is that adolescence is a time when, developmentally, it is normal and right for their attention to turn to friends and want to fit in with their friends more than their families. This is important for growth into independent adults. But the choice of one’s friends can make or break a young person. Which is why it’s essential for parents to know what’s going on, with whom, and hit our knees on our children’s behalf.

This is a big issue and not an easy one. I pray God’s blessing on you as you seek to be wise in the face of unhealthy cultural pressures.

Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries

Can you recommend any curriculum I could use to train young people in evangelism?

I think one of the best evangelism training out there is “Becoming a Contagious Christian” by Willow Creek. “Evangelism Explosion” (www.eeinternational.org/) is also another very good tool.

Patrick Zukeran
Probe Ministries

A lot of Russ Wise’s article on Satanism made sense. The only idiot thing he did and every other person on that site did was make a common error due to lack of research. If any of you had researched Satanism properly instead of judging (which made you look very unintelligent) you would have realized that the practice of “Satanism” has absolutely nothing to do with Satan. I have a friend who is Satanic and have studied the religion on my own. In my studies I observed that Satanists don’t worship Satan. They believe in the worship of themselves and giving in to desire. I think everyone should do that every now and then, within reason.

Another thing he did wrong was the way he judged teenagers. Almost every teenager is depressed, or has a low self esteem. Teenagers emphasize social acceptance and few get it, and it makes them feel bad. A lot of children don’t get the proper attention from parents. Seems they’re all Christian to me. A lot of children like vampire movies, which doesn’t mean they’re satanic. I think that Russ and everyone other Christian should open up their eyes just a little and recognize that not everyone will be Christian. Not everyone will believe God. I’m wiccan, but I was Baptist for 14 years.

I’m responding to your email regarding my piece on Satanism. Let me first say that the piece I wrote was originally limited to space available for a radio transcript. I wish I would have had more space to have elaborated on the topic. I hope to update the article and broaden the information presented so a more comprehensive understanding will be known.

I agree with you that Satanism is primarily a self-centered belief system that indulges the base desires of an individual. However, you must admit that Satanism, as Christianity, is subject to more than one interpretation. I’m sure you have heard of Richard Ramerez, the night-stalker, and self proclaimed Satanist. He without doubt worshipped Satan.

You may not have heard of Sean Sellers, the 17 year-old self-styled Satanist, who killed his mother and father because Satan told him to. I’m not going to hold Satan accountable for Sean’s or Richard’s actions. However, it is obvious that the influence of a malevolent spirit being is at play here. Likewise, we cannot hold God accountable for every unloving act that His created beings make. As a result of God’s love we have free will and will ultimately be held accountable for our actions.

God does not orchestrate our lives as a puppeteer even though He could if He desired. On the other hand Satan, as a created being, cannot as well. But Satan can influence or oppress the individual in a negative manner, thereby causing one to commit evil acts.

If I can be intuitive for a moment, I suspect that you probably do not believe in Satan as a physical being. If so, could your pre-conceived bias color your view of who Satan is and ultimately his influence on humanity? As a Christian, I believe in Satan and his demons and their desire to confuse and confound mankind spiritually. In other words, to rob men and women of the joy and peace that can only be found in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Now as for my judgmental attitude of teenagers. I wholeheartedly agree with you that teens are often depressed and suffer from low self-esteem. My observations are simply those made by individuals in the field of psychology and law-enforcement. I do not accept your conclusion that I am judgmental in this case. Maybe others!

It is grievous that many teens do not get the attention they need from parents or other adults. I recognize that when teens do not get what they need emotionally, etc. they are susceptible to negative influences. Sean Sellers is a classic example. I’m sure we could name others.

At the risk of running on, let me thank you for your critique. I consider it part of making my comments more reliable and ultimately more helpful for those who seek truth in the spiritual realm.

Best regards to you in your spiritual quest–remember God loves you!

Russ Wise
Christian Information Ministries
(formerly with Probe Ministries)

How can I deal most effectively with Jehovah Witnesses? I specifically want insights on how to really reach the hearts of these dear people. I am not interested in just winning an argument, but would like to present the Gospel in a way that will make an impact.

I commend you for seeking to reach those lost in the JW organization. Yes indeed, our goal is not to win an arguement but to win them to Christ.

The best thing we can do is study the scriptures diligently and ask them questions regarding the nature of Christ and the integrity of the organization. The key is to get them to start asking questions and start seeking the answers. When JW’s run into a Christian who knows his/her Bible, they often seek answers from the elders. When the elders cannot answer, they often try to find the answers on their own, reading the Bible for the first time without the Watchtower magazines. As they seek and look for answers, many come to find that the JW Jesus is not the God of the Bible. This takes a while but with patience and perseverence, it will one day bear fruit. So the key is to get them to start asking questions about the Bible and their organization. Keep on witnessing, brother. We’ll be praying for you here at Probe.

Patrick Zukeran
Probe Ministries

What is the Biblical Perspective on Childlessness?

