National insurrection from within the Church. A couple of links. A little bit of humor.

I am not a huge fan of David French, editor of "The Dispatch" newsletter and columnist for "Time". I do subscribe to the newsletter, as there is usually a lot to be found there of solid conservative journalism, despite my mild distaste for some of Mr. French's rather wishy-washy views. But the other day, Mr. French published a column that I thought was pretty much spot on. Entitled "Only the Church Can Truly Defeat a Christian Insurrection", subtitled, "It’s time to combat the right’s enabling lies."

David points out the following:

... this attack occurred days after the so-called Jericho March, an event explicitly filled with Christian-nationalist rhetoric so unhinged that I warned on December 13 that it embodied “a form of fanaticism that can lead to deadly violence.”

Are you still not convinced that it’s fair to call this a Christian insurrection? I would bet that most of my readers would instantly label the exact same event Islamic terrorism if Islamic symbols filled the crowd, if Islamic music played in the loudspeakers, and if members of the crowd shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they charged the Capitol.

Just playing Whack-A-Mole against QAnon and Stop-The-Steal is not enough. The church needs to stop spreading, or at least enabling, the untruths that feed these events. A Bernie Sanders fanboy shoots up a Republican Congressmen baseball team, so that means that everyone on the left hates you and wants you dead? Seriously?

The Church in America is going to go down in flames if Joe Biden wins? The very gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church, yet you're worried about some temporary political set-back? Since when did the church EVER put its trust in one man or one party other than in Jesus Christ? Never mind, don't answer that. It's too depressing.

The election of Joe Biden will spell the end of America? Didn't we hear the same thing every four years since, well, probably 1996? Or maybe sooner. Yet, here we are. (It's true, the break-up of our nation is probably closer than it has been since 1860. But, if it does happen, the 2020 election will have been a symptom, a big crack in the block, not the cause.)

Bottom line, as I see it, although politics play an important role in the life of an engaged citizen of the United States, as a Christian, my PRIMARY concern is as a citizen of the Kingdom of God, as an ambassador of my Lord to this little patch of ground on this little planet. Nothing happens here beyond my Lord's purview and control, anyway.

We Christians need to focus on our true mission, to make disciples, baptize them, and teach them all that Jesus commands us.

       

Today's links

Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening

• MORNING: "I will help thee, saith the Lord." - Isaiah 41:14
• EVENING: "The Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself." - Daniel 9:26

Today in History, presented by Tara Ross

This Day in History:

Carole Lombard’s tragic WWII War Bonds tour

Carole Lombard and her husband Clark Gable

On this day in 1942, American film actress Carole Lombard is tragically killed in a plane crash as she returns from a WWII War Bonds tour. Her trip had been part of Hollywood’s early response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. ... Jump straight to the full story, here.

A Patriot’s Lament, a Conservative’s Hope

by Esther O'Reilly on Jan. 14, 20121

A thoughtful, nuanced take on the events of January 6. Sympathetic, or perhaps empathetic might be the better word, towards even those caught up in the worst of the MAGA lunacy. Hopeful about the possibility of moving forward, she writes, "But I believe carrying this patriot dream forward in our hearts is the only way for us to survive—as Americans, as conservatives, and as Christians. To that end, God help us, and God bless America."

Folks, as always, it's been a real pleasure. I'm taking tomorrow off, and if health allows, will spend it with the saints.

Don't forget to take a moment to leave a comment and to subscribe. The more interaction like that, the more this little tiny blog will spread.

See ya Monday!

Ron

RACISM, VICTIMIZATION, MILITANCY, AND OTHER SINFULNESS: One Christian's viewpoint.

Google images

IN AN ESSAY yesterday on The Imaginative Conservative Magazine website, entitled "Victim Privilege, Cultural Appropriation, & the New Enslavement", Joseph Mussomeli discusses how - fulfilling the words of the poet William Blake “The iron hand crushed the Tyrant’s head and became a Tyrant in his stead.” -

"... it is politically incorrect to ever criticize anyone considered a victim of our society. Like the ancient tribunes of Rome, all those categorized as “victims” are untouchable and their views sacrosanct. No matter how rude or imbecilic their opinions, few dare oppose them."

MR. MUSSOMELI IS quite correct, insofar as he takes this, with his somewhat humorous conclusion "When a particular noodle or spice or fashion is central to your self-esteem and identity, you probably need psychological intervention more than political affirmation."

However, from the viewpoint of a Bible-reading, God-loving, people-loving, sin-hating Christian, I cannot help thinking that he is missing an important point: the role that our sin nature plays in all of this. From the very beginning, people were feeling "victimized" and dealing with it by reacting militantly.

