A friend of mine asked me what I thought of this. I thought, I hope they don't try to cook the chicken over all the glue, cardboard, simulated leather, and the myriad of chemicals likely to be in the books they're collecting.
Seriously, these folks have lost the point. If it were simply a matter of their faith being unable to accept anything but the KJV Bible, I wouldn't say anything because that's their issue that they need to work out with God. Something else is the matter.
They can burn all the books in the world except for their precious KJV and still never come to this critical realization: The problem is not in the books out there in the world; the problem is in our hearts. It's easier to burn someone's books than it is to examine our own thoughts and actions. It is true that they burned books and paraphernalia back in Biblical times, specifically Acts 19. Nonetheless, it was an outward demonstration of what had already happened in their hearts. Specifically, it was to make a clean break with the past lives they'd lived, burning the bridge behind them that lead back to the old ways. They knew that, if things got rough, their hearts might lead them back into the sorcery and divination they had been practicing. They could have sold all of their junk and received the equivalent of $35,000. That money went up in smoke because they didn't want to pass on the practices that they had abandoned.
This church's book burning is a case where the practice out-lives the meaning. It serves no real purpose, except to state their reading preferences and belief in the King James-only doctrine. Given that that statement could be made any number of ways, having a book burning is a foolish choice. It gives the appearance that small-town, North Carolina residents are intellectually backward. It plays to the stereotype that small-town southerners are narrow-minded, hyper-religious zealots. It invites comparison to the Nazis and other evil regimes, both real and imagined, that used book burning in their quest for an ideological purity. It is, in my mind, the worst thing they could possibly do to demonstrate their faith. This is exactly what the enemy would want them to do.
So what are we to do for people who operate like this? Should we correct them? Should we disown them? Neither; in fact we should pray for them, that the Holy Spirit would correct them, that he would stop them from continuing this practice. I pray that they come to a better understanding of God's love, and, in turn, move to a better expression of his love for others.
In case you missed your memo from the ACLU, tomorrow, March 10th, is National Thank Your Abortion Provider Day. I'm not kidding. One week before the celebration of St. Patrick's Day, a Catholic saint, we have a celebration of death and destruction.
I'm trying to keep from being physically sick here.
If we're really going to celebrate death, why not a Jack Kevorkian day, or a 6 day long celebration of the Jewish Holocaust, one for every million people that Hitler killed? If we were to get really Malthusian about it, we could even give money to people that succeed in committing suicide during those days. That might seem too close to Muslim extremism, though. Wait a minute! Those guys kill lots of people. Like abortionists, these guys should have their own day too.
Forgive my sarcasm. This isn't about rights, people. It's about lives being cut apart and dismantled inside a mother's womb. What should be the safest place on earth is the most dangerous. Tell me that Satan isn't pleased by this twisted corrupting of creation. It should be mourned in the extreme, not celebrated.
God said to us long ago, "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." Choose Life. It's such a simple and natural directive. How long will we choose death and thank the executioner? How long?
I don't think it's coincidence that Veterans' Day comes roughly a week after Election Day each year. Norm Dalsted, professor at Colorado State University, tells a story each semester to his economics class students. It's something they need to hear. "I think they need to know what happened," he says in an interview with Denver's 9News. What happened is he served in 1968 in Vietnam. He served his country, and he fought alongside friends who died for this country.
And dare I add, the right for people to vote. Exporting democracy means nothing if we don't exercise it ourselves.
I'm thanking a vet in person before next Tuesday the 11th.
Yahoo's "Most Popular" headlines frequently show up in my G-mail account. This is one I couldn't ignore: Atheists plan ad campaign on side of London buses. One of the ads, according to the article, states, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
Uh, "probably"? That sounds more like an agnostic and it hasn't made celebrity atheist Richard Dawkins too happy, apparently. The best part of the article was the end.
The religious think tank Theos said it had donated $82 to the campaign, on the grounds that the ads were so bad they would probably attract people to religion.
"It tells people to 'stop worrying,' which is hardly going to be a great comfort for those who are concerned about losing jobs or homes in the recession," said Theos director Paul Woolley.
"Stunts like this demonstrate how militant atheists are often great adverts for Christianity."
Isn't that a classic? It reminds me of the comedy routine by Darren Streblow that I saw on Bananas a while back. He got on the topic of atheists getting together to encourage each other, maybe sing a song like, "Who gives us reason to live? No one, no one." Folks need hope like they need air.
Whenever you draw your meaning and purpose from the negative, in this case being atheist and saying there's no God, you depend on the positive to be set so you can deny it. It's like someone cooks a dinner and you define yourself by fasting. They refuse to believe that the food is real or that it's for them. But they don't get any meaning out of fasting other than they're not like the ones eating. Like Streblow says, imitating an atheist preacher, "We believe ...that you can't believe. Here's what we know ...we don't know."
