Do Black Lives Matter?

Do Black lives matter?  

 Well, apparently not all black lives matter, because the same night that Alton Sterling was shot by police in Baton Rouge, LA and Philando Castille was shot in St. Paul, MN, there were twenty-one African-Americans shot by other African-Americans nationwide yet no Black Lives Matter protests were staged for these deaths.  There were no appearances by race baiters like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton and there was certainly no reporting by the mainstream media.  This is probably because these latter deaths did not fit the narrative that the cops are racists and kill African-Americans at the slightest pretense.

The media has bought onto that narrative at the expense of the truth and shame on them.  Probably the most egregious example is Ferguson, Mo, which produced the lie, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” which the BLM movement is still proclaiming and the media reporting as if it were fact.  That there is a shaping of the story to fit an agenda is beyond dispute.

The facts are that only four percent of violent deaths suffered by Blacks are at the hands of the police.  The other ninety-six percent are the result of Black on Black crime.  The fact is that African-American cops are three times more likely to use deadly force against Blacks than White cops are, but every white cop now knows that the media will concentrate on them.  Who cares about facts, when you can have a good story on racial strife.

The BLM movement has come on the scene to fan the flame of that racial strife.  It is a hate mongering racist movement that chants, “What do we want?  Dead cops.  When do we want it? Now.”  We have seen the results of runaway emotions as lone-wolf African-Americans have murdered police officers all over the nation.

There are two solutions to the Black-Police conundrum.  The first is for the BLM leaders to undergo training scenarios where they have to make split second, life or death, decisions on whether to shoot or not shoot.  They will then find out the tremendous difficulties that police face on a daily basis. 

The second can be summed up in one word: compliance.  All African-Americans have to do when stopped, regardless of the reason, is to comply with the police officer’s instructions to the letter.  No resistance, no lip, just compliance.   There is no policeman alive who wakes up in the morning and decides that he is going to kill a Black man that day, but every policeman wants to go home to his family at the end of his shift. 

Since we are created by God, in His image, all lives matter.  Black lives, white lives and even the lives of the men in blue.  The sooner we learn that, the sooner the violence stops.

Choose Just Men

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Most people remember Noah Webster as the guy who wrote the dictionary, but Webster was a major player in Colonial times, one of the two hundred or so men known as the Founders; men without whom the United States would have never come into existence.  He served as a legislator, judge and educator and was largely responsible for Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.

In the middle of an election year, we would do well to remember Webster’s wisdom from a section of his “Value of the Christian Religion” entitled “Advice to the Young”:

“When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, just men who will rule in the fear of God.  The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty, and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good, so much as for selfish ….. purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws;  the public revenues will be squandered ……. ; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded.  If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws…..”

Right now we have presidential candidates in one party consisting of an avowed socialists who would radically alter our form of government to conform it to the failed model of the former USSR and a chronic liar who sacrificed the lives of brave men for political purposes and who seems to have no governing worldview except the pursuit of raw political power.

In the other party we have a narcissist as front-runner who has no solutions to any problem facing the country and no answers to any question except, “I’ve made a lot of money” and “I’m a great negotiator”; a candidate who professes Christianity, but whose life is totally devoid of the evidence for that faith.

Is this the best we can do?  Apparently so, because here we are in 2016, a nation who has abandoned sacrificing self-interest for the public good and exchanged that worldview for one based on envy, greed and entitlement; a nation that elects politicians, not on the content of their character, but solely on the basis of extravagant promises of free stuff.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, someone asked Alexandr Solzhenzisyn, the great Russian author how a people could have allowed the horror of seventy years of communism.  His answer:  “Its simple, we forgot God”.   Unless we remember the foundation of our Republic was a reliance on God, and start electing people whose lives reflect an adherence to those “General Principles of Christianity” as John Adams phrased it, someone in the future will give the same answer to the question, “How could we have allowed this to happen?”

Kim Davis and Unjust Laws

Liberals are rushing to lampoon Rowan County, KY, County Clerk who was sent to jail because she refused to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples.  The jokes are fast and furious about her multiple divorces, her out of wedlock children and so forth. What none of these media hyenas note though is the change in her life since surrendering it to Jesus Christ.  Nor do they look into what brought about her transformation.  Maybe that is because they have no clue as to what a life yielded to an authority beyond one’s self looks like.

Judge David L. Bunning sent a clear message in sending Davis to jail: Criticism of homosexuality will not be tolerated.  Philosopher J. Budziszewski says, “Things are getting worse.  The list of what we are required to approve is growing longer.  Consider just the domain of sexual practice.  First we were to approve sex before marriage, the without marriage, and [now sex] against marriage”.  Bunning’s actions seem to be the latest in this movement.  They have nothing to do with the law, as he violated the constitution in prosecuting Davis.  His actions have nothing to do with defending someone’s civil rights, but have everything with protecting a particular form of sexual behavior and attempting to elevate it to a plane equal to heterosexual sex.

There has been much debate on this issue.  Liberals, and even some Christians have put forth the argument that Davis was a government employee and was duty bound to uphold the law.  What reveals the hypocrisy of this argument is that when the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsome, illegally issued marriage licenses to homosexuals, liberals cheered.  When President Obama picks and chooses what laws he will uphold, not a peep is heard from anyone.  If Davis belongs in jail, then so do these two individuals.   

In any case, the argument that Davis, as a government employee, was duty bound is specious.  Davis is protected under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, also the law of the land, which requires the government or any employer to make every reasonable accommodation to an employee’s religious beliefs and practices.  There were numerous accommodations that were offered by Davis’ attorney which could have easily been made, but Judge Bunning ignored them in his zeal to punish Miss Davis for her belief that homosexuality is immoral behavior.