I would suggest that God’s design and intention for most married couples is the blessing of children. So first, it starts with the foundational premise that children are a blessing from God.

The Old Testament and New Testament both indicate that there was shame connected to not being able to bear children. This is not necessarily God-given shame, but the natural outflow of knowing that usually, children are produced at some point(s) in a marriage. Shame is about sensing something is wrong about ourselves. But now that we know more about conception, we can know that sometimes things just don’t go right for a variety of reasons on a purely biological level, such as a wife whose body is allergic to her husband’s sperm, or hormone levels not conducive to maintaining a pregnancy. In that case, it’s helpful to recall the biblical concepts of:

• Stewardship of the earth, which leads to medical science. There are procedures and medications that may assist in reproduction.
• The sovereignty of God. No one can conceive unless He calls that child into being.
• Trust in the goodness of God.

With the proliferation of sexually transmitted diseases that result in the infertility of one or both partners, the consequences of premarital or extramarital sexual sin may include childlessness. In this case, a biblical perspective sadly includes the principle of sowing and reaping, where infertility is the result of sinful choice.

When couples try to have children and cannot, then the biblical call to trust God means following His leading. It may mean pursuing medical treatment. Or building your family through adoption. Or choosing to live without children to free up energies for Kingdom work. (I am thinking of several couples I know who now recognize that their childlessness was the doorway to great spiritual fruitfulness of a different kind.)

A childless couple may not experience shame over their childlessness, but it would be important to give voice (and tears) to the grief, disappointment and deep sense of loss over it. David wrote in Psalm 51, “I know that You desire truth in my inmost parts,” and we know that mental and spiritual health means being honest about what’s going on in our hearts.

It is my privilege to share with you the deep wisdom of my friend Dr. Sandra Glahn, author of When Empty Arms Become a Heavy Burden and The Infertility Companion:

What the Bible says directly about infertility:

If you read the Bible cover-to-cover, you will find lots of stories about infertile couples from Abraham and Sarah to Samson’s parents to Hannah and Elkanah in the Old Testament and Elisabeth and Zechariah in the New. In each of these stories the couple goes on to conceive. That’s because the Bible is not a textbook on infertility. The stories are select histories included as part of a bigger story, the story of God’s redemption of humankind. And infertility is often the way God uses to demonstrate His ability to do the impossible.

In the Old Testament we also find promises that God will curse his people with infertility if, as a nation, they do not obey him. A problem arises when we read these sections and wrongly conclude that infertility is a curse from God.

The curses God outlined involved entire populations, including humans and livestock all infertile at once. He was not talking about individual infertility. Michal, David’s wife who laughed at him for dancing before the Lord, is said to have never had children, but that does not necessarily mean she was “struck” with infertility. It may be that David just never “summoned” her again.

In one other instance in the Law we see that an adulterous woman was cursed with infertility. But overall, infertility is more an affliction of the righteous than the unrighteous. And the infertility as a curse is at a national not a personal level. In the New Testament when Elisabeth conceives, she rejoices that God has removed her shame in the eyes of the people.

How to think biblically about infertility:

Reproducing. The first commands given to humans were to be fruitful and multiply and to have dominion over the plant and animal kingdoms and the earth itself. The last command is to make disciples. So while reproducing physically is a wonderful part of being human, it is not the only way God has ordained and blessed for leaving a lasting legacy.

Longing. In Proverbs 30 we read that when we look around and observe the natural world as God made it, we see that it’s normal for an infertile person to have deep, unfulfilled longing. Infertility can cause a lot of grief, and it is not “unspiritual” to feel a profound sense of loss.

Gifted living. The apostle Paul called celibacy a gift (1 Cor 7). And in one translation of the Psalms (NASB), children are called “a gift.” (Though in the context, Psalm 127, the actual phrase is “sons are an inheritance/heritage”; at that time children were the means to economic success and many sons assured military protection). A wife is called a gift. So one way to think biblically about infertility is to recognize that while the gift of children has been withheld, children are only one of many gifts through which God gives his blessing. If Aquilla and Priscilla ever had children, they are not mentioned.

Limits on dominion. If you read Genesis 1-2, you will notice that while God gave humans dominion, he put limits on what they were to manage/subdue. They were given stewardship if the earth and its animal and flying creatures. But notice that they were not given dominion over each other. Humans were made in the image of God, so all humanity, even at the one-cell stage, is precious to Him. One of the ways of thinking biblically about infertility is to recognize this and to tread carefully when considering advanced reproductive technologies (ARTs). There are ways to use ARTs that honor human life at the one-cell stage and there are ways that do not. We are also called to be good stewards of our bodies and our resources. That being said, infertility is only a symptom of a problem such as a malfunctioning thyroid or hormone imbalance. Many couples pursue treatment both to have a child and also to find out the source of what is wrong.

I hope you find this helpful.

Sue Bohlin

© 2006 Probe Ministries