Christian, Public Enemy

Over the last two years, full-page advertisements have appeared in major American newspapers (such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle) criticizing the current administration's domestic and international war on terrorism, denouncing the U.S. involvement in Iraq, and questioning the legitimacy of George W. Bush's presidency. Using "Not in Our Name" (NION) as both a slogan and name, the antiwar group has enlisted a number of recognizable names to its cause — the usual mix of academics, writers, dissidents, and celebrities, including Noam Chomsky, Ramsey Clark, Ed Asner, Howard Zinn, Studs Terkel, and John Cusack. Over 13,000 citizens have signed NION's most recent statement, an 800-word document referred to as their "new statement of conscience," which is running with their current ads and can be found also at their website.

Were the statement simply an expression of political dissent, believers would have little cause for alarm. The United States boasts a rich and varied history of dissenters, among whom Christians can be counted. The war in Iraq has attracted its share of detractors from conservative camps and evangelical Christians. In November, Jack Hook wrote a provocative essay on the Biblical versus Constantinian concepts of "just war," which is sure to stir healthy debate among Christians. However, believers can agree that men's hearts can only be truly changed by Christ, and that a nation whose focus has shifted from God to its wealth and might is certainly doomed.

What is sinister about NION's new statement of conscience is how perfectly acceptable it repesents its unmitigated prejudice toward historical and Biblical Christianity. The advertisements are cloaked in righteous solemnity and understated graphic design, but underneath the surface, Not in Our Name seethes with a hatred toward true Christianity that cannot be ignored by believers. While the vitriol in their words is largely directed toward one man (Bush), it is clear, upon reading between the lines, that the true object of their contempt are Bible-believing Christians.

In 2 Timothy 3:5, the Apostle Paul wrote that, in the last days, there will be people "having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." NION's mission statement reflects the broader push among secularists to reclaim spirituality, particularly Christianity, for themselves, especially in light of last November's election results. The irony is surely not lost upon the humanists (lovers of irony all) that, for the purposes of political expediency, they have chosen to co-opt a system of belief which is so loathsome to them. Nevertheless, the kind of rhetoric which syncretizes incompatible beliefs (e.g. Christianity and Islam) and pays lip service to Biblical Christianity is gaining ground with an apathetic public, including nominal Christians. For this reason, it is not merely endemic to antiwar groups such as Not in Our Name, but prevalent across the political spectrum.

An excerpt from NION's 2005 statement of conscience:

The Bush government seeks to impose a narrow, intolerant, and political form of Christian fundamentalism as government policy. No longer on the margins of power, this extremist movement aims to strip women of their reproductive rights, to stoke hatred of gays and lesbians, and to drive a wedge between spiritual experience and scientific truth. We will not surrender to extremists our right to think. AIDS is not a punishment from God. Global warming is a real danger. Evolution happened. All people must be free to find meaning and sustenance in whatever form of religious or spiritual belief they choose. But religion can never be compulsory. These extremists may claim to make their own reality, but we will not allow them to make ours.

Consider for a moment the outright demagoguery and propaganda in those words. The declarative statements, self-righteous indignation, and hubristic presumptuousness contained therein would be condemned by NION were they in the service of a Christian group.

Once again, the semantic hydra known as "Christian fundamentalism" rears its ugly heads in yet another example of unsubstantiated communistic groupthink. Although the label has become a caricature of itself over the years, the secularists have wielded it with great success, particularly to divide Christians. As a useful piece of propaganda, its disingenuousness is manifold. One obvious aim of calling certain Christians "fundamentalists" is to lump them together, in the public consciousness, with Islamic fundamentalism and, by association, the abridgment of human rights. The myth that cultural, rather than fundamental, forms of a belief (whether Christianity or Islam) are its true representatives is reinforced further. The intelligentsia also seek to separate "Christian fundamentalism" from the main body of Christianity by insisting that it has shallow theological roots arising in the late 19th/early 20th century. The likelier reason for their resentment is that fundamentalism steered Christianity back to Scripture and historicity and rebuffed the preceding two centuries of humanist dogma. Although NION makes a point to describe the Bush government as imposing a "form" of Christian fundamentalism, this minor distinction will be ignored by their intended audience. Instead, all Christian fundamentalism will be read as "narrow, intolerant, and political" and as a dangerous threat to democracy.

Just this week, American television talk show host Bill Maher made comments equating Christianity with Islamic fundamentalism:

We [Americans] are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder.

