"Are you crying? Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying. There's no crying in baseball." (Baseball manager Jimmy Dugan, in "A League of Their Own," 1992)
When Tom Hanks said that now-famous line to one of his players on an all-female baseball team, the audience laughed. But that was 1992, and 1992 is long gone, ancient history. Sir Richard Hunt and his wife learned that lesson, big-time.
Hunt is a septuagenarian, a British biochemist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine with Paul Nurse and Leland H. Hartwell for their
discoveries of protein molecules that control the division of cells. He's a cancer research scientist, a heavyweight. Or, at least he was a big-time researcher. He's in the past tense because of a joke he told while making a speech. He said:
"It’s strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has
been asked to speak to women scientists. Let me tell you about my
trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you
fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them they cry. Perhaps we should make separate labs for boys
and girls?
"Now seriously, I’m impressed by the economic development
of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt, an important role
in it. Science needs women and you should do science despite all the
obstacles . . ."
WHAT'S YOUR FIRST CLUE, SHERLOCK?
It's obvious (the first clue is, "Now seriously") to any sane reader that Sir Hunt was doing what many speakers do--beginning with a joke. But when ONLY the first paragraph was reported, the high-tech lynch mob that is the Internet went crazy. Long story short: Hunt was promptly fired from his positions at
University College London, the Royal Society’s Biological Sciences
Awards Committee, and the European Research Center. One might debate the merits of the joke for its humor content, but failed jokes are a dime a dozen and every speaker has told a joke that falls flat, Johnny Carson was no exception.
LET ME GUESS, WHAT DID HE DO NEXT?
We could have predicted Hunt's reaction. Unlike Julius Caesar who majestically wrote, "I came. I saw. I conquered," Hunt would have to admit: "I apologized." "I grovelled." "I confessed." He didn't exhibit any righteous anger; he didn't follow Paul's dictum, "Be angry and sin not." Public shaming had done its work; a cancer researcher was ruined. In a high tech world, all the mob has to do is label someone a sexist, bigot, or racist, and he's toast. Who knows? Hunt might have found the cure, but the mob deemed his joke an affront to political correctness. He's gone.
BEHIND THE CURTAIN
However, is there more going on with political correctness than meets the eye? What's the big deal? If you're asking, "So?" read the following accounts from around the world:
"Officials who failed to stop gangs of males from Pakistan [now living in England] preying on
young girls for fear of being branded racist are set to cost taxpayers
up to £200million. At least 1,400 girls aged as young as 11 are believed
to have been sexually abused in Rotherham, South Yorks, for 16 years by
men who viewed them as 'white trash'. But it is feared the real number
could be more than 2,000." What? The authorities failed to stop crime for fear of being called what?
"In October 2004, the European Parliament attacked
Italian European Union commissioner Rocco Buttiglione for . . . the fact that he sees homosexuality as a sin. . . . he was denied an important post
due to his politically incorrect ideas on homosexuality."
"The Defense Department runs schools for dependents of servicemen
overseas and of these is the American high school at RAF Lakenheath
(near Cambridge if you know your UK geography). In the same month as the
Buttiglione fiasco, the new principal stated that if any students were
overheard using the common expression, 'That's really gay,' they would
have legal charges brought against them." (Not reprimands, or even suspension or expulsion, but actual charges.)
"Douglas Wood, an Australian, was held by Islamic terrorists in Iraq.
During his ordeal, while blindfolded, he had to listen to the murder of
two of his colleagues. Luckily he was released. Subsequently, in a
statement, he called his captors a vulgar term. . . the editor of a Melbourne, Australia newspaper, Mr. Andrew
Jaspan, took offense and said that Wood's comments were 'insensitive.'" What? We're supposed to be sensitive to murderers? Tell that to the parents who lost their child to the Boston marathon bombers.
"In 2007, certain British schools have been advised not to teach students
about the Holocaust because it may offend Muslim students who are taught
by their imams that the Holocaust did not happen." What? If you don't like history, rewrite it?
"Some banks in the UK have banned leaving piggy banks around their
offices as the sight of a pig, however whimsical, may offend Muslims." One author, in facetious mode, suggested goat banks.
"Some police in the UK have been reluctant to investigate
so-called honor killings because it could be construed as being politically
incorrect. Fathers, mothers, and uncles are butchering young girls in
their own families merely because they wore 'indecent' clothing or dated
the wrong boy." (The official rationale for this is that you can't investigate the killings because they are part of their culture.)
"A gentleman in the UK lost
his job in 2009 for saying in a private conversation that he was against
allowing homosexual Church of England vicars marrying their 'partners.'" This means someone turned him in to the authorities. What? Friends, families, and neighbors reporting on friends, families, and neighbors?
"In 1997, a Canadian newspaper was fined as was the purchaser of an ad (1,500 Canadian dollars each) because it contained four Biblical references: Romans 1:26, Leviticus 19:22 and
20:13, and 1 Corinthians 6:9." If you wanted to know what those verses said, you had to look it up. At least three people did and sued.The charge was "inciting hatred." What? The Bible is now "hate literature?"
And for the sake of the silly: "The government of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, voted to replace the term 'manhole
covers' with 'personhole covers.'" (They relented because of the laughter.)
COULD RICHARD HUNT HAVE BEEN RIGHT?
But back to Nobel prize winner Richard Hunt. Could it be that what he said is true? Romance does
bloom in the workplace, doesn't it? He met his wife in the lab. Women do cry in the workplace, don't they? How many men have
you seen shedding tears at work? How many women? Could we at least discuss it or ignore it, instead of running someone out of his profession in disgrace? One author wrote that, in all her working years, she's seen only one man cry at the office, but she can't count the large number of women she's seen tearing up at their desks.
HERE'S THE RUB
The point: political correctness hides the truth. The truth is that honor killings are murders, but political correctness hides the truth. (Here is an example of multiculturalism as an extension of relativism--murder is deemed OK in one society because it's part of the culture. Had relativism ruled the day, there would have been no Nuremberg Trials, since killing Jews was "part of the culture.") The truth says that honor killings need to be investigated and the murderers punished. The truth is that certain Bible references do condemn homosexuality, whether one agrees with them or not. The truth is that whoever preys on young girls is a criminal and should be tried, convicted, and sentenced. The truth is that the Holocaust did occur.
What happens in a family when the members can't or won't tell the truth to each other? That family is ripped asunder. When the members of a society can't tell the truth to each other, the fabric of that society rips apart.
We are in living in Orwell's nightmare: a society in which you cannot say 2 +2 = 4.
WITHOUT COST
Friday, June 26, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
A DESCENT INTO HELL
I'm in a large, a very large room, sitting with 40 or so people, all of us forced to be there and no way out. Many of the 40 had feet, legs, and minds missing. One lies on a conveyance completely wrapped, head to toe, in a sheet. Who's underneath that sheet? Male? Female? Young? Old? I have no idea. A 400+ pound man lies on a conveyance, just looking around. A woman is semi-lying in a recliner staring straight ahead with large, unblinking eyes that reveal no soul, just a blank stare that never stops, looking off in the distance. I wonder, "What's she looking at?"
The woman sitting next to me in the large room had no left foot. She maneuvered her wheelchair to get into position to use the computer nearby. She went to some music website, and all of a sudden, Phil Harris was singing from 1947, "Smoke! Smoke! That Cigarette" for all ears in the large room to hear. All heard, but nobody paid any attention.
A woman about 15 feet from me begins to yell, "Somebody help me! Somebody help me!" Another woman shouts at her, "Shut up!" Undeterred, she continues to yell; she's becoming more agitated, loud, and bellicose. She asks for a bottle of water. A member of the staff gives her one. She finishes it or half finishes it and demands a staff member come and take it. The staff member, busy with others, says "No." The woman asks three more times, each time the answer is, "No." The woman starts yelling again. In her disgust, she hurls the bottle several yards. There were so many people, I couldn't see where it landed.
A man walks by. He has no idea who he is or where he is. He sits down at a table in the large room and periodically raises his hand like he's in school. He never says anything, asks for anything, he just raises his hand from time to time.
The woman who's been yelling sees a member of the staff walking by and grabs her by the bottom of her shirt. The staff member tells her, "Let me go!" She grips more tightly. The staff member tells her, "Let me go." The woman holds on. The girl takes the woman's hand and pries her fingers from her shirt, one by one, and, now released, moves on. I'm beginning to think that even Mother Teresa would slap this woman and tell her, "Shut up!"
