The Main Problem with the Media ... [might not be what you think]

"I think that the main problem with the press is not bias.  The complaint of those on the left and conservatives is that it is.  I think the main problem with the press, rather, is superficiality.  Their inability to go beyond the narrative structure of antagonist and protagonist; who's up and who's down; their inability to understand, frame, and report on issues that are not simply political.  The tendency is to force these kinds of cultural issues onto a political frame of reference; to see them only as struggles of power."

James Davison Hunter
in a Mars Hill Audio Journal interview with Ken Myers [ from 1994!]

... don't you want to keep reading???? [below]

Prayer to End Abortion on the 44th Anniversary of Roe v Wade

  Heavenly Father, rise up to protect every unborn child in our land.  We pray to you for them with confidence 
and firm trust knowing that it is your Holy Will to remove the scourge of abortion from off the face of Your 
earth. Thank you that, on this, the 44th anniversary of our Supreme Court’s infamous decision about these 
things, You have helped Your people and given many victories in defense of unborn life since then.  Continue 
these victories by Your mercy.  Change the minds and melt the hearts of all who promote this evil, or who 
seek abortion as a remedy for the troubles of their lives, which troubles are – for many – very great. Make 
us – in our lives – a testimony of sexual purity; those who cherish human life, love and help our neighbors,
 guard and adopt the fatherless and unwanted, honor Your holy image wherever it is found in mankind, and 
willingly sacrifice of ourselves, our comforts and possessions, so that we might truly be your servants and in practical ways, bring about Your Kingdom and Your righteousness. Heavenly Father, we ask you this in the 
name of Jesus, Your Son.  
Amen.

Our Hitler; Our Holocaust

There has been a lot said from both sides about the importance of the current election cycle.  There has been a lot said from both sides about the similarities of Trump to Hitler.  To be honest, I don't believe these are unfounded.  He strikes me as an obviously ego-centric, unstable, and generally untrustworthy person.  He certainly does remind one of the Furor and make one shudder to wonder what sort of holocaust might follow his election as a worst-case scenario.

But what if we're getting the analogy wrong?  What if the holocaust has already long-since begun?  What if we are already living with it and our Goerings, and Goebbels, and Eichmanns are nothing more than mainstream politicians reasonably proposing to maintain the status quo?  What if - for over a full generation now - the incinerators have been quietly humming in our midst and we - like so many nice German people - have turned a blind eye to them, refusing to believe that atrocities like these could ever actually be taking place in a land such as ours?

How then should we vote?

[photo: www.wsj.com] 

God's Finger, My Forehead, and Her Intricate, Perfect Ears

[More than 10 years ago, in a seminary workshop outside of Greenville, SC, I heard a speaker read this passage.  Since then I've ruminated on it scores of times, though never remembering its author.  This morning, in a Ken Myers interview of Mary Eberstadt, I was delighted to hear it referred to again - with the author's name attached - Whittaker Chambers!  Enjoy.]

“It was shortly before we moved to Alger Hiss's apartment in Washington. My daughter was in her high chair. I was watching her eat. She was the most miraculous thing that had ever happened in my life. I liked to watch her even when she smeared porridge on her face or dropped it meditatively on the floor. My eye came to rest on the delicate convolutions of her ear — those intricate, perfect ears.

The thought passed through my mind: 'No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature. They could have been created only by immense design.'

The thought was involuntary and unwanted. I crowded it out of my mind. But I never wholly forgot it or the occasion. I had to crowd it out of my mind. If I had completed it, I should have had to say: Design presupposes God. I did not then know that, at that moment, the finger of God was first laid upon my forehead.”

- Whittaker Chambers, Introduction, Witness

The Redemption of Bernard Nathanson

Few people, if any, did more than Bernard Nathanson to undermine the right to life of unborn children by turning abortion from an unspeakable crime into a constitutionally protected liberty. [And] someday, when our law is reformed to honor the dignity and protect the right to life of every member of the human family, including children in the womb, historians will observe that few people did more than Bernard Nathanson to achieve that reversal.

