Weather

The Question of Weather, Divine Sovereignty, and Human Weakness

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you.

I'm Dylan Hamilton, and with me are Michael Durham, Chris Giesler, and David Kassin.

Today we are reaching back into the archives of questions that we have from a question that we received in 2023, but we found it to be quite prescient today. The question reads, what are the reasons given for times of good weather and bad weather on the planet?

Good being the sense of that which is promoting or sustaining the life of God's creation, and bad being the sense of that which brings death to God's creation. Michael, do you want to start us off?

Sure.

When we think about the weather, we are reminded, first of all, how little control we have over the weather. We cannot control the rain, can't control sunshine. We have drought. If we have too much rain, too little of it.

If things get too cold, things get too hot, what are we going to do? How often are humans, how often is it in our human experience that we cannot respond adequately to the environment around us? We are reminded of our weakness.

We are reminded of the power of God and how dependent we are in how he ordains the weather. The concern this question is asking is something that is felt most poignantly in times like recently with the hurricane that hit the East Coast and the multiple tragedies, the absolute devastation that has occurred in North Carolina and other places.

We are reminded of things like Hurricane Katrina. We are reminded of the tsunami in 2004 in the Indian Ocean. We are reminded of all kinds of just terrible cataclysmic weather events. Very often the question rightly is then asked, well, where is God in all of this?

If he really is in charge and so on, how do we understand this weather that occurred that killed so many people and has caused so much devastation and hurt and pain? And these are moments that test the faith and bring questions like this about God's sovereignty into a very personal frame of reference for many people.

And it's a painful thing for us to think about, even if we're not directly personally affected by these weather events. As Christians, we're still wondering as we see pictures and videos, interviews, the before and after photos and so on, we're still pushed in this regard.

How are we to understand this? So when we read the scriptures, very often we're reading in the larger chunk of the Bible is God dealing with Israel, right? So everything from Exodus to Malachi and even beyond that as the Old Covenant is still in operation during the writing of the New Testament, we're dealing with Israel and how God talked to Israel in His covenant dealings.

If you are faithful, then I'll be faithful to you and here there'll be blessings in the seasons and the rains and the harvests and all these things are going to be very profitable to you and everything's going to work out well.

But if you break covenant with me, then get ready for famine, drought. We remember the story of the three year drought or the seven year drought, remember stories of plagues and stories of locusts and stories of hail coming down, destroying all kinds of crops and animals and so on.

So we read in a big chunk of the Bible, God specifically saying to Israel, I'm upset with.

You.

You have failed to live righteously. Here is bad weather, right? I mean, it's a very common connection that we read about in scriptures. And then also we have the promise that if you do well, if you repent, then oh, finally when the people repent and the prophets of Baal and Asherah are killed, then the rain finally falls after the drought, you see.

And then this is all, of course, after the great flood, the worldwide flood, which God sent specifically as a judgment upon men for their wickedness, for their grievous sins. And he said before the flood, every intent of the thought of man's heart was only evil continually.

And after the flood, he's stated in chapter eight of Genesis, the heart is still in the same condition. I mean, the great weather event that wiped out almost all of humanity, just a representative and a few left, just a handful, relatively speaking, of the created order left.

And yet it did not change the heart of man. So when we think about terrible weather events, very often our minds, if they're informed by the Bible, will very often go towards, is this the judgment of God?

Is God bringing a terrible judgment upon our nation, upon our people? Questions like this were asked during Hurricane Katrina. They're asked during the wildfires that consume so much of the West in our nation.

The question gets asked about other massive weather-related events. What about the tsunami that hit the nuclear plant in Japan?

Even here in Oklahoma, people talk about the Dust Bowl.

Yes.

We have our own. And then, of course, the tornadoes that have ripped through here, the big one through Moore, 2013.

So how are we to understand the good weather versus the bad weather in terms of the sovereignty of God? What is He saying through it? Are these moral, not just judgments, but are they moral statements?

If we have good weather, is it saying, you're doing well? If you have bad weather, is it saying, you're doing poorly? And are we to live our lives and adjust our morality and our, you know, if we have really bad weather, we're not getting enough rain, or we have too much, is it, I need to have more quiet times, or I need to witness more, or I need to be more attentive in church.

