Ronnie W. Rogers, “Taking every thought captive…”

Euthanasic death is always promoted as an act of mercy.  However, it appears at times to be an act of mercy for someone other than the patient.  This was the case with Terri Schiavo, who had to be starved to death in order for her to die; a person who also had family who said they would care for her and physicians demurring to the “persistent vegetative state” (PVS) diagnosis.  All she needed was nutrition, water, and love, all of which was readily available, but denied by the euthenists.

Now, we actually heard from a Belgium man, Rom Houben, who was paralyzed in a car accident in 1983 and diagnosed to be in a coma or persistent vegetative state (PVS), as was Schiavo, but Houben was in this comatose state for 23 years.  I say that we heard from him, and I mean that because after 23 years he woke up, and here is some of what he said!

Houben, 46, said of his awareness and yet his inability to communicate, “I screamed, but there was nothing to hear.”  “All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life,” Houben said.  ”Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.” 

“I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me — it was my second birth,” he said, “I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead.” ¹

As Christians, we clearly recognize that there is a time to die, but unlike the euthenist, we esteem every human life, and we presume life; moreover, we asseverate that nutrition, water, and love are NOT extraordinary measures, and therefore should never be denied!

1. All quotes are from the Baptist Press Thom Strode November 30, 2009, accessed same day [↩]

Ask just about any person living in the U.S. if they are certain about anything, and they will more than likely say, yeah, Global Warming.  They know that if scientists say it, well it must be true.  Umh!

Well, do all scientists agree?  Is there a consensus?  Is man-made global warming certain?

Not according to many scientists, who are ignored by the environmentalists and present administration, but they do exist and they are considerably noteworthy.

February 27, 1992, a “Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming… signed by forty-seven atmospheric scientists, many of whom specialized in global climate studies…warned that plans to promote a carbon emissions reduction treaty to fight global warming…were ‘based on the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuels and requires immediate action,’ adding, ‘We do not agree.”’¹

A 1992 survey of United States atmospheric scientists by the Gallup organization demonstrated that “’there is no consensus about the cause of the slight warming observed during the past century’….’the majority of scientific participants…agreed that the theoretical climate models used to predict a future warming cannot be relied upon and are not validated by the existing climate record,’ and pointed out ‘agriculturalists generally agree that any increase in carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuel burning has beneficial effects on most crops and on world food supply.’”²

The Heidelberg Appeal, released at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, warned against “the emergence of an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development.”³  This was signed by over three thousand scientists, including seventy-two Nobel Prize winners.

The 1997 Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change, which was signed by eighty leading scientists in the field of global climate research and twenty-five meteorologists, declared “the scientific basis of the 1992 Global Climate Treaty to be flawed and its goal to be unrealistic…[because] it was based solely on unproven scientific theories, imperfect climate models—and the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from an increase in greenhouse gases.”⁴

The 1997 Global Warming Petition developed by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which “was signed by more than 17,000 basic and applied American scientists, including over 2,500 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the earth’s atmosphere and climate, and over 5,000 chemists, biochemists, biologists, and other life scientists well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on plant and animal life.”⁵  The petition urged “the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol” saying “the proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment…and damage the health and welfare of mankind.”⁶

They further stated, “there is no convincing evidence that human release of…greenhouse gases is causing or will…cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.  Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural and animal environments of the Earth.”⁷

So much for the media and present administration telling the public the truth about global warming.  Why is this so important for a Christian to understand?  Well there are a number of reasons, but two will suffice.  First, we are to be good stewards of the planet that God gave us, but we cannot fulfill that obligation with incomplete and misleading information bandied about by those who believe that the earth is to be exalted above man even if it takes faulty science to do so.  Second, the restrictions from the present administration as well as the Al Gores will actually hurt humans, particularly in undeveloped countries, because they will never be given the tools—fossil fuels, etc.—to develop richer food supplies and cleaner heating fuels, etc.  Presently, “some three to five million children under the age of five die each year from diseases contracted from impure drinking water.  Perhaps another three to five million die from diseases related to the widespread use of dried dung and wood for cooking and heating in the hovels of the poor, causing toxic indoor air pollution.”⁸

Without sufficient income, the poor cannot afford the solutions to such basic problems.  Without economic development, they will never have the income.  Without a free market and access to things such as clean burning fossil fuels and affordable energies they are doomed to die.

1. Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Acton Institute, 2007) p95: The Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Global Warming can be accessed at www.sepp.org [↩]
2. Environmental Stewardship, p95 [↩]
3. Environmental Stewardship, p95: The Heidelberg Appeal can be accessed at www.heartland.org [↩]
4. Environmental Stewardship, p95: The Leipzig Declaration on Climate Change can be accessed at www.sepp.org [↩]
5. Environmental Stewardship, p96: The Global Warming Petition can be accessed at www.oism.org [↩]
6. Environmental Stewardship, p96 [↩]
7. Environmental Stewardship, p96 [↩]
8. Environmental Stewardship, p81 [↩]

According to the Associated Press, Gallup polls from 1994 to 2005 consistently show that more than 90 percent of adults say they celebrate Christmas, including 84 percent of non-Christians.

Some Christians—as well as secularists, Muslims, Hindus, etc.—believe that Christians should not celebrate Christmas because the Bible does not command us to celebrate Christ’s birth, it has its origins in the pagan celebration of the birthday of the sun god Tammuz, and/or it is too commercialized.

I am one of those who think we should celebrate Christmas, these and other arguments not withstanding.

The Bible does not tell us to celebrate each other’s birthdays, wedding anniversaries, Mother’s or Father’s days…and it seems to me that if we are going to celebrate any birthday, it should be Christ’s.

Further, there are many things that we support or do that Scripture neither explicitly commends nor condemns.  However we are commanded to be thankful for all things (Ephesians 5:20), and if our Christmas is a time of sharing and thanksgiving to God, it seems to be honoring to Him.

As for the pagan connection, so are the names of our week—Saturday for the god Saturn, Sunday for the sun god, but we do not consider changing them.  In addition, one could argue that it is good to change a day honoring a false god into a day that honors the one true God. 

In addition, according to Greg Peters, an assistant professor and expert in early church history at Biola University, “There is also a theory that Dec. 25 was picked based on some early Christian sources that say that Jesus’ death would have been on March 25, based on the year and when the Passover happened….[he] also explains that according to ancient rabbinic practice, one’s death date was one’s birth date.  In case of Jesus, it was March 25.  Also in rabbinic tradition, birth is the same as conception.  Therefore, if Jesus was “conceived” on March 25th, you add nine months and get Dec. 25.”

As for the fact that Christmas has been over-commercialized, this warrants only de-commercializing your Christmas not eliminating it.

Christmas is a wonderful time to give thanks to God, to celebrate family, life, and eternal life; sing about God’s bountiful love toward us, recommit ourselves to sharing the gospel, and thereby honor God.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

God created man and placed him over the natural world, which includes the earth, the fruit of the earth, and the animal kingdom (Genesis 1:26, 2:1-18).  This vision clearly places man over nature and signifies that he is more important than the natural world, as well as allowing him to enjoy and profit from its bounty, to wit capitalism and ownership of private property.

Many secularists and environmentalists reject this understanding as too anthropocentric or “speciesist” and promote a “biocentric” vision, which makes man merely a part of the natural world, possibly even a detriment, but clearly not over it.  This is simply biological egalitarianism. 

Of course, the “biocentric” view is actually nothing more than romanticism. Humans are the only ones who have the rational and moral ability to be stewards of the environment.  In a purely “biocentric” world where everything is equal, there is no real stewardship.  In other words, if we are not making decisions about the environment, there will be no decisions regarding stewardship of the environment, i.e. do not look for an environmental symposium led by monkeys and attended by dolphins.

The Acton Institute offers a third alternative—which is the biblical vision—and that is a “theocentric” view.  This God-centered approach is the Christian approach, which recognizes the role of man and private and free enterprise as well as government involvement.

