We Need More War Toys

Over the last week or two, I’ve been having a lot of fun, reading some books I rescued from my grandparents’ house. My grandfather passed in ’94, and my grandmother died in ’03, and when it was over, the daughters and grandchildren were invited to go to the house and take any personal items we wanted, to keep them from being auctioned. Among my finds: several old books by a man named Al Avery. The titles all start with “A Yankee Flier.” I have “A Yankee Flier in North Africa,” “A Yankee Flier in the Far East,” “A Yankee Flier Over Berlin,” and “A Yankee Flier Over Normandy.” They were published between 1942 and 1945, and they were aimed at boys.

Do we still publish books for kids, in which we celebrate our military heroes? I sure hope so. I’m sure the extremists who dominate our educational system would be appalled by a child’s book that contains favorable mention of military service, combat, and weapons. But kids raised on this stuff are bound to be healthier than those brought up on vegetarian propaganda aimed at obliterating traditional sex roles and convincing girls they love math and want to be firemen.

I took the books because I remembered reading them in years past. I enjoyed them tremendously at the time. They’re not great literature. Just fun stories about three pilots trying to save the world from Hitler and the imperialist Japanese. The main character is Stan Wilson, an American who got into the war by joining the RAF. His pals are March Allison, a British pilot, and and Irishman named Bill O’Malley. Wilson and Allison are typical pulp heroes. O’Malley has a wild temper, eats about three pies a day, and calls people he doesn’t like “spalpeens.” I don’t know what a spalpeen is.

You can imagine the kind of adventures they get into. They do all sorts of risky things, violating orders and trying new tactics. Sometimes they get captured, but they always seem to come home okay. Every time they fly, they shoot down several planes. They do things no one else seems to be able to do.

What are kids reading these days? Crap, I’ll bet. I used to read about dinosaurs and the Pony Express. I watched Superman every day. I watched Jungle Jim. I didn’t worry too much about sex roles. I didn’t know what sex was. I thought fighter planes were cool. I was positive (still am) that America was the best country in the universe.

I admit, the Yankee Flier books are not without their problems. They are not overly flattering in their description of the Japanese (although they treat our Chinese allies respectfully). And it’s disturbing that O’Malley began the war as a volunteer for the Luftwaffe. I suppose our horror of Nazism wasn’t very well developed when the books were written. Still, I would not hesitate to recommend them to a kid in need of something to read.

The author seems to know a few things about planes and combat. His descriptions of the technical aspects of the machines is interesting.

I can’t figure out why the books were in that house. My grandfather had four daughters and no sons.

These days, I’m sure the academic disciples of Saul Alinsky are doing what leftists historically do: severing the link between enlightened kids and their stupid, backward parents. I’m sure they’re filling kids with poisonous messages. It’s okay if Daddy has a shotgun; he’s too dumb to know any better. You can take it to the recycling center as soon as you can put him in a home. It’s okay if Mommy goes to church, and you can go too, if you promise not to believe.

The left’s policy of dividing the generations is not only evil; it’s stupid. It may seem smart when you’re a twenty-year-old “community organizer,” and hippie girls are falling in bed with you, but it looks different when you’re an old liberal whose kids have no respect for him, because they have absorbed the notion that old equals useless. We all get old, if we live, and eventually, we have to face the mercy of the kids we raised. That’s a scary thought, if your kids saw you treat your parents badly and dismiss their advice.

The chasm between young and old is one of the great sicknesses of our culture. The generations were not pitted against each other in this way in the past. They associated with each other freely. In modern times, it’s very common to see a concert where almost all of the attendees are under twenty. That’s not how things worked a hundred and fifty years ago. And what do people do at those concerts? Stupid things they would not do, if their parents were watching. They take drugs. They perform sexual acts in public. They drink until they vomit. The way we act when our elders aren’t around should tell us how much we need their presence.

I’m sure there have always been young people who thought they knew more than they actually did. But now the idea that the young are superior is pervasive and unassailable. We even see it in advertisements. Mac, in his mid-twenties, is a genius. PC, at forty, is a moron.

The generations should not be segregated. People learn and improve with age, and that process is painful and involves a lot of bruises. We’re supposed to associate with our elders and learn from them, so we don’t repeat their mistakes. Instead, young people avoid their elders and snigger at them. Barack Obama wants us to believe that John McCain is incapable of doing a good job as President, because he’s not sitting around all day with his thumbs on a Blackberry (an impossibility, due to his war injuries). Obama makes fun of him with a commercial featuring a disco ball. Whatever McCain’s flaws may be, his age is an asset, not a liability. Surely a man who has suffered as he has, and who has worked so long as a legislator, has a few things to teach us. It’s disgusting that there are Americans who even entertained the possibility that the age-based attack was above contempt.

A culture that venerates youth is doomed. Even the Bible says so. Youth-worship is not normal, and it’s not universal. There are segments of society in which age is respected more, and those segments have more strength than society at large.

“Honor thy father and thy mother,” the Bible says. Where does it say, “Children are our teachers?” Nowhere. Only a fool would say that. When you cut yourself off from previous generations, you are like a tree that amputates its own roots. I’ve made my share of errors in this area, and I deplore them.

We are really in trouble, when we start taking guidance from the people who know the least about life.

I’m glad I preserved those books. They remind me of the way we were supposed to be, and the way we may be again, if God is remarkably patient and kind to us.

