Category: Miscellany

Should Christians demand their rights? More particularly, should followers of Jesus Christ demand their rights to assault rifles?For, if we only listen to those directing the media discussions of the matter, we would be led to believe that the Sandy Hook school massacre, Vice President Joe Biden’s task force, President Obama’s 23 “executive orders,” and any resulting discussion should focus very narrowly on magazine capacities and “assault rifles”: scary-looking, military-style firearms that occasionally play a role in mass shootings.

But citizens of the United States, including the Christian ones, should be well aware that the discussion is about much more than that. Liberty, freedom, the limits of government, and responsibility are all at issue.It is perhaps a bit unsavory to talk about Christians and rights in the context of guns: it is difficult to picture the Rev. Billy Graham holding high an AK-47, waxing Heston-esque and shouting “From My Cold, Dead Hands!”

The Apostle Paul, however…

Christians are more familiar with asserting other rights enumerated in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, such as the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. And, if they were not, they should have been involved in asserting basic civil rights such as were won for Black Americans in the 60s.

But what about the admonitions of our Lord Jesus Christ, himself, who told us that we should give others the coat off our backs, to go the extra mile, to “turn the other cheek” and all that? What about the Apostle Paul, who said that Christians ought rather be defrauded than to assert their rights by going to court? (2 Corinthians 6:7). And that believers were to submit to governing authorities? (Romans 13:1). How do Christians determine which rights to demand and which not?

Some of the answer to that question might depend upon which sort of government in which the Christian citizen lives. If he lives in a monarchy, and the king does not permit his subjects to own certain weapons, then there is little Christian can do that would not resemble unbiblical rebellion against governing authorities. [Governmental authority is not absolute: Christians rightfully defied the Nazis in Germany, for instance.]

If, however, he lives in constitutional republic in which government is “of the people, by the people, for the people,” then it very well could be that lack of submission to government includes failing to participate in that government.  As the Dixie Chicks might say, “Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!” Changes in time and occasion count for a lot, as it happens: a Christian living in Colonial America was faced with an entirely  different question in taking up arms against King George than what the Christian living in modern American faces when deciding to preserve the right to bear arms against the political ideations of King President Obama.

It was, after all, the same Apostle Paul who proclaimed “I appeal to Caesar,” asserting his right as a Roman citizen to be given certain procedural rights before being summarily executed. A citizen who happens to be Christian, then, may legitimately exercise rights that government has granted/secured, such as appeal privileges and gun rights. But the question remains whether it is Christian to do so.

Jewish citizens under Roman rule asked Jesus if it were lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, to which Jesus replied “render to Caesar what was Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

It is important to consider what the response would have been the same had there been a constitutional amendment against Caesar levying those taxes in the first place.

The Apostle Peter wrote to some of his people who were suffering for their profession of faith in Jesus Christ and who were enduring trials generally.

In his letter, 1 Peter, the Apostle addresses how they were, as “elect exiles,” ambassadors representing a foreign kingdom and sojourning on the earth, proclaiming the news that their King had given them and bringing others back with them to their true hom.

But Peter did not begin his letter with promises of immediate relief or with tips to lessen their suffering. In fact, with what we would consider poor bedside manner, Peter eventually promises that “after you suffer for a little while” God would comfort them (1 Peter 5:10).

What Peter decided that his hearers needed to know first, before addressing their trials, was who God was and who they were in God. In a soaring proclamation of the role that each person of the trinity plays, Peter reassured his readers with descriptions of the Godhead and how the trinity works together both to save and to secure, even through temporal circumstances (1 Peter 1:1-2).

Perhaps Peter was telling them that before they focused on what is happening, they should focus on what is. Before fosuing on what what happening to them, they should focus on what had been done for them. Before focusing on their suffering, they should focus on their Savior. Before focusing on their tribulation, they should focus on the trinity.

It is certainly true that we don’t understand earthly things rightly before we begin to comprehend heavenly things truly.

