The Tragedy of Tiller

George Tiller is dead.

If you did not know, George Tiller had the most gruesome abortion record in the country. He would perform his "procedure" on any baby, in any trimester, for any reason. He had the blessing of Kansas' former governor Kathleen Sibelius, previously the most pro-abortion executive in the country.

He was unashamed about what he did. Pro-choice groups lauded him a hero. Now he is dead, murdered in his church of all places, and he will become a martyr.

This should never have happened. Had Kansas a governor with any moral mettle, the doctor would have been behind bars, at the very least for the past half-dozen years with many dozens still facing him, for the atrocities he had committed upon the unborn.

Law should have settled Tiller's case long ago. Law failed Tiller. Law failed Kansas. Law failed the thousands dead at Tiller's hand.

In the fertile soil of unenforced law, anarchy grows. Today, a vigilante entered Tiller's church and shot him dead. He was serving as usher today at his Lutheran church in Wichita.

Where was Tiller's pastor? No, not today. Three weeks ago. Three months ago. Three years ago. You've got someone sitting in your congregation, actually meeting and greeting folks as an usher on Sunday mornings, who during the week dismembers babies for a living, and you say nothing? "Hey, George, wanna play a round of golf on Saturday?" Where is the prophetic outrage? The pastor and every person in that congregation are culpable for the blood on Dr. Tiller's hands, and I would contend, for the very blood of Dr. Tiller.

Murder. The vigilante should be tried and sentenced for first degree murder. Self-defend all day long. Protect the innocent by laying down your own life. It is legal to kill another to protect an innocent if the innocent's life is in imminent jeopardy. I don't think Mr. Tiller (hardly a doctor) posed an imminent threat to anyone at his church. To execute law and preserve justice, that is the role of the state. It's failure does not permit one man to take unto himself the gravest task of the state, the death sentence of another man.

With President Obama taking the mantle from Ms. Sibelius as the most pro-abortion executive in the country, Tiller's death will serve to foment like kerosene on a riotous bonfire the hatred of the pro-choice movement for those who are pro-life. What Matthew Sheppard was to the homosexual movement, so George Tiller will become to pro-abortion America. The pro-life movement will become synonymous with wild-eyed zealotry.

Abortions will not become uncommon and rare. They will become unrestricted, and do not be surprised if protesting abortions becomes hate-speech and felonious.

George Tiller's death, rather than saving the life of the unborn, will do nothing to stem the tide of abortions but will actually make them more accessible. His death was criminal. So to was his life.

It's a travesty of justice all the way around.

(read Isaiah 59:1-8 here. Grievous.)

Just another day: In the merry, merry month of May

Is it really just another day?!? I don't think so. This is an odd time. Consider.

• The nuke's on you. North Korea just detonated a nuke. Boom. Okay, it was last week. Still, boom! Considering we've lived with nukes all our lives, we have treated that little rumble in the western Pacific as no more significant than another Yankees win. I don't think we can fathom the inferno and devastation that a well-placed nuke would bring. Perhaps those survivors from the outskirts of Hiroshima or Nagasaki could enlighten us.
  

Thing is, in our lifetimes, the nukes have been held by folks who knew and understood the serious nature of the weapon in their hands. They comprehended the mass destruction that would be unleashed upon their foes. These nations were sane and civilized with the possible exception of Pakistan.

Now, North Korea has a nuke. Does anybody remember their testing of a ballistic missile a few months back? One of Barack Obama's first tests in the international sphere? Not that NK would attach a nuke to a missile. That could reach the US.

And Iran's on the brink. Yawn.


• Race is on. The very best mind in constitutional law to fill the vacancy on the US Supreme Court is an hispanic woman. Just so happens to be. Far more subtle than a nuke is Ms. Sotomayor. Could have far greater impact on the dissolution of our nation, long term. It's not her heritage or her skin color. It's her devastatingly destructive opinion of law. Whim. Eyes wide open vice blind. Determining the merit of the individual vice weighing them in the objective balance of law. Perhaps we'll get to see Sharia introduced at the SCOTUS. Speaking of which...
  


• Greece is the word. Muslims are rioting in Greece. An insult to the Koran, I guess. Rotterdam, second largest city in the Netherlands, now has a population comprised mostly of Muslim immigrants. And they want the laws changed (here). They've got a groove. They've got a meaning.


