The Dying Brand of Dispensationalism

I never thought I would see the day, but I have come to believe that we are watching the slow death of dispensationalism before our very eyes.

In case anyone may not know what is meant by the word "dispensationalism", just think of the never-ending end-of-the-world talk in churches or conferences. Is the Antichrist among us? What is the mark of the Beast? When will the temple be rebuilt in Jerusalem? Are you ready for the Rapture? What will happen during the seven-year period called the Tribulation? Will America be around then? Are we seeing the signs of the end of the world with all these natural disasters?

According to the dispensational scheme, there is going to be a secret rapture of Christians anytime soon, and only unbelievers will be left behind (hence the name of the famous book and movie) for the seven-year hell on earth tribulation, with the world ruler Antichrist breaking covenant with the nation of Israel and therefore slaughtering many of the Jews, but 144,000 male Jewish evangelists will be preaching and many can be saved during the tribulation (like a second chance after the rapture), a revived Roman Empire, the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, then after other disasters the Second Coming of Christ (or part two of the second coming, with part one being the rapture), etc. This is in a nutshell the framework of dispensationalism.

The books of Daniel and Revelation especially have been the campgrounds for dispensational fervor. What Daniel and Revelation were originally meant to show, that the four successive world Gentile empires back then (Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome) known as "the time of the Gentiles" that would dominate old Jerusalem proper, have been sensationally stretched out 2000 years and counting. It sure is more scintillating to say that Iraq today is Babylon, or Iran today is Persia, or the European Union today is Rome, or America is something somewhere in the Bible.

How do I say that dispensationalism is dying? I cite some evidences of that:

(1) Dispensationalists are turning up the heat and coming out more vigorously. That could be the action of those who are so sure of themselves, but it also could be the action of those who are on the defensive, and not the actions of those who can really defend their position well. In fact, I know for a fact that many well-known dispensationalists, even some in my area, have refused over and over again to engage in a civil debate over eschatology with those who think dispensationalism is wrong. If a person is so sure of his position, then he will welcome any opportunity to explain it in a public forum. When a person has doubts that he can defend his position, then it is much safer to "preach to the choir" where he already has loyal followers, be it his church congregation or some well-orchestrated conference. If a pastor or conference speaker is so sure of his dispensational position, then he would not be afraid of inviting a fellow Christ-loving, Bible-believing brother to offer a variant view. But we don't see or hear of that happening, do we? It is more like "my dispensational way or the highway."

(2) Most seminary graduates and most younger pastors totally refute dispensationalism. This scares the old vanguard in the dispensational camp. They don't see enough younger church leaders to carry the torch into the future. About 15 years ago I attended a John MacArthur's Shepherding Conference locally, and most of the attendees, like myself, were younger pastors, like in their 30s and 20s. It was a large gathering. In one session, the leader from MacArthur's church in California, asked how many of us were dispensationalists. I was afraid that I would be about the only one who would not raise his hand. Instead to my shock, and to the shock of the leader, no one raised his hand. It took a while for the leader to recover from his surprise before he could move on with his talk. The leaders in the dispensational movement are aging, and they don't see enough church leaders to carry on their work, and read their books, and attend their conferences, and listen to their sermons.

(3) Dispensatonalists have been proven wrong on more occasions than a person could possibly count. In fact, dispensational teachers and preachers are banking (like you continue to buy my books so I can take my money to the bank) on the fact that people have a very short memory. Dispenationalists are losing followers today, though, because more and more people are wising up and remembering past predictions that have not come true. Hal Lindsey assured us in my generation that Christ would come back maybe in 1981, because that was seven years before 1988, the 40th anniversary of the birth of Israel. Forty years is a generation, ala Matthew 24:34, so 1981 would be the Rapture. Oops! He revised it by saying the rapture would be 1988. Oops again!

Other dispensationalists, like Hal, had to revise their charts and diagrams too over time, several times over. 2011 sure is way past 1948. Y2K rolled around, and one day is as a thousand years, so with the six days of creation, and the earth created at 4000 B.C. and the new millennium starting up at 2000 or 2001, then Christ was supposed to come back maybe 1993, or some other dates, because the millennial reign of Christ would be at 2000, but who cares now, because they were all wrong.

It has been those in the dispensational camp that have thrown out guesses after guesses who the Antichrist was supposed to be, the 666 guy, and there again, wrong again, every time. A friend of mine reminded me recently that I once said that Barney the purple dinosaur was the antichrist. I had forgotten all about saying that. I have the dispensational bug I guess.

We were told that this war or that war in the Middle East was going to be "it", Armageddon, but "it" never became "it", and we are waiting for the new dispensational "it" to surface. First I was told it was U.S.S. R. that will come from the North to invade Israel. Then I was told it was going to be Red China. Then I was told it was going to be Iraq. Then I was told it was going to be Turkey. Then I was told it was going to be Iran. Next year it might be Mozambique, Madagascar or Mississippi. (The last one is not a nation, but with dispensationalism, facts are stubborn things anyway.)There are still plenty of nations around the world we can go through to see if we can hit the right one eventually.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. I sense more Christians are putting two and two together, and their short memories are getting longer and longer all the time. Dispensationalism has become a breeding ground for endless end-time speculations, and the awful truth is that the world may look upon us as silly nut jobs. I am all for being a "fool for Christ", like what Paul said, but repeating the same mistakes at a fanatical pace is a different kind of foolishness.

(4) A deepening awareness of history is discounting the whole dispensational viewpoint. Because of the alternative educational choices, like private school and homeschooling, a big push has been underway for us and our children to know the true history of our country and of the world. Historical revisionism is rightfully despised and scorned. Well, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. The more a person studies any branch of history, the more his eyes are opened up to the truth, that is often ignored or purposefully overlooked. And this applies to church history as well as American history.

As one studies the origins and development of dispensationalism, one finds out very readily and easily that dispensationalism was not known until the 19th century. It had its beginnings in a cult-like atmosphere in England. Just google the "origins of dispenationalism" or something like that, and you can read the history for yourself. This means that practically no Christian and no church in the first 18 centuries heard of anything like dispensationalism, let alone believe in it. With this indisputable fact being so, how can anyone believe the central tenets of dispensationalism? Are we going to overlook this historical fact and thus be hypocritical when we emphasize so much our knowing of American history?

Are we saying that the Christians in the first 18 centuries were all wrong, and it was not until the 1800s that Christians finally got it right? Did Christians evolve into smarter human beings in the 1800s than the apostles? A dispensationalist once told me, "If it is new, it must not be true." He was saying that about something else in modern church life, but did he really know what he is saying (which I agree with) when he said that? He is hammering the final nail in the coffin of dispensationalism.

I don't expect dispensationalism to die off anytime soon. It will linger around for a long time to come, but it is losing adherents all the time. I am running into people all the time who once were dispensationalists, and then their eyes were opened to biblical and historical reality.

If Acts 17:11 really is a favorite verse among Christians, then we need to demonstrate it in the area of eschatology. Yes, I have books I can recommend that can guide one to a more sensible (and less sensational and always changing) interpretation of key books and passages in the Bible about end-time matters. But my main interest is that a child of God have a teachable, humble spirit, which means he may have to unlearn some things in order to learn the right things. Some of those things which he will unlearn will be hard to let go of, because they have been part of his belief system for decades maybe. But truth can not hang on to error, no matter how long error has hanged on to us.

The Bible is not a complicated maze of riddles left to the fertile imagination of man to figure out. It is amazingly direct and simple. Man has muddied the eschatological waters, and once a Christian decides it is not a good thing to drink continuously from muddied waters, then he will be able to enjoy and appreciate better the refreshing waters of the simplicity that is in Christ.

I once was a dispensationalist, but I abandoned that in my late teenage years. The purpose of this article is not to label dispensationalists as "heretics", nor is it to shame anyone who is reading this who might be a dispensationalist. We all were something once, but if God's grace has made its way in our hearts, then we have been made into something else. Sanctification is the lifelong process of being made into something else, in the area of behavior and beliefs. May God help us to pursue sanctification, without which no one shall see the Lord.

Pro-Choicers are Aborting Themselves to Death (part three)

Four reasons have been cited previously for why the pro-choice position is losing steam and why the pro-life position has the momentum. This is no time for us to assume that since everything is going our way we can just coast to victory. A football team can lose momentum as quickly as it obtains momentum in a game. We need to keep working and praying, because every human life is worth saving.

(5) THE LEADERSHIP COMING FROM SO-CALLED MINORITY GROUPS. In the past it was white people who led the way in advancing the pro-life position. Now we are seeing a large number of leaders who are Hispanic and black, for example, who have taking the reins in advancing the pro-life cause. This scares the pro-choice crowd, because the liberal political wing has always taken for granted that the majority of the minorities are in their corner in all issues.

