Gerry Charlotte Phelps

Apologetics Is Getting Big

                                 (Image from seopher.com)

Which of us has never had any doubts about our faith?  And when we doubt, who is there to help?  That is what Christian apologists have done through the centuries.  They don't "apologize" for the faith; they defend it.

Many people do not know that Christianity can be defended on every front, including scientific, philosophical, and historical.  Most people have heard claims that science has disproved the Bible and the existence of God.   

Now atheists have become more militant and angry.  A spate of books by well-known atheists arrived this year.  As a result, many more Christians have questions about their faith. 

Recently a debate took place in Birmingham, Alabama between the famous Oxford biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion," and Oxford mathetician and Christian, John Lennox  It was sold out 3 weeks in advance and tickets were going for 3 times their face value, according to Naomi Schaefer Riley at the Wall Street Journal, here.

Such propositions were debated as:

"Faith is blind; science is evidence based," "Design is dead, otherwise one must explain who designed the designer" and "Christianity is dangerous."  The two oxford professors, who had never met before this evening, both displayed rhetorical skills in the best British tradition.

They clashed over whether it was Christianity that began the scientific revolution, whether the universe's complexity was evidence for a creator and whether atheism was itself a sort of faith.  Some of the exchanges were funny, as when Mr. Lennox suggested that his opponent believed that his wife loved him even though it's not scientifically provable.  "Is there any evidence for that?" Mr. Lennox asked.  "Yes, plenty of evidence," Mr. Dawkins answered.  "Never mind about my wife."

Pastors say that congregants are aware of these recent atheist best-sellers and want to know how to respond to such arguments.  Such works as "The Case for Christ" and "The Case for Faith" by Lee Strobel, formerly a teaching pastor at Saddleback Church, have sold well.  So have Josh McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict," Ravi Zacharias' "Reasons for Faith" and this month's "Apologetics Study Bible," whose contributors include Chuck Colson and former Southern Baptist Seminary   

Then there is my own favorite, "The Defender's Bible" by Henry Morris, Bible teacher, scientist and founder of the Institute for Creation Research, www.icr.org.  Plus his book "Many Infallible Proofs."

Defenders of the faith are drawing crowds of thousands in person as well.  Next month, the Southern Evangelical Seminary will host a National Conference on Christian Apologetics, which will include a special segment for teens.  Younger people are some of the most avid consumers of apologetics texts, according to Christian author Johalyn Fincher, who speaks to college and high-school groups regularly.  She says that in the 20th century, Christians often reacted to science's attacks on religion by "running away from culture."  But in recent years more Christians have begun to take the attitude, "If our God is the God of truth, what are we afraid of?"

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Are the Biblical Gospels Accurate and True?

CAN WE TRUST THE GOSPELS?  Bible Scholar Mark D. Robert's new book says "Yes!"

"Investigating the Reliability of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John"

is now available.

Order it from Amazon by clicking here

This book is a clear, straightforward explanation of why we can trust the New Testament Gospels to give us solid historical information about Jesus. I deal with such questions as:

• Can we know what the original Gospel manuscripts really
said?

• Did the evangelists know Jesus personally?

• When were the Gospels written?

• What sources did the Gospel writers use?

• Did early Christian oral tradition reliably pass down the
truth about Jesus?

• What are the New Testament Gospels?

• What difference does it make that there are four Gospels?

• Are there contradictions in the Gospels?

• If the Gospels are theology, can they be history?

• Do miracles undermine the reliability of the Gospels?

• Do historical sources from the era of the Gospels support their reliability?

• Does archeology support the reliability of the Gospels?

• Did the political agenda of the early church influence the content of the Gospels?

• Why do we have only four Gospels in the Bible?

• Can we trust the Gospels after all?

I have written this book not for experts in biblical studies, but for all people who seek to understand the Gospels as trustworthy historical documents.

Endorsements for Can We Trust the Gospels?

“What F. F. Bruce did for my generation of students, Mark Roberts has done for the current generation. Any student who asks me if our Gospels are reliable will be given this book, and then I’ll buy another copy for the next student!”