Like a reflection of sound or light, atheism can only react to what's positively articulated by the source, namely theism. But rather than exist in a duality, I believe atheists are just another variety of not-God worshippers. There's only one source of truth and life in this universe, and it's God. Everything else is not-God, just like there's light and "not-light" (darkness). Darkness doesn't really exist; it's just what we use to describe not-light. Atheists don't really have cause to celebrate anything, especially if it's all a meaningless, purposeless existence. What a non-meaning, non-substantial non-faith!
I know there are folks out there that might say that I'm over-simplifying it. I probably am. My point is that there is order, structure and substance to this existence. A candle burns in a predictable chemical reaction everytime. That's structure and order, a law that exists. It says, combine oxygen and carbon at a specific temperature and you get light in a sustainable chain reaction. To have any law without the originator of that law in this existence is logically impossible.
To the First Cause, thank you for all of this. It wouldn't be the same without You.
My son is football these days. He eats and sleeps and breathes football. He loves Sunday. The only problem he has with watching football remains what I have always hated about watching football: the junk the networks decide to advertise during the breaks.
Do I really want to see a man lying in a pool of his own blood, CBS? Hey Fox, is Stewie's obsession with Bryan's saliva really worthy to show to millions of young football fans? It's disgusting, you network half-wits! The NFL has Play 60 ads airing right next to this stuff because they know the kids are watching. I have a hard time believing that the networks don't know their own demographics.
I've harped on this issue before--and I don't want to turn this into a gripe blog, but these ads are killing my love for the NFL. Taste and restraint in selecting the ads needs to return not soon, but now.
Who's in the stall next to you on your next trip to the restroom?
That question's going to be on a lot of people's minds, including mine, after hearing about Colorado's Gov. Bill Ritter signing S.B. 200 into law. This law is so poorly written, critics are expecting it to give license to all sorts of abuses. From the article:
"It is now legal in the state of Colorado for a grown man to walk into a girl's restroom in an elementary school for whatever purpose, and it is illegal for the school to say you can't do that," said Schneeberger. "What we're really concerned about is sexual predators … who want to prey on young boys or young girls in particular, who would use the confusion caused by this law to victimize our children."
I know that the likelihood of this happening is somewhat low, but then who thought the price of gas would double in two years? Unlikely things still happen and the longer this sits on the books, the more likely this poorly written law will be abused and some child ends up scarred. Under this law, my wife and children no longer have a right to privacy when they're using public restrooms, or even a pool locker room as a public accomodation. Under this law, a man with a wig and a beard could wander into the "Women's" restroom, spy on my family, and I would be legally powerless to do anything about it. All this person would need to do is yell, "Help, I'm being discriminated against!" and the ACLU will be at his side in a heartbeat. Enter the lawyers. Exit my rights.
I try not to get nostalgic, but this never would have seen the light of day under Bill Owens, our state's last governor. But now Jennifer Viega, Bill Ritter and the rest of the Denver Democrats are pushing their agenda, heedless of the damage it does to our rights.
O, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise. Instead, they seem to sing the praises of exposing all that is evil. Such is the case with the "Narnia and C.S. Lewis are servants of the Devil" camp. Google "Narnia witchcraft" and you'll find no shortage of web sites stating how C.S. Lewis secretly served Satan and how he desired to reintroduce Pan worship and so on. Some go so far as to include mood music and pictures from the Disney/Walden Media releases.
It would be laughable, if not for the tragedy that they're quite serious about it. I once bought into that line of thinking too, but here's what I realized: How can Satan oppose Satan? If Lewis intentionally retold the Gospel and its central theme of the redemption of mankind by God's Son, and he did, and if the readers infer the Gospel message, and they do, wouldn't that do irreparable damage to Satan's cause? If so, then Lewis opposes Satan, and these sites are doing more harm than good. "Logic. Why don't they teach logic at schools?"
Conjuring spirits is almost as bad as conjuring up bad information on C.S. Lewis to assassinate his character or otherwise defame him. A lot of professing Christians have written or said or done a lot of un-Christian things in their lives. Does that invalidate everything associated with them? Babies and bathwater, indeed. Did Christ die for only the sins we committed before we knew him? There is no error as grievous as bad theology, but if Lewis made such mistakes, I believe we have all made them. No one has a perfect grasp of God, because no finite mind can grasp the truly infinite. Lewis, as passionate and creative as he was, his humanity was just as real as the paper he wrote on and he gets some things wrong. Does that mean that all of Narnia perishes in fire and water? I hope not. Let Lewis be human and God will be God, whether we let Him or not.
