This is an article written by Alex Tseng Shao Kai and posted by wts: Vol. 4 Issue 1 - Christianity & Liberalism: 100 Years: Telling The Truth Gospel: The Reception of... by Shao Kai Tseng
Summary:
Alex talked about how Machen's book got into China via Samuel Boyle's (包義森, 1905–2002) translation which began in 1940. Later edition (2003) was prefaced by the late Jonathan Chao (趙天恩, 1938–2004, [who was responsible for working with Stephen Tong to create the theological series in Taiwan, HK, etc. which later turned into Tong's famous book series]). There's also an interesting relationship with these names: Boyle was introduced to Charles Chao (Jonathan's father) by Lorraine Boettner & J. G. Vos. And thus Boyle and Chao went on to establish RTF (the Reformed Translation Fellowship Press).
The translation of Machen's book was the crucial response that helped China's Christians when the communist took over in 1949, as the American (instead of German) liberal theology also made its way to China at the beginning of 20th century through China's protestant organizations like the YMCA (1870s) and the NCCC (National Christian Council of China-1913 中華全國基督教協進會). CIM (China Inland Mission) in 1926, withdrew from the NCCC due to its advocacy for the social gospel. The NCCC later (1950) adopted a proposal by the social gospel proponent 吴耀宗, 1893–1979, co-founder of the Three-Self Patriotic movement, to cut off all ties to foreign Christian groups and swear allegiance to the Communist Party. This was how American theological liberalism got involved in China's progressivism. The conservative church leaders and missionaries in China against this movement stood out in the widely circulated 1955 article, "We, Because of Faith 我們是為了信 仰 (Youtube Reading)" by 王明道, 1900–1991, AKA the "dean of the Chinese house churches." Another important book by Wang was Discerning the True Gospel (《真偽福音辨》).
This is anticipated: MIT Study Finds Artificial Intelligence Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline. A good term used is Cognitive Debt, same argument for programming debt/technical debt. Just like new technologies always lead to various decline: Cars & muscle decline (muscle debt?), Internet & social decline. The key is the over reliance of things, will affect us. The problem is what is considered over reliance?
Students who repeatedly relied on ChatGPT showed weakened neural connectivity, impaired memory recall, and diminished sense of ownershipover their own writing.
Below is the chart to compare a brain's EEG (electroencephalogram which measures electrical activity level in the brain) when using AI, search engine, and only the brain (from left to right). When it's just the brain, there's higher electrical activity in the brain.
EEG may not be the perfect measure for all intents and purposes, but the sense is there.
I was aware that this staged trial ignited the Modernist vs. Fundamentalist battle in 1925.
I've only heard mostly talks of it from the Reformed circle until I came across it again in William Lane Craig's podcast series: Reasonable Faith on 9/1/2025, titled: Was This the Greatest Trial on Earth? Part Two.
In the interview, Dr. Joshua Swamidass noted that the earlier Reformers (particularly at the beginning of the 20th century) were mostly Old Earth. I think the Young Earth is really a new thing being popularized by Henry Morris. Not ignoring the fact that both views are found in earlier ancient time.
After the Fundamentalists turned into anti-intellectuals or isolation culture, WLC and Swamidass credited a few evangelists who broke that isolation barrier in U.S., building a bridge with the scientific community: Carl F.H. Henry Harold Ockenga Harold Lindsell Bernard Ramm Billy Graham
So I never heard of anyone above but Billy Graham. It's time I look into these folks. With Bernard Ramm being an interesting student of Karl Barth.
Some say, including many young pastors today, that we can do evangelism by making friends first. That's an error in the Gospel. And here's the fix:
We can evangelize in friendship, not by friendship. The distinction is crucial. For we do not make friends for the sake of evangelism. We make friends because we truly want to make friends, it is otherwise, dishonest.
Making friends is not a means of evangelism. It is not even a means of building trust for evangelism as it's already disingenuous to begin with.
In a genuine friendship, we can make time for the Gospel. But the Gospel should be irrespective of friendship.
A Gospel should be done in friendship. However, a Gospel that is credited to a trust or friendship is a corrupted one.
Nothing, not our character, but the preaching of the Word is the only true means of the Gospel. Everything else is a disingenuous manipulation.
I asked Claude.ai: Show me the connection between the words for faith in Hebrew, Greek in the Bible, and the etymology of fidelity and authenticity.
And this is the answer given:
This is a fascinating exploration of how concepts of faith, trust, and genuineness connect across languages and cultures.