Not leaving any stone unturned, NION's statement labels President Bush's "form" of Christian fundamentalism an "extremist movement." The name-calling belies an intolerance of opposition which they would normally attribute to a totalitarian regime squelching its enemies. If NION is indeed correct in describing the Bush presidency as "marginal" and "extremist," then it is a marginal and extremist movement voted in by at least half of the voting populace. It's a case of the pot calling the kettle black. A group that claims 13,000 like-minded academics, politicians, and celebrities can only be defined as marginal, as well. To describe themselves as one elitist group fighting over the hearts and minds of the masses with another elitist group would, at the least, seem like a more honest assessment of their goals. When secularists question the legitimacy of "Christian fundamentalism" on the grounds that it is on the "margins of power," it sounds a lot like the uneducated rhetoric historically directed toward racial and religious minorities.

While the establishment clause in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides for no state-sponsored religion, the free exercise clause does provide for the freedom of religious expression. Although humanists adore the former, they irrationally resist the latter, at least when it comes to Bible-based Christianity. Not in Our Name asserts that "all people must be free to find meaning and sustenance in whatever form of religious or spiritual belief they choose." Yet it is not the U.S. government that is banning the Q'uran or yoga or psychics, but rather schools and universities that are censoring Bibles. There is widespread abuse of religious freedoms in the U.S., but they are not being directed from the federal level. Newspapers, television, and local governments are violating the First Amendment by increasingly expunging any and all references to God, Jesus, and Biblical morality. NION states that "religion can never be compulsory," although humanism has become the compulsory de facto religion of most Western nations. Deviation from its "truth" results in a slap on the wrist, at best, or imprisonment, at worst.

NION's hypocrisy is matched only by their arrogance. Their statement declares "evolution happened" — a facile statement amongst peers, but it ignores the growing evidence in scientific fields that the theory is in doubt. They go on to make remarks about AIDS and global warming that, taken together with the evolution declaration, suggest that Bible-believing Christians are hopelessly uneducated. Worse yet, NION implies that believers would Scripturally refute the statement's AIDS and global warming declarations, as if these two issues were at all similar to the debate over evolution. To claim that fundamentalist Christians seek to "strip women of their reproductive rights" and "stoke hatred of gays and lesbians" is such brazen emotional manipulation that one would think it'd be rejected outright. It is not because, by and large, the prevailing popular culture is on the side of secularist causes. The homosexual and secularist agendas owe their success to natural man's desire to elevate Self over God. Moral objections are rendered as hate speech because they threaten the status quo. It's like the class bully demanding that the kids he beat up have no right to dislike him. Christians have complied.

Reacting to the born-again Christian assertions of one elected official — George W. Bush — Not in Our Name ludicrously labels his entire administration as Christian, revealing a certain willful ignorance (shared by many secularists) of the realities of U.S. government. That somehow President Bush's beliefs are shared by or influence hundreds of administration members and officials (many of whom are holdovers from previous administrations and do not share Bush's constituency) is quite a stretch. The system of checks and balances has, if anything, stymied reform even remotely harboring theocratical intent. The real effort here is to slant Christianity by associating it with governmental failure. Humanists are creating false fears of politicized Christianity to malign Christian beliefs in general.

The Apostle John wrote in John Chapter One:

⁵ The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

Not in Our Name champions "spiritual experience" and "scientific truth" — two terms at the core of humanism's unsubstantiated presumptions. They've had a powerful semantic influence. "Spirituality" and "experience," when combined, describe a personal revelatory event that is untouchable and unassailable from higher criticism. And "science" and "truth," when combined, have the effect of subconsciously equating the two. These terms form a wall of intellectual hubris which prevents only the most half-hearted and apathetic from seeing that the emperor has no clothes. It has nonetheless been effective. Bible-based Christianity is portrayed as the enemy of science, scientific method, logic, and rational thought, yet "spiritual experience" is allowed to trump all of these on the basis of emotion and subjective truth. Secularists mock the Bible as being provincial and irrelevant to modern life but welcome alternative faith-based beliefs without reservation. Humanists are unsure which to emphasize more — spiritual experience or scientific truth — but they are allied in their distaste for these words from Jesus: "I am the way and the truth and the life." (John 14:6)

In their statement of conscience, NION asserts,"we will not surrender to extremists our right to think." However, the humanist elite will make others surrender their right to think by controlling what children learn in schools, by closing down intellectual debate to only one system of thought, by expunging media and entertainment of any traces of true Christianity, by discriminating against those who express a sincerely held faith in Jesus Christ, by ignoring scientific challenges to evolution, and by celebrating behavior that is a public health risk. Because of widespread thought oppression in the Western world, more and more children are growing up with tremendous emotional problems and mental inadequacies. Karl Marx, 19th century author of the Communist Manifesto, once said, "religion is the opiate of the masses." Today's secularists view God as a threat to their authority over what is right and what is wrong. In their minds, the course of man is determined by man and man alone, and that power wielded by "good, tolerant" men is the answer to the ills of society.