This is the crux of the matter.  Democrats Obama and Clinton have stated that they will defend the freedom to “worship” as one chooses, but that is not what the Constitution protects.  The Constitution states that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.  The Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper once said, “There is not one square inch in all of creation over which Jesus Christ does not cry out, “Its mine””.   The free exercise of a Christ Follower’s religion does not stop at the church door, but involves all of life, especially in how they represent Christ in the workplace as Mrs. Davis is certainly doing.

Her defiance of Judge Bunning’s dictates is right in line with the great Christian thinkers from Aquinas to Blackstone to Martin Luther King, who by the way is also cheered by liberals.  King wrote that man’s law must be in compliance with God’s law, and if not, man’s law is an unjust law. In his Letter From A Birmingham Jail, King wrote:  “One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”  Davis, like King, was willing to face the penalty for following the dictates of her faith, which is all the state can ask.

If Davis had been a Muslim, the courts would have bent over backwards to accommodate her religious beliefs.  But she isn’t.  She is a Christian.  This is just the tip of the iceberg, because the real goal here isn’t to recognize homosexual “marriage”.  The real goal is to marginalize and delegitimize Christianity in the public square.  Miss Davis is just the latest casualty in this campaign.  There will be more to come.

The Problem is Islam, Not Islamic Extremists

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Enough is enough.  When the President of the United States refuses to name Islam as the motivating factor in the violence occurring in the Middle East and infers a moral equivalence between Christianity and Islam. he has crossed a bridge too far in political correctness.  Mr. President, with all due respect, I will see you the few thousand killed by “Christians” in the Crusades, which, by the way, were a response to the military conquest of Jerusalem by Muslims, and raise you the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, killed by Muslims in the last thousand years as they spread their religion by the sword.

Are all Muslims violent?  Certainly not, but to refer to ISIS or al Qaeda as “radical Islamists” or “violent extremists”, as the president, print journalists and the talking heads on TV are suggest, demonstrates either intentional deception or willful ignorance.

Two things guide Muslims:  the Quran and the sunna, which are the life and teachings of Muhammad.  A close examination of both would reveal that the problem is not “radical Islamists” at all.  The problem is Islam itself.

Regarding Muhammad, most Muslims don’t investigate his life for themselves, instead they are taught an airbrushed image presented to them by Imams; hence they revere Muhammad as peaceful, humble, and virtually flawless.  The reality is quite different.  In  1.24 of Sahih Bukhari’s commentary on the hadiths, Muhammad says, “I have been ordered by Allah to fight against people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity ….then they will save their lives and property from me.”  Muhammad lived this out in his military conquest of the Arabian peninsula when, to offer one example, after the Battle of the Trench, he captured and beheaded over five hundred men and teenage boys from the Jewish tribe of Qurayza and sold their women into slavery.  Fast forward to ISIS and al Qaeda in 2015.

Peaceful Muslims also have to ignore the Muslim doctrine of “abrogation” which is applied to the Quran.  This simply means that when a verse, which was handed down later, conflicts with an earlier verse, the later verse overrules the earlier one.  There are multiple Quranic verses that state this principle in one form or another.  One of the many peaceful verses considered to be abrogated was Sura 2:109 on which Ibn Kthir, a noted Muslim scholar who lived in the 1300’s had this to say: “ “But forgive and overlook, till Allah brings his command”[Q2:109] was abrogated by the Ayah, (verse) “Then kill the Mushrikin [idolaters] wherever you find them” [Q9:5], and , “Fight the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] ….[Q9:29].  Allah’s pardon for the disbelievers was repealed….it was abrogated by the Ayah of the sword [Q9:5]”  Again, fast forward to al Qaeda and ISIS in 2015, who are merely obeying the teachings of their Prophet.

Another problem for peaceful Muslims when engaging the West is the doctrine of taqiyya, a doctrine that encourages Muslims to lie to an “infidel” if it will advance the cause of Islam.  So when Arsalan Iftikhar of the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] claimed that Islam did not motivate the Fort Hood massacre, he was practicing taqiyya.  Iftikahar is quoted as saying, “Most of the world’s 1.57 billion Muslims know that the Holy Quran states quite clearly that, “Anyone who kills a human being … it shall be as though he has killed all of mankind. … If anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he has saved the lives of all of mankind.  Accordingly, it should come as little surprise to any reasonable observer that when Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan recently committed his shocking acts of mass murder at Fort Hood, Texas, America’s Muslim community of over 7 million felt an added sense of horror and sadness at this senseless attack against the brave men and women of the U.S. armed forces.”

But Iftikahar’s quotation was selective.  The full version of Sura 5:32 says, “Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.   The admonition of Sura 5:32 is addressed to Jews, not Muslims and corruption in the land is viewed as practicing another faith.

Iftikhar also conveniently failed to mention Sura 5:33 which follows, “Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption [practice another religion] is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.”  This presents and entirely different picture of the motivation of Maj. Hassan and, in view of taqiyya, presents a credibility problem for Islamic apologists who defend Islam as teaching peace.

The upshot is that ISIS and al Qaeda practice Islam as it was taught by the Prophet Muhammad and is taught by the Quran.  Many Muslims can say that beheadings and slavery are wrong at this historical juncture, but the cannot condemn them out right without contradicting the Quran and Muhammad.  To say that core texts of the Quran or certain teachings of Muhammad ae wrong would be and act of apostasy.

Muhammad’s goal was a worldwide caliphate under Islamic rule.  ISIS is here to make that a reality.   It is the peaceful Muslims, and there are plenty of them, who are radical in having to ignore the violent teachings of the Quran and the violence perpetrated by Muhammad during his lifetime in order to practice their religion in a peaceful manner.
 
President el-Assis of Egypt has called for a “religious revolution” within Islam to adapt it to the Western values of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc.  Let us pray that he was sincere and that Islamic leaders will take him up on it. 


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Showing Grace

We are working our way through Philip Yancy's "What's So Amazing About Grace" and that week"s discussion was on how to show grace in maintaining a relationship with  those who refuse to acknowledge their sin.  Although not the only sinful practice discussed, homosexuality was a focus of the  discussion since Yancy had a deep friendship with Mel White who was an avowed homosexual and the lesson centered around how Yancy handled their relationship.

