BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Joseph Maraachli and the state's usurpation of parental authority...

Joseph Maracchli was the subject of an intense right-to-life battle in Canada last spring. Sadly, a couple months ago he died at his parents’ home in Windsor, Ontario. He was 20 months old. Andrew Henry wrote about Joseph on Baylyblog back in March. You may review the details here.

The number of similar cases will explode in coming months and years and there are important lesssons Christian fathers and mothers should learn. God has given parents the natural affection and compassion for their own children that no doctor can truly have no matter how highly trained or respected he may be.

This is not to say that parents are incapable of being neglectful of their children, but it's the exception rather than the rule. God’s good gift to children is parents who are loving and tender toward them.

The ever-increasing power and authority of government in our lives can only produce bad fruit, and the belief that a well-paid and benevolent bureaucracy can make better decisions than parents is wicked...

Ugh, it's Christianity Today, again--this time weighing in against spanking...

Knives are necessary to cut meat and bread. Every once in a while, knives are used to kill people. Can we all agree knives aren't the problem? Please? Pretty please?

The abuse of a thing does not invalidate its proper use.

This truth has eluded the editors of Christianity Today. In a recent editorial they use the death of several children at the hands of their fathers and mothers as the spectre to soften readers up to their dogma that "corporal punishment ...should be employed miles short of abuse, without anger, and as an absolute last resort." From their perch in Moses' seat, these scribes declare about spanking that "the Bible does not require it" (emphasis in the original).

Think about this. The magazine that purports to be the voice of Biblical inerrancy and Christian faith in these United States has run an editorial declaring that the rod of discipline God Himself requires God Himself does not require. And if that sentence confuses you, all I can say is I couldn't figure out how to put it more clearly.

And if you're one of the pigheaded ones who balks against progress, just be sure you only use the rod as "an absolute last resort." 

But the Bible commands us to use the rod. God requires it...

For your tomorrow, we gave our today...

"The word of the LORD you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?” (2 Kings 20:19)

This year Iain and Jean Murray write in their family letter...

What about women in combat...

Here is the Majority Report of the Presbyterian Church in America General Assembly's Ad Interim Study Committee on Women in the Military whose recommendations were adopted by General Assembly in 2002. Being this report's principal author, naturally I commend this document to our readers. If biblical Christians today studied this report and by faith embraced its doctrine of Creation Order sexuality, it would be a significant step toward the restoration of the unity of the Church. Too, these United States would again have salty salt and lighty light in the public debate raging over the meaning and purpose of sexuality. (TB)

* * *

MAN’S DUTY TO PROTECT WOMAN

We, the undersigned, endorse the Consensus Report, while realizing that Report lacks unity on the crucial matter of whether the recommendations it contains constitute the church’s wise counsel or a Christian’s scriptural duty. Believing that this is a matter of scriptural duty, we have joined together in writing this report to the end that we might set forth with confidence and clarity the full counsel—both New and Old Testaments—of the Word of God concerning this matter. Our report attempts to summarize three areas of evidence, as follows:

First, God the Father wages war in defense of Israel, His Bride; Christ our Savior fights to the Death defending His Bride, the Church; the Holy Spirit calls men as officers to guard and protect His Bride; the duty to protect the Garden of Eden and the warning not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was given by God to Adam; husbands protect their wives, not wives their husbands. Thus we are taught the binding nature of man’s duty to guard and protect his home and wife.

Second, woman is the weaker sex and part of her weakness is the vulnerability attendant to her greatest privilege—that God has made her the “Mother of all the living.” Men are to guard and protect her as she carries in her womb, gives birth to, and nurses her children.

Third, we are to renounce every thought and action which tends towards a diminishment of sexual differentiation since God made it and called it “good.” [E.g. Scripture’s injunctions concerning women exercising authority over men (1 Timothy 2), women or men wearing clothing of the opposite sex (Deuteronomy 22:5), sodomy (Leviticus 20:15-16), etc.] Rather than a stingy attitude which minimizes sexuality’s implications, we ought to rejoice in this, His blessing.

It is our conviction that these areas, taken together, provide a clear and compelling scriptural rationale for declaring our church’s principled opposition to women serving in military combat positions.

