A Puritan Prayer

"When Thou wouldst guide me I control myself

When thou wouldst be sovereign I rule myself

When thou wouldst take care of me I suffice myself

When I should depend on thy providing I supply myself

When I should submit to thy providence I follow my will

When I should study, love, honour, trust thee, I serve myself;

I fault and correct thy laws to suit myself,

Instead of thee I look to man's approbation,

And am by nature an idolater.

Lord, it is my chief design to bring my heart back to thee.

Convince me that I cannot be my own god, or make myself happy,

Nor my own Christ to restore my joy,

Nor my own Spirit to teach, guide, rule me.

Help me to see that grace does this by providential affliction,

For when my credit is god thou dost cast me lower,

When riches are my idol thou dost wing them away,

When pleasure is my all thou dost turn it into bitterness.

Take away my roving eye, curious ear, greedy appetite, lustful heart;

Show me that none of these things

Can heal a wounded conscience,

Or support a tottering frame,

Or uphold a departing spirit.

Then take me to the cross and leave me there."

 

Arthur Bennett, ed., "The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975),91  -- taken from  "The Owner's Manual for Christians" by Charles Swindoll", 2009, p119.

Charles Swindoll's book is excellent, refreshing, and cleansing.  I highly recommend it to anyone…even non-Christians.

Holiness and purity are the rarest of things and wonderful to behold.  You feel cleaner just reading this book.  Truly a blessing.

Bought With A Price

"Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body" 1Corinthians 6:18-20

I was reading last week about this new diet regimen, developed by A.W.T. Simeons quite some time ago, and ran across this little piece that struck a nerve:

A careful enquiry into what may have brought on such an attack almost invariably reveals that it is preceded by a strong unresolved sex-stimulation, the higher centers of the brain having blocked primitive diencephalic instinct gratification. The pressure is then let off through another primitive channel, which is oral gratification.

I realized that most of us are being stimulated sexually all day long every day simply by living in modern day America. You cannot drive or walk around in the city, or watch TV, or listen to the radio, or even go to work for some people, without being exposed to countless sexually suggestive, if not actually explicit imagery…everywhere.

This one is at the bus stop that I drive by every day on my way home from work.
There are countless ones just like it all around town on bus stops, billboards, storefronts at retail stores, etc. If you walk into a nice office where women dress up, they often will wear beautiful, but very sexually suggestive clothing. The universities, especially in the warmer parts of the country are filled with half-dressed young ladies wander around campus.

Television? Forget it. It seems that every single show is filled with gorgeous women, wearing form-fitting, and revealing clothing and most prime time shows have, at the very least, a tacit understanding and acknowledgement of sexual activity, if not a very plain reference or display.

Movies are no better unless you carefully watch only animated movies for the little ones. Now this is just the passive stuff. If you actually go looking, there is much, much more from simple celebrity gawk sites all the way to porn on demand internet sites.

My hypothesis is this:

As sexual imagery has become more and more available to us as a nation and technology has made it easier and quicker to access and as advertisements and the popular culture has supposedly become "desensitized" to it, I argue that we haven't. Not only that, but I would be interested if there was a way to track obesity in our nation as a function of the quantity of sexual imagery passively and even actively available to the general public.

My hypothesis, is that even people that are in sexually gratifying and healthy monogamous relationships, can be and probably are, sexually-stimulated in a way that cannot possibly be resolved often enough or complete enough. In turn, people turn to eating, drinking and smoking in an unhealthy manner.

As a very unscientific piece of evidence, how about tracking the size of a proper drink that one orders at a restaurant or a convenience store? A cup, a measely 8 ounces, is called a cup, because that was how much one supposedly drank at a sitting in polite company. Sure, you might have a second or third cup over the course of a meal, but that is only 16 or 24 ounces. Go to a convenience store and observe the sizes of the soda fountain drink cups available. There are some stores that you won't even find one as small as 24 ounces. The standard seems to be 44 ounces, with some stores having a 64 ounce option. That is over a half a gallon.

