Characters Divided

USA Network established a campaign called "Characters Unite" that seeks to reduce divisiveness and promote the idea that we're stronger when we're united. The program disparages stereotypes and celebrates individuals: "Millions of smart, funny, quirky, heroic, shy, glamorous, fierce, stubborn characters, each completely unlike the next."

Characters Unite held a panel discussion led by Tom Brokaw. According to Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post - a panelist herself - the participants "covered the waterfront: black, white, Asian, Hispanic, straight and gay leaders representing education, finance, entertainment, Congress, media, the military and academia. Missing was anyone representing the faith community."

So we've got a collection of "experts" whose only real commonality was a desire to make society change to their specifications. As Parker put it, the premise "is that diversity is good and ought to bind rather than separate us. It's a nice thought but not so easily realized." It's especially difficult when differences are exalted and bonds that unify (like patriotism, family and faith) are verboten.

Ms. Parker felt the "greatest obstacle to tolerance (was) a lack of exposure" to other kinds of people. She noted that "the faith community has a great opportunity to integrate people in more natural ways. First of all, when you're in a house of worship you tend to be on a slightly higher plane..." and her next comments were edited out of the tape. Faith was given less than two sentences before the door slammed shut.

I have an idea where Kathleen was going with this, so I'll take the liberty of finishing her comments as I would have responded. It goes like this:

"We have a big variety of people in my church. There are cops, cooks, teachers, truck drivers, surgeons, homemakers and unemployed workers. Young, old, in-between, short-haired, long-haired, tattooed, pierced, clean-cut. Some have been in jail or had drug problems. Single, married, separated, divorced. Black, white and a potpourri of ethnicities. Some have disabilities."

"These differences are no more divisive than whether you've got brown or hazel colored eyes. We have a bond: a shared faith that supersedes the differences the "experts" so industriously promote. It's amusing to watch secularists try to cram together puzzle pieces with mismatched shapes, colors and thicknesses. It takes an act of God to do this, but He wasn't invited."

"Characters" can't "Unite" unless they have a shared higher purpose. Secular nostrums that emphasize differences and resentment can't achieve this. But Christian faith can, has and does."


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No God...No Problem!

The American Humanist Association is running its annual non-theist (apparently the politically correct term for "atheist") advertising campaign. It started in Washington, D.C. with posters in 50 train cars, inside 200 buses and on the outsides of 20 others. The advertising also ran in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The ad shows a diverse group of smiling people wearing Santa hats with the caption "No God...No Problem. Be good for goodness' sake."

It's hard to see why they're happy. They've ignored what scientists tell us about the indispensability of God, written off any sort of afterlife and support from Him, and come to believe that "religion does not have a monopoly on morality - millions of people are good without believing in God," according to their press release.

You can be "good" without believing in God, but it's less likely. Civil laws - which aren't as expansive as Christian standards - provide guidelines we usually obey in order to avoid fines or jail. Even then, lots of people violate them. Have you checked the incarceration rate lately? Or watched prison documentaries or the Gangland series on cable? The criminals portrayed are usually from lower socio-economic levels, but they aren't the only malefactors. Bernie Madoff has new digs, too, showing that the self-determined morality that got him there can infect anyone regardless of wealth or stature.

It's troubling to see the level godless people can sink to, and it's obvious that "being good for goodness' sake" isn't a code they live by. Having no God is a problem that leaves man racing to the bottom as he makes up his own rules on the fly.

So, it's Christmas and the humanists are back again. Along with the obligatory elementary school principal who instituted a "Happy Winter" celebration to replace religious festivities in Waterbury, CT. And the traditional removal of a Christmas tree from an Orange County courthouse after a citizen complained about it. In a new twist, an international flavor was added
when all Christmas trees were ordered removed from the streets of Copenhagen in deference to the UN Climate Summit.

Even so, it doesn't seem the anti-Christmas fervor is as intense this year, and it seems OK to say "Merry Christmas." Maybe Christians just got fed up with their faith being trashed every December, individually decided to use the greeting and found that most people are fine with it. Who would've thought?

Whatever their motivations, the grinches clearly have a distorted view of Christmas, Christianity and Christians. Otherwise they wouldn't act as they do. They'd do well to curb their biases long enough to see what the truth is.

Christians have God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, church families, peace, love, strength, eternal life and timeless ethical standards. No misguided affront can take these gifts away and, especially at Christmas, we should be thankful for them.

Merry Christmas!!


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Supernatural Strength

There are days when the radiation and chemotherapy wipe her out. Doctors tell her the treatments are working on the ovarian cancer that was diagnosed a few months ago. The day before her cancer operation, her husband collapsed. She thought it was a stroke; it turned out to be stage 4 glioblastoma multiformae, the cancer that killed Ted Kennedy.

Recounting her story with Tom Shea of The Republican in Springfield, MA, she talked of her twin daughters. Both live with cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy. Life is filled with visits to the Shriners Hospital, doctors, and a variety of therapists.

AnnMarie and Tim Richard have burdens. They also have faith. Tim says, "We're praying for a miracle." AnnMarie agrees, saying "We believe miracles happen. What we aim for every day is to concentrate on what we can control - take care of our children, our treatment and our bills - and what we can't control we hand over to God."

A friend says AnnMarie is "probably the strongest woman I've ever known." Her cousin adds, "She has such great faith. And she really lives it every single day. She is such an inspiration. Ask anyone who knows her."

These are self-sufficient people who've been blindsided by disease, but they don't live in fear, self-pity or hopelessness.

Why not?

Partly because miracles do happen. But more importantly, they know this life - as cruel as it can be - doesn't last all that long and when it ends the future is bright. They have an eternity devoid of illness and free of pain ahead of them, and so do their faithful loved ones.

Some people see faith as a reed grasped in desperation (the allusion is to a drowning person grabbing flimsy reeds to save himself). If they opened their minds, they'd discover there are solid reasons for Christian faith and that once they accepted it a palpable change happens within them. This confirms the reality of Christ and provides the faith that carries Christians through adversity.

On the other hand, an unbeliever usually lives at the center of his own universe. Troubles are more important because, after all, they mess up his universe. He's only got one, and it ends when he dies.

What's a skeptic left with when he's faced with an ordeal like the Richard family? A self-reliant egotism that's fading into intolerable helplessness? A dawning realization that all the material things he struggled for are meaningless? The relentless, inescapable implosion of his universe? And then ... nothing?

Christianity shows us how to live a satisfying life that has eternal consequences. It puts our struggles in perspective and gives us supernatural strength and hope.

Just ask AnnMarie Richard.


Contributions may be sent to: The Richard Family Fund, c/o Monson Savings Bank, P.O. Box 188, Monson, MA 01057


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Kitty Genovese

The New York Times headline read "37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call Police" and the story described how they "watched a killer stalk and stab a woman" for over a half hour. Kitty Genovese died in the 1964 attack, and the unconscionable apathy of the community passed into folk history.

Except it's not exactly "history." The murder happened at 3:30AM on one of the coldest nights of the year when windows were closed and people were asleep. Those who were awakened and spotted Kitty on the ill-lit sidewalk outside a bar likely saw her get up staggering after the stabbing and assumed she was drunk. Most witnesses only observed the incident for a few seconds. As Paul Hollander and Stanley Milgram of Harvard University noted, the neighbors saw "fragments of an ambiguous, confusing" situation.

The prosecution only found six eye witnesses, two of whom actually knew what happened. Neither Joseph Fink nor Karl Ross called for help, and they were shamed for their inaction. But it was unfair to paint a picture of the other neighbors hanging out their windows apathetically watching Kitty Genovese die.

The killer was apprehended five days later when he was spotted leaving a house with a TV set by a neighbor. The Assistant DA who prosecuted the case, Charles Skoller, explains,
"The neighbor walked over to him and said, "What are you doing?"
He said, "I'm helping the people move."
The neighbor didn't believe him, went next door to another neighbor and said "Are the Bannisters moving?"
He says, "No, absolutely not"..."I'll call the police, you disconnect the distributor cap in his car."
The citizens of NYC came through.

The Kitty Genovese case gave New York City a black eye that still lingers. Most people saw it as a big city phenomenon but now, forty years later, apathy and self-centeredness have no bounds.

Durham (pop. 9,115) is a quaint town in the New Hampshire countryside that's home to the University of New Hampshire. The university's architecture is brick colonial, its wooded campus is welcoming, and it has a reputation for academic excellence.

Nobody would expect to be kicked, punched and badly beaten here. But it happened to a 21 year-old student who was assaulted by up to five attackers last Halloween night. No one helped, but multiple passers-by stopped to watch. They were useless witnesses since no one offered descriptions, except to note that one assailant was dressed as a hot dog or a banana.

This wasn't a dark New York City street. And the witnesses weren't behind closed windows at 3:30AM. No, they were kids who attend a college that ironically has a program called "Bringing in the Bystander" that supposedly teaches students how to react in these situations.

