BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Midwives, denominations, abortions, and my present political philosophy...

I don't write much about Indiana politics and government but it's caused me no small sadness to contemplate the term-limit-departure of our fiscally excellent governor a little over a year from now. Gov. Mitch Daniels will have completed his second term and will have to leave office.

If I am comforted in our loss of Mitch's magnificent fiscal leadership, my comfort comes from this: that his likely successor is a man, Representaive Mike Pence, who promises to govern with the same fiscal commitments while adding a theological framework to those commitments that promises to extend far beyond fiscal discipline, on to principles concerning many other areas of governance including the battlefields on which the destroyers of our nation and its states are focussing their revolution: sexuality, the Image of God in man, the origin and nature of sexuality and marriage decreed by our Creator in His Order of Creation, and so forth.

As you read through Daniels' penultimate State of the State Address delivered yesterday evening, you will gain a hint of why I respect him. He has been unflinching in disciplining the educationists of our state by a host of private initiatives that have finally brought competition into public education. True, he brags about over half of our state budget going to edcuation, and he seems to see higher education as an unqualified good. I disagree with both things as I disagreed with President Bush on similar matters. Mitch Daniels is not a wild-eyed enthusiast. He's a realist who really changed our state. Definitively. And reading, you'll see what difference it makes to each citizen of the state.

But there's something else I want to say, here.

Some thirty years ago, I was at the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly to oppose their denominational abortion policy. My dear Mary Lee was pregnant and, since we were in the habit of having home births, I'd called the midwest representative of the PC(USA)'s self-funded independent medical insurance plan to ask if they'd cover the cost of our midwife? It was awkward. He hemmed and hawed and said he didn't know and would have to get back to me on it...

What if this kind of man had walked in on Jerry Sandusky...

Imagine, for a moment, a real man walking in on Jerry Sandusky in the Penn State shower room....

Imagine, for a moment, this kind of man walking in there, and how things might have ended...

(Other accounts reveal that the robber shot twice at the feet of the clerk before the man in this video took action.)

(DB)

Nations must face the blood shed by their fathers...

He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground." (Genesis 4:10)

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has taken the first step towards doing for the Cult of Mao what Kruschev did for the Cult of Stalin: he's publicly spoken of the terrible suffering of his own family at the hands of the Red Guards during Mao's Cultural Revolution. Melinda Liu reports: 

The Cultural Revolution remains a neuralgic political topic because it reflects poorly on Mao, who presided over that decade but is revered by many Chinese as their nation’s “Great Helmsman.” During that decade, youthful Red Guard radicals rampaged through the country, sowing violence and terror.... Even today, the government wiggles around Mao’s responsibility for the Cultural Revolution with an ambiguous formula that declares his achievements to have been “70 percent good, 30 percent bad.”

It's about time one of China's premiers officially acknowledges Mao's riot of blood. Chinese ignorance or silence concerning the over fifty million souls who were slaughtered by Chairman Mao is complicity in that slaughter and the perfect seedbed for more slaughter to come.

Christians who know and love Chinese must speak with our Chinese friends about Mao's slaughter as often as we speak with our American friends of the slaughter of the unborn. Jews aren't bashful...

"For the wrath of man shall praise you..."

Here's the manuscript for the sermon I preached the Lord's Day following 9/11 ten years ago, and then again yesterday on its tenth anniversary. I should add that the manuscript usually serves only as my loose outline for the preaching of God's Word.

Aunt Elaine helped build the World Trade Center...

For six years ending late December of 2006 when she went to be with the Lord, my Dad's sister, Elaine Bayly, lived with us here in Bloomington. She arrived just days before 9/11 and she brought a personal perspective on that day because she'd spent years of her life building the World Trade Center. Thus 9/11 and Aunt Elaine have always been bound together in our family's memory.

Aunt Elaine spent about seventy years in the same apartment on Parsons Blvd. in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens and for a number of those years she worked as a secretary for the project manager of the construction of the World Trade Center, the Tishman Company.

Elaine was personal secretary to Tishman's number one and number two men on the project and her dear friend Abe Levine (number two holding the position of Deputy Construction Manager) provides this account of Aunt Elaine's work there.

We had nine secretaries, but at the World Trade Center she was the personal secretary to the man at the top and the second in command. She took shorthand at a mile a minute. We turned out hundreds of letters a week.

We had documents that ran forty to fifty pages, and some of them had to be done over again, every single week—like the minutes of our official meetings. She did those and she did them to perfection—like a masterpiece. They were full of technical stuff (we were doing engineering) and they were always done to perfection.

The other girls all looked up to her. Everyone respected her. When she did a letter, it was a masterpiece. No one else was like that.

It was extremely hectic at the World Trade Center. One day we were having a meeting with the Port Authority—all the bigwigs...

Fungus, yeast, and children...

National Geographic breathlessly announces: "Even after centuries of effort, some 86 percent of Earth's species have yet to be fully described, according to new study that predicts our planet is home to 8.7 million species. That means scientists have cataloged less than 15 percent of species now alive—and current extinction rates mean many unknown organisms will wink out of existence before they can be recorded."

So let me get this straight...

Social security is D.C.'s cash cow...

The American Spectator's "Another Perspective" just ran an excellent piece titled, "What Would Reagan Cut?" The author is Bob Patterson, a close friend who served as the stated clerk of Northern Illinois Presbytery (PCA) back in 1991 when I transferred with my congregation from the mainline PC(USA) into the PCA. Since then, Bob has moved into writing on public policy matters and currently serves as editor of the Rockford Center's very helpful quarterly, The Family in America.