The sad tragedy is that, amongst the thousands who have signed the Not in Our Name statement, there are individuals who have declared themselves as "Christians" or seminarians or church pastors/ministers. Although the document does not conceal its contempt for Christianity, NION has convinced these particular signers that it sincerely aims to rescue Christianity from itself. The disastrous confusion of nominal Christians will only lead to further prejudice toward Bible-believing Christians until it is too late for them to realize that their rights have been taken away, too.

Perpetual Adolescence

The protracted adolescence of today's men and women is a social and spiritual hindrance. Contemporary culture's youth obsession combined with unstable economic realities have contributed to recent generations' inability (or reluctance) to grow up. College graduates are returning home in record numbers to live with their parents. And they're almost always single. When men and women do choose to get married these days, the decision arrives in their late 20s or into their 30s, particularly for men. Modern marriages now begin after long periods of sexual profligacy, experimentation, promiscuity, live-in relationships, and/or loneliness, frustration, and self-absorption. Marriages suffer as a result. Where once it was a necessary rite of passage into adulthood, marriage is today considered an option best postponed until after education is completed and a career is flourishing. Marriage is viewed as the icing on the cake rather than a regular part of the process of life. Such a view raises expectations to absurd levels. Worse yet, it ignores God's plan.

Jesus referred to Genesis 2:24 when He said the following in Mark Chapter 10:

⁷ A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

In August of last year, Albert Mohler wrote a two-part article titled "Looking Back at 'The Mystery of Marriage'" (part one and part two). In it, he discussed how modern Christians differ very little from society at large when it comes to views on marriage. Christians have bought into the contemporary lie that singlehood, as a lifestyle choice, brings greater freedom and happiness. This is not singleness in the service of Christ (or in the monastic sense), e.g. the Apostle Paul, which very few are called to. Rather, the singleness here is in the television-age sense — the sampling of sexual relationships contingent or not contingent on marriage. Churches and seminaries alike have done little to dispel the prevailing modern myths for fear of sounding out of touch, old-fashioned, or sexist. Paul wrote that "it is better to marry than to burn with passion." (1 Corinthians 7:9) What happens is, social maturation is centered around emotion and personal whim rather than God's Word.

Financial independence and marriage are not merely societal indicators of adulthood; they are part of God's plan for society. Dependence and singleness are representations of childhood and immaturity. A child is dependent on their parents or guardians. The single man or woman is the center of his or her life. In pampered Western societies, selfishness, self-absorption, materialism, and youth fixation are all part of the acceptable norms. Increased spending power via dependence or singleness is often regarded as necessary to obtain desired-for material goods and luxuries. Less familial responsibility is viewed as a way to satisfy the "me time." The culture is geared to oppose the realization of healthy families.

Of course, educators, psychiatrists, and the media will tell us that children are "growing up" faster and faster these days. Actually, they are being inculcated in pervasive amoralism and humanism faster and faster. But they are far from growing up faster. The Bible says that knowledge will increase in the last days (cf. Daniel 12:4). That does not mean there will be a rise in Godly wisdom. The growth of communications media over the past century and especially the internet in the past decade has definitely increased knowledge, and the rate of growth is phenomenal. New technologies are announced on a seemingly daily basis. Children are acquiring more knowledge than ever before, but indeed it is a matter of quantity rather than quality. Public education, television, and the internet are filling their minds with all kinds of information, but with what confidence can we say that any of it is meaningful, factual, historically accurate, or conducive to a life in Christ?

Furthermore, when children are described as "growing up faster," it is indicative of innocence lost rather than maturity gained. They are exposed to material on the internet and in television and the movies that, a century ago, even the most calloused adults would not have seen or heard. This assault on children's innocence does so much damage that their ability to mature as independent and secure adults is seriously hampered.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13:

¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Ungodly ideals of social maturity have, in turn, stunted the spiritual growth of young men and women. The emphasis on the Self, personal revelation, materialism, feel-good philosophy, and a notable lack of spiritual accountability stand at odds with real Christian maturity. New believers are either unable to wean themselves from spiritual milk (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, 1 Peter 2:2-3) or are simply content to remain at this stage. Dependence and selfishness will hold back a Christian's growth, leaving them stuck in spiritual adolescence. God's social plan is designed to aid the maturation of a believer. Because modern society inverts His plan, spiritual growth is all the more difficult. When a believer weak in God's Word passes through the gauntlet of worldly peer pressure, their faith often shipwrecks.

Believers today are subtly and not so subtly encouraged to follow, in the New Age vernacular, their "personal bliss." Purpose-driven pragmatism has driven obedience and submission to God from the church, and ushered in the worship of self-esteem. Some Christians in leadership and teaching roles are caving in to worldly pressures and are not modeling spiritual accountability. Scripture is divested of its hard truths to make Christians feel better about themselves and to avoid offending other worldviews. Spiritual meat is nowhere to be found, nor stomachs that can digest it.

