I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I’m confident you can help.
Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

No rational debate of the subject would include any of this type of listing. To begin with, the “laws” mentioned here were given specifically to Jewish people living in the Israel. While it might be debated that they should still be binding on modern Jews in Israel, Christ never assigned a governmental system for non-Jewish people. And, to the best of my knowledge, no one is making a serious request that the United States or any other country set up such a system. To that end, the entire list is simply an attempt to demean people of faith who happen to oppose whatever tenets of the discussion are applicable to any of the numbered items. Or more succinctly, they have no reasonable arguments, so their best hope is to make the other side of the question appear unreasonable, oppressive, or foolish.
So, if the Jewish system of law is not binding on gentile believers, then why is Leviticus 21 so often cited by people opposing homosexual conduct you might ask?
There are two reasons, or perhaps the same reason addressed in at least two different areas of the Bible. When the time came to decide which portions of the law a new believer, non-Jewish, had to observe, the apostles met and prayerfully discussed the matter. The decisions reached are listed in Acts 21:25
As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.
The actions defined as “sexual immorality” are listed in the twentieth chapter of Leviticus, first defined well over 2000 years ago. It was a very different world, no doubt about it. In fact, it was so long ago, some people are tempted to question that there was anything of wisdom that they could teach us today. A reasoned look, however, shows that God knew and told quite a lot.
Another action forbidden in that chapter was adultery. To the best of my knowledge, the United States never carried a death penalty for that offense. Some countries did and do, though my understanding is that it is not applied evenly between the sexes. I have heard that there is at least one website out today that caters particularly to people looking to be unfaithful to their spouses. Try as I might, I can’t find much good in this activity which has destroyed so many families and caused such pain.
Bestiality is another item listed there. Most people I have been around who have ever discussed the topic seem to do it with a mixture of shock and embarrassment. It’s still out there. And so are the results. Aside from the occasional bizarre news story, anyone who has ever contracted gonorrhea can thank someone in the distant past who was convinced they knew more than the Mosaic writings. The disease comes from a bacteria native to sheep. Think of how much suffering could have been avoided with a little self control.
The list goes on. Incest. Child sacrifice. Respect for parents. The listing is unique in that it comes with a note of sadness. As God commanded that the Israelites refrain from these actions, he included a warning: It was because the people of the land were doing these things that they were to be destroyed. The people inhabiting the land before the Jews did not know God. They certainly were not Jews, and he never tried to bind them to his laws. But because of these things, they were beyond redemption. It’s a powerful message.
Again, I don’t know of anyone who wants to revive most of these things as criminal offenses, but to say that they are arbitrary or without purpose is simply wrong. And to declare them morally correct flies in the face of all the harm that they cause.
For whatever reason, people of faith are being painted as a hate-filled mob simply for standing up and holding to wisdom that was old long before our current nation was young. We do not wish to punish or insult. We simply want the rights that were granted by our Constitution, rights that the authors credited not to government but to God. Among the greatest of these is freedom of speech, no matter how offensive it may be. And there is freedom of religion, which as a minimum must include the freedom to hold your conscience clear, to not be compelled to give up our principles based on the whims of others.
The nation has already embraced easy divorce, with the result that an intact family is rapidly becoming the minority. In the seventies, we removed the stigma from pre-marital sex, and became a nation of single parents and insecure children. Now the government tells us is the time to embrace homosexuality, and though they have failed to convince a majority of the public, they are dictating the matter to the military. I wonder what new social problems we shall trace to this day two generations hence.

I have to admit that I was tearing up through a lot of the movie though for reasons not related to the major subject. The “Leigh Ann” character, as played by Sandra Bullock, reminded me immediately of my mother. Mom passed away close to twenty years ago, a middle aged but terribly worn out woman. She didn’t look anything like Leigh Ann (real or Bullock version). She didn’t speak with the same accent. She didn’t have as peaceful a marriage, as well behaved children, and in the matter of wealth we ended up closer to the “Hurt Village” side of the economic scale than the well mannered neighborhood of the Tuhy’s. She didn’t go to Ole’ Miss, Young Miss, in fact she missed college altogether.

Now, if you find yourself asking “Just what is the connection?” then you need not consider yourself alone. It really is hard to find something in common between these women separated by so much. I had a hard time thinking of it myself. The connection is that like our heroine, my mother was a woman of love. Not soft love, to be sure. She could put you in your place and then knock you out of it again when she had to. She didn’t have a chance to embrace life. She spent much of her time trying to survive it, but her own survival never came before those whom she cared about. It was a fierce love, a ferocious love, a love built on respect that demanded no less.

It was the same kind of love demonstrated by a woman who took in a boy four times her size, be sheltered by him at need, but more than ready to shelter him. It was a love that stood up to friends or family who could often hurt deeper than the most vicious enemy. And it was a love that dared to doubt itself when certainty would harm a loved one.

