Religion | Ain't Complicated

Remember…

We used to read about terrorism in other countries. We encountered suicide bombers and germ warfare only in the newspapers. We could hardly have imagined hijacked jets smashing into buildings or deadly anthrax spreading through the U.S. mail.

Our world has changed. We have heard the sirens. We have turned horrified eyes to the burning skies. The flaming towers are etched forever on our memories. Every day the altered skyline reminds us of the tragedy.

Our world has changed. We watch in dismay as HAZMAT teams examine post offices. We grieve the loss of friends and loved ones. We know fear.

The unbelievable has happened. And our world has changed.

One thing has not changed.

Terrorist Attack!

September 11, 2001 — a day that will live in history and in the memories of those old enough to remember that day. On that day, well-trained terrorists hijacked airliners and used them as missiles of mass destruction in New York and Washington. Millions in the United States and beyond now live in fear of more attacks from a foe that is determined, elusive, and exceedingly difficult to confront. Even if guns and warplanes could destroy hundreds of terrorists and their strongholds, who is to say that more of them are not hiding out somewhere else?

The world begs for solutions to the terrorist menace, but solutions are hard to come by.

As I thought about the terrorist menace, I began to contemplate another more serious terrorist operation.

Living by Faith

Whether he’s a master terrorist or a stellar citizen, the faith of Jesus is what he needs for redemption. Whether she’s the best or the worst humanity has to offer, the faith of Jesus is what she needs for redemption. Whether they grew up in a rock-solid Christian home or in demon-worshiping home, only the faith of Jesus will bring them redemption. Thankfully, no matter who or how anyone is, Jesus makes His redemption available to them.

When Terror Strikes Home

Terrorists strike and our world erupts in dust, fire, and chaos. As we look around with shell-shocked gaze, suffering and insecurity leap at us from the rubble. Pain tears across the faces of the injured. Specters of suffering rise from the rubble to grip our heart the specters of stark terror, crushing bereavement, helpless fury, and mind-numbing bewilderment and shock. The scene burns indelibly into our very soul.

We begin to ask questions. “Why!? Where are You, God? Don’t You care about us anymore? Why do You permit such suffering and chaos?”

Is God responsible for it all? Is He still in control? What does the Bible say?

A Limit to Religious Freedom

Christian group blamed for mumps outbreak

Conservative Christians who refuse vaccinations have been linked to an outbreak of mumps in British Columbia. The controversy has raised ethical issues, and sparked debate over the limits of religious rights.

Douglas Todd, religion writer for The Vancouver Sun, has covered the story extensively.

Todd cited medical ethicists who questioned the Christian group’s position. Alister Browne, director of ethics and law at the University of British Columbia medical school, said, “I don’t think this issue is a small matter.” He added that the ethical importance of a society protecting the health of children and others against infectious disease must be weighed against a person’s right to religious freedom, and the level of risk to others when immunizations are refused.

Michael McDonald, a professor in the Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics at the University of British Columbia, went further. He argued that adults in the Chilliwack community may be ethically required to accept vaccinations to protect their children and members of the larger society, since the health and safety of others — particularly children — is a justified “limit to religious freedom.”

Do you agree?

And another less PC question: If these were Muslims, would Mr. McDonald say the same thing?

I’m sure you don’t know the answer to the second question. But surely you know the answer to the first.

Keeping a Pledge

Dobson Rebuked for Breaking His Pledge Before God

On April 28, 1990 at the Washington D.C. Rally for Life on video and to hundreds of thousands of Christians, Dr. Dobson stated, “I want to give a pledge to you on a political level… I have determined that for the rest of my life, however long God lets me live on this earth, I will never cast one vote for any man or woman who would kill one innocent baby.”

But now he’s planning to vote for McCain-Palin. Despite the fact McCain fails the above test.

Maybe a pledge “on a political level” is different that a pledge on a Christian’s level.

