The first day of January 1962 dawned bright with the promise of excitement and joy for the day and for the year ahead. A fifteen year old boy in a small town in north central Ohio, for reasons now unknown, decided to remain home alone while his parents went to visit relatives and his older brother went hunting with friends. On many days since then that older brother has thought: "if only I had asked him to go with me that day".
Hawks and owls belong to a class of birds known as raptors. Ironically, that word comes from the same word used in the Latin Vulgate text of I Thessalonians 4:17 and reads in English "caught up . . . to meet the Lord in the air". This is the origin of the word rapture. The hunting laws of the day clearly said that "hawks and owls are protected unless doing damage" but hardly anyone paid attention. During the Great Depression, less than three decades earlier, raptors were viewed as competitors for scarce food like the chickens that were on nearly every farm. Thus they were referred to as "chicken hawks". A boy grew up in those days hearing: "there's a hawk (or owl); shoot it". Just a couple weeks earlier this fifteen year old boy had been encouraged by his older brother to shoot a hawk along a rural road. Regret number two for the older brother.
Right after lunch on this New Years day, this boy saw a hawk in a tree back of the house but too far away for a shotgun. So he picked up his .22 rifle and carefully fired about six times at the hawk without success. Every box of .22 cartridges, even then, had on it the words "Dangerous within one mile -- be careful!" But like the law protecting hawks and owls, few paid any attention. This fifteen year old had watched his older brother and many others shoot at birds in trees with a .22 rifle. No one seemed to give much thought to the question: "where will this bullet come down?" Regret number three.
Hunter safety courses would not be required in Ohio until 1978 and the older brother in this incident was one of the first trained instructors when that law went into effect. He taught firearm safety to dozens of young people for twenty years and continues to do so informally. He was always conscious of how indifferent to this rule of firearm safety he had been in the days before New Years Day 1962. Regret number four.
One half mile beyond where that boy stood to fire those six fateful shots, an eight year old boy was playing in the yard with a cousin. They heard a sound of something hitting the small trees and brush near them and walked over to investigate. Soon the sound of sirens was heard in that small town and not long after that a police officer came to the door where the fifteen year old lived. "Did anyone here fire a rifle in that direction?" Some boys in the U.S. may have answered that question with a "no" to protect themselves. This boy frankly answered "yes" and surrendered his rifle to the officer.
Later, his older brother got a call at the home of friends: "Can you come home; there's been an accident". The eight year old had been struck in the forehead by one of those 40 grain lead bullets fired from that .22 rifle. The mathematical odds against that accident ever happening the way it did were nearly astronomical. But it happened. The boy was rushed to the Cleveland Clinic and died the next day. The fifteen year old was brought home from school in the middle of the day to be given the tragic news. He sobbed uncontrollably.
The funeral was conducted by a minister with a theologically liberal background and his remarks had little, if any, of eternity's values. In the years since, the older brother has stood at that grave site more than once. Regret number five.
Within a week, the parents of the fifteen year old felt pressured to send an attorney to the family of the eight year old to offer to pay all expenses, though they did not know how they could possible afford it. By summer, the parents of the deceased boy had filed a lawsuit for an amount that would seem relatively small today but in 1962 seemed like a terrifying amount. The parents of the fifteen year old were frugal folks and they had what was then called "fire insurance" on their house. They did not feel they could afford what is today called a "homeowner's policy" which would have covered lawsuits. They were looking at the very real possibility of loosing their home.
The fifteen year old began to show signs of mental stress. His stuttering problem became much more acute. But his walk with the Lord deepened significantly. Some friends of the family belonged to what can only be described as a secretive, fraternal organization and it appears that they somehow brought pressure to bear on the attorneys involved who were also members of that organization. By November the lawsuit was settled for one tenth of the original amount. The family sold one half of their ten acres of land to cover it.
Eight years, seven months and twenty days after January 1, 1962, the fifteen year old boy, now nearly twenty-four, drowned while trying to save a boy from drowning. There were now two graves for the older brother to visit while thinking deeply about all that he might have done differently. Regret number six.
More than thirty years after January 1, 1962 special meetings were being held at the church beside the cemetery where the eight year old was buried. The speaker had never personally know the fifteen year old but was telling the audience the significant impact for Christ that this young man's life had been before his death at age 23. In the audience sat the mother of the eight year old. She was now a widow. She went home after the service, picked up the phone, and called the parents of the fifteen year old. That conversation brought the most profound healing to both families.
No argument for the truth of the Gospel and the claims of Christ could be more powerful than what happened at that church and during that telephone conversation. The only person still living of all those involved in the tragedy of January 1, 1962 is the older brother of the fifteen year old. In Jesus' parable of the Lost Son the term "older brother" does not have a good meaning. Perhaps in this instance the term will have a somewhat better meaning. But the regrets will never be completely gone.
The name of the fifteen year old boy was Donald Eugene Enzor.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Sunday, December 27, 2015
USING THE "L" WORD
It was begun by the pioneer Bible translator William Tyndale. It was continued a century later by the Authorized (King James) Version translators. All English language Bibles, except perhaps those for Jewish believers in Yeshua (Jesus), still use it. I am talking about the English word for a sovereign ruler. It was used to translate the Hebrew Adonai and YHWH (Yahweh) in the Old Testament and the Greek word Kurios in the New Testament. It is, even today, the name of the upper house in the British Parliament. English speaking believers in Christ world wide utter it hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of times daily. It is so often on our lips that its awe-filled meaning is easily dulled. But in deepest sincerity we sing from the heart: "He is Lord, He is Lord, He is risen from the dead and He is Lord. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord." Used this way, the word means deity; He is both God and Man in one Person.
More than a few believers have paid with their lives for declaring that Jesus Christ is Lord. Beginning with those who were smeared with wax and burned as torches to light Nero's gardens, down to those tortured and murdered in Muslim and Marxist countries today, it can be costly to utter those words. Others, in free countries, utter the words casually and the Lord Himself asks them, "Why do you call me Lord and not do the things I say?" The first few generations of believers in Christ were, from time to time, ordered to say: "Caesar is lord". In the worst persecutions (both in Rome and modern times) they were also ordered to curse Christ. Merely uttering "Caesar is Lord" was viewed by enlightened Romans as a simple act of patriotism, promoting the unity of the empire as embodied in the emperor. The utterance was to be accompanied by a pinch of incense dropped on a flame in a public place. A certificate called a 'libelli' was issued to prove that the act of emperor worship had been performed; something like a receipt for paying taxes. Unethical and dishonest "Christians" would get a friend to obtain a libelli for them. Thus they could 'truthfully' tell the rest of the church, "I have not bowed to emperor worship".
Honest and courageous believers would refuse any form of emperor worship and cursing Christ was unthinkable. Instead, they boldly and publicly declared, "Kurios Iasous" -- "Jesus is Lord" (or in Latin: "Jesu Domini"). The current form of "Caesar is Lord" here in the U.S. is the requirement that you not call certain things sin. High officials have said, "Christians need to change their beliefs".
