Daily Meditation

Confronting Paganism

Ligonier Ministries

Nehemiah served in a pagan government as a believer in God. He was humble and respectful to the king, but proper fear of his king did not stop him from acting to save his people. He prayed to God and made a request of the king, asking for permission to go to Jerusalem to rebuild it. He also asked for letters that he might present to various governors for safe conduct, and even a grant for building materials.

Not all the pagan governors were sanguine toward Nehemiah and his plans. Indeed, some were fiercely resistant to them. When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite heard of his efforts, they were deeply disturbed that a man had come to seek the well-being of the children of Israel.

When Nehemiah set about the task of rebuilding, his enemies laughed at him and despised him. Nehemiah, though, did not let his critics determine his agenda. Nehemiah’s temptation would have been to allow the pagans to alter the plans and engage in a joint venture of compromise in the mission. That would have eased the burden on his own people and won him the applause both of the Jews and the pagans. But Nehemiah cared nothing for the applause of men and was totally unwilling to compromise the mission he had undertaken for God.

Instead of worrying about accommodating the pagans, Nehemiah focused on the reforms needed among his own people. The paganism Nehemiah feared was not the paganism of the pagans; it was the paganism of his own people. It was not paganism outside the camp that threatened Israel so much as the paganism within the camp.

 Coram Deo

Are you seeking the applause of men rather than the approval of God?

Passages for Further Study

Nehemiah 2:18
Nehemiah 2:10
Nehemiah 4:9

Go Back To The Shadow!

Massey University Vice-Chancellor Caught in a Web of Deceit

David Farrar at Kiwiblog has publicly exposed Massey University's Vice-Chancellor, Jan Thomas as lying to Professor Sally Morgan, Chair of Academic Board, Massey University.

Readers will recall that VC Thomas recently painted herself and Massey University in deep purple hues of ignominy when she cancelled by fiat a public event organized by students to which Dr Don Brash was invited to speak.  Thomas used the reason of a likely public affray caused by of Brash's speech as the reason for her cancellation order.  She was trying to protect lives, don't you know, along with the precious petal sensitivities of Massy U. students. 

Now, however, courtesy of the Official Information Act, it becomes clear that Thomas has lied all along.  She took an active interest in denying the free speech rights of the Massey Manawatu Politics Club and Don Brash under the pretext of a likely public disturbance.  You can read the details now publicly exposed by the Official Information Act releases.

Prof Sally Morgan met with VC Thomas and the latter assured her that she was worried about public disturbances, and for that reason shut down Brash's speech. This was a baldfaced genuflection, otherwise known as a lie.   Here is Prof Sally Morgan's account of her meeting with VC Thomas in which Thomas paints the picture of civil disturbance as the reason she cancelled Dr Brash's speech, yet her actual e-mail trail shows this to be nothing more than a pretext:

Child Abuse On A Vast Scale

Suicide Alley

Half Of All Transgender Female Teens Have Attempted Suicide

A study raises serious questions about how families, schools, doctors, government, and the media should grapple with the increasing number of children who label themselves transgender.

Kelsey Harkness
The Federalist

One in every two transgender adolescents who are female but identify as male has attempted suicide in the past year, according to a new study. The study, “Transgender Adolescent Suicide Behavior,” was published in Pediatrics, the official peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The study raises serious questions about how families, schools, doctors, government, and the media should grapple with the increasing number of children and teens who label themselves transgender. In addition to the alarmingly high rate of suicide attempts among transgender girls, the study reported an attempted-suicide rate of more than 40 percent for adolescents who call themselves “gender nonconforming” (neither exclusively male nor female), and nearly 30 percent for transgender male teens.

Daily Meditation

Living in Exile

Ligonier Ministries

We look to Nehemiah for clues to guide our own pilgrimage in difficult times. Nehemiah was grief-stricken by the news of the condition of Jerusalem. The walls were broken down and the gates burned with fire. His first emotion over the sad loss of his heritage was grief. It was not bitterness or anger. Nehemiah wept and mourned as Jesus would later weep over the same city.

In his grief, Nehemiah moved to the next step, prayer and fasting. His prayer was first of all a prayer of adoration for the majestic awe of God and for His faithfulness to His people: “Oh great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments” (Neh. 1:5).

Even in exile, Nehemiah praised God for His covenant faithfulness. Then the focus of his prayer turned to repentance, as he pleaded with God to forgive the sins of his own people, acknowledging that they had brought exile upon themselves.