When a man loves a woman, he will lay down his life to defend her, just as Christ loved His Bride and gave Himself up for Her. Men have proudly fulfilled this duty from time immemorial, demonstrating what A. A. Hodge in his commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith referred to as the law of nature, common to all nations, that is “unchanged” to this present day. Dying for their wives, regenerate and unregenerate men have done “by nature (the) things required by the law.”[1]

Hodge divides the Old Testament law into four categories...

Like a weaned child...

A Song of Ascents, of David. O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.

O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time forth and forever. - Psalms 131

Last night in an elders meeting with a couple suffering a troubled marriage, we were reminding the couple that God's goodness calls us out of our romantic idolatry of our husband (or wife) by shoving our nose in the truth of his sin. And ours...

Seeing our husband's sin exposes our own sin, also, as the Holy Spirit leads us away from worshipping man to love and adore God Alone.

The discipline is difficult. And if we are tempted to reject it and continue to hold our idolatry precious, it is the love of our Heavenly Father to intensify it until we unstiffen our necks. In that context we told of the warning Thomas Watson gives in The Ten Commandments that God sometimes disiplines a father's idolatry of his child by taking that child's life. This is God's love.

The 9/11 suicide mission of Lt. Heather Penney...

They didn't know it at the time, but Todd Beamer and his fellow stalwarts on Flight 93 saved the life of one woman intent on taking theirs--Kamikaze style. Ten years later, the Washington Post broke the story (in its "Lifestyle" section, of course):

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney was on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base and ready to fly. She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93. The day’s fourth hijacked airliner seemed to be hurtling toward Washington. Penney, one of the first two combat pilots in the air that morning, was told to stop it.

The one thing she didn’t have as she roared into the crystalline sky was live ammunition. Or missiles. Or anything at all to throw at a hostile aircraft.

Except her own plane. So that was the plan.

When they ordered her to scramble, did anyone know whether or not Penney was pregnant? And if she was, did they ask her little baby if he was willing to die on his mother's suicide mission?

Mother murders eight-year-old son, claims mercy-killing defense...

The defense sounds insane until you realize this is precisely the explanation tens of millions of mothers have used since 1973 to justify their murder of their unborn babies. His life was sad so I murdered him.

What we want to know is why this defense works with parents who murder their unborn and defective newborn children...

Church officers and fathers who cover up sexual crimes...

"Fathers need to know this: avoiding the potential shame by not providing justice for your daughter is a cowardly act that will be forever remembered..." - longtime PCA elder and father of little daughters just found to have been raped by a relative

Here's an e-mail we received responding to the post "With the souls of sodomites destroyed, children are next...". As you will see, the e-mail is filled with horrors--particularly the horror of Christians who refuse to recognize the horrors taking over our homes and churches and to respond to them Biblically.

Since posting this and the previous piece, it's become clear to me that readership of this post has been small. And I believe this means sexual sin and the rampant fornication and pornography that are its seedbed will live on in the church, gaining ground while church officers and household fathers abandon their flocks and talk exchange blog posts and comments about family-centered churches and post-millenialism.

The predators love this.

So please, look again at the pull-quote at the top and ask yourself if you and your church officers are beyond it? If you're such good fathers, pastors, elders, deacons, and Titus 2 women that you don't need to find out what it means or how to respond to this failure of fathers filling our churches with bitterness? I'm sure no one relishes reading such a rebuke, but then do we really think the Corinthians enjoyed the Apostle Paul's letters?

Note particulary the father's statement about the cowardice of fathers who try to cover up the crime rather than protecting their children. This is the reality of my pastoral experience, over and over again. Our session submits the criminal to the civil magistrate. Always. Immediately. And so must you.

Living in a university community, over many years, now, ClearNote Church has been blessed by God with a good number of opportunities to be servants of reconciliation in these tragic circumstances. We would be pleased to serve your church's officers by providing support and counsel when you need help with sexual abuse and crimes against our Lord's little ones. Please feel free to contact us.

Now, on to the account...

A thousand words...

A great blog pic. Be sure to read the verse. Gotta love that male inclusive... (TB)

Trains, derailments, and climbing trestles...