• America's most wanted. David Jones, not the former Monkee but the pastor, never intended to subvert San Diego law, but that's what he's done. His crime? He and his bride had the audacity to hold a Bible study in their home. GASP! (here) Apparently it is a religious assembly and requires city permits to have such an assembly outside of of religious zoning. Ten to fifteen folks in your home for a Bible study. Wicked criminality. Tupperware parties, poker nights, Super Bowl gatherings, gay love-ins, or pot smokeouts? All okay. Bible studies? Das ist verboten! Ver ah your papers?? It'll cost 'em over ten-grand to get the required permits.


• Don't tread on me. Unless of course your an American whose not from America and really don't want to assimilate into the American fabric. Debbie Lucas hung a flag in her office at a hospital (in Texas of all places) in honor of Memorial Day weekend. When she returned to her Dilbert cubicle, it had be not only taken down but tossed on the floor. There had been complaints, the most vocal coming from her boss who had come to America 14 years earlier. Perhaps the boss should have moved to Venezuela. Or Cuba. You can toss the American flag on the floor all you want down there.

At least gas prices are going back up.

Pixar

"Up" starts tomorrow, and it will be a hit.

Yeah, I hear you. Not really going out on a limb, am I? The cynics who think Pixar's success is pure fluke (also, the same folks who think the human eye a result of random mutation) bet that the film company will show its humanity and cough up a clunker any day now. Their hope is tomorrow. I don't think so.

CNN probes Pixar's production team on the eve of Up's release trying to get to the bottom of home run after home run. Steroids? No. The creators themselves chalk it up to the fact that the entire team is comprised of artists. Ahhh. A bit of sophisticate snobbery. (You can read CNN's article here). I think their success is easier than that. Here's my take.

1. Story. A good story is a good story is a good story. Tell me a story. Please. Keep it simple, toss in a few twists, and voila! Nuance is great for the nerds writing the reviews or for the dweeb teaching the college level course on the Significance of Proletariat Oppression in Pixar Productions. The rest of us want a story we can track. Pixar always gives you a great story.


2. Characters. Give me people or critters to care about. Give me someone to loathe. And make them normal. Hollywood and Rockefeller Center, NY are not normal. Nebraska is normal. Montana is normal. Pixar always delivers superb characters. The old guy in "Up" was a hit in my eyes the first time I saw him. When I heard Ed Asner's voice coming out of him, he only got better (despite Ed's lefty leaning tendencies...segue...)


3. Issues. Leave the lefty issues out. The environment is not dying (I fear we may get that in "Up"). All corporations, especially big oil, are not evil. Leave it be! Amazing that they resisted it in Nemo and Monsters, Inc. There's enough stuff that timelessly touches all of us where we live without getting a NOW or Greenpeace commercial.


4. Art. Pixar set the bar higher than any company even though an animated movie could go with Toy Story. Then they kept setting it higher with each subsequent movie. The animation is objectively beautiful. The screen is a feast for the eyes. Much of animation today is ugly. On purpose. Pixar does not give such an assault. I've sat in the darkness shaking my head at the extraordinary complexity and beauty in so simply drawn characters.

Tomorrow "Up" hits the screen. No doubt we will once again be treated with a feast for the eyes, the heart and the mind without the slightest hint of guilt in the aftermath. That is Pixar at its best.

It's too bad more non-animated movies don't try their hand at Pixar's formula. It's not cosmic. It used to be the norm. Were it so again, Hollywood might see the run on the box-office they have desperately longed for.

Remembering

They marched for scores of miles through the snow for there were no half-tracks. The trail left by these beleaguered soldiers required no Indian scout to follow. The blood from their feet clearly demarked where Washington's army had been and where it went.

Farmers and their sons took up arms against their Mother Country not understanding the nuances of failed diplomacy or the particulars of Britain's increasing oppression. They did know that their farms and lives were at stake and that the British demands would only grow greater. War was upon them. Without a uniform, ill-clad and unshod, oft with farm implements as their weapon, the men of the American Revolution went to fight for freedom. And to die.

Do the young men and women enlisting today understand the hatred of Koran-believing Islam toward things of the west, toward America and western Europe? Many, probably not. Do they know the beauty of our Constitution and the soul-stirring weight of the Declaration of Independence? Do they understand the difference between a Republic and a Socialist state?

Probably not.

