A black day

Our culture failed Terri Schiavo.

The young, helpless, handicapped woman finally succumbed today. She sustained a valiant, nearly two-week fight for her life, but she never had a chance. She was bullied to death by an unjust justice system, a system that itself was coddled by a morally bankrupt culture. She was inexorably and pitilessly starved and dehydrated to death in full view of an indifferent nation, with armed policemen surrounding her hospice to make damned sure that no one showed her a grain of mercy.

Her death was "legal," deliberate, premeditated, darkly evil, and inexcusable. It is a blot of shame on our nation.

And how does a Christian pray? I heard Dr. James Dobson, for whom I have enormous respect, praying earlier in this disgraceful chapter, and asking God to forgive us. I just could not join him. It has never made a lick of moral sense to me, to ask forgiveness for an ongoing, deliberate, and unrepented sinful act.

What could I pray? Perhaps this:

May God make us forgiveable. May He chasten us, shame us, and bring us to broken repentance. May He show us how far we've fallen, how monstrously we have rebelled, how arrogantly we've shaken our fist at His grace, goodness, wisdom, and sovereignty. May He bring us to the cross of Christ.

Then the black soil of this hideously wronged woman's killing might be made, in God's mercy, to bear sweet fruit.

A thought for Judge Greer and his ilk

As I read the Schiavo case (see links in entries below), Judge Greer seems to have single-mindedly focused on getting this young lady killed. He has repeatedly excluded evidence that could have turned the case, and has ignored common-sense considerations (hel-lo? her guardian has repeatedly cheated on her, is living with another woman, has fathered two children by her -- and he is deciding her fate?), and has arrogantly thumbed his nose at both the executive and legislative branches. One might say he seems Hell-bent on her death.

And he's a Baptist! Or was, until he left his church over this.

Now, I know it's assuming a lot to think that any professing Christian today has actually read the entire Bible. Heck, you can be a church officer, and never have read the Bible.

But if he has, perhaps Judge Greer has read Psalm 82, which addresses judges as "gods" because of their representative life and death power. If he hasn't, he should; if he has, he should re-read it.

God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

2 “How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

6 I said, “You are gods,
sons of the Most High, all of you;

7 nevertheless, like men you shall die,
and fall like any prince.”

8 Arise, O God, judge the earth;
for you shall inherit all the nations!

Amen, and amen.

Very quick Schiavo question

It's a fact that no one knows what Schiavo herself wants done, at this moment. The court has presumed to read her mind. But it has me wondering, as long as the court is willing to bet her life on its ability to read her mind.

If Terri were able to speak her wishes today, which would be likelier?

1. That she would ask to be slowly starved and dehydrated to death? Or...
2. That she would ask to be divorced from her multiple-cheating [louse] of a "husband"?

Now, think about the ramifications of your answer.

Note Terri Schiavo updates, below

I want to keep this matter before your eyes and hearts. Note the essay below, Terri Schiavo: or, Why I hate the AP (Part 1 of 43,752, give or take) , and note the updates at the end. I can't get this case completely off my mind. It is so disgraceful to me that, in this rich and powerful nation with so many reasons to know better, we are witnessing the legal execution by starvation of a helpless woman who gives no evidence of wanting to die. We don't treat child molesters, terrorists, or murderers so harshly. What is her crime? She is imperfect, and she is inconvenient to her feckless, philandering husband. Were I either Bush brother, I'd be strongly tempted to do something yet more extraordinary to intervene for this woman. But I have neither the power nor the opportunity; so I try to persuade, and I pray.

Dishearteningly, the mainstream media have largely controlled public perception thus far. In this case, the blogs have failed to counteract the MSM's campaign of propagandistic misinformation. While we do boast some legitimate recent victories, this one so far must be scored a loss for us, and a win for the pro-death establishment. To our national shame.

