The same-sex marriage debate has generated a lot of opinion but I personally have not heard from anyone else that which I'm going to put in this post today.
A student of military history and of war would surely recognize this scenario..... the general of the first army in a battle might set up a defensive front or at most conduct limited offensive operations for a period of time all the while planning a bold and aggressive move in hopes of overwhelming army number two. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson planned something very similar in the battle of Chancellorsville where Jackson's Second Corps flanked the entire left side of the Union army and attacked from the rear... a move so bold that the Union army was taken by surprise and routed.
It became apparent a few years ago that the gay agenda was no longer attempting to grind out a little advancement at a time but was throwing everything that they had, reserves and all, at America, particularly at it's most cherished possession...no not the Constitution... but the Bible and its definition of marriage. This has nothing to do with discrimination for any legal union would have satisfied that. It has nothing to do with fairness for it is the antithesis of fairness in forcing people to deny their beliefs but none of this is of any consequence compared to one overriding factor. If the trend continues we will have completely turned our children over to not only a godless nanny state but an antichrist nanny state.
This is not a social issue, it's not even primarily a political issue. It's a head-on frontal assault on Christianity. One nation and one nation alone stands in the way of a totalitarian one-world government and that is the United States and one fundamental core and one fundamental core alone gives legitimacy to the United States in the eyes of God and that is it's Christian faith... once predominate, then dwindling and now not only dispossessed but suffering from amnesia.
There is a lot of news concerning our rapidly decaying national defense and military readiness but as valuable as this is to our enemies it was never the number one target of theirs. No, they have known from their own inception that unless America renounces its Christian faith, unless its God lifts His hand of protection, unless America is on its own, Americans would never sit back and allow their house to be robbed, their liberties taken away and their families made subservient to a totalitarian state entity. Destroy marriage and brainwash the children in a political correct educational system and America will be taken as easily as Samson after his haircut.
Scripture is very clear in that rebelling against God is one thing but purposely leading children into rebellion is another level. Try this exercise at your leisure of which we in America hold sacrosanct; imagine a society where same-sex marriage has not only been legitimized but forcibly ingrained into the minds of its people. Imagine trying to raise Christian children in such a society. And one more thing to imagine...you can go to just about any book of the prophets from the Old Testament for research.....then imagine God's reaction to a nation that had sacrificed its children on the pagan altars of the day.
If we place this issue anywhere other than the very front burner, if we fail to recognize how this will affect the children, if we continue to ignore God's clear word on this and if we judge to be love that which is enmity towards God and compassion that which is utter irresponsibilty then God's judgement upon us may not reveal itself as that of Jonah's forty day waiting period but rather Nahum's proclamation of swift destruction without so much as an offer to repent.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Pulpit....Not The Podium
Radio host Mark Levin will be honored in two days at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He is to receive the inaugural Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award. Mark Levin deserves to be honored. His books and his radio program have been invaluable to an America under siege and I have written of them often but our problems are deeper than even the tyranny in our midst.
During those first years after a burden of sin appeared on my back and I came to the cross of Calvary and found redemption in what Jesus Christ accomplished on that day over two thousand years ago I found myself frequenting Christian conferences. They were a time of great joy and I'm so thankful for them but if one is not careful one can live only for the conferences and seminars and begin to live vicariously through the speakers and come to depend upon their efforts to sustain one's enthusiasm.
Only a reformation in American Christianity holds any hope for us to survive as a nation. God's Holy Spirit is the only one who can transform us by the renewing of our minds. It is only upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ that we can depend. Should God have mercy upon America it will be through our pulpits that he reforms us and there is scant evidence at the present time of such mercy. The vast majority of my brothers and sisters in Christ would disagree with that assessment but that same vast majority has been given little to compare with present day evangelicalism. The following post is from August of 2011:
Pulpit....Not The Podium
One of the running themes in this blog is the need for America to humble itself before God, before God humbles us before our numerous enemies. Yesterday, Texas Governor Rick Perry hosted a major prayer event in Houston of upwards of 25,000 people with that very message. One might therefore expect the writer of this blog to wholeheartedly rejoice in this but that's not the case. I agree with the diagnosis, but not prescription of a media event.
We are falling apart in every way imaginable. Our Congress is clueless which is a description far too generous to use on our White House. Our culture is in chaos. Our media is in denial while our enemies are certain of our collapse. Pep rallies are not the answer especially when politics is part of it. I'm not questioning the intent of the organizers or Governor Perry for I know what it is like to finally figure out that America is collapsing because its reliance upon God has vanished, because we have gone our own way and God is permitting us to reap what we have sown.
I have probably written a dozen times in this blog on the need for America to humble itself before God and I hope in those blogs that I made it known that I was talking about myself as much as anyone who might read it. Ultimately, we do not have to see America's sins clearer...we have to see more clearly the one sinned against (God.) A deficient view of the holiness of God can result in feelings of a satisfactory repentance and the consequent projection upon others of the need to do so also. A heightened view of the holiness of God will hardly get one off the hook so easily.
The Puritan mind could see clearer... God and His character, hence repentance was an everyday occurrence as they humbly approached God for all their needs. The secular mind of today sees the Puritan mind as a lifelong quest to quench joy in anyone and everyone and the evangelical mind is a product of these times, on display in Christian bookstores, Christian music concerts and events, and fundraising telethons, and is much more susceptible to a good gimmick than what is really needed.
The podium, the bookstore and the blogosphere can indeed address our inflated view of our minds and ourselves and the turmoil that lies ahead but only the pulpit can effectively deflate that view, soften the heart and ease the burdened soul through the proclamation of redemption through the blood of Christ as written in God's Word. The speaker on the dais and the soapbox tends to point out every culprit except the one standing on the dais and the soapbox and those gathered together to listen.
We attended a Lutheran church (Missouri Synod) this past week while traveling. I scoured the local church websites looking for a Lord's Day sermon topic on Christ and, as I had done in the past, wound up choosing the Lutheran church, for the atonement is at least always present in the liturgy if not the sermon. As it happened, a "retired" minister was filling the pulpit for the regular pastor. In essence, his sermon was "Christ is the only answer." A worshipper came up to my wife and recommended that we should come back next week when the regular pastor is in the pulpit but I think that we were blessed with the right day, the right minister and the right message. In our storied past, calls for national days of prayer and fasting have been corporate, where the composer of the call was in need of repentance as any of the represented, but ultimately the pulpit is what God utilizes in calling individuals and nations to repentance. Unfortunately for today, our pulpits are in need of awakening. Such is our extreme dilemma.
Once again I would like to recommend refnet.fm as a resource for a comparison of our church age today and that of times past.
During those first years after a burden of sin appeared on my back and I came to the cross of Calvary and found redemption in what Jesus Christ accomplished on that day over two thousand years ago I found myself frequenting Christian conferences. They were a time of great joy and I'm so thankful for them but if one is not careful one can live only for the conferences and seminars and begin to live vicariously through the speakers and come to depend upon their efforts to sustain one's enthusiasm.
Only a reformation in American Christianity holds any hope for us to survive as a nation. God's Holy Spirit is the only one who can transform us by the renewing of our minds. It is only upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ that we can depend. Should God have mercy upon America it will be through our pulpits that he reforms us and there is scant evidence at the present time of such mercy. The vast majority of my brothers and sisters in Christ would disagree with that assessment but that same vast majority has been given little to compare with present day evangelicalism. The following post is from August of 2011:
Pulpit....Not The Podium
One of the running themes in this blog is the need for America to humble itself before God, before God humbles us before our numerous enemies. Yesterday, Texas Governor Rick Perry hosted a major prayer event in Houston of upwards of 25,000 people with that very message. One might therefore expect the writer of this blog to wholeheartedly rejoice in this but that's not the case. I agree with the diagnosis, but not prescription of a media event.
We are falling apart in every way imaginable. Our Congress is clueless which is a description far too generous to use on our White House. Our culture is in chaos. Our media is in denial while our enemies are certain of our collapse. Pep rallies are not the answer especially when politics is part of it. I'm not questioning the intent of the organizers or Governor Perry for I know what it is like to finally figure out that America is collapsing because its reliance upon God has vanished, because we have gone our own way and God is permitting us to reap what we have sown.
I have probably written a dozen times in this blog on the need for America to humble itself before God and I hope in those blogs that I made it known that I was talking about myself as much as anyone who might read it. Ultimately, we do not have to see America's sins clearer...we have to see more clearly the one sinned against (God.) A deficient view of the holiness of God can result in feelings of a satisfactory repentance and the consequent projection upon others of the need to do so also. A heightened view of the holiness of God will hardly get one off the hook so easily.
The Puritan mind could see clearer... God and His character, hence repentance was an everyday occurrence as they humbly approached God for all their needs. The secular mind of today sees the Puritan mind as a lifelong quest to quench joy in anyone and everyone and the evangelical mind is a product of these times, on display in Christian bookstores, Christian music concerts and events, and fundraising telethons, and is much more susceptible to a good gimmick than what is really needed.
