Pat Robertson: another unpaid bill

I won't even bother to link about Pat Robertson. You already know what I'm talking about -- how he called for the assassination of a foreign leader, then said he didn't, then said he didn't and was sorry he did, though he really didn't. Or wait -- did he?

Okay, okay, I do have to pause over that last one. You could see the headline everywhere: Robertson Apologizes. I don't normally link to CNN, but on their page you can view his various statements for yourself. [Now a dead link; try this instead.] You will see his original remarks, very clearly calling for Chavez' assassination, in context. You can see his giddy, almost giggling attempt to say that he was misinterpreted. This is the same giddy, giggly demeanor he uses to discuss healings, financial boons, and death, ruin and disaster. (Does it sound as if that has long bothered me? It has. Romans 12:15 does not say to giggle with those who weep.)

And so here he is again. Pat Robertson has just caused inestimable headaches to the Bush administration with his latest loose-lip attack. Worse, he's given Christophobe editorialists and cartoonists days and days worth of fodder by which to make themselves feel better about not believing Christ. After all, Pat Robertson has never been roundly disowned as one of the most visible public faces of (here's the word again) "evangelical" Christianity. Now, yet again, he has given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme (cf. 2 Samuel 12:14).

What will be the consequences to him? James 3:1ff. certainly warns us that teachers will rightly incur more severe judgment, because an uncontrolled tongue can case a world of hurt. What will Robertson suffer for this latest gaffe?

Nothing. Heck, the Evangelical Theological Society, a group of supposedly "evangelical" theologians, can't even expel members who deny God's omniscience, opting for the touchy-feely over the Bibley-truthy. So what can be done with a person in Robertson's position, sitting atop the very visible empire he created, with the support of Christians across America? What will be done?

Nothing.

Having said all this, I have to be honest. My reaction to this all is to shrug.

Why? Well, what does this prove? That Robertson is a poor spokesman for Christianity? Sorry, but "Duh!" A healthy church would have figured that out decades ago, and he'd be scratching to put together a crowd of 30 obvious-fringers.

But no, thanks to Charismaticism -- and I say this as a former Charismatic -- our standards are very different.

Now here is a man who hears God talk, all the time. The Lord tells Pat things you don't have in your Bible, and I don't have in my Bible. They're just for Pat. God tells him, so he can tell us. If Pat didn't tell us, we wouldn't know. Every New Year, the Lord is in the habit of getting together with Pat and telling him what the next year holds, so Pat can tell us. "The Lord" says earth-shaking things like, "There will be tremendous changes this year." Whoa, veil-rending prophetic revelation -- just like 1 Kings 13:2 and Isaiah 7:14!

Well... except not.

But we don't care anymore. If the man wants to open the Canon back up, and append some froth, drivel, and distraction, that's fine with us. No big, right? Been happening since 1906. It's so much easier to watch a guy like Pat do his thing than actually find, attend, and learn in a Bible-teaching church -- let alone study it for ourselves. That's hard. It takes work. It doesn't always tingle us!

And so, with no Biblical precedent, Robertson and co-host regularly go into trances, and announce that the Lord is touching a tumor here, a backache there, a marriage in the other place. Wow, with an audience of tens of thousands, what are the odds that one of them will have a tumor? "That's me!" Just like reading a horoscope!

There is, as I say, no Biblical precedent. But that's okay with us today. We're not picky. So what if it's more like Miss Sally on Romper Room, looking through her magic looking-glass, and saying that Bobby has a present behind the sofa? It's all good.

Now, in a healthier church, Robertson would have been finished for good when he wrote The Plan, in 1989. It has some good stuff, I guess; it has some silly stuff. But it also has this:

Probably 95 per cent of all the guidance we need as Christians is found in the clearly understood principles of the Holy Bible.

We aren't told his formulae. We don't know how Pat arrived at this figure. And Robertson isn't sure, apparently; he says "Probably 95 per cent." "Probably," but maybe not. Maybe it's 93%, could be 97%. Or 99%!

But it isn't 100% (pace 2 Timothy 3:15-17).

So where does that other 5% come from? A Romanist might agree heartily with this generous statement, and say the other 5% comes from tradition, from the magisterium. But Robertson isn't a Romanist; he's a Charismatic.

But it's really the same thing, isn't it? We can't get everything we need to know, all the guidance we need as Christians, from the Bible. We get a lot, but not all. We have to get the rest somewhere else.

For the Romanist, it's from Rome. For Robertson, it's from peeps and mutterings, from movings and stirrings, and murmered whispers from Heaven.

So there's Pat Robertson, in front of God and everyone, telling the Christian public exactly what Rome and the Mormons have been saying for years: that the Bible is insufficient.

But nothing was done at the time, and his book sold and sold. And nothing has been done since.