Is it not the niece of Martin Luther King, Jr. that makes speeches around our country about the evils of abortion? Some time ago, a billboard in New York City featured a picture of a young black girl with the message "The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb".

Many found this ad "racist", so blacks who ran this ad were committing racism against blacks. Go figure. Lost in the controversy was the actual point of the advertisement: abortion clinics target poor minorities in the inner city.

Institutional slavery of a different kind is an operating branch of Planned Parenthood. All one needs to do is examine the extremely racist views of Margaret Sanger, its infamous founder. More blacks have been killed by abortion in one year than have been killed in the past history of our country as a direct result of slavery when it was in force.

Hispanics and Mexicans have always valued family life, and it has been a hard sell to convince them to discard children as if they were useless appendages. More and more are speaking up against abortion, and are taking the lead in the pro-life movement.

Ask the Chinese who have come from that country to ours because of their yearning for freedom, if the one-child policy in China is looked upon with much favor. Our Vice President thinks it's okay, but most Americans find it repulsive. All the ugly features of abortion, nationally and internationally, are being exposed, and no amount of cover-up can smooth over its tragic reality. Even Whoopi Goldberg said that women who get abortions out of convenience are "idiots" (that is the number one reason why women do abort, Whoopi!).

(6) ABORTION ADVOCATES FIND THEMSELVES ON THE DEFENSIVE. One can always tell if a particular cause or issue is losing ground--it is when the promoters of that cause or issue are having to be on the defensive so much of the time. Even the die-hard leaders of the Pro-Choice crowd admit that abortion is not a lovely thought. When new technologies continue to open the window into the womb, then those who continue to deny the humanity of the unborn will look and sound silly and illogical.

Obamacare is vastly unpopular among the American people, and will be increasingly unpopular once it takes effect (if it does) and when the devil in the details come out more fully, especially the enormous costs. Guilt by association is the government funding of abortion hidden in the unhealthy health care bill. That will only cast a darker shadow on abortion.

When people are on the defensive of a losing proposition, they usually resort to all sorts of bizarre, hateful tactics, which will only dig the hole deeper for them. It is like when a vehicle is stuck in a snowbank or a deep mud hole. Continuing spinning of the wheels commonly result in one thing--a big problem that just got bigger. Pro-choicers are angrily spinning their wheels.

But I saved maybe the best reason for last. . .

(7) THE PRO-CHOICE PEOPLE ARE LOSING FUTURE ADHERENTS TO THEIR CAUSE BY THE VERY THING THEY PROPOSE. Who are the people, women and men, who opt for abortion as their preferred choice? It is those who are pro-abortion. They are killing off future adherents to their cause. Whether they realize it or not, they are having a negative membership drive.

And who are the ones who are pro-life? Those who have babies, and sometimes lots of them. Statistics have shown that those who have three or more children are much more likely to be pro-life in their family values. One does not have to be a math genius to figure out that the pro-life cause is gaining more members to their cause while the pro-choicers are literally aborting themselves to death.

Pro-choicers try their best to rally more people to their position, but at the same time they have to kill off potential future members to their cause. How are the pro-choicers going to get them out of this fix? There is only one way out--they are going to have to become more pro-life. I say that tongue in cheek, but life not only is precious, but life sure can have its funny twists.

Yours to the glory of the Author of life,

Chris

Censorship at Church

On Thursday, September 15, at 6:30 p.m., the History Book Club will be meeting at the Edmond library to discuss the book Calvin by Bruce Gordon. Leading the presentation and the discussion will be Dr. Michael Springer, historian. It is free and open to the public. The life of John Calvin, the theologian, will be the topic for the night.

Libraries have come in for all sorts of criticism, sometimes justifiably so, for censorship of certain books, like Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I abhor the "n" word myself, but at the same time, there are all sorts of books in the library that contain much more graphic and obscene language and art. Some libraries have placed "offensive" material in a special section, hopefully off limits to children.

I find it rather amusing and sad that government-run libraries are more open to discuss the life of John Calvin than churches today. Do we have an unspoken, unwritten censorship at church? Not just Calvin, but is there a general off-limits rule about discussing anything at church that is just too theological in nature? Are certain topics banned at church? Is it not a sad state of affairs when a Christian who is interested in growing deeper in Bible knowledge has to go to a library to learn about the life of the one of the greatest theologians who has ever lived?

Yesterday I talked to a lady who travels a lot and teaches the U.S. Constitution to young people and adults alike. She told me that the first thing she does is give a simple written test to all who attend her classes. One of the questions she asks is, "What are the first ten amendments to the Constitution called?" The overwhelming majority of attendees wherever she goes does not have a clue. She also told me that she wears a small patriotic pin on her blouse from time to time which has "1776" emblazoned across it. One young college-age student admired her pin, but asked her what the numbers represented. This lady gave her a short history lesson, and this student was hearing something for the very first time.

"My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6) I too am embarrassed about how little Americans know, even our elected officials, about the basics of our nation's heritage. I am more embarrassed about how little Christians know, even our church leaders, about the basics of Bible theology and church history. We are destroying ourselves in the process. The future can look pretty bleak when we in the present want to abandon all memories from the past.

Maybe I need to take a different approach to this story though. Since the church is hades-bent on copying the pursuits and pleasures in the world, should we then not take a cue from this library? After all, we don't want to be left behind in the dust and become irrelevant to society around us. We must find out what the world is doing, and we must do it with vigor and delight.

So, with that being so, what hip church out there is going to follow the lead of this library and have a discussion on the life of Calvin? I am waiting with bated breath to see which church will be the first up to bat.

But then again, I can think of FIVE reasons why a church will not do that. . .

Censorship is alive and well at church.

(I have not forgotten. . .part three of Pro-Choicers are Aborting Themselves to Death is still forthcoming.)

Pro-Choicers are Aborting Themselves to Death (part two)

Here are some other reasons or proofs why the pro-life position has been gaining ground in recent years:

3. THE RELUCTANCE OF THE MEDIA TO CHAMPION THE PRO-CHOICE POSITION. Everyone knows that Hollywood has sold out to liberal causes, chief among them the "right" for women to do with their reproductive bodies as they wish. Although there has been a significant movement toward wholesome family entertainment, still the predominant mindset among the Hollywood elites, be it producers or actors, is to trample upon fundamental values that most of us hold very dear.

Stupid, Crazy Lust, rated R, is just one current example. (I realize the movie title has the word "love" in it at the end, but I have taken liberties to describe the real message in the film.) Adultery and bed-hopping are the common fodder in this "romantic (eros, not agape) comedy". How any self-professing Christian can get chuckles out of this and hope his or her children don't follow the lead actors' examples is beyond me. One should strike out every reference in the Bible about immorality, fornication, and adultery, if one wants to be consistent with his or her viewing habits.

That sermonette aside, it is amazing how few times in Hollywood films or TV shows that anyone ever gets pregnant from their rampant sexual escapades. It must be magic, or more like, fantasy land. But here is an additional kicker--when someone does get pregnant, most of the time life is chosen over abortion, a fact I find very puzzling. Here is a grand opportunity for the media darlings to champion one of their favorite causes for millions to see, yet they opt for the "pro-life" position. One case in point is the movie Juno, about which I have read the following: the pregnant teenage girl approaches an abortion clinic and meets a pro-life friend who informs her that the baby has a heartbeat, can feel pain and already has fingernails, wherein Juno chooses to "appreciate her miracle."

On those very rare occasions, when abortion is chosen as the preferred alternative, it is done so in hush, hush tones, or in a very dour mood. I wonder why abortion is never celebrated with great fanfare in media presentations, if it is such a wonderful alternative. Come on, Hollywood. If abortion is often your number one cause, why not trumpet it more? Why not glamorize it as nothing more than a safe medical procedure, just like removing one's gall bladder or having a bad tooth pulled?

There is an inbuilt reason why we celebrate birthdays and not abortion days. Mainstream media doesn't have the nerve to advance their own cause when they have all the opportunity in the world to do so. Their skittish hesitancy only proves the point that the "pro-life" position has much more going for it.

4. THE GROWING NUMBER OF YOUNG PEOPLE WHO ARE IN THE PRO-LIFE CAMP. My generation of baby boomers has handed our society so many cultural ills that we may never fully recover from. We are the ones who followed the drum beat of "tuning in, turning on, and dropping out." We wanted to make love and not war. We wanted to eliminate all consequences of our moral choices, if it meant legalizing marijuana, taking off to Canada to avoid the draft, or taking the pill before or now after, or taking the fetus out of the womb. We were the anti-establishment. Whatever our parents and grandparents were for, we were against. Whatever they were against, we were for.

How the tables may have turned. There is growing evidence that more and more young people are too becoming anti-establishment, as in anti-baby boomer establishment. The boomers are now the greying generation. What goes around comes around (or becomes grey or falls out).This is not to say that the overwhelming majority of high-schoolers today are choosing abstinence over promiscuity, and that there is not much of a drug problem among teenagers today.

