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Feb 04
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The Limits of Politics

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Okay. It’s an election year, and once again I’m hearing that our nation is more politically polarized than ever. It’s said there is a general loss of civility, and if we would just mind our manners, we could learn to get along. Although it does seem as though people are in fact letting their manners slide, I think such hand wringing is actually counter-productive. By calling attention to the how of the current debate, we are tempted to ignore the what, which is the crux of the matter. I believe that liberals and conservatives are so profoundly different in terms of how they look at the world and the human experience that sharp divisions about public policy are inevitable. Moreover, these divisions will prove increasingly intractable unless deep-seated presuppositions that cause them are exposed and dealt with.

There are actually two problems that need to be addressed. The first is this: at what level do liberals and conservatives originally diverge? Do they diverge, as some say, at the point that some want to help people, while the other side does not? Or do they part company at an earlier point, where the very definition of help is different? Until the point of original separation can be pinpointed, no commonality in later debate can be hoped for. Until there is a clear statement of the problem, there can be no expectation of a solution.

So let’s start by assuming that both sides want to help people. No divergence there. But what constitutes help? That depends on what we need help from. Politics is about solving problems, so what is the source of the problems from which we need deliverance? As we try to answer that question, we start to see divergence.

The liberal view is that problems come from without; people are inherently good and industrious, and if we are not experiencing prosperity, it is on account of some obstacle raised by others. Racism, gender discrimination, economic disadvantage, lack of educational opportunities, you name it; these are stumbling blocks the poor person has no control over, they are imposed from without, by others. By removing these impediments, the liberal hopes to release the natural goodness stored up in people. All our affirmative action programs, sensitivity training, race and gender quotas and general political rectitude find their justification in this benevolent view of man and the world he lives in. A classic example of how the philosophy of man forms political conclusions is Karl Marx, who said that man is good, but capital is bad. Take capital out of the equation through communal ownership, and you have the perfect society where man is free to prosper. This philosophy has been adopted hook, line and sinker by the media and secondary and university schools.

In stark contrast to this attractive yet sentimental view of man is the conservative perspective. What the conservative says is that man is anything but benevolent and prone to selfless industry unless it is required of him. The conservative goes on to say that given a choice, man in his natural state will do as little as possible to get as much as possible, and cannot or will not change unless forced. Mankind, he says, tends to selfishness and laziness, and thus man’s problem lies within each individual, not in the larger society. Conversely, there is no obstacle raised from without that can subdue a person’s will that is properly aroused. The economic implications of this view were best expressed by Adam Smith, who said that it’s not altruism but rather self-interest that leads to the efficiencies and economic gains that can really set people free. The antecedent philosophy of man can be traced to the Bible.

So a first area of divergence between liberal and conservative can be said to be regarding the locus of the problem from which we are seeking relief. But this observation begs further questions. What does this view of man say about the world we live in? Is there such a thing as right or wrong? Are there moral absolutes that govern human choices and behavior? Moreover, what does it matter that we do right and avoid wrong? Are there consequences to choices in this life, and what of a life to come? Is there a God who cares and who takes note of our choices, or do we just prefer a society that has social customs that bring order and peace?

This brings us to the second of the two problems alluded to above. That is, are we really free to explore the origins of the divergence between liberals and conservatives? I posit that liberals, who tend to deny the existence of moral absolutes and the Divine, cry foul when the debate goes back as far as it needs to in order to really accomplish anything. Although liberals claim the moral high ground, they balk at attempts to ground that morality in something more concrete than a general feeling or Darwinian expedience. Any reference to propositional truth or “religious” inferences are said to be “personal” at best and “unconstitutional” at worst. Therefore, discussion of the basic assumptions that separate liberal and conservative thinking and subsequent public policy decisions is prevented by saying that the debate cannot include those very values that must be agreed upon if progress is to be made.

So lacking common philosophical ground, is there anything that can be done to stop what Swiss psychiatrist Paul Tournier calls a “dialogue of the deaf?” Rather than starting with ideas and asking that everybody think, perhaps we can start with facts, and ask that everybody look. Shouldn’t it be possible to observe and measure human behavior? Aren’t there situations where the divergent theories about the nature of man are able to predict what will happen, and by observation and measurement, we can tell who’s right and who’s wrong?

What the liberal philosophy states is that good public policy should not concern itself with rewards and punishments for individuals. The problems do not originate within the individual, therefore neither should the solutions. As a consequence of this conviction, all liberal public policy measures seek to ignore the decision making and behavior of the individual citizen; it is expected that these will reform when the true causes of suffering are taken care of at the societal level. This is why government is the chosen instrument of reform for all liberal causes. “The government must lead,” to quote our current President.

By contrast the conservative view is that just as there are natural laws like gravity and temperature, there are moral laws whose consequences can be observed and codified. To violate them and expect no consequence is the same as jumping off a cliff and not expecting a hard landing. Good public policy, they say, should be based upon strengthening, not weakening, these mechanisms of cause and effect, so that the individual can learn, change and grow based on their experience. In the same way Adam’s Smith’s invisible hand led individuals to make decisions that were good for the economy as a whole, so too the individual who has the guidance of cause and effect in laws will make personal decisions that benefit society as a whole.

Here is our chance to raise the level of debate from name calling to science. Each of these perspectives, as divergent as they are, can predict behavior in actual life cases and be tested for veracity. Think about it. If the liberal is right, then there should be cases where societal obstacles have been removed, and people prosper and improve their lot in life naturally. By contrast, the conservative view should also be measurable. When punishments have been provided for doing wrong and rewards for doing right, have people tended to change their behavior and reform? Conversely, are there cases where consequences for decisions and actions have been removed, and people start to misbehave?

Here are some concrete ideas for analysis. According to the liberal view, people who receive government aid should only do so for a period of time until their improved fortunes allow them to get off the dole. This can be measured. Are welfare rolls static, or dynamic? Are people getting on, finding help, and then getting off, or are they staying on? How about people who receive free health care from hospital emergency rooms? Do they use the money they save to buy health insurance, or do they continue to use hospitals as primary care institutions because hospitals are not allowed to turn people away? Do those who claim to be unable to afford health insurance have cell phones, buy lottery tickets, smoke cigarettes or buy cable TV? And what about when society becomes unregulated? What happened in New Orleans when thousands of people disobeyed the evacuation order and destroyed much of what Hurricane Katrina spared? How do you explain looting in civilized societies when the police are inhibited or the power goes out? Although the work has yet to be done, or reported in the press, research into questions like this will help by substituting facts for rhetoric.

The conservative view of man can also be measured. Does Singapore have a drug problem? No. Why not? Because if you are found using or selling drugs, you are beaten or executed. No questions asked. Cause and effect. Is there a correlation between the economic health of American cities and how recently they’ve had a Republican mayor? Yes, and it’s almost perfectly inverse. And speaking of Detroit, did the American auto makers take note of decreasing market share and improve the appearance, performance and quality of their cars in time to stave off disaster? No. They made no changes until they were forced to. When the rules of cause and effect are suspended, not much happens. Not much good, at any rate. What role did the Great Society programs of the 1960′s play in driving men from homes? What is the impact on the behavior of children when there is no father in the home? Is there a correlation between voting behavior, liberal versus conservative, and obedience to laws, particularly those controlling recreational drugs? These are legitimate questions that deserve careful study and dispassionate answers.

If research does establish that liberals are inaccurate in their understanding of human nature, then more than their political agenda will have to be revised. Remember, their public conclusions were based upon assumptions about the individual person that, if wrong, would suggest that what they’ve been doing for people is actually hurting, and not helping, them. By telling people that your decisions and actions need not be taken into account, they have created an intellectual and psychological under class that can only grow. It’s almost as if liberals generate poor people to not only give themselves jobs in the give-away programs they so love, but also derive a perverse sense of purpose they could not otherwise have if there were no poor. If they were to admit to the existence of moral absolutes or moral cause and effect in the world, they would undermine their position as benefactors and arbiters of rectitude. To admit the existence of the absolute or the Divine would, in other words, be bad for business.