The podium, the bookstore and the blogosphere can indeed address our inflated view of our minds and ourselves and the turmoil that lies ahead but only the pulpit can effectively deflate that view, soften the heart and ease the burdened soul through the proclamation of redemption through the blood of Christ as written in God's Word. The speaker on the dais and the soapbox tends to point out every culprit except the one standing on the dais and the soapbox and those gathered together to listen.
We attended a Lutheran church (Missouri Synod) this past week while traveling. I scoured the local church websites looking for a Lord's Day sermon topic on Christ and, as I had done in the past, wound up choosing the Lutheran church, for the atonement is at least always present in the liturgy if not the sermon. As it happened, a "retired" minister was filling the pulpit for the regular pastor. In essence, his sermon was "Christ is the only answer." A worshipper came up to my wife and recommended that we should come back next week when the regular pastor is in the pulpit but I think that we were blessed with the right day, the right minister and the right message. In our storied past, calls for national days of prayer and fasting have been corporate, where the composer of the call was in need of repentance as any of the represented, but ultimately the pulpit is what God utilizes in calling individuals and nations to repentance. Unfortunately for today, our pulpits are in need of awakening. Such is our extreme dilemma.
Once again I would like to recommend refnet.fm as a resource for a comparison of our church age today and that of times past.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
It Would Make No Sense....
I cannot remember what it feels like not to know Jesus Christ as my Savior, my Lord and King. Oh I remember what it is like to trample underfoot the grace that He bestowed upon me, sinner that I am, for I would only have to go back hours if not minutes for that, but I cannot remember how I thought prior to 1982. I know what wasn't in my mind but cannot remember what was there. I can recall my fourth birthday party where my older cousin Buzzy hid behind a door to scare me. I remember putting a full carton of my lunch milk into the milk crate, spilling it all over the kindergarten floor at North Hill Elementary School, and then not owning up to it as Mrs. Martin had us circle the crate until until the guilty party fessed up. It's not for lack of memory powers, it's for lack of something else.
I remember what it was like to be....religious. I remember sitting in the pew before grade school, holding my daily missal in my hands almost entranced by the Latin words coming from the altar. I remember trying to converse with God on long walks in the rain while in my teens. I remember attending Mass in Vietnam on those Sunday mornings when I didn't have a hangover. I remember walking over to St. Paul's Cathedral for evening Mass after finishing work at Hillman Library at Pitt. I just cannot remember the name of Jesus as anything more than a distant personage who must surely be revered as someone very important but for reasons as distant in understanding as the heavens themselves where Jesus lived.
Someone won over $400 million dollars in the Powerball yesterday but that experience cannot possibly rival receiving the grace poured from the cross of Calvary. I have a Bible hanging on the side of my locker at work all of the time. I doubt that it is picked up very often. Here is something that should make that $400 million jackpot appear as a worn penny on the street in value but it goes unrecognized. Bibles are everywhere in America but can't compete with an iPhone in perceived value.
Arminianism is the prevalent theology in evangelicalism today. In this doctrine man responds positively to the Gospel and is born again. But this is not what Scripture describes. In the Gospel according to Jesus Christ a dead person (spiritually) is made alive!!! He then responds to the Gospel that he truly hears for the first time. For ten years I thought that I made a decision and God responded by pouring His grace out upon me, that I wasn't as dumb as I look! Then I saw what really happened, that for some reason known only to God, he said..."You....the lowest of the low....believe, repent, be baptized and follow Me!" It was He that opened my eyes, that made me see my previous 32 years. I saw the filth and the rebellion, the pride, the hate, the ignorance and the arrogance.....and then I saw a King before me, the King of Kings! My heart stopped beating and a new heart began to beat. My lungs collapsed. I could draw in no air for the majesty I was in the presence of. I yelled as John Bunyan's pilgrim..."Life, life, eternal life!"
If I sit and meditate and try as hard as I can to remember what it what like before God said to me..."You"...I start to tremble. Something wafts through my nostrils...an odious smell...and then it disappears. I perceive that God will not let me return any further then the address. I see the outside of the building but cannot go in. I never want to go into that building but I also never want to forget it for therein is my only remembrance of what I was rescued from, and every time I see it I yell once again...."Life, life, eternal life!'. My desire is that you hear what I heard....the words "You.....the lowest of the low.....believe, repent, be baptized and follow Me!" for it makes no sense that God would have had mercy on me but that I could tell you of it!
I remember what it was like to be....religious. I remember sitting in the pew before grade school, holding my daily missal in my hands almost entranced by the Latin words coming from the altar. I remember trying to converse with God on long walks in the rain while in my teens. I remember attending Mass in Vietnam on those Sunday mornings when I didn't have a hangover. I remember walking over to St. Paul's Cathedral for evening Mass after finishing work at Hillman Library at Pitt. I just cannot remember the name of Jesus as anything more than a distant personage who must surely be revered as someone very important but for reasons as distant in understanding as the heavens themselves where Jesus lived.
Someone won over $400 million dollars in the Powerball yesterday but that experience cannot possibly rival receiving the grace poured from the cross of Calvary. I have a Bible hanging on the side of my locker at work all of the time. I doubt that it is picked up very often. Here is something that should make that $400 million jackpot appear as a worn penny on the street in value but it goes unrecognized. Bibles are everywhere in America but can't compete with an iPhone in perceived value.
Arminianism is the prevalent theology in evangelicalism today. In this doctrine man responds positively to the Gospel and is born again. But this is not what Scripture describes. In the Gospel according to Jesus Christ a dead person (spiritually) is made alive!!! He then responds to the Gospel that he truly hears for the first time. For ten years I thought that I made a decision and God responded by pouring His grace out upon me, that I wasn't as dumb as I look! Then I saw what really happened, that for some reason known only to God, he said..."You....the lowest of the low....believe, repent, be baptized and follow Me!" It was He that opened my eyes, that made me see my previous 32 years. I saw the filth and the rebellion, the pride, the hate, the ignorance and the arrogance.....and then I saw a King before me, the King of Kings! My heart stopped beating and a new heart began to beat. My lungs collapsed. I could draw in no air for the majesty I was in the presence of. I yelled as John Bunyan's pilgrim..."Life, life, eternal life!"
If I sit and meditate and try as hard as I can to remember what it what like before God said to me..."You"...I start to tremble. Something wafts through my nostrils...an odious smell...and then it disappears. I perceive that God will not let me return any further then the address. I see the outside of the building but cannot go in. I never want to go into that building but I also never want to forget it for therein is my only remembrance of what I was rescued from, and every time I see it I yell once again...."Life, life, eternal life!'. My desire is that you hear what I heard....the words "You.....the lowest of the low.....believe, repent, be baptized and follow Me!" for it makes no sense that God would have had mercy on me but that I could tell you of it!
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Bulletin Board
I'm going to try something new here, short posts every once in a while, kept up only for a day. The first one is a reminder of refnet.fm 24-hour Internet radio. When I was born again in the early 80s I immediately began to devour Christian literature and amassed a few hundred books over the first ten years. Only a small percentage of those books could be considered doctrinally sound but I had no way to discern what was good...nothing to compare it to. I happened across a book with a George Whitefield logo on the spine....a robed preacher holding up a Bible. After reading it I looked for other books from the same publisher, Banner Of Truth. I now knew that there was something drastically different from yesterday's Christian literature and today's. Eventually I called a man who also published books of this nature and asked him where I could go to church where I would hear this.....Gospel. I took his advice.
All I am trying to do here is shorten your search, if you are indeed searching. Refnet.fm is a radio collection of various Christian ministries, primarily those of Ligonier Ministries and R. C. Sproul. From what I have seen of their radio schedule you cannot go wrong. Listen to a few teaching programs from R. C. Sproul and you will also know that their is something drastically different from what you may have become accustomed to. There are indeed excellent Christian books written today as their are excellent radio ministries like Sproul's Renewing Your Mind but somewhere along the line a new believer in Jesus Christ must get a grasp on what is sound Christian teaching and literature....and what is not.
All I am trying to do here is shorten your search, if you are indeed searching. Refnet.fm is a radio collection of various Christian ministries, primarily those of Ligonier Ministries and R. C. Sproul. From what I have seen of their radio schedule you cannot go wrong. Listen to a few teaching programs from R. C. Sproul and you will also know that their is something drastically different from what you may have become accustomed to. There are indeed excellent Christian books written today as their are excellent radio ministries like Sproul's Renewing Your Mind but somewhere along the line a new believer in Jesus Christ must get a grasp on what is sound Christian teaching and literature....and what is not.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Impeach
Impeachment of President Barack Hussein Obama with a guilty verdict in a Senate trial would be more than difficult and maybe not even possible but it has to be pursued. Joe Biden as our President would.... well just the thought of it is enough to make you weep. Even just facing impeachment would quite likely send Barack Obama into an even more deliberate destructive mode towards our Constitution, our heritage and even the defense of our nation. It's gets worse. Our enemies know very well the window of opportunity they have. Impeachment proceedings might even force their hand.