What is happening though is a mounting, bold resistance among the young to the immoral ways of the previous generations. They really don't like the mess we have handed to them, because they see a bleak future ahead of them, if things continue on the trajectory they are on now.

One can not simply discount or ignore the major inroads such things as "True Love Waits" has had in young people's lives. It has been noted that many of the American Idol finalists and winners are self-professing Christians who have chosen to wait until marriage for sex. At national "tea party" rallies, observers have commented how many of these anti-political establishment activists are in their teens and twenties. These are not gatherings of the AARP crowd. The sea of young faces at this year's annual "March for Life" in "Washington prompted NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan to worry: "There are so many of them, and they are so young."

Jeremiah's mom did a blessed thing by giving birth to a boy who would grow up to say, "Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you; and before you came out of the womb I set you apart, and I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations."

If a Planned Parenthood office had operated in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, I shudder to think what kind of counsel they might have given to an unmarried young couple that had just arrived from Nazareth.

(the final installment in this series will be next week. . .hopefully next week)

Pro-Choicers Are Aborting Themselves to Death

Traditional political wisdom is that the social conservatives should be silenced for fear the fiscal conservatives will lose their voice and, most importantly, lose upcoming elections. Those "pro-lifers" are going to be our downfall, so goes the conventional line. Blue blood establishment types think, I guess, we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Not only is it possible to be a social conservative and a fiscal conservative in the same breath, but the latest news is that both joined together are a winning combination.

There has been a noticeable shift in the cultural wind, which has the "pro-choice" crowd shaking in their boots. What are the reasons why things may be tipping in favor of the pro-life position?

!. YEARS OF PERSEVERANCE THROUGH SUCCESSFUL ADVERTISING AND EDUCATION. I can recall back in the 1990s how a soft, low-key pro-life advertising campaign on the major networks caught the pro-abortion advocates off guard. People's opinions about the issue began to change slowly over time; for one thing, the pro-lifers were seen as normal people who just valued life wherever it is found, inside the womb as well as outside the womb. The idea that pro-lifers were some extreme fringe element of "in your face, name calling, unloving, judgmental, abortion clinic bombers" proved to be grossly wrong in the eyes of the public. If anything, the pro-choice crowd with their marches and speeches have showed off a very hateful rhetoric.

While there has been some advertising that has been very graphic and edgy in a few instances here and there, for the most part, the pro-lifers have done a better job presenting themselves and their views. After all, when you have a good product "to sell", the product pretty much sells itself; everything from pro-life car tags to "abortion stops a beating heart" bumper stickers to tactful tee shirts has had a cumulative effect of selling the idea that life sure is a better deal than death. Exactly how can one sell the product that aborting a "live fetus" is a good and necessary thing that elevates culture and human dignity? That's a hard sell.

After all, who are the biggest promoters and active participants in adoption, for example? You certainly won't find that in the pro-choice crowd. Who are the ones who have done the most in our society to care for unwed single mothers, or pregnant teenagers, or children born out of wedlock? Facts have borne out the obvious answer--pro-lifers do so much more to back up their talk with loving, sacrificial service than what Planned Parenthood has to offer.

For abortion providers, it is "we will get you in here to take care of that unwanted pregnancy" and then you are on your own after that. What do they really do in terms of post-abortion traumatic disorders, a hidden, but known fact, that plagues the great majority of those women who have had abortions? Their counseling services, if you want to call it that, leave women struggling with a boatload of guilt. Also overlooked, or I should say buried on purpose by the pro-abortion advocates, is the growing scientific evidence that certain cancers in women are much more likely to occur in those who have gone through an abortion.

Even the pro-abortion clinics now have to admit that, from their own records, that the number one reason why women seek an abortion is because it is a convenient form of birth control. All the cries about rape, or incest, or the health of the woman, simply have registered only a very small token number of women who fall in one of those categories.

On college campuses around our country, Justice For All has been making the rounds with tremendous results. It is a visual presentation, with no protest signs or marches or speeches, about the need for justice (a good-sounding name that resonates well in a liberal college atmosphere) for everyone. If we want justice for all types of people, like those in minority status, or those with disabilities, or those with certain diseases, then to be consistent we should seek justice for those who can not speak up for themselves--those who are in the wombs, the most dangerous place to live in our nation today.

Years and years of successful advertising and education are paying off huge dividends, for the majority of Americans now, according to the a recent Rasmussen poll, say that abortion is "morally wrong most of the time."

2. THE FAILURE OF THE EVOLUTIONARY PHILOSOPHY AND ITS INSEPARABLE LINK WITH ABORTION. It goes without saying much that Darwinian macro-evolution has owned our high school biology textbooks; it has owned our college campuses; it has owned all the large media outlets; it has owned for example everything from National Geographic to Newsweek; it has owned Hollywood; it has owned practically all science museums; it has owned all science TV specials; it has owned the entrenched scientific upper establishment. One can not get away from the long reach of the evolutionary propaganda arm.

Yet with all this going for them, it puzzles and it enrages the Darwin devotees that the vast majority of Americans totally reject Darwinian macro-evolution in poll after poll year after year. Added to that is the remarkable gains the Intelligent Design movement has had in all corners of our society, and there is a growing number of evolutionists who are abandoning this cherished theory, which is closer to an hypothesis than even a theory. One can not overstate the domino effect that Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box has had in the scientific community. Antony Flew blew the minds of many, and evolutionists are now on the defensive with no solid evidence to back up their own blind-faith religion. More and more Christian scientists are "coming out of the closet" so to speak and declaring boldly their belief that Darwinian raises more questions than it ever solves, and that all the facts point to an Intelligent Uncaused Eternal Creator Being behind it all.

What does this have to do with abortion? The continued demise of the evolutionary model is partnered with the fall of the abortionary model. They are joined at the hip. Evolution is the concrete slab; if abortion is not the ground floor, it is one floor up. Darwinian evolution provides a way to get rid of God; we are answerable to no one, and therefore, we can live our lives any way we want to and do with our bodies what we deem fit. What is it we have heard all our lives from the pro-choice crowd? "It's a woman's body and she can do with it what she pleases. It's a case of women's reproductive rights!"

But if the foundation of evolution is destroyed, then what can the unrighteous do with their cause for abortion? Hitler and Stalin both loved Darwin; you see how well that worked out in promoting the sacredness of human life.

It is an irony that modern science has become a chief enemy of abortionists, which only proves what we should have known all along--that is, abortion is not about science, but about a certain philosophy of life, or anti-life. In a Washington Post editorial, Frances Kissling, former president of Catholics for Choice, advised abortion-rights advocates to shift strategies, because, "we can no longer pretend the fetus is invisible."

How many abortionists are downright fearful of the high-tech imagery we see on ultrasound machines? Just hear the public outcry in states that have proposed and passed laws that say a woman must view the pictures from an ultrasound machine before she proceeds with an abortion. It is hard to understand the justification for such a protest when I thought we were supposed to give in to all the advances of science, the great disprover of religion. Is this a case where with every good rule there must be an exception?

Thanks go to God and to the perseverance of God's people in praying and educating the public about the tragedy of abortion. Political involvement should not be ignored as well. Those who think the church should stay out of public policy debates or the political process at all, even when it comes to clear-cut issues like abortion, have a lot of explaining to do. Nehemiah did the godly thing--he prayed to the Lord, and he posted guard on the Jerusalem wall he was leading to rebuild. He rallied the people to seek the Lord's favor, and he told the people to carry a weapon at their side.

It is not a case of either/or, but both/and. We pray, and we get involved. We worship, and we vote. We read God's Word, and we read up on the latest bills before Congress. And whatever we do, we must always remember that we do it unto the Lord, for His glory. Our task is much bigger than advancing a cause or getting someone elected to office.

If the Truth is contained within the walls of a church building on Sunday morning, then all we have done is to promote a situation ethics or a relativistic philosophy not unlike the world's. The world does not need more world. Darkness needs light and not more darkness.

(to be continued next time; more reasons why the pro-choicers are losing ground, and why the pro-life position is gaining strength)

Til Debt Do Us Part: He Who Goes a-Borrowing Goes a-Sorrowing

After watching the D.C. debt debacle, I thought of a question worth asking ourselves, "Now how many times are the Founding Fathers turning over in their graves?"

Of course the answer would be, "Trillions and trillions of times."

Frugal Benjamin Franklin said, "Think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty."

Thomas Jefferson reflected, "I, however, place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared."

From the excellent book The 5000 Year Leap, I quote: "The Founding Fathers belonged to an age when debt was recognized for the ugly spectre that it really is. They considered frugality a virtue, and even when an emergency compelled them to borrow, they believed in borrowing frugally and paying back promptly."

