FEARFULLY, WONDERFULLY

For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
¹⁶ Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them. (Ps. 139:13-16)

When a human being is conceived by fertilization, the "fearfully" and wonderfully" of Psalm 139 begin. What starts at that moment is a construction project of intricacy and precision that has no conscious direction by the mother or the baby. Things begin to take place involving DNA, chromosomes, amino acids, proteins, and cell division and what has begun, has begun with intent. New cells are reproducing in the womb, eventually, some will do so at the rate of 100,000 per second. That's fearful ( in the sense of awe-inspiring) and wonderful (in the sense of, well, wonderful).

EVEN MORE FEARFUL, MORE AMAZING

It gets more amazing: How do the new cells know where to go? In what order do they know where to go? How do some of the cells know to become heart cells? How do some know to become brain cells? The mother isn't consciously directing them to go to this place or that place and arrange themselves in a precise order. The mother isn't directing some cells to be kidneys and others to be lungs.

The organization and the order in which they are organized show intent, the intent to become a human being. It's like a complex choreographed dance with each cell intent on being in its proper place in its proper order with the intent of becoming a human being.

What is this? This is design; this is order; this is intent. This is fearful and wonderful! This is an example of Romans 1:20: "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."

THE ATHEIST'S DEMAND

Many an atheist has said, "If God would write His name in the sky or the Ten Commandments on the moon, then I'd believe" (Carl Sagan). But, according to  Frank Turek, God has done infinitely more than that--He's written His name in our DNA in every cell of the human body. "The information in DNA guides and instructs the formation of proteins; without it, protein formation would be a haphazard, hit-or-miss proposal. The nucleic sequence in DNA is informational." (J. Warner Wallace) 

And what does the fact that DNA is "informational" mean? Let's first ask, "Where does information come from?" In the entire history of the universe, in the entire history of science, no one has ever found a single instance of information coming from any source other than from intelligence. If you were to find a set of encyclopedias on a deserted island, you'd say that some intelligence, some very smart person or persons wrote those tomes. Those who discovered and read the Rosetta Stone knew for certain that some intelligence produced it because it contained information.  

[Soldiers in Napoleon's army discovered the Rosetta Stone in 1799, while digging the foundations of an addition to a fort near the town of Rosetta. The text written on the Rosetta Stone was in three scripts so that the priests, government officials, and rulers of Egypt could read what it said.]

From this, we see not only form, order, and precision, but we also see intent, whether it be intent in the womb or intent written on a stone (the inscription on the Rosetta Stone is a decree passed by a council of priests. It is one of a series that affirm the royal cult of the 13-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation.) 

Cells in the womb, cells without a mind, yet they have programmed purpose--to fearfully and wonderfully form a human being. An intelligence must be behind this precision, order, and intent, that is, a Person must be directing it, and the Psalm 139 tells us Who. 

YET

Enter the atheist. What does he do about this form, order, precision, and intent? He recognizes it! As atheist Richard Dawkins says, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." He, one of the leading atheists in the world, admits it? Yes, but hang on, there's more.

Although we actually see this form, order, precision, and intent, Dawkins, like atheist Frances Crick writes, "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see [form, order, precision, and intent] was not designed, but evolved." Really?

LYIN' EYES

Wait. What? They're saying, "It's obvious, but remind yourself that your eyes are lying to you."  Can blind chance explain DNA, form, order, precision, and intent? The statement, "We see design, but we have to keep reminding ourselves that it's not there," reminds us of Romans 1:18-22:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, ¹⁹ because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. ²¹ For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²² Professing to be wise, they became fools . . ."

It's evident; it's clearly seen that there is a Person who created the universe, but "No," they say, "constantly keep in mind that what you see is not designed. . ." Paul says that this is the path to foolishness. 

Foolishness? Yes. Since they can't and won't admit God is there, their explanation of form, order, precision, and intent is foolishness: space aliens. Yes, they propose that space aliens seeded the universe and they are the intelligence behind the human race. There's even a name for this absurdity: panspermia ("seed everywhere").

Listen to Richard Dawkins: "It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it’s possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer."

"[Popularizer, gifted speaker, and American astrophysicist] Neil deGrasse Tyson is talking panspermia from Mars, Richard Dawkins mentions ancient aliens as a possible candidate for development of complex biological processes." ("The Telegraph") This foolishness is all over the place. Think of it: if the media discovers that a man running for president of the United States believes the truth of Ps. 139, he's pilloried as an idiot, but if he advocates panspermia, would he not be hailed as brilliant?

