Category: The World (Page 4 of 10)

The Christian’s Friend in the White House

March 8, 2016 / Allan Babcock

O Preacher At a Donald Trump rally recently, Dallas First Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffries said that if Trump is elected president, “Evangelical Christians are going to have a true friend in the White House . . . Any Christian who would sit at home and not vote for the Republican nominee (here meaning Trump) . . . that person is being motivated by pride and not principle.” (Read the whole article here . . .
http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2016/03/donald-trump-reaches-evangelical-vote-through-dallas-pastor-robert-jeffress.html/?utm_source=jolt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Jolt03082016&utm_term=Jolt.)

Those remarks came after Mr. Trump called Pastor Jeffries from the crowd to join him on stage.

First Baptist Church's Senior Pastor Robert Jeffress speaks on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump (left) during a rally at the Fort Worth Convention Center in downtown Fort Worth, Friday, February 26, 2016. Trump is campaigning in Texas ahead of the Super Tuesday elections next week. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News)

In today’s “Morning Jolt” from “National Review”, Jim Geraghty refers to this, and evangelical Christians’ support of Trump in general, as an odd phenomenon, because Trump is a “previously pro-choice, thrice-married casino and strip-club owner who bragged of his affairs with married women, kissed Rudy Giuliani dressed in drag, defends Planned Parenthood, and says he’s never asked for God’s forgiveness.” On top of that, Trump professes to be a Christian, a Presbyterian.

I was aghast when (Christian) Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr. endorsed Trump a few weeks ago. Now I’m doubly aghast. Do these Christian leaders think character counts for nothing? Obviously with them, ranting anger–not to mention vulgarity and a Mussolini-approach to policy and an unrepentant spirit–matter little. Shame on them. I’m glad I’m not Baptist or a graduate of Liberty.

Of course, Falwell and Jeffries are free to endorse whomever they want. But they also have a responsibility, especially as Christian leaders, to measure how a candidate measures up to Scripture.

David French, staff writer at “National Review”, writes: “I have spent my entire adult life advocating against abortion and working to protect the unborn. I didn’t endure the taunts and jeers of my law school classmates, work countless days and nights away from home to protect the free-speech rights of pro-life protesters, and defend the freedoms of the unsung heroes in crisis-pregnancy centers only to vote for a man who’s a walking Planned Parenthood commercial.”

What troubles me at least as much as his approval of Planned Parenthood and his seemingly “seat of the pants” policy pronouncements and self-contradictions is the implication that he will get “the other guy” to do what he wants. He’ll make us “winners” by making others losers. Even the military will have to obey, no matter that the order is unlawful. (I think he walked that one back.) It sounds like he’s running for king, not president.

How can Christian leaders endorse him? Don’t they remember what Jesus taught about the rulers of the Gentiles when the disciples argued over being the greatest in the kingdom? (I’ll quote it from both the New International Version and the New Living Translation.)

Jesus called them together and said,
“You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,
and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you.
Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,
and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve,
and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45, NIV)

So Jesus called them together and said,
“You know that in this world kings are tyrants,
and officials lord it over the people beneath them.
But among you it should be quite different.
Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant,
and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all.
For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served
but to serve others,
and to give my life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45, NLT)

It seems to me Mr. Trump fits dangerously close to the Gentile leadership model Jesus condemns. And he doesn’t seem anywhere near the model Jesus requires.

I understand these candidates aren’t running for pastor-in-chief. But isn’t this the leadership style Jesus would most bless? Isn’t this the method that “works” best, whether it’s leadership in the family, in business or in the White House? If having a biblical worldview means anything, then this passage applies to the current crop of would-be Republican political leaders.

If Trump gets elected, I doubt we’ll have a friend in the White House.

Faith Should Inform Our Politics

March 2, 2016 / Allan Babcock

O Preacher That so many professed evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump reflects poorly on the church. You know the litany. Here is a man who supports Planned Parenthood (though supposedly not the abortion business of it), wants to exclude Muslims from the U.S., brags about all the famous women he’s slept with, will use the law to prosecute journalists whose articles he considers demeaning (how might he respond to criticism from Christians?), thinks his liberal sister would make a great Supreme Court Justice, claims to be a Christian but states he has no need to ask God for forgiveness, and on and on and on.