The recent debt deal was no big deal. Our supposed savings over ten years, as if it really is going to happen in the first place, will be wiped out in two days of debt spending. It makes one wonder if the inmates are running the asylum.

Political pressure to fall in line is what many freshmen Congressmen learned the hard way. But that being said, there might be a silver lining behind it all. There has been a recognizable paradigm shift in our nation's capitol. Over one hundred times in the past has the debt ceiling been raised without a whimper coming from the city on the Potomac. But this time we heard an economic revolutionary shot that was heard around the world. The political establishment does not like it one bit, because they see an erosion of their power.

That is what everything is all boils down to anyway--we need to keep huge voting blocs of government dependents happy, so they can return the favor on election day. They are not called "entitlements" for nothing. Harry Hopkins, advisor to President FDR, put it this way: "Tax, tax--spend, spend--elect, elect."

And to make the silver lining more silvery, I heard that the debt deal has put the funding of Obamacare in real jeopardy. I would not mind if it were in double jeopardy, and then final jeopardy. So, in the spirit of Joseph, "what they meant for evil, may just turn out for good."

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have."

That last quote by Thomas Jefferson sums it all up well. One reason why I love to quote T.J. is because he is supposed to be the darling of the liberals; he who is the supposed "non-Christian deist among a group of Bible thumpers" is the most admired among the Founding Fathers by those who cherish Big Government. Most liberals only think of one thing Jefferson ever said, and that is his statement regarding a wall of separation between church and state. (Which by the way was a line in a letter he wrote to some Baptists, whom he reassured that there would be no State Church like there was in Europe; hence, there would be a wall of separation between church and state.)

The book of Proverbs says that the borrower is servant to the lender. We got rid of one kind of slavery in this country; hopefully we can get rid of another kind of slavery, an economic one, this time without 600,000 casualties on battlefields, though.

Romans 13:8 says we are not to owe man anything (not to keep any debt outstanding), but to love one another, for that is the fulfillment of the law. The most loving thing to do is not for you to go deeper in debt at home by providing your family with all sorts of goodies you can't afford; there is not much love in a home where there is so much constant fighting done over money matters, particularly over unpaid bills. Proverbs also talks about the superiority of eating just veggies where love is than having the best cut of beef where there is strife.

On a national scale, the same principle applies. The Big Government crowd think they are doing the most charitable thing by giving hand-outs through a variety of entitlement programs (we have more people on food stamps now than at any time in our nation's history!). In actuality, the reverse is true. Our country is so divided right now and so deep in debt and so embroiled in tension and strife and in such an economic tailspin. How exactly is that a picture of love?

Our family has been blessed from the Lord by being out of debt, There have been times in the past when we had to pay out medical bills over an extended period of time, without any interest involved, but we have learned the joy of being free from financial bondage. Those married couples who worked long and hard to get out of debt know what I am talking about.

Paul in Philippians 4 talks much about contentment, and how we must LEARN to be content. It is a valuable lesson we need to learn as individuals and as a nation. We have two competing principles: Either God is able to supply all your need according to His riches in Christ Jesus, or Government is able to supply all your want according to its continued borrowing and printing of money in D.C.

"My God is bigger than your government."

(Thomas Jefferson didn't say that one, but he could have.)

Now that TRON has won over one, will HARRY POTTER be coming to a church near you?

One of the most frequent criticisms of the church has been that it has demonstrated itself to be so much behind the times. The church needs to get over it, get with it, get on with it.

A sure example of the modern church being so stuck in the past is when a church decorates its lobby with light cycles featured in the movie TRON: LEGACY. If a church wants to have an "At the Movies" sermon series, then can't it please get something much more current? Do you realize that the movie TRON: LEGACY was released at the end of 2010? We are talking over six months ago! How behind the times can we be when we have a movie that has been released on DVD for over three months now? Not even Redbox has it on its current releases list.

It is really embarrassing how much the church is lagging behind again, especially when the world has moved on to other things. How many movie releases have there been since the end of 2010, and all we can come up with is a fantasy world thriller that is so 2010ish?

The ideal solution is this--have a church advertise all over the place that Harry Potter is coming to their church. Talk about being current, talk about being on the cutting edge, and talk about mega box office hit with the finale, DEATHLY HALLOWS 2, and talk about bringing in the teens and the twenties to church. Picture this for example: young people lining up outside a church building in the late hours of a Saturday night waiting for the church doors to open on Sunday morning. The TV cameras would catch the spectacular. Most of these young people would be dressed in the familiar Harry Potter garb, complete with Potter's glasses and wizardry attire.

The church could have giveaways which would entice an even bigger crowd to show up--like a complete DVD series of all the Harry Potter movies, once the finale makes it to DVD. Once inside the church, the young people would be met with people from the church dressed just like themselves and the town of Hogwarts would be recreated in the lobby and on the auditorium stage. Background music from the movie would be playing all the time leading up to the start of the worship service (excuse me, here I am showing myself stuck in the past!), I mean, entertainment hour, experience hour, reconnection hour, or whatever we want to call it.

The preacher, excuse me again, the speaker could come out on stage dressed like Potter himself or maybe Lord Voldemort. We must identify with the world if we are going to reach them. The ideas behind all this are LIMITLESS and quite magical.

For a Scripture-based sermon, there are much more possibilities with a Harry Potter than a TRON. I looked in my big Young's Bible Concordance, and I didn't see one verse anywhere with TRON in it. But the word "potter" is a different story. In Jeremiah 18, God told the prophet to go to the potter's house. There you have the obvious connection. What more does a speaker need?

But then again, maybe that will not work. After all, Jeremiah is a book in the OLD Testament, and OLD does not compute with what is new, current, up-to-date, trendy. So maybe we better scratch the idea from Jeremiah 18. Of course, we can hide the fact from where we are reading, and most people would not know the difference, but it is still too risky. We need to be new and fresh and safe.

So I kept looking, and behold in Romans 9, this is the NEW Testament, it talks about God being like a potter who has absolute power over everyone of us, represented by clay, and it is His prerogative to make some of us vessels of wrath for destruction and some of us vessels of mercy. That He shows mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He has compassion on whom He desires to have compassion. And none of us can talk back to God about this, because it is His sovereign right to do all the above, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, and. . .

On second thought, we might need to scratch the Romans 9 word connection with young Potter. It might be new, but it definitely is not safe these days.

So, back to the drawing board, and I stumbled upon a verse in Isaiah 29:16. (I know it is the OLD Testament, but we will just not mention the scriptural reference. The Potter fans would not be carrying their Bibles to church anyway.) There we read people who were getting things backward. They were saying that they were the potter and God was the clay.

Now that will go over big time! We control God, God answers to us, we do something, and God must respond, that He is a responder and not an initiator, we push the right buttons and God does His thing, we hold the keys to determine our fate, etc. So we have found our angle from Scripture. Plus, it has the added advantage of fitting right into the world of Harry Potter.

What church out there will be the trendsetter and get us out of the six-month, behind-the-times, rut we are in? Who out there will be the first one to invite Harry Potter to their church?

(After we are through with Harry, the next coming attraction could be HORRIBLE BOSSES. I know it is very racy and rough in parts, but once you cross one line, it is so much easier to cross the next line. And besides, do you know how many people out there work for horrible bosses? Disgruntled employees would be flooding through the church doors.)

One final word. . .I read this summary movie review of TRON: LEGACY. "The result is a cheerful, colorful and solidly PG popcorn piece that won't leave you deep in thought."

Maybe I was too harsh on the use of TRON at first. I get it now. The connection is so obvious, how could I have missed it? It makes perfect sense now. I have seen the light, just like the light in that church's newly decorated lobby.

After all, we certainly don't want the Sunday crowd at church ever to be deep in thought about anything. O foolish me, what was I thinking?

Sarcastically yours,

Chris

A Fomenting Family Fetish

The human heart is a nonstop idol factory, and often times the hardest idols to detect are those things which are good that compete with that which are best or most necessary.

The fifth commandment has to do with the family; the first four though has to do with God and the exclusive worship, honor and obedience which He deserves. Really the fifth commandment is directed not just toward fourth-graders in the honor they should give to their parents, but it is geared toward 40 year-olds in the honor they should give their aging parents. Adults comprised the original audience of Moses' congregation at the base of Mt. Sinai.

Today I fear that in an over-reactionary way, to correct society's views toward the traditional family, that there is a large segment of the Christian community who are unknowingly elevating the family to a place that belongs only to God. I see this danger especially in the patriarchal and family-integrated church movement, a prominent fad that will fade away over time just like Gothard's Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts and Promise Keepers.

There are many points of appreciation (and I want to give credit where credit is due, and that is from a positional paper from a Grace Bible Church, somewhere in the USA) which I have toward those individuals and organizations who have sounded the alarm bell about the devaluation of the family. For one thing, they address the many problems in the modern day church related to youth, where often times children and youth are segregated at every turn from adults, and are babysat and entertained. The traditional youth ministry has proven to be a disaster in so many ways.

