Something to Watch for

I make a prediction for the first week in the New Year 2005. One of our most vitriolic arguments around the water-cooler will surround Jan Egland’s assertion that America is “stingy” when it comes to Foreign Aid. Even the New York Times, in this article, completely agrees with Egland.

Numbers and percentages will be thrown around by pundits and statisticians, like purchase orders at the last hour of Wall Street’s buying day. But will they hit at the heart of the Water Cooler editorials? The real issue is the continuing decay of our ethical and moral consensus in America. We just don’t agree on what is right and wrong any more. NBC News, with Brian Williams last night, called America’s paltry $35M pledge a “moral failure”. A moral failure? This from the network that apologizes that the “following scenes of carnage from the Tsanami will be hard to watch” but shows them anyway? Who can say how moral or ethical our response is, when few in this country accept an absolute moral standard?

It would be like someone claiming that a person’s sexual preferences and exploits are no one else’s business and then screaming because someone keyed their car. What makes one set of actions morally without scrutiny and the other a platform for outrage?

In a recent video, Osama laughed at America for sending aid to countries with Muslim majorities, claiming that they will simply spend the money to destroy America and Israel. Some were outraged and claimed we should stop sending any money to Islamic countries. Why? Why should we stop doing what is right because a terrorist hunkered down in a cave somewhere is laughing?

Have fun at the water cooler with this one.

How did they grow?

Some cults have a long shelf-life, but sometimes you wonder how they survived a week in existence. I have no other comments to make on this news story from Reuters. I just can’t figure out how and why they stayed together for so long. Good food?

The super-reclusive, 280-person German cult Villa Baviera, holed up in Chile since 1961 and worshipping of former army nurse Paul Schaefer (now age 81, with whereabouts unknown), broke into the public eye in a November Reuters dispatch describing how most members have finally, after four decades, come to realize that they were mistaken in their belief that Schaefer is God’s messenger on Earth. The cult lived frozen in time, with few modern conveniences, wearing clothing from the 1930s, and in total obedience to Schaefer, who had imposed many idiosyncratic policies, including an ironclad no-intimacy rule.

No Dead Animals

This is an interesting article pulled out of the devastation of the Tsunami. It seems that in Sri Lanka, there are no massive quantities of dead animals, not even small ones like rabbits. I guess we can conclude that all the animals in the world today are ancestors of those who survived THE FLOOD and are genetically disposed to sense when another water grave is coming. Either that, or the animal kingdom has a Tsunami warning system that we could emulate.

Tsunami Update

This just in from our national headquarters about the relief efforts in Asia and more about our churches and missionaries there:

The largest earthquake to hit anywhere in the world in 40 years shook the earth from the depths of the Indian Ocean on Christmas Day. The 9.0 tremor produced an outward “ripple effect” of tsunamis that reached India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, and Thailand, killing more than 40,000 people and leaving more than a million homeless.

There are currently no reports of Alliance workers or churches being directly affected by the devastating tidal waves. However, Dalat International School in Penang, Malaysia, lost its seawall and received some damage to campus buildings that are near the beach. Because of the holidays, school was not in session, so C&MA missionary children were not at Dalat. Malaysia sustained less damage than other countries because it lies east of Sumatra and was protected by the larger island.

Ironically, CAMA Services recently sent David and Judy Phillips to work with earthquake victims in Nabire, West Papua, Indonesia, which is about 1,000 miles from area of Indonesia affected by the tsunami. The Phillips are providing food, construction aid, and medical care to many Alliance and non-Alliance people affected by the earthquake that struck there in late November.

Alliance mission leaders are monitoring the disaster and plan to partner with other Christian relief agencies to assist victims of the tragedy. To contribute to this effort, send funds to CAMA Services at P. O. Box 35000, Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3500.

As If We Were There with Them

The Bible says we are to pray for those who are being persecuted as if we are there with them. Michele Malkin presents the worst of what is being done to believers around the world. Read it and pray. Especially at Christmas.

Christmas book list

Chuck Colson has listed his Christmas Book list. Knowing the complexity of Chuck’s mind, this is not a list of feather-light reading, but something much more substantial.

A Trend?

Does seeing something mentioned twice designate it as a trend? In this case, I think so. Here is another article that gets down to the heart of Christmas: Is it really for telling everyone about being nice to one another, especially as we return their electric cheese straightener they so thoughtfully bought for us?

T. M. Moore is not happy about how we as believers are presenting Jesus. Here is one of his hardest-edged observations for us preachers:

But most of all I’m troubled by the complicity of today’s preachers in this vast deception, as they serve up Christmas sermons that reinforce false ideas about Jesus and Christmas and what His coming means for the world. Surely there is more to the message of Christmas than a seasonal dose of peace and good will, expressed in a veritable shark feed of gifts and giving?

Read the whole article here.

