Tag: religion

What We Wouldn’t’ve Thought Of, but God Did REPRINT

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From  March 15, 2015

If our smartest scientists and our cleverest politicians had had the job of creating the world–a thought engendering almost unimaginable horror–there is a lot they never would have thought of including in it.

Consider some of the extras which God included in His creation, none of which would ever have occurred to any human being.

1. Beauty. Look at a spider web in the grass in the morning, festooned with dew-drops that glisten like pearls, and consider your response to it. Probably you are struck by its beauty. That response is a gift from God. I can’t imagine it having any of that “evolutionary survival value” they’re always going on about in National Geographic specials. Cows while grazing probably see a lot of dewy spider webs. Do you think they appreciate the beauty? Read any nice odes by cows lately?

2. Food and Drink that tastes good and really satisfies. For me it’s fried scallops. How did the Lord ever think of making scallops taste like this? And don’t say it’s the chef, not God: replace the scallops with chunks of pineapple, and there’s nothing the cook can do to make them taste the same. But of course pineapple can be delightful, too.

If humans had been in charge of creation, realizing that you need food to stay alive, they would have created food designed for that purpose. Imagine how blah that would be! Nor would scientists have bothered with the incalculable diversity of taste and color and texture, etc. It would all be this grey gel that keeps us able to fog a mirror–not that I’m trying to give the President’s Wife any more ideas to make school cafeteria food even more unappetizing.

3. Cats and Dogs that love us unconditionally. It doesn’t have Evolutionary Survival Value, so who needs the love of pets? No pug dog ever helped a cave man kill a mammoth, and there’d be no point in even suggesting it to a cat. But he is poor indeed who has never been loved by an animal! Only God–of whom it is written, “God is love”–would have ever thought of that.

God’s world is full of extras that we take for granted. But if we do try to listen to what these say, we begin to understand that they aren’t really extras, after all.

Look. Taste. Love. And listen: there is something here worth hearing.

Mary Magdalene, on Easter Morning REPRINT

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 From April 5, 2015

Try to imagine that morning.

The Passover is finished. It’s the day after the Sabbath, very, very early in the morning. Jerusalem is quiet, seeming almost eerily quiet after all the recent uproar.

Mary, from the town of Magdala, has followed Jesus Christ everywhere. She has seen him crucified, taken down, dead, from the cross, and placed in a tomb. She is numb with grief. Almost automatically, she proceeds to the tomb–donated by Joseph of Arimathea–to minister to Jesus’ body. That work could not have been done yesterday, on the Sabbath. There are wounds to wash, spices to apply.The Bible says two other women came with her to do this.

Try to imagine this: the Sanhedrin put a guard at the tomb, claiming they didn’t want Jesus’ followers to steal the body and then claim He was risen. But when Mary and the others arrive, in the grey dawn, the guards are unconscious and the great stone used to seal the tomb has been rolled away.

It must have taken some courage to pass through that dark doorway into the tomb itself. There the women found Jesus’ body gone. An angel, or maybe two angels, appeared and told them, “He is not here.”

The story gets slightly confused–naturally! Matthew reports that the three women, after meeting the risen Christ, ran to tell the good news to His disciples. This is repeated in Mark, with the addition that Mary Magdalene was the first to see Him. Luke reports that the disciples did not believe Mary and the others: “their words seemed to them as idle tales.” Both Luke and John report that Peter went to the sepulcher and found only Jesus’ grave clothes there, no dead body.

Now try to imagine this, from the Gospel of St. John (20:11-18).

After finding their Lord’s tomb empty, somehow Mary became separated from her companions. It’s easy to imagine her wandering about with no clear idea of going anywhere. She has seen an angel, but it doesn’t seem to have registered with her.

She meets a man whom she supposes to be the gardener (for the tomb is in a garden). He has come to work early. He asks her, “Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?”

Naturally, Mary believes someone pried open the tomb and stole Jesus’ body. These last three days (and Day Three has only just begun) have been too much for her. Although Jesus Himself said all of this would happen, her mind rebels, just as Peter’s did. No! No! None of this was supposed to happen! It’s all wrong!

She begs the gardener to tell her where they’ve put the body.

Then he speaks her name. “Mary.” And her eyes clear, and she sees. This is not the gardener. This is the Son of Man, and He is risen.

Can you imagine her amazement? And her ecstatic joy? She must have been half-crazed with joy and relief, and maybe more than half. Can you blame the disciples for not believing her, when she told them Christ was risen, and that He had spoken to her? How could she even speak coherently?

Of course the accounts in the Bible don’t tally 100%. How could they? The witnesses to these things were beside themselves–first with grief and horror and woe, and then with joy and triumph and astonishment. They saw Jesus tortured and killed. And then they saw Him living–even ate with Him, and touched Him.

But it was Mary from Magdala who was the first of all the human race to experience the birth, as of an explosion which creates a new sun that shines forever, of a new beginning to history. “So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? …But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Corinthians 15: 54-57)

Imagine Mary’s Easter morning.

