Category: Political

Sunday morning, an abortion doctor was shot and killed in his church. George Tiller was known for being one who did late-term abortions and was well known in the media. We will have to go somewhat political tonight, but there are issues here that must be raised.

To begin with, we are pro-life. We do not like the taking of life. There are some cases where we do believe it is morally justified. This is in self-defense and in the death penalty and for just war causes. Now I know some Christians disagree with me on those three, but I do hold to each one.

We do see the act of abortion as the taking of innocent life and there is no proper mandate for it. The concern that I see with some is that we will become those we disapprove of. We see murder taking place. The solution to it is not more murder. The solution is to do what we can to change the laws.

And I suspect the problem is that Christians just aren’t doing enough.

I’m including myself also.

Roe V. Wade happened because Christians were sitting on the sidelines. We lost our intellectual ground long ago without basis. Christianity has always been an intelligent faith but we fled from the fight and retreated to the area of emotion and feelings. When real political issues came up, emotions and feelings weren’t enough. After all, consider the sexual revolution. What does it take to have a “feeling” that Jesus rose from the dead in comparison to “raging hormones for that hot girl over there!”

I believe that most people here in America are pro-life. I also believe most of them are pro-marriage. Yet on both of these issues, we are acting like we’re on the defensive. Why? It is our opponents who should be on the defensive. Our opponents should have to tell us why they don’t think there’s a human life in the womb and why they’re willing to risk ending one if they’re not sure. Our opponents should tell us why they think marriage should be fundamentally altered.

I do not support the action against the doctor because I do not support us being vigilantes. I believe it would only end with each of us being a law unto himself. I do believe we can change things through the legal process and we are not doing enough. I believe we are not doing enough because we do not see what is at stake.

There are times I wonder something. I am single now. I wonder how many beautiful girls there could have been I could have married but I never got the chance to know them and neither did anyone else. Someone took their life. We can think of several instances like this. Was a cure for a disease lost? Was a new invention forgot? Was a great diplomat discarded? The only reason abortion has been allowed is because it has to do with sex. 

What is the Christian to do? I believe we must recover the truth of morality and Scripture. We must recover the truth of sexuality. We must recover the truth of Christianity. We must recover the truth of what it means to be human and once we find these, embrace them, bury them deep in our hearts, and live by them each and every day.

The world will not be changed by military conquest. It will be changed by the conquest of the kingdom of Heaven through the preaching of the gospel. Let’s get started.

We’re going to continue our brief break again from the Trinity topic to remember what today is here in America, Memorial Day. Our society today has a huge disconnect with the past. I remember growing up and thinking in many ways that the life I lived was the way people around me always remembered life. Today’s children growing up will find it hard to realize that there was a time when you couldn’t find answers immediately on the internet and where you actually had to go home and pick up your phone if you wanted to call someone rather than reach in your pocket. In fact, many kids are pressuring their parents to get them cell phones where they just endlessly text each other.

Not that I’m against technology. I’m all for it. I just think too many times we can take it for granted and not realize that it is something that is meant to serve us and not to dominate us. I am quite pleased with my IPhone for example and like having a Wii nearby. I try to realize however that the age of technology was not always here. There was a time when life was much harder.

But throughout each time, there have been people who have stood for a greater cause. Our danger today is not so much the technology we have but that the technology will make us focus only on us today and not realize who all went before us so we could enjoy the benefits we have. The benefit I have of sitting down in the evening and watching an episode of Smallville, for instance, is not something that popped up out of nowhere. It’s something someone died for.

Today, we honor those who went before us. We honor the soldiers who died and often went into battle knowing that they would die. We think of the soldiers who climbed walls on D-Day knowing that they were fodder for machine guns only in the hopes that those coming behind them would be able to wear them down. They went knowing they would never see their wives and children again, and yet they kept going.

War today knows no season. We remember those who aren’t there when Christmas and Thanksgiving roll around. We remember those who aren’t there to see their children being born. We remember those who are over there now in that they may never come back and they are well aware of this. Yes. I know that this is Memorial Day and not Veterans’ Day, but one must be of the latter before being of the former.

We Christians should be especially mindful. Freedom is not cheap. We have freedom from sin through Christ, but there are places that do not have the freedom of worship like we do. There is a persecuted church all around the world. I can go into my bedroom and reach for a number of books I have. I have several versions of the Bible for study around here. Many a Christian around the world would love nothing more than to have a copy of the Bible.

