Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

If the Day of Judgment Had a Little Brother

By Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

In one sense, of course, nothing can compare to the great Day of the Lord. Nothing compares to it, and yet Scripture repeatedly compares things to it. But the Bible does this in such a way as to show that nothing can compare, which is what gives the comparisons such force.

“The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: The thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; And they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; And to the hills, Fall on us” (Hos. 10:8; cf. Luke 23:30).

The problem with such images is the understatement.

So if you want one sort of image for the Day of Judgment, here in the Pacific Northwest we have multiple forest fires to choose from. The flames can get 300 feet high. Use your imagination.

In another sense, there is second  aspect to the Day of Judgment that seems much quieter and less lurid, and yet is far more terrifying. Bu it is only actually terrifying if you think about it, which is what these Planned Parenthood videos are making us all do. These videos are a tiny taste of what it is going to be like when every mouth is stopped, and the whole world is guilty before God (Rom. 3:19).

The coldest things about these videos is the ordinary hardness of heart shown in them — in the jokes, in the throw away lines.

Daily Devotional

Taking Pleasure in the Creator and His Creation  

On pleasure

C. S. Lewis

[The demon Screwtape writes:] [God, the “Enemy,” is] a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or only like foam on the sea shore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are “pleasures for evermore.” Ugh! Don’t think He has the least inkling of that high and austere mystery to which we rise in the Miserific Vision. He’s vulgar, Wormwood. He has a bourgeois mind. He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least—sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us. We fight under cruel disadvantages. Nothing is naturally on our side.

From The Screwtape Letters
Compiled in Words to Live By
The Screwtape Letters. Copyright © 1942, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers

The Vexed Question of Bail

A Step Forward

Every so often the justice system in New Zealand takes small steps forward.  We welcome the announcement that in cases of domestic violence judges will be able to rule on whether to grant bail to an accused in the light of his or her previous criminal record.  Unfortunately this is just a pilot programme at this stage, operating only in Christchurch and Porirua.  Let's hope it is extended to the whole country.

A second unfortunate restriction is that it is being applied only in domestic violence cases.  However, it is a step in the right direction.

Planned Parenthood In the Dock

Prominent Pastor Reacts to Planned Parenthood’s Claim That It Is A Victim

Billy Hallowell

The Blaze

Pastor John Piper (Desiring God)

Prominent theologian John Piper was among the scores of people who assembled outside of Planned Parenthood clinics across the nation on Saturday to protest amid the ongoing release of undercover footage purporting to show the organization selling tissue from aborted fetuses.


Joining a crowd of 6,000 outside of a clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota, Piper was asked to pray and opened with unifying words about how God created every individual; he added that everyone “is a sinner in desperate need of salvation that you offer in Jesus Christ.”

Daily Devotional

When God’s Love Is Sweetest

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. (Ephesians 5:25–26)

John Piper

If you only hope for unconditional love from God, your hope is great, but too small.

Unconditional love from God is not the sweetest experience of his love. The sweetest experience is when his love says: “I have made you so much like my Son that I delight to see you and be with you. You are a pleasure to me, because you are so radiant with my glory.”  This sweetest experience is conditional on our transformation into the kind of people whose emotions and choices and actions please God.

Unconditional love is the source and foundation of the human transformation that makes the sweetness of conditional love possible. If God did not love us unconditionally, he would not penetrate our unattractive lives, bring us to faith, unite us to Christ, give us his Spirit, and make us progressively like Jesus.  But when he unconditionally chooses us, and sends Christ to die for us, and regenerates us, he puts in motion an unstoppable process of transformation that makes us glorious. He gives us a splendor to match his favorite kind.

We see this in Ephesians 5:25–26. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her [unconditional love], that he might sanctify her . . . and present the church to himself in splendor” — the condition in which he delights.

It is unspeakably wonderful that God would unconditionally set his favor on us while we are still unbelieving sinners. The ultimate reason this is wonderful is that this unconditional love brings us into the everlasting enjoyment of his glorious presence.  But the apex of that enjoyment is that we not only see his glory, but also reflect it. “The name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in him” (2 Thessalonians 1:12).

Sage Advice

Evidence Demanding a Verdict

And now, something for the funny bone.  We all love send-ups of the vast administrative state.  Sometimes, laughing at soft-despotism is the best medicine.

Letter From the UK (About Evolutionst Fraud in Germany)

History of Modern Man Unravels

German scholar is exposed as fraud

It appeared to be one of archaeology's most sensational finds. The skull fragment discovered in a peat bog near Hamburg was more than 36,000 years old - and was the vital missing link between modern humans and Neanderthals.  This, at least, is what Professor Reiner Protsch von Zieten - a distinguished, cigar-smoking German anthropologist - told his scientific colleagues, to global acclaim, after being invited to date the extremely rare skull.

However, the professor's 30-year-old academic career has now ended in disgrace after the revelation that he systematically falsified the dates on this and numerous other "stone age" relics.  Yesterday his university in Frankfurt announced the professor had been forced to retire because of numerous "falsehoods and manipulations". According to experts, his deceptions may mean an entire tranche of the history of man's development will have to be rewritten.

Daily Devotional

A Storehouse of  Salvation

"He hath commanded his covenant forever."
Psalms 111:9

Charles H. Spurgeon

The Lord's people delight in the covenant itself. It is an unfailing source of consolation to them so often as the Holy Spirit leads them into its banqueting house and waves its banner of love. They delight to contemplate the antiquity of that covenant, remembering that before the day-star knew its place, or planets ran their round, the interests of the saints were made secure in Christ Jesus.

It is peculiarly pleasing to them to remember the sureness of the covenant, while meditating upon "the sure mercies of David." They delight to celebrate it as "signed, and sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered well." It often makes their hearts dilate with joy to think of its immutability, as a covenant which neither time nor eternity, life nor death, shall ever be able to violate--a covenant as old as eternity and as everlasting as the Rock of ages. They rejoice also to feast upon the fulness of this covenant, for they see in it all things provided for them. God is their portion, Christ their companion, the Spirit their Comforter, earth their lodge, and heaven their home.

They see in it an inheritance reserved and entailed to every soul possessing an interest in its ancient and eternal deed of gift. Their eyes sparkled when they saw it as a treasure-trove in the Bible; but oh! how their souls were gladdened when they saw in the last will and testament of their divine kinsman, that it was bequeathed to them!

More especially it is the pleasure of God's people to contemplate the graciousness of this covenant. They see that the law was made void because it was a covenant of works and depended upon merit, but this they perceive to be enduring because grace is the basis, grace the condition, grace the strain, grace the bulwark, grace the foundation, grace the topstone. The covenant is a treasury of wealth, a granary of food, a fountain of life, a store-house of salvation, a charter of peace, and a haven of joy.

