Muppetshow + Lord of the Rings Parody

A Warning To Emergent Preachers

"Desperate is the pastor who must constantly reconfigure his god to the whims, prejudices, and anxieties of the culture. Joyful is the pastor who can, with Paul, proclaim the whole counsel of the Unchanging Creator God, week after week, year after year, throughout his ministry." - Kairos Journal

A Word For My Fellow Ministers...

"If that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended."

Philippians 3:12

Never choose to be a worker; but when once God has put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left. We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has apprehended us. There is never any thought of - "Oh, well, I am not fitted for this." What you are to preach is determined by God, not by your own natural inclinations. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not to bear testimony only, but to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God's hand on you, your life is in the grip of God for that one thing. How many of us are held like that?

Never water down the word of God, preach it in its undiluted sternness; there must be unflinching loyalty to the word of God; but when you come to personal dealing with your fellow men, remember who you are - not a special being made up in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.

"I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do . . ."

June 28 - My Utmost For His Highest - Oswald Chambers

In the Teeth of the Dragon

The Khaleej Times Online reports:

China detained nearly 2,000 underground Christians over the past year, a US-based Christian rights group said on Tuesday.

According to the China Aid Association, 1,958 Chinese underground church pastors and worshippers in 15 provinces were detained between May 2005 and May 2006.

The group said in a statement that police and religious affairs officials displayed hostile attitudes at many Christian gatherings, mistreating and torturing believers during raids on such meetings.

Underground churches are for people worshipping outside state-sanctioned churches which are administered by the government and the ruling Communist Party.

The rights group said the central province of Henan witnessed the most persecution, with 823 pastors and believers rounded up in 11 raids from July 2005 to May 2006. Five American citizens were also arrested during that period.

Many Christians were abused during detention: two women aged 72 and 21 were forced to take off their clothes during interrogation and a disabled pastor, Li Gongshe, was severely beaten, it said.

The statement did not say how long the Christians were detained. But in another statement earlier this year, the group said most were released after they had been interrogated for periods ranging from 24 hours to several months.

Let us remember with our prayers
our brothers and sisters in China.
Maranatha!

You can read more about the ongoing persecution of Christians here.

The Sacrament of Assisted-Suicide?

I have always had problems with authoress Anne Lamont, one of the biggest being her insistence that she is an evangelical Christian. I thought she had reached the bottom of the proverbial barrel with her lunacy about redemptive abortion. But I was wrong. In an Op-Ed piece in today's LA Times she takes great pleasure in telling her readers how she helped a friend with cancer commit suicide.

She writes:

All of his old friends who were part of his final months said sternly that we must not play God, that nature must be allowed to take its course — and they were all atheists. So we did the best we could, and it sucked, and it was beautiful. But all the time I knew he had not wanted to end up in the shape he did.

I know if the tables had been turned, he would have helped me out.

So I offered to help Mel if he ever needed me. We talked about it briefly. What did I think death was like, he asked? I didn't have a clue, but I'd heard an Eastern mystic say that it was like slipping out of a pair of shoes that had never fit very well. Then we moved on to what we were reading, and how our kids were. I knew for a fact, though, that Mel believed in assisted suicide. We had discussed a story in the paper once, about a local man who gave his wife an overdose, and then sealed her upper body in a plastic trash bag with duct tape. Then he had done this to himself, and they died holding hands. What love!

Mel was sort of surprised that as a Christian I so staunchly agreed with him about assisted suicide: I believed that life was a kind of Earth school, so even though assisted suicide meant you were getting out early, before the term ended, you were going to be leaving anyway, so who said it wasn't OK to take an incomplete in the course?

She then goes on to tell how she "obtained" enough Seconal pills to "kill a big person" and loving crushed them up in applesausce to give to her dying friend. All this take place while friends gather for a going-away party for Mel.

She concludes with this:

He told us about the presents he had left for each of us. Mine turned out to be a framed 8-by-10 photograph of Abraham Lincoln that he'd had on the wall in his study. It was the last picture of Lincoln taken before he was assassinated. There was a crack running across his forehead, from some flaw in the ancient camera. Mel wanted me to be guided in my work by the depth of sorrow and compassion in his eyes.