Life is a precious thing and we take it for granted. We have a cavalier attitude towards it and do we really sit back and think about it? To be honest, I haven’t done so enough today. It’s so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the day that you just forget that. We can look at today as a holiday we get off from work. I was on vacation this weekend, which I arranged before realizing it was Memorial Day and before knowing I had that day off, and I’m sure many see today as just a weekend with one more day in it.

Those who went before us died for a whole lot more than our enjoying an extended weekend.

Before you go to bed tonight, be sure to take some time to remember those who have gone before, and if you know someone in the service today, thank them.

I am going to be putting on hold for tonight our usually Trinity series again because I have been pondering more the situation involving the Miss USA pageant between Miss California and Perez Hilton, which I did blog about Monday night. I spoke to an official in this town yesterday on the problem being that of what is called Political Correctness. The answers given are supposed to fall into that category.

There was a time when truth mattered. There was a real world out there and you could know something about that world and what you said about that world mattered. What you said would either be true or false, but it would be one or the other. The goal was to find truth about that world.

A number of things changed over time. Descartes made man the focus of reality first with his idea of “I think, therefore I am.” Man wanting to find truth began with himself then. Would it not be better to say that because man exists, he thinks? After all, there was still reality before I came along and if I got snuffed out of existence, that would not  mean the end of reality. In the end, it leaves man creating the reality as Descartes went by what he thought of as clear and distinct ideas. I have had many clear and distinct ideas in my time. Many of them turned out to be wrong also.

Then we move on through time with man trying to find what is true and we get to Kant who tells us that it is not our knowledge that conforms to the world but the world that conforms to our knowledge. We do not know the world as it is, the noumena. Instead, we know the world as it appears, the phenomena. 

At this point, I believe the idea of truth out there started to die and the seeds of postmodernism was born. God was jettisoned through higher criticism, anti-supernaturalism, and Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Man was left alone in a cosmos and it was a dangerous one. 

Yet if we cannot know the world, then what are we to seek to do? If there is no truth out there, then there must only be truth that is for me and truth that is for you. There can only be my truth and your truth. 

If truth does not ultimately matter, then what are we to say matters? It must be our feelings. Thus, it is no longer giving an answer to a question that describes the way the world really is in the eyes of the person who is asked. Instead, it is about giving an answer that does not offend people. After all, there is no truth to the answer that matters. 

Suppose someone does believe something truly hideous, such as the idea that *shudders* marriage is meant for a man and a woman. That is fine. Just keep it to yourself. After all, it is your truth. You should by no means make it binding on everyone else. It is personal. It is your world. 

In this way, science also becomes the main authority. Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying there are no areas where science is an authority. When I go to see a doctor, I want that doctor to be a scientist of medicine. When I fly on a plane, I want it to be the brainchild of a man who understands the science of flight and how to make a plane that can fly. 

Science can tell me how much my body weighs, but it cannot tell me if I am my body. Science can tell me what reactions occur when a man encounters poison in his system, but it cannot tell me if I ought to have put the poison in that man’s system. Science can tell me how life arose, but it cannot tell me if life is good.

Religion is seen as none of that as it is seen as that which we cannot know. God is included in the noumena. If you want to have a religious belief, that is fine, but it is your religious belief and it is true for you. It must be something subjective as there is not truth out there in the matter that can be known.

This is the kind of thinking going on behind people who say “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.” It is akin to saying “Don’t like murder? Don’t commit one.” It is as if morality is a personal taste and we do something just because we don’t like it. Why yes. That is why I live a life of chastity. I just get such a great thrill out of it every single day. 

It is the reason we dare not offend someone. In the past, if you called someone a fool, it could be because they truly were a fool and it might have been the best thing you could do to point that out. Debate opponents in the past did not hesitate to let their opinions be known of the ideas they were debating and the persons they were debating. Let’s not forget that our Lord had strong words as well both for his opponents and his own disciples. 

If there is no truth that can be known however and only feelings matter, then such talk cannot be allowed. Do not dare call the heretic a heretic! The ideas that he holds are not what matters. It is how he feels about himself that matters. 

We live in a world of subjectivism then and as long as we live in this world, we might as well try to get along. Do not think of the good, the true, and the beautiful. The good is not out there when moral relativism holds the day. We speak of progress but not in any particular direction. We do not ask what anything is any more and especially not if it is good. Truth is a weapon that is used to bludgeon others and truth claims are seen as oppressive and arrogant. As for beauty, it simply lies in the eyes of the beholder. If you see something as beautiful, then to you it is beautiful, but there can be no beauty in the thing itself.

