15December2009

Leader or Tour Guide?

Written By robfaircloth

Ten spies with a bad report outvoted the two with a good report, and the word they brought back to Israel about the Promised Land reflected their attempt to justify their own reaction (Numbers 13:30-33).

Israel then 1) raised a loud cry; 2) wept; then 3) grumbled against their leaders (Numbers 14:1-4) — a familiar sequence in ministry. In their dialogue with themselves (there is no record that they actually discussed this with Moses, or with God) they concluded “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”

In this instance they did not want a leader: they simply wanted a tour guide. They had already decided what they wanted and “leadership” — from God or otherwise — was the last thing on their minds. Leaders such as Israel wanted in this instance are the ones used to trip the booby traps or be the first ones eaten in a bear attack.

2December2009

Is the Lord’s Hand Shortened?

Written By robfaircloth

Before Jesus fed the five thousand (John 6) he had just delivered a sermon in which he based his authority to forgive sins on the fact that he only did what the Father gave him to do. Interestingly, he cites to them the example of Moses (John 5:45), and that because they did not believe Moses, they would not believe him.

Moses, it turns out, dealt with the same problem in Numbers 11. The people grumbled against God and his provision of manna, and God promised to fill them so full of the meat they craved until it “comes out at your nostrils” (Numbers 11:20). Moses, like Philip and Andrew after him, couldn’t see how God could provide meat to 600,000+ hungry Israelites. God told Moses, “Is the Lord’s hand shortened? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not” (Numbers 11:23).

The people followed Jesus because of the signs he performed. Philip and Andrew thought that Jesus’ hand was shortened: how could he feed 5,000+ hungry groupies? And Jesus – forgetting all ‘seeker-sensitive’ principles – told the crowd that they only liked him because he fed their bellies.

Using the incident of Moses, manna, nostril-filling quail, and the loaves and fishes, Jesus points out that they don’t really need to have their bellies filled, but they really need their souls filled. And what was it that would fill their hungry souls? Why, the same Jesus who worked only what God told him to and fed 5,000+ in a miraculous way. “I am the bread of life,” he said. “Fill yourself with me.”

Indeed, now you shall see.

1December2009

A Reverse Copernican Revolution

Written By robfaircloth

Scientists, intellectuals and those generally predisposed against organized religion railed against the resistance of the church and other conservatives to the notion that the Sun, not Earth, was the center of our solar system. That resistance remains the basis of criticism that the church and conservatives are “anti-scientific.”

What a difference a few centuries makes.

Now, the church and conservatives are advocating restraint against the wholesale reordering of world societies — and the economic and social upheaval it will cause — around the generally unproven notion that there is such a thing as “man-made global warming.”

Now, it is the so-called scientists and intellectuals who advocate “green” everything with dire predictions (whose deadlines are constantly revised) of the melting of polar ice caps, submerged Caribbean islands, and the images of hapless polar bears with no ice to call home. Apocalyptic language, it seems, is not the sole province of religious types. Then again, the “blind faith” frequently ridiculed by intellectual culture seems now to be held by those worshiping at a green altar.

With revelations that green science may, in fact, have intentionally manipulated data in order to promote its agenda, it would seem that they are the ones now insisting that the earth is the center of the universe.

Perhaps this is the Copernican revolution in reverse.

15October2009

Zero Tolerance for Functionally Illiterate Congressmen

Written By robfaircloth

Speaking of “Zero-Tolerance,” if it’s such a good thing for catching those subversive Boy Scouts and their confounded camp tools, why not for Congressmen who don’t read bills?

By the way, the little-known and only recently discovered Federalist Papers, Part 2 reveals that many of the Framers had a solution for awful Congressmen who keep getting voted in by their districts: once a year each State could exercise an Interstate Veto and fire a Senator or Representative from any other State.

15October2009

Zero Tolerance Policy Saves School from Spork

Written By robfaircloth

Citizens should take comfort to know that the increased efforts of law enforcement to protect society from dangerous elements has resulted in the capture of two would-be criminals, Matthew Whalen and Zachary Christie.

In Lansinburg, New York, Whalen, a high school student, was prevented from “surviving” when a two-inch survival knife was confiscated from his locked car on school grounds. Such weapons have been used to cut twine and open envelopes in the past. Whalen hid his lawless intent behind a veneer of respectability, having joined the “Boy Scouts,” obtaining the rank of “Eagle Scout,” and going so far as to save a relative using CPR he learned there.

In Newark, Delaware, officials uncovered the plot of Zachary Christie, a grade school “Cub Scout,” to eat his lunch with a camping tool. These alleged “camping tools” include such dangerous implements as a fork, a spoon, and a butter knife, which when placed in cups in the cafeteria lunch line pose no threat, but when combined in one utensil and wielded by a trained subversive such as Christie threaten the peaceable enjoyment of lunch everywhere.

One cannot help but notice the common theme in these recent law enforcement successes. Both suspects are members of the “Boy Scouts,” a subversive organization engaging in such anti-social and lawless behavior as “Pledging Allegiance,” praying, selling popcorn, and “camping” – a thinly-veiled and poorly hidden training ground for survival after they have succeeded in overthrowing the government and lawful society.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that these ruffians have also come into contact with home schoolers, engaged in hunting, shopped at Wal-Mart, and read the Constitution of the United States.

Sleep safe, America.

8October2009

When NOT to spend $90k on an organ

Written By robfaircloth

The vast majority of churches in the United States have them. Most church members wouldn’t know how to operate one. You risk your life if you leave your cup of coffee on top of them. They are emblazoned with the nameplate of the benefactor who donated them. It takes several brutish men to change their location.

No, I am NOT talking about the media center copy machine.

There was a time when an organ was considered against good taste, at best, and an instrument of the devil, at worst, especially when used in the church (gasp!) in which case the devil himself was attempting to sabotage the saints with the sort of frivolous diversion that characterized the theaters from whence they came.

Now, we say that about drum sets.

Perennial debates about how to spend resources in the church abound. Some things must be paid: salaries, insurance, licenses, mortgages. Other things fall within the discretion and wisdom of the church: how much to contribute to the Cooperative Program (for Southern Baptists), how much to give to local missions, how much to provide in local benevolence, and so forth.

Whether to spend $90,000 for repairs to an organ that is as old as the church is, contrary to sentiment, optional. That is, having an organ is not necessary for the ministry of the church.

Some will contend that the organ is like the furnace or the roof and must be maintained in order to be good stewards of the church’s physical plant. Yet an organ is merely a musical instrument, and if the furnace has outlived its usefulness and would cost more to repair than it’s worth, the church would consider buying a new HVAC instead.

Some will content that the people expect the church to have an organ and need it for worship. Perhaps that is why God broke the organ in the first place.

The decision to have an organ, or to fix one that’s broken, is certainly an individual church’s to make. But the church should consider other ways that $90,000 could be used to further God’s kingdom. For that money, the church could easily support two or three foreign missionaries for a year. It could purchase thousands of Gideon bibles, hundreds of copies of the Jesus film, or support many children in poverty-stricken areas of the world through organizations such as Compassion International.

Ninety-thousand dollars to hear wind blow through a bunch of pipes, or to hear the wind of the gospel of salvation blow through unreached areas of the world? It’s really not much of a choice.