Wednesday 26 September 2018

Post 233--Cocaine in Bananas!


As I told you yesterday, I sent an email to the person I hope can help me with the technicalities of running a blog. He has not yet responded, but the history between us gives me every reason he will at least response--and, I hope, do more than just respond.  Today's post is in good shape. For some reason Jim Denison's Forum always fits this blog exactly as to format, font, etc.  So, today we're in for an easy ride.  Thanks, Jim.

Jim's Forum today starts with a hair raising story about cocaine hidden in bananas delivered to a prison.  And not just a little bit--$18 million dollars worth!  From there he takes off on the question of "Christ and Culture," a subject that has been on the Christian radar ever since the days of Christ.  

Well, that has always been the central focus of this blog as well, even if it is not always specified explicitly. Jim mentions Abraham Kuyper and his famous saying about "every square inch" of this world, whether nature or culture or anything else, belonging to Christ. My wife and I have even published our memoirs under that title:  Every Square Inch: A Missionary Memoir.... See www.SocialTheology.com/boeriana.htm.  

But that focus does not exclude publishing occasional hard-hitting posts, when that becomes necessary. Post 232 is one of those--a blunt political statement. This is not a mushy perspective that always is couched in gentlemen's or politically correct language. Christianity demands hard choices and blunt language at times. If you expect me to separate politics from faith, you're knockin' on the wrong door. Church & state--yes, they must be kept separate to protect both, but politics and faith is a different story. They cannot be separated, for every type of politics is undergirded by some perspective  or belief, whether just assumed or explicitly spelled out. 

Well, lest I steal Jim's thunder, I will let you free to munch on Jim's column for today.

==================
$18 million worth of cocaine found in bananas
September 26, 2018  |  READ TIME: 4 minutes
Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, President Trump stated that American culture is built on “deep faith.”
For evidence, we could point to Rolling Stone‘s headline: “A Christian Singer Is Bigger Than Drake and Ariana Grande This Week.” Lauren Daigle’s new album topped records by Drake, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj on the Billboard 200.
Or we could note Pew Research Center’s report that more than 70 percent of Americans identify as Christians. America’s largest religious demographic is “Evangelical Protestant” at 25.4 percent.
However, America’s second-largest religious demographic is “Unaffiliated (religious ‘nones’)” at 22.8 percent. This is a larger percentage than “Catholic” (20.8 percent) or “Mainline Protestant” (14.7 percent).
As a sign of our troubled times, the Washington Post reports that homicides in Washington, DC, have now surpassed the number of people killed in the city in all of 2017. As another sign of the times, a group of protesters heckled Sen. Ted Cruz and his wife inside a Washington restaurant, forcing them to leave early.

Is culture like the weather?

As God’s people living in a fallen world, God’s word calls us to embrace a transformative balance.
We are warned to “touch no unclean thing” (Isaiah 52:11, quoted by Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:17). Much of our culture is off-limits for sincere followers of Jesus.
As D. A. Carson notes in his perceptive Christ and Culture Revisited, some evangelicals liken the culture to the weather–we can’t change it, so we should focus on individual souls and leave society to itself.
However, others claim that we earn the right to share Christ with people by first responding to the systemic issues they face–poverty, sex trafficking, and so on. We must engage culture to engage those affected by culture.
Both “sides” can claim biblical warrant. Jesus won Zacchaeus to himself (Luke 19:1-10), but he did not confront the evils of Roman taxation that Zacchaeus represented. However, like the Old Testament prophets before him, our Lord condemned the hypocrisy inherent in the cultural systems of his day (cf. Matthew 23:1-36).
According to Carson, we should serve people and serve culture, but we should serve Christ above all. Abraham Kuyper was right: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!'” (his emphasis).

The most countercultural leader of all time?

God’s call to engage culture for Christ means that we must sometimes act in countercultural ways.
Daniel prayed to God in direct defiance of the king’s command (Daniel 6:6-11). Peter and John refused the Jewish Supreme Court’s demand that they cease preaching the gospel (Acts 4:18-20). Paul defied his Jewish culture in welcoming Gentiles without qualification into God’s family (Galatians 2:15-21).
Jesus may have been the most countercultural leader of all time. It’s hard to think of anything he did that did not defy the conventional wisdom of his day in some way.
He assembled his apostolic band from Galilean businessmen rather than Judean rabbis. From harvesting grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-27) to touching a leper (Matthew 8:3) to befriending a Samaritan woman (John 4) to eating with “tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 9:10-13), his ministry defied the expectations of his culture. Even when the crowds welcomed him as their Messiah (Matthew 21:1-10), he shocked them by dying on a Roman cross.
It stands to reason that those who serve God must oppose those who oppose him.