—Scot McKnight, Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies, North Park University

“Mark Roberts has produced what has long been needed: a highly read- able and compelling account of why Christians can indeed trust the Gospels. Dr. Roberts is a formidable scholar whose reputation is very high among academics. He is a skilled writer and teacher. He is also an innovative force in the world of Christian apologetics, among the very first to see the potential for blogging as a formidable means of pursuing the Great Commission.

“I have had Dr. Roberts on my radio show more than any other theolo- gian or pastor, for several reasons. First, he has been a very good friend for a long time. But much more important is his ability to communicate and the knowledge he has accumulated through his three decades of serious and thorough study of the Gospels and the scholarship around them. Whenever a major controversy erupts that touches on the Christian faith, I call on Dr. Roberts.

“Can We Trust the Gospels? is quite simply the best effort I have ever read by a serious scholar to communicate what scholars know about the Gospels and why that should indeed encourage us to trust them and thus to trust Jesus Christ.”

—Hugh Hewitt, radio talk show host, author, blogger, and Professor of Law at Chapman University School of Law 

“There is a crisis of confidence about the Gospels, fueled by sensational claims about supposedly new Gnostic Gospels with a ‘revised standard’ view of Jesus. With a pastor’s insight but a scholar’s critical acumen, Mark Roberts provides a readable guide to answering the question, Can we trust the Gospels? As Mark makes clear, the earliest and best evidence we have for the real Jesus is the canonical Gospels, not the much later Gnostic ones.”

—Ben Witherington III, Professor of New Testament, Asbury Theological Seminary, author of What Have They Done with Jesus?

“Can We Trust The Gospels? caught me completely by surprise. While I knew a scholar of Mark Roberts’s caliber could convince skeptics the Gospels are reliable, I never expected to have my own preconceptions uprooted and replaced with a more solid trust in these biblical texts. This book not only makes a compelling case for trusting the Gospels, it illuminates the creative ways in which God worked to bring us His Word. Roberts’s brilliant little book deserves to be widely read by both skeptics and believers.”

—Joe Carter, blogger (evangelicaloutpost.com) and Director of Communications for the Family Research Council

Order Can We Trust the Gospels? from Amazon by clicking here

Christianity Without Salvation

Experienced poverty workers (including myself) have learned at first hand that the traditional "Social Gospel" of the church is not merely useless, but often actually harmful to the very poor it aims to help.  How did such good intentions bring forth such bad "unintended consequences"?

An article on the 100 year anniversary of the book that started the Social Gospel sheds much light on that puzzle, here.  That seminal

      (Image from wsj.com)

book was Walter Rauschenbusch's "Christianity and the Social Crisis".

In what social and political climate did Rauschenbusch write?  It was the "Progressive Era," with great industrial and social upheaval. "The Muckrakers" produced Edward's book, "The Robber Barons", Thorstein Veblen's "The Theory of the Leisure Class" and Ida Tarbell.s book on Big Oil.  There was Prohibition, the struggle for the vote for women and the rise of Big Labor. 

                       John D. Rockefeller Sr.

                   (Image from Wikimedia.org)

Social Darwinism was in its heyday then, with its Eugenics (population control in order to eliminate the "inferior.")  Socialism had a strong appeal to intellectuals.  John Dewey famously called Communism "intrinsically religious" with the "moving spirit and force of primitive Christianity."

Laconte writes, "As such, Rauschenbusch's gospel had little need of a Savior.  It merely displaced the problem of evil -- the supreme tragedy of the human soul in rebellion against God -- with the challenge of social iniquities.  The Kingdom of Heaven would come soon enough, if only we put our hands to the plow."

"Perhaps this earth-bound emphasis explains the Social Gospel's naive embrace of morally dubious causes, including eugenics and abortion.  We underwrite modern social programs with similar illusions about human nature.  Thus drug "maintenance" (methodone) programs, to take but one example, leave the sourge of addiction largely untouched because they do not address its moral and spiritual causes.'

In the 100 years since 1907, many of the Progressive Era's issues have been mooted.  Prohition has come and gone, while Big Labor is now understood to be a major cause of Europe's economic stagnation.  The care of the poor by the government has also been tried.  But since the demise of the welfare system in 1996, which brought higher employment and income levels to the poor, government help is no longer considered the best help for the poor.