HARDENED HEARTS

"When we discover that each person has a unique name over three billion letter long written in cells so small that they are invisible to the naked eye (DNA), the atheist who demands that God write a few letters in the sky remains unmoved." (Frank Turek) The hardened heart had rather owe its existence to smart space aliens rather that bow before the omniscient, omnipotent God of Genesis 1-2.

Paul nails it in Romans 1: "For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks." Yet The final, absolute, and ultimate word of the Psalmist  is, "I will give thanks to You . . . you wove me in my mother’s womb. .  .  I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

THE DAY THEY DANCED IN THE STREETS

Historians say that Abraham Lincoln had an uncanny ability, one few people have. Lincoln could, in most any situation, detach himself and mentally hoover in the air above it, observing and making dispassionate judgments and evaluations concerning the issue or discussion at the moment. He wasn't entangled in the emotions of the moment, instead, he sized up the matter as if he were an observer.

That's the ability the Bible gives the mature believer. We call it "discernment," or having the "divine viewpoint." Whatever we call it, it's not due to our brilliance of our brains; it's because our intellects are bowing to Scripture, the Book which gives us God's viewpoint of man and the world.

THE DAY THEY DANCED

On June 26, 2015, they danced in the streets of America. And who were the dancers? Professor Paul Kengor calls  them, "culture-transformers" for that's what they had done--they had transformed the American culture by breaking it off from from many thousands of years of the absolute model of marriage: one man and one woman, united in holy matrimony. These culture-transformers danced in the streets because the U. S. Supreme Court had abolished that absolute standard by a vote of 5-4.

Americans saw that the culture-transformers had changed something else that day, something never before fundamentally changed in all of American history; they changed the White House. The People's House was illuminated in rainbow colors that day.

So, what was this celebration from the divine viewpoint?

Divine viewpoint gives the believer the ability to see the dancing on that June day for what it was--a joyous celebration of rebellion against God and absolute truth as revealed in His model for marriage, a model that had stood for over 200 years in America. In a historical parallel, the culture-transformers were was as Israel dancing before the golden calf in their post-Exodus rebellion against God, albeit for a different reason.

WHO WERE THE DANCERS?

The celebration was a long time coming, but no matter, the rebellious revelers have been patient. Among the ones celebrating were members of the Communist Party; they were thrilled. Marx and Engels had called for the abolition of the family back in 1848, a proposal called "infamous" back then. According to Professor Paul Kengor, Marx wrote to Engels, "Blessed is he who has no family." Marx knew Engels, he knew that he hated the family and marriage. Their intellectual descendants included Lenin, Trotsky, Margaret Sanger, and Betty Friedan, along with Bill Ayers, and Mark Rudd who also railed against marriage and the family.

THE DIVINE VIEWPOINT

From the divine viewpoint, marriage existed before the state. The biblical record shows that marriage is an institution created in Genesis 2; God instituted human government in Genesis 11. The state is to recognize marriage, not redefine it. But redefine it, it has by a vote of 5-4.

Gene Veith points out the subtle and totalitarian danger in such redefining:

"If the state can redefine marriage and enforce that redefinition, it can [redefine] the doctor-patient relationship, the lawyer-client relationship, the parent-child relationship, the confessor-penitent relationship, and virtually every other relationship that is woven into the texture of civil society. In doing so, the state does serious damage to the democratic project. Concurrently, it reduces what it tries to substitute for reality to farce."

Thus, the divine viewpoint gives us the ability to see what's really going on--the state's moving into an area(s) it has no God-sanctioned right to go, rejecting absolute truth, and making it up as it goes along.  

HOW DID THE DANCERS DO IT?

Theirs is a study in patience; such ideas as they were proposing to fundamentally change marriage would have been scoffed at as incomprehensible as late as the 1950's.

The big dance of June 26, came about as a result of patience plus our universities which educated the culture-transformers of today. Our colleges had pedagogical help--TV and the movies, the press, Facebook (Social media came into play with its power to shame the opponents of the culture-transformers publicly via high tech mobs.), and the White House all united around the cause.

The culture-transformers had some heavy-hitters on their side. Hillary Clinton recently encouraged another politician running for his party's nomination to join her in a "Pride Parade," saying, "Come on, it's fun."