Hence Political Correctness. Do not say what offends. Say what people want to hear. Do not try to make your ideas conform to the world. Instead, try to conform the world to your ideas. There can be no rational discussion. If someone is against homosexuality, it is for purely religious reasons. There can be no other reasons and religion is something that cannot make a claim of truth. Thus, you are being oppressive and trying to push your truth on other people.

If it is purely subjective, then there is nothing to discuss. Instead, point to the person’s character in each case. Try to paint them as a villain being oppressive to the world around them. Try to have them be seen as tyrants with the truth. How dare you impose your morality on me! Who are you to judge?

Enter an area without proper study. After all, it is simply your truth vs. another person’s truth. Do not seek to learn for there is nothing out there to learn. There is only experience. Naturally, we do not question another person’s experience normally. I do not question that the Mormons have a burning in the bosom. I question the proposition they wish to see affirmed by that burning in the bosom. 

What’s the solution to this madness?

I suggest we start with what most of us realize before so-called higher-thinking gets a hold of us. That there is a real world out there and that we can know things about it. We do not know it exhaustively, but there are things that we can know. If we are wrong, we find out through the appropriate method be it science, history, philosophy, theology, or any branch thereof. 

This includes truths about things other than the physical world. This means that theology is a science. That there are truth claims that can be made about God as he is seen in a religious belief and some of these claims could actually be true and we can use the minds that we have, and that he maybe even gave us, to try to figure this out.

Let each field learn its own place. I believe philosophy is great for finding philosophical truths and science is great for scientific truths. Now of course there can be overlapping as each helps the other. Science can show me the universe had a cause. Philosophy can tell me the nature of causality. Theology can tell me the nature of the cause. History can tell me how that cause revealed himself in the space-time continuum. These are not fields opposed to each other as truth cannot contradict. If there is truth in one field, it will not contradict truth in another field. They are simply different tools with the same goal.

If we offend people, we offend them, but we must remember that the goal is to correct their faulty thinking. It is not most important how a man feels about his ideas. It is most important whether those ideas are true. We Christians are to be people of the truth. If an idea is true, we need to affirm it. If we have to call a spade a spade in order to get them to the truth, then so be it. Our Lord did after all.

I look forward to the day when man again begins a quest for the good, the true, and the beautiful and this time does not look within him but outside of him. All of these things are greater than he is. He is the servant of them. They are not the servant of him.

We’ve been looking through the New Testament and last night we finished going through the gospel of Matthew. I’d like to thank those who left comments also. It’s always good to know that people are reading the blog. We’re going to take a break today based on a news story that I heard earlier today.

Now readers know that I consider myself conservative and do vote accordingly, so I was quite interested when I heard the story that Bristol Palin, daughter of VP candidate Sarah Palin believes that abstinence is best, but it’s unrealistic.

A story with the interview done can be found here:

http://extratv.warnerbros.com/2009/02/bristol_palin_abstinence_is_no.php

Some of you might be surprised to hear that I agree with her.

But I do not believe the problem is with abstinence. Abstinence definitely does work. The problem is that abstinence is not being taught within a certain worldview. I do not believe abstinence teaching works as it is because of the worldview that Americans live with.

Let’s consider this. Most of us are hedonistic, we want everything now, we believe that we are invincible as a nation practically, we believe that things will always work for us, we believe that we can always beat the odds, and we believe morality is outdated and that pleasure is the greatest good.

Now if even most of that is believed, do we see a reason why it could be that abstinence might not be realistic?

How can it be realistic if on a very limited basis, we’re told that it’s best to practice abstinence, and at the same time told in the media that sexaul intercourse is always going to result in pleasure. Movies and TV shows don’t tend to show the realities of unplanned pregnancies, STDs, or damaged relationships.

It’s doubtful any of us have escaped unscathed. I’d say most of us have mistakes in the area of sex somewhere in our lives even if we’re virgins. We have a false view of it. Many men and women struggle with various sexual sins. Everything in culture says “Go!” Men struggle with masculinity and think “If I sleep with a girl, that means that I’m a man.” Many a woman can think that if she gets pregnant or gets the love of a man, then she is a woman. If getting love is what she wants, well why not use her body to get that?

We’re told methods to help prevent this and they include birth control and condoms. How many are actually using such precautions? We also know that many have presented the problems with condoms. I once worked in retail and saw several men without wedding rings buying condoms. It angered me. It saddened me to see women doing such. One can imagine that in the heat of a moment, the condom can be forgotten but geez, who wants to wait to put one on?