Oh, and one more thing. I am sick to death of the fatuous assurances of the elite that Mrs. Schiavo is experiencing no discomfort as she is starved and dehydrated to death. I saw one fatheaded know-it-all on Fox last night dismissing that concern with a wave of his hand. Had I been his guest, I'd have said, "All right, pal: off with your shirt! Since you think starvation is such a joy-ride, I just want to make sure you don't have an extra ounce on you that a little voluntary dieting wouldn't remedy!" Because, if terminal starvation were free from discomfort, then surely voluntary dieting would be a springtime walk in the park -- and we wouldn't be a nation of tubbies! People would be gaining weight just for the sheer ecstasy of then going on a diet!

Stupid line of argument.

You know, they say trout don't feel pain. I don't know whether they do or not. I assume they do. That is why, as my family will tell you, I make it a point to kill any trout I intend to keep, right away. That is also why I'm disgusted with "stringers" -- cords that people loop through the gills of still-living trout, which they keep alive in the water so they'll stay fresher.

We aren't showing Terri Schiavo the mercy I try to show to fish.

Mary and the Christian

Time magazine did a cover story, Hail, Mary, suggesting that Protestants are heading away from the Bible and towards Rome on this issue.

From differing angles, Hugh Hewitt, Mark D. Roberts, and Al Mohler are among those who have already weighed in.

I thought I'd make my contribution... and here it is!

For your edification, here is an exhaustive, comprehensive study of every Bible passage legitimately even providing the echo of the hiccup of a shadow of evidence of Mary's ongoing personal role in the spiritual life of the Christian:

** crickets **

There. I hope that helps.

Tomorrow, expect an exhaustive, comprehensive study of every Bible passage legitimately even providing the echo of the hiccup of a shadow of evidence that Christians should remain in churches that deny, pervert, or obscure the Gospel and fundamental doctrines because those churches are old, large, or claim to be the only game in town.

(Or not.)

Terri Schiavo: or, Why I hate the AP (Part 1 of 43,752, give or take)

I've struggled about whether it is immoral for a Christian to hate an institution. Given that 1 John 2:15 says, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him," I'm leaning towards "Not necessarily."

Which is good, because I've really grown to hate, loathe, and despise those manifestations of "the world" known as the "mainstream media" (MSM). Reuters and the venerable Associated Press (AP) are frequent offenders -- using "frequent" in the sense of "constant."

Now, the way these agencies show their suffocating bias is usually somewhat subtle, so that they can imagine a sort of plausible deniability. Rarely is one of their mouthpieces found gushing like Dan Rather to the Clintons, "Mr. President, if we could be one one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been together in the White House, we'd take it right now and walk away winners." Their arrogance allows occasional slip-ups of that nature; but mostly, they glide along under a silky, slimy cloak.

As has been often observed, the media seek to control perception by the terms they choose and reject, and by what they do and do not report.

I adduce as the latest example of both the article House Passes Bill to Delay Schiavo Case.

The truth doesn't even make it out of the first sentence intact: "The House passed legislation late Wednesday intended to delay the removal of the feeding tube keeping alive a brain-damaged woman whose husband has been given permission by a state court to allow her to die."

"Allow her to die." Just roll that one around in your brain for a moment: "Allow her to die." No hard words, there. The meaning is clear, unambiguous. In this phrase, we are being informed by the arbiters of all truth and reality (the MSM) that this woman is trying to die, but someone or something has been preventing her. Thanks to the courts, this obstacle will be removed, and she will be "allowed to" do what she has been trying to hard to do.

"Allowed to die."

Of course, this is nonsense. You'll not see me linking often to Roman Catholic priests, but in this case I think that Robert Johansen has done a terrific job of bringing out the crucial, yet thunderously under-reported, facts of the case. (Hat-tip to Hugh Hewitt.) Terri Schiavo is able to do everything essential to life all by herself -- except feeding herself. She is dependent on others for that. I've never read that she tries to prevent it or indicates that she's unwilling to receive food.

Yet we're told the court has ordered that she is to be "allowed" -- allowed! -- to die.