A staff member puts a movie into the VCR so people can watch something to take their minds off where they are and the heat that's building up in the room. Think of a mindless comedy, one that's loud, stupid, insipid, silly, sophomoric, and insulting. This one is worse. Nobody watches it, but it continues to run and yell it's way through the dumb script.
Another staff member starts the popcorn machine next to me; the heat builds. When the popcorn is ready, she begins to distribute it. I refuse her offer. The woman who grabbed the staff member gets a bag, devours it, and asks for more. She gets it. She consumes it, demands more. They tell her, "No more, you've had two."
What I've described went on for not one, not two, but for 4 hours, 58 minutes, and 29 seconds. I timed it with the stopwatch on my phone. All I wanted to do was to get out and get out fast.
While I was sitting there, trying endure without complaint, I thought about Genesis 3 and how the Fall of man bought all this chaos, pain, and sorrow to the planet. What I was looking at in that room was a microcosm of the earth with its overwhelming pain, grief, incessant yelling, constant demands, and those never satisfied.
What could the staff do? They couldn't make it "work." No one could. That's the way the fallen world is. It doesn't "work." It's broken. Yet year after year, we actually believe that the Republicans or the Democrats are going to fix it. That's what fallen politics is--an attempt on man's part, by man's efforts to fix the unfixable. Politics is the art of trying to fool the people into believing that my party will lead us to Utopia because we'll fix it. We promise.
In Genesis 3, as God delineates the various curses sin has brought into the world; the implication is, "It's broken. You can't fix it." But there is the promise, "One day," God says, "My Son will fix it."(Gen. 3:15; Ps. 2; Rev. 20)
But back to the question: what can the staff do to fix it?
Play a silly movie and serve popcorn! I'm not trying to advise them; they were overwhelmed too. But I am pointing out that it's a picture of the world with all of its sin-sick fallenness--the two things the world thinks of to fix it are entertainment and popcorn, or as Roman historians call it, "Bread and circuses." What that meant was free entertainment in the Colosseum and free food, all at public expense. What a deal! "See how much your politicians love you," It was merely the government's attempt to keep the people fat, happy, and distracted.
But let's not jump all over the world and leave the church unscathed. In the face of all the brokenness, what popcorn are many churches distributing to the masses? They serve sermons, books, and CDs, all masquerading as "Bible studies," on how to fix it--get wealthy, get promoted, get the life of your dreams, a Rolex, and a private jet for 65 million dollars. They distribute self-help popcorn; tell us to think positive, give us packaged popcorn slogans, with the reinforcement, "You can do it!" They promote the idea, "You can fix it, yes you can!" Their sermons are formulaic. If you've heard one, you've heard them all. They have the gullible repeat "Yes, I can," over and over again until they become mindless. "I can fix it! Yes, I can!"
Yeah, right.
Once out in the world with that philosophy, we find that the fallen world chews us up and spits us out. Have you seen those martial arts experts who can crack a board with their hand? That's what the world does to the gullible, the simpleton, and the fool. The self help sermons are edifying until you leave the church building, enter the parking lot, and get on the Interstate. The very real and very fallen world quickly untickles our tickled ears.
On a planet we can't fix, we need to emphasize God's promises for the believer: Christ is coming for us. There is a glory waiting for us. To be absent from the body is to be face to face with the Lord. We will rule and reign with Him. Where Christ is, there we will be. In My house are many mansions.
What we need is a good strong dose of premillennial, dispensational, biblical prophecy. That's what fortifies us to take the aggressive grace of the gospel into the unfixable world around us.
The woman sitting next to me in the large room had no left foot. She maneuvered her wheelchair to get into position to use the computer nearby. She went to some music website, and all of a sudden, Phil Harris was singing from 1947, "Smoke! Smoke! That Cigarette" for all ears in the large room to hear. All heard, but nobody paid any attention.
A woman about 15 feet from me begins to yell, "Somebody help me! Somebody help me!" Another woman shouts at her, "Shut up!" Undeterred, she continues to yell; she's becoming more agitated, loud, and bellicose. She asks for a bottle of water. A member of the staff gives her one. She finishes it or half finishes it and demands a staff member come and take it. The staff member, busy with others, says "No." The woman asks three more times, each time the answer is, "No." The woman starts yelling again. In her disgust, she hurls the bottle several yards. There were so many people, I couldn't see where it landed.
A man walks by. He has no idea who he is or where he is. He sits down at a table in the large room and periodically raises his hand like he's in school. He never says anything, asks for anything, he just raises his hand from time to time.
The woman who's been yelling sees a member of the staff walking by and grabs her by the bottom of her shirt. The staff member tells her, "Let me go!" She grips more tightly. The staff member tells her, "Let me go." The woman holds on. The girl takes the woman's hand and pries her fingers from her shirt, one by one, and, now released, moves on. I'm beginning to think that even Mother Teresa would slap this woman and tell her, "Shut up!"
A staff member puts a movie into the VCR so people can watch something to take their minds off where they are and the heat that's building up in the room. Think of a mindless comedy, one that's loud, stupid, insipid, silly, sophomoric, and insulting. This one is worse. Nobody watches it, but it continues to run and yell it's way through the dumb script.
Another staff member starts the popcorn machine next to me; the heat builds. When the popcorn is ready, she begins to distribute it. I refuse her offer. The woman who grabbed the staff member gets a bag, devours it, and asks for more. She gets it. She consumes it, demands more. They tell her, "No more, you've had two."
What I've described went on for not one, not two, but for 4 hours, 58 minutes, and 29 seconds. I timed it with the stopwatch on my phone. All I wanted to do was to get out and get out fast.
While I was sitting there, trying endure without complaint, I thought about Genesis 3 and how the Fall of man bought all this chaos, pain, and sorrow to the planet. What I was looking at in that room was a microcosm of the earth with its overwhelming pain, grief, incessant yelling, constant demands, and those never satisfied.
What could the staff do? They couldn't make it "work." No one could. That's the way the fallen world is. It doesn't "work." It's broken. Yet year after year, we actually believe that the Republicans or the Democrats are going to fix it. That's what fallen politics is--an attempt on man's part, by man's efforts to fix the unfixable. Politics is the art of trying to fool the people into believing that my party will lead us to Utopia because we'll fix it. We promise.
In Genesis 3, as God delineates the various curses sin has brought into the world; the implication is, "It's broken. You can't fix it." But there is the promise, "One day," God says, "My Son will fix it."(Gen. 3:15; Ps. 2; Rev. 20)
But back to the question: what can the staff do to fix it?
Play a silly movie and serve popcorn! I'm not trying to advise them; they were overwhelmed too. But I am pointing out that it's a picture of the world with all of its sin-sick fallenness--the two things the world thinks of to fix it are entertainment and popcorn, or as Roman historians call it, "Bread and circuses." What that meant was free entertainment in the Colosseum and free food, all at public expense. What a deal! "See how much your politicians love you," It was merely the government's attempt to keep the people fat, happy, and distracted.
But let's not jump all over the world and leave the church unscathed. In the face of all the brokenness, what popcorn are many churches distributing to the masses? They serve sermons, books, and CDs, all masquerading as "Bible studies," on how to fix it--get wealthy, get promoted, get the life of your dreams, a Rolex, and a private jet for 65 million dollars. They distribute self-help popcorn; tell us to think positive, give us packaged popcorn slogans, with the reinforcement, "You can do it!" They promote the idea, "You can fix it, yes you can!" Their sermons are formulaic. If you've heard one, you've heard them all. They have the gullible repeat "Yes, I can," over and over again until they become mindless. "I can fix it! Yes, I can!"
Yeah, right.
Once out in the world with that philosophy, we find that the fallen world chews us up and spits us out. Have you seen those martial arts experts who can crack a board with their hand? That's what the world does to the gullible, the simpleton, and the fool. The self help sermons are edifying until you leave the church building, enter the parking lot, and get on the Interstate. The very real and very fallen world quickly untickles our tickled ears.
On a planet we can't fix, we need to emphasize God's promises for the believer: Christ is coming for us. There is a glory waiting for us. To be absent from the body is to be face to face with the Lord. We will rule and reign with Him. Where Christ is, there we will be. In My house are many mansions.