IN GENESIS 4, Cain feels angry and offended because God favored his brother Abel's sacrifice over his own. He took it out on Abel by killing him, making fratricide the very first homicide in history. God was merciful in his punishment of Cain, sending him into exile rather than striking him down. Cain, however, true to his human nature, gets bent about this and whines that he is going to be a fugitive and will be killed. Again, God responds with mercy, marking Cain so that everyone will know that he is not to be killed.

Fast forward several generations to a descendant of Cain, named Lamech. Lamech is a braggart with a bad temper. He boasts to his wives that he killed a young man for striking him. His last recorded words, in verse 24, are "If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold." Now, I don't know about you, but that sounds suspiciously like a lot of the militant "advocacy" groups today. "My forebearers had revenge coming to them, so I now will take a virtually infinite larger revenge."

MAKE NO MISTAKE! Mistreatment of others is ALWAYS wrong. It doesn't matter to me if it is done for personal reasons, or for racial or cultural reasons. Every human being that has ever lived bears the image of God [Gen 9:6], and is worthy of the love and respect due to a fellow image-bearer. To show animosity of any kind is purely sinful. For this reason, any form of racism or other forms of systemic discrimination is outside the pale, and should not be tolerated. Ever. However, for the same reason, the victim of such sin is ALSO responsible for how he or she reacts.

As Jesus put it, whoever is angry with his brother is guilty of murder. [Matt 5:22] More to the point, in the famous parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, a Samaritan traveler is praised by Jesus for aiding and caring for an injured Jew, while the injured man's fellow Jews ignored his plight. What is not often spoken of, is that in that culture Samaritans were considered pariahs, worthy only of contempt, half-breeds. To call someone a Samaritan was a serious insult, comparable to today's "N-word" and the like. [see John 4:9; 8:48]

HATRED BREEDS HATE. Contempt breed contempt. A viscious and seemingly never-ending cycle. Thus is our sinful nature.

People of good will, no matter their race, creed, culture, political affiliation, whatever, are capable of learning to get along with each other. History is replete with examples of this. That does not change the fact, though, that our sin nature is going to inform and influence every relationship we have. To one degree or another, our every interaction with any other person, place, or thing, is going to have some sinful aspect. We don't have to like it, we can fight hard against it. We can even mitigate it to some extent. But we can never eradicate it.

THE CYCLE CAN only be broken by divine intervention. As Paul wrote, within the Church, the body of Christ, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." [Gal 3:28] Followers of Jesus, those whom God foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified [Rom 8:29-30], now have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, empowering them to "put to death" the sin that also dwells within.

"For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord." [Eph 2:18-21]

DO YOU WANT to see an end put to the endless cycle of hatred and oppression and tyranny? Do you want to be able to see, and know from experience, that the only really crucial difference between individuals is whether they are inside or outside of the Body of Christ? Do you want to know first-hand the joy of being free to love and glorify God by enjoying Him forever, along with all your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Then, very simply, in faith, repent. In faith, turn away from your sin, and turn to God. Respond to Jesus' call to believe in Him through faith. And the Holy Spirit will place you into that body of Christ, and will enable you to live a life of love and faith as you serve Him by serving your fellow believers and by showing God's love and mercy to all people.

I have serious problems with "Santa Claus" ...

pic downloaded from Google Images

OK. I'm going to get myself in trouble here, but that's OK. This is something that's been bothering me for many years. Because of it, my wife thinks that I'm a "Grinch". My daughter-in-law came close to banning me from seeing our young grandson for fear that I might say something and "spoil his Christmas". So I know from first-hand experience that this is NOT a popular viewpoint.

The problem is that I think it is wrong to teach very young, impressionable, and trusting children that Santa Claus is a real person that really lives at the North Pole and really flies all over the world in a sleigh pulled by magical reindeer in order to deliver presents to good children and pieces of coal to naughty children.

I don't really have a problem with telling children about Santa, as a form of fiction, like a fairy tale or the like. Kids can have fun with that kind of story telling, just like they would with Little Red Riding Hood or Snow White or The Little Mermaid or ... well, you catch my drift. My problem is teaching, and insisting, that the story is REAL, not fantasy/fiction.

There are numerous reasons that any person, religious or not, can understand even if, like most, they don't agree. First, it is an outright LIE, and lying is never good. Second, there is a strong potential for damaging the trust your child has in you, when (s)he finds out that you've been lying all those years. Third, once the truth comes out, it can cause issues with differentiating truth from falsehood. There are other reasons as well, that I'm not going to go into here. A quick Google search yielded many detailed article and essays on serious mainstream websites such as CNN, Business Insider, and Psychology Today that go into greater detail.