And nothing will be done now, because the professing Church is too weak, sickly, and clueless to cast off the mildest infection.

And so Pat Robertson still parades around, doing his thing. This is the latest. There will be more.

Another unpaid bill of the professing church.

(And don't even get me started on Benny Hinn!)

Next stop down the slope: incestuous "marriage"

Over the years I've observed that those who are selling the sleds despise "slippery slope" arguments. They despise them most when they're vivid, accurate, and alarming.

For instance, when folks like Jack Rogers and other "evangelicals" of the Fuller Seminary ilk more formally assaulted the Biblical doctrine of the inerrrancy of Scripture, Harold Lindsell and a host of others argued that a host of doctrinal and practical perversions would necessarily follow. The earlier champions of an unreliable Bible scoffed. History has proven the scoffers to be fools.

Now, with the heretofore unimaginable advent of "gay" "marriage," we critics have once again peered down the slope, and again described what we saw coming. If two men indulging perverse sexual practices together can be legitimatized with any legal status ("domestic partners"), it can also eventually be called "marriage." If it can be called "marriage," then no other sexual practice can be ruled out. Incest is the most likely successor, followed perhaps by pederasty and bestiality.

Peddlers of sleds for this particular slope scoffed, predictably. They hated the argument. They hated it because there was no counter, and it was so damning.

Now comes the case of brother and sister Allen and Patricia Muth, whose sexual relationship produced four children. They were roundly condemned by Milwaukee County Judge David Hansher, and thrown into prison, their parental rights repealed.

But that was 1997. A lot has changed since then. Allen is appealing his conviction, on the basis of -- you guessed it -- the legal recognition of the validity of homosexual relations. Read about it in the great Jeff Jacoby's Trying to outrun Lawrence.

Every step away from God is a progressively ugly one. That reality is spelled out in Romans 1:18-32, to say nothing of the entire Old Testament. Yet professing Christians don't seem to get this message today, as they repeatedly "improve" on what God says about Christian living and thinking, marriage, church, and child-training.

If they don't get it, one can hardly expect non-Christians to get it.

But if we don't make the case, if we don't describe the slope and warn against heading down it (Proverbs 10:11; 11:9, 11; 24:11-12), who will?

You can't make this stuff up (--and why would you?)

Clown Eucharist.

No, that's right. You read it correctly. "Clown Eucharist."

No, "Clown" is not a city name, or Sanskrit for "Christ-centered."

Clown.

Eucharist.

Read about it here.

Well, okay, they're Episcallopians. And, okay, it's New York.

But good heavens, the church is named "Trinity Church."

And the "Rector," The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, actually signs the letter, "Faithfully."

Raising the inevitable question: "To what?"

Question for a Math whiz

What percentage of Americans have personally met President Bush one time?

What percentage of Americans have personally met President Bush two times?

I'm thinking an infinitesimal decimal.

(What does that have to do with the Bible, you ask? Uh... well, Numbers is a Bible book!)

Breaking news: war kills people!

"Shall the sword devour forever?", Abner asked Joab (2 Samuel 2:26). The answer, of course, is "Yes" -- at least until Messiah Jesus returns, destroys His enemies, and rules in person from the throne of David in Jerusalem (Revelation 19). Then and only then will weapons of war actually be turned into instruments of commerce, and peace will the rule rather than the exception (Micah 2:1-4).

Nonetheless, the Media Arm of the Democratic Party (also known as the "mainstream media" [MSM]) continues breathlessly to report on American deaths and casualties in the Iraq phase of the Global War on Terror -- as if these deaths represent unanticipated, unprecedented indications that something has gone horribly wrong.

Their intent is transparent. They want President Bush hurt. They want him to lose. One way to do this is demoralize America, erode support for the President, decimate support for the war. That this means more American deaths is, to them, a regrettable but necessary corrollary. So we're kept up to date on how many Americans have been hurt... but kept in the dark about how many terrorists will never murder civilians again, and what wonderful strides forward our troops have accomplished.

Now comes Powerline's John Hinderaker to provide a little context with Some Thoughts on Casualties in Times of War and Peace. It is quite a wonderful essay, and that these facts and perspectives are on his blog rather than featured by every news organ in America is itself a damning indictment of the latter.

One casts about for jewels to excerpt from the essay and the problem is that it is itself one large jewel. Read it in full. I'll just present Hinderaker's conclusion:

The point? Being a soldier is not safe, and never will be. Driving in my car this afternoon, I heard a mainstream media reporter say that around 2,000 service men and women have died in Afghanistan and Iraq "on President Bush's watch." As though the job of the Commander in Chief were to make the jobs of our soldiers safe. They're not safe, and they never will be safe, in peacetime, let alone wartime.