The Travails of Government Schools

Union Bleating About Government Schools

We have found ourselves choking over the cornflakes, reading the latest bleat from our teacher unions.  They are upset over the unique high school qualification deployed in our government education schools.  It is called the National Certificate of Educational Achievement ("NCEA").  It was designed to ensure that no-one failed.  Everyone could achieve at something.  It was progressive.  It was innovative.  It was the coming thing. 

The teacher unions pushed hard for this new, unique assessment system in our secondary schools (although about forty percent of teachers opposed it at the time--and the level of opposition has remained steady.  But, sadly for the unions and the Progressive establishment, NCEA has been highjacked by the government--that very same entity that owns and operates government schools.  How unreasonable is that.  Achievement rates were pretty dismal under NCEA, so the Ministry of Education stepped in and set some targets.  The pressure started to come on, and the union has commenced a-bleating. That is one Achilles Heel.

A second Achilles Heels of the system (picture it as a centipede; its Achilles Heels are far more than a mere two) is the pluriformity of "subjects" for which NCEA credits are available.  Part of this was driven by the underpinning utopian ideology that believed no-one should fail to achieve.  It necessitated subjects that even students who could not read and write would be able to achieve at something, be it ever so profound as crocheting or local environmental studies (previously called "picking up litter" in the school grounds).

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Not What Scissors Are For

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog&Mablog

The seventh Planned Parenthood video comes pretty close to Dante’s seventh circle. That’s not what scissors are for. But one of the first things I thought of after seeing it was the ninth circle, the circle dedicated to the treacherous. And that is what this is — treacherous, horrific, appalling, heinous, and cold as Hell.

Holly O’Donnell is the technician who worked for StemExpress, and who is testifying in the most recent of the sting videos. And, by the way, when I googled StemExpress to find out if it was two words or one, I was helpfully informed by Google through their suggested sub-directory searches that I can still buy fetal liver if I want, and at the very end of this macabre list was the “wish list” option. What do I wish they could put in my shopping cart for me?

The fact that Planned Parenthood is being evil, and is committing indecencies that are beyond vile, does not mean that they are guilty of every evil. They are murderous, but that does not make them guilty of every murder. The first videos were damning because we could see what the abortionists were doing directly, we could hear them talking about it themselves.

But one of the earlier videos relying on the testimony of O’Donnell was not like that.

Daily Devotional

Pleased to Praise

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! (Psalm 67:3, 5)

John Piper

Why does God demand we must praise God?

C.S. Lewis:

Just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?”
The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value.
I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.

There is the solution! We praise what we enjoy because the delight is incomplete until it is expressed in praise. If we were not allowed to speak of what we value and celebrate what we love and praise what we admire, our joy could not be full.

So if God loves us enough to make our joy full, he must not only give us himself; he must also win from us the praise of our hearts — not because he needs to shore up some weakness in himself or compensate for some deficiency, but because he loves us and seeks the fullness of our joy that can be found only in knowing and praising him, the most magnificent of all beings.

If he is truly for us, he must be for himself! God is the one Being in all the universe for whom seeking his own praise is the ultimately loving act. For him, self-exaltation is the highest virtue. When he does all things “for the praise of his glory,” he preserves for us and offers to us the only thing in all the world that can satisfy our longings.

God is for us! And the foundation of this love is that God has been, is now, and always will be for himself.

Not a Nice Place to Be

Its Doom is Sure

Every so often, when we are feeling particularly charitable, we spare a thought for the hopeless ironies constantly eating away at Progressivism like 12 molar hydrochloric acid.  It's not a nice place to be.

Let's begin by defining Progressivism. It is the attempt to secularise the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.  It looks to the power and authority of the State to build God's Kingdom on earth.  It is a utopian attempt to legislate, via administrative law, the thoughts and intentions of the human heart.  It is doomed to failure.  Every Progressive advance ultimately falls prey to a withering blight.  Its unintended consequences leave a trail of devastation in the Progressive wake.

It may come as a surprise to some when we pronounce that Progressivism does not rule the cosmos.  The molecules and atoms and sub-atomic particles do not dance to the tune of  "It's a lovely world".  The invisible powers are not captive to Progressive idealism.  In fact, all of creation is held captive by One, and One only--the risen Lord, Jesus Christ.  Consequently, since Progressivism has set itself up as a rival messianic kingdom, it is doomed to failure, confusion, and self-implosion.

This is a real problem for Progressives.

The Islamist Side of Obama's Face

It's My Way or War

President Obama's dirty slip is showing.  Faced with the increasing likelihood that his "peace at any price" deal with Iran will be rejected by Congress, he has taken once again to browbeating his opponents.  But this time, the opposition is not just from political parties.  It is broader than that.

The US Jewish community--largely formerly an Obama fan base--is turning against him.  Rabbi Richard Block explains his dissent and rejects Obama's nasty denunciation of his opponents.  He also exposes, once again, Obama's disingenuous deceptive and misleading "framing" of the issues.

Daily Devotional

Miscellany of Good Advice

TO MARY WILLIS SHELBURNE: On the need to cry; on the need to remember God’s past mercies; on the suitability of his Ransom trilogy, especially That Hideous Strength, for children; and on the kinds of snobbery. Lewis asks if he may dedicate The Magician’s Nephew to her friends.

C. S. Lewis

22 February 1954

I am very sorry indeed to hear that anxieties again assail you. (By the way, don’t ‘weep inwardly’ and get a sore throat. If you must weep, weep: a good honest howl! I suspect we—and especially, my sex—don’t cry enough nowadays. Aeneas and Hector and Beowulf and Roland and Lancelot blubbered like school-girls, so why shouldn’t we?) You were wonderfully supported in your worries last time: I shall indeed pray that it may be so again.

Would the Kilmer family like to have the next story but one dedicated to them? Let me know: the site is still vacant.

I didn’t object to the family reading the trilogy on the ground that it would be too difficult—that would do no harm—but because in the last one there is so much evil, in a form not, I think, suitable for their age, and many specifically sexual problems which it would do them no good to think of at present. I daresay the Silent Planet is alright: Perelandra, little less so: T.H.S. most unsuitable.

I don’t think that an appreciation of ancient and noble blood is ‘snobbery’ at all. What is snobbery is a greedy desire to know those who have it, or a mean desire to flatter them, or a conceited desire to boast of their acquaintance. I think it quite legitimate to feel that such things give an added interest to a person who is nice on other grounds, just as a hotel which was nice on other grounds would have an added charm for me if it was also a building with ‘historic interest’.