As a Christian, I have other reasons for concern about this fraud.

To begin with, there is a corollary to the trust issue. How many children after finding out that the Santa they had been taught was a real person really wasn't, have then, rather logically actually, taken the short step to believing that Jesus isn't real either? I don't have a solid number, but I personally know several people that have rejected Jesus as anything other than a myth because of being disillusioned about Santa. (And the Easter bunny, the Tooth Fairy, etc. But that's another post for another time.) If there are a handful among my comparatively tiny sample, how does that translate into the entire population? You do the math, as the saying goes.

The Santa myth completely overshadows the real reason that the holiday even exists in the first place. Christmas is about the physical birth of Jesus Christ. The second Person of the Triune God took on flesh and human nature. Yet today, after a casual look around almost any place in the country, you would think this is about trees decorated in such a way that the most fanatical druid would approve, about spending billions of dollars, and often going into debt, to buy buy buy and buy some more. You might think it's about cutesy little songs about jingling sleigh bells, or about a nutcracker that comes to life. And all of this happily supervised by a fat old guy in a red suit with white trim laughing "Ho! Ho! Ho!" all the time. You would find very little if anything about Jesus in the average family or school or community "holiday" celebration. And I have a problem with that. Anything that distracts from worshiping our glorious Savior is a problem, and you couldn't find a bigger distraction this side of hell itself.

Everyone is more than happy to proclaim the seasonal motto of "Peace on earth and goodwill towards men", and smile at strangers and give to charities. (Did you know that many charities receive the bulk of their annual donations during the month of December?)

What most don't know is that the phrase is from the Bible, specifically Luke 2:14. It was the angels proclaiming "Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men" as they announced the birth of the Savior of the world. The phrase has nothing to do with truces during a holiday and about everybody wishing everybody else well. No! It means that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity had come to earth, had taken on a human nature and human body, and was going to live a perfect and sinless life and then die as a ransom for many, and then be resurrected in power and glory. And because of that, peace would be possible between God and man. Not man and man, but God and man. And that goodwill between God and man would exist, not between man and man. It meant that God's white-hot wrath over sin would be spent punishing Jesus as my substitutionary sacrifice, and that Jesus would triumph over sin and death for me. Any "peace" and "goodwill" between men would be secondary.

The Bible is very clear in teaching that salvation is strictly by the merciful grace of God, completely on HIS terms, and is contingent upon complete faith and trust in Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. "Being good" doesn't get you into heaven! It might make your mommy smile and your daddy give you a nice pat on the head, and maybe even a gold star from your teacher, but it WON'T get you into heaven! And just as "being good" isn't going to count towards getting INTO heaven, being "naughty" doesn't count in keeping you OUT, either. Because EVERYONE is "naughty", aka "sinful". EVERYBODY!!! Teaching children that "being good" wins you gifts from some silly-looking supernatural super-being, and that being "naughty" wins you bad things, you are going exactly the opposite of the gospel message.

Christian parents, there is no way you can completely shield your child from being bombarded with the pagan, anti-Christian nonsense about "Santa" and all that entails. So it is incumbent upon you to make sure your child understands the truth from the very beginning. If you think it necessary, tell your child the stories. Read "The Night Before Christmas"  with them. Go see "The Nutcracker" ballet. Have fun driving around after dark to "Oooh!" and "Ahhh!" at the beautiful lights. By all means, have fun! Fun is good! BUT you must, I repeat MUST, make absolutely sure that your child knows that Jesus, and His birth, was a REAL event with REAL consequences, and that "Santa" is NOT real, but only a character in a story.

If you can succeed in doing this, you will be doing your child the biggest favor imaginable.

If, and there most likely will be, there is a negative reaction, or if you or your child is questioned about this, a simple answer should suffice. Something along the lines of, "Yeah, I know all about Santa! He's a funny storybook character."

Well, I'm tired of typing, and I'm sure you are tired of reading, so to everyone who as made it this far, Merry Christmas! from Ron and the Debster.

Love, sex, and marriage

The following is a post I wrote on Facebook the other day:

============

Heb 13:4 ESV "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous."

Physical intimacy between a husband and his wife is a wonderful gift from God Himself, the "glue" that holds a marriage together (Gen 2:24), and the means by which He chose to bring children into this world. As such it is, in a real sense, a sacred thing.