You Can Help

As many of you know, Jim from Smoke on the Water lives in the Galveston, area. I mentioned this a while back. He closed on a home recently, and now he has had to deal with hurricane Ike. He and his first mate Iris had to evacuate.

This morning I gave Val Prieto Jim’s cell number, and Val called to check up on him. He says his garage got a nice bath, but that the damage to the house is limited to some minor carpet stuff. Hooray for that. He and Iris will not be able to return to the house full-time for days or weeks. That’s bad. After Andrew, life was rough, but at least they let me sweat and moan in my own home.

Jim has an idea about renting an RV or camper or something. That will probably be hard, in the Houston area right now. If any of you have suggestions, fire away.

As always, prayer is indicated.

Speaking of prayer, here’s a good opportunity for you. Reader Ed knows some missionaries in southern India, in the state of Karnataka. They say persecution is on the rise:

Dear Friends,

We are writing in special request of prayer. Our State of Karnataka has been seeing an alarming rise in persecution in the last several months .Our current State government has declared that they will allow no churches to be built and have requested that police refrain from interfering in any church attacks. In the past two weeks 10 churches have been attacked, burned or vandalized. Three weeks ago one of our staff pastors was forced over on the road and roughed up by a group of radicals. This Sunday in our city, many churches, including ours, were scoped out by groups of men who are strategizing the attacks they hope to carry out in the next month. On Monday, Tim will be going with a group of pastors from our city to Bangalore. They will be meeting with the Minister of Human Rights for India. Please pray for Gods favor and power to be on them. Also pray for supernatural peace and strength for all of our pastors and congregations. Christ is the Rock on which we stand and in Him we put our trust!

I said I’d put the request on my blog. I know a lot of you will be happy to see it, and to lend your efforts in prayer.

I Kid

I’m reading about today’s Wall Street mess. I can’t believe it. Can someone help me understand how top investment professionals were stupid enough, en masse, to believe a housing bubble could go on forever, and how they could compound their stupidity by lending money to people who could not repay them?

I can’t figure it out. One thing no one seems to mention is the minority angle. The government pressured lenders to give money to minority borrowers, and lenders agreed, turning a blind eye to credit reports, and look what happened. Another victory for socialism. What a wonderful equal outcome. Minority members with low-paying jobs finally got houses just as nice as everyone else’s. And now they’re being thrown out of them, just in time to see Barack Obama lose the election. What a crappy year for them.

People say adjustable rates are the problem. That’s the PC thing to say. The reality is, a lot of borrowers never had a prayer in hell of paying, regardless of the interest rate.

Regarding the bubble thing, when are human beings going to learn that Ponzi schemes don’t work? That’s what this was. You buy a house. In six months, you sell it for 120% of what you paid. Six months later, the buyer sells it for 120% of what he paid. And so on. And so on. Eventually, somebody can’t pay! That’s just how math is. At the end of the day, houses are things people have to be able to afford. You can’t charge infinity for a house, no matter how long the mortgage runs.

A few years back, nice houses in this area sold for $250,000. At the peak of the bubble, they sold for maybe 900. What kind of fool could think that was going to last? A long time ago, my mother–a realtor–sold a house in this area to a firefighter. Can firefighters afford $900,000 houses? I don’t think so. The supply of expensive houses has expanded dramatically, and the supply of affordable houses has shriveled. And the supply of people who can buy expensive houses has declined. That is not a system at equilibrium.

Now even responsible people have to scramble. Got money in investment or savings accounts? Better make sure it’s insured. If not, you could lose a bunch of it. Got $200,000 in one bank? Only half of it is safe. Make sure you don’t lose it, because if Wall Street continues to falter, in a year, you might be able to buy four nice homes with it.

When I was in law school, I traded stocks. I knew there was a tech bubble. When the collapse started in earnest, I sold. I didn’t quite catch the peak. Other people laughed at me and said I should hold on. But I knew my stocks were overvalued, and I needed to pay my tuition. I got involved in the bubble, but I was too scared to be greedy. I think I took the right approach. I know people who came out of the tech crash with no retirement money. How could they let that happen? I’ll bet some of those same people just got caught flipping houses.

Actually, now that I think about it, I know two people who got caught with four expensive properties. I should have asked you all to do me a favor and say a prayer for them. They really need a solution. They’re wonderful people, but they can’t seem to get a handle on common sense. They should be enjoying retirement, but their lives are full of stress.

The Book of Proverbs says get rich quick schemes don’t work. It really says that. I’m paraphrasing, but it says that.

I have to tell you, when something this improbable happens, I tend to assume something supernatural is going on. This mistake was so obvious, and so many bright people made it, it can’t all be natural. Surely we are not that dumb. I recall a Biblical passage about God putting a hook in someone’s nose, to lure him into a difficult situation. I think that’s right; maybe some of you know what I’m talking about. I believe that still happens.

Sometimes I think we are headed for tough times, and God sent us John McCain so we would have someone mean enough and tough enough to watch over us. I think that’s how we ended up with George Bush. Imagine Gore, kowtowing and apologizing to the terrorists. We would have been vaporized.

I hope the worst of this mess is behind us. It would be fantastic to see all those new homeowners manage to stay where they are.

Some Fates are too Horrible to Contemplate

I had the funniest thought a few minutes ago.

