Auschwitz and A Hatain Earthquake

Published on February 3rd, 2010.

Sixtyfive years ago last week, Auschwitz was liberated from the Nazis. At the New York Times, Samuel Pisar relates his experience as a concentration camp survivor.

Today, the last living survivors of the Holocaust are disappearing one by one. Soon, history will speak about Auschwitz with the impersonal voice of researchers and novelists at best, and at worst in the malevolent register of revisionists and falsifiers who call the Nazi Final Solution a myth. This process has already begun.

And it is why those of us who survived have a duty to transmit to humankind the memory of what we endured in body and soul, to tell our children that the fanaticism and violence that nearly destroyed our universe have the power to enflame theirs, too. The fury of the Haitian earthquake, which has taken more than 200,000 lives, teaches us how cruel nature can be to man. The Holocaust, which destroyed a people, teaches us that nature, even in its cruelest moments, is benign in comparison with man when he loses his moral compass and his reason.

It was not that a select group of people who had a capacity for genocide just happened to end up in the same place at the same time. This is what all humans are capable of. Pisar knows the human heart’s murderous capacity from experience. Read the rest of his story here.

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Lord of the Rings & the Truth about Ourselves, our World and Redemption

Published on January 4th, 2010.

For each of the first three years of our marriage, Kristi and I watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy. One year I believe we watched them straight through on a Sunday afternoon into the evening. After a three year break, we just completed our fourth viewing of this great story. This year, we had to break the first DVD up into two days. Showing our age?

An investment of nine hours in this decade’s most glorious film achievement is worth some reflection.

A truly great film that resonates with a wide audience and stands the test of time does so for a reason. Truly great stories speak to us in our situation as human beings, as those who live in a fallen world and as those who need a redeemer. Lord of the Rings does this.

Lord of the Rings is a story about us, as we are. We are capable of great good. We are capable of great evil. We are hungry for power, and at our worst we will trade any good to make it ours. I am always struck by how much of myself I find strewn about the film. Boromir’s lust for power, Theoden’s stubbornness, Faramir’s insecurity, Madril’s relationship destroying myopia. And though Gollum wasn’t of the race of men, his conflicted allegiances picture our own inner conflict with sin. Of course, our flaws are the easiest to see and they are cause for the most profitable reflection. Prideful as we are, there isn’t much use in looking for ourselves in the film’s heroes, though there are flickers of each of them in all of us.

Lord of the Rings also tells us a story about the world, as it is. There is no such place in the world as Middle Earth. There is no such place as Rohan. There are no Hobbits. There are no Elves. But there is a such thing here as good and evil, true and false, beautiful and ugly. The postmodern stories of our day love to confuse these lines. Good, after all, isn’t always truly and completely good. And bad usually has a story to tell about how it got that way.  If we are passive in our reading of many modern stories we can find ourselves justifying murder, infidelity and all manner of evil. But, like the world of Middle Earth, this world is under a grey curtain of rain. It is broken. The headlines on any given day speak to this. War. Murder. Pain. It’s everywhere and everyone is looking for a way out.

It’s not an altogether terrible thing for us to recognize that no one is all bad or all good. And it is true that most of the trouble in this world is more dynamic than a black and white telling of the story can do justice. But here, Lord of the Rings commits us to the good guys without glorifying them. And the Biblical story does the same. We can affirm human goodness and say that men are flawed in every way. We can affirm human sinfulness and the just wrath of God against that sin, and still have hope. The race of men and this race of men needs a redeemer, a savior, a ruler.

Finally, The Lord of the Rings tells a story about redemption, as it is. If we look for hard parallels between the redemptive themes in Lord of the Rings and the Biblical story of redemption in Christ, we will be frustrated. Some might think that the lack of a one to one correspondence between Christ and Frodo, for example, means that it is a mistake to make any connection at all. But there is no problem here. Lord the Rings doesn’t claim to be a telling of the gospel story. But we do see particular redemptive themes strung throughout the story.

The people of Middle Earth needed Frodo, a substitute to carry the burden of evil that they could not, and destroy that evil.  The people of Middle Earth needed Gandolf, a resurrected Lord, who defeats all his enemies according to his promises. And the people of Middle Earth need a returning king like Aragorn who will rule them, reign over them, and restore their fortunes.