Coram Deo

Think about some of the ways God has proven faithful to you in the past, then thank Him!

Passages for Further Study

Nehemiah 1:3–6

Pull The Other One . . .

What's With Winston and Russia?

In New Zealand we have a senior politician--the Deputy Prime Minister in fact--who seems to have a deep attachment to Russia.  No-one is quite sure why the attachment exists, but in his role as Foreign Minister, Winston Peters endeavours to put a positive gloss on anything and everything the Russian state does.  It is puzzling.

When Russia was publicly accused of using two professional spies from its secretive GRU to attempt to assassinate two Russians in the UK, Peters played it down.  As the evidence mounted he reluctantly "got on board" with the rest of the human race and agreed that it was a bad look for Russia.  This was one horse Peters ought never to have backed.

The two GRU agents had since returned to Russia and gone to ground.  But when the formal accusations and indictments came forth from the UK, the hapless duo were paraded on Russian state TV for an interview in which they claimed they had merely been tourists in the UK.

The Daily Mail has shot holes in their clumsy story.

Dangers Loom for the Universal Holy Catholic Church

The Catholic Sex Scandal

Why Every Christian Should Be Very Worried 

This scandal will prove to be a crisis on the scale of the Protestant Reformation, which began just over 500 years ago — an earthquake of 9.5 on the Richter scale.

Willis L. Krumholz and Robert Delahunty
The Federalist

The rapidly unfolding crisis in the Roman Catholic Church is not a matter of concern to Catholics alone. Its true dimensions have yet to be measured, but we think it will prove to be a crisis on the scale of the Protestant Reformation, which began just over 500 years ago — an earthquake of 9.5 on the Richter scale. If so, resolution of the crisis will take decades to work through.

Resolution and absolution will require serious effort, and most likely require deep, structural reforms. Even if we are mistaken, the Catholic crisis is of such a magnitude that Christians of all denominations must take a serious interest in it.

We are both evangelical Christians with strong ties to the Catholic Church and deep respect for it. One of us was raised as a Catholic, was educated at Catholic primary and secondary schools, and has taught for the past 14 years at a Catholic law school; the other is a graduate of the law school and the business school of that Catholic university, and has many Catholic family members.

We also care deeply about our many Catholic friends, and the health of the Roman Catholic Church, which is an enormous force for good in this world. We also believe that what happens with the Catholic Church will affect Christianity worldwide. In other words, we have a stake in the matter.

Daily Meditation

The Soul’s Final Feast

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)

John Piper

God is not unresponsive to the contrite longing of the soul. He comes and lifts the load of sin and fills our heart with gladness and gratitude. “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!” (Psalm 30:11–12).

But our joy does not just rise from the backward glance in gratitude. It also rises from the forward glance in hope: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 42:5–6).

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope” (Psalm 130:5).

In the end, the heart longs not for any of God’s good gifts, but for God himself. To see him and know him and be in his presence is the soul’s final feast. Beyond this there is no quest. Words fail. We call it pleasure, joy, delight. But these are weak pointers to the unspeakable experience:

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).

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

“Delight yourself in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4).

Simon Upton's Latest Folly

A Pseudo-Emperor Parading Naked

We have in New Zealand an odd-ball Parliamentary functionary, namely the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.  The raison d'etre for such persons is that they must be an expert or specialist in a particular field--in this case, the environment--and be able to give "neutral" advice to the Parliament.  As Commissioner he or she can advise Parliament on matters relevant to the portfolio, independent of the government of the day.  

Our present Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is one Right Honourable Simon Upton, a former Cabinet Minister.  His greatest claim to ignominy is to be responsible for the Resource Management Act which has excelled all other Parliamentary boondoggles at producing unintended consequences to the detriment of New Zealand's well being.  Upton, upon leaving NZ politics did a stint with the OECD in Paris.  Now, he presumes to tell us all about the New Zealand environment and its protection.

Upton has taken up the cudgels on that horrible and destructive environmental pollutant--methane gas--which, of course, is emitted by livestock.

However, this time he has been publicly hammered by someone who does know the academic field inside out:  Dr Geoff Duffy FRSNZ, DEng, PhD, BSc, ASTC Dip., FRSNZ, FIChemE, CEng is Professor Emeritus – Chemical Engineering, University of Auckland.  Upton is left looking like the fool--a part he has acted out not infrequently in his career.