So do not be surprised by the vitriol generated in the coming election. There will be name calling, lying, twisting the facts, and attempts to manipulate an unsophisticated and ignorant electorate. This is to be expected. What is sad is that the conservative candidates will probably not avail themselves to the best defense in cases of libel, and that is to simply report the truth. Do these studies, come up with the facts, use sociology to dispel myth, all to show how “helping” people has actually resulted in their enslavement to a new master more evil than the first. We should not adopt a philosophy, theology or political badge for any other reason than because it explains the world as it can be observed, in other words, because it makes sense. Don’t believe something because it feels good, believe it because it works.

Feb 04
0

The Truth About the Margarita

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Back in 2002 or thereabouts I was annoyed by a lengthy article in the Orlando Sentinel that purported to document the origin of the popular Mexican cocktail, the Margarita.  The story listed several possible etymologies for the drink, none of which was very accurate.  Just recently I found a web site discussing the same issue, this time giving credit to a bartender at Hussong’s Cantina in Ensenada back in the 40’s.  Although Hussong’s did figure into the dispersion of the recipe, the author of this account, based in part on Ensenada tourist bureau propaganda, is no better informed than the Sentinal author; he even has Percy Hussong’s name wrong.  The reason I am miffed by all these accounts is because I know the true story of the origin of the Margarita: my parents were there to witness it.

 

The attached scan of an original document written and signed by my parents captures most of the salient facts about the origin of and philosophy behind the Margarita.  I will add some editorial commentary that will fill in some of the gaps and add detail.  I’ve also included some pictures of a 2003 visit to La Gloria where it all took place.  It features my folks and me as we surveyed the Margarita’s Ground Zero.

 

My parents have a hard time putting an exact date on the first Margarita experience.  Their usual barometer in such matters was the date of their marriage, which took place in 1951.  The trip in question was one of many that they took south of the border, some before and some after their nuptials.  Their best guess is that this particular event took place before they were married, and therefore in 1950.

 

The author of the Orlando newspaper article did say one version credited a Tijuana bartender, and this is to some extent true, as La Gloria is the first civilization of any sort south of Tijuana.  My parents knew every bar and bartender in Baja, so it was only natural that thirst would preclude a trip from Tijuana all the way to Rosarita Beach, let alone Ensenada, some 68 miles distant.  Today, La Gloria is actually a small town nestled amongst the junkyards (Yonqueria) festooning the hilltops south of Tijuana.  The motel itself was, in 2003, intact, yet condemned and under the ownership of the Catholic Church.  The owner, the actual inventor of the Margarita, was named Daniel Herrera, and he had died some five years earlier.  Apparently his will stipulated that the property be given to the church.  When we visited, we had to appeal to the groundskeeper to let us through a locked gate, and we went on to visit the very dilapidated building and grounds.  Five years of neglect and vandalism had reduced the historic site to the status of a scraper, but we were able to seize a few loose mementos and take pictures.  The bar itself is gone, but its former location can be discerned by studying the tile on the floor.  Gloria, by the way, was the name of Daniel’s daughter.  Margarita, of course, was his wife’s name.  Thus, both wife and daughter have been immortalized by the place and the drink.

 

The drink itself was concocted as follows.  A small, shallow cocktail glass was moistened and the rim salted.  It was then filled with ice, a shot of tequila, lime juice and some Curacao to add sweetness.  Note well: it was not green, and the ice was not shaved.  No Cointreau, Triple Sec or Grand Marnier were used, although these closely resembles Curacao.

 

My mother adds this detail about the subsequent popularization of the drink.  When they went to Hussong’s in Ensenada, the staff knew nothing of the new drink.  They took it upon themselves to relate the recipe, and asked that Margaritas be made on the spot.  They then went back to Santa Monica where my mother lived, and took another trip south two weeks later.  When they returned to Hussong’s, a new sign proclaimed “We serve Margaritas.”  Thus, their trip to Hussong’s introduced drink at the epicenter of recreational drinking in Baja California, to spread from there to a grateful world.

 

My Dad died in the summer of 2005, full of life and energy at the age of 94.  Happily, Margaritas had nothing to do with his demise.  Mom’s still going strong at 90, and recalls the events described herein with great clarity.  Should all history be so well documented!

 

Feb 04
0

Top 10 Things Politicians Can Do to REALLY Change Things

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All politicians talk about change, some more than others, yet they do so only within fairly narrow “acceptable” limits.  That’s what’s wrong with all of them: they feel politics today is a matter of fine tuning, when in fact, the whole paradigm is out of date.  Here are the top 10 things any candidate for national office should espouse if they are to really make a difference:

 

1)  Pass a Constitutional amendment that life begins at conception.  Roe v. Wade states that laws apply to the living, but admits that the Court doesn’t know when life begins.  Okay.  Tell them that life begins at conception, a fact agreed upon by medicine, science, theology and common sense, and the protections of Federal law will apply to the weakest of society.  If you want to bring about a rapprochement between Right and Left, start here.  You’ll never have the support of conservative America until you get this issue straight.  Will liberals really cleave America asunder over the right to have sex without consequences?  Stop the insanity.

 

2)  Pass a Constitutional amendment prohibiting transfer payments.  What’s a transfer payment?  It’s where the government uses its police powers to tax, then gives that money to somebody who didn’t earn it.  That’s called stealing, and it’s in the other list of 10 things, the 10 Commandments.  Leave stealing to the states if they want to run a socialist republic, but get the Federal government out of the business of “redistribution.”  Establish a Celebrity Fund where Hollywood know-it-alls can contribute out of their surplus and receive the accolades of a grateful public.

 

3)  At the state level require everybody to participate in a pension plan, whether private or public.  Contribute to a private pension plan of your choice, or get enrolled in a public version, where you pay in, you are given Prime for interest, and when you retire, you get it back, and no more.  Died before you withdrew it all?  Your heirs get it.  Live too long and use it up?  Live with your children; it’s not our problem.  Oh, and skip the Social Security system.  They allow 60+ people to use the same number.  Organize the new system using cell phone numbers; those companies know how to keep them unique.

 

4)  At the state level, require everybody to have medical insurance, whether private or public.  Pay to enroll in a plan, or get enrolled in a public version.  Pay in  accordance with your life style.  Skip seat belts, smoke and gain weight?  Fine, you pay more, and pay you must.  If the states can require you to have car insurance, and know when you let it lapse, they can also administer health insurance.  Each year the public fund sets premiums according to outlays, and there is no burden on the treasury.

 

5)  Change the laws about medical care to increase supply.  Hospitals should not be required to treat without payment as they are now.  If you don’t pay full price, you cannot sue, purely and simply.  If you don’t pay full price, you don’t necessarily get a doctor for your routine treatment, and you don’t get every possible test.  We need a two tier medical system; one for those who pay, and one for those who don’t.  If you want the best and want to be able to sue, then pay for the privilege.

 

6)  Drop the homosexual agenda.  It’s not gay, it’s not healthy, it’s not normal, and they certainly don’t make good parents.  If you’re confused about your sexuality, don’t institutionalize your confusion.  You are costing society a lot of money to cure your diseases and pay for your “partners” without adding to social peace and stability.  Heterosexuals don’t give in to every whim and urge they have, and you shouldn’t either.  You weren’t made that way, and at some level you agreed to become a sexual victim.

 

7)  Enforce drug laws as written.  Psychotropic drugs like marijuana destroy the soul of the user.  There’s no equation between alcohol and other drugs, in spite of what they say.  There has never been a more imbecilic initiative than that of “medical marijuana.”  Want to end the drug problem?  Study Singapore.

 

8)  Establish an economic DMZ along the Mexican border where civil law is administered by a joint judicial bench.  Nationalization of property is prohibited within the zone.  The problem with Mexico is that there are no jobs because capital is unsafe.  Make capital safe, and it will flow to where there is no minimum wage, no OSHA, no Social Security, and no nonsense.  The cash wages will be set by the market place, and the US and Mexico will become competitive in manufacturing once again.

 

9)  Tax corporations according to the desirability of their product, with no tax for desirable products manufactured in the US.  Companies that outsource manufacturing to China should be taxed at a higher rate, as are companies that produce bad stuff like cigarettes, light beer and primetime television.

 

10)  Only property owners should be able to vote in local, state and Federal elections.  One parcel, one vote.  If you’re invested, you get to decide.  The problem now is that people who do not pay tax get to decide what’s done with tax revenues.