According to Holly Ramer of the Associated Press, the "marketing campaign involves plastering the campus with 1,100 posters depicting students intervening to prevent violence or supporting victims afterward. The images also appear on campus computers, dining hall tables, campus buses and water bottles given to every freshman."

It's an obviously ineffective attempt to compensate for a morally relativistic society that enables bystanders to keep clear consciences as they cold-bloodedly refuse to help a person in trouble.

As our morally stunted culture continues to erode Christian principles, the sense of responsibility to each other will deteriorate even more. It's already gotten bad when observers to an incident like this could have dialed 911 on a cell phone without even breaking stride.

But no one did, and apparently no one even has a sense of shame about it. As society shrugs its shoulders with subdued dispproval and asks, "What else is new?"


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Sound of Silence

The 500 members of the Shouwang church in Beijing met in unusual luxury. As reported by Leslie Book in The Wall Street Journal, they gathered in a small movie theatre off the beaten track. Previously, "attempts to find indoor space were repeatedly rebuffed" and pastor Jin Tianming had to hold services outdoors, even in bad weather, up until now.

In China, all religious organizations ostensibly fall under the State Administration for Religious Affairs, which registers them. The registered churches have around 14 million members, but their evangelical activities are limited by the state and a patriotic message is promoted.

Shouwang is an underground church - also called a "house" church - that operates without government involvement, unless "involvement" means detaining members and clergy to keep them from attending services. The same month Shouwang used the theatre, authorities shut down the Wanbang church in Shanghai, dispersing its 2,000 members. In Shanxi, "the leaders of one of the country's largest house churches, with dozens of branches and tens of thousands of members, (were) arrested in a crackdown."

But you can't keep a good faith down. Despite the repression, house church membership is believed to be 100 million and growing "rapidly as more and more Chinese, particularly well-educated city dwellers, turn away from Communist Party atheism." As the growth continues the state tries to shut down house churches, possibly out of fear of their potential political power. History demonstrates this is a losing proposition for repressive regimes: the Romans, Stalin, Mao and many others have learned it the hard way.

The cinema building was available for a fleeting moment. Permission for its use was granted because the President of the United States was in town and the Chinese government wanted to avoid a scene. The strategy succeeded: the ongoing suppression wasn't brought up by anyone.

The next week, Shouwang church was evicted and things went back to normal. Christians resumed meeting outside or in smaller groups and continued practicing their faith in defiance of the state.

They were lucky. At the same time, five leaders of the Shanxi house church were quickly tried in court for "disturbing transportation order by gathering masses" and "illegally occupying farm land." They had been detained for almost two months since the government destroyed their church building in an aggressive attack that landed people in the hospital, but the trial was apparently delayed for political reasons. As Air Force One's vapor trail dissipated into the Asian sky, they were sentenced to prison terms of up to seven years.

House churches are experiencing a worsening of religious persecution while Chinese Christians call upon the United States and the international community to sound off about it.

Instead, the diplomatic airwaves are filled with the sound of silence.


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An Unbound Soul

Pam Reynolds has a company in the music industry that records and promotes clients like Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and REM. She's a dynamic person who, one summer day in 1991, hit a brick wall.

As recounted by Barbara Hagerty in her book Fingerprints of God and reported on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Pam recalled "We were promoting a new record and I inexplicably forgot how to talk. I've got a big mouth. I never forget to talk."

She had a huge aneurysm with a huge risk of rupture that was in a location where what's called a "cardiac standstill" provided the best chance for success. It required "chilling her body, draining the blood out of her head like oil from a car engine, snipping the aneurysm and then bringing her back from the edge of death."

The procedure involved taping her eyes shut and enclosing her ears with molded speakers emitting loud sounds that enabled the surgeons to monitor her brain activity. With her senses impaired, Pam says "I was lying there on the gurney...seriously unconscious...when - I don't know how to explain this, other than to go ahead and say it - I popped out of the top of my head."

Looking down at herself surrounded by 20 others, she saw the bone saw and drill bits, observed a doctor working at her left groin, heard someone say "Her arteries are too small" and another voice reply, "Use the other side." As her body temperature dropped to 60 degrees, the blood was drained and she flatlined.

Her body "looked like a train wreck, and she didn't want to return." As her heart was revived, she recalled hearing the song "Hotel California" with the Eagles singing, "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

Pam thought the whole episode was a hallucination until a year later, when she talked to the neurosurgeon about it. Despite being anesthetized, with closed eyes, noisy earphones and no heartbeat, she accurately described the equipment used, the people in the room and the procedure - including using the alternative arteries. Even the music was correct.

Gerald Woerlee is a "near death experience debunker" who has "easy" explanations. He claims that "when they cut into her head, she was jolted into consciousness" and that she "experienced anesthesia awareness, in which a person is conscious but can't move." He says she could hear either because the earpieces fit loosely or her aural memories were "due to sound transmission through the operating table itself."

We could disregard the facts that anesthesia awareness is a terrifying experience people remember, that even loose speakers would have impeded hearing because "they made clicking sounds as loud as a jet plane taking off," that it's tough to discern conversation or lyrics from vibrations transmitted through a stainless steel table, and that Pam's eyes were taped closed the entire time. If we can ignore these things, then I guess the explanation is easy.

On the other hand, cardiologist Dr. Michael Sabom and the operating neurosurgeon, Dr. Robert Spetzler, have a different view. "They believe the combination of anesthesia and the sluggish brain activity caused by hypothermia meant that Reynolds could not form or retain memories for a significant part of the operation. At the very least, the story raises the possibility that consciousness can function even if the brain is offline."

Sabom asks, "Is there some type of awareness that occurs from a nonfunctional, physical brain? And if there is, does that mean there's a soul or spirit?"

You think?

Christians believe there is an eternal soul that is separated from the body at death. Pam Reynolds flatlined and her soul took temporary flight, as it has for many others. Observers with a conviction that there is no God and no soul can invent scenarios that deny this. But they just don't make sense.

And all the while, God is demonstrating His presence. Believers see their faith confirmed, while skeptics are left trying convince themselves that their rationalizations hold water.


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Enlightened Courtship

My ability to stay two steps behind current technology is legendary - just ask my kids. I also lag behind social change, probably because much of it doesn't make sense to me. The impact of communications technology and the sexual revolution on personal relationships is one of the issues I haven't quite caught up with.

Social mores that encourage "hooking up" and having "friends with benefits" put emotional commitment and sexuality in separate compartments. The new "morality" is facilitated by cell phones and texting that provide an ever-present, fast and impersonal way to arrange contacts. According to New York Times columnist David Brooks, people can "be on the verge of spending an evening with one partner, when a text arrives from another with a potentially better offer. The atmosphere is fluid, like an eBay auction."

This certainly isn't universal conduct, but that's not the point. The point is that it's acceptable behavior.

Brooks notes that "Once upon a time - in what we might think of as the "Happy Days" era - courtship was governed by a set of guardrails. Potential partners generally met within the context of larger social institutions: neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and families. There were certain accepted social scripts. The purpose of the scripts was to guide young people on the path from short-term desire to long-term commitment."

He neglected to include churches as one of the "larger social institutions" and the role they had in establishing social values. An inadvertent oversight, I'm sure.

Along the path to a long-term (think marriage) relationship, consummation was a big deal and it was ideally put off until the honeymoon. It involved sharing a personal and closely guarded part of your being and it expressed deep mutual commitment. This certainly wasn't universal conduct, either, but at least it established a framewok where sex was more consequential than riding a roller coaster or going to a concert.

Why was this? Fear of unwanted pregnancy - which was also a big deal - was part of it. But more fundamentally, humans are hardwired to know that sex is special. Look around: how often do we see infidelity lead to damaged marriages, divorce, children raised amid hatred between separated parents, violence and even murder. Unfaithfulness is a staple in "Dear Abby."

Brooks notes that "Over the past few decades, (the) social scripts became obsolete. So the search was on for more enlightened courtship rules." The definition of "enlightened" that applies here is "freed from ignorance, prejudice or superstition" as we discard traditional values and stridently march into a future free of restraint.

Mankind's makeup is on display in the Bible and his nature hasn't changed a bit since it was written, not even in the last few decades. God teaches us to embrace self control, treat others with love and respect, and avoid promiscuousness.

He doesn't suggest we romp around like stray dogs, callously using other people as objects free from commitment or responsibility. We can go down that road, but a price will be paid in bad relationships, distrust, hate, insecurity and insatiable selfishness.

There's another definition of "enlightened." It's "given spiritual or religious revelation." People would be truly enlightened if they'd shut out the cultural noise, think about what they're doing, and consider the impact of Christian teaching. Controlling fleeting desires because of loyalty, love and respect for another person helps build solid, mutually supportive relationships that last a lifetime. And it focuses people on something bigger than the next one night stand.