In a practical sense, I confess His Lordship in my attitude and obedience to Him. I can deny His Lordship in how I treat people. Most believers, down through history, have confessed or denied Him in these seemingly small ways day after day, rather than under some threat of torture and death. But the stakes are being raised. The county clerks who have resigned rather than issue those God-defying same-sex 'marriage' licenses; the employees who resign rather than lie for their employers; the teachers who resign rather than teach anti-God and anti-Christ curriculum; they are all paying the price for confessing His Lordship over all of life.
I gladly confess His Lordship by giving thanks for food in the midst of unbelievers and offering to pray for all kinds of people on all kinds of occasions. And, if I write on historical subjects I confess His Lordship by writing the dates as either B.C. or A.D. and refuse the growing practice of denying His Lordship by writing B.C.E. ("before the common era") and C.E. ("common era"). If unbelievers want to use those Christ-denying abbreviations that is their choice.
Did I lose you on those last two sentences? Since the year 525 A.D. Christians have honored their Lord by writing dates since the birth of Christ as A.D. (Anno Domini -- "in the year of our Lord"), and if the date is before the birth of Christ as B.C. The Latin "vulgaris aera" ("common era") was used by Christians centuries ago, but they meant something quite different from its current use. To them it was "the common dating system based on the birth of our Lord". The world wide use of the calendar based on the birth of Christ is God's sovereign overruling of history to honor His Son. In the last 30 years, however, the C.E. and B.C.E. abbreviations have become the symbol of banishing Jesus the Lord from all of life as secular humanism wages its war against the knowledge of God. Don't believe the claim that those abbreviations are used to avoid offending those who do not believe He is "our Lord". This is gross hypocrisy because there is little concern about offending conscientious Christians. Pay no attention either to the disingenuous excuse that "the calendar is off by five years anyway".
As further evidence of the irrationality of using those abbreviations consider this. If they write a date such as "1860 C.E.", ask them, "eighteen hundred and sixty years since what?! It is as though they are saying, "we will continue to use the calendar based on His birth but we will never mention Him." I will not bow to this current form of emperor worship and use those Christ-denying abbreviations! Even the writers of the U.S. Constitution boldly signed that document with the words: "done at Philadelphia IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD one thousand seven hundred eighty-seven" (emphasis mine). The next time someone tries to tell you that the writers of the Constitution did not consider God important enough to mention in that document, tell them, "but they did, however, confess Jesus as Lord at the end of that document before they signed their names to it;
Finally, may "the LORD bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you".
More than a few believers have paid with their lives for declaring that Jesus Christ is Lord. Beginning with those who were smeared with wax and burned as torches to light Nero's gardens, down to those tortured and murdered in Muslim and Marxist countries today, it can be costly to utter those words. Others, in free countries, utter the words casually and the Lord Himself asks them, "Why do you call me Lord and not do the things I say?" The first few generations of believers in Christ were, from time to time, ordered to say: "Caesar is lord". In the worst persecutions (both in Rome and modern times) they were also ordered to curse Christ. Merely uttering "Caesar is Lord" was viewed by enlightened Romans as a simple act of patriotism, promoting the unity of the empire as embodied in the emperor. The utterance was to be accompanied by a pinch of incense dropped on a flame in a public place. A certificate called a 'libelli' was issued to prove that the act of emperor worship had been performed; something like a receipt for paying taxes. Unethical and dishonest "Christians" would get a friend to obtain a libelli for them. Thus they could 'truthfully' tell the rest of the church, "I have not bowed to emperor worship".
Honest and courageous believers would refuse any form of emperor worship and cursing Christ was unthinkable. Instead, they boldly and publicly declared, "Kurios Iasous" -- "Jesus is Lord" (or in Latin: "Jesu Domini"). The current form of "Caesar is Lord" here in the U.S. is the requirement that you not call certain things sin. High officials have said, "Christians need to change their beliefs".
In a practical sense, I confess His Lordship in my attitude and obedience to Him. I can deny His Lordship in how I treat people. Most believers, down through history, have confessed or denied Him in these seemingly small ways day after day, rather than under some threat of torture and death. But the stakes are being raised. The county clerks who have resigned rather than issue those God-defying same-sex 'marriage' licenses; the employees who resign rather than lie for their employers; the teachers who resign rather than teach anti-God and anti-Christ curriculum; they are all paying the price for confessing His Lordship over all of life.
I gladly confess His Lordship by giving thanks for food in the midst of unbelievers and offering to pray for all kinds of people on all kinds of occasions. And, if I write on historical subjects I confess His Lordship by writing the dates as either B.C. or A.D. and refuse the growing practice of denying His Lordship by writing B.C.E. ("before the common era") and C.E. ("common era"). If unbelievers want to use those Christ-denying abbreviations that is their choice.
Did I lose you on those last two sentences? Since the year 525 A.D. Christians have honored their Lord by writing dates since the birth of Christ as A.D. (Anno Domini -- "in the year of our Lord"), and if the date is before the birth of Christ as B.C. The Latin "vulgaris aera" ("common era") was used by Christians centuries ago, but they meant something quite different from its current use. To them it was "the common dating system based on the birth of our Lord". The world wide use of the calendar based on the birth of Christ is God's sovereign overruling of history to honor His Son. In the last 30 years, however, the C.E. and B.C.E. abbreviations have become the symbol of banishing Jesus the Lord from all of life as secular humanism wages its war against the knowledge of God. Don't believe the claim that those abbreviations are used to avoid offending those who do not believe He is "our Lord". This is gross hypocrisy because there is little concern about offending conscientious Christians. Pay no attention either to the disingenuous excuse that "the calendar is off by five years anyway".
As further evidence of the irrationality of using those abbreviations consider this. If they write a date such as "1860 C.E.", ask them, "eighteen hundred and sixty years since what?! It is as though they are saying, "we will continue to use the calendar based on His birth but we will never mention Him." I will not bow to this current form of emperor worship and use those Christ-denying abbreviations! Even the writers of the U.S. Constitution boldly signed that document with the words: "done at Philadelphia IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD one thousand seven hundred eighty-seven" (emphasis mine). The next time someone tries to tell you that the writers of the Constitution did not consider God important enough to mention in that document, tell them, "but they did, however, confess Jesus as Lord at the end of that document before they signed their names to it;
Finally, may "the LORD bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you".
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
CALLING HOURS
Friday afternoon and school was out for Christmas vacation. The ground was snow covered already. Not long after I got off the school bus my mother handed a bag of groceries to me with instructions to take it to my maternal grandmother. My grandparents' house was no more than a half mile away and it was like a second home to me. My grandfather was not yet home from his job of hauling livestock each day to the Cleveland Stock Yards. In the summers I sometimes rode in the truck with him as he left around sunrise each day to pick up stock at farms and go on to Cleveland. He would unload and then take me to get lunch in a big room with yellow block walls and noisy men all around. Then back home.