In this view, man is essentially more valuable and higher than nature and has been charged by God to govern and benefit from it (Matt 20:13-15).  However, the fall of man into sin made man most capable of turning liberty in license and stewardship into abuse.  Consequently government is to play a role in holding man accountable for such (Romans 13:1-7). 

However, since government is also composed of sinful humans, governmental power may also be abused (Ps. 94:20; 1 Samuel 8).  Therefore, government must be limited as in our Constitution and as taught in the Scripture, in both power (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) and division of power – judicial, legislative, and executive reflected in God as the Judge, Lawgiver, and King (Isa. 33:22). 

Consequently, in a Christian or “theocentric” approach, capitalism, profit, private ownership, limited government, and personal responsibility and accountability are the ingredients for solving the environmental questions of our day.

In a televised debate with Alan Keyes, Alan Dershowitz argued that he did not believe in God, while maintaining that people who do not believe in God can establish and do what is right, and there is no need to invoke God for us to be a moral society.  He said repeatedly in one form or another, all we have to do, is do what is right.  That became his mantra for refuting the idea that we need God to know right and wrong.  All we need to do is what is right, he would say.

The question from the audience for Dershowitz was this, “What makes something right?”  Following is his response.

It’s a question I’m actually writing a book about. It’s called “Doing Right.”  In my book, I reject natural law.  I also reject simple legal positivism.  If something is right, you have to struggle over that.  It’s very, very difficult.  There are no simpleminded answers.  It’s not because God says so.  Certainly I don’t hear the voice of God.  I don’t believe any human being has ever heard the voice of God.  But what is right is very difficult. What’s right is what experience has taught us over generations is right.  In my book, I say it’s much easier to know what’s wrong than to know what’s right.  We know what absolute evil is.  We’ve seen it.  We’ve seen it in the name of Secularism: Nazism.  We’ve seen it in the name of atheism: Communism.  We’ve seen it in the name of religion: the inquisitions and the crusades.  We know what evil is.  We know what wrong is.  Right is a process.  Right-ing is a process.  A process of eternal search, beginning from the first human beings, moving through the Greek philosophers, through religious leaders, through civil leaders.  I don’t know what’s right. I know what’s wrong.  But I have something else to tell you folks. You don’t know what’s right.  The minute you think you know what’s right, the minute you think you have the answer to what’s right, you have lost a very precious aspect of growing and developing.  I don’t expect ever to know precisely what’s right, but I expect to devote the rest of my life to trying to find out. (italics added)¹

Now I am really perplexed, if no one knows what is right, then why did he write a book about it–whatever it is?  If one does not know what right is, then how pray tell may one know what is evil since evil is the absence of right?  Moreover, how does Dr. Dershowitz know that no one else knows what right is, for that seems to make him all knowing and able to determine that someone does not possess what he cannot even identify.  A fortiori, why should anyone read his book, which by his own admission is not right since he does not know what is right and has no intention of ever knowing? 

Lastly, while I do agree that Dr. Dershowitz has never heard the voice of God, which is undeniably true  since he does not know what is right; I take exception to his averring that “[no other] human has ever heard the voice of God” since he gives no evidence for such a Brobdingnagian claim. 

It seems quite clear to me when faced with the option of believing Dr. Dershowitz’s claim—having already conceded that he does not know what is right—or believing Jesus’ claim, to not only know truth, but to be truth (John 14:6), for which he gave ample supporting evidence,  it makes little sense to side with Dershowitz.

1. http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=159474-1 [↩]

Did you know, “…that the British High Court ruled in a lawsuit that Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, “is scientifically flawed and has nine significant exaggerations and factual errors.” Among those exaggerations are the claims that sea levels could rise 20 feet by the end of the century, and that polar bears are disappearing because of global warming (in fact, they are not).”¹

Not likely to hear this in school or on most media outlets.  These and other challenges to the seemingly unbridled hype about man-made global warming are unveiled in a new movie, “Not Evil Just Wrong” produced by the Cornwall Alliance.  You can purchase the movie directly from them. Also you may want to check out Chuck Colson’s commentary on the film.