For Lewis's humanity, he suffers the same humiliation as all other authors: I don't put my Lewis books on the "same shelf" as my Bible. That doesn't mean I don't experience the joy of the resurrection when I read about Aslan's return or feel the hope of heaven when Peter and the others come home into the real Narnia at the end and go further up and further in. It means that there's a place for fantasy, allegory and metaphor in my home and in my mind. It does not have to sweep away all wizards or magic with the same stroke of a broomstick. If a game or a movie or a book helps me show my kids how God has revealed Himself to us in scripture and through His Spirit in our lives, I may make use of it, but only if I feel it's worth the trouble of sifting it. The Chronicles of Narnia are most definitely worth that trouble.
The only man whom I felt was capable of leading this country without stepping in a hole deeper than the Grand Canyon has just quit the 2008 Presidential race. I will not support McCain, nor will I vote for him. I will write in a candidate I decide on later.
I am a Christian. I am a right wing nut job and I wear it proudly because I have reasoned my position out to where I'm confident of it's logic and consistency with my world view. I believe abortion is murder. I am a strict constructionist in interpreting the Constitution. I know that our military is still second to none thanks to Ronald Reagan. I do not support candidates because they say the right things. I support them because they possess a track record of doing the right things. I will break my silence on most political issues with this post and say, unequivocally,
McCain is wrong for the G.O.P. if they want to win the election.
He will not win me over based on his track record. He will not win over enough conservatives to overcome whatever steam the Donkey party manages to muster, even with what looks to be, at this point, a brokered convention. I join James Dobson. I will not vote for McCain.
I wonder if any Republicans are paying attention. Probably not, based on this survey.
From the WCF Courier, here's a good synopsis of why I won't vote for McCain:
Conservatives have a problem with McCain's track record
Latest in an occasional series examining candidates seeking the Republican and Democrat nominations for president and happenings along the campaign trail.
John McCain may become the Republican nominee for president. His chances, at least at this point in the campaign, are as good or better than his chief rivals.
If he does succeed, however, don't expect many who view themselves as true conservatives to be particularly happy.
"I believe I am qualified," McCain repeats on the campaign trail. "I need no on-the-job training."
But the track record the senator from Arizona touts as valuable experience also contains facts conservatives find very unappealing. And in fact, they view McCain as one Republican in Washington, D.C., they can count on to vote with Democrats on issues that matter most to conservatives.
For starters, McCain voted against President Bush's proposed tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. Recent statements added fuel to conservatives' fire: In December, McCain affirmed his votes were not mistakes. He was also one of only two Republicans to vote against permanent repeal of the so-called death tax in 2002.
Other measures McCain promoted and courses of action he pursued also generate animosity among those on the right.
--- The McCain-Feingold bill on campaign finance reform became law, including restrictions on what and how topics can be addressed in the political process during the two months prior to an election. Critics on both ends of the political spectrum view the law as a serious infringement of 1st Amendment rights to free speech.
--- The McCain-Kennedy bill on immigration failed, torpedoed by those who argued the measure offered amnesty to illegal aliens.
--- As a member of the so-called Gang of 14, McCain helped negotiate a compromise on President Bush's judicial nominees. The knock here is McCain sold out his side.
--- McCain was one of six Republicans to vote against a procedural issue related to the Federal Marriage Amendment, which defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman.
--- The McCain-Lieberman bill is pending. Proponents defend it as a method for combating global warming. Critics, however, say the measure represents a massive tax increase on carbon-based fuels, including gasoline, home heating oil and coal. On a related topic, McCain has voted on multiple occasions against drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Conservatives acknowledge McCain's stance backing President Bush and the war on terrorism. Under his "strategy for victory in Iraq," McCain advocates "greater military commitment" and calls for more troops.
"Success is essential to creating peace in the region, and failure would expose the United States to national security threats for generations," McCain says.
But while he takes a hard line on Iraq, McCain goes easier on enemy combatants, according to conservatives. He opposes using military tribunals to prosecute suspected terrorists, for instance, and believes the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba should be shut down.
The ultimate significance of conservatives' displeasure with McCain may lie in which Democrat he faces in the general election. Hillary Clinton will energize her opponents like few others in history and may turn off some in her own party. If Barack Obama or John Edwards get their party's nomination, conservatives may not feel the same urgency to vote --- on either side of the ballot.
I don't believe in McCain, and this "true" conservative will not vote for him in 2008.
This is pathetic. The mayor and city council of Berkeley, California are astoundingly unprofessional. If a private citizen were to do this to another individual, it would be called harassment. Why is it acceptable if it's two public entities? Maybe the military needs a "don't invite, don't defend" policy.
In the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, governments are instituted to "provide for the common defense" and to "ensure domestic tranquility." Now, if the Constitution applies to city government, the Berkeley city council is effectively abandoning such a charge and betraying their citizens. The plight of the neighbors around this recruiting station is unbelievable. Instead of getting relief from protesters by the appealing to their city council, the tenants are effectively without help.
Why not pass a law banning the recruiting station outright? I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with Federal money supporting the City of Berkeley, California.
. It's such a simple and natural directive. How long will we choose death and thank the executioner? How long?