There have been many comments regarding the story line of the movie. Most have viewed as a positive and uplifting story of how love is colorblind, kindness is universal, and inspired by a loving God to live within us. I like those comparisons. There have been other comments, less enthusiastic, how the story is little more than dressed up racial bigotry dressed up as virtue. I will not address those. I don’t think Michael Oher has any question which comments are closest to the truth.

For me, the story touched deepest on a comparison seldom made about this story. Where most ask what might have happened to Michael Oher if not for a loving family, I find myself asking “What would have happened to Leigh Ann? What would have happened to her on the poor side of town, with a family and husband far less perfect, a chance to go to college passed up in favor of marriage, a life that seems to wear you down a lot more than it ever built you up? I don’t know for sure because I don’t think there is just one answer. There are many. And now I look back to memories of my mother, and part of me weeps for how much she could have done. If only…

As I was working at my office desk today, busily doing things engineers do, I was listening to a news station on the radio. They gave a short review of the change to D.C. law and then they played a sound clip which I assume was recorded at one of the ceremonies. It was the type of voice that you hear in the old western movies, or perhaps in movies about Southern churches in the Klan era. It was the sound of an aged, fire-and-brimstone minister. He was speaking very slowly, heartbeats between each word:

“What…God…has…joined…together.”

I stopped typing. Not long, just a few seconds, and it occurred to me that I wanted very much to weep.

I know the days are long past when most of the people in the country considered marriage a sacrament. I’m not sure there even was such a day frankly. A great many people have civil ceremonies. That’s fine. I’m sure that even many people who have church weddings do it as much for the scenery as for the idea of coming to God’s house to ask a blessing on the union. Practically, marriage functions as a three way contract between a couple and society. They promise x, we grant legal benefits y. All subject to renegotiation. And while I am saddened by the lowering of marriage to this kind of legal formality, I am not crushed, because for those who seek the real meaning of marriage the blessing is still available.

But it is not man’s blessing.

There was a time when Christ was speaking of the Pharisees. He said that they had put themselves in “the seat of Moses.” The reference was to the way they were making decrees in the name of God. These were the loads they burdened men with, loads that they would “not lift a finger to help them bear.” They were the leading proclamations of the blind guides. They were the ones who “honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me.”

There are some who say that Christ never spoke about gay marriage, and claim that must mean it is okay. One error based on another.

Mat 19:4  He answered them, “Haven’t you read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female’
Mat 19:5  and said, ‘That is why a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?
Mat 19:6  So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must never separate.”

One reason. One form. One blessing, and that of God. No man can give that.

There are many reasons that I find myself wanting to cry for my nation. This is more of a case where I want to cry for the couples. If they wish to join, they will. Though I will fight and law in my area to recognize the union, I would not try to criminalize their being together. That hardly seems to be a fitting course for government. But I cry for those who think they are receiving a blessing where there is none to be had, who stand in front of a minister and receive a lie. A lie can sometimes make us feel better about ourselves for a time, but eventually the truth comes down on us and we find ourselves worse off than if we had never believed.

And I weep for the ministers who pronounce this lie. They sit in the seat of Moses. They guide the flock over a cliff. They cry “peace, peace,” and there is no peace. I weep for them because the God who will not hold blameless those who use His Name in vain will not forget, and their responsibility will be great.

California discovered just how iron-clad that principle was as it tried to overcome nature with legislation. The so called “reform” froze the price of electricity without regard to the cost of production. And, as demand rose and the state began paying premium rates to purchase energy from the grid, energy priced much higher than the California set point, the cash reserves quickly depleted and imposed rationing was the order of the day. In this case, the rationing was imposed in the form of brownouts, controlled periods of power restriction for designated areas.

Once again, we are poised to repeat the California experiment. This time, the service involved is not electricity, but medical care. And the “reform” will not be limited to California, but spread to the entire nation.

If the health care legislation passes in its current form, or any form that prevents limits in covered expenses, excluding existing conditions, or raising rates as needed, we will soon find ourselves in the same condition as California. The government will have “fixed the price” of the service, but they will be powerless to control how much is produced. There will be no magic fountain of drugs, no sudden influx of doctors and nurses to cover the new enrollees. When money is no longer the limiting factor, rest assured that there will still be a limiting factor. The factor is time. Gone will be the days when it was ever said “Come back when you can pay.” Then it will be “Come back tomorrow. Come back next week. Come back when we can get to you.”

Come back when it’s too late.

This is a scripture that I have seen referred to a great deal during on-line commentary, and almost without fail it refers to the same situation: A person (family/group/whatever) has visited a church and found that, for whatever reason, they were not welcomed as they would have liked. Some times the complaint is that the church wasn’t friendly. Sometimes they are in disagreement with the message content or emphasis. The word that I hear most often, however, is “judgment.” The visitors feel that the congregation members were being judgmental, either of them personally or of other people groups.