Dr. Nathanson, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, had his first involvement with abortion arranging an illegal abortion for his girlfriend. Many years later, he [called it] his “introductory excursion into the satanic world of abortion.”

Nathanson became a nearly monomaniacal crusader for abortion. As Director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, he presided over more than 60,000 abortions and performed 5,000 himself [one of which included his own son or daughter inconveniently conceived out of wedlock]. 

Sin, Righteousness, and Judgment

Within the churches are those who defend the historic Christian teaching on sexuality.  It is assumed that there will always be some discernible dissonance between the Church and the world and that part of the mission of the Holy Spirit through the Church is, as Jesus says in John 16, to “tell the world that it is wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment.” 

On the other side are those who reject the historic Christian teaching and who seem to believe that the world, as represented by its most self-consciously progressive institutions and thinkers, is ahead of the Church in ushering in the Kingdom of God. Indeed, that the world is right in telling the Church that it is wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement. They say that God is doing a new thing. But they seem unable to imagine that God might say ‘no’ to any new thing done in the world in the name of progress. There seems to be no room on the part of the revisionists for any truly prophetic word to be spoken to the world’s claims about love and justice.

-Ken Myers

Judges as Umpires

[Folks, here's an old piece I wrote for my students several years ago when we were studying government and history.  I'd probably nuance differently today, but the basic thesis holds true and is quite timely.]


Thurgood Marshall once admitted that his judicial philosophy boiled down to “do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”

This is exactly what we mean by the phrase ‘judicial activism’. A man [or woman] in a black robe takes it upon himself to change a state or country whether or not the Constitution gives him that authority.  It's a quiet coup.

This is the heart of the issue. We all want to change the country, but the ultimate question is this: which side is attempting to do so illegally? It’s that simple. The Constitution lays out what our judges are and are not authorized to do. Any actions they take beyond those found in that document are, properly-speaking, illegal.  As Justice Scalia helpfully points out, if you want to change the nation, pass a law.  Don't appeal to the Constitution or its interpreters [judges] because Constitutions are adopted to impede change, not facilitate it.  Stability is their whole purpose.

He uses the analogy of being a referee or umpire in the legal system.  A judge is umpire.  He doesn’t agonize about whether the rules are fair or right or good for the future of the game.  He makes the call to the best of his ability by applying the rules. That’s all. He doesn’t have the power to make or alter the rules based on a preferred outcome! He’s just an umpire. They’re just judges.

"In the system which says that the Constitution changes and it’s up to the judges to say what it means – they really have no answers. There is no criterion for when it changes and how it changes. Every day is a new day. Some of my collegues have said that they agonize a lot. I don’t agonize at all. Sometimes it’s hard to follow and find the record in history, but you know, I don’t agonize if there’s a right to this or that. But with these guys – every day’s a new day. Last year the death penalty was constitutional and I’ll have to worry about whether it’s still constitutional next year."

Pro-Life Living

Here, Greg Koukl from Stand To Reason exemplifies speech seasoned with gracious salt and loving truth. He is an example by his words and actions.  Enjoy.

The Dangerous Gospel of Jesus Christ

*Pastor's warning! Please note: explicit language warning for the first minute of this video clip!*


While we were busy running around in Sandestin for our annual Family Conference, on the other side of the world [down under], the Festival of Dangerous Ideas was concluding in Sydney.  The highlight of my time in Sandestin was getting to host our Q&A with Douglas and Nancy Wilson.  This morning, Doug posted the link to the Q&A session from FODI, which features his friend and Christian apologist, Peter Hitchens [brother of the late, radical atheist, Christopher Hitchens].
2 things stood out to me.  The first was the clarity and provocative intrigue of Peter Hitchens' articulation of the gospel of Christ Jesus.  The second is the utter disdain of children among the rest of the panelists.  It is often said by Christian Pro-lifers that we are a culture that hates children.  At times that has struck my ears as harsh hyperbole.  But in this clip, the hatred and abandon couldn't be more obvious.