God has made Himself quite clear on this subject.
Physical intimacy between a married man and a woman not his wife is ADULTERY, a SIN.
Physical intimacy between a married woman and a man not her husband is ADULTERY, a SIN.
Physical intimacy between unmarried man and an unmarried woman is FORNICATION, a SIN.
Physical intimacy between a man and another man is an UNNATURAL ACT, a SIN.
Physical intimacy between a woman and another woman is an UNNATURAL ACT, a SIN.
Physical intimacy between a human and an animal is an ABOMINATION, a SIN.
Jesus also made clear (Matt 5:28) that not just the physical act of (sinful) intimacy is wrong, but even mentally contemplating it is as much as sin as the act itself. As a married man, I don't have to actually be intimate with another woman to be guilty of adultery, all I would have to do is to "look on a woman to lust after her".

Do I look for a return to a hypocritical prudery? No, of course not. Do I think that we should make a crime out of all forms of sexual immorality? No. As a freedom-loving American, I recognize, and even cherish, the legal right for any individual to act in any way (s)he sees fit, provided no one else is coerced into it or physically injured by it.

I have many friends and relatives that live in immoral heterosexual relationships, and several that are practicing homosexuals. I love them all, unconditionally. They all, I think, know what I think and feel about this, and with a few exceptions are willing to accept me as I do them. (A few are not so kind, but oh well. I love them anyway, even though they don't believe that.)

I am not naive. Both of my parents had been married and divorced before they got together. And just to add a little more spice to it, I was born on their wedding night. (Talk about a buzzkill on a honeymoon!) Doesn't mean I think less of them. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I practically worshiped them, especially my father.

Some fifty years or so ago, the so-called "sexual revolution" tore our society to shreds. Lifelong monogamy is out. Serial marriage is in; just the other night the entertainer Jennifer Lopez, on American Idol [what a telling name that is!], joked about how many men to whom she has been married. A television show now almost must have a homosexual character to be truly successful. And now, I understand, one very popular daytime drama (soap opera), unveiled a major character as a transgender woman-that-used-to-be-a-man. Who knows what will be showing up in mainstream "entertainment" in the coming years and decades? I sure don't.

Once upon a time, the homosexual lobby pressed for toleration, to be allowed to act as they wanted. That was granted. Now, however, they are going much further, demanding not only toleration but celebration. And they are winning.

It is almost amusing to watch as people fall all over themselves to cater to them. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, went on the offensive against the recent Indiana Restoration of Freedom of Religion Act, saying they won't do business in a state that "discriminates" like that. Yet Apple aggressively pursues business in Saudi Arabia, where homosexuals not only don't get wedding cakes, they get EXECUTED. (O Hypocrisy, thy logo is a partially eaten apple!) President Obama, who a few years ago as a state senator in Illinois, voted FOR a virtually identical law in that state, has condemned Indiana's law. Can anyone say flip-flop?

I am not perfect. Never have been. Never will be as long as I inhabit this body that came equipped with a well-functioning sinful nature. (These days, that's just about the only thing that still works perfectly LOL!) It is only by the grace of God that I will not have to suffer His wrath and His judgement for the sins that I have committed, and they are many and varied, believe me.

But Jesus, the Son of God, came into this world to save sinners like me. He was born of a virgin, lived a perfectly sin-free life for some 33 years. He trained as a carpenter under his human step-father, then ministered to thousands for about three years. He gathered a small group of loyal followers, but was executed by the Roman government at the behest of the religious leaders because He had the audacity to claim to be the Son of God, and equal with God. But that grave couldn't even hold Him a whole weekend! On the third day, a Sunday, He rose from the dead and burst free from the tomb! (Much of the world will be celebrating the anniversary of that event this weekend, as a matter of fact.) He conquered sin and death, and even now sits in heaven waiting for the day that His Father sends Him back to earth to collect His followers. He bestows repentance, forgiveness, eternal life and eternal joy to all who believe in Him and trust in Him alone for salvation. He will save forever all whom He calls.

Do you hear Him calling you? If so, don't wait to respond. Take the plunge! It may seem scary at first, I know it did to me, but the rewards sure make up for it! And the greatest is this: God is now my Father, and Jesus is my beloved Savior, and no greater joy can be found than that!

From Atheist to Born-Again Christian: My own story

I sat down planning to write an article about genealogy methods, but I feel compelled to go an altogether different direction instead.

I want to share a short version of the story of my journey from being a practical atheist to being a true Christian.