I walked right into Grandma's house without knocking like I always did. But something was different. She did not answer my soft call; soft because I thought she might be asleep since the door into her bedroom was closed. So, I quietly left. At least that is how I have always recalled this day for sixty-five years now. When I came back to our house I told my mom that grandma was asleep and that I left the groceries on the table. Years later my mom would admit to me that she and others in the family believed that my grandmother was already dead on the kitchen floor when I arrived and that is why I said "grandma is asleep".
If that was the case, then my merciful, omnipotent Heavenly Father made my grandmother invisible to spare me the trauma of finding her dead. But, why was the bedroom door closed? It never was and that is why I recall it so vividly. When my grandfather arrived home, at the same time as my cousin Mary who lived with them, grandma was indeed dead on the kitchen floor. She had died of a coronary embolism when she bent over to light her gas oven to bake cookies. She had a medical history of her blood forming clots and carried a nitro pill in the pocket of her apron. Evidently, medical science in 1950 did not know that half an aspirin each day would have extended my grandmother's life.
The phone at our house rang and my mom and dad rushed out the door while my uncle Dale remained with my brother and me. Our phone rang again in a few minutes. Uncle Dale answered it; put the receiver down; turned to me and said: "Your grandmother has died." I recall vividly just staring for the longest time at the beautifully decorated Christmas tree and trying to comprehend what death was. The next day I was sent to stay with my uncle Bud and aunt Eleanor while relatives came from far and near to stay either at our house or with my grandfather. The undertaker, Cal Bender, prepared my grandmother's body and placed it in a plain, cloth covered casket and brought it back to the house. There in the northwest corner of the living room the earthly tabernacle in which my grandmother had dwelt, lay in state until the funeral, the day after Christmas. Friends and relatives came at any time from morning until evening for two days. This is, of course, very different from the current practice of the family standing in a receiving line at designated times. I much prefer the older way.
My uncle Bud must have brought me out to the house each morning of those two days because it seems like I was there most of the time. Much of that time my cousin Duane and I played outside in the snow. But once I stood by the casket and watched one of mom's brothers as a large tear rolled down his face and landed on the soft white material that lined that casket. He went on to become an alcoholic, lost a great job with a large corporation and died a pitiful human being. Another of my mom's brothers was still in his twenty-five year career with the Navy and I stared in fascination at his uniform. But he laughed and joked sometimes and never indicated any sadness nor did he seem to appreciated the endless hours his mother had worried over his fate during the dark days of World War II. To the best of my knowledge he died an unbeliever.
The morning of the funeral Mr. Bender returned with his long black hearse and the casket was slowly carried from the house. My mom and her two sisters broke down in the most painful grief and tears at that moment. I recall the funeral service at our church, even the blue hat that the pastor's wife wore as she and her husband sang a duet: "Near To The Heart Of God". I do not recall what was said but here in a notebook of family history beside me is the actual sermon outline that Pastor Robert Collitt used. His text was the twenty-third Psalm and he concluded by pressing upon all those assembled this question: "do you know the Shepherd". He always made the Gospel very clear as well as the need to personally receive the Lord Jesus as Savior. Fifteen years later while preparing for a funeral at the church where he was then serving in Maryland he found this sermon outline and sent it to my mother. I treasure it greatly. To the best of my knowledge my grandmother had been a believer but my grandfather never responded to the Gospel until he was on his death bed seven years later.
As we filed past the casket for the last time, a cousin of mine said, "take a good look Russell; that is the last time you will see her". At eight years of age I knew nothing about the Resurrection or the Scripture that said "we shall know even as we are known" but somehow I knew at that moment that my cousin was wrong! In less than ten years after that funeral I, by the Grace of God, would be standing behind that pulpit and other pulpits and explaining what the Scriptures say about being absent from the body and present with the Lord; "that it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the Judgment"; and that in Christ I can stand before the Creator of the Universe in a perfect righteousness.
I have seen several posts on social media about being sensitive to grieving, lonely people at Christmas time. If such a person reads this or any of my social media posts I sincerely and deeply hope they will send a personal message to me. I learned at eight years of age something of what they are facing. "May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word." I Thess. 4:16&17
I walked right into Grandma's house without knocking like I always did. But something was different. She did not answer my soft call; soft because I thought she might be asleep since the door into her bedroom was closed. So, I quietly left. At least that is how I have always recalled this day for sixty-five years now. When I came back to our house I told my mom that grandma was asleep and that I left the groceries on the table. Years later my mom would admit to me that she and others in the family believed that my grandmother was already dead on the kitchen floor when I arrived and that is why I said "grandma is asleep".
If that was the case, then my merciful, omnipotent Heavenly Father made my grandmother invisible to spare me the trauma of finding her dead. But, why was the bedroom door closed? It never was and that is why I recall it so vividly. When my grandfather arrived home, at the same time as my cousin Mary who lived with them, grandma was indeed dead on the kitchen floor. She had died of a coronary embolism when she bent over to light her gas oven to bake cookies. She had a medical history of her blood forming clots and carried a nitro pill in the pocket of her apron. Evidently, medical science in 1950 did not know that half an aspirin each day would have extended my grandmother's life.
The phone at our house rang and my mom and dad rushed out the door while my uncle Dale remained with my brother and me. Our phone rang again in a few minutes. Uncle Dale answered it; put the receiver down; turned to me and said: "Your grandmother has died." I recall vividly just staring for the longest time at the beautifully decorated Christmas tree and trying to comprehend what death was. The next day I was sent to stay with my uncle Bud and aunt Eleanor while relatives came from far and near to stay either at our house or with my grandfather. The undertaker, Cal Bender, prepared my grandmother's body and placed it in a plain, cloth covered casket and brought it back to the house. There in the northwest corner of the living room the earthly tabernacle in which my grandmother had dwelt, lay in state until the funeral, the day after Christmas. Friends and relatives came at any time from morning until evening for two days. This is, of course, very different from the current practice of the family standing in a receiving line at designated times. I much prefer the older way.
My uncle Bud must have brought me out to the house each morning of those two days because it seems like I was there most of the time. Much of that time my cousin Duane and I played outside in the snow. But once I stood by the casket and watched one of mom's brothers as a large tear rolled down his face and landed on the soft white material that lined that casket. He went on to become an alcoholic, lost a great job with a large corporation and died a pitiful human being. Another of my mom's brothers was still in his twenty-five year career with the Navy and I stared in fascination at his uniform. But he laughed and joked sometimes and never indicated any sadness nor did he seem to appreciated the endless hours his mother had worried over his fate during the dark days of World War II. To the best of my knowledge he died an unbeliever.