Also, they boldly call parents, especially fathers, to take up the call to lead, shepherd, disciple and train their own children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. How many dads, even Christian dads, have gone AWOL from their responsibilities at home? When parents turn over their responsibilities to day care or schools or churches or other organizations to train their children primarily, then repentance is in order.

Our society looks upon children as a curse or a nuisance, inside the womb and outside the womb. Those who champion the family have rightly said that the Scriptures teach that children are a blessing.

So I stand shoulder to shoulder with those who have spoken up rightly so about all the above matters. We are losing our church youth today even after spending so much time and church budget in youth activities, and the numerous Christian spokesmen on this issue have put their finger on what is the problem and what are some practical solutions.

In some quarters, though, I am hearing and seeing hard-fast rules to counteract all the above that do not have the support of Scripture behind them. We are being told that only parents should be teaching their children, that age-segregated instruction such as Sunday School, VBS, church camps, AWANA programs, or whatever is "of the devil" or "from the pit of hell" (the exact words from some within the patriarchal and family-integrated church movement), wives should only be taught by their husbands and not from a ladies' Bible study group, that the family must do practically everything together in a church setting, that the father/husband has almost supreme authority in all matters of instruction.

Yes, the parent(s) should be the primary teacher or instructor of children, but nowhere in Scripture does it say that parents should be the SOLE teacher of their children. Deuteronomy 6:3-9 is a favorite among the patriarchal movement, but nowhere in that passage does it say that ONLY parents should be teaching their children. Priests were given by the Lord to instruct people in the law. Prophets were called out by God to admonish the people to follow the Lord and His covenant. Synagogues were developed during the Exile, and rabbis came on the scene to teach the people God's laws. Paul was trained by rabbi Gamaliel. Even boy Jesus was bar-Mitzvah-ed; he was conversing with the religious authorities in the Temple at the age of twelve.

There can be a benefit to children hearing "other voices" in support of their parents' instruction. What if the parents' instruction is off the mark scripturally? Would it not be a blessing if that child hears godly, doctrinally solid instruction from some other source over time? Sunday School or other times of instruction do not have to be a substitute or in competition with the parents' instruction at home, but it can be a nice supplement on a level where the children can learn with their peers. After all, we are talking about only an hour each week. If a parent is really concerned about the detrimental effect an hour's instruction will have on their children on a Sunday morning at a church they like and leaders they trust, then what does that say about the value and worth of their own instruction at home during the week? If one hour can possibly "undo" all they do during the week, then I guess what they are doing during the week must not be that hot.

There can be a sense of hypocrisy within the family-integrated church movement. Are not their children learning from a pastor/elder who is teaching and preaching each week? Unless that pastor is his or her own parent, then that child's instruction is coming from someone other than his or her own dad. Within the home school community, where this family-integrated church movement has really taken off, how many of those home school kids are instructed ONLY by their parents? Dance lessons? Piano lessons? Sports teams? Home school co-ops?

I am a family guy, but I want to be known more as the Lord's guy. It has been rightly said that God made Adam before he made Eve. He could have made Eve before Adam; He could have made Adam and Eve at the exact same time. He also could have made the entire family at the same exact time--Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel. But He did not do any of those things. He made an individual first. Marriage and family are high up on God's list, but it is the individual that must give an account of himself before God. It is the individual who has sinned and come short of the glory of God. It is the individual sinner that is need of salvation. Ezekiel 18 plainly says that the son will not bear the sins of the father and the father will not bear the sins of the son. It is the individual soul that sins that shall die.

The church is not made up of a "family of families", as one family-integrated prominent advocate has stated. Nowhere do we find that definition of the church in the New Testament. I know of some churches who have "Family" in their name to advertise they are a family-integrated church. I guess that would leave a single man like the apostle Paul feel unwelcomed. In a family-integrated church, are singles made to feel like second-class citizens? Are widows disenfranchised? What do you do with a woman is a new Christian and whose husband is an unbeliever? Send her somewhere else? What do you do if you have an unbelieving family with unruly children? It seems that our Lord Jesus had an easier time interacting with people like that than those refined, cultured religious folks in His day. The woman at the well in Samaria certainly might stick out like a sore thumb, maybe an unwanted sore thumb, at a family-integrated church.

Yes, families are important to God. Marriage and family are God's ideas after all. But a good family life is not a guarantee of anything, nor is a bad family life a guarantee of anything, unless we believe in Christian determinism, an oxymoron if there ever was one. Josiah had a rotten father and grandfather, but he was a righteous person and a great King. Yet, in spite of being raised in a good home environment, Josiah's three sons were evil in the Lord's sight. We should do everything we can in a Christian home to provide the best type of learning environment for our children, but in the final analysis, that child will have to answer for himself before his Creator. (Ecclesiastes 12:1)

When a church defines itself in any other way than CHRIST, it limits its ministry to a people who are just like them. Maybe that church should put CLIQUE after its name. Legalism takes many forms, and there is a tendency in this patriarchal movement toward outward conformity to certain unspoken and spoken expectations, so much so that these families actually look alike. Contrary to what some might think, there is not an eleventh commandment that says, "thou shalt not send thou children to public schools", there is not a twelfth commandment that says, "thou shalt not send thou children to any church age-segregated events", and there is not a thirteenth commandment that says, "thou shalt not dress thou girls in anything but long denim skirts or dresses".

One fault behind the Promise Keepers movement was that it tended to berate dads into believing their wives are nearly always right, and we should bow to their wishes. Wives are sinners and can be wrong at times. The patriarchal movement tends on the other hand to elevate man to a status where he has no accountability. What if that man is abusive with his authority at home? Does the family have a right to seek corrective church discipline, or must they take it on the chin, because the father is untouchable and all-powerful?

I sincerely applaud all that those in this movement have done to highlight some needed changes that need to be made in our homes and churches. We must be careful, though, that we don't impose our individual or family preferences as a law over others. We have a great amount of Christian liberty (Romans 14) in areas where there may be a diverse set of convictions.

A good course for a church to follow is this--allow families to make up their own minds if they want to send their children to age-segregated activities at church or not. Provide options for all. The church surely is not a showcase for self-defined saints; rather, it is a hospital for self-denying sinners. The church is not a place for law to abound; it is a place where grace should abound. The church of Jesus Christ is made of up of redeemed individuals. That is the family of God that will live on throughout eternity.

Praising God for His being such a wonderful Father, I am yours in Christ,

Chris

Some Surprising Observations from Attending a "Moderate" Southern Baptist Church

I hardly ever get to attend a church as a visitor. But over Memorial Day weekend, I did just that in Ft. Worth, Texas. While my wife and two of my daughters were two hours west of Ft. Worth, I was alone, and I needed to decide which church to attend. I chose a Southern Baptist church close to where I was staying, and a church I was somewhat familiar with in my seminary days back in the late 1970s.

As I entered the worship center, I flipped through the church program that was handed to me, and I noticed immediately that the church had a different name than what it had back in my seminary days. I had no problem with that, but as I read through the program before worship began, I did see something much bigger than a name change that raised all sorts of red flags. I discovered that I was sitting in a "moderate/liberal" Southern Baptist church. (In case someone thinks I might be jumping to conclusions with my labeling of this church, the pastor in his sermon even brought out that their church was a moderate Southern Baptist church.) Texas has two state Southern Baptist conventions, due to a split several years back between the conservatives and the moderates.

I did give it some thought about quietly making my move out of the church building and finding another place to worship. But I stayed put, because I thought this might be a good learning experience. I am glad I stayed put.

What I witnessed was something that blew my religious socks off. We sang some hymns, some of which were totally new to me, but every one was very deep theologically and biblically. We did a responsive reading from two Psalms, after which the choir sang a beautiful song from one of the Psalms in response.

Later the deacon of the week got behind a microphone on the floor and read to us Romans 13:1-7. The pastor then preached out of Matthew 22:15-22, the last in his sermon series on historic Baptist principles. (Of course, his take on all that constitutes historic Baptist principles would be somewhat different than mine.) While the sermon was entitled "The VBS Flag Incident", it was basically a sermon on Baptists and Religious Liberty.

While I disagreed on some points he made in his sermon, at least he preached verse-by-verse, and as I looked around the congregation, everyone had his or her own Bible opened and was following along as the pastor preached. It was not a three-point, twenty-minute sermonette with jokes interspersed, worn-out illustrations, or a poem at the end. It was a very well developed biblical exposition of the text.

Contrast to what I witnessed that Sunday to what I have seen at some contemporary "conservative" evangelical/Southern Baptist worship services, and the differences are startling. In the modern conservative stream, I have seen many people not even carry a Bible to church. To reduce the number even further, I have seen many of those who have a Bible never make an attempt to open it during the sermon.

