I began this series by sharing with you the mission and vision of Focus on the Family. In addition to those overarching guidelines, we have six pillars.
We believe that God created humans in His image, intentionally male and female, each bringing unique and complementary qualities to sexuality and relationships. Sexuality is a glorious gift from God to be offered back to Him either in marriage for procreation, union and mutual delight or in celibacy for undivided devotion to Christ. Christians are called to proclaim the truth and beauty of God's design and the redemption of sexual brokenness in our lives and culture through Jesus Christ.
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God -- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- His good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:1-2
Thoughts?
Oh, by the way, now that we've gone through Focus on the Family's foundational values, you can bookmark the page which lists them all in one handy place.
Based on the box office gross it seems just about everybody in the world went to see Avatar. I did. And I'm not even a movie goer.
I'll start it off with my thoughts.
It was lame. For me the only good thing about it were the visual effects. Adam Holz of PluggedIn.com said it well, "Visually, Avatar is a feast. Lush colors and spectacular creatures dance and splash (and fight)." Other than that ... the plot was boring and predictable, the wicca-like 'Great Mother' deity was overdone and annoying, the whole Americans-are-greedy-and-our-military-is-bloodthirsty theme was just so cliche and it seemed the only reason they mentioned the true God was to put a d--n next to it.
But hey, that's just one guy's opinion who is admittedly a naysayer of most things Hollywood.
I began this series by sharing with you the mission and vision of Focus on the Family. In addition to those overarching guidelines, we have six pillars.
We believe that God has ordained the social institutions of family, church, and government for the benefit of mankind and as a reflection of His divine nature. Therefore, Christians are called to support these institutions, according to God's design and purpose, and to protect them against destructive social influences. Such involvement is in obedience to Christ's lordship over all creation and is required by His command to care for the well-being of all people.
"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." Genesis 2:24
"And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body." Ephesians 1:22-23a
"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." Romans 13:1
Imagine being single and staring at a little pink plus sign on a pregnancy test in your bathroom on a Saturday afternoon. You're just ... numb. And you wonder what you're going to do this time. You've already had three abortions and your excuse to your OBGYN is that you "get pregnant really easily."
But maybe things will turn out differently. Maybe you'll consider carrying to term and keeping your baby or putting her up for adoption. Options you never considered before are suddenly on the table because you’ve decided to put yourself and your baby up for virtual "auction" on an original Internet series and let the show’s viewers decide whether or not you should have an abortion.
Weird, huh? But this exact scenario is being broadcast on a new web series called BUMP+, which debuted a few weeks ago on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
BUMP+ follows the fictitious stories of three women who are facing unintended pregnancies (for clarity, none of the women are pregnant in real life). The show is filmed in the mockumentary style that fans of "The Office" or "Parks and Recreation" will recognize.
The show's creators explained why they felt the need to create a web series that centered around the abortion debate:
BUMP+ The Experiment is an attempt to determine whether story can succeed where nearly four decades of angry rhetoric and political posturing have failed.
Inspired by President Obama’s call to people on both sides of the abortion debate to open the lines of communication and find workable solutions to the problem of unintended pregnancies, Yellow Line Studio is starting that conversation inside the safety zone of a fictional world based on real life situations.
Is our society willing to give it a try? How authentic are these characters? And how serious are we about an open, honest exploration of this controversial topic?
You tell us. Please. We can’t predict how it will end because we’re waiting for your input to finish the upcoming episodes. That’s right – their choice is up to you.
My first reaction to this series was to huff and puff around the Boundless office and grumble about how sick and depraved this idea is. And while I still hold to the view that entertainment like this deserves no air time, I have to admit that the creators have a point: why not open up discussion about this issue outside the ballot box?
I have been reading "Roaring Lambs" by Bob Briner recently, and his biggest challenge to his readers is to impact the world for Christ, no matter what profession they hold. The worst thing Christians can do, he says, is complain about negative content and sit idle, instead of being active and creating something positive to counter the negative.
With this attitude, I think that we who hold a pro-life stance can use this web series as a platform to advocate for unborn lives. The creators of BUMP+ want their viewers to actively discuss their beliefs … so let’s give them some discussion. If you believe that life begins at conception, post it! According to the statement above, the characters' decisions will be influenced by the comments of viewers. The fictitious stories do not have to end in tragedy if we take a stand for life.
Instead of sitting back and complaining about the trash that the Internet is putting out today, let's try to influence our culture to the glory of God. We are called to be in the world but not of it, and this is a relevant, timely way in which to do so.
I began this series by sharing with you the mission and vision of Focus on the Family. In addition to those overarching guidelines, we have six pillars.
We believe that human life is created by God in His image. It is of inestimable worth and significance in all its dimensions, including the preborn, the aged, the mentally disabled, those deemed unattractive, the physically challenged, and every other condition in which humanness is expressed from the single cell stage of development to natural death. Christians are therefore called to defend, protect, and value all human life.
"For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalm 139:13-14a
I began this series by sharing with you the mission and vision of Focus on the Family. In addition to those overarching guidelines, we have six pillars.
We believe that children are a heritage from God and a blessing from His hand. Parents are therefore accountable to Him for raising, shaping and preparing them for a life of service to His Kingdom and to humanity.
"Has not the Lord made them [a husband and wife] one? In flesh and spirit they are His. And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring." Malachi 2:15
I began this series by sharing with you the mission and vision of Focus on the Family. In addition to those overarching guidelines, we have six pillars.
We believe that the institution of marriage is a sacred covenant designed by God to model the love of Christ for His people and to serve both the public and private good as the basic building block of human civilization. Marriage is intended by God to be a thriving, lifelong relationship between a man and a woman enduring through trials, sickness, financial crises and emotional stresses. Therefore, Christians are called to defend and protect God's marriage design and to minister in Christ's name to those who suffer the consequences of its brokenness.
"'Haven't you read,' He replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.'" Matthew 19:4-6
I began this series by sharing with you the mission and vision of Focus on the Family. In addition to those overarching guidelines, we have six pillars. This is how we introduce them when folks like you ask:
Since Focus on the Family's primary reason for existence is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a practical outreach to homes, we have firm beliefs about both the Christian faith and the importance of the family. This ministry is therefore based upon six guiding philosophies that are apparent at every level throughout the organization. These "pillars" are drawn from the wisdom of the Bible and the Judeo-Christian ethic, rather than from the humanistic notions of today's theorists. In short, Focus on the Family is a reflection of what we believe to be the recommendations of the Creator Himself, who ordained the family and gave it His blessing.
And now, our first pillar:
The Preeminence of Evangelism
We believe that the ultimate purpose of life is to know and glorify God and to attain eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, beginning within our own families and then reaching out to a suffering humanity that needs to embrace His love and sacrifice.
"He said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.'" Mark 16:15
Well, maybe not know -- not if your definition includes picky little details like him having a clue who I am. But I once sat next to Saints running back Pierre Thomas and his mother at a dinner back when he was at the University of Illinois, and we chatted a little bit. So it's fun to tell people I know him, with mock grandiosity, before quickly explaining what I really mean.
And yet, there's this part of me that's not totally kidding: It's fun to get people's attention and feel important by proximity to important people. I have to laugh at that part of me when I recognize it, because I know how absurd it is.
But the temptation can be more subtle. All of us know people who are important in our social or professional circles. We've known them in school, in the office, and in church. And if their fame is smaller-scale, it also matters more because we see them all the time, and so do the other people we know. Maybe somewhere along the way we've sought their approval, received it, and felt more important as a result. Or maybe we've resented other people who received that favor, either because we didn't have it or because we did have it but we were insecure about the competition.
It all sounds so high school, but as you may have noticed by now, a good chunk of the adult world never gets much past the high school dynamic: It just takes different forms. And a lot of us aren't as far past it as we'd like to think either. It takes a certain level of self-awareness to keep those attitudes from sneaking back in. We should find our sense of importance in Christ, but the sinful nature keeps trying to find it in other people.
How about you? Have you been faced with this temptation -- maybe without even recognizing it as a temptation?
Have you ever wondered what Focus on the Family is ultimately all about? What impassions us, what motivates us, what does our ministry hope to accomplish?
Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to share with you our mission and vision, as well as our six guiding principles. I'd love to hear your reaction to them -- where you think we've fulfilled our mission, and how you think we could do better.
To kick things off, here's our ...
Mission Statement:
To cooperate with the Holy Spirit in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible by nurturing and defending the God-ordained institution of the family and promoting biblical truths worldwide.
Vision:
Redeemed families, communities, and societies worldwide through Christ.
Steve's blog about the protests of the Focus on the Family Super Bowl ad featuring Pam and Tim Tebow is but a small portion of a much larger picture.
From my new home here in Florida (well, not new new, since I grew up here), I see even more coverage of the "controversy," particularly because of the Tebow angle, but also because Florida has been through this before.
Ten years ago the state introduced a "Choose Life" license plate that drivers were free to choose—or not. Purely up to them.
But immediately various pro-abortion groups and allegedly pro-women groups filed suit to stop the plate. The reasons given were that the plate was:
Too religious
Too political
Supported terrorism
No joke. In December 2002 Barry Silver, representing the Florida chapter of the National Organization for Women, actually said:
The big issue for me and my clients is that our country is faced with terrorism from abroad, but in Florida, we’ve seen homegrown terrorism specifically by religious fanatics against abortion clinics. Their slogan of choice is "Choose Life." The last thing we want to do is put the state’s imprimatur on a slogan that is used to sow violence and domestic terrorism.
The suits were eventually tossed on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing, specifically that they had not been harmed by being denied an opportunity to produce a license plate with their own message. In fact, they had never attempted to communicate their own message; they just wanted to gag the one they didn't like.
That's what happening here with the Super Bowl ad. Rather than produce and pay for their own commercial, they just try to shut down one they don't like.
Their behavior calls to mind something that Boundless' own Dr. J Budziszewski says in his excellent book The Revenge of Conscience.
People engaged in or advocating things that deep in their hearts they know are wrong try to silence that nagging feeling by encouraging more of that behavior, either in themselves or in others. That's why drunks will often encourage others to get drunk. It's why many homosexuals don't want just to be left alone; they want others to actively affirm their behavior. It’s why some women encourage abortion or, in one tragic case he cites, have one abortion after another. Somehow they rationalize that if there were more of this behavior, in themselves or others, their own consciences won't be as bothered.
But here's the pertinent point: This also explains why they're not satisfied merely to advocate or engage in a behavior; they must actively suppress anything that might prick their consciences, such as something encouraging the opposite behavior. Or even just suggesting the opposite behavior.
Dr. Budziszewski's thesis is deeply insightful on both a psychological and spiritual basis. It explains a lot of what we see in our world, and it explains very well the behavior of those now trying to silence opposing veiwpoints.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I share that dream for my three little children, a dream explored in the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most deservedly influential speech.
Why has MLK's speech endured? Why are we hearing excerpts of it today on TV and talk radio? Because it's true: While skin color, ethnicity, cultural heritage, and the such are of some interest, those things ultimately define neither us nor our neighbors.