Two reasons to read this piece: first, everyone thinks cutting Social Security benefits is the only realistic way to address the deficit, but did you know that the payments you and I make into Social Security have long served as one of Washington D.C.'s principal cash cows? Bob reports that Social Security has long been producing a surplus...

Government-gone-hog-wild: keep your eye on the bill...

The battle over money going on between President Obama and the House of Representatives is worth watching because, for years to come, it will be used as an example proving something. Just ask Newt Gingrich.

Exactly what it proves remains to be seen and is largely a function of the degree to which those of us who oppose government-gone-hog-wild make our voices heard in support of what the freshman class and Speaker Boehner are trying to do.

So, good citizens, speak up.

Last night in his plea for support of unlimited government, President Obama said:

Most Americans, regardless of political party, don't understand how we can ask a senior citizen to pay more for her Medicare before we ask corporate jet owners and oil companies to give up tax breaks that other companies don't get.

To understand such deceptions...

Lies in support of a lower cause...

How did we get rationized health care? Here are a couple things voters need to know. (TB)

Not to worry, Congresswoman Bachmann's resigned membership in her WELS church...

The Wisconisn Evangelical Lutheran Synod sees the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and raises them one. Or maybe ten.

In my former home of Pardeeville, Wisconsin, the WELS congregation was the dominant religious presence in town. When they called a new pastor, Mary Lee and I decided to invite him with his wife and children over for dinner. After a cordial introduction, we sat down at the table and I turned to him and said, "I've heard lots of things through the years, but let me ask you directly: do you pray, do I pray, or do we not pray at all?"

He answered, "You go ahead and pray and we'll sit by," and immediately his good wife turned to their children and said, "We're going to pray; fold your hands and close your eyes." God bless her.

We had a pleasant evening. During the conversation the WELS pastor told us his grandmothers was a godly Baptist and that he didn't pray with her, either...

Impeach the judges...

The substance of this post is the text of a recent e-mail discussion I was copied on between two friends of Baylyblog--one a prof and the other an attorney employed as a civil magistrate. Note particularly this statement in the first half of the discussion: "our biggest worry is of a corrupt government whose police violate our civil rights."

There's no doubt this should be the greatest concern of believers, today.

Christians consistently have failed to recognize that every accretion of power and authority to the civil magistrate comes at the expense of the authority and freedom of the mediating institutions of the Church and family, not simply the freedom of the individual. Typically, political conservatives worry only about individual liberty, but the freedom to obey Scripture and exercise authority in the Christian home and Church is under sustained attack, also, and is every bit as serious a usurpation of authority as our loss of individual freedom.

God has ordained authority in the households of the home and Church, and the denial of freedom to those institutions to govern themselves according to Scripture is growing year by year and is a central part of the decline of the West we have experienced. Yet sadly, there has been almost no warning given by our church and home fathers.

The State is our Savior-Protector/Provider and the more dependent the State renders her citizens, the more those citizens will place their faith in the god of the state rather than their own personal gods. And so we arrive at the place where America's most popular gods, whether Mormon, Roman Catholic, or Protestant, pose no particular threat to the state's bipartisan and unilateral commitment to destroy any person or institution blocking the path to her glorious dominion...

Must a gay man go straight?

Under another post, a longtime reader named Jay asks a question that seems worth answering on the main page.

* * *

Dear Jay,

Answering a question like this by writing rather than in person is very difficult, pastorally. How can I show you I love you and am very concerned that you know the mercy of God for your particular set of temptations, especially in a time and place when any condemnation of sodomy is seen as at least shrill, and likely smug, insensitive, and grounded in self-righteousness, to boot?

Still, I will work to answer you because you say others are unwilling to do so, and because you are a precious soul belonging to the Lord of us all Who bought us each with His Own Blood and has called us to be holy as He is holy. If you want, I can put you in touch with those struggling with your particular set of temptations who are a part of our church here in Bloomington and you may ask them if what I write here is from love or censoriousness? You may ask whether you’d find our church to be loving of all regardless of their particular besetting sin, or loving only of those with more acceptable besetting sins?

So on to the difficult work others have avoided.

You wrote, “I would not consider myself heterosexual at all. Is being straight a requirement?”

Let’s clarify the question. The opposite of straight is gay, so another way of asking the question would be, “My psychological and emotional identity and inclinations are completely homosexual, so can I be give in to them as long as I don’t go all the way?” Or another way of saying it would be, “May I give myself to gayness rather than straightness in everything but physical intercourse, and will this please God?”

The answer is...

Children are amazingly resilient...

Lots of you have forwarded the story about the foolish couple in Toronto trying to keep their newborn's sex a secret. Hissy-fits and kudos all around, depending on your politics.

But really how different is it from the normal Christian home where, aside from putting body parts together when it's time for marriage...

Whack-a-Bell Rob...

This by kind permission of Chris Carmichael of the Sacred Sandwich. Thanks for your good work, Chris.

Standing in the gap; assassination of bin Laden...

Two posts from my son, Joseph Bayly, worth reading--the first on standing in the gap and the second on the assasination of Osama bin Laden.

Joseph and David Abu-Sara are leading a church plant in Indianapolis called ClearNote Church of Indianapolis. Listen to some of the sermons, here; I commend their ministry to you and your Indy friends and relatives.

(TB)

Why U.S. Armed Forces burned Bibles and where it leads...

If you have children, watch this video with them and use it to explain the world we're leaving behind and the very different world that's coming at us full-tilt.

(TB)

Hide it under a bushel, yes! I'm gonna blur the lines...

