Immunity and Tiger Woods

A few days ago, I railed against Adam Lambert and his irresponsibility as a celebrity where he believes he has no responsibility but to "art."  I vented,

You are a role model. You are an example to everyone you meet every day. If God gives you the opportunity to have an extraordinary stage upon which to play, then your responsibility to your fellow man increases manifold. You have responsibilities to your coworkers and your bosses. You have responsibility to the staff that supports you. If you are a celebrity (athletic, "arts," politics), you have a responsibility to those who appreciate your work. And what about the responsibility to the God who created you?

You can read the rest of it here if you are so inclined.

On the heels of "Mr." Lambert's public irresponsibility, Tiger Woods wraps not a nine iron but himself around a tree.  At 2 a.m. (I harken back to a Golden Earing song).  In the middle of the night after Thanksgiving.  Going 30 mph.  With no alcohol involved.

Had Mr. Woods been drinking, that would have come to light, he would have been charged, he would have released some form of apology be it the typical leftist non-apology or a man-up, I-blew-it apology, and life would press on.

But there was no booze.  Perhaps yesterday's press release would offer insight (here).  Nope.  "The situation is my fault."  That's a good start.  So what happened, El Tigre?  "This is a private matter and I want to keep it that way."  He hooked that response badly out of bounds.  Here's where that sticky issue called responsibility comes into play.

His non-answer that hints at some "private matter" would not have been necessary had he stayed inside his palatial Windemere estate.  Were he and Elin having issues like millions of American husbands and wives, it would have remained a "private matter" had his SUV remained parked.  Had he been frustrated and upset about some business dealing and had he needed to vent some steam, if he entered his private fitness center and driving range as opposed to going tree-wheeling, it would have remained a "private matter."

But Tiger drove it into the woods.

Many believe that what you do in private (or behind the closed doors of the Oval Office) does not affect who you are in public.  That is a lie.  You are not a machine and you cannot compartmentalize like that.  You're not that good.  Neither is Tiger.  Privacy, a concept inherent in property ownership, does indeed extend into your domicile until what you have done in your domicile spills onto boulevard and up against an oak.

His image hangs in the balance because young and old, duffer and scratch golfer, player and not, look up to him.  Endorsements hang in the balance because corporations use his face to hock their goods.  His respect as an athletic icon hangs in the balance because he reflects on his sport, all other golfers and sport in general because he represents them.  That is the price--and the responsibility--of fame.

A pastor has a responsibility to his church (and to God).

A president has a responsibility to his nation (and to his God).

Al the American has a responsibility to his family, his neighbors, his church, his community, his bosses, his employees...

You get the idea.  No man is an island.

If Tiger would man-up and admit what he did, a forgiving public would move on and the issue would fade.  "I blew up at my wife and stormed out of the house like a child."  Sounds pretty normal.  Too bad he hit the tree.  "We ran out of diapers and on the way out the driveway, I dropped my iPod (or was busy texting Michael Jordan who happened to be golfing in Dubai) and shwacked the tree."  I've heard about people texting and driving.  Really, any answer would calm the masses.  His non-answer hints at scandal.

As jackals have the unpleasant job of scouring the Serengeti of its carrion, so the media must root out the truth of what went down.  As distasteful as that might seem, the Tiger has left them no other choice.
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AP Photo

Clarity from Moscow

Despite "Allahu akhbar," despite having neato ID cards with SOI (Soldier of Islam) imprinted upon them, despite wearing the traditional garb of the Muslim playing for the Al Qaeda team and despite the most gruesome act of treason in my memory, our President has urged caution and restraint against leaping to conclusions regarding the very interesting day Malik Nadal Hasan had last month.  Let's let those investigations play out before we label this "terrorism" or indict a particular ideology.

This morning, Fox News has this headline from Russia.

"Official: There is little doubt...This is terrorism"

In case you missed it, a Russian commuter was derailed carrying hundreds and dozens have died.  Evidence of explosives has been found. 

Explain to me why Vlad Putin's office with startling immediacy and only a few facts is willing to label an atrocity what it is, but we still refer to Malik Nadal Hassan as an "alleged murderer" or "suspected gunman" when the evidence points as plainly to Mecca as do Islamic prayer rugs.

Let's call a traitor a traitor.  Let's state plainly that the impetus for his action is the same fundamental brand of Islam practiced by the C4-vested vermine infesting Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Netherlands, and the better part of Michigan.  Let's give civilized Muslims in America and around the world the opportunity to speak out against such filth and afford patriotic Muslims the opportunity to show their solidarity with the land of the free and with the tenets of civilization.

Bowing to emperors, kissing the rings of mysogynist kings, and not letting the military line up terrorists and traitors against a wall and reducing their carbon footprint does nothing but self-neuters in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of middle America.

So, Vlad, well done!  You're more apt to quiet the scum of the earth when you catch 'em and kill 'em than when you mollycoddle 'em and provide them universal healthcare.

The trouble with Adam

Let's start with full disclosure.

I've never seen Adam Lambert perform (for that matter, I've never seen American Idol).  I've read much about him, about his extraordinary voice toward his androgynous dress toward his weather-vaned sexual appetites.  From what I have read in the past, I did not jaw-drop when I read what went down at the American Music Awards.

After Madonna and Brittany Spears mid-performance tonsilectomy illicited little more than a nation-wideee yawn, it became clear that someone had dismantled Pandora's box and burned it on the pire of responsibility and discretion.  Why should anyone be shocked (shocked!) when Mr. (and I use that term biologically) Lambert kisses a man amidst pelvic thrusts into the faces of female dancers during his performance at the aforementioned event?