Today, as I remember the work of Rev. King, I'm finding my very understanding of "race" challenged. Maybe I need to move beyond the concept of "race relations," putting behind me the common understanding of that term "race" altogether. What if this premise -- that race is even relevant -- is the very obstacle keeping us from true reconciliation, from making peace with those who look different from us?
If you're intrigued by any of this, I challenge you to read the following four-part series by Thabiti Anyabwile and leave your comments below. If you're on Facebook, I'd further challenge you to share these articles there, with the hopes of extending this discussion outside of the regular Boundless community.
Earlier this week I found myself awake in the middle of the night again, laying there in bed and worrying.
I fretted about money: Would I be able to pay for next month's utility bill? Did I pay this month's credit card bill? How did I find myself surrounded by all this stuff?
I thought about my family: How terrible it will be for my daughters, and for my wife, when I die. I wish I could be there through their grief, but, of course, I can't.
But I also wrestled with spiritual questions: Does God really exist, or are we alone? Is Jesus really God incarnate, or is the truth found in another religion? Does God really know me, and care about me? Am I really saved, or am I bound for hell or annihilation?
The questions were real, and difficult. As I lay there, unable to sleep, I thought of others who might be awake with anxious thoughts. And I felt a kind of fellowship with them, a club whose membership criteria consists of a late-night, solitary and sleepless kind of initiation ceremony.
I don't regret being a member of this club. Maybe you're in it with me. If so, what questions plague you in the middle of the night? How painful has it been? How do you deal with the anxiety?
It wasn't beautifully done. As a matter of fact, it seemed a little out of place on such a big stage as Fox News Sunday. But pundit Brit Hume's on-air diagnoses of Tiger Woods' problem was right on -- Tiger needs the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, not Buddha.
The question to the panel was whether or not Tiger Woods would recover as a golfer once his sex scandal subsides. And while the others predicted he'd win the masters, Brit took it a little further and seemed to express genuine concern for Tiger's family as he turned the conversation from golf to faith.
Of course Hume is getting pummeled by the media for his proselytizing, most notably from the more liberal networks and newspapers. Mollie Ziegler of GetReligion.com does a great job of commenting on the absurdity of them with her post "Hume Can't Say That!" Here's a sample:
Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s Tom Shales — we’ve looked at his defense of David Letterman’s sleeping with employees and he’s also recently defended Roman Polanski raping a 13-year-old — has finally found someone to criticize. He says Hume must apologize and that he’s the laughingstock of the industry. I’ll defend the right of anyone to criticize Brit Hume and what he said, but this Shales piece is remarkably petty. He says Hume is full of "something" and comes forth with a new commandment from on high: Thou shalt never share religious beliefs of any substance. Well, actually, I can’t recall him criticizing any MSNBC pundits for condemning, say, traditional Christians, so I guess this commandment just applies to certain pundits.
Hume has been in the business long enough to know the kind of response a statement like that would generate from his colleagues in the media. But what a great opportunity to see the divisiveness of our Redeemer in this modern era. Hume's comment forces you to come down on one side or the other.
l think it was brave. And who knows, maybe Tiger was listening.
It's not just a new year, its a new decade. Usually we get a lot of media hype about these things. Not so much this time, mainly because the last one doesn't lend itself to a catchy name. (What do we call it anyway? The ohs? The aughts?)
Though nothing's really special about years that end in zeroes, we might as well take the occasion to look back a decade, if only because we rarely do, and it gives us so much (here comes my favorite word lately) perspective.
You don't usually see big changes in a year, but you sure do in 10. Think about what you were doing in 2000 and you'll see what I mean. All the things that seemed so important then that don't now. (I was still collecting articles on the Clinton scandals.) All the things that seem so important now that you didn't think much about back then. All the things you meant to do that you never did, or the things that you tried but left behind. All the things you've learned since then, and all the things you tend to forget now.
Many changes may have been for the better, but don't just assume they've all been. For example, 10 years ago I was working in an office where I had Internet access, but I didn't have it at home. Now I'm a free-lancer who looks at the computer morning, noon and night. It's not a nonstop thing, but there are no firm dividing lines, no points (other than bedtime) at which I say "time's up; I'm shutting this thing down and not looking at it till tomorrow." As a result, when I have a few spare minutes, I end up sitting in front of this screen. I think I was better off in 2000: I had ample access to the Web, but clear, fixed limits on how much I used it. Now, if I'm not careful, it owns me more than I own it.
The changes in my life seem big to me, but the changes in yours are probably a lot bigger, if only because so many of you were still kids a decade ago. So let's hear about those changes. What differences in your life between them and now really jump out at you? How is your life now better and how is it worse? Or is it neither -- just a different season?
So last night I went with my sister-in-law to our church's young adults meeting. I was talking with a guy, who over the course of our conversation mentioned that the guy over there was a pretty deep thinker. He read Heidegger and Kierkegaard, my new friend explained.
Suddenly, I was transported back 20 years, to when I immersed myself in philosophy, restlessly struggling to find meaningful answers to the overwhelming questions I had, and eager to explore new questions that these philosophers introduced.
It was a rich time, reading Sartre, Unamuno, Pascal, Wittgenstein, Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, Rousseau, Hume, Barrett, Tillich, Buber, Barth, Emerson and Thoreau, Augustine and Aquinas, Lewis and Chesterton and Schaeffer and McDowell. And Heidegger and Kierkegaard.
I remember the intense conversations I had with some of my friends, questions about what was real and what was important. I remember finding a quiet corner in one of the buildings on campus, looking through a window down on students and faculty as they made their way along the sidewalk below, thinking about the meaning of my life and theirs. I remember one night going with Rodney to a nearby church, sitting near the front of the darkened and empty sanctuary, calling out for God to reveal Himself. The cry of my heart was to know, to really know.
Over time, I found myself struggling with fewer epistemological questions. These days I don't so much care about knowing whether I really exist. I don't fret about where all this came from. I don't lose sleep pondering whether there really is such a thing as absolute truth.
My philosophical studies have been helpful. They've helped me work through significant doubts and questions, and have give me a better appreciation for God and the breadth and depth and mystery of His creation. In the end, the mental exercises have pushed me toward the Creator, and to His Son.
Now, I find that life in Christ has not merely addressed the deep questions I've had for years, but has calmed my unsettled mind. A sovereign God exists, Christ has reconciled me to Him, and my eternal destiny is determined. And such knowledge has given me a peace that surpasses all understanding.
Though I enjoy a good philosophical discussion, deep down I am no longer as driven as I once was; I'm no longer as restless. The Lord has given me a peace about who I am, what's really real, what's of significance, and where I'm going.
My column today starts with the cases of talented performers like Adam Lambert who abuse their talents to do things like -- well, you've probably heard all about it already. (If you haven't, read the column and all will be explained.) My reaction:
... it grieves me every time I think about what someone with talent could be doing with it. I feel the same way whenever talented actors/actresses resort to sex scenes or other sleazy material. I keep wishing I could tell them You can be so much better than this; you don't have to stoop to this.
But the column's not mostly about them; it's about us. What can we do with our talents? I'm not not necessarily talking about our profession, though that's one possible part of the answer: We can't all have our dream jobs. But we all have talents, even if they're not recognized as job skills, and even if they're not all glamorous skills. Singing, Web design, carpentry, bookkeeping, there’s always something we can do.
Some Christians don't think about this as much as we should because we imagine it's immodest to think much about our talents. That's a matter of habit, not good theology. God gave us our talents, and we're allowed to notice them. You can even argue that we're obliged to notice them -- in the right spirit, of course -- if only so we can thank Him for them and use them for Him. We certainly shouldn't squander them.
It's easy to get so busy that you let your talents atrophy. So a few questions: What are your talents? How are you finding ways to use them? Are you finding ways to use them?
(As a follow-up, some of you might want to read this.)
I'll be honest: I don't know what to do about Afghanistan. In the last few days the airwaves have been full of people saying they do know, and maybe some of them actually do, but I don't. I even know people who've been to Afghanistan who don't know.
I understand those who say we must not set a date to begin departure because it encourages enemies and discourages allies. I understand those who say we must set a date so the Afghan government knows they'd better get serious and the people know we're not just another foreign occupier. I understand those who say we can't leave because it'll be a victory for Al Qaeda and rally them to more acts of terror. I understand those who say we can't stay because it'll bleed us dry and still won't make us safe. All these concerns carry weight; none deserve to be dismissed. And I don't yet know the best or (perhaps more accurately) the least bad option to deal with them. Again, someone else very well might: I don't.
But this post isn't about Afghanistan, and I hope that your discussion won't be either. This post is about what to do when you've looked over an issue to the extent of your competence and you still don't know what to think. And the answer is: Just say so. Say you don't know.
Yeah, that advice seems obvious. But it's a necessary reminder. Necessary because too many of us get in the habit of taking sides based on party or ideological guru or fashion or the sheer compulsion to sound confident and cocksure all the time. Necessary because truth matters, and none of us should do it the disservice of declaring we know more than we actually do.
And necessary because sometimes we do know the truth, and when we speak it with certitude, that should mean something. If we speak on every issue with the certitude we speak on (say) certain biblical truths, people are likely to pay more attention to our attitude than to the substance of what we're saying. They'll suspect that we're fonder of making confident, sweeping declarations for their own sake than we are of discerning the actual truth. (Odds are they'll be right.) And if they catch us being bombastic and/or mistaken on some secondary issue, they'll doubt our credibility on the most important stuff.
I know (well, I think I know) what some of you are thinking. So don't misunderstand: I'm not saying that none of us should speak confidently on any issue other than the most fundamental Christian truths. Not, not, not. I'm saying that each of us should speak carefully, with whatever degree of confidence he can justly bring to the topic at hand. We can, if we know our stuff, talk about global warming or economic policy or Afghanistan or practically anything else. And we don't necessarily need professional credentials. We do need to know what we're talking about.
There's no shame in saying "I don't know" sometimes. There's more shame in never being able to say it. Save the confident declarations for the times and topics where they belong. To start with -- but not nearly to end with -- I know that my Redeemer lives.
They're at it again. The American Humanist Association is launching a holiday campaign to try to convince Americans that they don't need God to be good. It's akin to the British Humanist Association's drive last year that plastered London buses and Underground tunnels with the message, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." (I really like that probably part.)
The American Humanists' promotion says, "No god? ... No problem! Be good for goodness' sake."
They need to explain, however, where the moral impulse comes from. Why do we feel the need to be good and not bad? The usual answer is that the moral impulse evolved in humans over many years. Or they'll say that morality rises out of empathy. But these are little more than dodgy just-so stories that take what is—people have a sense of right and wrong—and come up with a fantastical explanation for how this came to be. But even if for the sake of argument we grant the point, this explanation still has a problem. It might describe what is, but it has no power to prescribe or proscribe certain behaviors. It's the classic is/ought problem: You can't get an ought from an is. You can't go from "people have a moral impulse" to "you ought to act morally."
Second, if our moral impulses are just a result of biology, can you even call them moral? They're just behaviors, no different from the biological urge to sneeze or cough. If our genes made us do it, how can we condemn a Stalin or praise a Mother Teresa? They just did what their genes made them do. If morality is just a product of genetics, it would be akin to condemning one for having allergies and praising another for fast reflexes.