Each of these victors get at something of what role Christ plays in God’s story of redemption revealed in Scripture. Christ is our Suffering Servant, he is our Resurrected Lord and he is our Returning King.

As the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are that community of people who recognize this Christ, who accept his substitutionary death for sin in our place, who trust his resurrection for the defeat of the enemy of death, and who submit happily and humbly to his righteous rule. Here, among these people, it is to be on earth as it is in heaven. So it is our prayer as the people of God. One day our King’s rule will be consummated, and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

There are other marvelous take aways. I appreciate the richness of male friendship that colors numerous relationships in the story. Genuine expressions of male partnership, camaraderie and even affection are natural and meaningful. With the changing landscape of sexual morality in our day, like gender relationships will grow increasingly complicated.

I also appreciate the unapologetic and pronounced distinctions of gender. Women are strong, but in a way that complements their femininity. They are beautiful and gentle. They are resourceful and supportive. Men are sensitive, but in a way that complements their masculinity. They are leaders and protectors. They are serious and valiant.

Finally, it’s just a good story told well. Jackson mastered his medium and we are all grateful for this work of art.

If it’s been over a year, watch it again. That’s a good way to spend the time that has been given to you.

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A Parable of Image Bearing in a Drunken 4 Year Old

Published on December 19th, 2009.

An Associated Press story from yesterday will not leave my mind.

Tennessee Tot Found Drunk, Wearing Dress.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (Dec. 17) — Tennessee investigators say a 4-year-old boy was found roaming his neighborhood in the night, drinking beer and wearing a little girl’s dress taken from under a neighbor’s Christmas tree.

The child’s mother, 21-year-old April Wright, tells WTVC-TV the boy “wants to go to jail because that’s where his daddy is.” Wright says she and the boy’s father are going though a divorce.

The boy, found outside his house in Chatanooga on Tuesday, was taken to a hospital and treated for alcohol consumption.

Sons image their fathers. They were born to do so. The natural impulse of sons to bear the image of their fathers heightens the seriousness and responsibility of fatherhood. Some of how we turn out is wiring. Much of how we turn out can be understood as the organic transmission of character and qualities from our parents. Adam was made in the image of God and so are we all (Gen. 1:27; 9:6). But Adam’s son Seth was also born in the image of his father, Adam (Gen. 5:3). And so we all are born in the image of our fathers.

But ours is a strange and a fallen world. Adam fell into sin, and that’s why we read a story like this today. It’s why this boy’s father is in prison. It’s why this boy’s mother and father are going through a divorce. It’s why this mother will raise this child alone. It’s why in doing what is quite natural – trying to be like daddy – this boy was found drunk in a dress in the street in the night.

Many children in similarly difficult family situations don’t end up where he did, when he did, doing what he was doing. But that doesn’t mean the fall out from absent fathers isn’t equally as tragic and destructive wherever else they aren’t found.

And so when we read an article like this, we should pray. We should pray for this four year old and his mother, and countless others wandering in the dark in a drunken stupor – actually or metaphorically – searching for the the presence and love of a father in a fallen world. That longing is, after all, where all of our longings and strange behaviors point. May they come to know their Heavenly Father so that they may say, with the Apostle Paul, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49).

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In California, “Huge Consumer Demand” for Chihuahuas

Published on December 11th, 2009.

That’s right.

Hollywood reflects culture. That’s true. But Hollywood certainly does influence culture.

One revealing, though not so alarming, example is a new demand for Chihuahuas in the state of California. However morally insignificant the consequences, they are interesting.

The Associated Press reports,

California has more Chihuahuas than it can handle, and it has Hollywood to blame.

There are so many Chihuahuas at shelters in Oakland, they have started shipping the dogs out of state, said Megan Webb, director of Oakland Animal Services. They have sent about 100 to Washington, Oregon and Arizona, she said, “and as soon as they get them, they are ready for new ones.”

Chihuahuas make up 30 percent or more of the dog populations at many California shelters. And experts say pop culture is to blame, with fans immitating Chihuahua-toting celebrities like Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus, then abandoning the dogs.

