In the past few weeks, I was able to read Frank Peretti's best-selling Christian novel, This Present Darkness. The supposed fictional account of an entire town, including a local college, most of the churches, and many of the businesses being taken over by a shadowy, New-Age group, struck a familiar chord with me.

Just last week I participated in a news conference with other Christian leaders in Southern California, announcing a strategy to overturn a recent "Human Dignity Ordinance" passed by the San Diego City Council, declaring homosexuals to be a special favored class of citizens.

In the early 1800s, William Paley published a carefully argued paper entitled "Natural Theology," which developed a convincing case for the necessity of a Designer to produce the intricate design we see in living systems.