It was then that one of the participants chimed in with what I thought was an excellent Christian response to the homosexual.  A response filled with grace while not denying truth.  It went like this:

"This is what I would say to the homosexual:  "Given the things that I have done in my life, I am a much worse person than you.   There is a difference between us though.  I am broken.  I have acknowledged my offenses against God, have confessed them before Him, have asked forgiveness for breaking His heart  and thrown myself on His mercy by trusting that Jesus paid my debt.  Moreover I have turned from my sin because I have come to love Christ more than I loved what I was engaged in and because I love Him, I want my life to be one of obedience.

You on the other hand are not broken.  You want have it both ways.  You want to trade on the love of God while refusing to acknowledge that the behavior that you are engaged in is an affront to Him when He clearly says that it is.  God loves the sinner, but will not welcome the sinner who trades on His love to remain in sin.  God is holy and those who seek His friendship must strive to be holy also.  Our right of access to God through Christ does not give us the right to do whatever we like.

   

You can't fatten a pig on market day.

This is from search ministries:

Market Day

We were in the middle of one of our golf-themed events, where one of the chaplains interviews a couple of PGA players about life on tour, favorite golf memories, best tournaments, and a bit about their faith. 

Depending on time and circumstance, we'll let the audience throw in a few questions, this was one of those nights. 

All three of our panelists this evening had been excellent student-athletes, and a proud father asked what advise they could give his son who had earned a Division 1 golf team scholarship. 

Stewart Cink threw out some good words about honoring the significance of the contract that the scholarship represented, and spoke about getting ahead in your preparations and practice. Then he unleashed this bit of redneck wisdom that had our suburban crowd jumping for their smartphones:

You've got to fatten the pig ahead of the fair. You can't fatten a pig the night before market. 

Perhaps this timeless wisdom is commonplace in your neck of the woods. Nobody at my table, or the two beside us, had heard it before. I watched a half dozen phones light up to EverNote, Facebook, or Twitter. 

It speaks deeply of the tension of our age that this picturesque parable meant to convey the idea that some important things take a long time can be captured, categorized, and broadcast worldwide in a matter of seconds. 

So much of life these days seemingly can be accomplished in a short burst of time that we lose perspective and patience on the things that take time. That list is pretty long, and full of the things that we don't really want to think about. 

I want to draw your attention to three of them, that are the keys to a relational approach to sharing your faith. 

1. We need to earn the right to be heard. Relationships take energy spent over a long time. Very few adults are open to trusting new or strange acquaintances. If we'd like a voice into their life, we'll have to demonstrate that we can be trusted to have their best interests in mind. This takes time. 
2. We need to have something intelligent to say once we've earned the right to be heard. Preparation takes time. Do you know what issues they wrestle with? Can you handle at least the most common objections and misconceptions about faith? Can you share the message of salvation clearly? You can't master these in a night, or even a week. This takes time to do well. 
3. We need to have a faith worth sharing. What is the spiritual life you are calling them to? How is your own personal relationship with God? This relationship takes no less time to develop than others. Do you love Him? Do you seek out His presence? Do you hunger for the scriptures? This takes time. 

They say the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is today. Start today investing in all three of these areas. Look for ways to deepen relationships. Make plans to sharpen your skills or broaden your knowledge. Seek hard after God. Don't wait until one of these trees blossoms to start planting the others. 

You can't fatten a pig on market day.

Cultural Malaise

"Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private [virtue], and public virtue is the only foundation of republics." -John Adams

There is no surer indicator that the culture is headed down the toilet than the case of Mark Sanford, former governor of South Carolina.  As a reminder, when Governor, Sanford suddenly disappeared, not even telling is staff where he was, to run off to South America to be with his “soul mate”.  The only problem was that Sanford was married at the time.

Now he is trying to resurrect his political career in running for the House seat vacated by Tim Scott in South Carolina”s District 1.   Here is where the cultural malaise kicks in:  amazingly, Sanford won his primary and now is in the midst of a tight race with his Democratic opponent.

Think about it.  Here is an individual who violated the most sacred vow that a man can make, his wedding vows, and no one seems to care.   What makes voters think that if Sanford had no problem in rationalizing his lack of integrity in his marriage that he would have a problem with violating his oath to uphold the Constitution?

Now along comes an organization that really illustrates how sick the culture has become.  An outfit called AshleyMadison.com has made Sanford their poster boy.  It founder Noel Biderman is quoted as saying that, “He represents what we have been articulating for the past decade, which is, what happens in someone’s personal life, that’s their personal choice—it doesn’t mean that they’re not able to govern….”

This seems to be the conventional wisdom in a culture that doesn’t believe in moral absolutes: that one can separate public and private virtue.  But truth is born out in reality, and experience shows that any politician who routinely indulges in immoral practices in his private life, very quickly betrays the office he has sworn to uphold.  Examples abound, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Anthony Weiner, but the most famous is Bill Clinton, who had no core ethics, but would go wherever the political winds blew.

In his book the, “The Meaning of Marriage”, pastor Tim Keller quotes Sara Lipton of the New York Times:  “For most of Western history, the primary and most valued characteristic of manhood was self mastery……A man who indulged in excessive eating, drinking, sleeping or sex—who failed to “rule himself”—was considered unfit to rule his household, much less a polity.”  My how times have changed.

We are a society that derisively dismisses Biblical ethics and find it strange that politicians sell us out at every turn. 

Our National Character

James Taranto's on his "Best of the Web", in commenting on "climate change" , had the following:  

 "On the op-ed page of the New York Times , Matthew Algeo, author of "The President Is a Sick Man," describes how severe the weather has become. "On Tuesday, Aug. 22, in the Atlantic Ocean, four hurricanes were swirling simultaneously, an event never before recorded. . . . Wednesday night, one of the hurricanes slammed into New York City. At least 30 people were killed." Four days later, an even more powerful hurricane killed some 2,000 in and around Savannah, Ga.