I can’t deny that it happens. Maybe it happens a lot. I don’t notice it very often at the church I attend, but I travel in a pretty small circle. There was recently a limited release movie called “To Save A Life” that touched on the subject and I thought they did a good job of it. For a church to accomplish its work, it has to be welcoming. Not condoning, not where sinful behavior is concerned, but accepting and loving of people, of their humanity and the frailty that comes with it.

At the same time, I feel more than a little pity for the congregations as well. What the people who quote the verse above often fail to acknowledge is that they have not walked into the doctor’s office. They’ve merely stepped into the waiting room. They aren’t surrounded by healthy surgeons and specialists and diagnosticians. They’re walking around an open ward, one man with a spiritual cold, another with a broken spirit. Some are so downcast they might think that they are terminal.

In matters of spiritual healing, the patients are quite literally running the hospital. Some are closer to health than others, but no one is really “well.” The treatments they learn are courtesy of a medical journal thousands of years old and a wise but sometimes hard to comprehend Teacher who, though endlessly patient, is also demanding and precise. And the course of study is just so hard that without constant help from this teacher, none of us would make any progress at all. As it is, we are so inadequate at times…

And in comes a visitor, sometimes giving us an hour, sometimes less, to make an impression that not only reflects upon us but on our Teacher for the rest of their life. And we try and try, and sometimes we do well. And sometimes they show up when we’re having a relapse of the worst kind, and it seems to spread to everyone we come across. Before we realize it, the visitor is gone, and they are worse than they were before. So are we.

Churches come in many forms. Some are intensive care units. Some are hospices. Some are barely more than a tent with a cross (“red” is optional). Given time, patience, and the right kind of leadership, the right kind of following really, some might be considered on the level of a med school. But one thing will remain constant: They will all be filled with patients, each one needing the same grace day to day that is required of anyone.

I pray that the churches will be attentive to the needs of their visitors. Without them, the most important part of our mission fails. And I pray that the visitors are patient of their hosts. You never know but that the person caring for you this Sunday morning was on life support Saturday night.

I got the impression that some of the writers might be a bit miffed at Bill. I’m not. Oh, I admit that my nose was a little out of joint at first. My oldest daughter will be looking for scholarships beginning in the next few months. I think she’ll do okay, but the idea that a business that I have supported for over a decade has arbitrarily chosen to eliminate my daughter from consideration of a scholastic award based on her skin color is a little hard to take. And if any out there reading are thinking along the lines of “Good. Now you know how it feels,” I would state that I was around in the late seventies when racial preferences first start to be felt. It limited my ability to go to college right out of high school. Having it come back on my children is a bit hard to take. I would have thought (hoped? prayed?) that the idiocy would have run its course by now. It hasn’t. So be it.

Despite all of that, I still have no quarrel with the Gates Foundation. After I calmed down and examined it logically, I could see there was nothing wrong. The Gates family is using their own money, and contributions of like minded individuals I imagine, to further goals which they have clearly spelled out. Since this is a private operation, not a government venture which does and should have an obligation to avoid discrimination, I feel they should have the right to spend their money any way they see fit.

The Gates Foundation isn’t taking anything away from my daughter, or any other white person as far as I know. They are providing extra funds to advance the academic future of minorities. It’s not a decision that I would have made, but since it’s their money and they are doing good works with it, who am I to complain? God bless them, I say. I hope they provide a lot of great opportunities to people who would otherwise never have the chance.

In the same way, I hope that we soon reach a point in our society where we stop paying attention to the color of an applicant’s skin, where we stop defending one set of wrongs on the basis of another. While I am a big fan of competition as a way to bring out the best in people, I recognize that there are practical limits. By convincing America’s diverse communities that they must not only compete individually but as races, genders, and religious groups, we only perpetuate the division which causes grief to so many.

I am in mourning at present. I have changed the appearance to a darker template to commemorate the event.

I am mourning the 1st Amendment. I can’t say that it’s dead. (Can I walk around?) Not completely. Not for sure. I really have to wonder, though.
It’s not like it was really a surprise. The 1st has taken a lot of abuse over the years, gone through some pretty rough times. There were a few times when good ole Miracle Max might have even hesitated to take a shot, but it still kept going. And then came Hate Crimes legislation.
Recently, the mayor of Lancaster, California, mentioned that there was a growing Christian community and expressed some pride in the fact. For this transgression, he was investigated in California under the state hate crimes statute. The responsible panel voted not to prosecute. Good for them. It was a pure disgrace that it ever reached that point, but good for them. Now, CAIR has filed a federal complaint.