(Tim, w/thanks to Tenile: One blogger produced a very, very rough transcript of Martin Bashir interviewing Rob Bell and I asked Tenile Victorsen if she'd give us a good one. Here it is. If you find an error, please let us know and we'll correct it. Interspersed in the text are a few comments of my own in black text between brackets, italicized.)

Bashir: One mega church pastor has ignited a theological firestorm by suggesting that our response to the Christian message in this life will not necessarily determine our eternal destiny. In his book Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Rob Bell says that ultimately all people will be saved, even those who’ve rejected the claims of Christianity. He argues people will eventually be persuaded by God’s love, postmortem, in the life to come. [Note how straighforward Bashir is stating Bell's thesis. As we enter the murkiness of Bell's words, we must remind ourselves of this straighforward warning from God:  "...it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment..." (Hebrews 9:27)] Pastor Rob Bell joins us now. Good afternoon, sir. Before we come to talk about the book, just help us with this tragedy in Japan. Which of these is true? Either God is all-powerful but he doesn’t care about the people of Japan and, therefore, they’re suffering, or he does care about the people of Japan but he’s not all-powerful? Which one is it? [Do we really have to choose between these two, Mr. Bashir?]

Bell: I begin with the belief [Let the listener understand he means no offense to those with a different belief.] that God--when we shed a tear, God sheds a tear. [Hallmark card sentiment, but the scale of the senitment doesn't match the scale of the horror. Pastor Bell trivializes the massive death and destruction of the earthquakes and tsunamis, or the terrible suffering of the Japanese people. Just one tear? Whole cities destroyed and "a tear" for Pastor Bell and "a tear" for God?] So I begin with a divine being [Speaking to the Areopagus surrounded by the pantheon of gods, the Apostle Paul declares: “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth..." (Acts 17:24). Speaking to the world today in the midst of our pantheon of gods, Pastor Bell can't even bring himself to use the definite article to refer to his god. It's not "the God Who is there" but "a divine being."] who is profoundly [Adverbs weaken arguments but strengthen sentiment. Pastor Bell adores adverbs.] empathetic, compassionate and stands in solidarity with us. [Actually, God stands in solidarity only with those who, by faith, are "in Christ" and His Church. Concerning all others, the ax is at the root. Thus note how, by leaving "us" undefined, Pastor Bell denies the distinction between the Church and the world. This denial of distinctions is central to his false prophecies and is a defining prejudice of post-moderns--Pastor Bell's target audience.] Secondly, the dominant story [To speak of the work of redemption recorded in Scripture as a "story" reminds me of what everyone said when the planes took down the World Trade Center on 9/11: "It was just like the movies." The false images of movies helped our mind's eye to see...

Nationalized health care and parental authority...

(Andrew Henry) The conflict over Joseph Maraachli throws into stark relief our modern age's attack on the authority of fathers and mothers.

The circumstances are simple and painful. Several years ago, Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader lost their daughter, Zina, to a degenerative neurological condition. Her respiratory function deteriorated so severely that she was placed on a ventilator. Rather than allowing her to die in the hospital, her parents decided to take her home. A simple tracheotomy allowed her to breathe without the aid of a ventilator and she lived for six more months at home with her family before passing away.

Fast forward several years to the birth of Joseph. He was considered to be at high risk for the same genetic condition and was closely monitored as he grew. At four months old, he began having seizures and his parents worst fears were confirmed...

Would I vote for Governor Daniels if he runs...

"Across my lifetime I've been voting for men who claimed to be anti-abortion but after taking office did nothing to oppose the slaughter. I'm tired of it. I don't want to be lied to any more. Daniels isn't lying to me."

(Tim) Readers will remember my basic rule about voting: I won't vote for a county dog-catcher who isn't pro-life.

That said, if I were to make an exception, it might be for our Governor Mitch Daniels. A few months ago I got a call from an Iowa man long involved in Iowa politics asking my thoughts on Daniels for president? A couple friends work in the Daniels administration and since that conversation I've been thinking about a potential Daniels candidacy quite a lot. Here's a piece from the Wall Street Journal that has it about right...

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels believes he faces a taller challenge as he ponders a White House run: Could voters warm to his message that the country is doomed unless it slashes its debt and radically revamps the popular Social Security and Medicare programs?

In any other year, a campaign platform that gloomy would render a politician toxic. Today, with concerns over the nation's fiscal health on the rise, the Indiana Republican's wonkish bravado is making some think he is a good fit for the moment.

If the time is indeed right for Mr. Daniels's get-tough message, the angry budget standoffs in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey are also shining a new light on his credentials as a messenger. Mr. Daniels rescinded collective-bargaining rights for state employees six years ago—long before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker caused a firestorm by putting the same issue on the table.

Mr. Daniels also cut spending, trimmed the state work force to its smallest in decades, and turned a yawning deficit into a surplus, with only scattered outbursts of popular anger along the way.

He has emerged from all this with high marks from voters, and a profile that sets him apart from the other Republicans mulling a possible 2012 run. An array of conservatives, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, would like to see him enter the 2012 race.

He's the only potential candidate "who sees the stark perils and will offer real detailed proposals," Mr. Bush said last week in praising Mr. Daniels before a Florida business group. Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey on Thursday heaped almost identical praise on his Indiana counterpart.

So would I vote for Governor Daniels if he ran?

Daniels' commitments concerning what he calls "the social issues" are clear and firm...

President himself declares Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional...

(Tim) Our President and his Attorney General have finally decided openly to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act passed by Congress. Congress says its constitutional but the President says it isn't. The New York Times reports the President has determined that...