What is the President's responsibility? To expend our most precious resources only when necessary, in service of the national interest. We would all prefer that our soldiers never be required to fight. Everyone--most of all, every politician--much prefers peace to war. But when our enemies fly airplanes into our skyscrapers; attack the nerve center of our armed forces; bomb our embassies; scheme to blow up our commercial airliners; try to assassinate our former President; do their best to shoot down our military aircraft; murder our citizens; assassinate our diplomats overseas; and attack our naval vessels--well, then, the time has come to fight. And when the time comes to fight, our military personnel are ready. They don't ask to be preserved from all danger. They know their job is dangerous; they knew that when they signed up. They are prepared to face the risk, on our behalf. All they ask is to be allowed to win.

It is, I think, a reasonable request. It's the least that we--all Americans, including reporters and editors--can do.

Amen, and well-put.

Young Spurgeon: how the bow was so well-bent

Phil Johnson has an excellent essay on the great Charles H. Spurgeon's -- and yes, I probably can't say his name without affixing "the great" -- youth and conversion. It's quite a read, and striking on many levels. Perhaps the most remarkable to our minds is how this relative child came under so great a conviction of sin, and how he remained there for years. In our day, we'd have had him repeat the sinner's prayer, sign a tract, pointed him to 1 John 5:13, and told him to snap out of it and start witnessing.

But Spurgeon was slow-roasted, and it had a great effect on him, to the greater glory of God. His years under conviction bore fruit in decades of God-honoring preaching that packs the same punch and power over a century later.

It is impossible not to see how his later preaching was formed by his experience in searching for hope and help. Every wonder why Spurgeon's sermons did not tend to be more "practical," or why every last one of them seemingly included a call to saving faith, no matter what the text? I think this is our answer, as Johnson quotes Spurgeon's own words:

While under concern of soul, I resolved that I would attend all the places of worship in the town where I lived, in order that I might find out the way of salvation. I was willing to do anything, and be anything, if God would only forgive my sin. I set off, determined to go round to all the chapels, and I did go to every place of worship; but for a long time I went in vain. I do not, however, blame the ministers. One man preached Divine Sovereignty; I could hear him with pleasure, but what was that sublime truth to a poor sinner who wished to know what he must do to be saved? There was another admirable man who always preached about the law; but what was the use of ploughing up ground that needed to be sown? Another was a practical preacher. I heard him, but it was very much like a commanding officer teaching the manoeuvres of war to a set of men without feet. What could I do? All his exhortations were lost on me. I knew it, was said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;" but I did not know what it was to believe on Christ. These good men all preached truths suited to many in their congregations who were spiritually-minded people; but what I wanted to know was,—"How can I get my sins forgiven?"—and they never told me that. I desired to hear how a poor sinner, under a sense of sin, might find peace with God; and when I went, I heard a sermon on "Be not deceived, God is not mocked," which cut me up still worse; but did not bring me into rest. I went again, another day, and the text was something about the glories of the righteous; nothing for poor me! I was like a dog under the table, not allowed to eat of the children's food. I went time after time, and I can honestly say that I do not know that I ever went without prayer to God, and I am sure there was not a more attentive hearer than myself in all the place, for I panted and longed to understand how I might be saved.

All this makes me think a bit of my own experience as an impatient child, "growing" carrots and potatoes. They didn't grow much. I wanted to see them, so I plucked them up -- potatoes the size of stuffed olives, and tiny carrots scarcely larger than a root. I wonder sometimes if we have such small souls in the professing church today because our impatient approach to evangelism presses for instant, shallow, and premature "decisions," rather than preaching Law and Gospel, pointing sinners to Christ, and respecting the Spirit of God's own timing in the work of conversion.

Adultery and -ers: La Shawn Barber grabs it, nails it, varnishes it, wraps duct tape around it, and buries it

I feel obliged to start by saying that the safest attitude for a redeemed sinner to have towards sin is that anyone is vulnerable to any temptation, no matter how repugnant it is today (Proverbs 16:18; 1 Corinthians 10:12).

Having said all that: adultery has always seemed particularly repulsive to me. It is treachery on so many levels. And I've always wondered what accomplices think about their adulterous partners: "He cheated on her, and now he'll be faithful to me"?

Well, I can't say it any better than the inimitable La Shawn Barber -- who, God love her, never leaves one wondering "So what's she trying to get at?" -- just did in Message for the ‘Ladies.’ She may not be very nice about it. Sometimes that's appropriate.

This would be one of those times.

Roger Ebert mud-wrestles a fellow-nihilist

I know just a little about wrestling, from experience. Well, I know I'm not good at it. Additionally, I know you need a pivot. What could be more futile than two naked skydivers wrestling? They may wriggle about, but the contest will conclude identically for both.

Reading film critic Roger Ebert's correspondence with the producer and director of Chaos, a movie I shall likely never see, I had a similar feeling.