Now consider that a person working might down this half gallon drink once or twice a day and consider that this might be Dr. Pepper, Coke or some other soft drink, and we have the source of our obesity problem. The source of that desire to continually put junk in your mouth? Bebe. Not to put all of this on Bebe, but you get what I mean.

I think I've always understood the concept that what you put into your body directly contributed to your health and quality of life. I've never gotten into the drug scene and don't like taking medication of any kind. But I overeat and now have gotten into a rut of over-eating junk.

After reading Simeon's essay, however, I think I now believe that consumption is not only what you eat and drink, but what you listen to and what you watch, and I think it affects your health in a physical way that I had not considered before.

And wouldn't it be the perfect truth if the false promise of gratification by consuming large quantities of sexual imagery, results in obesity and a reduced ability to function sexually?

Isn't it the truth that chasing after worldly delights always ends badly?

What if by keeping your mind on purer stuff, was the cure for obesity? Smoking? Alcoholism? I guess obeying God's commands can actually be good for you after all.

Texas Board of Education Revisited...

My friend over at Dove Mountaineer, replied to my question I posted to him in this post. As I expected, he had a lot to say. Thank you!

When acquainted with a real expert, it is a pleasure to get a good perspective. I will be eager to read the book you talked about buddy.

Texas Board of Education

Looks like we have, in this bit of news, possibly the first rightward shift in the battle over public school text books in quite a while.  Any thoughts Dove Mountaineer?

Am I my brother's keeper?

And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" Genesis 4:8b-9.

How I came across this was while reading "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky. On page 46, Alinsky writes:

The kind of personal safety and security sought by the advocates of the sanctity of means and ends lies only in the womb of Yogism or the monastery, and even there it is darkened by the repudiation of that moral principle that they are their brothers' keepers.

Emphasis mine.

What does he mean here? What he is talking about in this despicable chapter, titled "Of Means and Ends", is his dismantling of anyone that claims the sanctity of the concept that the ends never justify certain means. Alinsky argues, with blatantly false factual references and misinformation, that morality is defined and history written by the victors and if your cause is important enough, you can justify any means at your disposal. The world is split between the observers and actors, and observers can have the luxury of having high moral principles and can justify their losses with proud posturing that they never compromised their principles. Alinsky wrote this book for the actors. Those that won't let moral principles get in the say of their goals.

I will write more about Alinsky later, but for this post I want to focus upon his use of the highlighted phrase above: "brother's keeper".

Alinsky states, as certain fact, that there is a universally understood "moral principle" that we are our brother's keepers. All of us.

I am puzzled by his wording here about the "repudiation of that moral principle that they are their brothers' keepers" I am not so sure that there is a moral principle. In fact I am pretty sure there is NOT a moral principle to be your brother's keeper. Why else would Cain say such a thing, unless he was pretty sure that the answer was "no".

Cain was deflecting God's question so that he would avoid taking responsibility for killing his brother. God's answer to Cain's question is to avoid the question as a deflection and return a question of "What have you done?" Does God really need to ask? Of course not. God is omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent. God already knows the answers to the questions. Answering questions is sometimes about the person answering more than the person questioning.

Anyone with children knows this. When a child steals a piece of chocolate and their face is smeared with the evidence, you ask if they stole any chocolate. Not to learn about the chocolate, as the evidence of guilt is readily apparent. But rather to reach into the heart of the child and teach them about telling the truth, honesty and theft.

As Christians, are we our brothers' keepers? The Hebrew word used here is "shamar", which means to hedge about (as with thorns) i.e. guard; to protect, attend to. Cain uses the same word that is used many other times in the Old Testament to indicate a strong, active "keeping", such as guarding a door or something. It was a rhetorical question where the expected answer was a definitive "no".

I think we are to offer our help to those in need, but we are not to place a thorned hedge around our brothers to protect them. That is not our job.

In our most explicit example of Christian charity, the Good Samaritan, this hedge was not constructed. No one protected the man from attack. The lesson was what to do about someone you find in need. There is a huge difference between helping someone in need and making sure no one ever has a need.