Many evangelicals, it seems, are refusing to allow faith to inform their politics. Here’s what I wrote about this yesterday:
https://theoldpreacher.com/how-can-evangelicals-vote-for-trump/.

Today I found an opinion column in “The New York Times” that addresses the topic compellingly. It’s written by Peter Wehner, a contributing editor for that newspaper. Here’s the link. I offer it to help inform us and to also urge us to vote according to our Christ-centered faith.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/opinion/campaign-stops/what-wouldnt-jesus-do.html?_r=0

How Can Evangelicals Vote for Trump?

March 1, 2016 / Allan Babcock

O Preacher Many evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump. I’m floored. Maybe I shouldn’t be. Maybe I should say many professed evangelicals are voting for Trump. I don’t know. It stumps me.

I get the anger thing. But how can Christians vote for a man who claims to be one, but whose life bears rotten fruit? For example, he’s bragged about his many affairs—“beautiful, famous, successful, married — I’ve had them all, secretly, the world’s biggest names.” And he boldly claims he has no need to ask for forgiveness.

Several times I’ve heard him say we should use American military power to kill terrorists’ families. He’s flip-flopped about racism—denouncing white supremacists, evading the issue and re-tweeting white supremacist propaganda. Where does he stand? Who knows?

From a biblical perspective, he’s disqualified, as I see it. First, repeatedly through the books of Kings, Israel’s and Judah’s kings of Israel and Judah are evaluated by whether they “did right in the eyes of the Lord” or “did evil in the eyes of the Lord.” God is not merely a word a candidate uses to attract evangelicals. God is the Judge who will evaluate Donald Trump (and his presidency if he wins) on the basis of righteousness, not on an economic deal in which we get even with China. Why are so many evangelicals forgetting that?

Second, Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” Can we trust Mr. Trump to do what is right or simply do what wins? I’m afraid his anger and his petulant reactions to negative criticism prove he’s all about winning at any cost. What is right doesn’t seem to be a consideration.

Third, in Romans 1:29-32 Paul lists the consequences of being given over to a depraved mind for refusing to acknowledge God.

“They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”

I’m not being “holier-than-thou.” I’m suggesting this is a Spirit-inspired commentary on Mr. Trump and those who “approve of [him]”. Skim through the text above and see how many descriptions fit him.

I suggest we all should consider these thoughts before we vote. And pray that the person God wants will sit in the Oval Office to lead this nation. We are sliding downward morally and spiritually. Do we really think Donald Trump would be the kind of president to use his “bully pulpit” to slow that slide?

“Their God is My God”

February 16, 2016 / Allan Babcock

O Preacher A year ago yesterday 21 Coptic* Christians were executed by Islamic State terrorists in Libya, North Africa. Apparently these men were murdered because ISIS considered them “infidels”—that is, simply because they were believers in Jesus Christ. Christians in Libya.

copt4

Similar violence occurs daily for Christians in places like Libya, Iraq and Syria.

Reading about this, I discovered a remarkable, inspirational fact in an Opinion column in “The Wall Street Journal” of February 12th. The column was written by Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos, the chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago.

“The 21 men executed that day were itinerant tradesman working on a construction job. All were native Egyptians but one, a young African man whose identity is uncertain—reports of his name vary, and was described as coming from Chad or Ghana. But the power of his example is unshakable. The executioners demanded that each hostage identify his religious allegiance. Given the opportunity to deny their faith, under threat of death, the Egyptians declared their faith in Jesus. Steadfast in their belief even in the face of evil, each was beheaded.

“Their compatriot was not a Christian when captured, apparently, but when challenged by the terrorists to declare his faith, he reportedly replied: ‘Their God is my God.’ In that moment before his death, he became a Christian. The ISIS murderers seek to demoralize Christians with acts like the slaughter on the Libyan beach. Instead they stir our wonder at the courage and devotion inspired by God’s love.”