Meanwhile the intellectuals' great hope of Socialism/Communism was dashed when the Soviet Union imploded in 1989, after a failed 70-year socialist experiment.   Stubborn attachment to Socialism and to government intervention in the free market still persists.  But it weakens, the more that caplitalism benefits more and more people. 

Now U.S. Government statistics clearly show that not only are the rich getting richer, but so are the poor.  And UN statistics have just shown that the poor are getting richer all over the world, primarily due to free trade. The evidence appears insurmountable that being employed or having a small business, not hand-outs, is what has helped the world's poor the most in the last decade.

In short, the stances taken by the Progressives of that era and by the Social Gospel have since proven to be counter-productive, socially, economically and politically. 

That means that to base our beliefs on the Social Gospel means going in the wrong direction, if what we truly want is to help those less fortunate.  Christians should take note.  The Social Gospel is not good for society!  More sadly, it has not been good for those at whom the Social Gospel has aimed.

But even more importantly, what has the Social Gospel done to the church and the Christian faith? 

Rauschenbusch disbelieved in the "crude and misleading" idea of a  Second Coming of Christ, which "offered no motive for an enobling transformation of the present life."  The Christianity of his youth looked unfit to cope with the "industrial crisis" of his day. 

Loconte writes, "It is hard to see how Rauschenbusch's theology could be called Christian in any meaningful sense of the term.  It required no repentance or atonement and carried no fear of judgement or bracing hope of eternal life."  Rather, his writings were full of the dogmas of Darwin, Marx and Herbert Spencer, not so much the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.

He thought the poor did not need Christianity so much as other things.  Yet studies and experience of the last two decades have shown that traditional Christianity has been the best hope of the poor, what has led to a better life for them in this world.  Such studies as those showing that disadvantaged youths who attend church regularly are less likely to commit crimes, and that fatherlessness is the most reliable predictor of who will be poor.**  Studies showing that fatherlessness is less common among Evangelical Christians.**  Studies showing that Evangelical Christians give the most to the poor, and volunteer most.*  And hundreds of such scholarly studies, on and on.**

In short, traditional Christianity - the kind with its basic, Biblical beliefs intact - is and has always been the best help to the disadvantaged, not only with hope for heaven, but also during their time on earth.  Becoming a Christian, or trying anew to live closer to Christian tenets, is what I have seen help the poor and the criminal more than any other single thing, in my 7 years in prison, and in helping some 5000 poor people "up and out" afterwards.***

The evidence is that the Social Gospel is clearly, simply wrong.  The traditional gospel has done far more good for the afflicted here on earth, without damaging the orthodox Christian faith.

_____

*"Who Really Cares," Arthur C Brooks, Basic Books, 2006.

**See Chapter 6 in my book, "Up and Out: True Compassion for the Poor", especially the footnotes, here.

***See my prison account in "Out of the Iron Furnace" at www.outoftheironfurnace.blogspot.com, Chapters 7, 15, 16 and 17.

Top Scientist and His Faith

                        (Image from achievement.org)

Much of the chattering class believes that no thinking scientist could possibly be a Christian.  Or even any rational intelligent person.  But many scientists, and countless other intelligent people, are in fact Christian.

One of them is "...arguably the most important doctor and scientist on the planet today."  So writes Joel Rosenburg here.  He is Dr. Francis S. Collins, the director of the Human Genome Project.

"He and his colleagues have mapped out the 3 billion letters of the human genetic code imprinted into each of our cells...They are figuring out the Creator's 'instruction book' for the human body, and thus racing to find cures for cancer, diabetes, and so many other horrible diseases."

But did Dr. Collins perhaps "inherit" a strong Christian faith from his family, such that he clung to it in spite of all his scientific training?  Actually, religion was not important to his family.  So he grew up as an agnostic, later deciding he was an atheist.

Then one day Dr. Collins visited a patient who was dying of cancer.   She explained that "...she had no fear of dying because she had a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.  She explained that God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives, and offers us a way to eternal life through Jesus.  Then she asked, 'Doctor, what do you believe?'"

He fled the room as fast as he could.  "He was touched by her story and moved by her faith."  But he couldn't answer her question.  So he began a search of the evidence for Christianity.  Eventually the evidence convinced him, and he became a Christian. 

Although only about 40% of scientists are Christian, Dr. Collins says he sees no contradiction between his science and his faith.  He says that now "...he sees science as a means both of discovery as well as worship." 