The problem appears to be specific to California — shelters elsewhere would love to share the wealth, said Gail Buchwald, senior vice president overseeing the ASPCA adoption center in New York City.

“We never have enough supply for the huge consumer demand for small dogs,” she said.

One of Webb’s biggest problems is a lack of money to fly the dogs to other states. Buchwald said she would be happy to help.

“Nothing is outside the realm of possibility here. We have a supply-demand isssue,” she said.

Chihuahuas are the most popular breed of dog in Los Angeles, so it makes sense it is the most abandoned breed, said Madeline Bernstein, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles. In Oakland, some days, they get 10 of the 5-pound dogs a day, Webb said.

The problem is so bad that shelters all over California that were built for big dogs had to remodel to accommodate the little guys.

Speaking of idols, the Psalmist writes that “Those who make them become like them” (Psalm 115:4-8). The “huge consumer demand for small dogs” reminds us that our wants and tastes and desires are directed by what we worship, in deed dictated by the objects of our admiration and love. We make idols, and then we become like them.

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Study on the Effects of Pornography

Published on December 10th, 2009.

The following is the executive summary an excellent study on The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family and Community. I suggest reading the whole thing. Reality confirms revelation.

Pornography is a visual representation of sexuality which distorts an individual’s concept of the nature of conjugal relations. This, in turn, alters both sexual attitudes and behavior. It is a major threat to marriage, to family, to children and to individual happiness. In undermining marriage it is one of the factors in undermining social stability.

Social scientists, clinical psychologists, and biologists have begun to clarify some of the social and psychological effects, and neurologists are beginning to delineate the biological mechanisms through which pornography produces its powerful negative effects.

KEY FINDINGS ON THE EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY
THE FAMILY AND PORNOGRAPHY

• Married men who are involved in pornography feel less satisfied with their conjugal relations and less emotionally attached to their wives. Wives notice and are upset by the difference.
• Pornography use is a pathway to infidelity and divorce, and is frequently a major factor in these family disasters.
• Among couples affected by one spouse’s addiction, two-thirds experience a loss of interest in sexual intercourse.
• Both spouses perceive pornography viewing as tantamount to infidelity.
• Pornography viewing leads to a loss of interest in good family relations.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND PORNOGRAPHY

• Pornography is addictive, and neuroscientists are beginning to map the biological substrate of this addiction.
• Users tend to become desensitized to the type of pornorgraphy they use, become bored with it, and then seek more perverse forms of pornography.
• Men who view pornography regularly have a higher tolerance for abnormal sexuality, including rape, sexual aggression, and sexual promiscuity.
• Prolonged consumption of pornography by men produces stronger notions of women as commodities or as “sex objects.”
• Pornography engenders greater sexual permissiveness, which in turn leads to a greater risk of out-of-wedlock births and STDs. These, in turn, lead to still more weaknesses and debilities.
• Child-sex offenders are more likely to view pornography regularly or to be involved in its distribution.

HT: Ed Stetzer

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Interview with Former Planned Parenthood Director

Published on November 9th, 2009.

Human beings don’t value other human beings for their size, their level of development, their environment or their degree of dependency. When we do, we are wrong to do so. If someone murders another human being from a hate for that person’s race, not only do we consider the act of murder abhorrent, but the specific motive is an evil in itself.

Pro choice advocates have done a good job of confusing the public debate with the language of women’s rights while failing to answer the question of the moral status of the unborn. The pro-choice movement’s failure to address this question with honesty and clarity was on brilliant and tragic display last year at about this time when Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Palosi, and Joe Biden all gave similarly ambiguous answers to the question of the moral status of unborn life.

But that question is the only question of relevance. If they can answer that definitively, clearly and persuasively, they have won the argument.

No one argues about the reality of human life in the womb. The facts of biology testify that there is continuity of human life across its life stages, from conception to death. Instead, the debate has to do with the nature of that life and the moral status of that life. Is it the kind of life worthy of protection? Does it have moral dignity? We all agree that certain kind of life is worthy of protection. That’s why we have laws against murder. But when does one qualify as having the moral status worthy of that protection by fellow human beings?

The pro-choice position must argue that a human being acquires certain and necessary faculties or features to qualify as having dignity worthy of protection. Size, level of development, environment and degree of dependency do matter.