 

So here are 10 steps that will really change things, and for the better.  When the government took over education, welfare and medical care, it robbed the Church of its mission in society.  That mission must once again be distributed, flexible, and morally cognizant; in other words, don’t let the government do it.

Jan 15
0

Where Are All The Men?

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By most objective standards of measurement, it can be argued that the Christian Church is increasingly dominated by women.  Whereas women still strive for parity in secular society, it seems the shoe is on the other foot when it comes to organized religion.  It’s not just a matter of membership, either.  In areas long the domain of men by custom or rule, sacerdotal and administrative functions are increasingly performed by women.  The leaders in this respect are of course the liberal Protestant denominations, because unlike the Roman church, they lack rules against female leadership.  Even in the evangelical and charismatic branches of the Church, however, women are more than likely the ones who are taking charge and taking over, much to the consternation of the few men left.

 

There are those who would say that this is nothing to be upset about, that perhaps women will do a better job than men, who have no doubt made a hash of things.  But it’s important to remember that Church membership and ministry are not matters of rights, but of opportunities to suffer for the cause of Christ, and if men are not carrying their share of the burden, something is wrong.  In the Bible, periods of spiritual decline were usually characterized by the worship of female goddesses and a general sexualizing of the worship experience, and if the same principle holds today, that speaks volumes about where we stand as a Church.  The inevitable result of this trend is a criticism of women, with the charge that their prominence leads to a religion that is marginalized and unattractive to men.  The possibility remains, however, that the ascendency of women is a consequence and not a cause, and it would be more fruitful to look at all the actors in the drama before blame is assigned or accepted.

 

The first hint of an explanation for all this came from my own experience.  I managed to waste nine years of my life between the time I first “realized my election to God in Christ Jesus,” as Oswald Chambers so eloquently puts it, and the time I learned to cooperate with the Holy Spirit.  Wherever I would live during that period, I would look up Christian fellowship, attend, and become terrified of what I saw.  If I had to become like the other men present, I wanted none of it.  I didn’t want to be defined by the constraints of faith, but rather set free by the promises it carried.  Yet one and all seemed to be travailing under a set of rules that try as I might, I couldn’t submit to.  Eventually all that changed when I met someone who was both a faithful Christian and a real man, and I got the guidance and encouragement I needed.  I wasn’t sure what the change was, but what was hard became easy, and I was able to succeed where before I had failed.  I attributed my delayed conversion to personal obtuseness, and thought no more about it.  It was not until I realized that my three sons were also going through much the same trauma that I entertained the notion that perhaps there are real, gender-based tendencies that need to be addressed if the Church is going to find men as receptive as women to the Christian Gospel.

 

This is how I figured it out.  I have five kids, three boys and two girls, with the genders alternating.  Beautiful.  As far as the girls are concerned, they took to the Christian experience like ducks to water.  As these two were growing up, they apparently listened in Sunday school, during family prayer times, and later in church on their own and gave their hearts, minds and bodies to Jesus Christ.  They are integrated, gracious and beautiful girls who are a delight to their earthly father, and no doubt to their heavenly father as well.

 

Then there are my boys.  Raised the same way, exposed to the same message, given the same treatment in every way, they’ve had substantially different reactions to the Gospel.  The oldest claims no Christian faith, although he has a very high doctrine of moral behavior and is not at all given to criticizing others who do believe.  The middle boy is off to seminary, like me, but even though he is a pious, self-controlled young man, he nevertheless evinces some screwy ideas about politics and social organization that I, too, held at his age.  The third boy, who at times espouses Christian faith, nevertheless seems to have trouble reading his Bible and actually doing what it says to do.  Or not do.  So before boys #2 and 3 moved away to the East Coast, I convened what I called a Male Summit to ask them about their experience with the Lord to date as well as how I, as their father, either helped or hindered that encounter.  I figured I should clear up any misunderstandings while I had them in my house one last time, as they were not doing as well as my girls.

 

So here’s what I did.  I prayed about finding something we could read and comment on that was written by some third party.  Like clockwork, I came upon three consecutive chapters in Francis Schaeffer’s book, Death in the City, which seemed to fit the bill perfectly.  I asked the oldest to read the chapter entitled, The Man Without the Bible.  The middle boy was asked to read the next chapter, The Justice of God.  The youngest was given the last chapter, The Two Chairs.  Each chapter addressed something that each boy had expressed misgivings about.  In the case of the oldest, it was the existence of God and an absolute moral imperative in the universe.  Schaeffer quotes Paul in the opening chapters of Romans where he makes a case for man being under a general wrath from God, not because he has disobeyed special revelation, but because man can see evidence of the divine both in himself and in the created order, yet does not follow the trail of evidence to its logical conclusion.  The middle boy, about to embark on the troubled waters of a modern seminary indoctrination, has articulated some libertarian political and social feelings.  Although this is forgivable in the young, it doesn’t square with a Biblical view of man who, when left to his own devices, does not tend to good but to evil.  The last chapter contains a cogent metaphor that drives home the point that intellectual credence is trumped by behavior every time.  If we say we believe something, we need to back it up with consistent action.  The kids were asked to deliver a book report, if you will, not necessarily accepting or liking what they read, but just being able to convey Schaeffer’s argument.

 

The big day rolled around, and book reports were delivered.  What stole the show, however, were their responses to the question about where they were vis a vis the Gospel.  All three, it turned out, had had a spiritual encounter with the risen Lord, had experienced a sense of cleansing and well-being, yet each in turn had then embarked upon a process of trying to maintain those sensations even as they dissipated.  This surprised me, as I was not aware that boys 1 and 3 had had such an encounter.  Further, I was surprised that boy 2 had struggled in his relationship with the Lord, although not to the point of despair.  Thus, all three of my male children had experiences not unlike mine where the bliss of divine encounter turned into a struggle to maintain the mountain top sensation through works, and eventually a grudging recognition of the truth of the Gospel while experiencing none of its power or liberty.  The question now became, did we all share this experience because we’re related by genetics, or by gender?

 

A pattern was becoming clear.  Each felt the Christian life consisted of efforts to please the Lord so that the Lord would abide in them.  I felt this for nine years, and it was only when I was discipled by a successful Christian man that I learned I didn’t have to do anything to remain where I had been put by the Cross of Christ.  I was doing too much, and here were my sons making the same mistake.  Apparently I never told my sons what this man told me, that I had made all the decisions I needed to make, I just needed to grow.  We had, one and all, concluded that as the feeling of rapture faded, as it must, God was displeased with us, and we needed to strive harder to maintain it.  As men go through this cycle of renewed effort, necessary fatigue and increasing guilt, it’s no surprise that many fall away.  To some extent it’s a measure of character that they renounced the whole endeavor, rather than continue with some desultory religion that imposed rules but didn’t offer true freedom.  What none of us realized at the time was that we were simply barking up the wrong spiritual tree.  God will not tolerate those who try to achieve moral purity through anything but appeal to the Cross, nor does he tolerate those who, no matter how sincere, try to reform themselves and make themselves factories of good when in fact “no good thing dwells in my flesh.”  So if sincere but misguided efforts at living aright are not in order, then what is?

 

Continued talk brought us to the part of the last chapter of Schaeffer’s book about the two chairs where he talks about the nature of the Christian life.  I quote:

 

“The difference between a Christian who is being supernatural in practice and one who says he is a Christian but lives like a materialist can be illustrated by the difference between a storage battery and a light plug.  Some Christians seem to think that when they are born again, they become a self-contained unit like a storage battery.  From that time on they have to go on their pep and their own power until they die.  But this is wrong.  After we are justified, once for all through faith in Christ, we are to live in supernatural communion with the Lord every moment; we are to be like lights plugged into an electric socket.”

 

Here’s the first real insight.  No matter how hard a battery tries to maintain current, it will eventually run out.  By design.  This is a struggle that we are simply not to undertake at all.  In addition to doing too much, it can be argued that there’s something good that men often fail to do.  Francis continues two pages later:

 

“The Bible tells us plainly that Christ promises to bear His fruit through us.  In Romans 7:4 Paul says a very striking thing: ‘Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, in order that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, in order that we should bring forth fruit unto God.’  This verse says that each of us as a Christian is feminine.  At conversion we are married to Christ, who is the bridegroom, and as we put ourselves in his arms, moment by moment, he will produce His fruit through us into the external world.  That is beautiful and overwhelming.  Just as with the natural bride who gives herself to her husband and puts herself in his arms, there will be children born into a home.  The bride can’t just stand with the bridegroom at the wedding ceremony.  She must give herself to him existentially, regularly and then children will be born to him, through her body, into the external world.”

