A Responsibility to Judge

“We have no right to judge them.” We hear statements like this quite often these days, and I get the impression many usually just nod in agreement. After all, no one has the right to judge anyone else, do they? Perhaps due to the frequency in which the statement is made the issue bears a bit more thought.


An equivocation is made in that what we often mean by “you have no right to judge” is “you are not allowed to call what someone else does wrong”. If that is the case, however, then to apply the principle (we have no right to judge) the first thing that must be done is violate the principle (judging that one person has judged another). We must stop using the phrase in that way and instead take the time to define the terminology and really spend time thinking what the issue of judging is really all about.

Judge is defined as, “to form an opinion about through careful weighing of evidence and testing of premises.” Surely this is not the normally intended usage that is found to be so objectionable. Why would we tell someone else they have no right to form an opinion through carefully weighing evidence and testing of premises? If I come to an intersection and see another vehicle continue without stopping through the intersection even though the light was a steady red color, I would correctly judge that the individual committed a traffic violation by running a red light.

Judge is also defined as, “to sit in judgment on”, or put another way to be the moral judge over another person. Perhaps this hits a little closer to home. Should no one sit in judgment over another? If so why not? In most cases what would first come to mind would be the statement, “Judge not or you will be judged.” But that statement comes from the Bible, specifically Matthew 7:1. Does this mean the Bible is the authority on judging? I believe that it must be, lest we resort to the subjective, arbitrary and capricious human constructs.

I leave it to you the reader to think further about an absolutely binding ethic of judging. For now, since Matthew 7:1 is invariably quoted when instructing others not to judge, let’s just assume the Bible is the authority on, and provides proper instruction on judging. What then does the Bible actually say about judging others? Hebrews 4:12-13 tells us that we should not judge motivations, that only God knows a persons thoughts and attitudes. James 2:1-4 instructs us not to show favoritism, or to judge by appearance. These verses, among others, instruct us in the negative, or ways in which we should not judge others. However, there is no command to abandon all judgment completely. 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 and 6:1-8; Matthew 7:15-20; 1 John 4:1, and 1 Thessalonians 5:12-21 commend us to judge others to determine if their actions are in accordance with what God has established as acceptable behavior. In short, we are instructed to make judgments on behavior (observing the fruit) while at the same time prohibited from going to the thoughts, attitudes and motivations behind the behavior (cursing the tree).

Whenever the issue of judging comes up we must be careful to define the terms and correctly represent the argument. While it may be patently wrong to believe that any human being is the authority on morality and therefore has the obligation to sit as moral judge over the motivations of another person, it does not follow that one cannot say anything negative concerning the behavior of another. Of prime importance is establishing the fundamental moral code applicable to all people by which judgments are made. Properly understood, because of a transcendent ethic we not only have the right, but also the responsibility to observe the fruit of human behavior and measure it against the moral law of the bible established and revealed by God for the purpose of transformation into the likeness of Christ that is intended for us all; a process that must begin in each individual human heart. After all, Jesus himself taught us to remove the beam from our own eye before we try to remove a speck from our brother.

By way of simple analogy, Jesus came to provide forgiveness through obedient submission and sacrifice. We all will be judged by God’s perfect and holy standard, and we all fall short. This is the hope of the Gospel: God judged us and then demonstrated His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us as our substitute in order to provide a way of escape from His final eternal judgment. Perhaps when we say “We have no right to judge them” we are only partially correct; perhaps our statement should be ‘We have no right to judge them against anything but Gods absolute moral law.’ If we couple that understanding with the command to love others as ourselves and look at the entire issue of judging in light of the cross, perhaps we can understand aright the issue of judgment.

Democracy in Action

In a previous post I discussed the lack of thinking about issues surrounding politics in my generation.  Well, I was driving around town yesterday and noticed some road work taking place.  Apparently as part of some continuing state construction (we have multiple major projects ongoing) a need was seen to dress up all the intersections in the downtown area.  Road crews are using a criss-cross mesh that they are pressing into existing asphalt pavement, sort of like pressing a cookie cutter mold into rolled out batter, to make a brick pattern across both lanes from curb to curb.  This pattern is then painted red and white to look like a brick crossing.  This project had me thinking, since the issue of the flag removal based on the seperation clause was fresh on my mind, about a statement made on the evening news.  During a second broadcast (because now the same group has filed suit demanding the removal of a statue constructed showing a soldier kneeling by a cross which is obviously a grave marker similar to the thousands the exist currently at Arlington National Cemetary) a editorial spot indicated that more and more flags and the like are taken into consideration due to public outcry.

So, here are the questions that ran through my head.  Is it the job of elected political leaders to address and act on every instance of public outcry?  Is it the case that we live in a democracy, where elected officials must do as the majority of people (or at least when a decent sized group makes a lot of noise) dictate?

These are questions that really need some serious consideration.  I'm looking forward to some good comments to dialouge on this more; but in short my answers to those questions are simply, no and no.

It bears noting that there was no public outcry for the fake brick crossings in the downtown area, and yet the project moved forward.  There was also no public vote to find out what the majority of citizens thought of the expenditure of their tax dollars to fund the project.  Let me be quick to say that I have no idea how much the project costs and am not making any judgment on whether it was "the right thing to do" or not.  I'd just like to have a real productive discussion on how our system of government is set up, what the expectations of our elected officials should be, and on what basis they should make all policy decisions.

Any takers?

Boggling the Mind

I've been worried for some time that the American public in general and my generation in particular has become increasingly ignorant of critical thinking in terms of politics, law, government and the like.  Verification of this premise has been upheld time and again as articles in the local paper and from various news agencies continue to report a complete lack of understanding and reveal an overwhelming lack of serious thought about such serious issues.  A case in point arose this week in a nearby community.  I will leave the details out as the important issue is the fundamental ideas underpinning this and many other events of outrage ocurring on a daily basis nationwide.  The crux of the matter was a symbol of Christianity removed from a public place by a city coucil board due to a lawsuit filed and the accompanying fears that a legal defense would be too costly on an already depleated town budget based solely on "the seperation clause".

I put that last phrase in quotes because it was a direct quote from the news report I heard as I was working on some other things that caused me to jump out of my seat and exclaim to my wife "the what clause!?!"  I assumed what was being referenced was the statement regarding seperation of church and state that appeared in a personal letter that is in no way binding in any document recognized in the establishment of this nation.  My questions naturally were why didn't anyone question what was meant by "the seperation clause", why didn't the office receiving this filing to sue the township reject it out of hand and what must our nation be coming to when actions such as these are allowed to be passed off as legitimate practice.  I discovered that my assumption was correct and that there are a lot of other questions that need to be asked when any issue like this arises in public discourse.

Question #1: It is true that Thomas Jefferson wrote the letter which contains the phrase "seperation of church and state", however he also penned the pramble to the Constitution (the Declaration of Independence) among whose opening lines are "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."  What view other than the Judeo-Christian one would provide for a statement such as that?  What other belief system used to establish a new government would believe that there is an undeniable truth common to all men that would hold that each and every human person was created by a Creator and endowed by that Creator with intrinsic worth (rights that no other person can give or take away)?

Question #2: What is the problem with holding firm and unwavering to the fundamental principles by which this nation was founded and at the same time allowing all other differing belief systems to live and engage in public life unmolested?  I just don't understand why the fact that non-Christian persons live in this country requires an abolition and outright rejection of the very principles that made this nation possible.  There is no disconnect whatsoever between a nation saying "We are based fundamentally and solely on Christian principles and biblical truth and will make every decision relative to the operation and function of this state in which you live based on those principles; since part of those principles call for the love of all men you may live among us without fear."

Question #3: Is there any other fight more directly linked to the protection of freedom than this one?  I realize we have troops stationed all over the world and many are in harms way even as I write this post, but this is my point.  They are fighting for what this nation was established upon, and if that foundation is being eroded while they are overseas fighting to what are they coming home?  From a more pragmatic point of view, if those who would reject any Judeo-Christian influence or thinking from even the decision-making processes of the government and legal systems with what do they propose to replace it that would make us more free?  Secularism?  Naturalism?  Materialism?  Communism?  AnyOtherIsm?

Finally it is worth observing that nothing is less tolerated today than the intolerant Judeo-Christian religion.  "Seperation of church and state" and "freedom of religion" are pillars of intolerance to the very principles that provide the underlying foundation on which the pillars are built.  In time, those who stand confident on such pillars will issue up a celebratory cry that finally there is freedom from the shackles of religious intolerance that has plagued the nation since it's inception, only to find out that their cries of success had drowned out the noise of the cracking of the foundation on which they stood.

We will no doubt hear more cases; all different in the specifics, but all the same in fundamentals.  I have used the imagery of pillars and foundations; the framework of the nation supported by ideas and ideals well known and unconfused at inception but now clouded and sullied by bad thinking and modern misconceptions.  It is not very different than walking out to the end of a branch while setting fire to the trunk.  In the meantime perhaps someone can bring some meaningful answers to my questions.