To me, it seems that interpreting this phrase to mean that I am responsible to care after and make sure nothing bad happens to my "brother", is like interpreting "thou shalt not covet" as a treatise against the existence of private property.

This is typical of the radical manipulators like Alinsky and it has caused confusion and damage amongst the Christian faithful. There are entire ministries set up around the principle of being their "brothers' keepers". I believe they are scripturally misguided, even though they probably do some wonderful things. There are plenty of justifications for helping those in the community around us, without using this passage.

When I read the phrase "my brother's keeper", I think of a disrespectful, sarcastic response to a direct question from God Himself as an attempt to divert attention away from a heinous sin. The lesson to be pulled from this is not that we should be doing what Cain clearly stated in sarcasm, but rather focus on the sinful heart of Cain and recognize in ourselves that same effort at deflection when confronted with our own sin.

On a political level, this premise, derived from a misreading of scripture, suggests that we all are responsible for each other in a very direct and active sense, which means that no one is responsible for themselves. We should all have the expectation of sustenance from our fellow travellers, without effort or merit. Since this is impossible, certain people have to be assigned the "keepers" of other kinds of people and some group of really smart "betters" gets to decide who is who. This is socialism. It doesn't work. It isn't biblical and twisting the words of scripture is dangerous and has a very ominous predecessor in previous chapter of Genesis:

And the serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die!" Genesis 3:4

Alinsky uses phrases and concepts born of a religion he does not profess or even understand to promote an agenda that is morally despicable.

I am not my brother's keeper, but I am bound to him by love, and committed to helping him, were he in need of it. To be my brother's keeper, I would have to have control over him, would I not? Isn't that the real goal of these socialists? Isn't that the unwitting goal of the Social Gospel movement? Isn't that the underlying theme of progressive and collectivist thought from any source? Control? Power?

I don't want that control, nor that power, nor do I want anyone else to have it, other than God Himself. That, my friends, is liberty, which happens to be a very biblical concept after all.

Do You Not Know That We Shall Judge Angels?

"Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?  Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?  And if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts?  Do you not know that we shall judge angels?  How much more, matters of this life?" 1 Corinthians 6:1-3

It is a rare and difficult thing to understand the mind of another.  It takes a relationship built by lots of time, and/or a common interest and background.  Something that connects.  A shared experience.  It is this very same feature of Man that dooms us to repeat the mistakes of history and enables us that most glorious and miraculous gift of friendship, and love.  Let me explain what I mean:

 

In order to understand the mind of another human, you have to spend some time or have some shared experience.  There is no other way.  Our brains are learning machines and can only process information that it gets.  This is why the young cannot comprehend the lives of the old - because they haven't gotten there yet.

 

On the down side, we must recognize, that as humans, we cannot truly understand the thoughts and emotions of another unless we ourselves have experienced very similar things.  That is why people of today don't recognize patterns of the past and will often repeat the mistakes of previous generations.

 

On the good side, because of the rarity of shared experience, there is true joy when we encounter someone that understands us and our thoughts and has similar experiences and thoughts to share.  There is also true joy in spending time together with people to actively share experiences together.  This is the foundation and source of friendship and love.

 

Lawsuits can only happen where there is a catastrophic absense of love.  This is why brothers under Christ should never be in a lawsuit on opposite sides.  Justice and love are equally rare to find in the secular court system, even in a righteous country like ours.

 

I had the misfortune of being in a multi-million dollar law suit that went to a very lengthy and painful arbitration.  Things I would have sworn were true, turned out not to be, and things that I knew could not happen did happen.  We won in the end, but it was painful and it robbed me of much during the process.  There was no love in it.  I cannot imagine two Christians, bonded by fellowship in Christ letting things get to such a state. 

 

Paul writes in this chapter six such wisdom.  But I fear that most will not truly appreciate its implications or understand the power of what he is saying unless they have been through the legal system in a painful way so that the understand how unpleasant and void of love the process is. 