Two days ago, a mile and a half from our home, a coal train derailed spilling thirty-five aluminum gondolas of coal on the rail bed at the Garrison Chapel Road crossing. Unlike the old steel coal cars, these aluminum cars didn't go off the track and sit on top of each other. They turned into mangled carcasses filling the crossing with something like seven million pounds of coal! Here's a picture of our grandchildren and friends watching the cherrypickers working. When I was an air brakeman/car knocker for Chicago & North Western at their Proviso Yards in the early seventies, working the cherry picker at a derailment was the most coveted job.

About five miles west of the derailment, the coal train had just crossed this viaduct. Imagine the mess if the train had derailed just a few miles earlier!

This trestle is the third highest in the world and we love driving there on a Sunday afternoon to hang out. We took my mother there, recently. She sat in a chair at the side of the road and watched her grandchildren and great grandchildren climb the hill to the top of the viaduct. Then she watched my wife, Mary Lee, climb the steel support she was sitting under...

Motherhood as a mission field...

Several of you have forwarded a link to Motherhood as a Mission Field by Femina's Rachel Jankovic. Dear mothers in Israel, do read it.

Bad exposure...

Wife and mother Michal Crum comments, "I can't help but apply this poster to American women and the sexual revolution: lack of modesty=bad exposure, producing 'working for free' and then: you don't value your sexuality so neither will anyone else."

Design by Andy Luce from Visual Armory.

More heresy from Baker's wolves...

I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:29-30)

Look what Baker Book House makes its living from today. Professor Alan G. Padgett has written a book blasphemously titled, As Christ Submits to the Church, claiming it's a "biblical understanding of leadership and mutual submission."

The marketers tell us the author is a "theologian" with the terminal degree from Oxford. Did you know how easy it is to get into Oxford for grad studies in theology? Every other applicant gets accepted.

The pic on the book's cover tells us the contents are simply the outworking of Jesus' Upper Room command to wash one another's feet. Very olde truths, don't you know?

Then this:

As Christ submits to the church, so all Christians must submit to, serve, and care for one another. Padgett articulates a creative approach to mutual submission and explores its practical outworking in the church today, providing biblical and ethical affirmation for equality in leadership. Professors and students in practical theology and gender courses, pastors, church leaders, and thoughtful lay readers will appreciate his new approach to a controversial topic.

Where to begin? "Christ submits to the church?"

No. Scripture says no such thing, but rather the opposite:

But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:24)

The Church submits to Christ--He doesn't submit to the Church!

These heretics turn everything upside down...

Abdicating fathers, working mothers, and children raised in litters...

Under this post appears the following comment from Drew, a PCA pastor. Click through to the second page for my responses. (I've made some significant additions since first posting it.)

(TB)

* * *

Drew writes: So I'm new to this blog and confused. What is the problem with positive job prospects for women? And competition for men? Is it unbiblical for women to work? For men to share in staying at home and raising children? Aren't jobs outside of the home the result of a post-industrial revolution economy? Does the Bible really address this topic directly? If it does, isn't the woman in Proverbs 31 at least sharing in shouldering the household's economic burden? Doesn't it look like she is working outside the home?

Bottom line, how do we know that YOU haven't just adopted the unbiblical attitude towards gender roles that developed during the course of the 1800s, and that what we are experiencing in the workplace today is actually one positive aspect of our contemporary culture? [not everything is doom and gloom after all...just a lot of things]

I'm not trying to poke your eyes, these are honest questions offered in the spirit of furthering the conversation...

Should Christians sterilize when facing genetic disorders?

Every time I do an Institutes study with college students at Christ the Word one of our favorite passages is the section titled "The Faith of Abraham" in which Calvin recounts the trials and sufferings by which God taught Abraham faith and weaned him from the world.

The section ends with God's command that Abraham sacrifice his son on Mt. Moriah:

But for a son to be slaughtered by his own father’s hand surpasses every sort of calamity. In short, throughout life he was so tossed and troubled that if anyone wished to paint a picture of a calamitous life, he could find no model more appropriate than Abraham’s! (Vol. 2, Ch. 10, Sec.11)

To be the source of your own child's death is a terrible form of suffering indeed. I was reminded of this section from the Institutes when I read recently of a Christian couple who took surgical steps to prevent further pregnancies after their number two child died of a rare genetic condition.

Despite our sympathy for parents who lose a baby, and despite a genetically-linked death appearing to arrive by the parents' own hands, we must ask whether such a response is consistent with faith in God.