The spirit of this world wants men and women to be corrupt and worldly at heart and childish in the mind. Examples of this deceit abound: pornography is increasingly referred to as "adult entertainment," as if lasciviousness and degradation signify some kind of maturity. Licentiousness is permissible as long as individuals are "consenting adults." Once commonly referred to as "Sin City," Las Vegas is now touted as a "playground for adults." Yet Scripture commands us to possess childlike innocence in the heart (cf. Matthew 18:3) and mature, Godly wisdom in the mind (cf. James 1:4-5). Only in Christ can either of these two parameters be fulfilled.

Man Was Created Male and Female, Part 2

One of the rising stars in the hermetic literary world is American writer J.T. LeRoy. At the young age of 24, his work is already read and praised in universities such as Duke and Berkeley, and LeRoy himself has, over the past five years, become something of a celebrity, palling around with famous writers, actors, and musicians. His personal and artistic fame is driven by a transparency in his life that reveals a world of drug and sexual abuse, prostitution, and gender confusion.

In a fawning Los Angeles Times piece (subscription req'd) on LeRoy, his themes are described as being compassionate and forgiving, in contrast to the "rural, religion-dominated areas" of the U.S. from which his stories draw their inspiration. In nearly all modern art and criticism, objective truth and authorial intent are ignored or dismissed in order to present nonjudgmental "reflections" of reality. The simple Scriptural truth that man looks upon God as "through a glass, darkly" (1 Cor. 13:12) — an acknowledgment of man's perceptive inadequacy — is unacceptable in the humanist paradigm. Society nears the precipice when it not only accepts chaos as is, but desires chaos for what it is.

In the midst of all the plaudits, J.T. LeRoy's tragic history of childhood abuse is implicitly regarded as fodder for literary inspiration. The very real fruits of such darkness — pain, despair, sexual addiction, mental illness — are not addressed. In the L.A. Times article, Leroy claims that, although medicated, voices in his head are "always there." It's an admission which escapes comment, as if his interviewer viewed it as essential to the fabric that enhances a talented artist. This is the kind of humanist attitude that enables further self-destructive and self-deceptive behavior. The people heaping unqualified praise upon LeRoy would do well to consider the Scriptural underpinnings (Jeremiah 17:9) in the title of one of his books, "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things."

One of the central themes of LeRoy's work is gender confusion, which will partially explain its appeal to the literati and academia. Distortions of Biblical sexuality and sexual identity have spread like wildfire through a society that no longer acknowledges any spiritual super authority except that which man creates for himself. In her excellent two-part article (part one and part two) on transgenderism for Crosswalk.com, Annabelle Robertson writes:

Some might say that despite evidence to the contrary, the prevailing myth about [gender identity dysphoria] – that people are “born in the wrong body” – might well have led the 17th century philosopher René Descartes to re-define today’s emotion-centric culture as, “I feel, therefore I am.”

Either way, the sense that transgender is uniquely a genetic issue has become a foregone conclusion which leads more and more people to assume that God simply somehow made a mistake.

In recent months, television talk show host Oprah Winfrey has covered transgender issues. In Winfrey's supposedly nonjudgmental televised forum, children struggling with gender identity (as young as 5) were basically encouraged to pursue these feelings — even consider sex-change operations — while dissenting opinions were dismissed as unsympathetic and uninformed. Responding to the show, Annabelle Robertson commented, "Even more interesting – though not surprising, given the popular trend of revering children’s opinions over those of adults – is the fact that the children’s feelings were assumed to be fact." In a provocative commentary on this same episode (which aired back in August), R. Albert Mohler said, "the very idea that we 'discover' our gender as a matter of interiority is itself an act of aggression against the moral order and a demonstration of human arrogance against the divine design of creation" and described Winfrey as an "agent of moral insanity." As a famous television personality, Winfrey commands a fairly powerful sphere of influence, and her guiltless morality dovetails with the broader humanist agenda.

The apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians Chapter 5:

⁸ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of the light
⁹ (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)
¹⁰ and find out what pleases the Lord.
¹¹ Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

Today, many fruits of darkness — in this case, cross-dressing and transgenderism — receive increasingly unqualified acceptance from a society heedless of their source: sexual abuse, pornography, and a popular culture intent on destroying traditional male and female roles. Women are portrayed as sex objects and men as brutes. Is it any wonder that, in such a climate, children reject these false ideals of true manhood and womanhood? Without any real Biblical guidance, children (and later as they become adults) will search for the answers elsewhere. An individual's rejection of their own gender is likely a rejection of these ungodly role models, and furthermore, mutilation of their body is encouraged in a society where physical change is regarded as a cure-all.

In addition to its wholesale slaughter of innocents, modern society engages in the widespread corruption of innocence. Believers must recognize that acquiescence to the prevailing culture is a key enabler of humanist deception — deception which destroys the lives of millions. In Luke Chapter 17, Jesus told his disciples:

¹ Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come.
² It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.
³ So watch yourselves.