Former President, George H. W. Bush was an official witness at a same sex marriage in September 2013 in Maine; the Washington Post ran a picture of his signing the license. His famous daughter-in-law, Laura Bush agrees:

In response to a question about same sex marriage, she said, "There are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman. But I also know that, you know, when couples are committed to each other and love each other, that they ought to have, I think, the same sort of rights that everyone has."

"The Christian Post" reported the words of a speech to the National Press Club in Washington DC in June of 2009, given by former Vice President Dick Cheney: "I think people ought to be free to enter into any union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish." He said that while he was running for Vice President, he kept his views secret for political reasons. (All of which shows us the truth of Ps. 118:9: "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes." According to that Psalm, a person should take out the word "princes" and insert the name of whichever candidate he's tempted to trust, Democrat or Republican.)

A FIRST

What has been overlooked is that, for the first time, the transformers had the help of people we would describe as "mainstream." Those who advocated the abolition of marriage were earlier thought to be wild-eyed radicals, a lunatic fringe group, but because of the powerful coalition mentioned above (colleges, movies, TV, politicians, the press) that coalition came to include soccer moms on Facebook, pastors, and professors all joined with those whose main goal in life is to watch TV in dancing in the streets. Such a coalition from such disparate walks of life all had a common denominator--a rejection of absolute truth.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The believer with the Bible knows something else; he knows what the dancing was really all about. He knows that same-sex marriage advocates are using the issue for a deeper cause, an even more fundamental change. The issue is a Trojan Horse to attack what they hate most: Christianity. That's why they were dancing. Their attack has worked. For the time being.

But dancers beware: there is a day coming when "every eye shall see Him." That will be the day their dancing stops.

THE SOUND OF TWO HANDS CLAPPING

"In the seventh century, as the Roman empire was in the decline period of its decline and fall, the emperor Heraclitus made plans to meet with a barbarian king. Heraclitus wanted to intimidate his opponent, but he knew that the Roman army, in its weakened state, was no longer terribly intimidating, particularly when the intended intimidatee was a barbarian. So the emperor hired a group of men to augment his legions -- but for purposes that were less military than they were musical. He hired the men to applaud." ("The Atlantic," March 15, 2013)

HIRED TO DO WHAT? WHY?

That's an interesting tactic, isn't it--the use of applause to intimidate. Somehow the emperor had learned that applause is a powerful means of non-verbal communication. It's a powerful way for human beings to create thunderous and rumbling noise, signifying approval.

10,000 AGAINST 1

I was in the coliseum on the SMU campus, an arena filled to capacity to hear Francis Schaeffer and his son Frank who would be speaking after the previewing of an anti-abortion film they had made and were about to release, mainly to churches.

After the film, Frank spoke to the assembled throng with a what-do-we-do-now theme. In his speech he called for the use of what Paul would call, "Carnal weapons of warfare"--the blockading of hospitals, doctors' offices, and clinics that performed abortions. (This meant breaking the law by trespassing on private property, but that issue never came up.) There were other carnal weapons Schaeffer told us to to use--demonstrations, picket lines, and marches--you get the idea. With each (and I mean each) suggestion of what we were to do once we got back home, thunderous applause broke out all over the coliseum as people stood and clapped and clapped and clapped at each carnal suggestion. His film went on to be shown in churches all across the land and many Christians put his proffered ploys into practice.

As near as I could tell, I was the only one who never stood, never cheered, and never clapped, although at the time I couldn't tell you why I didn't, other than something just wasn't ringing true in all of this. I was just as much against abortion (and still am) as the other 9,999 were, but something just wasn't sitting right in these suggestions. Later, after studying the subject, I knew why it didn't have that truthful ring to it.

But that's not the point. The point is that the effect of all that noise from the applause was as Heraclitus knew it was--intimidating. (Since that time, Frank Schaeffer has left the faith and written a book saying that his parents were crazy and Christianity a sham.) I don't remember all that much about the weaponry he was advocating, but I do remember the 19,998 hands applauding, the throats cheering, and the noise, the intimidation they generated. (Not to stand, not to cheer, not to applaud took no courage on my part; no one was going to accost, criticize, or attack me in any way. But I realized I was all by lonesome, even in a room filled with with a multitude of believers. Not applauding can do that to you.)