Foundations of Environmental Concern

The following post is a collection of thoughts that I have been mulling over and thinking about for a number of years.  I recently put all that thinking into a three part write-up (much abbreviated from the more comprehensive thought process that developed from a single question).  Below are parts 1, 2 and 3 of an argument made to answer a pretty fundamental question.  I hope it will engender as much thought for you the reader as it has been, and continues to be, for me.

Part 1 - Who Cares?


C.S. Lewis in his essay "First and Second Things" says "You can't get to second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first." He presents the illustration elsewhere of beginning with a line, connecting lines to form a square, and finally combining squares to form a cube. The cube is three dimensional but remains based upon lines.

A recent local newspaper series presented 6 articles presenting facts about the environment and some suggestions of how to address the concerns that followed. The articles were well done and well presented but as it seems is often the case, passed by the first principle: namely, why should anyone care about the environment? You see, if there's no good reason to care about the state of the environment then what is going on, the causes of the current condition and what any possible remedies might be are meaningless.

I see three broad categories of possibility relative to this first principle; this fundamental question “Why should anyone care about the environment?”, namely the scientific approach, the pure environmentalist approach, and the religious approach.

Care in this context is defined as: "an object of concern or attention." We also understand that the caring we are talking about is an emotional as well as moral condition. We can easily see this by example. Consider a man with a child who says he cares for the child because he gets a lot of dates by taking the child out in public where women are attracted to how well he gets along with children. We would not say this man cares for his child, rather we would say he is using the child because he cares only for himself. Now consider a man who leaves a gathering with friends to spend an evening at home with his daughter. In this case, we would say the man cares for the child, even if it means sacrificing himself. The difference is that when we speak of genuine caring what we mean is caring for something for its own sake. So what we are asking is why should we care for the environment for its own sake? Why should we care for the environment like the second man cares for his daughter?

By clearly describing our terms a problem arises for everyone who would say that science is all important in this discussion. The problem comes by the very definition of nature, or the environment, as it is taken by many in science today. In his "River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life", Richard Dawkins said, "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: 'For Nature, heartless, witless Nature will neither care nor know.' DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music." Scientific beginnings are based on the premise that we are here through a series of acts of random chance over a long period of time. We are an accident and so is everything that exists. Nothing is here through purpose or direction and there is no real value or meaning to anything except as we assign it. If this is the case then there is no reason to care about anything; why would one accident care about another accident? As Dawkins quoted, DNA neither cares nor knows.

One might say, "But if we don't care for the environment humankind will be wiped out." That may very well be true, and since DNA neither knows nor cares, and since the universe is blind, pitiless and indifferent; then quite literally if we cannot adapt to the new environment the natural and inevitable result will be extinction; that's just the way of things. If we look carefully we can see the real motivation behind that statement; fear and selfishness. We are afraid of becoming extinct and we think first of ourselves. But this is not caring for the environment for its own sake, this is caring about ourselves. So what's the big deal, another might say, so what if selfishness is the motivation so long as it turns around the current condition of the environment? Well, if selfishness is the acceptable motivation, then there is nothing that would compel a whole society to care for the environment. You see, there may be others who would say something like: "If it's OK to be selfish, forget about future generations. I’m going to do what's best for me right now and that's using up whatever I want and doing whatever is convenient for me. If that harms the environment, so be it." There is no difference between caring for the environment for selfish reasons and not caring for the environment for selfish reasons. What is left in that case is that whoever happens to be in power forces everyone to comply with his/her selfish desire; in other words, might makes right.

What I am not doing here is saying whether this line of thinking is right or wrong. The logical outworking of the idea that nothing exists but the natural, that only the most popular scientific approach is valid is that one doesn't care for the environment for its own sake, but rather for selfish reasons. Therefore, there is no good reason to be concerned with what happens around us for better or for worse. Put another way, if nature is blind, pitiless and indifferent then there is no legitimate argument against an attitude of indifference by humankind towards nature; one accident equally unconcerned about another accident.


Part 2 - When Caring Isn't Enough
 
Last time we discussed first principles, how we oftentimes skip them to get on to second principles, and how that can present problems in our thinking. We discussed a purely scientific approach to the environment and how ultimately if the universe is all there is, just a thoughtless, directionless, purposeless, blind, pitiless and indifferent accident then there is no reason to care about the environment for its own sake. The word caring is used when the actual motivation is selfishness. Based on first principles in this case, there is no need to spend time concerning ourselves with the state of our surrounding environment or methods to mitigate the effects of our actions. If there is no real logical reason to care then the rest becomes a waste of time.

Now we turn to the one who would characterize themselves as caring for the environment for its own sake, the pure environmentalist. They love nature and have always been somehow drawn to its beauty on the one hand and its power and ferocity on the other. They acknowledge the facts of science but have the sense that all that is around them can't be just a huge cosmic accident. They don't ascribe to any religion, just feel themselves to be going with what feels right and wanting to make their lives count for something bigger than themselves. This is a consistent position. The one who honestly doesn't know how everything got here, and just wants to follow what for them is an inexorable tug toward "saving the planet" does acknowledge that there is more to the universe than blind, pitiless indifference; even if they don't know what. Their concern is an emotional and moral condition, and to be consistent their life would have to be lived in accordance with those beliefs and they would passionately compel all who would listen to join them in their love for the planet.

There is a problem, however, with this line of thinking. The problem is the emotional, passionate and moral convictions regarding the environment are totally personal. That person may live in a "green" home, bike everywhere as a means of transportation, recycle or reuse everything from water bottles to paper towels, conserve water and energy and spend every free minute advocating for environmental concerns. Their next door neighbor, however, could consume with complete abandon, own three vehicles with single-digit gas mileage, litter and waste with impunity, and spend his free time doing yard maintenance using every gas guzzling tool, poison and chemical currently available. There is nothing that would legitimately compel the neighbor to change his behavior because the position of the one who loves the environment is purely personal. What is lacking is authority. Someone in authority that could compel, or even mandate, that every single person has the responsibility to care for the environment. With this knowledge, the person who holds this position, out of a genuine concern for the world around them has no choice but to pursue a concerted effort to lobby government to force everyone to love the planet as much as they. We are again left with a position of might makes right; those in power forcing others to capitulate.

There is another possibility in this area, and that is the person who would say that they worship the environment. We use terminology like "mother earth" and "mother nature" without thinking and as a matter of common expression; but there might be one that says the earth gave birth to humankind and so we should worship our maker; our mother nature. They might even remind everyone that there have been people groups worshipping the earth and stars throughout recorded history. In this case, the proponent would care for the environment for its own sake, and would have what they considered to be authority to compel everyone else to care in the same way. It seems this would finally be a legitimate way to say that humankind really should care about the environment. However, there again is a major problem. The reason we are talking about this topic is because we are concerned that we are destroying the earth with our actions. Why on earth would we worship a creator that its creation could destroy? This has always been a problem with worshipping the natural. It just doesn't make sense for a human being to worship something that he or she has the capability to destroy. We shouldn't have that much power over the object from which we supposedly gain our authority.

So it seems we are still at a loss, and in search of some way of thinking that gives us a legitimate reason to really care for the environment. Next time we will continue the search and discover that there is in fact a legitimate reason for all humankind to care for the environment.


Part 3 - Freedom in Knowing

In our first discussion, we asked the question why should anyone care about the environment? We looked at the position of pure science. We learned that on this view the universe, nature is all there is and that it neither cares nor knows. It is simply illogical and inconsistent then to suppose that humankind should care a wit about this accidental happening that has no purpose or direction. We are left with a motivation of selfishness and are left with might makes right as the only recourse for any widespread concern.

Last time we looked at those who would love the earth for its own sake. First the one who doesn't really know how things got here but see the beauty and feel an emotional and moral disposition toward the environment. We saw that this, although consistent, is entirely personal and would not serve to compel all of humankind to the same behavior. We also considered one who would worship nature, which presented the problem of humans worshiping the very thing they were afraid of destroying. This position also cannot be true.

Things are looking bleak. If science, nor a heartfelt personal love nor promotion of nature to the status of deity provide any real legitimate reason to care for the environment then all seems to be lost. Let's not give up so soon. Instead, let's take just a minute and piece together those fundamental problem areas with our other possibilities and see if there is anything that meets all those criteria. For science, the problem was purpose. There was no purpose or direction in the universe so the only motivation remaining was selfishness and fear. For the second group the problem was authority. A personal concern couldn't hold sway over all of humankind, and elevating nature to the level of deity produced a sort of "god" with no real power. So, we need to solve the problem of purpose and authority. We also need to preserve the existence of nature and humankind, the emotional and moral aspects which we know to be true of any real caring, and remain logically consistent. The only thing that meets all these criteria is a single God the reason for whose existence is within Himself that created the universe (including all nature and mankind) and therefore has authority over everything, who created mankind with emotional and moral direction and purpose and gave mankind the command to protect the environment and the authority to do so.