What we need is a good strong dose of premillennial, dispensational, biblical prophecy. That's what fortifies us to take the aggressive grace of the gospel into the unfixable world around us.
Friday, June 12, 2015
THE EGGHEAD
Adlai Stevenson ran for president twice against Dwight Eisenhower, losing big-time, both times, in his attempt to live in the White House. When he ran the second time, he lost the Electoral College 457-73 and the popular vote by 35,590,472 to 26,022,752.
Upon his death in 1965, The New York Times euologized Stevenson as being "cultivated, urbane, witty, and articulate." People lauded him for his diction, his eloquence; they said his words flowed easily, precisely, and steadily. Adlai could chew up a dictionary and spit out vocabulary; he liked to use big words.
Upon his death in 1965, The New York Times euologized Stevenson as being "cultivated, urbane, witty, and articulate." People lauded him for his diction, his eloquence; they said his words flowed easily, precisely, and steadily. Adlai could chew up a dictionary and spit out vocabulary; he liked to use big words.
Academic types, those who lived in their ivory towers in the groves of academe` loved him. They liked his erudition, because he, a politician, was one of their own, their golden boy. He was as they, the intellectual elite. Birds of a feather vote together.
During the campaign, Richard Nixon, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, called Stevenson an "egghead," as people were wont to call those in the academic world back then. (His balding head was shaped like an egg.) An egghead was an intellectual, a person considered too out-of-touch with ordinary people and lacking in common sense on account of their
intellectual interests. It would be like someone devoting himself to the study and use of the cognate accusative, but who couldn't hammer a nail into a 2x4. We'd call them "elitists" today.
The schools Stevenson attended were the upper tier institutions of the day. The list of the universities of Adlai's matriculation would choke a horse: Choate Rosemary Hall, Harvard, Harvard Law School, Northwestern, Northwestern School of Law, and Princeton. The only elite school he missed was Texas Tech.
The schools Stevenson attended were the upper tier institutions of the day. The list of the universities of Adlai's matriculation would choke a horse: Choate Rosemary Hall, Harvard, Harvard Law School, Northwestern, Northwestern School of Law, and Princeton. The only elite school he missed was Texas Tech.
WHERE DID HE "DO CHURCH?"
In his day, people considered him a liberal, just as they would label him today, a liberal both politically and when it came to "church," because Adlai Stevenson was a Unitarian Universalist, which is, biblically speaking, no church at all, but a heretical group that denies the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the substitutionary atonement, the Resurrection, the inspiration of Scripture, the Second Coming, and any other cardinal doctrine of the faith you'd care to name. Neither did it help his presidential chances that he was small ("vertically challenged" at 5' 10") and divorced, a marital status not nearly as socially acceptable in the 1950's as it is today.
BUT, AT LEAST ON ONE OCCASION
When I was investing inordinate hours at the Baptist Student Union in the pursuit of ping-pong excellence, on those (rare) occasions when I might lose a game, I'd say of my opponent, "Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while." Stevenson was off base politically and spiriturally on almost everything, but on October 7, 1952, Stevenson, the egghead academic, did get something right when he said, "My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?
Are Christians and Christianity safe? Read on:
"For all their cries for equality and the
right to assemble in peaceful protest, liberal college students and
their like minded professors are banding together to attack Christians
and push them off campuses across the country.
"Colleges like Vanderbilt University
marginalize Christian groups and make it harder for them to organize and
recruit members by banning them from using email, not allowing
Christians to advertise at the college, refusing them funding for
speakers and not allowing Christian groups to cosponsor events. Now the
college is banning the use of the word 'Easter' saying it offends
non-christian students attending the college. (How did this happen--it's unsafe to say "Easter"?)
"The University of Michigan kicked an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
chapter off campus because the college is not happy that the group
requires it’s leaders to be Christians." (Medford CitySearch, March 29, 2013)
"At Cal State, the nation’s largest
university system with nearly 450,000 students on 23 campuses, the
chancellor is preparing to withdraw official recognition from
evangelical groups that will not pledge not to discriminate on the basis
of religion in the selection of their leaders." (Ibid. June 30, 2014)
They did so in September of that year. To show how absurd all this is getting, one university official said that if a s wants to join the chess club, the club must approve his membership or lose their status. But the stakes are higher in the Inter-Varsity situation because, were an atheist, agnostic, or a communist were to get into a position of leadership, the organization is destroyed.
"Similar situations [attacks on Christian groups] have occurred on other campuses like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Rutgers University, Marquette University, and the list goes on."(The College Conservative," Elena Reynolds, March 23, 2013)
ARE JEWS SAFE?
Are Jewish students safe? Read on:
"Over the last several years, Jewish students on campuses across the country have been physically, emotionally, and intellectually harassed, intimidated, threatened, and bullied, not only by their fellow students but also by some of their professors.
"Anti-Israel student activists at the University of Michigan last month hurled death threats at Jewish student council members and called them “dirty Jew” and “kike.” At University of California, Berkeley, a Jewish girl holding an “Israel Wants Peace” sign was ramrodded with a shopping cart by the head of Students for Justice in Palestine.
"At Harvard University, the Palestine Security Committee frightened Jewish students by placing mock eviction notices on their dormitory rooms. At Northeastern University in Boston, Students for Justice in Palestine vandalized a menorah and disrupted Jewish events.
"At San Francisco State University this past fall, the General Union of Palestine Students hosted an all-day event where participants could make posters and t-shirts that said, “My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers,” meaning Jews. And just last week, at New York University, pro-Palestinian students slipped “eviction notices” under the doors of 2,000 undergrads, scaring Jewish students and parents.
"The official response to these episodes has been silence." ("Independent Sentinel," by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, May 5, 2014)
ARE YOU SAFE?
A barbaric enemy who has burned a condemned man alive in a cage and who has televised beheadings of military personnel as well as journalists threatens America. Not only that, but also for drawing a cartoon, they have invaded offices and massacred employees. Yet, our mass and social media see two Christian bakers as a more sinister threat.
On a moment's notice, a media storm erupts to insist upon and get their way about the firing of a CEO who made a contribution to a cause with which he was in agreement, but a cause which they opposed.
When savages decapitate people for their faith, our leaders try hard to stifle a yawn, while those same politicians rush to microphones and TV cameras to denounce and demonize Christian florists. Somewhere, somehow, we've lost our way.
AND YOU?
Are you safe? Would you draw a cartoon like they did in France? Would you speak up in a business training seminar on diversity and multiculturalism with a differing opinion than the approved one? Are there unpopular viewpoints or words you won't utter because you're afraid you'll come under attack, lose your job, be written up, or be shamed.
"A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular." We do not live in that society. Not any more.
DON'T SHOW THEM THE MONEY
People need to rethink their donations to universities where all this stuff is incubated, then hatched. Christian parents need to consider their options, instead of putting their tuition and their students into such asylums for four years only to see their children for whom they've sacrificed graduating and returning home to hate them and all they stand for.
Churches need to realize that it's time to cultivate and mentor more Luke 14:25-33 and Acts 4:20 disciples. The America in which we're living needs more disciples, not more church socials. Yet, instead of making robust disciples, we find ourselves creating more business meetings so we can fight over the color of the auditorium carpet.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
GOLDEN-AGING-IT
"The only thing new to you is the history you don't know."
I thought about that quote when I recalled a tendency we have to glorify certain periods in history, casting them as a "Golden Age."
LONGING FOR LUTHER
We're "Golden-Aging It" when we think, "Man, it would have been great to live during the Reformation; that was a time when they nailed it." But the Reformation wasn't a Golden Age--there was in-fighting, jealousy, anti-Antisemitism, and even violence (including destruction of property) on the part of the Reformers.
Although Luther didn't start out anti-Semitic, he became that way. Listen to him rage against the Jews:
"Church attendance was mandatory. Those that missed church regularly
were fined. The church was sometimes patrolled by a man who
held a long pole. On one end was a collection of feathers to tickle the
chins of old men who fell asleep. On the other was a hard wooden knob to
alert children who giggled or slept. Church was serious business.
"The Puritans believed they were doing God's work. Hence, there was little room for compromise. Harsh punishment was inflicted on those who were seen as straying from God's work. There were cases when individuals of differing faiths were hanged in Boston Common. (Too bad there was no First Amendment in the Colonies.)
