NBC

In case you missed it, NBC successfully neutered the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance during their opening segment to the U.S. Open golf tournament this past Sunday (here).  The bit had children reciting the pledge and cut-aways to patriotic images around the D.C. area where the tourney took place this year. When they cut away after "...one nation..." they returned to "...with liberty and justice for all."

When the phone calls began to swamp their switchboard, they fumbled their on-air apology by referencing an omission that may have caused some offense, but the offense was not intended. Ah. Okay.

NBC has done this with intent before (here). Really, this should surprise no one. We are a post-modern and certainly a post-Christian nation. Francis Schaeffer noted that art accurately reflected the heart of a culture or where that culture would go. Find a family on TV whose relationship to the Creator is treated with respect (maybe CBS' Bluebloods where they actually pray before they eat). It's not just our entertainment. We allowed our government to drive prayer from the public schools. What politician will be elected or professor be hired if it comes to light that Christ informs their life in all matters? God has been driven from the American public square.

Call it spiritual entropy. The beautiful package deposited on our doorstep in the late 1700's has been mashed to pieces, not by some hooligan or vagrant, but by us. Jesus Christ is not merely unwelcome, he is not tolerated.

Here's the deal. Whether NBC recognizes it or not, we are a nation under God. In fact, whether or not any nation recognizes it doesn't change the reality that every nation is under God. That is reality. I can deny it until my face turns red, white, and blue, but the God who created the universe and created my DNA created government to be his implementer of justice in the world (Romans 13). I can bow my knee today and submit to him acknowledging him as Lord of all or I will bow my knee one day future when it will be too late (Philippians 2:9-11, Matthew 25:46).

Am I surprised by what NBC did? Not really. Saddened, mostly. It breaks my heart to see my country turn its back on the God who has secured for us such freedoms and such opportunities.

It's time to take up the prayer of Daniel (Daniel 9:1-19).

The National Anthem

Here are a few rules in no particular order from someone who can't sing himself out of a wet paper bag on what to do if you get tapped to sing the National Anthem in some public forum.  I don't mean as one in the crowd (though I might jot ten rules for that at another time) but as the one standing there with the microphone.

1.  It's not about you.  Consider it a corporate prayer. You just happen to be the mouthpiece of 40 or 40,000 other folks in taking a moment to honor our country. Offend a Brit or a Canuck by singing it like your leading a crowd that's proud of its country.

2. Just sing the melody. Few songs rank as difficult to sing as our Star Spangled Banner. For those with vocal talent, it's not a big deal. That said, it's not the time to wow me with the prowess of your vocal talents.  Please, just sing the song.  No crazy tempo.  No wacky pitch changes.  If you can't figure out why, go back to number one.  Anyway, if you start singing like a woman in labor, you're going to screw up the timing of the fly-by, too.

3. Be respectful - face the flag.  I don't care who you are or how many platinum albums you have, it's an honor to be selected to represent those present. Look at it while you sing and not at your mug in the jumbo-tron. Remember the thousands of coffins that have been draped with that majestic piece of cloth so that you can do whatever it is that you do.

4. Be respectful - dress nicely.  That might strike you as quaint or "Beaver Cleaver," but you convey a lot by how you dress. Imagine you are going to meet someone important. That's a start.

5. Be respectful - be still. Walk straight to the microphone, and sing the song. No wild hand gestures are required. PLEASE, do not grab yourself! If you want something to do with your hand, try putting it over your heart. You ought not want folks looking at you anyway (see #1); you want them facing the flag and singing, too. When your done, please leave the stage, field, etc. Folks didn't come to see you anyway.

6. Practice. If you can't hit the notes, maybe you should bow out--no harm, no foul--but there is NO excuse for not knowing the words. If you have struggled with them in the past, you might even tote the lyrics on a 3 x 5 card.

7. Believe it. Did you know that there are four verses to the Star Spangled Banner? Yep. Let me encourage you, before you sing it in public, read all four verses. Understand the history behind the Anthem. If you can't support it or our nation, then please don't sing our nation's anthem just to steal a little face time or because you have an album coming out or because you were nominated for a Grammy.  Or if you're Sean Penn.

Yes, it is perhaps one of the most difficult national songs that has ever been, but what an awesome song it is. I long for the day when Americans will belt it out like the Canadians do during the Stanley Cup. We are, after all, Americans.  Let's sing it with pride.

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER by Francis Scott Key


Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!


NOTE ADDED:  Just learned of a fifth verse penned by Oliver Wendell Holmes over his disgust with the start of the Civil War in 1861.  Don't believe it worthy of the original but I share it here as a footnote to history and since we are in the War's sesquicentennial.


When our land is illumined with liberty's smile,
If a foe from within strikes a blow at her glory,
Down, down with the traitor that tries to defile
The flag of the stars, and the page of her story!
By the millions unchained,
Who their birthright have gained
We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave,
While the land of the free is the home of the brave.

QotD: The Race Card

"The modern definition of 'racist' is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal."

~ Peter Brimelow

The atheist's brother

I find it interesting when two brothers growing up in the same house end up on different forks in the road. When did that happen? What brought it to pass?