But all this misses the larger question: Good as compared to what? What is "good" if there's no standard to measure it against?
Now the Humanist can rightly ask, "Well, isn't your explanation of a god also a just-so story?" And it would be if there were not plenty of historical, archeological, and documentary evidence to support the claims of Christianity.* We at least have evidence to point to. They have ... what? Speculation.
They Humanist might then ask, "From where does God get his (or her) moral values? If God gets them from a still higher source, the buck hasn't stopped. [Where did that source get them?] ... If they originate with God, then God's morals are made up and hence arbitrary."
This is similar to the question Socrates asks in the Euthyphro: "Is an act right because God wills it, or does God will it because he knows it is right?"
The answer is "none of the above."
Morality is rooted in God's nature. He did not just make it up or get it from somewhere else. The good is what comports with God's nature; evil is what goes against it. God cannot sin, not because He has superior willpower, but because it would violate His nature and He would then cease to be God. Being created in God's image, we share this understanding. God's law is indeed written on our hearts.
So I would say to the Humanist that not only can you not be good without God--you can have no concept of good without God.
*I suggest books such as Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator or The Case for Christ and Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict as good starting points for the historical evidence for Christianity.
We received the question earlier this month, and I immediately forwarded it to Boundless Q&A columnist John Thomas. It began:
Please address this question in one of your columns; it is weighing heavily on my shoulders and I'd like Christian advice. Do suicides go to heaven if they were Christian before they died? I know that no one but God can know this, but what in your opinion does Scripture say?
When I heard back from John, he remarked that "it occurred to me that maybe this guy is writing for his own consideration." Hm. Yeah, that thought crossed my mind too. John continued in his e-mail to me:
I take the position that believers who commit suicide still go to heaven, but I certainly don't want to ease the conscience of a believer who is struggling with suicidal thoughts.
So for me the question is not whether someone's last act in this body of flesh was an act of sin, or whether he had anger or jealousy or lust in his heart for which he had not repented, but rather did he know the Father, "the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent," while he was living.
John had two close friends who committed suicide, and he knows up close the catastrophic consequences of someone killing himself, the ripples of agony and destruction that never really settle. He writes about his two friends:
But please know this, it would be better by far to still be walking with them on this side of heaven. Their suicides left huge swaths of pain in their wake, pain that will mark their spouses and children and family and friends forever. As difficult as life was for them, I'm convinced God could have brought the healing they longed for in time. I believe that for every person on this planet.
John confesses that "there are well-respected believers and theologians who would disagree with me on this issue." We received an e-mail from one such person, who wrote, in part:
I must express my disappointment in the article titled "Suicide and Salvation" by John Thomas. While I appreciate his opening statement giving "full disclosure" about eternal security beliefs, I was immediately disturbed by the possible results. He believes that a person may commit suicide and be welcomed into heaven.
This is a delicate, life-and-death topic. Because of the myriad of Boundless readers, with varying levels of spiritual strength, many grappling with mid-20s crises, and some with only a tenuous grasp on the hope that we have in Christ, John Thomas' beliefs may encourage, rather than discourage suicidal thoughts. It is possible that any person feeling hopeless is assured that, while suicide is sinful, the end result is still being with God forever -- and good. I certainly don't think that was the writer's intention. Yet the danger remains.
In interest of full disclosure, I do not believe in eternal security. I believe that in the same way we make a choice to turn to Christ for salvation, we can turn away and return to the kingdom of darkness. And yes, I do believe that our names will be erased from the Book of Life. I believe that once one commits self-murder, thus breaking one of the Ten Commandments, he or she will be doomed to eternal judgment. It's a sobering, gut-wrenching thought and I shudder to think of the souls lost because they refused to choose to obey God.
I understand this person's concern. John understood it too, but was obligated to write a response based on his understanding of Scripture. And I find myself agreeing with John on this one. We are not saved by not sinning, but by faith in the Savior, Jesus Christ.
What say you? If you've known someone who's committed suicide, how has that affected you? Do you think John's reply is off-base, either in that it's unbiblical or that it may actually encourage suicide? Do you think that the Lord forgives even those heinous sins from which someone has not had the opportunity to repent? Or do you think that if someone commits suicide, that's a sign that they might not even have been a Christian in the first place? What say you?
Wednesday's USA Today asks what you plan to say when you pray over your Thanksgiving feast tomorrow. In case you don't have any good ideas, columnist Cathy Lynn Grossman offers some ideas: multiple prayer websites and Beliefnet's Prayer Plain & Simple blog. Even the Huffington Post is getting in on the action with an agenda-setting offering from Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman.
The article, "Do You Have a Special Thanksgiving Prayer," is a reminder that we live in a pluralistic society that often forgets what Thanksgiving is for. It's a holiday of remembrance. Not just remembering all our material wealth, or as one children's book says, "being Thankful for Thanksgiving," but for remembering a specific band of pioneers; adventurous Christians who braved unthinkable hardship (including freezing and starving to death) for a shot at a fresh start in a land without religious restrictions or persecution. Thanksgiving — the real holiday — is for giving thanks to the God who spared the Pilgrims from obliteration by sending a native, Tisquantum, to teach them how to survive in their new land.
Listening to it each year is one of our favorite parts of the celebration. And at the end of his tale — about being stolen from his tribe by English slave traders, only to return years later to find his people completely wiped out by disease — listeners are moved to prayers of thanksgiving. It's undeniable that the Sovereign God had (and has) His hand on the events of history. He is able to redeem even the most evil of circumstances. The only appropriate response is prayer.
If you're wondering what to pray, look to the One we pray to. He's already told us what to say.
Garrison Keillor (NPR host, author columnist) isn't for everyone. His rambling style engages some people and annoys others. Likewise his mostly-liberal politics. Me, I find him hit-and-miss, both in style and substance, but he's entertaining, insightful or interesting often enough that I check out what he's saying from time to time. A few weeks back he really got something right, and Thanksgiving is just the time to repeat it.
In a column, Keillor described what he called "a true conservative":
This is someone who believes that the treasures you inherited are probably more important than what you chose for yourself, that your family, your community, your culture, about which you had no choice, are the true gifts and all that you were ambitious to acquire on your own -- fame, wealth, an elegant prose style, mastery of the tango, Jessica -- are less true.
Beautifully put. And it seems to me that a variant on those words is just as good a description of an attitude that Christians should have. Only the treasures would be defined more broadly. Family, community, culture -- yes, these well may be among them. (Such things vary from person to person.) But beyond those, so is our faith, our salvation, our Lord. All the things we want to pursue on our own are petty at best compared to the things God gives to us.
There's more to Keillor's column, and he is, as I say, hit-and-miss. In this sentence, though, he's captured a type of conservatism deeper than modern political labels convey. More important, he's captured the spirit of Thanksgiving.
Hope this resonates with some of you the way it does for me. Happy Thanksgiving!
Over the past couple of days, a large and broad range of Christians have been signing on to a document called The Manhattan Declaration (including Focus on the Family president Jim Daly and founder Dr. James Dobson -- who invited Chuck Colson and Robert George to talk about the document on his daily broadcast).
It's a bold and well-articulated declaration that we support here at Boundless because of how well it frames many of the issues we care about. Here's the description from the Manhattan Declaration Web site:
Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.
We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:
1.the sanctity of human life 2.the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife 3.the rights of conscience and religious liberty.
Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Visit the Websiteto view the declaration, to sign it and/or to share it on Facebook and Twitter.
"Poll Supports Taxing Rich for Overhaul," read the headline in my hometown paper on this story about health-care reform. "Americans Sour on Other Options for Meeting Costs," added the subhead.
In other words, same old, same old.
I have to wonder how many of the people who take the tax-the-rich line pause, even briefly, to ask themselves what gives them a claim on other people's money, and a pretty much limitless claim at that. Not many, I'm afraid. It's habitual by now.
But they should pause. And more to the point, we should. We, meaning Christians. We have it on good Authority that it's a sin to steal. Should we be quick to conclude it's not stealing if it's done by the state? Automatically? Should we blithely assume it's OK if the government is democratic? Might that not make it worse -- increasing the complicity, and the corruption, of the people?
Shouldn't we at least ask these questions?
Yes, I know: There are mitigating factors. Health care isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. (I really know: I've had major medical bills with no insurance.) But the issues remain, and we still need to wrestle with them. And we can't forget that the people always support making "the rich" pick up the tab. The spirit of the nation isn't "we're deeply sorry to take other people's money, but we're desperate." It's simply "We're entitled."
And yes, I know: Scripture has many warnings about attachment to wealth and many calls to care for others. But those words aren't just for the wealthiest of us: They're for all of us. When we feel we're entitled, we're not getting our spirits into harmony with God. We're only doing that when we're voluntarily giving, not forcibly taking.
I'm not entirely closed to ethical arguments for government programs of this sort, though I'm skeptical of them. The trouble is, few people seem to feel they even need to make those arguments. They just feel free to take the money.
So let's talk about this. A ground rule: Let's not talk about the details or the practicalities of health-care reform. We've done that a lot already on this site, and we may do it again, but it's not today's topic. Let's focus on the moral and spiritual issues raised above. There's plenty to chew on right there.
"If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him," wrote 19th-century author Thomas Carlyle. "They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it." Carlyle wasn't a Christian when he described that attitude, but he didn't think much of it regardless.
I thought of that quote when flipping channels today. The topic of the day was Sarah Palin, and her reported comments to a McCain aide last fall: Seems she was pressed by the aide to say she believed in evolution, and she refused to get on board. The TV host launched into jeering at her in a can-you-believe-she actually-thinks-that? sort of tone, and commenced to push his guests to either join him in the jeering or be jeered at themselves. You didn't have to be a Palin fan to find the treatment kinda repulsive. It was so high school.
I call that host's attitude strategic mockery. It's a kind of bullying we all recognize from childhood onward, and it doesn't go away when we enter the adult world: It just takes on new forms. It's a conscious intimidation tactic that substitutes embarrassment for argument: Come on, you're not one of them, are you?
Any Christian who takes his faith seriously can expect to run into this a lot: That's not news. So how do you deal with it?
I have a few personal rules: Don't resort to a "Christian" version of that attitude yourself; don't get mad; do be calm; do be good-humored. But let's hear what you do. Or perhaps what you try to do.
Whenever something explicit or vulgar shows up in public, and some people object, you can always count on other people to come back with one line: "If you don't like to see it, just don't look at it."
But, of course, it's not that simple. Because it's everywhere now. So much so that even jaded media types are taking note. And they're not loving what they're seeing.
Take today's Washington Post story on "second-hand porn" -- AKA "drive-by porn" -- which is getting worse now that everyone carries video screens in public. Reporter Monica Hesse can't contain her revulsion. A sample passage:
Those afflicted with secondhand porn say it's not that they oppose adult entertainment. The trouble was knowing that they couldn't escape it, not until the plane landed or the Metro doors opened.
That, and the general haze of gross that seemed to descend on the public space, the filmy yuckiness that made them wish the sprinkler system would spontaneously activate.
That, and the feeling that came with knowing exactly what was on their neighbor's mind.
"At some point," Hesse quotes an English professor/mother as saying, "we've completely lost the ability to tell when it's socially appropriate and when it's not."