In the Judeo-Christian position these very criteria are specifically addressed in scripture. Genesis 1:1, John 8:58-59, Colossians 1:16-20 and others speak to God's existence being eternal and not dependent on anything outside Himself. Genesis chapters 1 and 2 and others speak to God's creation of the universe and everything in it (including all nature and mankind). The entirety of scripture speaks to the emotional and moral direction and purpose of all mankind and the requirement for a change in their very nature to become a new creation and become like their Lord. In Genesis 1:26-31 and 2:8-15 man is installed as caretaker over creation.

I recognize there are many who do not believe in God at all, much less the God of the Christian faith. What I am saying is that there is no other legitimate source or reason for caring for the environment. It is also important to point out that many will decide to just ignore or reject this entire line of thinking simply because God and the bible were mentioned. However, without a legitimate, logically consistent reason for all mankind to be genuinely concerned for the environment, the issue will inevitably digress into a matter of which group is in power and can force everyone else to do what they feel is right.

I would also like to challenge all followers of Christ who may not have considered the solid foundation on which they stand in this issue. Because Christians have as their belief the reason to genuinely be concerned about the condition of the environment to which we've been entrusted, believers should be on the forefront of being caretakers of all creation. We have been given dominion to utilize the natural elements around us for food, shelter, and general benefit, but not in a reckless, haphazard, or thoughtless manner. We care not because we are scared we will destroy the world, but because we are afraid of disobeying our Lord’s directive.

Now that we have established the existence and nature of the legitimate and logically consistent reason to care for the environment; now that we have considered first principles, we can move on to second things, and look with renewed interest at the current conditions and decide if we are in fact taking care of the environment that was entrusted to us. We can investigate the effects of our actions and think about the ramifications of continuing or changing our current behavior. We can legitimately challenge all humankind to examine our common directive for stewardship, develop means and methods of environmental preservation based on data gathered and reported through scientific inquiry, balance those recommendations against the other moral directives from scripture, and make the best decisions possible as a matter of obedience to the Creator of man and nature. Although a tedious exercise, there is freedom in knowing that there is a legitimate reason why we all should care about the environment, and furthermore having been given a mandate and the authority to do just that.

Ruminations on Marriage

I have had some thoughts in my head for some time regarding marriage and how the Christian understanding of marriage is unique and just recently typed them out.  It was all based on a question I had asked myself, and later asked some others.  Below is the original question and the text of my mental exercise:

"Considering Genesis 2:24, discuss the biblical Christian ontological basis of marriage and it's uniqueness."



The verse given for consideration (namely Genesis 2:24) is the key to my answer, but not where I begin (we'll get back to this verse a bit later). Genesis 1:26 says "Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...", and continues in verse 27 with, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them.". This is our starting point for looking at the ontological basis of marriage and it's uniqueness. God created man in His image, in His likeness.


We know from reading through the entire creation narrative that what God created was good. At the end of each day, He says that what He created was good. After creating man we are told He looked over all He had made and said it was very good. We see in chapter 2 that as man is in the garden working and caring for it, he says in verse 18 that "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." And so woman is created from man to which the man replies in verse 23, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man."


At this point, i'll make a brief departure to talk about language and in particular descriptive language of God. Thomas Aquinas wrote of three ways to use language: univocal, equivocal and analogical. Very briefly, the first usage - univocal - is when the same word is used in the same way (with the same meaning) but in different situations. For example, on a daily basis I tell my wife "I love you", I also tell my children "I love you". Love is the same word used in the same way just in different situations. The second usage - equivocal - is when we use the same word but with a different meaning in different situations. An example here would be something like if I were to say "Wynton Marsalis is a good trumpet player" and then I were to say "I am a good trumpet player". If someone were to think 'good' meant the same thing in both situations and then heard myself and Wynton Marsalis playing the same song they would quickly know something was dreadfully wrong. Finally, the third usage - analogical - this is using language descriptively by analogy. Something is like a certain example. Aquinas said man is not God, so we cannot use either univocal language, or equivocal language when we talk about God, we must use analogical language. God is like this or that.

Back to our question. Verse 24 of chapter 2 says "For this reason (the reason being woman was created from man, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh) a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and they will become one flesh." Here is the point, as I try to tie these threads together.

Marriage is an analogy for the triune nature of God. God is one in one sense (only one God, we are monotheistic, we do not worship multiple deities) and three in another sense (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). We cannot describe this relationship either univocally or equivocally because we are not God and we cannot even wrap our brains around even the possibility of how this can be possible. We can say, however, that we are created in the image of God, in His likeness, and marriage (where man and woman become one flesh) by analogy (in that a couple are one in one sense {one flesh} and two in another sense {husband and wife}) gives a glimpse, or picture of what the trinity is like. This is unique to a Christian understanding of marriage.

This then is the ontological basis for marriage and how Christianity is unique. The nature of the existence of marriage is to provide a glimpse, a picture, an analogical expression of the trinity. The ramifications are profound. Why would God hate divorce? Because husband and wife are a picture of the trinity and so divorce would be analogous to a fracturing of the Godhead! This can never be, because God's existence is within Himself. God, as He has revealed Himself in scripture, can never cease to be. Divorce, then, is anathema. This is why the traditional vows spoken in marriage are so important; "What God has brought together, let no man put asunder." Man and wife become one flesh, one in one sense and two in another sense; a union never to be severed.

Why do we in the church today seem to take marriage lightly? Perhaps because we don't see the union, the covenant of marriage in the light of it's ontological basis; and don't take seriously enough the gravity of preserving what God has established and blessed.

Sight Unseen?

"Some Things You Can't Unsee"

Such was the tag-line for a recent movie just released in theatres.  It caused me to think again on an ever-present reality for contemporary American society; that of audio-visual exposure.  It is undeniable that media overload is a daily ritual for many around the world.  From cel phones capable of everything from making calls to downloading text, music and video via mobile internet connection to thinner, lighter and more highly defined television screens in almost every establishment it seems that whereas in years past the struggle was to "find a signal",  these days to remove yourself from media is the real coup de etat.  So, in the current culture of media immersion, does this statement really mean anything?  Further, as this site is dedicated to Biblical Christians thinking about current topics, what are the implications, if any for the believer?

Visual Assault

I'm not a history "buff", but my grandfather was well versed in military strategy as he was an Army man and lost several brothers in war.  I remember him telling me of some of the exploits of Patton and MacArthur in particular.  So, while no expert by any means, I am aware that from minor skirmishes to full campaigns there are numerous methods of assault.  One of the most effective that comes to my memory is where a group of soldiers was extended too far, and their enemy gained their flank and successfully cut off their supply lines.  They were soon overtaken due to a lack of those munitions necessary to wage war on their opponent.

Malcolm Muggeridge wrote what I believe to be the masterpiece on media for Christians in his Christ and the Media.  I'll refer to his work often throughout this post and strongly recommend it to all who read, not just for the content specific to the topic, but also as an example of great writing style which is not present here.  In his first lecture, Muggeridge writes:

"The prevailing impression I have come to have of the contemporary scene is of an ever-widening chasm between the fantasy in terms of which the media induce us to live, and the reality of our existence as made in the image of God, as sojourners in time whose true habitat is eternity.  The fantasy is all-encompassing; awareness of reality requires the seeing eye which comes to those born again in Christ."  (p. 30, first full paragraph)

Interesting language that, media induced fantasy versus Godly reality.  In the example of military strategy one could say that humankind has been enticed by media to move ever farther from reality, and being so estranged from its moors is ripe to have the supply line of truth cut off.  Ultimately that is what is at stake, truth.  There are several terms to describe truth as the accurate description of reality (correspondence theory, et. al.).  As the propagator and distributor of fantasy, it is only logical that the more engrossed we become in the world of the fantastic the more the mere notion of reality is bludgeoned by the blunt instrument of media until truth has been beaten to death.  Is that language too harsh?  Is all this just an overreaction?  Consider a contemporary example in the fictional Bourne series.  Many read the books in sequence and enjoyed the stories, following the character through memory loss, a gradual discovery of who he really was and ultimately living on his own terms again deciding who he would be.  Then came the movie trilogy.  Who, after having seen the movies could thereafter ever read the books and see the name Jason Bourne without seeing with their mind's eye the actor who portrayed the character on the big screen?  Could this be anything short of a violation of the imagination, anything less than the foisting of an image onto the mind of the reader, ultimately not providing a tacid and temporary sensory experience but instead a deliberate and permanent shackling of thought?  It's even worse than thought at first blush.  Not only is the reader no longer able to exercise the freedom of imagining any figure he wishes through the course of the book, but the image that has been seared into his mind is not even the actor as he exists in reality but only a fantastic caricature.  Reality is replaced with artificial appearance through stylists and make-up artists; classes in martial arts and foreign languages project an expertise in physical and linguistic areas that quickly fade following the final day on set; choreographed chases in various vehicles with the use of stunt doubles, quick shots from many camera angles and carefully planned scripts portray genuine acumen in driving and wit; all this to form a single image that is completely true neither of the character viewed in the writer's mind nor tethered to the reality of the actor.  Complete fantasy that sweeps the viewers away, luring them further and further into the world of make believe until they no longer want to live in this dreary world of reality, but would rather remain in a field of the fantastic.