"I admit I did get carried away, but I don't see anything wrong with it."  Ah, thanks "Mr." Lambert.  He further states his goal was to promote "expression and artistic freedom."  Isn't that just like an artist?  Sounds pretty planned from that statement, but then comes ""Adrenaline is a crazy, crazy, crazy feeling. Some of the things I love most about performing is when you're up there and all of the sudden you just have these feelings, this rush that comes over you."  So which is it?  Planned "art" or heat of the moment (apologies to Asia)?

He does bring up an interesting point.  In his interview on CBS' Early Show, he noted the double-standard in the media.  Janet Jackson does similar things at the same event and she gets no press.  I guess there were no wardrobe malfunctions that day.

Had "Mr." Lambert shut his cake-hole at that point, I would have sighed in disappointment and gone about my day, but he just kept talking.

"I'm not a babysitter.  I'm a performer."

He flipped my switch. 

Not a babysitter?!?  Let me translate.  "I can do what I please.  No one has a moral ground from which they can say what I have done is "wrong."  I have no responsibility for what I do.  The fact that I have decreed what I do 'art' trumps an indictment that my be cast against me.  If your kids saw my performance and you happen to find it troublesome, that's your problem.  I am an aritist."

What a load of farm fertilizer!  Utter autonomy.  Answerable to none.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is not America.  At least it's not the America envisioned at its inception.

Such fatuous statements as "Mr." Lambert's have littered the media with regularity in the past decade.  "I'm not a role model.  I'm an athlete."  Ah, got it.  "I am not a role model.  I'm a president.  I did not have sex with that woman in the Oval Office.  I--um--was briefing--er--um--debriefing..."

Here's the rub.  You are a role model.  You are an example to everyone you meet every day.  If God gives you the opportunity to have an extraordinary stage upon which to play, then your responsibility to your fellow man increases manifold.  You have responsibilities to your coworkers and your bosses.  You have responsibility to the staff that supports you.  If you are a celebrity (athletic, "arts," politics), you have a responsibility to those who appreciate your work.  And what about the responsibility to the God who created you?

When you have national (international?) viewership, adrenaline does not excuse eye-gouging, a double-bird flip-off, or behavior that flies in the face of the mores of the lion's share of the viewership.  Adam Lambert disavows his responsibility to anyone but the muse of Art. 

And that is the problem.
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(image Copyright from Robert Sebree, Billboard Magazine)

Knowing the will of God

Who wouldn't want to know the will of God, assuming you believe in him (he believes in you)?  Sad to say, though, this lament is common among Christians.  It need not be so.

The Bible speaks at length about knowing with clarity the will of God (Romans 12:2, 1 Thessalonians 4:3, 1 Peter 2:15, to name a few).  To know God and who he is through his biblical revelation and in the revelation of his Son, Jesus Christ, is to come to know the will of God.

As we go into this most splendid week, let me share the will of God for you at least this week:

In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Everything. 

Now you know his will.  You really want to do it?  I hope so.

Happy Thanksgiving from me and mine to you and yours!

Ecocatastrophe: Resolution

I'd like to say it's comical, but it's not.  Since starting this series (here-1, here-2, and here-3) which looks at the environment from a biblical perspective, the news outlets have coughed up insanity after insanity about the imminent demise of our planet due to human interference or misuse. 

A few weeks ago, wantonly driving golf balls into Loch Ness signalled our doom (here).  Yesterday, the solution to the global warming "problem" came in the guise of a condom (here).  You can't make this stuff up.  Other scientists can't figure out why it's so cold this year; it's like global warming has taken a time out (here).

With the scientific community evenly divided on what's happening to the earth (might I suggest, nothing), I prefer an objective look.  Forgive the analogy, but we're like rats in a maze trying furiously to figure out the maze from a very limited perspective.  The Professor stands outside ready and willing to give an answer if only the rats would listen.  So I defer to the Professor.

The analogy falls far, far short because God is not a professor merely hovering over a maze and watching the rats bash their little coconuts into the wall.  God created man in his image and as such, man has inherent, God-given value and worth.  God loves mankind.  He cares deeply for eachone.  On top of that, God gave man a task; he told man to fill the earth, subdue the earth, and have dominion of the earth--all the while, the earth would remain God's possession for which he would retain ultimate authority and responsibility.

Where does that leave us?  A couple of final thoughts:

1. The world around us should knock our socks off! The creation bears God's fingerprints all over it.  Wherever we turn, we see the wonder and majesty of God's creative powers.  We see the beauty of design from the microcosm of the cell to the celestial dance of the planets and stars.
2. The world without and the life within should open our eyes to the brokenness of man and of our world.  Death, destruction, devastation, disaster.  Everytime it happens, whether it's a fanatical demon blowing away his friends and coworkers or whether it's an earthquake burying thousands and leaving tens of thousands without a home, we come face to face with the rebellion of mankind before a righteous God and the curse underwhich the creation groans until the day of Christ's restoration.
3. We do our job in loving obedience.  Fill the earth.  Subdue the earth.  Have dominion over the creation.  What a delight!  Work is not meant to be a curse; it is our God-given task.  Before the Fall of man, God put Adam into Eden's garden to tend it and care for it.  We don't abuse it without thought for God emphasizes that "a righteous man considers the life of his animal" (Proverbs 12:10).  That doesn't mean he worships it.  That doesn't even mean that he spares it.  He is to be steward over the animal as he is to be steward over the earth (sorry PETA).
4. As we labor, we do not worry.  A farmer cannot bring the rain nor can he bring about the growth of his crop.  He can only do what he can do; God has promised to take care of the rest.  So we trust our lives to the God who cares for us and who loves us, and we trust him to keep the earth running through the seasons until the day of his return (Genesis 8:22).