UNCLE JOE

Alexander Solzhenitsyn penned a terrifying description of what life was like for Russians under Joseph Stalin in his book "Gulag Archipelago." One part of the book is especially and dramatically intimidating:

A district Party conference was under way in Moscow Province. It was presided over by a new secretary of the District Party Committee, replacing one recently arrested. At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). The small hall echoed with “stormy applause, rising to an ovation.” For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the “stormy applause, rising to an ovation” continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin. However, who would dare be the first to stop?

The secretary of the District Party Committee could have done it. He was standing on the platform, and it was he who had just called for the ovation. But he was a newcomer. He had taken the place of a man who’d been arrested. He was afraid! After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who quit first! And in that obscure, small hall, unknown to the Leader, the applause went on—six, seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly—but up there with the presidium where everyone could see them? The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten!

In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! And even then those who were left would not falter. . . . Then after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down.

         They had been saved! The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel.

         That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was        how     they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him: “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding!”

AND HERE WE ARE

And so, here we are today; we must applaud, or else. Professors must applaud evolution or face firing. Teachers have to applaud multiculturalism or face firing or censure. California school mascots must be changed by law, and one must not criticize the law. Infer, hint, or even obliquely refer to your belief that same-sex marriage is sinful, anti-bibilical, or unnatural and you have shown that you aren't applauding, so down you have to go until you "evolve," or do some "re-thinking" of the subject and then apologize and repent of your ways. Your business, livelihood, liberty, occupation, and property hang in the balance until you applaud. We're not talking "tolerate" here; we're talking "applaud."

One way or another, no matter what, they are showing us that we must applaud. And as we stand and clap, we might remember this warning from Solzhenitsyn:

"The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialization. Neither a market economy nor even general abundance constitutes the crowning achievement of human life. If a nation’s spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse …by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development. A tree with a rotten core cannot stand."







        
 

THE BLANK STARE

It’s the 1^st century A. D., the days of Paul, Peter, James, and John, and you are there.

What’s it like for those living at the time? As the average Joe goes through the blocks of time of his daily, 1^st century life, what’s he thinking, seeing, and hearing? Is he different from us, those of us who live 2,000 years later? The answer is, “Yes, in one way, he’s very much different from us.”

PUBLIUS

Let’ change his name from “Joe” to “Publius,” and take a look at him, this citizen of the Empire, a first century A. D. contemporary of Peter, Paul, James, and John.

As Publius grew up, he would know the Lares and the Penates, the special gods of his household, represented by small, portable, carved statues. At home, he would learn how to worship these ancestral family gods. Each morning, his father would lead the family to the little shrine in the home which contained the sacred things of the family and the statues of the Lares and the Penates. He would offer gifts, incense, flowers, or wine and pray to the little figurines on behalf of the family.

THE DOOR, THE HEARTH

Then there was Janus, the god of the door, who would bless the comings and goings of Publius and the family. Vesta was the goddess of the hearth, to whom the family prayed before the main meal everyday. She was important because everyone needs fire. Publius and his family would celebrate births, marriages, plantings, and harvests with religious rituals.

SIGHT-SEEING

As Publius traveled through Rome, he saw and entered the great and gleaming temples of the city, temples to the gods and goddesses, and would interact with the priests and priestesses therein. When he traveled to Athens, he would note that there was an altar with an inscription to a god or goddess on every corner.

The temples were everywhere throughout all Italy and Greece. Worship was organized under collections of priests.

In Rome, he would enjoy religious holidays once every three days and could participate in the rites accompanying each one. When he was in the mood to be entertained, there were the gladiatorial games dedicated to the gods.

POLITICS

When he learned the politics of the Empire, he was taught that the Emperor was also the high priest of the state, the priest called the “Pontifex Maximus.” In the Empire, there was no separation of “church” (religion) and state. The “church” was the state and the state was the “church.”  The priests were elected officials; there were augurs who had to ensure that everything the state did had the approval of the gods. Something so common as the flight of birds and the feeding habits of chickens were looked upon as messages from the gods.  Upon the death of the Emperor, the emperor became a god, and seeing a comet or shooting star streak through night sky proved it; it was the soul of the deceased emperor.

Publius lived in a day of curses, incantations, gods and goddesses and their stories. His history books told him of the assistance of the gods and goddesses in the founding of his Rome; he had cut his teeth on the ten thousand line epic, “The Aeneid” by Vergil which told of Aeneas, the founding of Rome, and of Venus the goddess and mother of Aeneas, who protected and brought Publius’ hero to the shores of Italy from Troy.