What, you don't remember reading about those storms in the papers? That's not because reporters are dropping the climate-change ball, but because Algeo is writing history, not news. The hurricanes in question occurred in 1893.

The 22nd and 24th president "Grover Cleveland did nothing," Algeo writes. The 24th president, a Democrat, "opposed government intervention in natural disasters," which he thought, as he once wrote in a veto message, "encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character." But all's well that ends well. "Into the void stepped Clara Barton, . . . who had founded the American Red Cross 12 years earlier," Algeo writes. "Her heroic work, especially in the South, saved countless thousands from disease and starvation".

Taranto was using the passage to make a point about the hoax of man-made "climate change", because history reveals  that the weather was certainly as bad and unstable in the past as it is in modern days.   I think his story  makes a more salient point about who we have become as a people,  because I cannot imagine a modern day politician that would have the political gumption to  oppose intervention by the federal government in a natural disaster.

In the Christian worldview there are three social institutions ordained by God: the family, the church and government.  These "spheres" have there unique and specific functions and if one "sphere" tries to usurp the functions of another, then the results are always less than optimal and sometimes disastrous. 

Grover Cleveland seemed to instinctively know that if the federal government intruded on what was not it's "sphere", the results would be less than optimal.   Government intrusion would certainly create an expectation of entitlement in a populace that over time would increasingly see themselves as victims and demand to be "saved".

We saw this born out in New Orleans during Katrina and we are seeing it in parts of New Jersey and New York where residents are increasingly giving voice, sometimes hysterically,  that they are not only not receiving enough help, but are not receiving it immediately.   Today's politicians are getting elected on the promise that they can solve any and all problems.  They climate they have created is coming home to roost and it is increasingly clear that the federal government is ill equipped to respond effectively to local emergencies.

After Katrina, I made three mission trips to the Gulf coast and I can unequivocally state that it wasn't the federal government who put things back together, but the church and para-church organizations who provided material aide and spiritual comfort.  Uncle Sam wasted billions of dollars in inefficieny on items ranging from FEMA trailers to credit cards that were used to purchase vacations and TV's.

The same is happening in New York and New Jersey in the aftermath of Sandy.   The Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptists, who  are providing over 400,000 meals a day,  and a hosts of other church organizations are on the ground providing aid and comfort while the FEMA stumbles around with waste and inefficiency.

Grover Cleveland was exactly right.  We have let the federal government assume a role which it was never intended to play and the result has been a weakening of our national character on two fronts: we have become a nation of victims and a nation who sits on our hands expecting the government to do what we should be doing.   
 

  

Loving our Neighbor?

Anyone who pays any modicum of attention to current events is aware of the Chik-fil-A kerfuffle that took place last week because of CEO Dan Cathy's affirmation of traditional marriage.  I won't rehash the details, but it was encouraging to see the level of support for Chik-Fil-A in my area last week as all three were at capacity all day long. 

From all reports that I have seen, the "kiss out" that was supposed to take place on Friday was a bust.  Not surprising, since homosexuals make up only 1-3% of the population, although one would never know it given their ability to generate attention.

It is incredible to see the hypocrisy of the media and politicians who are always promoting that great American virtue, "tolerance".  Cathy never mentioned homosexual marriage in any of his comments, yet the hue and outcry from those who favor homosexual marriage was immediate, vicious and unrelenting. 

Those who demand "tolerance" seem to be unwilling to practice it themselves.  The reason is that they have a false definition of the word.  In the classical definition, to tolerate something means the willingness to put up with opinions or behavior, even though one disagrees with them.  Now it seems, not only does one have to put up with homosexuality, one has to agree that it is normal behavior and affirm those who practice it.  To do otherwise is to be "intolerant".  The word has been robbed of its meaning.  It is impossible to tolerate something unless one disagrees with it.

There has been a lot of acrimonious debate from both sides of this issue.  Regrettably, some of it comes from those who call ourselves Christians.  How are Christians supposed to respond to those who want to change cultural norms?  To those who want to impose their morality on the rest of society and redefine an institution that has existed since the dawn of civilization?

One good answer comes from Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City in his DVD series, "The Reason For God".   Keller sits down with a group of non-believers and takes on the tough challenges to the Christian faith.  In one segment entitled, "What gives you the right to tell me how to live my life", he takes on the question of homosexuality.

One of the group asks him,  and in a not so kind manner I think, "What is the Christian view of homosexuality?".  Keller acquitted himself very well saying that the Christian response was on three levels.

The first thing he says is that our response must be one of love.  The Scripture presents this in the parable of the good Samaritan and in Christ sacrifice for us on the Cross.  We must treat everyone with dignity and respect, especially in addressing this issue.

Secondly, Keller brings up the doctrine of grace.  He says that he attempts at every turn to pull out the arrogance that Christians can easily fall into by reminding them that they are not saved by being "good" people, but solely by the grace of God.  

Thirdly, he approaches it from the fact that Christians believe that God created us with design and purpose.  In the area of sex, he designed it to take place between an man and woman within the confines of a lifelong marriage.  When we follow God's design, we maximize our joy in what He has given us.  When we don't follow his design, we miss out on God's best and suffer the attendant consequences.

The third point can be a powerful argument when presented in light of his first two.  We speak out against normalizing homosexuality precisely because we love our neighbor and want what is best for him or her.  The homosexual lifestyle is subject to a whole host of physical and psychological ills.  Who in his right mind wouldn't want to steer his neighbor away such  destruction?

 

What is the difference?

Aris Nichols of Chester, SC, stabbed his girlfriend back in April of this year.  Wednesday, he was arrested and charged with "death or injury to a child in utero due to commission of a violent crime".  You see, Brittany Jordan, the girlfriend,  was several months pregnant at the time of the stabbing and the unborn child, who the papers identified as "a son named Tavaris", did not survive the attack.