And from the sea there blossoms red, life that shall endless be...

(Tim, w/thanks to David W.) Concerning the most recent case of Somali piracy, two of the four murdered were the owners of the yacht, Scott and Jean Adam. The BBC reports: "Friends have described the Adams as adventure-seekers who were also driven by their Christian faith, at times distributing Bibles at ports of call." The BBC reports further that Scott Adams had studied at Fuller Seminary. May every last Bible the Adams gave away produce fruit for the Kingdom of God.

Women warriors and the Church...

(Tim) On the subject of Joel Northrup forfeiting his state tournament wrestling match out of deference to a woman, one reader of this Baylyblog post called our readers' attention to a comment by a California high school wrestling coach on another web site. The coach's comment (No. 16) ended with this:

The Israeli army did extensive experiments in the 1960′s and 70′s trying to incorporate women into combat roles along side males, at a time when the survival of Israel was hanging in the balance. But the results were so disastrous, that they were soon abandoned. They found that men would routinely risk themselves and the units safety, and even abandon mission completion, whenever a female member of their combat unit was captured, or even injured. This protective role seemed to be so hardwired into these young men, that it was deemed impossible to “train out” of them. The Israelis determined that a boy would have to be trained from birth to disregard a foundational understanding (call it God given, or evolved) concerning the importance of women, as THE essential element in the continuum of human existence. To try and remove that understanding from the thought process of young men would result, I feel, in a world not worth occupying.

Few things are more indicative of these United States' moral and military bankruptcy than our ideological promotion of women in combat (of which women wrestlers are a sub-species), and few things are more indicative of the Reformed world's weakening commitment to the doctrines of Scripture than the PCA General Assembly AISCOWIM's split down the middle on whether or not to condemn women in combat (as well as the arguments made on the floor of GA when AISCOWIM presented its two reports). While it's true committee members talked much about the spirituality of the church, during internal debate it was always clear that...

Steven Mosher and the latest Rwandan genocide: your tax dollars at work...

(Tim, w/thanks to Dan R.) Back in 1983, a young Stanford anthropologist was booted from China for blowing the whistle on China's forced abortion policy. Steven Mosher (not the Mosher of Climategate) had been in one of China's rural provinces doing Ph.D. research when he discovered China's government forced mothers to murder their unborn children.

Mosher publicized this great oppression and China's government responded by expelling him from the country. Standford University also responded by expelling Mosher from his Ph.D. program. The Chronicle of Higher Education did long articles on the scandal and, despite Stanford's attempt to defend their actions, those of us who read about the case as it developed learned a lesson about the limits of Academic freedom.

Shortly afterwards, Mosher published his best-selling expose of China's mass murders of the unborn, Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese; followed a few years later by Allan Bloom's best-selling expose of the Academy, The Closing of the American Mind.

For some years, now, Mosher has been doing excellent work at the Population Research Institute. Here's a recent example exposing the abuse of our U.S. tax dollars for the coercive sterilization of Rwandan men.

Rahm Emanuel's residency and President Obama's birth...

(Tim, w/thanks) Reading about the mess over whether or not Rahm Emanuel meets the residency requirements to run for mayor of Chicago reminds me of the continuing mess over President Obama's birth certificate. As I've said before, just produce it for us, already. It's constitutionally important!

But they don't produce it.

And "former Hawaii elections clerk Tim Adams has now signed an affidavit swearing he was told by his supervisors in Hawaii that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Barack Obama Jr. in Hawaii and that neither Queens Medical Center nor Kapi'olani Medical Center in Honolulu had any record of Obama having been born in their medical facilities."

Then too, Hawaii's new governor, Neil Abercrombie, who ran on a platform including militant promises that, when he took office, he'd put the question of President Obama's birth certificate to rest once and for all, has taken office, done the research, and is publicly  admitting he can't produce the evidence.

Wise as serpents, harmless as doves...

For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing no little business to the craftsmen; these he gathered together with the workmen of similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business. You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with hands are no gods at all. Not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis be regarded as worthless and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence.” When they heard this and were filled with rage, they began crying out, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:24-28).

(Tim) The newly inaugurated governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley, said this inside a Christian church from that church's pulpit during a worship service: "Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother." 

ABC reports:

A spokesman for the Anti Defamation League said the governor's comments were "stunning" and "distressing" and were tantamount to proselytizing.

"It is stunning to me that he'd make those remarks. It's distressing because of the suggestion that he feels that people who aren't Christian are not entitled to love and respect. On the day that he is sworn in as governor, he's sending a statement to the public saying if you're not Christian you can't be with me. From our point of view that is proselytizing for Christianity and coming very close to a violation of the First Amendment."

Let me keep reminding us that the much-ballyhooed separation of church and state that lulls a certain type of naive Christian man to sleep is a figment of our imagination and this becomes more clear each day. What was meant by freedom of religion by those who wrote and adopted our U.S. Constitution was freedom to acknowledge and worship the Only True God according to the leading of our own consciences. It was never meant to allow Islam or the fools of evolution who say there is no God the same protection as Christians. This is a simple historical fact and is avoided at all costs by those who live in a dream world and desperately want to believe secularism is a tolerant religion.

Exactly like the ancient Roman Empire, America's laws and civil magistrates and the schools they force us to fund are supremely religious and utterly intolerant. The religion is secularism and it's committed to outlawing true Christian faith. Those Christians who think they will be allowed to practice Biblical faith under secular civil magistrates are blind to the reality of their own lives as well as the lives being prepared for their children and grandchildren...