After a while, Mel looked around, half smiled and fell asleep. People got up to stretch, for wine or water, or to change albums. He breathed so quietly, for so long, that when he finally stopped, we all strained to hear the sound.

I scarcely know where to begin. The matter of fact style by which she relates what amount to murdering a fellow human-being is staggering. She holds on to is like a special badge of honor and almosts demands the reader praise her for her actions.

As a pastor I had stood by many people in the last stages of death, but at no time did I ever think that the compassionate thing to do was to kill them. I offered prayers, companionship and sympathy, but never did I think that Seconal was sacramental. As a Christian I believe that God alone is sovereign. He alone numbers our days. Even Lamott's atheist friends warn her not to play God. But still she dispenses her fatal medicine with a side dish of eastern mysticism.

What bothers me even more is she does so knowing that her friend, Mel, is not a believer, but she shows no concern or understanding that by her hand she has dispatched him not to eternal light, but to eternal darkness.

Lamott is welcome to her confused convictions, I suppose, but what she is not welcome to hold is a mistaken notion that this is what God would want. She can call herself compassionate, but she can no longer call herself Christian.

Never Forget: Khobar Towers

10 years ago today, 19 US Airmen were killed
in the Khobar Towers terrorist attack.

Captain Christopher Adams

Technical Sergeant Daniel B. Cafourek

Sergeant Millard D. Campbell

Senior Airman Earl R. Cartrette Jr

Captain Leland Haun

Technical Sergeant Patrick P. Fennig

Master Sergeant Michael G. Heiser

Staff Sergeant Kevin Johnson

Sergeant Ronald King

Master Sergeant Kendall K. Kitson

Airman 1st Class Christopher Lester

Airman 1st Class Brent E. Marthaler

Airman 1st Class Brian W. McVeigh

Airman 1st Class Peter W. Morgera

Technical Sergeant Thanh V. Nguyen

Sr. Airman Jeremy A. Taylor

Airman 1st Class Joseph E. Rimkus

Airman 1st Class Justin Wood

Airman 1st Class Joshua E. Woody

Our prayers go out for their familes and for justice.

Sermon: "My Disciples - The Challenge"

The last in a series of four messages on the "my disciples" sayings of Jesus, from John 15:8. In this sermon we consider the disciples' challenge to bring glory to God by bearing much fruit. We must focus on the two essentials of vitality and visibility if we are to glorify the Father.


MP3 File

Sunday Spurgeon

We have heard of men who have confessed their guilt and afterwards tried to extenuate their crime and show some reasons why they were not so guilty as apparently they would seem to be. But when the Christian confesses his guilt, you never hear a word of extenuation or apology from him. He says, “Against You, You only, have I sinned and done this evil in Your sight.” And in saying this, he makes God just when He condemns him and clear when He sentences him forever. Have you ever made such a confession? Have you ever thus bowed yourselves before God? Or have you tried to palliate your guilt and call your sins by little names and speak of your crimes as if they were but light offenses? If you have not, then you have not felt the sentence of death in yourselves. You are still waiting till the solemn death-knell shall toll the hour of your doom and you shall be dragged out, amidst the universal hiss of the execration of the world, to be condemned forever to flames which shall never know abatement. Again—after the Christian confesses his sin, he offers no promise that he will of himself behave better. Some, when they make confessions to God, say, “Lord, if you forgive me I will not sin again.” But God’s penitents never say that. When they come before Him they say, “Lord, once I promised, once I made resolves but I dare not make them now, for they would be so soon broken. They would but increase my guilt and my promises would be so soon violated that they would but sink my soul deeper in Hell. I can only say if you will create in me a clean heart, I will be thankful for it and will sing to Your praise forever. But I cannot promise that I will live without sin, or work out a righteousness of my own. I dare not promise, my Father, that I will never go astray again...

One More Reason Why I Love Florida...

From the Tallahassee Democrat:

You just thought "In God We Trust" was Florida's state motto.

After all, isn't it there on the state seal? Been there since Reconstruction days?

It's there, all right, but a search of state statutes would come up empty.

Until Thursday.

Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law a bill that makes "In God We Trust" the state's motto not just by custom since 1868, but officially.