The morning of the funeral Mr. Bender returned with his long black hearse and the casket was slowly carried from the house. My mom and her two sisters broke down in the most painful grief and tears at that moment. I recall the funeral service at our church, even the blue hat that the pastor's wife wore as she and her husband sang a duet: "Near To The Heart Of God". I do not recall what was said but here in a notebook of family history beside me is the actual sermon outline that Pastor Robert Collitt used. His text was the twenty-third Psalm and he concluded by pressing upon all those assembled this question: "do you know the Shepherd". He always made the Gospel very clear as well as the need to personally receive the Lord Jesus as Savior. Fifteen years later while preparing for a funeral at the church where he was then serving in Maryland he found this sermon outline and sent it to my mother. I treasure it greatly. To the best of my knowledge my grandmother had been a believer but my grandfather never responded to the Gospel until he was on his death bed seven years later.
As we filed past the casket for the last time, a cousin of mine said, "take a good look Russell; that is the last time you will see her". At eight years of age I knew nothing about the Resurrection or the Scripture that said "we shall know even as we are known" but somehow I knew at that moment that my cousin was wrong! In less than ten years after that funeral I, by the Grace of God, would be standing behind that pulpit and other pulpits and explaining what the Scriptures say about being absent from the body and present with the Lord; "that it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the Judgment"; and that in Christ I can stand before the Creator of the Universe in a perfect righteousness.
I have seen several posts on social media about being sensitive to grieving, lonely people at Christmas time. If such a person reads this or any of my social media posts I sincerely and deeply hope they will send a personal message to me. I learned at eight years of age something of what they are facing. "May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word." I Thess. 4:16&17
Monday, December 21, 2015
DRINKS, DRUNKS, AND DIVERSIONS
Public Broadcasting (WOSU in this area) recently rebroadcast the historical series on Prohibition. Here is a brief review for those who may not have seen it. The place of alcoholic beverages in American life is traced from earliest times showing the problems of drunkenness and the resulting domestic abuse and poverty. Two main groups arose to combat this. One was the Women's Christian Temperance Union (still active when I was young) and the Anti Saloon League, founded at Oberlin, Ohio. The later was so politically powerful in its day that its efforts resulted in the election of many governors and legislators sympathetic to the "dry'" cause, as it was called. This all came to a great climax with the ratification of the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution in 1919 which outlawed alcoholic beverages in the U.S. This was known as Prohibition.
This was not a conservative movement; it was the liberal/progressive movement of its day. But Christians were the heart and soul of that movement just as they are now of the pro-life/anti abortion movement. The Methodist Church was heavily involved in the Temperance Movement. Lutherans and Episcopalians were the only large Protestant groups not involved. The German Lutherans liked their beer and the Episcopalians liked their Sacramental wine. Most Christian groups of that day either believed or were sympathetic to the post-millennial view of the Second Coming of Christ. This view of Scripture saw the Kingdom of God steadily advancing in this age until sin was put down and righteousness would triumph in the earth. The millennium of Biblical prophecy would be brought in through the preaching of the Gospel and the efforts of believers to apply God's laws to society. Then Christ would return after (post) the Millennium was brought in.
This was a huge motivating force in the "Temperance Movement" as it was called and the passage of the nineteenth amendment was seen as a major triumph for the Kingdom of God. But the post-millennial view began to die out with the carnage of the Great War (1914-1918). The increase of lawlessness and immorality during the 1920's dealt a further blow to the optimism of post millennial belief. (It has had a mild resurgence in our day.) Another factor in this loss of optimism was the sinking of the Titanic which dealt a death blow to over confidence in technology. (It was "unsinkable".) Prohibition was repealed by the twenty first amendment in 1933 and Americans went back to drinking -- legally. Many of them never stopped. The standard text book view of Prohibition is that it was either a "noble experiment" that failed badly or it was a benighted effort of Christians to "impose their morality on society and we should never allow them to do anything like that again because church and state are separate".
Ironically, the same logic which sees Prohibition as a total failure could also be applied to drug laws and, if consistent, would abolish most laws on controlled substances. The legalization of marijuana is already underway.
The purpose of this historical review is to arrive at the third word in the title of this blog -- diversions. The believer in the Lordship of Jesus Christ is under the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19&20 and diversions from that can be very attractive. Those diversions can easily be seen as the good works of Ephesians 2:10 that believers are saved to do. But when they take the place of the Gospel and even stop the proclamation of the Gospel they cannot possibly be good works. My impression of the Temperance Movement is that it hurt -- badly hurt -- the advance of the Gospel and the Cause of Christ. Not all believers were diverted by it. Dwight L. Moody, while sympathetic to the Temperance Movement I'm sure, was never diverted by it. Until his death in 1899 he proclaimed the Gospel to many thousands here and in Europe. There were others like him. They understood that when someone is a new creation in Christ they do not tend to get drunk or help others get 'wasted' on alcohol or any other substance. They understood, like some believers now understand, that social improvement is a fruit of the advance of the Gospel and not the goal of it.
The Temperance Movement went way beyond Christians taking a responsible role in representative democracy and voting. It became for thousands of them THE CAUSE. And the current loss of a Christian Consensus in the U.S. may very well be one of the long term results. I saw this first hand when I was quite young, in 1953.
Twenty years after the repeal of Prohibition many Christians still saw alcohol as the evil to be stamped out. I grew up surrounded by this mentality. The community where I grew up had two churches. One of them began an initiative to have a local election to outlaw all alcoholic beverages in both the village and the township. The church where my family attended joined that effort and became the main force in that effort. For three or four years before that, our church had seen phenomenal growth and dozens of people coming to Christ.
The bitterness generated by that 'local option' election in the fall of 1953 brought that progress of the Gospel to nearly a complete halt. Attendance levels and witness in the community were never again what they were in the summer of 1953. Although I do not agree with a few of the things he says, Phil Yancey, in his book What Is So Amazing About Grace, clearly documents how some Evangelical political activism has made the Gospel so unattractive to so many people.
How can we so easily forget that sinners will always sin; that unbelievers will usually act immorally; that those who are cut off from the Life of God will remove all references to Him from culture; and that laws, even good ones, will not change human nature? How much praying is going on in out churches for people who are outside of Christ? How much cooperative effort is going on among Christians of various churches to bring people to Christ? Why are we so surprised that our country is going the way it is? In the last book of the Bible it is Christians who are told to repent, several times over in chapters 2&3, before the word is ever applied to unbelievers.
A final word of encouragement to you who are showing acts of help and kindness to unbelievers. You are "making the teaching about God our Savior attractive". (Titus 2:10)
This was not a conservative movement; it was the liberal/progressive movement of its day. But Christians were the heart and soul of that movement just as they are now of the pro-life/anti abortion movement. The Methodist Church was heavily involved in the Temperance Movement. Lutherans and Episcopalians were the only large Protestant groups not involved. The German Lutherans liked their beer and the Episcopalians liked their Sacramental wine. Most Christian groups of that day either believed or were sympathetic to the post-millennial view of the Second Coming of Christ. This view of Scripture saw the Kingdom of God steadily advancing in this age until sin was put down and righteousness would triumph in the earth. The millennium of Biblical prophecy would be brought in through the preaching of the Gospel and the efforts of believers to apply God's laws to society. Then Christ would return after (post) the Millennium was brought in.