"At least two known adulterers were executed in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Public whippings were commonplace. The stockade forced the humiliated guilty person to sit in the public square, while onlookers spat or laughed at them. Puritans felt no remorse about administering punishment. They believed in Old Testament methods." (They weren't dispensationalists either.)
Not only that, but also the Puritans executed 19 (by hanging) and 1 (by being pressed to death) for being witches. (They never burned a witch at the stake, a common misconception.) Altogether, they accused 140 of the crime and as many as 13 sentenced to prison may have died during their incarceration.
IT DEPENDS ON WHOSE OX IS BEING GORED
The First Amendment wasn't in the Puritan vocabulary, any more than "tolerance" was. In 1638, the Puritan authorities brought Anne Hutchinson before the court on charges of criticizing the Puritan pastors and teaching that people were saved by faith and not by deeds. In spite of her argumentation during the trial, they found her guilty; her punishment: banishment. In the spring of that year, the Puritans forced her, her husband, and their 15 children out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They moved to Rhode Island and after the death of her husband, Anne relocated to New Amsterdam.
There, in 1643, Anne and 5 of her children were killed in an Indian raid. A Puritan minister, upon hearing of her violent death, said that she deserved it. Those Puritans were a harsh and unforgiving bunch.
[In 1922, the state of Massachusetts erected a statue of Anne Hutchinson on the grounds of the State House. In 1945, the legislature voted to revoke her banishment. Puritan wrongs had finally been righted.]
GIMME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION
But surely the times of the Apostles, the first century AD, ah, that was the Golden Age. Was it? We think of the brave martyrs who went to their deaths singing rather than denying our Lord. True. But not all. The Roman governor of Turkey, Pliny the Younger, wrote to the Emperor Trajan in 112 AD concerning those who were under accusation of being in the "mad sect:"
"Others, accused by an informer, first said that they were Christians and afterwards denied it. They said that they had indeed been Christians, but stopped. Some said three years, some several years, and one even twenty years before. All of them adored your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ."
Not all were faithful unto death, which shouldn't surprise us; we know human nature.
A Golden Age? Wait, to read Revelation 2-3 is to see that the first century church, far from being idyllic, was rife with sins and problems. Acts, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Philippians, the epistlels to Timothy, and Galatians expose divisions, factions, the observance of the Lord's Supper a disgrace, gross immorality, marriages falling apart, lying about giving, one Apostle lapsing from grace, in-church opposition to Paul, racial divisions, heresies, two Christian women at odds with each other, and false teachers cavorting over the map.
We read of believers who made shipwreck of the faith, of Demas who abandoned Paul, "having loved this present world." We hear Paul's warning about "Alexander the coppersmith [who] did me much harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Be on guard against him yourself, for he vigorously opposed our teaching. We weep over an abandoned Paul, who wrote, "At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me." Hardly a golden age.
To look for a Golden Age in human history is to forget Genesis 3: in a fallen world, there is no golden age. The Golden Age awaits the Millennial Kingdom predicted in the Old Testament and confirmed in the New in Revelation 20.
In every era since Genesis 3, God is at work in amazing ways, weaving events so as to bring about the revelation of His Son Jesus Christ to rule and reign over the earth.
The search for a Golden Age in a fallen world yields the same result we see in"Eldorado" by Edgar Allen Poe:
I thought about that quote when I recalled a tendency we have to glorify certain periods in history, casting them as a "Golden Age."
LONGING FOR LUTHER
We're "Golden-Aging It" when we think, "Man, it would have been great to live during the Reformation; that was a time when they nailed it." But the Reformation wasn't a Golden Age--there was in-fighting, jealousy, anti-Antisemitism, and even violence (including destruction of property) on the part of the Reformers.
Although Luther didn't start out anti-Semitic, he became that way. Listen to him rage against the Jews:
“Set fire to their synagogues or schools, Raze and destroy their homes. Seize their prayer books
and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and
blasphemy are taught, Forbid their
rabbis to teach on pain of loss of life and limb. Abolish safe-conduct on the highways completely for the Jews and take all cash and treasure of
silver and gold from them. Let them
have a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade put into their hands so young,
strong Jews and Jewesses can earn their bread in the sweat of their
brow.”
Luther's anti-Antisemitism wasn't like that of his native Germany in the 1930's and 40's. His wasn't racial; he didn't believe gentiles were racially superior to Jews. Luther's rage against the Jews was theological, but still inexcusable. He gave up on the Jews, saw them as hardened against the gospel, unable to be converted, and a people God had abandoned. It's obvious Luther wasn't a dispensational premillennialist. Had he been, he would have never turned against the Jews.
WHEN IT CAME TO PROPHECY
Calvin, Luther, and Melanchthon all adopted the Roman Catholic hermeneutic of spiritualizing the prophecies of the Bible, following the lead of Augustine. That made them card-carrying amillennialists.
THE COLONIES
WHEN IT CAME TO PROPHECY
"Augustine became the model for the Reformers who accepted his amillennialism along with his other teachings. It is quite clear from the literature of the Reformation that the millennial issue was never handled
fairly or given any considered study. The basic issues of the
Reformation involved the right of private interpretation of the
Scriptures, the individual priesthood of all believers, the doctrine of justification by faith, and similar truths." (Dr. John F. Walvoord)
THE COLONIES
Others who "Golden-Age-It" point to the American colonial days as their shining era on a hill and think it would be great to have lived back then. "Those were the days, the days when rugged men and women came to America to breathe the pure air of freedom, when they lived free and worshiped the same way," some think. Yes, the colonial days, that's when they nailed it.
But hold on, Sparky. In Puritan New England:
But hold on, Sparky. In Puritan New England:
"The Puritans believed they were doing God's work. Hence, there was little room for compromise. Harsh punishment was inflicted on those who were seen as straying from God's work. There were cases when individuals of differing faiths were hanged in Boston Common. (Too bad there was no First Amendment in the Colonies.)
"At least two known adulterers were executed in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Public whippings were commonplace. The stockade forced the humiliated guilty person to sit in the public square, while onlookers spat or laughed at them. Puritans felt no remorse about administering punishment. They believed in Old Testament methods." (They weren't dispensationalists either.)
Not only that, but also the Puritans executed 19 (by hanging) and 1 (by being pressed to death) for being witches. (They never burned a witch at the stake, a common misconception.) Altogether, they accused 140 of the crime and as many as 13 sentenced to prison may have died during their incarceration.
IT DEPENDS ON WHOSE OX IS BEING GORED
The First Amendment wasn't in the Puritan vocabulary, any more than "tolerance" was. In 1638, the Puritan authorities brought Anne Hutchinson before the court on charges of criticizing the Puritan pastors and teaching that people were saved by faith and not by deeds. In spite of her argumentation during the trial, they found her guilty; her punishment: banishment. In the spring of that year, the Puritans forced her, her husband, and their 15 children out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They moved to Rhode Island and after the death of her husband, Anne relocated to New Amsterdam.
There, in 1643, Anne and 5 of her children were killed in an Indian raid. A Puritan minister, upon hearing of her violent death, said that she deserved it. Those Puritans were a harsh and unforgiving bunch.
[In 1922, the state of Massachusetts erected a statue of Anne Hutchinson on the grounds of the State House. In 1945, the legislature voted to revoke her banishment. Puritan wrongs had finally been righted.]
GIMME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION
But surely the times of the Apostles, the first century AD, ah, that was the Golden Age. Was it? We think of the brave martyrs who went to their deaths singing rather than denying our Lord. True. But not all. The Roman governor of Turkey, Pliny the Younger, wrote to the Emperor Trajan in 112 AD concerning those who were under accusation of being in the "mad sect:"
"Others, accused by an informer, first said that they were Christians and afterwards denied it. They said that they had indeed been Christians, but stopped. Some said three years, some several years, and one even twenty years before. All of them adored your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ."
Not all were faithful unto death, which shouldn't surprise us; we know human nature.
A Golden Age? Wait, to read Revelation 2-3 is to see that the first century church, far from being idyllic, was rife with sins and problems. Acts, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Philippians, the epistlels to Timothy, and Galatians expose divisions, factions, the observance of the Lord's Supper a disgrace, gross immorality, marriages falling apart, lying about giving, one Apostle lapsing from grace, in-church opposition to Paul, racial divisions, heresies, two Christian women at odds with each other, and false teachers cavorting over the map.