Hebrew: אמונה (emunah) - Faith/Faithfulness
Hebrew Root: אמן (aman) meaning "to confirm, support, be faithful"
Related words: אמת (emet = truth), אמין (amin = faithful/reliable)
The word "Amen" comes from this same root
Emunah encompasses both belief and faithfulness/reliability
Greek: πίστις (pistis) - Faith/Trust
Greek Root: πιστ- meaning "to trust, have confidence"
Related to πιστός (pistos = faithful, trustworthy)
Also connected to πείθω (peitho = to persuade, convince)
Latin Connections
Fidelity: From Latin fides (faith/trust) → fidelitas (faithfulness)
Root fid- means "to trust"
Same root as "fiduciary," "confidence," "bona fide"
Authenticity: From Greek authentikos (original, genuine)
From authentes (one acting with own authority)
Related to autos (self) + hentes (worker/doer)
The Remarkable Convergence
All these terms share a core conceptual DNA around trustworthy genuineness:
Hebrew emunah = steadfast reliability that proves itself through consistency
Greek pistis = confident trust based on proven trustworthiness
Latin fides = faithfulness that maintains loyalty to truth
Greek authentikos = genuine because it comes from the true source
In biblical usage, faith (emunah/pistis) isn't just intellectual belief - it's relational trust based on proven reliability. This connects directly to:
Fidelity: remaining true/faithful to someone or something
Authenticity: being genuine to one's true nature or origin
The theological concept emerges: true faith requires both fidelity (faithful commitment) and authenticity (genuine relationship with the true source). Biblical faith is simultaneously about trusting in God's faithfulness and being authentic in one's response to that trustworthy character.
This is prompted by Stephen Tong's lecture about Faith in his Church Servitude series back in my seminary days. He emphasized that Faith is fidelity, like how Hi-Fi equipment tries to duplicate the authenticity of the original. So our faith likewise is to be authentic to God and the truth.
This is brought to my attention by first Allie Beth Stuckey's podcast on the topic. I believe someone called Peter Thiel popularize this latest Transhumanism trend and hence the Christian discussions. Then by Holy Post Media, which to me is usually more intelligent than the "Reformed" folks particularly the "Reformed" Baptists (But I must admit, I didn't listen comprehensively on Allie's version, because when she said something too low IQ for me, my mind turns off for a few seconds and then I get distracted while playing her show. If I have to compare, though not Reformed, I would say Kaitlyn Schiess does seem smarter than Stuckey, because Schiess is open to studying various schools of thoughts while Stuckey is partially held back by the narrow mind of fundamentalism):
I like the 9 minute discussion above. The idea of skipping consummation/glorification of Man is an obvious elementary problem. But they also investigated the possibility of replacing human brain with artificial organ and that is the crux of the issue. One would need to transfer his "consciousness" to another body. I do not believe that it's possible for humans to create another human.
The Ship of Theseus (a philosophical thought experiment) was mentioned: If the ship's parts are replaced completely over time, is it still the same ship or a new ship entirely? Of course, human vs. ship is a qualitative difference; while any other objects (I would venture to include animals) vs. ship has no qualitative difference on this regard. Human has soul/spirit, the breath of God, which is unique in creation.
This brings to mind the movie that first got me think hard about pertaining idea. The Prestige (2006) by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale. Hugh Jackman is an ambitious magician who stumbled upon Tesla's secret of creating duplicates (including humans) and used the technology to perform his Real Transported Man magic trick (fooling his audience that he transported himself from one container to another, while it's a duplication machine and he has to kill his duplicate self so that there wouldn't be more than one version of himself running around), every time he performs this, he has to kill his own duplicate, and this desperation gave him an upper hand against his rival, who's secret trick of similar show was his identical twin brother who shares the same identity.
Enough movie talk, the point of this is to question that: When we duplicate ourselves (or even transport ourselves like in Star Trek, another duplication technology idea), are those duplicates/transported result still us? The Sci-Fi idea on this, such as The Fly (1958, 1986, etc.) gone from mere transportation technology (no conversion, just simply manipulation of space and time) to conversion from material to digital/electrical/something and back to material again (Star Trek).
If it's mere transportation, that I think is more achievable than the second one (conversion). But I'm sure the remote possibility of it will invite all kinds of questions I'm not interested to deal with now.
But if it is conversion, then what needs to be ask is if:
Human soul/spirit is a thing "convertible" or associable with convertible material?
Is reverse-conversion really authentic? (Because duplication is a problem for authenticity)
Is the targeted material still the same thing as the original?
David Tong once posted on Facebook that allegedly "Scientists discover the Heart has a mini-brain of over 40,000 neurons, David quoting: "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know." (Blaise Pascal):
If that is so, how are we to artificially replace a brain that would include a mini-brain of the heart? This mystery is still being investigated by scientists. Our current technology of brain is a memory chip, not networks of neurons. A mere virtual imitation of such network.