The more he learns of how God has created and wired us, the more he feels he has "...caught a glimpse of God's mind."

DR. HENRY MORRIS: LOSS OF A GIANT

Dr. Henry Morris died without my knowing about it, on February 25, 2006.  He had an enormous effect on me.  When I was in prison, the chaplain lent me his copy of "The Genesis Flood,"  It made a provocative

case that the fossils and the strata containing them were better explained by a massive, world-wide flood than any other cause.  It also offered compelling evidence that the "gradualist" theory of evolution could not explain the fossils.  That in fact, the fossils would not have been preserved intact, but would have been eaten or rotted away before they could have been slowly, slowly covered by dust and mud over centuries.  That such things as the wooly mamouths found quick-frozen, in a standing position with food in their mouths and completely buried by sediments, could not have been covered gradually.  Nor intact trunks of petrified trees found still upright where they grew, piercing through what are supposed to be billions of years of layers of gradually-deposited sediments.

Understandably, the book became a best seller.  It also re-ignited creationism by giving it new scientific grounding.

Dr. Henry was a hydraulics engineer and mathematician, head of the Department of Civil Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic and author of a widely-used text on hydraulics as well as articles in various encyclopedias.  His credentials as acientist were well established.  Even more important, few understood better what truly massive, violent movements of water could do to rock, earth, sediment and living plant and animal life forms.  When he illustrated that a world-wide flood, such as Noah's flood, could account better than anything else for the record of the strata and the fossils, he had credibility.

"Intelligent Design" theories of "life-origins" appeared in the 1980's.  They were based on the growing conviction that every life form was so impenatrably complex - even in what once were thought to be simple single-cell life forms - that only an "Intelligent Designer" could explain the origins of life.  It borrowed from many aspects of Morris' work, and that of the scientists who worked with him at his Institute of Creation Research (www.icr.org)

Arguments such as his that long, slow natural forces could not explain the fossils made a difference.  Eventually the late Harvard scientist and evolutionist, Jay Gould, proffered a new theory of "Punctuated Equilibrium".  That allowed for periods of huge, catastrophic change in the geologic record of the earth, between supposed long periods of gradual change.  This in effect admitted that only huge, sudden events could account for such things as the preservation of the fossils.

So Henry Morris must be considered one of the great apologists, a powerful defender of the faith.  In our time, after all, most people think science has disproved the truthfulness of the Bible.  This keeps many people from responding to the message of the Bible.  It also leaves them free to disregard it or change its meaning.  But if it can be defended, scientifically, as being true, then full belief becomes possible for more people.

MORRIS THE BIBLE TEACHER AND SCHOLAR

What is less known about Morris is his rank as one of the finest Bible teachers and scholars of our time.  Bringing the formidible training of a physical scientist to bear on the study of scripture, he has few equals in teaching and explaining the Bible.

The footnotes and appendices of his "Defender's Bible" are one of the finest Bible courses available.

He also has one of the best apologetics courses available for Sunday School classes, "The Beginning of the World."  This slender paperback has a tremendous impact on class members.

Those who have taught Sunday School classes know that what works best is short courses.  This one is just 13 weeks, or one quarter.  It is extremely good.  Henry Morris taught it for over 25 years in his Sunday School class, so he had plenty of time to polish it.  I have taught it, and the response was outstanding.

At his memorial service, his son, Dr. Henry Morris III, told of how he often remembered his father; seated in his study with a Bible on one knee, a concordance on the other and a yellow writing pad in between.  Dr. Morris wrote over 60 books and was still writing up to the time of his death at age 87.  The Institute for Creation Research that he founded has awarded over 100 Master's degrees.

As a scientist and scholar, he was one of the great apologists of our time.  As a Bible scholar and teacher, he ranks among the finest.  We will be standing on the shoulders of this giant in the faith for a long time to come.

(Dr. Morris' books can be found at www.icr.org or at www.amazon.com. "The New Defender's Bible" can also be purchased from Amazon by clicking on its image in the column on the right.)

YOU GOTTA GET THE NEW "DEFENDER'S BIBLE!"

The book of Job in the Bible was always the hardest for me to understand.  This time, for the first time, I understand it.  And for the first time, I am swept by the depth and beauty of this oldest of all the books of the Bible.  How did this happen?  Through using Henry Morris' notes in his "Defender's Bible."