Many today will certainly swear an oath to the United States of America to serve in her military with hope of getting an education. Many want to see the world. Some just follow their friends. But during the Revolution, there were farmers and preachers, barbers and teachers, who took up arms because that's what others were doing. Their motives may not have been the red, white, and blue.

And still, they shed their blood.

Today we have fresh graves of folks little older than boys and girls who were willing to wear the uniform of our great nation though perhaps not full grasping why we fight. They died fighting the enemy though they might not have fully comprehended why he was the enemy.

For all those who, little understanding why they swore an oath, died in service to the United States of America, I thank God. I give thanks to their families for raising sons and daughters willing to lay down their lives for their friends.

Dear God,

For the graves that are fresh, bemarked by a new white cross,
For the graves that are freshly mowed and have been so for two centuries now,
For the graves that are unknown, a spot in some forest, perhaps beneath where a city has grown up or where now stands a baseball field,
For those who have died on the field of battle in service to the United States,
I offer my deepest gratitude.

Please bless their families for the great sacrifice they have made.
Bless the sons and daughters who will not know their dad or their mom. Help them to one day know what an extraordinary thing their parent did on that fateful day. Help them to know that their dad or their mom is a hero.
Bless the moms who did not want to see their child go into service but let them go anyway. Bless the dads who instilled in their child courage and character.

Until you return and set all things right, we will continue to war. Hasten the day of your return so that fresh graves would no longer be necessary.

In the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who made the greatest sacrifice,
Amen.

The days ahead look grim for America.

Economically, we've plunged into the deep end of the debt pool. With ankle weights. And wearing a flak vest.

Internationally, we've shaken hands, bowed to the waist, and kissed the posterior of most every evil dictator on the planet.

Militarily, we've cut so deep our machines are decades older than the people operating them.

Socially, we're ruder, cruder, and prouder than a boar in the rut.

Morally, we're back-stroking in sewage and savoring the stench. Horror movies have become snuff films. Music lauds satisfying any sexual deviance. Literature has gone the way of the dodo.

Long term, America might power out of this; short term, things look mighty grim.

What has brought on this full-scale entropy? We refuse to say, "No."

Civilization necessitates a healthy recommended daily allowance of the word "no." The more we say "no" to ourselves, the fewer laws we need. If I restrain myself, isn't a 30 mph sign a bit absurd for a residential neighborhood? "Duh!"

Parents today refuse their children nothing. Rather than the child getting to a level of rebellion and the parent laying the board of education to the seat of learning, the child continues to crank up the octane of their tantrums until they break the will of their parents. Game, set, and match to the four-year old brat.

To teach a child that the sun doesn't orbit their little noggin' and that all of humanity is not at their beck and call, parents must introduce them to "no" and to the discipline that arrives at its violation.

Educators will not and some cannot fail students. "What would that do to their fragile psyches?" So we graduate morons with the work ethic of Paris Hilton. Or is that redundant?

To reestablish sanity in our schools, teachers and principals must be allowed to establish boundaries and enforce them. They must be allowed to use the word, "no."

Employers cannot fire employees. Government refuses to let corporations die a natural death because people might lose their jobs thereby creating an unmotivated (or European) workforce.

Say "no!" Fire a worker or two and see how productivity picks up. If it doesn't, fire a few more. It's amazing what can get done when the workers actually want to be there. Not going to happen with unions blocking the way.

And, oh, our indulgent obesity (I say this after gaining twenty pounds). We can't deny ourselves another Twinkie or a second Big Mac. At least we're washing it down with a quart of zero-cal Dr. Pepper. If I get too large to walk, I can join the Ride-a-Cart 500 at the local Wal-Mart. Pedestrians on the right. Bubba-buggies on the left.

You can say "no" (Keith!). It's a good thing. Pounds drop. Smaller trou. New wardrobe (or back to the old one). Longer life expectancy. Fewer medical problems. Your knees can actually support you.

This inability to say "no" has infected the church, too. I'm not surprised to see stuff outside the church like "Go With Your Gut" seminars and "I Can Do It" conferences, or writing books like "It's All About You" (all real titles). It's the lie of Satan, "You, too, can be a god." This heresy has infected the church. When talking about sin gives way to salving the soul, when doctrine gives way to drama, when plainly teaching the truth gives way to bringing 'em in with production, then the church has ceased to be the church. It's become no more relevant than a junior high pep rally at best, and at worst, it stands as an apostate enemy of God.