The news declares today that global warming has pushed poorer women into prostitution and life-threatening jobs (here).  At the same time, international leaders are pushing hard for the ratification of Kyoto II in Copenhagen next month (here) while Steven Groves is warning about what such a climate treaty will impose upon our nation (here).  What's a guy to do?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Ecocatastrophes, part 3

Al Gore does have quite the resume.  How many politicians can boast the vice-presidency, the Nobel prize, an Oscar, and a Grammy.  While I remember nothing remarkable about his terms as our nation's Number-Two (which isn't a bad thing), the three awards heaped upon him came as a result of "An Inconvenient Truth," a film that arguably has served as the big shove the Green Movement needed to get governments to start enacting what they deemed environmentally friendly policies (a humorous sidebar on Al Gore's science here...good thing he's not Sarah Palin!).

So here we sit at the sunset of the twenty-first century's first decade with reptiles still striking us without warning on blue-sky days in our own home towns, and the planet's leaders gather to figure out what they will do about an issue that a pretty big chunk of folks thinks has no basis in science.*  Yesterday, I jotted about how there's the pretty big God who made the whole thing (here), and it seems pretty illogical that he would let a bunch of miscreants run it into the ground.  The Bible seems to say that, too.

Still, there's a unique and God-created and God-ordained relationship between man and earth.

Man is God's Appointed Steward of the Earth

The first unique aspect of man's relationship to the earth is that God created man from the earth (Genesis 2:7).  It is not surprising then that man should get what he needs for his physical survival from the material.

Second, while man was created from the ground, he is utterly set apart from the earth and all other created things because only man was created in God's image (Genesis 1:26).  Because of what God declared as he made man, man has a positional authority over the created realm.  Likewise, it is no surprise that for spiritual sustenance, man must depend on the One who breathed into him the breath of life and not upon the material world.

Third, God gives man marching orders (Genesis 1:28).

God blessed them; and God said to them,

1. "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth..."

2. "...and subdue it..."

3. "...and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Here we see God giving man not only his innate positional authority but also a functional authority over the created realm.  God required three things of man none of which will make the environmentalist smile.

First, God required man to fill the earth.  How many folks are on the earth?  6.6 billion.  What's that work out to?  You could fit everyone on the planet into the United States (3.5 million square miles) and give them a plot of land about the size of an average yard (150' x 150') and still have space left over.  Are there overcrowded areas of the earth?  Yep.  Is the earth filled?  Nope.  Is there plenty of water?  Yep.  Do we have the technology to make inhabitable those places that have previously been deemed uninhabitable?  Yep.

We think we know better than God.  "Well, it seems we'd better stop making babies because we might chew up all of our (fill in your favorite natural resource here)."  Fill the earth seems to be throwing down the procreative gauntlet.  We just don't trust him nor do we take him seriously.

Second, God requires that man subdue the earth.  Think taming a horse or a team of oxen.  You break its wild nature and bring it under your authority to get it to do your will.  Think plowed field.  Scattering corn in the middle of a glen with associated rocks and trees will produce a meager return.  Clear the trees, remove the rocks and plow the soil and the return will be much sweeter. 

Third, God requires man to have dominion over the earth.  Man is not to coexist within nature.  Man is not to defer to a creek full of salamanders when determining whether to erect an apartment building.  He is to rule over the creation for his good and for God's glory.

Man is God's appointed steward of the earth.  It would be foolhardy to level a forest and to not replant.  At the same time, can you imagine the eco-nonsense that would surface if Gutzon Borglum lived today and wanted to carve four presidents into the side of Mount Rushmore?  He'd never get it done.  Imagine the legal gymnastics required today if you wanted to turn a mountainside into a ski resort...even if you owned the whole thing!  It's nuts.

When man rejects the position God gave him and lowers himself to the level of the rest of the created order, he rebels against God's given directives, and he soils the image of God in which he was created.  It was that image within him that caused John Merrick to cry out, "I am not an animal!  I am a man!" (The Elephant Man, 1980...great movie, btw).  Man must minister within the created realm to the glory of God, to order and lead the created realm, and to thereby provide for his existence.

So let's stop acting like jackasses.

Tomorrow, we'll wrap this thing up.

Ecocatastrophes, part 2

Greenhouse emissions, formerly known as exhaust and before that as smoke, will rip a hole in the ozone layer and the earth will burn up.  Or freeze.  Or burn up and then freeze.  Don't you know that the cooler summer experienced across the northern hemisphere is a result of global warming?

You've got scientists on both sides of this issue as annoying as a James Carville-Ann Coulter debate.  For a little sobriety, I'd like to invite you to hear what the Bible says.  Accurate in its histories and archaeologies.  Spooky on-target with its fulfilled prophecies.  Might be worth a hearing.  Away we go.

The first big point is...

THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S

Let's pretend I owned a really nice car, say a vintage 1977 AMC Gremlin with Levi bucket seats.  Let's say that one of my sons just turned sixteen.  Am I going to just pitch him the keys?  Bah!  I'm going to make sure he's got driver's ed under his belt.  I'm going to tell him about the idiosyncrasies in the automatic transmission and the fact that a key's already been broken off in the groovy hatchback.  And I'm going to tell him where he can and cannot go and what he can and cannot do with it.  If my son ends up wrecking the car, its not his insurance that covers the car, it's mine.

In a similar vein, the Bible makes plain, "The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein" (Psalm 24:1).  This is not an isolated idea within God's word to us.  God cites his ownership of the world in choosing Israel as a special nation to himself (Exodus 19:3-6).  As he encourages Israel to follow his commands, he cites the earth and its blessings are his to give (Deuteronomy 10:12-15).  In the Psalms, he emphasizes that all the beasts of the field are his so don't try to impress him through sacrifices (50:10).