"It wasn't until Andrew Killinger and Samual Ard, two industrious fourth-graders at Maclay School here in Tallahassee, couldn't find the motto in our laws and started the process of getting it adopted," Bush said. "Thanks to their efforts . . . we will sign this bill into law."

From God's Prescription Pad

Psalm 119:113

In my previous two posts I have vented about the public spectacle of the PC(USA) and the ECUSA's further decline into irrelevancy and apostasy. What are we to do when we see this obvious abandonment of Truth?

Here is a voice of reason: "Yesterday the Bishop of Rochester urged the Archbishop of Canterbury to take firm action against the liberal leadership of the Episcopal Church. Matters were so serious that “fudge won’t do”, Bishop Nazir-Ali said. “Sometimes you have to recognise that there are two irreconcilable positions and you have to choose between them. The right choice is the line with the Bible and the Church’s teachings down the ages, not some new-fangled religion we have invented to respond to the 21st century,” he told The Daily Telegraph."

God's people are must always be ready to make the right choice. Joshua urged Israel to "choose this day whom you will serve," Elijah demanded, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God follow Him; but if Baal is god follow him."

James tells us: "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does."

It is the foolish desire of so many denominations to want to have it both ways that has withheld God's hand of blessing upon His Church. The Double-Minded will always decline.

PC (USA ) Phollies

Silly Season continues for the Church as the PC(USA) adds to the denominational lunacy.


From NewsMax:

The divine Trinity - "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" - could also be known as "Mother, Child and Womb" or "Rock, Redeemer, Friend" at some Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) services under an action Monday by the church's national assembly.

Delegates to the meeting voted to "receive" a policy paper on gender-inclusive language for the Trinity, a step short of approving it. That means church officials can propose experimental liturgies with alternative phrasings for the Trinity, but congregations won't be required to use them.

Besides "Mother, Child and Womb" and "Rock, Redeemer, Friend," proposed Trinity options drawn from biblical material include:

# "Lover, Beloved, Love"

# "Creator, Savior, Sanctifier"

# "King of Glory, Prince of Peace, Spirit of Love."

I'm amazed by the willingness for churches to throw over 2000 years of church testimony because now we know better than the Holy Spirit what He meant to say.

Any wonder the Episcopalians are in trouble?

Exhibit A: The of Bishop of Pennsylvania, Charles E. Dennison.

FromVirtueOnline:

"T'was he who wrote a Visigoth Rite to be used for persons of the same sex who wanted to tie the nuptial knot in Philadelphia's cathedral. T'was he who could not affirm basic doctrines of the Christian Faith when challenged to do so by Fr. David Moyer, Anglo-Catholic rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont. And t'was he who said Jesus was a sinner (not sinless) who forgave himself - becoming the first bishop in the 2,000-year history of the church to make such a statement.(Not even Arius said such a thing.) It was Bennison who said the church wrote the bible and can therefore rewrite it, and it was he who said that Jesus is "a Christ" but not the Christ; with his latest inanity that Jesus "winked at sin," uttered two months ago. In the Pennsylvania Episcopalian (February 2006), Bennison doubts the "historical accuracy"of the four gospels and compares Mark, Matthew, Luke and John to the words on the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin calling both "propaganda"!

Exhibit B: the Right Rev Katharine Schori, Bishop of Nevada



From The Times Online:

"In an address made in 2003, she said: “I have come to understand that sexual orientation is primarily a given characteristic, rather than one that is chosen.” Last year she said: “Our heritage and context shape our theology. The ways in which we understand Scripture and appropriate Gospel response to social realities are shaped both by our roots and our current circumstances.”

Conservatives have greeted Bishop Schori’s election with surprise and caution.

David Anderson, the president of the traditionalist American Anglican Council, said: “There is surprise that someone who has only been an Episcopal priest since 1994 and only a bishop since 2001 would be chosen to be the Presiding Bishop of a church that is in such troubled times.

“It will exacerbate the troubles. She has voted against a document that upheld Scripture as necessary to salvation. She also voted for the consecration of Gene Robinson. She is strongly for the gay and lesbian agenda in the United States.”