Of all my Bibles, the Defender's Bible is my all-time favorite.  For 10 years I have used it almost exclusively.  Now World Bible Publishers is bringing out a new version with greatly expanded notes.

Who is Henry Morris?  He may be the greatest living Bible teacher.  He is also a scientist, and the founder of the Institute for Creation Research.

He shows a remarkable ability to understand scripture from a scientific point of view, and to find new connections between parts of scripture.  A superb apologist, he is able to support the scientific truths in scripture, a 7-day creation over evolution, Jesus as God's incarnate Son and the inerrancy and full inspiration of scripture.  This Bible was also designed to defend all scriptures which have come under attack.

The translation is NKJ.  The appendices alone are worth the price of this extraordinary Bible. The footnotes comprise one of the finest Bible courses you will ever find.  They help the reader understand even the most difficult of passages, especially those about creation.  Over 3000 new notes and 2 appendices have been added to the original 6400 notes and 18 appendices. 

Dr. Morris considers this Bible his work of a lifetime, based on more than 50 years of scholarship and Bible study.  His testimony is that "the Bible can be believed just like it's written." 

No apologist, no discipler, no pastor or evangelist or teacher or student of the Bible should be without this exceptional Bible.  It is without equal.

(It can be ordered online, at ICR, Amazon or Barnes and Noble with various bindings and prices. A CD-Rom containing the entire Bible and notes plus the text of Morris' book "Many Infallible Proofs" is included with each copy.)

WHY PEOPLE BECOME UNCHURCHED

Don Batten writes (hat tip to Jeffrey Foxmore):

"Churchgoing in Britain is in freefall in the 'mainline' denominations...This realization led to a survey in 2003/2004 to find out why.  In all, 14,000 people in Britain and Ireland responded...to say why they were giving up on church."

They wrote their responses instead of replying to  a question and answer format.  But 91% of them said roughly the same thing:

"'The church needs to give a more robust defense of the reasons for believing.' People pleaded for the churches to answer the sceptics and defend the faith...Respondents wanted evidence for their faith and teaching that upheld the authority of the Bible."

"The second reason for disillusionment was frustration with church leaders not teaching the holiness of God and moral standards.  A huge number of respondents grieved over the ordination of homosexuals by the Anglican Church."

"Research in Australia also shows that issues of truth and moral standards are very important in people seeing church as irrelevant."

Batten also notes that:

"People in the United States are also deserting the 'mainstream' denominations that have become infected with liberal theology.  The liberal churches are dying and the conservative (Bible-believing) churches are growing."

A lot of pastors and church workers would be surprised to learn that people are leaving churches because they do not defend the faith well enough.  That is, they do not hear enough good apologetics!  They would also find it hard to believe that what people are looking for is stricter moral teachings.  But a survey of 14,000 is about 14 times as big a sample as most pollsters would consider necessary.  The bigger the sample, the higher the degree of accuracy.  That means these findings would be considered to have a high degree of accuracy.

Should we be listening?

Battling for the Bible

The  November 18 post, 5 posts below this one, "Is the New Testament True?" received the following comment.  With the writer's permission, I am copying it here, together with my response.  The reason is that there are probably thousands of seminarians all over the country, especially those of the mainline churches, who would echo the frustration of this one.  If my response, below, was helpful to him, it might also be to other seminarians.  He commented:

"In seminary, I'm hearing a lot of stuff about the NT authorship being fraudulent. But even secular scholarship, I think, would dismiss most of the arguments that I've encountered so far."

I responded as follows:

Dear John,

Do you mean the seminary I think you do? I'm astonished! How can that be? But I take your word for it. (I really doubt, though, that the leaders of your seminary are aware of the situation.)

In my very liberal seminary, I was assisted by my skepticism (which I treasure) and my scientific training. The basics of that training were:

1. Check the basic, underlying assumptions of every argument or case. (If these are shaky, the whole superstructure of proofs and argumentation built on it is also shaky.) If these underlying assumptions are not openly stated, then you must figure out what they are.

2. Check the scholarship used in that superstructure.

Using these tools, I found that their case that the Bible is not true was in fact a weak case. (Actually, the case that the Bible is true, even in its plain surface meaning, is a somewhat stronger case.)