Now is it just me, or does anyone else see the incoherence in this?  If Brittany had gone to her doctor and had him perform an abortion,  no one would outside of the immediate family would have even noticed and Tavaris would have been just as dead.

Tavaris was either a human being or he was not.  If he wasn't, then Mr. Nichols should not be charged in his death.    If he was, then police are right to charge Mr. Nichols, but how can they charge him and let abortionists go free?   Someone will reply, "but Gray, abortion is legal".  That is what has me stumped.  How can our legal system continue to function with such convoluted logic?  I feel like I'm living in Alice's Wonderland, where down is up and up is down.

A Real Man

My question today is: “What does it mean to be a real man”?   That’s a hard question.  I recently asked two friends that question, and I have to tell you, I got blank stares.   It’s a hard question because we tend to drift along in life and never think about it.   We drift along with this fuzzy concept of manhood that we never really nail down.

In his book, “The True Measure of a Man” Richard Simmons ( not the Richard Simmons who wears the Tutu)  uses the term “false masculinity”.  What he means by that is that we as men are prone to get our identity, our sense of worth as a man, from the wrong sources.  He believes that we as men often define ourselves by what we do, who we know, how much money we make, what we own and so on.  When any of those things are threatened, we find our world falling apart.  It stresses us.  Why?    Because, deep down, we worry that without our trappings of professional success, status or wealth, we will not be considered a man.

To compound the problem, we pass this lack of clarity on manhood down to the next generation. Teenage boys are constantly told to act like men. To Man up.   The only problem is that most fathers never give them a real clear definition of manhood and their lives end up being shaped by the culture around them.  As a consequence, they fall into the same trap that many of us do, letting their self-worth rise or fall with their paycheck, the car they drive, their athletic prowess and so on.

I readily admit, that it is hard not to be drawn into this type of thinking because we live in a culture that is obsessed with getting affirmation from performance and achievement.  Tim Keller, the senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City, says that we are the first culture in history where men define themselves this way.

It has not always been this way.  Prior to WW II and maybe for a generation afterward, men would get their identity and sense of worth as a man through family relationships and by being known as men of character. 

Let me give you an example.  I remember growing up in McCormick County.  My Dad was a rural mail carrier who also had grown up there.   There weren’t many people in the county that did not know my Dad.  Wherever I happened to be as a teenager, if I ran into an adult who wanted to know who I was, and I told him my name, the reply was invariably, “Oh, you’re Gray’s boy.  I know your Dad.  He’s  a fine man”.  I was automatically given status and identity based on a family relationship with a man of character.

In the decade following WWII, as families became scattered, men turned other things besides family relationships in a search for identity and the meaning of manhood.  Unfortunately, they turned to the things I mentioned earlier.

In the social mobility of the post World War II economic boom, we became a consumer driven culture.   We began to define ourselves by what we could buy.   On top of that, not only were we consumers, we became conspicuous consumers and we measured ourselves not only by what we had, but what the guy next door had.  Advertisers tapped into our fears that we somehow did no measure up unless we had a certain product, convincing us to buy homes, cars, and all types of things, not because we necessarily need them, but to make a statement to some audience whose opinion we valued.

It has been said that  “a man gets his identity based on who or what in his life is most important to him”.   I happen to think that is somewhat true.  So the question is:  who is my audience?  What or who have I empowered to determine my value and worth as a man?

Lately, another factor known as  “The Graphic Revolution” has come into play.  Television with reality shows and shows like “American Idol”, the internet with You Tube and Facebook have become an integral part of our culture.  We now have the power to make average people doing average things “famous”.  We are a culture that thrives on celebrity.  We want to be noticed.  We have become more image conscious and less quality conscious.  American culture has become more interested in the appearance of success and not so much in the quality of our work and our character.  Studies show that American men would rather be envied for their material success and fame that respected for their character.

So if that us the problem, how do we solve it?  So how do we reorient the basis for our identity?  Remember the quote, “a man gets his identity based on who or what in his life is most important to him”?

What if we as Christian men determined that that “most important person” in our life was Jesus Christ and the most important thing was to please Him?  What if we got our sense of identity, our sense of worth from the God of the universe sees us?  What would our identity as a man be like?   Well, if , and only if, you have yielded your life to Christ and He is Lord of your life, God tells us how he sees us.

If we got our identity in Christ, we would not have to worry about performance because we are already accepted.

     Colossians 1:14 says that we have been redeemed and forgiven of our sins.

     Ephesians 2:18 says that we have been adopted as God’s child. We are the Kings Kids.

     1 Corinthians 6:20 says that we have been bought with a price and we belong to God.

If we got our identity in Christ, we would not have to worry about external circumstances, because we are already secure.          

Colossians 3:3 says that we are hidden with Christ in God.

     Romans 8:36 says that we cannot be separated from the love of God.

2 Timothy 1:2 says that we have not been given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love and a sound mind.

If we got our identity in Christ, we would not have to worry about significance because we are already significant.           

     Ephesians 2:10 says we are God’s workmanship.

     1 Corinthians 3:16 says we are God’s temple.

If we want to be the men that God designed and called us to be, we have to buy into the fact that the One who made us determines our identity and worth as man.   God doesn’t love us because we are valuable, because we have status, wealth, etc.   We are valuable because God loves us.

And what is the proof that God loves us?  The fact that He sent His Son Jesus into the world to save us.   Jesus stepped down into history and and was willing to pay the penalty that we could not pay, so we could have eternal fellowship with a God who loves us with a passion beyond anything we could imagine.