You want "your best life now?" Don't pick up the heretical book that title by America's favorite charlatan. Pour yourself into what God tells you in His word. And He says, "No." No to adultery, extra-marrital sex, or non-husband-wife relationships. No to murder. No to stealing. No to gossip, slander, and libel. No.

Christians might query, "Isn't everything "yes" to us in Christ?" (referencing 2 Corinthians 1:19-20). For those who have already come under the lordship of God in Christ, they know enormous freedom, but all the junk in the previous paragraph remains contrary to God. The difference is now, as a believer through the working of the Holy Spirit, the Christian has the power and desire to obey. They are yoked to Christ and follow His direction and guidance. They are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. As they submit to God, He guides them in all truth and righteousness. To establish a church and worship service on "yes" paints a false picture to those who live in rebellion to God or those who have accepted Christ as Savior for only a short time and still struggle with the issues of the "old man" who fights against the things of the Spirit.

As a country, as individual churches, as individual Christians, we would do well to reacquaint ourselves with "no." If we refuse, our race to irrelevance will only accelerate on all levels.

Science v. Religion II

Last week, the headlines across cyberspace announced, "THE MISSING LINK FOUND!" In keeping with my last post, rather than pitch my Bible in the trash, I kicked back waiting for the other shoe to fall. Every year since I can remember, a missing link has been found, and every year since I can remember, a few days, weeks, months after the announcement, a retraction gets printed somewhere in the bowels of the paper or web-site.

This time it only took a week (here and here). The fossil that looked like a half-million year old lemur is just that, a lemur-like critter from some indeterminable time. Did anyone really think it a link between monkey and man? You got me.

Mr. Darwin contended that the fossil record, as more and more fossils were unearthed, would give weight to his theory that animals transitioned between kinds. That has proven a major problem for evolutionists because the fossil record has shown a dearth of fossils pointing to linkage. On the contrary, they point to clear and distinct kinds. Almost like they were created that way (oops!).

Still, America remains duped that Darwinian evolution is great science. It's proven! It's fact! No, it's a theory and will ever remain a theory because it cannot be tested and cannot be proven. That doesn't dissuade evolutionists from asserting the "factual nature" of evolution. In my local paper, a science teacher dismissed Intelligent Design or any assessment of science in light of the biblical creation as unscientific. He avered, "If an idea (like intelligent design) cannot be objectively tested, then it is not science."

That's utter rot. Examine the evidence. Postulate your theory. Continue to examine your evidence and see how the theory holds. That's the science of prehistory. We have no witnesses (other than God) to day one so we have no one we can question. Creating an experiment to cause evolution (interesting verbs, don't you think?) has proved fruitless. If we use untestability to delineate science and non-science, then Darwinian evolution falls short.

Now we have another article on Fox indicating life on earth MAY have begun earlier than previously thought. Ahhh-hah. Note the qualifier. Rather read the article (here) and notice all the qualifiers, the might-haves & could-haves, as they discuss these theories.

No, I don't think I'll be chunking my Bible into the kitchen trash any time soon. The heavens declare the handiwork of God. Yes, they do.

Bias

Drudge noted that Time magazine is running its seventeenth cover with an Obama on it in the past year. 17! That's once every three weeks!!

Surely it has nothing to do with the title (and content) to Bernard Goldberg's book on the 2008 election, "A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media." That's the actual title, parentheses and all.

It couldn't be that. Surely.

Seventeen?!?

QotD: An American patriot...from Great Britain!

A few months ago I linked a speech in the European Parliament where Brit Daniel Hannan unleashed his anger upon British Prime Minister Gordon Brown over the squandering of national wealth and the burdening of England with a welfare state that would make Trotsky proud. In case you missed it, listen to his speech here.

A few nights ago, he joined Sean Hannity on his eponymous program and his ability to articulate historical Americanism goes unmatched in the modern era...and he's a Brit! The video is a bit lengthy, but I want you to savor the words of someone with the deepest admiration for our nation. I almost stood and cheered!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Daniel Hannan:

"Your country is great and prosperous and free because government is constrained and because the visionaries who wrote your constitution who knew what they were doing when they drafted that document and who understood where unconstrained government leads because they fought against it. They created a system of checks and balances that would keep the state small and the citizen big.