"Some of New York City's most prominent religious leaders" mourn city's aborted babies...

(Tim, w/thanks to Matthew M.) Religious leaders in New York City came together this past week to speak out against the pervasive slaughter of unborn children in their city. Of every one hundred babies given by God to women of the city, forty-one of these precious little ones are murdered by abortionists. (The figure is 48% in the Bronx, 38% in Manhattan; here are the stats.) The Sun reported:

Some of New York City’s most prominent religious leaders are making a public demand for answers as to why decades of social welfare programs aimed at making abortions a rarity have not only failed, but failed so dramatically.

The leaders — spanning Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant clergy — issued their demand at a press conference today at Manhattan. They said they are galvanized by new data showing that some 87,000 abortions were performed in New York City in 2009, a figure that accounts for 41% of all pregnancies across the five boroughs that year. That 41% rate is nearly double the national average.

“The Statue of Liberty should be the symbol of this city, not the grim reaper,” declared the current archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York, the Most Rev. Timothy Dolan.

Which religious leaders joined in the public lament? The New York Times...

The modern and morbid habit of sacrificing the normal on the altar of the abnormal...

(Tim, w/thanks to DW) This just in from Fox News:

The words “mother” and “father” will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology, the State Department says. “The words in the old form were ‘mother’ and ‘father,’” said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services. "They are now ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two.’" Sprague said the decision to remove the traditional parenting names was not an act of political correctness.

A statement on the State Department website noted: “These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families.” (Read more...)

When in Rome...

(Tim, w/thanks...; this post has twice been revised: first, after a commenter provided a link to a video clip of a woman preaching in the Christ Reformed Church (physical) pulpit; and second, after receiving a complaint from Christ Reformed Church's pastor.)

A reader directed my attention to this post by an R2K pastor in D.C. who's busy marketing his congregation, Christ Reformed Church, to the incoming class of legislators. Christ Reformed is a United Reformed Church plant by a Westminster Seminary California grad who hangs with the ACE and White Horse Inn guys. He's brought Michael Horton to his church.  He's also brought Dr. Marva Dawn.

Here's a video clip of Dr. Dawn preaching on the subject "Preaching in the Capital." The clip is from Christ Reformed's "Sermon Podcast" page and here's an excerpt:

A lot of people who choose their pastor by whether or not she or he will preach the Gospel truly, or whether she or he will tickle ears. But we are called to be faithful to the Word, and not to allow people to turn away from the truth.

-Dr. Marva Dawn, Christ Reformed Church (URC), Washington D.C.

Help me, here: is it that as long as the one presiding over Lord's Day corporate worship is a man, nothing else matters? Realize that every Reformed Father from every prior generation would find this utterly repulsive.

But on to R2K: turns out R2K's revolutionary method of church-state relations is just the very old method practiced by other Evangelical intellectuals like Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis, but in Reformed drag...

Merry Christmas: science isn't all it's cracked up to be...

(Tim, w/thanks to Pastor Curell) The scientific method is coming in for some hard knocks, recently, as efforts to replicate a number of critical studies fail. Some would prefer to put it that "replication is proving difficult," but after reading some of the stats, "failure" seems the right description. In discipline after discipline, scientists doing experiments over again find themselves unable to replicate earlier findings that minted academic superstars and set the standard for medical practice, for instance.

Some of the inability to replicate is likely attributable to the very old problem we all fall into of looking for proof that we're right. The problem is too widespread, though, for that alone to be the answer. Thus the New Yorker subtitled its article reporting on this crisis under its Annals of Science: "The Truth Wears Off: Is There Something Wrong with the Scientific Method?"

After reviewing hundreds of papers and forty-four meta-analyses, Australian National University's Michael Jennions found "a consistent decline effect over time, as many of the theories seemed to fade into irrelevance. ...Jenions admits that his findings are troubling, but expresses a reluctance to talk about them publicly."

"Gender disappointment..."

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) Speaking of "gender" being a choice, your next-door neighbor has murdered three of her unborn sons because she doesn't want a son--she wants a daughter. But there's a better way.

California IVF doctors are now selling mothers the freedom to choose their unborn baby's gender...

Columbia prof, Huffington blogger arrested for incest...

(Tim: this post is by Church of the Good Shepherd's David Talcott; it's interesting to note that, so far as I've been able to tell, the New York Times doesn't consider this news "fit to print.")

This past Friday, December 10th, Professor David Epstein of Columbia University (formerly of Harvard and Standord; also a blogger for Huffington Post) was arrested on charges of incest. Though every man is legally innocent until proven guilty, it is hard to imagine that the Boys in Blue would arrest a tenured, full professor at Columbia without having good evidence. Based on initial news reports Epstein is accused of having sex with his adult daughter (now age 24)...

Womyn in combat...

(Tim, w/thanks to Scott) Our national president of shrews, Eleanor Smeal, sent an e-mail out earlier today exhorting her constituents to protest the don't ask, don't tell policy. She's desperate to see it repealed before the Republicans take over. Smeal made the point that this policy is a particular hardship to her sex because women comprise a disproportionate number of the 13,000 soldiers discharged for sodomy in the past sixteen years. (And yes, historically, "sodomy" includes copulation against the order of nature.)

Smeal reports that, in 2009, although women were only one seventh of Army soldiers, they were half of those discharged for the same-sex perversion. Similarly in the Air Force, although only one out of every five airmen was a woman, one out of two discharged was a woman. In the Navy, one out of every eight sailors was a woman...

"So that the land will not spew you out..."