Is it any surprise that with this kind of leadership the Episcopal Church is floundering? When you cut yourself off from any bibilcal moorings you will soon drift into heresy and outright apostasy. To my episcopal friends I cry with Scripture: "Come out from among them!"

Sermon: "Turning The Fathers Hearts"

One of the keys to preparation for revival is Godly fathers. This Father's Day message considers what it means to "turn the hearts of the fathers to the children" from Luke 1:17. It ponders what John the Baptist might say to fathers today. He would call us to make Jesus our number one choice, he would ask whether or not we are developing Godly character and he would challenge us to point our children to Jesus.



MP3 File

Sunday Spurgeon

I can never understand that Christianity which alternately goes out to find joy in worldly amusements and returns home to have fellowship with Christ. In the life of Madame Guyon, who, though professedly a Papist, one must ever receive as being a true child of God, I have read an anecdote something to this effect. She had been invited by some friends to spend a few days at the palace of St. Cloud. She knew it was a place full of pomp and fashion and, I must add, of vice also. But being over persuaded by her friend and being especially tempted with the idea that perhaps her example might do good, she accepted the invitation.

Her experience afterwards should be a warning to all Christians. For some years that holy woman had walked in constant fellowship with Christ—perhaps none ever saw the Savior’s face and kissed His wounds more truly than she had done. But when she came home from St. Cloud she found her usual joy was departed—she had lost her power in prayer. She could not draw near to Christ as she should have done. She felt in going to the lover of her soul as if she had played the harlot against Him. She was afraid to hope that she could be received again to His pure and perfect love and it took some months before the equilibrium of her peace could be restored and her heart could yet again be wholly set upon her Lord.

He that wears a white garment must mind where he walks when the world’s streets are so filthy as they are. He that has a thousand enemies must take care how he exposes himself. He who has nothing on earth to assist him towards Heaven should take care that he goes not where the earth can help towards Hell. O Believer, shun, I pray you, fellowship with this world for the love of this world is enmity against God.

Life Lessons From The Early Church

From Christianity Today:

Although its authorship remains in doubt, "The Epistle to Diognetus" is undoubtedly one of the finest works of early Christian apologetics. It was written in the second or third century to Diognetus, who was either a prominent Roman or a creature of the author's imagination. In any case, the letter's practical intent was to serve as an apologetic to the educated classes of the Roman Empire. The letter, written when the Roman Empire was pagan, speaks to our day in two ways. First, it suggests that the Christian faith can prosper even in a hostile or indifferent regime—that is, even after Christendom. Second, it reminds Christians—especially those who lament their status as victims or outsiders—that the world is not our home and we should be prepared to endure persecution gracefully.

The following excerpt is a wonderful reminder of how we should live as Christians in the world today. Notice the lack of racism, the sanctity of life, the sacredness of sexuality and the generous spirit of these early believers. Such grace in spite of intense persecution provides us a model for these post-christian days. If we are to impact the world as they did, we would do well to imitate their life and faith.

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.To sum up all in one word--what the soul is in the body, that are Christians in the world.

HT: Fide-o

American Idol Shocker?

Is American Idol Season 5 Champion Taylor Hicks the secret love-child of pentecostal preacher Benny Hinn? Did Taylor have divine help in ousting Katharine McPhee? Does this give new meaning to "The Soul Patrol?" Would you buy ice cream from either of these guys? Do I just have too much time on my hands?

Cast your vote at 1-800-555-Idle1

The Voice Under The Waters

A baptismal sermon from Romans 6:1-4. God speaks in baptism, the question is do we hear and heed His words? A challenge to find your place in God's family, to live in light of the promises and to commit to following Jesus as Lord.



MP3 File

Sunday Spurgeon

Remember, O children of God, that there are many things that should make you valiant for God and for His Truth. The first thing I will bring to your remembrance is the fact that this warfare in which you are engaged is an hereditary warfare. It is not one which you began but it is one which has been handed to you from the moment when the blood of Abel cried aloud for vengeance. Each martyr that has died has passed the blood-red flag to the next and he in turn has passed it on to another.