 

Here is a second reason real men miss the boat, but to understand it, we have to be willing to accept that men and women are not only physically different, but poles apart in terms of how they approach relationships in general and intimacy in particular.  Is it possible that what is hard for one gender comes easily to the other?  Is it possible that the weakness of one sex correspond with strengths in the other, so that united we might become a complementary whole?  If you allow for these possibilities, then you may be able to accept the following argument.  Men in general don’t want to be perceived as feminine or reactive.  We want to be masculine, and at least with regard to the opposite sex, that means being proactive.  Although modern culture has to a large degree dismantled these notions, I submit that there is a core of truth that transcends time and culture and must be acknowledged.  I am not arguing that men and women are not equal.  I am arguing that they are not equivalent.  Given the text from Romans 7, I ask, what man wants to be feminine?  What man has the first clue what it means to be spiritually feminine?  While women have traditionally been asked to cede their will and give themselves in love and trust to the ministrations of another, men, real men, have no such experience or inclination.  Almost all our natural motivation and socialization must be set aside so that we can embark on this new life of spiritual intimacy with another, a man no less.  Any reversion to those tricks which work in the world and society will do nothing but get us into spiritual trouble with the new authority in our lives, the living Jesus.  And just how do we give ourselves existentially and repeatedly to this man?  As Daws Trotman of the Navigators discovered, through prayer, Bible study, fellowship and witness.  There has to be a deliberate discarding of old knowledge, suppositions and reactions, and the systematic acceptance of the new.  Any natural independence, self-reliance, common sense and spontaneous improvisation, things which worked in the former life to good effect, must pass under the rod of judgment and probable dismissal.

 

In other words, if men treat their relationship with Jesus the way they treat relationships with women, they will be headed for trouble.  Put another way, the more successful a man is in social contexts, the more of a failure he’s bound to be in spiritual.  By convention if not by nature, men are the initiators in their dealings with women.  It is they who are to approach, they who are to initiate, they who propose, they who provide materially, and of course, they who set the sexual agenda.  Women, by contrast, and excuse the generalization, find their fulfillment in the relinquishment of their independence, emotions and bodies to their husbands.  I would argue that objections raised by this statement have more to do with the low performance of husbands than any inability on the part of wives.  That objection notwithstanding, what is expected and effective with a woman is disastrous when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Many of the things that my sons and I thought we had to do to maintain the bliss of our new fellowship with Jesus were to be done by him, and not by us.  Frankly, the only task left to us was that we stop doing things we mistakenly thought we were to do, and let ourselves become more sensitized to the love language of Jesus.

 

I had already read this last chapter of Schaeffer’s book, yet its relevance to all male converts was lost on me until we read it together in our meeting.  It was as if scales fell from my eyes.  I knew men and women were different, but it never occurred to me that men faced the specter of a major overhaul to a greater degree then women.  No wonder men fall by the wayside!  First, it’s not for lack of trying, but for trying too hard!  Then we fail to do the simple things that any romance requires, and that is to immerse ourselves in the ministrations of our partner apart from our own energies.  Not the first time men have underperformed romantically.

 

So what’s to be done?  I would posit that men, more than women, need to be discipled, to be steered away from what comes naturally, and to be steered towards what is at first unnatural, to learn how to give themselves existentially and repeatedly to Jesus.  All this would be more obvious if the Church were clear about what it is asking people, both men and women, to do in terms of responding to the Gospel.  If there’s one thing that separates Christians, it’s this very thing: what does God want us to do?  Some say works, either of omission or commission (Baptists and Romans, respectively.)  Some say we’re to attain knowledge (dispensationalists, you know who you are.)  Some say nothing at all (Episcopalians and other mainline liberals.)  If existing Christians are not clear about what God wants us to do or not do, how can we help new converts?

 

The simplest way to package our message is to say that there are some things only God can do, and these we should not attempt.  Further, there are things that God can do but won’t, because he wants us to do them.  To wit, we cannot justify ourselves.  We are collectively and individually guilty of moral trespass against God.  There is nothing we can do about this; it requires a divine solution.  In order that our moral guilt be expunged, the Father sent his Son, Jesus of Nazareth, to the Cross in order that he might suffer the punishment our sins merit, which was a tortuous death.  Only the sinless can take the sin of another, and that’s what happened on the Cross.  As of Good Friday, all sins of all people from all time have been placed in Jesus and covered by his blood.  There is no limit to the power of the cross: God has justified all humanity, and there is no longer any impediment to our communion with him from his perspective.

 

Man has another problem, however, and that is our continued enmity with God.  Paul speaks of a coming wrath from which all need salvation.  We are powerless to act in keeping with our newfound legal status of moral purity, and we tend, as before, to moral wrongdoing and wrong being.  Rather than strive to reform ourselves and act in keeping with our legal status, we need to realize that we cannot do it, but the job must get done nonetheless.  We are to give up striving, and ask another to do the job for us, in us, none other than the same Jesus of Nazareth who died for us.  Though he died a real death, he was also raised to life, and reigns as Lord in heaven.  He will come to us in the person of the Holy Spirit and animate us in genuine moral purity if we will let him.  The only catch is that he brooks no competition, and we must cede our will to his if he is to abide in us and we in him.  It’s not a matter of performing works that please God, as my sons and I tried, but rather a cessation of works altogether, where we not only admit but celebrate our inability to do anything right.  We are to stop worrying about doing and start worrying about being.  As Oswald Chambers says, are we willing to be stripped of any trapping, any merit, any offering, and just present ourselves naked before our Lord?

 

So it’s easy to see why men have trouble with the Christian life.  As my oldest son says, “I am not constitutionally suited to the Christian life.”  To this I would reply, “No man is, until his constitution is changed.”  And, I might add, until our definition of that Christian life is also presented accurately.  In any event, the problem with the Church is not women.  Women are not to be criticized for taking over.  Rather, let’s realize that they’re merely filling a void that they perceive in terms of the presence and behavior of men.  To vilify women is to miss the point, and criticize the manifestation of a problem, rather than the root cause.  Our time would be much better spent reforming the way men are indoctrinated in the Christian faith, so that they would assume their rightful role as workers and leaders who are pulling their own weight in an operation that’s designed to bring out the best in both men and women.  

 

Presented properly, the claims of the Gospel should be very, very attractive to real men.  Though at present our message is one of vague, sentimental niceness, imagine it reformed to what it should be: a clash of kings, kingdoms and armies under perfect authority and control.  Be clear about the product you are selling, and the attraction will be manifest to all, especially men.  Then others won’t have to do what my sons and I have done, wasting precious years experiencing middling successes and painful failures.  A revised approach to male ministry will not only reduce personal suffering, it will transform the appearance of the Church as a whole.  As it is, it doesn’t scare anybody, most notably the Devil.  What the Church needs is some men with, in the words of Oswald Chambers, a distinct family likeness to Jesus Christ.  Jesus was the greatest fighter of all time.  Two things distinguished his technique.  First of all, he chose to fight the proper opponent.  He was never distracted by people who were doing the Devil’s bidding.  He went to the top of the organizational chart and took on the chief troublemaker.  Secondly, he fought for a permanent solution.  He didn’t try to patch people up so that they were better.  He replaced them with his own Spirit so that they could be what they were in the beginning: holy.  For all who despise the partial, the temporary, the wrong, this Gospel is for you.  God doesn’t do things many ways, in an attempt to find a fitting solution.  He does things once, correctly, and perfectly, so that they need never be repeated.  The chance to be involved in a struggle like this should animate anybody, and especially men, who want their lives to be dramatic and meaningful.

 

Jan 15
0

When It Comes to Selecting Clergy

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When it comes to selecting clergy, it helps to refer to the Owner’s Manual, otherwise known as the Bible.  The early Church faced the same problems modern churches do when it came to finding suitable leadership.  Paul addresses the situation to Titus in the first chapter of his letter to him, verses 5-9.  What he tells his young charge is that the person should be a male, married to one woman, and morally blameless.  This excludes many who fancy themselves Christian leaders today, but according to the Bible, this is the way it is.  Thus, you are looking for a male, a heterosexual, and somebody who’s not divorced.  Why does this surprise us?  Is it wrong to ask that those elevated to Christian leadership might be successful and lead integrated lives?  We’re not talking about membership, but leadership; a very different thing.

