Target: Boycott or no?

Christians wonder what to do about Target and their wide-open stance regarding bathrooms. Many react on emotion.

Might I suggest stepping back, reading, and thinking a bit? Here's Albert Mohler's two cents on the topic:

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It is always important for Christians to think very seriously about the moral and worldview implications of how we operate in the economy as consumers, as economic agents. The most recent flashpoint for that discussion comes as the retailer Target has announced that it will be the first major corporation to have a policy on bathrooms. And, in this case, it is a very wide open policy stating publicly that the corporation expects to allow anyone to choose to use any bathroom based upon their own self-perceived gender identity. On its own website, Target announced that it is,

“…continuing to stand for inclusivity.

“So earlier this week, we reiterated with our team members where Target stands and how our beliefs are brought to life in how we serve our guests.

“Inclusivity is a core belief at Target. It’s something we celebrate. We stand for equality and equity, and strive to make our guests and team members feel accepted, respected and welcomed in our stores and workplaces every day.”

But the statement from Target on its corporate website goes on to cite the very kind of legislation that we previously discussed in terms of Donald Trump when the company states,

“Target supports the federal Equality Act, which provides protections to LGBT individuals, and opposes action that enables discrimination.”

Now when you look at those words carefully and consider the context and the syntax of that sentence, it’s very clear that this is a corporate statement opposed to any definition of religious liberty that would in any way be considered discriminatory by anyone on the LGBT spectrum. Furthermore, it puts this company in the position of making very clear moral judgments.

Now that’s really important when you consider the Wall Street Journal and another article with the headline,

“Big Business Speaks Up on Social Issues.”

Mark Peters and Rachel Emma Silverman have written this article together in which they document the rather astounding revolution whereby American corporations, and especially America’s largest corporations, now have decided that it is in their corporate interest to crusade upon certain moral issues, certain social questions. And the fact that this is such a revolution is what explains the story on the front page of a section of the Wall Street Journal. As Peters and Silverman report,

“Companies used to avoid hot-button social issues, fearing that any strong stance could alienate customers and staff. Now, executives say it is far more risky to stay silent on issues such as gay rights.”

Now as I began, this raises a host of issues about how Christians should operate faithfully in an economic context. The first thing we need to recognize is that we are economic agents. That’s a part at least of what it means to be made in the image of God. And wherever you have human beings you will have transactions being made. Adam Smith pointed out in the most fundamental work on economics in human history that that’s necessary, because eventually, if you put two people together in a community, one values or needs something the other has and is willing to offer something else in exchange. That at its very essence is an economy, and thus it is laden with moral importance from the very beginning. Nothing we do in an economic world is not connected in some way to a basic moral question. And yet we’re also, we remind ourselves secondly, living in a fallen world in which there is no perfect economy and there is no perfect economic stance from which to operate without some complicity in larger moral questions in the economy.

That gets to the third issue, and that is this: when Christians are thinking very carefully about how to be faithful as Christians in an economy, we do so knowing that we have choices we can make, but we do not have the choice of not being economic participants. So many Christians are asking the question, should we now boycott Target? Just judging from an historical perspective, oftentimes boycotts do not work. They are far easier to declare than to carry out, and even when they are carried out they sometimes do not have the effect that was intended when the boycott was organized and declared.

Now this doesn’t mean that an individual economic action is unimportant. It does affirm the fact that as Christians are considering where we will do business and where we will not, there are a multiplicity of issues that complicate the question. But the bottom line is, would we spend money in a corporation, in a shop, in a store or restaurant, in any kind of business where that business might be publicly not only not allied with our convictions, but perhaps even publicly stating opposition to them?

Now once again, this isn’t as easy as it might appear. Because if you’re considering Target making this announcement, it could be—and we’ll have to look at this much closer—that Target is merely stating publicly, perhaps for its own publicity, what other corporations are actually doing more covertly or quietly. One of the issues that is raised by the Wall Street Journal article is the seeming inevitability of most American corporations, especially publicly traded corporations that are active in the stock market, from inevitably turning in the same direction. It’s a question of when, not if.