The nameless victim’s courage almost takes my breath away. And it raises questions. How did this African unbeliever happen to be captured by ISIS? Did he work with some of the Egyptian Christians? Had he seen something of Jesus in them that attracted him to the faith? Why didn’t he try to save himself by arguing that he didn’t belong to the group, maybe even that he was Muslim? What moved him to defiantly, devotedly, daringly declare, “Their God is my God”?

Whatever the answers, whatever the details of the deadly drama that day, the sovereign grace of our loving God was poured out into his heart.

I’m reminded of Ruth. Her husband and her father-in-law had died in Moab. Naomi was mournfully returning to Israel. Ruth said to her . . .

“Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you,
For where you go I will go . . .
Your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.”
(Ruth 1:16).

Though grievous, Ruth’s circumstances were not life-and-death. How much more fearlessness did it take for this African to make such a confession!

I’m also reminded of the thief on the cross next to Jesus. One thief mocked Jesus. The other said . . .

” . . . we are receiving the reward of our deeds;
but this man has done nothing wrong.”
(Luke 23:41).

Then he turned toward the man on the middle cross . . .

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
(Luke 23:42).

And Jesus replied . . .

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
(Luke 23:43).

One year ago yesterday that brave African man left Libya’s blood-soaked beach and was instantly with Jesus in Paradise.

* * * * *

I find myself wondering what I would have said. Suppose I was an Egyptian Coptic Christian. Would I have denied my Lord to save my life? Or would I have been devoted to the point of death? But suppose I was that African. To ISIS I would have been an “infidel” only by association. Would I have denied their God? Or would I have had the courageous conviction to proclaim his words, “Their God is my God”?

Such a horror seems other world. We should remember: people in the U.S. have already died at the hand of a terrorist because they proclaimed allegiance to Jesus. These “fiery trials” aren’t limited to the Middle East. They are here. Rarely, thank God. But they are here. And only if our head’s in the sand will we presume more of them won’t be coming.

As I write this, a brother or sister of mine in Christ is being persecuted somewhere in the world, maybe threatened with death. In fact, Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos titled his “Wall Street Journal” article . . .

ISIS Is Guilty of Anti-Christian Genocide.

He complained that the U.S. and the UN have barely even mentioned it, let alone tried to do anything about it. Our fellow-believers in Jesus are being systematically exterminated. (Yes, it’s that big.) Their only “crime”? Faith in Jesus.

God won’t let us forget . . .

“Remember those who are in prison,
as though in prison with them,
and [remember] those who are mistreated,
since you also are in the body.”
(Hebrews 13:3).

Jesus, You were rejected, beaten and crucified for us.
Now some of us who are Yours are being treated as You were.
Protect the persecuted from the evil one.
Give them grace and faith and courage to stand strong in the evil day.
Thank You for these 21 Coptic Christians who refused to deny You.
Thank You for this one African man who proclaimed allegiance to You,
knowing in the very next second it would cost him his life.
May their examples inspire us.
May they move us from indifference to life-sacrificing devotion.
May Your church in America be given grace to wake from apathy
and to put on the full armor of God for the fight.
For the sake of Your sovereign name, I pray.
Amen.

*The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the largest Christian Church in Egypt, and also the largest in the Middle East overall. According to tradition, the Church was established by Saint Mark, an apostle and evangelist, in the middle of the 1st century (approximately AD 42). (Eusebius of Caesarea, the author of Ecclesiastical History in the 4th century, states that Saint Mark came to Egypt in the first or third year of the reign of Emperor Claudius, i.e. 41 or 43 A.D. “Two Thousand years of Coptic Christianity” Otto F. A. Meinardus p28.)

Think It Not Strange

February 6, 2016 / Allan Babcock

Here is a free e-book provided by John Piper and Desiring God Ministries: http://document.desiringgod.org/think-it-not-strange-en.pdf?1452547327.

It is based on the view that Christian persecution will intensify . . .

“The days of gospel persecution in the United States no longer just hang on the distant horizon; they are already here, at least for some. It’s beginning with the bakers,florists, and photographers. Before long, the consensus maybe that faithful biblical exposition is ‘hate speech.’ Many are left wondering what trials may come in the wake of the Supreme Count’s monumental decision in Obergefell vs.Hodges ” landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held in a 5–4 decision that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution).