How did we get here? Go back to that earlier line: "Those afflicted with secondhand porn say it's not that they oppose adult entertainment...."
Well, they should oppose it. (And without using euphemisms like "adult entertainment.") Because that's where the problem started -- with a collective refusal to be "judgmental" toward "private" behavior. Once a society abandons the very idea of binding moral standards, the rampant pollution of "private" vice inevitably gets into the public air, and it keeps building till we're all choking on it.
So let's start a clean-up operation. Yes, I know: It seems hopeless. So what? Do it anyway. There are a countless everyday ways to make a start. I once saw an obscene T-shirt in the window of a Spencer Gifts. I urged the clerk to get it out of the window. He did. This hardly took a herculean effort: It took two minutes.
It seems that the Halloween decorating has been amping up in my little corner of the world for the past couple of years. What used to be the occasional skeleton or haybale with pumpkins seems to have morphed into the Fall Battle of the Griswolds.
For the most part, I have no problem with it. I like the elaborate fall decorations with the scarecrows, dried corn and garlands of fall leaves. I don't really mind the giant spiders, witches who have crash landed in the front yards and giant inflatable vampire Mickeys (okay, that's not true, vampire Mickey gives me the willies).
But there is one particular Halloween decoration in my neighborhood that just gives me the creeps. I've had my eye out to see if it was going up again this year and, this morning, it did.
Picture this: A group of five ghosts. They're little and cute and adorable, being held up by sticks. All the ghosts are holding hands (via their little sheets being connected at the edges) so that they appear to be circling around a tree together.
I know. Not that horrifying, right? In fact, I've spent some time this morning wondering, just what it is about this house that gets to me? The best guess I can muster is that it's the cute superimposed upon the creepy. That these sweet little things seem to be participating in something pretty ugly--some type of nature worship ritual.
In the midst of the good things that Christians are trying to do with the Halloween holiday (like show hospitality, remain true to our convictions, host Fall Festivals for the community or celebrate "Reformation Day"), there are still aspects of Halloween that, rightly, cause us concern (like this or this or this).
"Yes, I am well aware this is a controversial issue. In my opinion, it is often either overstated or understated. And yes, on Halloween we do give out candy generously, and we enjoy the kids' costumes. For some Halloween is harmless. But there is another side to be aware of, which sucks in others."
I think that may be it. Other believers probably drive by this ghosts-around-the-tree scene without batting an eye. But something about this particular decoration reminds me, in a pretty vivid way, that as much as we may try to redeem or reform or repurpose this holiday, there is a dark side to it. Demons are real. Satan prowls and he would pull our worship away from our Lord in any way that he could.
As Alcorn put it, I don't want to overstate it or understate it. But those little ghosts this morning reminded me that it should at least be stated.
"Okay," our devotion leader said. "Can anybody name any sins that they saw committed or discussed in that clip?"
He had just shown us a 5-minute clip of a popular sitcom. It took about a milli-second before the answers started coming. Fornication. Homosexual Behavior. Coveting. Cruelty. For just 5 minutes, the writers had certainly packed a punch.
"Any more?" he asked.
A few more answers popped out, though slower now.
"Anything else?" he asked. "I'm looking for something in particular."
There was silence for a good minute until someone offered, "They took the Lord's name in vain pretty often."
"That's it," he smiled. "Seven times to be exact."
I thought of that devotion while watching an ABC Nightline segment from last night's show. Nightline is currently doing a series on the Ten Commandments and last night's segment, titled "OMG! I Just Broke a Commandment!", focused on the third commandment. (Text story is here.)
Particularly, it focused on the increasing use of "OMG!" by Americans, both in text and verbal form. "They're just three letters of the alphabet ..." the voiceover guy says at the beginning of the segment, "... but they deliver an awfully big idea."
The segment then goes on to show a montage of "OMG" use from sitcoms, "reality" TV shows and even as a category on the game show Jeopardy. I've even seen it as a category on my Yahoo! homepage.
"I think when people use it," said one teenage girl being interviewed, "it's more to, convey, 'That's so exciting!' or 'How cool!' and instead of saying that, they said 'OMG!' instead."
"Most teens don't think about it," said another, "they just say it."
But that "not thinking" about the significance of those letters could be the problem. When asked whether "OMG!" represented a vain use of the Lord's name, Bob Miller, an Old Testament expert at Catholic University, said:
"I seriously do think it is a problem. I think that it shows a lack of belief that God is present or that there is any sort of reverence around what it is you're actually saying. I think the fact that it has become a casual thing that is thrown around in the language is just a symptom of that and that would never have happened in earlier centuries."
But isn't "OMG" just like all the other white-washed references to God's name that we've become accustomed to or that may even sound corny to us, Nightline asked? Golly, Gee, Jiminy Cricket (JC), Gadzooks, Jeepers, Oh Gosh. Are those taking the Lord's name in vain?
I've frequently said, "Oh, Criminy" and just now looked it up on Merriam-Webster. Great.
Th teenagers in the Nightline piece seemed to try to make that case: That "OMG!" simply is an exclamation of surprise, or amazement, or delight. That it has no religious significance.
But is that true? Or do they just not realize the religious significance that it has?
To that point, something really interesting happened at the end of the segment. Referring to "OMG," the Nightline interviewer asked the panel of teenagers, "Will those letters be different to you now, because we've talked about it so much?"
Almost all the teenagers nodded their heads and agreed that, yes, it would be different. "I think I'll be more conscious of it now," one girl said.
For me, I'm not so much concerned about where exactly the "vain" line is drawn. I just want to make sure that I'm nowhere close to it and that my language and my heart both exemplify a reverence for the Lord.
Maybe I'll just stick with Winnie the Pooh. "Oh, bother" should work just fine.
I find myself in another of those conversations about what philosophers and theologians call The Problem of Evil. Follow me for a moment as I tell you how I got into it.
It started last week, when I wrote a blog post about how God used the invention of ultrasound in ways the inventor couldn't have imagined. One reader (BAC) wrote to say this post was a timely inspiration at a crucial point in his/her life. I wrote back and said the timing was a great example of how God works in His own timing.
No controversy so far. We Christians talk this way all the time: It's as natural to us as breathing. But it sounds odd to non-Christian ears. Another reader (Jethro) asked: How do you know God was at work? And I said: Because God is always at work in the lives of His people. And he said:
Does that mean God is at work when a someone rapes a child or murders another human being? Is God at work when an abortion takes place?
I'm not being facetious, it's a genuine question.
I could give a short answer along these lines: Yes, God is at work. That doesn't mean God caused it, because it's a fallen world full of sinful human beings. It means He is there, working through it all, to bring consolation, forgiveness or both.
But a short answer won't do here: We're getting deeper into the problem of evil, and that's never a short conversation. It's also important enough that it calls for a fresh post so the rest of you can weigh in.
Boundless writers have talked about this subject a lot, but not for a while. So let's start by suggesting a few articles. Robert Rivera talks about it here. J. Budziszewski talks about it here and here and here.
Besides the question of evil itself, there's another question: Why do we ask? There's more than one possible motive, and we should examine ourselves to discover our own. Gary Thomas reminds us that God's not a defendant we can put on trial here. And J. Budziszewski considers how to talk to others about the issue here.
I'd like to hear not just your comments, but even more, your personal stories. Have you wrestled with why God allows evil in the world -- or in your own life? How have you come to terms with it -- if you've come to terms with it?
Well, I’m glad this weekend is over. That means we can go, oh, about five years if we’re lucky without having to hear about Woodstock again.
In case you spent the past few days in a cave, you might not have known that every media outlet in the known universe just spent the week commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock music festival, née An Aquarian Exposition. (It didn’t even take place at Woodstock but on Max Yasgur’s farm in nearby Bethel, N.Y.)
Now I have nothing against the music of Woodstock. The first two albums I ever bought (yeah, the big black vinyl kind) were by Woodstock stalwarts Crosby, Stills & Nash; and The Band. I own the Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock DVD, and a good portion of my iPod holds music from Woodstock acts like CS&N, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Credence Clearwater Revival, Neil Young, and Sly and the Family Stone.
No, it was great music. I’m just sick of everyone talking as if those few days in Upstate New York were somehow the dawn of The New Man. It was nothing of the kind. A bunch of people got together and managed not to murder one another despite tremendous provocation—thunderstorms of epic proportion and the resulting sea of mud, no food, inadequate sanitary facilities, and tremendous crowding—and that’s something to celebrate, I guess. It could have been much worse. New York governor Nelson Rockefeller almost called out armed National Guard troops to handle the supposed uprising, and if he hadn’t been talked out of it we might remember Woodstock as we remember Kent State.
But a lot of the "magic" of Woodstock happened by sheer accident and because of the poor planning and incredible incompetence of the festival's organizers. Concert-goers and musicians alike were forced to make do, and people proved tremendously helpful and accommodating. For example, a local mom made hundreds of PB&J's and handed them out at the concert. It was never supposed to be a free love-in. It was very much a capitalist affair, with Wall Street investors bankrolling the concert, but the day before the concert was to begin they found they had only enough money to either finish the stage or erect a fence; the stage was the necessity, and the incomplete fence resulted in hundreds of thousands of people crashing the event. The musicians, altruists to a man, insisted on being paid in cash.
But for all the good music and good vibes that came out of those few days at Yasgur's Farm, a lot of tremendously bad things were popularized. First was the casual use of drugs. Yes, marijuana use had been on the rise for years, and three years earlier Timothy Leary had championed the use of LSD with his famous catchphrase, "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
But the image coming out of Woodstock of all the mellowed-out hippies dropping acid and smoking dope with no apparent ill effect opened the floodgates to making drug use seem cool even outside the counterculture, despite warnings even during the concert. Who can forget this announcement from the stage? "We're told that the brown acid is not specifically too good."
Another harmful effect of Woodstock was to insinuate an openness to New Age thought and Eastern religions into the wider culture. The Beatles had first plowed this row when they traveled to India and briefly bought into the flimflam being peddled by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, but with the exception of George Harrison, they soon saw through the baloney. Indeed, John Lenno'’s song "Sexy Sadie" was a bitter dig at the Maharishi's hypocrisy. Woodstock's "invocation" was given by Swami Satchidananda, and the entire hippie movement was strongly influenced by this mysticism. It was, after all, the Age of Aquarius. Unfortunately, a lot of their children had to pay the price.
Joni Mitchell's ethereal song "Woodstock" furthered the somewhat false image of that event. (She passed on an invitation to the festival, worried that it would interfere with her booking on "The Dick Cavett Show.") Her line, "We've got to get ourselves back to the Garden" made people think Woodstock was the norm, not the exception.
But the experience was never repeated, despite numerous attempts to do so. Four months later at the Altamont Rock Festivala man was stabbed to death mere feet from the stage as Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones sang "Under My Thumb." (Security at Woodstock was provided by hippies who called themselves the "Please" Force, while at Altamont is was provided by ... the Hell's Angels.) Woodstock '94 and '99 were known more for their general mayhem and $10 bottled water than music or lovingkindness. And don't forget that within a year both Joplin and Hendrix were both dead from drug overdoses.