(Tim) Responding to this article from Family Research Council commenting on President Barack Obama's use of his office of Commander in Chief to promote sodomy, a friend of mine who is a longtime IVCF staff worker in a metro area of the Eastern Seaboard sent this e-mail:

Friends, I’d be interested in your take on the first article here. I’m as strongly against homosexual activity as anyone but I’m not sure I see the logic of banning them from the military. Prohibiting any and all sexual contact among servicemen, yes. But can we ban someone’s desires in a public way?

I’m not sure this is as clear-cut as many conservatives make it out to be. Your thoughts?

To which I responded...

Turn and face the strange, ch-ch-changes...

A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God. - Deuteronomy 22:5

(Tim) Speaking of mishmash, take the words 'sex' and 'gender' as an example. Until the past few years, there were two sexes, but three or four (or more) genders. 'Sex' was body parts and core identity flowing from those body parts while 'gender' was kind, sort, or class. Which is to say in the old days biology was destiny and sex was anything but plastic. From conception, God made man man or woman, and precious little escaped that physical division.

But today, language has become one of the principal weapons in the rebels' arsenal and Exhibit A is the death of 'sex'. Suzi was born a boy, but the doctor botched her circumcision and no one wants to hurt her feelings; Zoe was born a hermaphrodite and no one wants him to feel odd or left out; Johny grows up dressing like a woman and no one wants to hurt his feelings.

Anyone can see sex is really much more complicated than the two wooden categories used by all those ignoramuses who came before us. It's a continuum--not just body parts. It's endless aspects of personality and taste and clothing and family of origin stuff..."

Teachers bully students at Bloomington High School North...

(Tim) Yesterday, in the name of teaching normal students how to avoid making students committed to sexual perversion feel bad about their perversion, the young men and women at Bloomington High School North were required to watch a movie that promoted bestiality. In that movie, young perverts complained about how hard it is to be committed to bestiality when normal boys and girls act squeamish about it. They can't change the way they feel about animals, they said, so why can't other boys and girls get over it and learn to accept their unique sexual identity?

Of course, the reason perverts feel bad about themselves is that, even with the help of teachers and school counselors, we have a tough time silencing our consciences. When we give ourselves to sexual immorality, inevitably it takes a toll on us, particularly when we're young and still feel our guilt acutely. When those tempted by bestiality give in to their perversion, depression sets in. Inevitably, depression sometimes leads to suicide.

To fault those normal souls who fight against that same perversion by avoiding the sin and those who advocate it is to blame the victim. The perversion should never be mentioned in public, nor should any boy or girl be able to parade that perversion among our children through wicked and destructive conversations, clothing, or other stylistic signatures associated with bestiality. It's time for the school systems paid for with our tax dollars to stop bullyng our children in the name of tolerance. We don't pay taxes to have bestiality shoved down our sons and daughter's throats...

Eat a bagel, the civil magistrate kidnaps your baby...

(Tim, w/thanks to a brother) Over and over, I warn Christian fathers and mothers that each community's child protective services pose a terrible threat to our covenant children. Since twenty-five years ago when we lived in rural Wisconsin and a dear godly pastor and his wife had their son kidnapped by the state, to the past few years when our church and family have had the state threaten four of our families with the loss of their children, it's only becoming more clear each year that the state is not content to have our children in their schools to be indoctrinated from age five through eighteen. They will come after our children at home, also, and kidnap them from their father and mother after getting one anonymous phone call from a malicious neighbor, an officious nurse, a jealous lesbian, or a practicing witch who hates Christ and is delighted to torment his sons and daughters at the place of their greatest vulnerability.

We must do everything possible to oppose this growing threat to our precious children and grandchildren. Remember C. S. Lewis' warning that they'll tell us we can have our religion in private and then make sure we're never alone.

The suffering of children growing up in homes where they are the objects of physical and sexual and spiritual torment is horrible, crying out to God Almighty for His intervention. But to adress these problems in a way that undercuts the authority and love of the children's natural sovereigns given them by God...

New York City Council warns: "No 'licensed medical provider' slaughters babies here..."

(Tim: this post from our New York City correspondent, a Manhattan attorney from Redeemer Presbyterian Church.) Here are two New York Times articles (one and two) regarding recent developments on the abortion front in New York City that highlight (i) the pro abortion position of the NYTimes and (ii) new legislation proposed by the New York City Council that requires pro-life pregnancy centers to post signs that basically say "make sure you visit Planned Parenthood too."

As described in one of the articles:

To compensate for ambiguities like unclear signage at the centers, the bill, set to be announced on Tuesday, would require, among other things, signs at the entrance and in the waiting rooms to inform women that the center does not provide abortions or contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and that it does not provide referrals for those options, either. Signage would also need to make it clear if no licensed medical professional is on the staff.

"She can't ask for an apology..."

(Tim) You go public with the truth that a married man made crude sexual overtures to you in the office at work; his career is nearly busted and his reputation trashed around the world; then, twenty years later when his wife leaves one message on your office phone politely asking you to explain your actions and to apologize to her husband, you... What? Call the police? Ask them to send a recording of the voice mail to the FBI because the message was "not invited"? Call in the New York Times and play the message for them?

You lie, publicly accusing a married man of making crude sexual overtures to you in the office at work...

A voice for the voiceless; and Roman Catholics cheer...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) As some readers remember, back in 2005 my brother David, Pastor Dave Curell, and I were joined by a few friends and family from Church of the Good Shepherd outside the nursing home in Pinellas Park, Florida, where we were opposing our civil magistrates' judicial murder of Terry Schiavo. The president, justices and judges, the governor, and policemen executed her because she was in a "persistent vegetative state," or "PVS."