And everybody else around me had better do that, too, because the judgment of God is upon us. But if the weather's good, then maybe that means that God is fine with us, and we're doing great, and I'm probably not going to change anything because I feel like the weather's.

Fine.

So I'm not saying people actually plan all that out, but does that kind of how it functions?

We naturally go to that understanding. People ask that question every single time, and there is an element of truth to that. You do see Genesis 1, did man's sin affect creation? Yes, it did. Do we see in Romans chapter 8, he says, verse 20, it says,.

"...for creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, God himself, in hope that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to corruption and attain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in pains of childbirth until now.". We do see an element that man, as the regent of God, to steward creation, is held responsible for our sin, and our sin affects not just our own lives, our family's lives, but creation itself.

So there is an element to that that the Bible does speak to.

I think trying to triage these questions, I think it's the right word, especially as Oklahomans, when Trinity comes through, what's our first response? Our first response is going to be, how can we help each other, as Christians, and also help our neighbors?

How can we be a blessing? When it was prophesied up in Antioch of Syria, to that church, that there was going to be a great famine down in Judea, and all sorts of problems, that's a weather event, okay?

Well the Christians are going to be impacted by that, not because they're doing poorly and being good Christians in their churches and preaching the gospel at risk to their own reputations and properties and freedoms and health, they were being faithful, even sticking in places of very difficult persecution.

But when the famine hit, the magistrates, those who had royal authority in the area, certainly tried to do everything they could to secure food and bring in food to the area and to the population, but that was going to be distributed through the local authorities, which was the Sanhedrin, and they're not going to give those apostate followers of the way a single fig.

And so the Christians knew that they were going to have to take care of the Christians, and so they organized support from Antioch for the churches in Judea, including the saints in Jerusalem. One of the very first things that we've got to be thinking about when we see a very terrible, disastrous weather event, whether it's famine where people could starve to death, or it's a hurricane or tornado where just property is destroyed, people are killed, families are decimated, and so on, one of our first instincts then is like, how can we help as Christians help our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and then spilling over to other people as well?

How can we do that? Because we, in triaging the questions, I don't know why the timing, I don't know why the intensity, I don't know why the devastation. I can't possibly speak to every tragedy within the tragedy.

Why that in that way? I can't. I'm not God. But what does God call us to do in that moment is to believe Him that He is all-powerful, that He's all-knowing, that He's all-good, and even though we are in the midst of being confronted by a terrible tragedy of great loss, we haven't yet seen the final page of the script.

Job was on his way to double blessings, but he didn't know the last page of the script. By the way, Job didn't know the first page of the script either. Job starts off and the reader is told what happens in heaven, but Job doesn't ever find out, and in the middle of Job's suffering, he hasn't seen either the first page of the script or the last page of the script, and he's in suffering, and his friends are insufferable.

So what is he supposed to do there? Curse God and die?

No.

He's supposed to maintain a faith that God is righteous, that He is good, that He is sovereign, and that we, the created, don't get to say to the creator, how dare you?

Creation’s Groaning, Human Suffering, and the Call to Help

Yeah, I think that's a big distinction, particularly the way the Bible talks about the way the world is, creation. We are part of the creation. When it talks about us as human beings, it uses phrases like grass that withers and fades, dew that is there in the morning and then gone, a breath.

It talks about us, but to us, this is our lifespan, and those around us that we love are caught up in tragedies, and it's easy to ask, why? Why is this happening? What is the reason behind it? Where is God in all of it?

And so this seems like a very weighty question. So then as Christians, there is the intellectual why, and there's, like you said, there's the emotional, and trying to meet the need, help them, because something is happening right then, and then there's the answering of the question.

And they are not necessarily new questions, because I think of two places in the New Testament. One is where they ask, why is this man born blind? And he says, not that he sinned, or his mother and father sinned, so they were trying to describe reason, rather than saying, it's in God's hands.

The reason is God's, and we are the creation, and so he makes the clay the way that he wants.

It.