I welcome the pursuit of science for transhumanism. I think we may stumble upon some interesting discoveries not pertaining to the goal of such pursuit. But I don't believe it is achievable because of the 3 questions raised above. What you will create is simply something artificial that can imitate humanity (like the dawn of AI we have today), not truly human, much less "transcends" human.
I think the best we will have is just going to be a very good duplicate imitation, not an authentic transference.
Tim Keller did a good bit in his book Counterfeit Gods. I didn't really read it, but the gist is, many Christians fail in identifying the idols of their lives. They are clear, that money is an obvious idol. But many would not see that volunteering can be an idol, loving kids, loving their spouses, love, charity, etc. can all be idolized. All but God are idolizeable.
I will put forth these 3 as the things most Christians today tend to idolize and deny their failure in identifying such:
9/5/2025 FridayA real life Teacher-Student taboo relationship in public? Only possible on a reality courtroom: Karen Mills-Francis, an arbitrator or adjudicator rather than a sitting judge (on this reality show), handling case of Serena Young and Howell Brodis. I don't know how real this case is (I'm saving this video just in case it is taken offline) but it's a fun experiment on TA-Student relationship. The conflict of interest is obviously using sex/relationship to manipulate grade, hence the taboo. I don't see any other ways to manipulate one's grade by this means. Of course, on some odd occasion, the relationship is genuine and the disaster would just be bad timing (happened still in the class, meaning they were dating while she was still taking his class). This cause though is not clear how serious they were with each other. Brodis seems more genuine by inviting her to meet his parents and she backed out as if she wasn't looking for anything serious. As far as grading goes, it's also interesting because we are dealing with the question of quality vs. relative subjectivity in the liberal arts. The only part of the video this is slightly hinted, other than by the narrator dissing liberal arts folks over math and science from the obvious sense, is when the Francis asked to see the paper that got D, which I think she was right that the grader was wrong to not leave even a word of comment on the D in the paper. Brodis tried to defend his profession so the judge was ready to rule not wanting to get deeper into how to grade British Literature. Obviously the judge made a good judgement call by calling Young out as a gold (or grade)-digger. Of course, nobody is saying Brodis was 100% clean because at the very least, not judging the sexual advantage part, he showed lack of wisdom when it comes to TA-Student relationship.
9/4/2025 Thursday
My first Aquaspin Test (AQUASPIN Photometer Automatic Saltwater Tester - API) at Aquaridise on Route 18. Rather than buying the $2000 equipment with $400/50 pack test discs ($8/disc/test) for these parameters below, I have them tested ($8.50 before tax) a months old seawater (I didn't tell them so they assume it's water from aquarium) from Sandy Hook West marsh snails area: pH: 7.9 (ideal is 8.0 - 8.4) Ammonia: 0.0 Nitrite: 0.0 Nitrate: 0.0 Phosphate: 0.0 Calcium: 291 (ideal is 380-450 ppm) Magnesium: 750 (ideal is 1320-1380 ppm) Alkalinity (KH): 94 (ideal is 142 - 215 ppm)
Additionally, though not sufficient sample left, I was able to estimate the salinity of this sea water to be around 1.022-1.023.
According to Aquaspin manual, here are the ranges of units of their Saltwater disk:
Test Factor
Range
Display
Abbreviation
Alkalinity/KH
0-300 ppm
ALK/KH
KH
Ammonia
0.0-4.0 ppm
AMMO
NH₃
Calcium
200-800 ppm
Ca
Ca
pH
6.5-10.0
pH
pH
Phosphate
0.0-2.0 ppm
PHOS
PO₄
Magnesium
500-2200 ppm
Mg
Mg
Nitrate
0-60 ppm
NITRATE
NO₃
Nitrite
0.0-2.0 ppm
NITRITE
NO₂
The readings above may tell me why the snails (other creatures) I brought from these shores always die so quickly in my tank. Especially after I get them to do a test with water from my own tank and compare. I should post the result here. Also, if I happen to be test waters by the shores again, I should bring my salinity meter.
Bible Study on 1 Peter 4:7+ at GCC was interesting. Since this is a Bible study, instead of commenting here in this format I will just add to my own Bible Study entry on the same Book. I am done criticizing every single problems the pastor or the others mentioned, as that goal is already achieved, I have known most of them and their culture of understanding better. It is more profitable for me to just merge my criticism of them into a regular Bible Study notes of mine. Though same weight of criticism can still be found, but the focus is not on them. I titled this hospitality in my file as it seems to be the one with most issues, which is off topic by the pastor (focusing on universal instead of distinguishing hospitality for Christians vs. non-Christians, which Gene actually pointed out @32:11 though only as a question unfortunately).
It's interesting that Frank mentioned the parable of the talents here @19:37 as the pastor seems to improve on this, that "there's risk involve, but go do it" kind of notion. However, he's still stuck in "the servant was afraid", and using that as the foundation of that verse. So he is not able to deal with what if it's not fear, or that this fear has evolved into a false sense of justification.