DOMA & Gay "Marriage" - a Christian Evaluation Part 2

In the aftermath of the SCOTUS DOMA ruling, here are 7 points to help us understand why we are where we are and 7 things Christians should do about it.

1. Heterosexual couples destroyed the sanctity of marriage long before the gay rights movement hit the mainstream. "I have two dads, you know." This is what a young boy I know recently told me. His words struck me. I knew they were true. But I'd never thought of it ... like THAT before. His birth parents divorced while he was an infant [for what I believe were sound, Biblical reasons]. His mother went on to remarry a fine Christian man and so, like so many other boys around, he has "two dads". Today this trend continues, though now with the ruthless efficiency of eliminating the mother altogether. A long time ago, our society began to deliberately streamline the process by which a man or woman can dissolve the oath they had previously made before God, church, family, community, and state, to stay united until death.  And for decades, the process of oath-breaking has been made more and more convenient.  At this point in our history, "the sanctity of marriage" is a hollow-sounding string of words that used to mean something.

2. It was heterosexual promiscuity that paved the yellow-brick road on which gay rights activists now march.  What young people really mean when they say "Don't tell THEM what THEY can't do in THEIR bedroom" is "Don't tell ME what I can't do in MY bedroom".  This is what 'the pill' is all about. What we see today is the fruiting of seeds that were planted fifty years ago and have been faithfully watered and fertilized ever since. Pulling levers and pushing buttons isn't going to change that or stop what has been in motion for so long. But being faithful will... eventually. This is a bitter fruit, but the story is far from over.  As a society, we seem to have lost the ability to to make even the most basic moral judgments and distinctions.  Just open up your iTunes store and watch the scrolling "what's hot now" banner at the top.  By and large, we are daily consumers of the obscene.

3. The black church is crucial in our culture wars. They have been the sleeping giant that has been roused in the recent cultural reversal of popular-level abortion views. They will be crucial in courageously speaking out to reject FALSE equivocations between civil rights struggles and the campaign to make sodomy a socially-acceptable sexual practice. One of my best friends in the world was born with very, very dark black skin.  His ethnic background is Nigerian.  He was black last year as a Ph.D. student in Seattle.  He is black today as an entrepreneur in Charleston.  He will die black.  None of this has the slightest thing to do with extraneous cultural influences or his own behavior and personal choice.  He is a black man, pure and simple.  To equate his blackness with another man's decision to engage in sodomy is false and wrong, and there is no amount of voice-raising or finger wagging that will change that fact.  But my voice here isn't the one that matters.  Those belong to my brothers of color, [many of whom are speaking out] such as Voddie Baucham, Thabiti Anyabwile, Ken Jones, Jemar Tisby, Philip Holmes, Reddit Andrews, Mike Campbell, Anthony Carter, LaCrae, Shai Linne, Curtis Allen, and others.

4.  Gay is cool.  Let's face it.  Well, perhaps it would be better to say it this way -  the gay cause is the cool side.  For the general public actually being gay is not the cool thing [see the horrifying long-term health statistics below], but it is most definitely cool to have gay friends.  It is cool to support them vocally and frequently.  It is cool to be passionate for their cause.  And the gay rights movement has found a way to morally tap into the fashion sense of the American public.  Many have wisely noted that in current public opinion, image trumps character.  The average Joe arrives at his ethical views in large part the same way he chooses his shoes, skinny jeans, and coffee brand.  Designer ethics is part of a designer lifestyle.  Pro-gay is chic and fashionable.  But as we've seen with fanny packs, disco, and eugenics, trends change and fashions - material and ideological - alter.