But it’s more than a prediction based on current events. It’s a prediction based on the scriptural truth that suffering pervades the lives of those who will follow Christ.

I found the book biblical, convicting, challenging and filled with hope. It does, as the authors aim, “help American Christians get ready for the insults, trials, opposition, and even persecution that may lie ahead.”

I pray you’ll read it and be full of faith, hope and joy for whatever suffering we may be called to endure before Jesus comes in glory!

Full think it not strange

Against Trump

January 30, 2016 / Allan Babcock

The conservative magazine National Review caused quite a stir recently when it published an edition with this cover . . .

It contains 22 brief essays written by well-known conservatives. Each essay explains (and in some cases warns) why Donald Trump should not be the Republican nominee for president. Below I’ve presented the essay written by Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and the author of Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel.

I am not implying one cannot be a good Christian and favor Mr. Trump. I am saying, however, that any Christian favoring Trump should read and give serious consideration to Moore’s thoughts before voting in the primary . . .

In 2009, the Manhattan Declaration, led by Chuck Colson and Robert P. George, reaffirmed the three primary goals of religious conservatives: to protect all human life, including that of the unborn; to reinforce the sanctity of marriage and the family; and to conserve the religious freedom of all persons. All three goals would be in jeopardy under a Trump presidency.

Yes, Trump says that he is pro-life now, despite having supported partial-birth abortion in the past. The problem is not whether he can check a box. Pro-life voters expect leaders to have a coherent vision of human dignity and to be able to defend against assaults on human life in the future — some of which may be unimaginable today and will present themselves only as new technologies develop. Trump’s supposed pro-life conversion is rooted in Nietzschean, social-Darwinist terms. He knew a child who was to be aborted who grew up to be a “superstar.” Beyond that, Trump’s vitriolic — and often racist and sexist — language about immigrants, women, the disabled, and others ought to concern anyone who believes that all persons, not just the “winners” of the moment, are created in God’s image.

One also cannot help but look at the personal life of the billionaire. It is not just that he has abandoned one wife after another for a younger woman, or that he has boasted about having sex with some of the “top women of the world.” It’s that he says, after all that, that he has no need to seek forgiveness. At the same time, Trump has made millions off a casino industry that, as social conservatives have rightly argued, not only exploits personal vice but destroys families. One may say that Trump’s personal life and business dealings are irrelevant to his candidacy, but conservatives have argued for generations that virtue matters, in the citizenry and in the nation’s leaders.

Can conservatives really believe that, if elected, Trump would care about protecting the family’s place in society when his own life is — unapologetically — what conservatives used to recognize as decadent? Under withering assault in the Obama years, social conservatives have maintained, consistent with the beliefs of the Founders, that religious freedom is a natural right, not a matter of special pleading to be submitted to majority vote. Most Americans do not agree with the Little Sisters of the Poor on contraception, and the sisters do not have a powerful lobby in Washington. This shouldn’t matter. Trump’s willingness to ban Muslims, even temporarily, from entering the country simply because of their religious affiliation would make Jefferson spin in his grave.

Trump can win only in the sort of celebrity-focused mobocracy that Neil Postman warned us about years ago, in which sound moral judgments are displaced by a narcissistic pursuit of power combined with promises of “winning” for the masses. Social and religious conservatives have always seen this tendency as decadent and deviant. For them to view it any other way now would be for them to lose their soul.

Flip-Flop

January 23, 2016 / Allan Babcock

Back in November I named Ben Carson as my choice for president (https://theoldpreacher.com/carson-vs-media/).

Now I’ve done what politicians do—flip-flopped. (Those of you reading this from other countries, I hope you’ll find something for yourself in this.)

I’ve flip-flopped only because, in my humble opinion, I don’t think Carson can get the nomination and I don’t want my vote wasted. I certain am anti-Trump. I think his candidacy is all about himself. As far as flip-flops go, Trump has flipped as far as humanly possible and I’m praying he’ll flop big-time. I understand the anger. But just as lashing out in anger on a personal level solves nothing, neither will it on a national level. No way are his views (which seem to be all over the map) consistent with a biblical worldview.