My thinking on this matter is influenced both by Scripture and by personal experience. Tim's and my mother and father continued having children despite the death of our older siblings from genetic diseases. I suffer today from the same genetic disease (hemophilia) my oldest brother died of, and Tim and I had two additional brothers die as the result of another genetic disease (cystic fibrosis).

A brief on feminism, with a note on the deeper meaning of weddings...

If you think Luther and Calvin sinned in their rhetoric and you suspect parody does not edify, you may want to pass this one up. For the rest of us, here's an emetic for all the feminist toxins we're force-fed each day.

And if you're wondering, my dear wife Mary Lee liked it. But then this is a woman who pierced her own nose back in 1975 so let the reader undestand her opinion doesn't count for much.

(TB)

Don't ask for much...

Please VOTE!!

Home schoolers split over Ken Ham and Peter Enns...

(Tim) When I was younger, I used to say the homeschooling movement was one of the most encouraging signs in America, today.

Government has no business engaging in religious instruction, yet public schools do almost nothing else. Through the training and certification of government school teachers, education's oligarchs rule public schools with an iron fist and they are determined to wrest the minds and hearts of children away from their fathers.

My parents graduated from Wheaton College back in the forties and one of their friends went to Columbia University to get his doctorate. He reported Columbia's faculty and grad students were committed to using government schools to foment rebellion in the home, telling of a party in celebration of John Dewey's ninetieth birthday at which faculty and grad students discussed the utility of government schools for undermining parents' efforts to pass their religious commitments on to their sons and daughters. Their plan was simple: they would train public school teachers to serve as front-line missionaries for the godless paganism sold to the parents of government schoolchildren as "separation of church and state."

This and other things led to my parents working with several couples to start a new Christian school outside Philadelphia called Delaware Country Christian School. Mary Lee and I followed in their footsteps, joining with a few couples here in Bloomington to start Lighhouse Christian Academy. Before we finish educating our children we'll have used Christian schools, a Christian college, a public university, a secular college, public schools, home school, and a home school co-op.

What education do we think is best?

"This woman, at least, will be saved by childbearing..."

(Tim, w/thanks to Shelly) It disgusts me to have to direct Baylyblog readers to Roman Catholic sites as often as I do, but there's no helping it. Reformed men and women are so busy sinning so grace may abound that there's almost no comparable teaching in the Reformed world. And certainly not in the PCA--I defy you to show me one single article this spectacularly beautiful and sanctifying for women published anywhere under the auspices of the PCA. In fact, on any site having any affiliation to the PCA. Or rather, any site affiliated with any of the chest-thumping Reformed men: Together for the Gospel. Acts 29. Desiring God...

Brothers, if you want to do a more Biblical job of loving your wife, read this. Sisters, whether married or single, if you're willing to trade in your iPhone and laptop for the salvation 1Timothy 2:15 promises woman, read this.

There's nothing more foundational to godliness in Christ Jesus than your femininity.



Even these may forget, but I will not forget you...

(Tim, w/thanks to Cindy P.) Foundational to understanding our world including the Evangelical parachurch culture is a close reading of Ibsen's "A Doll's House." For a real-world example of Nora in our own time, cry your way through this one. But then call to mind our Heavenly Father's tender promise:

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, And the Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. (Isaiah 49:14,15)

 

BloomingMoms...

(Tim) BloomingMoms is run by women of ClearNote Church, Bloomington. It's aimed at encouraging mothers and strengthening them for their work--something young mothers particularly need today.

Being a homemaker is hard. Shrill voices warn mothers they need "me time" and their children will suffer developmental setbacks if they don't have a life outside the home. Then there's the fathers of their children: few of them understand how to encourage their wives, helping them not to be intimidated by their self-absorbed peers with careers and cats (instead of children).

Check out Barbara Lehr's helpful talk, "It's All About ME: Redeeming 'Me' Time." It could have been titled, "Motherhood in a Culture of Entitlement: How should we spend our time? Can we ever take a guilt-free bath?"

Differences between small and large families...