We read of believers who made shipwreck of the faith, of Demas who abandoned Paul, "having loved this present world." We hear Paul's warning about "Alexander the coppersmith [who] did me much harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Be on guard against him yourself, for he vigorously opposed our teaching. We weep over an abandoned Paul, who wrote, "At my first defense no one supported me, but all deserted me." Hardly a golden age.
To look for a Golden Age in human history is to forget Genesis 3: in a fallen world, there is no golden age. The Golden Age awaits the Millennial Kingdom predicted in the Old Testament and confirmed in the New in Revelation 20.
In every era since Genesis 3, God is at work in amazing ways, weaving events so as to bring about the revelation of His Son Jesus Christ to rule and reign over the earth.
The search for a Golden Age in a fallen world yields the same result we see in"Eldorado" by Edgar Allen Poe:
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old—
This knight so bold—
And o’er his heart a shadow—
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow—
‘Shadow,’ said he,
‘Where can it be—
This land of Eldorado?’
‘Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,’
The shade replied,—
‘If you seek for Eldorado!’
Friday, May 29, 2015
DEFINING THE DEVIANT
Something has happened to us and it’s not good. What’s
happened is both profound and fundamental. Let’s call it an “inversion,” an
inversion so drastic that, like Robert Heinlein wrote, “We’re strangers in a
strange land, a land we don’t recognize.”
HAIL TO THE REDSKINS!
Let’s start with something personal that occurred in October 1999. My
junior high school, now called a “middle school,” was, in my day, and since its
founding in 1948, proud to call its 9th, 8th, and 7th
grade teams, “The Redskins,” “The Braves,” and the Papooses.” (As you might
surmise, the “Papooses” were the 7th graders and the noble “Redskins”
were the 9th graders as each team fought for gridiron basketball glory.)
On those teams were one who would become a professional baseball player and one
who would almost become a professional football player. (Although I give off an
athletic aura, I was neither one.)
You can guess where this is going: in October 1999, the
Redskins ceased to exist and my alma mater’s mascot became “The Knights.” The
change was strange because, as the superintendent of schools said, “There were
no complaints about the former name.” But they changed the name to engage in, as
principal Robert Guerrero admitted,
''political correctness.'' He went on to say that the new name must be
politically correct, so they settled on the “Knights.” This would have made
Edgar Allen Poe happy, since he wrote about “Gaily bedight, A Gallant Knight,” in
the poem, “El Dorado.” (I’m can recite this poem, and will do so upon request.)
In front of my junior high, stood a stone sign which read,
“O. L. Slaton Redskins,” complete with a profile of an Indian’s head in full
headdress. The drawing was a noble one and had class. When they changed the
name, down came the sign and it’s now in a time capsule somewhere. The principal noted that there would be some
expense incurred in the name change—the dismantling of the sign and the
uniforms that they must redo. But that’s what taxpayers are for.
Upon reading of the change, I felt like a stranger in a
strange land.
CELEBRATE!
I’ve learned of another change in those hallowed halls of my
education. In May, they celebrated Cinco de Mayo[1] with
“Ballet Folklorico dancers” performing on stage in the auditorium along with
mariachi musicians. Also, two O. L. Slaton teachers, Ana Montalvo and Daisy
Ortega, explained the cultural significance of Mexican art at the assembly. I
don’t know if Poe would have been pleased, but what are Ballet Folklorico
dancers, and why are they in my
auditorium? (I know, I know. Alex, the answer is “diversity.” But my question
is, “When is there enough diversity?)
Upon reading of the celebration, the Ballet Folklorico
dancers, and the explanation of the significance of Mexican art, I felt like a
stranger in a strange land.
THE INVERSION
But that’s just a team mascot, one dismantled sign, and a
celebration of an event in a foreign country. But the inversion is more
serious.
We can’t let our children play unattended in a public park
in broad daylight; we can’t let them walk home alone from the park without
public censure and risking a citation and a court appearance; we can’t spank
them when they misbehave; we can’t say, “Merry Christmas” without thinking
about it; in some public circles, when a tragedy befalls, we can’t say, “Our
prayers are with you,” we’re to say, “Our thoughts are with you.” In Oakland,
California, schools, students may curse at a teacher without expulsion, because
they might be hungry or tired from not having slept the night before. On the college level, one Harvard student said
that he was opposed to same sex marriage, but was afraid to say so on campus
for fear of reprisals.
Recently a student newspaper reprimanded college a professor
for discussing Ovid’s Metamorphoses in
class which included the following famous myth:
As she [Persephone the daughter of
Zeus, ] reached down to pluck a flower
from its resting place, her feet began to tremble and the earth was split in
two. Life for Persephone would never be the same again.
From this gaping crevice in the ground
emerged the awe-inspiring god of the Underworld, Hades, and before Persephone
could even think to utter a word, she was whisked off her feet onto the god's
golden chariot. As the crack of the whip upon his majestic horses brought her
to her senses, she realized she was about to taken into the black depths from
which he'd come. The thought of this brought terror to her heart, yet any
screams of protest were soon lost within the darkness, as they descended
quickly into the Underworld below.
This is such a famous myth that in the 17th
century, a sculpture was commissioned to depict it. The Italian state purchased
the work and relocated it to the Galleria Borghese. It’s called “The Rape of
Persephone.”[2] The
sculptor is Bernini.
The professor’s discussion of that story caused a member of
the class at Columbia feel unsafe, and the professor was publicly reprimanded
in the university newspaper for being insensitive. The student needed a safe
place in which she could discuss her traumatization at hearing the myth.
SOPHOMORIC
Immature students publicly criticizing their college
professor in print? Offended students
demanding the replacing of a classic of Western Literature? They know what’s best? Someone feels unsafe,
endures trauma, and is offended at hearing a myth?
I feel like a stranger in a strange land.
THE LANGUAGE
We fawn over celebrities that assault us with language for
which we would have thrown them out of our schools, houses, and public
buildings not long ago. Our sports heroes cheat, and remain our heroes; our leaders
look right in the camera and lie, know they’re lying, and when caught, we sigh
a, “So?” In a sports world where soccer players theatrically feign injuries,
where cyclists dope, and college recruiting violations persist, what’s happened
to fair play?
Talk about being a stranger in a strange land: we prosecute,
fine, shame, and ruin those who refuse to deny their biblical beliefs. We kill
babies and have the arrogance to call it “women’s rights,” a part of “reproductive health care.”
We submit to being the most taxed people in recorded
history; our government takes more money away from us than any government ever,
and we don’t seem to mind when it spends $7,000,000 a minute, claims it needs
more and comes after more.
In Fairfax County Virginia, the school board made a decision:
“Those males who think or feel they are girls (a newly discovered phenomenon called,
“gender fluidity”) will be allowed to use the restrooms and locker rooms of the
opposite sex. If the board follows the example of Minnesota, schools would have
to accommodate male transgendered students who want to spend nights at travel
games in hotel rooms with female athletes.” (“The Federalist”)
I feel like I’m a stranger in a strange land where under the
ozone layer is an insane asylum with the inmates in charge.
BUT WAIT . . . THERE’S MORE
It’s like Jonah Goldberg said: We’re in the movie,
“Gaslight,” where a man whose wife is normal, decent, and good tries to drive
her insane, and hounds her to the point where she thinks something is wrong with her, where she comes to the
point that she thinks that she ought to be committed. She’s been “gaslighted.”
That’s the way it is today: If we oppose what’s evil, they
make us think that there’s something wrong with us, not them.
That’s the real inversion. The real inversion is what Isaiah
wrote: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for
light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”
On May 27, 2015, Vice President Joe Biden was a spokesman
for this inversion when he, advocating same-sex marriage, called it “progress,”
and said, “I continue to believe that in every corner of the world, people want
to do the right thing. “
No, according to the Bible, people in every corner of the
world want to do the wrong thing. (Romans 1; Eph. 2:2-3) Progress? No, it’s a
regression back to Sodom and Gomorrah and to the Canaanite immorality.
But according to our own vice-president, if we oppose same
sex marriage, then there must be something wrong with us we’re not for
“progress,” and we’re not with the rest of the world which wants to do the
right thing.