There is no truth and no law with this president. Our chief law enforcement officer mocks the very concept of law. Radicals roam the White House corridors. The President makes political appointments that end with disaster and is weakening our military and the morale of those who serve. He is a destroyer and golfs and parties while he plies his trade..
Impeachment proceedings need to begin because there is no choice but that doesn't mean that good might not come of it. For one thing, doing that which is right is a reward in itself and the right thing is to attempt to protect our Constitution. It may just be that a trial will wake the American people up by giving them information that our media refuses to give. Barack Obama may elude conviction but with that might come a convicted American public....convicted inwardly of extreme negligence as citizens and as parents!
The following is a book review from last February. It details the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. I wrote in this post, "And don't even think about impeaching Barack Obama without studying what happened with Bill Clinton...." Read it but don't let it dissuade you.
Catching Our Flag
It seems like two or three times a year I come across a book that I can't put down. Paul Kengor's Dupes was one of those books and Mark Levin's Liberty And Tyranny another to mention just two. Well, I came across the latest a few days ago. I somehow missed it when it came out in 2011. Congressman James E. Rogan was one of the House Managers in Bill Clinton's impeachment. He kept a daily journal during those proceedings for the purpose of getting it right if called upon to recount those days. Joseph Farah and WorldNetDaily (WND Books) called and James Rogan's testimony on this will be invaluable if impeachment proceedings are brought against this current president. The book is Catching our Flag, Behind The Scenes of a Presidential Impeachment.
First of all, the book is extremely easy to read. The journal entries are in bold print and the author's commentary takes the reader right into the many formal and informal meetings of the House's decision to impeach and the Senate's decision to abort. Dozens of characters that we mostly know from press clippings such as Henry Hyde come alive. There are personal stories everywhere. Sonny Bono shows up. He wasn't a key player in this drama but he was a good friend of the author. I'll give you one anecdote. Both the author and Sonny Bono came from rough backgrounds and wound up in the United States House of Representatives. One day as they were in that chamber, Sonny looked around at where, as he described, Lincoln, Webster, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford served and commented to Jim Rogan, "Here you are-a guy who used to bartend on the Sunset Strip. Here I am-a guy who used to drive a meat truck on the Sunset Strip. Don't you ever look around this chamber and wonder how.... we ever got here?" Rogan responded "Sonny, I sit here all the time, look around this chamber and wonder how....you ever got here. I know how I got here....I went to law school."
So, is this just a good book to read... a walk down memory lane if you're old enough to remember those days? No, it's more like cardiopulmonary resuscitation directions as Uncle Sam lies in the Capitol Rotunda clutching his heart. Folks, please read this book! President William Jefferson Clinton should have been convicted in impeachment and Hillary Clinton should never have been given a free pass. Read in this book of the charges that should have been brought to the impeachment trial. Read of a United States Senate that will make you want to vomit your last meal. Read about the few real American heroes that were in our Congress and read of the ones that let all of us down. This book should be read in political science classes and law schools. And don't even think about impeaching Barack Obama without studying what happened with Bill Clinton for David Axelrod probably read it and took copious notes. I'll leave you with this quote on the House's failed attempt to have a legitimate trial in the Senate: "As the record now shows, we 'tried' our case on their terms. The Senate refused to allow us to call a single live witness. There was no direct or cross-examination. This scripted procedure preordained the exoneration of President Clinton. It was no trial, in any meaningful sense of the word. Yet today, every history book and public account records that Clinton won acquittal after a Senate impeachment 'trial'."
There is no truth and no law with this president. Our chief law enforcement officer mocks the very concept of law. Radicals roam the White House corridors. The President makes political appointments that end with disaster and is weakening our military and the morale of those who serve. He is a destroyer and golfs and parties while he plies his trade..
Impeachment proceedings need to begin because there is no choice but that doesn't mean that good might not come of it. For one thing, doing that which is right is a reward in itself and the right thing is to attempt to protect our Constitution. It may just be that a trial will wake the American people up by giving them information that our media refuses to give. Barack Obama may elude conviction but with that might come a convicted American public....convicted inwardly of extreme negligence as citizens and as parents!
The following is a book review from last February. It details the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. I wrote in this post, "And don't even think about impeaching Barack Obama without studying what happened with Bill Clinton...." Read it but don't let it dissuade you.
Catching Our Flag
It seems like two or three times a year I come across a book that I can't put down. Paul Kengor's Dupes was one of those books and Mark Levin's Liberty And Tyranny another to mention just two. Well, I came across the latest a few days ago. I somehow missed it when it came out in 2011. Congressman James E. Rogan was one of the House Managers in Bill Clinton's impeachment. He kept a daily journal during those proceedings for the purpose of getting it right if called upon to recount those days. Joseph Farah and WorldNetDaily (WND Books) called and James Rogan's testimony on this will be invaluable if impeachment proceedings are brought against this current president. The book is Catching our Flag, Behind The Scenes of a Presidential Impeachment.
First of all, the book is extremely easy to read. The journal entries are in bold print and the author's commentary takes the reader right into the many formal and informal meetings of the House's decision to impeach and the Senate's decision to abort. Dozens of characters that we mostly know from press clippings such as Henry Hyde come alive. There are personal stories everywhere. Sonny Bono shows up. He wasn't a key player in this drama but he was a good friend of the author. I'll give you one anecdote. Both the author and Sonny Bono came from rough backgrounds and wound up in the United States House of Representatives. One day as they were in that chamber, Sonny looked around at where, as he described, Lincoln, Webster, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford served and commented to Jim Rogan, "Here you are-a guy who used to bartend on the Sunset Strip. Here I am-a guy who used to drive a meat truck on the Sunset Strip. Don't you ever look around this chamber and wonder how.... we ever got here?" Rogan responded "Sonny, I sit here all the time, look around this chamber and wonder how....you ever got here. I know how I got here....I went to law school."
So, is this just a good book to read... a walk down memory lane if you're old enough to remember those days? No, it's more like cardiopulmonary resuscitation directions as Uncle Sam lies in the Capitol Rotunda clutching his heart. Folks, please read this book! President William Jefferson Clinton should have been convicted in impeachment and Hillary Clinton should never have been given a free pass. Read in this book of the charges that should have been brought to the impeachment trial. Read of a United States Senate that will make you want to vomit your last meal. Read about the few real American heroes that were in our Congress and read of the ones that let all of us down. This book should be read in political science classes and law schools. And don't even think about impeaching Barack Obama without studying what happened with Bill Clinton for David Axelrod probably read it and took copious notes. I'll leave you with this quote on the House's failed attempt to have a legitimate trial in the Senate: "As the record now shows, we 'tried' our case on their terms. The Senate refused to allow us to call a single live witness. There was no direct or cross-examination. This scripted procedure preordained the exoneration of President Clinton. It was no trial, in any meaningful sense of the word. Yet today, every history book and public account records that Clinton won acquittal after a Senate impeachment 'trial'."
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Should God......Deem It Fitting
The following is a short post from this past Noevember and I bring it back as a Lord's Day
post:
Should God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, deem it fitting to move upon our collective hearts once again... to convict us as to what we have become... to open our eyes to the ideology that has bewitched much of our nation, there would be no power on this earth that could stop it! The media could not hide nor distort what would be happening. The academics in their ivory towers could do no more than flail their arms. Hollywood would ply its trade to empty seats and celebrities of any and all spheres would be ignored.
Left to ourselves we cannot change the direction that our nation is going. Whether it is the media or universities, legislatures or government bureaucracies, or corporations or individuals....power in the wrong hands stifles dissent, governs without accountability and generally bullies its way by using that power... to retain that power. We are dealing with an uninformed and easily distracted public. Greed and arrogance filled the void as reverence for God receded. We are reaping what we have sown. Pulpits proclaim peace when there is no peace. The cross of Christ is rarely preached. Truth is now but a variable. Our Constitution has become a liability to what we demand as rights and the Bible but a barnacle on our Ship of State.
God has stripped us of our suit of armor but in His infinite wisdom we can now kneel and therein is our true power! And as I have written often, should He refrain from granting us mercy, it would be His will, perfect in every way, with all glory being His forever and ever!
post:
Should God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, deem it fitting to move upon our collective hearts once again... to convict us as to what we have become... to open our eyes to the ideology that has bewitched much of our nation, there would be no power on this earth that could stop it! The media could not hide nor distort what would be happening. The academics in their ivory towers could do no more than flail their arms. Hollywood would ply its trade to empty seats and celebrities of any and all spheres would be ignored.