I read Ebert every week -- not because I agree with him, which I often do not, but because he's a good writer. He's funny, creative, thoughtful, and tells you why he thinks what he does about a movie. Often that is enough to help me decide whether or not I want to see a given flick. If, for instance, a movie is a warm and sensitive portrayal of a reverse-transsexual homosexual surviving his/her/its narrow, rigid, repressed, hate-filled Fundamentalist Christian Republican evil white parents (and yes, I did just say the same thing nine different ways, in Ebert's thought-world), and finding meaning in days filled with sex and directionless motion, he'll commonly give it fifteen stars. If it's foreign-made and subtitled, sixteen. (I exaggerate, slightly.)

My favorite bad Ebert review was his of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring. He spends most of the review talking about what he thinks of the book, and only gives passing reference to the movie here and there. He likes it, but not totally; no lesbians, no evil Christians, three stars only -- maybe including an extra star for the subtitles. And what's worse, he misunderstands the book! He thinks it was "about brave little creatures who enlist powerful men and wizards to help them in a dangerous crusade." Right -- except the opposite!

"Me digress," as Cookie Monster would say.

Ebert hated the movie Chaos. He explains exactly why, in classic Ebertesque fashion: he wrote that the movie

is ugly, nihilistic, and cruel -- a film I regret having seen. I urge you to avoid it. Don't make the mistake of thinking it's 'only' a horror film, or a slasher film. It is an exercise in heartless cruelty and it ends with careless brutality. The movie denies not only the value of life, but the possibility of hope.

He gave it no stars. This provoked the producer and director to write a response letter, challenging his perception. They argue that it is a post-9/11 horror movie, reflecting the ugly evil of our times. They plainly see themselves and their film as visionary:

We tried to give you and the public something real. Real evil exists and cannot be ignored, sanitized or exploited. It needs to be shown just as it is, which is why we need this [crud], to use your own coarse words. And if this upsets you, or "disquiets" you, or leaves you "saddened," that's the point. So instead of telling the public to avoid this film, shouldn't you let them make their own decision?

Ebert is, to say the least, not persuaded by their response. Here is the conclusion of his surrejoinder:

Animals do not know they are going to die, and require no way to deal with that implacable fact. Humans, who know we will die, have been given the consolations of art, myth, hope, science, religion, philosophy, and even denial, even movies, to help us reconcile with that final fact. What I object to most of all in "Chaos" is not the sadism, the brutality, the torture, the nihilism, but the absence of any alternative to them. If the world has indeed become as evil as you think, then we need the redemptive power of artists, poets, philosophers and theologians more than ever.

Your answer, that the world is evil and therefore it is your responsibility to reflect it, is no answer at all, but a surrender.

But what is Ebert's answer? He provides none, specifically. What he really says amounts to this: "I don't like the hopelessness of your portrayal. I like feeling hopeful. There are things that make me feel hopeful, even if they're untrue (myth). I like them better."

Well, we all like feeling good over feeling bad. I prefer to think that my income is not taxed. I prefer to think I can drive as fast as I want. I prefer to think I can gratify every impulse I have without one negative consequence.

There's only one itty-bitty snag: what I'd like is not true. If I'm to find hope, it must be truth-based, or it is delusional, and anyone's hope (or hopelessness) is as good as anyone else's.

On Mr. Ebert's premises, I'd have to side with the filmmakers. Solomon saw it long ago, and wrote it out for us in Ecclesiastes. If the God of the Bible is not true, then "under the sun" there is no meaning, no joy, no redemption, no purpose. It's all ugly and squalid. Immediately under the surface of every pleasure is the yawning chasm of chaos, and the grinning skull of Death.

Now, I reject the filmmaker's premise because I don't share Mr. Ebert's worldview, nor theirs. I believe Jesus. Because I believe Jesus, I believe the Bible, and the Bible gives a comprehensive solution to the problem of evil (which I've sketched out briefly elsewhere).

So meanwhile, the best Ebert and the makers of Chaos can do is mud-wrestle. Their premises are equally sound, and equally baseless. They've both autonomously patched together their worldviews, and neither can find a purchase by which to throw the other.

God grant that they find the sole unshifting pivot point of the word of the infinite-personal God of Scripture. Only the house built on the rock will stand (Matthew 7:24-27).

Zondervan: still s-s-sneakin' like a Gollum

Marvin Olasky notes [sorry; link has since died] in WORLD magazine's blog that Zondervan has snuck the inexcusable stealth/treachery TNIV into their literature, so that even those whose denomination rejects its use might find themselves distributing literature depending on it.

In related news, here is an ennumeration of the many perverse changes the TNIV made to Scripture to support their unBiblical, passing-fad, politically correct agenda. These changes obscure the meaning of the original text. Like all sins, they are rationalizable, but not defensible.