We're gorging ourselves like kids in a candy store. "Enlightenment" won't come by eating more or different candy, or ingesting it with a different style. It'll come (back) when we control ourselves sensibly. God enlightens us by showing us how to avoid the havoc our desires can create because he knows man's unchanging nature.

If we listen.


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Time Compression

I remember how it started. A customer called and asked,
"Got a fax machine?"
"What's that?"
"It hooks up to a phone line and lets you send images right away."
"Sounds great."
"I'll mail this blueprint, but you've gotta get a fax."

Anything on paper could be in my hands within minutes. It was fast, but insistent. Once a fax was transmitted, there was no excuse for not dealing with it immediately. In a small way, technology started to control my day.

PC's and email came next. Letters and telephone conversations became less important as email took over. Along with speed came volume, and the number of communications exploded. Checking email several times a day became essential and so did quick responses, even if they interrupted the current workload.

Cell phones became universal and it seemed that when you traveled your office came along. Gone were the days of quiet time and reflection as you drove. Your privacy was gone, too, since the phones doubled as cameras that could capture your - and everyone else's - flaws and put them on the web. They could be posted worldwide, instantly and irretrievably.

We accessed information on the web, and lots of it. The concept of casually browsing a newspaper, magazine or book and unexpectly learning something of value disappeared. In the meantime, the specific information you sought was fast, voluminous and, in many cases, unreliable. Truth somehow became subjective.

Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, iPod, Smartphones, blogs, texting...and on...and on. Just keeping up with the technology is daunting. The world continues to accelerate and may reach a point where the human mind is overwhelmed by it. It might already be there.

Tom Hayes and Michael S. Malone, in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled "The Ten-Year Century" note that 60-second TV commercials are compressed into 30-second spots "as we multitask our way through emails, text messages and tweets."

Time compression extends to the world at large: "Changes that used to take generations...now unfurl in a span of years. Since 2000 we've experienced three economic bubbles, three market crashes, a devastating terrorist attack, and a global influenza pandemic."

"Moore's Law" postulates that semi-conductor chips double their performance every 18-24 months. This means faster access to greater volumes of information crunched by chips that go "through as many computations in a second as there are heartbeats in ten lifetimes." Decisions are made with snippets of data snatched from a constantly enlarging stream of ever changing information. Decision-makers are hanging onto a tiger by the tail because they're inundated by data and pressured to act quickly.

In the past, things sometimes got out of control but at least we had an idea of what was going on. Now they're getting beyond comprehension.

Hayes and Malone believe that "trust will become a critical factor. Without the luxury of time, trust will be the new currency of our times, whether in news sources, economic systems, political figures, even spiritual leaders. As change accelerates, it will remain one true constant."

The track record of "news sources, economic systems, political figures and spiritual leaders" up until now isn't encouraging. Everyday people don't provide reasons for optimism, either. I know a person who tries to do the right thing, but can't be trusted in time compression. Me. I once had a customer who demanded pricing instantly as he snapped his fingers over the phone. With no time to update costs, I repeatedly jacked up the prices and added a percentage for aggravation each time. And they were accepted because this guy, in his focus on speed, never questioned them. This went on until the buyer - incredibly - moved on to a bigger job. As the world intensifies, "trust" suffers. It sure doesn't become more common.

The accelerating speed of change leaves us without a solid foundation. It seems that anything can be here today and gone tomorrow or true today and false tomorrow.

Anything except Christ.

Jesus provides peace, strength and hope that transcend the world's craziness. If you're looking for trust and the "one true constant," He's the answer.


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Bigger Than Jesus

"Moses is bigger than Jesus," according to the lead article in USA Today. Written by Cathy Lynn Grossman, the story expresses the view of Bruce Feiler who wrote a book called America's Prophet.

The idea is that Moses played a bigger role than Jesus in "shaping the character of America's self-identity." Feiler tracks this back to the early days of independence, when the new nation realized it needed a moral authority higher than the despised King of England. Rejecting individuals as arbiters of right and wrong, they turned to the Bible and found Moses.

Moses is an extraordinary character. He led his people out of Egypt across the miraculously divided Red Sea, received the Ten Commandments from God, and brought the Hebrews to the promised land. But God forbid him to go into it himself because he disobeyed one of His commands. During a desperate time in the desert, God told Moses to "speak to that rock" to "pour out its water," but Moses struck it with his staff instead. The water poured out, but he paid a heavy price for his lack of trust in God.

He did all of this, and much more, despite having a speech impediment. He's an absolutely compelling character.

Moses certainly figures into American history. He was quoted by the Pilgrims during the voyage to Plymouth. His words, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land" are cast into the Liberty Bell. And his feat of freeing his people from oppression and leading them to the promised land is a powerful metaphor for a nation that broke its bondage to England and created its own land of milk and honey.

Feiler may have soft spot for Moses. It's hard not to. But to claim that Moses supercedes Jesus is a stretch, considering that the U.S. has always been overwhelmingly Christian. The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) provides the foundation for Christianity and makes up about two-thirds of the Christian Bible. Moses is a key player in it, and his influence found its way into the founding principles of the United States through the Puritans, who were Christian.

Moses's impact on America doesn't mean that "Moses is bigger than Jesus...in U.S. political and cultural history," any more than he's bigger than Jesus in the Bible. After all, Jesus is God and not simply a prophet acting at God's behest. Jesus shared the gospel first with the Jewish people, who largely rejected it, and then with everyone else. It's the people who accepted it, from the Pilgrims to the Puritans, to Jonathan Edwards sparking the Great Awakening, to churchmen pushing to abolish slavery and later driving the civil rights movement, who shaped this country.

The story of Moses is taught in Sunday Schools and has inspired Christians throughout history. It's in the context of Christianity that his role is significant for most Americans.

The USA Today article is just another example of the press taking a subtle swipe at Jesus. It gave one of the largest national daily newspapers a chance to write a front page headline asking, "Was Moses our true Founding Father" rather than simply writing a book review, and it gratuitously challenged the primacy of Christian influence in the United States.

We don't really need to argue about this. If you want to see whose ideals permeate America, all you need to do is walk through a national cemetery and count the crosses.


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The Goofball Gopher

Prior to Penn State's homecoming football game with the University of Minnesota, PSU defensive lineman Jerome Hayes went to a corner of the end zone and silently prayed on one knee, head in hand. He was spotted by Minnesota's mascot, "Goldy Gopher," who derisively knelt in front of Hayes, got up at the same time and then tried to shake hands.

Hayes ignored the Gopher, turned and jogged away as a cheerleader bounded up to "Goldy" and gleefully slapped him a high five. The incident was posted on YouTube with a fan in the background saying, "He totally mocked his prayer. That's not cool."

The University of Minnesota has apologized. Goldy himself apparently has no comment.

It's just a little thing, but it's typical of "little things" that are out there all the time. The casual dismissal of the Christian faith (especially compared to the overwrought respect for Islam) has become rampant.

Since we're talking about football, it seems there are more demonstrations of faith among football players than in other sports. It's not unusual to see players praying before a game, having a team prayer, or giving thanks after a good play. The typical physical expression is a player touching a fist to his heart, then looking up and pointing his index finger skyward.

A friend once told me he found this irritating. Considering he's an unbeliever, I guess I can understand his annoyance. Personally, I think it's cool.

The media must have some code of conduct that prevents them from commenting on faith. If a player spikes a ball, dances or comes up with other antics (think Terrell Owens) he's glamorized. But when somebody like the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers has the camera focused on him while he's on a knee praying, then bounces up, taps his chest and points to the sky, the announcer's only comment is "That's Ben Roethlesberger getting his thoughts together before the game."

Anybody who hangs around the stadium after an NFL game sees players from both teams gather at the 50 yard line. They're part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and they have a group prayer after every game. About a third of the players are usually there, including a number of the big names. Once in a great while, network cameramen will inadvertently show this in the background of post game interviews, otherwise no one in the television audience would ever know it happens.

Trying to ignore expressions of Christian faith in a sport that's suffused with it must drive the media crazy.

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Random Acts of Kindness

My wife and I were in New York City for a few days of fun and relaxation (fun, anyway - I'm not so sure about the relaxation part). We did quite a bit, from a Broadway show, to a serendipitous rock concert at Rockefeller Center, to Ellis Island, the South Street Seaport, dinner in Little Italy and a late-night comedy club. Not to mention just walking around, which is entertaining in itself.

New Yorkers have a reputation for gruffness, but I ususally see a twinkle in their eyes that betrays a softness beneath the tough exterior. And I've found they can be a lot of fun. On the way home from college I used to come into the city on the train and walk up to the Port Authority to take the bus. Sometimes I'd stop at a lunch counter in the terminal where the waiter wore a white t-shirt, white pants, one of those white paper hats food service workers wear, a bearded stubble and well-earned wrinkles on a sixty-something face.

