02.18.08
Huckabee, the Cheesy, Over-sensitive Evangelical
This really shouldn’t surprise anyone, but here’s an article documenting Mike Huckabee’s attempt, as governor of Arkansas, to prevent the characterization of large-scale natural disasters as “acts of God,” because he takes exception to those kind of destructive acts being attributed to God. So, one wonders, to whom do we attribute those large-scale natural disasters? I suppose God doesn’t do things that hurt people. And Huckabee is an expert in this field because he’s an ordained Minister of Word and Sac….er…well, let’s just call him a “preacher.”
It just goes to show you what i’ve been saying all along about Mike Huckabee: he would make a terrible pastor, and he would make an even worse president.
Our Baby, Will
Here’s a video of our little boy, Will. I’m holding him, and Angela is making him laugh. He’s got the cutest dimples and laugh.
02.11.08
Bishop Wright Is At It Again
Here is an interview with the Right Reverend N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham, England, by TIME magazine on the issue of popular notions of life after death. As usual, Bishop Wright is not only provocative, but edifying in what he says.
I have often addressed these very issues in my own pastoral ministry. As one of my seminary professors stated, “Gnosticism is alive and well in the Church today.” We do need much more of a focus on the resurrection and our eternal purpose that we find in Christ through his resurrection rather than an attempt to escape the world the way Gnostics do. To quote the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe…in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, Amen.”
Thinking, On My Birthday
Yesterday, i welcomed a new child—not a natural child from my own flesh, but a spiritual child over which i have spiritual care, born to a couple in my congregation. Today, i celebrate my own birthday. Yet, in contemplating the beginning of a new life, so welcomed and loved by everyone in our congregation, and in embarking on the thirtieth year of my own life, i can’t help but think of those children whose parents didn’t love them and cherish their entrance into the world the way my parents did.
This is a very sad report of such circumstances in our world today. There was a time when Christians were at the forefront of rescuing such unwanted children born in their communities. In Roman society, such unwanted children were “exposed” (i.e., to the elements) by being left out in the gutters of the streets or dumped in the garbage heaps of the cities. This invariably would lead to the child’s death by exposure to the elements or by dehidration/starvation. Christians would go around, collect these children, and adopt them into their homes and churches, teaching them to trust in Christ and live different lives in response to God’s grace offered in the Lord Jesus. It is interesting that this kindness shown to small children was turned into false accusation of cannibalism by non-Christians. Many of the very people who would so heartlessly throw unwanted children out into the streets or landfills would then turn around and audaciously accuse Christians, who sought to rescue those children, of eating the children, because the Pagans conflated what few things that they knew about Christian worship and practice (i.e., the story of the Nativity of Christ [this child, whom Christians regard as their Savior, born into a feeding trough], the celebration of the Eucharist of Christ [Christ having given his body to eat and his blood to drink], and Christians taking these abandoned children into their homes).
I read an article recently about strange names that some saints in the early Church had received. Some of the stranger ones were rather vulgar names that apparently were monuments to their having been plucked up from sure death after being cast out as unwanted children. I remember one in particular was a diminutive version a very expressive word in Greek, politely translated into English as “Little Piece of Garbage,” but more expressively and bluntly translated “Little Shit.” No doubt, his testimony was that, as an infant, he was cast out with the trash but rescued by Christians and adopted into their homes. For whatever reason, they either gave themselves these disparaging names or received them from their adoptive parents, most probably with a view to being a perpetual reminder of where they came from, always knowing that whatever would come of their lives would be always owing to God’s grace and power so evidently at work.
Unfortunately, in the modern day, the horrendous act of abortion is hidden from the sensitive eyes of the public, keeping them from seeing exactly what they are perpetuating in their advocacy for a mother’s “choice” to murder her unborn child. And even worse, it prevents Christians from being able to do what they were so quick and anxious to do in earlier times: to help save these unwanted children who are born to unloving and uncaring parents—many of which, today, are born alive and viable in botched abortion attempts. It is astounding that “civilized” and “enlightened” societies such as ours doesn’t do more to ensure that where life is it would be preserved at all costs.
Even as i thank the Lord for my life, and the lives of all my children (both natural and spiritual), and so recognize the love and grace that we all have received from God through the agency of our families and the Church, i pray that God would remove the monstrosity of infanticide (both within the womb and without) from our world forever.
02.02.08
Simply Shocking…
…Not the story itself, but the silence of the media.