One of the saddest commentaries on the state of the church today is the number of people who do not carry God's Word with them to church and/or those who never open their Bibles at all while they are at church. Why go to all the trouble when it is shown on an overhead screen? But the saddest commentary is not all of that. . .there is one that is sadder and more tragic, and that is not giving the people a reason to bring and use their Bibles in the first place.

When sermons are fluffy topical motivational speeches with very little exposition of Scripture, then why bring a Bible, when the man behind the pulpit, or on a bar stool, or on a sofa hardly uses the Bible himself? When we do not give an ample reason for people to bring and use their Bibles at church, then that has to be the sadder commentary on the state of the modern church.

So what I learned on Memorial Day weekend this year is that I attended a non-conservative church in order to hear more Bible than I possibly would have had I attended a flashy, trendy, "conservative" church.

Beam me up, Scotty.

Is Barack Obama the Antichrist? (or if he is not, does he come in as a close runner-up?)

I turned 18 in September 1972, just two months before the first presidential election in which 18 year-olds were allowed to vote. In the early spring of my eleventh grade, months prior to my birthday, my economics teacher talked me into attending the local Democrat precinct meeting at someone's house. That is the last thing I wanted to do and the last place I wanted to be on a school night. But to please my teacher, and to earn some possible brownie points in class, I reluctantly went. That was my first taste of local politics, a far cry from my taste for sports.

The biggest surprise came when they began to nominate delegates from the precinct to attend the Eastern Oklahoma County Democrat district meeting (or whatever it was called). My teacher nominated me to be a delegate. I sat there in shocked silence. What did I do to her to get this type of treatment? If this school night in a stranger's house with a bunch of adults was a barrel of fun, I just couldn't imagine what excitement would be brewing in a Friday evening and all-day Saturday event at a high school auditorium! My brownie points better be piling up in a big way.

After attending that two-day mini-political convention, I decided quickly that it was going to be my alpha and omega as a political delegate.

That election year would eventually have George McGovern as the Democrat nominee, President Richard Nixon as the Republican nominee, and George Wallace as the Independent candidate. I stood in a long line to vote for the first time in November that year. It was a privilege I took seriously.

Many that year thought McGovern was probably the Antichrist or close to it. After Watergate became full-blown, there may have been many who once thought McGovern was the Antichrist changed their minds to Nixon's being the most likely candidate for the biblical position.

While in college, several of us drove over to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to hear some Georgia peanut farmer speak. I shook hands with the former Georgia governor who would eventually become the next President of the United States.

I held out great hopes for the unashamedly "born-again Christian" who now occupied the White House, but my hopes faded over time. I still remember such things as those long gas lines and our hostages in Iran. Jimmy Carter was a good, decent man, I thought back then, but I became to believe he was just too incompetent for the job. He may have meant well in all that he did, but he was just in over his head. I have done household plumbing before, and I know what it is like to be in over my head, figuratively and almost literally.

David was a righteous man, but he was also very skilled in what he did. (Psalm 78:72) Character and competency together residing in a leader is a powerful force for good in any society.

Presidents have come and gone, and our own evaluations and opinions may vary on how each one did. The awful truth is that we probably have had more mediocre or bad Presidents than we have had great ones. This only shows the genius of our founding fathers, who did not want a monarchical executive. Our country, so blessed by God in the wisdom imparted to our nation's founders, is very resilient because not all power rests in one man.

Two of our most unheralded past Presidents whom I would put in the "great" category are Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, and Calvin (good first name!) Coolidge, a Republican. When Cal Coolidge left the presidency in March 1929, he said, "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business." If government would mind its own business, and quit trying to mind everyone else's, it certainly would be a marked improvement, in my books.

Certain past Presidents have gained the inevitable distinction of being nominated as the Antichrist. That would be a special category of a "bad" President.

Without giving away everything in a future article, I can with 100% certainty say that Barack Obama is NOT the Antichrist. Some would be quick to add, though, that he deserves to come in as a close second.

I realize the Bible says that we are to pray for all those in authority, and if first century Christians can pray for Nero, then we can pray for President Obama. I also realize that God raises up leaders as He sees fit, as He did toward Pharaoh and Cyrus, and as Nebuchadnezzar learned the hard way after seven years of insanity. I also know that the Bible teaches that the king's heart is in the hands of the King, and He can turn it whatever direction He chooses.

The other thing we learn in Scriptures from the history of Israel and Judah is that God often gives the leaders they deserve. The more appropriate question to ask then is not if Barack Obama is the dreaded contrived "Antichrist" or not, but is Barack Obama God's judgment upon our country? Are we getting what we deserve?

That may sound like a harsh statement, and I do not delve into politics in these articles and I certainly refrain from doing so when I teach God's Word on Sundays, but it is hard to ignore the obvious these days. Charles Spurgeon in his sermons frequently referred to relevant current events in his day.

I have read much on Barack Obama's upbringing (no, I am not talking about his birth certificate!), and that alone scared me. While I disagree with about everyone of Obama's liberal policies, and while I think he has proven to be much more incompetent or inexperienced than any previous President in my lifetime, those two factors alone by themselves do not raise my concerns to the level that it exists today.

While I have disagreed with all past Presidents over certain issues, I figured that for the most part they thought that what they were doing was what was best for their country. Some may have come from different worldviews or held different presuppositions than I did, but still I tried to give the benefit of the doubt to all of them in that they were doing what they thought would help our nation improve or get better.

But. . .

I do not know if I have that same sentiment toward the current occupant of the White House. This is the first time I have ever felt this way toward the President of the United States, and it is not a feeling I relish or enjoy having. It is hard for me to imagine that we would ever have a President that would purposefully do things to harm our country. What we are witnessing today has to be more than just incompetence at work. It has to be something else. No one can just be this arrogantly wrong or misinformed.

I hope I am proven wrong, but if it is true that the current policies of this administration are aimed at bringing our country down at home and abroad, then we are on uncharted waters as a nation. Incompetence is one thing, but intentional design is something far worse.

Like every parent, I want my children to have things better than I did. I want to leave them a country flourishing in liberty. I want them to grow up with opportunities to use their God-given abilities in a free society. I want them to be grateful they are Americans. I want them to bask in the rich heritage of our country.

My concern is that we have a President who does not share in these same desires and goals, and who is determined to undo everything our country has stood for. Whatever his motivations, my prayer for this President is that he will be a one-term President. 2012 can't come soon enough for me. After all, that passage in 1 Timothy 2 says we are to pray for those in authority so that we can lead a quiet and peaceable life.

Calvin Coolidge hit the nail on the head.

After saying all that, though, I must repeat what I read this week as I was studying for my sermon series through Ezekiel: "If there is any lesson to be learned from this sorry history (of Israel) it is this: Trust God, not national power. American Christians are too often overly concerned with saving America. Perhaps God does not intend to save America. But God will save His people. He always has, and He always will."

That is a bigger nail.

Yours in Christ,

Chris

WARNING: In Case of Rapture, This Blog Spot will be Unmanned

I write these articles on the fly most of the time, but this time it is really, really on the fly. . .as in I will be flying away in several hours. At least that is what Harold Camping has informed us. The world is coming to an end on May 21, and I don't have that much time left before I must don my rapture robe woven out of silk from Jerusalem.

I overheard some comments today while I was out there working in the secular world (now why was I working in the first place, when I should be eating and drinking because the day after tomorrow I will fly?). These employees were joking about the atheists who have formed a business to take care of the pets of all departed Christians come May 21. That is the American entrepreneur spirit at work--making money at the expense of end time silliness. Many Christians have been doing that for years (just walk through your local Christian bookstore), so why can't atheists join in the parade and reap the same financial bonanza?

My first car was a 1963 two-door white Chevy Impala. I had on it a bumper sticker that read, Warning: In Case of Rapture, This Car will be Unmanned. It was the "in" bumper sticker among Christians at that time in the late 60s and early 70s. I soon discovered that "rapture" was secret (no pun intended) code language known only to the inner circle of dispensationalist Christians. The world by and large had no idea what that bumper sticker was saying. But it made us all Christians feel good, I guess. Or maybe just plain superior to all those worldly folks.

Of course, rapture is not found in any biblical concordance. That in of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, because the word Trinity is not found in the Bible either. The word "rapture" comes from the Latin word "rapio", and it means to be caught up. It is not the word that bothers me so much, but how the word has been co-opted by a cult-like following among a huge portion of evangelical Christianity, which has done nothing but make Christians look and sound stupid in the eyes of the world.

For the first eighteen centuries of Christianity, the idea that Christians would be secretly raptured out of this world to be followed by a seven-year tribulation time and then the Second (or would it be Third?) Coming of Christ was totally foreign to the thinking of all Christians. The trio of Edward Irving, J.N. Darby and Margaret McDonald in their English cult group changed all that. Pretty soon, Darby exported this sensationalism to America, and a divorced lawyer who had spent time in jail, a C.I. Scofield, picked up on this novel theory, and as Paul Harvey was fond of saying, now you know the rest of the story.