John Lindsay was mayor at the time. Mayor Lindsay was a handsome, youngish, urbane patrician who didn't fit in with guys like the waiter. Maybe that's why when he delivered your check, he'd loudly announce, "that's thirty-five cents for the cheeseburger, thirty for the fries, ten for the Coke and four cents for Mayor Lindsay, the Great White Father!" I had to laugh every time he belted this out, and he enjoyed the smile.

Lots of nice people are hidden under a veneer. Like the Asian woman who saw us standing at a bus stop holding paper money. In broken English she explained that the bus only took change,
then opened her purse and quickly exchanged our bills for coinage just as the bus arrived.

Or the tall, older black gentleman with flecks of gray in his hair who noticed our confusion in the 42nd Street Subway Station. He'd probably been in this station hundreds of times and seen many confused travelers. He approached us and pleasantly directed us to the Grand Central train.

I had my own opportunity when we needed to get on a subway going the opposite direction from the platform we were on, which meant you had to go down two flights of hot, steamy stairs to go under the tracks and then climb another set of steps up to the correct platform. As we were going down we came upon a small, older woman struggling with a suitcase that was just plain too big for her. She seemed a little shocked when I took it from her, but smiled when she realized I wasn't stealing it. She didn't speak English, but the wave and grin at the top of the stairs said it all.

Were we all Christians? Who knows? But we acted like it. Jesus taught that the second most important command is to love your neighbor as yourself. And in these small ways, that's what we did.

Look at the result: it left each of the recipients grateful for the help and feeling better about his fellow man. It left the givers with the satisfaction of knowing they had done the right thing, a feeling that they made another person's day a little better and - in the case of a Christian - knowledge that they had done God's will.

These episodes illustrate the power and importance of biblical teaching. Loving your neighbor as yourself isn't an abstract concept that's wonderful in theory but difficult to apply in real life. In fact, it's applicable in tons of situations and it creates good will whenever it's practiced.

You have to wonder what the world would be like if everyone practiced the Golden Rule - God's Rule - all the time.


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Ashes to Ashes, Dust to....Plastination?

The skin and outer tissues have been removed to reveal the insides of the human body: bones, organs, muscle. They're posed in a variety of positions, like pitching a baseball, swinging a bat, falling backward to kick a soccer ball, sitting head-in-hand like Rodin's Thinker, throwing a discus, dancing or walking with a cane. One rides a bicycle. Often half the cranium has been removed to show a cross section of the brain. To illustrate MRI's, one was cut into 165 half inch thick slices separated by spaces that probably quintupled the specimen's original height. The eyes have been replaced with prosthetic eyeballs that seem to be looking at you.

Billed as an educational exhibit, Bodies Revealed presents brief and interesting facts. But despite the informational trappings, it's really a morbid curiosity fix.

These were once living, breathing people whose bodies have been preserved by replacing water and fats with liquid silicone rubber in a process called plastination. The process provides rigidity that enables the cadavers to be posed, turning them into bizarre sculptures. In years past, they would have been shown in a carnival tent and hawked by a barker or displayed in P.T. Barnum's American Museum next to the "FeeJee Mermaid," an attraction that turned out to be the upper half of a monkey sewn to the bottom half of a fish. They may yet wind up in a Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum.

I found myself looking into the eyes and wondering, "Who were you? And did you really want to end up here....like this?" After being among them for a time, the message seemed to be that they - and we - are just "stuff" that's organized into an incredible machine whose parts function in magnificent synchronization. Even so, it's just stuff with no particular humanity.

Some evolutionary scientists propose that we're machines whose spirituality is the result of brain activity. The lifelessness of the bodies, now devoid of brain function, seem to reinforce this idea. Deliberately or not, it sends a message that our essence can be distilled into inanimate material with no spiritual component, just as atheists would have us believe.

This realization makes the exhibit feel cold, callous and unenlightening.

Noticing that all the eyes looked Asian didn't help. An earlier spectator observed this and launched an investigation into the source of the bodies. When I asked a docent where they came from, she told me they were Chinese people who had donated their bodies to science and were willing to have them used for education, which the exhibit does.

Reality is more disconcerting. When Bodies Revealed was accused of using the bodies of executed Chinese prisoners, it insisted all were donated to a university by willing donors. Pressed by the State of New York, it turned out proofs of consent weren't available. A separate investigation uncovered a source that collected about one-third of its cadavers from prisons. The controversy continues.

The exhibit included plastinated human embryos at various stages of development. The embryos, lit in a way that made them translucent, hadn't provided their written consents either. But in a setting that subtly dismissed God, the unborn children quietly affirmed His presence.

In a matter of weeks, embryos become recognizably human. At 8 weeks, the formation of bones begins with each one starting in the center of its destination. For example, two tiny parallel sticks can be seen in the middle of the forearm. Over time they grow longer and finally wind up at the joints where they belong. This happens simultaneously with all of the bones. And after nine months a baby with a full, properly connected skeleton emerges.

You can believe God created fully formed man, or not. You can believe in evolution, or not. But don't pretend that divine guidance hasn't played a role in designing this process.

I didn't leave with a Bodies Revealed glowing keychain, coffee mug, scrubs, refrigerator magnet, tee shirt, magnetic message board, poster or plastic eyeballs. I left with an appreciation of God's work and an understanding of how it can be arrayed to subtly deny Him.



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Zozobra

The sad, dark eyes and gaunt expression projected a deep sense of misery. He hung helplessly on the hill, surveying the surrounding tumult. Over twenty thousand people had gathered to watch his immolation as they gleefully shouted "Burn Him!"

 This happened in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. It's happened annually since 1924, when an artist named Will Shuster built a marionette he named Zozobra and playfully burned it in the company of friends. He got the idea from the Yaqui Indians "who mark the week before Easter by parading an effigy of Judas through the streets, then blowing it up with firecrackers."

Today, Zozobra is five stories high and filled with symbols of worries, bad memories and dark personal events. Over the summer, items to be placed in the marionette are dropped off. They include no-longer needed engraved wedding invitations, a husband's ashes, a cast from a broken limb, a hospital gown from a cancer patient, foreclosure documents, divorce papers, credit cards, pictures of ex-lovers, and handwritten notes expressing worries about health, love or anything else that crushes men's souls. Zozobra's nickname is "Old Man Gloom" and devotees save their troubles all year in "gloom boxes" they ceremoniously dump into his lap.

As dancers wielded torches, fireworks ignited and the crowd cheered, Zozobra burst into flames and symbolically extinguished the hurts and troubles he had taken on. As one celebrant put it, "I wanted to say goodbye to my worries. It feels good. It feels freeing."

The event illustrates the inescapable downside of being human. We're imperfect, self-centered and hurtful. Sometimes we hurt others, other times others hurt us and we all carry burdens unless something's done to relieve them. Zozobra can provide a quick, temporary catharsis as you're caught up in the moment. Times Square on New Year's Eve does the same thing. But the day after always comes, Old Man Gloom is gone until next year, and you immediately begin refilling your gloom box - often with the same stuff as last year.

It's a real hoot to symbolically torch your troubles in a giant puppet, but once Zozobra is in ashes he's gone until the carpenter builds a new one next year. On the other hand, Jesus died on the cross burdened with our personal sins to relieve us of our intractable, compounding hurts. He grants us forgiveness and strength that are real and available 24/7 all year long.

Zozobra supplicants would be well served by getting to know Him.



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Man vs. God

The piece took up two pages in the Wall Street Journal. Three inch high bold letters announced the debate: "Man vs. God."

In Man's corner we had famed evolutionist and atheist Richard Dawkins, best selling author of numerous books including "The God Delusion." His piece described how evolution was "the most beautiful production that the laws of physics have ever generated." He believes life emerged from an inanimate universe made of "rocks and sand, gas clouds and stars..." and developed into "kangaroo(s), bat(s),dolphin(s),and Redwood(s)" while never violating the laws of physics. His theories - which don't ring true when you look at them closely - eliminate God as a player.

Representing God in the opposing corner was Karen Armstrong, a religion writer whose latest book is "The Case for God." Her response was firm, concise and to the point. She set the tone with her first line, "Richard Dawkins has been right all along, of course..." and proceeded to agree with him right down the line.

She claims that "Darwin showed there could be no proof for God's existence" and that religion is "...a kind of art form that, like music or painting, introduces us to a mode of knowledge that is different from the purely rational. At its best, it holds us in an attitude of wonder...not unlike the awe that Mr. Dawkins experiences - and has helped me to appreciate - when he contemplates the marvels of natural selection."

With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Say the Theory of Evolution is correct. Does it really preclude God's existence? Look at what Dawkins and Armstrong admit to believing. First, they think laws of physics made the universe. If you're going down that road, you might ask how something intangible (rules) created something tangible (everything physical). Offhand, I can't think of any examples where this happens. And even if this were possible, who formulated the rules?