And ultimately, Jesus says, he was born that way, so that he might glorify God, so that you would see this miracle, and it would glorify God. And then the other place that I think of is Luke, where they're asking him questions, and he talks, he mentions a tower that falls, and 18 people were killed, and he says, Luke, Luke 13, verse 1, they were present at that season, some who told him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

And Jesus answered and said to them, do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they offered such things? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you all likewise will perish.

Or these 18, on whom the tower in Siloam fell, and kill them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

And in our time, we have a hurricane, or a tornado comes through, and we can ask the same question, do we think that they were worse sinners than us, and that's why that.

Happened?

Well, it was said, when Hurricane Katrina came through and hit New Orleans, it was said by many a preacher, that the reason why they got hit with the hurricane was because of all the voodoo.

Right.

Because they were in an awful, awful place. And of course, some WAGs were asking, well, then why doesn't God send a hurricane to Las Vegas? But about the very same time that that happened, Joplin got hit.

Not so long after that, Joplin got hit by a tornado, and it was terrible, just terrible. Joplin wasn't full of voodoo.

Creation has fallen. When man fell, creation fell. So we do know that. And then you had mentioned that there were covenantal curses to the nation of Israel, and it's to say they would send bad weather.

We also sent armies. So there are people who say, well, did this happen because these people were great sinners? Is that why this tornado came through? Well, maybe you started the next war because you were such a great sinner.

Maybe you have that much influence. But to think that your sin has caused wars, or it has caused a tornado, and in particular no, but we would say sin has caused creation to fall, and sin has caused these wars.

I get the idea that maybe if we had prayed more, maybe if we had been better, this tragedy would not have happened. I get that. I understand the mentality, but what you just said from Christ's words, it's like, no, that's not the point.

You are not actually what's important here.

Well, and it goes back to understanding our place, because here he's talking about everyone has sinned, all have fallen. Unless we repent, ultimately everyone perishes. And so when evil happens, we start asking these questions, and it's like, well, where are we going to end up ultimately?

And we think, well, we use terms like good and bad. This was bad weather. But when we think morally, was this morally bad that happened? No, it's a tragedy and suffering, and people want to say, well, suffering is bad, it shouldn't happen.

But that's not the way that the Bible talks about suffering. Suffering often, out of it, comes good. And so to think, well, I can know all things, I know all the outcomes, and this is just ultimately bad.

Nothing good can come out of this, that there's no justification or that it can't be used for good. But in all of that, in suffering, we see that God works all things together for good to those who are called according to his purpose.

I mean, all of us can think of instances where something tragic happened, and then we look back and we're like, because that happened, this happened, and because that happened, this happened. It's just a chain.

And who of us is all-knowing, or who knows all things and all purposes in any circumstance that in any family's life, but things are happening that we are not part of because we are created?

It's so hard to do that in the midst of the suffering. It's horrible, which is why our first instinct, and Michael, you said it, our first instinct is, okay, what can we do to help? How can we serve? How can we minister?

That should be our first instinct, not to figure out why did this happen, or what was the moral cause for it. It was, what should the church be doing? How do we do church? How do we be the church to these people?

Climate Change, Moral Blame, and the Rainbow of Grace

How is the looking for the moral cause in that way, how is that different from the climate change argumentation, where we continue to do this immoral thing by burning up, quote, fossil fuels, and because of those moral sins, we change the weather?

In the same way, how is, it seems like a very similar argument. There's a bunch of moral weight behind human action that changes the weather. We're just now saying instead of the pagan gods, we're saying that the God of the Bible is the one bringing it.

Is that a different?

Yeah, it's just, you just can't ever escape. As those made in the image of God, you just can't ever get away from that. You know that there's something wrong, and there's an accounting, there's a day of judgment, and the new Twister's film that came out, they're working real hard to sell Dodge trucks, so they couldn't be too hard on the oil industry, but the whole messaging was that it's Oklahoma, it's all about oil, and that's why we have really bad weather here, because we're all about oil.

Even the final big tornado that was the most terrible thing ever, the tornado was set on fire by an oil refinery that it hit, so it's a big flaming oil demon of death, and it was caused to be far more intense and worse than it would have been, because it hit the oil.

Field.

Interesting.