My brother and I find ourselves on different roads politically. On the one hand, when it comes to employment, he believes "The Man" (business leadership) is out to get you, but when it comes to politics, he is absolutely convinced "The Man" (government leadership this time) will save us.

Me? If you've read a few posts, you know that I'm big on personal responsibility in the workplace and in government. You also know that I come to those positions not from my own thinking but from what I read in the Bible. If God went to the effort to reveal himself to us through the written word, wouldn't we do well to live our lives in a manner pleasing to our Creator?

My brother and I are not the only two on opposite paths. Take the Hitchens brothers. Christopher is an unashamed, unabashed atheist and thinks you should be, too. Really, that latter position is a great position. If you know your way to jive with reality, why don't you try and convince others of that position? Hitchens has tried to convince the masses by penning "god is not Great" (the actual title capitalization) and "The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-believer."

Did you know Hitchens has a brother named Peter? Do you know that Peter is a Christian? Did you know that he, like his brother, grew up in a religious home but rejected the Bible in favor of rabid atheism?  For Peter, the very thing he embraced turned bitter in his stomach and led him to assert, "That in the end, what I rejected (the God of the Bible) was right." In the following 8-minute video, Peter describes his upbringing, his God rejecting and his God embracing.



About half way through the video, he describes realizing that he would face judgment and that the floor upon which he stood, a floor which was no floor at all in reality, had begun to collapse.

Why does Peter see with such crystal clarity but his brother Christopher, a man whose death is fast approaching due to cancer, has his eyes shut tight? I cannot answer that question, but this I do know, if Peter could do anything to open Christopher's eyes to the truth of man's standing before God and God's provision for man, he would. He understands the implications as illustrated by his own horror at seeing the painting "The Last Judgment" by Rogier van der Weyden, man will die and face the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

Consider the atheist's passion for the believer. Why does he desire that he not believe? To what end? That he might eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die? Really, Paul said the same thing to the Christian--IF the resurrection had been a farce (1 Corinthians 15:32). But the resurrection is an historical event.

Christopher and Peter

So we face the passion of the believer for the atheist. It's a passion for his very existence, for his life. All mankind will know eternal life for we are not merely corporeal beings. But all of us by our very nature stand in open rebellion against God. Paul makes that eminently plain in Romans 3:10-18 and caps it off with "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" in Romans 3:23. The Christian as exemplified by Peter Hitchens here wants to do everything in his power to illuminate the judgment ahead, call the lost to turn around and ultimately point them to the one who has made the way for restoration and eternal life (John 14:6, 17:3).

It bums me out that my brother and I stand on different political roads, but it bums Peter Hitchens out far worse that he and his brother, Christopher, stand on different roads as they hurtle toward eternity.

Masquerade: The submissive wife

Like a police officer behind the tape at a crime scene, I'd like to ask that if you don't have a vested interest in this topic to just move along. You will think this foolishness.

Who has a vested interest? Christian women. Particularly Christian wives who have already committed themselves to trusting God at his word when it comes to how he created them and their role in marriage.

Few have it more challenging in the world today than those who seek to love their Lord by serving God in obedience in their marriage. Janie Cheaney wrote on that very topic in a recent issue of World Magazine (here). Paula Kirby of the Washington Post spent her column railing upon the Judeo-Christian role of women, wives, and mothers. It used to be that people would think through such things when they read or hear them, but now, because the voice is loud, few consider. Most absorb. Cheaney challenges us to consider.

More and more, though, I see an infection within the church, one that is ham-stringing marriages causing them to stagnate at or below the level of mediocrity, and this particular problem--not all problems, just this one--rests in the lap of the ladies (and before I get hammered by lasses far and wide, I have begun a blog to help, spur on, and admonish husbands to fulfill their God-given roles as husbands). The infection is this: the wife who professes Christ and believes that they submit to their husbands as unto the Lord (Ephesians 5:22, Colossians 3:18, 1 Peter 3:1, 5-6), but if you were to examine their relationship with their husband or even ask him, that is not what you would find.

They submit in word but not in deed.

A wife who does not submit to their husband as to the Lord has a problem that has NOTHING to do with the husband. God's commands to the wife do not depend upon whether or not she has a husband who is loving his wife as Christ loved the church just as his commands to the husband are still in full even if she is a shrew. You are right; I do not know your husband, but that does not matter. So let's get back to business.

HOW DOES THIS PLAY OUT?

First, what does it mean to submit? It means to put one's self under the authority of another.  By choice. That means there is an equality inherent in the relationship but one party recognizes the leadership role of the other party and willingly and joyfully abides by that. God does not think men are better than women, he does not feel they are more important than women, but in his economy, God ordained that the husband lead the family.  Peter describes this even footing before God when he says to the husbands that they are coheirs with their wives. Equal. Paul says that sex does not matter in our standing before Christ for we are all one before Christ (Galatians 3:28). But God in his wisdom and by design created the wife as the helper to the husband (Genesis 2:18). Both created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) but man with the responsibility to lead and woman with the responsibility to support.