They also believe life arose from an inanimate universe. It's beyond mathematical probability for all of the elements for life to have randomly assembled. And even if they did wind up in the same place at the same time, the problem of investing this collection of matter with life would be left unsolved. Even Dawkins notes this in stating "if we didn't know about life we wouldn't believe it was possible." In other words, he'd believe that the generation of life is impossible. He only came up with his rationalizations because life does, in fact, exist and as an atheist he's compelled to offer some kind of non-God answer.

He also notes that "Darwinian evolution is the nonrandom survival of randomly varying coded information." The synonym for "nonrandom" is "planned." He doesn't say who did the planning: maybe the same magical laws of physics that created the universe out of nothing.

I'm no intellectual and our "debaters" could no doubt talk circles around me. But I do have common sense. This argument is about who's got the best answer to how the universe and life got started. Their scenarios - presented as serious alternatives to God - simply don't make enough sense to be taken seriously.

Believers see the organization of nature as the product of the creator who planned it. Albert Einstein, who didn't believe in a personal God, did believe in God the Creator. I guess he just wasn't sophisticated enough to subvert this conclusion by inventing rationalizations to deny His role.  
Whether it's the creation of the universe or the generation of life, we're not discussing natural events. They're supernatural, and this makes them the work of God. Skeptics smugly regard the faithful as being small-minded, but the believer's worldview is expansive enough to conceive of God. Which side has the truly open mind?

God complements science by explaining things man cannot know otherwise. He gives us a holistic, sensible view of our existence that skeptics can never provide.


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The Other Miracle on the Hudson

USAir Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in mid-January, had both engines disabled by a flock of geese, and was expertly guided to a safe landing in the frigid Hudson River. Everyone - 155 people on board and all those on boats in the river - survived and Captain "Sully" Sullenberger instantly became an American hero. An unforgettable photo of the floating aircraft showed the passengers standing on the wing awaiting rescue. It was an amazing event that was dubbed "The Miracle on the Hudson."

Seven months later, Captain Jeremy Clark had a mid-air accident that didn't end as well. Clark was piloting a commercial helicopter carrying five Italian tourists when a private plane collided with it, dismembering both and crashing them into the Hudson. Eight people were killed as bystanders on shore witnessed it. No survivors, no heroes, no miracles.

Or were there?

Jonathan Morris is the parochial vicar at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in Manhattan and was asked to minister to victim's families by the inter-faith Disaster Chaplaincy Services. Fr. Morris wrote of his experience in the Wall Street Journal.

He spent time with Jeremy Clark's fiancee, his immediate family and other relatives, and was struck by the way they handled the sudden loss of one they loved dearly. Their response was suffused with love for their lost husband-to-be, son and brother; thankfulness for the recovery teams that braved strong currents to complete their mission; and sympathy for the loved ones of the pilot and victims in the airplane, regardless of fault.

The family explained that "Jeremy would have wanted it like this." You see, he had drifted from faith but recently returned to God, writing a letter to Him that his fiancee shared. In part it read, "None of this could have happened without your intervention. The improbable has become a reality. Thank you for all that I have in my life. I am blessed."

Fr. Morris has seen agitated responses to untimely death. As he put it, it's "as if in every crevice of the heart where we don't cultivate love....anger, fear, recrimination and self-pity seep in and take hold." He feels the difference is humility: the knowledge that we're not the center of the universe but that we exist among other realities, starting with a God who "knows us, loves us and wants the best for us."

Self-centered people are overwhelmed by personal tragedy because it's all about them. And when they suffer loss, it has more gravity for two main reasons. First, they believe the deceased is gone forever. Second, their personal universe is limited because it doesn't include God. A tragedy is more devastating because it plays a bigger part in a smaller world.

When things like this happen it's hard to know the reason. But Christians believe that God allows these things to happen (not makes them happen) in an imperfect world and that His "response to our pain....will bring forth a greater good out of every instance of evil and suffering."

God has a long-term plan and how we fit into it is often unclear. But sometimes it's possible to glimpse into it, even in an apparently senseless event like this. The peace, forgiveness and absence of recrimination exhibited by Jeremy's family may be the one striking lesson from it. The strength that enabled the Morrises to act so gracefully was God's response to their pain.




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Exit the Lion

I'm from Western Massachusetts and have a long memory of Ted Kennedy. Several months after JFK's assassination, he was a passenger on a twin-engine plane that crashed at a local airport. Two people were killed and Kennedy was dragged out by another victim. When medical help arrived he barely had a pulse and was fortunate to have been left with "only" chronic back problems. I was 12 years-old but still remember pictures of the wreck and being amazed anyone survived it.

Teddy went on to live a checkered life promoting a liberal agenda in the U.S. Senate. He achieved success by mastering the issues, negotiating with his Republican rivals and convincing his allies that half a loaf was better than none. His affable, incremental approach over a 47 year career resulted in major changes in America and earned him the moniker "Lion of the Senate." Agree with him or not, his ability to move an agenda was impressive.

He also had a dark side and recounting it would just belabor the point. No matter how much you supported his politics, it was impossible to justify some of his behavior.

What's a Christian to make of the all this?

Conservative columnist Cal Thomas, a Christian friend of Ted's, was asked,"bottom line, (was) Senator Kennedy a good man?" His answer: "Only God is good, the rest of us are sinners." Thomas went on to write, "it is not hypocritical to care for someone who behaves badly. In fact, it is the height of love to do so because you want him to have a changed life and attitude that will help him behave better for his own sake and that of his family."

None of us is perfect, and it's not our place to judge others. Ted Kennedy has met his maker, and this is where judgment takes place. No one - except he and God - knows what was in his heart and it's up to God to weigh his life.

The rest of us haven't got the information, ability or right to pass judgment. And we've got plenty on our plates just trying to manage our own lives without trying to divine Ted Kennedy's recompense.


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Stairway to Heaven

The staircase was wide and made of stone. If you craned your neck, you could look up at the sixty-foot high ceiling of the Great Hall and grasp its enormity. If you looked around, you found yourself in a sea of hundeds upon hundreds of others who wanted the same thing you did. You all wanted to get in.

Everyone was lined up for the first test to determine whether the "Golden Door" would open for them. When it was your turn, an examiner slipped a tool - sometimes a buttonhook, sometimes a hairpin, other times just a finger - under your eyelids and turned them inside out. If the inner eyelid was inflamed, indicating a contagious infection of trachoma - a cause of blindness and death - you were sent away and forbidden to climb the stairway.

Those who passed were screened as they climbed the steps and categorized by the watchers. If you had trouble breathing your jacket was marked with a "P" for "physical and lungs" in blue chalk. If you stumbled or had a limp your letter was "L" for "lameness." Wandering in a confused state would earn you an "X," indicating a feeble mind. A circled "X" was for definite signs of mental defect. Those with letters were pulled out of line.

The stairs opened into the Great Hall where you were queued in a maze of railings for hours. At the end of the line each individual approached his questioner, who was seated at a high desk. This was the applicant's personal judge, and you had to convince him you were socially, economically and morally fit for entry. A wrong answer would bring out the blue chalk and the letters "SI" for "special inquiry" were marked on your lapel. Then you were pulled out of line, at the last minute, to await interrogation by the Board of Special Inquiry.

Correct answers earned the entry of your name into a ledger, and you were allowed in. Allowed into a country you believed had streets paved with gold. Reality struck quickly: as one Italian immigrant put it, "Not only were the streets not paved with gold, they weren't paved at all. And we were expected to do the paving." Even so, compared to the poverty, lack of freedom and dearth of opportunity in the old country, making it through Ellis Island was a chance to experience heaven on earth.

There is a real heaven, but the entry requirements aren't as intimidating and the reward is infinitely greater than any "heaven on earth." Admission is based on your belief in the deity of Christ, that he died to atone for your personal sins, and your repentance for your sins. The reward is an eternal life devoid of tears.

The simple requirements for ascending the real stairway to heaven are regarded as foolish by those who deliberately ignore the message. It's hard to believe, but true, that they prefer to roam hopelessly with blue chalk letters on their coats rather than accept the gift of a peaceful eternity with God.


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An Evocative Evening

My wife and I were invited to dinner with a Mennonite family. The father, Ron Hess, had read my book Finding Faith in a Skeptical World and invited us over to discuss it.

The family belongs to a religious community that produces fine furniture and custom kitchens. In the summer they grow produce to sell at a roadside stand. They also have a church and operate a school for their children.

The women dress in ankle length cotton dresses and wear finely woven white coverings over hair that's worn in a bun, while the men wear unassuming shirts and pants. They speak with a distinctive accent and are unfailingly polite and friendly.

After the meal Ron suggested we sing, and a wave of enthusiasm swept from one end of the table to the other. The kids dived for hymn books stored on a shelf under the table and shouted out numbers. "Let's do #399!" "How about #425?"

Ron picked one, and a pitch pipe appeared in his oldest son's hand. He played a note, everyone hummed, and they sang. Each had a part, each had a unique sound and they sang in practiced harmony.

They sounded great, and we were blown away by their musical talent, mutual love and Christian faith.