I write in great haste—I can’t, like you, do it in working hours! But you’re nothing to [Charles] Lamb: as far as I can make out all his letters, which now fill two volumes, were written in the office. Happy days those.
Well I hope I shall have better news in your next. God bless you.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III
Compiled in Yours, Jack
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Benign Versus Malignant Inequality

Stealing From the Poor

Rich people steal from poor people.  No, it's not that rich people creep up behind poor people and snatch their handbags.  It's rather that the supply of "wealth" is finite, and when rich people have too much of it, they prevent poor people from getting more wealth.  Therefore, rich people indirectly steal from poor people.  The solution is readily to hand.  Confiscate the wealth of rich people, and redistribute it (after Government costs and expenses) to poor people.

So runs the received wisdom of the Commentariat and chattering classes.  If only things were so simple.  A recent article in the Washington Post documents research published in the Journal of Comparative Economics.  Some argue that the uber-wealthy actually end up benefiting all of society; others run the "rich people steal from poor people line."

You might be used to hearing criticisms of inequality, but economists actually debate this point. Some argue that inequality can propel growth: They say that since the rich are able to save the most, they can actually afford to finance more business activity, or that the kinds of taxes and redistributive programs that are typically used to spread out wealth are inefficient.

Other economists argue that inequality is a drag on growth. They say it prevents the poor from acquiring the collateral necessary to take out loans to start businesses, or get the education and training necessary for a dynamic economy. Others say inequality leads to political instability that can be economically damaging.

The new research, however, argues that how the poor became rich makes a significant difference.According to Bagchi, one takeaway of the research is that developing countries should limit how much businesses have to interact with the state to get things done — those interactions rarely turn out well for average people. The other lesson is that it's not just inequality, but the source of inequality that really matters.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Trumpery

Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

I indicated recently that Trump was a presidential non-starter, and I would like to say just a few things about that. If I may.

The Trump phenomenon/boomlet is reality television meets celebrity buzz meets annoyance on immigration meets faux defiance of political correctness meets hot first lady with nude pics on the Internet meets the ultimate American Trump card, which would of course be money. But we have to be realistic. Trump’s high poll numbers is the Republican primary electorate on a spring break bender in Fort Lauderdale. This is not the girl they are going to marry.

I will bring top men into my cabinet, and they will make top decisions. The very best decisions. And they will all go home to their top women, and they will beget top children, all of whom will have lifetime passes to my golf courses.

But what is going on in the meantime? The Trump empire of glitz is built like Versailles, only without any taste. It reminds one of that time I was visiting a well-known charismatic television studio, let us not inquire too closely as to why, and everything back stage looked like it was built for the Sun King. But when you got up close, that special je ne sais quoi trailer park quality jumped out at you. Think Saddam palaces with discount molding bought at Home Depot.

What Trump actually represents is a test for the other Republican candidates. And by this I do not mean whether or not they oppose or support him, or understand the indignation he is tapping into, or fiercely denounce what he just said about Mexicans, or are courting his constituency without identifying with him per se. I don’t mean any of that. The test concerns which candidate is willing to demonstrate in public that they understand that Trump is funny.

There was “a thing” going around after the first debate asking this: if Trump can’t handle Megyn Kelly, then how on earth is he going to handle Putin? Well, great question, but let’s expand it a bit. If the Republican candidates generally can’t handle Trump, then how on earth are they going to handle Putin?

Daily Devotional

Pressed Down and Running Over

"He that watereth shall be watered also himself."
Proverbs 11:25

Charles H. Spurgeon

We are here taught the great lesson, that to get, we must give; that to accumulate, we must scatter; that to make ourselves happy, we must make others happy; and that in order to become spiritually vigorous, we must seek the spiritual good of others.

In watering others, we are ourselves watered. How? Our efforts to be useful, bring out our powers for usefulness. We have latent talents and dormant faculties, which are brought to light by exercise. Our strength for labour is hidden even from ourselves, until we venture forth to fight the Lord's battles, or to climb the mountains of difficulty. We do not know what tender sympathies we possess until we try to dry the widow's tears, and soothe the orphan's grief. We often find in attempting to teach others, that we gain instruction for ourselves. Oh, what gracious lessons some of us have learned at sick beds! We went to teach the Scriptures, we came away blushing that we knew so little of them. In our converse with poor saints, we are taught the way of God more perfectly for ourselves and get a deeper insight into divine truth.

So that watering others makes us humble. We discover how much grace there is where we had not looked for it; and how much the poor saint may outstrip us in knowledge. Our own comfort is also increased by our working for others. We endeavour to cheer them, and the consolation gladdens our own heart. Like the two men in the snow; one chafed the other's limbs to keep him from dying, and in so doing kept his own blood in circulation, and saved his own life. The poor widow of Sarepta gave from her scanty store a supply for the prophet's wants, and from that day she never again knew what want was.

Give then, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, and running over.

Why Journalists Lack Public Respect

Wilful Self-Deceit

One of the more objectionable characteristics of modern mass news media is the unacknowledged cant of every organ and organisation. The organisations themselves don't acknowledge it.  Yet every media organisation has a "house ideology" of some sort or other.  It is inevitable.  It is necessary if a media organisation to be, well, organised.

Think for a moment about how TV reports are often structured.  The host introduces a piece from "our reporter, John Doe, reporting from Eketahuna"  John Doe comes on screen and dutifully tells us what has been happening.  Then the host asks a follow up question, to which good old John just happens to have a ready answer.  We all know that the questions asked by the host and the responses are all carefully scripted by the editors to get the "storyline" wanted by the editorial team.

But the "storyline" cannot help but reflect the bias and cant of that particular team.  The story is being framed in subtle ways and some not so subtle.  This is not a criticism so much as a statement of reality.  It is always the case.  The best way is for an organisation to be both self-aware of the institutional cant, and publicly acknowledge it.  The acknowledgement should take the form of a standard disclosure of interest.

What is more amusing is when so-called media experts fall into the trap of not being self-aware or not being willing to admit their own biases.

Aghast

Planned Parenthood Clinic Cut Through Dead Baby’s Face to Get His Intact Brain

[Sometimes we are confronted with an evil so horrific that we feel compelled to plead for the vials of God's just vengeance to be poured out. "Have regard for the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the habitation of violence. . . . Arise, O God.  Defend your cause; remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day."  (Psalm 74:20, 22) Ed.]

by Austin Ruse 

Breitbart News

In the latest video produced by the Center for Medical Progress, Holly O’Donnell describes a medical technician using scissors to cut through the face of a newly aborted but nearly fully developed baby boy at a Planned Parenthood facility so that his intact brain could be extracted.

O’Donnell says that the technician could also make the boy’s heart beat.

Planned Parenthood is working hard to counter the steady drip of damning videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress, but not even the highest priced Washington, D.C. flacks are likely to be able to erase the thought picture of someone cutting through a child’s face with scissors.

Holly O’Donnell and her Planned Parenthood colleague were harvesting organs that day at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, a mega-clinic in San Jose, California that has an annual budget of $100 million or 10 percent of the national organization.