Left to ourselves we cannot change the direction that our nation is going. Whether it is the media or universities, legislatures or government bureaucracies, or corporations or individuals....power in the wrong hands stifles dissent, governs without accountability and generally bullies its way by using that power... to retain that power. We are dealing with an uninformed and easily distracted public. Greed and arrogance filled the void as reverence for God receded. We are reaping what we have sown. Pulpits proclaim peace when there is no peace. The cross of Christ is rarely preached. Truth is now but a variable. Our Constitution has become a liability to what we demand as rights and the Bible but a barnacle on our Ship of State.
God has stripped us of our suit of armor but in His infinite wisdom we can now kneel and therein is our true power! And as I have written often, should He refrain from granting us mercy, it would be His will, perfect in every way, with all glory being His forever and ever!
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Seaman Murphy.....Redux
Who was it that once said "If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything."?
Our society and our culture has been transformed...past tense. Even many Christians are now subject to influences that go well beyond the cognitive types of learning that the history of our people was built upon. The written word has largely been supplanted by the visual with disastrous results. The fringe element of our society is vulnerable under this onslaught of images.
We have a 19" television in our home and on those few occasions when I have to go to a Best Buy and I walk down the aisle of the large televisions I'm almost overcome by the images, the clarity and the force in front of me. My readers must surely think this naive. What planet do I live on to make a statement like this? My response is to ask them to consider the testimony of one who can still actually see the contrast of the written word from the visual.
I spent a number of years captivated by questions on the afterlife and one book in particular was drawing me further away from God, that book being the Pulitzer Prize winning The Denial Of Death by Ernest Becker but God was about to have mercy on the least worthy of it, and He put into my hands Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell. Eventually I saw truth in the words from the pen of Isaiah, Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other."
The following is a short story that I wrote many years ago. I incorporated into my short novel changing the names and other details to fit the story. That novel can be found at www.isaaccrockett.blogspot.com.
Seaman Murphy
It was a warm night for Cape May, New Jersey, in late October, at 70 degrees as the sun went down. The temperature had risen to 77 at midday. John Cermak was sipping a coffee at Marie's diner when Sue Jamison rushed in looking left and right for John who was in a corner by the front window for it gave access to an outlet for his computer. Sue's frantic look eased somewhat at seeing John but John's calm turned a little frantic at seeing Sue rush in like that.
"John, Shane Murphy is in the hospital. They say he jumped into the water from the ferry in that insane quest of his to find that ghost ship. He's lost his mind John."
John Cermak was the librarian at the Cape May library. He got to know Shane Murphy over the summer as the 22 year old spent most of his days in the stacks looking up everything from ghosts, to shipwrecks, to local and Eastern seaboard maritime history. In 1937 a merchant ship named the Kenmore had been lost in a Nor'easter along with 27 seamen and its captain Manfred von Aire. The mystery that evolved around it was that it was spotted docked at Norfolk, Virginia the following year by two ex-crewmen who had joined the navy and were stationed there. It caused a bit of a stir around Cape May after that and had been investigated by the government and insurance companies. It turned out that a sister ship, the Kenmack, was the ship spotted by the men but their were no records from the Jones Shipbuilding Company that a sister ship had ever been built and maritime records showed no such ship as the Kenmack. Some say that the whole thing was a secret government deal concerning the war that was brewing around the world. Others said that it was a ghost ship for the men who spotted it also said that they walked the decks and there was not a single crewman on board. The myth and the mystery of the Kenmore grew over the years and sure enough there were other "sightings" and the ones in recent years always came from the decks of the ferry crossing over from Cape May to Lewes, Delaware. One book on ghost ships included a chapter on the Kenmore and the Mystery Channel did a piece on it for cable television.
Shane Murphy was headed no where in particular in life. He just graduated from community college but had not even looked for a job in his major. He worked pizza delivery and rented a flat just off of the bridge where you enter Cape May and spent his free time trying to find something in the mystery of a ghost and in doing so would give substance to his life. He brought up the subject time and time again with John Cermak but the librarian was a Christian and always seemed to finish his answers with some scripture verse that mentioned man as a mortal being that would stand before Jesus Christ after death and not float around in another dimension, but that didn't stop Shane Murphy from asking more and more reference questions.
The nurse pointed to Shane's room and simply shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. The doctors had concluded that Shane had not attempted suicide and was no danger to himself as long as he stayed off of that ferry. John Cermak walked into Shane's room. It was quiet with no TV on as in most of the other rooms. The ceiling light was on but the light at Shane's bed was off and he sat their motionless, just staring straight ahead.
"Mr. Cermak!" "Hello Shane." "I saw the Kenmore! Not only that I walked the decks and talked to Captain von Aire...or..I talked to someone anyway." John didn't comment. He pulled a chair alongside Shane's bed and said "I'm listening."
Shane told the entire story without any interruption from his visitor. He had bought a round-trip ticket and boarded the 8 o'clock ferry. He usually pulled a blanket from the deck cabinets but this evening was particularly warm and he didn't need one. He almost fell asleep on the trip back but was gazing off into the inlet when suddenly the bow of a ship passed by the railing going in the opposite direction, this not more than a meter away. He stood up and tried to scream out to someone but could not. He had no idea what to do as he took a hesitant step towards the rail. The camera that he always lugged on board was in the deck chair. The ship's bridge passed slowly and the name Kenmore was written on the side. There was no lights on the ship and it was going to be gone in a few seconds. Shane had no idea what to do. He grabbed the rail as the stern of the Kenmore approached. He looked up to the bridge of the ferry, saw no one, looked back at the Kenmore about to pass...and leaped! He hit hard on the wooden deck and felt pain in his shoulder. It was quiet all of a sudden, and dark. The noise of the ferry was lessening as it slid away in the distance until it was absolutely quiet.
The Kenmore moved quickly along without making any noise. It was as if it was a sailing vessel but it was a coal fed boiler ship. He stood up and took a few steps just to hear the sound of his boots on the deck calling out "Hello" but there was no answer. He saw a very dim light in the windows of the bridge that was ten feet over his head. There was a ladder up to the bridge and he reached out and touched it first, then grabbed it and climbed, rung by rung, up to the catwalk in front of the steering house. He could see nothing through the panes of glass darkened by, what he surmised to be, over 70 years of travelling through the mists of the ocean, but the dim light was still there. He walked to the port side and grabbed the handle to the door into the bridge. Turning it brought the sound of metal to metal and he gently pushed the door bringing a squeaking sound. He pushed the door without stepping inside. His heart was beating fast. There at the wheel, facing out over the bow, a man stood, with a captain's hat and long seaman's coat.
"Captain...Captain von Aire.....Captain von Aire?" He repeated louder. "I've been waiting for you!" came the answer from the man without turning around. "F..f..f..for me?" ""Yes, for you. I see the faces as she passes by and knew that someone would come to me." "Captain. the world is waiting to meet you. You'll be the most famous person in the the world when they find out!" "Find out what Seaman Murphy?" "That you are still alive" was Shane's answer. "How did you know my name, I'm not one of your seaman?" "I've always known your name. I would call out to you...Come to me Seaman Murphy. Come and join me!" Shane ignored this and asked, "Where is the rest of the crew? Did they die in the storm?" "They're all around you seaman Murphy. Can't you hear them?" Shane heard what seemed to be faint laughter and his skin crawled. The captain had not yet turned to face Shane. He would move the wheel to the port a little and then move it to the starboard, always seeming to gaze ahead into the waters.
"Captain? Did you hear what I said? You have to stop this ship alongside the ferry to show the world that you are alive!" At that the captain put the lock on the wheel and slowly turned as he said "Alive? Seaman Murphy, I have been dead for millennia..for eons. And now you are dead with me and will be my seaman for ever!" As he turned, his face was fully seen by Shane. It was ashen with no discerning marks to distinguish a nose or mouth...only red eyes that seemed to bore a hole into Shane's eyes. The captain gave a loud and hideous laugh "Pour me some rum Seaman Murphy!" he bellowed. "You're going to be a fine seaman!" and again came the laugh.
Shane was too frightened to speak. He backed out of the bridge onto the catwalk. There was no sight of the ferry lights for it was probably back at Cape May by now. The captain shouted out again "Seaman Murphy...come to me." Shane backed away until he felt the ladder and stumbled as he descended. He ran to the rail and saw nothing except the waves that were growing higher and higher. It was cold now. It must be below freezing but it was warm when he was on the ferry. The captain's voice was now all around Shane "Seaman Murphy! You wanted to know about us! Now you do. Come to me! You're mine now!"