It stirs my heart and it makes my life glow;
Gives meaning to life as onward I go
#377, The Wonder of Love

Sitting alongside the pond watching his barefooted children play, I asked Ron if they had a TV.
"No."
"Radio?"
"No."
"How do you get the news?"
"What news would I want to hear?"

I'd welcome the call from on high;
There's nothing can hold me, no money nor home
#399, I'm Longing to Go

The three-room school has three teachers who provide instruction through tenth grade to around 20 pupils. Throughout their education, they place in the top 10% of the state comprehensive assessment exam and handily pass the General Equivalency Diploma test at the end. Christian values are central to this education and it results in focused students unadulterated by the distractions found in public schools.

As the life of a flower,
Be our lives pure and sweet
#386, As The Life of a Flower

Ron and I agreed on the issues we discussed except for one, and he warned me his was a radical view before explaining it. He believes in non-resistance, which means he responds to aggressiveness by praying for the well-being of the perpetrator and never, ever, reacts with force or retribution. It's characteristic of a sect that distances itself from secularists by refusing combatant military service - historically being jailed for it - and declining even to vote in elections.

This kind, gentle, smart man knows what he thinks and why. And I do believe he's got the strength to live up to his convictions. It's an extraordinary thing made possible by the closeness he's had with God his entire life.

Dinner was at 6:30 and we planned to leave at 8:30 so I could make a business appointment at 9:00. But we lost track of time and said quick goodbyes at 8:50.

My wife drove so I could put the light on, find a phone number, grab my cell phone, call to apologize for running late, and sit in not-so-quiet-exasperation at Lisa's not driving fast enough. I met the client, outlined the deal, got some papers signed and later worked on the computer.

It had taken less than 5 minutes to morph back to "normal" and become distracted enough to put the Hesses in the back of my mind.

Ron Hess and his family know God intimately because they see Him all the time. The rest of us are so wrapped up in incessant, ultimately meaningless activity that most of us see Him through a gauze filter.

And we don't even know it.



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Assailing a Christian Scientist

The National Institutes of Health conducts and supports medical research, funding over 325,000 researchers at more than 3,000 institutions. Its aim is to find ways to prevent and treat a wide range of diseases, improve public health and save lives. Its director must have managerial competence and a scientific background, which is why Francis Collins was nominated for the job.

Dr. Collins is an M.D., earned a Ph.D in physical chemistry from Yale where he was named a Fellow in Human Genetics, and was appointed to a professorship at the University of Michigan. As head of the Human Genome Project (HGP), he led over 2,000 scientists in creating a "DNA instruction book" that may provide the keys to curing myriad conditions and diseases. The HGP came in ahead of schedule, under budget and Dr. Collins received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work.

So far so good - he sounds thoroughly qualified. Except for one thing: he's (gasp!) a Christian.

According to the New York Times, the doctor is suspect because of his "very public embrace of religion. He wrote a book called "The Language of God" and he has given many talks and interviews in which he described his conversion as a 27-year-old medical student." Atheist Peter Atkins was quoted by Michael Gerson of the Washington Post as saying, "I don't think (he) can be a real scientist in the deepest sense of the word because (religion and science) are such alien categories of knowledge."

Apparently faith somehow disqualifies a person from participating in scientific inquiry and only someone without faith can do so objectively.

Really?

The more we learn, the more amazing the underlying organization of the universe, our world and our bodies is found to be. Mathematical probability rules out the random, accidental creation of all this and we're left with the question, "If it didn't "just happen" then how did it come to be?" The logical answer is "God made it," and this is what Dr. Collins believes. Despite popular opinion, it fits the facts and God's involvement becomes ever more evident as the body of scientific knowledge grows.

Atheists, who are apparently preferred by Dr. Collins's critics, have a problem: they can't plausibly explain the origins of the universe or of life or many other issues. God fills in the unexplained spaces in scientific theory and provides a coherent explanation for how and why nature operates. Atheists can dismiss the idea of God but then they're left guessing to fill in the gaps.

Science and faith aren't mutually exclusive. They're complementary and it takes both to paint the whole picture. It's a telling sign of our times when a qualified, open-minded Christian scientist who understands this is knocked while others, whose minds are closed to the idea of God, are regarded as paragons of objectivity.

Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur - all of whom were Christians - would have found this new paradigm wryly amusing.


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Belfast Blood Feud

Illustrated by a large color photo of policemen clad in riot gear standing near a fire, the heading read "Riots break out in Northern Ireland." The cause was the celebration of the "Twelfth" holiday, which celebrates long-ago British victories over the Irish. Masked Irish Republicans took exception to it, throwing Molotov cocktails, rocks, bricks, bottles, wooden planks and golf balls (golf balls?) at the cops.

As usual, the two sides were described by their religious affiliation, which gave the impression that the difference in faith is central to the conflict. But is it?

This strife has been going on for over 800 years, ever since a nobleman named Strongbow invaded the island from England. Over the years, land was confiscated and given to British loyalists in a plantation system. The owners controlled the wealth while the Irish eked out subsistence livings and were relegated to second-class status in their own homeland. The fertile land and cheap labor enabled the loyalists to get rich by exporting food to Britain's burgeoning empire.

While cereal crops were being fed to cattle to be sold, the Irish became dependent on one main staple: potatoes. This intensified the effect of the potato blight in 1845 and caused a massive reduction in the Irish population through starvation and emigration. A resultant uprising was put down by the British.

The English had lots of experience in quelling Irish uprisings. In the worst, Oliver Cromwell eliminated over half the island's population through killing, death by starvation or disease, deportation into slavery, and emigration.

There's an ancestral, deep seated hatred between these factions that's only gotten worse as each generation wrote its own chapter. But it's economic and political, not religious. Even well-known atheist Richard Dawkins writes that "wars and feuds between religious groups or sects are seldom actually about theological disagreements." And that's the case here.

But the use of misleading terms persists. The two sides aren't having theological debates, so why do reporters opt to use "Protestant" and "Catholic" instead of the more appropriate terms "Loyalist" or "Unionist" and "Republican" or "Nationalist?"

Maybe it's because the media tries not to miss a chance to associate Christianity with conflict and violence, especially when the storyline's been cultivated for as long as this one.

An Avoidable Fatality

First, some background.

Type 1 Diabetes occurs when the pancreas stops producing insulin, which is a hormone that acts on sugar in the bloodstream to make it usable by the body. As it works, cells are fed and the sugar level in the blood is reduced.

Type 1 diabetics take insulin by injection (the more common Type 2 Diabetes is a different disease that generally doesn't require shots). As the insulin is absorbed into the bloodstream, sugars in the form of food must be eaten. This accomplishes two things: it provides nutrition and it gives the insulin something to work on.

Sounds easy, but guess again. If insufficient food is ingested,the insulin will break down too much sugar in the blood and create a low sugar reaction that can cause sweating, shivering, loss of mental acuity and coordination, and unconsciousness. With too much food or not enough insulin, high sugar levels result. This causes sluggishness and extreme thirst in the short run and complications like blindness, nerve damage, kidney disease, cardiovascular problems and even amputation in the long term.

It gets even more complicated, since factors like physical activity (or lack of it), a hot vs. a cold environment, sickness and stress affect how quickly the sugar gets burned off. Plus, the insulin usually peaks about 90 minutes after it's injected and then its effectiveness drops off, which means you need to compensate for insulin/food/activity several times a day.

You're on a tightrope, weighing all the variables to balance your blood sugar in a range between too high and too low. And it's with you relentlessly - every day, all day, 365 days a year. It's not easy, but at least you're alive.

Untreated Type 1 Diabetes is terminal 100% of the time. With no insulin to break down blood sugar for nourishment, the body turns on itself by metabolizing stored fats and producing an acid byproduct in the process. The acid builds up to toxic levels, poisons the body, causes a coma and then death.

This end game is what Dale Neumann, his wife and several others observed while they prayed for God to heal his daughter as she took her last breath on the floor of their home. He and his wife had refused to seek medical attention for her, even as 11 year-old Madeline lost weight and became too weak to walk, eat, drink or speak.

Neumann calls himself a "full gospel Christian" who regarded her illness as "a test of his faith." While Mr. Neumann is conversant with Bible verses, he's not affiliated with an organized church. And that may be the underlying cause of this tragedy.

If he had attended a church, even one that emphasizes divine healing, he would have found that they encourage medical treatment and that using modern medicine is entirely consistent with the Bible. While many churches believe God is responsible for all healing, seeking proper advice and treatment from a physician is no different from seeking help from an expert in any field. It's as prudent - and biblical - as hiring a plumber to fix a leaky pipe.

Dale Neumann should have sought medical help, and he also should have sought expert advice for an explanation of Bible passages. He may have modified his personal theology and chosen to enable his helpless daughter to survive.

Misinterpretation of the Bible can be dangerous. In this case it was fatal.