"Now if you start going down this road towards a more European welfare model and more European health care model, more public spending, more spending on education, being nicer in your foreign policy, all of those things, you make your country less American. You make it more like everywhere else. And that isn't going to make people like you anymore, it's going to make them respect you less.

"The reason that your country is respected and honored in the world is precisely because it's been as your founders understood it, it's been the city on the hill. It's shown us how by adopting a model based on personal freedom and the decentralization of power based on Jeffersonian democracy and disbursed decision making, how you can make people prosperous and successful and strong. And the world owes you a debt. Because the vision of your constitution didn't just keep you free, it inspired your fathers to take that freedom to other continents as well."

Pass the fish and chips! Why can't foreigners like that run for office? Instead we get Ah-nold. Alas. If you'd like to hear the entire exchange, click it here.

By the way, let me encourage you to forward his words or the links to his videos to those you know. Our national fabric is unraveling. So grab a needle and thread and forward this to friends and family.

God's peace!

Cartoon of the Day: Executive meddling

The presidential overreach continues as Barack Obama as the executor of American laws draws a gas mileage line in the sand. Lisa Benson takes her pen to the issue:

copyright 2009 Lisa Benson

No doubt we will see expensive fuel efficient cars coming out of what has become the government run auto industry to try and bolster their profits. Does anybody remember the 70's? 55 mph? Ridiculous lines at the gas station? ALL SELF-INFLICTED!!! Someone recently wrote, "If you try and inject stimulus into dieing (sic) companies you get a demon retard economy." We're getting there.

Science v. Religion

Our local paper reported Sunday on the Texas state school board coming to terms with science controversies in the classroom. A sub-story explored the "religion controversay" and how one science teacher believes that science reinforces his faith (here).

Rather than seeing science and faith/religion as controversial, the teacher separated them into "how" and "why." Science tells us how things happen. Religion tells us why they happen. In other words, religion has no place within the scientific disciplines because it is irrelevant to science.But the truth is that much of science and the scientific method was birthed within Christendom. God encourages man to know Him and to seek Him through His revealed word, the Bible. While God cannot be known exhaustively, He can be known truly (Schaeffer). That means what we read in the Bible is true about God. No, we cannot know all there is to know about Him. If that were true, He would be finite and could not be God. That does not mean that we cannot know the truth about Him. We can and we do through His word and through His creation.

Men of old (Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Descartes, Faraday, Boyle as examples) posited that if this were true of the Special Revelation, the Bible, then it should be true of the General Revelation, all of creation, as well. The Bible declares that the heavens declare the handiwork of God and all creation reveals His glory. With that knowledge, men of God moved with confidence into the world with the knowledge that a) the world could be known, and b) what could be known about it would reveal even more of the magnificence of the God who created it.

There is a line between science and God, but it is not vertical. It's horizontal. If, and let me emphasize the word if, in fact God created the universe, then all of the sciences, yea even all academic disciplines, are revelatory about the God who is there. Science is submitted to God in truth, though not in practice. The line does not separate science from God but brings it to its rightful place under the authority of and in submission to the God who spoke the universe into being.
Today, God is not permitted within the fields of science, yet more and more the evidence points to a God who fine-tuned not only man but the entirety of the cosmos. He is dismissed from the answer from those who purport to seek the truth. Which begs the question, if He is the answer but is not allowed to be the answer, can man ever come to know the truth?

This dismissal is most troubling when it comes from scientists who are Christian. When evidence appears to run contrary to the Bible, something's gotta give. Do I go with appearance? Or do I go with the word of God? For the atheist or agnostic, this is a no-brainer. God's word carries no more weight than Green Eggs and Ham, so they happily run with the contrary. The believer, because of the overwhelming tide within academia and society, has often compromised his view of Scripture and of God because of the appearance of where the scientific evidence leads.

Since the time of Darwin, those theories based upon appearances have ever been in a state of flux. How old the universe? How old man? The theories are ever changing to accomodate the appearance of the evidence.

So very much evidence within the scientific realm points to God (DNA as an example). So very much points to Genesis (geochronometers, flood strata, and yes, even the fossil record). The Bible is not a book of science, but where it does touch the scientific realm, it does speak truly.

Trying to divide God from science is wholly unnecessary, for if God is, then He is the God of science, too. If we must use a line, let it be horizontal.