1. First, their basic, underlying assumption is "there is no supernatural."

Based on that, there can therefore be no true prophecies. So if some prophecy came true, it had to be fradulent in some way. (Thus the rationale for the claim that Isaiah was written by Christians after the prophecies came true, then falsely "backdated" to make them seem credible. Of course, finding that the pre-Christian Dead Sea Scrolls had an Isaiah identical to ours messed up their "backdating" theory pretty badly. Etc, etc.)

If everything considered to be supernatural is automatically ruled to be impossible, then there is also no virgin birth, no incarnation, no healings and no resurrection. Which means the authors of the Gospel had to be wrong.

So you can see what difference their basic assumption that "no supernatural exists" makes. They automatically rule out anything as true that is supernatural.

But assuming there is no supernatural proves nothing about the supernatural. In fact, it puts them in an almost indefensible position. Their chances of ever proving it are almost zero, as you can almost never prove a negative.

And this case is vulnerable to being flatly disproved by the existence of even ONE verifiably supernatural event. (The "white crow" argument - all it takes to disprove the argument that there are no white crows is just one. Not a majority being white, just one.)

2. Then as to their scholarship, compared to my own field of economics, I found the scholarship, in the superstructure built on that basic assumption, to be dismayingly sloppy. (And economics is not even as rigorous as, say, the physical sciences.)

Here is the worst device I found, over and over, even in the basic works of their best scholars. At first, I marked in blue pencil each paragraph where I found it. But soon I stopped, because I was marking up so much of so many of their library books!

The device was this: in one paragraph, things would be conditional, then in the next paragraph, what was tentative and conditional before suddenly became a certainty!

I was so stunned that at first I spent a lot of time re-reading, going back and forth between the two, not able to believe that they had really done that. But they did.

For instance, the first paragraph would state, "so-and-so, which SUGGESTS thus-and-so." Then not long after, suddenly it was "so and-so, THEREFORE thus-and-so," with what had merely been suggested before suddenly becoming a firm conclusion.

This kind of overstated conclusion based on what is merely tentative is just not permissible. Neither are conclusions to be based on evidence too slender to support them.

Just keep your eyes and ears open. You don't have to announce to your prof any disagreements you may have with him or her. That is your business.

They can rightfully expect you to learn what they want you to learn. You don't have to believe it.

They also have a right to ask you to regurgitate it, to prove you learned it. But you can do that in a way that does not make a statement about your beliefs, simply by citing the sources in which their arguments are found.

Be critical. Cultivate your scholarly skills and skepticism. Make them prove their case to you (not by challenging their authority openly in class, but rather by paying careful attention.)

And make those "A's". You may need them someday!

Your beliefs are in a much stronger position than you may realize.

Try Roberts. I think it will be very helpful.

Blessings,
Gerry

Is The New Testament True?

To watch most serious TV programs, some major movies, or to read the Main Stream Press, (or even to attend some major seminaries) should be enough to convince most people that the New Testament cannot be considered to be true.   That science has disproved it.  That it is not historically accurate.  That only fools or wishful thinkers or the superstitious (or "fundies") could possibly think otherwise.

That is why many thinking, intelligent, well-educated people are surprised to learn that the case that it is true is a strong case, ably defended by credible scholars, scientists and researchers.  These defenses range from easy works by popular simplifiers, to long scholarly works that can be very heavy going for the non-specialist.

For those who want something credible and expert, yet well-written and understandable by non-experts, a good place to start is with theologian/pastor Mark D. Roberts, at www.markdroberts.com.  His series  "Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable?" at http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resources/gospelsreliableprint1.htm#sep2605 is one of the best treatments I have seen.  It is thorough, respectful of those who differ, and rooted in good scholarship.  Yet it is easy to understand and a pleasure to read.

Wherever one is on this issue - beginner, well-studied, or feeling finished with it - this series is a good place to enter, or re-enter.  It does affect everything we think about God, the human race and our own lives.  Getting it wrong is not good.  The ramifications are appallingly serious.  Getting it right, as best we can, is more than worth much time and trouble.

Fortunately, Robert's series comes in easy bites, is not much trouble and takes only a few minutes a day.  Do-able!  Well worth a peek.