Vocabularies, 成语 from Chinese history 巨鹿之战： 破釜沉舟 - A decision that cut off all means of retreat. Point of no return. 作壁上观 - Watching from the fence 以一当十 - One as Ten
I think after about 7 years, I've heard cicada sings again for the first time from the backyard.
Just did a demo with folks (Natalie) from Wordly.ai. This interested me when someone from church mentioned about bringing a fiend who only understands Spanish to church. Wordly is the only two AI app that is capable of live nonstop continuous translation. But $1,500/yr is steep cost. That's close to $30 per session (1 hour) per week. And I don't need to translate to 10 people which is the minimum users requirement to have the service. The other app being Microsoft Translator which is free, but I don't have enough experience to compare Wordly vs. Microsoft as far as accuracy goes.
9/1/2025 Monday
Welcome to the United States - A Guide for New Immigrants, is the brochure that even in the Trump era, given to apparently all Green Card recipients upon the receipt of their GC. For both new and renewal. I've scanned mine digitally stored in my Backup Drive. I think after hearing Ring Wing folks like Charlie Kirk, you will get more proponents from the left wing than right wing on this kind of things. This guide is also online. Offering also a path to citizenship. The rights and responsibilities listed are of my interest to note:
Rights:
Work in the US
Own property in the US
Attend public school
Apply driver's license
Apply to join certain branches of the U.S. armed forces
Receive Social Security and Medicare benefits, if eligible.
Responsibilities:
File taxes with IRS (report worldwide income and report foreign bank and financial accounts)
Register with the Selective Service (for age 18-26, male)
Inform USCIS of new address no later than 10 days after move. With USPS for mail forward.
Maintain permanent residence status: If outside domestic trip is more than a year, must apply for re-entry permit using Form I-131 before leaving, with the intent to NOT reside abroad temporarily. Any trip outside the U.S. may affect your eligibility for citizenship.
This year has not much harvest from the backyard since I did not tend to it due to flight home to Malaysia in the Spring (April-May). Just 3 big pears from my first Asian pear plant and a few figs. Some grapes are still green and small:
Reminiscent Saint Saens' Symphony No. 3 Organ Symphony. I've been looking for the piano version of the movie Babe adaptation of the music, these are the best I could find:
An obvious example of a Christian Nationalist: Charlie Kirk has problem with Zohran Mamdani eating rice with his hand: not hygiene, not Western (which is the best value in everything in the world, according to Kirk), so the TYT took a jab at this:
8/31/2025 Sunday
Sometime around this week, I had a dream that Tom from church hugged Nadia the way I saw some big jockey look guy hugged Vanessa back in OBU days, the playful footballer type of hug, lifting someone up with a tight hug. And Nadia told him off and he seemed embarrassed by it. I am recalling this days later so my memory is a bit vague. I should have written this down sooner. For some reason, I still was more in a cultural shock moment seeing this and not thinking defensively. Do I stop awing and start to show more empathy? "Hey, stop", "are you okay?"
This is a response to John Mark Comer, who apparently (not to my knowledge) has become the new hype (from C.S. Lewis to Chesterton to Schaefer to Stott to Packer to Piper to Keller) of the Ameristian kingdom (particularly the Gen-Z), many students are reading his works.
Comer: I often get asked why don't you preach the Gospel (Calvinistic view of the atonement?) Horton: There's no Calvinistic view of the atonement, there's a classical Christian doctrine of the atonement.
I think Horton missed Comer's point here. Sure, it's a play of word and Comer failed in that. But I believe what Comer was trying to say with Calvinistic view of atonement is predestination, election, that you are elected -> become "frozen" chosen. This is a common problem in some of today's churches (i.e. the last two Grace churches that I've been to: OPC Westfield, PCA Bridgewater). Unfortunately, the likes of Horton are not sensitive enough to call these out.
Horton's play at this is to distinguish the Gospel from Following Jesus. Which is fine. But this is where many fail, we can't just listen to the words people use, we also need to listen to the motives behind those words, the true meaning they intended. We are not fully free of guilt by just calling out others' wrong use of their words, the burden is also on us to attempt to understand what one truly means with the wrong choice of words they chose. Such is what our Lord the good Teacher has shown us whenever He answered questions that are beyond expectations!
Since I don't know this Comer guy, not interested to find out now, but I'll take the reputations of the likes of Horton, to caution a sort of Post-Mordernist/Barthian flag. However, Comer could just be another Francis Chan kind, because I think he seems to be addressing some real problem in the Reformed churches: i.e. Being frozen. Being complacent. Being satisfied with only coming to church and get verbal self-confident faith of their justified state from the pulpit. If that is so, Comer is gaining traction.