O’Donnell, who turned whistleblower after leaving StemExpress, said the child was the most fully developed she had seen up to that point. She describes in great detail how the newly aborted boy was rinsed off and prepared for dissection.

Daily Devotional

 Playing the Part Well

C. S. Lewis

The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed, one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his ‘gratitude’, you will probably be disappointed. (People are not fools: they have a very quick eye for anything like showing off, or patronage.) But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less.

From Mere Christianity
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

The Reason Many Despise Tolkien's Work

Faux Protests and Outrage

We have been recently working through Matthew Dickerson's A Hobbit Journey (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press/Baker Publishing, 2012).  Dickerson has a PhD from Cornell and teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont.  In A Hobbit Journey, he attempts an exposition of Tolkien's world-and-life view as it emerges in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

At one point he takes up the issue of why Tolkien is loathed by many of the high priests and prophets of our secularist age. He argues that it is due in significant part to Tolkien's notions of objective morality and moral responsibility.  He explains:

Objective morality--or what some people call "moral absolutes"--is a definition of good and evil that is real and true for every person (and every culture), regardless of whether that person (or culture) happens to believe it to be true. [Dickerson, op cit., p. 127.]

Tolkien's mindset believes in objective morality and moral absolutes.  The modern world does not.  Therefore, for many amongst the chattering classes and the Commentariat, much of his corpus appears odd, at best, childish,simplistic, and superstitious at worst.  His is the shawl of the Grand Anachronism.

Dickerson employs an illustration to explain the contrast between Tolkien's philosophic and religious principles and those of the modern age.

Consider a computer virus.  No matter how inconvenient or destructive it is, a computer virus is just an impersonal collection of computer code composed of bits (zeros and ones) on a computer.  A virus has no will of its own and cannot be considered evil or immoral. . . .

Now suppose that a person who commits a heinous crime is only acting as he or she is programmed to do, as a materialist world view states is the case. . . . Then by no means can that person be evil; only the programmer of that person can be evil.  In this case, however, the programmer is believed to be a blind, impersonal force.  In short, where there is no choice at all, there can be no moral (or immoral) choice.  In a merely material world, we may at worst consider another person's actions as inconvenient to us; we cannot call them "evil" or "immoral."  Or, if we do, then we are really only calling "immoral" the universe itself . . . . I any case, the word immoral has no meaning in this context. [Ibid., p. 128.]

Does this sound familiar?  It is everywhere around us.

Another Lone-Wolf Attack

Progress

A gunman with a Kalashnikov rifle and knives has been taken down and arrested by French authorities.  The high speed train was running from Amsterdam to Paris.

A gunman has shot and wounded three people on a high-speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris before being overpowered by passengers and arrested by police. The shooting happened at around 6pm as the Thalys train was travelling near Arras in northern France, the French state rail company SNCF said. French media said the gunman had shot a Kalashnikov on board the train, and was also armed with knives. The local paper La Voix du Nord reported that two US marines on the train had overpowered the man. The paper reported that the marines had intervened when the man was loading heavy ammunition in a toilet on the train. Both marines were reported to have been injured, one by gunfire, the other by a knife.[The Guardian]

The way this sort of thing normally plays out is that the authorities remain agnostic and non-committal on the reasons, motivation, and causes of the attack, particularly if there is just one person involved.

But a blow-by-blow account in The Telegraph appears to show that this mould has been broken--at least on this occasion:

Daily Devotional

What the Resurrection Means

Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

John Piper

The meaning of the resurrection is that God is for us. He aims to close ranks with us. He aims to overcome all our sense of abandonment and alienation.

The resurrection of Jesus is God’s declaration to Israel and to the world that we cannot work our way to glory but that he intends to do the impossible to get us there.

The resurrection is the promise of God that all who trust Jesus will be the beneficiaries of God’s power to lead us in paths of righteousness and through the valley of death.

Therefore, believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead is much more than accepting a fact. It means being confident that God is for you, that he has closed ranks with you, that he is transforming your life, and that he will save you for eternal joy.

Believing in the resurrection means trusting in all the promises of life and hope and righteousness for which it stands.

It means being so confident of God’s power and love that no fear of worldly loss or greed for worldly gain will lure us to disobey his will.

That’s the difference between Satan and the saints. O, might God circumcise our hearts to love him and to rest in the resurrection of his Son.

Turning of the Tide

An Open Letter to Israel

The editors at ContraCelsum have no particular connection to the nation of Israel.  We do not see the existence of Israel as any representing any particular fulfillment of biblical prophecy, although the existence of Israel as a modern state surely falls under the decrees of God's providence.  But His purposes for His ancient people will be fulfilled whether Israel continues to exist as a nation, or not.

To say this begs a question.  Will Israel survive as a nation state?  We are not used to states going out of existence, but of course it has happened many times in human history.  It is highly likely, for example, that the state of Iraq might cease to exist.  Syria similarly.  If Israel were to cease to exist, why ought that to surprise us--as if such a thing had never happened before?  After all there are plenty of voices, some near at Israel's hand, calling for the annihilation of that nation and its expunging from human history.

Perhaps most significantly, Israel's strongest supporter (in a geo-political sense) has been the United States.  Yet under Barack Obama that support has not just waned: it has turned into near official hostility, with the President recently engaging in rhetoric that if any other Western state were to utter in an official, or semi-official capacity, would be deemed anti-semitic.

War Counsels

Got No Secrets to Conceal

Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

 

We are not that far into the Planned Parenthood calamity, but I think we are far enough into it to ask the secularists how they like being on the wrong side of history. And as Dylan once put it in Like a Rolling Stone, “you got no secrets to conceal. How does it feel?”

It has been a few days since I have been able to post on this, and there have been many developments, so it is time for a brief tactical round-up. Remember how crucial pursuit is as a principle of war. We don’t want to win “this round,” we want to win the fight. And that means pursuit.

Millions severed . . .

1. There will be a national protest at PP clinics all over the country. The web site for that protest is here.  Check it out and see if there is a protest near you, or if there should be.

2. At these protests, or in conversations with friends and coworkers, the question may come up: “What are you trying to accomplish? What do you want?” Divide the answer in two. “First, ultimately, we want to end human abortion.”

But what are the intermediate goals? Suppose someone from the media asks you that. What do you say? My friend John Stoos offers these three suggestions. “We want, first, someone from the White House to watch the videos. Second, we want a congressional investigation into the apparent illegal activities of Planned Parenthood. And third, we want the U.S. Senate to vote to defund Planned Parenthood.”

Daily Devotional

Cheered by David's Experience

"The sweet psalmist of Israel."
2 Samuel 23:1

Charles H. Spurgeon

Among all the saints whose lives are recorded in Holy Writ, David possesses an experience of the most striking, varied, and instructive character. In his history we meet with trials and temptations not to be discovered, as a whole, in other saints of ancient times, and hence he is all the more suggestive a type of our Lord.