I was watching a brokerage commercial, and it featured a middle-aged guy and his wife. He was wearing a baby-blue velour windbreaker type thing, which right away gives you a clue what his life is like (“It’s on SALE. You’ll WEAR IT”). His wife was talking about investing, and he kept saying he wanted to invest in a spiffy car. And she kept putting the lid on that suggestion, in a way that suggested she was used to shutting him down (Sex? Forget it! We did it in 1989!”).

It occurred to me that it would be funny if a third character walked into the frame, handed him a revolver with one round in the chamber, and said, “You know what to do.”

Black humor. Maybe some day I’ll get it out of my system. But it got me thinking. When is it okay to kill yourself? I am not the world’s leading authority on Catholicism, but I believe they consider it an unpardonable sin. I’m not sure if other churches have taken clear positions on it.

So often, in movies, you see people kill themselves, or plan to kill themselves, to avoid suffering. Could you do that? I’d be more scared of God than of whatever I had to face here. Earthly suffering is only temporary. Here, only your body can be destroyed. The Bible says God can permanently destroy your soul.

I also wonder: if killing yourself is a sin, how far can you go in military service, without dooming yourself? If you jump on a grenade to save your friends, surely that’s okay. But what if you fly a plane into the side of a ship? How much slack do you get? Where is the dividing line?

Today I was reading about assisted suicide and euthanasia. It seems to me that there is absolutely nothing wrong with refusing treatment. You shouldn’t be forced to exert yourself to save your own life. But acting affirmatively to kill yourself…no matter how you slice it, that’s suicide. Isn’t it wrong to do that, or to take any part in it?

The Pope (the Catholic one, not the other one) just gave a speech in which he said people should learn to accept their destiny and leave the earth when God chooses to take them. I think he’s right. Right now there’s a somewhat bogus debate going on, about using cells from aborted babies to keep people alive or make their lives better (it’s bogus, because so far, fetal cells have not proven useful). The practice of taking from the young to save the old is unnatural. The natural order dictates that the old sacrifice to preserve the young. It’s sick to carve up a baby to extend the life of an adult. For that matter, it’s sick to carve up a baby to prevent an adult who conceived it from being inconvenienced for a few months. Imagine what life might be like, if we ever reached the point where unborn life had no value at all, and we were able to use fetal tissue to keep adults alive. The world could become crowded with people who refuse to die. People who refuse to participate in a transition which is a natural part of our existence. It’s disgusting, if you think about it.

Being born is probably very unpleasant. Kids often hate their first days of school. Getting married is scary; so is having kids. So is retiring. Life is full of scary transitions, but healthy people don’t run from them. Death is one of these transitions.

A lot of my relatives are dead. I wish that were not the case, but when a loved one goes, I can tell you, no matter how bad you think it will be, the world doesn’t end. And death itself appears to be painless. I don’t think it’s healthy to fear it. We should avoid stupid risks like smoking and base-jumping. We should try to take care of ourselves so we’ll be around to spend plenty of time with our loved ones. But when it’s time, it’s time. It would be disgraceful to harm an innocent person, just to postpone something which is fundamentally healthy and right.

Sometimes a little part of me looks forward to death, simply because this world is so screwed up. Presumably, things make more sense in the supernatural realm. I certainly hope that’s true. I hate to think we’ll have to put up with corruption and injury and disease and taxes in the hereafter. The world is a mess. It’s easy to forget that, if you live in America. But look at the rest of the globe. Sudan. Somalia. Bangladesh. Any Muslim country you can name. For most human beings, life is very bad.

As a Christian, I know we live in a weird plane, where we are influenced and surrounded by beings we can’t see. If you’re a Christian, too, you should find that annoying. I do. Wouldn’t you love to get your hands around the neck of a demon just once? And just rip its rotten eyes out? Maybe it made someone deaf. Maybe it gave your grandmother, or a whole bunch of grandmothers, cancer. Wouldn’t you love an opportunity to strap it to a pole and roast it over the fire of hell and hear it scream? I know I would. At the very least, I would like to be able to see my enemies. Nothing is as frustrating as being tormented by someone you can’t identify or strike back at.

I know some people will think I sound crazy when I talk about demons. But Jesus believed in them, and he even had conversations with them. If you’re a Christian, that should mean something to you.

Truthfully, I think corporeal life is less natural than the state in which spirits exist. There are supposedly a number of types of intelligent beings with spirits, and we’re the only ones that live in the material universe, and we’re the only ones that die. Our state is unstable. It ends. The state of spirits is at equilibrium. It’s eternal. Maybe it’s more natural to be dead than alive.

If I get sick, I plan to stick it out to the end. I’ll take painkillers by the bucket, if necessary. I’m no John Wayne. But I can’t see arriving at the Pearly Gates with my own blood on my hands.

Fill it With Treasure

I decided to take down my post about PJTV. I think it was a good Sabbath move, and besides, people like me, who pointed out PJM’s flaws, received a lot of abuse when it failed to succeed. As if criticism somehow prevented PJM from working. I don’t want to get involved in any more pointless squabbles.

I try not to stir up trouble these days. I try to avoid gossip and instigation.

It’s Sunday. Might as well write about religion.

My new thing is memorizing scripture. I used to do this a long time ago, but I quit. I started again. I think every Christian has a duty to do it. If you have to refer to the Bible every time you need guidance, you’re not very well prepared to face life. Much better to know the answers by heart. The Bible says the Holy Spirit will remind you of applicable passages when you need them.