Enter ultrasound.

In the following interview, Mike Huckabee interviews a former Planned Parenthood Executive Director about her experience witnessing an abortion and deciding to turn in her keys. The ultrasound made obvious the obvious: No one’s right to choose what they do with their body extends to the jurisdiction of another human life. The unborn have rights of their own, endowed by their creator.

HT: Justin Taylor

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A New Birth in New England

Published on November 2nd, 2009.

New England is home to America’s oldest churches, or at least America’s oldest church buildings.

According to recent surveys, New England is now the least churched region in the country with a percentage of gospel believing Christians low enough to qualify as an unreached people group.

In an article published on Wednesday, Evangelists Target Spiritually Cold New England, the Associated Press reported on some encouraging developments in New England. This report focuses on a recent church plant, Redeemer Fellowship, in the Boston area which is part of an exciting network of churches supported by New England Theological Seminary.

It’s hard to tell in the quiet of a color-splashed autumn morning, but Redeemer Fellowship Church is trying to set roots in a rough neighborhood. For churches, anyway.

Until this new church opened last month, its 19th-century Congregational church building in suburban Watertown was empty for nearly two years. Just across the street, a closed Baptist church is filled with condos. So is a former Catholic church a half mile away.

…In a Gallup poll this year, all six New England states were in the Top 10 least religious in the country, with Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts claiming the top four spots.

New England’s religious apathy has developed over decades, but it’s striking where the Pilgrims landed seeking religious freedom and the great 18th-century preacher Jonathan Edwards helped spark the First Great Awakening. Stately churches near town centers all over the region are reminders of the central importance religion once held.

The article also addressed the question of how Christianity vanished from the northeast.

The Rev. Wes Pastor, head of the NETS Institute for Church Planting in Williston, Vt., said New England’s liberal mainline denominations, such as the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church, have been practicing a ”different religion.”

”I’m not saying it to be snooty, but they have a different belief system and that belief system … is a profound departure from historic Christianity,” said Pastor, whose group trained Bass and supports his Baptist church.

Rev. Pastor is absolutely correct and he is saying what Bible believing, gospel embracing Christians have said about such departures since the arrival of so called liberal “Christianity” on the scene.

In his book, Christanity and Liberalism, J. Greshman Machen expressed this conviction well; “In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time is a time of conflict; the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religous belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christain faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology.” Writing of this liberal Christianity which denied the supernatural, and thus the Bible’s divine inspiration, Machen continued, “It may appear that what the liberal theologian has retained after abandoning to the enemy one Christain doctrine after another is not Christianity at all, but a religion whch is so entirely different from Christainty as to belong in a distinct category.”

Eighty six years after Machen wrote these words the trajectory of this religion has met its logical end. Today, New England is sprinkled with vacant buildings where once faithful gospel congregations met to sing, to read Scripture, to sit under the Word of God and to go out with the gospel. 

Let’s pray that many in New England will come to know the new birth as gospel congregations fill these old buildings.

I encourage you to read about this work of God in the northeast and to pray for these churches and the NETS church planting network.

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What Are You Looking At?

Published on October 27th, 2009.

“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” Hebrews 2:1

Paying attention is difficult.

One thing that diverted the attention of two pilots last Wednesday was a laptop.

CNN, Report: Stray Jet Pilots were on Laptops,

The pilots of the commercial jetliner that last week overshot its destination by about 150 miles have said they were using their laptops and lost track of time and location, federal safety officials said Monday.

Company policy prohibits the use of personal computers on the flight deck, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report.

The Airbus A320 was flying at 37,000 feet over the Denver, Colorado, area at 5:56 p.m. Wednesday when it last made radio contact, the safety board said.

Flight 188, which was carrying 144 passengers, two pilots and three flight attendants, departed San Diego, California, en route to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport when it flew past the Minnesota airport by 150 miles.

Pilot Timothy B. Cheney, 53, was hired in 1985 and has more than 20,000 hours flight time; First Officer Richard I. Cole, 54, was hired in 1997 and has about 11,000 hours of flight time, the report said.

Neither pilot reported having had an accident, incident or violation, neither had any ongoing medical conditions and neither said he was tired, it said.