David knew the trials of all ranks and conditions of men. Kings have their troubles, and David wore a crown: the peasant has his cares, and David handled a shepherd's crook: the wanderer has many hardships, and David abode in the caves of Engedi: the captain has his difficulties, and David found the sons of Zeruiah too hard for him. The psalmist was also tried in his friends, his counsellor Ahithophel forsook him, "He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me." His worst foes were they of his own household: his children were his greatest affliction. The temptations of poverty and wealth, of honour and reproach, of health and weakness, all tried their power upon him. He had temptations from without to disturb his peace, and from within to mar his joy. David no sooner escaped from one trial than he fell into another; no sooner emerged from one season of despondency and alarm, than he was again brought into the lowest depths, and all God's waves and billows rolled over him.

It is probably from this cause that David's psalms are so universally the delight of experienced Christians. Whatever our frame of mind, whether ecstasy or depression, David has exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of the human heart, because he had been tutored in the best of all schools--the school of heart-felt, personal experience. As we are instructed in the same school, as we grow matured in grace and in years, we increasingly appreciate David's psalms, and find them to be "green pastures." My soul, let David's experience cheer and counsel thee this day.

Corrections and Returns to Sanity

Roiling Dairy Industry

In Australia, the mining industry is in crisis.  Well, no, not really.  It's in a cyclical downturn which has been seen so often, it's boring.  Anyone who thinks that industries do not cycle up and down has blinkered himself to centuries of data.

Every year ten pupil (that's fourth form, folks) learns that markets--where goods and services are bought and sold--are subject to supply and demand.  If the supply increases, prices will fall as demand becomes satiated, and tails off.  That "economic law" cannot be broken.  Often raw commodities face this market reality more than other goods.  There is very little "value add" possible in raw commodities--not without substantial investment in processing and manufacturing--which often only serves to makes the proposition even more risky.

In New Zealand, we are facing the same market reality now in dairy.  Milk prices have slumped.  There is an over-supply of milk on the world market.  Too many cows, too many litres of milk being produced. The result is falling milk prices.  In time this will correct as marginal producers go out of business, unable to make profits in a low-price environment.  Supply will fall.  Prices will stabilise then begin to rise again.  It is brutal.  There are many sad cases down at the farmgate to come to light.  But it is the real world.

John Rys-Davies On Song

‘We Have Lost Our Moral Compass’

‘Lord of the Rings’ Actor Blasts Political Correctness

BreitbartLondon

by Daniel Nussbaum

Lord of the Rings actor John Rhys-Davies decried Islamic terrorism and political correctness in an interview with podcast king Adam Carolla Monday night.

The actor, who played the dwarf Gimli in the three Rings movies, joined Carolla on the latest episode of his podcast to blast Western politicians for failing to say or do anything to combat the rising tide of Islamic terrorism and the political correctness that enables it.

“There is an extraordinary silence in the West,” Rhys-Davies told Carolla. “Basically, Christianity in the Middle East and in Africa is being wiped out – I mean not just ideologically but physically, and people are being enslaved and killed because they are Christians. And your country and my country (Wales) are doing nothing about it.”

Daily Devotional

Not to Us . . .

"Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name."
Psalm 29:2

Charles H. Spurgeon

God's glory is the result of his nature and acts. He is glorious in his character, for there is such a store of everything that is holy, and good, and lovely in God, that he must be glorious. The actions which flow from his character are also glorious; but while he intends that they should manifest to his creatures his goodness, and mercy, and justice, he is equally concerned that the glory associated with them should be given only to himself.

Nor is there aught in ourselves in which we may glory; for who maketh us to differ from another? And what have we that we did not receive from the God of all grace? Then how careful ought we to be to walk humbly before the Lord! The moment we glorify ourselves, since there is room for one glory only in the universe, we set ourselves up as rivals to the Most High.

Shall the insect of an hour glorify itself against the sun which warmed it into life? Shall the potsherd exalt itself above the man who fashioned it upon the wheel? Shall the dust of the desert strive with the whirlwind? Or the drops of the ocean struggle with the tempest? Give unto the Lord, all ye righteous, give unto the Lord glory and strength; give unto him the honour that is due unto his name. Yet it is, perhaps, one of the hardest struggles of the Christian life to learn this sentence--"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be glory." It is a lesson which God is ever teaching us, and teaching us sometimes by most painful discipline.

Let a Christian begin to boast, "I can do all things," without adding "through Christ which strengtheneth me," and before long he will have to groan, "I can do nothing," and bemoan himself in the dust. When we do anything for the Lord, and he is pleased to accept of our doings, let us lay our crown at his feet, and exclaim, "Not I, but the grace of God which was with me!"

Slinking Out the Back Door

Rising Envy

These days the Commentariat and the chattering classes don't talk so much about poverty.  They focus upon economic inequality.  Rising inequality.  (It's always rising.)  This is a classic case of misdirection.  It is also another indication of the intellectual dishonesty of many and legerdemain that passes for truth.

We see this kind of vacuous nonsense every day:

More than 300,000 Kiwi kids now in relative poverty

 The number of Kiwi children in relative poverty has jumped over 300,000 for the first time since 2010 - but it's because of record inequality, despite falling absolute hardship.  The Ministry of Social Development's annual household incomes report shows that the numbers below a European standard measure of absolute hardship, based on measures such as not having a warm home or two pairs of shoes, fell from 165,000 in 2013 to 145,000 (8 per cent of all children) last year, the lowest number since 2007.

Children in benefit-dependent families also dwindled from a recent peak of 235,000 (22 per cent) in 2011, and 202,000 (19 per cent) in 2013, to just 180,000 (17 per cent) last year - the lowest proportion of children living on benefits since the late 1980s.  But inequality worsened because average incomes for working families increased much faster at high and middle-income levels than for lower-paid workers.

The net result was that the number of children living in households earning below 60 per cent of the median income after housing costs jumped from a five-year low of 260,000 in 2013 to 305,000 last year, the highest since a peak of 315,000 at the worst point of the global financial crisis in 2010.  [NZ Herald]

Consider a model society that consists of ten households.  One household lives in squalor: it is dirty, and unkempt.  Its occupants are usually sick.  No-body works, except one who spends his days begging the other nine households for food.  Another household lives in comparative luxury.   The earnings and net worth of this household increased by two hundred percent in the last twelve months.  The remaining eight households experienced no change over the same period.  According to the egalitarians, this society has just got worse (more evil and unjust), because inequality has increased.

Most morally clear-sighted people would think it a good development if at least one household greatly increased their net worth.  But the egalitarians regard it as an evil outcome, unless every other household increased commensurately.

There are two philosophical and religious axioms underlying the cult of economic equality.