I’m memorizing some Psalms. What a strange work. I think they got me in trouble a few times in the past. Looking at them, I concluded it was okay to pray for your enemies to be mashed from above. They do seem to condone that kind of prayer. On the other hand, somewhere in there, one of the psalmists says something about saying prayers for his enemies that he could just as easily have said for himself. And we all know what Jesus said about how we should treat our enemies. I now think it’s okay to pray for my enemies to face problems while they continue to do stupid, evil things to harm me. I couldn’t fault someone for praying prayers like that about me, if I were doing something reprehensible.

Another odd thing about the Psalms is their prophetic nature. A lot of the passages in the Psalms seem sort of pointless unless you look at them from your perspective as a believer. If I were an atheist–maybe even if I were Jewish–I would have a hard time making sense of some of the verses. But because I’m a Christian, they seem to confirm that what I believe is true.

For example, the 63rd Psalm. It begins, “Oh God, thou art my god.” Isn’t that an admission that there is idolatry in the world, and that you choose to reject it? Seems like it to me. You could always pick another “god.”

Then it says, “Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.”

Here’s how I see this. The world was given to man to run, and we chose to give up authority. So now it’s a place where the presence of God, which should be with us much of the time, is tough to enter into. The world is a dry and thirsty place, especially when you don’t live right. But from time to time, God manifests Himself. Once you’ve experienced it, you long for it to happen again.

I’m not completely sure what the sanctuary is, but my guess is that it refers to the area in the temple or tabernacle where the ark of the covenant stood. It was a place where the high priest encountered God very directly, perceiving Him with his senses and not just by faith. Let’s see…Google seems to confirm this.

A while back, I wrote about a couple of experiences I had, in which I felt a warm, loving presence in physical contact with me. At the time, I felt certain what I felt was the presence of Jesus. Now that these experiences are behind me, I feel the way the psalmist did. “Thirst” is a good way to describe it. I miss the sensation. I wish it would return. Maybe I’m wrong, but I suspect that what I miss is the same thing a person who had been in the sanctuary would miss. I don’t think I got the same experience the high priests received; I think I just got a piece of it. Nonetheless, it was enough to make me want more. You would have to be crazy not to want to be near a being that radiated peace and love and assurance the way a wood stove radiates heat. The psalm says “thy lovingkindness is better than life.” I have to wonder if that’s a reference to the sensation of being in God’s presence.

The rest of the psalm is also consistent with the experiences of modern Christians. “Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.” This act is so common, it appears to be instinctive. “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.” That kind of satisfaction is what you feel when God is near. And it’s funny how often these things happen when you’re lying awake in bed, as the psalm implies.

The experience of memorization–the repetition–helps you see new meaning in passages like these. It lifts them off the page and brings them to life. The most important property of great literature is resonance: we read books written by strangers, and from time to time, we realize we have felt things these strangers have felt. This is why people read great works of fiction; we see ourselves in them. We realize we are not unique in our experiences. The Bible has this same property, in a much deeper and more useful way. And memorization amplifies the sensation, making it more vivid and lasting.

I wish I had worked harder at this before my memory got so bad. But it still pays off.

I think having this stuff in my memory will improve me as a person. When you memorize scripture, no matter where you are, it’s always inside you, shaping your thoughts and acts.

I think the King James Version is best for this. It may not be the best translation, but as a piece of writing, it far exceeds anything else on the market. If there are problems with a few of the words, it won’t matter, because surely you’ll remember those problems, just as you remember the verses.

Teach Him a Lesson

Jim from Smoke on the Water has issued a prayer request. He and his significant other, Iris, closed on a house five weeks ago. In GALVESTON. On a BARRIER ISLAND.

They are preparing for Ike right now. Pray it hits France.

Not really, but you get the idea.

Be Careful About Throwing Them Away

A reader sent me a blog link today. It’s about a lady who took her four-year-old daughter to see John McCain and Sarah Palin. Her daughter has Down’s Syndrome.

It occurred to me, as I read the entry, that they may be an unexpected benefit to a Sarah Palin Vice Presidency. It may change people’s attitudes toward kids with Down’s Syndrome and other problems.

It’s not something that should be milked for political advantage, but it seems inevitable, should John McCain win. We’ll be seeing Trig Palin on the news over and over, surrounded by a loving family. He’s already a Youtube hit; everyone has seen the short clip of his sister, grooming his hair.

The prospect of having a handicapped kid scares people. I assume. Surely that’s the reason so many handicapped babies are aborted. The thought has certainly scared me. I hope the abortions are not the result of a sick desire to have “perfect” children to show off, although maybe I’m naive. I believe many couples and single women see ominous prenatal test results and choose abortion, simply because they think raising a handicapped child will be too hard for them.

That attitude will necessarily be eroded by the spectacle of a warm, loving family with a child who has Down’s Syndrome. I don’t know how many people the message will reach, but I’m sure a large number of pregnant women will be influenced, and that they’ll take the healthier path, confronting the problem instead of running from it.

As a nation, we aren’t all that familiar with Down’s Syndrome. Sometimes we see ridiculous movies and TV shows which stupidly portray retarded people as the smartest folks around, but saying those efforts teach us about Down’s Syndrome is like saying G.I. Jane taught us about the Navy Seals. A real-life example will have much more impact.