Every confessor who has been nailed to the stake to burn has lit his candle and handed it to another and said, “Take care of that!” And now here is the old “sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” Remember what hands have handled the hilt. Remember what arms have wielded it. Remember how often it has “pierced to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow.”Will you disgrace it? Will you disgrace it? There is the great banner—it has waved in many a breeze. Long before the flag of this our land was made, this flag of Christ was borne aloft. Will you stain it? Will you stain it?

Will you not hand it to your children, still unsullied and say, “Go on, go on. We leave you the heritage of war. Go on, go on and conquer. What your fathers did, do again. Keep up the war, till time shall end”? I love my Bible because it is a Bible baptized with blood. I love it all the better because it has the blood of Tyndal on it. I love it because it has on it the blood of John Bradford and Rowland Taylor and Hooper. I love it because it is stained with blood.

Rejoicing at the End of Evil?

Paul Schafer posts this over at The Boar's Head Tavern:

Y’all, As Christians, are we supposed to rejoice with our nation when our nation killed al-Zargawi? As Christians, are we supposed to rejoice that one of our physical enemies of Christians and Jews is dead? I am looking for some biblical understanding of this. My main point is, am I suppose to rejoice?

My response is yes. Anytime that evil is destroyed or reduced, we can be thankful. Biblically the story of Esther springs to mind as we consider what happened in response to the genocidal intentions of Haman. Once the plot was brought to the king's attention and the edict issued that the Jews could defend themselves we read this:

"Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor." (Esther 9:20-22)

Al-Zarqawi was a murderous thug who hide behind his vision of Islam. One has only to view or just listen to the brutal beheading of Nick Berg, to agree that death by 500 pound bomb was probably too good a fate for Al-Zarqawi. And while it is true that another will step up to take his place, at least this evil-doer is gone. Do I rejoice? Yes. And may the coming days give us more cause for celebration.

Having said that, now, there is a razor thin line between rejoicing and gloating. We can take too much pleasure in our ability to hunt down and kill our enemies. War is at times a necessary evil. But an evil nonetheless, we must never forget that. Human life, even as depraved as that of Al-Zarqawi and his ilk, is precious in God's sight. So even when we do what must be done, let us do so with fear and trembling as those who must give account to God.

O righteous God,
who searches minds and hearts,
bring to an end the violence of the wicked
and make the righteous secure.
(Psalm 7:9)

6-6-06

666.0000: Number of the High Precision Beast
0.666: Number of the Millibeast
6, uh...what? : Number of the Blonde Beast
1-666: Area code of the Beast
00666: Zip code of the Beast
$665.95: Retail price of the Beast
$699.25: Price of the Beast plus 5% state sales tax
$769.95: Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul
$656.66: Wal-Mart price of the Beast
$646.66: Next week's Wal-Mart price of the Beast
Phillips 666: Gasoline of the Beast
Route 666: Way of the Beast
666 F: Oven temperature for roast Beast
666k: Retirement plan of the Beast
666 mg: Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast
6.66%: 5-year CD interest rate at First Beast of Hell National Bank, $666 minimum deposit
Lotus 6-6-6: Spreadsheet of the Beast
Word 6.66: Word Processor of the Beast
i66686: CPU of the Beast
666i: BMW of the Beast
DSM-666 (revised): Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Beast
668: Next door neighbor of the Beast
667: Prime Beast
999: Australian Beast

HT: CROSS-eyed

Check out this article that says the real number of the beast is 616.

Ham Buns: Or How To Celebrate Communion

The early church celebrated communion with "glad and sincere hearts" according to Acts 2:42-47. What gave them this single-minded joy? Three sources: 1) the Triumph of Jesus, 2) the Togetherness they shared and 3) the hope that Tomorrow He could return. Since we know these same truths, our communion should be the same joyful celebrations as theirs.


MP3 File

Sunday Spurgeon

Salvation is not a selfish thing; God does not give it for us to keep to ourselves, but that we may thereby be made the means of blessing to others; and the great day shall declare that there is not a man living on the surface of the earth but has received a blessing in some way or other through God's gift of the gospel. The very keeping of the wicked in life, and granting of the reprieve, was purchased with the death of Jesus; and through his sufferings and death, the temporal blessings which both we and they enjoy are bestowed on us. The gospel was sent that it might first bless those that embrace it, and then expand, so as to make them a blessing to the whole human race.