Now I asked “What does it mean to be a real man”.   I’m sure there are dozens of definitions, but here is one: A real man is an adult male whose character conforms to the character of Jesus Christ who got His sense of identity from His Father.  Think about it.  Jesus, fully God, fully man, walked this earth and He had every virtue worth emulating.  He was loving, so much so that he wept openly on occasion; He was not ashamed to cry.  He was compassionate, serving those who needed help.  He was humble, not seeking His own glory but the glory of his Father.  He was honest, saying that He came to testify to the truth and claiming that He was the truth.  He was a loyal friend, restoring Peter after Peter had failed Him.  He had incredible physical courage: John Wayne once said that being brave is being afraid and saddling up anyway.  Jesus spent an agonizing night in the Garden of Gethsemane and He saddled up anyway.  But the most important virtue that Jesus possessed was that His sole purpose in life was to honor His Father in Heaven regardless of the consequences.

Would that we answer the call to be such a man.

How does one become a Christian?

• but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, --1 Peter 3:15

The end of the thread of the conversation went like this:
"Become a Christian?  What do you mean by becoming a Christian?  I thought that you were sort of born that way.  Like in America--you are born here-- so you are automatically a Christian right?"

Whoa.  How does one respond to one who obviously has no understanding of Christianity  without resorting to  "Christianese" terms like "repentance", "born again", etc.,  that the person won't understand?

Well here goes nothing I thought as I took a deep breath, said a quick prayer and attempted to answer.

"Being born in America", I began, "no more makes you a Christian, than being born in a car factory makes you a car. "

"Christianity is different from every other religion in the world.  All other religions are DO religions. The focus is on what the person can do to make himself a "good" person and therefore acceptable to God."

"Christianity is a DONE religion.  Christians realize that there is nothing that they can do on their own to make themselves acceptable to God, but the good news is that everything that would make them acceptable has already been done by Christ.  He has done for us what we could never do for ourselves, which is  live a perfect, sinless life and die in our place to pay the penalty that God's perfect justice demands for our rebellion against Him."

"To become a Christian means we realize who God is, how holy He is,  and that we have wronged him.  We ask His forgiveness and accept the fact that Jesus paid a debt that we owe.  Then we make Jesus the boss of our lives, quit living for ourselves and live a life that would please Him.  Not to earn brownie points, but because we love Him more than anything else."

It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

 

Disciple or merely "Religious"

What is the difference between a Disciple of Christ and a "Religious Person"?

Tim Keller gives a comparison list":

RP: I obey, therefore I'm accepted.
DoC:  I'm accepted, therefore I obey.

RP: Motivation is based on fear and insecurity.
DoC: Motivation is based on grateful joy.

RP: I obey God in order to get things from God.
DoC: I obey God to get to God--to delight and resemble Him.

RP: My identity and self-worth are based mainly on how hard I work, or how moral I am.
DoC: My identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died for His enemies.  I am saved by sheer grace.

It is the difference between knowing Jesus and knowing about Jesus.

Is it Really True?

Do you think Christmas is true?  I am not talking about Santa Claus, but do you really believe that God came to earth and was born of a virgin as the baby Jesus?  That Jesus Christ was not born from this world, but was born into this world from the outside?

Those that doubt the story have to hold the opinion that people in Mary and Joseph's day did not know where babies came from.  Now these people were not as advanced scientifically advanced as we moderns, but I doubt that they were stupid.  They certainly knew what caused pregnancy, and if Mary were pregnant, it had to be a miracle.

Here is why.  In Jewish culture, any woman who became pregnant out of wedlock was subject to the harsh penalty of being stoned to death.   This was especially true of a young woman engaged to be married.  Even the Biblical accounts say that Joseph doubted Mary in the beginning and wanted to quietly break the engagement, so as to not endanger her, but changed his mind.  Whether one believes the reason given as to why he changed his mind is irrelevant.  The fact is that he went through with the marriage which would have been unheard of in that day and time.  In my mind, this is credible evidence that yes, God did indeed step down into history and walked among us.

If we say we believe that, do we really believe that it is  really real?  If so, then what affect does it have on our lives?   That first Christmas was the most important event in the history of the world.  If we really believe that it happened,  then we should be living as transformed individuals and be about the business of transforming those around us.

A Life Worth Living

Ron Morris, a sports writer for The State newspaper, recently wrote a column about Chip Mullen, a high school football player from Hilton Head High School who scored on the final play of the final game of his high school career.

Chip has Down syndrome.  Myrtle Beach's head coach, Micky Wilson, whose team was beating Hilton Head 64-10 at the time, called a time out in order to allow Hilton Head time to set up Chip's score, a pitch out in which he ran 60 yards for the score.  Chip was mobbed by players from both teams who congratulated him on the play.

Chip's story is the story of a young man who won over both his high school community and the players and fans of opposing teams who admired his tremendous desire to overcome his disability through determination and hard work.  He is a rock star in his high school, charming everyone he meets.  "The kids have embraced him", says Amanda O'Nan, the school's principal.  "The school has embraced him.

Chip has not been tardy to a single practice, has not missed a single practice during four years of playing.  He was awarded a trophy as the "most outstanding wrestler" at a 16-team meet in Savannah, winning a match against one of Battery Creek's top wrestler, who admittedly let him win because he admired him so much.

Chip is headed to Appalachian State next year with a spot as manager on the football team, offered by coach Jerry Moore who is well aware of Chip's story.

 As I read Morris' article,  I thought about the fact that currently, couples who are pregnant, are routinely encouraged to have amniocentesis, a test to see if the baby has any abnormalities.  Those parents whose child tests positive for Down syndrome are put under tremendous pressure by their pediatricians to abort.  80% do.  All because there is this notion that there are lives that are not worthy to be lived based on someone's criteria of "quality of life".  
 
Try to sell that idea to the people who have had the joy of knowing Chip Mullen.













 

The Faith Handed Down

.............I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.--Jude 3

The title of a recent article in the Charlotte Observer was, "Americans take up designer religion".  Based on research by  George Barna, it exposes the fact that modern American Christianity has succumbed to post modern relativism.  Many people who claim to be "Christians" are picking and choosing which beliefs and practices that they will subscribe to and, in effect, making up their own religion.  "We are a designer society.  We want everything customized to our personal needs--our clothing, our food, our education," Barna said.  "Now it's our religion".