5.  This is an experiment - a cultural experiment.  I'll admit, I'mm an optimist, not a henny-penny kind of guy.  I probably wouldn't run around like my hair was on fire if my hair were actually on fire. And here is one of the reasons. This is an experiment. Will state-sanctioned gay marriage result in a happier, healthier society?  The answer is 'no'. This experiment is doomed to NOT work. Our great, great grandchildren will look back on this sort of thing and scratch their heads. You cannot rebel against a creational pattern as deep as gender and think things will just keep rolling forward. So stay faithful and keep on keepin' on. Roe was hardly the end of the abortion debate, and we are not even close to the end of this discussion either. There are plenty of people paying attention and taking notes. The numbers are being counted.

6. And this brings us to a separate societal trend which is set on a direct collision course with the Gay Rights Agenda: that of fully-socialized medicine. We've already heard it loudly suggested that lawmakers ban soft drinks because of this conflict.

Pray for Rome

Okay, if you're like me, you're a pretty Protestant Protestant, but I want to encourage the rest of you to add your prayers to mine and the countless others being offered up around the world for the Cardinals gathered today who will be electing the next Pope.
I am much more nervous about this election than I ever was for the race [so-called] between Obama and Romney.  The Roman Church, for all its problems, has been an unflinching pillar of prophetic strength in defense of the unborn as well as a stalwart testimony to the fact that God has made men and women different and that these differences have- according to HIM - ramifications for differences of ministry and restrictions of ordination.  It has also been uncompromising, in a way that no mainline Protestant denomination can claim to have been, by officially upholding a more or less Biblical standard of human sexual ethics.  In the face of so much fierce social and political pressure, the ramifications for this appointment, the potential to shift cultures in the direction of unrighteousness and sinful compromise as well as to further mar the name of Christ in the world is truly significant.

At the start of this meeting, the Cardinals prayed for the Holy Spirit's guidance in their deciding.  May He indeed be pleased to appoint a righteous, brave, and holy man.

All right, now because you're worried about how non-Protestant I sound, here is a great quote from Carl Trueman:

Rome has chronological priority over any Protestant denomination. Thus, Protestantism was and is a movement of protest. We are by definition protesting against something: the claims of the papacy, the burying of the gospel under garbage, the denial of assurance to ordinary Christian believers. We must never forget these things. We should respect our Roman Catholic friends; we should rejoice in the great doctrine we hold in common; but we must not minimize that which divides us from each other.

Why it's a "Baby", not a "fetus" ...

Here is a clip of Michael Coren, one of my favorite media personalities.  I have enjoyed his talk show since I discovered it a few years ago.
Caveat - he is Canadian, Roman Catholic, and not all of his views are as  rigorously Biblical as I think they should be.  Having said all that, he is an outspoken, articulate Christian striving to be faithful and consistent under the spotlight within a culture where that is quite difficult.  
Enjoy!

Why I Lost Faith in the Pro-choice Movement

WHY I LOST FAITH IN THE PRO-CHOICE MOVEMENT

by JENNIFER FULWILER

... [The] pressure built and built over months, and eventually years. And then, one day it clicked.

I was looking through a Time magazine article whose infograph cited data from the Guttmacher Institute about the most common reasons women have abortions. It immediately struck me that none of the factors on the list were conditions that we tell women to consider before engaging in sexual activity. Don’t have the money to raise a child? Don’t think your boyfriend would be a good father? Don’t feel ready to be a mother? Women were never encouraged to consider these factors before they had sex; only before they had a baby.

The fundamental truth of the pro-choice movement, from which all of its tenets flow, is that sex does not have to have life-altering consequences. I suddenly saw that it was the struggle to uphold this “truth” that led to all the shady dealings, all the fear of information, all the mental gymnastics that I’d observed.

The Pressing Duty of our Time

"To establish the fact of decadence is the pressing duty of our time."

- Richard Weaver

Book List [what I've been reading/listening to lately ...]

you are what your mind eats ...