Shane ran to a lifeboat on the aft deck and cranked on the wheel that held it in place. Slowly, inches at a time, it lowered. Shane could hear laughter all around by now and thought that he felt a hand on his leg. He cranked and cranked until the lifeboat was bouncing on the waves. Grabbing onto the ropes, he slid down and once again hit hard on the wooden planks on the bottom of the lifeboat. He reached up and loosened the ropes until his skiff was set free. The Kenmore slowly passed and the laughter grew softer and softer until the only thing that could be heard was the crashing of the waves around the small boat. Shane had no idea what to do except wait, but the waves of a tempest that was not forecast, was brewing and endangering the lifeboat. He held onto the seats that were attached to the boat until one wave came completely over him sending him into the raging waters. He found himself crying out to the God that he so often ignored in his conversations with the man who he was now telling his story to. Many minutes had passed and Shane had trouble staying afloat in the cold waters. He was losing consciousness. As he lay as still as he could, holding his breath to stay afloat, he heard voices, yells and screams. A spotlight blinded his vision and he felt hands grabbing him before he passed out. He awoke in that room and told his story but no one was even interested. He thought of no one but John Cermak, until there he stood by the end of his bed.
Shane looked at John and said "What happened to me, Mr. Cermak?" John spoke his first words since his "I'm listening." "You were in the water for ten minutes Shane. They spotted you jumping into the water and stopped the ferry immediately. They rescued you in no time. You were never out of their sight." "Then what did I experience? Was it a dream.... am ...am I possessed?" "I don't know and I won't speculate Shane. I will say this...you've heard me say it before..."it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement." You did not die, but will you live?"
John Cermak got up to leave but Shane said "Mr. Cermak! Don't I have to say a prayer or something? Don't I have to become a Christian right now?" John stopped at the door, turned and said a few last words before leaving, "Shane, the next few days are going to be difficult for you. They may keep you here while you talk to a psychiatrist. I'll come back every day. I listened and didn't say a world. I listened intently. When I come back, I want you to listen intently to the story that I am going to tell you." He pointed to the book he left at the foot of Shane's bed that appeared to be a Bible. "Some reading material for you. Good-bye for now."
Our society and our culture has been transformed...past tense. Even many Christians are now subject to influences that go well beyond the cognitive types of learning that the history of our people was built upon. The written word has largely been supplanted by the visual with disastrous results. The fringe element of our society is vulnerable under this onslaught of images.
We have a 19" television in our home and on those few occasions when I have to go to a Best Buy and I walk down the aisle of the large televisions I'm almost overcome by the images, the clarity and the force in front of me. My readers must surely think this naive. What planet do I live on to make a statement like this? My response is to ask them to consider the testimony of one who can still actually see the contrast of the written word from the visual.
I spent a number of years captivated by questions on the afterlife and one book in particular was drawing me further away from God, that book being the Pulitzer Prize winning The Denial Of Death by Ernest Becker but God was about to have mercy on the least worthy of it, and He put into my hands Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell. Eventually I saw truth in the words from the pen of Isaiah, Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other."
The following is a short story that I wrote many years ago. I incorporated into my short novel changing the names and other details to fit the story. That novel can be found at www.isaaccrockett.blogspot.com.
Seaman Murphy
It was a warm night for Cape May, New Jersey, in late October, at 70 degrees as the sun went down. The temperature had risen to 77 at midday. John Cermak was sipping a coffee at Marie's diner when Sue Jamison rushed in looking left and right for John who was in a corner by the front window for it gave access to an outlet for his computer. Sue's frantic look eased somewhat at seeing John but John's calm turned a little frantic at seeing Sue rush in like that.
"John, Shane Murphy is in the hospital. They say he jumped into the water from the ferry in that insane quest of his to find that ghost ship. He's lost his mind John."
John Cermak was the librarian at the Cape May library. He got to know Shane Murphy over the summer as the 22 year old spent most of his days in the stacks looking up everything from ghosts, to shipwrecks, to local and Eastern seaboard maritime history. In 1937 a merchant ship named the Kenmore had been lost in a Nor'easter along with 27 seamen and its captain Manfred von Aire. The mystery that evolved around it was that it was spotted docked at Norfolk, Virginia the following year by two ex-crewmen who had joined the navy and were stationed there. It caused a bit of a stir around Cape May after that and had been investigated by the government and insurance companies. It turned out that a sister ship, the Kenmack, was the ship spotted by the men but their were no records from the Jones Shipbuilding Company that a sister ship had ever been built and maritime records showed no such ship as the Kenmack. Some say that the whole thing was a secret government deal concerning the war that was brewing around the world. Others said that it was a ghost ship for the men who spotted it also said that they walked the decks and there was not a single crewman on board. The myth and the mystery of the Kenmore grew over the years and sure enough there were other "sightings" and the ones in recent years always came from the decks of the ferry crossing over from Cape May to Lewes, Delaware. One book on ghost ships included a chapter on the Kenmore and the Mystery Channel did a piece on it for cable television.
Shane Murphy was headed no where in particular in life. He just graduated from community college but had not even looked for a job in his major. He worked pizza delivery and rented a flat just off of the bridge where you enter Cape May and spent his free time trying to find something in the mystery of a ghost and in doing so would give substance to his life. He brought up the subject time and time again with John Cermak but the librarian was a Christian and always seemed to finish his answers with some scripture verse that mentioned man as a mortal being that would stand before Jesus Christ after death and not float around in another dimension, but that didn't stop Shane Murphy from asking more and more reference questions.
The nurse pointed to Shane's room and simply shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. The doctors had concluded that Shane had not attempted suicide and was no danger to himself as long as he stayed off of that ferry. John Cermak walked into Shane's room. It was quiet with no TV on as in most of the other rooms. The ceiling light was on but the light at Shane's bed was off and he sat their motionless, just staring straight ahead.
"Mr. Cermak!" "Hello Shane." "I saw the Kenmore! Not only that I walked the decks and talked to Captain von Aire...or..I talked to someone anyway." John didn't comment. He pulled a chair alongside Shane's bed and said "I'm listening."
Shane told the entire story without any interruption from his visitor. He had bought a round-trip ticket and boarded the 8 o'clock ferry. He usually pulled a blanket from the deck cabinets but this evening was particularly warm and he didn't need one. He almost fell asleep on the trip back but was gazing off into the inlet when suddenly the bow of a ship passed by the railing going in the opposite direction, this not more than a meter away. He stood up and tried to scream out to someone but could not. He had no idea what to do as he took a hesitant step towards the rail. The camera that he always lugged on board was in the deck chair. The ship's bridge passed slowly and the name Kenmore was written on the side. There was no lights on the ship and it was going to be gone in a few seconds. Shane had no idea what to do. He grabbed the rail as the stern of the Kenmore approached. He looked up to the bridge of the ferry, saw no one, looked back at the Kenmore about to pass...and leaped! He hit hard on the wooden deck and felt pain in his shoulder. It was quiet all of a sudden, and dark. The noise of the ferry was lessening as it slid away in the distance until it was absolutely quiet.
The Kenmore moved quickly along without making any noise. It was as if it was a sailing vessel but it was a coal fed boiler ship. He stood up and took a few steps just to hear the sound of his boots on the deck calling out "Hello" but there was no answer. He saw a very dim light in the windows of the bridge that was ten feet over his head. There was a ladder up to the bridge and he reached out and touched it first, then grabbed it and climbed, rung by rung, up to the catwalk in front of the steering house. He could see nothing through the panes of glass darkened by, what he surmised to be, over 70 years of travelling through the mists of the ocean, but the dim light was still there. He walked to the port side and grabbed the handle to the door into the bridge. Turning it brought the sound of metal to metal and he gently pushed the door bringing a squeaking sound. He pushed the door without stepping inside. His heart was beating fast. There at the wheel, facing out over the bow, a man stood, with a captain's hat and long seaman's coat.
"Captain...Captain von Aire.....Captain von Aire?" He repeated louder. "I've been waiting for you!" came the answer from the man without turning around. "F..f..f..for me?" ""Yes, for you. I see the faces as she passes by and knew that someone would come to me." "Captain. the world is waiting to meet you. You'll be the most famous person in the the world when they find out!" "Find out what Seaman Murphy?" "That you are still alive" was Shane's answer. "How did you know my name, I'm not one of your seaman?" "I've always known your name. I would call out to you...Come to me Seaman Murphy. Come and join me!" Shane ignored this and asked, "Where is the rest of the crew? Did they die in the storm?" "They're all around you seaman Murphy. Can't you hear them?" Shane heard what seemed to be faint laughter and his skin crawled. The captain had not yet turned to face Shane. He would move the wheel to the port a little and then move it to the starboard, always seeming to gaze ahead into the waters.