I was raised in a sort-of Christian home. My dad had been raised Evangelical Lutheran, and my mom as a Pentacostal. But neither of them were practicing, and seldom attended church of any kind.

I was sent to parochial grade and high schools in the Missouri Synod system. Not, however, because of the religious teaching, but because the public school district where we lived had a reputation at the time of being a baby-sitting service for juvenile delinquents, and the local Catholic school tuition was way more than they could afford. So Mom and Dad joined the Lutheran Church, and with the tuition discount for church members, could just barely afford the tuition at the Lutheran schools.

In grade school, we had a daily morning devotional in the class room, and Wednesday morning children's church at the church next door. Every Monday, we had to tell whether we had attended church and/or Sunday School the day before. And in 7th and 8th grade we had a daily class preparing for our Confirmation. That entailed a lot of Bible reading and memorization, catechism studies, and so forth. At the end, we had to write an essay about what our faith meant to us, and especially our up-coming Confirmation. Mine was chosen as the best, and I had to read it to the church as part of the Confirmation service. My folks attended that service, of course, just as they did whenever any of us kids were involved in some way. My dad was so proud of me being the valedictorian that I thought his shirt would bust open right there in the pew. (Or, maybe, it was suppressed laughter caused by the rather embarrassing fact that my voice was in the middle of changing from boy-squeak to man-baritone during the speech.)

In high school, we had morning chapel in the gym. Religion classes were required every semester all four years. Old- and New-Testament history, theology, comparative religion, all kinds of stuff. I always did well in those classes, like I did in most other classes.

But, and this is a big "but", just because I learned the material does not mean that I believed it. Far from it. By the time I got out of high school, I was fed up with religion and the hypocrisy that was rampant in the school and in the church. So as soon as I could, I sent a letter of resignation to the church and went on my merry, pagan way.

I spent the next couple of decades indulging whenever I could in all the sins of the flesh that I could, and also read a lot of pagan philosophy. I studied Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Teutonic mythology. I dabbled just a little with the occult. I tried to read some of the "New Age" mystical stuff, but just couldn't stop laughing long enough to take any of it seriously.

A favorite activity was to engage in debate with any Christians that were willing. It is a sad thing to say, but the vast majority of church-goers haven't a clue what they believe or why. They can parrot a few points of dogma picked up here and there, and maybe have memorized a 4-point "plan of salvation" from a tract, but that is quite often the extent of it. I had all of that knowledge accumulated from twelve years of study at school, and so could almost always twist them into knots in short order.

At one point in my mid-twenties, I met one of my first "true" Christians. Daryl was my boss at work, and my friend away from work. A couple years older than I, he was a teaching elder at his church. He was one of the very few people I had met that actually walked the walk as well as talk the talk. He actually believed this stuff, and lived his life by it. Also, almost as impressive, to me at least, was the fact that I couldn't get the best of him in a discussion or debate. He tied me up in knots, rather than the other way around. I visited his church a few times, and was impressed with what I saw and heard. But, it wasn't long before I was back to my old happily sinful self. I eventually changed jobs and lost touch with Daryl.

I rolled along until the summer of 1996. I was 36 years old, a couple months shy of my 37th birthday. And the most horrible thing happened to me. I developed, for the first time in my life, a real, honest-to-goodness, conscience. Horrors! I started being plagued with guilt for the stuff I was doing. The women, the alcohol, all of it. I started losing sleep over it. My health was going downhill. And, I knew enough to recognize it for what it was: conviction. The Holy Spirit was working on me, convicting me of my sin. Eventually, in July, I tracked down my old friend Daryl, who fortunately, or perhaps providentially is a more appropriate word, was still working at the same place and thus was easy to find. We agreed to meet for a Sunday afternoon of fishing, the last Sunday in July of 1996. We talked a lot, and I went back to his house for supper with him and his family. (Boy, the kids had sure grown a lot in ten years, and he had added a couple more as well!) But nothing was settled that day. We agreed to stay in touch.

All the following week was spent in contemplation and arguing with myself. Finally, Sunday morning, August 4, 1996 I went to a local park and sat under a tree with my Bible open and began to read. I got as far as the story of Noah and the Ark. I realized that although God is long-suffering, He will only put up with so much before intervening. That point had been reached in my life. Fortunately for me, He had opted not to condemn me permanently, but rather to save me. So, propelled by the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior. 

My life has never been the same since that day. Most of my old friends drifted away, perplexed by the "Bible-thumper" that I had become. But I quickly made new and better ones, fellow believers all. I have been involved in several ministry ventures, and hope to have more. 

So. That's who I am, and how I got here. 

In His name
Ron