The article states: "All of the major trend lines of religious belief and behavior .... measured, ran downward--except two: More people claim they have accepted Jesus as their Savior and expect to go to heaven.  And more say they haven't been to church in the past six months except for special occasions such as weddings or funerals.  In 1991, 24 percent were "un-churched" .  Today it's 37 percent.

An example of the new "Christianity" is Carol Christoffel of Zion, Illinois who drifted through several mainline denominations, experimented with Baha'i for several years, dabbled in Native American pagan healing practices, but still identifies herself  as a Christian. 

Barna casts the blame on pastors for this contradiction.  Pastors have presented a gospel of cheap grace in which everyone is  told that Jesus is the answer to life's problems.  All one has to do is embrace Him, say a little "Sinners Prayer" and that's it, one is good to go and live life as one pleases. 

When Barna measured people by their belief system in seven essential doctrines, defined by the National Association of Evangelicals' statement of faith, only 7 percent of those surveyed qualified.  "People say, "I believe in God.  I believe the Bible is a good book.  And then I believe whatever I want", Barna says.

Just as Jude was written to exhort believers to defend the apostolic faith against the inroads of heretical teaching, 2000 years later,  modern Christians must also be vigilant to combat heresy.   To do this, we must instill in believers the ability  to defend the concept of absolute truth, the knowledge to know what they believe and why they believe it.  In other words, they must be able to apply reason to faith, for God is a God of reason.  As he says in Isaiah 1:18, "Come now, let us reason together".

To be a Christian in any meaningful sense of the word, there are certain doctrines that  a follower of Jesus Christ must believe.   Among these are the virgin birth, the deity of Christ,  the Trinity,  the atoning death of Christ on the cross and his bodily resurrection, the inerrancy of Scripture and that there is no hope of being reconciled to God except through Jesus.   These doctrines are non-negotiable and , if compromised, will certainly not result in the faith passed down for 2000 years.

I agree with Barna.  Pastors have to quit tickling the ears of their congregants and begin teaching solid theology.  Believers have to start reasoning out their faith and develop the ability to articulate their beliefs with reason and grace.  If not, we will find ourselves with churches full of Carol Christoffel's.

As Augustine said, "If you pick and choose which parts of the Gospel you believe and those parts that   you disbelieve, then it is no longer the Gospel that you believe, but yourself".  And that is the crux of the matter.  In many ways, modern Christianity as fallen for the age old allure of   man setting himself  up as the ultimate authority of what is true and what is not true.  Man wants to be his own God and that is what got us into this mess in the first place.

There is a Difference

 "but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."--Romans 5:8


In his book, "Radical", David Platt tells of sitting outside of a Buddhist temple in Indonesia engaging in conversation with a Buddhist leader and a Muslim leader.  The two were saying that all religions were fundamentally the same and only superficially different.

David listened for awhile, and then one of the leaders asked him what he thought.  He replied, "It sounds as though you both picture God (or whatever you call god) at the top of a mountain.  It seems as if you believe that we are all at the bottom of the mountain, and I may take one route up the mountain, you may take another, and in the end we will all end up in the same place.

They replied, "Exactly!! You understand!!"

Then David said, "Now let me ask you a question.  What would you think if I told you that the God at the top of the mountain actually came down to where we are?  What would you think if I told you that God doesn't wait for people to find their way to him, but instead comes to us?"

They thought for a moment and responded, "That would be great!"

David then said, "Let me introduce you to Jesus Christ".

With the exception of Christianity, all of the world's religions involve man trying to work his way to God.  Trying to be "good" enough to win God's favor as if one can dictate to God how one should be accepted into His presence.  It is only Christianity that offers God's love, mercy and grace through His Son Jesus Christ as a free gift (free to us) to His enemies who are willing to open their hearts to accept the gift.

Finding Love

Nothing touches one's soul like music and as a consequence, nothing can sway one's thinking and  have an influence on one's worldview like music.  This thought passed through my mind as listened to an  " oldies, but goldie's" radio station this morning while going through the mail.

Teens today, just like teens in my day, will tell their parents that they just listen to the beat of a song and  pay no attention to the lyrics.  That was foolishness in my teen years and it is still foolishness today.  This morning, a song would come on the radio that I had not heard in years, yet I could sing along with it as if I had just heard it yesterday.  This summer, I had the same experience on a mission trip, as teens knew the words to every song that came on the Country and Western station that they insisted we listen to as we drove to and from our job site.

The reason I bring this up is that over the years I have come to realize that the music I listened to in high school and college, just as the music teens are listening to today, presented a false and potentially dangerous worldview.   The lyrics seem to carry one basic theme:  one can find ultimate joy and fulfillment in life by finding the right romantic love.  I can't deny that I came to accept this worldview in my youth much to my sorrow.

I learned through hard experience that nothing could be further from the truth, and I believe that it is this view that has contributed  to a breakdown in the family and hence an erosion of our culture that can be traced to that breakdown.  Americans, with a false idea of love promoted by the culture, particularly popular music,  are marrying with the expectation that their new spouses  meet their every emotional need.   This is the secular expectation of "love".  The fact, though, is that if we love a human being and do not love God, we end up demanding  perfection in that human being, and when we do not get it, we usually become cruel and vindictive.  We are demanding something which no human can possibly give and without God, we have no source to fill  the longing of our soul.

Shortly after they were married, someone asked Ruth Graham if Billy made her happy.  Her reply that it was not Billy's job to make her happy was very instructive.  Ruth said that while she did find happiness in being married to him, she would never put the demand on Billy to be  the sole source of her happiness.  Ruth was a smart woman.