Think a moment further. Here is a young woman who gives every indication of wanting to live, but the court will "allow" her to die by depriving her of one of the essentials of physical life. Now, you and I would die just as surely if we were deprived of food, of water, of air. Would that be "allowing" us to die?

This is rhetorical perversity worthy of a Mengele. By that logic, we're all dying, we're all trying to die; we're simply being prevented from achieving death by regular intake of food, water, air, and by a functional body. By that logic, a strangler is "allowing" his victim to die when he deprives him of air.

Think still further. If a judge, apparenly totally unconcerned about some pivotal facts of the Schiavo case, can simply decree (against the evidence) that this woman wants to die and must be "allowed" to die -- then who can't they do this to? Terri Schiavo not been given all sorts of care and therapy that might improve the quality of her life, and now she is sentenced to a slow, miserable, painful torture-death the likes of which we do not even inflict on known terrorists. By all appearances, Terri Schiavo's only crime is that she is inconvenient for her disgusting, philandering husband.

"Allowed to die" says the AP, trying hard to control perception by choice of words.

These gatekeepers of truth then employ the tactic of selective reporting. They report that "court-appointed doctors say she is in a persistent vegetative state." This may be true... in the sense that "a duly-appointed government representative found Jesus guilty of a capital offense" is also true.

The problem is in what is not reported.

Going on Johansen's article alone, the AP don't mention that these doctors made this determination without tests that would have either verified or contradicted its validity. They don't mention that a host of medical professionals, including over a dozen board-certified neurologists, have stated that Schiavo should be re-evaluated. Consider this exchange, related by Johansen:

In the course of my conversation with Dr. Morin, he made reference to the standard use of MRI and PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans to diagnose the extent of brain injuries. He seemed to assume that these had been done for Terri. I stopped him and told him that these tests have never been done for her; that Michael had refused them.

There was a moment of dead silence.

“That’s criminal,” he said, and then asked, in a tone of utter incredulity: “How can he continue as guardian? People are deliberating over this woman’s life and death and there’s been no MRI or PET?” He drew a reasonable conclusion: “These people [Michael Schiavo, George Felos, and Judge Greer] don’t want the information.”

But the AP does not elect to report any of this. Why? Presumably because that isn't the story they want to tell. It isn't the story they want us to hear, or know about. They want us to know about some religious fanatic parents who, against all reason and Science, are trying to prolong the suffering of this young woman who just wants to be left alone and die. She's hopeless because "doctors" have said so. (I have often noticed that the word "some" evidently is not in the AP style-book -- as in "some doctors," "some environmentalists," "some scientists.")

So let's just help the AP, and fix their propaganda to something a bit more accurate. Here we go: "The House passed legislation late Wednesday intended to delay the removal of the feeding tube keeping alive an apparently brain-damaged woman whose husband has been given permission by a state court to starve her to death over as long as a two-week period."

There. That's better.

The reporting is better, that is. The story, however, is nauseatingly horrid.

The difference is now the reader can see that fact.

UPDATE I: Well, I mentioned "Reuters," a Usual Suspect if ever there was one. Not to be outdone by the AP, their article's headline reads Bush, Congress Set to Act in Right-To-Die Case. Of course, calling it a "Right-To-Die" case frames, and thus controls, the debate. It is interpretive. Framed that way, this poor young woman is just struggling to die, and now Bush and Congress (led, as the article informs us, by -- brr-r-r-r-r-r-r! -- Christian conservatives) are going to keep her from her heart's desire. A more accurate phrase would be "Right-To-Be-Starved-To-Death-by-Your-Adulterous-Husband," or "Right-to-Have-Your-Inconvenient-Wife-Killed-Slowly-but-Legally." But that wouldn't fit Reuters' agenda.

UPDATE II: Very thoughtful interview with Robert P. George, the McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, here. I am sickened at the Clinton-appointed federal judge's decision to continue starving this inconvenient but very alive (for now) woman. Scott Ott points out the insanity of this with a devastating parody "article," Parents Offer Trade: Terri Schiavo for Scott Peterson. He makes the point: we treat convicted murderers better than we are treating this disabled wife of a cheating louse.