(Tim, w/thanks to Eric) Our Lord, the Apostle Paul, and economists are agreed that money matters quite a lot. For instance, check out the comments on this blog responding to the news that, in China, a law is being proposed that would make an adult child's failure to visit his parents actionable in court. If the law passes, parents could sue their child for failure to visit and the child could be fined and directed to submit to a visitation schedule. What wonderful visits that would produce! Beyond the question of banks, pensions, and Social Security, though, there's another set of numbers worth noting, here.

We have a fair number of international students who attend ClearNote Church, Bloomington (our new church name), and some are from China. Due to China's one-child policy, these students rarely have siblings or cousins. Picture it: one father and mother had one child--a son; another father and mother had one child--a daughter; that son and daughter married and had one son who married someone else's daughter--again, an only child. Now what do you have?

You have a married couple who themselves have one child who will grow up with two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. It's entirely conceivable he'll have some of his great-grandparents live to the time of his marriage, at which time he'll take on through his wife another set of two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. Let's assume only half of that couple's great grandparents survive to the time of their marriage; then that couple each has two parents, four grandparents, and four great-grandparents, which brings the total number of aging relatives on the shoulders of that young couple to twenty. And if all their great-grandparents are still alive, the total is twenty-eight.

Which is to say that, beyond the hundreds of millions of little babies slaughtered by the one-child policy and forced abortions of China in the past century, they now have a rapidly aging population. It's estimated one in four adults will be over the age of sixty-five by 2050.

Let's be practical about this. When my mother-in-law and mother want to move into someone's house...

Chinese mothers, again...

(Tim) My daughter Heather Ummel refers us to this follow-up article about the Chinese mother who wrote the original Chinese mother piece for the Wall Street Journal titled "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." Heather writes, "Here's the link to 'The Tiger Mother Talks Back.' It brings a much clearer picture of the original Chinese mother, Amy Chua. Less sensational and more balanced."

Wedding sermons, children, and diapers...

(Tim) At a wedding, recently (not this one pictured), I was privileged to meet the father and mother of this Burch family. My son had preached a sermon that spoke of the high calling of motherhood and Mrs. Burch mentioned that, over the years of raising ten children, she estimates she's changed 45,000 diapers. What glory!

Here are the sermons preached by Joseph and others at ClearNote Church in Indianapolis. The wedding sermon isn't up yet, but maybe it will appear? If it wasn't recorded, maybe Joseph will post the manuscript here. In my biased opinion, it would serve well as a model for any wedding sermon.

Mothers, don't exasperate your children...

(Tim, w/thanks to Lucas and several others) After everyone's been discussing the article for quite a while and the Bayly children have finished their argument over which of them grew up during the American and which the Chinese years of our family administration, I thought I should clue the rest of you in on the fun of reading this article on Chinese childrearing (actually motherhood). Then, when youv'e finished that piece, read this one responding to the first. The animation was also inspired by Chua's article.

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...)

Wives and mothers working outside the home...

(Tim) Reading a discussion that's developed under an earlier post concerning the Biblical priority of the home and family in the lives of Christian women, it occurred to me to post these notes from a sermon I've preached several times over the course of my ministry. The issue is critically important, and yet not to be dealt with in a wooden way. Specifically, some work outside the home is always required of wives and mothers and is good and right--Biblical, even...

"It is better to 'be' than to 'do'..."

(Tim) Here's a review of Ideas Have Consequences; and this from the book itself:

Women of the world's ancien regime were practitioners of Realpolitik in this respect: they knew where the power lies. . . They knew it lies in loyalty to what they are and not in imitativeness, exhibitionism, and cheap bids for attention. Well was it said that he who leaves his proper sphere shows that he is ignorant both of that which he quits and that which he enters. Women have been misled by the philosophy of activism into forgetting that for them, as custodians of values, it is better to "be" than to "do".

Death and life are in His mighty hands...

(Tim) The past two weeks the Bloomington Baylys have had sorrow and joy. Sorrow in the death of my dear cousin, John DeWalt, who succumbed to a long illness connected with diabetes. He died two weeks ago this coming Monday and some of us were able to travel to Pittsburgh for the funeral. There we grieved, and yet celebrated his homegoing with his mother, Inis (Mrs. Curtis) DeWalt, his sister Beth DeWalt, and his brother Paul DeWalt (along with Paul's wife, Patti, and their three children--Zachary, Sarah, and Jacob).