 

Those who view the Bible as dated, culturally bound and subject to revision run the risk of excluding God from their calculations, and finding that he is no longer part of their ministry.  Is this not in fact what has happened to the mainline Protestant denominations, one and all?  They have dumbed down the Gospel to the point that the Church resembles the world, and people have concluded that if Christians are no different from the impenitent, then why attend at all?  This is bourn out in verse 9, which says that the person selected to be an elder in the Church must not be a theological innovator.  There is a message from outside ourselves that must be held to firmly, and which constitutes sound doctrine.  To reject the Bible is to pass judgment on God himself.  This is a very dangerous thing.  The Father has granted judgment to the Son, and the Son has in turn passed authority to judge on to his Word.  It is this carelessness with the Bible and the unsound doctrine that results which has led to disinterest on the part of Christian and non-Christian alike in our ministries.

 

Typically, churches commit one of two errors in terms of how they present the claims of Christ.  The first group says that we must achieve moral purity before we can be welcomed into the Church.  This is wrong, in that the Gospel says that without Christ’s help, we can do nothing right.  It is indeed our duty to welcome all into our midst without condition or reservation.  The other error, however, and the one most mainline Protestant churches commit, is to say that all are welcome, but that there’s not expectation that they leave their life of sin behind.  What did Jesus say to those he accepted?  “Go and sin no more, lest something worse befall you.”

 

The Gospel has two components, each addressing a fundamental problem of mankind.  Because we have moral guilt before a holy God, we need forgiveness.  We must be justified in God’s eyes so that he is no longer at enmity with us.  This was accomplished once and for all on the Cross on Good Friday.  God laid the sins of the entire world on Jesus, looked away, and allowed him to be punished for the sins of others.  This many Christians understand, and constitutes the basis for our open door policy towards miscreants and sinners.  On the other hand, we also lack power to learn, change and grow.  Apart from the life of the risen Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit, we continue to wallow in our sins and stand in need of constant forgiveness.  Thus, a second need of man, for power, was met as of Pentecost.  Whereas the business of Good Friday was God’s own doing, the business of letting the Holy Spirit have control of our lives involves us to a high degree.  It is here, in the matter of ceding our will to Jesus, obeying his word and becoming vessels for his powerful Spirit, that most mainline Protestants fall down.  They want to be forgiven, but they still want to be in charge, and able to continue sinning.  As of Good Friday God is no longer at enmity with us.  Theoretically, as of Pentecost, we are no longer at enmity with him.  In fact, many are at enmity with God, running from him as Adam did when he heard him walking in the garden.

 

Any good minister of the Christian Gospel must be not only conversant in this dynamic, but also somebody who has been through it themselves.  It should not be  something abstract and theoretical, but something personal and well understood.  They must be able to tell how they came to understand that the Cross was a personal event, and that they responded to God’s gracious initiative by ceding their will to the risen Lord.  He can’t teach others to do what he has not done for himself.  Christian leadership is not a right, but a privilege; one reserved for only the best, most dynamic Christians.

 

Your parish may a lovely campus, and a dedicated volunteer base; but these don’t matter if the clerical leadership is bad.  The recipe for getting a good priest is this: find a man who’s conservative in every way.  Theologically, morally, and politically.  Liberals of every stripe love to disassociate cause and effect, so as to prevent the “suffering” that God intends for those who break his laws.  He should also, however, reflect the relative freedom we have in Christ by having an irrepressible, self-deprecating sense of humor, and to not be a stickler for the form of religion.

 

To pay for this man, fire everybody except the sexton and somebody to play music.  You don’t need an accomplished organist.  You have a fine organ, but organs are anachronisms that do not interest the next generation.  Offer the candidate a base salary that you can meet at present, and a share of any increase due to higher giving and attendance, like a bonus.  Business does it, why shouldn’t we?  The new Rector has the right to fire everybody anyway, so do it for him before he gets here.  Get somebody young who ISN’T on a second career.  If you were that great a Christian leader, you would have entered the ministry the first time.

 

Jan 15
0

Canon Law: Episcopal Church Property Seizures

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Like a skeleton, the Constitutions and Canons of the Episcopal Church form the compressive elements in the organism that give it its shape.  They determine who gets in, what they have to do to get out.  That’s the theory, at least.  On paper, they look pretty good.  There’s not much left to imagination or interpretation.  Buy they’re like the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, which were read by Ho Chi Minh, when he was more nationalist than communist.  He read them, liked them, and wrote to the U.S. State Department, asked for help in ousting the French as we were obviously freedom-loving people.  Only problem?  We didn’t do what we said.  The entreaty from Ho was locked away as “Top Secret” because we felt national liberation movements were secondary to the larger task of fighting communism, and the French were needed as allies in that struggle.  Many tears later, it’s clear that if would have acted in accord with our founding documents, the world would be a better place.  I feel the same way about the Episcopal Church.  It would be a pretty good expression of the life and power of Christ if we would just do what they say.

 

Case in point.  My bishop wanted to start new congregations.  He launched an initiative he called “Vision 2000” in the year 2000.  The goal was to raise $10M to start 15 new churches.  I heard about it, and during my annual visit, offered to start a new church with no money needed.  My wife and I were out driving, saw a new elementary school on the outskirts of town in an area that was witnessing new growth, and we stopped in to ask about renting their cafeteria on Sundays.  The staff quickly agreed on a reasonable fee, and I talked my vestry into supported the new effort by letting me leave quickly after the second service and driving down to do a third at the school.  Furthermore, they invested money by buying a new PA system, electric piano, and associated musical gear.  We traveled to the new school and prayed over the neighborhood, asking God to use us to reach those already there and those moving in.

 

The new congregation was fairly successful.  Many people from the home parish would come to church twice on Sunday, attending a service at each place.  People heard about us in the new area and attendance rose.  One of the problems we faced from the start was how to answer the question, “What kind of church are you?”  On the one hand, I wore a collar and a suit, and we loosely followed a Rite II Eucharistic order of service.  No hymnals, but a projector showing words to the songs, which were contemporary for the most part.  My response was, “I’m an Episcopal priest, and the new church plant is sponsored by an Episcopal parish, but we’re striving to develop a church modeled on the principles of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church.  That is, we’re trying to conduct ministry on several levels.  On the one hand, we want to reach the unchurched, and those who’ve been ill-served by mainline churches.  On the other, we want to equip mature Christians to engage in ministry without saddling them with a rehearsal of the ABC’s of the Christian faith.  The next question was this, “Are you liberal, like most Episcopalians, supporting left wing political agendas and encouraging people to hang on to their sinful habits without challenging them to learn, change and grow?”  To this we replied, “No, by no means.”  Then came the question, “Where does the money I put in the plate go?”  This is a problem faced by full-on Episcopal parishes as well as church plants.  The National Church has become famous for wasting money, and using it to advance causes that are questionable if not anti-Christian in their goals.  Further, many people were worried about the fate of funds provided for church facilities that would belong to Bishops and Dioceses, not the individual congregation.  In all sincerity, I could not ask people, whether new or old, to give money to build something that they would not own or control.

 

In order to get around this very real concern, I read the Constitution and Canons.  What I found was that the principle of Diocesan ownership extended to property held by parishes and missions only.  It did not extend to what were called “Church Related Institutions,” like schools, hospitals, and service organizations.  So what I did was draw up articles of incorporation consistent with state diocesan guidelines setting up our congregation as being church-related, but not a parish or mission.  The bishop, who never does anything without consulting his Chancellor, or diocesan attorney, refused to accept the congregation under those terms.  The Chancellor announced that the only two ways Christians could affiliate with the Episcopal Church in that diocese would be as a parish or mission; nothing else would be tolerated.