We’ve been “gaslighted.”
That’s the inversion we’re seeing. In a society that’s
rotting, the Bible-believing Christian is now declared the deviant!
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Mike Halsey is
the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible
Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of
Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both
available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of
the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like
to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical
teaching and application, you can do so by writing to Dr. Halsey at
michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship
Journal."
Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.
If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.
Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.
Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:
notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org
Also:
Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582
Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.
If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.
Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.
Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:
notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org
Also:
Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582
[1] In
2014, Cinco de Mayo (or the nearest Friday, anyway) happened to be the biggest
non-winter drinking day of the year, and it's in the top five drinking holidays
in America in general.
[2] In
Bernini's time the word "rape" signified "kidnapping;”
our English word comes from the Latin, “rapere,” which means to “snatch away,”
“to carry off,” thus, the sculpture represents the kidnapping of Persephone.
Friday, May 22, 2015
THE SWEDISH SNOWBALL
Those Swedes have a language that defies pronunciation by foreigners. Names and words like Höglandssjukhuset, Sjukhus-sköterska, and the ever-famous, sju. Those words make our English word, "antidisestablishmentarianism" (a word hard to work into a normal conversation*), seem elementary.
The Swedes also have something else: tolerance and they're famous for it. Sweden loves compromise, consensus, tolerating everything, and agreement. Yes, they tolerate everything and everyone, everyone, that is, except Ellinor Grimmark.
WHAT? SHE HAS A CONVICTION?
Ellinor is a midwife, a midwife who has a conviction: she believes abortion is not an option and refuses to perform one. Because of her conviction that life begins at conception, the women's clinic where she worked (past tense) in southern Sweden refused to extend her contract. The clinic informed her that she “was no longer welcome to work with them.” In the notification, the clinic wondered, “whether a person with [pro-life] views actually can become a midwife.” What? If you won't kill a baby, you can't practice midwifery?
When Ellinor fought back by taking her case to the county court, a firestorm descended.
*opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established church, especially the Anglican Church in 19th-century England. I've never found occasion to work it into a sentence.
__________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing to Dr. Halsey at michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."
Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.
If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.
Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.
Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:
notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org
Also:
Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582
The Swedes also have something else: tolerance and they're famous for it. Sweden loves compromise, consensus, tolerating everything, and agreement. Yes, they tolerate everything and everyone, everyone, that is, except Ellinor Grimmark.
WHAT? SHE HAS A CONVICTION?
Ellinor is a midwife, a midwife who has a conviction: she believes abortion is not an option and refuses to perform one. Because of her conviction that life begins at conception, the women's clinic where she worked (past tense) in southern Sweden refused to extend her contract. The clinic informed her that she “was no longer welcome to work with them.” In the notification, the clinic wondered, “whether a person with [pro-life] views actually can become a midwife.” What? If you won't kill a baby, you can't practice midwifery?
When Ellinor fought back by taking her case to the county court, a firestorm descended.
The Swedish Association of Health Professionals offered no support. If she was looking for help, it would be hard to find it in tolerant Sweden.
It got worse:
"Mona Sahlin, the national coordinator against violent extremism,
proclaimed in February at a conference on religion and democracy that
the 'one who refuses to participate in abortions is an extreme religious
practitioner,' one who is simply 'on a different level from the Islamic
State' — that is, a pro-life medical practitioner is like ISIS, just
not as extreme." (Jacob Rudolfsson)
WAIT. WHAT? HELP AT LAST
WAIT. WHAT? HELP AT LAST
But there was one group that offered to assist her and that organization was a hospital. "Great," you say. "Finally the little Davids of the world can get help from some source." But, wait. You'd be wrong. Their offer of "assistance" was the offer of a counselor to help her overcome her aversion to abortion. What the hospital was offering was psychological treatment and reeducation so Ellinor would fit into the Swedish consensus. In other words, "Believe like we believe, or else."
Most European countries, including Norway and
Denmark, allow for conscientious objection, which would allow Grimmark to practice midwifery, but Sweden does not recognize the conscientious objector. One must conform. So much for tolerance. As it stands now, it's up to the courts to decide: will the law recognize the conscientious objector?
HOW FAR?
HOW FAR?
But if one Christian belief (pro-life) needs "psychological treatment," and "reeducation,"what other doctrines will be deemed to need such treatment as declared by the medical profession, the media, academia, and the state? Where is it going to stop?
"Oh, but that's Sweden; you know those Swedes, and besides, they're half a world away," we say.
How about this: "In 2012, Melissa Erwin and Jennie McCarthy asked Cynthia and Robert
Giffords to rent their farm in Schaghticoke, New York, for their
same-sex marriage. The Giffords, who are fully involved in all aspects
of the wedding celebrations on their farm, refused because they believe
marriage is between a man and a woman as a matter of religious
conscience." In addition, their farm is also their private residence.
But they must conform to New York’s Human Right’s Law, art. 15 and pay $13,000 in fines and restitution to New York State and to the two women. (the court's decision in 2014)
"The government also ordered them to institute re-education classes for their staff."
Wait. What? Re-education classes? That sounds like Sweden. No, it's New York.
Wait. What? Re-education classes? That sounds like Sweden. No, it's New York.
The Swedish snowball of enforced conformity of belief is rolling and nothing is stopping it. We know that during the Great Tribulation the anti-Christ will enforce conformity of worship--the worship of himself upon penalty of death.
Today, we're seeing the growing snowball of public, academic, government, and media acceptance of enforced conformity of belief. We see it in Sweden, in New York's Human Right's Law, art. 15, in Indiana (remember the bakers?) and in Washington state (remember the florist?). People, the media, academia, the government, and the courts, are in support of enforced conformity of belief.
Today, we're seeing the growing snowball of public, academic, government, and media acceptance of enforced conformity of belief. We see it in Sweden, in New York's Human Right's Law, art. 15, in Indiana (remember the bakers?) and in Washington state (remember the florist?). People, the media, academia, the government, and the courts, are in support of enforced conformity of belief.
What are the next beliefs deemed to be in need of psychological treatment and reeducation? Creationism? Jesus is the Son of God? Salvation by faith alone in Christ alone? The Resurrection? The Ascension?
Are you ready for your treatment?
__________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com. A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is also available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a copy of his weekly Bible studies and other articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing to Dr. Halsey at michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."
Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.
If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.
Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.
Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:
notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org
Also:
Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582
Friday, May 15, 2015
THE DAY I WENT TO A GIRLS' SOFTBALL GAME
My exposure to girls' softball began with a trip to a sporting goods store to purchase an "official- certified-with-the-proper-seal" softball bat. At the time, I thought it would be a simple thing to do, but, as so often happens, I was mistaken.
After one clerk directed me to the area of the store where I'd find the official-certified-with-the-proper-seal-bats, I began to peruse the rack with the help of another friendly clerk who explained that the bats on the far right were the most expensive, costing $250. I quickly took my hands off that side of the rack, remarking to the clerk, "$250 for a bat for an eight-year old girl?" (There was more of a verbal exclamation point at the end of my sentence than a question mark.)
MOVE TO THE LEFT
I suggested we move leftward on the bat rack, only to find that the bats on the far left were $80 and that was the ending point; I'd run out of rack. I told the amused clerk that I wasn't going to purchase a $250 bat or even an $80 bat for an 8 year old who might quit the sport tomorrow after her first practice when she learned that she might sweat in the Georgia heat.
He reached into the bats on the rack and picked out one (the same as all the other bats since it was "official" and "certified with the proper seal," and I saw that it had various price tags on it reflecting a decrease in price over time, starting at $80 and moving down to $17.00. It looked like the $80 bats, walked like the $80 bats, and talked like the $80 bats, so it was an $80 bat for $17!
I pounced. With undisguised and unashamed glee, I said, "I'll take it!"
While checking out at the register, I vented my amazement to the clerk at $250 bats for children as well as $80 bats for kids. The friendly clerk told me that her father bought a bat at the store for her high school brother which cost $550. I asked if he had a major league contract.
"No," she said. (I wondered if she, her brother, and her father knew that less than 1% of all those who play youth sports will receive a college scholarship. The odds are that $550 investment will not bear a profitable return.) I left the store congratulating myself at saving at least $63 and as much as $233, neither of which I was going to pay, matter what. At those prices my eight-year old player could use a rolled up newspaper for all I cared.