People whose children have physical problems seem fairly united in their perceptions. For the most part, they tell us their experiences have been fulfilling and surprising. That makes sense. We were put here to face challenges like this. God didn’t create us to have “show families,” the way some people have show dogs and show horses. We are supposed to have problems, and the hope is that by facing them with faith and principle, we can turn them into blessings. This is something I find hard to remember, at times when it can serve me best. I don’t blame other people for forgetting. But it’s still true.

Man’s way of making life perfect is quick and futile. God’s way is slow, subtle, and lasting. You could say God’s approach is nuanced, if you wanted to start a fight.

We always say a child is a gift from God; presumably a child with a special challenge is a special gift. Maybe each of those medical waste bags the abortion industry has filled represents a gift that has been rejected. It’s an awful thing to consider.

Maybe the seeming imperfection of the Palin family is a gift to our nation, which we should study carefully before we turn it down.

In the sidebar to your left, you will find a link to Care-Net.

Refreshing

Here are two sides of the same interesting coin.

First, Christians are facing growing persecution in the Muslim world. Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein of The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews just wrote an op-ed about it in The New York Daily News.

Highlights:

* “Just this month, a Pakistani court upheld the kidnapping, conversion and ‘marriage’ to older Muslim men of two Christian sisters, aged 10 and 13.”

* “Although they comprise less than 4% of Iraq’s population, Iraqi Christians now account for 40% of its refugees.”

* “Thirty years ago, Lebanon was 60% Christian; today it is barely 25%. And the growing political power of Iran-backed Hezbollah is encouraging further departures.”

Evangelist Brother Andrew encourages ex-Muslim converts to stay in Muslim lands and work to strengthen the church and proselytize. That is hard advice to follow, in times when persecution is increasing. Would I stay in a country where I knew there was a good chance that I or my loved ones would be killed? Would I do that, to help the church? Not a chance. Sorry to say it. No way. Barring a supernatural experience proving to my satisfaction that God wanted me there, I would be looking for the fastest way out. I’ve read horror story after horror story. Maybe some day I’ll be committed enough to risk imprisonment, torture, maiming, and execution. At the moment, I am not feeling it. I could never advise another human being to stay. How could I ask someone else to face a risk I won’t face? I have nothing but admiration for people who put their lives on the line in this manner.

Here’s the other side of the coin. A Coptic priest named Zakaria Botros has become a celebrity in Muslim countries. He has a 90-minute television show aimed at Muslims, and he is converting them at a very high rate. So high, there is a bounty on his head. It is rumored to be as high as sixty million dollars.

You would think the figure would be certain; for a bounty to work, it has to be publicized clearly. But I have no reason to doubt that it’s real.

Father Botros is Egyptian, but he lives in the US. That makes sense. If he were in Egypt, he’d be dead. Egypt is not a safe place for Christians, and I’m sure that applies very heavily to Christians who proselytize via television.

He believes a thousand Muslims convert via his phone banks each month, and because the lines are jammed, he believes the actual conversion figure is much higher. And he has websites.

It looks like television and the Internet are highly effective. And considerably safer than face-to-face evangelism.

What’s the conclusion? Hard to say. I feel sure God never intended evangelism to be completely safe, or that it be performed purely by automated means. We’re expected to risk suffering, to some degree. And a TV set is no substitute for a church and a flesh-and-blood pastor. But should Christians risk their lives unnecessarily? Is that required, and is it even effective, compared with TV and the web? And if you decide both types of outreach are needed, how do you balance them? How many people should stay behind in Muslim countries and face violence and oppression?

You won’t get an answer from me. I don’t have a clue.

Here’s something very strange about this blog post. There are two links in the above text. One goes to a story about Muslim oppression of Christians, and the story was penned by an active Orthodox Rabbi who chairs an organization which steers Christian donations to Jewish needs. The other goes to a blog entry about a Christian priest who proselytizes Muslims, and whose life has been credibly threatened by them, and the story was written by a Messianic Jew, Joel Rosenberg. My head is spinning.

Assuming Father Botros checks out, I can’t imagine a better place to send donations. Think about it. You can directly sponsor a Christian outreach to Muslims. What could be better than that? When you drop a bomb on a jihadist, you reduce the enemy’s numbers by one, and our numbers remain steady, and a person dies in ignorance. When you convert a Muslim, the number of our potential enemies is reduced by one, the number of our allies is increased by one, and a person is rescued from darkness.

Please tell me Father Zakarias doesn’t have a yacht and an air-conditioned dog house with a jacuzzi.

It’s Below His Pay Grade

I think I should explain why I’m so irritated with the “Jesus was a community organizer” lie.

It’s not that I object to mixing religion with politics. If anything, I think we should do more of that. We should consider how political platforms comport with our religions when we vote, and when we see problems, we should point them out to others. The IRS ban on mentioning politics from tax-exempt pulpits seems ridiculous to me. To conjure an example at random, if a priest wants to tell his flock to vote against a candidate who supports convenience abortion, he should be able to do it without fear of a big tax penalty. Convenience abortion is a legitimate religious issue; the fact that it has political aspects doesn’t change that.

The ban is obviously an anti-conservative policy. Conservatives are more religious than liberals. There are more conservatives than liberals in churches every week. Even if the intent of the ban is politically neutral, the effect isn’t.

We have to be careful about inappropriate and unrealistic reliance on government to advance religious aims. But our votes have to jibe with our beliefs, as nearly as possible.