After Woodstock the entire hippie counterculture was co-opted and mainstreamed by Hollywood and Madison Avenue, reaching its apotheosis of absurdity when Sammy Davis Junior, the ultimate Rat Packer, appeared on TV wearing a Nehru Jacket and love beads. It was only a short step from there to "The Brady Bunch."
I was a teenager that summer weekend in 1969 and only vaguely aware of the news coverage at the time. I found hippies slightly distasteful, although I couldn't articulate why. I suspect it's because I saw them as a bunch of immature and fatuous freeloaders, most of whom reeked to high heaven. I liked the music, though, and have ever since. But I'm too much of a realist (some might say cynic) to see that weekend as anything more than an aberration with really cool tunes.
My column today takes up a survey showing that most scientists don't believe in God. The question is why, and I suggest the answer lies not in science, but in attitudes and worldviews — a sense that belief in God isn't intellectually respectable. I also suggest we need to look into the spiritual aspects — the pride (I use the word "conceit") that very intelligent people can take in their own intelligence and their resistance to the idea that intellect is insufficient to explain the universe.
The first response came quickly. An e-mail asked what Boundless hoped to accomplish by printing this. The writer felt my piece fed a stereotype about the arrogance of scientists and intellectuals, and that it would just promote among our readers the same conceit and close-mindedness I'd complained about among many scientists.
I hope not. That's why I refuted the idea that religion and science "are inherently mortal enemies" in the first paragraph, and did so again near the end, though with a distinction. ("Religion isn't the enemy of science, but it is the enemy to scientists who have no sense of their own limits" — those who think science can explain everything.) That's why I talked about the forces besides conceit that could pull a scientist toward naturalism, and marveled that despite all that, many scientists (one in three) still do avow belief in God.
Did I do enough? You be the judge. What did I hope to accomplish? A couple of things.
First, I wanted to help Christians who suffer from intellectual intimidation. (You know: "If all the smart people think we're just products of evolution, who am I to challenge them?") It's important to realize that just because naturalists invoke the name of science, that doesn't mean their attitudes have been produced by pure science; their attitudes are shaped by forces outside science, and may have been absorbed long before they actually were scientists. Christians need to realize we're hearing from fellow sinful, fallible human beings, not from the collective embodiment of raw intelligence.
Second, I wanted to warn against the temptations that all of us (not just scientists) face when we develop a high regard for our own intelligence. I speak from experience. I grew up going to school with a lot of smart kids (professors' kids, many of them). I was a smart kid (sixth-grade spelling champ of Leal Elementary School, thank you very much, and you bet, I felt cocky about it). I know how it can go to your/my head. Hence, the column's conclusion: "The smarter the men the devil's tempting — or the smarter they think they are — the more raw material he has to work with. It's humility that gives him problems."
Our correspondent says he wishes I'd been clearer about that, helping readers understand that it's a danger we all face. I thought readers would take it that way, but maybe he's right. In any case, read the column for yourself. Did you find this a valuable piece? I'd love to hear your feedback.
As an individual living in a generally free society like the United States, have you ever thought about exactly what you deserve in terms of rights and privileges?
Are free speech and freedom of worship enough? Are public roads and police protection satisfactory?
Those things were enough for our forefathers, but if you're like many Americans today, you want -- expect -- more.
A whole lot more.
Whether you realize it or not, you've probably come to expect sufficient food and clothing, a roof over your head, maybe even government-funded health care. (None of which are actually guaranteed, at least not yet.)
And if you are Trina Thompson of the Bronx, you expect just a wee bit more.
That's right. Thompson is suing Monroe College for $72,000. That's $70,000 for the cost of tuition, with another $2,000 for the stress of not landing a job.
Never mind that Thompson's academic credentials (2.7 GPA) weren't exactly top-notch. Never mind that the school's job placement office gave Thompson equal access to its e-recruiting Web site, through which she was able to contact potential employers. And never mind that the U.S. economy is in a recession, or that thousands of other college graduates have remained unemployed for far, far longer than Thompson.
According to Thompson's legal complaint, those reasons simply don't cut it:
The office of career advancement information technology counselor did not make sure their Monroe e-recruiting clients call their graduates that recently finished college for an interview to get a job placement. They have not tried hard enough to help me.
Forgive me if I'm not understanding, but it sounds like she not only expected these clients to notice that she had just graduated, but to actually contact her directly and request an interview. (And for all these years I thought it was the job-seeker's role to go after an interview!)
Even if you were less-than-pleased with your college experience, have you ever considered asking (suing) for your money back? And did you ever consider giving up after a mere three months in the job market?
Is this where our American sense of entitlement has taken us?
Have you ever heard of Zac Sunderland? You will now. That's because this morning Zac became the youngest person in history to sail around the world alone. The LA Times reports:
Zac Sunderland, who left Marina del Rey 13 months ago with a bold ambition to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone, returned to complete that quest today at 10:30 a.m.
Sunderland, 17, who was greeted offshore and escorted in by an armada of well-wishers aboard dozens of sailboats and fancy yachts, cleared the breakwater beneath a clearing sky and stepped ashore at Fisherman's Village in bright sunshine.
There, hundreds had gathered to meet a teenager from Thousand Oaks who, many are saying, "left as a boy and came back a man."
A year and a half ago, he had a dream to sail around the world. It would have been easy to dismiss such a far fetched fantasy, but Zac took his own money, earned like most kids from summer jobs, and bought a 36 foot sailboat. He named his boat Intrepid. His parents had hoped he would find something that would create a fire in him, a passion that would direct him away from all the negative and harmful influences that are so prevalent in our society, but even they were stunned by the scope of his dreams and desires.
It's no coincidence that Zac, who was 16 when he began his voyage, was able to accomplish such a feat. He had logged more than 15,000 hours (that nearly two years worth of hours) sailing before he undertook this challenge. His dedication to a long term goal stands in stark contrast to that of many of his peers, who twitter and text in an instant gratification world.
In their article "Becoming Men: Feats of our Forefathers," Alex and Brett Harris note how a propensity to take on big challenge at a young age has historically been indicative of impact later in adulthood:
It is no coincidence that the same Samuel Adams who organized the Boston Tea Party at age 51 wrote his master's thesis in defense of the people's liberties at age 21.
It is no coincidence that David Farragut, who became the U.S. Navy's first Admiral at age 65, was given command of his first ship at age 12.
It is no coincidence that Alexander Hamilton, who became our nation's first Secretary of the Treasury at age 34, was a clerk in a counting house at age 13.
We can learn a lot from our forefathers. They lived in a time very different from our own, but their example couldn't be more relevant. In a world that is looking to our generation for direction and leadership and finding a bunch of kidults, the commitment to do hard things as young adults is a much-needed revolution.
Lovely Weeds by Ted Slater on 07/10/2009 at 2:11 PM
It was a hot, sunny day. School was out for summer, but while other children played and frolicked, my lot was a cruel one. We lived on one acre and most of what wasn't house was lawn. And as a direct result of Original Sin, dandelions, with their long taproots, had invaded that vast lawn. It was my fate to spend the morning, weeding fork in hand, removing them.
Every child begins life fond of dandelions. On that day, my fondness came to an abrupt end.
Over the course of the next 1,183 words, pulling from Chesterton and Heidegger, Tonkowich struggles to regain a child-like affection for this yellow weed. The journey is a fascinating, if not circuitous, one; here are a few more excerpts:
What a surprise that there should be dandelions and that there should be a me who, through no effort or merit of my own, happens to be here to see those dandelions. The only reasonable response is gratitude.
Summing up, Chesterton wrote that this is "the chief idea of my life.... That is the idea of taking things with gratitude, and not taking things for granted." And it was this chief idea that led Chesterton into the Christian faith, for gratitude is looking for someone to thank.
Tonkowich explains that presumption and despair always prevent gratitude. Boredom and the demand for entertainment are signs of despair. Presumption, what we often call entitlement, breeds a cultural mood of discontent that strangles gratitude in the cradle.
As I read the ensuing paragraphs, I felt the same ache, the same pain of loss that I felt when I first read George Halitzka's "Helicopter Seeds." Here's how Halitzka wrapped his thoughts:
Some 21 years have passed since I discovered the Helicopter Seeds, and now I'm much older, wiser ... harder. I stand on the edge of a hill above a grove of springtime maples, whose tiny seed packages still spin to the ground. I watch the precious cargos gently find the ground; whirl in an ecstatic dance of new life.
Most of the seeds fall in vain, the same as 21 years before; on rocks and weedy patches they will wither into nothingness. My hardened mind, which cares too much to care, wants to believe that a few of these seeds will live to canopy the forest floor and one day drop their own helicopters. But the odds are against a single one outlasting the snow.
So I watch them spin through the air in moments of glory that last only seconds. I imagine a few taking root against the odds, growing against all hope -- and finally dying.
But I find that I cannot focus on the cold mechanisms of biology. I almost start to cry, not because so many seeds will fail in vain ... but because in this moment the Helicopter Seeds are so, so beautiful.
Perhaps it doesn't matter that so many will never grow. Perhaps it is enough to see them fulfill a divine purpose. Perhaps the beauty is enough to make this breathless moment is its own reward. I even dare to imagine that maybe the seeds fall so I, and the God who made them, can be lost in childlike wonder again.
Or perhaps ... they fall for nothing. But as I reluctantly turn from the edge of beauty and walk towards my car, I try not to believe that.
So how does Tonkowich's article conclude? What might we make of the lowly dandelion, wonderflower of youth and nuisance of adulthood? There's but one way to find out.
It was Saturday afternoon, and I was driving home with two hungry kids. Despite my status as a thoroughly modern and enlightened father, I knew there was little chance of me preparing a healthy, balanced dinner for the three of us before we all fainted from starvation, so I naturally began the time-honored hunt for a quick meal that wouldn't deplete my retirement account.
I pulled in to the parking lot of the nearest strip mall, settled on a dining establishment we could all agree on, and quickly discovered that there wasn't an empty parking space within 200 feet of the entrance. Actually, there was one available space, but it wasn't fully available. You see, what we encountered that day was a case of, well, I can't use the popular term on a family friendly blog, but you've all seen it before: Someone who thinks their car is so nice, so new, so ... special ... that they deem it worthy of occupying not one but two parking spaces.
As I circled the lot one more time just to see if another spot opened up, another option came to me. Though the inconsiderate driver in question had obviously meant to occupy multiple parking spaces, I noticed that he or she was a bit lacking in execution. The driver had left just enough room on one side for me to squeeze in my modest sedan.
Sensing that it was my duty, my mission, to teach this lout a lesson in inconsideration, I carefully navigated my car into the available area, with barely enough room for us to actually exit our vehicle.
Needless to say, this did not go over well with all my passengers. My nine-year-old daughter was able to slither out easily enough, so she was fairly oblivious to the vital message being conveyed. Yet my oldest son, the one barely out of elementary school, knew exactly what was going on.
"Dad, what are you doing? Don't do this!"
I calmly explained through clenched teeth that people who intentionally occupy multiple parking spaces are akin to criminals and need to be shown the error of their ways. I'd had enough, and I wasn't going to take it anymore.