A week ago today, we had the joy of joining brother David's family in the celebration of the marriage of David's eldest son, Nathan, and his lovely bride, Aleaha (pron. a leah). It was a joyful day.

Then the past three days we've had the joy of gathering here in Bloomington for our family Thanksgiving celebration and being joined by my mother-in-law, Margaret (Mrs. Ken) Taylor. That's the pic you see above. For the record, we now have ten grandchildren. (I apologize to my dear wife, Mary Lee, for the mysterious white-out on her forehead, but otherwise it's the best pic.)

Names? Well, let's do it by families...

Children are a blessing from the Lord...

(Tim) In a post last week, I praised God for the gift of new life brought into the world through the labor of one Church of the Good Shepherd mother, Amber Litwin. Amber named her son, Jackson Cruz. and here's a pic from worship this past Lord's Day: l to r, Annalyssa (1), Amber, Callahan (5), Veronica Allen (Amber's main CGS friend), and little Jackson Cruz. Amber kindly gave me permission to share this pic with you. Aren't these children beautiful! Please pray for them, and for Amber as she raises them. Thank you, Amber, for letting us all share in your joy!

If there's an abortuary near your church where little babies are slaughtered for money and your church has no witness outside calling mothers home to Jesus and promising them, "Whatever--and we mean WHATEVER--you need, we'll help!" stop and think what you're missing.

Better yet, look right here at what you're missing.

Six days old...

(Tim) I don't know where this came from, but it's beautiful. And instructive.

When Christians (like one of my former elders who's a pharmacist) say they have no objection to abortion in the first few days or weeks of life; that there's no life or image of God in the first few days or weeks of the life of man, and thus they're willing to fulfill prescriptions for chemical abortifacients that kill the baby in the first few days or weeks of life; look very closely at this picture. This is the man they approve of murdering, or themselves murder.

Yes, 'murder' is the proper word. Anything less would further obscure the wickedness of our bloodthirsty nation.

Two days ago, Mary Lee was at the birth of another baby of our church who is the product of our congregation's faithful witness outside Planned Parenthood's abortuary here in Bloomington...

Man vs. lust...

(Tim: Nathan Alberson writes) Dear Dad or Mom:

Your average teenage boy already knows about the birds and bees. But how on earth are you going to talk your darling child through all the issues that come along with it: from lust to porn... Wouldn't it be nice if there was some sort of book about sex written for young men...

PCA pastor calls for more state control over home...

(Tim) As I've mentioned before, one of the most important journals for elders, pastors, and Titus 2 women to read as we shepherd God's flock and our own families is the Howard Center's "Family in America." (Full disclosure: my longtime friend, Bob Patterson, edits the journal.)

In order to live and lead "wise as serpents and harmless as doves," we should spend time studying our culture. There's no issue pastors, elders, deacons, fathers, and mothers of covenant children should study more carefully than the interface between the church, her families, and the civil magistrate--an area of the public square commonly referred to as family policy.

Recently, a friend of mine who's stated clerk of Central Indiana Presbytery (PCA) wrote an oped piece for his local paper calling for more review and discipline of homeschoolers by state government:

What do we do with home schools?

Leave them alone? Regulate them? Ban them?

...So I ask: is it in the interests of the state, to keep an eye on this? I say yes....

Mama, I don't want to die...

But a baby is nobody's enemy.   - Spc4 George T. Olsen, Killed in action, Viet Nam.

(Tim, w/thanks to Joseph) According to historic just war criteria, every effort must be made to minimize risk and the loss of human life. Yet even in the Marine Corps, now, women of childbearing age are routinely deployed to hostile territory where they engage in firefights.

This means unborn children only a few weeks old are coming under fire without their consent or any combat pay. And, being in the earliest stages of pregnancy, their mothers often are unware of their baby's existence...

Let her works praise her in the gates...

(Tim) For some forty years, now--during all the years I've loved her daughter, Mary Lee--Mom Taylor has been one of my heroines. A couple weeks ago, Mary Lee and I travelled back to Wheaton to attend a banquet held in Mom's honor by the Crowell Trust upon the occassion of the Trust awarding Mom their Susan Coleman Crowell Award.

Mary Lee is number nine of ten and her next older sibling, Mrs. Bob (Gretchen) Worcester, gave a short sketch of Mom's life and character. She did such a good job, I asked if she would send a copy of what she'd said.