That's the message. This oil industry is making your weather worse. That was the message of the movie, but technology that was invented will solve it. Anyway, so it was a silly thing, but the point is, we have an instinct to say, well, people are dying, and there's suffering, and there's misery, there's something wrong with this, and we know that because we're made in God's image, and we know that this is not the way it's supposed to be, so some people will cite a pagan god for that, and try to appease that pagan god, however that form takes, whatever witchcraft is necessary, we'll do it.

As Christians, we'll have an instinct from the scriptures because of Israel, the stories of Israel, but we'll identify ourselves with Israel, and we'll take ownership of those covenant blessings and curses as if they apply to us directly, rather than seeing them as fulfilled in Christ, and so when bad weather happens, we're like, oh, that's God's judgment upon us.

Well, when you say it, though, you're saying that we're applying old covenant standards to new covenant realities, and if there's a war, or if weather comes down on a group of people, then I guess all the saints and the Christians who loved Jesus were wiped out because they didn't perform well enough.

And it doesn't fit with the narrative that we get in the gospel when the storm comes to Jesus and the disciples on the sea. Have they done something wrong to incur this weather upon themselves, or is it about making the appeal to the one who can rebuke the wind and calm the seas?

So let's go back to some, God, when he was making covenant with Noah and his descendants and with all the creation, okay, in Genesis 9 -11 says, thus I will establish my covenant with you, never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

Why was it important for him to say that? Because all whole earth deserved another one. As soon as the first flood was over that killed everybody except for Noah and his family and those animals, another flood was immediately deserving to happen right immediately afterwards.

And probably right at the cross.

Yeah, Noah and his family deserved a second flood. His descendants, his immediate descendants deserved a second flood. Everything, so, because he said that, God said that in Genesis 8 -21, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.

Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done, but we live in fear of that. And the people who gathered in the plains of Shinar to build for themselves a tower to make for themselves a name, covered that tower in pitch, like Noah covered the ark in pitch, because they were going to save themselves, because they were scared.

They knew they deserved to die. They knew that they were doing wrong, that they were wrong, and that the world was wrong because of them, and they feared judgment. So one world government was formed to save themselves through the latest, greatest technology,.

Right?

Like, how often does this happen over and over and over again? But what does God say after he says, I'm not going to curse the ground again, I'm not going to destroy every living thing, what does he say immediately after that in Genesis 8 -22?

While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night shall not cease. Climate change will not cease. It's going to get hot, and then it's going to get cold, and it's going to be day, and it's going to be night, and God says, I'm going to keep the weather patterns of the earth going, I'm going to keep this rolling.

So God is just, everybody deserves to die, everybody deserves to be destroyed and wiped out because they're completely evil, but God is merciful, and so he promises to providentially care for those made in his image, even though they deserve absolute death and destruction.

He's going to show them grace. He's going to show them mercy and compassion by giving them, in the main, stable weather.

Patterns.

The reason why hurricanes stand out is because they're not normal. The reason why EF5 tornadoes stand out, they're not normal. They're not the norm. The norm of weather is mercy, grace, compassion, and to make us remember that God is good, even though we don't deserve it, God gives us a sign in the cloud, the rainbow.

He puts the rainbow in the sky and says, by this, I'm going to remember my covenant, and you remember too. So what happens?

Well, I was going to say that that image of the clouds continues throughout the Old Testament. He uses that imagery when he shows up in judgment, but all that time as he's judging these nations, his covenant of looking down and seeing the rainbow is still there.

He will not flood the entire. So within the same symbol, the cloud and the rainbow, we see both of those there. There's judgment and there's mercy.

So the one who bears the curse and the judgment is completed upon someone in our place and for our sake, the clouds of judgment are completely expended on somebody for us. He bears the curse and then he goes and sits down having accomplished his work.

And what surrounds his throne?

A rainbow.

A rainbow. So we're told not to live in fear of weather curses. What are we told? Matthew 5, verses 43 through 45, Jesus says, here's how it's going to work in my kingdom. He wasn't saying, here's how it works in the old covenant.

He's not saying, here's how it's going to work in the older covenant remixed into a newer one that's not very different. He says, you have heard it said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemies.