But my son knew better. Whether he was afraid of the offending car's owner or some other threat yet unseen, or whether he just thought I'd gone temporarily insane, I don't know, but he continued his protestations all the way to the door of the restaurant. Since he was just as hungry as the rest of us, I could tell that he felt very strongly. I could also hear the distress in his voice.
"Dad, no, please don't!"
"But I'm teaching them a lesson," I explained. "People just can't do this!"
My son was now almost in tears.
"But Dad, God can take care of him!"
Please forgive the cliche, but his words hit me like a ton of bricks. It was my turn to hold back tears, as I came to a sudden halt in the parking lot. I looked at this boy who rarely reads his Bible without prompting and who would rather sleep in rather than get up for church most Sundays, and I knew that God was speaking through him.
How many times had I taught my kids that revenge wasn't up to them, that they should resist the urge to tattle on their classmates and siblings, that God would make things right in the end? And now my son had shamed me with my own words, basically citing Romans 12:19-21 without even knowing it:
"Do not take revenge my friends ... for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
I walked back to our car, slowly opened the doors to make sure we didn't scratch the vehicle next to us, and drove away. When I had calmed down sufficiently, after my seemingly righteous indignation had evaporated like so much hot air, I looked my son in the eye.
"You were right," I said. "God can take care of him."
I was checking my e-mail earlier, attempting to ignore the ads that popped up on the right side of my inbox. Then an ad popped up which I couldn't ignore. It was a tummy. Or two tummies, to be exact. One was, I'm sure you guessed, rock hard, toned and tan. The other was ... not.
But, evidently, it was not enough for these marketers to do the simple side-by-side comparison of tone tummy to flubby tummy. No, these guys decided to animate. So, not only was the second tummy as big and as celluritic as they could make it, it was also flubbering at me.
Nice. Almost without thinking, my hand went to my own tummy. I gave the ad the evil eye and went on my e-mail checking way, only to realize that through the course of about 10 minutes I also got to see a wrinkle ad that transformed a leather-faced woman into an alabaster beauty and some miracle cure that turned yellow teeth gleaming white.
Now, I know that previous generations of women have struggled with their own body images. I've seen clips of those weird contraptions that 1940s and 1950s women used to get a flatter stomach. But, really, you have to think that there's something original about our generation. I mean, at least my grandma didn't have to see the flubbering tummy while opening up her mail.
It seems that wherever I look, I get two messages. First, that beautiful is important. Second, that I'm just not beautiful enough. But, most of the time, it's okay. I know they're trying to sell me something.
What I struggle with more than the ads, truthfully, is in trying to figure out how exactly a pursuit of physical beauty fits (if it fits at all) with a pursuit of righteousness. As a believer, should I strive to be physically beautiful? God's Word tells me that it's inner beauty that matters to God. So, should I not care about physical beauty? Or is it okay to do certain things (like eat healthy and exercise) but not others (like make-up or tanning or liposuction)? Is there a line? And, if so, where is it?
Seems like others are dealing with these questions too. Mary Kassian wrote recently that the problem is "not that we pursue beauty too much, but that we don't pursue it nearly enough." (What does she mean? Read it here.) Carolyn McCulley writes to encourage us to notice, and appreciate, those women who are "Doing Beautiful." And, as for me, I wrote an article for Boundless a couple of weeks ago called "Balancing Beauty" where I tried to work out the answers to my own questions.
"I want so much to get this beauty thing right, to see it through God's eyes. To be aware of Satan's lies that my whole worth is in my outer beauty or, even conversely, that how I present myself makes absolutely no difference.
But there is no magic formula. As with most subjects, God doesn't give us a rule, He gives us a priority: Him."
Do you remember the famous photograph of the baby reaching out of the womb and grasping the doctor's finger? That baby is now 9-year-old Samuel Armas.
The photo has been spread around the world and even cited during congressional debates on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, but for Samuel it has personal significance. According to Fox News:
"When I see that picture, the first thing I think of is how special and lucky I am to have God use me that way," Samuel told FOXNews.com. "I feel very thankful that I was in that picture."
On Aug. 19, 1999, photographer Michael Clancy shot the "Fetal Hand Grasp" — his picture of a 21-week-old fetus grasping a doctor's finger during innovative surgery to correct spina bifida. Nearly four months later, on Dec. 2, Samuel Armas was "born famous."
The photo sparked controversy when the photographer claimed he saw the baby reach out and grab the doctor's finger, while the doctor claimed the baby was too anesthetized to do so.
"I don't care, honestly," Julie Armas [Samuel's mother] said. "What I felt the picture showed is that this is a child engaging in some form of interaction. I'm a labor and delivery nurse, so I understand that Samuel was anesthetized to some degree.
"So if he reached out, I don't know. If Dr. Bruner reached out, I don't know. The fact of the matter is it's a child with a hand, with a life, and that's meaningful enough."
And Samuel is glad to be the "poster child" for life:
Samuel, now 9 and living in Villa Rica, Ga., said the photo likely gave countless "babies their right to live" and forced many others to debate their beliefs on abortion, something he's proud of.
"It's very important to me," Samuel said of the photograph. "A lot of babies would've lost their lives if that didn't happen."
Kids like Samuel and Lia encourage me. Children seem to step up instantly to defend other children. They don't even question it. We can learn something from them.
Are you trying to make a decision right now -- about a job, a move, a purchase, a relationship? In that decision, are you worried about what you'll have to give up when you choose one thing over another? It can feel painful, but making a good decision means being willing to cut off the next best options and leave them behind. In fact, according to a recent blog post by our friend Scott Stanley, that's what deciding is all about:
The word “decide” comes from a French word dating to the 1300s that literally means “to cut” or “to cut off.” Deciding is about coming to a point where something is cut off from something else. A part is chosen—hopefully the best part—and the illusion of hanging on to the whole, to everything, is given up.
It's this perspective of deciding that makes the idea of commitment counter cultural in Dr. Stanley's research:
The cultural messages we are inundated with encourage us to hang onto everything—to cut off no options, to have it all. Having a lot of options in life is great, but maybe not so great if one never decides what matters most.
Where could this insight apply in the decisions you need to make?
When it comes to relationships, career development, where you live and other big decisions, do you feel like you're making good decisions? Is there a chance that instead, you're just sliding into situations and getting stuck with decisions that you never really intentionally made? Dr. Scott Stanley, a researcher at the University of Denver, has been raising some great questions about this issue. We love Dr. Stanley and have featured him on Boundless a couple of times.
I was glad to see that Dr. Stanley has now launched a blog to focus specifically on the difference between making active decisions and drifting into not-so-good decisions. Here's how he describes his new blog:
Sliding vs. Deciding is a concept based in the research that I and colleagues have conducted on relationships. It contrasts how things often happen with how things could be. The core idea is that people often are sliding through important transitions in relationships--or moments in life--rather than deciding. Commitments that enrich our lives, that we are most likely to follow through on, are based in decisions. While we don't have to make decisions about everything, we do best when we make decisions about the most important things in life.
The first post gives you a sense of Dr. Stanley's dry humor--something we've always loved about him:
A big part of being a decider when it comes to important things in life is sticking to what you have decided. That’s part of what commitment is all about. Unless you’ve only been alive for, say, 15 minutes or so, you know it’s not always easy to stick to what you decided you wanted to do. I recently came across a recent report that summarizes some amazing research on willpower and the ability to resist temptation. ...
The author, Eric Wargo, first mentions pretty cool studies that were done long ago where they tested children to see how many would choose to wait a little while to get two marshmallows instead of getting one marshmallow RIGHT NOW! Kind of like a lot of life, right? You could ask yourself, “am I a one or two marshmallow kind of person?” Quite an existential question, isn’t it? For some reason, I’m hearing a variation of this question with Clint Eastwood’s voice from the movie “Dirty Harry.” Sort of goes like this: “You must be asking yourself if you really have a shot at two marshmallows or just one. Do you feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?” Perhaps I have some marshmallow trauma to work through.
The one or two marshmallows idea is tied to the issue of forgoing short-term gratifications that might undermine long-term gratification. It's something I've encountered when doing things like eating a bag of chips while impatiently waiting for a gourmet meal to be ready (but you know how hard it is to eat just one), or when I've spent money on little five and ten dollar items that wiped out funds I intended to save for a big-ticket item, or even some of the recreational dating I did in my early twenties to keep from being lonely on a Saturday night that in turn made me--and some of the girls I went out with--feeling more lonely when we were ready to find a good spouse.
As a result I found myself at various times sliding into problems like extra weight, a bad bank balance, and even a broken wedding engagement that were far afield from the good decisions I intended to make. On the other hand, the things I've enjoyed most in life--my relationship with Candice and our kids, my work, book writing, quiet time with God and more--have all grown out of forgoing short-term gratification and actively deciding to hold out for something better instead of sliding alongside the whims of my sin nature.
So are you a one or two marshmallow kind of person and how's that affecting your ability to make and keep good decisions?
Ok, so I made that up. Today is really Darwin Day, a day commemorating the birth of Charles Darwin on February 12, 1809. But don't worry, it's not a public holiday ... yet.
In case you haven't noticed, evolution is becoming quite popular. Even confessing Christians are jumping on the bandwagon. It's not surprising really. Just look at the controversial Clergy Letter Project which began in 2004. As of today, almost 12,000 confessing Christian clergy in the U.S. have signed the "Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science." It begins,
While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.
What a contrast to today's Boundless article from Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, "Lousy Creationist Arguments." Instead of separating religious truth from scientific -- as Bible illiteralists -- Dr. Sarfati unapologetically offers his framework for all considerations ... Scripture.
The authority of the Bible is the main emphasis of Creation Ministries International. We don't try to "prove" the Bible with science; rather, we accept the Bible's propositions as true without proof, i.e. as axioms or presuppositions.
All philosophical systems, not just Christianity, start with axioms. There are good reasons for accepting the axioms of Scripture as true, because it can be shown that they lead to a consistent view of physical and moral reality, which other axioms can't provide.
Genesis contains a number of Hebrew grammatical features that show it was intended to teach a straightforward history of the world from its creation. Genesis, backed up by the rest of Scripture, unambiguously teaches that:
The heavens, Earth and everything in them were created in six consecutive normal days, the same as those of our working week (Exodus 20:8-11).
Earth is about 6,000 years old, since Jesus said mankind was there from the "beginning of creation," not billions of years later (Mark 10:6).
Since man was the federal head of creation, the whole creation was cursed (Romans 8:20-22), which included death to animals, with the end of the original vegetarian diet for both humans and animals (Genesis 1:29-30).
God judged the world by a globe-covering Flood, which Jesus and Peter compared with the coming Judgment (Luke 17:26-27; 2 Peter 3:3-7). This destroyed all land vertebrate animals and people not on the ocean-liner-sized Ark.
God then judged the people by confusing their language at Babel — after they had refused to spread out and repopulate the Earth after the Flood.
It's important to realize that all "facts" of science do not speak for themselves, but are interpreted within a framework.
Evolutionists start with the axiom of naturalism or materialism, i.e. God (if He even exists) performed no miraculous acts of creation.
Biblical creationists interpret the same facts and observations, but within the framework outlined above.