Why should Christians be concerned about the excessive hysteria over man-made global warming?  To mention a few, first, contrary to the claims of many environmentalists and the actions of some others, man is not an intrusion into the environment, a detriment, but actually God’s capstone to the environment, and given by Him the authority to rule over it (Gen 1:26-29).  Their distorted view of man’s place in creation causes them to choose to save some creature like a snail darter over human life, stop technological advancements via fiat, or cause economic strangulation via environmental regulation, effectively perpetuating poverty and pollution in poor countries, for example, where dung is used for heat.  They make man who is “created in the image of God” not only less than man, but less than an animal.

Second, truth matters, and when the truth is distorted in one area, it eventually will lead to distortions in other areas. 

Third, many of the environmentalists have an agenda that is far more in line with socialism, Marxism, and any system of governmental redistribution of wealth, which I believe always has a deleterious impact upon the family unit.

1. http://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/13099-not-evil-just-wrong [↩]

Hitler’s animosity and inhumane atrocities against the Jews are well known.  His venom against them and his plan to use his own oratorical abilities to exploit them in order to resurrect Germany is a theme running though Mein Kampf.  However, one should never forget how effective his devilish, albeit intellectually doltish, scheme was.  Moreover, there are more than a few today who seek to eradicate from the globe the Jews, Christians, and other groups they deem to be corrupting influences. 

The following quote reminds us of how one can use a group in order to accomplish a dastardly political end.

“My object is to guide first-rate revolutionary upheavals, regardless of what methods or means I have to use in the process. Earlier revolutions were against the peasants, or nobility, or the clergy or against dynasties and their network of vassals, but in no case has revolution succeeded without the presence of a lightening rod that could conduct and channel the odium of the general masses . . . [W]eighing every imaginable factor, I came to the conclusion that a campaign against the Jews would be as popular as it would be successful . . . Disproportionately to their small number they account for an immense share of the German national wealth, which can be just as easily put to profitable use for the state and the general public as could the holdings of monasteries, bishops and nobility. Once the hatred and the battle against the Jews has been really stirred up, their resistance will necessarily crumble in the shortest possible time. They are totally defenseless, and no one will stand up to protect them.”¹

Even though Hitler died, there are still several “Hitlers” on the political landscape who will use whatever means possible to ruthlessly conquer the weak maugre all political agreements and niceties.

1. Josef Hell, Aufzeichnung, 1922, Z.S. 640, p. 6, Institut für Zeitgeschicthe in Frankfurt. Quoted in Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 28-29. Cited in Philip Rieff, My Life among the Deathworks (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006), 160-161. [↩]

Intentionalists believe that the Constitution should be understood in the way it was understood by the Founders.  Consequently, it is a fixed document with static meaning; therefore, it means today what it meant then.  The only way one can properly interpret it is by studying the authorial intent of the signatories. 

In contrast, progressives believe that the Constitution is to be understood as a living document, which not only allows but requires that each generation interpret the Constitution in light of current needs and changes.  They argue that the meaning must be ever changing in order to keep the Constitution relevant and adaptable to the issues of the day. Therefore, the interpretations and adjudications of the Supreme Court, which are not explicitly sanctioned by the Constitution, are not only appropriate, but essential.

Thus, the question of which approach is the correct one?  Well, if the latter was the desire of the Founders, then I would ask, why did they include an explicit process for amending the Constitution?  For the amendment process seems glaringly superfluous if the Founders intended for the Supreme Court to change, add to, or reinterpret the Constitution according to their modern opinions regarding the need to change. 

Moreover, one may even go so far as to suggest that both of the legislative houses are, if not extraneous, at least marginalized in significance since legislators were/are actually the nation’s lawmakers.

Jefferson said, “To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”¹

1. Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277, http://www.landmarkcases.org/marbury/jefferson.html [↩]

We like to consider ourselves a “civilized” and “humane” society, and I think that is true in many ways.  However, the legalization and normalization of abortion reminds us of the darker side of our humanity.  For in abortion, the strong summarily dismiss the lives of the preborn through methods that betray a narcissistic primal barbarism.   I suspect that if an actual abortion was performed on television for all to see in cinematic detail, it would rival the cruelest and most heart wrenching of horror movies. 

Recently, Landon Norton’s Round Table presentation succinctly reminded us of the inhumane process of an abortion.  Please do not allow his admirable brevity to cause you to forget the heroic struggle of each little one caught in this human web of brutish and savage selfishness.  (more…)

“Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” Proverbs 13:24).

 “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.” (Proverbs 23:13-14).

Spanking is viewed by secularists and Christian secularists¹ as anachronistic at best and labeled by many as abuse.

However, the Bible is clear that spanking is actually an act of love.

To equate biblical spanking with abuse is to misrepresent spanking for emotive conditioning, and denotes the change of a culture’s view of child rearing to a non-biblical approach.  Those who present spanking as abusive do so by comparing the event to someone beating or hitting another person or some such nonsensical comparison.  However, equating the two is like equating muggers and football players because they both make physical contact with another human being; or comparing a police officer shooting an assassin with a thief killing his mark because in both instances a gun was used.

Similarities do not make two events morally the same if there are essential dissimilarities, e.g. suicide and martyrdom.  To devalue spanking because someone takes it too far and thereby transforms it into abuse is as misguided as devaluing the automobile because of a hit and run driver.  The problem is not the automobile but the abuse of it, and in like manner the problem is not spanking but the abuse of it either by flippantly labeling it abuse or calling genuine abuse spanking.

What sets biblical spanking apart is that it is commanded by God as a form of discipline for children, which God would never do if it were abuse.  It is commanded in the book of Proverbs, which is a book devoted in large part to a father—parents—instructing their children and rearing them out of a devoted love and concern for the child’s well-being, which is the very antithesis of the motivation for abuse.

Particularly when children are young, they need to be taught right from wrong through feeling discomfort to their behind because pain is a part of the built-in warning system that humans have.  Small children are not able to understand rational discourse well enough to protect them from harm; for example, a child needs to learn to associate NO from the parent with pain on their behind so that they will not injure themselves by touching hot stoves, running in front of cars, etc., because they will be able to immediately associate a parent’s NO with pain.  Moreover, when the parent tells them that a certain behavior will hurt them so they should not do it, they have an immediate understanding of hurt, which they do not have if you merely give them a paper on the subject or interact with them through some democratic lecture.

As Christians, we do not believe that spanking is the only form of discipline, or even the best in every situation, but it is a loving part of child rearing when done in the loving spirit of the whole book of Proverbs.  Opponents who extricate the teaching on spanking from its full biblical context expose themselves as shamefully unfamiliar with what they are talking about or so repulsively dishonest for political gain that their ramblings should be summarily dismissed.  Spanking is from a loving parent for the benefit of the child’s full development and well-being, whereas abuse is a hurtful dispensing of adult anger or frustration upon a child for the narcissistic benefit of the parent.

My two daughters were spanked on a number many occasions.  I suspect that at the time, they would have voted to outlaw spankings, and deemed them tantamount to being made to lay on a bed of nails while riding a camel in a rocky desert; however, today as grown women, they would extol the loving benefit of it and have every intention of carrying on the great tradition with my grandchildren.  Why?  Because they know we love them, they are better for it, and they want to love their children in a godly way. 

My challenge to every secularist is simply this.  I defy any one of them to find any, no matter how minute, damage to one of my daughters because of spanking them when they were little or to detect even the slightest lack of love between us because of such discipline.  I would even say that those who think spanking is abusive or passé should meet my daughters and think again. 

To wit, I have no regrets about spanking my daughters and if I had it to do all over again, I would not “spare the rod” because I love what both of my daughters have become.

1. by which I mean a person who claims to be a Christian, but thinks like a secularist thereby disregarding the clear teaching of Scripture [↩]