He quotes Leviticus and then he summarizes instructions from Deuteronomy to the Psalms and so on about how bad you're going to need to hate Amalekites and Ammonites and Midianites and how you need to ban them and hate them generation after generation.

He says, you have heard it was said, he quotes old covenant stuff, love your neighbor, hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.

And you're like, they don't deserve that. What a great point. Thank you for bringing that up. You know what we don't deserve? We don't deserve summer and winter, sea time and harvest. We don't deserve day and night.

We don't deserve normal weather patterns. We don't deserve that at all. That's grace. That's not justice. That's grace. The environmental activism is called climate justice. What are they saying? They're saying normal weather is justice.

No, the Bible says normal weather is grace. Normal weather is grace. Now, why are we to be kind in this way? Because Jesus says this, verse 45, Matthew five, that you may be sons of your father in heaven.

So, you know, being godly, take after your father in heaven.

Why?

For he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good and sends his rain on the just and on the unjust. You know what happens when you mix both of those together? Cycles of sun and rain, rain and sun, what shows up?

Rainbow.

Rainbow. Jesus is citing the Noahic covenant, bringing it forward and saying, here's how it works in my kingdom.

Okay?

So, all these violent men who lived prior to the flood as well as those who live after, it's like, hey, yeah, violence is, you know, violence is the way. You know, we got to live this way, we got to take what's ours, and so on and so forth.

And yet, God sent, God appoints Noah by grace, Noah's name means rest and comfort, but Noah being dead still speaks about Christ. Noah was filled with the spirit of Christ, he preached Christ to those who are now in hell, 1 Peter 3 .19 says.

But Christ says in Matthew 5, if you want to be true sons of God, think about how he gives his son and gives his rain to the undeserving. He preserves life on earth by these graces, and when God sends his son and his rain at the same time, he puts his rainbow in the sky.

So when something terrible, terrible, terrible happens weather-wise, we're not to think to ourselves how unfair, how unrighteous God is showing him. If there was a real God, then this would never have happened because this is so wrong.

Actually, it only emphasizes how gracious God is all the time. And then when something terrible happens, we are reminded how precious that mercy is, how precious that grace is. And when something terrible happens, we are reminded what Jesus says.

You know, I'm glad you brought that up about the Galileans and the Tower of Siloam because Jesus says, here are these Galileans and these people from Jerusalem. And they were, because of the location, they were considered in Jerusalem to be more righteous, far more righteous and deserving than those who lived in Galilee.

And yet, these men died by Pilate's hand, these men died because a tower fell on them. And Jesus says, unless you repent, you will likewise perish. What does he mean? Does he mean if you don't repent, some soldier's randomly going to kill you?

No.

If you don't repent, then a tower's going to fall on you. That's not what he... Likewise, he says you will likewise perish if you do not repent, meaning you will perish unprepared. You will perish not ready to die.

That's his point. And that was the common denominator between those Galileans and those Judeans. They died unprepared. And this is the heart-wrenching thing, that when we see a hurricane, see a tornado, we see a great disaster, and people, there's death and destruction.

We are stunned with how fragile our lives are. We are reminded of how weak we are and how needful it is that we not die unprepared.

Climate Change, Human Blame, and the Hope of New Creation

I think what Dylan was talking about with climate change activists, and you've got this desire to blame something. We have to find...

We have to have an answer.

We have to have an answer. And it has to be us. Or, yeah, it has to be us or God, because they'll say, well, we're causing the problems, it's the oil, it's the coal, we're the problem, we need to fix that.

Or it's, this is judgment from God.

Yeah, but even then, that's still blame on the people he's judging, right? You brought this on yourself. You are reaping what you sow.

It's still us. But then the answer to both of those is the rainbow, is that covenant, that mercy and that grace that's found in Jesus, who takes up all of that blame, that sin, that should be poured out on us all the time.

And yet he takes it on himself.

So we have this questioner who says, why does God allow the kind of weather that brings death to creation when it should have only the kind of weather that benefits creation? Because it is presupposing that God ordains the weather.

And we do know that creation itself groans for its own redemption. But I think the point is that we, like creation itself, we are to look to the one who subjected.