Someday each of us shall meet that same gardener; and when He speaks to us, we shall know His voice.

How About Just ‘Some’ Religious Freedom? REPRINT

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From April 3, 2015

How can America preserve religious freedom–guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution–while at the same time preserving the right of homosexuals to force Christians to perform actions against their conscience and their faith?

The city of Gomorrah, New York, has the answer.

Here, the city council has passed the Kinda-Sorta Religious Freedom Ordinance, which sets up six Religious Freedom Zones around the city. Each is roughly the size of an old-fashioned public phone booth.

Explained Mayor Bill Zebub, “Anyone who steps into a Religious Freedom Zone, for as long as he remains inside it, cannot be forced to say or do anything against his beliefs. Within the zone, absolute freedom of conscience prevails.

“Outside the zone, of course, everyone, including Christians, must obey any order given by a gay or lesbian or trans person. To do otherwise is to be guilty of Hate, and Hate is a very bad emotion. It will not be allowed to exist within the city limits of Gomorrah.”

The city has authorized a Human Rights Whipping Post, with rack and thumbscrews reserved for “particularly difficult cases.”

“We got the idea from the Free Speech Zones you find on many college campuses,” the mayor said. “After all, the First Amendment doesn’t say where you have freedom of speech or freedom of religion! All it requires is that you have freedom somewhere in America. Nor does it say how large that somewhere has to be.”

Lessons from ‘A Christmas Carol’ REPRINT

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From December 21, 2014

There are a few purists among God’s people–who are my brothers and sisters, so don’t think I’m trying to throw brickbats at them–who don’t like Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol or its many incarnations into film. But here we watch our favorite movie versions every Christmastide: and really, I can’t think of any piece of fiction that more faithfully teaches Bible truths concerning Christmas.

We should all watch these more attentively–in addition to always spending time in the Bible text itself. If you’re reading Scripture daily, then Christmas will come more than once a year.

Consider George C. Scott’s Scrooge: could anyone be more cold-heartedly obnoxious? Or Alistair Sim’s Scrooge in the immortal 1950 classic: he is more creatively, exuberantly nasty than the others. And don’t forget, from farther back, Reginald Owen. His Scrooge is just plain flat-out mean.

All are horrible individuals (even though they’re all meant to be the same person). Not only bad, but taking a perverse pride and pleasure in their badness. Anyone can watch these performances and feel superior. “At least I’m not that bad!”

A Christmas Carol is not about Santa Claus and shopping and presents. No, it gets to the heart of the matter, it shows us why the Son of God came down from Heaven, why the Word of God had to be made flesh. For the business at hand, then and now, was the business of Redemption.

God has made Jesus Christ to be for us, because we can attain to none of these ourselves, wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (I Corinthians 1:30). And what Dickens and his movie-making successors are telling us is that, if God can redeem and regenerate such a rotten, heartless, sinful soul as Scrooge, He can redeem us, too. The Holy Spirit of God can cleanse the human heart. The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins (Matthew 9:6).

Want to hear some good news? We are not stuck with who we are! Or rather, who we have become, indulging sin and folly in a fallen world. We are not stuck with that at all.

For the Lord hath spoken it.

And this little story of A Christmas Carol has put it into English.

 

Beware! Here Come Killer Robots! REPRINT

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From May 29, 2015

A computer science professor at Berkeley has warned that “research” by the Defense Dept. (B. Hussein Obama, proprietor) could create “drones which can track and kill targets even when out of contact with their handlers…. the research could breach the Geneva Convention and leave humanity in the hands of amoral machines” ( http://godfatherpolitics.com/22681/killer-robots-will-destroy-us-scientist-warns/ ).

How much worse is that than being at the mercy of immoral and wicked human beings?

I believe Professor Stuart Russell means well, and that he’s trying to warn us against what he sees as a very real danger. He may even be right. Who knows what the DOD lab-rats get up to, behind closed doors?

Naturally, this conjures up visions of The Terminator and other robot menaces. Oh, dear–another thing to worry about! Aaagh, we’re all gonna die! From Global Warming… or Income Inequality, or Homophobia, or Too Much Red Meat in Our Diet and Not Enough Tofu… or the ocean is going to dry up, or else flood over all our coastal cities.. from overpopulation, underpopulation, or simply not enough Trans People to go around. From whatever.

See what terrors you get into, when you don’t believe in God.

If your god is such a patzer that he can’t protect his own creation from little ants and fleas like us, then your god is not God. If your god sent his only son to earth to redeem the human race, and it didn’t work because the human race totally destroyed itself, then your god is not God and your savior is not Jesus Christ.

Wise up, O men of God.

Three Men: Four Presences REPRINT

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From November 18, 2013

I would like to share with you something that happened 100 years ago to Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer.