Prof Duffy's closing piece of advice on Upton's latest eructation is:

At crucial points this (Upton's) report mischaracterises the science and lacks proper scientific understanding. It should be withdrawn until verified by independent scrutiny.

This works for us.  But before we move on, it's worth reading Prof Duffy's criticisms as he lays them out, because they leave the very strong impression that this particular piece of "climate science" is most certainly the result of a pseudo-emperor parading naked.

Revising The Official Story

Things Are Not As We Have Been Led to Believe

We didn't win the war! Like us all, Peter Hitchens grew up on stories of Britain’s heroic victory over Hitler... but now, without questioning the bravery of our troops, he’s written a book challenging all we think about WW2


By Peter Hitchens
Daily Mail


In a chilly, high-ceilinged room in a Sussex preparatory school in the winter of 1959, I work intently on my model of the destroyer HMS Cossack. Such models come in lurid cardboard boxes illustrated with pictures of aircraft, tanks and warships, amid scenes of fiery melodrama, guns emitting orange streaks of flame, and the smoke of battle. With these and our imaginations, we seek to recreate the thrill of the war we have just missed, in which our fathers fought and our mothers endured privations.

This is a war just over the horizon of time in which we wish we had taken part, and which dominates our boyish minds above all things. Courage in pursuit of goodness, in the face of a terrible enemy, was what we most believed in.  Even the Crucifixion grew pale and faint in the lurid light of air raids and great columns of burning oil at Dunkirk.

But the Second World War, like all events that have become myths, has become a dangerous subject. As a nation, we are enthralled by the belief that it was an unequivocally ‘Good War’, a belief that has grown with extraordinary speed. Yet I did not have to look far to see a rather different picture. My parents were brought together by the tempest of that war and were marked by it for the rest of their lives.

My father, Commander Eric Hitchens, who served in the Royal Navy for 30 years, was never wholly sure who had won. He neither felt he was living in a victorious country nor felt it had rewarded him justly. I remember well how, sometimes, late in the evening, he would look thoughtfully into the middle distance and say: ‘Ah, well, we won the war… or did we?’

Daily Meditation

Acknowledging Our Citizenship

Ligonier Ministries

My wife and I were traveling in Eastern Europe with another couple several years ago. When we crossed the border from Hungary to Romania, three burly, rough-looking soldiers boarded the train to check our passports and examine our luggage. Their leader indicated that he wanted to see our passports. As we handed them to him, he pointed to our luggage. As I rose to reach for a large suitcase, he suddenly stopped me. In broken English, he said, “Wait! You not American!” Then he looked at the woman who was traveling with us and said, “You not American.”

I must confess I was gripped by a vise of fear. The man pointed to a paper bag our friend had on the seat beside her. “What is that?” he asked, pointing to the edges of a book that protruded out of the top of the bag. She pulled out her Bible. I gulped, thinking to myself, “Now, we are in real trouble.”

The soldier took the Bible and began to leaf through its pages. He opened to the second chapter of Ephesians and pointed to verse 19. He ordered: “Read.” We read aloud, “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”

Instantly, the soldier’s face radiated with a benevolent smile as he said: “You not American. I not Romanian. We are citizens of heaven.” Then he turned to his fellow troops and said, “These people okay.” He returned our passports and bade us Godspeed.

Coram Deo

Thank God for your citizenship in heaven.

Passages for Further Study

Psalm 133:1–2
Ephesians 4:4–5

The Threat Facing Medical Science

The Return of the Witchdoctor

The medical profession stands before the Rubicon.  Either it will defend and stand firm for science-based medicine, or it will not.  If it does not, then the West will progressively return to the witch-doctors.  The latest challenge to the profession comes in the form of trans-genderism.  

Here is what's going down:

Reasonable people would be mystified, if not repelled, by the statements and actions of a leading researcher into transgender treatment. In a study funded by a $5.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers including Dr. Johanna Olson of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles are supposedly evaluating use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on dysphoric children.

As I’ve written with a coauthor, however, the study is fundamentally skewed toward the conclusions transgender activists desire: it contains no control group of subjects who will be spared these drugs, and will expire after five years, long before many negative effects may surface.  [Jane Robbins, The Federalist]

It seems that Dr Olson is more a sales person than a serious scientist.  A fundamental rule of selling is that one must give the client or prospective buyer what they want.  Olson insists that this is the only right way to proceed with transgender teens.