Words matter. Jesus said, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks “(Luke 6:45). This is why inappropriate or vulgar speakers need a heart change, not a speech therapist! What we hear from Mr. Trump’s mouth reveals the condition of Mr. Trump’s heart. I for one don’t want that heart in the Oval Office.

Last December I posted a Marco Rubio video in which he spoke of his Christian faith (https://theoldpreacher.com/rubio-on-jesus-more/). I’m posting another today (although the sound quality is poor). In it Rubio responds to a question from an atheist. I’m impressed that Rubio doesn’t minimize his Christian faith. My sense is that he spoke from his heart at the risk of losing the atheist-bloc’s vote. I’m not campaigning for him, though, under the circumstances, I think I’ve flip-flopped and will vote for him in the primary.

Whatever happens, I’m convinced we need more politicians, more leaders in every area and more Christians in general to speak up for Jesus. Not to beat anybody over the head with the Gospel, but to make it clear where we stand—and to speak that truth firmly but humbly in love.

One question has long-concerned me: If so many of us profess faith in Christ, why is our country (and the world!) as godless as it is? Is it because many of us really aren’t believers? Or is it that we have no intention of obeying the One our mouths call “Lord”?

The Country That Murders an Innocent a Minute

January 20, 2016 / Allan Babcock

I stumbled across this post by Andrew Napolitano on “Newsmax” and thought it informative about abortion from a legal point of view. Take the time to read it and realize how lawless our country has been and continues to be regarding this devastating issue. And wonder with me how long God, in whose image all these innocents are created, will withhold his wrath from America. More than that, let’s pray and vote for a pro-life president.

Murdering Continues as Roe Turns 43

By Andrew Napolitano | Wednesday, 20 Jan 2016 10:42 AM

Image: Murdering Continues as Roe Turns 43

In one week during January 1973, President Richard M. Nixon was inaugurated to his second term, former President Lyndon B. Johnson died, the United States and North Vietnam entered into the Paris Peace Accords, and the Supreme Court legalized abortion.

Only the last of these events continues to affect and haunt the moral and constitutional order every minute of every day.

The court’s decision in Roe vs. Wade is arguably its most controversial in the post-World War II era. Its effect has been as pernicious to human life as was its 19th century intellectual progenitor, Dred Scott vs. Sanford, in which the Supreme Court ruled that African-Americans are not persons.

Roe declares that the states may not ban abortions during the first trimester of a woman’s pregnancy because the states have no interest in or right to protect the baby during that time period. This made-up rule was a radical and unconstitutional departure from nearly 200 years of jurisprudence, during which the states themselves decided what interests to protect, guided since the end of the Civil War by the prohibition on slavery, and the requirements of due process and equal protection.
During the second trimester of pregnancy, the Court declared in Roe, states may regulate abortions but only to protect the health of the mother, not the life or health of the baby, in which, the Court found, the states have no interest.

This, too, was a radical departure from well-settled law.

Under Roe, during the third trimester of pregnancy, the states may ban abortions or they may permit them; they may protect the life of the baby or they may not protect it.

This diabolic rule, the product of judicial compromise and an embarrassing and destructive rejection of the Civil War era constitutional amendments, permits the states to allow abortions up to the moment before birth, as is the law in New Jersey, where the state even pays for abortions for those who cannot afford them.

The linchpin of Roe vs. Wade is the judicial determination that the baby in the womb is not a person. The court felt it was legally necessary to make this dreadful declaration because the Constitution guarantees due process (a fair jury trial, and its attendant constitutional protections) whenever the government wants to interfere with the life, liberty or property of any person; and it prohibits the states from permitting some persons to violate the basic human rights of others, as was the case under slavery.

As the Supreme Court sometimes does, it ruled on an issue and came to a conclusion that none of the litigants before it had sought.

Roe candidly recognizes that if the fetus in the womb is a person, then all laws permitting abortion are unconstitutional. The court understood that abortion and fetal personhood would constitute the states permitting private persons to murder other persons.

So, in order to accommodate the killing, it simply redefined the meaning of “person,” lest it permit a state of affairs that due process and the prohibition of slavery could never tolerate. George Orwell predicted this horrific and totalitarian use of words in 1949 in his unnerving description of tyranny, “1984.”