The physical well-being and spiritual welfare of children is under direct attack by a selfish humanist system that cannot help itself. The weblog for Contender Ministries recently posted about an incident at a Chicago YMCA where children attending a swim meet encountered transvestites who were leaving a transgendered fashion show held there the previous night. Transgendered teachers are accepted by and legislated into America's public schools. The popular media unabashedly sell so-called "gender-bending" artists. In the case of the writer J.T. LeRoy, his talent is mined with little regard for the fractured past that is tied into it. LeRoy, raised with no knowledge of his father and subjected to abuse by an unprotective prostitute mother, has had his childhood innocence undeniably stolen from him. But like many troubled artists before him, LeRoy's self-destructive tendencies are ignored by hangers-on and admirers who desperately seek reassuring solidarity in a morality-free peer group.

Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12 (KJV) that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]." The advocates of gender dysphoria argue that issues of sexual identity deal solely with the mind and the body. But gender confusion cannot be reduced to a physical/mental issue because sin, that is, separation from God, is always a spiritual issue. When people lock their sexuality away from God on ownership principle, it is inevitably distorted by the prevailing winds of emotion, circumstance, and rationalization. Mankind's dire spiritual situation will yield any number of mental and physical afflictions. Human-based solutions can be superficial fixes at best and totally destructive at worst because the ultimate deceiver distracts us from the true source of our problems — sin. If a child were encouraged to rob a bank or kill another human being, people would be justifiably angry and appalled, but when a child is encouraged to destroy their God-given identity, people are supposed to stand back and allow it to happen. Western society's rejection of natural gender roles is a terrible symptom of its terminal illness.

Earlier this month, the Christian Courier reported that the IRS will offer tax deductions for sex-change operations. Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University wrote on the subject of sex-change surgeries in the November issue of First Things:

I have witnessed a great deal of damage from sex-reassignment. The children transformed from their male constitution into female roles suffered prolonged distress and misery as they sensed their natural attitudes....We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it.

Gender identity issues revolve around the need for transformation, but the only true transformation that any man or woman can receive is from Jesus Christ. There is hope in a world that has lost its way. Purity does exist...in the cleansing blood of Christ. The Apostle John wrote in 1 John 1:7, "The blood of Jesus...purifies us from all sin."

No Time to Think

As the massive death toll continues to rise in the wake of the powerful tsunamis that struck Southern Asia the day after Christmas, the mainstream media, the scientific community, relief organizations, students of Bible prophecy, and common observers struggle to understand the magnitude and meaning of the catastrophe. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake, centered 155 miles off the coast of Sumatra, triggered tsunami waves of up to 500 mph. The quake was so strong, its force has been compared to the detonation of a million atomic bombs (the type dropped on Japan at the end of WWII). Some scientists are even claiming that it literally altered, if infinitisimally, the earth's rotation. Researchers at the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) note that tsunami waves in the Indian Ocean are historically rare to even nonexistent on record. This was not your average natural disaster. Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs described firsthand (subscription req'd) his experience in Sri Lanka when the tsunami hit:

The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible, a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced.

Scientists and the media will attribute these tsunamis to geological chance or even years of ecological irresponsibility. However, the sheer scale of the calamity, when set against the backdrop of natural disasters over the past 12 months, ought to give believers pause: there is something supernatural to these natural disasters.

The metaphor of a "thief in the night" is memorably used in several passages of Scripture to describe Christ's return. Peter wrote that "the day of the Lord will come like a thief." (2 Peter 3:10) Likewise, Paul warned, "But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief." (1 Thessalonians 5:4). Jesus Himself says in Revelations 16:15, "Behold, I come like a thief," referencing his own words from Luke 12:39-40. But not everyone is to be surprised. Jesus cautioned believers not to fall asleep spiritually; foreseeing this, He gave us explicit clues to His return in addition to end times prophecy located elsewhere in Scripture. Among these signs are natural disasters. From Matthew Chapter 24 (KJV):

⁷ There shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
⁸ All these [are] the beginning of sorrows.

Bible prophecy is often the focus of the mainstream media because, in isolation, it sensationalizes Scripture and reduces it to sound byte consumption. The secular media manipulate and overemphasize the role of natural disasters in prophecy to play on people's fears and, knowingly or not, impugn the veracity of Scripture by heightening a sense of Cecil B. DeMille-like theatricality. Our psyches are conditioned by the special effects images of Hollywood disaster movies to the point where we are clearly desensitized to the real thing. To Western countries observing the events in Southern Asia, the disaster is removed, held captive on a picture tube, and thus abstract. In other words, if it ain't in our own backyard, we don't pay attention. Sadly, short-sighted Western-centric perception, dimmed by selfishness and moral turpitude, is slow to recognize that the world as a whole is experiencing an incredible amount of upheaval with great rapidity. Jesus was quite clear that, in the last days, natural disasters would strike in diverse locales and that they would be a very real part of supernaturally directed design. In Luke Chapter 21 (KJV), Jesus said:

²⁵ And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
²⁶ Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
²⁷ And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

North America certainly has experienced its fair share of atypical climatic and ecological occurrences in recent months, and yet there is the sense that the increasing frequency of such events is not resonating with a public inured to "breaking news" stories. After 18 years of silence, Washington state's Mount St. Helens made the news again when it erupted in early October. Although the steam-and-ash eruption was relatively minor as far as volcanoes go, notable seismic and magmatic activity continues there. Far more devastating was this year's Atlantic hurricane season, which was considered to be among the worst ever to hit the United States. Four major hurricanes in a six-week span -- Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne -- battered the state of Florida alone, and damage will likely exceed that caused by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The hurricanes caused thousands of deaths in the Caribbean, and the next several years are expected to bring similarly powerful hurricane seasons.

Yet it is on the international scene over the past 12 months where natural disaster is looking less natural and more "supernatural." Exactly one year to the day previous to this week's tsunami disaster, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake shook southeastern Iran and killed upwards of 30,000 people. The terrible tragedy has nonetheless faded from Western consciousness. This year alone, there have been nine earthquakes around the world (including the December 26th Sumatran temblor) of magnitude 7.0 or higher. During June, July, and August, some of the worst monsoon flooding in 15 years ravaged parts of India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, killing 1,800 people. A record ten typhoons have struck Japan this year, leaving more than 100 fatalities in their wake. Among them was Typhoon Tokage which hit Japan on October 20 with a record 80-ft. wave. Three days later, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake struck the city of Niigata, Japan. Volcanic activity, in addition to that of Mount St. Helens, continues to dot the globe from hot spots in Japan and the South Pacific to the Kamchatka region of Russia.

We hear reports more and more frequently of astronomers spotting an asteroid that could possibly strike the Earth, causing damage on an worldwide scale. While such an event seems quite remote, some Bible prophecy watchers believe the Apostle John described an asteroid in Revelation Chapter 8 when he wrote:

⁸ Something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea.
⁹ A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

Just this week, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California reopened their tracking of an asteroid that could make impact with Earth in 2029. The odds are 300-to-1.

Everyone from the U.N. to insurance companies to Hal Lindsey recognizes the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters. Worldwide, the number of major weather-related disasters in the 1990s was more than five times the number for the 1950s, and the number of natural disasters over the past half century have surpassed those in the previous half. The secularists and evolutionists desperately point to phenomena like global warming and increasing carbon dioxide levels to explain the meaning of these natural disasters. Even if substantiated, their hypotheses do not even begin to deal with the why. A world so fixated on empiricism and the kingdom of physical senses cannot mitigate the fear and suffering of its people when faced with supernatural judgment.

Journalist Alan Morison wrote this eyewitness account of the tsunami's effects on Phuket Island (in Thailand):

What do you do when you see a huge wave-wall coming at you? You run. You run as fast as you can. You think: "This is surreal."

But you keep running ... until the water lifts you off your feet and sweeps you onwards.

It makes no difference whether you can swim or not.

The force carries you forward, and you become a living, breathing projectile. Grab onto something and you may live.

Surf the wave and you have a chance. Hit something solid, and you die.

Faced with so-called "forces of nature," man is reminded of how powerless he truly is. We have no time to think, only time to react. Jesus warned believers to be spiritually ready at the end of the age. These signs, these birthing pangs, are warnings for His Church to prepare itself, to return to its faith, to return to the Word and turn away from the world. Fear and unbelief have ruled man for eons, but by God's design, calamity and disaster tear man's grip away from the minutiae of his life so that he may focus on the reality of his spiritual situation. But this applies only to the survivors; only in life can we prepare. For once we are in the moment, there will be no time to think.

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A considerable number of lives lost in the tsunami disaster in Southern Asia were children's. Several Christian relief organizations (including Franklin Graham's Samaritan Purse) are currently assisting aid workers. Please consider a financial contribution to help those in an extremely difficult situation.

The Pride of the Ruthless

More news from the Groningen Hospital in the Netherlands: Dr. Eduard Verhagen, head of pediatrics at the hospital, has admitted euthanizing four seriously ill infants over the past 16 months. His admission is intended to bring support to his cause at the level of the Dutch national legislature. This week, World Net Daily reported the recent comments Dr. Verhagen made to the London Telegraph:

"There is a small group of children for whom no treatment is possible for the congenital disease and malformations they are born with," Verhagen told the London Telegraph, explaining why he had chosen to break the law. "Asking doctors to take away the pain easily and allow the child to die quietly is the natural reaction.

"For the incurable to die early requires that we do this or they enter a starvation phase and what suffering is more unbearable than a minor left to die from natural causes such as these."