 

I think this first half of the chapter has two lessons to draw:

 

1.  Don't let a disagreement destroy the love between Christian brothers or sisters.  It would be better to give in and let the other win, even sacrificially than to break the bonds of fellowship.

2.  Even against non-believers, there is mercy to consider.  If the saints will truly judge the world, you will be deciding the fate of others and whether they spend an eternity in damnation or salvation.  Anything in this world is trivial by comparison.  Besides, mercy may show a love that could plant a seed that eventually may lead the opponent towards Christ.

 

One lesson drawn from my experiences is that no legal document, no argument, no contract, no carefully crafted strategy will get 100% to the truth.  There can never be total satisfaction from the law.  In fact, rarely can they come remotely close to such a thing.  As Christians, we should know this.  No man-made institution can produce truth, justice, or especially love.  Only God can do that.  Better to settle the case before court amongst each other than to waste the time, energy, and material treasures on arguing.  More often than not, there is pride at stake and there is no room for love or brotherhood in it.

 

Indeed, the sign above every courtroom should read "Am I my brother's keeper?"  I think that would better set the expectations of participants and discourage the use of the building in the first place.  (Read Genesis 4 to understand what I mean)

Who is Hegel, Burgess and Rauschenbusch?

This is the question I ask myself as I read this article that I found at the Heritage Foundation website.

The reason? Because from that article, I read this:

For Hegel, whose philosophy strongly influenced the Progressives, "the state is the divine idea as it exists on earth." John Burgess, a prominent Progressive political scientist, wrote that the purpose of the state is the "perfection of humanity, the civilization of the world; the perfect development of the human reason and its attainment to universal command over individualism; the apotheosis of man" (man becoming God). Progressive-Era theologians like Walter Rauschenbusch redefined Christianity as the social gospel of progress.

This bold statement on the part of these progressives confirms the supposition from conservatives that socialism is a Godless philosophy. I grew up seeing statements made by lampooned, warmongering generals in movies and television spouting stuff like "those godless commies", and such. The notion of the lunacy of the commentary was accepted without question by my young brain. It was just rhetoric from some fanatics in our own country. Now, as I read more and more writings from the progressive movement, communists, etc, I find that, in their own words, they have discarded any notion of faith in God.

If you go to the ivory tower of progressive thought, you will not find God in it. He does not belong. However people may believe downstream from there might think or belief, the foundational philosophy and belief system of collectivism and all its unholy children and relatives, is that Man is perfectable by Man, and God is not required, or desired.

This is not some crazy, paranoid, Christian radical talking; this is the progressive intellectual themselves talking from their own writings. It is not a matter of debate, but rather of exposure to the original source.

I am tired of the political banter in my country and its rank dishonesty. Not because all of the participants are dishonest, but rather ignorant. I believe people on the left when they say they have no allegiance to Stalin or Mao or Marx or even Hitler. But I also believe that the part of those characters that they reject is simply the unsavory reputations, and if you were to somehow present to them the philosophies of these men to modern liberals, without revealing the sources, they would find much to be admired.

The problem with collectivism is not the goals, necessarily (although with more understanding we can find problems with these as well), but rather, it is the necessary conclusion and implementation of those goals. They either don't think through the conclusions of their ideas, or don't believe bad things can happen if they just have good intentions.

The good and the bad? The good thing is that if people actually understood what progressives actually thought and said behind closed doors, they would never get elected to office in this country except in the most radical leftist corners of our society and perhaps not even then. The bad? Collectivist thought has become very good at disguising itself as something else and coopting language and words that sound like things people want and believe in. It is truly Orwellian, the use of language in politics and, if we want to keep our liberty, we truly must become what John Adams once observed in the America of his day:

It has been observed that we are all of us lawyers, divines, politicians,
and philosophers." - The 5000 Year Leap, Cleon Skousen, p. 250

I would add historians to that list, particularly the era of the American Revolution and that of the Progressive movement between 1880 and 1920. Only with that proper historical and philosophical perspective can we truly understand current events and modern politics of any stripe.