Here then is Gretchen's bio of Mom. All of us in the Taylor clan rise up and call Mom blessed. May our Heavenly Father continue to provide His covenant children with such godly mothers as He provided us in Margaret West Taylor. (And for the record, our next to youngest, Hannah Weeks, just gave birth to Mom's forty-seventh great grandchild, and Lord willing, any day now our eldest, Heather Ummel, will give birth to Mom's forty-eighth (Mary Lee's and my tenth grandchild).

* * *

Tribute to Mom – Susan Coleman Crowell Award

I’ve been asked to share about our mom tonight from a family perspective – how she has been influential as a wife and mother.

The first thing to understand about Margaret Taylor as a wife and mother is that she was married to the same man for 65 years, and that she raised 10 children! Those are both amazing numbers! But probably even more amazing than the number of children was our spacing.

Children are a heritage from the Lord...

(Tim, w/thanks to Jessica) Jessica Woods forwarded this pic labelling it "the CGS diaspora in Houston." From left to right: Erin, Elisabeth, Nathan, & Clara Polderman; Chantal Incandela; Ning (expecting December 15), Micah, and Dan Gelok; and Michael, Abigail, and Jessica (expecting January 11) Woods.

Bootiful, ain't they? Our Lord does all things well!

Lady Education...

(Tim) Over on ClearNote Ladies Blog, our daughter, Michal Louise Crum, did a post titled, Do Women Need Less Education Than Men? If Samuel Johnson was right in his observation that you know you've hit your mark when you get a response, Michal hit the bull's eye.

At the center of her post were three questions she recommended to her readers in connection with the decision whether or not to go to college:

1. What is the purpose? What is this education preparing me for?
2. What are my motives? Am I pursuing education for the sake of education itself, a profession, money, status, the glory of God?
3. How much will it cost? Is it a wise investment of time, money, and energy? If God leads me in a different direction two years down the road, will the debt incurred prevent me from obeying God’s call?

Pretty calm, huh? It's hard to imagine these questions eliciting screeches and howls--from women who claim the Name of Christ no less. But elicit they did. May I say how much I admire the women of our congregation? If you read the comments under Michal's post, you'll better understand why. For one thing, what grace under fire!

So what about ye olde college education?

I've read all the screeches and howls, and this is by far my favorite...

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...

Sending women to fight our battles...

(Tim, w/thanks to Matt) At the very end, after the laughter, John denounces "nations that send their women to fight their battles." That's us, folks. Our wives and mothers and sisters and daughters are dying over in Iraq and Afghanistan protecting their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons.

What's wrong with this?

Spanking is naughty...

(Tim: Over on ClearNote Blog, son Joseph writes:) Just today I heard that Riley Children's Hospital here in Indianapolis has signs up stating that the entire hospital is a "No Hit Zone". They are big banner signs, small tripod signs, and everything in between. Apparently they have been up since at least November. Here is an example... Each time I hear people discussing discipline or talk to somebody about it, I feel the pressure build... (continue reading...)

Another happy Bloomington family...

(Tim, w/thanks to James, Annie, and Barbara) Who's against dogs and cats? Not I--at least the dogs part of it.

Yet something in me shrivels when I see animals paraded as if a woman, three dogs, and a cat are just a different kind of family than one man, his wife, and say, three girls and one boy. Or would it be three boys and one girl?

A small taste of Heaven...

(Tim, w/thanks to David W.) Last night, I was up in the bedroom when I heard screaming, downstairs. Going down to check out the commotion, I found our dear sister, Terri Wegener, standing in the hallway with her daughters, Mary and Lizzie.

Mary has been living with our son-in-law and daughter, Doug and Heather Ummel, this past year, and graduates from Bloomington North High School this weekend. So, as a gift to his family, David sent Terri home for the celebration--all the way from Ndola, Zambia. No one knew. It was a complete surprise. What joy to Lizzie and Mary! What joy to Mary Lee and me! What joy to us all!

If you want to know the pain of missions work that takes you overseas, watch this clip of Terri surprising Mary last night, in the Ummels' driveway...

Are you a Homeschooler or a homeschooler?

(Tim) As I've said any number of times, there are Homeschoolers and there are homeschoolers. I don't support the former, but I'm all for the latter. How to tell the difference?