So we see the chasm of which Muggeridge spoke, the all-encompassing fantasy of which he warned.  But what of the seeing eye that allowed some to remain aware of the real world, that vision that comes to those born of Christ keeping them fixed close to their line of supply?  Was it not William Blake who said,

"This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye"

As Ravi Zacharias so eloquently stated, "We were created to see through the eye with the conscience, we are living now in a world where we see with the eye, devoid of a conscience." (my paraphrase).  With the introduction of computer aided graphics, high definition cameras and three-dimensional graphics we are fast approaching the day in which human actors are no longer needed for film or voice.  Many times animals, species, even cultures die out through various circumstances, but we may be witnessing the unfolding before us the extinction of the human actor and for the first time the creature being annihilated is applauding his own demise.  Such is the fate of the one engulfed in fantasy, reduced to seeing with the eye, not through it, and imprisoned by the replacement of free, independent, rational, real, true thought and imagination with forced, lock-step, irrational, fantastic, disingenuous regurgitation and replication.

Protecting the Flank

If it is common knowledge that one strategy in war is to move around an opponents flank and cut off his supply line, then a prominent feature of logistics in a campaign must be diligence and persistance in protecting one's flank.  In our case we must be ever cognizant of the maneauverings of our enemy.  On this point we must be clear, the battle is real and the truth is at stake.  In his second lecture, entitled The Dead Sea Video Tapes, Muggeridge again gets to the heart of the issue and provides a salient and striking description of the necessity of being persistant in maintaining our watch:

"Good and evil, after all, provide the basic theme of the drama of our moral existence, and in this sense may be compared with the positive and negative points which generate  an electric current; transpose the points, and the current fails, the lights go out, darkness falls, and all is confusion.  So it is with us.  The transposition of good and evil in the world of fantasy created by the media leaves us with no sense of any moral order in the universe, and without this, no order whatsoever, social, political, economic or any other, is ultimately attainable.  There is only chaos." (p.46 paragraph 4)

Should we become so entranced by the visual effects and imagery before us, we run the risk of being swallowed up by the ideas of "good guys" wearing black and "saving the day" through murderous revenge; of the interchangability of loathsome characters and supposed innocents through surprising situations; of the overpowering feelings of yearning for the termination of all "happy endings" as they have been done to many times and no longer has any appeal.  Is it possible that through certain script maneauvers, camera angles and choreographed facial expressions and childhood flashbacks a group of filmmakers might convince an audience that they should feel sorry for the villian and actually desire to see him get off scot free? 

In his second lecture, Muggeridge examines the troubling question of what archeologists might say years from now when looking back on the video evidence left behind.  He writes:

"What, may we wonder, would the archeologists make of us?  Materially so rich and so powerful, spirtually so impoverished and so rear-ridden, having made such remarkable inroads into discovering the secrets of nature and into unravelling the mechanisms of our material environment, beginning to explore, and perhaps to colonise, the universe itself, developing the means to produce in more or less unlimited quantities everything we could possibly need or desire, to transmit swifter than light every thought, smile or word that could possibly entertain, instruct or delight us, desposing of treasure beyond calculation, opening up possibilities beyond envisaging, yet seemingly haunted by a panic fear of becoming too numerous, to the point that there would be no room on earth for its inhabitants and an insufficiency of food to sustain them...Never, the archeologists will surely conclude, was any generation of men, ostensibly intent upon the pursuit of happiness and plenty, more advantageously placed to attain it, who yet, with apparent deliberation, took the opposite course, towards chaos, not order, towards breakdown, not stability, towards death, destruction, and darkness, not life, creativity and light.  An ascent that ran downhill, plenty that turned into a wasteland, a cornucopia folded.  This, as it seems to me, cannot but be the archeologists' general conclusion from the material available to them."  (pp. 53,54)

and more pointedly,

"The archeologists will surely marvel at the high hopes placed in this educative process, seemingly regarded in the society under examination as a panacea for all ills, material, mental and spiritual; at the proliferating campuses, the ever-multiplying professors and teachers instructing more and more students in more and more subjects; at the vast sums of public money expended, and at how the pundits of the classrooms and lecture theatres were held in the highest esteem, to the point of being invited to hold forth in the television and radio studios, and even to participate in government at the highest levels.  More books published, plays produced, building erected in a matter of decades than heretofore in the whole of recorded time; the scene set for the greatest cultural explosion of history, a Venice or a Florence on a continental scale.  And the result?  Instead of sages, philosopher-kings and saints, pop stars, psychiatrists and gurus.  Looking for a Leonardo da Vinci or a Shakespeare, the archeologists find only a Rolling Stone.
     Surveying and weighing up the whole scene, then, will not their final conclusion be that Western man decided to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought down the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, having convinced himself that he was too numerous, laboring with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer, until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over, a weary battered old Brontosaurus, and became extinct?"  (pp. 57,58)

I wonder again if many will read these lines and think to themselves, "what a gross exaggeration, we're not going extinct we're making progress, changing all the time."  I wonder if maybe we have been fooled of late that any change is good simply for the fact that something has changed, never questioning if the thing proposed to be changed ever really needed to be changed in the first place, never imagining that there might be such a thing as a detrimental change, a change for the worse.  Could it be an exaggeration, all this talk of doom and gloom coming from something so innocuous as a television set?  I mean, we're only talking about amusement, right?

To this point my only examples have purposefully been fictional in nature.  Consider now things like the news, and historical accounts in documentaries and film.  Expectations from viewing audiences are that the anchor men and women are delivering factual accounts of events that transpired during the day or in the near past.  Have we stopped to really think about what is going on during that broadcast?  First the anchor people.  It is hard to believe those we see on the newscast every evening could possibly be the same people we see on the street because of the time spent in makeup before the lights come on; because of the contrived seating, standing, and change of set design throughout the broadcast; and because of the teleprompted recounting of the days events and forced banter one wonders what a real discussion with those personalities might be like in real life.  Take next the reports.  Investigations and interviews taking hours of communication and discussion with the people involved, some having just experienced horrific or disastrous circumstances; only to produce and edit the whole of the event down to a thirty second clip of a victim becoming emotional upon recounting the nearly avoided tragedy only to be cut off by the impending advertisement; where the most time and effort recounted in the exchange took place in the alignment of the camera so the interview could take place with wreckage and flashing lights in the background.  Take the documentaries and historical movies.  Is there any greater contrivance than the disclaimer below many of these features, "Based on a true story" and "Re-enactment of actual events".  Is it possible we have come to the point where such language causes us to proceed unquestioning to the belief that the people dressed up in different clothes, moving around an open stage built on a set of varying complexity and interacting with others whose responsibility it is to deliver a set of contrived lines in an effort to evoke a passionate response "just like in real life".  It seems that experience would have shown by now that the words "Based on a true story" are a rather transparent code for "Has no bearing on reality whatsoever".  The same can be said without any further comment on those convoluded productions called "reality shows". 

Perhaps the most egregious and damning of all the network attempts to be relavent while still providing a platform of change, intrigue and entertainment occurs, ironically enough, during times of greatest catastrophy and struggle.  I speak of course of the theme music.  I remember hearing it first during the Gulf War.  Each network assigned their specific theme music whenever an update would come up to report everything from advancements of troops, new decisions being made to execute the war effort and the announcement of more soldiers killed in the line of duty.  These periods of theme music and updates with multiple windows of pictures all appearing at the same time on the screen left a bitter taste in my mouth then that lingers to this day.

Engaging the Enemy

Now we come to the point where the wound has been opened and laid bare.  We have examined, at perhaps too great a length, the dangers associated with being drawn in to a world of complete fantasy where morality is transposed such that good and evil are interchangable commodities to be manipulated on a whim.  The question becomes what do we do about it?  As happens many times in battle, the enemies numbers seem to great and ours too small; we seem to have no recourse, no solid ground on which to stand no way to even hold our own amidst such a brutal onslaught.  What elixer is available to cure those feelings, to what bulwark can we run that will provide shelter from the attacks of the enemy, what will keep us from falling victim to such a criss-cross of morality?  Muggeridge again:

"To break out of the fantasy, to rediscover the reality of good and evil, and therefore the order which informs all creation - this is the freedom that the Incarnation made available, that the Saints have celebrated and that the Holy Spirit has sanctified."  (pp. 46,47)

and later in a summary list and subsequent statement:

"1.  Seek endlesly for God and for his hand in all creation...So, looking, we find him, finding him, we love him, and realise that in every great word ever spoken or written we hear his voice...