The reason I don’t like the community organizer lie, apart from the fact that I generally dislike lies, is that it’s a disgusting and hypocritical effort to portray Jesus as sympathetic to Democrat policies, which He would obviously find repugnant. This is the party that supports nearly every known type of sexual immorality. They support convenience abortion, largely because it’s a necessary adjunct to their support for sexual immorality. They support recreational drug use. They support socialism, which is the single biggest enemy Jesus ever faced; socialist governments overtly oppose Christianity. Liberal Democrats even attempt to supplant God by claiming Man can bring about his own age of peace and prosperity. They’re forcing Christianity out of public buildings, including schools. And they don’t even imitate Jesus’s attitude toward others. They give less to charity than conservatives do. Finally, they support those who oppose Jesus’s people, the Jews, and His nation, Israel.

The GOP may not be a Christian party, but we’re not nearly as hostile to Christianity as the Democrats.

When the Democrats claim Jesus, it’s as if the Republicans were claiming Matthew Shepard. It’s absurd and offensive. This is reflected in a recent news story. A Catholic bishop has asked Nancy Pelosi to come to a meeting and explain why she should be allowed to receive communion, given her support for unrestricted abortion.

“Community organization” is not a Christian tool. It’s a tool of radical politicians. Under other names, it’s a tool of corrupt but non-radical political machines. There is nothing spiritual about it. You may disagree. If you think Ho Chi Minh and Boss Tweed were clergymen.

Claiming Jesus as a liberal agitator appears to be an egregious example of taking the Lord’s name in vain. It would be bad to claim Him while engaged in a spiritually neutral enterprise. But claiming His support while endorsing abortion, sex outside of marriage, and humanism…that’s just crazy. And like sliming Sarah Palin with disproven lies, it is an offensive tactic likely to backfire.

Fire up the Machinery

This is too good not to share.

More than once, I have made it clear that Jesus was anything but a community organizer, i.e. political machine stooge. Here’s a great comment from reader Ed:

I mentioned yesterday in Sunday School, when a reference was made to Jesus as a teacher, that he was not a community organizer. My pastor was in the back and said, “No. He was a maverick”.

I suggested a shirt design to Aaron. Don’t know if he will be interested in marketing this one, as an Orthodox Jew:

“Hitler was a community organizer. Jesus was a maverick.”

It’s funny; if you use Castro, Che, Lenin, Marx, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, or Pol Pot instead of Hitler, it doesn’t work. Liberals think those guys are heroes.

It’s nearly true, if you use Osama bin Laden.

First One This Week

Help me out, here.

I know someone who is in the process of making a devastating mistake. The kind of mistake that has severe negative effects that last longer than a lifetime. I can’t give any details.

Do me a favor and pray that this person will have a change of heart and stop while there is time.

Thanks.

Your Sloppy Thinking Makes Comrade Lenin Spin in His Glass Box

Even though Hurricane Ike is still a Category 4 storm, I have to say that things are going better than expected. It whacked Grand Turk, damaging 80% of the homes. That’s terrible, BUT the population of Grand Turk is under 4,000. We’re not talking about Nassau here. Things could have been a lot worse.

Right now, Ike is going over Great Inagua, in the Bahamas. I haven’t been there; the Bahamas are full of remote islands and industrial islands no one visits, and this is one of them. It’s the site of a huge Morton Salt plant, and the island’s population is under a thousand.

Cuba comes next. Ike is going to miss Haiti, thank God. Maybe the mountains of eastern Cuba will help break it up.

I’m hoping the storm heads for relatively empty forest in the Yucatan Peninsula. Louisiana doesn’t need another hit.

I got a lot of comments on yesterday’s post, in which I pointed out the absurdity of the claim that Jesus was a community organizer. As I noted, one of the main reasons the Jews rejected Him was that He was not a political leader. Based on their understanding of prophecy, they expected a king who would deliver them from Roman rule. Instead, they got a man who was eager to associate with, and preach to, hated Jews who collected taxes for the Romans. No sincere radical agitator (if such a bird exists) would do a thing like that. And while He cared for the poor, He associated with prosperous business owners who had servants. James, John, Andrew, and Peter, for example. They didn’t fish while standing barefoot in ponds. They owned fishing businesses, with hired help. He also healed the servant of a Roman centurion, who probably was not Jewish, as he was a member of the Roman’s household. Jews were not supposed to live with Gentiles. He allowed Martha’s sister Mary to rub expensive perfume on his feet, instead of selling it to help the poor.

I noted that Jesus opposed civil disobedience, and like any Christian who knows anything about the Bible, Virgil understood instantly:

“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s…” Not much political activism in those words.

The opponents of Jesus tried to trick Him into endorsing civil disobedience, with a question about paying taxes. And He told them to pay up.

It’s distressing that leftists now claim Jesus as a community organizer, because that’s exactly what His enemies told the Romans. They said He was setting Himself up as king. And that was untrue; even Pilate saw through it. It made no sense at all, in view of dissatisfaction over His unwillingness to be a political figure.

After 2000 years, you would think the enemies of the church could come up with a better, or at least more original, slander.

And leftists, including America’s relatively watery variety, are enemies of the church; a century and a half of history makes that clear.

I read a horrendous story about East Germany. The East German government, like all leftist governments of the time, tried to eradicate religion. The story is in Brother Andrew’s book, God’s Smuggler. The East Germans obtained machinery to harvest wheat, and they were proud of this advance (usually leftists oppose automation, but we’ll let that pass). Harvest time came, and rain came with it. The machines could not be used on wet fields. They required a couple of days of dry weather.