So if the earth is God's and not just his possession but his creation, isn't he going to take care of it with a bit more fervency and ability than I would with my Gremlin?

Consider, it's his to do with as he pleases.  He destroyed the whole thing once before and made provision to get it started up again (Genesis 6-9).  He has said that he will destroy it all again (2 Peter 3:10-13) only to recreate it sparkling new once again.  He withholds the rain and he calms the storms.  And he suggests that there will come a day when the earth will suffer cataclysms that will make the disaster films of this decade seem like kiddie stories (Revelation 6 thru 16).

Consider, too, that God made a promised to his creation, a promise I mentioned in an earlier post.  That promise is that he would not destroy the earth again by flood, and that

"While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease"  (Genesis 8:22)

He seems pretty clear that the seasons will continue.  It's not going to become like "The Day After Tomorrow" where the northern hemisphere becomes an enormous ice rink.

Consider, finally, that as he infused man's anatomy with a truly miraculous ability to heal itself, so he knit that characteristic into the fabric of the earth.  Consider the devastation of wild fires.  Permanent?  Not so much.  Think of the megatons of pollution belched into the atmosphere from a single volcanic eruption.  If the planet did not have the capability to scour its own skies, we would perennially look like Denver during one of its winter inversion days.  BLECCH!  Oil spills.  Damage?  Extreme.  Forever?  Certainly not.  It takes time, but the earth does tend to itself.

With that in mind and scouring the pages of the Bible, nowhere do we get any inkling that man will directly bring about the earth's demise.  It won't be hairspray.  It won't be two Suburbans in the driveway (I do have a motorcycle in the garage...do I get any green stamps?).  It won't be harvesting the rain forest.  No, man will not directly cause it, but he will indirectly bring about some amazing geological, astronomical, and meteorological events.  It will be his rebellion against God that brings that to pass and not his utilization of natural resources.

So if this is God's planet, what ought our response to that be?  Two come to mind

First, I don't have to worry.  Jesus Christ clarified that point in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:19-34).  If God takes care of the birds of the field, will he not take care of your needs, too?

Second, in not worrying, I trust God.  He is the provider.  Really, he should be man's focus anyway.  The creature should be seeking with the glee of a puppy what the Master would have me do. 

But did the Owner of this big, blue Gremlin give us any marching orders? That will take us to the third installment of Ecocatastrophes tomorrow.

Ecocatastrophes, part 1

Dmitri Medvedev stepped briefly out of Vlad Putin's shadow to make a statement about international environmental protocols that must be implemented or -- GASP! -- "this will have catastrophic consequences."  You couldn't even see his puppetmaster's strings as Medvedev did his eco-dance at the Asia Pacific summit in Singapore, but then we all know Vlad's not going to let his marionette stray far from script.

It's gotten so that you can set your watch by the surfacing of the weekly eco-catastrophe or gymnastics event needed to avert said catastrophe.  The fact that you have 19 nations gathered in one spot, this week has borne bushels lumpy fruit.  The Netherlands wants to impose a per-kilometer tax upon its people to limit driving thereby hoping to limit greenhouse emissions (here).  Great Britain is tinkering with a carbon allowance where if you consume too much carbon, you'll have to pay to get more carbon tokens put on your card (here).  And the biggest threat to the existence of life on our planet, at least in my mind, comes in the form of a dimpled, white orb.  Seems that golf balls, yes, golf balls will bring about man's demise (here).

So it's not terribly shocking to hear a world leader pontificate about how my errant drives could catapult us into oblivion.  "If we don't take joint action, the consequences for the planet may be very distressing to the point that the Arctic and Antarctic ice can melt and change ocean levels," said Dmitri (here).

It's not just Drudge, CNN, and Fox where we get persistently pummeled by this barrage.  Watch movie.  Last night, "The Day After Tomorrow" played for the 10 zillionth time.  Neat special effects.  Some cool storylines.  And enough hot air to resail the Hindenburg.  From kiddie movies (WALL*E...great movie) to not-so-kiddie movies (The Happening...bomb), we're confronted with "look what I did to me" (apologies to my friends whose skin crawls when they hear that phrase).  Even Star Trek IV tossed an enviro-harpoon when the fate of the world hung upon the fact that we'd killed off all the humpback whales.

While many voices toll the doom of our planet, many others chuckle at the antics of global-warming fanatics or they weep over how the prophets of doom and demise have been able to alter our way of living (here).  They can't both be right.  Either we total terra firma with Top Flite and Titleist, or things will go on like they always have (you think the 17th at TPC Sawgrass will fill up?  I'm sure there are pros that hope it will).

Might I suggest an alternative.  It's not really new.  It's been around since the printed word and even before that through the spoken word.  It comes from a voice as welcome in the public sphere as Sarah Palin would be as the keynote speaker for a NARAL convention.  God could turn the tide of an argument as early as the last century.  No, he wouldn't show up, but the testimony of the Bible, His testimony to His creation, would be cited for authority.  Knowing the history, I still don't know why we don't heed him anymore, other than we just don't want to hear what he has to say.

That said, I plan to take the next couple of posts to show a) why we don't need to fear Al Gore and Dmitri Medvedev and their Ouija boards of worldwide environmental disaster and b) why we ought not shrug our shoulders in complacency with regard to our place in this world.  I hope you'll hang with me.

Fourteen counts?

A day or so ago, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison asked that Major Malik Nadal Hasan, the Ft Hood assassin, be charged with fourteen counts of murder instead of thirteen.  Pvt Francheska Valez died during the maelstrom.  So did the child she was carrying en utero.  Senator Hutchison cites Lacy's Law and Conner's Law as well as the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 to support her position.