“We must be made disciples supernaturally”

But here’s where our call becomes more complicated: our Lord wants us to stand against sin, but he also wants us to love sinners.
Upon learning that God had rejected Saul because of his disobedience, Samuel “cried to the Lord all night” (1 Samuel 15:11). Paul had “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” in his heart for his lost Jewish kinsmen (Romans 9:2). Jesus wept over Jerusalem’s rejection of their Messiah (Luke 19:41-44).
“Speaking the truth in love” is God’s word for us today (Ephesians 4:15). Such compassion for the lost mirrors the heart of a Father who is “not wishing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9) but wants everyone to “turn, and live” (Ezekiel 18:32).
And it earns us a hearing with those we are called to serve. We can reject the criticisms of an enemy far more easily than those of a friend.

A prayer in the dark

I was walking in my neighborhood early yesterday morning and marveled at the beauty of the full moon. The darker the streets I walked, the brighter the moon seemed.
I found myself praying that the Son would be reflected in my life as fully as the sun was reflected in the moon. I prayed that I would set aside anything that blocks my ability to reflect God’s truth and love to those who need them. And I prayed that I would stay faithful in the dark until the Son returns at dawn.

Tuesday 25 September 2018

Post 232--Intolerant Liberals

PRELIMINARY NOTE:  You may still nurse your annoyance over Post 228. I left it in an awful mess. I am painfully aware of that and it is the reason I did not do much with this blog for some time. I am terribly embarrassed. I simply do not have the technical savvy to help me correct or understand some of the tech stuff this blog requires. Even this paragraph is not the way it is supposed to be. However, I may well have found someone who can correct some things for me and even teach me how to navigate better in this blog.  So, I crave your understanding, sympathy and patience. My next action after sending off this blog is to contact that person and see how we can work together without it costing me a fortune, which I cannot afford as a retired missionary.

...  Andrew Scheer said it best:

“When people don’t agree with Justin Trudeau, they get silenced, or they get insulted.”


I am not a politician, but I do pay some attention to politics. When I returned to BC after some 30 years in Nigeria, 15 in the US and a short 2 back in Europe,  It occurred to me several times that perhaps I should devote my retirement years to local or provincial politics. However, as I settled into Vancouver's downtown and read the newspapers I soon became disenchanted. So much of it seemed so either downright stupid or ridden with egoism and lust for power. In fact, a friend who served as a BC MLA bowed out after one term. He explained it is disgustingly all about power. Secondly, I discovered that an MLA or an MP is nothing but a small boy/girl to the party leader. Well, I am not cut out to be anyone's small boy, even less a small girl!

I am not particularly favourable to any of Canada's political parties. I may be somewhat conservatively inclined, but definitely not that of the Conservative Party. Nevertheless, I have voted conservative occasionally, but with a heavy heart, for they don't really embody my values. In some ways, I find them traitors.  

But a party I have never voted for are the Federal Liberals. They are totally disgusting to me, especially our PM.  He may be a nice person and I might enjoy him as my next-door neighbour, but as politician or, God forbid in the future, as a PM?  I've never seen a prouder lot in all my life. They actually think the country owes them the power to govern!  Actually, they are among the most self-ignorant people I've ever met. They are totally unaware of the basic worldview that rules them. And then to think that there are Christians among them. I do not doubt their faith, but they can be there only out of ignorance. I advise them and everyone else to read Trudeau Sr.'s book on Liberalism and you will see how deeply individualistic liberalism is; no real room for community.  It's all about ME; hardly ever about WE.

Well, here I am, throwing every pretense at neutrality over the cliff. Today I am leaving you with some campaign smear about the Trudeau clique from the Conservatives. I usually don't take such campaign stuff seriously.  They are paid to smear. But I'm a Christian: I don't smear, though I will tell the truth even if unpleasant. It seems to me that the following Conservative smear is onto something I am encouraging you to read. And feel free to share your opinion with me.   

Hear!  Hear!

... the Liberals have been ramping up their smear tactics as we get closer to the next election:
  • When our Deputy Leader Lisa Raitt questioned Bill Morneau on why their government has failed to live up to their feminist rhetoric – he called her a "Neanderthal."
     
  • When our MP Todd Doherty rightfully questioned Justin Trudeau about his government’s ethics – Trudeau called him disgusting.
     
  • When Ontario Cabinet Minister Lisa MacLeod was concerned about the pressures and costs that Trudeau’s border crisis put on the province’s immigration system – Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen called her “un-Canadian.”
     
  • And just last week, our MP Bob Saroya questioned Bill Blair about the crisis at our border – so Blair accused Conservatives of wanting to put babies in cages.
It was unbelievable, Jan / John, even for Liberals.
You know the Liberals are losing an argument when they start falsely smearing and insulting you.
It’s the ugliest kind of politics and something we continually see out of these Trudeau Liberals.
As soon as the Liberals face any kind of legitimate criticism or questions, their “sunny ways” and “positive politics” come to an end and they head straight to the gutter while trying to look holier than thou.
It’s the same old Liberal tactic of lie, slander, and fearmonger…
… while still claiming to be the party of rainbows, sunshine, and lollipops.
The Liberals can smear us and the millions of Canadians with real questions all they want.
Canada’s Conservatives will continue to put forward Andrew Scheer’s positive Conservative vision for Canada – where taxes are low, government is limited, opportunity is unlimited, freedom is shared, and people are put before government!