The Devil's Wind

Christians Used as ‘Form of Currency’ by ISIS as Mass Kidnappings Continue

Mary Chastain
Breitbart News

Christians in the Middle East still live in fear as the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) remains unchallenged in Iraq and Syria. Christian organizations are attempting to help Christians, but for many, it is too late.

“Christians have become a form [of] currency in this tragedy,” explained John Newton, spokesman for Aid to the Church in Need, to the Christian Post. “I know of one priest who was kidnapped for two months… they asked for a ransom of $120,000, which the family managed to raise and deliver… But hours later, the priest was killed and his body cut up, with pieces of him sent in a box to the family.”

Newton said it is hard for his charity and the others to keep track of the kidnapped priests. Militants kidnapped archbishops throughout 2013 as they tried to rescue two other kidnapped priests.  “No one knows who took the archbishops, nor what their fate was, but the two priests they were trying to free have since been executed,” said Newton.

Daily Devotional

What We Were Made For

Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. (1 Peter 3:18)

John Piper

The gospel is the enjoyment of fellowship with God himself. This is made explicit here in 1 Peter 3:18 in the phrase “that he might bring us to God.
”
All the other gifts of the gospel exist to make this one possible.

• We are forgiven so that our guilt does not keep us away from God.
• We are justified so that our condemnation does not keep us away from God.
• We are given eternal life now, with new bodies in the resurrection, so that we have the capacities for enjoying God to the fullest.

Test your heart. Why do you want forgiveness? Why do you want to be justified? Why do you want eternal life? Is the decisive answer: "because I want to enjoy God"?  The gospel-love God gives is ultimately the gift of himself. This is what we were made for. This is what we lost in our sin. This is what Christ came to restore.

“In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

The Inevitable Fruits of Government-Worship

Naked Ugly Truth

Baal is cracking and tottering before our eyes.  But devotion to government as the saviour and redeemer of the world remains as strong as ever.  In fact, the more Baal crumbles, the more frenetic and desperate the people become.

Every day in New Zealand we are assailed by prayers, pleas, and cries to the Gummint to "do something" to solve the crises d'jour.  On the other hand, we see at every hand, indications that statism is a bankrupt and failing religion.

Here is today's smorgasbord.

Firstly, the cyclical price of dairy milk continues to--well--cycle.  Currently it is going downwards.  The opposition pollies are crying and lamenting and cutting themselves.  The government has to "do something".  Apparently, since the State is our deity, it ought to start acting like one.  [NZ Herald]

Secondly, a growing number of children are coming to school, ready to kill. 

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

7 Questions for Those Who Support Planned Parenthood . . .

Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

Let me get this straight.

1. You are the group that wants drivers working for FedEx and UPS to be unknowingly carrying around boxes with baby parts in them, babies who were killed for the sake of those parts, AND you want to be the enlightened, progressive group?

2. You are the party that wants lab workers to dump baby parts into pie plates, in order to sort through them carefully looking for the valuable bits, AND you want to be the liberals?

3. You are the faction who wants to keep us from showing mothers an ultrasound of their child, [in order to persuade them] to keep that child alive, and you want to prevent those same mothers from seeing how you use the ultrasound (to avoid damaging the product), AND you want to be known as the ones in favor of the free flow of information?

Daily Devotional

The Trap of Tacit Social Consent

On temptation

C. S. Lewis

This was the first thing Mark had been asked to do which he himself, before he did it, clearly knew to be criminal. But the moment of his consent almost escaped his notice; certainly, there was no struggle, no sense of turning a corner. There may have been a time in the world’s history when such moments fully revealed their gravity, with witches prophesying on a blasted heath or visible Rubicons to be crossed. But, for him, it all slipped past in a chatter of laughter, of that intimate laughter between fellow professionals, which of all earthly powers is strongest to make men do very bad things before they are yet, individually, very bad men.
From That Hideous Strength
Compiled in Words to Live By

That Hideous Strength. Copyright © 1945 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All right reserved under international and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Imperial Power Meets the Human Soul

Stale and Crumbling

Empires are expensive entities. The bigger the Empire, the more the faces of the poor are ground into the dust. But as anthropologist Clifford Geertz pointed out, human culture is dense, rich, and exceedingly multi-layered. The problem with all imperial ambitions and achievements is that they can never encompass the richness and complexity of human ingenuity, creativity, or reason.

The intrinsic imperial instinct is to restrict, control, suppress, outlaw, forbid, and subdue.  But in every human heart lurks a nascent revolution against the arbitrary edict.  In every human heart lies a self-respect, an amour-propre, which sees right through the empty vanity of the emperor and his imperial edits.  The empire can only be maintained if it keeps control of everything--which is impossible.  Therefore, the more empires grow, the more impossible they are to maintain.  Generally, empires crumble and collapse from within, crushed under the millstone of their rules and ever burgeoning edicts and rules, on the one hand, and forever being undermined by the subtle complexities of subjects, on the other.

When dictators and emperors emerge, one option in dealing with them is to give them enough rope so they hang themselves.  The very complexity of human beings ensures that, given enough rope, it will inevitably happen.  Blame the wondrous complexity of the created human soul.  Nations and empires which eschew freedom and seek, instead, to command and rule by fiat over subjects, will inevitably collapse from the centre.  The very multi-layered complexity of human beings ensures it.

If one would like a modern example, take the latter-day Soviet Union, Mark II.

The Tolerance Buzzsaw

"Shut Up, Bigot!": The Intolerance of Tolerance

by  Ben R. Crenshaw
Public Discourse/Witherspoon Institute

America is in the midst of a raging national debate on issues surrounding sexuality and gender. If you dare to suggest that gender is determined by sex and is immutable, that same-sex sex acts are immoral, or that marriage is a permanent, exclusive union of husband and wife, then you will be called an intolerant bigot, hater, and homophobe.

Where does the charge of bigotry come from? Is it just a passing fad, a political and social tool for power and control, or do its roots go deeper?

Bigotry is defined as “intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.” Notice that bigotry is not intolerance toward the opinions or beliefs of persons other than yourself, but intolerance of the other person. Bigotry is not simply disagreeing with what someone else believes; it is an unwillingness to tolerate or accept the person who holds those beliefs.

A little reflection on this definition will reveal that the vast majority of bigotry accusations populating the internet and in public discourse are not legitimate ones. On the contrary, they are the consequence of a mistaken view of tolerance that is itself a product of a warped postmodern epistemology.

Daily Devotional

The Hand of The Divine King

"The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice."
Psalm 97:1

Charles H. Spurgeon

Causes for disquietude there are none so long as this blessed sentence is true. On earth the Lord's power as readily controls the rage of the wicked as the rage of the sea; his love as easily refreshes the poor with mercy as the earth with showers. Majesty gleams in flashes of fire amid the tempest's horrors, and the glory of the Lord is seen in its grandeur in the fall of empires, and the crash of thrones. In all our conflicts and tribulations, we may behold the hand of the divine King.