Not that I have an opinion, mind you.

The Darwiniacs' neat little circle

Deciphering the tidy little game the High Priests of Darwin have set up... ahem... isn't rocket science.

"No scientist doubts evolution!" they announce.

Cite one, and they respond, "He isn't a scientist! He doubts evolution! No scientist doubts evolution!" See? The category is kept pristine by purging any exceptions.

Further, perhaps you've read as I have of incidents where those who've done the work and paid the dues have then been denied their doctorates because they won't say the Apostate's Creed, and affirm their faith in the Lord Darwin All-Knowing, world without beginning, amen.

Well, a subset of this is the publication game. "No Darwin-doubter has ever done a paper in a peer-reviewed professional journal!"

How would you guess this circle would be kept pure? Same way? Simply don't publish such papers, even though they're out there?

Turns out you'd be right. Read David Klinghoffer on one hapless soul, Smithsonian scientist Richard von Sternberg. Though not even a supporter of Intelligent Design himself, von Sternberg dared to allow a paper to be published in The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Hijinks ensued. If your eyes haven't been opened to our bold, open-minded, just-interested-in-the-facts would-be scientific monolith, this may just do it.

Our race bought the line that Godless autonomy would make us as gods ourselves (Genesis 3). The rumor that this might not be true still strikes terror, and we still suppress any suggestion to the contrary (Romans 1:18). Old news, still fresh and true and tragic.

Hugh Hewitt strikes again: Jay Sekulow on John Roberts

You've perhaps noticed that Hugh Hewitt's blog is listed on my sidebar as one of my daily, must-see haunts. And that's the truth. I go there many times a day.

Hugh has his pluses and minuses -- perhaps the subject of another post, another day -- but he is simply the best interviewer going. He asks contentful, hard-hitting, almost startlingly well-informed and on-target questions. He's respectful and courteous, but not cowed by greatness.

(An aside: it was this that made me a Hugh addict. I had started listening at the recommendation of a fellow-FReeper, and was not "taken" with Hugh for several days. However, I persisted on the strength of "RonDog's" word. Then Hugh had as his guest some flunky representing then-CA-governor Gray Davis, of recent and unlamented memory. I expected some nicey-nice fluff such as Rush Limbaugh would probably do even if one of the Clintons appeared on his show. Wrong! Hugh was polite but toe-to-toe and no-nonsense. What sticks out in my mind, now, years later, is Hugh's response to some bit of attempted spin from the man. Hugh fairly exploded with, "What?! Do you think my listeners are stupid?!" I was hooked from then on.)

All that to say this: if you share some of my gnawing concerns about Supreme Court nominee John "Am I David Souter?" Roberts, you will find Hugh's interview with Jay Sekulow very helpful. Jay's been a great advocate for values and issues of concern to Biblically-oriented Christian Americans, and his word carries weight.

You'll pray with me that God shows this man mercy, and shows America mercy by using him to slow (if not reverse) the downward spiral to which our courts have too often contributed.

Back in business

As you know, the format of this blog just went a bit nuts for several days -- in IE-related browsers, but not Firefox. Wrote Blogger support right away. They never responded.

A few people offered a couple of suggestions; Harry of Harry's Soapbox in particular put a lot of time into the hunt. Finally, I hit on one post that for some indecipherable reason threw everything out of whack. So, I've cobbled everything back together. I don't love this template, but it seemed like the least-worst, given that the original template is in a perpetual "snit" now. Once again, suggestions are welcome and indeed solicited.

Wisdom... from "King of the Hill"?

I don't think I've ever watched a "King of the Hill" all the way through. Well, not deliberately; it was on the inevitable yammering TV in a hospital waiting room where I spent a few hours earlier this year. Unlike most of my family, try as I may, I can't tune such things out when I'm trying to read. So I sequestered myself at the end of a long hallway, where passing staff favored me with curious looks. (Who would want to avoid The TV?!)

Tim Challies has watched it, though, and gleaned some awfully good observations, shared in his post Making Christianity Better or Rock N' Roll Worse? You'll be surprised at the insight in this -- huh? -- TV show.

Postmodernist creed (excellent, scathing, direct hit)

Steve Turner was 'way ahead of his time when he wrote this in 1978; just substitute "terrorists" for "Russians." I supplied the title above; the sources aren't united on what Turner's title was. Here we go:

This is the creed I have written on behalf of all us.

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy is OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything is getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in
horoscopes, UFO's and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man
just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher
although we think His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same--
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it's compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
and the flowering of individual thought.

"Chance" a post-script
If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear

State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.

Most sites that quote this get it from Ravi Zacharias’ Can Man Live Without God?, citing pages 42-44. Ultimately, it is said by one site to come from Nice and Nasty by Steve Turner. 1980 by Marshall, and Scott. Another site says it is from Up To Date (London: Hodder & Stoughton).