Is the fetus in the womb a person?

No court has contradicted the Supreme Court on this, and the Roe supporters argue that nonpersonhood is necessary for sexual freedom. Think about that: The pro-abortion rights crowd, rejecting the natural and probable consequences of ordinary, healthy sexual intercourse, wants to continue to kill babies in the name of sexual freedom.

I take a back seat to no one when it comes to personal freedom. But the freedom to kill innocents violates all norms of civilized society. It violates the natural law.

It wasn’t even condoned in the state of nature, before governments existed.

It violates the 13th and 14th Amendments. Yet, the Supreme Court and numerous Congresses have refused to interfere with it.

It is a grave and profound evil. It is legalized murder.

Is the fetus in the womb a person?

Since the fetus has human parents and all the needed human genome to develop postnatally, of course the fetus is a person.

A simple one-line statute could have been enacted when Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush were in the White House and Republicans and anti-abortion Democrats (the handful that have made it to Congress) controlled the Congress. They could have ended the slaughter by legislatively defining the fetus in the womb to be a person.

They did not. Are the self-proclaimed anti-abortion folks in Congress sincere, or do they march under the anti-abortion banner just to win votes?

Their failure to attempt to define the fetus in the womb as a person seriously, and the Supreme Court’s unprecedented dance around the requirement of due process and the prohibition of slavery has resulted in 44 million abortions in 43 years.

That’s an abortion every minute.

Abortion is today one of the most frequent medical procedures performed in America; and the Democrats have become its champion.

They, and their few Republican allies, have become the champions of totalitarianism as well. The removal of legal personhood from human offspring in order to destroy the offspring is only the work of tyrants.

How long can a society last that violates universal norms and kills its babies in the name of “sexual freedom”?

Whose personhood will the government define away next?

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano was the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of New Jersey. He is Fox News’ senior judicial analyst. Napolitano has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other publications. He is the author of the best-seller, “Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History.”

Letter from Birmingham Jail

January 18, 2016 / Allan Babcock

I want to think racism in America has vanished. Surely the vast majority have quit counting one race superior to another!

Racism.

But today I read this from presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson . . .

In 1964, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, he said, “I am mindful that debilitating and grinding poverty afflicts my people and chains them to the lowest rung of the economic ladder.”

After fifty years of liberals making promises and the last seven years of false hope from President Obama, not much has changed. African-Americans are still fighting for space on the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

The high poverty rate in the black community continues because the very tools that should be used to promote economic opportunity instead keep low-income and minority communities in chains.

We have an education system that continues to penalize low-income and minority students by keeping them trapped in failing schools rather than giving them the choice to attend schools that best suit their academic needs. The status quo rewards national teachers’ unions at the expense of what is best for our students.

I doubt that’s just campaign rhetoric. Many African-Americans still suffer the residual (some would say “systemic”) effects of past widespread racism. That’s one reason why I’m writing about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on this commemoration of his birthday.

The Man.

King was a Baptist minister and a civil rights advocate. The latter started almost “accidentally” when Pastor King was elected to lead a bus boycott in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama responding to Rosa Park’s being found guilty of violating the Montgomery City Code when she refused to surrender her seat to a white man on a crowded bus.

Dr. King played a pivotal part in ending legal segregation of African-American citizens in the South and in creating both the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Perhaps he is best known for his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech (see above).

On Good Friday, 1963, King and his team ignored a court injunction that prohibited a peaceful march in Birmingham, Alabama. Barricades were erected. Shouting police arrested the kneeling King and his friend Ralph Abernathy and threw them in the Birmingham City Jail. King was put in solitary confinement without a mattress, pillow or blanket. A few days later a guard brought him a published letter signed by eight white clergymen condemning King for his actions.

The Letter.

King responded with a letter of his own (Letter from Birmingham Jail) that has been called “the most eloquent and learned expression of the goals and philosophy of the nonviolent movement ever written.” (Let the Trumpet Sound, p. 222). It’s long but worth the investment of time ( http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/undecided/630416-019.pdf).

Below is what may be the most soul-stirring part of that response to the white clergy . . .

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she’s told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “Nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” — then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

The Word.