This was a huge motivating force in the "Temperance Movement" as it was called and the passage of the nineteenth amendment was seen as a major triumph for the Kingdom of God. But the post-millennial view began to die out with the carnage of the Great War (1914-1918). The increase of lawlessness and immorality during the 1920's dealt a further blow to the optimism of post millennial belief. (It has had a mild resurgence in our day.) Another factor in this loss of optimism was the sinking of the Titanic which dealt a death blow to over confidence in technology. (It was "unsinkable".) Prohibition was repealed by the twenty first amendment in 1933 and Americans went back to drinking -- legally. Many of them never stopped. The standard text book view of Prohibition is that it was either a "noble experiment" that failed badly or it was a benighted effort of Christians to "impose their morality on society and we should never allow them to do anything like that again because church and state are separate".
Ironically, the same logic which sees Prohibition as a total failure could also be applied to drug laws and, if consistent, would abolish most laws on controlled substances. The legalization of marijuana is already underway.
The purpose of this historical review is to arrive at the third word in the title of this blog -- diversions. The believer in the Lordship of Jesus Christ is under the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19&20 and diversions from that can be very attractive. Those diversions can easily be seen as the good works of Ephesians 2:10 that believers are saved to do. But when they take the place of the Gospel and even stop the proclamation of the Gospel they cannot possibly be good works. My impression of the Temperance Movement is that it hurt -- badly hurt -- the advance of the Gospel and the Cause of Christ. Not all believers were diverted by it. Dwight L. Moody, while sympathetic to the Temperance Movement I'm sure, was never diverted by it. Until his death in 1899 he proclaimed the Gospel to many thousands here and in Europe. There were others like him. They understood that when someone is a new creation in Christ they do not tend to get drunk or help others get 'wasted' on alcohol or any other substance. They understood, like some believers now understand, that social improvement is a fruit of the advance of the Gospel and not the goal of it.
The Temperance Movement went way beyond Christians taking a responsible role in representative democracy and voting. It became for thousands of them THE CAUSE. And the current loss of a Christian Consensus in the U.S. may very well be one of the long term results. I saw this first hand when I was quite young, in 1953.
Twenty years after the repeal of Prohibition many Christians still saw alcohol as the evil to be stamped out. I grew up surrounded by this mentality. The community where I grew up had two churches. One of them began an initiative to have a local election to outlaw all alcoholic beverages in both the village and the township. The church where my family attended joined that effort and became the main force in that effort. For three or four years before that, our church had seen phenomenal growth and dozens of people coming to Christ.
The bitterness generated by that 'local option' election in the fall of 1953 brought that progress of the Gospel to nearly a complete halt. Attendance levels and witness in the community were never again what they were in the summer of 1953. Although I do not agree with a few of the things he says, Phil Yancey, in his book What Is So Amazing About Grace, clearly documents how some Evangelical political activism has made the Gospel so unattractive to so many people.
How can we so easily forget that sinners will always sin; that unbelievers will usually act immorally; that those who are cut off from the Life of God will remove all references to Him from culture; and that laws, even good ones, will not change human nature? How much praying is going on in out churches for people who are outside of Christ? How much cooperative effort is going on among Christians of various churches to bring people to Christ? Why are we so surprised that our country is going the way it is? In the last book of the Bible it is Christians who are told to repent, several times over in chapters 2&3, before the word is ever applied to unbelievers.
A final word of encouragement to you who are showing acts of help and kindness to unbelievers. You are "making the teaching about God our Savior attractive". (Titus 2:10)
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
CANCER -- WAITING FOR THE REPORT
It's a tightness in the chest that is only known only by those who have waited to hear if they have cancer or if it has come back and they are no longer in remission. You are shown to the little room where you sit and wait for the doctor to come in. The seconds become like minutes and the minutes like an hour. Then he comes in, greets you and begins to look at the report from the radiologist. That's when your chest gets really tight. Then he finally says . . . .
Susan and I sat there this morning. I could count back through my journals to 1988 and total up how many dozens of times we have waited. Just before Christmas that year we got the original diagnosis. Susan had been trying to lose some weight that summer and fall but her clothing still fit tighter and tighter around the waist. She went in to our regular doctor in December for a routine physical to renew her school bus drivers license. Even though she was a teacher she found it quite useful to have that license. The doctor checked her abdomen and was quite alarmed. "You have a tumor". He sent her straight to the hospital for a CT scan. When he got the report he called me at the school. I was called out of a chapel with the words, "The doctor wants to talk to you on the phone".
"Russell, Susan has lymphoma". I went to a dictionary but that didn't help much. In the following weeks I would get a medical school level education about lymphoma and, in particular, malignant lymphoma. Hers was an abdominal lymphoma about the size of a grapefruit. Lymphoma is any swelling of a lymph node in your body. It can happen when you have an infection, and then the lymph node will return to normal. When you have cancer of the lymph system it is malignant lymphoma. I found out how ignorant even some doctors are about the subject. A close relative told us that his brother-in-law, a physician, told him that this enlarged lymph node in Susan came from cancer somewhere else in the body. I reported this to Susan's oncologist (cancer specialist) and he politely told me in so many words that someone did not know what they are talking about. You can have, he explained, all kinds of cancer picked up and transported by and in the lymph system but Susan had cancer of the lymph system; i.e. malignant lymphoma. So much for the misinformed relative of ours and his less than an expert brother-in-law.
Next came surgical biopsy of the tumor itself and of the bone marrow. I found out that it does no good to surgically remove a lymphoma tumor. It is a systemic disease. Chemotherapy or radiation are the only options. This is when we started to get good news. Bad news would have been that Susan had "T cell" lymphoma. Hers was "B cell". Then, a friend whose son was undergoing treatment for leukemia at Columbus Children's Hospital told his son's oncologist about Susan's diagnosis and asked "what are her chances"? The reply: "Well, if you have to pick a cancer you might as well pick that one because we are getting some good results in treating that one." Every day seemed to bring encouragements of this sort. In the years since then the type of cancer cells that Susan has have been called "good players".
We soon found out that people everywhere, some as far away as Asia, were imploring our merciful Heavenly Father to deliver Susan. After two months of chemotherapy the tumor was more than half gone. The oncologist said he would have been happy if it had just not grown. And so the good news kept coming. Susan returned to teaching in the fall and slowly regained strength. But the massive chemotherapy left some effects that are still felt to this day. In 1990 the CT scans were clear. In 1991 the devastating news came that the CT scan revealed an enlarge lymph node. Susan was given an oral drug with the trade name 'Lukaran' (sp?). It worked.