SHOCKS
But the real shocks were yet to come when I attended one of the softball games to see the $17 bat in action. The four diamonds on which the girls play are nice, very nice. They have base paths, outfield fences, a seating area for the parents to watch their young athletes play the game, and a concession stand at the ready to slake thirst and vanquish hunger.
SHOCK WAVE ONE
As all patrons enter the enclosure, a sign greets them, first thing, right off the bat (pun intended). On the large sign is a cartoon drawing of a young girl in a baseball uniform with the caption, "Yeah, I play like a girl. Wanna make something of it!" The drawing isn't just of a girl, but of an angry girl, her face creased with a snarl, her eyes angry, her forehead knotted. It may be a small thing, but is this drawing making the girls think something that 8 year-olds don't normally think? Is this sign putting an anger in their souls where there is none at age 8? The eight-year old I know doesn't know that girls throw a softball differently than boys, and even if she did, she wouldn't care. No big deal. Is the sign making her care, making her take offense, setting her up to become angry?
GEORGE ORWELL WAS AT THE OLD BALL PARK
I thought of George Orwell's statement, "Freedom is the freedom to say, '2+ 2 = 4.' If that is granted, all else follows." What he meant by that is if one has the freedom to state the obvious without fear, censure, shaming, or penalty, he has freedom, but if one doesn't have the freedom to state the obvious, he has no freedom. It's obvious that girls play baseball differently than boys--the mechanics of their throwing a ball differs, the mechanics of their stride is different. Do we have the freedom at those four diamonds to say that girls both throw a ball, swing a bat, and run like girls?
I coached a 5th and 6th boys' soccer teams and I refereed 5th and 6th grade girls' soccer games. The way girls and boys play soccer is different too. How so? The boys at the same age as the girls were more aggressive, the ball they kicked traveled faster with more force, the male goalies were more fearless, and the speed of the game was faster. But the problem is, if you notice the obvious, you can't say the obvious.
It's even gotten to the point that in some progressive circles, you can't address a classroom as, "Boys and girls," although it's as obvious as "2 + 2 = 4" that there are males and females in the room. Some school districts are demanding that the teacher address them without noting the presence of two genders.
THE SECOND SHOCK WAVE
The angry girl sign was the first surprise. The second one came when the game began, when the batter stepped into the batter's box and the fielders were (more or less) in place. The players were in their sartorial splendor, each wearing a nice clean uniform, complete with softball cleats, although speed on the bases isn't usually a factor in these games since it's illegal to steal a base and nobody was going to be thrown out running from first to second, second to third, or third to home. But the surprise wasn't in their uniforms, it was in what they wore in addition to their uniforms.
The batter wore a batting helmet, but not just a batting helmet, but one with a face guard. A batting helmet and a face guard for an 8-year old girls' softball game? Were the pitchers that fast, so fast the batters were in danger? No, not at all, because no girl pitched the ball to a single batter. The coach of the team or a father of the team pitched to his own girls. Was this slow pitch or fast pitch softball? Neither; it was "lob pitch" softball. Any one "hit" with the pitcher's lobs would suffer the same pain as being hit with a lobbed ping-pong ball. It was like watching the pitcher lob a beach ball toward home plate.
But it didn't stop there. I stared in disbelief at the fielders. They wore helmets too, but not batting helmets. They wore some type of headgear that encircled their heads and had a face guard too. (It's difficult to describe; you'd have to see it.) The catcher, who never actually caught any lobbed ball, wore a chest protector, a catcher's mask, and whatever that thing is that hangs down from the mask and guards the throat like you see in a major league game. By the time the catcher caught the ball, it was slowly rolling on the ground behind home plate, so the risk of injury was, to say it euphemistically, "minimal."
THIS PARENTAL PANIC IS ALL OVER THE PLACE
This is something we're seeing everywhere in our society. A city in Washington state removed the all teeter-totters from their public parks. Next to go were the swings, both declared dangerous. School recess no longer includes dodgeball, a really fun game where we got to take our revenge on another kid by hitting him with the ball as hard as our young arms could throw it. Mea culpa. Again, too dangerous. Also banned in some school districts are red rover, tag, and tether ball. The 8-year old I know who's playing softball has never heard, "Red Rover, Red Rover, let Joe come over."
It gets more serious: in Silver Spring, Maryland, CPS removed two children from their parents because the they allowed them to walk home from the park. They took them away, although there's no law against letting a child walk home from the park. They made up one to cover the situation: they declared the parents guilty of "unsubstantiated neglect." What in the world is that? Sounds like a law straight out of "1984."How can someone be punished because of something that's "unsubstantiated?"
What we're seeing are parents who want to control their children and their environment to the point where they're raising them in bubble wrap. It's even gotten to the extreme where some parents go to their adult children's job interviews. That should be both humiliating and embarrassing for the interviewer, the interviewee, and the parent babysitting the interview.
I wonder about those bubble wrapped 8-year old girls playing softball. So much gear does remove the "risks" of a lob-pitch softball game, but it also removes the fun because such rules condition the girls to be fearful, timid, eventually unable to navigate their way through life because their parents keep rushing in to protect them from the bumps of life, even the bumps of a softball game. About the only risk I could see during the softball game was a mosquito bite. They probably had the proper protection for that too.
One mother admitted her paranoia effected her son as reflected in a test he took:
The softball season is over, and mercifully so. (The game was boring. Is there anything worse than watching nine childish, inept strangers you know nothing about play a game you care nothing about?) At season's end, every girl got a trophy, so not even their feelings were hurt. The coach, the parents, and the trophy declared everyone a winner. In the process, the trophy, the parents, and the coach conditioned them for socialism.
Not only were their bodies bubble wrapped, but also their feelings. If only life were that way, where everyone is a winner, where everyone is an excellent softball player, where everyone comes in first place, where we can remove all bumps, cuts, and scratches. But we live in a fallen world full of "Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn and caldron bubble," as Shakespeare wrote. As Solomon said, we live in a world where even "a righteous man falls seven times." (Proverbs 24:16)
THE RESULTS ARE COMING IN
Dr. Mike Halsey is the chancellor of Grace Biblical Seminary, a Bible teacher at the Hangar Bible Fellowship, the author of Truthspeak and his new book, The Gospel of Grace and Truth: A Theology of Grace from the Gospel of John," both available on Amazon.com.
A copy of his book, Microbes in the Bloodstream of the Church, is
also
available as an E-book on Amazon.com. If you would like to a receive a
copy of his
weekly Bible studies and other
articles of biblical teaching and application, you can do so by writing
to Dr. Halsey at michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net and requesting, "The
Hangar Bible Fellowship Journal."
Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.
If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.
Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.
Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:
notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org
Also:
Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582
After one clerk directed me to the area of the store where I'd find the official-certified-with-the-proper-seal-bats, I began to peruse the rack with the help of another friendly clerk who explained that the bats on the far right were the most expensive, costing $250. I quickly took my hands off that side of the rack, remarking to the clerk, "$250 for a bat for an eight-year old girl?" (There was more of a verbal exclamation point at the end of my sentence than a question mark.)
MOVE TO THE LEFT
I suggested we move leftward on the bat rack, only to find that the bats on the far left were $80 and that was the ending point; I'd run out of rack. I told the amused clerk that I wasn't going to purchase a $250 bat or even an $80 bat for an 8 year old who might quit the sport tomorrow after her first practice when she learned that she might sweat in the Georgia heat.
He reached into the bats on the rack and picked out one (the same as all the other bats since it was "official" and "certified with the proper seal," and I saw that it had various price tags on it reflecting a decrease in price over time, starting at $80 and moving down to $17.00. It looked like the $80 bats, walked like the $80 bats, and talked like the $80 bats, so it was an $80 bat for $17!
I pounced. With undisguised and unashamed glee, I said, "I'll take it!"
While checking out at the register, I vented my amazement to the clerk at $250 bats for children as well as $80 bats for kids. The friendly clerk told me that her father bought a bat at the store for her high school brother which cost $550. I asked if he had a major league contract.
"No," she said. (I wondered if she, her brother, and her father knew that less than 1% of all those who play youth sports will receive a college scholarship. The odds are that $550 investment will not bear a profitable return.) I left the store congratulating myself at saving at least $63 and as much as $233, neither of which I was going to pay, matter what. At those prices my eight-year old player could use a rolled up newspaper for all I cared.