So before you break out your ape suit and throw a primordial soup dinner party, consider which framework you choose to interpret facts and observations, Scripture or the one used by The Clergy Letter signees.
Feb. 12 is "Darwin Day," the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday. It seemed the perfect time to roll out a four-part series exploring the theory of evolution, contrasting it with the biblical account of creation.
Last week we published "Now a Creationist" (we blogged about it as well), a confessional of sorts from a scientist with a Ph.D. in Chemistry who came to reject evolution in favor of biblical creation.
Today we published another conversation-starting article by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati. "What is Evolution?" explains that the General Theory of Evolution (GTE) isn't merely about change, but the direction of that change:
The main scientific objection to the GTE is not that changes occur through time, and neither is it about the size of the change (so we would discourage use of the terms micro- and macro-evolution). The key issue is the type of change required -- to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content.
Indeed, biblical creation proposes that creatures have experienced genetic change through the millennia. The species are not "fixed," as some evolutionists mischaracterize creationists as saying.
In the blog about the first article in this series, we had some great questions and some great discussion. I look forward to more of the same here.
In the daily "Ask Amy" column, there's been quite a debate going on for the last few weeks. The conundrum: What to do when some at the table wish to give thanks to the Lord before eating and others at the table are atheists.
Some readers think that the host should determine what is done ... or not. Thus, Christians would pray in their own homes while atheists sat respectfully. Atheists would not worry about anyone's religious affiliation when hosting in their own homes.
Others thought the opposite--that the hosts should act however their guests act. Christians would not pray when atheists were guests and atheists would sit quietly while Christian guests said their prayer.
Amy's advice went beyond the host/guest debate. She felt that faith traditions should always be respected by others, whether hosts or guests.
But, Wednesday, Ask Amy published a letter from "Atheists in Alaska" who offered this solution:
"We are an atheist family, but having grown up with a prayer before each meal, I started to miss the ritual, especially since we had kids.
It felt as if there was something missing, and I wanted to commence the meal with something, so now we do 'thankfuls.'
Everyone (including children) states something for which they are thankful.
This custom is very well received and enjoyed by all types of guests, and seems to satisfy the need to begin a meal giving 'thanks.'"
Everyone states something for which they are thankful? Thankful ... to whom?
I didn't always believe the Scriptural account of how "all this" came about.
I used to believe that the variety of life emerged through time from some fantastic event that took place millions of years ago in a clump of pond scum. Later, I came to believe that God had a hand in this, that He guided that process.
Then one day I heard a convincing explanation that seemed consistent with both Scripture and the scientific evidence. After further researching biblical creation, I came to see it as true. My thoughts about it have refined over the years, but I'm more firm than ever that the Bible is true when it lays out how the Creator brought about "all this."
On Friday we published an article on Boundless Webzine from someone who had a similar story. The evidence he came across left him with no choice but to believe that the Scriptural portrayal of creation is true.
In "Now a Creationist," Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. brings up some of the issues that made him change his mind about the theory of evolution: missing links, real chemistry vs. chemical evolution, information theory, the "mere change" bait-and-switch, rock layers, evolution's incompatibility with Scripture, and the problem of sin and death.
There's a lot to think about. I had never considered "paraconformities," for example, or "condensation polymerization." Big words, but fairly simple concepts.
Dr. Sarfati references two blog posts I've written, "A Theory of Creation" and "Jesus Was Not A Theistic Evolutionist." If you've got real questions about the competing theories, I challenge you to read not only Sarfati's article and my two blog posts, but the numerous references embedded in each one.
When I first heard about biblical creation, I was intrigued. Could what I had believed for so long not be accurate? I wondered. But as I came to see biblical creation as true, my faith in the power and wisdom of the Creator and the veracity of Scripture has grown.
Is there a constitutional amendment so sacrosanct that it can abide no exceptions? Perhaps the First Amendment? Nope. Courts have placed reasonable restrictions on free speech and the practice of religion. (You can’t libel someone, nor can you sacrifice live animals.) Second Amendment? No again, as any number of gun laws attest.
One can find reasonable exceptions to just about every right granted in the Constitution. But 36 years ago, trawling through the penumbras and emanations of the Constitution, Justice Harry Blackmun found an inviolable right that had somehow escaped our Founding Fathers: the right to kill a child in utero—or mere inches from being fully born, for that matter—for any reason or no reason. Read the Roe v. Wade decision sometime; you’ll see it’s a conclusion in search of reasons, an exercise of “raw judicial power,” in the words of dissenting Justice Byron White.
The legacy of that decision, Roe v. Wade, and its lesser-known companion case, Doe v. Bolton, is a 36-year flight from reason and a political system distorted beyond recognition by the contortions it takes to accommodate such a horrendous “right.”
Chuck Colson wrote, “The right to an abortion has proven to be a jealous god. In exchange for sexual freedom, it demands everything else: cherished ideals, right priorities, the First Amendment, and even decency. It insists that nothing be spared in its defense.”
This state of affairs is not surprising, considering both cases were based on lies. Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade, lied to her lawyers about being raped. But she at least was pregnant and seeking an abortion. Sandra Cano, the “Mary Doe” of Doe v. Bolton, wasn’t even pregnant. She was a homeless mother seeking a divorce and custody of her children. Her legal-aid attorney, recognizing a poorly educated sucker when she saw one, filed the case under false pretenses.
Those weren’t the only lies. One of the rationales cited in Roe was the supposed number of women dying from illegal abortions—allegedly in the tens of thousands. But Bernard Nathanson, founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, later said the numbers were simply made up. During the debate over partial-birth abortion a few years ago, the pro-abortion side claimed the procedure was rare—as if even one case of puncturing the skull of an infant and sucking out its brains would be acceptable. (Imagine the outcry from the folks at PETA if someone were to do that to, say, a rat.) But Ron Fitzsimmons of the National Association of Abortion Providers later admitted, “We lied through our teeth.” The gruesome procedure was performed more than a thousand times a year, sometimes for a “birth defect” as minor as a cleft palate.
Here in Colorado we’re victims of this monomania. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Hill v. Colorado, upheld a “bubble law” that forbids any person within 100 feet of a “health-care facility” to come within 8 feet of another person to hand out leaflets. They may not display a sign or “engage in oral protest, education, or counseling with that person.”
Justice John Paul Stevens disingenuously said the law is “content-neutral.” It regulates, not speech, he wrote, but merely certain places “where some speech may occur.” This is the same Justice Stevens who thundered in an Erie, Pa., case that the city had “totally silenced a message the dancers at [the strip club] want to convey"—by regulating the location of strip clubs.
Make no mistake: there is only one kind of “health-care facility” Hill v. Colorado was written to protect. Do you honestly think someone protesting against amalgam fillings outside a dentist’s office—yes, there are people who think they’re dangerous—would be hauled in under this law? Moreover, imagine if such a statute substituted “place of business” for “health-care facility.” The unions would go berserk, and rightly so.
Justice Antonin Scalia, in his dissent in Hill, called the court an “ad hoc nullification machine that pushes aside whatever doctrines of constitutional law stand in the way of that highly favored practice” of abortion.
That court decision 36 years ago has led to many distortions in our law and society:
The FDA approved the abortifacient drug RU-486 under less-stringent testing intended for medicines that, according to FDA rules, are meant to treat “serious or life-threatening conditions"—something pregnancy most assuredly is not.
Several investigations have shown that abortion clinics violate mandatory reporting of suspected statutory rape by hiding pregnancies allegedly caused on teenage girls by adult men.
The efforts to preserve this "right" have turned bork into a verb, named after the vicious smear campaigns used against Supreme Court nominees such as Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, all in an effort to protect a Supreme Court ruling that might not stand up to democratic scrutiny. Live by the Court, die by the Court.
With the present administration and Congress, we’re guaranteed at least another four years of this insanity. Set aside for the moment the tens of millions of babies who have been denied the right to life guaranteed in our Constitution. Consider simply what this poorly reasoned and extra-constitutional decision has done to our society. If that’s not enough to make you weep, I don’t know what is.
An e-mail I received this morning begins, "It kind of disgusts me that the evangelical core seems to naturally question global warming." Another simply reiterated points from Al Gore's error-filled film, "An Inconvenient Truth." Another dismisses the article because it wasn't written by a "scientist."
These are some of the e-mails we've received in reaction to today's featured Boundless article, "Question Global Warming."
The thing is, none of them address the point of the article: to encourage us to thoughtfully evaluate this issue, rather than simply repeat what the cool people are saying about it.
Author Jay Richards begins his article affirming our responsibility to care for the earth:
Most thoughtful Christians these days have spent time considering how to be good stewards of the environment. After all, even if environmentalism weren't so fashionable, Christians have a solid biblical motivation to be good stewards of the environment.
He then goes on to challenge us how to evaluate the competing ideas behind climate change:
To think clearly about this issue, we have to tease apart this bundle of claims and consider each one. For each claim, there is a corresponding question we need to answer. And it's only after answering these questions that we can be in a position to determine what, if anything, we ought to do about global warming.
He then provides four central questions that we might ask.
I expect some comments will dismiss this article as anti-science, as pro-pollution, as the kind of mindlessness expected from Boundless. I expect some to agree with the first letter above, that it's disgusting to question what we've been told; for others to follow the pattern of the second letter above by copy-pasting the global warming alarmists' talking points; for others to file ad hominem complaints against the author, not even considering what he's said because none of his degrees (Ph.D., Th.M., M.Div.) is in a field of science. (They, of course, will see their opinions as valid, though they're less credentialled than the author.)
But I hope that you will mull over the four questions posed in that article: Is the earth indeed warming, are we at fault, is it necessarily bad, and would the "solutions" actually solve anything?
If you'd like to become more informed about "the other side" of the global warming argument, consider reading through some of the following:
At the very least, these resources should lead us to be less confident that we're causing the earth to heat up to dangerous levels, and that we must consequently raise taxes and hinder personal liberty to rein things in.
So another new year is upon us, and pundits and prognosticators near and far are making their predictions for what's to come in 2009. And they'll almost certainly be wrong.
A mere six months ago, wise men were telling us to expect oil to hit $200 a barrel, and drivers could expect to pay $8 a gallon or more for gasoline. (Yes, I know our overseas friends probably laugh at our panic at having to pay that much.) Yet just yesterday oil dropped to $37 a barrel, and I topped off my car for $1.39 a gallon. Not even adjusting for inflation, that's less than a gallon of gas cost in 1979.
And what about those sure-thing predictions that the 2008 presidential contest would come down to Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton? Or that the Dow would top 15,000? Wrong, wrong, and wrong—waaay wrong on that last one.
Many such predictions fail because of our human tendency to think in static terms. We think things will remain basically the same. But even as we try to reason through some possible causes and effects, we fail to account for all the factors in the equation, even if they're available to us. (Credit-market meltdown, anyone?) More unpredictable are the random X factors that change the equation completely. (Cue speech about chaos theory by Jeff Goldblum character in Jurassic Park.)
All this to say that at this turn of a new year I recommend you check out two books that I've recently enjoyed, Follies of Science and Yesterday’s Tomorrows. They're chock full of past imaginings of how the future world would look. For example, by 1980 we were all supposed to be flying around in personal, nuclear-powered helicopters. I guess I failed to sign up for mine.