"Captain? Did you hear what I said? You have to stop this ship alongside the ferry to show the world that you are alive!" At that the captain put the lock on the wheel and slowly turned as he said "Alive? Seaman Murphy, I have been dead for millennia..for eons. And now you are dead with me and will be my seaman for ever!" As he turned, his face was fully seen by Shane. It was ashen with no discerning marks to distinguish a nose or mouth...only red eyes that seemed to bore a hole into Shane's eyes. The captain gave a loud and hideous laugh "Pour me some rum Seaman Murphy!" he bellowed. "You're going to be a fine seaman!" and again came the laugh.
Shane was too frightened to speak. He backed out of the bridge onto the catwalk. There was no sight of the ferry lights for it was probably back at Cape May by now. The captain shouted out again "Seaman Murphy...come to me." Shane backed away until he felt the ladder and stumbled as he descended. He ran to the rail and saw nothing except the waves that were growing higher and higher. It was cold now. It must be below freezing but it was warm when he was on the ferry. The captain's voice was now all around Shane "Seaman Murphy! You wanted to know about us! Now you do. Come to me! You're mine now!"
Shane ran to a lifeboat on the aft deck and cranked on the wheel that held it in place. Slowly, inches at a time, it lowered. Shane could hear laughter all around by now and thought that he felt a hand on his leg. He cranked and cranked until the lifeboat was bouncing on the waves. Grabbing onto the ropes, he slid down and once again hit hard on the wooden planks on the bottom of the lifeboat. He reached up and loosened the ropes until his skiff was set free. The Kenmore slowly passed and the laughter grew softer and softer until the only thing that could be heard was the crashing of the waves around the small boat. Shane had no idea what to do except wait, but the waves of a tempest that was not forecast, was brewing and endangering the lifeboat. He held onto the seats that were attached to the boat until one wave came completely over him sending him into the raging waters. He found himself crying out to the God that he so often ignored in his conversations with the man who he was now telling his story to. Many minutes had passed and Shane had trouble staying afloat in the cold waters. He was losing consciousness. As he lay as still as he could, holding his breath to stay afloat, he heard voices, yells and screams. A spotlight blinded his vision and he felt hands grabbing him before he passed out. He awoke in that room and told his story but no one was even interested. He thought of no one but John Cermak, until there he stood by the end of his bed.
Shane looked at John and said "What happened to me, Mr. Cermak?" John spoke his first words since his "I'm listening." "You were in the water for ten minutes Shane. They spotted you jumping into the water and stopped the ferry immediately. They rescued you in no time. You were never out of their sight." "Then what did I experience? Was it a dream.... am ...am I possessed?" "I don't know and I won't speculate Shane. I will say this...you've heard me say it before..."it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement." You did not die, but will you live?"
John Cermak got up to leave but Shane said "Mr. Cermak! Don't I have to say a prayer or something? Don't I have to become a Christian right now?" John stopped at the door, turned and said a few last words before leaving, "Shane, the next few days are going to be difficult for you. They may keep you here while you talk to a psychiatrist. I'll come back every day. I listened and didn't say a world. I listened intently. When I come back, I want you to listen intently to the story that I am going to tell you." He pointed to the book he left at the foot of Shane's bed that appeared to be a Bible. "Some reading material for you. Good-bye for now."
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Valentine's Day....."Easy To Do Justice, Very Hard To Do Right"
The following is my annual Valentine's Day post since February 14th, 2010. I guess that it shows my hand on what romance is. A former pastor of mine recommended the film The Winslow Boy and my wife and I travelled over an hour to see it. In the middle of the showing the film broke. After about twenty minutes it was announced that it could not be fixed that night. Someone in the audience shouted "Well, at least tell us how it ends." I spontaneously jumped up, turned around, and shouted in response "Don't anybody say anything!" We returned the next evening to see the complete movie. The Winslow Boy is in my top five favorite films.
Easy To Do Justice, Very Hard To Do Right
Playwrights have an advantage over novelists. The novelist can write for a thousand pages detailing the scene, the person, even the history of the age, but the playwright spends all of his time on dialogue. I can read and enjoy a Neil Simon play almost anytime. Terence Rattigan wrote The Winslow Boy which has been turned into two films. One in 1948 starring Robert Donat and the more recent film from 1999, directed by David Mamet. The plot, based on an actual trial, is that of a young boy at a prestigious military school in England (circa 1900) who is accused of stealing some money. His father and sister set out on a seemingly impossibly task of forcing the government to withdraw the accusations against him. Enter the most famous jurist of England, Sir Robert Morton, who takes on this case to the surprise of even his loyal friends. The quote for the title of this post is from him.
The film is a remarkable story of a father's love for his son, a sister's quest for fairness and justice in society, and a barrister's pursuit of right. It is also a love story but if you ask ten people who saw the film they might all wonder where the romance was. The boy's sister and the famous barrister are poles apart politically in an age that is seeing women take their place in society, an unlikely couple if their ever would be one. Indeed, there is no romantic dialogue, not even the holding of hands. What there is, is one or two looks given for a second and two comments at the end of the film that says it all. The trial is over as is the film. Miss Winslow and Robert Morton are parting, what would seem to be forever, but she had to make one last comment on the emotion he displayed at the verdict, for she had doubted any sincerity in this famous barrister and opposition member of Parliament. She elicited from him a parting comment on her continuing feminist activities of which he responded Pity, it's a lost cause. Her final words in the film were Oh, do you really think so Sir Robert? How little you know about women. Goodbye, I doubt that we should meet again. She may have been correct about the future of women's suffrage in England but that was not the issue on trial in this dialogue here as he parted with, Oh, do you really think so, Miss Winslow? How little you know about men.
I have never been a fan of Valentine's Day for it seems trite. We are submerged in a culture of words and phrases such as Erich Segal's, given to Ryan O'Neill's character of Oliver Barrett IV in Love Story, Love means never having to say your sorry. It's too late to recommend The Winslow Boy for Valentine's Day but then it fell on a Sunday this year and that is another love story altogether and it would probably be better to view it without all the trappings of hearts and candy anyway.
Easy To Do Justice, Very Hard To Do Right
Playwrights have an advantage over novelists. The novelist can write for a thousand pages detailing the scene, the person, even the history of the age, but the playwright spends all of his time on dialogue. I can read and enjoy a Neil Simon play almost anytime. Terence Rattigan wrote The Winslow Boy which has been turned into two films. One in 1948 starring Robert Donat and the more recent film from 1999, directed by David Mamet. The plot, based on an actual trial, is that of a young boy at a prestigious military school in England (circa 1900) who is accused of stealing some money. His father and sister set out on a seemingly impossibly task of forcing the government to withdraw the accusations against him. Enter the most famous jurist of England, Sir Robert Morton, who takes on this case to the surprise of even his loyal friends. The quote for the title of this post is from him.
The film is a remarkable story of a father's love for his son, a sister's quest for fairness and justice in society, and a barrister's pursuit of right. It is also a love story but if you ask ten people who saw the film they might all wonder where the romance was. The boy's sister and the famous barrister are poles apart politically in an age that is seeing women take their place in society, an unlikely couple if their ever would be one. Indeed, there is no romantic dialogue, not even the holding of hands. What there is, is one or two looks given for a second and two comments at the end of the film that says it all. The trial is over as is the film. Miss Winslow and Robert Morton are parting, what would seem to be forever, but she had to make one last comment on the emotion he displayed at the verdict, for she had doubted any sincerity in this famous barrister and opposition member of Parliament. She elicited from him a parting comment on her continuing feminist activities of which he responded Pity, it's a lost cause. Her final words in the film were Oh, do you really think so Sir Robert? How little you know about women. Goodbye, I doubt that we should meet again. She may have been correct about the future of women's suffrage in England but that was not the issue on trial in this dialogue here as he parted with, Oh, do you really think so, Miss Winslow? How little you know about men.
I have never been a fan of Valentine's Day for it seems trite. We are submerged in a culture of words and phrases such as Erich Segal's, given to Ryan O'Neill's character of Oliver Barrett IV in Love Story, Love means never having to say your sorry. It's too late to recommend The Winslow Boy for Valentine's Day but then it fell on a Sunday this year and that is another love story altogether and it would probably be better to view it without all the trappings of hearts and candy anyway.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
George Washington.......Redux
George Washington was born on February 22nd 1732 on the family plantation in the house known as Wakefield in Westmoreland County, Virginia and died December 14th, 1799. Technically he was born February 11th (today) 1731 in what was the Old Style dating system of the Julian calendar before the Gregorian calendar was chosen two decades later where the dates were adjusted. Attendance at Christian church services were at low ebb at the time of his death and that is putting it mildly. American Christianity had been in a steady decline for decades as the passions of freedom and liberty overwhelmed the more mundane concerns of eternal life. We were not founded as a Christian nation but neither were we founded as a deistic nation. It's important to understand the religious beliefs of our Founding Fathers to the greatest degree that we can discern it and George Washington is a good place to start. The following post is a book review from November of 2010:
George Washington
George Washington
How
many of our Founding Fathers were Deists? I don't know. Deism was a popular belief system where there may be a God but
he would be a very impersonal one that does not involve himself in the affairs
of man, there would be no Holy Scripture for man to refer to and
certainly no atonement. But what about George Washington, the
Father of our Country? How do the historians weigh in on him?