So, year after year she had the CT scans and we waited to hear the results. In the 1990's it came back again and the oral drug was used successfully again. In 2001 a lymph node became enlarged in the groin and for the first and only time radiation was used. Then nearly eight years went by and we thought we might be "home free". But an enlarged lymph node appeared on the CT scan in the chest area. A biopsy was taken by inserting a long needle through the back and the lung. More good news . . . the cell type of the lymphoma had not changed over all the intervening years. Expert predictions that it would change into a more aggressive type of cancer did not come true. More good news. A new drug was available: "Rituxin". It is not a chemotherapy drug; it is a monoclonal antibody. Your hair does not fall out and it does not make you sick. It attacks Susan's particular type of cancer cells directly. Perhaps the day will come when something like this will make treating most cancers as routine as penicillin made the treatment of infections.
The first infusion of Rituxin dissolved the small tumor so quickly that Susan nearly went into shock because her body could not absorbed the dead cancer cells quickly enough. At six month intervals from the fall of 2011 until the spring of 2013 Susan had four rounds of Rituxin infusions. The three extra rounds have proved, in lymphoma treatment, to prevent a relapse. So every December since 2013 she has a CT scan and we await the results. Just like we did this morning. Oh, I almost forgot. You want to know those results. "The scan is all clear and your blood work is fine. Go and enjoy Christmas with your family." Those tears you see are tears of joy.
Now, something practical for you the reader because Susan and I care about you. If people would alter their diets the cancer rate would plummet to unheard of lows. Fresh fruits from apples to blueberries; plenty of dark green vegetables; yellow and orange vegetables; green tea and black tea both; reduce red meat and fats; more fish and poultry; more whole grains; and cut those calories and get rid of that big gut! There! Have a blessed Christmas!
Susan and I sat there this morning. I could count back through my journals to 1988 and total up how many dozens of times we have waited. Just before Christmas that year we got the original diagnosis. Susan had been trying to lose some weight that summer and fall but her clothing still fit tighter and tighter around the waist. She went in to our regular doctor in December for a routine physical to renew her school bus drivers license. Even though she was a teacher she found it quite useful to have that license. The doctor checked her abdomen and was quite alarmed. "You have a tumor". He sent her straight to the hospital for a CT scan. When he got the report he called me at the school. I was called out of a chapel with the words, "The doctor wants to talk to you on the phone".
"Russell, Susan has lymphoma". I went to a dictionary but that didn't help much. In the following weeks I would get a medical school level education about lymphoma and, in particular, malignant lymphoma. Hers was an abdominal lymphoma about the size of a grapefruit. Lymphoma is any swelling of a lymph node in your body. It can happen when you have an infection, and then the lymph node will return to normal. When you have cancer of the lymph system it is malignant lymphoma. I found out how ignorant even some doctors are about the subject. A close relative told us that his brother-in-law, a physician, told him that this enlarged lymph node in Susan came from cancer somewhere else in the body. I reported this to Susan's oncologist (cancer specialist) and he politely told me in so many words that someone did not know what they are talking about. You can have, he explained, all kinds of cancer picked up and transported by and in the lymph system but Susan had cancer of the lymph system; i.e. malignant lymphoma. So much for the misinformed relative of ours and his less than an expert brother-in-law.
Next came surgical biopsy of the tumor itself and of the bone marrow. I found out that it does no good to surgically remove a lymphoma tumor. It is a systemic disease. Chemotherapy or radiation are the only options. This is when we started to get good news. Bad news would have been that Susan had "T cell" lymphoma. Hers was "B cell". Then, a friend whose son was undergoing treatment for leukemia at Columbus Children's Hospital told his son's oncologist about Susan's diagnosis and asked "what are her chances"? The reply: "Well, if you have to pick a cancer you might as well pick that one because we are getting some good results in treating that one." Every day seemed to bring encouragements of this sort. In the years since then the type of cancer cells that Susan has have been called "good players".
We soon found out that people everywhere, some as far away as Asia, were imploring our merciful Heavenly Father to deliver Susan. After two months of chemotherapy the tumor was more than half gone. The oncologist said he would have been happy if it had just not grown. And so the good news kept coming. Susan returned to teaching in the fall and slowly regained strength. But the massive chemotherapy left some effects that are still felt to this day. In 1990 the CT scans were clear. In 1991 the devastating news came that the CT scan revealed an enlarge lymph node. Susan was given an oral drug with the trade name 'Lukaran' (sp?). It worked.
So, year after year she had the CT scans and we waited to hear the results. In the 1990's it came back again and the oral drug was used successfully again. In 2001 a lymph node became enlarged in the groin and for the first and only time radiation was used. Then nearly eight years went by and we thought we might be "home free". But an enlarged lymph node appeared on the CT scan in the chest area. A biopsy was taken by inserting a long needle through the back and the lung. More good news . . . the cell type of the lymphoma had not changed over all the intervening years. Expert predictions that it would change into a more aggressive type of cancer did not come true. More good news. A new drug was available: "Rituxin". It is not a chemotherapy drug; it is a monoclonal antibody. Your hair does not fall out and it does not make you sick. It attacks Susan's particular type of cancer cells directly. Perhaps the day will come when something like this will make treating most cancers as routine as penicillin made the treatment of infections.
The first infusion of Rituxin dissolved the small tumor so quickly that Susan nearly went into shock because her body could not absorbed the dead cancer cells quickly enough. At six month intervals from the fall of 2011 until the spring of 2013 Susan had four rounds of Rituxin infusions. The three extra rounds have proved, in lymphoma treatment, to prevent a relapse. So every December since 2013 she has a CT scan and we await the results. Just like we did this morning. Oh, I almost forgot. You want to know those results. "The scan is all clear and your blood work is fine. Go and enjoy Christmas with your family." Those tears you see are tears of joy.
Now, something practical for you the reader because Susan and I care about you. If people would alter their diets the cancer rate would plummet to unheard of lows. Fresh fruits from apples to blueberries; plenty of dark green vegetables; yellow and orange vegetables; green tea and black tea both; reduce red meat and fats; more fish and poultry; more whole grains; and cut those calories and get rid of that big gut! There! Have a blessed Christmas!
Monday, December 7, 2015
HONDURAS, SWITZERLAND AND ME
One of those pre-packaged posts is showing up all over social media. It compares Honduras to Switzerland on the matter of gun ownership and murder rates. I have marked "like" on it for several friends even though I knew that anti-gun advocates could seriously challenge it. There are too many variables involved to do a direct comparison; that much is true. But it is also true that it raises a matter worth talking about so I marked "like". Some 'counter posts' to it have given it a 'pants on fire' liars award. I would like to present the counter posts people with a hypocrites award of some sort for only pointing out flaws in logic if it suits their cause.
I am still waiting for them to give a liars award to media outlets that cover up innumerable instances when lives are saved and murders prevented because some citizen was armed. They get a solid gold hypocrites award for never pointing out that proposed new gun laws, if they had been on the books, would have done absolutely nothing to prevent the mass murders of recent years. After the Sandy Hook School massacre the proposed new law would have made background checks mandatory on all private firearm sales. The public seems blissfully unaware that background checks are already required of all sales by dealers and that the new law would have made you a criminal for giving a family member a shotgun to go pheasant hunting. The weapons used at Sandy Hook were purchased by the perpetrator's mother and she had a background check. (Not to mention that the perpetrator murdered her before killing all the others at the school.) Yet those in Congress who voted against this irrelevant and useless proposed law were accused of being cold hearted toward all the children and teachers killed at Sandy Hook. If this is not hypocrisy then hypocrisy does not exist. One armed guard in that school would have saved 22 lives.