In the midst of this, students are told to wait and why?

Well geez, we’ve jettisoned morality. We consider religion obsolete. These are the main places that we get this teaching. Now if I didn’t believe there was a God, if I believed morality was relative, if I believed pleasure was the highest good, and if I thought I was the center of all things and the measure of all things, then I can say, “Why the heck shouldn’t I go ahead?”

The problem with abstinence is that it’s been divorced from the proper worldview. Abstinence makes no sense in a secular society that has jettisoned religion and morality. It is not the teaching. It is that the worldview that goes with the teaching is not there.

In that case, Bristol Palin is right. Considering the worldview we are teaching, it’s unrealistic to think teenagers will listen. What needs to be done is not just abstinence. We need to teach moral principles grounded in God. We need to have people realize that sexual intercourse is more than just pleasure. It’s an act of unique love between a man and a woman.

Until we do such, I do not believe we will see a drop in teen pregnancy or STDs. I also believe that until we do such, we will see a high divorce rate and rate of illegitimacy due to unwed mothers.

I also believe we can do it though, but it will require the church in America to stand up and educate itself on a Christian view of sexuality and make a difference. Considering how we’re more and mroe endorsing homosexuality in the church even, I realize it’s a tough battle, but I believe it is one that is winnable and worth winning.

Yeah. I know. I’m interrupting my series again. I got presented with an article though that made me think I should. We all know Christopher Hitchens, the author of “God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” As soon as the topic of religion comes up, one can expect the usual from Hitchens.

And you really shouldn’t have to ask what I mean by that.

The article I read is here: http://www.slate.com/id/2207554/

Now I’m not here to defend Rick Warren in his own doctrine. I’m here to defend where he speaks from essential Christian doctrine. I am not a huge fan of Rick Warren, but if he is saying something that I believe is true, I will defend it.

I encourage you to check the first link there where he talks about the mentor of Rick Warren as well which gives a reason for Hitchens being against Warren. Hitchens speaks of how Warren was publicly asked by a Jewish lady if she’d be in Paradise for being a Jew and he publicly told her no. 

Later, Hitchens makes this statement:

Will Warren be invited to the solemn ceremony of inauguration without being asked to repudiate what he has directly said to deny salvation to Jews?

Why should he Hitchens? If you want the honest truth. I agree with him. Before you think that’s anti-semitic, I’ll go farther than that and be clear. I also don’t think any Gentile gets special privileges before the Almighty. You see Hitchens, I don’t play favorites like you apparently think God should. (And yet, I bet you complain that God isn’t fair either.) I believe we’re all equally condemned and God doesn’t grant someone a special favor just because of their DNA. 

Now if a Jew is in Heaven, it won’t be because they’re Jewish, but because they accepted the Messiah. It’s the same reason for me. The only reason I will be in Heaven is because I accepted the Messiah that God sent, Jesus Christ. 

Later, Hitchens make the same complaint about Warren denying Mormons are Christians. 

Will he be giving a national invocation without disowning what his mentor said about civil rights and what his leading supporter says about Mormons?

Now I’m not going to support being against civil rights, but I will support the stance on Mormons. However, let me present this in a more humorous light.

Hitchens. I’d like to join a group of atheists and be a charter member. I just insist though in keeping my belief in God. Can I do that and be considered an atheist?

You would think that crazy of course since atheists all deny the existence of God. You cannot affirm the existence of God and be an atheist. That’s the way it is with any belief though Hitchens. There are some things you have to believe in order to be seen as a member of that belief system. You can’t say you are.

Imagine if you met someone who said he was a Muslim. He just didn’t believe Muhammad was a prophet. That person might think he is a Muslim, but he certainly isn’t since one of the core doctrines of Islam is the belief that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. It doesn’t matter if you think the belief is true or false.

In the same way, a key belief in Christianity is that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity who is fully God and fully man and of one nature with the Father. This is not held in Mormonism. Their idea of the Trinity is three different gods in unity and Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer. Their idea of God is a god who was once a man and progressed all the way to godhood. Now this is certainly a unique belief system, but it is in no way Christian. 

Now in your original article, you have this paragraph:

In fact, you know Saul of Tarsus—Saul was a Syrian. St. Paul, on the road to Damascus, had his conversion experience, and so Christians have been here the longest, and they get along with the Muslims, and the Muslims get along with them. There’s a lot less tension than in other places.