The government put up posters, and in German, they said, “Without God and without sun, we will get the harvest done.”

And it kept raining, and the harvest was lost, and it became impossible to find bread in East Germany.

The government put out reports criticizing the “lies” about the harvest, saying bread was everywhere. At least the Germans got to read about bread while their bellies rumbled.

Imagine the anti-Christian hostility you would have to have, to put up a poster like that.

And let’s not discuss the Cuban government, which forced clergymen to cut sugar cane–slave labor–because they were considered unproductive members of society.

Anyway, Jesus organized communities about as vigorously as Obama tried to reform the corrupt Chicago machine. Which is where HIS bread came from.

Make it Stop

Here’s a scary story about my efforts to be a better Christian.

I was tired of criticizing people all the time. I did it even in my mind. I did it automatically. I was so used to being rewarded for insulting people, it had become a habit. This is one of the things that drove me to be more religious. For example, maybe I would see some stranger taking a long time to cross the street, and a little voice inside me would start saying, “No wonder you’re so slow. Look at the size of your rear end.” Things like that. I horrified myself. I criticized people who didn’t begin to deserve it. I was impatient with old people! It’s a wonder I wasn’t struck by lightning.

I came up with what I thought was a good strategy. I’d say a little prayer for anyone I insulted in my head. Great, right? People would get the benefit of prayer, and I would be reminded of what I was doing wrong.

What a mistake. Can you imagine watching MSNBC with a rule like that? Chris Matthews? Keith Olbermann? Why did I do this during a convention week? I am so tired of praying for people, now when I look at a person, it almost scares me. That same little voice yells, “WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T THINK ANYTHING NASTY. I AM WORN OUT.”

Usually when I make a little rule for myself, I disregard it as soon as it becomes inconvenient. But how can I do that, when I know I deserve the inconvenience and aggravation it causes me?

Please don’t do anything I might find fault with.

A Lie That Would Bring a Tear to the Eye of Joseph Goebbels

I can’t believe there are Jewish Democrats who are trying to portray Sarah Palin as an anti-Semite. This is insane. The claim? She “supported Pat Buchanan” in an election bid. The truth? While working for the Steve Forbes campaign, Buchanan showed up for a visit, and she put on a Buchanan button, as a courtesy.

How can you work for the Forbes campaign and be a Buchanan supporter? You can’t. I bought a Nader shirt, as a joke. I guess that makes me a liberal.

When are American Jews going to realize that Bible-believing American Christians are their most powerful allies, and that as far as Israel is concerned, the bank accounts of American Christians are God’s purse?

Sarah Palin governs a state with very few Jews. She’s extremely popular, so she has no need to court favor with a small minority. Yet she works hard to maintain good relations with them, she decorates her office with an Israeli flag, and she wears an Israeli flag pin. This is in contrast to Barack Obama, who had to be bullied into wearing the flag of his own country, and who has a decades-long track record of close friendship with–and of absorbing religious and moral instruction from–an anti-Semitic pastor. Alaskan Jewish leaders have nothing but good things to say about her. If they knew of a problem, don’t you think they’d be complaining?

Buchanan is a disgrace, and it was a mistake to wear the button. But if wearing a Buchanan button for one day is proof of hostility to Jews, why don’t we condemn his publisher and the liberal cable network that keep him on their payrolls? Actually, condemning MNBC is a pretty good idea. Buchanan’s issues with Jews and Israel are sufficiently well documented to make the granting of regular television airtime utterly inappropriate and somewhat offensive.

How can American Jews be so blind about the intentions of conservative Christians like Sarah Palin? It has to be the result of a deliberate effort to ignore the facts. All over America, we are supporting Israel and the Jews financially and in prayer, and we even base our votes largely on Israel’s interests. More than Jews do. And we do it all gladly, with no expectation of reward or even the opportunity to proselytize. What more can we do?

Obviously, Christians are not Jews. We don’t agree on doctrine. We think Jews are mistaken about some of their beliefs. We would love to see them all wake up one day and decide Jesus is the Messiah. So what? Our money and our loyalty and our prayers have no strings attached. Aren’t benevolent Christians who help you all they can better than hostile leftists who call Israel “Palestine”?

There are Jewish leaders who do everything they can to prevent Christian money from reaching Israel. That’s beyond belief. If we can think you’re wrong and still give you hundreds of millions of dollars, can’t you think we’re wrong and take it?

“Hundreds of millions” is probably understating the case. The International Federation of Christians and Jews (Christians donating, Jews coordinating and distributing) has provided hundreds of millions, all by itself. And politicans we elect have the power to send much more.

If liberal American Jews think our money is tainted, they should be sending so much of their own, ours isn’t needed. But they aren’t. Show me a Jew other Jews aren’t helping, and then tell me a Christian shouldn’t pitch in. Tell me it’s wrong for a Christian to send money to fly an Ethiopian Jewish couple home to Israel. Take a look at the way oppressed Jews are living in filthy Ethiopian camps and then try to sell me. Tell me we shouldn’t be buying hot food for Holocaust survivors who are alone and too old to take care of themselves. I would like to hear your arguments. Christians have sent hundreds of thousands of Jews home to Israel. How many has George Soros sent? We are responsible for the existence of a substantial percentage of Israel’s population. How big a percentage? At least 5%. Imagine the US without Michigan and Minnesota.