Labour is Snookered

Winston Peters is NZ's Actual Prime Minister

Below is veteran columnist, John Armstrong's take on New Zealand's unfolding constitutional revolution.  We suspect that he has failed to grasp fully the political pressures, on the one hand, and the de facto changes to NZ's constitution, on the other. 

 Labour Has Been Outsmarted and Outmanoeuvred

John Armstrong
One News

Don’t listen to those who dismiss the current muscle-flexing by Winston Peters as nothing more than the standard fare of MMP politics.  It is anything but.

Were there a handbook covering the mechanics of forming and running a coalition government, the New Zealand First leader would currently be writing a new chapter—one which would be without a happy ending for Jacinda Ardern, her coalition managers and the rest of the Labour Party.  The latter should be worried — very worried.

It is the ongoing conundrum of multi-party governments that minor parties which behave themselves and keep their heads down have almost without exception have had their heads lopped off come election-time.  Peters seems to be experimenting with the notion that minor parties which are far less polite get noticed by voters rather than being suffocated.

If that is not enough to give Labour grief, Peters appears to be engaged in trying to pull off what would amount to a massive shift in power within the coalition.  Forget cracks about cracks appearing in the coalition’s facade.  Peters, for one, will not be going anywhere. . . .

Peters now has the dream job of foreign minister. Yet, he also remains an absolutely pivotal figure in domestic politics.  With regard to the latter, it is obvious there been a major shift in New Zealand First strategy.

Daily Meditation

Embracing Our Mission

Ligonier Ministries

A church that cares not for truth is a community that rejects its very mission. The person who says, “I’m not interested in doctrine or theology,” is not “of the truth.” He or she has missed the voice of Jesus.

For the church to be the church, she must bow before her King and embrace the mission He has given to her. Yes, we desire a cultural reformation and a restoration of public morality. But that is secondary to and dependent on our mission to bear witness to the truth. Doctrine is important because its central concern is for an understanding of truth, without which there can be no godliness. It is the truth that sets us free, reforms our behavior, and defines us as disciples of Christ.

The world does not see or understand the city of God. It is a hidden city, a concealed kingdom. It is veiled by falsehood, by he who seeks to obscure the truth. The truth is that at this moment Jesus is the King of kings. This world is under His dominion. We are citizens in His realm. We must not negotiate or retreat from that affirmation. The kingdom of God comprises those people who believe what God says and obey when God commands.

Coram Deo

Are you part of God’s kingdom? Do you believe what God says and obey when He commands?

Passages for Further Study

Matthew 28:18–20
Luke 9:60

A Nation Going Gently Into the Night

The Star Chamber Makes a Comeback in the UK

A fundamental ethical principle that underscores freedom is:  not all sins are crimes.  Imagine if this were not observed and protected in a country.  Since sin is pervasive in all human communities the criminal code would expand to cover all areas of human life--leading to an extreme totalitarian state. 

To lie is to commit sin.  Imagine, however,  if all lies were criminalised.   Imagine a child lied to his parents about where he got the fifty cent coin that has been discovered in his pockets.  Off to court, guilty conviction, and a criminal sentence for the child.  Or, imagine an adult embellishing his employment record.  His "exaggeration" is discovered and he is arrested on the spot for the "crime" of lying.

But in the UK, things are even more extreme.  The definition of what constitutes a "sin" is entirely in the "eyes and ears" of the observer.  One female may regard a male's wolf whistle as harmless, and a bit of fun.  The next may regard it as and offensive hate crime because it demeans and degrades her.  That legitimately qualifies as both a sin and a crime in the United Kingdom--even if the "crime" is not written up in the statute book.

The only upshot possible from such legal abuse is an eventual tyranny over its citizens.   But the form in which this tyranny is unfolding is unique to our generation.  In the United Kingdom sins--and what constitutes a sin--are in the eye and ear of the observer.  Not only are sins crimes, but the definition of a sin lies entirely with the complainant. 

This, from The Federalist:

Daily Meditation

Understanding Our Pilgrimage

Ligonier Ministries

Resting within the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, the small piece of real estate known as Ellis Island has become a symbol of American history. There, immigrants assembled on arrival to this nation. They came from many places for many different reasons. They all looked to Lady Liberty for hope—this despite her somewhat hypocritical smile, inasmuch as she was erected two years after Congress passed a law limiting immigration.

Two of my ancestors arrived at Ellis Island. One came from Ireland to escape the potato famine. He left a thatched-roof home with a mud floor. The other one came from Yugoslavia, where he was a member of the aristocracy of Croatia.