Common sense would suggest she has a point.  Vengeance should ache to heap as much fury upon the head of Major Hasan as it could by adding any injury he did to anybody to the case against him.  I fear politics will ignore any indictment for the baby's death.  We'll see.

If the military does not execute this scum, it has no business keeping execution on its books as a possible consequence for crime.

I pledge allegiance

Much has been said, and we will say much more, about Major Malik Nadal Hasan's allegiance to Islam and how it conflicted with his allegiance to his uniform and to his nation (that's us).  It has opened a discussion that about which I have heard little.  What do we do when our relationship with God runs counter to what our government asks of us?

Houston, we have a problem.

More and more we find this clash amongst those who hold a strict Koranic view of Islam within non-Islamic societies.  Hence, Brits have kowtowed to Muslim immigrants and permitted Sharia within certain burroughs.  Hence, Muslim cabbies in Minneapolis needn't pick up passengers with seeing-eye dogs.  Hence, Muslim cashiers needn't check out patrons purchasing pork or Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Now we have soldiers who want to join the military but who want to take a sabbatical when they're fighting Muslims.

This God and country dilemma not only conflicts the hard-core Muslim, but it troubles (or should trouble) the Christian, too.

During the days of the Revolution, many Christian patriots loved England, but hated what the king was doing.  During the Civil War, many families were split north and south, with the north unable to abide slavery and the south unable to abide the erosion of state sovereignty.  During the World Wars, immigrants of most every Christian creed turned around to battle against their former homeland for the cause of freedom.

In the past, for those Christians who held to God as their highest allegiance, because of the Judeo-Christian bedrock upon which our nation was founded, they faced no conflict between God and country.  Serving one's country did not mean that one had to compromise in their service to God because the nation and its military stemmed from that firm foundation.  For those that examined the word of God, they did not find his principles nor his precepts violated as they took up arms against those America opposed even if they were Christians.  National conflict is a very different thing than personal conflict within the pages of the Bible.

But erosion has taken its toll.  Post-modern America has rejected its biblical underpinnings opting for a more secular function of government, culture, and international interactions.  As such, many Christians and many who serve in the military have begun to find themselves at odds with national policies.  Many find it repellent that we would allow our women to face the heat of combat.  Many grieve that the military is fast approaching the normalization of that which but a few decades ago was seen as deviance and contrary to good order and discipline.  Many wonder why we would kiss the ring of misogynist kings but would shun the only nation in the Middle East with a remotely free government.  Many cannot abide the legal killing of a child not yet born.

So like Major Hasan, many Christians find themselves at odds with God or country.

But there's a diametrical difference.  Christians do not turn their arms treacherously against their own.  They may have had to refuse their assigned duties.  They may have had to claim conscientious objector status.  Many face punitive action for not carrying out commands and orders, but to turn their weapons against their own is a repugnant and unbiblical idea.

As often as Islam is lauded as a religion of peace, there is much within a plain contextual reading of the Koran that would lead one not only to a position of conflict with one's nation but also to take up arms against that nation (slides 33, 34, 43, and 44 in Maj Hasan's PowerPoint presentation here exemplify this militant response).  You'll not find such militancy commanded of the Christian believer within a contextual reading of the Bible.

As our nation races faster and faster toward banishing any vestige of God from the public sector, the Christian will find himself more and more in conflict with the nation they have loved.  When those times come, the Christian would do well to follow the examples of Daniel's friends (Daniel 3, esp. vv. 16-18) and Peter and John (Acts 4:1-20, 5:29) by obeying God and submitting themselves to whatever consequence comes at the hand of the appointed governor (Romans 13:1-7). 

It has been in the persecution of the saints and the blood of the martyrs that the Church has flourished and God has been honored, not in the butchering of innocents or in the murder of comrades in arms.

QotD: Thomas Sowell

Sorry to go "Quote of the Day" on you two days in a row, but when Dr. Thomas Sowell dispenses his "random thoughts on the passing scene," I always find some 24-karat gems.  Consider,

It was fascinating to see Barack Obama warning us not to leap to conclusions about the killings at Fort Hood, Texas — after the way he leaped to conclusions over the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, when he knew less about the facts than we already know about the massacre at Fort Hood.

With regard to Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan.  No leaping was required.  He left a trail of 13 bodies.  And still we're asked to not connect the dots (here).

I wish I had come up with this one.  Prettier than a well-turned double play.

An e-mail from a reader says that liberals like to take the moral high ground, even though their own moral relativism means that there is no moral high ground.

To close, a creepy observation about the current state of Congress.

One of the few advantages to the country in having Congress overwhelmingly in the hands of one party is that the lack of need to compromise lets the leaders of that party reveal themselves for what they are — in this case, people with unbounded arrogance and utter contempt for the right of ordinary people to live their lives as they see fit, much less the right to know as citizens what laws are going to be passed by their government. The question is whether voters will remember on election day in 2010.

Let's hope so.

You can read the rest of his ruminations here.  In the meantime, let's see if I can come up with a coherent thought.

QotD: Just desserts

A true but difficult quote from Jay Nordlinger in this mornings "Impromptus" (always an enjoyable read...here...you'll find a funny joke in there, too) on the rumblings within the general populace regarding what's been going down in Washington.

...in a democracy, very often, people get what they deserve.

Um, ouch (though I contend we are a republic).

America's enemy...like it or not

Why do we genuflect to Islam?  When folks blow up abortion clinics or riddle doctors with bullets who perform such heinous procedures, the news media's immediate focus is upon whether his religion had anything to do with it, and if there was a hint of "Jesus Christ" anywhere in his motivations, that becomes the lead.  If the motivation behind a perpetrator of evil has a hint of Islam in it, that fact is ignored, buffered, or buried.