UPDATE III: The darkening hours of this shameful event have brought out still more pithy observations from some of our nations thinkers.

Michelle Malkin levels a characteristically withering and on-target blast against the lamestream media giants, including this little drop of richly deserved acid: "On a fundamental matter of life and death, the MSM heavyweights have proven themselves utterly incapable of reporting fairly."

Thoughtful liberal (-- a phrase you'll not see me write very often) legal expert Jonathan Turley has an essay which includes a very moving personal reflection, though I disagree with his specific opinion on the Schiavo matter. He is generally absolutely right that Congress should not interfere with family matters. However, we all recognize that this imperative is not absolute. We all acknowledge a right to interfere when there is abuse, say, of a child, a spouse, an elder. In this case, that is a vital and legitimate concern.

Cal Thomas weighs in, characteristically highlighting some of the thematic concerns of this heartwrenching case.

John O'Sullivan substiantiates his claim that Those in a rush to kill Schiavo [are] ignoring facts of case.

Finally, Hugh Hewitt's observations have featured Hugh at his best: hard-hitting, passionate, on-target, and weighty. Keep checking back on him as this unfolds.

UPDATE IV: Sharp Knife provides a blistering list of "if's," including:

If Terry Schiavo had only starred in "Superwoman", we'd find a way not to kill her.

...If she were a killer, she'd be protected under the supreme court's ban on executing the retarded.

If she were a terrorist, Teddy Kennedy would be making blistering speeches on the Senate floor condemning her torture-by-starvation.

...If she were Scott Peterson, she'd get an automatic appeal...and 20 more years of life.

If she were a beached dolphin, we'd demand not just her feeding, but that heroic measures be taken.

If she were in Guantanamo, we'd see to it that she had appropriate meals and medical care.

...If we do this, then let's Free Dr. Kevorkian; he's in jail for less.

(Hat-tip to Stones Cry Out.)

"Marriage is not really about happiness"

From the quotation-marks, you might guess that this is not my statement; and you'll be right.

They are the words of Bob Just in his thoughtful, and thought-provoking essay, Son of divorce. Bob Just writes as a child of divorce, raised with a very avant-garde and liberal background. He spends roughly the first third of the essay laying out his upbringing, and the next third discussing the negative repercussions of our easy-divorce culture.

It is the last third that I think is likeliest to swipe off one's mental cobwebs. He argues passionately that our society wrongly views marriage as being all about "my happiness," and about being loved. Consequently, if one's marriage isn't making him happy, if he doesn't feel he's being loved adequately, then he is in a Bad Marriage. The insufficiently happy spouse virtually has a moral imperative to leave that marriage, and look for one in which he will feel sufficiently loved and happy. It may take two or three tries... or five or six... but it is imperative. It is what marriage is all about.

I'll not try to summarize everything Just says; I do commend it to you. I'll just say that I basically think he's echoing a Biblical perspective. My way of putting it might go something like this:

Like all of life, marriage is fundamentally about God. It is a covenant undertaken before, and in the name of, God (Genesis 2:24; Proverbs 2:17; Malachi 2:14-16). Like all of life, and like every part of life, marriage is what God says it is, and takes its meaning from Him. For a man, marriage is about loving, cleaving, embodying faithfulness, leading, self-sacrifice, knowing, honoring, and serving (Genesis 2:24; Proverbs 5; Ephesians 5:23-33; 1 Peter 3:7). For a woman, marriage is about helping, cleaving, loving, respecting, submitting, obeying, serving and adorning (Genesis 2:24; Proverbs 14:1; 31:10-31; Ephesians 5:22, 33; Titus 2:4; 1 Peter 3:1-6).

There's more.