But that solution doesn't fit the 'ideal world' envisioned by liberal progressives.
The push for 'universal background checks' on all private sales of firearms should be understood for what it really is and not as a crime prevention measure because those bent on crime will get their weapons legally if they can or illegally if they cannot, just like they do now. No, the push for background checks is very much a part of the total liberal, progressive effort to control people. This was behind the "Affordable Care Act" (Obama Care) and behind every major piece of legislation Obama and his allies put forward -- control! Their 'solution' to the breakdown in society is control by an elite. And who is more qualified than we are? they say, and they really believe it! A well known Christian in the 1970's clearly saw this coming and he described it as the death wish of modern humanism, the desire to beat to death the Christian base of our forms and freedoms. Then to substitute an imposed order by a manipulating, authoritarian elite.
This is why the election of "better" politicians only postpones, not prevents, the inevitable breakdown. A massive shift in public attitudes about God, His moral Laws and His Son Jesus Christ would produce again a consensus in America that embraces wide freedoms without freedom turning to chaos. BUT, and this is a very big qualification, God will not bless any effort to promote His Kingdom that has as its primary purpose the saving of American civilization as important as that may be. Any motive less than the glory of God is a corrupt motive and unworthy of the people of God. America is experiencing a form of judgment short of the ultimate judgments on nations in the Great Tribulation.
Of all the titanic freedoms without chaos that the Christian consensus produced in America the right to be armed is seen by thoughtful historians and political scientists as "an insurance policy that the Founders bought to prevent tyranny". I agree. But I also see that armed citizens without moral absolutes and the Fear of God cannot save themselves from the increasing breakdown. I have been a vocal advocate all my adult life for the principle in the Second Amendment yet I have never obtained a concealed carry permit. I may yet do so but I have hesitated for several reasons. My situation is somewhat unique. I see myself as closely related to the five missionaries who allowed themselves to be murdered in the jungles of Ecuador in January 1956. They had a rifle in their little airplane but the souls of their killers and the souls of all the tribe they came to reach were more important than their own lives. As one trying to be a faithful minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ I must balance the desire to prevent Muslim (and other) terrorists from murdering people with the ultimate goal of seeing them turn to Christ. It is very easy now for believers to see only the first and forget the second. "They overcame the devil by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." (Rev. 12:11) I cannot stress too much that I am speaking only of myself here and not urging a universal policy in this regard,
If I had a concealed carry permit I would probably never use it to save my own life, only the lives of others. For that reason I may still obtain one. On a more practical level, I have not wanted the continual fear of "have I carried this into someplace where I could get into legal trouble for having it?" The banks and other places who post the little sign that indicates "no arms allowed here" - I hate to say this but its true - are nothing but idiots. Someone bent on crime will ignore it and the people you will want in the event of a crime will be unarmed. Idiots! There is no other word for it.
No matter that pacifists have tried to explain it away, Jesus did approve of at least some prudent measures of self defense in Luke 22:36. "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." Just don't make it your first resort. You already have angelic protection. (Matthew 26:50-54)
I am still waiting for them to give a liars award to media outlets that cover up innumerable instances when lives are saved and murders prevented because some citizen was armed. They get a solid gold hypocrites award for never pointing out that proposed new gun laws, if they had been on the books, would have done absolutely nothing to prevent the mass murders of recent years. After the Sandy Hook School massacre the proposed new law would have made background checks mandatory on all private firearm sales. The public seems blissfully unaware that background checks are already required of all sales by dealers and that the new law would have made you a criminal for giving a family member a shotgun to go pheasant hunting. The weapons used at Sandy Hook were purchased by the perpetrator's mother and she had a background check. (Not to mention that the perpetrator murdered her before killing all the others at the school.) Yet those in Congress who voted against this irrelevant and useless proposed law were accused of being cold hearted toward all the children and teachers killed at Sandy Hook. If this is not hypocrisy then hypocrisy does not exist. One armed guard in that school would have saved 22 lives.
But that solution doesn't fit the 'ideal world' envisioned by liberal progressives.
The push for 'universal background checks' on all private sales of firearms should be understood for what it really is and not as a crime prevention measure because those bent on crime will get their weapons legally if they can or illegally if they cannot, just like they do now. No, the push for background checks is very much a part of the total liberal, progressive effort to control people. This was behind the "Affordable Care Act" (Obama Care) and behind every major piece of legislation Obama and his allies put forward -- control! Their 'solution' to the breakdown in society is control by an elite. And who is more qualified than we are? they say, and they really believe it! A well known Christian in the 1970's clearly saw this coming and he described it as the death wish of modern humanism, the desire to beat to death the Christian base of our forms and freedoms. Then to substitute an imposed order by a manipulating, authoritarian elite.
This is why the election of "better" politicians only postpones, not prevents, the inevitable breakdown. A massive shift in public attitudes about God, His moral Laws and His Son Jesus Christ would produce again a consensus in America that embraces wide freedoms without freedom turning to chaos. BUT, and this is a very big qualification, God will not bless any effort to promote His Kingdom that has as its primary purpose the saving of American civilization as important as that may be. Any motive less than the glory of God is a corrupt motive and unworthy of the people of God. America is experiencing a form of judgment short of the ultimate judgments on nations in the Great Tribulation.
Of all the titanic freedoms without chaos that the Christian consensus produced in America the right to be armed is seen by thoughtful historians and political scientists as "an insurance policy that the Founders bought to prevent tyranny". I agree. But I also see that armed citizens without moral absolutes and the Fear of God cannot save themselves from the increasing breakdown. I have been a vocal advocate all my adult life for the principle in the Second Amendment yet I have never obtained a concealed carry permit. I may yet do so but I have hesitated for several reasons. My situation is somewhat unique. I see myself as closely related to the five missionaries who allowed themselves to be murdered in the jungles of Ecuador in January 1956. They had a rifle in their little airplane but the souls of their killers and the souls of all the tribe they came to reach were more important than their own lives. As one trying to be a faithful minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ I must balance the desire to prevent Muslim (and other) terrorists from murdering people with the ultimate goal of seeing them turn to Christ. It is very easy now for believers to see only the first and forget the second. "They overcame the devil by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." (Rev. 12:11) I cannot stress too much that I am speaking only of myself here and not urging a universal policy in this regard,
If I had a concealed carry permit I would probably never use it to save my own life, only the lives of others. For that reason I may still obtain one. On a more practical level, I have not wanted the continual fear of "have I carried this into someplace where I could get into legal trouble for having it?" The banks and other places who post the little sign that indicates "no arms allowed here" - I hate to say this but its true - are nothing but idiots. Someone bent on crime will ignore it and the people you will want in the event of a crime will be unarmed. Idiots! There is no other word for it.