Whatever the case, here are a few sentences from a letter supposedly under the Focus on the Family letterhead:

As Mr. Enyart stated, it is true that Dr. Dobson has said on previous occasions that he would never cast a vote for any politician who supports abortion. Recently, however, there have been times that he felt he was faced with the necessity of making a difficult but inescapable choice between two or more major candidates.

[…]

Please know that Dr. Dobson didn’t arrive at this decision without giving it much thought and consideration. Rightly or wrongly, he chose to compromise his own standard, which he rarely does, in order to protect everything that matters most. Although Dr. Dobson realizes this decision carries with it the potential for criticism and disagreement, he believes God has led him in this direction.

Oh my!

Surely that doesn’t mean that he did arrive at his previous Nope-Won’t-Vote-For-Him decision without much thought and consideration. 😯

And he’s going to vote for McCain after all (never isn’t as long a time span as it used to be) to protect everything that matters most. So killing a baby here and there is in a different category? 😯

Dr. Dobson, a bit of unsolicited advice: Leave politics to the politicians.

And an observation: You don’t have to choose between two candidates — don’t vote at all.

Now, regarding pledges and vows and promises and commitments and oaths, the Bible:

“Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay” (Ecclesiastes 5:5).

“But above all things, my brethren…let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation” (James 5:12).

So…what should Dr. Dobson do?

(And “rightly or wrongly”?!? Wow!)

Drive In for a Look Up

Would you attend?

A Georgia (USA) church tries drive-in worship

The brown and white beagle peers intently at her owner, watching as he swigs V-8 juice and dials his car radio to 1640 AM. On an ordinary Sunday morning in Marietta, Ga., Barry Hopkins would be getting ready for church. Today, dressed in shorts and an Atlanta Braves T-shirt, he’s already there – in his car.

A few vehicles dot the parking lot of New Hope Methodist Church in suburban Atlanta, but there’s no sound except the rumble of idling motors. Slow rain becomes a torrent, blowing in wide sheets, obscuring the pastor standing on the church steps as he delivers his sermon. Drivers flick their windshield wipers to life and stare straight ahead. They won’t leave their steel cocoons any time soon. They won’t need to: The sermon booms from their radios like Carrie Underwood.

Drive-ins have given us movies delivered to our cars with popcorn and notions of front-seat romance. They have given us fries and malts delivered by teens on roller skates. Now they’re giving us the word of God, or at least of preachers, delivered out of our dashboards in the hope of attracting a new multitude of worshipers.

Across the country, a handful of churches are trying to unite two fundamental forces – religion and Americans’ love affair with the automobile – to offset the dearth of people sitting in pews.

Usually, as here at New Hope, attendees can be as involved or uninvolved as they want. Either way is just fine with the Rev. Norman Markle. He stands in the outdoor alcove that is his pulpit and preaches, hoping his message carries clearly through his lapel microphone.

“A lot of people still feel the only way they’ll be accepted is if they come to church with a suit and tie,” he says. “But that’s changed. If we don’t change, we’re losing out to the new churches.”

[…]

Tucked inside his office after the sermon, Mr. Markle peels open a McDonald’s wrapper and spreads grape jelly over a sausage biscuit. His regular indoor service begins soon, and for this one, he’ll wear his starched white robe emblazoned with a gold cross. It’ll be a completely different sermon. The drive-in service is only 45 minutes – people won’t sit in their cars much longer. In the church, with its pine floors and luminous stained-glass windows, Markle can preach as long as he likes – usually about two hours.

I assume they don’t kneel to pray during these drive-in services.

Do they roll down their windows to shout “Amen!” — oh, never mind that question. I don’t shout “Amen!” in our church services either. Well, not more than once every two or three years. (But last month I shouted “Yes!” after we were done singing, “May the Lord Depend on You?”)

To the extent that he’s following God’s leading, may Mr. Markle succeed.

And may more people be drawn into real congregational living as God has designed.

HT: CarolB (one of this blog’s few readers) 😆

Grief in Mexico

I know this is nothing new for this part of Mexico, but still….

