God and Nations

Does God still interact with nations as a whole? Like, with the Prophets of old does God still cause nations to rise and fall based on some measure of their collective choice for or against him?

The Pope has noted that European’s choices against babies are causing them to lose political and economic standing in the world. Their economies will soon be incapable of being sustained at this rate. Conservative Christians have consistently maintained that abortion and small families are inherently selfish, evil and bad for society. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President is also making choices that are setting his country up for long term ruin. Putin’s religious orientation is hard to pierce.. is it Zen Buddhism? Hitler also had a Buddhist mentor and led his country into genetic scientific horror; these modern day scientists should be ware. Putin, a strong leader, will be held responsible for how he leads Russia. On a modern day twist about governments and God, Global warming certainly represents a major spiritual orientation. Specifically, it is held mostly by the pop science-is-god crowd. Gore’s attempt to tie belief in it to the Capitol of the USA is unfortunate. These believers believe that mankind has the potential to destroy itself and that God is not part of the equation. Christian Creation Stewardship advocates argue that God gave mankind stewardship of the planet. However, they forget that mankind lost its role in stewardship almost immediately with Adam’s fall into sin. God has been central to the redemption of the world from the beginning. Here in the United States, Sean Penn continues to hammer Bush. His approach to spirituality is largely socialist/Marxist power to the people. It is good to remember that Marxism, which is inherently godless, has failed everywhere that it has been tried. Modern day Europe is currently failing due to its pervasive embrace of the utopian ideal. Hugo Chavez, in Venezuela, is showing a modern day face of godless democratic socialism. It is natural that Chavez and China, Russia and Iran all find themselves in coordination with each other. They all hold to a false religious orientation. Islam, of course, naturally fits with communism due to its big brother is watching fear society orientation. In Iraq, the willingness of muslims to kill innocents and children is shocking in its brutality. Though, in the end, corruption and infighting end up destroying all of these regimes. At the least, the suppression of free speech, like Mike Adams is facing a UNCW here in the USA, and like the homosexual agenda has made less free, makes them less aware of their need for change.

The reality is that nations still face blessing or judgment from God based on their willingness to repent and submit to His righteous commands. If we reject God, should we be so surprised when he withholds his blessing? God help us and have mercy on us.

Spring Break

All about Spring Break this week. Bill O’Reilly is asking if this is good. A courageous Harvard Club attempts to stand against the tide by choosing virginity. When society is so sexualized it is no wonder that Biblical Morality finds itself under fire. Like this highschool student being attacked for using her free speech rights. The Court system, shamefully, throws its weight against families and children with this ruling on the 1998 Porn Law. The wrong people find themselves apologizing in this anti-gay column rehab brouhaha.

Now, the problem is that we find sexuality everywhere. Our society’s marriages are falling apart, leaving countless numbers of fatherless children. Single moms struggle to make ends meet and we complain that we should be free to do we want? If we really care about people, specifically the fatherless, we need to find ways to help families stay together, not encourage immorality as if it is simply free speech. Free speech in the United States never had to do with public obscenity, but rather about political speech. By turning obscenity into a protected area of free speech we basically find ourselves callous to the environment we have given our children. They are hearing our lack of care loud and clear.

We have no moral backbone. Should we mock morality and be surprised when we find perversion at large in society? Free sex has simply never been free. If we care about one another, we help each other to make wise decisions; not fight for each other’s freedom to throw all caution to the wind.

This Catholic school is requiring students to stop using MySpace. It’s about time.

Outside vs. Inside

Amazing how a little light can change people’s perspective of things. Should ultrasound viewing be required before all abortions? Here is another good example: just this week we are hearing about a sadistic foster mother’s 19 year reign of terror with three foster children. When light comes, it inevitably shows evil is far more present than most of us are willing to admit. Dostoevsky said that there is a line between black and white. However, he said, that line that goes around the world passes right through the center of my heart. May God save us all from the evil in ourselves.

Again, this is part of the danger of the modern attempt to blame society, focus on others or even the environment for our problems. We would do well to look inside at our own hearts. Thomas Kempis said in The Imitation of Christ, “Wherefore, if you see another sin openly or commit a serious crime, do not consider yourself better, for you do not know how long you can remain good.” For example, Gore warns of catastrophe but refuses to personally change his lifestyle.

This always looking to blame others around us inevitably leads to abuses like we see with the ACLU’s protection of Sexual Predators. It also leads to the breakdown of things like marriage, a basic building block of society.