The Homeschooler sees her home as a fortress rather than a center of ministry. Publicly, she speaks much of her husband's authority and how much she loves to submit to it, but privately...

Doulas, good and bad...

(Tim, w/thanks to...) Doulas are servants, but not the kind seeking office and status in the PCA. They assist women through the pain of childbirth, praying and singing and giving emotional, physical, and spiritual aid in any way possible. Every woman going through labor's suffering would be well-served by a godly older woman trained and effectively serving her in this way.

We have a number of women in our congregation who are kept busy serving the young and not-so-young mothers of our congregation in this way. If your congregation doesn't have a couple of these wonderful childbirth-servants, I hope it's not because the women of your church are too busy working or studying to propagate a godly seed. If it's just that no one's heard of it, some of your Titus 2 women might want to think about taking up this work.

* * *

But hating life and loving death, Satan twists even the most beautiful things into the most hideous deformities. And such terribly sad comments, following...

The changing face of American motherhood...

(Tim, w/thanks once more to Kamilla) The Pew Research Center has released some research they've titled "The New Demography of American Motherhood." News is American motherhood is getting older, more educated, less married, more accidental, and less white.

How many children should we have?

...if she has brought up children... 1Timothy 5:10

Pastors, elders, and older women are often asked for counsel concerning birth control and the place of fertility in the Christian home and marriage. Whether in premarital counseling, home visitation, or women's Bible studies, questions are raised concerning God's will in the timing and frequency of childbirth. Such questions are spiritual in nature and present church leaders with a wonderful opportunity to lead Christian husbands and wives into a deeper understanding of the Biblical meaning and purpose of womanhood, manhood, sex, and marriage.

Years ago, my wife, Mary Lee, and I had the pleasure of announcing that Mary Lee was "with child" for the fifth time. The little one then nestled in his mother's womb (whom today we know as our high school junior, Taylor Isaiah Bayly) was a wonderful gift from God. As with our other four children, we were grateful to God for His good gift. When we announced the pregnancy, though, we knew there were some who wondered, "Why another one? Aren't four enough? How many are you going to have, anyway?"

Though part of the reason Mary Lee and I had children is that we liked children, we also believed raising godly offspring has always been at the heart of God's purpose for marriage...

The Pill's 50th anniversary...

(Tim) The Washington Post notes this Mother's Day is the 50th anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the Pill. Here's how they begin their celebratory article:

Forget the single girl and the sexual revolution. The pill was not anti-mother; it was for mothers. And it changed motherhood more than it changed anything else. Its great accomplishment was not in preventing motherhood, but in making it better by allowing women to have children on their own terms.

Yes, yes; the Pill has been such a boon to mothers. Only fools who belong to God deny it.

Naturally, unbelievers are opposed to discipline...

(Tim, w/thanks to David L.) While we're on the subject of "Duh!" studies, Pediatrics just released a study demonstrating that medical doctors and their researchers think the word 'hit' (as in "parents who hit their child") is synonymous with the word 'spank' (as in "parents who spank their child").

Time reports:

Compared with children who were not hit, those who were spanked were more likely to be defiant, demand immediate satisfaction of their wants and needs, get frustrated easily, have temper tantrums and lash out physically against others.

Rather than spanking, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends "time outs."

And now a pastoral word to parents: if you're not inclined to trust paleontologists on the age of the earth or women's studies professors on the meaning of femininity, why would you trust your pediatrician on raising godly Covenant children?

In all sorts of areas of our lives, our choice is...

Motherhood and the shoulders of angels...

(Tim) This from daughter Michal, wife of Ben Crum and mother of Daniel and Zion:

Dear Family,

I'm a bit behind in the church reading program, so I sat down to read the Bible with Daniel while we ate breakfast this morning, and the passage was Luke 1 and 2. It was perfect timing because Daniel asked to read about the camel and Bethlehem (I think in one of his picture books, there is a camel in Bethlehem in the story of Christ's birth), and it was the passage I needed to read anyway.

When we read about the angel Gabriel, Daniel asked what he looked like. I said they were strong and had swords. He asked if they have soldiers (I, of course, thought he was asking if they have shoulders. We talked about how they have shoulders, they are soldiers). Then he added his own story about Gabriel punching someone...