(And yes, I am obsessive-compulsive about citing my sources. What's more, I think everyone should be!)

What really worries me about the War on Terror

In 2 Chronicles 12:1, one is in danger of skipping over this: "When the rule of Rehoboam was established and he was strong, he abandoned the law of the LORD, and all Israel with him."

What a sad, alarming X-ray into the human condition this provides. Theorizing in a vacuum-sealed, sanitary laboratory with no HBO, one might speculate that prosperity would cause humans to be all the more grateful to God, all the more lovingly devoted to Him. One would think that people, so richly blessed, would turn their (our!) prosperous times of smooth sailing into opportunities all the more to press forward in our walk with God. New assets would be turned to new levels of service to His glory.

But no. Perhaps we know it too well in our own lives. It is the harrowing and difficult times that more often send us back to first principles. Then we make sure of our standing with God, make sure of His word, hold tight to Him, look to him, hew closely to His Word in our walk. But when the storm cloud passes and the sun shines again, we blissfully go our way. Our way. It was so with Rehoboam, Solomon's vastly inferior successor/son. It was so with Israel. It is so with us.

What possible connection does this have with the War on Terror?

Read the next three verses: "In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, because they had been unfaithful to the LORD, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem with 1,200 chariots and 60,000 horsemen. And the people were without number who came with him from Egypt - Libyans, Sukkiim, and Ethiopians. And he took the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem" (2 Chronicles 12:2-4.)

Now, I hasten to say, America is not Israel. We do not have the covenant with Yahweh they had, of conditional blessings and curses. You will not see me quoting 2 Chronicles 7:14 as if "my people who are called by my name" are Americans.

However, I think that in some ways our status is more perilous than Israel's. The pan-Biblical principle is: more privilege = more responsibility (see Amos 3:2; Luke 12:48). Where is America on that continuum? Well into the red zone, I'd say. No nation in the history of the world -- including Israel! -- has had greater access to the entire word of God. No nation has had richer resources for studying it. No nation has had more liberty for putting it into practice.

And what have we done with this liberty? Abortion, materialism, cults, enabling and defending perversions of all sorts -- these are our legacies. And in professing Christendom, not only do we see ignorance of the Word of God, nor only indifference to it, but we see positive and thoroughly rationalized opposition to its study as the ruling spirit in the churches. The dominant and most successful fads in church growth play down the declaration of the whole counsel of God, the preaching of an edgy, threatening Jesus. The so-called "evangelical" movement embraces those denying fundamental doctrines of the faith.

This is our way of saying "Thank you" to God for His goodness to our nation.

So the President tells us we're at war with terror, with terrorism, with people who have hijacked Islam. They're the bad guys, we're the good guys, and we'll win. That's what he says. And what I read among conservatives is that we'll surely win, because we've got the best-trained, best-equipped army in the world. They revel in videos of American hardware taking out buildings and people with amazing precision, and devastating effectiveness. It may take time, but we'll win. We're in the right, and we have the best army and the most withering firepower.

Do you see anything worrisome in that?

Of course they are the bad guys. Despicable monsters who deliberately target non-combatants, who sneak in and use our very humaneness against us, who slaughter women and children with fervent glee -- that isn't a hard call. They need to be opposed, sought out, exterminated.

Are we the good guys? Here's where it gets stickier. How many millions of children have been slaughtered now, on the altar of immorality without consequences? How many practices and attitudes that God declares repulsive have we embraced, lionized, and fostered -- even in our professedly Christian churches?

"Better" guys, maybe. But "good"? In God's eyes? That worries me.

But haven't we the best army? Yes, I think so. Today. But tomorrow? Or even later today, if God withdraws his sheer grace and mercy from us, and gives us what we so richly deserve?

If that isn't enough to worry about, throw these in as well:

2 Chronicles 12:5-6 Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the princes of Judah, who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, "Thus says the LORD, 'You abandoned me, so I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak.'" 6 Then the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, "The LORD is righteous."

Psalm 20:7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Proverbs 21:31 The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the LORD.

Psalm 146:3 Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.

Jeremiah 17:5 Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength,1 whose heart turns away from the LORD.

Psalm 33:16-17 The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. 17 The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue.

Isaiah 31:1-2 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the LORD! 2 And yet he is wise and brings disaster; he does not call back his words, but will arise against the house of the evildoers and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.

What is it we really need, then? In a word, repentance. National, wide-reaching, root-to-branches repentance. Nothing more, less, nor other. We haven't the ghost of an echo of an excuse for our moral and spiritual condition before God, not one, and we should stop fabricating them.