 

So we continued to operate with no valid articles of incorporation for some time.  After awhile I was involved in a serious auto accident, and although I tried to work at the new congregation for a year, was not able to.  Lacking support from the diocese, I cast about for somebody who could lead the new group from outside the church.  The fellow I selected was soon introduced to that truculence particular to Episcopalians, even ones that are evangelically minded, and abdicated to another who came from the Reformed tradition.  This fellow lasted a year, and last I hear, the church we started is now a Missouri Synod Lutheran congregation.  The equipment we bought and provided, which by the Articles of Incorporation was vested in the Diocese should the congregation fold, has disappeared I know not where.  When a friend who still attends asked if I could preach as a guest preacher, he was told that I was not qualified, as I was not Missouri Synod Lutheran.

 

Since that time the Episcopal Church has been devastated by the departure of faithful, orthodox Christians who, at the cost of their physical plants and ALL property, have left to preserve some semblance of Biblical piety.  This is hard on those who leave, and hard on those who stay.  The last chapter has yet to be written, for as Nebuchadnezzar’s emissary said to Hezekiah, “I’ll give you a thousand horses if you can put riders on them.”  I doubt the bishops who have seized property will be able to pay their mortgages and upkeep with the few parishioners they can put in the pews.  All of this could have been avoided if the Constitution and Canons were read and applied with a little imagination and mercy.  Terrible.

 

Jan 15
0

When the terminally ill are asked to speak at a funeral

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I stand before you reluctantly, and only because Peter’s wife asked me to speak.  I am not qualified to address you today except for two circumstances, one good and the other bad.  The good is that I knew Peter and worked with him, and can attest that he was a talented, gracious person who will be sorely missed by all who knew him.  The bad is that like him, I am also sick with cancer that modern medicine is unable to control.  So, against my wishes, I, too, am an expert on what it is like to have everything life can offer, except my health.  Perhaps Peter is unique in that only his passing could assemble this group, at this time, in this place.  Let me do my best to redeem the occasion.

 

Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing I have not done to avoid being here.  I wish to God I were out there with you, lamenting Peter’s death without having to have premonitions of what may be in my own future.  There is no treatment I have not requested, no stone I have left unturned, that I might be given a reprieve and be allowed to once again become careless about life.  But the recurrent theme of my existence has become this: you may well die sooner rather than later, so what are you going to do about it?  Needless to say, I’ve put my affairs in order in a deliberate and conscious way.  Taking care of my family and my estate is fairly easy; to a large degree that’s what Peter and I did for a living.  We helped people take action today that would bear fruit for tomorrow.  The harder part was to deal with the sense that I am more than a body; that I have a soul that is trapped in this frail, dysfunctional body, that will surely outlast it.  I have a future, and even though I don’t know the details, I do know that it, like my finances, it requires preparation and execution.  Let me explain.

There were two things that were keeping me awake at night.  First of all, I found out that I was not ready to die.  I realized I was in debt to my Creator because of moral guilt.  I had sins of omission and commission that were real and had to be answered for before I could face death with confidence.  The second thing I needed was to learn is how to live.  How can I, whether I live a year or 100 years, acquire the power to reform myself?  When pressed by circumstances, I was not a better person to those around me, but worse.  To quote the Apostle Paul, “I can know what is right, but it is the wrong that I despise that I keep on doing.”  I had to admit that I was essentially powerless and unable to change, learn and grow without outside help.

 

Happily, in spite of my neurotic Roman Catholic upbringing, I have found answers to both problems.  They didn’t come from religion, but from a person, by the name of Jesus of Nazareth.  What I have discovered, is that in addition to being historical facts, his death and resurrection are profoundly personal events, relevant to all humanity.  When he died on a cross, executed by the Roman state, he accepted the punishment that was due all of us for our sins.  In doing this, he allowed a wonderful exchange to take place: our sins for his righteousness.  And not just our sins, MY sins.  In a very real way, I was present at the Cross.  I can face the prospect of death with confidence that I stand fully justified and pure before my Maker.  Further, this man did not stay in the ground, but was raised by the Father to a new life, one that he is permitted to share with all those who will ask for it.  No longer do I have to work and strive to be a better person.  What I have to do is to admit my failure, to STOP trying, to get out of the way, and to let this Jesus do it all through me.  It is His life that now permeates this body of mine, doing in me what I want to do, but have always fallen short of actually doing.  So whether I live a year or 100, I can move beyond mere existence, to a state of constant interchange with my Master that can only be described as truly living.  In this man I have the two things I need most in this world, a Savior for my sins, and a Lord for my life.

 

So I have discovered this truth: it is the very finitude of life that makes the days we have together sacred and meaningful.  Peter’s wife already knows this in a personal way, that only in his passing can she full appreciate what his presence meant.  So I challenge you all to redeem Peter’s death and my struggle by going through the same exercise we have had to engage in: how can I let the prospect of death teach me to truly live?  Your presence in this room has been purchased at a high price; Peter’s death and my on-going struggle.  You have to power to make sense of all this, if you will, like us, embrace your mortality and take from it the good news that you only have two problems, and they have both been solved before you even knew of them, by the One who made you, and who craves to walk with you today and forever.

 

Jan 15
0

Dear Parents and Godparents

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Dear Parents and Godparents,

Congratulations on being asked by other parents to be involved with the baptism of one of their critters.  The institution of godparents probably extends back to times of greater mortality, when parents wanted to ensure that should they die, their children would be raised in a godly tradition.  Even today, being a godparent implies that the parents of a child see something in your life that they want instilled in their child as they grow.  In the course of the ceremony you will be asked questions, both affirmations and renunciations.  The service can be found in the Book of Common Prayer, pages 299 through 314.  The link to the online version is here: http://www.bcponline.org

 

The practice of baptizing infants and children has come under heavy criticism, as it suggests that there is some magical property in the rite that transcends understanding.  To some extent the 1979 Prayer Book is guilty of making this claim.  Other Christians suggest that baptism is appropriate only for older people who are capable of understanding what it is that is being said and promised.  I believe that it is in fact appropriate to baptize infants and young children as long as it is understood what baptism is and isn’t.  Let me explain.

 

Baptism is not magic.  There are many people who are lost spiritually who were baptized.  Further, there are many redeemed who were never baptized; the thief on the cross being a prime example.  So what are we doing here?  Baptism is two things.  First of all, it is a celebration of the fact that without our knowledge or consent, Jesus Christ died on behalf of a sinful humanity, and all people, in every place and age, are justified by virtue of his substitutionary death.  Humanity will never be judged for its sins; they’ve been atoned for by the blood of Christ on the cross.  Just as an infant is unaware of this fact, so we are unaware that our sins are atoned for and will never be debited to our account.  Secondly, baptism is a public declaration, with by an individual or parents and sponsors, that we recognize the death of Christ to be germane to our lives, and that just as he died, we, too, need to die to self, be buried and come up a new person.  We need to cede our will to Jesus, and the symbol of giving up our will is to allow ourselves to be buried, in water as it’s cleaner than dirt, so that the old man with his selfish will, might be done away with.  We come up in newness of life, free to obey Jesus as Lord and embark on a new adventure of living with Him.  To the extent that kids are being baptized, it’s up to the parents and sponsors to bring them up to know that just because they want something, doesn’t mean it’s good or they should get it.  It takes a lifetime sometimes to get the point across that our will should not, must not, be paramount, and that the faster we sign the death warrant to our own wills the better off we’ll be.  Thus, parents and sponsors are the tools God uses to get the point across to kids that “It’s not about you.”  To the extent that you can help them control their will, you’ve been God’s surrogate, and everybody, God, them, society and you, will be the better for it.

 

Although it’s beyond the scope of a discussion of baptism, I should point out that the way people get into spiritual trouble is not for being sinners per se, but for being fruitless.  Jesus died for our sins, he is our savior.  He lives to impart new power to us, he is our Lord.  Or should be.  Check out that attached paper for more.  

This brief monograph captures the salient points of Christian doctrine.  I would appreciate it if, before the ceremony, you read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it.  It’s all based on Scripture, and conforms to the thinking of the great Christian luminaries across the ages.  I would ask that you be prepared to answer the following questions:

 

What, if anything, is new to you?

Is there anything you don’t understand?

Is there anything you understand but don’t agree with?

Is there any Scriptural basis for your disagreement?  Any historical precedent for your viewpoint?

Do you still want to be a sponsor?  Some kids are pretty docile, while others can be a handful.