No matter that pacifists have tried to explain it away, Jesus did approve of at least some prudent measures of self defense in Luke 22:36. "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." Just don't make it your first resort. You already have angelic protection. (Matthew 26:50-54)
Thursday, December 3, 2015
THE BROKEN WINDOW PHENOMENON
It began as an observation that if a broken window in an abandoned building was not immediately repaired it was an open invitation for vandals to break all they wanted. It grew into a theory of the cause of crime in urban areas. If 'minor laws' such as breaking windows and littering were not strictly enforced law breaking would escalate to worse and worse crimes. I first felt compelled to apply the concept to mass murders after the Colorado high school murders around twenty years ago. But the internet was only in its infancy and the possibilities of a blog like this were almost undreamed of.
The broken window theory of crime is not new at all. Around nine hundred years before Christ it was observed by Solomon. "When sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong." (Ecc. 8:11) The same general idea is found in the Proverbs and appears from time to time in writings ancient and modern. At the time of the Colorado high school killings I saw it as predictive of where the U.S. was headed. From the 1960's on there has been a steady "breaking of moral windows" by groups as diverse as the entertainment industry and the Supreme Court. This has been rightly called a form of anarchy. In the words of the Book of Judges: "every man did what was right in his own eyes". In particular there has been complete sexual anarchy: first, we will live together unmarried; then we will have children without being married; if married, we will divorce and remarry for any and every reason; then we will wallow in pornography; we will approve any sexual acts between "consenting" adults regardless of their gender; then we will get the highest court in the land to declare that all this anarchy is an inalienable right. There! We just broke about every window in the building and we feel so proud of ourselves for scoring so many hits. We are working on breaking those remaining 'windows' of pedophilia and polygamy. It had not seemed to occur to us that by not protecting all 'windows' those 'other windows', like murder - even mass murder - might get smashed also.
So now we have a slight problem. We have a few people who want to break things other than the 'moral windows'. They want to shoot people! Many people! All at one time! I mean, after all, they get a much bigger thrill out of 'breaking' people than merely breaking the other moral windows. So we have got to stop this breaking of 'other things' like people and limit window breaking to just the sexual 'windows'. So how are we going to stop this other 'breaking'? The solution is easy! Any morally and intellectually bankrupt mind can come up with the solution. GUN CONTROL!
But wait! When we had virtually no gun laws to speak of (50 or more years ago before the Gun Control Act of 1968) we hardly ever heard of a mass shooting. There was one at the U. of Texas in 1966 but the perpetrator was found, during autopsy, to have a brain tumor. No background check would have found that. Semi auto rifles with extra magazines have been available for at least a century. From 1920 to 1935 you could easily and legally buy a Browning Automatic Rifle or a Thompson submachine gun. No mass shootings. But, you say, what about the gangsters of the 1930's? They mainly shot each other and rarely - thank God - killed an innocent person with their automatic weapons. But the point holds true. Outside of organized crime, mass shootings were virtually unheard of. With the exception of New York's notorious Sullivan Law which created safe working conditions for criminals by banning pistols to almost all civilians, there were virtually no gun control laws.
In his monumental series "How Should We Then Live?" Schaeffer predicted forty years ago where we would go. With the loss of the Christian consensus and the absence of compelling moral absolutes we would descend into chaos. People cannot live in chaos. They will give up their liberties for the promise of security. We will probably not have, Schaeffer said, a dictatorship like Hitler or Stalin. We will have arbitrary absolutes imposed upon us by a manipulating, authoritarian elite. Just think. Obama was only a teenager and Hillary was virtually unknown when Schaeffer wrote that. He was more of a prophet than anyone at the time could have guessed.
Do we, at this moment of history, have another authentic, prophetic voice to see a move of God and repentance on a scale that will be . . . . . . off the charts?
The broken window theory of crime is not new at all. Around nine hundred years before Christ it was observed by Solomon. "When sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong." (Ecc. 8:11) The same general idea is found in the Proverbs and appears from time to time in writings ancient and modern. At the time of the Colorado high school killings I saw it as predictive of where the U.S. was headed. From the 1960's on there has been a steady "breaking of moral windows" by groups as diverse as the entertainment industry and the Supreme Court. This has been rightly called a form of anarchy. In the words of the Book of Judges: "every man did what was right in his own eyes". In particular there has been complete sexual anarchy: first, we will live together unmarried; then we will have children without being married; if married, we will divorce and remarry for any and every reason; then we will wallow in pornography; we will approve any sexual acts between "consenting" adults regardless of their gender; then we will get the highest court in the land to declare that all this anarchy is an inalienable right. There! We just broke about every window in the building and we feel so proud of ourselves for scoring so many hits. We are working on breaking those remaining 'windows' of pedophilia and polygamy. It had not seemed to occur to us that by not protecting all 'windows' those 'other windows', like murder - even mass murder - might get smashed also.
So now we have a slight problem. We have a few people who want to break things other than the 'moral windows'. They want to shoot people! Many people! All at one time! I mean, after all, they get a much bigger thrill out of 'breaking' people than merely breaking the other moral windows. So we have got to stop this breaking of 'other things' like people and limit window breaking to just the sexual 'windows'. So how are we going to stop this other 'breaking'? The solution is easy! Any morally and intellectually bankrupt mind can come up with the solution. GUN CONTROL!
But wait! When we had virtually no gun laws to speak of (50 or more years ago before the Gun Control Act of 1968) we hardly ever heard of a mass shooting. There was one at the U. of Texas in 1966 but the perpetrator was found, during autopsy, to have a brain tumor. No background check would have found that. Semi auto rifles with extra magazines have been available for at least a century. From 1920 to 1935 you could easily and legally buy a Browning Automatic Rifle or a Thompson submachine gun. No mass shootings. But, you say, what about the gangsters of the 1930's? They mainly shot each other and rarely - thank God - killed an innocent person with their automatic weapons. But the point holds true. Outside of organized crime, mass shootings were virtually unheard of. With the exception of New York's notorious Sullivan Law which created safe working conditions for criminals by banning pistols to almost all civilians, there were virtually no gun control laws.
In his monumental series "How Should We Then Live?" Schaeffer predicted forty years ago where we would go. With the loss of the Christian consensus and the absence of compelling moral absolutes we would descend into chaos. People cannot live in chaos. They will give up their liberties for the promise of security. We will probably not have, Schaeffer said, a dictatorship like Hitler or Stalin. We will have arbitrary absolutes imposed upon us by a manipulating, authoritarian elite. Just think. Obama was only a teenager and Hillary was virtually unknown when Schaeffer wrote that. He was more of a prophet than anyone at the time could have guessed.
Do we, at this moment of history, have another authentic, prophetic voice to see a move of God and repentance on a scale that will be . . . . . . off the charts?
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