Insight on the News

Theologians: ‘Baptize Polygamists’

● Kenya’s Anglicans reportedly have been urged to baptize polygamists as church members. It seems that a “theological consultation” held in Mombasa recommended baptism of polygamists, along with any “believing” wives and children. However, according to the church Consultative Council’s bulletin “Anglican Information,” a polygamist’s taking any additional wives after baptism would result in restriction from Communion and the holding of church office. The theologians were said to have considered “the hardness of man’s heart” in making their recommendation.

Such a basis for theological decisions may make it easier to attract church membership, and may even appear to have Scriptural authority, as when Jesus told the Jews that Moses had “made the concession” of divorce to them “out of regard for [their] hardheartedness.” But Jesus followed up by declaring that Christian standards could not be altered on such grounds, noting that “such has not been the case from the beginning,” and requiring that Christians hold to God’s original righteous standard. (Matt. 19:8, 9) So, too, a married Christian in good standing must be “a husband of one wife.” (1 Tim. 3:2, 12) God’s Word condemns adulterously ‘defiling the marriage bed.’​—Heb. 13:4.

“No Logical Way Out”

● Recently two prominent British scientists, Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, admittedly were ‘driven by logic’ to conclude that there must be a Creator. “It is quite a shock,” said Wickramasinghe, a professor of applied mathematics and astronomy. The Sri Lankan-born astronomer explained: “From my earliest training as a scientist I was very strongly brainwashed to believe that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation. That notion has had to be very painfully shed. I am quite uncomfortable in the situation, the state of mind I now find myself in. But there is no logical way out of it.”

Though Wickramasinghe and Hoyle continue to believe that evolution controls the development of life forms, their calculations of the odds against life itself starting spontaneously moved the professors to write: “Once we see . . . that the probability of life, originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favourable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect ‘deliberate,’ ” or created.

Professor Wickramasinghe also said: “I now find myself driven to this position by logic. There is no other way in which we can understand the precise ordering of the chemicals of life except to invoke the creations on a cosmic scale. . . . We were hoping as scientists that there would be a way round our conclusion, but there isn’t.” That is just the point made by another well-educated man who lived in Bible times: “[God’s] invisible attributes . . . have been visible, ever since the world began, to the eye of reason, in the things he has made.”​—Rom. 1:20, “The New English Bible.”

The Bible and “Babes”

● Minister Gordon Nodwell, of Canada’s United Church in Toronto, recently wrote an article on the Bible for the “United Church Observer.” Among other things, he stated: “I believe that while some of the old biblical stories are entertaining for children, it is nonsense to think that the Bible can be taught to children, or that, once taught, they will ‘have it’ forever. The Bible takes every bit of adult understanding that mature minds can bring to it​—and then some.”

Is Bible understanding truly beyond the grasp of children? Jesus declared: “You have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to babes.” Approaching the Bible from a worldly, philosophical viewpoint rather than one of childlike humility certainly does ‘hide’ its message from such clergymen. But God commands even “little ones” to congregate with their families to “listen” and to “learn” from God’s law. Would God himself require this if it were “nonsense to think that the Bible can be taught to children”?​—Matt. 11:25; Deut. 31:12.