2.  Live abstemiously.  Living otherwise - what Pascal calls 'licking the earth' - imprisons us in a tiny dark dungeon of the ego, and involves us in the pitiless servitude of the senses.

3.  Love and consider all men and women as brothers and sisters, caring for them exactly as we should for Jesus himself if we had the inexpressible honour of ministering to him.

4.  Read the Bible and related literature...These are the literature of the Kingdom proclaimed in the New Testament; words which became flesh and have dwelt among us, full of grace and truth...

5.  Know Jesus Christ and follow his Way, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, withersoever it may lead...

...it is precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting, when every possibility of help from earthly sources has been sought and is not forthcoming, when every recourse of this world offers, moral as well as material, has been explored to no effect, when in the shivering cold the last faggot has been thrown on the fire and in the gathering darkness every glimmer of light has finally flickered out - it is then that Christ's hand reaches out, sure, and firm, that Christ's words bring their inexpressible comfort, that his light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness for ever.  So, finding in everything only deception and nothingness, the soul is contrained to have recourse to God himself and to rest content with him."  (pp. 76,77)

And what do we do with the knowledge that the trailer from the movie is patently false in its statement that some things cannot be unseen?  When in fact once seen, nothing can be unseen, and moreover imprisons the mind?  Some may choose to remove the televisions from their home, vowing never again to set eyes on the screen regardless the material.  To him I would say that I understand, respect the decision and wish him well.  Some may choose to turn away from the truth, to remain indignant and continue to proclaim "it's just harmless TV" and continue to imbibe with impunity.  For him I lament and pray with the knowledge that the Holy Spirit can bring reality to bear on even one so steeped in the fantastic.  Some may understand the situation completely, continue to watch with discernment in a very limited fashion, to read more than watch, to think about ramifications and entailments even during what is sold as amusement (to deliberately cease to think).  To him I would say may God bless and protect and find a partner for accountability as temptation will come your way early and often.

I close with Muggeridge once more:

"What a Christian can do in whatever part of media he may be working, whatever his lot may be cast, is to continue to be a Christian.  Thereby, he may not be able to change the appreciably; they have their own conditions and circumstances.  Inside the media, however, he can and should sustain his Christian witness.  He may find this very hard, very hard indeed, because of the incompatibility between God and Mammon - in this case, between Christ and the media.  We are told to make our light shine before men.  That is our Christian duty; the results are God's concern, not ours." (p.83)

What's Wrong With People Anyway?

In the wake of recent reports of vandalism of a state landmark and theft of memorial tributes of a veteran killed in Afghanistan, an editorial writer asked in paraphrase, "What's wrong with people?" The editorial was entitled "The age-old question", and rightfully stated that the events should cause us all to "pause, reflect and pose" that same philosophical question that has been pondered for ages. So how would we, here in 2010, answer that age-old question? What is wrong with people?
Perhaps some might try to answer in the most obvious way, that these perpetrators broke current laws. Laws on the books currently prohibit graffiti at landmark sites and defacement of gravesites, so what was wrong with those people is that they broke the law. This line of thinking falls short for a number of reasons. Firstly, while it is true the individuals broke the law, this doesn't address motivation, or the reasons for the behavior, so it doesn't really address what is wrong with the person simply whether the action was acceptable or not. Secondly, we would be remiss to raise up as a standard for behavior the current law code because laws are passed by people and are subject to change. What if one day those responsible for passing laws decided defacing public property was no longer against the law. Would that make the actions of these individuals acceptable? There must be something behind the law, something that guides the lawmakers in determining which actions are right or wrong.
Perhaps another might go to personal history, search through the life history of the individuals in question and respond that although they did break the law it was because they were under great stress or pressure from life's circumstances and were pushed into taking such drastic action that most would find deplorable. Again, this sounds reasonable on the surface, and it does go beyond just current laws to attempt to address the motivation behind the action but it doesn't go far enough. Are actions excusable, or right, if a previous wrong has been done? Would a person be exonerated of the charge of robbing a bank if it was discovered he/she had been verbally abused as a child? Would a drunk driver that killed a family of four be set free if it is discovered that he/she was physically abused and that abuse drove them to alcohol? There is an equally old adage that two wrongs don't make a right, which means we all have at least a tacit understanding that some measure of self-control is expected of all people to refrain from harming others in spite of harm that might have been done us.
Perhaps one might try to apply contemporary philosophical arguments of relativity and subjective truth. That something may be right for you but wrong for me. If that were the case then the answer is quite simple, nothing is wrong with anyone. What the individuals who defaced the natural monument and stole the memorials of a fallen soldier where simply doing what was right for them. What they did wasn't wrong at all, it just wasn't accepted by the majority of people. They may go to jail because they didn't agree with the majority, but they didn't do anything wrong. This line of thinking is plainly unlivable.
It seems every explanation we try to come up with falls short in some way and it seems we'll have to give up on finding an answer. Perhaps before we give up we should look at a truth that is older than the question itself. According to the Bible, all men and women have thoughts, attitudes and motivations that are wrong. Genesis 6:5 tells us that man's heart is inclined to wickedness all the time. Psalm 14 says that there are none who seek to do good, that all are corrupt. Hebrews 4:12-13 tells us that God exposes, and is concerned with the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. So we see that intent is prior to content, and the intentions of man are wrong by nature. If that is the case, then perhaps the one who defaced the natural monument may have been motivated by anger; perhaps the one who stole the veteran's memorial was motivated by greed; perhaps even as I write this article in an attempt to help give some meaningful answers to this difficult question, pride tries to creep in so that I have feelings that it be published not so much that others might be helped, but so that my work will be seen by many people in the community.
If that were the end of the story, we would have to lament our very existence and resign ourselves to a life of being perpetually wrongheaded. However, Galatians 5 lets us know that we can be freed from this curse of being wrong by nature and instead have a new desire for thoughts and attitudes of things like love, joy, peace and self-control.

 Consider Saul of Tarsus from the 1st century A.D. A vehement persecutor of the Jewish people; brutal and uncaring of an entire race of people; “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9:1); giving approval to the murder by stoning of Stephen where the martyr’s clothes were laid at his feet. A man capable of such things was to become the most prolific writer of the New Testament and a missionary to most of the known world of his day.


Consider Manuel Noriega from the 20th century. A Panamanian general and commander of the National Guard; involved in gun smuggling, money laundering, torture and murder; putting his own people under his thumb after an uprising demanding his removal from office by suspending constitutional rights, closing national media outlets and driving into exile those who opposed him politically. A man sentenced to 40 years in prison after being extradited and found guilty, only to stand up to stop a prisoner revolt and exhibit behavior that a guard would comment, “I haven’t seen any dedication or seriousness greater than his.”
What was responsible for the transformation of men like Saul of Tarsus and Manuel Noriega? Being blinded and hearing the voice of the Lord transformed Saul persecutor of Christians into Paul apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Manuel Noriega in his own words stated, “He [Jesus] is the Son of God, who died on the cross for our sins, who arose from the grave and is at the right hand of God the Father and who above all things He is my Savior, and has mercy on me, a sinner."
Many years ago, the question “What’s wrong with England” was asked. Famed author and theologian G.K. Chesterton very simply replied, "I am." We are what is wrong, each one of us. We are selfish, greedy and prideful. Jesus told many parables and spoke once of two kinds of trees, those that bore good fruit and those that bore bad fruit. The good trees do not bear bad fruit, the bad trees do not bear good fruit and each tree is known by the fruit it bears. When we look at the things we do, and the thoughts and motivations behind those actions, it is clear to which group of trees we belong. There is something, however, that can change us from the inside out. If we are only willing to accept the truth and live not for ourselves and our natural desires but for the glory of the Lord then He will change our heart, our thoughts and our attitudes to that which is right. The nature of man is what is wrong with people and transformation is all that will set him right.

Some Things Just Make Me Laugh

So i'm riding down the highway yesterday and an SUV swerves over in front of the vehicle i'm riding in at the last minute.  We were coming up on a lane merger due to road construction and apparently there was much to be gained by risking an accident to be one spot closer to the end of a line of gridlocked vehicles.  Since we are just sitting there, and i'm doing some serious thinking about some blog comments and discussion i'm having at another site, I take a minute and focus on the back windshield of said SUV.  At that point I first noticed that some text was present.  I like to read and think so I focus on some Gothic-type lettering of about 16 point size that read "2 Fast 4 U, See Ya!"