Do an Internet search on the phrase “war on women” and you won’t be directed to articles dealing with China’s mandatory child limit, or Islam’s hijab requirements, or even to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and the Salem witch trials.

Instead, you will find articles and websites devoted to the idea that the 2012 “war on women” is now solely and exclusively about birth control: women need it, men possess it, wanna fight about it?

To hear the proponents of government-mandated health care talk, you would think that “war” has broken out because men — in the meme of the hour usually old, religious, white men — want to prevent women everywhere from using birth control (“contraception” sounds so much more health need-ish) and seek to impose their will on women everywhere by legislating it out of existence.

Curiously, birth control could not be legislated out of existence entirely — even should the old, religious, white codgers want to — because the two most effective forms of birth control (consider the human claims to divine power even that phrase entails!) are sex within a marriage relationship and abstinence. In that context, we might consider the strategy of the gun-rights lobby, when it spins the counter-argument with the philosophically-loaded slogan “Gun control is hitting what you aim at.”

But the inconvenient truth about the matter is that no one is attempting or even suggesting that birth control be made unavailable.

Let me say that again: no one is attempting or suggesting that birth control be made unavailable. The issue is who will be required to pay for it.

Inherent in this brouhaha is the matter of force. Those who characterize their opponents as waging “war” on women suppose that women are being forced to not use contraception. But that is a blatant falsehood that the majority of media is happy to perpetuate.

It is Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat-controlled Congress that forced government healthcare on the nation, arguing that “we must pass it to know what is in it.” It is Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services who forced employers to provide coverage of birth control in health insurance policies. It is President Obama whose “compromise” was to force insurance companies to provide those same coverages, all the while continuing to force religious employers to pay for it.

Who, as they say, is forcing whom?

If it strains credulity that those who are doing the forcing accuse others of using the force, consider the sort of statements made by a prominent representative of this strategy. On March 1, 2012 before House panel, Kathleen Sebelius said:

“The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for cost of contraception.” … “Providing contraception is a critical preventive health benefit for women and for their children.”

Here is the sort of philosophy being forced upon the American people, and the transparently twisted logic that is used to support it. In Sebelius’ world — which she and the Obama administration would force the rest of us to occupy — fewer humans is a good thing. And, fewer humans is a good thing both because fewer humans saves us money, and also because fewer humans means that the populace can disregard the church’s teaching on sexual morality without suffering the natural outcome of procreation.

What is the most astounding about Sebelius’ comments is that birth control is a benefit “for women and for their children.” What children? Should Sebelius, Obama, Pelosi and the rest of those alleging a “war on women” have their way, they will have succeeded in preventing the existence of the very children they claim that their birth control mandate benefits.

Amazing.

American citizens are being forced to pay for the birth control of students. Religious organizations are being forced to provide a service and a product that their tenets explicitly forbid.

Liberty for religious people is attacked. Liberty for all is threatened.

Children’s art sometimes reveal interesting things about their outlook on life, family and significant events. Our kids have been on an artistic binge of sorts, coloring up a storm. Here are a few my daughter, 7 years old, recently drew. See if you can discern a pattern.

Above is her self-portrait. Kids’ drawings of themselves are usually more detailed and colorful because they have a fairly developed self-image. (Although I’m not so sure if she didn’t give herself a soul patch).

This is her brother, age 9, who is depicted here as a prince. Note the jester-like costume and multi-colored fabric scheme.

This is Mom, and although there is a definite Picasso-life feel to this image, Mom is given most facial features and clothing. All these were drawn on the same day, including the following of dear old Dad, yours truly:

What?!

Note here that there has been a definite break in the pattern, a veritable u-turn of graphic depiction. While she and other family members were given care and attention, her image of Dad is austere, to say the least. Enormous, bald head. Beady eyes. Thin red line for a mouth. Talk about grim. Even my low-ride shorts aren’t given a complete color treatment.

Ah, well…

I had no idea that there were plans to make a movie from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series.