Americans send charity money to people all over the world. How can it be possible that Jews are the only people we should not help?

You know what Jewry’s punishment will be, if American Jews don’t wake up and accept the Christian right as friends? NOTHING. We’re going to send money ANYWAY. How can you beat a deal like that? This is one of the few areas in which we begin to approach Jesus’s altruistic style. We’re doing something consistent with what we preach. Give us a break. Acknowledge it. The ancient Jews let the Gentile Cyrus build the second temple. As the Jews fled Egypt, they accepted money and treasure from their former tormentors, who feared the Jewish God. Surely my money is just as clean. Why discount one of the most beautiful developments in your history?

If we are on the side of Jews in Israel, it stands to reason that we are on the side of Jews in the US. We may differ on social issues, but in an increasingly anti-Semitic world, in which the people who agree with you politically get more hostile every year, how important is that?

If anything, Sarah Palin’s political and religious beliefs indicate she is very likely to be a diehard friend of the Jews. That ought to be obvious. Goebbels said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will perceive it as the truth. Funny how that doesn’t seem to work for the truth itself.

I Think It’s Possible

Sometimes I like to write about my experiences as I pursue my faith, to see how they compare to what happens to others. This is one of those times.

Aaron is an Orthodox Jew. He doesn’t allow broadcast or cable television in his house. And he has…boy, I hope I get the number right…six well-mannered kids with wonderful personalities. He’s glad he kept TV out of their lives. He says there is no way to restore lost innocence.

I think what he has done is smart. Feeding your mind television is like giving your body a diet of Skittles and vodka, and his kids lost nothing of value. But I suspect that innocence can be restored.

Over the course of my life, I’ve become jaded and cynical to shut out the pain of feeling things. It’s a defense I worked at deliberately. The world is a challenging place when you let yourself feel, and growing a thick skin can save you a lot of suffering. On the other hand, you lose the ability to gauge the effects of the things you say and do. Your empathy becomes masked. You find yourself saying and doing things which, on reflection, seem hard or trashy or cruel. It becomes hard to avoid offending people, and you find that you’re often embarrassed by the memory of your actions. How many times have I crossed the line here? More than I can remember.

It’s perverse. You develop the defense because you’re innately sensitive, and therefore vulnerable. compared to other people. You do it in response to behavior which you perceive as wrong. Then what happens? You find yourself behaving like the people you wanted to protect yourself from. Your sense of humor turns dark. You laugh at suffering. And people reward you for it. They laugh, too. They approve. The unspoken excuse is that everyone knows you’re joking. But sometimes you may find that you’re not joking. Or you’re not sure whether you’re joking.

It’s an easy trap to fall into. Since the late Seventies, American humor has been very cruel. It seems like there was a turning point in that era. Maybe it happened with Kentucky Fried Movie or The Groove Tube, or maybe it came later, with Animal House. I was a pretty nice kid, but after I was exposed to cruel humor on TV and at the movies, I developed the ability to make people laugh by saying things that were extremely vile. Worse than anything I’ve put in my writing. And even while I’ve been blogging and thinking of myself as a Christian, in private, I’ve said things that would curl your hair. And as I’ve said before, I’ve gotten tired of myself. And it wasn’t something I could quit on my own. It’s one of the things I ask God for help with. It may not seem important, but it is. If you can become convinced that everything you do or say is okay, because deep inside you don’t mean it, you may sink deeper and deeper into the behavior, until you reach a point where you do mean it, and you still think it’s okay. Then you’re a jerk. A bad person.

You may think I’m a nice person, even after all the things you’ve read here, but before you say it in a comment, ask yourself if you might have the same problem I do. You’ve been exposed to our sick culture, too. I may be nice by current standards, but that’s not a high bar to clear. Especially on the Internet.

Since I’ve been trying to correct my backslidden ways, I’ve noticed some changes in myself. I feel as if my emotions are being brought back to life. I think more about other people’s feelings. Things that wouldn’t have stirred me at all three years ago make my eyes mist up. I get much more pleasure out of doing things for people. And I become more and more aware of the things I’ve been doing wrong. I was trying to be a moral person already, but my compass was rusty.

I feel lighter. I feel less comfortable watching and reading things I know are bad for me. I’m not reformed, but I’ve improved a lot. Sometimes I’m a little shocked, when I think about the things I thought were acceptable. I was crazy.

My hope is that this is what is referred to in the Bible as “the fruit of the Spirit.” When I was a churchgoer, we heard a lot about the gifts of the Spirit, which means things like prophecy and discerning of spirits and so on. But those things don’t make you a good person. They don’t bring happiness or repair your life. The fruit are more important. Things like love and patience and generosity. And empathy. How can you have love, if you don’t empathize?

I think this is a good thing to write about. It’s easy to feel that the world is a certain way now, and that you have to conform to it or go live in a cave. It may seem that the baseness of modern life is inescapable. But it’s not. A lot of people manage to live on this planet without getting too dirty. A lot of them are actually successful and popular. The fear that tells you you have to fit in is an illusion. Maybe someone who reads this blog will read this and be encouraged. It’s good to change your behavior, but it’s better to be re-made, so the behavior isn’t natural to you any more. That’s what I think.

We’ll see how I do in the long run. If it works out, you’ll have no excuse not to try it yourself.