But we're not even close to that point yet. Do you remember, after 9/11, when a preacher or two even dared to suggest that it might in any sense be a judgment from God? What happened? Did this spark a national, soul-searching discussion, humbling, mourning over our sins? No. They upstarts were buried alive under howls of derision. It wasn't that they were judged and proven wrong; it was that the very suggestion was obscene, impermissible, unspeakable. Worse still, it was in bad taste! Grammar school kids can be taught about homosexuality, but adults cannot be asked to consider whether their actions merit God's judgment.

So, as of that date, America was not prepared even to frame the discussion, let alone humble itself appropriately.

To be plain, I wouldn't leap to a one-for-one conclusion that this horrid tragedy happened because of this or that sin. But I would say, without hesitation or fear of contradiction, that America deserves God's further judgment. If He were to wipe us from the face of the earth today, none could gainsay His justice. That's how bad it is.

So that is what worries me about the Global War on Terror. Not that it isn't a just cause, and not that President Bush isn't a good man with at least some of the right ideas on what is needed. It's the widespread notion that we'll win because we're good, or strong. It's the thought that an ideology can be defeated and replaced with nothing. We're ready to tell the Islamofascists that they're wrong, and yet in America we can't even publicly suggest the relatively colorless notion of Intelligent Design without sparking a chorus of insults and abuse. Being a practicing Christian disqualifies one from holding public office. Obscenity can be presented in public, but the Ten Commandments cannot. We aren't even permitted the categories that would allow the discussion to move in the right direction. We can't even ask the questions.

If you're not worrying with me yet, let me add one last, chilling thought.

If what has happened to us thus far hasn't even provoked the first beginnings of real soul-searching (and it hasn't)...

...what will it take?

AFTERTHOUGHT: as I wrote this, I had a verse in mind, but couldn't think of a "hook" by which to look it up. I think I've stumbled on it.

This is the exultant city that lived securely, that said in her heart, "I am, and there is no one else." What a desolation she has become, a lair for wild beasts! Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.
(Zephaniah 2:15)

This was a prophecy about Assyria. "Assyria?" you say. "Where's that?" Exactly.

Now here's my point. Assyria was wiped out for its crimes against God and man, even though it had minimal exposure to special revelation.

Who can explain to me how God can be just, and not bring the same judgment against America? Barring widespread, genuine repentance?

Darwinians: thundering forth the new "ipse dixit"

What would you guess as the context of this sort of statement: "When it comes to ________, President Bush is of two minds, one of which is wrong."

There is an absoluteness to that statement, is there not? In this po-mo culture, such a black-and-white distinction is almost refreshing. We Americans can't bring ourselves to say that abortion is wrong, nor most sexual perversions... but here is something that a writer can absolutely rule out as dead wrong.

Normally, one thinks of such absolutism as coming from a religious background. The speaker believes he has access to an absolute revelation of truth. He may not be omniscient, but his source is; so he's comfortable making such pronouncements. It minds one of the Roman Catholic Church, during the Middle Ages, slicing its bread very thin -- and slicing up those who vary. Like Galileo, patron saint of modern evolutionists.

So what is the full statement? Here it is: "When it comes to science, President Bush is of two minds, one of which is wrong."

What outrageous, unambiguously un-scientific statement did the Pres make? Did he say that water is dry, or that up is down? Did he mispronounce "nucleotides"?

Now, here is the bit of the story that has ignited such a firestorm in the lamestream media:

Bush compared the current debate to earlier disputes over “creationism,” a related view that adheres more closely to biblical explanations. As Texas governor, Bush said students should be exposed to both creationism and evolution.

On Monday the president said he favored the same approach for intelligent design “so people can understand what the debate is about.”

“I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,” he said. “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas. The answer is yes.”

Exposing students to "different schools of thought"! Anti-intellectual! Shocking! Assume crash position! Battle stations!

And so this essay is titled Please, Mr. President, embrace science. (Evidently, on the planet that this writer calls "home," Science is a monolith, and has made an absolute, unambiguous, inerrant and final statement of Truth and Fact. It owns Truth and Fact. By copyright. In fact, it owns the words "truth" and "fact," as well as the word "science," which no one can use without their written permission.)

So there are only two viewpoints: the writer's, and "unscientific" views. This amounts to an ipse dixit, meaning "he himself has said it" (-- or perhaps even haec dicit Dominus, "Thus says the Lord"). It is used of a Godlike pronouncement, brooking no hesitation or variance. The only proper response is, "Yes, Lord; I hear and obey."

But it isn't God issuing this word. In fact, this word contradicts actual words from God. It comes from a group who constantly bickers and revises and argues internally, but presents a united facade externally. (The resemblance to Rome once again suggests itself.) These godlike dictates come from the new priesthood, clothed not in surplices nor cassocks, but in white lab coats.

But they demand the utter and unquestioning conformity that only God has a right to demand.