Christians will indeed decide if they want to do business with Target, knowing that Target has now targeted our own convictions in terms of the company’s website. But we will also have to be honest in understanding that there are other companies that are going to fall in exactly the same line, and we’ll get there perhaps sooner even rather than later. And furthermore, there are other companies that may be participating in things that we would also oppose of which we are not aware. That again doesn’t mean that the boycott is wrong. It does point to the fact that boycotts often just don’t work, because as the economy moves, people move on and the boycott becomes something of a forgotten history.

Christians have to understand that in a fallen world, every aspect of an economy is fallen, and that means that there is no safe place to stand, there is no safe business in which to shop. Even if we know the owner of the shop and we know how he or she organizes the business, there’s a supply chain behind and a web of relationships beyond. That doesn’t mean this isn’t important. It does mean that it is complex, and you can’t reduce faithfulness to something as easy as the question of boycott, yes or no? 

Should Christians boycott Target? That’s a question that I do not believe has an answer. Should you boycott Target? That is a matter for your Christian conscience. Those are two separate issues, and it is the second question that should have priority for individual Christians.

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The above was taken from his daily "The Briefing" podcast dated April 26, 2016, linked here.

Gender confusion

We call it sexual freedom but it's sexual anarchy.

The torrential push to make sexual identity and gender identity something fluid, dynamic, and changing will not bring about idyllic tranquility. It can't. Freedom without form is chaos.

A couple recent stories in the news about how fast and how far things are getting pushed:

• A biological boy demands access to the girls bathroom at Hillsboro High School in Missouri.
• A Washington State University professor banned offensive terms in her classroom, terms like 'male' and 'female.'
• Did you know that there are new pronouns out there? 'Xe,' 'xem,' and 'xer' are being debated right now as proper gender neutral pronouns at the state level in Tennessee because of "gender offense" in UT Knoxville.
• Target stores have removed the gender tags in its toy departments. No longer will you find "Boys Toys" or "Girls Toys," you'll just find "Toys."

The last one is not much of a problem as you will still have Barbie in a different section than the Avengers, but the others create much bigger issues.

• Must girls who believe they are biologically female and who desire a discreet location in which to change away from one who is biologically different be coerced to abandon their discretion?
• In the case of terms and pronouns, if all is fluid, will professors have to determine your gender of the day to tag you with the proper pronoun? Or will the students have to guess which way the professor is feeling today so as not to get a mark against them?

The one place reality continues to hold sway is athletics. Because of basic biology (male and female), women cannot compete with men at the same level. If they could, they would be integrated (see golf, football, hockey). 

Men's gymnastics cannot be women's gymnastics and vice versa. The beauty and grace would be stripped of the women's events and the titanic strength would vanish from the men's.

Should we add 100 lbs to the male hockey players so that the women can compete at an equal level? But then is that equal? Or are we just highlighting the differences we all know exist? And what would become of the game with the speed slowed down?

If male golfers had to compete with shorter clubs or heavier clubs, we would miss the spectacle that is men's golf. And rather than heighten the accomplishment of women, those accomplishments would be asterisked like a Barry Bonds home run.

The clash of world views could not be more pronounced than in discussing gender and sexual identity. One side says "I determine." The other side says "It is what it is." The former is the direction the country is hurtling. The latter is the stuff of our history and our past.

The God-given forms of manhood and maleness and womanhood and femaleness are not something invented. They are inherent in every cell of your body. They cannot be changed. That form has provided form to the family: father, mother, husband and wife. It provides form and clarity to our language. It certainly provides form for the Olympics and other athletic ventures.

And from the move afoot in our halls of higher learning and of government, one of these ideas will not be permitted to exist.

The stuff of stars

August's dying day proved a delight in Madison, Wisconsin as my brother and I enjoyed a patio on Capitol Square drinking coffee and catching up on the last year.