These were qualified men. These were seasoned veterans. They were smart and healthy and alert. But, in their own words, “there was a distraction” in the cockpit. They were paying attention to the wrong thing. To look away is to drift away.

This occasion of drifting was expensive for both themselves, their company and countless others. Thankfully it didn’t cost any lives. Were it not for multiple layers of technology and eventually the initiative of the flight attendant, it could have.

Today’s headline provides an excellent picture of the distracting power of a thousand things in life – some of them good things and some of them bad things, but all of them less important than the ultimate thing, Jesus Christ.

That’s why, time and again, the Scriptures call us to be alert, to be sober minded. And what for? The author of Hebrews commands our attention and tells us what’s at stake; “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (2:1).

We are given this command because our attention is easily diverted from that which is central to that which is peripheral.

Thankfully, the pilot was not alone. Even when his co-pilot failed at his job, the flight attendant alerted him to his wayward course. Likewise, in the Christian life, we are all accountable for and to one another. The author of Hebrews exhorts his readers, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God” (3:12).

When the flight attendant asked for an arrival time, the pilots identified their location relative to their destination and corrected their course. They didn’t change their destination to match their direction. They didn’t deny the obvious. They made it home safely. They also made it home humbly. According to the report, “Police who met the wayward jet said the pilots were ‘cooperative, apologetic and appreciative.’”

When the author of Hebrews writes for us to pay much closer attention to what we have heard, he is referring to something very specific. What is that? The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. These pilots were to pay attention to their destination and those instruments which were their means to a safe arrival. We must set our attention and our affections on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ – who is the radiance of God’s glory, and who is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. We must lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (12:1,2).

Paying attention is difficult. But paying attention to Jesus is what we were made for and it is the calling of every Christian person.

What are you looking at?

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Political Freedom, Economic Freedom and Biblical Anthropology

Published on October 9th, 2009.

Everyone is a theologian. The more carefully we think about any one particular subject the more our theology comes to bear on that subject.

This is certainly true for economics.

Forty-seven years ago Milton Friedman published his classic work, Capitalism and Freedom. Friedman was not a Christian man, but he consciously or unconsciously assumed a Biblical understanding of what human beings are like in the development of his economic philosophy. Namely, humans are capable of great things, but humans are imperfect.

Concerning the role of government as a rule maker and umpire, Friedman writes, “The need for government in these respects arises because absolute freedom is impossible. However attractive anarchy may be as a philosophy, it is not feasible in a world of imperfect men” (25).

Yet, while Milton Friedman recognized the important role that government has to play in legislating our behavior, this did not mean that government is is trusted without qualification. The government is made up of the same imperfect people it is organized to govern.

In the following paragraphs Milton Friedman expresses the importance of economic freedom for political freedom.

Viewed as a means to the end of political freedom, economic arrangements are important because of their effect on the concentration or dispersion of power. The kind of economic or organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables one to offset the other.

Historical evidence speaks with a single voice on the relation between political freedom and a free market. I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity.

Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery. The nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the Western world stand out as striking exceptions to the general trend of historical development. Political freedom in this instance clearly came along with the free market and the development of capitalist institutions. So also did political freedom in the golden age of Greece and in the early days of the Roman era.

History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition (9).

Friedman believes what he believes about the way the economy should work because of what he believes about human nature. He’s right – the story of human history is a story of trouble. Economic and political structures may occasion the expression of the good or the bad in people, but economic and political structures cannot ultimately explain why history tells the story that it does.

But while capitalism provides for human flourishing in a way that other structures cannot, Friedman’s last sentence is important. Capitalism will not bring about anything close to a perfect and pain free world. Capitalism does not preclude the abuse of political power and capitalism doesn’t make free people good people. That’s something for which we can trust God alone to provide through the gospel of his Son.

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Tweets of Note: Michael J.

Published on July 8th, 2009.

Two lines of twitter commentary on today’s funeral for Michael J.

“Where the Gospel of Christ is absent or eclipsed, this is all that is left. The messianism of Michael J. will just transfer to a new object” – @albertmohler

“Ironically, the only time the name of Jesus is trending is when the world is worshiping at the death of their own idol.” – @timmybrister

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