Like many other grade-school boys, I read the science fiction fantasy novels such as The Princess of Mars and the Gods of Mars with gusto over thirty years ago. I have not seen a copy of any of them in that time, and if you had asked me prior to this year, I would have been able to give but faint recollections of the stories in the Burroughs classics.

But an odd thing happened during yesterday’s Super Bowl.

I was multi-tasking, as usual, watching the game with one eye while reading with the other and herding the proverbial cats which are our children with a rudimentary form of mind control when the first moments of a television ad caught my eye. In a split-second I processed an other-worldly battle scene, the chief warrior of which was tall and green with four arms and tusks. With only that brief data, I said to my wife “I think I read that –” when I was interrupted by the voice-over describing “John Carter of Mars” and completing my thought for me.

Strange. Strange that Burroughs’ description of his characters was so good and so impressive (in the sense of making an indelible impression) that thirty years after reading them I recognized them in the depictions that someone else made from them.

Odd, indeed. And full of import for ultimately recognizing things we’ve never seen. And reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’ suggestion that humans who believe in Jesus Christ and the afterlife feel a sort of nostalgia for heaven, even though we’ve never been…yet.

Consider where you would place the author of these comments on the faith vs. reason spectrum:

I’m not advocating irrationality or extreme emotionality. Many, perhaps even most, of the problems plaguing individuals and groups arise from actions based on passion. … fundamentalism, for example, remains a severe threat to civilization.

We’d likely conclude that the holder of these sentiments rejects outright anything that can’t be proved, and objects to rational, reasonable people getting worked up about them.

But consider these statements from the same author in the same article:

…I’m pretty sure that people gain a selective advantage from believing in things they can’t prove. Those who are occasionally consumed by false beliefs do better in life than those who insist on evidence before they believe and act. Those who are occasionally swept away by emotions do better than those who calculate every move.

Additionally:

The great things in life are done by people who go ahead when going ahead seems senseless to others.

Randolph M. Nesse’s contribution to What We Believe But Cannot Prove (Harper 2006) asserts that acting on beliefs that are not scientifically proven are beneficial in some contexts, and if in moderation (note his caution about “fundamentalism”). His goal is to determine how natural selection gave rise to such beliefs.

This is, certainly, a strange juxtaposition of utilitarian reason finding some benefit to emotional fideism. Scientists (the subtitle of the book is “today’s leading thinkers in science”) claim some usefulness of faith, but wrap it in Darwinian evolution (“natural selection”) in order to swallow the bitter pill. One pictures putting the dog’s medicine in a peanut butter ball.

But notice the confusion that a scientific view of faith produces. “False beliefs” are contrasted with those who “insist on evidence”, but even a Christian view of faith opposes a belief that is held despite clear evidence to the contrary, which is what false belief is. And the subject is further obscured when the author equates one who holds “false beliefs” with those who are “swept away by emotions.”

What, exactly, does the author contrast with supposedly scientifically provable belief?

It is remarkable that faith is in this context given props, even if the respect is tempered and held in terms of evolutionary theory. But science cannot comprehend faith, even if “natural selection” keeps some who hold it around. Darwin’s theory cannot provide a reason for emotion, belief, or faith, because the survival of the fittest is incompatible with blind faith: the gazelle who simply believes that the lion isn’t there is quickly eliminated from the family tree.

Yet we are not left adrift in understanding faith, or where it came from. Faith is the “assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1), and is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8).

“Who do you expect to visit for Christmas?”

“Why, all the usuals: Gramps, Granny, the cousins, and Mom’s brothers and sisters.”

“What do you look forward to?”

“The highly competitive and minimally charitable plethora of board games. Except that Mom’s oldest brother frequently hides the deed to Boardwalk, thinks the Rook can move diagonally, and insists that the losers partake of regular helpings of fruitcake.”

“Oh, dear, I’m afraid that your criticisms are highly avuncular.”

Avuncular: of or pertaining to an uncle.