So totalitarian is their demand for obedience that two sides cannot be presented, nor even acknowledged to exist. They must have the only game in town.

The average person finds this hard to understand. What harm can there be in acknowledging that matter didn't create itself, that such order and complexity didn't just roll out of a tumbler? Why can't even the muzzy, gelatinous, toothless vagueness of "theistic evolution" be suggested?

This breathtaking arrogance, this anxious paranoia, calls certain Scriptures to my mind. Chief is Psalm 10, where we read "In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, 'There is no God.'" At first blush, this appears to be a categorical denial of God's existence. Yet look down at verse 11: "He says in his heart, 'God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.'” Put it together, and one realizes that this wicked man is not denying that there is no God at all -- but that there is no God to worry about. Whatever God might exist, He has no bearing on the wicked man's day-to-day existence.

And so we're often told condescendingly that one may speak of creation in religion classes, but not in science classes. In other words, there is no God to worry about. He has His box, His ghetto; and He must keep to it.

This allows the Darwinian priesthood a deathgrip on the discussion, even on the terms of the discussion. Real life is under their rule. Religion is "over there," divorced from life. Our fantasy view of ourselves as gods unto ourselves need not be threatened, nor even questioned.

And while this modern Inquisition may not literally eviscerate heretics, it will do so to their reputation and, if possible, their career, and their very right to speak in public.

OTHER READING: Thomas Gilson has some good thoughts in Thinking Christian. So does Chuck Colson.

On the other hand, Jonathan Chait tells us that President Bush is stupid for advocating academic freedom on this subject (How Bush thinks: intuition over intellect). Chait is absolutely pathological on the subject of President Bush; he recently perpetrated a column actually attacking the President for being too physically fit! In a rational writer, this would be shocking. However, every time Chait writes on President Bush, we should all remember that he admits to and has defending being a Bush-hater.

The unintentionally funniest essay has to be Intelligent Design pushed by anti-science exremists. Note the spelling! It may be corrected by the time you click, but this is the original release! Not "exremely" literate! Gods on science, dunces on spelling. [UPDATE: they've corrected the title now. If only they'd corrected the content!]

Meanwhile, 400 scientists are skeptical of the Darwinian explanation. But we'll be told they don't count. Remember this rule: all scientists believe in evolution! If they don't, they're not real scientists!

Neat circle, huh?

Finally, Charles Krauthammer is clearly out of his depth on this subject in Let's Have No More Monkey Trials. His subtitle, "To teach faith as science is to undermine both," gave me some hope that he was going to apply his sharp pen to the materialistic Darwinists' unwarranted preaching of a religious philosophy as science. But no, he's just joining the elite chorus, demanding that only the dogma of the First Church of Darwin be preached in the local (government) parishes.

And my wife and I just look at each other and say, "Reason #4,372 why to homeschool."

Cool new 'zine

Check out the ambitious new e-zine Reformation 21. It has high aims and some good writers already enlisted. The first edition features an essay by Ligon Duncan on the "new" (anti-Reformation) approach to Paul, a lively blog, and a discussion of the age-old question... will there be a Starbucks in Heaven?

Think maybe they'll do some serious, creative, long-overdue, ground-breaking writing on dispensationalism as (at the very least) a legitimate expression of Reformation principles?

Hey! I can dream, can't I?

The sty is the limit

This is a you will be repulsed alert. In three... two... one....

Apparently Tylenol is convinced that American consumers, though "knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them" (Romans 1:32 NKJ).

Focus on the Family reports that the image linked above is from "the July 19 issue of The Advocate, a leading gay [sic] magazine." Homosexual sites are celebrating. No, I won't link to them.

There are so many sad ironies to this ad, and the culture that would enable it. Advocates of this particular sexual perversion come unhinged at logical progressions such as the following, but there is no logical reason why the next generation of ads wouldn't show a man and four other men, or a mixture of men and women. Or a human and a dog. Or a schoolteacher and her young student. For that matter, on the moral premises underlying this ad, there is no logical reason not to show a man with a bruised and battered woman with duct tape over her mouth, handcuffed to the headboard. Now, there's a real case for a pain-reliever.

Extreme? Repugnant? Absolutely. So is this ad.

If we do equally not feel it to be so, score one for the day-in day-out drone of the homosexual agenda, in its tireless pan-media campaign to make the abnormal seem normal.

It is a logical continuum. If what is normal and acceptable is to be defined horizontally, by human drives and desires; and if the laws of evolution (where species advance by imposing their wills on, and eliminating, the weak and defenseless) are, as the elite inform us, the framework for everything, then there simply are no barriers. There are only speed bumps. Even these are being worn away, as this ad bears witness.

But the crowning irony of the Tylenol ad is found at its foot, next to the Tylenol image, where we find the words "Stop. Think."

Indeed.

"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV)