Letter From America (On the "Wow" Victory)

Wow. Just Wow. 

The Day After, What it All Means, and Where We Go from Here

David Bahnsen
The Bahnsen Viewpoint

My commitment as long as I have been writing on this 2016 Presidential election was that I was going to celebrate whoever lost on election night, and mourn whoever won, pretty much in that order, and then that my real primary care and concern was the preservation of the GOP Senate majority.  I stayed up basically all night and brought in the wee hours of the morning elated, and I mean elated, that the Republican Party and some of its very best conservatives won their Senate seats last night, that the United States Congress in both chambers is red, and that Hillary Clinton is not going to be the President of the United States.

I am utterly shocked that Trump has won, as is every honest person in the country, and I will share more below about my posture towards this shocking and historical Trump victory.

I am not celebrating the Trump victory, because I have huge concerns about what his election will mean for the country and the conservative movement at large.  But before I go deeper there, let’s be very honest about what happened last night.  The Democrats nominated a God-awful candidate, with abysmal baggage, non-existent trustworthiness, and someone who represented everything this election turned out to be against – cronyism, insiderism, establishmentism, and whatever else you want to call it.

The left faces an internal crisis in the years ahead that I think will be brutal.

Daily Devotional

Constrained By Love to Work

"The eternal God is thy refuge." Deuteronomy 33:27

Charles H. Spurgeon

The word refuge may be translated "mansion," or "abiding- place," which gives the thought that God is our abode, our home. There is a fulness and sweetness in the metaphor, for dear to our hearts is our home, although it be the humblest cottage, or the scantiest garret; and dearer far is our blessed God, in whom we live, and move, and have our being.

It is at home that we feel safe: we shut the world out and dwell in quiet security. So when we are with our God we "fear no evil." He is our shelter and retreat, our abiding refuge. At home, we take our rest; it is there we find repose after the fatigue and toil of the day. And so our hearts find rest in God, when, wearied with life's conflict, we turn to him, and our soul dwells at ease. At home, also, we let our hearts loose; we are not afraid of being misunderstood, nor of our words being misconstrued. So when we are with God we can commune freely with him, laying open all our hidden desires; for if the "secret of the Lord is with them that fear him," the secrets of them that fear him ought to be, and must be, with their Lord.

Home, too, is the place of our truest and purest happiness: and it is in God that our hearts find their deepest delight. We have joy in him which far surpasses all other joy. It is also for home that we work and labour. The thought of it gives strength to bear the daily burden, and quickens the fingers to perform the task; and in this sense we may also say that God is our home. Love to him strengthens us.

We think of him in the person of his dear Son; and a glimpse of the suffering face of the Redeemer constrains us to labour in his cause. We feel that we must work, for we have brethren yet to be saved, and we have our Father's heart to make glad by bringing home his wandering sons; we would fill with holy mirth the sacred family among whom we dwell. Happy are those who have thus the God of Jacob for their refuge!

Youth Euthanasia

Sauce For Goose and Gander

New Zealand has a real problem with young people committing suicide.  Generally, no-one thinks it's a good idea.  You know, a sixteen year old hanging himself, or deliberately stepping out in front of a train--that sort of thing.

Those folk who oppose such actions--and these folk represent the vast majority, if not every adult in the country--are little more than bleeding heart fraudsters and dupes.  What on earth is wrong with a teenager taking his or her own life?  Seriously.

Long ago--well, a few decades ago--suicide used to be categorised as a sin, an ultimate act of rebellion against God.  But then God was "kicked for touch" so to speak, and the culture was suddenly awash with formal and informal fallacies, which is a polite was of saying that no-one could think straight any more.  Pretty much every social issue became filtered through emotive arguments.  In this case, when it comes to youth suicide emotion takes the form of the Appeal to Pity.  But not just the death of youth.  Assisted dying for the aged is also seen through the filter of Appeals to Pity.  This poor old person is ill, dispirited, discouraged.  If we really had pity upon him, we would help him on his way.  We would facilitate a painless, peaceful death for him.  Pity justifies such an act as morally good.

But some have sought to go beyond emotive arguments to justify helping the aged end their lives.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

The Interview That Ended Poorly

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

Our attention has been increasingly drawn to the growth of classical Christian schools, and so we sent a reporter with National Proletariat Radio to interview Douglas Wilson in Moscow, Idaho to get some background on this important movement.

NPR: Thank you so much for granting this interview.education-cartoon
DW: Glad to do it. Thanks for the opportunity.

NPR: I was surprised to read that you, as a religious conservative, are opposed to prayer in the public schools. Could you tell us a bit more about that?

DW: Well, of course I support prayer in schools as a general rule, and so my opposition to prayer in the government schools has to be taken in a more nuanced way. I am opposed to prayer in the government schools for the same reason that I am opposed to lockers in the public schools, drinking fountains in the public schools, classrooms in the public schools, teachers in the public schools, and pupils in the public schools. If I don’t want an institution to exist in the first place, then of course I wouldn’t want it to be sanctified with prayer.

NPR: Isn’t that position somewhat . . . extreme?

Daily Devotional

Nurturing the Love of Books

TO RHONA BODLE: On not forcing books on others; and on the providence of reading.

14 September 1953

C. S. Lewis

I have had ‘Miss Bodle’s colleague’ in my daily prayers for a long time now: is that the same young man you mention in your letter of July 3rd, or do I now say ‘colleagues’? Yes: don’t bother him with my books if an aunt (it somehow would be an aunt—though I must add that most of my aunts were delightful) has been ramming them down his throat.

You know, The Pilgrim’s Progress is not, I find (to my surprise) everyone’s book. I know several people who are both Christians and lovers of literature who can’t bear it. I doubt if they were made to read it as children. Indeed, I rather wonder whether that ‘being made to read it’ has spoiled so many books as is supposed. I suspect that all the people who tell me they were ‘put off’ Scott by having Ivanhoe as a holiday task are people who would never have liked Scott anyway.

I don’t believe anything will keep the right reader and the right book apart. But our literary loves are as diverse as our human! You couldn’t make me like Henry James or dislike Jane Austen whatever you did. By the bye did Chesterton’s Everlasting Man (I’m sure I advised you to read it) succeed or fail with 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.

Where Now, Brown Bear?

Lights in Dark Places

The received wisdom in the West is that the family is nothing more than a social convention--and out of date, at that.  There appears to  be nothing sacred or sacrosanct about the family per se.  Other arrangements or conventions are seen as equally valid, equally valuable, and equally applicable to man's wellbeing.  

This is just another example of Unbelief trying to shake off the shackles of God and His created order.  Marriage is the primary social institution according to Christian doctrine.  The Word of God puts marriage and family as more fundamental to humanity and to human society than any other social bond or arrangement--certainly more fundamental than the state.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
    because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.  [Genesis 1: 21-25]

Since Unbelief presupposes from the get-go that the above Word is false, every alternative is up for grabs--and, implicitly, equally valid.

The Madness of the Gentiles

Gavin Grimm Is Not A Boy

The Supreme Court Can Never Change That

What transgender student Gavin Grimm needs is what all mentally ill people need: support, not enabling.

Daniel Payne

The Federalist

Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old student from Virginia, is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Grimm is the respondent in this case. The plaintiff, Gloucester County School Board, is fighting to keep legal its current practice of sex-distinct bathrooms. Grimm wants to use the boy’s bathroom at Gloucester High School, but the school will not allow it.

Why will the school not allow it? Because Grimm is a girl, not a boy. So the school has required her to use the girl’s bathroom or a single-stall unisex bathroom. Although Grimm insists she is a boy, the plain biological facts say otherwise—and, regardless of the outcome of this case, even the Supreme Court cannot change plain biological facts.

Journalism Isn’t Supposed to Be Fiction

At National Review, Ed Whelan has done a valuable service by rounding up some of the bizarre linguistic and logical pretzels into which many journalists have tied themselves over this issue:

Daily Devotional

Is God’s Love Conditional?

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. (James 4:8)

John Piper

This verse means that there is a precious experience of peace and assurance and harmony and intimacy that is not unconditional. It depends on our not grieving the Spirit.

It depends on our putting away bad habits. It depends on forsaking the petty inconsistencies of our Christian lives. It depends on our walking closely with God and aiming at the highest degree of holiness.

If this is true, I fear that the unguarded reassurances today that God’s love is unconditional may stop people from doing the very things the Bible says they need to do in order to have the peace that they so desperately crave. In trying to give peace through “unconditionality” we may be cutting people off from the very remedy the Bible prescribes.

Let us declare untiringly the good news that our justification is based on the worth of Christ’s obedience and sacrifice, not ours (Romans 5:19, “as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous”).

But let us also declare the biblical truth that the enjoyment of that justification in its effect on our joy and confidence and power to grow in likeness to Jesus is conditioned on our actively forsaking sins and forsaking bad habits and mortifying lusts and pursuing intimacy with Christ, and not grieving the Spirit.

The Potency of Title

Civilisation is Skin Deep

Sometimes the most profound realities stare us in the face every day and we fail to see them for what they are.  Property and property rights are one of these profundities.  In the West, we take them for granted.

When ordinary people have few or no property rights, they are stripped, vulnerable, and naked--subject to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune--and to the depredations of tyrants.  A recent movie which illustrates this most powerfully is Leviathan,  Set in Russia, it is one of those masterpieces which haunt you for weeks afterwards.  Central to its plot is the issue of property rights, or the lack of them in Putin's Russia.

Westerners live in societies so grounded in fundamental and derived property rights that we scarcely think of them.  It takes an outsider to point out what we all take for granted.

Where Orthodoxy is Optional . . .

The Winnowing Of Christianity

By Rod Dreher
The American Conservative
 




Last night I rode with a traditionalist Catholic friend down to New Orleans to attend a Requiem mass featuring the music of Gabriel Fauré. It was deeply moving, and ravishingly beautiful. I’ve loved Fauré’s Requiem for years, but I have never heard it performed as part of worship. On the drive back, we talked about the travails in the Catholic Church now, and what ordinary faithful Catholics should do when there is so much confusion coming from the church’s leadership.

We talked for a bit about why it is that Evangelicals, who lack the ecclesial structure of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, have an easier time than the rest of us do holding to the orthodox biblical position on contentious moral issues of our time. Nevertheless, Evangelicalism is undergoing a similar winnowing over the issue of how to respond to homosexuality. Denny Burk, a Southern Baptist pastor and seminary professor, writes about it on his blog. Excerpts:

Daily Devotional

Incredible Grace

"Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands."  Isaiah 49:16

Charles H. Spurgeon

No doubt a part of the wonder which is concentrated in the word "Behold," is excited by the unbelieving lamentation of the preceding sentence. Zion said, "The Lord hath forsaken me, and my God hath forgotten me." How amazed the divine mind seems to be at this wicked unbelief! What can be more astounding than the unfounded doubts and fears of God's favoured people?

The Lord's loving word of rebuke should make us blush; he cries, "How can I have forgotten thee, when I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands? How darest thou doubt my constant remembrance, when the memorial is set upon my very flesh?"

O unbelief, how strange a marvel thou art! We know not which most to wonder at, the faithfulness of God or the unbelief of his people. He keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt him. He never faileth; he is never a dry well; he is never as a setting sun, a passing meteor, or a melting vapour; and yet we are as continually vexed with anxieties, molested with suspicions, and disturbed with fears, as if our God were the mirage of the desert.

"Behold," is a word intended to excite admiration. Here, indeed, we have a theme for marvelling. Heaven and earth may well be astonished that rebels should obtain so great a nearness to the heart of infinite love as to be written upon the palms of his hands. "I have graven thee." It does not say, "Thy name." The name is there, but that is not all: "I have graven thee."

See the fulness of this! I have graven thy person, thine image, thy case, thy circumstances, thy sins, thy temptations, thy weaknesses, thy wants, thy works; I have graven thee, everything about thee, all that concerns thee; I have put thee altogether there. Wilt thou ever say again that thy God hath forsaken thee when he has graven thee upon his own palms?

Sad and Evil Days

Ahab, Jezebel, and Absalom

So, who gets to be the next President of the United States?  Who knows.  As one cynic put it, how do you make a choice between Dumb and Dumber?  Far more importantly is how Christians ought to think about the US presidential election and its aftermath. For around this issue turns the ultimate purposes of the sovereign Lord.

We have held the view the both candidates are deeply flawed, inadequate, and dangerous.  We also hold the view that Trump, whilst a narcissist of substantial proportion, is less dangerous than Hillary Clinton because he is less practised at mendacity and greed on the national stage.  Clinton has had thirty years to hone her skills and instincts, and were she to win the election, she would be hard to control.  Damage limitation would be much more difficult under Clinton than Trump.

Nevertheless, biblically speaking both candidates represent a judgement from the Lord God, King of all kings.  We are reminded of that time when King David brought Israel into judgment because he did something which God specifically forbade.  He numbered the people.  Gad the prophet came to David and declared that he must choose one of three punishments: Israel would suffer under famine for three years, or be given into the hands of his enemies for three months, or there would be three days' pestilence.  David chose the last option.

There are times, it would seem, when God permits us to experience His wrath and judgement according to our choices.

Bare Faced Perversity

Global Warming Means Colder Weather, Don't You Know

Thomas D. Williams
Breitbart News

A new international study on climate change predicts that Europe and North America will be experiencing bouts of very cold weather, while insisting that the freezing temperatures will be the result of global warming.

In its “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” moment, the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature Climate Change asks readers to suspend disbelief and continue to have faith in global warming even as they pile more wood on the fire this winter.

While acknowledging that the “chaotic nature of atmospheric circulation precludes easy answers,” the authors suggest that continuing changes in the Arctic are influencing wind patterns and the occurrence of extreme weather events in northern mid-latitudes.

A related study, published in the same journal earlier this week, claimed that the Arctic “polar vortex” has been shifting from North America toward Europe over the course of several decades. This means that winters in Europe and North America have been getting colder and should continue to do so.

Daily Devotional

The Real Problem with Anxiety

“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30)

John Piper

Jesus says that the root of anxiety is inadequate faith in our Father’s future grace.

One reaction to this might be: “This is not good news! In fact, it is very discouraging to learn that what I thought was a mere struggle with an anxious disposition is rather a far deeper struggle with whether I trust God.”

My response to this is to agree, but then to disagree.

Suppose you had been having pain in your stomach and had been struggling with medicines and diets of all kinds, to no avail. And then suppose that your doctor tells you, after a routine visit, that you have cancer in your small intestine. Would that be good news? You say, emphatically not! And I agree.

But let me ask the question another way: Are you glad the doctor discovered the cancer while it is still treatable, and that indeed it can be very successfully treated? You say, yes, I am very glad that the doctor found the real problem. Again I agree.

So the news that you have cancer is not good news. But, in another sense, it is good news, because knowing what is really wrong is good, especially when your problem can be treated successfully.

That’s what it’s like to learn that the real problem behind anxiety is unbelief in the promises of God’s future grace. And he is able to work in wonderfully healing ways when we cry out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

Changing Times, Changing Tactics

Facing the Full Court Press of Secularism

The stages of the coming Kingdom of God is a fascinating subject.  The coming of the Kingdom in a nation or continent varies at different states and times.  The seed takes time to grow and manifest its shape.  We must be aware what the the Kingdom is like when the Gospel comes for the first time to a society.  The final stage would be when Christendom in that country is near fully  manifest.  Between the first and the last stages there are several variant stages.  Our Christian duty and our tactics will vary according to the circumstances.

Consider just one example of how Christians mode of operation and interaction with society-at-large may vary.  In the days of the Apostles, as the Gospel went to the Gentiles, virtually everything in society was tainted with idolatry and superstition, whether it was meat at the butcher's shop, or the practice of justice under Pax Romana.  That meant Christians needed to think carefully about how they would buy their meat in a Christ-honouring manner.  It also meant they needed to avoid the law courts, if they possibly could.

Fast forward to times when Christendom have taken the dominant position in a society.

Letter From Buckingham Palace

A Message of Intervention from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth

Given the two candidates for your forthcoming election the following has become inevitable.

A MESSAGE OF INTERVENTION FROM HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

In the light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA , and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except North Dakota, which she does not fancy).

Our new Prime Minister, Mrs. Theresa May, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.  Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.  A questionnaire may  circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.'   Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.'  Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels  (look up 'vocabulary').

2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English.  We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.  The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of  '-ize.'

3.  July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

4.  You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers,  or therapists.  The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent.  Guns should only be used for shooting grouse.  If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

5.  Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

6.  All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect.  At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.  Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

7.  The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon.  Get used to it.

8.  You will learn to make real chips.  Those things you call French Fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with mayonnaise.

9.  The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is, like the Australian stuff, not actually beer at all.  Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known
and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager (or Euro-Fizz).  New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer.  They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

10.  Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys.  Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters.  Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialect in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

11.  You will cease playing American football.  There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

12.  Further, you will stop playing baseball.  It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America .  Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.  You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first  to take the sting out of their deliveries.

13.  You must tell us who killed JFK.  It's been driving us mad.

14.  An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

15.  Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups & saucers (never mugs) with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream, not foam) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

And that, dear friends is what Brexit really means.

Daily Devotional

Mourning Over Weakness A Help To Live

"For my strength is made perfect in weakness."  2 Corinthians 12:9

Charles H. Spurgeon

A primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing God's work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness. When God's warrior marches forth to battle, strong in his own might, when he boasts, "I know that I shall conquer, my own right arm and my conquering sword shall get unto me the victory," defeat is not far distant. God will not go forth with that man who marches in his own strength.

He who reckoneth on victory thus has reckoned wrongly, for "it is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." They who go forth to fight, boasting of their prowess, shall return with their gay banners trailed in the dust, and their armour stained with disgrace. Those who serve God must serve him in his own way, and in his strength, or he will never accept their service. That which man doth, unaided by divine strength, God can never own. The mere fruits of the earth he casteth away; he will only reap that corn, the seed of which was sown from heaven, watered by grace, and ripened by the sun of divine love.

God will empty out all that thou hast before he will put his own into thee; he will first clean out thy granaries before he will fill them with the finest of the wheat. The river of God is full of water; but not one drop of it flows from earthly springs. God will have no strength used in his battles but the strength which he himself imparts. Are you mourning over your own weakness? Take courage, for there must be a consciousness of weakness before the Lord will give thee victory. Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.

"When I am weak then am I strong,
Grace is my shield and Christ my song."

Tall Poppy Syndrome Has Its Uses

Some Benefits of Being a Small Nation

New Zealand is a fortunate country--relatively speaking.  It is fortunate through no merit of its own. Rather, it benefits from being a small isolated country (geographically) and by being underpopulated.  We are aware that these two features are often at the top of a list of our nation's alleged disadvantages.  However, we beg to differ.

In effect what these two features provide is a control by citizens over central government that is unlike most other countries in the world.  New Zealand resembles a village, when compared to other countries.  Our current, long-serving Prime Minister, John Key is accessible, as are all members of Parliament.  If regulations and laws upset the electorate, politicians tend to hear about it pretty quickly.

Contrast this with much larger countries.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

7 Encouraging Words 

In Case 2016 Has Got You Down

Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

So the best thing to do is assume that if you have any sense in your head at all, you are reluctant even to turn on the news anymore. “How could they possibly have made things worse?” seems like it ought to be a rhetorical question. But every single night they are up to the challenge, and they produce actual answers to that question. And you wonder to yourself . . . this somehow seems different than how postmillennialism came across in the books. So if any part of this applies to you, and 2016 has in some measure got you down, read on.

Daily Devotional

Christ’s Sufferings in Us

John Piper

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. (Colossians 1:24)

Christ has prepared a love offering for the world by suffering and dying for sinners. It is full and lacking in nothing — except one thing, a personal presentation by Christ himself to the nations of the world.

God’s answer to this lack is to call the people of Christ (people like Paul) to make a personal presentation of the afflictions of Christ to the world. In doing this, we “fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” We finish what they were designed for, namely, a personal presentation to the people who do not know about their infinite worth.

But the most amazing thing about Colossians 1:24 is how Paul fills up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.

He says that it is his own sufferings that fill up Christ’s afflictions. This means, then, that Paul exhibits the sufferings of Christ by suffering himself for those he is trying to win. In his sufferings they see Christ’s sufferings.

Here is the astounding upshot: God intends for the afflictions of Christ to be presented to the world through the afflictions of his people.

God really means for the body of Christ, the church, to experience some of the suffering he experienced so that when we proclaim the Cross as the way to life, people will see the marks of the Cross in us and feel the love of the Cross from us.

Rogue States

Saudi Corruption and UN Complicity

The UN is a waste of time and space.  It is an inherently corrupt organisation.  One of our local New Zealand blogs posted an article from Middle East Eye:

Saudi Uses UN Human Rights Council to Cover Up its Abuses

Leah Schulz
Middle East Eye

This week, Saudi Arabia will be re-elected to the UN Human Right Council (HRC) for the fourth time, after another non-competitive election at the UN General Assembly (UNGA).  While serving its third term on the council, Saudi Arabia blocked international inquiries into its human rights abuses, punished Saudi citizens who worked in collaboration with the HRC, and threatened to cut critical UN funding after being called out for violating children’s rights.

Saudi Arabia’s presence on the council turns the HRC’s mission on its head.  Given the kingdom’s unrelenting record of repression, Saudi Arabia's continued council membership is an affront to the HRC's mission of promoting and protecting "all human rights around the globe".  It is no secret that Saudi Arabia’s values are at odds with the council's. Religious intolerance, gender inequality and a penchant for public executions are hardly the qualities that the UN had in mind for its council members.

Now, of course, Saudi Arabia is a nation which falls into the category of states which get a "free pass" at the UN.

Self-Autonomy Means Tyranny Over Others

Christian Bakery Loses Appeal over ‘Gay Cake’ Discrimination Conviction

Donna Rachel Edmunds
Breitbart London

The Christian owners of Ashers Baking Company have lost their appeal to overturn a conviction which found them guilty of discrimination for refusing to make a cake bearing a slogan which promoted gay marriage.

The Court of Appeal in Belfast upheld the previous judgement, filed last year, which found that the company had discriminated against local gay rights activist Gareth Lee by failing to provide a cake bearing a picture of Bert and Ernie with the slogan “support gay marriage”. The initial judgement ordered them to pay £500 in compensation to Mr. Lee.

The owners, Daniel and Amy MacArthur, said that they were happy to serve Mr. Lee, but felt unable to make a cake endorsing a message they did not agree with. They, therefore, argued that they had not discriminated against Mr. Lee, but had merely declined to support his cause.

Speaking on their behalf during the case, John Larkin QC, Attorney General for Northern Ireland, said if the County Court ruling against Ashers was right, the laws used against the bakery fall foul of Northern Ireland’s constitutional law.

Daily Meditation

On Fasting

C. S. Lewis

The problem about avoiding our own pain admits a similar solution. Some ascetics have used self-torture. As a layman, I offer no opinion on the prudence of such a regimen; but I insist that, whatever its merits, self-torture is quite a different thing from tribulation sent by God. Everyone knows that fasting is a different experience from missing your dinner by accident or through poverty.

Fasting asserts the will against the appetite—the reward being self-mastery and the danger pride: involuntary hunger subjects appetites and will together to the Divine will, furnishing an occasion for submission and exposing us to the danger of rebellion. But the redemptive effect of suffering lies chiefly in its tendency to reduce the rebel will.

Ascetic practices, which in themselves strengthen the will, are only useful in so far as they enable the will to put its own house (the passions) in order, as a preparation for offering the whole man to God. They are necessary as a means; as an end, they would be abominable, for in substituting will for appetite and there stopping, they would merely exchange the animal self for the diabolical self.

From The Problem of Pain
Compiled in Words to Live By 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. 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 House Rules of Secularism

Rigged Games

In the worldview of evolutionism, the world has been in existence billions of years, madcapping itself into more and more sophistication by means of brute randomization. In this worldview, simple one celled amoeba are old, ancient, early forms of life.  Human beings, because they are much more complex, had to have come later, much later.  Chance has to have time to work its circular complex glories.  Notice how the fundamental assumptions of stochasticity comprehensively shape our treatment and interpretation of the data.  A young earth is excluded from the outset as impossible.  As Van Til once put it, a fishing net is designed for the purpose of catching fish; those it does not catch are by definition not fish.   

Christians get into all sorts of trouble when they attempt to make the Scripture fit into the "science" of evolutionism.  Of course evolutionism is not a hard science.  It is not falsifiable.  It is not an experimental discipline whereby theoretical hypotheses or their implications are tested under lab conditions to see whether they prove true.  The processes of evolution cannot be subject to test tube or experimental analysis, since it's rather hard to construct experiments which are millions and millions of years in the gestation.  Evolution and its accompanying world views represent a social science--sort of like sociology.  In all such soft sciences, speculations and hypotheses rule; experimental falsification under lab conditions never so.  When was the last time you saw a sociologist in a white lab coat?

It is sad when Christians attempt to gain "air time" in the secular world by demonstrating that they take the pseudo-scientific discipline of evolutionism seriously.

The End-Game of Radical Individual Autonomy

Tradition and Law

Rod Dreher
The American Conservative

Excerpts:

. . .  the law is (generally) not crassly used for enrichment of the powerful, as you might think. That’s not my claim. My claim is this:

• All law, aside from procedural and administrative law, is legislated morality. It embodies a particular view of the Good, of transcendent moral order. 
• The Christian moral order — or, if you like, the Judeo-Christian tradition as revealed in the Bible — has generally been the basis for our laws in the American tradition.
• But this is no longer the case, not really. Our society has lost a genuinely Christian view of moral order. That’s not to say that the moral order is anti-Christian, necessarily, only that the extent to which it reflects a Christian view is incidental, given that contemporary American culture, especially elite legal culture, has severed itself cleanly from its base in Christian morality and metaphysics. For better or for worse, this is the reality we’re living out.
• Therefore, absent a transcendent basis for our laws, the law ceases to be something that attempts to mirror the divine order (that is, the law doesn’t point to a reality beyond itself), but rather becomes  merely about manipulating things to achieve ends we choose.

This does not mean, I hasten to say, that the makers and interpreters of the law will use it to enrich themselves and hoard power. To the contrary, I would say that principled liberals are not cynical . . . .  They genuinely believe they are pursuing the Good. The problem from a traditional Christian point of view is that the telos, the ultimate Good they are pursuing, is expanding individual autonomy, the sovereignty of the individual.

Daily Devotional

The Judgement of Noah and the Return of Christ

"And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."  Matthew 24:39

Charles H. Spurgeon

Universal was the doom, neither rich nor poor escaped: the learned and the illiterate, the admired and the abhorred, the religious and the profane, the old and the young, all sank in one common ruin.

Some had doubtless ridiculed the patriarch, Noah--where now their merry jests? Others had threatened him for his zeal which they counted madness--where now their boastings and hard speeches? The critic who judged the old man's work is drowned in the same sea which covers his sneering companions. Those who spoke patronizingly of the good man's fidelity to his convictions, but shared not in them, have sunk to rise no more, and the workers who for pay helped to build the wondrous ark, are all lost also. The flood swept them all away, and made no single exception. Even so, out of Christ, final destruction is sure to every man of woman born; no rank, possession, or character, shall suffice to save a single soul who has not believed in the Lord Jesus. My soul, behold this wide-spread judgment and tremble at it.

How marvellous the general apathy! they were all eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, till the awful morning dawned. There was not one wise man upon earth out of the ark. Folly duped the whole race, folly as to self-preservation--the most foolish of all follies. Folly in doubting the most true God--the most malignant of fooleries. Strange, my soul, is it not? All men are negligent of their souls till grace gives them reason, then they leave their madness and act like rational beings, but not till then.

All, blessed be God, were safe in the ark, no ruin entered there. From the huge elephant down to the tiny mouse all were safe. The timid hare was equally secure with the courageous lion, the helpless cony as safe as the laborious ox. All are safe in Jesus. My soul, art thou in him?

Baghdadiism

Horror on a Big Stage

As the fight for Mosul proceeds, stories are emerging of depravity on a grand scale.  Women, children, and non-combatants are being executed at will.  Behold the glories of ISIS.

One of the beliefs held dear by the leadership of ISIS rarely, if at all, mentioned in the secularist West is that ISIS believes it is in the "Last Days".  Its leaders believe they are fighting the last great eschatological battle.  Soon Muhammad or some similar figure will reappear and take up the fight, putting all Unbelievers or apostates or infidels to death.

The Islamic State has released a defiant new speech by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. In the new audio message, which was posted online on Dec. 26, Baghdadi claims the West and its allies are afraid of an apocalyptic showdown in Iraq and Syria. He dares the US to wage a ground war.

The “Christian Crusaders and infidel nations,” with the “Jews behind them,” do not “dare come to the land to fight a small group of mujahideen,” Baghdadi says, according to a translation obtained by The Long War Journal.  The “infidels” have “learned that it is the final war, and after it, Allah permitting, we will strike them, and they will not strike us.” Once his enemies are defeated, Baghdadi says, “Islam will rule the world…until Judgment Day.” It is for this reason that the Islamic State’s foes supposedly “delay their arrival as much as possible.” [The Long War]

But now war is upon Baghdadi and his followers.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

The Least Important Election in Our Lifetime

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

INTRODUCTION

Important elections are those in which you are deciding whether to go north by northeast or south by southwest. Important elections are the ones in which you decide whether to go thissaway or thattaway. Important elections are held on Mount Carmel, with the candidates being Jehovah and Baal.

Important elections are not elections in which millions of people are deciding how to pick up the only available turd, and their dispute is over which end is the cleaner end. Ours is the kind of election that only occurs when all the crucial decisions have been made decades before.vote-for-pedro

Important elections, in other words, are elections in which decisions are actually made. This election is nothing more than a slow motion manifestation of the decisions we have already made, decisions we began making many decades ago. Trying to come up with a “responsible choice” at this stage in our cultural devolution is trying to choreograph a judgment, trying to turn a full-blown riot into West Side Story.

So in one sense, this is the least important election in our lifetime. When it comes to elections, we have already made our decisions. In another sense, this is a crucial time in the life of our nation.

MAWS WHAT HE SAWS

As the Scots Bible puts it i the Buik, God is not mocked.

Daily Devotional

The Most Heavenly of Duties

"I will praise thee, O Lord."  Psalm 9:1

Charles Spurgeon

Praise should always follow answered prayer; as the mist of earth's gratitude rises when the sun of heaven's love warms the ground. Hath the Lord been gracious to thee, and inclined his ear to the voice of thy supplication? Then praise him as long as thou livest. Let the ripe fruit drop upon the fertile soil from which it drew its life. Deny not a song to him who hath answered thy prayer and given thee the desire of thy heart.

To be silent over God's mercies is to incur the guilt of ingratitude; it is to act as basely as the nine lepers, who after they had been cured of their leprosy, returned not to give thanks unto the healing Lord. To forget to praise God is to refuse to benefit ourselves; for praise, like prayer, is one great means of promoting the growth of the spiritual life. It helps to remove our burdens, to excite our hope, to increase our faith. It is a healthful and invigorating exercise which quickens the pulse of the believer, and nerves him for fresh enterprises in his Master's service.

To bless God for mercies received is also the way to benefit our fellow-men; "the humble shall hear thereof and be glad." Others who have been in like circumstances shall take comfort if we can say, "Oh! magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together; this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him." Weak hearts will be strengthened, and drooping saints will be revived as they listen to our "songs of deliverance." Their doubts and fears will be rebuked, as we teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. They too shall "sing in the ways of the Lord," when they hear us magnify his holy name.

Praise is the most heavenly of Christian duties. The angels pray not, but they cease not to praise both day and night; and the redeemed, clothed in white robes, with palm-branches in their hands, are never weary of singing the new song, "Worthy is the Lamb."

Naked Swimmers

The End of European Corporate Welfare Provides a Once-In-A-Lifetime Opportunity 

Warren Buffett once famously quipped that in business and investing when the tide goes out, you find who has been swimming naked.  This is a derivative from a far older proverb to the effect that  "a rising tide lifts all boats".

One of the impacts from Brexit will be that the (previously rising) tide of European subsidies will disappear from Britain.  Lots of naked swimmers will be exposed.  Doubtless, some British businesses will need to make some severe adjustments, but if they avoid the temptation of looking to have their European subsidies replaced with British ones, it will all be to the good longer term.  British agriculture can be included in the list of industries which will have to adjust.  New Zealand, of course, knows all about this, having gone through it in the seventies and eighties.  Now, subsidy free, yet able to compete virtually anywhere in the world, NZ agriculture is a thing to behold, the whinging and moaning of the Greenists notwithstanding.

We smiled to read in the NZ Herald that the royal estates in the UK will be hit--and they will not be isolated.