Mark Steyn exposes this double-standard and "the hole at the heart of our strategy" in the Global War on Terror in his eponymous article yesterday (here).  He notes,

...We’re scrupulously non-judgmental about the ideology that drives a man to fly into a building or self-detonate on the subway, and thus we have a hole at the heart of our strategy. We use rhetorical conveniences like “radical Islam” or, if that seems a wee bit Islamophobic, just plain old “radical extremism.” But we never make any effort to delineate the line which separates “radical Islam” from non-radical Islam. Indeed, we go to great lengths to make it even fuzzier.

 Steyn laments the media's dainty dances around the issue of Major Hasan's foundational worldview (Islam) and exposes their contentment with the his self-identified religious preference ("none").  But he did have a worldview.  And he did have a religious preference.  And they erupted with hellish fury.

...The pathologies that drive al-Qaeda beat within Major Hasan too, and in the end his Islamic impulses trumped his expensive Western education, his psychiatric training, his military discipline — his entire American identity.

How long will we pussyfoot around this IED before it blows up in our backyard? Ask the folks in Kileen, Texas.

Steyn recognizes,

The vast majority of Muslims don’t conspire to kill cartoonists or murder their daughters or shoot dozens of their fellow soldiers. But Islam inspires enough of this behavior to make it a legitimate topic of analysis.

And here's the rub:

What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best trained, best equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that’s the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy — in Afghanistan and in Texas.

If it walks like a duck: Ft Hood revisited

The initial facts?  Mass murder.  Arabic name.  My initial guess and my immediate post?  Islam.

More than twenty-four hours have passed and more clues bubble to the surface.  "Allahu Akbar!"  Militant Islamic web-sites.  Opposition to the wars against terrorists motivated by Islam ("terrorists motivated by Islam."  Is that redundant?).

"Hmmm...," muse the reporters.  "What could be the motive?  What's the common thread?"

David Horowitz provides the scathing answer.  After asking PC America to extract its head from the dark recesses of its blithe oblivion, he indicts what must be indicted, Islam.  Read it here.

It might tweak our multi-cultural sensitivities but 99% of the terrorist attacks against America over the last thirty years have not been conducted by Norwegians Against Lutefisk or GM-loathing Japanese but by those who take the Quran for what it says.  All of it.

I do understand that 90% of Muslims don't detonate at Dillards, but it's the really enormous ten-percent that are making quite a bit of racket.  The micro-efforts of the 90% to shut them up that give me pause at 2 a.m.

Please don't do the moral-equivalence hustle declaring how radical Christians are just as bad as radical Muslims.  Let me ask you when the last time you heard about Christians murdering Muslims while singing "Onward Christian Soldier" (with apologies to the hymnals that have emasculated the soldier right out of that song)?  If you want to readjust your focus on the major world religions, read the following essay by Raymond Ibrahim (yes, that's an Arab sounding name, isn't it?), "Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?"  It'll take a few moments, but it's worth the time.

So where do we go from here?  Should we bust the doors down of every mosque from Tampa to Tacoma?  NO!  With every ounce of my being, NO!  Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Muhammad Ali, when they converted to Islam, only threatened those who met them on the field of friendly strife, sport (thousands of Muslims serve in our military with honor).  But there is a rancid flavor of Islam that loathes the west and anything remotely Judeo or Christian.  That scourge should be asked politely to leave the country.  Considering authoritites knew Major Hasan had been dabbling in such web-sites and had held such opions for over a half-dozen months, they know where these roaches are hiding.  How about a little Raid in those crevices?

To those who read the Quran as a book of peace, thank you!  Now can you do something to quiet down your uppity cousins?  They're giving the rest of you guys a really bad name. 

There is a huge divide in Islam in America.  Read about it here, where a couple of bugs are spreading their filth outside a peaceful mosque in NYC.  Show these vermine the door.  Or the heel of your shoe.

Keep praying for the families who have lost so very much during this tragedy.  And pray for Major Hasan's family.  They seem to be shocked that he has done something so heinous.  If they're in the 90%, this is as horrible a time for them as for any.

Until next time, "if it is possible, as far as it depends upon you, live at peace with all men." (That's Bible, not Quran).

Homeless Dave

The company that owned the three-story building that became our church forsook it for a mere $25,000.  It snuggles in a rundown section of our city a half-dozen blocks from the local mission to the homeless.  For years, boards covered the windows in its upper stories.  It comes as no surprise then when a homeless man or woman veers into our building as we gather for worship on Sunday mornings or evenings or Wednesday nights.

Dave first walked in during a Wednesday night a year and a half ago.  Appearance and odor announced his position on society's ladder.  Do you indict me for my superficiality?  You would be right to do so.  God indicts me.  "My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory...but if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors"  (James 2:1, 9).

I've learned this lesson before.  One morning eighteen years ago, as I served as an elder in my church in Utah, I noticed out the window a couple walking up the walk to our door.  "Oh, my," though I.  He stood a towering six foot four with hair that would have made Gene Simmons proud and and topped with a Berkley beret.  She perked along beside him on pink stilettos, a Barbie-doll wife coifed with tumbling gold locks and bedecked with size-4 clothes that matched her petite frame.  Immediately God skewered my heart for my godless assessment of exteriors.  I met them at the door and welcomed them to our fellowship.  The giant, Robyn, and his bride, Dena, became some of our closest friends during our time along the Wasatch Front.

Back to Dave.  Arriving after our service had commenced, he took a seat near the back of the room where he fidgeted about and never seemed to focus on the pastor's points.  On Wednesday nights, we have a small break between our formal service and when we reconvene to pray about issues affecting us.  During that break Dave expressed a need for a few dollars to get something to eat and to purchase a bus pass so that he could start looking for work.  The pastor, not wanting to abet a drug or alcohol habit, asked to keep his wallet while Dave went and got his food and his pass and then returned, and our pastor told him he would be happy to take him wherever he needed to go after the service if he would be willing to stay during our time of prayer.  Dave said he needed to be on his way and left.