Meaning-Centered Faith

"Meaning-centered psychotherapy" is a program developed by William Breitbart, a psychiatrist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. According to Dr. Breitbart, it tries to answer the question cancer patients often have, which is "How do I live in the space between my diagnosis and my eventual death?"

The program, which has involved over 300 patients since 2000, is based on the writings of an Aucschwitz survivor, Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, he had "the conviction that people can endure any suffering if they know their life has meaning."

The idea is to connect patients "with the many sources of meaning in life - love, work, history, family relationships - and teaches them that when cancer produces an obstacle in one, they find meaning in another." It's an effort to answer the question "How can you live when you know you're going to die."

Patients are encouraged to ask, "What accomplishments are you most proud of?" and "What do you want your legacy to be?" As session leader Dr. Shannon Poppito puts it, "You are not dying of cancer - you are living with cancer until you pass. You can make it meaningful, even if all you can do is lie in bed."

The program has had success: many patients report it's given them strength in comparison "with traditional support groups that typically discuss issues like dealing with doctors and body image." And it "seems to lessen that white-knuckle grip on life and give(s) them a sense of peace."

I guess it helps.

But there's another way to deal with the anticipation of death that doesn't rely on support groups, psychiatric sessions, or efforts to cram meaning into your remaining days. It's the knowledge that life doesn't end when your body expires and that you - free of your physical encumbrances - will live forever. Christians don't have a "white-knuckle grip on life." They have a healthy anticipation of a peaceful afterlife.

Secular efforts to improve the end of life are laudable, but they can't erase the underlying notion that life will end in hopelessness and finality. Jesus can. The patient can take one of two paths. He can take the secular route and try to distract himself as he's hurtling toward a brick wall. Or he can take the Christian road and tranquilly roll over a speed bump into eternity.

The Christian Politician Follies

When a Christian gets in trouble, you can count on his faith being noted prominently. This was the case with Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, a successful politician who was considered to be presidential timber. Mr. Sanford has a wife and four young children but was smitten by an Argentine soul mate who stole his heart and possibly his brain, too.

After telling people he was off hiking on the Appalachian Trail, he instead took a trip to South America to cavort with his girlfriend. Caught as he got off the return flight from Buenos Aires, Sanford tearfully came clean in progressively more embarassing press conferences.

Around the same time, U.S. Senator John Ensign of Nevada admitted having an affair with his former campaign treasurer. She was also his best friend's wife. Ensign's parents made payments to her and her family totaling nearly $100,000 "out of concern for the well-being of long-time family friends." Ensign admitted the relationship after his ex-best friend started talking about it on Fox News.

These guys were forthright Christians who were on the front lines condemning others for their indulgences. But then they did the same things themselves. It's the blatant hypocrisy of people who profess one thing, point their fingers at others and then secretly live alternate lives that makes them juicy targets.

At least those who Sanford and Ensign had criticized weren't acting as moral authorities and judging others. They may not have been concerned with morality, but at least they weren't being hypocritical. In a crazy twist, the absence of hypocrisy almost makes them seem morally superior.

What now? They're both apparently planning to stay in office and they may well be able to. As Christians, they can be forgiven. But their standing as moral pillars and their ability to promote the Christian faith has evaporated. And the ridicule they brought upon themselves did their faith a great disservice.

Those in positions of responsibility are held to higher standards than others. This biblical principle was ignored by these leaders and they're justly paying a price for violating it.

dhmv5xb2es

Christian Gunslingers

Hot off the wire! "Kentucky church cherishes guns."

The Associated Press article began, "A gun-toting Kentucky pastor says it's OK to pack heat at church - at least for one day." It referred to an event held at the New Bethel Church in Louisville that was designed to promote gun safety, celebrate the Second Amendment right to bear arms, and demonstrate that there are many legal, civil, intelligent and law-abiding citizens who also own guns.

The piece ended with a note that "a coalition of peace and church groups staged a gun-free event across town at the same time." Although the article didn't elaborate on it, the gathering probably extolled peace, non-violence and love, and decried the shooting deaths that happen every year.

I don't own a gun, but I've fired them enough to respect them and appreciate the skill involved in shooting accurately. I also know hunters who take pride in their abilities - and in gun safety - who believe guns are necessary to protect themselves and their loved ones. They're not criminals.

Which group reflects Christianity?

Jesus taught peace, love, turning the other cheek, loving your enemies and lots of other things that indicate he abhorred violence. It seems reasonable to infer he wouldn't have condoned gun use.

But other passages temper this. The Bible allows the killing of thieves who enter a victim's house at night, Jesus himself commanded his disciples to carry swords (the contemporary equivalent of guns), and the righteous are admonished not to "give way before the wicked."

Love and peace are transcendant Christian ideals, but how do we apply them when we get into particular situations? If your wife is attacked, do you seek peace by doing nothing but showing love for the perpetrator? Or do you show love for your wife and restore peace by stopping the crime? Depending on your size, condition, age, martial arts proficiency and the number of assailants, a gun may be your only option.

Jim Farley is a retired firefighter and Christian who tells of a time when burglaries were happening in his neighborhood. He had a handgun in his night table and was ready to defend his home. One night he got his chance when he and his wife heard an intruder downstairs. He got out of bed, got the gun and went out the bedroom door. With impeccable timing his wife shouted "JIM, DON'T SHOOT HIM!!" at which point the burglar fled.

Without the threat of a gun, his house certainly would have been robbed, he may have been attacked, and his wife might have been, too. It's a case where a lawfully owned firearm prevented a potentially terrible incident. (On the other hand, you could say that all he really needed was a recording of his wife yelling, "Jim, don't shoot him!").

The inferred point of the AP article was that guns and Christian faith are incompatible and that the church in Louisville was acting hypocritically. But this betrays misunderstanding on the writer's part. The Bible offers ideals for us to aspire to, but it also provides for realistic responses to real-world situations. Self-defense is acceptable, and Christian gun owners see no contradiction between their faith and their weapons.

The idea that gun ownership somehow delegitimizes the owner's faith is simply untrue. There are cases to be made on both sides of the gun issue, but it's a civil matter - not a religious one.

Soaring

Soaring isn't hang gliding. You fly in a sleek, white fiberglass aircraft with a canopy that closes over you. The fuselage is short, about half the length of the 55 foot wingspan, and the cockpit is so compact you have to flip up the instrument panel to slip your legs into the nose. Once you're in, the panel swings down and you lock yourself into a four-strap harness by inserting the the clips into a buckle on your chest. Since there's no engine there are only four instruments: an airspeed indicator, an altimeter, a compass and an odd one I'd never seen before. More on that later.

The sailplane's two wheels are on the centerline of the fuselage, one behind the other. They're recessed into the plane, so you're only sitting about a foot off the ground. It's tied to a tow plane with a thin rope laid out in a zig-zag pattern to avoid tangling, and as the Cessna lumbers down the runway the rope tightens and we become airborne almost immediately.

At 5,000 feet the pilot, Claude -who learned to soar in France - warns me he's detaching the tow. There's a dull "thud" and the glider enters a hard, tight bank to the right. This surprised me, but it was really cool. It turns out that standard procedure after release is for the sailplane to fly up and to the right while the tow plane dives down to the left. My wife, watching from the ground, thought the tow plane pilot was nuts.

The ride was smooth and the only sound was air rushing past the plane. I wondered if birds hear the same sound when they glide. We're acting a lot like seagulls, who increase their altitude by riding updrafts. In fact, it's the essence of what we're doing.

That oddball instrument is a variometer and it tells you whether you're in an updraft or a downdraft. It has (+) and (-) digital readouts and emits a beeping sound. If you "get lucky," which is a discomfiting term sailplane pilots use, you locate an updraft and circle in it to gain altitude. In an updraft the variometer shows (+) with a fluctuating numeral indicating its intensity and, simultaneously, the beeps are emitted closer together. In a downdraft, a (-) with intermittent beeps would tell you to keep looking.

Heated rising air can be produced by large parking lots, roofs and even highways. We used a large quarry. But finding the "thermal" is tricky because even a slight breeze moves it. Another source of updrafts is the is the wind, which blows in, hits the mountains and is directed skyward. Pilots "ride the ridge" by flying in a figure eight pattern that keeps them in the rising breeze.

There were two parallel runways, and we missed them both. On purpose, since sailplanes land on grass. As we skimmed over the turf at 55 mph our closeness to the ground made it feel a lot faster. In powered flight pilots slow down just before landing by raising the nose and "flaring out" as the plane nears the pavement, but Claude drove the glider straight in without flaring at all. He finally stopped by whipping to the right to avoid the planes parked ahead of us.

It was a good landing.

This kind of thing gets you thinking - about the amazing abilities of birds, the way they use winds and thermals, and the way man uses God's natural laws to mimic them. The order and design you see in this one tiny slice of life is just another way the Creator reveals himself to those who look.