Depopulating Russia

One interesting sidenote in the Abortion debate. For decades, the Russian government encouraged young women to practice abortion as a means of birth control. During those years, the population remained static in size. Since the fall of the Communists, abortion rates have leveled off. But the women who have had abortions are now finding they cannot conceive! The population of Russia as a result has dropped drastically in the past five years. Look at this amazing paragraph from an article written by a member of the World Health Organization on the problems of fertility in Russia:

For one thing, Russian womanhood has, quite literally, been scarred by the country’s extraordinary popular reliance on abortion as a primary means of contraception—with the abortions in question conducted under the less-than-exemplary standards of Soviet and post-Soviet medicine. A Russian woman nowadays can expect to have more abortions than births over the course of her childbearing years. In 1988, at the end of the Soviet era, Russian women underwent an officially tabulated 4.6 million abortions—two for every live birth. In 2002, the country officially reported 1.7 million abortions—over 120 for every 100 live births.

Abortion supporters will tell you that abortion does not have long-term results. In the case of Russia, it is destroying their nation. In the same article, they say that at the current rate, the population of Russia will be wiped out completely in 100 years or less.

A staggering consequence of the use of abortion as birth control.

And We Wanted them to Take Charge of Iraq?

Normally I do not comment on heavily politicized topics, mainly because I have more important things to do than listen and respond to the spin doctors of the world and what they want us to believe. But my heart goes out to my fellow believers in Darfur, Sudan who are being largely ignored as thousands of them are being slaughtered.

The U.S. is stretched to the limit in having to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq with limited support from other countries. So we do not respond militarily to this latest attempt of the Arab world to wipe out an entire people group.

The United Nations cannot be counted on to help. Look at this quote from BBC News about Sec. General Annan’s opinions of the situation:

Mr Annan said the African Union has not been able to deploy as many peacekeeping forces in Darfur as hoped, and they needed desperate help.

The force currently stands at less than a quarter of the projected number of 4,000 troops.

The UN Security Council has imposed an arms embargo against non-government groups and individuals including the pro-government Janjaweed militia.

It has also threatened oil sanctions unless the violence ends.

The African Union has sent 1,000 troops to quell a massacre including 400,000 armed militia. That is exactly 1,000 more than the U.N. has sent. The U.N. has also passed two resolutions calling for sanctions in the last six months. They have not actually done anything else. Now, they want to send in food to feed the starving people. This is the same Kofi Annan who let his son give billions of food relief dollars to Saddam Hussein instead of to the people of Iraq.

Some have written me and asked why I am belligerent on my point that the Arab world is bent on violence. Of course, not all Arabs are that way. That would be ludicrous. But many of the leaders are. Just look at this article from the World Tribune which quotes the new leader of the Palestinian Authority Farouk Khadoummi as saying:

Fatah chief Farouk Khaddoumi said the Palestinian strategy toward Israel was two-fold. In the first stage, he said, the Palestinians would accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In the second stage, the Palestinians would seek to eliminate the Jewish state.

In November, Khaddoumi replaced the late Yasser Arafat as leader of Fatah, Middle East Newsline reported.

“At this stage there will be two states,” Khaddoumi told Iran’s Al Aram television. “Many years from now, there will be only one.”

Khaddoumi, who regards himself as Palestinian foreign minister, said he was confident that Israel would be eliminated. He said he always opposed Israel’s existence and cited the Arab numerical superiority over the Jewish state.

“[There are] 300 million Arabs, while Israel has only the sea behind it,” Khaddoumi said.

Khaddoumi said his platform was endorsed by the PLO in 1974. He said the strategy called for a phased plan that would establish authority over any territory obtained from Israel, concluding with an Arab war to destroy the Jewish state

Pray for the peace of Darfur and, apparently, for Jerusalem.

A Radical Christmas Idea

I heard an idea today that makes sense to me. Let’s take Christ out of Christmas once and for all. I don’t mean what you think I mean, so read to the bottom to get the whole flavor. Of course, this idea is nothing new, but I am pretty sure it is on the right track. I got this idea from this broadcast on NPR, and at face value it seems to diminish Jesus…but I believe it is the right way to handle this end of the year celebration.

We have already lost the war when it comes to taking commercialism out of Christmas. I’m sorry if you don’t agree, but look how little of our Christmas has to do with the values taught in the New Testament. In fact, what we celebrate has more to do with the money changers than the One who turned over their tables. Maybe you’re not aware of it, but the observation of Christmas was never a big event in Christianity until the end of the nineteenth century. For the most part, believers would simply have a meal together, prayer and some worship. Easter was always the celebration that no one could really take away from us. Why not give Christmas back to those who want it (the stores) and move all the good stuff to Easter?

As the NPR commentator says “When we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday, we talk about what he did later in his life, not where he was born and who came to visit.” I agree. Perhaps our modern emphasis on giving and getting was designed by the enemy to distract us from Jesus’ emphasis about repentance and following God’s ways. Since Christmas tends to hide Christ, or worse, make him look like a harmless little child, wouldn’t it be better to leave it to the shopkeepers and online merchants and return to the power of the Resurrection as our focus.

This isn’t a “bah, humbug” moment. We should keep this time of year as a nice winter’s break where we have a few parties and give gifts. But let’s not paste on Jesus’ name to the whole thing to make us feel religious