Some of these civil authorities publicly stated they were opposed to Terry's execution. Some even lifted a finger to protect her.

But the conspiracy had no real opponents other than many hundreds of Roman Catholics outside the nursing home saying their rosaries under huge images of Jesus and Mary.

Too, there were a couple Reformed Protestants. But really, it was embarrassing to see how ill-informed they were concerning the proper doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. If only they'd known the spirituality of the Church allowed them--particularly pastors--to do and say nothing, but simply to stay home. (Unless, that is, they'd already observed Lord's Day corporate worship and they could do their Sabbath deed of mercy without travelling far enough to have to buy gas.)

Five years later, Roman Catholic blogs are announcing the good news that Cambridge researchers have used EEG monitors and fMRI to give voice to the voiceless. Researchers are charting the electrical activity of PVS patients' brains in response to questions. The patient is asked to answer "yes" by imagining playing tennis, while for "no" he's to imagine walking through a house. Turns out PVS patients are every much alive and aware...

Give glory to the Lord...

Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, I implore you, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and give praise to Him; and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me.” (Joshua 7:19)

(Tim) MLB's pitching superstar, Roger Clemens, has been indicted for lying and obstruction of justice in testimony he gave before Congress about his use of performance enhancing drugs. In "Pettitte's Words and Character Carry Weight," the Times' George Vecsey compares Clemens to his longtime friend, Andy Pettitte, whose testimony carried the most weight in assuring Clemens' indictment.

Vecsey reports Clemens is "the alpha male in that friendship, the man with the huge gymnasium on his property, the man who knew how to train his way to eternal youth, to the Hall of Fame one day."

And Pettitte?

Vecsey says he's "humble" and that when he provided testimony before Congress, he...

A pastor's wisdom on the Ground Zero mosque...

(Tim) One of the many things about our culture that seduces me to despair is the utter vacuity of political comment--of course in the Times and both Posts; but sadly often in World and Christianity Today, also. There's little light, and only salt replacement. None of the real thing for fear of high blood pressure.

If you'd like a quick glimpse at the sort of thing American political commentary used to be full of, but never says today, check out this post by Doug Wilson on the building of the mosque near Ground Zero. It has the sort of wisdom a pastor steeped in the Word of God and prayer should bring...

The United Nations is utterly corrupt...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) We were privileged to have dear friends who serve in DR Congo with us for a week, recently. The husband grew up an MK in Congo and he and his wife have given their lives in service to Africa.

One evening, the discussion turned to the United Nations and I was shocked to hear the strength of this godly couple's condemnation. The wife said something like, "The United Nations is totally corrupt." What she said, though, was even worse--I just can't remember her exact words. I asked if she'd meant what she said and she intensified the condemnation.

The United Nations is perversely wicked in its work in Africa, and this extends not simply to its policies, but also to UN individuals profiteering both financially and sexually. Along with many of the NGOs, these UN men and women are the new colonialists.

If I were running for President...

Who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel...

(Tim) Digging the hole for an in-ground swimming pool led to French authorities unearthing the tiny corpses of eight infants murdered and buried by their mother in her back yards. Acknowledging such child slaughter to be a growing trend, French authorities are horrified. In an article titled "Why Are French Women Killing Their Babies," several possible explanations are given:

Experts explained each of those cases as resulting from pregnancy denial, an often misunderstood and minimized condition. According to (former gynecologist) Michel Delcroix ...pregnancy denial is a quasi-schizophrenic condition in which women either don't realize or cannot accept that they are with child — not even enough to have their unwanted babies aborted... Delcroix says it's now rising in frequency. The probable reason, he says, is changes in wider social factors that have downgraded the value of childhood, parenting and family.

But in some cases, it can also be a matter of women simply failing to see themselves as mothers. "Some women never manage to update their self-identity during pregnancy, [while others] want to become pregnant without wanting to procreate," psychiatrist Pierre Lamothe told Le Parisien on Thursday. "When the child arrives, it doesn't really exist for them. They don't give it life, in psychological terms. If they saw it as a [real] baby, they wouldn't kill it."

Others just never realize — or acknowledge — that they're with child.

Women don't realize they're "with child?"

Why would they when seconds prior to birth these same mothers can murder these same children with no consequences at all? Who exactly is "quasi-schizophrenic"--these mothers or the civil magistrate?

Think about it: a mother sees no reason why waiting a few minutes to murder her baby should cause the civil magistrate to prosecute and imprison her. Why should she leave the comfort of her own home...

Koop says Kagan's actions make her unfit for SCOTUS...

(Tim, w/thanks to Heather) There's more than ample evidence that, if confirmed to SCOTUS, Ms. Kagan will serve for many years as President Obama's hack, faithfully politicizing our highest court in order to protect the murder of many millions of children across our land.

No better proof of the depth to which Ms. Kagan has sunk in the past, and is likely to continue in for decades in the future, is this account by former Surgeon General and longtime member of Tenth Presbyterian Church, C. Everett Koop, detailing how Ms. Kagan supported the murder of unborn, but viable, babies by manipulating the words of...

Christian faith is hate speech...

(Tim) So, speaking only personally, I have a friend fired from the faculty of Greenville College (a small Christian liberal arts college in Southern Illinois where three of my in-laws attended), for defending Christian orthodoxy; another friend denied the Ph.D. by Harvard because his thesis defended Christian orthodoxy; another friend ejected from his Ph.D. program in the history department at UW-Madison (my own alma mater and major department) because of his commitment to Christian orthodoxy; another friend terminated from Covenant College who found the atmosphere there stifling to Reformed orthodoxy; another friend disciplined and publicly humiliated by the Vice Chancellor in the Faculty Council (on which he sat) for holding to Christian orthodoxy (see here, here, and here); and now, another friend has been terminated...