During one of the seven-minute lulls, a card carousel just inside the coffee shop caught my eye. "You are made from the stuff of stars," it declared. 

Indeed, there is truth to the claim. The stuff of the cosmos is the stuff of your cells. The sun churns hydrogen into energy and as you are mostly hydrogen and oxygen in their moister mix, you are the stuff of the sun. The minerals within your bones and muscles are in the mix of the Moon, calcium, iron, and magnesium to name a few.

Being an edgy coffee shop the card no doubt intended to boost its receiver from the muck and mire of life. You're not ordinary. You're not plain. You're the stuff of stars after all.

Ah, the romance. As bright as the stars shine so, too, can you shine. Can't you just see the Hollywood movie? The protagonist doesn't die, they just dissolve into the stuff of stars.

The Bible declares the same thing, in a way.

God tells Adam in the third chapter of his book to humanity, "Dust you are and to dust you shall return" but God doesn't tell the cream of his creation this tidbit to bolster his brooding heart. Adam had just rebelled against his Creator (I've often wondered how long it took for that to happen), and God was fulfilling the promise he made in declaring that such rebellion would lead to Adam's death. 

Being created with and returning to the stuff of stars wasn't man's ultimate end nor his ultimate good. The essential substance of man is of much greater value, and therein lies the sanctity of all humanity from the greatest to the least.

It's not that God created man of dust that makes him unique--he did that with all of the animals, after all (Genesis 1:24)--man is unique because God created him in his image (Genesis 1:27, 9:6). It's not the material of man, it's the immaterial that matters. The fact that we are of the stuff of stars doesn't highlight that point, rather it highlights our fragility. Knowing we will all die touts the truth that we stand hostile to the God who crafted us in his image for dust we are and to dust we shall return.

And yet, there is a reconciliation. Man couldn't do it any more than a broken computer can fix itself. God reconciled man to himself when he took the same dust to himself and died the death that men deserved (Romans 5:6-10).

I never saw the platitude that adorned the inside of the card. It should have read, "And still you will die," for that is the sobering truth we must each swallow. Will that turn us toward hoping to the stars our hoping in the One who crafted the stars and crafted each one of us in his image?

Willing

Wade these deep waters.

"Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. 

"Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him. But if Jesus hides Himself and leaves them for a while, they fall either into complaints or into deep dejection. 

"Those, on the contrary, who love Him for His own sake and not for any comfort of their own, bless Him in all trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even if He should never give them consolation, yet they would continue to praise Him and wish always to give Him thanks.

"What power there is in pure love for Jesus -- love that is free from all self-interest and self-love!

"Do not those who always seek consolation deserve to be called mercenaries? Do not those who always think of their own profit and gain prove that they love themselves rather than Christ? Where can a man be found who desires to serve God for nothing? 

"Rarely indeed is a man so spiritual as to strip himself of all things. And who shall find a man so truly poor in spirit as to be free from every creature? His value is like that of things brought from the most distant lands."

Thomas à Kempis

The honest atheist: Woody Allen

If nothing else, Woody Allen is candid.

In a recent interview with UPI (read it here), the director spoke about why his film's characters tend to have a meaningless view of life. It is because he has a meaningless view of life.

"I firmly believe -- and I don't say this as a criticism -- that life is meaningless.

"I'm not alone in thinking this. There have been many great minds far, far superior to mine that have come to that conclusion. Both early in life and after years of living and, unless somebody can come up with some proof or some example where it's not [meaningless,] I think it is. I think it is a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. That's just the way I feel about it."

Many atheists who have plumbed the depths and implications of a universe with no God come to the same conclusion.

Atheist and biologist Stephen Jay Gould opined, "We may yearn for a ‘higher answer’– but none exists. This explanation, though superficially troubling, if not terrifying, is ultimately liberating and exhilarating.”

Atheist and author Aldous Huxley noted, "The philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political."

Atheist, philosopher, playwright, and author Jean-Paul Sartre reasoned, "Man simply is…Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself."