Death in Chiapas

When the 11-year-old daughter of Antonio Gomez became ill of a stomach ailment, her father decided that it was due to witchcraft committed by his evangelical neighbor.

Gomez, of the Jolitontic community of Chalchihuitan municipality in Chiapas state, gathered seven friends to kill the family of the supposed culprit. After midnight on August 23, they allegedly killed three adults – the parents and their eldest son – and wounded six children with machetes.

Mariano Lopez Perez, public prosecutor of Indian Justice, reportedly said neighbors regarded the father in the attacked family, Pedro Gomez Diaz, as “an evangelical who prayed a great deal.” The neighbors reportedly denied that the family believed in or practiced any kind of witchcraft as far as they knew.

According to Tuxtla Gutierrez-based Cuarto Poder newspaper in Chiapas, all eight of the men who participated in the massacre of three Indians in Jolitontic are now in jail in San Cristobal de las Casas, awaiting justice.

The attackers burst into the hut of the family to kill first the eldest son, Rene, 32. They then slashed the mother, Marcela Hernandez Giron Gomez, and the father, Gomez Diaz.

Before he died Gomez Diaz’s cries alerted the rest of the family, but the murderers managed to seriously wound six other children: Esteban, 4; Ernesto, 6; Anita, 7; Maria, 14; Petrona, 16; and Martin, 18. They were all taken to the public health hospital of San Cristobal de las Casas.

Punished or Blessed?

I know, this is old news, though very pertinent. And thought provoking.

From LifeNews on April 22, 2008:

As many as 80 percent of unborn children diagnosed with Down syndrome become victims of abortion, but Alaska Gov, Sarah Palin didn’t let her child become a statistic. Palin, who has deeply-felt pro-life views, gave birth to her fifth child this week and the baby was diagnosed with the condition.

On Tuesday, Palin confirmed her baby, named Trig Paxson, has Down syndrome.

“Trig is beautiful and already adored by us,” Palin said in a statement LifeNews.com obtained.

“We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives,” she said.

‘We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed,” the 44 year-old governor added.

Trig was born on Friday, one month before his due date, and he weighed 6 pounds, 2 ounces.

Then there’s this from CBN on March 31, 2008:

“I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.”

And this from Psalm 139:14:

“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”

Disclaimer: Though it quotes two prominent political figures, this isn’t a post to make a political point.

(By the way, try searching for news reports of Mr. Obama’s remarks.) 😯

Chicks

I wonder what you’re expecting to read about.

Pardon my use of such a hook.

I do not like the use of chicks to refer to women of any age, “hot” or not. I consider it demeaning.

But I decided to use it in my post title for effect and as a snag.

And to make a point.

Yemen confronts plight of child brides

Two months ago, at the start of the school vacation, 12-year-old Reem was forced to marry her 30-year-old cousin.

“While my hair was styled for the ceremony, I thought of ways to set fire to my wedding dress,” she says. “When I protested, my dad gagged me and tied me up. After the wedding, I tried to kill myself twice.”

Reem is the latest child bride to run from her husband’s arms into the media spotlight. But she is not the youngest girl to escape from domestic violence and sexual abuse in recent months. This spring, 9-year-old Arwa and 10-year-old Nujood became the first “tiny voices” to alert the world to Yemen’s widespread practice of child marriage.

The girls’ stories have instigated a campaign against the practice, which is believed to be a consequence of widespread poverty as parents unable to provide for their children give, and in some cases sell, them into matrimony.

According to estimates based on surveys by university researchers and development agencies, half of all brides in Yemen are age 18 or younger. But there are no reliable national figures.

Child brides are prevalent in Yemen because the minimum marriage age of 15 was revoked a decade ago to allow parents to decide when their daughters should marry. The ruling abides by an interpretation of the Koran that claims there is no prescribed age for marriage.

Deep-rooted traditions also play a role.

😥