Please note that Hitchens. Saul of Tarsus. Where is Tarsus? That’s right. Tarsus is in Turkey. Now Saul was in Syria when he had what we call his conversion, but that does not make him a Syrian.  A few minutes with a Bible atlas would have answered this question.

If the desire to bring up Warren being against homosexuality is brought up, why I will agree with that as well. I don’t just do it for biblical reasons. In fact, my argument against homosexuality relies on Natural Law doctrine. Now you can deny Natural Law if you want, but then you become a moral relativist and your whole book just goes right out the window. You’d have to show I’m wrong by Natural Law doctrine then, though I wonder who your Natural Law comes from.

In the second article, we also have this line:

As Barack Obama is gradually learning, his job is to be the president of all Americans at all times. If he likes, he can oppose the idea of marriage for Americans who are homosexual. That’s a policy question on which people may and will disagree. However, the man he has chosen to deliver his inaugural invocation is a relentless clerical businessman who raises money on the proposition that certain Americans—non-Christians, the wrong kind of Christians, homosexuals, nonbelievers—are of less worth and littler virtue than his own lovely flock of redeemed and salvaged and paid-up donors.

If that was the case, I’d disagree entirely. However, I, as a Christian do not see a homosexual or nonbeliever as less worthy than I am. We are all equally human. I seek to win them to Christ because they are so valuable. It’d be interesting though to hear what Hitchens bases human equality on.

My final plea in this is that to say Christianity is false is one thing, but please. If you’re going to attack Christianity, have it be on some sort of factual basis like the existence of God or the resurrection instead of simply “Christianity says a lot of things I don’t like.” That will simply end in what we call a desire for wish fulfillment, and we don’t need that as serious intellectuals now do we?

While a question was raised in an earlier comment, today, I’ve chosen to write on freedom due to it being Veteran’s Day. Any time I’m out and I get to see a veteran, I’m always thankful and usually salute them. It’s incredible what these men do. They are the ones that are willing to go out and face death from an enemy just so I can be free.

In Ben Stein’s “Expelled”, he speaks of how valuable freedom is and why it must be defended. He is certainly right on this. Here in America, freedom has always been of rank importance. I’ve said that I’m skeptical as to how much freedom we’ll have in our next administration, but despite that I don’t favor it, I still urge people who want to enlist, do it. We had a clip playing here before the election of John McCain saying something every American should agree with. “America is worth fighting for.”

Too often, we don’t really think about what happened. I’ll be blunt and say that veterans haven’t been on my mind much today. I fear that I am not alone. I wonder how many people have gone through today and not even realized that it is Veteran’s Day? How many people are living in a land of freedom and not considering how that freedom came about?

Freedom does not come cheap and with things that come cheap, we should hold them in awe. As Christians, for example, we should hold our forgiveness in awe and realize the graciousness of God in giving it, for it certainly did not come cheap, but it involved the very Son of God coming and living among us so we could be free from sin.

How many veterans have their been in history? How many people put on a uniform and took up arms and kissed their wives and children good-bye not knowing if they would ever return again? How many of them are overseas right now as the Thanksgiving holiday gets started simply because they believe in fighting for their nation?

Even if you disagree with the war now, those are still our troops over there in it and we should honor them. One reason you are walking around free and not fearing terrorist attacks now is because someone else isn’t. Someone is in an area and for all they know, they could be attacked by the enemy and die tomorrow. For all we know, some of them might go to sleep tonight and be the recipient of a bomb in their sleep and wake up in glory. We don’t know.

Neither do they.

And I speculate, they don’t really care either.

Now I’m not saying they don’t love their life and wouldn’t like to get back and see their families? I’m saying that they enlisted because they are willing to pay that price in order to bring about freedom for the land that they love. When they enlist, they know what they are fighting for and they are ready to go fight for it.

We saw this after 9/11. Immediately, one of the first stories I recall seeing is that of several people going to offices to enlist for the military. Someone had attacked their homeland and they wanted that someone to know that they don’t take that lightly. These men were immediately ready to drop what was going on in their lives because they love their country.

I still love America. I’m not pleased with all that’s going on in it now and I’m not pleased with the way the upcoming administration looks, but I still think I live in the best nation on Earth. At this moment, I can go and worship where I want and I can speak what I want. I have a job and I have education and I have family and friends. I have that not as a freebie though, but at the price of many men who died in combat so I could be free. If we could count that number, I wonder how great it would be.

Today though, there are some who fought and lived to tell the tale and we need to honor them. Let’s remember though that it is not just today that we are free. We are free everyday because people were willing to fight. Honor the Veterans today that you know.