Their ship having been crushed in the ice and sunk, Shackleton left most of his crew on a desert island while he and a few men went for help. After crossing 800 miles of stormy ocean in a patched-up longboat, and landing on South Georgia Island, Shackleton and two men had to slog across the mountainous, heavily-glaciated island to reach a whaling station.

After incredible hardships and against seemingly insurmountable odds, they made it. All the men were rescued. The following is from Shackleton’s own memoir:

“When I look back at those days I have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snow-fields, but across the storm-white sea that separated Elephant Island from our landing-place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, ‘Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.’ Crean confessed to the same idea. One feels ‘the dearth of human words, the roughness of mortal speech’ in trying to describe things intangible, but a record of our journeys would be incomplete without a reference to a subject very near our hearts.”

Compare this to the experience of another three men, farther back in time. It’s from Chapter 3 of the Book of Daniel.

“Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury… and he commanded the most mighty men… to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace… Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and said unto the counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”

Sophisticated modern pinheads reject the Bible story out of hand: miracles simply do not happen. But no one has dared to question the story told by Shackleton and his two companions.

Then again, what do I know? There are probably academics who say that never happened, either.

 

Say Bye-bye to Religious Liberty REPRINT

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From  December 7, 2015

Next step–church gets bulldozed for refusing to obey homosexuals

Should the government have the power to tell the church what to teach and what not to teach?

Hell, yeah. And that’s just what the “human rights” industry in Australia intends to do . (I had to remove the link as it no longer worked. PD)

In fairness it must be pointed out that some members of the government say this is going way, way too far and that the Tasmania Anti-Discrimination Law must be amended to keep far-out wackiness like this from happening.

You see, a single man who insists he is a woman–he’s also a Green Party candidate for Parliament, surprise, surprise–says church teaching offends him, so it must be changed. His target is the Roman Catholic Church, which earlier this year issued a pastoral letter entitled “Don’t Mess With Marriage.”

The church’s teachings on marriage, an institution ordained by God Himself, have remained the same for thousands of years.

Now they are to be changed because some lost soul demands it.

Here in America many individuals have been ruined, destroyed, not because of anything they did, but because they didn’t take part in a same-sex “wedding.”

Organized Sodomy has become powerful enough to do that. And it seeks more power still.

So far in Australia, attempts to rein in the “human rights” gang have been defeated by a coalition of left-wing members of Parliament, surprise, surprise.

Believe this: The secular tribe will never rest until the Christian religion is destroyed. That is their goal. They wish to remove Christianity as the biggest obstacle between them and total domination of the human race. Their pushes for “gay rights” and transgender nonsense are only tactics.

Had enough yet, folks? There’s more coming.

This is a judgment from God, but we have not yet learned to recognize it as such; and we are very, very far from the repentance that will save us.

An Answer to a Bible-Basher REPRINT

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From November 21, 2013

“Would you be willing to stand in a court of law and say that, yes, Jonah did in fact spend three days in the belly of a great fish?”

Sooner or later, every high-school charlie trots out this ancient cliche. They hug themselves, grinning at the thought of how they’ve just cut the floor out from everyone who believes the Bible.

If there’s one thing worse than an idiot, it’s a boring idiot. At least give us some fresh, creative idiocy–not this old stuff that’s been going round and round since 1563.

So a “court of law” is to be the high authority? For most of American history, a witness in a court of law had to swear on the Bible, by almighty God, that his evidence is true. Would the witness ever have been asked to swear on the Bible that the Bible isn’t true? Political correctness has in recent years moved us to abandon this practice; but to this day, the President of the United States takes his oath of office with his hand on the Bible.

But if the court of law really is the high authority, does every witness tell the truth? Are we sure of hearing nothing but the truth in any court of law?

The Bible must be fiction, reasons the fool who is wise in his own eyes, because it includes accounts of miracles. A miracle is something that our experience of the world tells us cannot happen. More–it’s something the Experts tell us cannot happen. Miracles happen in the Bible, therefor the Bible can’t be true.

But the Bible attributes miracles to God, and recognizes them as rare exceptions to the laws of nature. That’s what makes them miracles. Indeed, Moses got in serious trouble for taking credit to himself for one of God’s miracles–“Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?” (Numbers 20:10)

So let’s ask the Bible-basher a question.

Would you be willing to stand in a court of law and say, yes, life arose from non-living materials and “evolved” into dinosaurs, rosebushes, and Mozart?

Now who’s talking miracles?

‘He Gave Me a Song’

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I had never heard this hymn before, it was the first one that came up on YouTube this morning–and wow! He Gave Me a Song, sung by the Greene Mountain Men’s Choir. And we enjoy the settings by the hand of God the Father.

‘He Who Would Valiant Be’

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I have no idea whether the hymn I selected will appear here. Everything on this computer is chaos today.

What I wanted–and I don’t know if that’s what you’re seeing–was He Who Would Valiant Be, accompanied by video of a scenic, soothing little ride on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

Pray for my head not to explode today.