I can no longer embed video here (i don’t know why, but it is what it is), so check this out at YouTube. It is a hearing probing the issue of voting machines being hacked and changing the results of elections.
Understand, for the last two years now, i’ve been working at our local election precinct as a poll worker. I saw what went on with the counting. It’s a group effort with accountability to everyone standing around, and it is something you all have to sign your name to under penalty of law (i.e., if you sign your name to the results and they are incorrect, it is voter fraud). So, in the human aspect of it, i know that changing the results of an election done on computerized voting machines is something that would be difficult to do without some larger conspriacy. All you do is print out the results, tabulate all the machines’ printouts, and then record the results and report them to the county election officials, who in turn report them to the Secretary of the Commonwealth (Virginia isn’t a state).
This hearing and the expert who is testifying, however, shows me that the election can be thrown already, long before we turn the voting machines on, simply by a programmer changing a few dozen lines of programming code. That means that the programmer can make the election results end up being whatever he wants them to be, regardless of who casts a vote for what candidate. The results will be fixed.
Understand, i don’t think this happens often. Each county election board purchases and maintains their own machines, so any attempt to throw an election would necessarily involve a programmer for each county rigging the machines to give such a result. However, i am not so naive as to believe that this never happens and never has happened since the implementation of the computerized voting following the Flordia fiasco in 2000. There are, no doubt, only a handful of programmers for each state or commonwealth who go around to each county and program their machines for voting in each election. It would not be difficult for just a few programmers throughout the US to throw an entire election if they were dirty and crooked enough to do so, and it would not surprise me in the least if the elected officials were the ones secretly behind such actions, inciting certain people to do just that with the programming.
My grandfather used to say, “If a man is honest, keep him honest.” In other words, honest people don’t mind being made accountable and showing just how honest they are. And, hence, we should be willing to require that accountability from people who loudly proclaim their honesty. The civil authorities should, of all people, be kept honest. Our governments shouldn’t be shrouded in secrecy—certainly not with something so vital and momentous as an election in the balance—but should be free, open, and transparent in their actions, always being willing to prove to the people that what they have done is proper, decent, and comporting with law. Unfortunately, that isn’t happening in our federal government, and that is also increasingly the case in the state/commonwealth and local governments. That’s becasue political corruption is like biological corruption: it spreads with ferocious speed when left unchecked. The only answer, just as in the medical world, is to open the body, excise the corruption, and allow the wound to heal.
People die when they refuse to allow a surgeon to operate on them and remove cancer or gangrene, but there are some people who so because they are afraid of surgery or the pain that will result from it. They are fools, though, because the pain of death and the rotting of one’s body is much worse and more prolonged than the pain of removing a cancer or gangrenous tissue. Just as only a fool would prevent a surgeon from saving his life by performing surgery because it is painful, so only a fool would prevent the removal of political corruption from the government because he thinks it will cause us confusion, or the government won’t work as well, or simply because they’re so used to the status quo that they can’t conceive of it being any different. Those are childish answers from childish people. They deserve the leaders that they get.
But how do we get rid of government corruption? In a dictatorship, you can’t do it. However, where the people still have the power to change the leadership of their government through elections, removing government corruption is as easy as people getting off the cushion God gave them and going to vote for a candidate who will begin that change. But it’s impossible to do if the people, like mindless sheep, simply follow the crowd and believe what they are told when the media says this man is not electable, but this one is. If all the people would vote their consciences and not worry about trying to play political games, our elections would be much more trustworthy and a much better representation of the people.
It will be painful to try and get used to a different way that government operates. However, we can take heart that the future we will have gained for ourselves and for our children after us will be brighter and healthier than if we had been content with the sops of a corrupt government. We have to decide whether we prefer having our freedom or whether we prefer having what little bones and scraps that the government will throw our way in hopes that they have bought us off with them. We must not be like Esau, who sold his very birthright for a pot of stew. We must be willing to stand, fight, and die for the freedom and gifts that God in his great mercy and love gave to us for our benefit. We must do it for ourselves, and we must do it for our children. Anything less and we become conspirators ourselves. It is one thing to be deceived. It is quite another to cover your eyes to what can be plainly seen and allow ourselves to be deceived. People who do that become conspirators in their demise as a people. The judgment that will befall the corrupt politicians will also fall upon those who knowingly aid them simply to gain some temporary and inconsequential goal.