An Important Lesson From C.S. Lewis

"Such are the reactions of one bleating layman to Modern theology. It is right that you should hear them. You will not perhaps hear them very often again. Your parishioners will not speak to you quite frankly. Once the layman was anxious to hide the fact that he believed so much less than the vicar; now he tends to hide the fact that he believes so much more. Missionary to one's own church is an embarrassing role; though I have the horrid feeling that if such mission work is not soon undertaken the future history of the Church of England is likely to be short."

(From the essay "Fern-Seed and Elephants" by C.S. Lewis read to ministerial students of Westcott House in Cambridge on May 11, 1959.)

How much more are these words true today, not only in regard to the Church of England, but to the Church in America as well. May God grant us laypersons who will break their silence and call ministers of the Word to account for their unbelief!

Christianity as an Interventionist Religion

Kairos Journal (available online by registration only) offers this insightful article by Udo Middleman that points out the contrast between philosphies that embrace fate and Christianity that is called to model God's own interaction with His world. A great read.

In Marxism life is tied to history progressing through the dialectic. In Islam the will of God binds everything and everyone together in community. Buddhists suggest that pain is only in the mind, which must be changed through detachment from self. Taoism sees man as a leaf on the river of time. African tribal religions demand submission to the elders’ patterns. Spirits rule the life of the Maya and of Mongolian Buddhists. Hindus consign man to a vicious cycle of reincarnation in a social caste system. In each case the result is human, social, political, and economic poverty. All are cultures of repetition, not of innovation, growth, and maturing wisdom. That is by far the great pollution, a waste of people and lives, the flattening of souls, and the dampening of the human spirit. Christianity stands in stark contrast to world views and religions which teach an ungodly, fatalistic merger with earth or time.

The biblical approach is driven by God’s social and cultural mandate (Gen. 1:28), and His strong prescription for life and against death after the Fall. Hands have to be put to the plough in toil; culture is to give shape to nature. The seeming finality of death is to be weakened by bearing children.

Scripture insists that men and women interfere with fallen nature and produce change for good against evil, for life against death, for reason against blind faith. Indeed, God Himself interferes through the written, spoken, and living Word. By His Word alone do we know that He is good, that there has been a terrible fall from wholeness, that we are made in His image, and that He has made us a little lower than the angels, able to understand and apply His revelation.

In the Old Testament, God sent out prophets to expose Israel’s spiritual and moral adultery.

He showed Job that life was not fair, that his friends were wrong in their foolish advice, and that in the midst of such horror the glory of God would be demonstrated by interference from God, not by a call to submit to it all. In the New Testament, we learn that the blind man was not blind because he deserved it or because God wanted it that way, but so that Jesus could show His power. And in Church history, gentle St. Francis could feed the birds, only because others respected the rule of law and the sword of the state, by which he and his fellow monks were protected.

The Bible calls us to active intervention, not resignation. It invites us to invent, to correct, and to critique. We are to dig and to delve, to vote and to veto, to discern and to discover. Life is our focus, death a temporary enemy resulting from sin. We must get things done, work, and create a surplus to support ourselves, unproductive children, widows, orphans, and the stranger under our roof for seven days from the work of six. We harness water, alter growth patterns in plants, amputate limbs to keep the person alive. We seek justice and appeal when it is not granted. We engage the mind and the body to look at issues from multiple sides in pursuit of truth. We have parallel and competing institutions in order to diminish the margin of error or misuse of power. Just as John, we do not cower before the foolish words of Herod in front of his few friends. John lost his head for a while, but Herod lost his soul forever.

Poverty, bad government, laughter at the misfortune of others is acceptable only in cultures where fate is assumed. No problem is recognized when all is seen as deserved or the result of destiny. All religions outside of Judaism and Christianity end up with this. They tie present reality to a master plan of long duration and urge one to let go of self, mind, soul, and eventually also body.

Western man and the biblical culture mandate of dominion are accused of interference. To this we gladly plead “Guilty!” In contrast, few outside the people influenced by biblical teaching ever stir to help the poor, intervene in catastrophes, work for better government and cleaner air. But God’s people do not lie low, do not accept a destiny; they not only describe, but also prescribe, and stand up to be heard and heeded.