My favorite is the bold imaginings of our future cities that look remarkably like old cities with only a few imagined "improvements" such as movable walkways or flying buses. (Nuclear-powered, natch!) None imagined the Interstate highway system or the growth of suburbs, which have largely emptied the imagined megacities of tomorrow.
Houses would be built of lead, concrete, asbestos (!), foam, or plastic. The kitchens of tomorrow featured pop-up ranges, retracting cabinets, and all sorts of other gadgetry (not to mention female models all looking remarkably like June Cleaver). Not one featured today’s nearly ubiquitous microwave oven.
In the 1950s one car manufacturer bragged about how much you'd love its new plastic seats, failing to anticipate the combined effects of (a) plastic vinyl, (b) wearing shorts, and (c) heat and humidity. (Which allows me also to plug one of my favorite white-trash, hillbilly-funk, road-kill rock bands, Southern Culture on the Skids, and their best album, Plastic Seat Sweat.)
And pity the poor creators of the original Star Trek series. They set their story 400 years in the future but wrote it only a few years before the microchip integrated circuit became widely available, meaning all their "futuristic" equipment looks unbelievably clunky and stupid today, full of dials and knobs and blinking lights that look downright laughable compared to today's average cell phone or iPod.
So, I'll read the predictions for next year. Some might be close; most will be wrong. And I'll put my trust in the one prediction that I know is true because it was made by one who proved His reliability through His life, death, and resurrection.
Tony Woodlief writes in today's Wall Street Journal about the merits of believing in Santa Claus, or more precisely, his kids' belief in the jolly old elf. Concerned that his 8-year-old son is figuring out the improbability of delivering gifts to every child in the whole world in a single night, he writes,
Perhaps a more responsible parent would confess, but I hesitate. For this I blame G.K. Chesterton, whose treatise "Orthodoxy" had its 100th anniversary this year. One of its themes is the violence that rationalistic modernism has worked on the valuable idea of a "mystical condition," which is to say the mystery inherent in a supernaturally created world. Writing of his path to faith in God, Chesterton says: "I had always believed that the world involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician."
Woodlief further appeals to the likes of George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis in defense of his defense of Santa, saying,
As a parent, I believe (with the older apologists) that it's essential to preserve a small, inviolate space in the heart of a child, a space where he is free to believe impossibilities. The fantasy writer George MacDonald -- author of "The Light Princess" and "The Golden Key" -- whom Lewis esteemed as one of his greatest inspirations, suggested that it is only by gazing through magic-tinted eyes that one can see God: "With his divine alchemy," McDonald wrote, "he turns not only water into wine, but common things into radiant mysteries." The obfuscating spirit of the "commonplace," meanwhile, is "ever covering the deep and clouding the high."
Nowhere else is that obfuscation more evident than in the scientific community. Having watched most of Expelled last night, I was deeply troubled by what's revealed in the debate between scientists who hold an unquestioning devotion to Darwin's theory and those who are willing to consider evidence to the contrary.
If Ben Stein's documentary is right, the rejection of all things non-material does violence to much more than Chesterton's "idea of a 'mystical condition.'" The violence is pervasive and brutally physical. Witness the willful extermination of 6 million Jews in the name of racial purity; atrocities made possible in part by a whole bunch of people devoted to Darwin's view of the world. His was a world without anything beyond our five senses.
And if that's all there is, then we have no free will, no purpose, and nothing at all beyond this life (so says Darwinist Will Provine in the film). It's a glum -- and ultimately violent -- existence.
You may be thinking the links between Santa, Darwin and Jesus a bit flimsy or hokey, but trust me, they're there (or better yet, read the article and rent the film and see them for yourself). At root is a willingness to believe in a reality that we can't smell or see or hear or taste or touch.
Woodlief says,
Magic-talk gets under the skin of many, like renowned scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins. This is doubly so when it is what the Christ-figure Aslan, in C.S. Lewis's "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," calls "the deeper magic," an allusion to divinity. Mr. Dawkins is reportedly writing a book examining the pernicious tendency of fantasy tales to promote "anti-scientific" thinking among children. He suspects that such stories lay the groundwork for religious faith, the inculcation of which, he claims, is a worse form of child abuse than sexual molestation.
For his part, Woodlief will remain loyal to the fantastical:
Puritans and atheists alike may disapprove, but our home is filled with fairy tales and fiction books, in hopes that the magic sprinkled across their pages will linger in the hearts of our children. In this we side with Chesterton, who wrote: "I left the fairy tales lying on the floor of the nursery, and I have not found any books so sensible since."
A Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9. All this and more were reason enough for over 2,000 eager shoppers to line up outside Walmart for their 5 a.m. opening.
How eager? So eager that they trampled a man to death in their zeal to save money. I realize this is a tough economy for a lot of Americans. But its not like this was a run on bread or rice for kids waiting hungrily at home praying for a meal. 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death for bargains on a TV. A vacuum cleaner. A camera. He gave his life so shoppers could be sure to get their very own copy of "The Incredible Hulk" -- for $9. Such a deal.
Sadly, his tragic death wasn't the only casualty of yesterday's shopping frenzy. A 28-year-old woman, eight months pregnant, was among four other shoppers who were hospitalized after being knocked down in the stampede.
Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said. Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store. ...
Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."
"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."
I didn't realize retailers have traditionally called the Friday after Thanksgiving "Black" because it's the day, fueled by Christmas shoppers eager for a bargain, when stores' balance sheets leave the red and cross over into profitability for the year.
This gives the title a whole new meaning. It was, indeed the ultimate in darkness for Mr. Damour.
During my recent travels in Germany I had the opportunity to spend a day at the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. It's situated in a leafy suburb of Munich, today a bustling neighborhood of houses and shopping centers, with even a McDonald's and a Burger King near the entrance to the memorial site.
But 75 years ago it opened as the first concentration camp in a Nazi regime barely three months old. (Hitler came to power in January 1933, and Dachau opened in March 1933.) It became the model for every other camp in a chain of hundreds that would stretch from Germany to Russia, with infamous names such as Buchenwald, Treblinka and Auschwitz as well as Dachau being seared into the world’s conscience.
It was initially described as a work camp, and the words on its entrance gate, Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes You Free), contribute to that lie. But Heinrich Himmler, perhaps in a moment of unguarded candor, described the camp as "the first concentration camp for political prisoners." Its first occupants were political enemies of the Nazi regime as well as social "undesirables" (including Gypsies and homosexuals) and common criminals. It soon became the main camp for Christian dissenters, and an entire barracks was used to house Roman Catholic priests and Protestant preachers.
Its population soon swelled to include Jews and prisoners of war. By the time of its liberation by American troops in April 1945, a camp originally designed to hold 6,000 had swelled to hundreds of thousands of prisoners, not to mention the tens of thousands who had died of exhaustion, starvation or execution during the 12 years it was in operation. They lived in inhuman conditions, crammed like livestock into buildings designed to hold a small fraction of that number. (Actually, livestock probably had it better on the average German farm at the time.) So bad were the conditions, a typhus epidemic swept through the camp in the weeks before liberation, killing thousands.
Walking the grounds of the memorial site today, you can't stop asking yourself, How? Why? An entire nation apparently went mad. That, or they were indifferent to the evil happening next door. After the war many Germans said they had no idea what was happening, but a bit of popular doggerel at the time says otherwise:
Lieber Herr Gott, mach mich stumm Das ich nicht nach Dachau komm (Dear God, make me dumb That I may not to Dachau come.)
We also just marked the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Night of the Broken Glass, the first overt persecution of the Jews in Germany and annexed Austria. In a ceremony earlier this week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said:
"Indifference is the first step towards endangering essential values. ... There was no storm of protest against the Nazi, but silence, shrugged shoulders and people looking away—from individual citizens to large parts of the church. ... It is a mistake to think it doesn't affect you when your neighbors are affected. This mistake just leads us further and further into evil."
Indeed, the opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference. The hater at least believes something, and perhaps he can be reasoned with. The indifferent merely shrugs his shoulders and says, "Whatever."
My purpose here is not to accuse anyone of being a Nazi. Far from it. But I want to sound a warning of what can happen when ordinary men become indifferent to evil. There was one hopeful sign the day I was at Dachau. A group of young men and women in German military uniforms were touring the memorial site that day. I'd love to know what was going through their heads as they read the exhibits and listened to the videos. Was it mandatory that they be there, or were they there of their own free will? Either way, I think that's a good sign. And the mere fact of the memorial, its reverent upkeep and the fact that it charges no admission is also a good sign.
By now you might be wondering about the title of this post. In idiomatic German it means Do Something.
Now that it's almost over, the thing that's surprised me the most about this election season is the lack of independent thinking displayed by many voters, in particular those who claim to subscribe to a Judeo-Christian worldview. Time and again I've been struck by believers who simply regurgitate some perceived need for "hope" and "change," yet aren't able to articulate any specifics with regard to these lofty sounding ideals.
I hadn't realized just how pervasive this kind of thinking was until last week, when I showed up at a friend's house for a night of chili and video-game bowling. As the election was just a few days away, the evening's conversation eventually turned to politics.
My first instinct was to avoid any discussion of the candidates, as I didn't want to turn a night intended for harmless fun into a charged debate. But when one of the guys, a seasoned Christian who works for a local nonprofit ministry, started explaining the reasoning behind his voting philosophy, I found it hard to remain silent.
The discussion shifted to the value of human life and the role that politicians play in either protecting it or devaluing its importance. I brought up the importance of a president's philosophy on judicial nominations and looming legislation like the Freedom of Choice Act.
And that's when it happened.
"Come on," he said. "You can't legislate morality."
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Now, I don't know who first coined the phrase, or how long ago, but I do know that it has managed to live on ever since. I probably heard it for the first time nearly 20 years ago, and for a moment or two, it seemed to make sense. But the more I thought about it, I realized that if you can't legislate morality, then we might as well throw out many of the most important rules in human history.
Laws forbidding murder, rape and theft are all based in morality -- in particular the Ten Commandments. Lying (to a jury, for instance) and cheating (say, on your taxes) are also matters of biblical morality. Sure, we have plenty of laws that have little to do with Judeo-Christian values, but those are the issues that tell us where we can park our cars downtown during business hours or how public funds are divided between maintaining playgrounds and upgrading roads. The most vital issues pertaining to matters of personal property and public safety are inherently moral and always have been.
Now, there will always be those who say the phrase isn't meant to be taken literally, that the true meaning is more esoteric. "You can't legislate morality," they argue, "because laws won't change people's hearts."
So what then? Do we abandon laws based in morality when they're no longer popular? Do we legalize drugs, prostitution, sex with children, euthanasia? You might say that such things could never happen, but we all know better. They've happened before, and they're happening now. If not in America, such laws are already in place in other parts of the world. Where does it end?
History tells us that we've been here before. Just read the Book of Judges, which describes a time when Israel departed from the standards of conduct found in the law. The result? "Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
You can't legislate morality, you say? Not only can we, but we must.
Copyright 2010 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. The Line and Boundless Line are trademarks of Focus on the Family.
Recent Comments