Peter A.
Lillback is an historian but he is also a theologian whose 725 page tome Sacred Fire, with an additional 232 pages of appendices, came to a different conclusion than most of the
secular historians. Lillback has a distinct advantage in the area of our first President's life for he knows what the gospel is. Much if not most of secular commentary on Christianity today is given from
people who are incapable of understanding the Gospel in its fullest (Scriptural) sense.
Lillback's book breaks down the issue into various areas such as the religious
historical setting of the day, Washington's early life, his church and family
life before and after the Revolution and his presidency, the testimony of others
who knew him well and of course his connection to Masonry. One thing that
you have to know about George Washington to even begin an examination of this
question is his character and personality, for these traits may effect the
impression others will have of his religious belief. Personal honor was
everything to the man! If he was going to do anything at all in life it was
display a strong character and integrity and let his observers do what
they want with it. Lillback gives evidence upon evidence here on Washington's
fanaticism in this area and the extreme pains he took to guard it in his life.
How does this relate to the issue of his Christian belief? Deist belief is not
a hazy agnosticism that one could weave in and out of. It was distinct. Lillback
makes the case, and I wholeheartedly concur, that one could very well be a deist
and be a churchman; but one could not be a deist, a churchman of Washington's
level of involvement with orthodox Christian churches, and prize honor and
integrity anywhere near the level that Washington did without being a complete
fraud!
It's not the total answer to the question but it's a beginning and all in
Washington's favor for he could not have taken the vows he did, constructed the
prayers, espoused the Christian causes he did, and at the same time deny the
essence of Christian belief through an actual embrace of Deism! George
Washington had a knowledge of the Bible and documentation proved that he read it
and valued Holy Scripture from his youth to the day he died when an
open Bible was beside his bed along with his Christian wife who had the hope
that she would see him in heaven.
I understand Lillback's description of
Washington's intense personal peculiarities for I hold to many myself. I will
not look to the left or the right of the pulpit during a worship service. I will
not let any intrusions or intended aids to the preached message enter my mind
for I spent my first years in the Christian faith studying "Christian cults" and
aberrant theologies and know all to well how easily we fall for man's, often
well-intentioned, motives!
One of Washington's creeds was actions not words
and consequently he came up short on the words as a result. This
is evidence enough for someone who wants to come to the conclusion that George
Washington was a Deist. I understand this situation. Washington's usage of
words such as Divine Providence, which was his norm, is
further evidence for some that Washington viewed God as simply a grand
architect, but he also used the word God, and the vows, prayers and teachings
that he was officially involved with were evangelical. Whether a young soldier,
a general or President of the United States, Washington could not possibly have
held to his personal convictions of honor and integrity and continued to hide
his deist beliefs.
His library was voluminous and he paid great attention to the
books he bought, kept and cherished. Many Christians books are included here, as
well as sermons, yet no books, of which their were many in existence, that
proclaimed Deist belief. Washington relied on others to raise the children in
his care and under his sphere of influence. He took great care in this area also
and chose Christian teachers over some well respected teachers and professors
who were known for their secular emphasis. Lillback gives us one of those
biographies that searches out and tackles all the arguments against the main
premise. So you'll find chapters on mundane areas of Washington's life as well
as rumors that were in existence. All of these are satisfactorily answered.
The
biggest question of all in this examination of George Washington's religious
belief, and it's the one question that many seem to answer even before examination, is
concerning his well-publicized membership in Masonry. I had this question in the
back of my mind as I read through the book, eagerly looking forward to how
Lillback would handle it. I've read a fair amount on the Masons, particularly
many years ago, but Lillback gave some thoughts to ponder that I had not read.
The essence of his defense of Washington is this. Masonry underwent a
fundamental change beginning in the late 18th century, a change that put
it directly at odds with Christianity, which has remained to today. Previous to
this faction coming to the fore, and according to Lillback, Masonry was
attempting, in albeit a very unwise way, to advance the Christian religion with
the help of Masonic characteristics of order. Before the change in Masonry, a
heated debate existed as both factions fought for influence. One prominent
Christian minister was recruited to Masonry for this purpose, to halt the slide
into an unChristian, even anti-Christian mode. He wisely refused for none of the
discerning Christian ministers of the day would have taken the path the George
Washington earlier did. Washington himself was warned in a letter against the influence
of the European Illuminati. His response was that he did not feel that such a
precarious influence existed here in the United States, yet added that he had
only been to two Masonic meetings in the past thirty years.
George Washington's
eternal soul is not dependent on the opinion of historians...either way, but it
is a legitimate endeavor to see where this giant of a man and maybe the most
illustrious and most influential of all our Presidents stood. After reading
Lillback's book I still do not have a definite opinion on this but do
acknowledge that this man who had so many qualities and abilities may indeed have been
a Christian. Certainly, he was no Deist! The fact that he had weaknesses effects
me only as long as it takes me to look in the mirror. The gospel cannot be
compromised in any way. Works play no part in the regeneration of a person's
soul. If George Washington believed that one does, in effect, work his way to
salvation, it would be to his eternal demise.
Our hope is not in America's might or its continuing display and defense of liberties and freedoms, yet many have fallen for just that fallacy! This book should only be used as an historical biography concerning the religious belief of that historical figure. George Washington may indeed have been a giant among governmental leaders of his or any day but he was a man nonetheless and my interest in his eternal salvation is surely there but ultimately no greater than of the person who checked out my apples, coffee and pickled eggs at the Giant Eagle this evening.
Our hope is not in America's might or its continuing display and defense of liberties and freedoms, yet many have fallen for just that fallacy! This book should only be used as an historical biography concerning the religious belief of that historical figure. George Washington may indeed have been a giant among governmental leaders of his or any day but he was a man nonetheless and my interest in his eternal salvation is surely there but ultimately no greater than of the person who checked out my apples, coffee and pickled eggs at the Giant Eagle this evening.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Sochi
In theory the Olympics are a wonderful thing, putting away all tensions for two
weeks to let athletes run their races and throw their shot puts, fly down the
slopes on skis and move more gracefully on skates than most of us can do in
tennis shoes. Thomas Jefferson once said, "The moment a person forms a theory,
his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor the theory,"
But governments often will not simply let the games be played.
Chariots Of Fire is listed first on "favorite movies" in my profile and not by chance. I saw that Academy Award winning film (Best Picture) as God was moving upon my heart. I hadn't seen my sin yet but I did get a glimpse of His Glory and I wanted more! Eric Liddel was everything that I was not, particularly honorable. I didn't see a relationship that he had with God. I saw the awe he was in of God.
I would not have watched the opening ceremonies from Sochi on the Black Sea except our son and daughter-in-law had it on while we visited. The entrance of the teams brought back a little bit of that film. I felt a chill as our team entered and thought about the plight and the pride of the Russian people as their team appeared.
The showcase of the ceremony was a choreographed classical and ballet themed history of Russia that was beautiful even to this untrained mind. The very newest technologies transformed the floor into an optical stage that could appear as a turbulent sea at one moment and a computer's motherboard the next.
The choreography was remarkable not only in its technical perfection but its beauty. Huge stage props floated by, each with a meaning from Russia's past. It was a spectacle of dance and classical music done to perfection apart from one miscue, that being an Olympic ring that failed to open, and that miscue was what grabbed American headlines.
Having given these artists and performers their due let me comment on the historical theme itself. There was a 2002 film directed by Alexander Sokurov titled Russian Ark that was a precursor of sorts to this Olympic ceremony. I highly recommend this film to you and it also is listed in my profile. It also was a marvelous drama/musical adaptation of Russian history through the centuries. Filmed entirely in one non-stop film sequence, the narrator whom you never see might be at an Imperial Ball with full orchestra or listening to Peter the Great or watching Anastasia and her sisters frolic in the Winter Palace.
Russian Ark ends, as I recall, in an indeterminate state of Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed and Gorbachev came on the scene. Vladimir Putin was President of the Russian Federation at the time but the yoke of Communism was seemingly broken.
Putin watched from on high at the newly built Fisht Olympic Stadium that will someday host soccer games. My thought at the conclusion of the ceremony was that it was a triumphant day for him. In one respect, the world was shown what artistic gratification is in Russia, at least to many, beauty and precision. But in another respect, Communism was glorified. Stalin's era was depicted in black and blood red where the dark figures were the people toiling and moiling in an industrial age simply waiting for death, then suddenly the hues brightened as the Soviet age of Sputnik, sports and strength in every aspect of modernization gave life to the Communist state.
How was this going to end....Putin was in attendance? What message could the producers of this artistically pleasing presentation possibly give to satisfy him? They couldn't end it as the director did in Russian Ark for much had happened since 2002. Putin's original term as president had ended but he miraculously returned and Russia was acting more and more like the old Soviet state.
Well, that is exactly how it ended. A young girl released a bright red balloon of light that signified the passing of the Soviet era...but to what? It wasn't a submissive ending as in Russian Ark but merely a pause in Russian history. That would satisfy Vladimir Putin! Perhaps he himself choreographed the message?
I suspect that the world interpreted it as melancholy for that was the script, the Soviet Union was no more. The Russian powers that be would see it differently.. ..the Soviet Union did indeed pass away but only to make room for something very similar and even more glorious!
The Apostle Paul used athletic metaphors in describing the Christian life. One would be 1 Corinthians 9:24-26 "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable." He may have been alluding to the Isthmian Games of ancient Corinth. Eric Liddell ran two notable races and won them both, one with a perishable gold medal and the other a crown of life.
Chariots Of Fire is listed first on "favorite movies" in my profile and not by chance. I saw that Academy Award winning film (Best Picture) as God was moving upon my heart. I hadn't seen my sin yet but I did get a glimpse of His Glory and I wanted more! Eric Liddel was everything that I was not, particularly honorable. I didn't see a relationship that he had with God. I saw the awe he was in of God.
I would not have watched the opening ceremonies from Sochi on the Black Sea except our son and daughter-in-law had it on while we visited. The entrance of the teams brought back a little bit of that film. I felt a chill as our team entered and thought about the plight and the pride of the Russian people as their team appeared.
The showcase of the ceremony was a choreographed classical and ballet themed history of Russia that was beautiful even to this untrained mind. The very newest technologies transformed the floor into an optical stage that could appear as a turbulent sea at one moment and a computer's motherboard the next.
The choreography was remarkable not only in its technical perfection but its beauty. Huge stage props floated by, each with a meaning from Russia's past. It was a spectacle of dance and classical music done to perfection apart from one miscue, that being an Olympic ring that failed to open, and that miscue was what grabbed American headlines.
Having given these artists and performers their due let me comment on the historical theme itself. There was a 2002 film directed by Alexander Sokurov titled Russian Ark that was a precursor of sorts to this Olympic ceremony. I highly recommend this film to you and it also is listed in my profile. It also was a marvelous drama/musical adaptation of Russian history through the centuries. Filmed entirely in one non-stop film sequence, the narrator whom you never see might be at an Imperial Ball with full orchestra or listening to Peter the Great or watching Anastasia and her sisters frolic in the Winter Palace.
Russian Ark ends, as I recall, in an indeterminate state of Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed and Gorbachev came on the scene. Vladimir Putin was President of the Russian Federation at the time but the yoke of Communism was seemingly broken.
Putin watched from on high at the newly built Fisht Olympic Stadium that will someday host soccer games. My thought at the conclusion of the ceremony was that it was a triumphant day for him. In one respect, the world was shown what artistic gratification is in Russia, at least to many, beauty and precision. But in another respect, Communism was glorified. Stalin's era was depicted in black and blood red where the dark figures were the people toiling and moiling in an industrial age simply waiting for death, then suddenly the hues brightened as the Soviet age of Sputnik, sports and strength in every aspect of modernization gave life to the Communist state.
How was this going to end....Putin was in attendance? What message could the producers of this artistically pleasing presentation possibly give to satisfy him? They couldn't end it as the director did in Russian Ark for much had happened since 2002. Putin's original term as president had ended but he miraculously returned and Russia was acting more and more like the old Soviet state.
Well, that is exactly how it ended. A young girl released a bright red balloon of light that signified the passing of the Soviet era...but to what? It wasn't a submissive ending as in Russian Ark but merely a pause in Russian history. That would satisfy Vladimir Putin! Perhaps he himself choreographed the message?
I suspect that the world interpreted it as melancholy for that was the script, the Soviet Union was no more. The Russian powers that be would see it differently.. ..the Soviet Union did indeed pass away but only to make room for something very similar and even more glorious!
The Apostle Paul used athletic metaphors in describing the Christian life. One would be 1 Corinthians 9:24-26 "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable." He may have been alluding to the Isthmian Games of ancient Corinth. Eric Liddell ran two notable races and won them both, one with a perishable gold medal and the other a crown of life.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be........Redux
The following post is from August of 2010::
It was just my lot to be 18 years old in 1968, a remarkable year for disasters. President Lyndon Johnson gave his State Of The Union address on January 17th and began with Vietnam, "He (the enemy) continues to hope that America's will to persevere can be broken. Well...he is wrong." He talked about the cessation of hostilities in the Middle East and prospects for peace. American's living standards were rising for a seventh straight year but violence continued to plague our cities. He addressed means in alleviating that violence but then cautioned "this does not mean a national police force." He proposed a surtax that would only cost the American people one penny on the dollar and that tax to be repealed in two years. He concluded this short address with "If ever there was a time to know the pride and excitement and the hope of being an American..it is this time."
It was just my lot to be 18 years old in 1968, a remarkable year for disasters. President Lyndon Johnson gave his State Of The Union address on January 17th and began with Vietnam, "He (the enemy) continues to hope that America's will to persevere can be broken. Well...he is wrong." He talked about the cessation of hostilities in the Middle East and prospects for peace. American's living standards were rising for a seventh straight year but violence continued to plague our cities. He addressed means in alleviating that violence but then cautioned "this does not mean a national police force." He proposed a surtax that would only cost the American people one penny on the dollar and that tax to be repealed in two years. He concluded this short address with "If ever there was a time to know the pride and excitement and the hope of being an American..it is this time."
Less than a week later North Korea seized the USS Pueblo which would remain
a crisis for the rest of the year. The next week would see the beginning of the
Tet Offensive in Nha Trang, Vietnam. North Vietnam's forces would be not only be utterly defeated but destroyed in the weeks that followed.... but so would the
American public's will to persevere. One Viet Cong, who had summarily executed
the family of a Vietnamese police officer, was caught and also summarily
executed, this in front of a lens that would result in a Pulitzer Prize winning
picture that would prove... our... inhumanity towards man in this war.
One day
later Richard Nixon would announce his candidacy for President. The week of
February 11th saw 543 Americans killed in Vietnam. On The 27th of that month
Walter Cronkite pronounced the Tet Offensive as a draw. On March
12th, Eugene McCarthy won the New Hampshire primary and four days later Robert
Kennedy entered the race. On March 31st I was standing at the counter of my
favorite hangout, Ted's Variety and Dairy Store, eating a snack and
watching President Lyndon Johnson's speech on the television. He pronounced the
Tet Offensive a failure, but the huge loss of life, on both sides, and
the emergency situation of a projected $20 billion deficit for the following
year (it was actually a $3.2 billion surplus), and in the need to prove his intentions for peace, he concluded with
"Accordingly, I shall not seek, and will not accept, the nomination of my
party for another term as your President." Five days later Martin Luther
King's lifelong quest for equality of opportunity for everyone came to an end in
Memphis in an act of terrorism.
The beginning of May saw Paris in flames from
student riots and on June 4th Robert Kennedy was shot. Songs like Arlo Guthrie's
Alice's Restaurant "inspired" the youth. Before August was
over the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia was crushed and violent protests
rocked the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In Mexico city, in
October, hundreds were killed in student protests and riots and two weeks later
the summer Olympics began in the same city and also saw protest. On November 5th
Richard Nixon was elected by 500,000 votes and the unemployment rate was 3.3%.
Now it is 42 years later. Peace talks will start again soon in the Middle East.
We are leaving Iraq with the promise to keep their government secure, as we did
in Vietnam. Socialism succeeded in putting one of its own in our White House and
top positions of our Congress (actually Communism succeeded in securing the White House). Globalist elites artfully pull the strings
of their puppets who many gullibly believe. Student protests are now citizen
protests. The deficit is over a trillion dollars. Our Justice Department has
lost the trust of the people and Homeland Security often seems more worried
about citizens trying to help our nation than those trying to hurt it. We have
placed two unqualified young judges on our Supreme Court, presidential
appointees usurp the responsibilities of the Congress and there is talk of
policies perilously close to a national police force.
We are being torn
apart as a people with government sector employees, bailout recipients and
entitlement beneficiaries on one side and most everyone else on the other. We
have a young president who has given us two autobiographies but no personal
records. Our foreign policy shows the discernment of a Neville Chamberlain in
Munich and we cut military weapons systems to replace monies burned elsewhere.
We have a "foot in the door" health reform that Americans will despise
when they see what it is and what it has done. Our Constitution is being held
hostage by political correctness.
Yogi Berra was right in that the future
ain't what it used to be but, Biblically speaking, the future is closer
than it used to be for it proclaims a Second Coming of Jesus Christ and in
a linear time paradigm we are 42 years closer than we were in 1968.
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