To this day, the pastor still has his wallet.

Two other times, though, over the past eighteen months, Dave came back to our church.  He reran his story like a Disneyland automaton.  One time I offered to take him to get his pass or some food and he became angry that I wouldn't trust him by just giving him money.  He left.

Two Wednedays ago, Dave returned again.  He walked into Wednesday night's service, sat down for five minutes, restless the entire time, and left.  He didn't even wait for the break or to talk to anyone.

The following Monday I was by myself down at the church sweeping out a room we were renovating.  I had the door open to the street, enjoying the cool breeze of the fall day.  In walked Dave, and out came the same tattered story.  He asked if he could help me for the nine dollars he needed for the bus pass to get to his job at Whataburger.  While the story remained a ruse, his willingness to labor instead of just shilling for a few dollars encouraged my soul.  I enlisted his help.

When it came time to pay him and not wanting him to squander his keep on alcohol or drugs, I offered to take him to get the bus pass.  "I see where this is going," he huffed.  Realizing I would not pay him unless I could take him, he relented and got into my car.  As we drove to where bus passes are sold, he again became frustrated that I wouldn't just give him the money and asked to be dropped off near some apartments.  Dave did not want a bus pass.  Nor did he want food; he told me he had food at home.  Here I wanted to help a man who wanted no help.

What did Dave want, I do not know, but as I got the few dollars out of my wallet that he had earned, he crystalized in my mind a distinction among America's homeless, a distinction our PC culture refuses to address.  Dave, like so many others, seeks to leech off of the productive belly of America.  Dave has no desire to find a real job with 9-to-5 responsibilities.  He feeds at the mission and mooches a few dollars more here and there for -- what?  Porn?  Drugs?  Maddog?  Weed? 

We used to call such folks vagrants and vagabonds, tramps and hobos.  Such a lifestyle was seen as a blight to a town, and such parasites were driven out of town.  News exposes have shown that many of the guys on street corners are running a business, a business taking your money.  Today we embrace these folks as "homeless."  We pretend they have no choice.  We flagellate ourselves and lament, "Our society has done this to these poor souls!"  What a sham.  Let us call bums "bums."

Before you stone me as a granited-hearted Scrooge, I do understand that there are folks who have tragically lost everything they have and that passionately want to work hard to again become part of the commonwealth of man.  I do believe there are folks who long to be part of a family but through mental deficiency or physical malady have been cast off.  We, individually (not through government mandate), have a responsibility to those who have suffered loss or have been ostracized.  They can be productive members of society or vital members of a family. 

But those are not the folks of which I speak.  Dave and his ilk have no desire for either.  Paul commanded the church at Thessalonica, a church dealing with vagrancy, "If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat."   When we give such leeches free bread, we foster their vagabondage, we abet their sloth.

My heart aches for Dave.  What makes him different from me?  Why do I choose to labor and he to panhandle?  Regardless, he has a choice, and he has chosen his path just as I have a choice each day to trod the path I have chosen.  For me to encourage him in his lifestyle would be as sinful as looking down my nose in prejudice for his filthy clothing or foul smell.  I must deal with my prejudicial sin before a holy God (and it is a stench in His nostrils), but I cannot condone Dave's sin as I repent my own.

As he got out of my car, I asked Dave not to come back to our church unless he wanted our help to become a productive part of our city or unless he wanted to get his life straigtened out before God.  If he wanted to travel a new path, there would be a dozen families willing to come along side and help him to that end.  I would like to hope I would be near the front of the line.

Until then, there would be no more bus passes for Dave.

Fort Hood tragedy

Twelve dead.  Thirty-one wounded.

The killer's name?  Malik Nadal Hassan.  Major.  US Army.

Let's pray he's not linked to Islam.

Double vision

An odd thing happened as I opened my eyes this morning.  With daylight savings time finally giving way to sanity, sunlight pressed upon the blinds in our bedroom.  My head resting upon my pillow, I saw the blinds clearly, and yet something seemed amiss.  My eyes which were focused at the distance of the blinds traveled to the doorknob adjacent to them.  I saw two door knobs.  I looked at the book case beside my bed.  There seemed to be multiples of each book.  I felt like I was in an episode of "Gilligan's Island."

Considering my eyes were just waking up, too, I forced them to fixate upon the words on the bindings.  Ah, focus!  But the book case was at a different distance than the blinds.  I looked back to the blinds and my sleepy eyes retained their book case focus.  Again, the peripheral things did not appear as clear as the blinds.  Because I was laying on my side, my eyes did not focus on a single slat in the blinds, instead one eye focused on one slat while the other eye focused on an adjacent slat.  This could only happen if the line between my pupils was exactly perpendicular to the slats in the blinds. 

This was freaking me out.  As I sat up and my eyes got out of the perpendicular, everything focused in its proper perspective in an instant. 

I thought of my wacky perspective this morning as I read yet again Nancy Pelosi's take on the recent off-year election.  "We won last night" she said.  I've often thought the Representative from California akin to Marty Feldman, but such a freakish viewpoint on the heels of the political drubbings in New Jersey and Virginia took the cake.

Such perverse focus can be found in any party and in any person.  This very morning, I could not come to terms with the blinds hanging on my bedroom window.  Even after refocusing on another concrete object (words on the binding), when I went back to the other issue (the blinds), I utterly mis-saw reality.

This is man's nature.  We think we see an issue with utmost clarity, but in conjunction with adjacent issues, something's askew.  Even when we recheck our bearings bearings against concrete reality, when we go back to our particular issue, our focus often times remains incorrect.  Only when we become righted in total can we see the world around us with proper clarity.