The two shared a common goal. They both left their homelands seeking a better country. They were pilgrims, sojourners in a foreign land. Like Abraham, they went out seeking a city. Yet unlike Abraham, my ancestors sought the city of man.

Every Christian is called to be a pilgrim. We are pilgrims and sojourners on the earth. Our home is in the city of God. Our community is the church, the visible testimony to the invisible kingdom of God. It is our community—a community of faith.

Coram Deo

Are you living like a pilgrim in this world or have you settled in as a permanent resident?

Passages for Further Study

Hebrews 11:13
1 Peter 2:11
Psalm 119:54

A Man of Unusual Courage

Disease In the Body Politic

Demonization of Nunes Is a Window Into Our Times

By Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online

Rep. Devin Nunes briefs reporters on Capitol Hill in March 2017. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Nunes has become the subject of unprecedented media venom.

Much of what we now know about the unethical and often illegal behavior of the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, and Department of Justice emerged due to the efforts of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Its chairman during its stunning disclosures has been Representative Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), who in turn has been constantly demonized for his efforts.

Yet without the committee’s digging, Americans would not have known that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid for an unsubstantiated 2016 dossier on Donald Trump compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.

Prior to the committee’s work, we did not know that the FBI and Justice Department used unverified information from the Steele dossier to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing for the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Without the committee’s disclosures, Americans would not have had any idea that Bruce Ohr, who once ranked fourth in the Department of Justice hierarchy, coordinated opposition research on Trump with Steele, the FBI, and Fusion GPS. Ohr took this unethical step because his wife was working for Fusion GPS — a fact that was withheld on federal disclosure forms.

The Nunes-led committee also uncovered the names of prominent FBI and DOJ officials — including James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, and Sally Yates — who had approved FISA court warrant applications that were based on the largely discredited Steele dossier.

Most dramatically, we learned that members of the Obama administration had unmasked the names of U.S. citizens swept up in government surveillance. Many of those names were illegally leaked to the press.

The Velvet Revolution

Yes, Prime Minister

Down under we are witnessing the strangest thing.  Over the last few months we have had a major constitutional change--a velvet revolution, one may say.  The NZ Prime Minister has morphed from being the leader of the governing parliamentary majority, and, therefore, of the country.  Without fanfare or notice, her office has evolved  into being that of the "constitutional leader", much more akin to the Constitutional Monarchy in the UK.

She is the leader de jure, whilst the office of leader de facto has gone to someone else.  We now have a "throne" and a "leader behind the throne"--at least that is how it seems.  This development is unparalleled in our democracy.  Jacinda Ardern has become a figurehead like George VI, whilst the Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters has become like Winston Churchill. 

Here are a couple of examples.  The titular PM (Jacinda Ardern) announces that the Government will pursue its ambition to double New Zealand's annual refugee quotas.  The de facto PM (Winston Peters) says it will not.  A few days later, the titular PM mumbles her consent, having taken the advice of the de facto PM.

Chinese Government Shows Its Weakness and Insecurity

Persecution of Christians In China

Chinese Gov’t Burning Bibles, Shutting Churches, Ordering Christians to Renounce Faith

Atheistic Chinese Communist Government Scared

Dave Urbanski
The Blaze

China’s government is burning Bibles, destroying crosses, shutting churches, and ordering Christians to sign papers renouncing their faith, the Associated Press reported, citing pastors and a group that monitors religion in China.  The crackdown is related to an effort to “Sinicize” — or refashion as Chinese — religion by enforcing loyalty to the atheist Communist Party and getting rid of challenges to its authority over people’s lives, the outlet said.

Bob Fu of the U.S.-based group China Aid, said the recent shuttering of churches in central Henan province and a well-known house church in Beijing equates to a “significant escalation” of the crackdown, the AP reported.  “The international community should be alarmed and outraged for this blatant violation of freedom of religion and belief,” Fu wrote in an email to the outlet.

More from the AP:

Daily Meditation

Awaiting the City of God

Ligonier Ministries

Evangelical Christians love America. Some see in her the last hope of creating a Christian nation. But it is not a Christian nation. It is pagan to the core. It is in danger of becoming, if it is not already, the new “Evil Empire.” The Mayflower Compact is a museum piece, a relic of a forgotten era. “In God We Trust” is now a lie.