For both, at any time, marriage may well be about suffering... and not necessarily for doing anything wrong. Marriage does not cancel out Matthew 5:4, 10-12, 1 Peter 2:20, and a host of similar verses. Nor does it cancel out Matthew 16:24-26, or Luke 9:23, or the principle of 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. Your marriage may be the happiest facet of your life; it may be the most painful. Odds are it will be both, at times.

If your mindset is that marriage is all about making and keeping you feeling happy, without cost, you are likely to be shocked, horrified, and appalled to learn that it simply is not so. You will be unprepared. You will be undone. You will bolt for the door our culture so obligingly holds open for you.

If on the other hand you view your marriage as you and I should view everything else in this fallen world, as something undertaken before God, and as long as we expect that it will have its share of crosses -- and as long as we accept that we need those crosses -- we can and will find happiness in our marriages.

Because it is the conviction of the Christian that God's way really is, in the final analysis, the happy way. Jesus says those who suffer for the sake of righteousness are "blessed" -- happy! Peter paradoxically says we should leap for joy even as sufferings sadden us (1 Peter 1:6, 7; 4:14). Paul learned to find joy and gladness in weakness, insults, distresses, persecutions, difficulties, for Christ's sake (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

So in a roundabout way, marriage is about happiness, as is all of life. But it is happiness found in the Lord, and in His word, will and ways. It is happiness that can embrace both the crosses and the crowns of marriage. It is a sturdy happiness, because it is a happiness learned from Him who "for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2).

Sometimes the happiness is easy to see -- lying in each other's arms, speaking that short-hand code forged through years of working at being soulmates, having intimate heart-to-hearts in a warmth of acceptance, hearing the most valued praise and acceptance earth has to offer. Other times, it is not so easy. In fact, it can be downright invisible.

But isn't that the Christian life? Aren't we all called to "look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen," because "the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18)?

Marriage isn't for the faint.

But then, neither is life.

Child abuse, spouse abuse, elder abuse... Bible abuse?

No, I don't think there should be a law. But I admit I thought of it when I saw the title Group Uses Scripture to Push Abortion. Of course, you can't use Scripture to push abortion; you can only abuse Scripture to that end. (I show as much in The Bible and the Bull's-Eye on the Baby.)

Which calls to mind the popular statement, "You can get anything you want out of the Bible." This is true, too -- if one brings anything he wants to the Bible.

Of course, taken seriously, the original statement is self-defeating. If one really can legitimately make the Bible mean anything, then one can make anything mean anything. This would necessarily include the statement that "You can get anything you want out of the Bible." If anything means anything, then that statement could mean that we can't get anything we want out of the Bible. Or it could mean that hot fudge sundaes are delicious. Or it could mean that Bob Dylan is a terrible singer.

But of course, anyone who says that the Bible can mean anything always exempts himself from that statement. What he says can't mean anything, it can mean only one thing. He means everything he says to be taken seriously, according to the normal canons of interpretation. The Bible means whatever you want -- but he means what he means.

See? Self-defeating.

So no, the Bible cannot legitimately be made to favor abortion, because God means what He means. And what He means is discernible by what He has said. And there are good-sense guidelines for figuring out what He meant.

Harold Camping: the dispensationalist's best friend?

It's somewhat gratifying to see James White going off on Harold Camping. The longsuffering White put himself through the brain-scraping misery of listening to some of Camping's hamfisted and ruthless mangling of Scripture, almost setting off his car's air bag as he pounded the steering-wheel in frustration. (Been there, done that! )

As I mused on the interminably-droning, ever-maddening and always-embarrassing Camping, this tangential thought came to mind:

"Date-setters!" This is a common gibe of some my anti-dispensationalists Calvinistic brethren. Because some dispensationalists have been date-setters, we're all guilty of the crime.

Historically and factually this is a shell without an egg -- or what egg there is in fact bespatters faces in all prophetic camps. Still, one hears it often enough, as if it's a damning finger pointed at dispensationalists alone.

