The On The Bookshelf Podcast

interview--retired church planter Clifford Matthews on his adventures for Christ

Pike County native Clifford Matthews tells about his early years growing up in the Great Depression, becoming a dedicated Christian as a teenager, becoming a student pastor while in high school, his years at Troy state College and Howard (now Samford U.) then at New Orleans Seminary (all the while serving country churches in Pike County), meeting and marrying his wife Peggy (who became his life's partner in church-planting), all the churches he panted in East Brewton, Ala., upstate New York, and Florid, plus his adventures as a church-planter and missionary in The Panama Canal Zone in the tumultuous early 1960s. It's an incredible story of faith, dedication and determination to follow the Lord wherever He led them. It's available for free as his latest missionary outreach!

interview--The courage of grassroots Water Defenders in El Salvador

John Cavanagh explains how dangerous gold mining generally is to the land and water near the mine, and how local villager sin El Salvador built a coalition of unlikely allies to prohibit mining in their nation. The proposed gold mine would have polluted the main river providing water to three neighboring countries in Central America, as gold mining uses cyanide and lots of water to separate the precious metals from the rocks. still, we need gold for electronic devices , so what is the solution? 

Interview--The 50th anniversary of the Lunar Rover

Earl Swift, author of 'Across Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover & the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings" tells the amazing story of the developers and creators of the most original mission-specific automobile ever built!

interview--son of an immigrant, Ed Hajim went from orphanage to boardroom

Ed Hajim was raised as an orphan, despite having a father who left him in the care of others for sometimes years. Ed persevered, and succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. His incredible story is told in his book, On The Road Less Traveled: An Unlikely Journey from the Orphanage to the Boardroom” by Ed Hajim, with Glenn Plaskin, national bestselling author (Skyhorse Publishing). 

interview--how fractals prove the validity of Christianity

Dr. Jason Lisle (pronounced Lyle) is a Christian astrophysicist who researches issues pertaining to science and the Christian Faith. He is the Director of Research and a featured speaker and writer for the Institute for Creation Research. He previously served as the Planetarium Director for the Creation Museum in KY. Dr. Lisle has also authored a number of books which include: Taking Back Astronomy, The Ultimate Proof of Creation, Old-Earth Creationism on Trial, and The Stargazer’s Guide to the Night Sky. He writes, 

“What if mathematicians discovered a secret code disclosing an amazing work of art hidden in the numbers?” The author makes a very compelling case that these fractals can only be explained by the Christian worldview.

This “secret code’ was discovered in the 1980s, “artwork of tremendous beauty and complexity hidden in numbers since the beginning of time. The beautiful images in this book are not the work of man. They were discovered in sets of numbers, hidden in plain sight.’ Numbers do not evolve; they always existed. Humans did not create numbers; we discovered them and their relationship to each other. However, numbers existed in the mind of God from the start of everything. “The images in this book therefore represent an infinitesimal glimpse into the mind of God.”

When computer became more accessible and faster, “mathematicians began using them to analyze solutions in branch of math called complex systems. This field involves sets of numbers that are defined by functions that involve iteration-doing a calculation repeatedly. Unbound sequences get larger without limit, while bound sequences have a largest number that none of the members will exceed.” The Mandlebrot set are used by a computer, consisting of bound and unbound sequences, which is assigned a color to each. The result is startlingly beautiful and elaborate illustrations which continue to infinity. They are symmetric and take definite shapes. The Mandlebrot set  has an infinite number of smaller versions of itself, built into itself, which is called a factal, It is a geometric shape that has parts resembling the whole, displaying the basic type of shape no matter who much we zoom in. Miniature Mandlebrots are contained within the entire Mandlebrot, and they continue for infinity!

The only explanation is that they pre-existed creation. “a secular worldview cannot make sense of the relationship between math and science because the secular worldview is fundamentally wrong. Without a mind, there can be no math. And since the universe if governed by mathematical laws, the universe is controlled by a rational mind. Polytheistic religions cannot make any sense of math at all.” Any deity beside the God of the Bible would be inadequate.