The outcome is largely irrelevant. The precedent is grim. A US citizen is being investigated for speech that is not slanderous or seditious, for expressing a sentiment which by all rights should be completely covered by the 1st Amendment. Right now, said protection is looking pale, a ghastly green, full respirator and drip tube.

I still recall last year arguing with people on line, stating that such laws would inevitably be used as a hammer against free speech and religion. There were certainly enough examples of where it had in Canada and Europe. And every liberal I argued against was sure that I was daft or stupid or paranoid. And here we are now.

There can only be one good outcome. Hopefully the case will gain the attention of the Supreme Court, and the Court will strike it down. Barring that, let the funeral commence. No loud wailing, please. You wouldn’t want to offend anyone.

As we were walking around, we ran into an acquaintance from church. As usual in such places, we talked about the fair, how prices were going up, and the general state of the crowd. It wasn’t that bad really. The longest we waited in any line was about five minutes. I brought up the comment that this wasn’t a “wrist-band” day. On “wrist-band” days, you pay a flat fee per person and ride as much as you want. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

He mentioned that his family went a few years on “wrist-band” day. The place was jam packed, wall-to-wall people. The lines were so long that they only got to ride two rides before it was time to leave, and the crowded conditions made everything less enjoyable. Most people have experienced something much like this. Even if you don’t go to the traveling fairs, most of the major amusement parks work on the same type of structure these days. Pay big in the door and ride all you want. Of course, you soon realize that what this really means is ride what you can.

There’s a lesson here that we would do well to learn.

Everything finite is rationed in some way. If you don’t pay in terms of money, you will pay in terms of quality or availability. It is inevitable. It’s just as true with amusement parks as it is with health care. That’s the reason why people in Canada and Britain are dying between the time of diagnosis and the time treatment is available, or in other cases why the condition has spread beyond treatability. When people can come for any ailment with little or no regard to cost, they do. And they come a lot. And they come when maybe they shouldn’t. And then the system can’t get to the people who really need it, and more of them will die.

A lot of people emphasize the supposed advantages of a universal health care system. Very few have considered the responsibility. Fifteen people in a waiting room that want to talk about their sniffles might discourage someone with early cancer signs from waiting around. Maybe they’ll come back tomorrow. Maybe they won’t come back until it’s too late. It’s something to think about.

I propose the following thought experiment and welcome opinions on the subject: Suppose that, instead of paying a fee for government health care (the public option as it is called) people were told they would be required to volunteer two hours of their time weekly to one of several available projects. It might be road work, office work, yard work, etc. Would people scarf it up for the great deal that it is? Or would those who are at the low end of the productivity scale, who are probably assuming (correctly) that the government will give it to them, balk at the idea? Will cries of “slavery” be heard again?

What do you think?

While the primary focus of the post that spurred the discussion was not education, we strayed into that realm when we began discussing unequal treatment due to race. I stated that I thought it was horrible that a white, non-minority male student had to make higher grades and scores on entrance exams to be accepted to many universities than an African American student. The host at the blog immediately replied that he was in education and he was unaware of any such requirement. That in itself amazed me, since so many in the liberal education establishment have been fighting hard to maintain just such preferences for quite a while. He invited me to provide evidence and said that he would stand corrected if I did. I did. He ignored it.

Afterward, we went through similar exercises with regards to English immersion vs. bilingual education and phonics vs. whole language. In each case, I provided the locations of stories listing that the liberal position (support of bilingual ed and whole language) produced inferior results. I invited him to produce evidence to the contrary. He produced nothing, yet continually insisted that this proved nothing. There was an impenetrable wall of first ignorance, real or feigned I’m not certain, followed by disbelief of any evidence contrary to the liberal position. As I continued to press the matter, he stated that he considered my questions nothing but rhetoric. And that is perhaps the most disturbing part of all.

There is nothing rhetorical about these subjects. In fact, I would give the opinion that answers to these questions and many more like them are of vital importance. Surveys show that professors and evaluators of the schools of education identify as liberal by an overwhelming majority. Many of the methods that are currently being pushed emphasize social justice, whatever that means, and activism over content and excellence. It is inconceivable that in an increasingly technical economy that America can maintain any kind of competitive stance without making the best use of educational resources available for our children and young adults. At the rate we are going, we will end up with a new work force demanding action and attention, yet unable to maintain and advance, or in many cases even contribute, to the society they live in. This is a recipe for poverty, frustration, and anger. Whatever steps come after those can only be to detriment of us all. I would encourage every concerned parent and concerned citizen to work to reverse these destructive trends. They began some forty-years ago, and we are now seeing some of the logical results.

Contrary t0 what some may try to tell you, educators really do know what work: Standards without excuses, directed learning, phonics, drill, and content rich curriculum. It may not be exciting for the teachers or the children, and it’s certainly a tougher job then inspiring young activists, but it’s what lead America to technical dominance in the fifties and sixties. Given the chance, it will do so again.