Consider the godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the ultimate example of equality and submission. Three persons. Each God. Total unity. How can this be? John 6:38 gives us a picture. Christ, God the Son, does the will of God the Father. Likewise the Spirit brings glory to the Son and only does what he hears (John 16:13-14). Equality in the godhead (Philippians 2:6) but submitted order. One of his own will submits to the other. So, too, in marriage.

Please do not take this opportunity to play lawyer.  No "yeah, buts." Many of other places speak of the glory and wonder of submission. That's not my purpose. I am addressing those who know and agree in principle to the previous paragraphs but through hardness of heart are not living it out. Do you know that such a hardness is natural? God said right after the Fall of Man that this very thing would happen.

"Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." (Genesis 3:16b)

Husbands might get all excited thinking God said that the wife will have sexual desire for her husband. Um, not always the case. In context, the same word "desire" is found one chapter later in Genesis 4:7. There God warns Cain that sin desires him, to have mastery over him, but that Cain must overcome that. So in the Fall, in her broken nature, the wife will now desire to dominate her husband, to have the position of authority, rather than to submit to her role as the helper or assistant in the relationship.

Because of that, you, wife, will not want your husband to lead you. You will want to and might actually fight against his authority and his attempts to lead either passively or actively. Submitting (by definition a choice) is now contrary to your fallen nature. Ask yourself these questions:

• Does your mood turn dark (perhaps for weeks on end) when he makes a decision contrary to your desire?
• Do you immediately come up with a list of his short-comings as long as Santa's "Naughty" list when he approaches you about a concern he has seen in your life? Do you immediately try to justify your conduct by pulling out the "Naughty" list that you've been keeping against your man since "I do" to show him that he has no justification for getting into your chili?
• Do you use sex like a mackerel for Shamu? Do you taunt and tease with your wiles to get your way when it suits you?
• Do you roll your eyes behind his back (perhaps to his face) when he tries to lead the family in prayer or in reading God's word because you know his sin better than he does? 
• Do you bristle when he asks you to consult him before making major purchases? When he asks to see the checkbook? When he tries to set a budget? When he...?

Let me encourage you, again: this is natural. It's normal. But it's part of your fallen naturalness.

So let me rebuke you: it's sin.  It's the dark wife of Proverbs (19:13, 21:9, 19, 25:24).

My heart aches for marriages mired in Midland because the husband has given up trying to lead his wife, thinking that it's better to live with a cease-fire than to go through the pain of trying to break through the polar icecap and bring healing to the marriage. Callouses build and spouses begin to co-exist. The wife has dominated; her desires have won the day. The husband, who perhaps has tried to lead in the past, has given up, choosing the unsettled peace of North and South Korea over the open warfare of the Union North and Confederate South.

This ought not be. The husband must lead (again, that's my other blog), but the wife must choose to submit and support and encourage and respect.  It's not North and South Korea.  It's not even the Civil War. It's one team but one that's not playing on the same page, God's page. You can't have two quarterbacks on the field at the same time. Only one can ultimately call the play.

So, wife, if you have seen your reflection in these words and do not like what you see, what do you do? If you are already a Christ-follower, you already know, but I'll spell it out anyway.

• Ask God.  Perhaps you don't know if this is you but you suspect it might be. Ask God to make it plain to you. With a sincere heart, fall before him and tell him that you don't want to be that way. God knows the dark corners of your heart and he will lead those who truly seek his way (Psalm 19:12, 13, 139:23-24).
• Repent. If you discern that this has been your way, repent.  Your sin is against God (Psalm 51:4). You have rebelled against his plan and purpose for your life. You have kicked against the goads of your design. You have put yourself upon his throne that you might order your life in a way that is most comfortable to you but is absolutely against his command. Let the Holy Spirit break your heart and grieve for what you have done. Then accept the cleansing that comes from true repentance (1 John 1:9).
• Apologize. Hardest words to speak in the English language. "I'm sorry." Be specific. Explain to your husband that you recognize what you have done and how you have behaved, and tell him how you have confessed before God and intend to walk in the future.
• Live it. Words are cheap. You will validate your words with your deeds (James 2:17-18).
• Trust God. The old root of sin will not be done away with until we are glorified, but its power over you was neutered at the cross.  Therefore, "consider yourselves dead to sin and...let not sin reign in your mortal bodies" (Romans 6:11-14). The road will be hard at times, but God does not have evil in store for you. All things work together for good (Romans 8:28). Trust him. Let him work in your life as you obey God in your marriage (Galatians 6:9).

My passion for you is that you have a marriage that honors God. It will never be perfect, alas, but if it honors God, you will know a joy in that relationship like nothing you have now. You will know his good pleasure and in so doing, you will know true pleasure. You and your man will be one flesh as much as you can be in a fallen world and that will testify to that world about the God you serve bringing him great glory. And it will bless you to your toes.

That can never happen if you do not submit heart and soul.

So if this does not concern you, move along. Nothing to see here. If it does concern you, step inside the tape and see what you can do to bring about healing.