Every human being, regardless of skin color or economic standing or gender or anything else, has value and dignity having been created in God’s image . . .

When God created man,
he made him in the likeness of God.
He created them male and female and blessed them.
And when they were created, he called them “man”
(Genesis 5:1,2).

This is especially true for those who are “in Christ”. For Paul, the issue was Jew–Gentile. What he writes here applies to black–white as well . . .

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth
and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision”
(that done in the body by the hands of men)–
remember that at that time you were separate from Christ,
excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise,
without hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away
have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one
and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,
by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.
His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace,
and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross,
by which he put to death their hostility.
He came and preached peace to you who were far away
and peace to those who were near.
For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens,
but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household,
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
In him the whole building is joined together
and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
And in him you too are being built together t
o become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit
(Ephesians 2:11-22).

The Grace of Not Knowing.

In 1973 Lois and I moved to Montclair, N.J. to plant a church. In contrast to where we had come from, Montclair had a significant African-American population. So did, of course, the public schools. We wondered how our children would respond. After the first or second day we asked them, “How many black kids are in your class?” They didn’t know.!

May God give us all grace not to know!

Image result for little kids holding hands black and white

Guns Are Us

January 7, 2016 / Allan Babcock

The Rev. Franklin Graham slammed President Barack Obama’s gun actions Wednesday, saying that they “will do nothing to change this horrific problem.” Graham is quoted in a “Newsmax” article today written by Todd Beamon ( http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/franklin-graham-sin-humans-kill/2016/01/06/id/708454/#ixzz3wZmAJe9V).

Graham went on to say, “you can take all the guns in America and put them in a pile on the Mall in Washington, D.C—and those guns will stay there and will eventually rust and decay. Not one gun will crawl out of that pile and shoot or harm anyone.

“It takes a human being, and a human heart bent on evil, to pick up a gun, load it, and pull the trigger. The problem we have in this country is sin.”

Graham laid blame on the removal of God from society and a Hollywood industry that glorifies violence. He proposed a heavy tax for manufacturers of any movie or game that graphically displays violence.

Tuesday President Obama had announced plans to tighten federal background checks for gun sales, require gun sellers to be licensed or face criminal prosecution, and to expand mental health treatment. Most critics argue that these measures would have done little or nothing to prevent mass shootings the nation has suffered.

Graham lamented our nation collectively turning our backs on God and reaping horrible bloodshed. “The only cure?” he asked. “Jesus Christ. That’s what will make a difference in our nation.”

I say “Amen” to that. The question is, however, “What will we followers of Christ do about it?”

We are as guilty as anyone in expecting the government to fix whatever is broken—unless it impinges on our freedom. And I’m as guilty as anyone. Illegal immigrants? Sluggish economy? Threatened recession? Terrorism? Mideast firestorm? Healthcare? Government should solve it all. If they don’t or won’t, we complain.

I’m not a politician-sympathizer. Government has acerbated the country’s problems, not alleviated them. It frightens me when I see this administration’s flagrant disregard for the Constitution. For the president to declare we are a nation of laws, then ignore or break those laws is the height of hypocrisy and a genuine threat to America’s freedoms.

As long as they’re not the start of a slippery slope, the president’s announced gun control measures are not unreasonable. But laws have limits. When Graham diagnoses sin as the root of the nation’s problems, he’s pointing to the human heart—sinful human nature. The Bible makes it blatantly clear that even God’s laws can only curb evil, never remove it. For that we need a new heart, a new righteous human nature. This is what God promised through the new covenant established in the blood of Jesus Christ . . .

“I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying,
‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
(Hebrews 8:10–12).

Graham is right, of course. The only cure for gun violence is Jesus Christ. Only he can remove guilt that plagues us, turn us toward righteousness and justice and love, and give us rock-solid hope instead of artificial escape.

Typically we regard spreading the Gospel as good for the sinner or a means of building up the Body of Christ. But we also must think of it in terms of societal good. I’m reminded of the question, “If you were walking alone down a dark street one night and met a group of intimidating-looking guys coming toward you, would you feel better if you knew they were returning from Bible study?”

In Christ, we have the cure for the vicious curse of deadly violence. The question now is . . .