Allen continues,

"I'm not saying one should opt to kill oneself, but the truth of the matter is when you think of it, every 100 years... there is a big flush and everybody in the world is gone, then there is a new group of people, then that gets flushed, then there is a new group of people and this goes on interminably for no particular end -- I don't want to upset you -- there's no end and no rhyme or reason."

Interesting that he mentions suicide because if there is no objective purpose, one must wonder, "Why bother?" The endless repetition of life and death and life and death must give pause. Few of us will accomplish anything like Shakespeare, anything that will be remembered four minutes after our deaths much less four hundred years. He notes, though, that even Shakespeare's works in a universe void of God have no meaning.

"So, all of this achievement -- all of these Shakespearean plays and these symphonies and the height of human achievement -- will be gone completely. There will be nothing. Absolutely nothing. No time. No space. Nothing at all. Just zero. So, what does it really mean?"

If there is no Creator who will reveal to me his plan and purpose for my life, then I am left to firgure out the cosmos and my place therein within a span of eighty years. Good luck with that.

So what's the point? How does one cope with such a belief about the cosmos?

"What I would recommend is the solution I've come up with -- distraction. That's all you can do. You get up. You can be distracted by your love life, by the baseball game, by the movies, by the nonsense: 'Can I get my kid in this private school?' 'Will this girl go out with me Saturday night?' 'Can I think of an ending for the third act of my play?' 'Am I going to get the promotion in my office?' All of this stuff, but, in the end, the universe burns out. So, I think it is completely meaningless. And, to be honest, my characters portray this feeling."

Is it any wonder men refuse to grow up, frittering away the hours playing video games or getting lost in pornography? Is it a surprise that superstar after superstar overdoses or pulls the trigger to numb or end the pain? Just distract yourself from your meaningless, pitiful existence.

But this is the very conclusion that Solomon came to when he penned Ecclesiastes. "Meaningless, meaningless," he screams into the cosmos, "All is meaningless" (Ecclesiastes 1:2). He, like Woody Allen tried to distract himself, but he found that, too, was meaningless. He tried great works (2:4). He accumulated possessions and wealth (2:7-8). "I kept from my heart no pleasure...then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun" (2:10-11)

Solomon anticipated Woody, "A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever...What has been will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun" (1:4). Solomon's conclusion? "Behold all is vanity and a striving after the wind" (1:14).

Note that comment "under the sun." When man tries to find his way without looking "above the sun" to the God who created him, he finds no meaning.

But God has not left his creatures so bereft. In little snippets throughout Ecclesiastes, Solomon gets his mooring. No place is this better seen than at the very end when he declares, "The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil." Man must seek after the God who is there. The God who revealed himself plainly in his word in time and space.

In the very creation, God gives man identity and purpose. He spoke space and time into being and reveals that in the first sentence of the Bible (Genesis 1:1). He created man unique compared to the rest of the creation in that man alone will bear God's image (Genesis 1:27). In that unique station, God commissioned man with the stewardship of the created realm (Genesis 1:28). This was only the beginning.

Why the pain, problems, and personality conflicts? That's one page over in Genesis 3, but even there, God has not left man without hope. Why is man so wonderful but can be at the same time so villainous? God's word alone explains this extraordinary schizophrenia. Man's rebellion against God has marred man, but God had a plan to restore what man had so absolutely devastated. In Jesus Christ, God gives man hope.

I appreciate Woody Allen's unashamed honesty. In rejecting God's testimony about what he has done, man has no hope of determining who he is or why he is. I hope and literally pray that God will give him eyes to see the God who is there and to see the true hope for this world and the next found at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Beware the "false teacher?" Is it me?

A few days ago, Tim Challies concluded a series he had done on false teachers and took the opportunity to sum up some of the seven key lessons he learned from that exercise (here). We must we know about such hucksters so we do not become duped or deluded about what God has said. After all, the cosmic collapse began when the charlatan of charlatans planted the catastrophic seed with, "Did God really say?"