So it is with man in all things because he stands in rebellion to God.  While still created in God's image, the image is marred.  The eyes with which man sees are set now 90-degrees out from God's perspective (Jeremiah 5 is a pretty good descriptor).  Our problem?  We cannot aright ourselves.  Only God can right our listing ship ("Open my eyes that I might see wondrous things from your law" - Psalm 119:18).

Few wonder about the double vision in their periphery.  Most do not even know that clarity stands available as a free gift from the ultimate Optometrist.  I remember when my eldest first got glasses.  Not an eager man was he.  He thought about how he would look and the pain of spectacle upkeep.  Then he put on his glasses for the first time.  "I can see leaves on the trees!"

Many go through life contended with their jumbled world.  Such a one does not surmise that something's amiss.  Rather than turn to the light (John 9:5) and live,

"He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?""

Isaiah 44:20

How much better to know healed vision like the man born blind and be able to declare, "One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see!"

The vote

Didja vote?

It's a little late to ask, isn't it?  I'll sure not bathe you in guilt for not exercising your civic responsibility because I have failed to pony up in my share of off-year elections. 

This year in my neck of the woods, we had a number of legislative and state constitution issues upon which to vote, all of which seemed as dynamic as white bread toast.  When you swept away the foam at the top of the issue and got down to the chunky broth, you learned that each of the eleven referendums upon which we voted dealt with allowing or curtailing more and more government creep into our stew.  To much meddling and you get pureed baby food.

As my eyes scanned the media outlets last night and this morning, it seemed to me that America's pretty fed up with government creep.  Take homosexual marriage.  Over the years, thirty-one different states have brought the issue to a popular vote.  Thirty-one times it's been shot down.  That means that the states where homosexuals can marry have brought it to pass through judicial or legislative fiat (aka "government creep").  Yesterday, the people of Maine rejected aberrant unions but with a mere 53% of the vote. 

Another slap in the face to government creep.  Both New Jersey and Virginia lost their democratic governorships.  Granted, electing John Corzine to another term in New Jersey would have been like electing Al Capone to a term as governor -- after his conviction!  I could also compare it to the legal problems of a half-dozen of President Obama's major appointees, but they are appointees and not direct elects by the people.  No, that hat would be worn by the President, friend to J. Wright, W. Ayers, and the like.  Old news.  Sorry.

One last note on the election.  I switched over to MSNBC at around 11:15 p.m. (CST) to see how they would be handling the election.  I got Chris Matthews and two talking heads, a black Democratic mayor and a white Republican Party spokesman.  I watched no more than three minutes before I could stomach no more.  The topic of discussion?  Not Maine.  Not New Jersey.  Not Virginia.  Some lesser New York legislative race where the Democrat won against a late entry Republican.  The black mayor was given unobstructed air time after which Mr. Matthews lauded him for his cogent analysis.  The white spokesman was continually interrupted by Matthews, mocked by Matthews for supporting "far right" positions, and rather being thanked for his opinions (I sure wouldn't expect Matthews to agree with or praise them), Matthews simply vomited, "You lost!"

During the Bush administration, when MSNBC lost viewership faster than the Titanic lost bouyancy, MSNBC attempted to maintain a modicum of balance in their news.  Even talking head shows with the exception of Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" attempted to present the conservative position without any derision.  With the election of President Obama and the liberal position earning the House and Senate, all pretense has faded at MSNBC.  You want to see the deviants of liberal America?  Watch ten minutes of Matthews, Olbermann, or Rachel Maddow.

(An aside: I would like to know who I might listen to if I wanted to hear an articulate, reasoned understanding of liberal politics.  Any suggestions?)

Anyway, back to the vote.  If you didn't get out yesterday, use that as an impetus to get you to the polls in 2010.  Elections occur in the spring and during the first week of November.  Be ready for them.  Know the issues.  Know the candidates.  Get beneath the froth and see if you've got meat and potatoes or an overcooked, overblended pot of gruel.

I'll leave you with some words from "Silent Cal," President Calvin Coolidge, excerpted from a gift I received this past week, Bill Bennett's "The American Patriot's Almanac."  Cal said in a 1924 radio address (you can read the entirety of the speech here),

All the influence of public opinion, all the opportunity for self government through the rule of the people, depends upon one single factor. That is the ballot box. If the time comes when our citizens fail to respond to their right and duty, individually and collectively, intelligently and effectively at the ballot box on election day, I do not know what form of government will be substituted for that which we at present have the opportunity to enjoy, but I do know it will no longer be a rule of the people, it will no longer be self government. The people of our country are sovereign. If they do not vote they abdicate that sovereignty, and they may be entirely sure that if they relinquish it other forces will seize it, and if they fail to govern themselves some other power will rise up to govern them. The choice is always before them, whether they will be slaves or whether they will be free. The only way to be free is to exercise actively and energetically the privileges, and discharge faithfully the duties which make freedom. It is not to be secured by passive resistance. It is the result of energy and action...

Persons who have the right to vote are trustees for the benefit of their country and their countrymen. They have no right to say they do not care. They must care! They have no right to say that whatever the result of the election they can get along. They must remember that their country and their countrymen cannot get along, cannot remain sound, cannot preserve its institutions, cannot protect its citizens, cannot maintain its place in the world, unless those who have the right to vote do sustain and do guide the course of public affairs by the thoughtful exercise of that right on election day. They do not hold a mere privilege to be exercised or not, as passing fancy may move them. They are charged with a great trust, one of the most important and most solemn which can be given into the keeping of an American citizen. It should be discharged thoughtfully and seriously, in accordance with its vast importance.

May God help us to govern ourselves that we might not have to be governed.