I immediately began to laugh, and laughed harder the more I thought about it.  The driver was sitting in gridlock.  For at least 5 full minutes of waiting for what must have been at least 8 traffic light cycles, i'm staring at this statement that the vehicle ahead of me is too fast for me and he/she will see me later.  In fact, the text was so small from the standpoint of driving perspective, and in such an unorthodox lettering that it took a good bit of time to clearly decipher the message.  The fact that I had more than enough time to read the driver's statement that he/she was too fast for me was enough to bring up another round of laughter.  In fact, the only situation in which I could think the message would even be applicable would be on the interstate where he/she would be passing people at a decent clip.  In that situation, in the only situation that would even warrant having that lettering on the back of the vehicle, no one could even read the message.  I just kept thinking to myself, the only way the message makes sense is if no one is able to read it.

I'm not going to take the time to make some grand statement about logic and taking two minutes to engage the brain to think about the possible ramifications of actions, but instead just let it go.  In fact, i'm tempted to say that the message and the effort it took to produce it was a complete waste of time, but I did get a great laugh.

Thoughts on Parent Led, Home Based Discipleship

Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday my wife and I attended the 26th annual North Carolina Home Education Conference.  We currently have four children, the oldest of which will be 7 this year.  We have schooled him at home for the last two years and have committed to home educate all our children.  The conference this year was as informative and productive as ever and we were able to pick up all our curriculum materials for the year and hear some great presentations along the way.  I was able to listen to two talks given by Dr. Brian Ray, who has eight children (7 daughters and one son) and works for the National Home Education Research Institute in Salem, Oregon.  His talks were great, in that they allowed me to think all over again the fundamental reasons why my wife and I decided to home educate our children and some of the philosophical issues that are at the crux of any discussion on the education of children in this country.  I feel compelled to put these ideas in writing and lay out a rudamentary argument for home education, as well as present some of the challenging positions and get to the heart of the matter.

Very briefly, statistics show that on average home educated students perform above average in comparison with public school students.  Research results done by Dr. Ray can be found here (Research Facts on Homeschooling) but some of the statistics that immediately impress are as follows:

The home-educated typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests. (The public school average is the 50th percentile; scores range from 1 to 99.)

Homeschool students score above average on achievement tests regardless of their parents’ level of formal education or their family’s household income.

Home-educated students typically score above average on the SAT and ACT tests that colleges consider for admissions.

(All these above italicized results copied directly from Dr. Ray's site as linked to above.  Please visit the link or http://www.nheri.org/ for more content)

Beside just the statistical justification for the effectiveness of home education, there is also a fundamental philosophical thread woven throughout the issue of children's education.  Throughout one of Dr. Ray's talks (entitled Academic Elite Angst Over Home Education: Attacking Homeschooling Without Basis) I was struck by the common theme in the myriad quotes that were presented in peer-reviewed papers of those in acedemia who shape education policy.  That theme is authority and responsibility.  In question form, it would be presented as: "Who is responsible for educating children?"  Now this might seem like a simple question, but many different areas of thought are brought in.  It is clear from the discussion presented here that those who strongly advocate public education feel that those who have spent their lives at University in the education field, developing curriculum and textbooks, and are directly involved in setting educational standards (or the Academic Elite as Dr. Ray described) have the responsibility to educate children by the authority vested in them by the state.  This position begs the questions; Where are the parents of the children in this discussion, and Who gave the state the authority to make the Academic Elite responsible?

Removal of the parents from the decision-making process for their own children's education is a serious mistake in fundamental thinking.  It is true that for decades, the feeling has been growing until now the default position by many parents is "I don't have a degree in education, so I don't know how to teach my children," or "I can teach my children how to tie their shoes, but i've got to leave the bookwork to the professionals."  That attitude didn't arise overnight.  It has become commonplace today, to the point that even before children are born the assumption is they will have to go to someone else for their education.  Social issues behind this attitude are many, but again the main problem is that parents do not feel qualified, and attempt to either remove themselves or allow themselves to be removed from a position of responsibility and authority with regard to their children's education.  Now, of course the two word question arises, "So what?"

As it turns out, the "So what" question is a critical one.  Children are human beings, born to parents.  What document, provision, stipulation, law, code or ruling puts the state in charge of those people?  Quite simply there is none.  There is no document in this country that states that municipal, state or national agencies have the authority or responibility to dictate to parents what they must do with their children (except in cases of neglect or abuse).  So-called Academic Elites do not stand on a position of authority, but on one of philosophical force.  The underlying position is one of an egalitarianism of ideas and an elitism of people.  Put another way, they feel that all ideas are equally true but that one person (or group of people) decide which idea is best and which everyone else should adopt.  That position is fundamentally flawed, not only because all ideas are obviously not equally true because the law of non-contradiction holds, but also because we don't live in a nation founded on the principle of might makes right.

What the nation was founded on was a philosophy of an elitism of ideas and an egalitarianism of people.  Put another way, one idea is true (namely the Judeo-Christian or Biblical Christian position) and all people are created equal.  In his Civil Authority and the Bible, Harold O.J. Brown states the following:

"When we speak of church and state, it is important to recognize that as far as institutions go, the earliest and primary human social institution, or rather social structure, is the family...Examples of simple governmental institutions do exist in the Hebrew Scriptures, but the duties of the individual toward civil government are not spelled out as they are, at least in principle, in the New Testament.  Perhaps the explanation is the fact that from the age of the patriarchs to the Exile, authority remained primarily personal and familial.  In the early chapters of the Bible, family, society, and congregation are interwoven.  Religious leaders are civil leaders: Moses himself is the prime example.  Both the family and the church antedate the state."

Not that last line carefully one more time.  Both the family and the church antedate the state.  The family was established by God before the state, authority for children was given by God to parents for their children, prior to the establishment of institutions.  We see clearly from scripture that people and interpersonal relationships preceed institutions, governments and the like.  This point is expounded further by Herbert W. Titus in his God's Revelation: Foundation for the Common Law where he states:

"Rightfully understood, Genesis 1:28 along with Genesis 1:26 is a grant of authority, not a conveyance of title...The grant of authority in Genesis 1:28 is not to humankind in general, but to humankind through the family unit...In short, God selected the family as the primary economic unit of society-not the individual, not the state, not the corporation, and not the church.  The common law was designed to foster and protect the family, not only through rules protecting private-property ownership and facilitating its voluntary transfer but also through criminal sanctions prohibiting adultery, fornication, sodomy and bigamy.  Since the Darwinian revolution, however, this understanding of common law has deteriorated."

The movement of which my family is a part is commonly referred to as homeschooling.  Dr. Ray, however turned a phrase that I found much more apt and descriptive of the choice my wife and I have made: Parent-Led, Home-Based Discipleship.  We base our position on our children's education on the same foundation as in all other choices in our lives, on the Word of God.  God established the family as the primary human institution and we should fight to preserve the family, not promote the removal of parents from making decisions relative to their own children.

Before closing, let me be quick to say that I am not anti-education, anti-public school, or anti-academia.  I'm not arguing that education is bad, or that a good parent will choose to prevent their children from receiving an education.  I believe we are to love God with all our mind and that parents have to be good stewards in developing the minds of their children and help them become good thinkers.  My central point is on what I believe to be the hinge on which the argument swings; namely that the authority and responsibility for children's education belongs to the parents, not to the state.  Parents may choose public schools, private schools, parochial schools, charter schools, usage of any available voucher system, homeschool or other.

Sociologically, children function better with the active involvement and support of their family.  Research statistics show that homeschool children, on average, perform above average in academic measures.  Philosophically an elitism of ideas and an egalitarianism of people is the only tenable and non-contradictory position.  Biblically, the family is the primary human institution and Parent-Led, Home-Based Discipleship should always be preserved and supported as parents do their best under God to train up their children in the way they should go.

As a final aside, let me say how proud I am of the state of North Carolina for supporting home education, and the North Carolinians for Home Education organization for their encouragement, support and recognition of home educators in our state.

A ger Of An Issue - or - A Suggested Christian Approach to Immigration at the Southern US Border

Immigration in general, and the newly passed state law in Arizona in particular, has raised a great deal of debate (and I use the term as loosely as possible for most media outlets) surrounding the United States and immigration.  I've been thinking about this issue for a long time (over a year to date) and I would respectfully submit my thoughts and a proposal.  One word of note to begin, and that is that my address is specifically pointed to followers of Christ.  My hope in all my thinking is to bring together the biblical consideration that followers of Christ should give to any topic, some ancillary but related issues and contemporary cultural ideas that tend to cloud the issue.  With that as a backdrop, I begin with what I believe to be the requisite initial definition.

A Christian position on immigration must be based on biblical truth.  A quick perusal of just the Old Testament reveals a good portion of scripture dealing with the issue, and it is incumbent upon us as believers who understand the Bible as the inspired Word of God to investigate the terms so we can have a well founded understanding of what is intended and not just force a personal interpretation on the text.  gwr is the hebrew root for the words used in the Old Testament to speak on the topic.  Here I am going to include a significant excerpt of John T. Willis' translation, edited by Botterweck and Ringgren from the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament by William B. Eerdman's Publishing Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan, pages 439 to 449.  Any mistakes, typographical or otherwise are mine.