"God is God; he sees and hears
All our troubles, all our tears.
Soul, forget not, 'mid thy pains,
God o'er all forever reigns."

In hell, evil spirits own, with misery, his undoubted supremacy. When permitted to roam abroad, it is with a chain at their heel; the bit is in the mouth of behemoth, and the hook in the jaws of leviathan. Death's darts are under the Lord's lock, and the grave's prisons have divine power as their warder. The terrible vengeance of the Judge of all the earth makes fiends cower down and tremble, even as dogs in the kennel fear the hunter's whip.

"Fear not death, nor Satan's thrusts,
God defends who in him trusts;
Soul, remember, in thy pains,
God o'er all forever reigns."

In heaven none doubt the sovereignty of the King Eternal, but all fall on their faces to do him homage. Angels are his courtiers, the redeemed his favourites, and all delight to serve him day and night. May we soon reach the city of the great King!

"For this life's long night of sadness
He will give us peace and gladness.
Soul, remember, in thy pains,
God o'er all forever reigns."

Roots and Origins

The Power and the Glory

The questions, Who are we, and where did we come from? are always pertinent.  The most potent cultures are those which have a long lineage faithfully recorded, analysed, critiqued, and learned.  In this sense the most potent is the Christian culture because of the length of our lineage and the rigour with which it has been recorded, passed down, and reflected upon.  Not that there is no room for improvement in this regard, but the reality abides that the Christian faith is a historical religion, steeped in history, genealogies, kingdoms, and records--which Christians are expected to know and meditate upon perpetually.

We refer, of course, not just to the post-Ascension era, but to human history from the Creation and Fall onwards up to the present.  In this sense the Christian faith is unique.  We regard Noah and Abraham as our forbears, our fathers.  Moses is our great redeemer, a faithful forerunner of the incarnate Divine redeemer.  David is our king, a lesser messiah before his greater Son.  We are citizens of the restored Davidic Kingdom (as Christ is David's greatest son, and the kingdom has been given to Him, Revelation 22:16).  These references are not mere images or metaphors.  They are historical, literal, and prophetic realities.

The modern secularist culture knows little of these realities.

More Planned Parenthood Whistleblowing

Human Capital – Episode 2: Inside the Planned Parenthood Supply Site

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 12–The second episode in a new documentary web series highlights a young woman’s eyewitness narrative of the daily practice of fetal body parts harvesting in Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, describing tissue procurement workers’ coordination with abortion providers, the pressure placed on patients, and disregard for patient consent.





The “Human Capital” documentary web series, produced by The Center for Medical Progress, integrates expert interviews, eyewitness accounts, and real-life undercover interactions to explore various themes connected to Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted fetal tissue. Episode 1, “Planned Parenthood’s Black Market in Baby Parts,” premiered last month. Episode 2, “Inside the Planned Parenthood Supply Site,” launches today at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABzFZM73o8M

Daily Devotional

The End of the Gospel

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:9-11)

John Piper

What do we need to be saved from? Verse 9 states it clearly: the wrath of God. But is that the highest, best, fullest, most satisfying prize of the gospel?

No. Verse 10 says "much more . . . shall we be saved by his life." Then verse 11 takes it to the end when it says, “more than that, we also rejoice in God.”  That is the final and highest good of the good news. There is not another “more than that” after that. There is only Paul’s saying how we got there, “through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

The end of the gospel is “we rejoice in God.” The highest, fullest, deepest, sweetest good of the gospel is God himself, enjoyed by his redeemed people.  God in Christ became the price (Romans 5:6–8), and God in Christ became the prize (Romans 5:11).
The gospel is the good news that God bought for us the everlasting enjoyment of God.

The Future of "Homosexual Marriage"

Arguments and Reasoning That Prove Far Too Much

When homosexual "marriage" became legally recognised there were tears of joy.  At last true love would be acknowledged and respected.  Christians and others were not amused.  They prophesied that before long the state would be recognising all sorts of relationships as marriage--thereby making the institution eventually empty of significance, meaning, and power.

Nah.  Don't be stupid, crowed the foolish and naive.  Slippery slope arguments lack logical force.

But there are a couple of little devils in this particular slippery slope that give it both logical force and societal potency.  In the case of homosexual "marriage" there have been been two suppressed premises driving the argument.  The first is that "true love" cannot be denied.  In the end, marriage in this view is the willful union of people.  Therefore, whatever may be the object of love, by virtue of its being loved, it justifies--nay demands--that society recognise the existence of a marriage, and provide legal sanction and recognition of it.  If it does not, it fails to recognise the human rights of the "true lover".

The second assumption is that marriage, like all existence, is evolving, developing and changing.  Therefore, we must expect, look for, and co-operate with the constant flux of existence in the way we recognise marriage (and all things for that matter.)

Yup.  The Christians were right.  Within just a few weeks of homosexual "marriage" being recognised by the Supreme Court of the United States, we read the following in Slate:

Redemption in Action

‘Jewish Schindler’ Saves Dozens of Yazidis and Christians from Islamic State

by Donna Rachel Edmunds 

Breitbart London

A Canadian Jewish businessman has spearheaded efforts to rescue Iraqi Yazidi and Christian girls from slavery after the girls were captured by ISIS troops, using money donated privately by business contacts. The businessman has cited Oskar Schindler, who rescued Jewish children from the holocaust, as his inspiration.

Last summer the world looked on in horror as ISIS swept through north Iraq, home to Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, and Yazidis. Hundreds of thousands fled before them, but thousands more starved to death in the desert, or were captured by Islamic forces. Girls in particular were bartered for in the markets, standing naked while men bought them as sex slaves.

But while most of the west turned off their TV sets, Canadian entrepreneur Steve Maman decided to take positive action. Making contacts in Iraq who could negotiate the release of the girls, Mr Maman raised thousands of Canadian dollars to finance a rescue operation, The Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq (CYCI).

Daily Devotional

The End of the Gospel

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:9-11)

John Piper

What do we need to be saved from? Verse 9 states it clearly: the wrath of God. But is that the highest, best, fullest, most satisfying prize of the gospel?  No. Verse 10 says "much more . . . shall we be saved by his life." Then verse 11 takes it to the end when it says, “more than that, we also rejoice in God.”

That is the final and highest good of the good news. There is not another “more than that” after that. There is only Paul’s saying how we got there, “through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”  The end of the gospel is “we rejoice in God.” The highest, fullest, deepest, sweetest good of the gospel is God himself, enjoyed by his redeemed people.

God in Christ became the price (Romans 5:6–8), and God in Christ became the prize (Romans 5:11).  The gospel is the good news that God bought for us the everlasting enjoyment of God.