Paul, Peter, James, and John, along with the early church, lived in a day where religion was everywhere and in everything, a day when a person was enveloped in religion from day one, saturated by religion embedded in his history, his home, his politics, his calendar, and his architecture. Religion was ubiquitous in the days of Peter, Paul, James, John, and the early church. It was to such gentiles they brought the gospel.

NOW, 2,000 YEARS LATER

It’s today, the 21^st century A. D., and we are there.  

We have lived through days and now decades of a systematic drive to eliminate all holidays devoted to, all references to, even all mentions of, and all traces of God from our society. In world history books, Paul, who, humanly speaking, changed the Western World, is rarely and barely mentioned, only in a line or two, maybe.  Students learn little to nothing of Luther and the Reformation which shook the foundations of Europe and brought light and hope to England and then into America. The influence of the Bible on world history? Forget it.

There are words we are not to say, holidays we are not to observe. Our school calendars give the students a “Winter Break,” not “Christmas Holidays.”  Our festivities have drained the “thanks” from Thanksgiving, its historical roots expunged from the record. Resurrection Day? What’s that?

A teacher forbids students from saying, “God bless you,” to one in the class who sneezes. Crosses must be removed, the 10 Commandments taken down; valedictorians can thank their parents but not God in their speeches.

Lawsuits await those who dare to violate the expunging of the historical record. An atheist organization threatens a Marine Corps base in Hawaii with a lawsuit if their decades old sign is not moved to the chapel, a sign which reads “God bless the military, their families, and the civilians who work with them.” They are the latest in a long line of atheists looking for something which offends them.

In our TV shows and movies, there’s a strange omission of the church. Churches, pastors, Christians, and Bibles don’t exist on TV or the movies, and if they do, they’re only there as a prop for a ceremony or for some nefarious purpose. When in trouble, the hero of the plot never prays. No one ever consults or reads from a Bible. In the movies, no person in America owns a copy of the Scriptures, although there are millions of Bibles everywhere in the land.

SO?

And there’s the big difference. Publius would have been raised to think about the gods and goddesses; there was no way he could not. But what we’re seeing in our day is a younger generation which has no ability to think about God or spiritual and ultimate issues.

While checking out at a supermarket and with no one behind me waiting for service, I asked the checker, “What do you think happens after you die?” He was in his early twenties and when he heard the question, what do you think he did? He just looked at me. He wasn’t insulted or upset. He just looked at me. And looked at me. And looked at me. Then he said, “I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.” He was puzzled; he wasn’t trying to be evasive; he gave an honest answer.

SURVEY SAYS

In our Survey Evangelism that we at the Hangar Bible Fellowship do in public venues, we often get that same blank stare and that same response to our questions about spiritual and ultimate issues: “I don’t know.” “I’ve never thought about it.”

WHY NOT?

Why not? Why have they never thought about God? It’s because they can’t think about God; our society has been hell-bent to remove all references, spoken or silent, to Him. From history books to Marine base signs to school calendars and classrooms, the erasures continue.

WHAT TO DO WITH THE BALNK STARES?

So, we need to back up and start with questions, not answers, which would cause the staring ones to think about God in a meaningful way—questions like, “If God does exist, do you think He would communicate with us?” “If a Person did die and rose from the dead, do you think that would impact your life in a meaningful way?”  Such questions would stimulate a person to thought.  Christ irrigated His conversations and discourses with questions. (That would be a good study: “Questions Jesus Asked, Why He Asked Them, and What’s the Answer.”)

Such questions are what some have called, “Pre-evangelism,” and are necessary before launching into the gospel message. Pre-evangelism is to get the person to thinking about God and the ultimate issues of life.

I know, I know. You and I are anxious to give the good news, but maybe we ought to slow things down a bit and develop and ask basic thought questions. Basic questions about ultimate issues act as mental burrs; we can’t get them out of our heads. They can keep us awake at night, tossing and turning them over and over again in our minds.

It’s often the case that the more educated a person is, the more he’s unable to think about God because, unless he’s been educated in philosophy, such thinking is foreign to him; besides that, he’s busy, and after a busy day, he’s tired. He wants to turn his mind off, and TV is just the thing to do it. (Think: “Gilligan’s Island.”)

THE COMPARISION

We often make comparisons between the 1^st century Roman Empire and our day and find many similarities, and rightly so. But what we face today and what the early church faced back then in this regard is different. We have to adjust without changing the message.