Mexican drug cartels and John Eldredge...

(Since publishing this post, I've realized some of our readers may never have heard that John Eldredge opposes Scripture at key points in his writing. So, I'm adding several links here (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven) as a warning to our readers not to be snookered into buying Eldredge's books or listening to his false teaching. Many have been harmed by him and there's no need for any others to fall into the trap.)

Eldredge is likely the most popular proponent of the heresy known as open theism. (He) is not a trustworthy teacher of the Word of God. While he presents an attractive message and often does so in an attractive way, much of the content simply does not line up with Scripture. He denies many of the truths orthodox believers have long held to. I do not recommend his books and encourage you to exercise extreme caution when dealing with his teachings.  -Tim Challies

(Tim) Speaking of the perversion of Biblical male sexuality sold in books like Wild at Heart (see final comment under "Sacred Swooning" post), the most recent New Yorker has a piece on the murderous drug cartels displacing the rule of law in much of Mexico. The article delves deeply into one relatively recent cartel known as La Familia, reporting that La Familia's leader, El Chayo or El Mas Loco (the Craziest), "is inspired... it has been reported, by the muscular Christianity of John Eldredge...

As our Commander in Chief pushes sodomy into our barracks...

(Tim) Because I'm a citizen of these United States of America and have a number of men in my congregation who serve in our Armed Forces, I care deeply about the integrity of our nation's homeland security forces (the mandate our military used to follow). That integrity has already been gravely damaged by the mainstreaming of the weaker sex among our soldiers. Everything now indicates our President's resolve to further politicize and weaken the military, using it as an instrument to oppose God and His Moral Law by repealing the ban on sodomy and sodomites.

And as an explanation to new readers, I discipline myself to use the words 'sodomy' and 'sodomite' as a Biblical witness so that shame and horror will continue to be attached to this sexual perversion. For 2,000 years, this usage has been common, reminding us all of the fire of God's wrath that rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah's abominations.

There are a number of voices in the wilderness calling our nation back to sanity in these matters. As an aid to our fulfilling our Christian obligation to be salt and light, here are some useful links...

The conscience criminalized...

Woe to those who enact evil statutes And to those who constantly record unjust decisions, So as to deprive the needy of justice And rob the poor of My people of their rights, So that widows may be their spoil And that they may plunder the orphans. Now what will you do in the day of punishment, And in the devastation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? And where will you leave your wealth? Nothing remains but to crouch among the captives Or fall among the slain. In spite of all this, His anger does not turn away And His hand is still stretched out. (Isaiah 10:1-4)

(Tim: This by Brian Bailey, an attorney and elder here at Church of the Good Shepherd) On October 28, 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Congress tacked the hate crimes act onto the tail end of an already 646-page, $686 billion Department of Defense bill.[1]

A hate crimes racket?

What is a federal hate crime? “[W]hoever, whether or not acting under color of law, in any circumstance described in subparagraph (B) or paragraph (3), willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person” commits a federal hate crime.

We can breathe a sigh of relief. We don’t plan to cause homosexuals or cross-dressers “bodily injury,” and thus the statute could not possibly apply to us. But . . . why this nagging doubt about the reach of the hate crime act?

Legal and illegal drugs...

(Tim, w/thanks to Yoseph) Psychotropic drugs have a place, I'm sure, but this short article (very unfortunately, where Arianna and her buddies huff and puff against God) demonstrates there are druggies on both sides of the legality fence. Whether the addict is getting his drugs from dealers, pain clinics, or psychiatrists, the cost to society and the drug-addled zombies and their families is terrible. Of course, like most sins of our culture, this one too is an epidemic among confessing Christians.

One in every forty-five adults of working age is getting money from taxpayers for a mental illness disability. And the number of children receiving federal payments for mental illness jumped from 16,200 in 1987 to 561,569 in 2007.

But maybe this explosion of legal drug use allows men to function as more productive members of society?

Apparently not...

A pastoral letter on the expansion of wicked oppression through nationalized health care...

 "For every Baby Doe, there will be ten-thousand Grandma and Grandpa Does." -C. Everett Koop

"Can a man take fire in his bosom And his clothes not be burned? Or can a man walk on hot coals And his feet not be scorched? (Proverbs 6:27, 28).

"The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes. Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the hearts. To do righteousness and justice Is desired by the LORD more than sacrifice. ...The violence of the wicked will drag them away, Because they refuse to act with justice." (Proverbs 21:1-3,7)

(Tim) If the heart of the king is a river directed by the hand of God, much more so the hearts of the men leading our nation in Congress and the Senate. And despite the conniving claims of Emergelicals that Jesus would be for the nationalization of health care, I've been to Jerusalem and seen what turning one-sixth of the economy of these United States inevitably will produce.

My brother, David, and Pastor Curell and Doug Ummel and Joel Belz and Paul Fratiani and lots of others with your scribe were there five years ago in Pinellas Park, Florida, when our civil servants murdered Terry Schiavo. We saw it with our own eyes and we know the rule of law is gone in these United States. The civil magistrate has become the predator and he devours the lives of the weak and innocent and oppressed.

Make no mistake about it: there are many nice things about nationalized health care that will make it go down smoothly. I have a dear relative who finally will be able to get coverage without his serious pre-existing conditions ruling him out...