It strikes me, though, that one response to any amillennialist leveling this charge might be, "Tell you what, bro. I'll carry guilt for Dr. JoeBob Dispie-datesetter, if you will take the rap for amill/Christ-is-coming-in-1994/the-church-age-is-over-so-flee-your-church-NOW Harold Camping. Deal?"

I'm thinking we'd see a big "NO SALE" come up on that cash register.

Which is good! Maybe then we can move towards sweeping aside date-setting and some of the other red herrings that bog down this discussion, and actually discuss principles of exegesis, specifics, and whether or not the work of reformation was really completed for all time by the end of the seventeenth century.

Wouldn't that be a win/win for everyone?

"Whistling past the graveyard" -- literally

You'd think we didn't need a word from God about some things. Like this one: "Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent" (Proverbs 17:28).

Yet God evidently felt that the point merited repeated stress, as it is found again and again, in various wordings (cf. Proverbs 17:27a; Ecclesiastes 5:3; 1014). In exasperation, Job bursts out at his friends -- who thought they could read God's mind -- "Oh that you would keep silent, and it would be your wisdom!" (Job 5:3). I take it from this repetition that our species is prone to unfounded bloviations about important things.

Now, it is one thing to hazard what we call an educated guess. Weathermen do it every day; pundits do it every political season. Sometimes, to make for more interesting reading, they'll phrase their guesses as pronouncements -- and risk public humiliation when their shots go awry. (Hello, John Zogby?) But no one blames an expert for saying, "Based on my studies and experiences, I think that X is about to happen."

But what about when there are no "studies"? What if there is no "experience"?

Which brings me to Hunter Thompson.

Here's the man who put the phrase "gonzo journalism" into common coinage, a man remembered by friend and foe alike as a drunk and a druggie. He caps his career by capping himself -- while on the phone with his wife, no less.

And this brings us to the one statement that has snagged my brain. It is from the aforementioned wife, Anita Thompson (32), now a widow. If I am reading this right, a little drinking-party was held with Thompson's dead body sitting there in his chair.

The widow Thompson said this: "It was just like Hunter wanted. He was in control here." She also said, of the now-flower-filled house, "It's nice in here. He would like it. He does like it, I guess."

She guesses. And I guess he guessed, too, when he shot himself dead. But he's "in control," we're told.

Well, I guess not. In fact, from anything we know, "control" is the last thing that Thompson is currently "in." If the atheists are right, he's "in" nothing. He'll never produce a better work, he'll never become a better man, he'll never have a better impact on society. He's gone, forever. In pulling the trigger, he gave up control forever and in every respect.

And in that last thought, Jesus would agree, but in a very different context. If Jesus is right, Thompson's jerk on the trigger cancelled out his last opportunity to avail himself of the freely-offered grace of God in Christ. In that act of ultimate, final and irremediable "guessing," Thompson propelled himself into the judgment of God. And if every report I've ever read accurately reflects Thompson's core-beliefs and commitments, he then heard the pronouncement he failed to admit and deal with in life: "Guilty."

For my part, I believe there is compelling reason to go with Jesus' judgment in this. Beyond rational doubt, He claimed to be God incarnate; and, as a man, He actually became dead, and rose from the grave. Where we must either guess and speculate wildly (if we disregard Divine revelation), Jesus could speak both from authority and experience. He was not (as was the widow Thompson) just shooting off His mouth. And Jesus, on this basis, asked, "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26). His answer was that such a man gains an eternity suffering the wrath of God (Matthew 25:41; Luke 16:19-31).

"Control" would be the very last word I would choose to describe this state.

So what I'd ask is this: what are you doing for the next, oh, two million years? The safest answer is, "I'll be spending most of that time dead!" No doubt.

And what have you done to prepare for most of the rest of your existence? On what basis? On the muzzy sentimentality of our day? On wish-fulfillment? On Hollywood pipe-dreams? On guesswork based on thin air? Are you whistling past the graveyard?

Or are you just refusing to think about the one thing in your life that is an absolute certainty: the fact of our shared mortality?

Not smart.

The smart money is on Jesus.