As salient as Challies' article, it got me to wondering about those I declare false teachers saying the same thing about me. What better way to cause even greater confusion in the church than having the false teachers start shouting that folks who profess the things I profess are the false teachers.

Who's to say, right? Looking at Challies' warnings, might such be used against me?

As I noted, people who profess the same creed I do are common, right? Is that wrong? 

I don't announce myself to be a false teacher, either. As such, am I deceptive? 

Am I dangerous, too? Do I pick and choose my doctrines and ignore or subvert others? 

Am I a divisive force among the true church? Let us be clear in dividing light and darkness. Let us not divide light from light. 

Do I scratch the itch you have? Is that my desire?

Am I intentionally deceiving you?

Does the true message of Jesus Christ make me sick?

I ask none of this to subvert Challies' excellent points. Here's the deal: if we're trying to figure this out on our own, we're hosed. False teacher/good teacher cannot be discerned through argument. The only way to tell a counterfeit bill from a real bill is to compare the bill in hand to the real thing.

We compare to the word God has given us, the Bible.

God provided it to us. Where at one time nobody had their own Bible, today homes teem with copies of the Bible--pick your translation--and if they don't, every translation is available free online. Despite its ubiquity, the Bible is less read by Americans and by those in the Church than ever before. And lions prowl the streets seeking whom they may devour.

The only way for you or me to discern whether a teacher is rightly or wrongly preaching or teaching God's word is compare what they declare to the entirety of God's word, not just what they profess but what they deny or omit.

The Church in America and around the world will continue to be deceived to its destruction if they continue to whitewash or ignore the black and white of God's clear word (note the increased impotence of mainline denominations over the past fifty years).

That task is not to be shouldered by the pastor alone, though he shares the burden. Each member must be nourished by God's word every day. A believer who has no heart for the words of the Bible is like the athlete avoids the gym like a liberal avoids Limbaugh.

To discern the false teacher, I must know well the true Teacher. I must know well the words and voice of my God and King so when the song of the seductive siren begins, I'll recognize it in a moment and avoid the enticements found there (John 10:27).

If unrecognized, great will be my fall.

QotD: Eustace Clarence Scrubb

Really, I am very sorry if you are not a reader. Obviously, you read some things or you would not be here (I'm not as dense as granite, you know).

I have not always been a reader but the continued prodding of men I respected greatly to read much and read broadly has impelled me to read beyond my comfort zones. I wish I could read faster; many books remain untouched on my to-be-read shelf. The chuckles I've enjoyed and the insights into the soul that have come my way through reading are too numerous to cite.

I have always read to my children, and I have tried to press their comfort zones, too. Still, we will often return to favorites. I have lost track of how many times I have read aloud "The Chronicles of Narnia" in my family. In our current reading of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," I came across this description of the parents of Eustace Clarence Scrubb, the spoiled cousin of the Peavensie children whose name pretty much says it all. Lewis wrote:

"He didn't call his father and mother "Father" and "Mother," but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotallers and wore a special kind of underclothes."

While that last phrase seems to be indicting the LDS, Lewis has skewers enough for all, particularly for those of us in religious communities who like to declare certain conduct to be sin or at the very least inappropriate for those who call themselves Christian.

Many of us who are conservative believers bristle when we hear of the government wanting to restrict gun ownership. Yes, guns can be used as tools to inflict harm. Sometimes the harm comes about unintentionally. At the same time, a gun can be used for good and for pleasure when one is responsible. The Christian understands that.

Then the believer turns right around and condemns some manner of food (soft drinks? Meats? Anything non-organic?), any form of smoking, or any usage of alcohol for the very same reasons. None of these things is condemned in principle or in fact in the word of God. Their misuse, as with guns, is certainly condemned, but not their use. In fact, wine enjoyment often goes hand in hand with celebration and times of rejoicing. 

Really, it's amazing with all the ale and wien drinking and revelry in Lewis' children's books that they are even read within some circles. Perhaps they're not. Or perhaps they're edited. Either would be tragic.