Choose Subversive Sarcasm

For those of my readers not from Maryland [okay, ... hi mom ... and to my other reader from Lithuania, 'Zdravstvuj, comrade!'], a bit of background is in order.  For the last 2 years, Howard County has launched a public niceness campaign based on the Oprah-endorsed book 'Choose Civility'.  The initiative is based out of their award-winning library branches, where I have to admit I do spend a considerable amount of time.  The whole campaign consists almost entirely of handing out free bumperstickers that say "Choose Civility in Howard County".  But because civility is so dependent upon some ethical framework, I find that daily, as I drive to and from work, a miniature Greg Bahnsen appears [poof] on my shoulder spouting presuppositional jabs each time I see the bumpersticker.  So, not wanting to miss an opportunity to declare the postmodern emporers' new clothes of civility to be, in fact, non-existent, here are some humorous parodies I've come up with.  My good friend and creative genius John Barnes was the original inspiration for most of these and you can find his batch of these with a quick google search. 

To see the rest of the collection, click below ...

The Context of Abortion ...

"Abortion is a religious issue not just because traditional religions happen to oppose it but because abortion is necessarily about sex... A woman (or more usually, the man!) wants abortion only because she wants to have sex without babies.
So in order to fully persuade the people in our society that abortion is not an option, that babies are holy and not to be treated as toys to be thrown away at will, we must achieve a much harder task: we must persuade them that sex is holy and not to be treated as a toy. For sex is the context of abortion. Abortion is different from other issues because sex is different from other issues."

- Peter Kreeft

GOT REPENTANCE?

About a year ago, I posted a blog commending Rick Warren’s prayer at the inauguration of our President.  At that point, my biggest criterion was whether he would actually pray in Jesus’ name.  This he did, and in a very emphatic fashion [especially when compared to the apostate Gene Robinson’s inaugural prayer which began with the words, ‘Oh god of our many understandings …’].  However, after considering my previous comments several times over the past year, I want to revise, if not recant my initial position. 

What does this passage mean to you? Hermeneutics out there ...

The 'Living Constitution' judge is a happy fellow. He comes home at night and his wife says, “Dear, did you have a good day on the bench?” “Oh, yes. We had a constitutional case today. And you know what? The Constitution meant exactly what I thought it ought to mean!” Well of course it does, because that’s your only criterion. That’s a very seductive philosophy. So it’s no surprise that it should take the society by storm. And it is the same thing for the man or woman in the street: to know that everything you care passionately about, whether it’s abortion or suicide, or whatever you care passionately about, it’s there in the Constitution. What a happy feeling. That’s what causes it. And that’s what makes it hard to call the society back from it. It’s tough medicine.

- Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia,
commenting on the view that the US Constitution is a living [read: evolving] document

A New Era of Human Rights for All [who survive the womb]

Today is the 36th anniversary of the abhorant Supreme Court decision to legalize the slaughter of the unwanted unborn. Since then, the blood has risen past the horse's bridle. And sadly it gets worse. Geron Corporation announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a privately funded study in which human embryonic stem cells will be transplanted into subjects with spinal cord injuries. I thought the opening lines of Mark Carlton's Prayer for the New President rang chillingly true:

Father, Never in the history of American politics have so many celebrated a man who has accomplished so little. But I cannot join the celebration. For me this is a sad and depressing day, not just because of my misgivings about the man who will be our president, but because of the part your people have played in elevating this man to the throne.

Lord, much has been made of the proximity of President Obama’s inauguration to Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, and yet few have noticed that it comes just two days before the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. But you, no doubt remember. You have been hearing the silent screams of the unborn ever since.

Father, I grieve the fact that so many of your people found an excuse to tune out the silent screams of over 50 million innocent unborn that have been sacrificed on the altar of convenience since January 22, 1973.

I grieve that so many who call themselves Christians, many of whom will be raising their hands in worship this next week, have, chosen to cooperate with evil. ...