Please feel free to contact me with any reactions you have to this letter or this article.  As the Scriptures say, it’s better to not vow, than to vow and break it.  Thank you for your willingness to get involved in the life of a child.  I look forward to having a beer and hearing the answers to these questions.

Dec 31
0

The Forgotten Phenomenon

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What would you say if I told you there is a concept in the Bible that would help us make better decisions in every area of our lives, personal and political, if we would but know about it and put its lessons into practice? Well, there is one, and we’ve often ignored it at our peril. Let me highlight this concept as it’s encountered in the Bible, then I’ll apply it in today’s world.

In Luke Chapter 11, verses 24 through 26, we read the following:

“When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid
places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return
to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean
and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more
wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final
condition of that man is worse than the first.” NIV

Jesus of Nazareth was the greatest expert on human nature ever born. What he says here is that it is not enough to clean house and get rid of nefarious influences, there must also be a subsequent infilling. As he explains in this other teachings, this is because we are all slaves by nature. In spite of what we like to imagine, we lack the ability to chose aright and follow up with proper action. We are subject, no matter what we hope or say, to forces greater than ourselves. Thus, when our lives are “swept clean and put in order,” there will still be a power vacuum in our lives that invites greater powers in. The question is therefore not, am I dominated, but rather, what is it that dominates me? Is it a demon, or is it God? You will be controlled by somebody or something; the only thing we can choose is if that entity is benevolent or evil. As we shall see, this goes for individuals, as Jesus’ example depicts, as well as for groups of people, as we read about in the newspapers. Let’s see if this isn’t true.

First, look at the individual behavior of those not explicitly Christian. What happens at AA meetings, where there is no mention of Jesus of Nazareth? First of all, hopefully everybody is sober. There is a demon of alcoholism, a spirit that derives worship when we bow down to the bottle and not to our Savior. Don’t believe this is true? Watch an alcoholic or any drug addict, and you’ll see that there is a supernatural, evil, and irrational dimension to their behavior that seeks their ultimate destruction. The creativity, the relentlessness, the sheer single-mindedness of their obsession with alcohol or drugs is full and sufficient testimony to the existence of personal, intelligent evil. So back to the meeting. Most of the time, there’s no alcohol, but what is there instead? Often it’s cigarettes and coffee, in excess. The people are still addicts, they still offer worship to, in the words of Pat Robertson, a different “vegetable.” They worship the tobacco plant and the coffee bean, not a fungus. This is no doubt an improvement, but the underlying dynamic is intact.

Overt Christians are not exempt from the same pressures. Many Christians meet Jesus and rejoice in the forgiveness of sins he has already purchased for them. If they don’t fill themselves with fellowship and teaching, however, what usually happens? They fall away, as Jesus predicts when talking about the seed sown in shallow soil, and are lost. They realize they are forgiven, but they are not filled. Remember, we have two problems. One is guilt over past sins, and the other is powerlessness to stop sinning in the future. If you have the former but not the latter, you will become discouraged and subject to even greater condemnation for having known the truth and done nothing about it.

Then, and more to the point in an election year, we see the same phenomenon in human behavior on a national scale. If I have one criticism to make of U.S. foreign policy over the past century, it is that we think other people are like us. We derive our ideals that forged our liberal capitalist democracy from our history as being subject to British common law. The ideals of common law were hammered out over the past millennium, and can be formally traced to the Magna Carta in 1215. We and other British colonies are unique in this heritage, yet we think everybody shares our democratic ideals. Not so. Even the French have a very different attitude towards law, government and the rights of man from the British.

So what happens is this: we Americans go to the rescue of beleaguered people and deliver them from their oppressors. We have done this time and again, and the results of those ventures vary to the extent that we recognized the existence of a power vacuum after their deliverance. In cases where no vacuum was allowed, the transition and recovery were smooth. Witness Germany and Japan after WWII. The Marshall Plan, NATO and the presence of U.S. troops were sufficient to maintain order and allow an indigenous leadership to take hold. But what about when we allow a vacuum to develop without taking steps to fill it? Examples abound in the past 100 years. In approximate chronological order:

  • Europe and the Middle East after WWI. The Versailles Treaty with its unrealistic, vindictive terms left the greatest power vacuum the world had ever seen. Germany, deprived of the Kaiser and the General Staff, hatched Hitler and his bag of tricks. In the Middle East, the fall of the Ottoman Empire produced not a free and self-governing group of nations as T. E. Lawrence recommended, but rather a crazy quilt pattern of colonial dictates that had nothing to do with nationalities, sensibilities, or the promises made to the actors by the victorious allies. The result is the mess we have today, with Britain “giving” what they don’t own (Palestine) to somebody who doesn’t deserve it (Jews), to paraphrase and Arab leader. You know the rest of the story.
  • India and Pakistan after the British. Whoa! Talk about trouble that’s yet to subside, take a look at these two nuclear powers! They were separated on the basis of religion, but find that even the world’s highest mountain range is too low to keep them from each other’s throats. Many of the British practices were unfair and exploitative, but at least there was an enforced peace.
  • Viet Nam after the Americans. Throw out the U.S. and what do you get? A corrupt, unmotivated ruling elite who pillage and exploit without helping the cause. And that was before the North Vietnamese won!
  • Iran after the Shah. Was he good? Not always, but he was not all bad. He did much to modernize Iran and lead the people out of the retrograde influences of Mohammedism that handcuffed the people up until the Shah’s rapprochement with the West. And after he was ejected? Some of the most harsh, ruthless and unstable ideologues seen in this century. Why? A power vacuum.
  • Soviet Union after the Communists. Yeltsin was corrupt and unable to fill the resulting power vacuum, and so now we have KGB strongman Putin taking his place. Is this a coincidence, or the result of a natural law at work that abhors a vacuum? Q: When it comes to invading other countries to “put down civil unrest and rescue our nationals,” what is the difference between Putin and Hitler? A: Putin speaks Russian.
  • South Africa after apartheid. This was every liberal’s flavor du jour in terms of foreign policy reform when the whites were in charge. The Boers were morons in many ways, and deserve the fate they received at the hands of the blacks when the sun set on their little game. Yet at least they had an orderly nation with the best economy on the continent when they ruled. Remember, the Bible talks a lot more about the importance of order than it does civic freedom. So what do South Africans have now that the blacks are in charge, but the highest incidences of rape, AIDS, venereal disease, social and political mayhem and economic collapse on that same continent? Except perhaps Zimbabwe after Ian Smith? But at least blacks are in charge in both places, so you don’t hear a peep from the Hollywood elite. Racism at its worst. Again, a power vacuum was to blame.
  • Iraq after Saddam. We see that Hussein is a problem, so we head in and give him a new style necktie. Is he the problem? In large degree yes, but he’s not the only problem. The real problem is that Iraq, like so many cultures that have not experienced an Enlightenment, is tribal in nature. The request of the indigenous leaders after Hussein’s expulsion was for statues of George Bush, to be the new tribal chief, if you will. Yet what did we do? We offered them democratic elections, something they were unfamiliar with, as if they were electors in Iowa voting in the first caucus of the year. The result? A power vacuum that almost cost Iraq its future and the American administration its legacy.

These examples are presented in a necessarily incomplete degree, yet the point remains: in national life as well as that of the individual, we cannot tolerate power vacuums. Evil never rests, and we are most susceptible to its incursions after we are relieved of oppression. If the void, whether personal or national, is not quickly filled with good, it will soon be filled with bad. The choice is not normal>whether or not it is filled, but with what it will be filled. A person sweeps and puts their life in order through repentance, and it follows they must in very short order be filled with the Holy Spirit if they are to gain power to succeed. A nation that tosses out the oppressive leader must also install a more benevolent regime, with all celerity, if their fate is not also to be “worse than the first.” Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves, and it behooves us to stick our noses in the Bible and save ourselves the peril of rediscovering these truths anew in each generation. Until we deal with our inherent powerlessness, both individual and collective, we’re just palliating symptoms and repeating life’s, and history’s, errors.