Kermit Gosnell: This is nothing new

Have you heard the name Kermit Gosnell recently? If not, you're in good company. I mentioned his name a short time ago to two Christians, and they just shrugged in non-recognition. Why? The Mainstream Media has by and large ignored this story. Why? Because it's about the nightmare in an American abortion clinic.

It's been over two years since I first wrote of Gosnell (here), and it was six months before that that I heard of his barbarity. Now he's on trial for bringing about the death of one mother and seven children (here. The children had survived his attempt to abort them, so this man finished them off after they'd drawn breath.

And for the most part, the media has said nothing during that timeframe. Only now and in a few scant outlets can you hear about Kermit Gosnell.

Is what happened atrocious? Yes. Grotesque? Yes. Horrifying? Yes. But this is nothing new. This happens every day all across the country.

Randy Alcorn writes:

I must say that while I agree the revelations in the case are all horrific, in fact I am not shocked about them. Why? Because I already knew what was going on in abortion clinics. I already knew that innocent people are killed there by the hundreds ...every week. Twenty-four years ago I looked in the dumpster of an abortion clinic and saw pieces of human flesh. This is not news to me. I knew that the lives of women are ruined there, and I knew that the “doctors” who spend their lives killing babies in most cases know exactly what they are doing. (Yes, I have talked with them.)

The “shocking discovery” that an abortionist who made millions of dollars from child-killing had such a low regard and such a profound disrespect for the lives of babies and women is properly responded to with a “Huh?” As in, didn’t we know that already? And, if we didn’t, what is wrong with us? (And by the way, while Gosnell is on trial for the murder of seven babies, the fact is that he killed thousands and thousands of children. Anyone who only counts them as babies once they get big enough is an accomplice to this man’s evil deeds.)

Could we please stop pretending? Abortion is in fact the ruthless killing of an innocent human being. That’s what it always has been, and that’s what it always will be. When Planned Parenthood and NOW and politicians deny this, they are simply lying. There is nothing new about this. If you are surprised to discover, as in the case of this Pennsylvanian abortion clinic, that those who kill babies for a living are really not very good people, my question is…where have you been, and what have you been thinking goes on in these clinics? And if some abortionists are better at sanitizing the walls and disposing of baby body parts, do you really think that makes them any better in the sight of God Almighty, Creator of these children, and Judge of us all?

While the major networks are ignoring this story, it's interesting that former NARAL president Kate Michaelman recognizes the gravity of this case and has decided to try some slight of hand and verbal contortions. To get our eyes off the death that is caused by every abortion and the trauma caused to each and every mother, Ms. Michaelman thinks the key point in the Gosnell trial is that

"It is critically important that the women of Pennsylvania know that abortion is legal and is a safe medical procedure."

People, abortion has NEVER been a safe medical procedure. For one, it is nearly always deadly. Kermit Gosnell is not an aberration. He was just sloppy. The same thing he did is going on in clinics across our country and around the world. Legally.

That is what should disturb our souls. 

Perhaps this will wake us up like a cold slap in the face, much like Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" did with regard to slavery. Yes, Americans knew of the atrocities that were taking place in the South, but the fictional imagery in the book shook a nation to its core and proved to be the push the nation needed to abolish the notion of men as property.

Will this macabre trial of what takes place in every abortion clinic across the country build such a groundswell as did Mrs. Stowe's novel? Certainly not if people do not hear about it. If then, what? Only time will tell.

Who knows? You might be the voice that changes the tone of the American conversation. Speak out. Harriet Beecher Stowe used your pen. What are your talents? Use those talents for the sake of mothers and their unborn children across the country. 

Please.

42: A tale of two men

Let us never diminish what Jackie Robinson did.

Branch Rickey

Becoming the first black man in the majors took a toll. His body received abuse upon abuse from purposely errant baseballs and cleats because he had a bit more melanin than the average Jackie. Not only did his body receive abuse, so too did his soul and mind. As a human being, he was treated like an animal, but throughout his ordeal, Jackie Robinson ever remained a man.