Cyber Bullying Laws--Satisfying No-one

Wanting It Both Ways

Choices, choices.  Too much choice.  One of our local bloggers, writing at Kiwiblog has blessed us all with his insight into the disputation over the recent NZ legislation restricting online communications.  The intent of the law is to proscribe cyber bullying.

David Farrar writes:

The Act stated digital communications “should not denigrate an individual by reason of his or her colour, race, ethnic or national origins, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.”

You can’t choose your colour.
You can’t choose your race.
You can’t choose your ethnic or national origin.
You can’t choose your gender.
You can’t choose your sexual orientation.
You can’t chose whether to be disabled.
But you do choose your religion.
Religion seems the odd one out to me.

The argument Farrar is running rests on the proposition that one should not be ridiculed nor mocked nor otherwise denigrated for matters over which one has no choice or control.  But if you choose to do or be someone, then the law should permit denigrating free speech over your choices.

We are not sure that the "Farrar principle" can withstand critical scrutiny.  But even so, his list has unfounded, contradictory, and tendentious assertions.  Let's have a look at some of them.

The Political Circus

Cleaning the Clock's Face

Jonah Goldberg, writing in National Review Online,  was opining on the recent Republican presidential aspirants' debate(s).  He reckoned the Carly Fioria cleaned up--and then dealt with one of the most left-fawning suppliant broadcasters in the United States today.  Said Jonah:

Her interview with Chris Matthews was one of the best examples of a conservative eating a liberal’s lunch since Andrew Breitbart commandeered Anthony Weiner’s press-conference podium.

We have not seen that sort of command, control, and genuine conviction in a long, long time. 

Daily Devotional

No Tame Lion

TO EDWARD LOFSTROM: On what Lewis attempted in the Chronicles of Narnia; on the character of the man Jesus—his tenderness, ferocity, and even humor; and on the need to do one’s duty while having patience with God.

C. S. Lewis

16 January 1959

1. I am afraid I don’t know the answer to your question about books of Christian instruction for children. Most of those I have seen—but I haven’t seen many—seem to me namby-pamby and ‘sissie’ and calculated to nauseate any child worth his salt. Of course I have tried to do what I can for children—in a mythical and fantastic form by my seven ‘Narnian’ fairy tales. They work well with some children but not with others. Sorry this looks like salesman- ship: but honestly if I knew anything else I’d mention it.

2. Of course. ‘Gentle Jesus’, my elbow! The most striking thing about Our Lord is the union of great ferocity with extreme tenderness. (Remember Pascal? ‘I do not admire the extreme of one virtue unless you show me at the same time the extreme of the opposite virtue. One shows one’s greatness not by being at an extremity but by being simultaneously at two extremities and filling all the space between.’)

Add to this that He is also a supreme ironist, dialectician, and (occasionally) humourist. So go on! You are on the right track now: getting to the real Man behind all the plaster dolls that have been substituted for Him. This is the appearance in Human form of the God who made the Tiger and the Lamb, the avalanche and the rose. He’ll frighten and puzzle you: but the real Christ can be loved and admired as the doll can’t.

3. ‘For him who is haunted by the smell of invisible roses the cure is work’ (MacDonald). If we feel we have talents that don’t find expression in our ordinary duties and recreations, I think we must just go on doing the ordinary things as well as we can. If God wants to use these suspected talents, He will: in His own time and way. At all costs one must keep clear of all the witchdoctors and their patent cures—as you say yourself.

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III
Compiled in Yours, Jack
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis. Copyright © 2008 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Dangerous Waters

Offence in the Eye of the Claimant

Politics, they say, makes strange bedfellows.  And so it has proven to be once again.  We find ourselves in the unusual situation of agreeing with the NZ Humanist Society.  The issue is the suppression of  free speech in a recently passed law designed to punish "cyber-bullying".

According to the NZ Herald,

The Act stated digital communications "should not denigrate an individual by reason of his or her colour, race, ethnic or national origins, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability."  Mr Honeychurch (of the Humanist Society) said the law would effectively impose some of the world's strictest penalties - including fines of up to $50,000 - on people found guilty of blaspheming, or insulting religion.

It appears that New Zealand is fast following the UK and, if so, it will inevitably mean the persecution of religious believers.  Once again, the offence is in the eye of the hearer or reader.  If they choose to "feel offended" or "emotionally distressed" the speaker is guilty. 

 The Humanist Society said some human rights organisations took a dim view of the new law for allowing people to bring proceedings if they alleged a digital communication denigrated their religion or caused them to "suffer serious emotional distress".

There is a world of difference between one's religion being denigrated, criticised, abused, spat at--on the one hand--and suffering emotional distress as a result, on the other.

What Does the Bible Really Teach About . . .

Book Review

Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog


What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? by Kevin DeYoung
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Listened to this book on audio. Very careful, very thoughtful, DeYoung does a masterful job walking through the Bible’s teaching on the subject of homosexuality. Really well done. If I had to muster a complaint, it would be that he is sometimes too courteous to his opponents, and gives them the benefit of the doubt (with regard to motivations) where perhaps a good deal less ought to be given, but he doesn’t flinch anywhere in outlining what the actual teaching of the Bible is.

There are many believers who are dealing with the ramifications of same sex behavior in their families and extended circles and this book would be an indispensable place for them to get oriented. Wonderful introduction to this subject.

Daily Devotional

Christ Is Our All In All

"Christ, who is our life."
Colossians 3:4

Charles H. Spurgeon

Paul's marvellously rich expression indicates, that Christ is the source of our life. "You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." That same voice which brought Lazarus out of the tomb raised us to newness of life. He is now the substance of our spiritual life.

It is by his life that we live; he is in us, the hope of glory, the spring of our actions, the central thought which moves every other thought. Christ is the sustenance of our life. What can the Christian feed upon but Jesus' flesh and blood? "This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." O wayworn pilgrims in this wilderness of sin, you never get a morsel to satisfy the hunger of your spirits, except ye find it in him! Christ is the solace of our life. All our true joys come from him; and in times of trouble, his presence is our consolation.

There is nothing worth living for but him; and his lovingkindness is better than life! Christ is the object of our life. As speeds the ship towards the port, so hastes the believer towards the haven of his Saviour's bosom. As flies the arrow to its goal, so flies the Christian towards the perfecting of his fellowship with Christ Jesus. As the soldier fights for his captain, and is crowned in his captain's victory, so the believer contends for Christ, and gets his triumph out of the triumphs of his Master. "For him to live is Christ." Christ is the exemplar of our life.

Where there is the same life within, there will, there must be, to a great extent, the same developments without; and if we live in near fellowship with the Lord Jesus we shall grow like him. We shall set him before us as our Divine copy, and we shall seek to tread in his footsteps, until he shall become the crown of our life in glory. Oh! how safe, how honoured, how happy is the Christian, since Christ is our life!