SHOCKS
But the real shocks were yet to come when I attended one of the softball games to see the $17 bat in action. The four diamonds on which the girls play are nice, very nice. They have base paths, outfield fences, a seating area for the parents to watch their young athletes play the game, and a concession stand at the ready to slake thirst and vanquish hunger.
SHOCK WAVE ONE
As all patrons enter the enclosure, a sign greets them, first thing, right off the bat (pun intended). On the large sign is a cartoon drawing of a young girl in a baseball uniform with the caption, "Yeah, I play like a girl. Wanna make something of it!" The drawing isn't just of a girl, but of an angry girl, her face creased with a snarl, her eyes angry, her forehead knotted. It may be a small thing, but is this drawing making the girls think something that 8 year-olds don't normally think? Is this sign putting an anger in their souls where there is none at age 8? The eight-year old I know doesn't know that girls throw a softball differently than boys, and even if she did, she wouldn't care. No big deal. Is the sign making her care, making her take offense, setting her up to become angry?
GEORGE ORWELL WAS AT THE OLD BALL PARK
I thought of George Orwell's statement, "Freedom is the freedom to say, '2+ 2 = 4.' If that is granted, all else follows." What he meant by that is if one has the freedom to state the obvious without fear, censure, shaming, or penalty, he has freedom, but if one doesn't have the freedom to state the obvious, he has no freedom. It's obvious that girls play baseball differently than boys--the mechanics of their throwing a ball differs, the mechanics of their stride is different. Do we have the freedom at those four diamonds to say that girls both throw a ball, swing a bat, and run like girls?
I coached a 5th and 6th boys' soccer teams and I refereed 5th and 6th grade girls' soccer games. The way girls and boys play soccer is different too. How so? The boys at the same age as the girls were more aggressive, the ball they kicked traveled faster with more force, the male goalies were more fearless, and the speed of the game was faster. But the problem is, if you notice the obvious, you can't say the obvious.
It's even gotten to the point that in some progressive circles, you can't address a classroom as, "Boys and girls," although it's as obvious as "2 + 2 = 4" that there are males and females in the room. Some school districts are demanding that the teacher address them without noting the presence of two genders.
THE SECOND SHOCK WAVE
The angry girl sign was the first surprise. The second one came when the game began, when the batter stepped into the batter's box and the fielders were (more or less) in place. The players were in their sartorial splendor, each wearing a nice clean uniform, complete with softball cleats, although speed on the bases isn't usually a factor in these games since it's illegal to steal a base and nobody was going to be thrown out running from first to second, second to third, or third to home. But the surprise wasn't in their uniforms, it was in what they wore in addition to their uniforms.
The batter wore a batting helmet, but not just a batting helmet, but one with a face guard. A batting helmet and a face guard for an 8-year old girls' softball game? Were the pitchers that fast, so fast the batters were in danger? No, not at all, because no girl pitched the ball to a single batter. The coach of the team or a father of the team pitched to his own girls. Was this slow pitch or fast pitch softball? Neither; it was "lob pitch" softball. Any one "hit" with the pitcher's lobs would suffer the same pain as being hit with a lobbed ping-pong ball. It was like watching the pitcher lob a beach ball toward home plate.
But it didn't stop there. I stared in disbelief at the fielders. They wore helmets too, but not batting helmets. They wore some type of headgear that encircled their heads and had a face guard too. (It's difficult to describe; you'd have to see it.) The catcher, who never actually caught any lobbed ball, wore a chest protector, a catcher's mask, and whatever that thing is that hangs down from the mask and guards the throat like you see in a major league game. By the time the catcher caught the ball, it was slowly rolling on the ground behind home plate, so the risk of injury was, to say it euphemistically, "minimal."
THIS PARENTAL PANIC IS ALL OVER THE PLACE
This is something we're seeing everywhere in our society. A city in Washington state removed the all teeter-totters from their public parks. Next to go were the swings, both declared dangerous. School recess no longer includes dodgeball, a really fun game where we got to take our revenge on another kid by hitting him with the ball as hard as our young arms could throw it. Mea culpa. Again, too dangerous. Also banned in some school districts are red rover, tag, and tether ball. The 8-year old I know who's playing softball has never heard, "Red Rover, Red Rover, let Joe come over."
It gets more serious: in Silver Spring, Maryland, CPS removed two children from their parents because the they allowed them to walk home from the park. They took them away, although there's no law against letting a child walk home from the park. They made up one to cover the situation: they declared the parents guilty of "unsubstantiated neglect." What in the world is that? Sounds like a law straight out of "1984."How can someone be punished because of something that's "unsubstantiated?"
What we're seeing are parents who want to control their children and their environment to the point where they're raising them in bubble wrap. It's even gotten to the extreme where some parents go to their adult children's job interviews. That should be both humiliating and embarrassing for the interviewer, the interviewee, and the parent babysitting the interview.
I wonder about those bubble wrapped 8-year old girls playing softball. So much gear does remove the "risks" of a lob-pitch softball game, but it also removes the fun because such rules condition the girls to be fearful, timid, eventually unable to navigate their way through life because their parents keep rushing in to protect them from the bumps of life, even the bumps of a softball game. About the only risk I could see during the softball game was a mosquito bite. They probably had the proper protection for that too.
One mother admitted her paranoia effected her son as reflected in a test he took:
"A couple of years ago, my then five-year-old son William
took a standardized test in which he was asked about everyday objects. The
tester noted his unusual responses to some questions. When asked 'What do candy
and ice cream have in common?' William replied, 'They both give you cavities.'
For the question 'What is chewing gum?' William answered, 'A choking hazard.' "
The softball season is over, and mercifully so. (The game was boring. Is there anything worse than watching nine childish, inept strangers you know nothing about play a game you care nothing about?) At season's end, every girl got a trophy, so not even their feelings were hurt. The coach, the parents, and the trophy declared everyone a winner. In the process, the trophy, the parents, and the coach conditioned them for socialism.
Not only were their bodies bubble wrapped, but also their feelings. If only life were that way, where everyone is a winner, where everyone is an excellent softball player, where everyone comes in first place, where we can remove all bumps, cuts, and scratches. But we live in a fallen world full of "Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn and caldron bubble," as Shakespeare wrote. As Solomon said, we live in a world where even "a righteous man falls seven times." (Proverbs 24:16)
THE RESULTS ARE COMING IN
What effects will all this have on the adult Christian raised in bubble wrap? Will she have a confident boldness for Christ? Will they he a stand for Christ at a risk, when there's a price tag? Will their marriages suffer or be destroyed because they're incapable of "leaving and cleaving?"
According to
Hanna Rosin, writing in The Atlantic, "The overprotective instincts of modern parents are destroying children’s
independence, trapping them in a hyper-controlled bubble that they might never
escape. (This behavior is not doing parents much good either; one study indicates that such mothers are more likely to be unhappy.)"
Myriam Signorini writes, "Overprotective mothers and fathers don't allow their children to suffer any frustration, and thus tend to protect them against any perceived 'threat,' trusting little in their possibilities. Beware! This approach ultimately harms the children, making them dependent,with little tolerance for frustration. Overprotective parents' children often have trouble relating to others and can be insensitive. To all parents I would say: Remember that your child will make errors. Overprotective parents generally believe that their children cannot make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes--even more, making mistakes is how we learn and develop as individuals."
That was some day at the softball diamond. What sort of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times.
To paraphrase Yogi Berra, "You can observe a lot by watching a girl's softball game"
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Comments may be addressed to michaeldhalsey@bellsouth.net.
If you would like to contribute to his ministry according to the principle of II Corinthians 9:7, you may do so by making your check out to Hangar Bible Fellowship and mailing it to 65 Teal Ct., Locust Grove, GA 30248. All donations are tax deductible.
Come visit the Hangar some Sunday at 10 AM at the above address. You'll be glad you did.
Other recommended grace-oriented websites are:
notbyworks.org
literaltruth.org
gracebiblicalseminary.org
duluthbible.org
clarityministries.org
Also:
Biblical Ministries, Inc.
C/O Dr. Richard Grubbs
P. O. Box 64582
Lubbock, TX 79464-4582
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)