That's one reason I am excited about Warner Brothers upcoming movie "42." The other reason is other
man in this saga. Baseball junkies will know who the other man is. Most of America does not. You see, Jackie Robinson would never have gotten his shot without the courage of Branch Rickey.

Ford as Rickey

Branch Rickey was the owner of the Dodgers, the thorn in the backside of the remainder of the major league owners. Rickey saw the talent in the Negro Leagues and thought it a travesty that such men could not play in the Majors because of their skin color. What informed Rickey? His passionate and fervent relationship with Jesus Christ.

In "42," Harrison Ford has been transformed into an amazing likeness of Rickey. Watching the clip, he'd created the same gravelly, cigar-scarred voice. My only question: how will Hollywood treat Rickey's devotion to his God?

The story of Robinson cannot be untethered from Rickey and vice versa, despite the fact that Rickey did many more extraordinary things for baseball outside of bringing it into the then twentieth century regarding civil rights.

Said Robinson about Rickey, "I realized how much our relationship had deepened after I left baseball. It was that later relationship that made me feel almost as if I had lost my own father. Branch Rickey, especially after I was no longer in the sports spotlight, treated me like a son." He also said, "The thing about him was that he was always doing something for someone else. I know, because he did so much for me."

So this April, I'll be dropping some cash at the multiplex hoping to see a great story about two great men.

Homosexual marriage and moral relativism

Rob Bell's in favor of homosexual marriage. Surprised? You shouldn't be.

The former pastor has rejected a biblical view on most issues. His book, "Love Wins," denied a hell for those who have rejected the free gift of redemption from hell through the very expensive death of God the Son on the cross. So to chuck the plain reading of God's word regarding homosexuality should be no acrobatic stretch for him (here).

This is nothing new for those who profess to be leaders of God's people. Long, long ago, God hammered the prophets and religious leaders through the words of Ezekiel.

-- Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing...
-- ...They say, "Declares the LORD," when the Lord has not sent them, and yet they expect him to fulfill their word...
-- ...You have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him, and you have encouraged the wicked, that he should not turn from his evil way to save his life.

Ezekiel 13:3, 6, 22 

We live in a nation that no longer honors God's word as such. Few in the church adhere to its tenets. Few believe it is his special revelation to his creatures. In fact, if you stand upon God's word, if you truly believe what he has said, if you live your life to honor him and love him in your obedience, you will be mocked, ridiculed, and rejected. The tolerance in America for vocal Bible-believers is wearing thin, and this has caused many church leaders to try and adapt God's word to the culture.

Said Mr. Bell, "I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it's a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think … we need to affirm people wherever they are." Affirm away, but I must ask, is it love to encourage and embrace the actions of another if you know such conduct is a direct affront to the God who loves them? As I pled with my dad and my mom as a lad, "Cigarettes will kill you," do I not have a moral responsibility to declare the truth to those careening toward an eternity of torment separated from the God who so loved his creatures that he provided them an off-ramp from that destination?

Every congressman in America may be in favor of homosexual marriage, but that does not make it good or right. Our nation will continue to reject the absolute nature of God's word. I must not. I cannot. If I untether myself from the only sure anchor-point in the universe, the word of God, all becomes relative. 

I believe Mr. Bell is correct. The ship has sailed. America has left its biblical moorings far behind. Without that foundation, marriage becomes a meaningless merging of any number of persons, creatures, or objects. Why can I not marry my sofa?

In reality, though, Love has won. God the Son absorbed the full wrath and condemnation of God the Father on our behalf. Until man takes hold of that gift and lets God reorient him to reality, he still stands in rebellion and in hostility toward God. He stands condemned and his doom is sure, despite his personal enlightenment on issues cultural and political.

We must remain anchored upon the sure foundation. With tears in our eyes we must continue to cry out to our nation, "Please, don't go that way," and point them back to their God and their Savior.

Even if we are the only one left on the dock.