Dearest Readers and Followers of Across the Fruited Plain,
As we bring another year of web publishing to a close and embrace the exciting prospects of the new year already upon us, I’ve had a lot to reflect upon. Proud of the intellectual journey, academic integrity and civility of discourse which has become synonymous with Across the Fruited Plain, it has been a genuine pleasure to write, edit and manage a website whose record of thought provoking and unconventional perspectives as well as collegial engagement in healthy and vigorous discourse across a myriad of controversial topics, has been its own reward. In fact, the consensus sentiment that echoed throughout the year was recognition of the rare and conspicuous affinity for high-level and respectful exchange despite how committed or spirited the disagreement. In fact, some of the folks you have read me disagree with the most heartily or most regularly are actually people I have grown to appreciate and respect the most, personally.
We began 2012 with the institution of a daily prayer segment entitled Grace Before Meals; daily mealtime prayers taken from a small, cloth-bound, 1911 volume from my personal library. This enterprise afforded me the opportunity of daily dedication in publishing and prayer, a venue for my photography, a daily chance to pray along with believers worldwide as well as the blessings of bathing my website in prayer. Maintaining this segment across the face of a year was an interesting challenge. In fact, if someone were to ask me whether they should start a blog, I might advise trying the commitment of a similar daily entry on a text document for 60 or 90 days, just for a taste of the experience and required endurance.
As has come to be expected from Across the Fruited Plain, 2012 saw the humble yet unrelenting advancement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through hundreds of articles related to the Bible and science and the tremendous and irreconcilable distinctions between the Darwinian and Biblical Worldviews. Some of our more popular series’ included “Age Limiting Factors”, “Anticipated Discoveries of the Bible”, and “Myths of Evolution.”
2012 also saw the theological introduction of Pre-suppositional Apologetics, (apologetics meaning a defense of the faith), augmenting our already robust arsenal of scientifically substantiated evidence-based examples for the truth of God’s Word (see Category Scientia). As we considered in various pieces, Pre-suppositional Apologetics, which is a philosophically transcendental apologetic approach, stands on the truth of scripture and bottom-lines the fact that only the Christian Worldview can account for things like knowledge, truth, morality, love, justice, laws of logic, laws of mathematics and absolute standards and how the Atheistic Worldview borrows these concepts from the Christian Worldview with no way to account for them. In preparation for an upcoming exchange demonstrating this, you may want to search “pre-suppositional” in the search box above to familiarize yourself with past articles about Pre-Suppositional Apologetics.
As we set sail for this new year’s horizon, it is our aim to continue to produce competent and challenging content as we wage to stem the tide of deception regarding the Bible, creation and evolutionism. Over the course of the next few weeks, some of our content will include: A rebuttal of Senator Marco Rubio’s recent Old Earth comments, an investigation into a Michigan boy’s discovery of an alleged 13,000 year old bone, how ancient man was probably much larger and smarter than modern humans and, even the third rail of the creation-evolutionism debate—dinosaurs. Did they really go extinct 65 million years ago? If you are prepared to be challenged by concepts that contradict everything you have been taught since Kindergarten, tune in to find out more.
Warmest Personal Regards from Across the Fruited Plain,
R. K. Sepetjian