Harold Camping may be an extreme example, but he is an eschatological blood brother, whether certain people want to admit it or not, to all the other end time prophecy "experts" who have drunk liberally from the well of dispensationalism. Harold is bold enough to pick a date; others only flirt with dates. (Of course, if Harold lived back in the Old Testament times, when the penalty for being a false prophet was death by stoning, Harold would have been a goner a long time ago.)

What is the difference really between Harold and all those preachers who were so eager to preach after the devastating earthquake in Japan that we were witnessing a sure sign that we are living in the last days, or how the turmoil in Egypt was a sure sign that the rapture is very, very near?

While growing up as a young person, I heard this remark made many times over: "There have been more earthquakes in the 20th century than all the earthquakes in the previous centuries combined. This just proves we are living in the last days just like Jesus said in Matthew 24:7." Well, guess what? No one ever called anybody on the carpet about that statistic; we just took it at face value (and we love to say we are Berean Christians like in Acts 17:11?), because it sounded so good coming from the pulpit or when we read it in print.

The truth is in earlier centuries they did not have the modern know-how in seismology to measure earthquakes. The statement was and is blatantly false, but don't let that minor detail stop many preachers and authors from using it over and over again still today. The apparent rise in earthquakes over the last several decades is due to nothing more than the use of technological advanced seismographs. How many were killed in the Japan earthquake? Compare that to the one in China in 1850, where an estimated 400,000 died, or how about the one in Calcutta in 1737 where 300,000 died, or how about Egypt in 1138 where 230,000 died, or to top them all, again in China in 1556 where there were over 800,000 casaulties?

So Harold is camping on the fact that May 21 is when it will all end. I can only hope and pray that all this inexlpicable fascination with a cultish modern invader called dispensationalism will come to an end someday.

I told my wife I was going to take her to Hawaii on our 33rd wedding anniversary come May 27. You could not imagine how happy I made her feel. But alas, I also told her I found out that the world will come to an end six days before then, so I had to scrap all my original plans.

Another fallout of dispensationalism--it does not promote harmony in the home. Thanks, Harold.

Looking for the blessed hope,

Chris

What is a Mommy After All?

I searched and searched for just the right poem to read on Mother's Day;
But all seemed so impersonal and just did not express what I wanted to say.
I'm not that great a poet; rhyme is not my thing,
And to put it to music--everyone knows I can't sing.
So I've come up with my own prose, be it ever so small
To answer the fundamental question, "What is a Mommy after all?"

A Mommy from my perspective is a 1001 different things--
Or is it rather a Mommy must do each day 1001 different things?
Underneath her blouse is hidden a big letter "S"--
Now does that stand for Super Mom, Super Caring, or Super Tired
(or maybe all the above)?

A Mommy can leap over a pile of toys with a single bound,
Wipe a runny nose faster than a speedy toddler,
And with nerves of steel go toe-to-toe with anyone who messes with her kids.

A Mommy cooks, sews, irons, washes dishes, mops floors, changes diapers,
Dresses the kids, takes them to the doctor, shops until she drops,
Watches Barney for the umpteenth time, kisses and mends boo-boos,
Cleans house, picks up clothes, does the laundry, dusts and vacuums,
And then by lunch time she's ready to go at it again.

A Mommy does that and more,
And yet she finds time for Daddy.

A Mommy is a lighter sleeper than a Daddy;
That's why she always gets up at 2:00 a.m. with a sick child,
While Daddy is still fast asleep, or pretending to be.

A Mommy is smarter than a Daddy;
That's why a Daddy always tells his child to go ask Mommy.

A Mommy does not get paid by the hour;
She gets paid by looking with satisfaction
Into the eyes of a family God has given her.
A Mommy reads to her children from the most precious Book of all,
And tells her children about the most precious Person of all.

A Mommy watches her child take her first step,
And before she can turn around, she is watching that child
Take her first step down a wedding aisle--
A Mommy knows how to cry alot.

What would this world be like if God did not give us Mommies?
Children grow up, leave home, start their own families,
Come back to visit for a while, and always ask for advice.
Yes, children grow up, but Mommies never really do,
Because Mommies are always Mommies.

So I close this little prose with one more bit of rhyme.
To tell you all that a Mommy is I simply don't have the time.
And that's something else special about a Mommy--
She always seems to have the time or take the time.
How she does it, I will never know!

But to see those little ones grow up full of the love of God,
Well, that's worth all the having to get up and go.
So Mommy, I salute you--you really are one of a kind.
Don't worry about falling behind on your housework,
Because your homework is walking behind.




Many thanks go again to Jan Blair of Jones, OK, who did the above in calligraphy and nicely framed it for us over 16 years ago.

Rot in Hell: How a Secular Newspaper Can Teach a Christian Pastor

One thing is certain: Osama bin Laden is NOT the Antichrist.

This article was not exactly what I had in mind for part two of Is the Islamic Antichrist Among Us?, but it is funny how the news events of the day can change one's course.

My sister called me this past Sunday evening to ask me if I were watching TV. She does a good job of alerting me to things I should be aware of, like an approaching tornado, because most of the time we don't have the TV turned on. This time, though, it was not a weather report she was making me aware of; instead, it was the earth-shattering announcement that our military, particularly the cream of the cream of the crop, the Navy Seals, had taken out Osama within a 40-minute time period within his compound in Pakistan.

It was either Good Morning, America or the Today Show the next morning that held up the New York newspaper headlines announcing the death of this terrorist mastermind. One of the New York City newspapers had this for their big caption on the front page--ROT IN HELL. Beside that was the picture of Osama bin Laden.

How strikingly odd that a secular newspaper in New York City would admit in this "eliminate-all-hell-talk" postmodern religious environment that hell must be a real place after all. True, it is only a place for the really, really, really bad folks, like Osama, or other mass murderers, or serial rapists, or child abusers, or former spouses, but nonetheless, the world still has a place for hell, besides just in our cursing. We can't shake off hell, as much as we are told that we must, in this new age of coexistence, full tolerance and positive feel-happy spirituality where all roads lead to heaven. . .except that one road we must keep in tact that leads to hell.

What is the explanation for all this dichotomy of how we should not believe in hell, yet how we should believe in hell? The Preacher in Ecclesiastes says that God has set eternity in the heart of man. Man has been designed by its Creator to think of eternity, that this life is not all there is. The new atheists or the run-of-the-mill advanced secularists can try all they want to rub this "archaic" thought out of our craniums, but it simply will not go away. We have a list of people that we want to see rot in hell. It is more than just a death wish, and it is more than just a hell wish too.

This is because we know that justice is never fully served in this life. It is not right that Osama had a quick death for one time, when how many people did he kill, many of them very painful slow deaths, on 9/11? Even if we could kill Osama many times over, we still would think he did not fully get what was coming to him.

We demand that there be a fuller justice out there beyond this life, something that is more exacting and more definite by a Judge that is completely able and willing to do the right thing in every case. Justice delayed is justice denied, which is often the case in this life; but that sticky unresolved issue could be more than overcome if justice determined is justice divined in the next life.

Of course, a normal man's thinking has all those people "worse" than himself getting their just desserts before God one day; he never stops to consider that Gehenna will be populated by people that were not as "good" as God. That should strike another kind of terror in the mind of every man. How can anyone be as good as God, and how can I then be removed as a prime candidate for residency in hell myself?

Justification is the heaven-sent solution whereby man can avoid being sent to hell. Since all our righteousness is like filthy rags (menstrual cloths, literally), we need the perfect Righteousness of Another to be transferred to our account. Jesus, the God-man, through His death on the cross, has made it a reality that a believing, repenting man can have all his sins removed and God's righteousness be put in its place. What better deal could man hope for--this is real hope and change--God gets all our sin, and we get all His righteousness. Man comes out on the better end of that arrangement.

This is where the New York City newspaper falls short. All will "rot in hell", apart from God's saving grace.

But at least the secular media recognizes there is a hell of some sort. Maybe they can teach a few things to people like Rob Bell, a Christian pastor and author of Love Wins, who denies the reality of hell.

What a strange world we live in, where we are asking the world to teach a Christian pastor some sound theology. How foolish could we be for expecting it to be the other way around!

Living with eternity in mind,

Chris

Is the Islamic Antichrist Among Us? (part one)

In February 1989, the Ayotallah Khomeini delivered his infamous fatwa (the formal opinion of a Muslim canon lawyer) against Salman Rushdie, the author of Satanic Verses.

