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