Yes, we must always work for social reform. Yes, we must be “profane” in Martin Luther’s sense of going out of the temple and into the world. We do not despise the country of our birth. But in what do we invest our hope? The state is not God. The nation is not the Promised Land. The president is not our King. The Congress is not our Savior. Our welfare can never be found in the city of man. The federal government is not sovereign. We live—in every age and in every generation—by the rivers of Babylon. We need to understand that clearly. We must learn how to sing the Lord’s song in a strange and foreign land.

America will fall. The United States will inevitably disintegrate. The Stars and Stripes will bleed. The White House will turn to rubble. That is certain. We stand like Augustine before the sea. We pray that God will spare our nation. If He chooses not to, we ask for the grace to accept its demise. In either case, we look to Him who is our King and to heaven, which is our home. We await the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God.

Coram Deo

Are you looking to your King and to your eternal destiny, despite the circumstances around you? Keep your focus on the heavenly Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God.

Passages for Further Study

1 Corinthians 15:50
John 3:5
2 Peter 1:11

Maori Youth In Our Courts

Facing Up--Or Not

It appears there are no solutions to the endless lines of Maori in our courts to be sentenced for serious crime.  Secular humanism has come to a dead end.  What on earth is to be done?  No-one knows.  No-one is prepared to speculate, let alone say.  

When the fundamental fabric of human society is torn up and thrown away, government programmes laced with billions of dollars will only exacerbate the problem--as has happened.  New Zealand's great god of the age--Secular Gummint--has failed miserably.  The tsunami of crime continues.  More hands are wrung.  More lamentations are heard.  Nothing changes.  Except for the worse.

We published an article on Maori youth yesterday, which included the following:

One of the most poignant sentencing notes I've read was by Judge Gerard Winter. A judge in Auckland for seven years, he was sentencing an 18-year-old for kidnap and aggravated robbery last year. He robbed two international students at gunpoint.

Before sentencing the man to 25 months' jail, the judge traversed the figures of Māori crime and incarceration rates included in the Waitangi Tribunal's Tū Mai te Rangi report. Judge Winter granted the youth a five-month discount to his sentence on the strength of a cultural report that covered the decades and generations that preceded the youth, and his whānau's rural-to-urban move and its impacts.  "Each and every day this court is engaged in sentencing, far too often there are young Māori offenders appearing for sentence on the very worst crime at category 3 level," the judge said. 

The Great Secular Humanist dream has turned into a nightmare.  The only thing that has changed is that now a few more people are prepared to own up to its wretched failures.  But they have no solution to offer, except more of the same.  We are approaching the layman's definition of insanity.

This is not a racial issue.

Avoiding the Obvious

Elephants in the Room

Marty Sharpe
Stuff

There are a few things you get used to when you spend a lot of time in court. First, Māori make up the vast majority of defendants; second, it's dominated by the same surnames and families coming up year after year; third, alcohol and/or drugs are almost always involved; and four; gang influence, specifically from the Mongrel Mob is insidious.

There is a problem, but if you ask me it's not the justice system, it's the system that allows these kids to become victims and consequently offenders.

This isn't news. We've been talking about this for decades. Which is why the justice summit seemed a strange thing to hold.  It's strange because it's tackling a symptom, not the cause.

If there was one thing I'd want to impress on anyone who was interested, it's that prison sentences are not given out lightly. Listening to some commentators and critics, you would think the judiciary was stacked with men and women itching to send defendants to prison.

In fact, judges and others in the justice system are at pains not to send people to jail.

Daily Meditation

Rejecting Kingdoms of This World

Ligonier Ministries

Augustine stood by the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. He had heard of the hordes of barbarians that were moving as a juggernaut against Rome and the empire. The reports were ominous and foreboding, lending little reason for hope of the survival of the Roman culture.

Augustine said a prayer in three parts. In the first part, he implored God to save the empire. In the second part, he asked for grace to accept the destruction of civilization as he knew it, if that should be the will of Providence. In the third part, he asked that in either case he might be permitted soon to die and enter his eternal rest.

Permanence and security cannot be found in the structures of man. Concrete crumbles. Glass shatters. Steel melts. When God says “No!” the cities and kingdoms of men come to ruin. God simply will not tolerate man’s quest for autonomy—his lust for idols of his own making. No city, no nation, no culture can survive the judgment of God.

Coram Deo

Spend some time in prayer today for your city, state, and nation.

Passages for Further Study

Revelation 11:15
Psalm 145:11
Psalm 145:13