"Hebrew lexicography reckons with several roots of gwr.  In connection with an investigation of the root gwr I, 'to tarry as a sojourner,' the important question is whether gwr II=subordinate form of grh, 'to attack, strive,' and gwr III=subordinate form of ygr, 'to be afraid,' are independent homonymous roots, or whether possibly an original connection can be established between these roots, so that the various meanings represent special meanings of the same root...

...gwr I occurs in the qal 81 times...the subst. ger occurs 92 times...meghurim means 'sojourning' and occurs 11 times...

...In the OT, the ger occupies an intermediate position between a native ('ezrach) and a foreigner (nokhri').  He lives among people who are not his blood relatives, and thus he lacks the protection and the privileges which usually come from blood relationship and place of birth.    His status and privileges are dependent on the hospitality that has played an important role in the ancient Near East ever since ancient time.  In the early period of Israel, the legal position of the ger is comparable with that of the metics of Greece...However, under the sign of religious integration, the concept develops more and more toward the proselyte, the non-Israelite who becomes an adherent of the Yahweh faith...

...The reasons why someone becomes a ger, separates himself from his clan and his home, and places himself under the legal protection of another man or group of men, are varied.  The most frequent reason given in the OT is famine...Military encounters can also force people to lead the life of a ger...In addition, individual distress or bloodguilt can cause a person to seek protection and help among foreigners as a ger...

...As a rule, of course, the protected citizen could acquire no property, and thus was left to the legal protection of the fully enfranchised citizen...

...when the ger is mentioned in connection with the treatment of the quality of sacrifice in Lev. 22:17-33, and when Nu. 15 in supplements to the regulations concerning sacrifice (Nu. 15:14, 15 [twice], 16, 26, 29, 30) explicitly states that the ger has the same rights as the native, and that the expiatory power of the sin-offering is also given to the ger who lives in the midst of the whole community of the Israelites, again it is quite clear that in late strata of P (the Pentateuch) the ger is the fully integrated proselyte.  Therefore, in this portion of P one should regard all laws as also applicable to the ger, even if he is not explicitly mentioned.  And this means that the ger has his place in the community as a proselyte by circumcision and mode of life...

...The Israelites are commanded to treat the protected citizen kindly (Dt. 10:19; cf. Ex. 22:20 [21]; 23:9), because they know what it is to be a ger (nephesh hagger, 'the soul [heart] of a stranger'), they have the responsibility of extending the law of loving their neighbor as themselves (Lev. 19:18) to the ger...The idea that man simply lives the life of a ger here on earth if of special significance.  Thus, the psalmist knows that he is only a ger, 'guest' and a toshabh, 'sojourner', before Yahweh, like all his fathers...Yahweh alone is owner of the land, and thus they can only be hereditary tenants of his possesion...The distress of earthly existence leads to the recognition that God must support and help man like a patron, or else man will be lost."

End extended excerpt

There are several ideas that come to the front of my thinking.  First, the biblical understanding of the sojourner was that there was a significant impetous occuring in someone's native land that would drive them away (drought, famine, military action, bloodguilt, etc.).  The implication here is that people are not just milling about for no reason, wandering to and fro, but rather something is driving them to leave the protection and privilages afforded him in his native land.  They are placing themselves at the mercy of their hosts.  Second, there was an expectation of assimilation into the culture and the beliefs, the term proselyte is used.  The implication here is that all the laws of the land are expected to be followed and although the guest is protected and allowed to live securely, obtain private possessions, hire others to work for him, etc. there is the understanding of full assimilation into the culture.  Third, respectful treatment is required by the native in the land.  It is critically important to remember the position of mankind as a "hereditary tenant" of God's possession; such that caring for visitors is as part of good stewardship.

Now to bring in the related legal issues.  I'll be brief here because this portion could be an entire post on its own.  Governments and laws are established by God and are limited in power by God.  As Harold O.J. Brown says in his article Civil Authority and the Bible, "The first of these limits if quite clearly expressed in Scripture and is universally accepted by Christians and, to some extent, even respected by the civil laws of secular states: We may not do that which God's law prohibits, even when the secular authority commands it (Dan. 3:4-6), and we must do what God's law requires, even when secular (or religious) authorities prohibit it (Dan. 6:7-12; Acts 4:18; 5:28)."  Further, R.C. Sproul in his article The Biblical View of Submission of Constituted Authority states, "The apostles were driven to continue their ministry by an overarching ethical imperative.  What words they couched in a gossamer veil of the rhetorical in Acts 4, the proclaimed "without horns" in chapter 5: "We ought to obey God rather than men" (v. 29).  This ethical imperative, resting on an obligatory oughtness, is structured in a comparative form.  The operative word in the comparison is 'rather.'  It is not a universal license for revolt against all human authority...The 'rather' comes into play only when there is a conflict between the lesser and the greater magistrate.  The principle is always and ever prior obligation to the higher authority...The'governing authorities' can also be rendered 'higher powers.'  The powers or authorites (exousia) in view are not restricted to the supreme office of king or emporer but are applied to anyone who is in authority over us.  In 1 Peter 2:13 reference is made to the king who is supreme, but in this text no single class of magistrates is compared with another.  Our obligation is submission to all who hold magisterial authority over us.  There are encompassed by the word higher (hoperechon)."

And now to my recommendation, which is based on a more complete study of the full texts of the documents refrenced above and others and which I hope will be seen to be a balanced biblical approach for followers of Christ.  It seems to me that we need to incorporate the ideas of treating visitors well (as we understand even ourselves to be only caretakers of God's property), proselytizing and submitting to authority.  It would not be biblical or Godly to say everyone should just stay out and leave us alone because this is OUR country.  It would also not seem to be biblical or Godly to ignore the status of the soul of whoever comes in and out of the nation.  It would also not be biblical or Godly to say ignore the law and let everyone come in without a second thought.  My position, after careful consideration, which I consider to be a balanced biblical view of the issue, is that Christians in this country should endeavor to minister in the border areas where those to our South are entering the country.  At first thought, the ministry would be some combination of providing food, clothing, shelter for those wishing to enter the US while also explaining the current laws relative to immigration, helping to complete and submit the proper documentation for legal entry into the country, begin offering some basic English language to aide in assimilation into US culture, sharing the gospel and possibly even help in placement for employment and/or location once the legal documents for lawful entry have been received.

This seems to me to be a proper Christian respone to the issue.  It remains true to helping those in need and treating all people with dignity and respect because they are created in God's image, to be true to the biblical principle of submitting to authority where it does not conflict with God's law, and to make disciples of all nations.  It also seems to me to be a very difficult and potentially dangerous road to take, but that should be seen as possibly the best evidence for its being a legitimate solution for Christians.  Those who are called to being on the front lines would most certainly be in physical danger, but would have a wide open mission field of not only those who genuinely seek refuge from a situation that is forcing them to flee the provision and protection of their own native land and put themselves at the mercy of another but also to those who would attempt to smuggle drugs into the US.  It would also be another opportunity for all Christians across the nation to contribute to mission work right here in the United States.

How Should We Then Insure

I must admit that my heart has been heavy the last few days.  I spent the two days before the House vote on the health care bill reading the reconcilliation and amendments package.  I spent the two days after the vote continuing to read and gaining as much clarity as I could to what has now been voted into law.  Yesterday and today I have been reading through my favorite blogs and listening to a variety of talk shows and reading the local paper for how people are reacting to the legislation and I find myself torn on how to respond.  I see that both sides of the argument have some legitimate concerns (where the people expressing their views on the legislation are legitimate in their arguments).

On the one side, people are concerned about how difficult it is for individuals to purchase health insurance for themselves or their families;  how it is difficult for small businesses to offer company-wide health plans for their employees because they cannot buy into the larger market plans; how pre-existing conditions and the current state of rising health care costs are a major area of concern for the general public.

On the other side, people are concerned about how liberty is being usurped by the legal requirement that individuals must purchase a product from a private entity; how small businesses are being required to provide company health plans under threat of fine or penalty; how the experience of history shows wide ranging social plans administered by the government have all ended up bankrupt and the economic factors suggest the plan is doomed to failure before it begins.

As one who has done his best to read and understand the bill as it currently stands, I believe in many areas there is not enough information to adequately argue one way or the other.  A few examples:

1) The contention has been made that if individuals like their current coverage they can keep it.  Opponents say the bill will make it impossible for individuals to afford to keep their current coverage whether they like it or not.  In the text of the bill, all health care coverage carried by individuals and offered by employers must be Qualified Health Benefit Plans (QHBP)s.  Specific coverage offered by a QHBP is to be stipulated by the Secretary who is appointed by the President upon passage.  So, really at this moment no one knows what even constitutes a QHBP.  Until that is determined, making any kind of determination about current plans must be held in abeyance.