Manifest Spin

A sensational story was reported by the Associated Press. The headline read, "Gay exorcism video stirs worry, horror." The perpetrators were the leaders and members of the Manifested Glory Ministries in Bridgeport, CT.

The group, operated by Overseer Kelvin McKinney and Prophetess/Apostle Patricia McKinney, is located in a small commercial building in an industrial area of an aging manufacturing city. It's a small band of people, a number of whom profess to have had prophetic visions. They're evidently not affiliated with any denomination.

They claimed to have tried to "cast out the spirits" and release a young man from homosexuality in an apparently improvised event. A man held the subject under his arms to keep him standing while others shouted, "Rip it from his throat! Come on, you homosexual demon....we call you out right now!" and "Come out of his belly. It's in the belly - push!" In retrospect, they probably regret taping the episode and releasing it on YouTube.

This isn't about homosexuality, or exorcism, or even YouTube. It's about the way the press characterized the story. Along with a detailed description of the goings-on, the article focused on comments from True Colors, an advocacy group for gay youths.

AP noted "It's nearly impossible to say how often similar exercises occur in churches nationwide," but that didn't keep them reporting the words of one True Colors official who said she "believes it's fairly common. This happens all the time. This is not isolated." Another commented,"I think it's horrifying. What saddens me is the people that are doing this think they are doing it in the kid's best interests when in fact they're murdering his spirit."

Man, this is happening all over the place! Who knew? We've got Christians doing this commonly and they're unintentionally murdering people's spirits. I guess they're well-meaning but just too clueless to know what they're doing. At least that's what the spin is.

Or is it possible we've got a tiny splinter group of self-described prophesiers, run by an "Overseer" and a "Prophetess" with no apparent connection with the rest of Christianity that came up with some misguided home-grown remedy for homosexuality, performed it and then posted it on the internet?

Manifested Glory Ministries isn't like any church I know. But it's typical of our times that reporters and their editors are naive enough to think it is. Or jaded enough against the faith to purposely present the story as being anything but a bizarre aberration.

Brain Tricks

Neurotheology is a relatively new science made possible by modern brain imaging technology. The activity of the brain during spiritual episodes is studied in an effort to explain the nature of the experiences.

Researchers have been creative. They've imaged people after they've ingested drugs like peyote or LSD and found that they operate similarly to serotonin, which is a brain chemical that affects emotions and perceptions. The idea is that a serotonin rush may cause spiritual events like seeing visions, hearing messages, getting a glimpse of eternity or having an out of body experience.

Knowing which parts of the brain to stimulate, one researcher rigged up a motorcycle helmet (complete with racing stripe) to produce electromagnetic fields. He put it on his subjects, had them wear goggles with tissue paper stuffed inside, and then activated it. His subjects experienced images ranging from what he calls "the dark of the dark" to images or faces to feeling the "Sensed Presence." The scientist, Michael Persinger, is convinced that "God and all experience are a product of your brain."

Some neurologists theorize that Paul's encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus was a hallucination resulting from abnormal electrical activity in the brain caused by epilepsy. It's another case of of skeptics stretching to explain spirituality as something that's literally just in the believer's head.

These lines of inquiry dodge the underlying questions, which are "Why would the brain be wired like this unless it was to enable man to experience a relationship with a real and existing God?" and "If this isn't the reason, why does this ability exist at all?"

The physiological mechanism is clearly there. Our bodies have lots of mechanisms, each is designed to perform a particular function, and the wiring of the brain is no different. This particular ability enables man to experience a deep, meaningful interaction with a God who is as real as the brain itself.

Learning how the brain operates and then making it do tricks by feeding it drugs or putting it in customized motorcycle helmets doesn't show that spiritual experiences are simply the result of brain chemistry. It only explains another God-given process, just like photosynthesis, genetics and millions of other natural mechanisms we've figured out.

It does show that with certain stimuli the brain is capable of extraodinary deeds. It can be activated artificially or it can perform as it was intended to, with God's input. And the unmanipulated natural process demonstrates the majesty of the God who designed.

Swine Flu Reality Check

The swine flu has been breathlessly reported since the intitial outbreak almost three months ago. People wear surgical masks, travelers are quarantined, schools are closed and a low grade panic has been created.

If you've read The Stand by Stephen King, which described the spread of a deadly virus, you may be sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for the swine flu to sweep the countryside spreading misery and death.

This seems unlikely to happen. So far, there have been 141 deaths worldwide - which is tragic, to be sure - but significantly lower than the 500,000 lives lost every year (no, it's not a typo - the death toll is about 36,000 in the U.S. and a half million globally) to seasonal flus. The symptoms of the current edition have been markedly mild compared to typical influenzas.

In fairness to the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization, this virus apparently has an ability to mutate readily and the concern is that it may modify into a truly dangerous version later on. This may or may not happen, but scientists are developing vaccines in the event it does.

In the meantime, we're dealing with a mild flu with a low mortality rate that's reported as a pandemic (everybody think 1918 and the lethal Spanish flu!). It's rarely explained that "pandemic" refers to the geographical spread of the disease, not its severity.

The media knows this, or should know it, but once it gets on a roll with a story line inertia seems to take over. The result is the reporting and repetition of misleading, hyped information tailored to promote an incorrect premise.

The media's pursuit of sensationalism reduces its credibility, which is disturbing if you really need to convey a serious message. Suppose a dangerous mutation does appear next year? How many will don surgical masks after this year's flu scare when most people don't even know anyone who got sick, those who did realized it was mild, and a statistically insignificant number of people died?

The media does this all the time, whether it's political, scientific, cultural or religious. If you watch story selection, interview editing and even non-verbal cues you can usually figure out what the bias is. And when you ask yourself, "does this really make sense?" it's amazing how often it doesn't.

Christianity is saddled with a slanted, negative story line that's been carried by the media for decades. And it's no more valid than the reporting of The Great Swine Flu Pandemic of 2009.

A Tale of Two Murders

On a recent Sunday morning a gunman approached his victim, pulled the trigger and killed him with one shot. The shooter was arrested and jailed, and then the finger-pointing started. You see, the deceased was one of a handful of late-term abortion specialists in the U.S. who terminated healthy nine-month old fetuses. The assailant was a radical anti-abortionist.

The response from Christians was widespread, condemning the murder as "a gravely wicked thing." Operation Rescue, the militant anti-abortion organization that had picketed the doctor's office, issued a statement that denounced "vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place."

On the following day a gunman shot two army recruiters with an assault rifle, killing one of them. The assailant was a Muslim convert who was born in Tennessee and came to the attention of the FBI while in terrorist-friendly Yemen. He had ties to a terrorist-connected school and obtained a Somali passport. The FBI noted that the passport enabled the killer to enter the U.S. with his American passport not showing stamps indicating where he had traveled. He returned virulently angry and acted on his rage using one of the several guns found in his vehicle.

The silence of the Islamic community was deafening.

In the doctor's case, the outrage was immediate and intense. According to columnist Michelle Malkin, "news anchors and headline writers abandoned all qualms about labeling the gunman a terrorist. The legions of finger-pointing pundits happily convict(ed) the pro-life movement and every right-leaning writer on the planet of contributing to the murder." The President condemned it and the Justice Department dispatched marshalls to protect abortion clinics, as though Christians were marching down the street with torches and pitchforks.

Abdulhakim Muhammed's assault rated no such coverage. He was regarded as a lone gunman acting independently, the President issued no statement, and the term "terrorist" was studiously avoided in the media.

This isn't about abortion. It's about our culture's eagerness to expand an un-Christian act perpetrated by one person into a subtle smear that gives a negative impression of the faith in general. Linking Christians to terrorism while ignoring the terrorist leanings of an Islamic killer provides an unusually rich contrast that emphasizes the point.

The Christian Craftsmen

My wife and I were invited to a dinner and program about custom kitchens at Countryside Woodcraft in Russell, MA. We went last night with about forty other people.

The program was interesting and I certainly understand more about custom cabinetry and furniture than I ever did before. The quality of their work is impeccable, and it makes you aware of what a top quality product looks like - inside and out.

The company is owned by a Mennonite community who do the design, building, installation and retailing, so they do everything except grow the trees.

The really fascinating thing about last night was the Mennonites themselves. They seem to be a step removed from the Amish in that they use modern devices. But other things, like their manner, accent, dress (the women wear long dresses and bonnets; the men modestly dress in slacks and shirts), their large families, the fact that they live together in a close, mutually supportive unit, their impeccable politeness, and - above all - their Christian faith makes them similar.

I spoke to the apparent leader, Ron Hess, after the program. He was delighted when I introduced myself as a Christian and we spoke for a few minutes. I brought up Finding Faith in a Skeptical World not knowing what sort of reaction I'd get. But Ron got excited about it and explained that he often sees secular customers who clearly don't have faith and is saddened by his inability to do anything about it.

I left him a copy of the book and hope to hear back from him. I really think this is what he's been looking for in that it's an easy, non-confrontational way to introduce others to a faith we'd like to share.