THREE CHEERS FOR THE BRITS!

Three cheers for the Brits, the older version, that is, not the modern day socialistic, "Better Red Than Dead" version. In days gone by, the Brits had backbone, spines ramrod straight. Yes, that was back in the day, the early 19th century, to be exact, the time when India was part of the British Commonwealth.

THE PYRES

For hundreds of years, India had a custom called "suttee," the practice of requiring the death of the widow of her recently deceased husband. (A demon-inspired custom if ever there was one.) When they burned her husband's body on the funeral pyre, they burned her too, burned her alive. As one might imagine, there were women who refused to die, so they had to be pushed or thrown into the flaming pyre. Yet there were those who willingly perished in this way at their husband's funeral. No matter which way, by free will or by force; it was a public spectacle.

THE BRITISH CAME

Then along came the British with their colonialism. England, by that time, had been saturated with the Bible, starting with John Wycliffe in the 14th century. It was Wycliffe who wrote: "Trust wholly in Christ; rely on his sufferings; beware of seeking to be justified in any other way than by his righteousness."

From history we learn that John Wycliffe "believing that every Christian should have access to Scripture (only Latin translations were available at the time), he began translating the Bible into English, with the help of his good friend John Purvey.

"The Roman Catholic Church bitterly opposed it: 'By this translation, the Scriptures have become vulgar, and they are more available to lay[men], and even to women who can read, than they were to learned scholars, who have a high intelligence. So the pearl of the gospel is scattered and trodden underfoot by swine,' they responded.

"Wycliffe replied, 'Englishmen learn Christ's law best in English. Moses heard God's law in his own tongue; so did Christ's apostles.'

Wycliffe was such a thorn in the side of the Roman Catholic Church, that forty-three years after his death, officials dug up his body, burned his remains, and threw the ashes into the river Swift." ("Christian History," Aug. 8, 2008)

William Tyndale followed Wycliffe in the 16th century. He also broke the ban on the translating of the Bible into English imposed by the Roman Catholic Church in 1408. (For his "crime," Tyndale was burned at the stake on October 6, 1536.)

 Tyndale was outspoken about his desire to translate the Bible into English. "He often added spice to the table conversation as he was confronted with the biblical ignorance of the priests. At one point Tyndale told a priest, "If God spare my life, ere many years pass, I will cause a boy that drives the plow shall know more of the Scriptures than you do." (From "Christian History," July, 2007)

BACK TO THE WIDOWS

From the Bible, the British knew that God has a special concern for widows--the Mosaic Law had provisions for their sustenance and protection, Psalm 68:5 is a warning for those who would take advantage of them, Christ condemned the Pharisees for their treatment of them, and the early church supported them when their families couldn't.

And so it was, that in 1824, that the Brits outlawed suttee. British General Sir Charles Napier, confronted with the fact that suttee was part of the culture of India, was told that there was a collision between the British law and the cultural practice of suttee, said: “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.” (Three cheers for the Brits!)

WAIT. WHAT?

General Napier's attitude would be condemned today; he didn't follow the dictates of multiculturalism which holds all cultures with their customs and practices as equally valid. That is to say, that multiculturalism makes people say that the American culture which takes care of widows is fine and the Indian culture which burns them alive is fine, because all cultures are equally valid. (The end result of relativism.)

Thus, in multiculturalism, no culture is believed to be any better than the other, even if it burns widows alive. The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice, thinking that the god of the sun needed constant nourishment in the form of human blood to keep the sun moving from east to west across the sky. But hold your criticism; all cultures are equal.

A college class reflected such thinking. Allan Bloom tells of the incident in a college class in which the professor brought up the practice of suttee and the British outlawing it. The teacher asked the class if they were right to do so. One girl spoke for the group when all she could say was, "Why were the English there in the first place?" She was implying that England had no right to interfere with the custom because she'd been taught that colonialism was evil. (Bloom, "The Closing of the American Mind")

IN THE REAL WORLD

In the real world, everybody knows that burning widows to death is wrong, even evil. Yet, the further a culture gets from the Bible, the more that culture can't see reality and the people of that culture or a multiculturalist society aren't living in the real world where there is good and there is evil, yet they can't admit it. The sad fact is that multiculturalism shuts people up and doesn't allow them the freedom to say the obvious, "2+2=4." (George Orwell)

The British saw suttee and said, "2 + 2 = 4." Three cheers for the Brits!