Intelligent and articulate rationalization like that espoused by Dr. Verhagen is sure to please the rebellious human spirit. What was once unthinkable is now being practiced, legislated, even lauded. While sympathy is focused squarely on the plight of children, ruthlessness is ignored. In the article, a spokesman for Wim Eijk, the Roman Catholic bishop in Groningen, wisely responded, "It is a slippery slope that will give doctors the right to impose life or death, and will lead to an argument that it should be extended to all." Because humanism exists only to serve the physical world, centuries-old prohibitions against the "man playing God" syndrome are tossed aside. The humanist regards man as the supreme judge of his own fate and owner of his body. The logical extension is that an individual or group of individuals can be the intercessory judge of another's human being's fate and the owner by proxy of another human being's body when practicality or circumstance necessitate it. A godless world can lead only to tyranny.

In Proverbs Chapter 6, King Solomon wrote the following words with rather definitive clarity:

¹⁶ [These] things the LORD hates...
¹⁷ Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood.

Shamed by the Blood of Innocents

The recent news stories have been hard to ignore: the Groningen Academic Hospital in the Netherlands permits doctors to euthanize terminally ill or long-suffering children under the age of 12. In this program, the patients are administered a lethal dosage of sedatives and parental consent is not necessary. Wesley J. Smith reported in The Weekly Standard that "Dutch doctors have been surreptitiously engaging in eugenic euthanasia of disabled babies for years." A British study found that 31% of Dutch pediatricians admitted to performing medically sanctioned infanticide. And Belgium is now considering a similar program in a bill before its Parliament.

These physicians, unfortunately, are the product of a Western society that celebrates death over life, pragmatism over conviction, and man's moral and ethical permutations over God's immutable will. The sheer audacity of child euthanasia is greeted with apathy in nations where souls are dulled by decades of quotidian materialism and a godless humanism that reduces man to the status of a mere animal.

King David wrote in Psalm 9 (KJV):

¹² When He [God] maketh inquisition for blood, He remembereth them: He forgetteth not the cry of the humble.

At no time in human history has the taking of innocent life been of a greater magnitude or pervasiveness than it is today. From child euthanasia in Western Europe to the over 40 million babies legally aborted in the United States the past 30 years to widespread female infanticide in India and communist China, the systematic and socially condoned slaughter of innocents in our modern times is chilling. Believers must face this unsettling conclusion: the nations of the world face a terrible reckoning for these sins. "These . . things doth the LORD hate: . . a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood." (Proverbs 6:16-17, KJV)

The same individuals who condone abortion and eugenic pragmatism are the same ones who triumphantly declare the progress of mankind. Their rational clarity is sacrificed at the altar of relativism. The genocide of millions of babies generates barely a whisper among the humanists who raise a hue and cry over wars waged against brutal dictators and murdering terrorist organizations. In covering the Iraq war, the Western media has bent over backwards to cover civilian casualties. They have been far less dogged in reporting the daily murder of innocents in their own countries.

While no individual is spiritually innocent before God, Scripture asserts the existence of earthly innocence. Children, infants, and, yes, the unborn fall into this category. (Even the conscience of natural man, untainted by peer-induced solipsism, recognizes this fact.) God does not make prenatal life a special case as contemporary thinking would have us believe. In Psalm 139:13, David describes the Lord's involvement in his life -- from conception. "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." This point is even more unequivocal in Jeremiah 1:5 when the Lord says to the prophet Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart."

Last year, both houses of the U.S. Congress voted overwhelmingly to ban partial birth abortions, which are abortions performed in the second or third trimester. Since President George W. Bush signed the bill into law on November 5, 2003, there have been several judicial injunctions on the ban. Among the judges who've strayed from their Constitutional jurisdiction are U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton, Federal District Judge Richard Casey, and U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf. The litigators have, naturally, included the usual suspects: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the National Abortion Federation. Even the most egregious of medical procedures are not enough to bend the will of humanists who view personal and social freedom as something best defined by the very few, i.e. an oligarchy.

From Psalm 94:

²¹ They band together against the righteous and condemn the innocent to death.

On April 25th this past spring, hundreds of thousands of abortion rights supporters marched through Washington D.C. to rally their cause. The parade of secular and Christian humanists revealed the irrational and shameless depths of their relativist moral stew. Their view of the human body as property subverts the Biblical concept of stewardship, that life is a gift from God -- it is His to give and to take away. When man regards the body as property, personal or otherwise, he can conclude that it's subject to convenience and pragmatism, no spiritual strings attached. Abortion, euthanasia, and eugenics follow. And yet the defiance on display at the abortion rights march was very spiritual indeed; that is, no amount of profane shouting can quell Godly judgment on the human heart. C.S. Lewis once wrote that noise was the sound of Hell: "Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile -- Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires." For it is in the quiet that God's voice can be heard. When you shout loud enough, you can't hear your own conscience. Legalized abortion is the terminal symptom of a sick society, a convenience to sop, at any cost, the selfishness of its people.