Dec 31
0

Global Warming is Crap

By | Cleric Comments | No Comments

RougeCleric’s purpose is not to pursue political agendas as an end in themselves. Antagonists in the political arena are already separated by profound and insoluble philosophical differences, and are thus unable to come to any common understanding or conclusions. The inevitable result of political dialogue is thus enmity and division. We would do well to avoid such activities. It is our purpose, however, to comment on political issues, amongst others, if in doing so we can show how regenerate thinking can solve those philosophical problems and thereby achieve new insight and rapprochement. Who has something to add to the caldron of social debate if not Christians? Because of their reconstituted minds, Christians should be the first to examine the divisive issues of our time, and show where sinful Man has lost his way and needs to repent even of the way he thinks.

This avoidance of logical thought is to the eternal discredit of the Church. Logic can, and should, play a huge role in the conversion of the world to the Christian Gospel. When does the sinner decide to change his wicked ways, if not when he logically concludes that he must? The drunk decides to stop drinking, because worship of the bottle has destroyed his life. The thief decides to stop stealing because he’s in jail and deprived of his freedom. Is that not why they’re called penitentiaries? The homosexual or heterosexual philanderer decides to leave his life of sin because his past choices have debased one of God’s greatest gifts. Are not these examples, one and all, of people engaging in logical, ordered, analysis of cause and effect as encountered in God’s creation? When we allow subjectivity and “faith” to enter into the debate, we lose hold of our greatest tool, and that is the ability to think straight.

Nowhere is logical, objective thinking more rare than in the current debate, highly politicized by an election year, about global warming. Wherever you turn, be it in specialty magazines about cars, climbing, the outdoors, or in the pontifications from the Democratic nominees in debate, there’s one issue that is swallowed hook, line and sinker by everybody, and that is that the world is warming up due to anthropogenic (man made) carbon dioxide. Is this true? Who has studied the issues? Upon what are their alarming predictions based?

If you do any research at all into the issue, you’ll find some interesting facts that will cause you to reconsider your position. Here are some examples:

    • Humans are responsible for 2% to 5% of all carbon dioxide produced in the atmosphere; the rest is from natural sources. Carbon dioxide comprises from 3% to 4% of all greenhouse gases by volume, the largest of which is water vapor from the oceans. Thus, humans are responsible for .2% of all greenhouse gases, or less.
    • Global temperatures have risen about .6 of a degree Centigrade during the past century, with much of the gain coming BEFORE 1940, BEFORE the bulk of fossil fuels were burned. 80% of the fossil fuels burned in the 20th century were used since WWII, a period which until 1976 was a COOLING trend. Furthermore, high altitude temperature readings for the 20th century show no consistent trend in terms of temperature change.
    • The current rise in global temperature is observable only in contrast to the “Little Ice Age” which concluded at the end of the 19th century. Claims of global warming do not consider paleoclimatological data which suggest that there have been many periods of warmer and cooler weather, all of which occurred without the benefit of anthropogenic carbon dioxide.
    • Fossil, sedimentary and ice gas data suggest that past temperature fluctuations are indeed accompanied by changes in carbon dioxide levels, but that the changes in carbon dioxide FOLLOW temperature changes by about 800 years. Thus, carbon dioxide production is dependent upon temperature, not the other way around.
    • The earth receives about 342 watts of solar energy per square meter. This should be compared to the amount of energy carbon dioxide is expected to add, which is only 1.5 watts per square meter. This latter figure should be contrasted with the amount of solar energy a cloud can absorb or reflect, which is calculated to be about 78 watts per square meter. Thus, a cloud can have 52 times the influence of carbon dioxide in terms of affecting our global temperature.
    • The best correlation between global temperature and any other natural phenomena is found with solar activity in the form of sun spots. Although the exact linkage is ill-understood, it appears as though cosmic rays affect the upper atmosphere of the Earth, inhibiting the condensation of lower level clouds and allowing more solar radiation to strike the Earth and increasing surface temperatures.
    • Many of the world’s most prominent scientists involved in paleoclimatological and atmospheric studies have abandoned the global warming ship.
    • The computer simulations that predict a sudden rise in global temperatures are mere approximations of the exceedingly complex system that is our biosphere, and they have consistently shown themselves to be subject to the prejudices of their authors. Water vapor feedback loops programmed at exponential gain produce temperature rises, no matter what data are entered into the equation. The predictions are embedded in the algorithms, not the observed data.

The validity of the research cited here is, of course, open to question, but a definite pattern emerges when the data are consulted. Those who have looked at the facts are anything but convinced that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is the civilization killer as it’s portrayed in the popular press. The question for Roguecleric, though, remains: why would people be so eager to adopt this highly suspect interpretation of our climatological predicament and tout it as received truth?The answer to this question returns, of necessity, to philosophy. Remember what the Bible says about Man. We are not rational, but irrational, creatures. Rational behavior would be this: study the facts, draw a conclusion, and then modify your behavior to align yourself with the facts. What we do, of course, is the opposite. We decide what we want to do, then we look for “facts” that justify our prior decision, and go with them instead. Philosophy is the study of how we think or fail to think, and the whole global warming debate is a classic example of the latter. There are at least three reasons why the liberal political machine, the environmental movement and the media are so attracted to the global warming bandwagon.

    1. • First of all, it lets them blame others for their problems; an important psychological necessity for the idle. Remember what Adam said when confronted with his sin. “It’s the fault of the woman you gave me.” Thus it was the woman’s fault, and God’s fault for giving her to Adam, but it was not Adam’s fault. Blame shifting was therefore the first sign of human sin. The global warming people, most of whom do nothing to contribute to the economic pie, are jealous of those who actually work to make the world a better place. They don’t grow crops, they don’t mine resources, they don’t manufacture or distribute anything; they just consume. So what do they do with their neurosis? They blame those who make their lifestyle possible for hurting the environment. It’s simply guilt talking.
    1. • Secondly, it turns the tables on Man’s role in creation. According to the Scriptures, Man has been put in charge of the garden to make it more orderly and beautiful. Plants, animals, all are here to be used to our advantage. This is not to say that we’re to misuse Creation, as it does not belong to us. We are stewards of that which ultimately belongs to somebody else, and we will be held accountable for the use, or misuse, of what’s entrusted to us. We are not, however, slaves to that which we are to superintend. The world is not, in the lamentable words of Eucharistic Prayer C in the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, a “fragile earth, or island home.” It’s pretty damn robust, and has a God-given capacity to rejuvenate itself after profound abuse from humans. We are not to feel guilty about being at the top of the pyramid in the animal kingdom, the food chain, or any other aspect of Creation.
    1. • Thirdly, the global warming mantra distracts us from the real issues in the human experience, notably the increase in sexual sins and the resultant slaughter of unprotected, unborn children. By acting put out over global warming, the would-be moralists are able to issue sanctimonious denunciations of the rest of us, while doing nothing of substance to help the human condition. What’s more important, sixth tenth’s of a degree in temperature, of the fact that more than half the babies being born are not born of married parents? At best these people are like Diogenes, who trundled his clay pot around the streets of Athens in an energetic display of action with no clear goal in mind. At worst, they are masking their own moral shortcomings by pointing their fingers at others.

So what are we to do? First of all, ask the next proponent of global warming you meet for the source of his “facts.” Which study is he referring to? What paleoclimatological data support his conclusions? Sea shell isotopes, ice gases from Greenland, soil sediments from Canada? Whose model are they referring to? The ones that make the same prediction, no matter what data are entered into them? Let’s get real. I’m the son of the world’s foremost expert on computer simulation, and I know how these models of “soft” systems are done. They tell you more about the philosophy of the modeler than they do about the system under consideration. Secondly, you must make sure your elected leaders are supported when they refuse to be drawn into the global warming worldview. God bless George Bush. Forget Kyoto. We’re going to run out of fossil fuels soon enough, and we’ll have a whole new set of problems when that happens. Finally, ask those who espouse this worldview how they got where they are currently standing. Did they ride a bicycle? Did they walk? Do they do anything that uses energy? Do they have a car? Do they go to concerts to support the environment? Why are they entitled to use energy, and we aren’t? Don’t they know that their beloved poor and disenfranchised will be the FIRST to suffer if the world economy is disrupted by attempts to shut it down?

We are enjoined by Scripture to love God with our whole selves, body, spirit, and MIND. If you can’t think clearly about the created order, what makes you think you can come to any accurate and sane conclusions about more weighty matters? Let’s practice on the little stuff, like science, then we can move on to the big stuff, like the stewardship of a beautiful creation and the discovering the purpose of Man therein.