St. Augustine, at the start of his Confessions said, "God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you."  God has put a longing within the heart of man that only He  can satisfy no matter what the musicians say.  Only a relationship with Him can be the source of true joy and happiness.  We would be best served to remember that, enjoy the music, but listen to it with a discerning ear.  That is loving God with all of your mind.

Loving God With Your Mind

 I recently had the blessing of spending two weeks with teenagers at the Fairfield (SC) and Lake Murray (SC) Salkehatchie camps.  I came away, as I always do, mightily impressed with this generation's ability to rise to a challenge. 

Salkehatchie is a statewide summer service program that locates in various communities throughout the state of South Carolina for the purpose of  improving the material lives of the poorest among us. 
But there is also a tremendous spiritual aspect to the mission in that those who participate are there to bring the love of Christ to the home owners in a visible and verbal manner and the program is designed to impress upon the teens what it means to take one's Christianity seriously in becoming a true  disciple of Christ.

In the nightly worship service at the Fairfield camp, the talks this year centered around the theme that "Christianity is simple, but is isn't easy" and at the Lake Murray camp, around the theme what it means to love  God.  Both camps used Mark 12:30,  "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.", as their primary Scripture.


What troubles me about the next generation is that we are not training them to love God " with all of their mind".  In one sense we have reduced Christianity to being just an emotional experience, and I, for one, think so-called contemporary worship has played a large part in this.  We are not teaching our children that there is an intellectual base to not only Christianity, but to love.


While there is an emotional base to love, true love cannot be based solely on emotion.  If emotion is the only component, then love will ebb and flow and eventually die.  We can see this in the high divorce rate within the country as people marry with a false sense of what it is to love someone.  True love has to be a commitment of one's will to the true good of another person.  One has to be committed regardless of the actions of the one being loved.


It is the same with God.  To love God with our minds, we have to be committed in our wills to do so, and take measures to ensure that our love for Him is nurtured.    The progression goes like this:  What we see and hear, enters our minds.  If we entertain what enters our minds and allow it to rest there and grow, it affects our hearts, what we come to love.  Once our hearts are affected, then our actions follow, because in matters under our control, we only do that which we love.   If we are to love God with all of our minds, we have to be discerning in what we allow into our minds.

That there is a battle for the minds of this next generation should not be in doubt.  Teens today are living in a  culture that bombards them day and night with a worldview that is decidedly not only non-Christian, but in many cases anti-Christian.  The sad part is that many youth in our churches are buying into it without even realizing that they are doing so. The proof that even "churched" teens have bought into the culture is born out in the way they dress, especially the young females, and in the music they listen to. 

Nothing touches the soul like music, hence nothing will change one's worldview more than the music we feed our minds.  I know this from my own experience as I listen to the lyrics of today's "oldies, but goldies", I can look back at how the songs swayed my worldview to believe that I could find ultimate fulfillment in the right romantic relationship.  Only by learning some hard lessons did I find that only Christ can fill that longing for fulfillment that we all have in our hearts. 


As to dress, no one is asking today's young females to wear burqas, but they seem to have accepted the idea that they have to dress like their favorite rock or movie star to be cool and accepted.  I really don't believe they have any idea of the message they are sending to the males that they hang out with.  

Every day, we are faced with a myriad of decisions and we have a choice.  Do we honor Christ, or do we honor ourselves above Christ?  Our thinking controls our heart which determines which choice we will make and if we are not discerning in our thinking, we will easily succumb to the pressures of the culture around us.  Christianity is simple, but it is not easy.

Homegoing

Sixty years ago, although I did not realize it at the time,  a blessing named Annie Mae Settles came into my life.  I can remember standing on the front porch of our home while my Moma interviewed a young Black woman about a job as housekeeper.  She got the job and, through the years, became much more than an employee, she became a member of our family.

Annie Mae's obvious talent was in the kitchen.  She could cook like no one else.  It probably wasn't the healthiest diet around but man was it good.  Even to this day, when my wife, Muriel, uses her macaroni recipe, my boys will say that it is good, but it doesn't taste quite like Annie Mae's.  As I think back on it, she did not have to do this;  she could have just gone through the motions in cooking our meals, but she always seemed to put maximum effort into her craft.  I think it stemmed from a pride in her craft and desire to give us her best.

Throughout my school years, Annie Mae was often my counselor, offering good Godly wisdom on a variety of issues.  In what was probably unfair to her, I would use her as a sounding board to take the temperature of my parents when I had been involved in something that I would have been better off leaving alone.  She was even there offering advice on my love life when my long time girlfriend dumped me for another guy.  She  prevented a lot of heartache in my life.

How a Black woman could invest so much of herself in a White family might be a mystery to some, but it speaks volumes about her character.   She was a true disciple of Jesus Christ, living out a life of humility,  love and servant hood.  My Dad was a product of his generation, growing up in the segregated South with all of its prejudices, but Annie Mae conquered that.  My Dad,  whom she called "Mr. Abby", came to love her as a member of the family and would have done anything for her.  There is a life lesson here for all of us.

She and my Mom became best friends.  There were several times over the years when various families in McCormick tried to hire her away with the lure of more money, but Annie Mae refused to leave.  In the latter years Moma was in bad health and her rheumatism made her extremely irritable.   I was stationed in Texas and my sister, Bobbie, was living in Columbia.  Annie Mae became the primary care giver until her own health prevented her from doing so.  I am sure she put up with a lot and most would have left.    She stuck it out because of love for my Mom and for that I will be forever grateful.

Annie Mae passed away June 23, 2011.  She was one of my heroes.  A woman who worked three jobs to support her family, yet never asked anything for herself.  I hesitate to call her a "Christian", because that term has been so watered down lately and really doesn't do her justice.  She was a Christ follower, who took seriously the challenge of living a life that reflected Christ.   I loved her like my own mother, will miss her dearly, and am deeply grieved at her passing, yet I take great joy in knowing that she stepped into the waiting arms of her Master and that I will see her again someday.