2) The contention has been made that health care costs will decrease as a result of the enactment of the legislation, while opponents charge the bill will drive health care costs up and bankrupt the nation.  In the text of the bill, the rates and methods of determining the rates for health care plans, like the make-up of a QHBP is to be determined by the Secretary upon passage of the legislation.  So, again at this moment no one really knows whether nationwide health care costs will go up or down.

I realize that everyone can make an assumption as to what these unknowns might be and then project outcomes, but at this point it is simply unknown.  More important to me is the emotion that is present on both sides and what the Christian response should be (where responses will be honoring and glorifying to God).

I'm going to throw out some questions that have crossed my mind in the last few days and maybe some of you others who have read the legislation or are also seeking to give some really good answers can help me out.  I already know how i've answered these questions, but i'd like some additional input.

1) Is this whole health care and insurance topic a bi-product of the affluence of our society?

2) Is there a point at which a man can tell another man he must help his neighbor?  Does loving one's neighbor as oneself apply just to the follower of Christ or to everyone?  Does the United States' embrace of a secularized mindset have any bearing on this question, i.e. is the Church the only group who ought to love their neighbor as themselves?

3) Where do personal responsibility and accountability to God cross with the ideas of "general welfare"?  What I mean by this, is the founders of the nation continually used the phrase "by the dictates of his own conscience" for the governance of an individual's behavior, does that concept still stand today?

4) When we speak of insurance, at what point are we beginning to point people to the government or an agent instead of to Almighty God?  Put another way, when do we as a nation begin to see our days here on earth and those can provide temporally for our needs as those in whom we put our faith?

5) Is there a way for believers in Christ to be set apart as unique in this environment so that we will be seen as different and be curious as to how they can change to be more like us (which is to say more like Christ)?  In other words, what opportunities for witness and evangelism are available in this tumultuous time?

I appreciate any thoughts as I believe the issues are deeper than just the 90 seconds they are typically given on news and talk shows.  Thanks in advance for Godly wisdom and input. 

Of Science and Religion

I just finished a book by John Polkinghorne called Belief in God in an Age of Science.  I'm including some excerpts from the book here and some comments because of the rift between religion and science in contemporary culture.  I hear so often these days comments like "just leave science to the scientists" or "you religious wackos need to stay out of science".  We are tending today to become more and more specialized in particular areas of interest both academically and vocationally.  Combine that with a secular conciousness where religious ideas, institutions and interpretations have lost their social significance and it's easy to see why people would tend to see a human being able to seperate out science, metaphysicis, philosophy, religion, sociology, etc.  Each one compartmentalized and seperated so that one doesn't cross over and meddle into the affairs of the other.  The reality is that the disciplines do overlap and that point, among others, is brought out very well in this book.

First a word about Dr. Polkinhorne, and to do that i'll just quote from the back book jacket:

"John Polkinghorne, K.B.E., F.R.S., is past President and now Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, and Canon Theologian of Liverpool, England.  He is the winner of the 2002 Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities."

Dr. Polkinghorne is a theorhetical physicist, specializing in the area of quantum physics, and a comitted Christian.  He is no slouch when it comes to scientific matters and so his thoughts are well worth thinking about and should be given credance.  His position is summarized in the Preface to the book when he states: "This book presents a series of variations on a fundamental theme: if reality is generously and adequately construed, then knowledge will be seen to be one; if rationality is generously and adequately construed, then science and theology will be seen as partners in a common quest for understanding."  Personally, i've never seen science and religion at war with one another, or the thought that one must exist in distinction from another.  History has shown that scientific discovery has flourished in a general atmosphere of religion in general, and Christianity in particular, as those scientists set out to discover the wonders of God's creation.  Following is just a smattering of quotations from the book and some thoughts.

"The world is not full of items stamped 'made by God' - the Creator is more subtle than that - but there are two locations where general hints of the divine presence might be expected to be seen most clearly.  One is the vast cosmos itself, with its fifteen-billion-year-history of evolving development following the big bang.  The other is the 'thinking reed' of humanity, so insignificant in physical scale but, as Pascal said, superior to all the stars because it alone knows them and itself.  The universe and the means by which that universe has become marvellously self-aware - these are the centers of our enquiry.
     Those who work in fundamental physics encounter a world whose large-scale structure (as described by cosmology) and small-scale processes (as described by quantum theory) are alike characterised by a wonderful order that is expressible in concise and elegant mathematical terms...Attempts have been made to explain away this fact.  No one would deny, of course, that evolutionary necessity will have moulded our ability for thinking in ways that will ensure its adequacy for understanding the world around us, at least to the extent that is demanded for pressures for survival.  Yet our surplus intellectual capacity, enabling us to comprehend the microworld of quarks and gluons and the macroworld of big bang cosmology, is on such a scale that it beggars belief that this is simply a fortunate by-product of the struggle for life."

It is interesting to note that it is easy enough to say that things came to be through a process of chance and time, but when we press the issue of why things are exactly what they are do we find problems with the chance and time explanation.  Because of the multitude of things necessary to happen for things to be exactly what they are, the probabilites force an infinite number of universes and an infinite amount of time to come up with the chance happening of what we know to exist the way it does, and as Dr. Polkinghorne points out arranged such that it can be measured and expressed in understandable mathematical forms.  We know there has not been infinite time, nor an infinite set of universes so there must be some other explanation.

"I have said that I do not expect top-down agency to be just a conglomerative effect of a lot of little bits of bottom-up interactions (in the way that the temperature of a gas is the average of the individual kinetic energies of its molecules).  If holistic causality is present it must be there as a genuine novelty, and the structure of the relationships between the bits and pieces must be open enough to afford it room for manoeuvre.  In some sense there must be gaps in the bottom-up account which this top-down action fills in, but those gaps must be intrinsic and ontological in character and not just contingent ignorances of the details of the bottom-up process.  They must be 'really there' if they are to provide the causal joint for which we are looking.
     A popular site for such explorations has been the uncertainties of quantum events...The continuing perplexities about the quantum measurement problem remind us that we do not fully understand how the levels of the microworld and the macroworld interlock with each other...The way a chaotic system traverses its strange attractor seems a more promising model fors such open developments, and this has been the basis for my own suggestions.  We can consider the many different trajectories through the attractor's phase space (that is, the range of its future possible states) which all correspond to the total energy.  Their different forms are understood as arising from the effects of vanishingly small disturbances that nudge the system along one path or another, the diverging characters of these different paths corresponding to the chaotic system's extreme sensitivity to perturbations.
     It is this sensitivity that produces the intrinsic unpredictabilities.  In a critical realist re-interpretation of what is going on, these epistemological uncertainties become an ontological openness, permitting us to suppose that a new causal principle may play a role in bringing about future developments...Thus a realist reinterpretation of the espistemological unpredictabilities of chaotic systems leads to the hypothesis of an ontological openness within which new causal principles may be held to be operating which determine the pattern of future behavior and which are of an holistic character.  Here we see a glimmer of how it might be that we execute our willed intentions and how God exercises providential interaction with creation."

Fascinating stuff really.  Behavior at the quantum level is chaotic is unmeasureable, except as a range of possibilities of behavior (called phase range).  So there are many possible paths each with their own range of probability, this is the epistemological uncertainty.  What Dr. Polkinghorne is saying is that while being epistemologically uncertain provides an ontological openness so that what actually occurs (or put another way, which path in the set of possibilites is actually chosen) can be acted upon by a causal agent outside the system, namely God providing information to direct the process.

These matters are interesting to think about, because we are hit more and more with the advances in science pushing God out and making religion obsolete.  It seems the further down science is parsed, into the quantum realm, there is an uncertainty of what might happen coupled with an observation of what actually occurs.  Something must move things from the chaotic (or uncertain) to the actual (or real).  Because we are discussing acts at the quantum level the causal agent cannot be us, nor does it seem plausible to think it would be "Nature", as it were, as a non-thinking uncaring process for the simple fact that we are thinking moral beings.

I'll end this post with a final quotation from the book from some of the closing remarks:

"The arguments will continue, for deep metaphysical questions do not lend themselves to knock-down answering.  There is a reminiscence here of the medievel debates between the realists and nominalists.  Nevertheless, I believe there is a much more persuasive case for believing in the reality of the Mandelbrot set then in the reality of the Idea of a lion.  There is a realm of physical experience containing sticks and stones.  There is also a realm of mental experience containing the truths of mathematics.  These are not disjoint realms but they are parts of an interlinked complementary created reality, as our 'amphibious' experience as embodied thinking reeds testifies, and as is also witnessed to by the 'unreasonable effectiveness' of mathematical pattern as the clue to the structure of physical law.  I believe that mathematics provides a powerful - and for a scientist, readily accessible - encouragement to eschew physical reductionism and to embrace a generous view of the mental/material nature of reality."