As a quick historical review, during the prophet Muhammad's days in Mecca, before he was run out of town and took his flight to Medina, Muhammad was sitting with some eminent men of Mecca next to the Kaaba, the cube like building in the middle of the center of the mosque at Mecca. There he began to recite sura 53, which describes Gabriel's first visit to Muhammad and then goes on to the second visit:

He also saw him (Gabriel) another time

By the Lote tree at the furthest boundary

Near to which is the Paradise of rest,

When the Lote tree covered that which is covered,

His sight turned not aside, neither did it wander

And verily he beheld some of the greatest Signs of his Lord

What do you think of Lat and Uzza

And Manat the third beside?

At this point we are told that Satan himself put into Muhammad's mouth words of reconciliation and compromise:

These are exalted Females

Whose intercession verily is to be sought after.

The Meccans were overjoyed at this recognition of their deities and are said to have prayed with the Muslims, the early followers of Muhammad. But supposedly, Gabriel paid another visit to the Prophet, scolded Muhammad, and told him that the true ending to the verse should have been:

What! shall there be male progeny unto you, and female unto Him?

That were indeed an unjust partition!

They are naught but names, which ye and your fathers have invented.

Muslims have always been uncomfortable with this story, unwilling to believe that the "monotheistic" Prophet could have made such a concession to idolatry. Actually, this was not a slip of the tongue by Muhammad. This was a calculated attempt to win the support of the pagan Meccans to Muhammad's eclectic religion. When the Meccans failed to follow in line, Muhammad reversed course, and blamed Satan for inspiring him to say the original lines.

If Satan truly had been these words in Muhammad's mouth, how can anyone put faith in a man so easily led astray? How could God allow that to happen? How do we know if there not other passages in the Koran where Muhammad had not been led astray?

For Salman Rushdie to pursue this line of thought and state the obvious from Muhammad's inglorious past, he was deemed as good as dead. Mr. Rushdie became a fugitive on the run from the long reach of the Muslim law.

At the same time, a glaring inconsistency existed, even to this day. Christian end-time soothsayers in our country have recently nominated Libyan President, Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, as a possible candidate for the post of Antichrist. Other candidates have come and gone through the years, but the nominations will keep pouring in until somebody will finally get it right, supposedly.

But the surprising thing about al-Qaddafi is that he is anything but a faithful Muslim. His public statements on the Prophet, the Koran and Islam in general amount to a blasphemy far greater than anything written by Salman Rushdie. He changed the Islamic calendar, mocked Meccan pilgrims as "guileless and foolish", criticized the prophet Muhammad, and claimed that his own achievements in Libya were far greater than those of the Prophet. He has shown extreme skepticism about the truth of the Koran and even about the details of the life of the Prophet. Though religious leaders found al-Qaddafi anti-Islamic and deviant, and condemned his "perjury and lies," there were no calls for his death, nor were any of his writings banned.

Today there is an uprising in Libya, as there is in other parts of the Middle East. The protesters in Libya have discovered, though, that it is a much harder job to dislodge their leader than in the case of Egypt's Mubarek, another previous candidate for the post of Antichrist. This has led many to assume that the protesters are a more radical group of Muslims who finally want to instill an Iranian-type Islamic state. NATO has gotten involved, along with American air forces, and the time may come when ground forces will be sent in to remove the Libyan leader from power. The question remains, though, why has it taken so long for Muslim leaders to take al-Qaddafi to task for his anti-Islamic rants through the decades?

One explanation is that in Islam and in Muhammad's own life there are a countless number of inconsistencies and contradictions, all because "the end justifies the means."

Ibn Warraq in his book Why I Am Not a Muslim reminds us we need to distinguish three Islams: Islam 1 is the what the Prophet taught as contained in the Koran, Islam 2 is the religion as expounded, interpreted and developed by the theologians through the traditions (Hadith), which includes the sharia and Islamic law, Islam 3 is what Muslims actually did do and achieve, or to put it in other words, Islamic civilization. (Do you see the familiarity with what Jesus had to face in His day with his ongoing confrontations with the Pharisees and scribes?) Trying to reconcile all three strands of Islam will cause any critical thinker to have unending migraines.

For starters, Muhammad did not invent a new religion. He was basically jealous that his tribe in Mecca did not have a monotheistic religion like the Jews and the Christians. Inside the Kaaba there were 360 idols, for instance. What Muhammad did was draft the moon god "Allah" into becoming the One Supreme God, and then from there he borrowed pagan practices left and right, much of it from Zoroastrianism, to fit them into his home-brew concoction of Islam.

Islam does not allow for critical analysis. Everything is to be accepted by blind faith. When one dares to question anything about Muhammad's life, his sayings, the Koran or Hadith, or the religion of Islam in general, that person becomes a marked man, ala Salman Rushdie. In contrast, Christianity invites critical thinking and probing investigation, because the truth has nothing to fear.

Because Europe and the United States have been swept off her feet by growing secular humanistic ideology the past two centuries, they no longer have the stomach and mind to recognize the danger that Islam imposes. The United States is not far behind Europe in so many ways. Have you ever wondered why since 9/11 there is the inexplicable attempt on the part of the political, academic, media and religious establishment to defend and even promote "peaceful" Islam at all costs? How can the National Organization for Women remain silent, for example, about how women in Islamic countries are treated? Such is the case, though.

I have often wondered about the "COEXIST" bumper stickers I see on vehicles. Is it just by accident that the first letter C represents Islam, whereas the last letter T represents Christianity? Hmm. But more to the point, what are the chances that we would find a COEXIST bumper sticker on a vehicle in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Turkey, et. al.? A rational person would have to conclude that we don't have much problems with "coexisting" in the United States. (How many Muslims have been persecuted, beaten, imprisoned, killed in this country, and how many mosques here have been bombed or burned to the ground? Compare that number to Christians and churches in Islamic countries.) It seems that the Islamic countries didn't get the memo yet on peaceful, tolerant coexistence.

In the United Kingdom, where Prince William got married today (finally!), there are more Muslim mosques than Methodist churches. Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe. Many European leaders are afraid to make a move due to how it may upset the Muslims in their respective countries. Witness how Spain quickly withdrew its armed forces from the Iraqi war, all because of a terrorist attack on a train.

Where did this "bend-over-backwards-to-appease" Islam attitude develop in Europe? In the sixteenth century, when Europe began to explore other parts of the world, the notion of the "noble savage" was first fully developed. That included Muslims in Africa, the Middle East and the Far East. The seventeenth century saw the first truly sympathetic accounts of Islam. Compared to the Catholic Church, for example, Pierre Bayle would comment: "The Muslims have always had more humanity for other religions than the Christians." The Crusades, going back several centuries, were the Catholic Church's attempt to outdo the Muslim jihad. This had a lasting negative hangover in the minds of the intellectual class in Europe.

George Sale in his translation of the Koran in 1734 firmly believed that the Arabs "seem to have been raised up on purpose by God, to be a scourge to the Christian church, for not living answerably to that most holy religion which they had received." In other words, Islam was a means of divine judgment upon the Christian church. Had the church lived up to its ideals, then Islam would not have succeeded so much. That was the estimation of many at the time.

It was Voltaire, the French atheist, that got the pro-Islamic, anti-Christian ball rolling at full speed. To Voltaire, the God of Christianity was a "cruel and hateful tyrant" who "surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough" and nor could he have inspired "books filled with contradictions, madness and horror."

By contrast, Voltaire found the dogmas of Islam very simple: there is but one God, and Muhammad is his Prophet. There were no priests, no miracles, no mysteries. This appealed to the anti-supernatural bent of people like Voltaire. The historian Gibbon, who wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, painted Islam in a favorable light, especially as contrasted to Christianity. The anticlerical Gibbon jumped on Islam's bandwagon because it provided more ammunition is his own disdain for the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. Gibbon's deistic view of Islam as a rational, priest-free religion, with Muhammad as a wise and tolerant lawgiver, enormously influenced the way all Europeans perceived their new sister religion for years to come.

A familiar pattern was emerging in Europe in the late 1700s and into the 1800s--Islam was being used as a weapon by a growing number of movers and shakers in European society to mock and to attack Christianity. Many of the European apologists of Islam had not proper acquaintance with the Arabic sources of Islam; most had only a superficial knowledge of their subject. They simply used Islam as a convenient weapon against intolerance, cruelty, dogma, the clergy and Christianity.

This is where we are today. Christianity is the whipping boy; Islam is the whipper.

So. . .is the Antichrist an Islamic religious-political figure who may be on the scene now, or who will appear soon? It is reported that Glenn Beck has suggested as much. The 12th iman will reappear, and in Islamic theology his likeness is comparable to the Antichrist we read about in the New Testament. So the reasoning goes. But what does the Bible say about the Antichrist? Surprisingly, the Bible paints a totally different picture of the antichrists or an antichrist than that that has been popularized through evangelical or even Mormon circles.

Yours in Christ,

Chris