Just this week, the Bush administration declared that over $1 trillion will be needed to resuscitate Social Security. The plan will be buttressed by extensive government borrowing; in order words, by ballooning the national debt. Financial observers have mentioned the direct effect that abortion has had on the stability of Social Security -- the fact that tens of millions of potential workers now do not exist to support what was already an unstable system, a system lauded by those who also celebrate the genocide that is killing it.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." (Matthew 5:5) Think of all the aborted babies who haven't even been given the opportunity to fulfill God's earthly purpose for them! The millions of innocent lives lost call out for justice -- not man's imperfect and sometimes self-defeating sense of justice, but God's justice. For believers, it is His righteousness, not graphic abortion photos, that should open our eyes and our souls. New Testament-only Christians unwisely ignore the inexorable nature of Divine Judgment. Society as a whole is responsible for abortion's terrible legacy, just as it is for the corruption of innocence. We've often heard the phrase, "the punishment fits the crime." And one day there will be an answer for today's mass slaughter of innocents, a crime whose scope far surpasses the comparable atrocities of ancient Rome and Greece and antediluvian civilization. Speaking of the end of the age, Jesus said the following in Matthew Chapter 24 (KJV):

²¹ For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

Narcotics for Man's Soul

Tradition can be a dangerous thing when the roots of that tradition are stripped away. The dried-out husk that is secularized Christianity has been the dominant worldview in Western nations for decades. A lyric sung by Johnny Cash some years ago comes to mind: "I stopped outside a church house where the citizens like to sit/They say they want the kingdom but they don't want God in it." Where once the early Christians brought Scriptures to the world, now churches vainly bring the world to Scripture.

The world's paradigms are not God's, yet as Christians we persist in the whole square peg/round hole exercise with embarrassing futility. Popular culture (whether labeled "Christian" or not) must be vetted warily by the word of God. If it is not, we have the tendency, through upbringing or tradition, to find Christian meaning where there isn't any. Christianity is thus reduced to being just another course in the cafeteria of the world's philosophies and religions.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians Chapter 5:

¹⁶ So, I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
¹⁷ For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.

The idols of our modern age may no longer be made of gold or silver as they were for the Israelites of the Old Testament, but they are just as ubiquitous and certainly no less displeasing to God. Mankind trades in earthly securities like money, power, sensuality, possessions, entertainments, artistic indulgences, intellectual rationalizations, and perhaps most deluding of all, external moralism. While fallen man has no thirst for the truly spiritual, it is tragic indeed when nominal Christians attempt to sublimate their idol worship (whatever form it may take) with "Christianese" -- a layer of icing over a very stale cake. The secular humanists can, and do, see right through this charade. Tradition in name only is a very desolate place. Robbed of God's Word, tradition poisons rather than preserves the soul.

God made us for His purpose, not the other way around. It is delusional to be led by one's own sense of "niceness" and "morality," hoping for a pat on the back from some kind of cosmic entity. When we pray to our blessings rather than to the Lord, we are placing our trust and devotion in idols. Ignoring or twisting Scripture to suit the Self is usually not far behind. If a believer's walk with the Lord is weak, that individual will see only what their idols show them -- in effect, they see what they want to see. As a consequence, prayer and their references to prayer ring hollow. For it is as Jesus said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8) The unsaved are not moved by talk or labels but by the grace of God working through those men and women obedient to His will.

Christians will find sustenance in God's Word, not tradition or experience. Ray Comfort writes that "for the Christian, every day should be Thanksgiving Day," knowing full well that not every day feels like a holiday. The meaning behind the Thanksgiving tradition is certainly worth remembering. The Thanksgiving holiday (word origin: "holy day") in the U.S. is a unique vestige of a once Christian nation. But as Christian beliefs have become more and more marginalized and diluted, Thanksgiving is now thought of as the day that officially precedes the beginning of the "holiday shopping season," the epitome of gross consumerism in a secular society. The holiday may still celebrate the blessings of hearth and home, family and friends, but deprived of its spiritual context, the idols of humanism are once again placed above the source of all that is holy and righteous.

Thanksgiving Day should be a time to cast down idols and worship our Lord. The 18th-century English poet William Cowper once wrote:

The dearest idol I have known,
Whatever that idol may be,
Help me to tear it from its throne,
And worship only thee.

Thanksgiving as a holiday should remind believers that thanksgiving as a form of worship (cf. Psalm 69:30) is really God's gift to us every day of the year. When we abide in His will, we find that the Lord is always watching over us and providing for us, far above and beyond what we deserve. For this, our thanks cannot truly be contained to one day.

Consider Jesus' words from Matthew Chapter 6:

²⁵ Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?