It.

We are to look to the one who is our redemption, because there will come a time when we likewise die and we are not to die unprepared.

This is a little bit of a twist, but everyone talks about the climate change and all this stuff, but how long have we been recording weather for? How interesting if we wait another few hundred years. I think of the new heavens and the new earth.

What direction will we see weather patterns going in as the world is being made new? Like will it prove all of it wrong? It's like, well, we used to have hurricanes, but we don't anymore. The world is being made new.

There's some guys out there, and I don't know if they're apologists or scientists, I've just seen a few clips where they talk about filtered sunlight and warmer temperatures. They act like we need warmer temperatures, we need higher carbon dioxide levels.

We need more CO2 for the greening.

It's like the opposite of everything. We need more oxygen too. We would grow to be like methylene and all of our plants would fill Walmart super centers and yield like 15 ,000 times. And they've actually done this in places where they took roofs of super centers and they did filtered sunlight and they stuck a tomato plant down there.

And one tomato plant went all the way up to the roof and went out and yielded like thousands of tomatoes. The quality of those tomatoes, I don't know, but the yield apparently was amazing. I mean, there's theories out there about how that sort of stuff would work, but that I think is a little bit of the Lord blessing his people with wisdom, blessing people with wisdom to learn these things, seek these things out.

It's the glory of kings to search out a thing and to apply it and see the magic that just occurs from it, how it was designed to occur. So to that point, I think you might be onto something there, like what would it actually be like?

And it's probably the opposite of exactly what the climate change people want, right? Just take the inverse and just think, oh, that's probably it.

Well, and all of it comes back to trusting God for it because it's his world. It's the way he made it. Science is just thinking God's thoughts after him. We're just discovering it.

Take the presupposition of this was designed, right? This is a creature.

It was created.

And the presupposition of we have dominion, we can know this thing quite well. We can figure these things out rather than assuming that we're just here to harm it. And when we take that presupposition to it, we're not going to really want to delve into any mystery whatsoever.

Well, I think we have covered that quite well. And hopefully anybody that sends in questions and feels as though we missed the point or missed the question, go ahead, feel free, send us in another question.

We'll be happy to answer or even clarify on things that we've said in the past. That's one of the things we were talking about here, roundtabling old subjects, old content. Even if we have covered it before, but you think your question is a little bit different, do not be afraid.

Send it in. Feel free. We welcome every single question that you're going to send our way. But we're going to move on to recommendations for this week. Will you start us off, Michael?

Yeah.

Got a book by Jason C. Meyer. It's in the New American Commentary Studies in Bible and Theology. It's called The End of the Law, The End of the Law, Mosaic, Covenant, and Pauline Theology. So we looked at a book in this series.

I don't think we've published the podcast yet on it, but on baptism. And there's a part of that series on baptism. And this is a book that's not an anthology with different essays. It's just one author.

But it's walking through all of the language in Paul's letters about old and new and the sense in which the law is fulfilled in Christ and how Christians are to relate to the Old Testament. Obviously, it's not something where we unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament, but that we see the doctrine and the correction, instruction, and reproof of all the scriptures as fulfilled in Christ and that we can be directed by the wisdom and the prophetic power, the truth of even the law, even though some of it seems very foreign, you know, kind of fabric you use in your clothes and how you work with your animals and some of these things that seem so far off from us are brought near in proper application and understanding in Christ.

So this is a great book, End of the Law by Jason Meyer.

Before we move on to Chris, Michael, do you mind plugging Let's Church as a resource for all of our listeners out there?

Yeah, so there is a website that's called Let's Church, and it is, I think it's put on, I think there's only one guy trying to run this whole thing, so he's obviously very good at what he does. But he put together Let's Church in order to have a church search on the one hand.

It's connected with something called TruthScript, which if you're, if you know what the Gospel Coalition is, they have all these articles about various current topics in Christianity, but the TGC overall is leftward leaning.

But TruthScript is something that is far more comfortable in holding closer to biblical Christianity, that's the best way I can put it. And they have several articles every week dealing with current issues from a biblical worldview, and I think they do a much better job of holding the line on the faith than the TGC.