It is simply true that left or right, the tendency to focus our attention on other people’s shortcomings is inherently bad for spiritual growth. Let’s look inside today and ask God for mercy in our time of need.

Faith vs. Science Wrong Headed

Apparently, the Global Warming debate is the story of the week. However, in open debates, the skeptics are finding themselves the winner; mocking the extremist dire catastrophe prophets. The science simply speaks for itself.

How does any of this apply to faith? Very simply put, faith is a choice. We choose to place our faith in one thing and not in another. We choose. What is the basis for our choices? Well, that is precisely the point. The reason why the largest numbers of people in the history of the world have chosen Christ and the Bible is because it has simply consistently proven itself to be the most credible. When extremist prophets show their worldview (like Environmentalist fear mongers) they end up losing credibility. This happened with the great atheistic regimes of the 1900’s.

That is what faith is all about.

Faith is best placed in something that has PROVEN its trustworthiness. It simply should never be placed anywhere else.

If you or I place our faith in something untrustworthy, we are going to get let down. They we are going to start getting skeptical of everything.

If however, we place our faith in something trustworthy, we will find that our faith rewards us by bringing whatever was promised. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. (Solomon said that)

This is why the science vs. faith debate is inherently wrong headed. We simply should never place our faith in something untrustworthy. Sometimes, science is not trustworthy. Plenty of scientific medical advancements have proven to be false. Further, many people have been let down by placing their faith in those cures. However, many scientific advancements have proven trustworthy. Many times it has done what it promised.

So, science is not inherently trustworthy. We need something that transcends science to help us to measure our science against.

Sometimes, people themselves are not trustworthy, which is why politics tends to breed skepticism. This is why our faith should never be placed in politics.

We simply need a good place to put our faith. Too often, we can’t trust ourselves. We can’t trust the news media. We can’t trust scientists, politicians or often even clergy men.

What can we trust?

For me, I have simply never been let down by the Bible or Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

In the meantime, I have resisted the environmental extremists from the beginning because their “science” was so inconclusive and had so many gaps. I could not buy the dogma. Now, we are finding that popular opinion is starting to question that same science.

Let’s not place our faith in science. Let’s find something more truthful and require both our religions and science to measure up. Let’s place our faith in something trustworthy. Our hearts will be grateful.

Believe God or believe anything

G. K Chesterton once said that those who stop believing in God don’t become skeptics so much as they end up believing all sorts of outlandish things. Belief in God through Holy Scripture anchors the mind and soul protecting it from extremism (i.e. global warming hysteria). Extremists have gotten to calling scientists extremists. Outlandish claims of “muzzling” abound. A good debate seems appropro.

Speaking of science, memory altering drugs raise ethical dilemma. Are drugs the answer to the people’s problems? It seems so often that a drug provides an answer until we find out later that it causes other problems. We really know so little in the end. Take for instance malaria and breaking news about malaria resistant mosquitos. A hundred years ago, an outbreak of any disease would have brought the U.S. to its knees in prayer and repentance. Now, we take our prayers to the altar of science and sacrifice whatever is asked that it provide us with protection. Science is fine but exalting it above repentance before God is immoral.

On to our children: Hollywood continues to exalt the weird in the name of satire and free speech. Free sex continues to rear its ugly head. However, when we call wrong right and right wrong (homosexuality) we should not be shocked at the loss of moral shame. Nevertheless, parents so easily allow their responsibility of parenting to be violated by schools. Further, parents have lost the will to train children, opting instead for a skewed compassion.

Spiritual foundations are essential to keeping society grounded. By giving up those foundations we give up society, we lose our humanity and we train our children to be cowards. We end up believing anything. It is not the danger of cynicism but the danger of naivete’.

Spirituality Gone Awry

Global warming presents an example of religious leaders severely distracted from their spiritual ministries. They should be more focused on spiritual things. They claim to be spiritual but have in fact magnified science to the point that they no longer trust science; if that could be the case. As a result our society is full of things spiritual leaders are ignoring. Should there not be better standards for our leaders? Standards like this are mocked instead of praised. How is it that we have lost our sense of what is right and wrong? Right is wrong and wrong is right. Some of the definitions of feminism have caused this problem. As a result we have a society where we turn things upside down. The movie may be bad history but seems to viscerally connect with society through its comic book clarity of right and wrong.