Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

In Which I Paint With Some Bright Yellows

By Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

A consensus appears to be developing among otherwise reasonable people that Kim Davis, of Rowan County fame, either needs to start issuing marriage licenses or quit her job.

For those just joining us, a county clerk in Kentucky is refusing to issue marriage licenses against her conscience and is also refusing to resign. Her name, which should be on a bronze plaque on the side of the courthouse, is Kim Davis. A federal judge has ordered her to appear in his courtroom Thursday to explain why Davis should not be held in contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses.

File this under sentiments which seem extreme at the time, but heroic when the danger is over, and you are reading them inscribed on the base of a polished marble memorial.

But there is a difference between contempt of court and seeing that the courts have become contemptible.
Now while florists and bakers and photographers enjoy a great deal of active support from the broader Christian world, the most people like Davis will get is a sympathetic lack of sympathy. It falls out this way because Christians generally understand the private sector — that’s where they live, after all — but they don’t understand the nature of government. They don’t understand the public sector and the relationship of God’s  Word to it. Their theology develops a distinct limp as soon as they step into the public square, but it is not the kind of limp you might acquire by wrestling with God at Peniel. It is more like what might happen if you dropped the Collected Works of Immanuel Kant on your foot. That results in quite a distinctive limp, one  you see everywhere.

Here is a quick sampling of that sympathetic lack of sympathy:

Daily Devotional

Fair Measure

"Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have."
Leviticus 19:36

Charles H. Spurgeon

Weights, and scales, and measures were to be all according to the standard of justice. Surely no Christian man will need to be reminded of this in his business, for if righteousness were banished from all the world beside, it should find a shelter in believing hearts. There are, however, other balances which weigh moral and spiritual things, and these often need examining. We will call in the officer tonight.

The balances in which we weigh our own and other men's characters, are they quite accurate? Do we not turn our own ounces of goodness into pounds, and other persons' bushels of excellence into pecks? See to weights and measures here, Christian. The scales in which we measure our trials and troubles, are they according to standard?

Paul, who had more to suffer than we have, called his afflictions light, and yet we often consider ours to be heavy--surely something must be amiss with the weights! We must see to this matter, lest we get reported to the court above for unjust dealing. Those weights with which we measure our doctrinal belief, are they quite fair? The doctrines of grace should have the same weight with us as the precepts of the word, no more and no less; but it is to be feared that with many one scale or the other is unfairly weighted. It is a grand matter to give just measure in truth. Christian, be careful here.

Those measures in which we estimate our obligations and responsibilities look rather small. When a rich man gives no more to the cause of God than the poor contribute, is that a just ephah and a just hin? When ministers are half starved, is that honest dealing? When the poor are despised, while ungodly rich men are held in admiration, is that a just balance? Reader, we might lengthen the list, but we prefer to leave it as your evening's work to find out and destroy all unrighteous balances, weights, and measures.

Lawful Christian Resistance

Siding with the Pagan Satraps and Presidents

The wider issues cascading out of the Kim Davis event in the United States are probably going to occupy our attention for a stretch.  Whilst the particularities of this situation will fade, the fundamental principles at stake are, well, fundamental and so require Christians to think about them seriously.

OK, for those who have just joined us, the essential "facts of the matter" are these:

1. Kim Davis had been jailed for contempt of court for refusing to grant marriage licenses to homosexual "couples".  She had refused on the grounds of Christian law and doctrine.  In taking this action she has set herself and her office against the "command" of the US Supreme Court.

2. Davis has been "elected as Rowan County [Kentucky] clerk in November to replace her mother, who retired. As an elected official, Kim Davis cannot be fired, but the state Legislature can impeach her. That's unlikely in a state where many lawmakers agree with her position and won't meet in regular legislative session until January." [USA Today]

Some are asking, why does she just not resign?  Here is where the matter gets more complicated--and it is the complication which is the really important part.  All Christians should listen up and and take notice.

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Italian Justice System Restores Its Integrity and Honour

When judicial officers try to assuage and satiate public demands, injustice seeps out like bodily fluids from a decomposing cadaver.  Finally, the Italian justice system has cleaned up--at least in one notorious case.  Donna Leon, of Guido Brunetti fame, will be pleased.  

Amanda Knox acquitted because of 'stunning flaws' in investigation

Judges’ legal reasoning says case against Knox and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito lacked evidence to prove wrongdoing

The Guardian

Italy’s highest court acquitted Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito of the 2007 murder of the British university student Meredith Kercher, because there were “stunning flaws” in the investigation that led to their convictions, according to judges’ legal reasoning.

A panel of judges at the court of cassation in Rome found that the state’s case against the pair, who were definitively cleared of murder in March, lacked enough evidence to prove their wrongdoing beyond reasonable doubt, and cited a complete lack of “biological traces” in connection to the crime.

Daily Devotional

The “I Will” of God

Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst. (Zechariah 2:4–5)

John Piper

There are mornings when I wake up feeling fragile. Vulnerable. It’s often vague. No single threat. No one weakness. Just an amorphous sense that something is going to go wrong and I will be responsible.
It’s usually after a lot of criticism. Lots of expectations that have deadlines and that seem too big and too many.

As I look back over about 50 years of such periodic mornings, I am amazed how the Lord Jesus has preserved my life. And my ministry. The temptation to run away from the stress has never won out — not yet anyway. This is amazing. I worship him for it.

Instead of letting me sink into a paralysis of fear, or run to a mirage of greener grass, he has awakened a cry for help and then answered with a concrete promise.  Here’s an example. This is recent. I woke up feeling emotionally fragile. Weak. Vulnerable. I prayed: “Lord help me. I’m not even sure how to pray.”

An hour later I was reading in Zechariah, seeking the help I had cried out for. It came.

Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst. (Zechariah 2:4–5)

There will be such prosperity and growth for the people of God that Jerusalem will not be able to be walled in any more. “The multitude of people and livestock” will be so many that Jerusalem will be like many villages spreading out across the land without walls.

Prosperity is nice, but what about protection?  To which God says in Zechariah 2:5, “I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord.” Yes. That’s it. That is the promise. The “I will” of God. That is what I need.  And if it is true for the vulnerable villages of Jerusalem, it is true for me a child of God. God will be a “wall of fire all around me.” Yes. He will. He has been. And he will be.

And it gets better. Inside that fiery wall of protection he says, “And I will be the glory in her midst.” God is never content to give us the protection of his fire; he will give us pleasure of his presence.

Koba The Dread's Wilful Ignorance

Purblind Prejudice

We have been reading with great interest and pleasure Winston Churchill's six volume, The Second World War.  We are nearly halfway through, in the midst of volume III.  In chapter xx, "The Soviet Nemesis", Churchill details the lead up to the German invasion of Russia, June 1941.

One would be on safe ground believing that Churchill had little time for either Communism in general and Stalin in particular.  Somehow the-oh-so-stuck-in-the-mud, antediluvian UK Prime Minister had not got caught up in the adulation communism, and of the Soviets that swept up UK intellectuals at the time. 

Churchill made the following comments against the backdrop of an evident build-up of the Nazi war machine along the line between the USSR and Hitler's eastern border.  This build-up was an open secret throughout the UK and US governments at the time, and was well known amongst European nations.  Only Stalin remained completely blind to it--so much so that when Hitler finally attacked, a great deal of the Soviet air force was destroyed on the ground within a matter of hours.

Churchill writes:

Not a Pretty Message

Not refugees

Not a responsibility but a threat

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun

Almost all the media commentary on the invasion of Europe so far overlooks a critical point. The illegal immigrants in no way are “refugees”. Even those fleeing, say, Syria, were in relative safety once they’d crossed the border into Turkey, which, incidentally, is a country sharing the Muslim faith of most Syrians.

But since then, the immigrants have moved to Greece, then Macedonia and then Serbia to reach Hungary. Even then the vast majority want to move on - through Austria or the Czech Republic to their ultimate goal, Germany, the richest of all the countries on this trek.

I don’t blame them, of course, but nor do I blame Germany for saying it does not have a responsibility to accept these hundreds of thousands of people crossing its borders. Nor should journalists here keep talking about some particular responsibility of the West to accept Syrians, given the West has done nothing to create the Syrian civil war, and has recently intervened (ineffectually) to stop the Islamic State terrorists causing many of the Syrians to flee.

There is no easy way for Europe to respond, but ultimately it must involve maintaining strong borders, stopping the boats to Greece and Italy, and sending armed forces to stop Third World war, and some advice and aid to end poverty. Oddly enough, this is exactly the policy of Tony Abbott [PM of Australia]. It is that, or Europe will admit new tribes of people who will inevitably clash with Europe’s own.

Hungary’s Prime Minister puts the matter with a bluntness shocking to the secular media, but in a way which I suspect will prove prophetic:

Daily Devotional

Living in a New World

TO MARY NEYLAN, whose husband has received job security: More on the graces accompanying the death of Charles Williams. Lewis asks if he can dedicate George MacDonald: An Anthology to her.

C. S. Lewis

20 May 1945

I think what you say about ‘grief being better than estrangement’ is very true. I am sorry you should have had this grief. . . .

I also have become much acquainted with grief now through the death of my great friend Charles Williams, my friend of friends, the comforter of all our little set, the most angelic. The odd thing is that his death has made my faith ten times stronger than it was a week ago. And I find all that talk about ‘feeling he is closer to us than before’ isn’t just talk. It’s just what it does feel like—I can’t put it into words. One seems at moments to be living in a new world. Lots, lots of pain but not a particle of depression or resentment.

By the bye I’ve finished a selection from Geo. MacDonald (365 extracts) which will come out about Xmas: would you (or not) care to have it dedicated to you? I feel it is rather yours by right as you got more out of him than anyone else to whom I introduced his books. Just let me know.

And why should you assume I’m too occupied to see you? Friday mornings in term are bad, but alright in Vac: and Friday afternoons in both. I should like a visit (with a week’s notice) whenever you find one convenient.

Excuse this paper. It may be less blotched than yours but yours did at least begin life as a real piece of note paper! I’m so glad Dan has got his job made permanent. Blessings!

From The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II
Compiled in Yours, Jack
The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume II: Family Letters 1905-1931. Copyright © 2004 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.

The Chances Are Not Good

Dealing With the Refugee Crisis

The "migrant crisis" confronting Europe hits the headlines every day at the moment.  This will not last, of course, because Western grief, outrage, and angst, mixed with guilt and pity can only be sustained for so long.  Soon other crises d'jour will demand air time.

There is no simple solution at hand to this crisis.  Like most issues of this kind there can only be ameliorating moves that lessen the problem.  Human suffering will continue to exist around the globe; people will yearn for better lives and living conditions.  Migration has taken place since time immemorial.  After, Abraham and his family were migrants.  The best Western nations can hope to do is lessen the problem.

But having a clear understanding of the problems and their causes helps.  Only then will measures to manage the crisis come more readily to hand.  Here are some considerations which we believe ought to bear upon how this crisis is handled.

Firstly, we must face up to the cause of the crises.

Letter From America (About Transgender Madness)

Forcing Girls To Share A Bathroom With A Gender-Confused Boy Is Abuse

Matt Walsh

The Blaze

Get ready, folks. There are going to be a lot of stories like this over the next few months.
Lila Perry is a teenage boy at Hillsboro High School in Missouri. Apparently, he was a gay male until about ninth grade, at which point he decided he was actually a straight female. This is the sort of “revelation” that, in saner times, would land the confused young man in rigorous psychological and spiritual counseling. But these are not sane times, so instead it landed him in the girls’ locker room.

The school initially offered Perry access to a private unisex facility, but that wasn’t sufficient. Perry didn’t want to be in his anatomically correct bathroom, nor did he want to be in a gender-neutral bathroom. No, he wanted to be in the girls’ bathroom. That’s what he wanted, and because he belongs to a Protected Class, that’s exactly what he got.

Of course, lost in this discussion of what one dude wants is the small, technical matter of what everyone else wants. As far as that goes, many of his female classmates are, shockingly, rather uncomfortable changing in front of a boy, even if the boy wears a skirt and a wig. Hundreds of students staged a protest at the school this week, insisting that girls — real girls, I mean — deserve a private and safe place to undress or relieve themselves.

But they’re out of luck, it seems.

Daily Devotional

The Sharp Service of Affliction

"The Lord trieth the righteous."
Psalm 11:5

Charles H. Spurgeon

All events are under the control of Providence; consequently all the trials of our outward life are traceable at once to the great First Cause. Out of the golden gate of God's ordinance the armies of trial march forth in array, clad in their iron armour, and armed with weapons of war.

All providences are doors to trial. Even our mercies, like roses, have their thorns. Men may be drowned in seas of prosperity as well as in rivers of affliction. Our mountains are not too high, and our valleys are not too low for temptations: trials lurk on all roads. Everywhere, above and beneath, we are beset and surrounded with dangers. Yet no shower falls unpermitted from the threatening cloud; every drop has its order ere it hastens to the earth.

The trials which come from God are sent to prove and strengthen our graces, and so at once to illustrate the power of divine grace, to test the genuineness of our virtues, and to add to their energy. Our Lord in his infinite wisdom and superabundant love, sets so high a value upon his people's faith that he will not screen them from those trials by which faith is strengthened. You would never have possessed the precious faith which now supports you if the trial of your faith had not been like unto fire. You are a tree that never would have rooted so well if the wind had not rocked you to and fro, and made you take firm hold upon the precious truths of the covenant grace.

Worldly ease is a great foe to faith; it loosens the joints of holy valour, and snaps the sinews of sacred courage. The balloon never rises until the cords are cut; affliction doth this sharp service for believing souls. While the wheat sleeps comfortably in the husk it is useless to man, it must be threshed out of its resting place before its value can be known. Thus it is well that Jehovah trieth the righteous, for it causeth them to grow rich towards God.

Utopian Boondoggle, Part II

Bureaucratic Control Versus Free Choice

We are all familiar with the blight of the bureaucratic mind needing to write an instruction manual for hammering in a nail.  That manual would run to well over one hundred pages.  There would be chapters on different types and weights and shapes of hammers, plus an extensive checklist on how to determine the appropriate hammer for the job at hand.  There would be several chapters on different kinds of nails--their strengths and weaknesses--and the most appropriate type of nail for the job at hand.  There would be a chapter on which substances are amenable to being nailed, and which are not.  There would be chapters on how to hold the hammer and the most ergonomic way of swinging it.  And, of course, the manual would conclude with three chapters on health and safety in hammer use.

Now, imagine that same bureaucratic mind let loose on designing a high-school syllabus and qualification system.  We hear you groan.  Well you might.  But to this, add the utopian dream now operative in New Zealand government schools.  Under this Neverland dream it is believed that any subject or topic or industrial skill can be included in the syllabus, each requiring its own "manual".  That's what is meant by New Zealand's National Certificate of Educational Achievement ("NCEA") being a "multi-field qualification".

One of the complaints made by the teachers union is that under NCEA a never-ending avalanche of extra work has fallen down upon teachers that is far removed from actual teaching.  They have been swept up into writing and administering manuals for an open-ended list of subjects and qualifications.  In effect, the NCEA system has become a vast manual writing bureaucracy, where the writing, critiquing, studying, refreshing, moderating, and improving the manual has become more important and more time consuming than teaching.  Work loads have increased dramatically, we are told, and that has meant far less actual teaching in schools.

Consider the following union lament:

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Totalitolerance

By Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

There are two kinds of tolerant societies. The first is one which contains the principles of liberty within its framework of foundational values, and the second is a society in transition, flipping from one set of intolerances to another set. During the switch, during the transition, demands for tolerance are the battering ram used against the establishment intolerance, in order to make way for the new set of intolerances. As it suits them, advocates of the rising intolerance may pretend to be principled in their tolerance, but it is all just a sham.

And so let us react to the coercion more than the cussing . . .

Speaking frankly, just between us girls, the first kind of tolerant society is a Christian society. Liberty of conscience is something that we Christians invented. “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in any thing, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship” (WCF 20.2). This is a topic well worth pursuing, and I would recommend this book as part of that pursuit.

Now we are currently in the late stages of transition, from a formerly liberal society to a very illiberal one.

Daily Devotional

He Does All That He Pleases

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. (Psalm 115:3)

John Piper

This verse teaches that whenever God acts, he acts in a way that pleases him.

God is never constrained to do a thing that he despises. He is never backed into a corner where his only recourse is to do something he hates to do.

He does whatever he pleases. And therefore, in some sense, he has pleasure in all that he does.
This should lead us to bow before God and praise his sovereign freedom — that in some sense at least he always acts in freedom, according to his own “good pleasure,” following the dictates of his own delights.

God never becomes the victim of circumstance. He is never forced into a situation where he must do something in which he cannot rejoice. He is not mocked. He is not trapped or cornered or coerced.

Even at the one point in history where he did what in one sense was the hardest thing for God to do, “not spare his own Son” (Romans 8:32), God was free and doing what pleased him. Paul says that the self-sacrifice of Jesus in death was “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). The greatest sin and the greatest death and the hardest act of God was pleasing to the Father.

And on his way to Calvary, Jesus himself had legions at his disposal. “No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord” — of his own good pleasure, for the joy that is set before him. At the one point in the history of the universe where Jesus looked trapped, he was totally in charge doing precisely what he pleased — dying to justify the ungodly like you and me.

So let us stand in awe and wonder. And let us tremble that not only our praises of God’s sovereignty but also our salvation through the death of Christ for us, hang on this: “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever he pleases.”

Utopian Boondoggle, Part I

A Disaster Created By Ideologues Masquerading as Experts

We have read through a paper produced by one of the dominant teacher unions in New Zealand.  It is entitled The NCEA: Can It Be Saved?  The short answer offered is, yes it can survive, provided all the union demands about the scheme are met.

The opinion of this blog is that NCEA will not survive and the evidence for its eventual demise is evident in the union's paper.  We believe the NCEA (the National Certificate of Educational Achievement) will eventually end up being labelled as "an unfortunate experiment".  Its present travails, however, were always predictable.  It was a utopian scheme right from its conception, meaning it was always doomed to failure as all utopian schemes are.  It is one more demonstration of the incompetence of the state when it meddles in things way beyond its lawful brief, on the profound grounds that "it seemed a good idea at the time". 

The utopian nature of the scheme can be seen in its objective--which was to ensure that no pupil passed through New Zealand schools without being educated and qualified in something.  It was a "no child left behind" approach.  Such things sound good to gullible ears on the hustings.  NCEA in New Zealand was an attempt by the government and government schools to make a utopian ideal a reality.  The goal was that every pupil would graduate from our nation's schools with a recognised academic credit in something.  That, we were told, would be immeasurably better than having some children fail.  The NCEA paper puts it this way:

. . . students could have access to a wide range of learning, contexualised for them, and recognised through a secondary school qualification.  [The NCEA: Can It Be Saved, p.3.]

Cut through the verbiage and the bottom line was this: NCEA would provide an academic certificate for tiddlywinks, if that was all that some kids could do.

Pesky German Scientists

German Physicists: Late 20th Century Warming “Nothing Unusual”

Posted by John Hinderaker in Climate

Powerline

As regular readers know, a battle over global warming hysteria is raging among scientists, and the alarmists are consistently getting the worst of it. German scientists Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, Alexander Hempelmann and Carl Otto Weiss have published two influential studies in the European Geophysical Union journal. The first, published in 2013, examined the past 250 years of climate history. The second, published earlier this year, extended the research through the past 2,500 years.

Their findings are consistent with the main currents of modern climate science (as opposed to climate politics):

Daily Devotional

Refreshments on the Journey

C. S. Lewis

The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.

From The Problem of Pain
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain. Copyright © 1940, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 by 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 Death of Life

Isolation Wards and "Assisted" Death

By some counts it is inevitable that "euthanasia" or "assisted dying" will become legal in New Zealand.  Why not?  Since it is perfectly legal to kill the life of an innocent child, provided the act is done in the dark of the womb, why not self-killing assisted by "doctors"?   How can secular atheistic society claim the one, and deny the other.  After all, the will of the one (the mother) has been recognised in law as being sovereign over the will of the yet-to-be-born.  Why ought not the same person have an equally sovereign will over whether they themselves live or die?

When man is made the centre of existence, an autonomy unto himself, death and suffering follows.  And so it has come to pass--and will come to pass, unless we repent.  But, let none be in doubt that the human suffering will be enormous.  Tim Stanley explains why:

Opening Eyes To See, Or Not

The Shrug That Scares Me To Death

August 25, 2015

Trevin Wax

The Gospel Coalition

 

One of my favorite films is Roberto Benigni’s 1997 tragicomedy, La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful). It tells the story of a Jewish father, Guido, who invents creative ways to keep his son out of danger while they endure life in a concentration camp.

 There is a scene in that film that continues to haunt me. Guido is a waiter serving German officials and their wives as they gather for an evening of fine dining. While the Nazis are eating and drinking in luxury, the horror of the concentration camp lies just beyond the walls.

But then, one of the German officials who knew Guido before the start of the war calls him over for a private conversation. Guido has every reason to think that this officer wants to help him and his family survive. Instead, the German officer picks up where they left off years before. You see, Guido was good at solving riddles, and this officer needs help in solving a particularly perplexing one.

The conversation is long. It goes on for several torturous minutes.

Daily Devotional

Divine Promises Better Than Signs

"Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe."
John 4:48

Charles H. Spurgeon

A craving after marvels was a symptom of the sickly state of men's minds in our Lord's day; they refused solid nourishment, and pined after mere wonder. The gospel which they so greatly needed they would not have; the miracles which Jesus did not always choose to give they eagerly demanded.

Many nowadays must see signs and wonders, or they will not believe. Some have said in their heart, "I must feel deep horror of soul, or I never will believe in Jesus." But what if you never should feel it, as probably you never may? Will you go to hell out of spite against God, because he will not treat you like another? One has said to himself, "If I had a dream, or if I could feel a sudden shock of I know not what, then I would believe."

Thus you undeserving mortals dream that my Lord is to be dictated to by you! You are beggars at his gate, asking for mercy, and you must needs draw up rules and regulations as to how he shall give that mercy. Think you that he will submit to this? My Master is of a generous spirit, but he has a right royal heart, he spurns all dictation, and maintains his sovereignty of action.

Why, dear reader, if such be your case, do you crave for signs and wonders? Is not the gospel its own sign and wonder? Is not this a miracle of miracles, that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish"? Surely that precious word, "Whosoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely" and that solemn promise, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out," are better than signs and wonders!

A truthful Saviour ought to be believed. He is truth itself. Why will you ask proof of the veracity of One who cannot lie? The devils themselves declared him to be the Son of God; will you mistrust him?

Common Sense Trumps An Alien Ideology

The Beginning of the End?

The New Zealand Labour Party is currently part of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.  So, true to its official position within the Westminster system of government, the Labour Party has systematically and relentlessly opposed the introduction of charter schools in New Zealand.  The government of the day has tentatively introduced a pilot programme of charter schools to "test the waters" and see how they go.  Labour has said, "No go" at every opportunity.  Its stated policy is that when re-elected to the government benches it will abolish all charter schools in the land.  "We will wipe them out.  All of them." has become a new line in the Labour anthem.

The Labour opposition has at least two faces.  The public face is a fiscal argument that charter schools undermine plain vanilla government schools by excessively consuming state funds that otherwise would be going to government schools.  This argument is fallacious, deceptive, and misleading.  It compares apples with oranges and ends up with lemons.  It rolls the start-up costs of charter schools into operational costs and derives a cost-per-pupil for charter schools.  Which, of course, is higher than the per-pupil cost of vanilla government schools, because (watch my hands) the start up costs are excluded in the case of government schools.

Down the road from us a new government primary school has been announced by the Ministry of Education.  The declared budget to develop the site and put the buildings up is around $27 million.  If apples were to be compared to apples, the Labour Party snake-oilers would add in the $27m start up cost to the operational costs for the first year of the new school, and calculate a per-pupil cost of a brand new government school with a brand new charter school.  And, hey presto, suddenly it would become abundantly clear that charter schools are much, much less expensive than new Rolly-Royce behemoth government schools.

But the Labour opposition has another face.  It's real concern lies elsewhere.

Dead End

Pavone: Planned Parenthood’s Collision Course

Olivier Douliery/Getty Images

by Frank Pavone 

BreitbartNews

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor famously wrote years ago that Roe v. Wade, the decision that infamously resulted in over 58 million deaths by abortion, was “on a collision course with itself.”

Today, the same can be said of Roe v. Wade’s greatest and most notorious profiteer, Planned Parenthood.
Justice O’Connor made her comment with regard to Roe’s reliance on “viability,” the stage at which an unborn baby can survive outside the womb. Thanks to medical advances, viability doesn’t mean what it used to mean. More and more babies now survive birth at younger ages. As a result, the words of Roe v. Wade, while never logical, are now in conflict with reality.

And so it is with Planned Parenthood. The abortion giant is at war with its own words.

Daily Devotional

The Christian's Unceasing Prayer

"Have mercy upon me, O God."
Psalm 51:1

Charles H. Spurgeon

When Dr. Carey was suffering from a dangerous illness, the enquiry was made, "If this sickness should prove fatal, what passage would you select as the text for your funeral sermon?" He replied, "Oh, I feel that such a poor sinful creature is unworthy to have anything said about him; but if a funeral sermon must be preached, let it be from the words, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.'"

In the same spirit of humility he directed in his will that the following inscription and nothing more should be cut on his gravestone:--
William Carey, Born August 17th, 1761: Died - -
"A wretched, poor, and helpless worm
On thy kind arms I fall."

Only on the footing of free grace can the most experienced and most honoured of the saints approach their God. The best of men are conscious above all others that they are men at the best. Empty boats float high, but heavily laden vessels are low in the water; mere professors can boast, but true children of God cry for mercy upon their unprofitableness.

We have need that the Lord should have mercy upon our good works, our prayers, our preachings, our alms-givings, and our holiest things. The blood was not only sprinkled upon the doorposts of Israel's dwelling houses, but upon the sanctuary, the mercy-seat, and the altar, because as sin intrudes into our holiest things, the blood of Jesus is needed to purify them from defilement.

If mercy be needed to be exercised towards our duties, what shall be said of our sins? How sweet the remembrance that inexhaustible mercy is waiting to be gracious to us, to restore our backslidings, and make our broken bones rejoice!

Who Knows?

No Time Left

The experiences of the prophet Jonah have much to teach us.  And we have much to learn.  This short book is about an exceedingly wicked city--Nineveh, the capital of the vast Assyrian empire, the ISIS of the ancient world.  It was a gorgeous city architecturally, but putrefying in death and bloodshed.  God commanded Jonah, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me."

Jonah's response--to run in the opposite direction--led to him becoming a living sign to Nineveh of the judgement to come.  He was resurrected out of the whale. And so, centuries later, when the opponents of the Lord of Glory asked Jesus for a sign to prove Himself, He replied:

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12: 38-41)

The age of special revelation has ended with the coming of the Son of God.  Yet the the book of Jonah shines like a laser beam upon our age.

The Vainglory of "Old Glory"

Reasonable Questions

Blog&Mablog
Douglas Wilson

. . . Now it really is reasonable to ask what an African-American Christian thinks when he sees that Confederate flag on a fellow Christian’s pick-up truck. Let me repeat that — that is a reasonable question. It should be taken into account. What would a charitable approach to this be? I don’t despise this question.

What I despise is all the special pleading and hypocrisy. So if we want our redneck brethren to learn how to remove such offensive stickers from their vehicles, we could begin by calling on all hipster Christians to show them the way by scraping their Obama/Biden stickers off. You know, Barack “God Bless Planned Parenthood” Obama.

So with rednecks confronted with a reasonable question, it is also reasonable to ask what the thirteen million African-American children who were aborted since Roe think when they see the American flag. But of course, they were never given the opportunity to think anything about it because we killed them first. They won’t ever see the American flag that flew over and authorized their “legal” slaughter. They don’t know what to think about it because we sold their brains to StemExpress.

Daily Devotional

6 Things It Means to Be in Jesus

[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. (2 Timothy 1:9)

John Piper

Being “in Christ Jesus” is a stupendous reality. It is breathtaking what it means to be in Christ. United to Christ. Bound to Christ.

If you are “in Christ” listen to what it means for you:

1. In Christ Jesus you were given grace before the world was created. 2 Timothy 1:9, “He gave us grace in Christ Jesus before the ages began.”
   
2. In Christ Jesus you were chosen by God before creation. Ephesians 1:4, “God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.”
   
3. In Christ Jesus you are loved by God with an inseparable love. Romans 8:38–39, “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
   
4. In Christ Jesus you were redeemed and forgiven for all your sins. Ephesians 1:7, “In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.”
   
5. In Christ Jesus you are justified before God and the righteousness of God in Christ is imputed to you. 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
   
6. In Christ Jesus you have become a new creation and a son of God. 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Galatians 3:26, “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”

Cry The Beloved Children

Close to Blasphemy

Proverbial wisdom says that when there is an elephant in the room, few want to talk about it.  And so it has come to pass with the damning report into New Zealand's child-care agency, Child, Youth and Family service ("CYF").  The report charged that while CYF are "great" at intervention--by which is meant taking children away from parents--they are pretty much hopeless thereafter:

[Children's Commissioner, Dr Wills] said CYF was focused on "front-end" investigations, rather than long-term care.  "Where CYF has focused on assessing immediate risk of abuse and neglect, they do it well, and we need to maintain that," he said.  But the agency did not provide enough ongoing supervision and support to foster carers and staff looking after 5133 children in state care. [NZ Herald]

Intervention and removal of children is the easy part: its a relatively facile transaction.  Ensuring that the removed child gets nurtured in a (substitute) loving home and family is the hard part.  And so we are faced with the shocking reality that plenty of kids in "state care" end up being abused and horribly treated--117 last year alone.  And then there are the cases of kids who have been transferred around the bazaars with over fifty successive caregivers.  State care at work.

Letter From the UK (About The Fears of Evangelical Christians)

Looming Persecution of Christians in the UK

4 Out Of 5 Evangelicals Fear They Will Find It Hard To Share Their Faith Under New Anti-Extremism Law

by Liam Deacon
Breitbart London

Four out of five Christian evangelicals believe the government’s new anti-extremism legislation could affect them, making it harder to spread their faith, according to a new study by the Evangelical Alliance (EA).

65 per cent surveyed agreed that current attempts to define “British values” were a result of Britain’s ongoing identity crisis, 75 per cent said freedom of speech needed greater protection in the UK, and a staggering 81 per cent thought the new legislation would make it harder for them to profess their faith publicly.

David Cameron announced new measures to tackle extremist preachers and anyone spreading extremist ideas in a speech in May, including new police powers to limit what he called the “harmful activities” extremist.  The speech was largely aimed at Islamist extremism, but for reason’s of political correctness it spoke of other religions and “far right” extremism, and “what links them all.”

Daily Devotional

Breaking Our Illusions

C. S. Lewis

If the first and lowest operation of pain shatters the illusion that all is well, the second shatters the illusion that what we have, whether good or bad in itself, is our own and enough for us.

Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We ‘have all we want’ is a terrible saying when ‘all’ does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St Augustine says somewhere, ‘God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there’s nowhere for Him to put it.’ Or as a friend of mine said, ‘We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it’s there for emergencies but he hopes he’ll never have to use it.’

Now God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as he leaves us any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for. While what we call ‘our own life’ remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make ‘our own life’ less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible source of false happiness?

From The Problem of Pain
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain. Copyright © 1940, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 by 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.

Isaac Newton Left Shaking His Head

Latter Day Step Children

One of the negative conditions under which modern scientists labour is "groupthink".  To be fair, it has always been the case that consensus science, which is sometimes referred to as the ruling paradigm, substantially controls the contemporary settled scientific views of the day.  [See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962,1970)].

However, the power and control of the ruling consensus varies over time.  There is evidence that at present the power of groupthink in science is waxing, rather than waning.  On the other hand, it is precisely when the reigning paradigm begins to crack and falter that the establishment's opposition to challenges becomes both frenetic and febrile. And it certainly has at the moment. So, it is possible the frenetic character of attacks upon the non-consensus view betray the insecurity of the establishment.

We have just had a small indication of this in New Zealand.  NIWA--a government run and funded science agency--representing "official science"-- announced that it will no longer fund its employees' membership subs to an independent association of scientists called The New Zealand Association of Scientists. (NZAS)

NIWA is refusing to pay membership fees for its staff to belong to the Association of Scientists, saying the group actively lobbies against science and the integrity of scientists.  The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research notified its staff of the policy change this month. [Radio NZ]

Re-read the quoted paragraph.