On January 13th, Phoebe Prince was a fifteen year old high school freshman who had come to town last fall from her native Ireland. On January 14th, she was dead. According to Sandra E. Constantine, writing in The Republican in Springfield, MA, Phoebe "is believed to have hanged herself after intensive bullying at school and over Facebook and through text messaging."
School officials wouldn't release identities for legal reasons but it became known that a number of students, both boys and girls, were involved. An uproar ensued and the outraged community demanded resignations from the principal and school superintendent. An anti-bullying task force was formed to "review disciplinary policies at the high school and look at how to get students who don't bully but observe it to report it to school officials."
Punishment may deter this to some degree, but it misses the point. The questions are, "Why did this happen in the first place?" and "What was missing in the characters of the guilty parties?"
A moral compass, that's what was missing. There was a time when most children attended religious services and churches were central to society. Early on, kids learned about the Ten Commandments, bible stories with moral lessons, and the fact that you were to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And you prayed to the God who gave you these lessons and would eventually see you in heaven, where you would give an account of yourself.
Until prayer was banned, the presence of God was even acknowledged in public schools with the recitation of the Lord's Prayer each morning.
Back then most kids had a sense of right and wrong that discouraged the hostility Phoebe's aggressors engaged in. There were bullies, to be sure, but they were garden variety playground toughs. They weren't middle-class kids who casually ganged up to torment a fellow student to death.
My wife and I had dinner recently with good friends who aren't religious. They're decent people with nice children who operate on the same - or an even higher - moral plane than many nominal Christians. They asked if we believed a person could be moral if they weren't religious.
The answer is yes, they can. But two generations from now, one of their descendants may ask his parent why he shouldn't steal if he needs the money. If the answer is "because your great-grandfather said so," the chain of morality may well be broken. Religious faith has effectively maintained sensible rules for thousands of years because each generation has a first hand knowldedge of, and in many cases a relationship with, God. His imperatives are immediate, lasting and not subject to being dismissed like the ramblings of a great-grandfather you never even met.
When people dismiss Christianity and try to diminish its role in society, where do they get a moral compass? The schools?
If Phoebe Prince were here, what would she say?
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Spiritual Warriors
It was an ordeal. After spending 36 hours outside without food and water, they were given a small meal. Then all sixty of them were crammed into a four-and-a-half-foot high, 23 foot diameter structure. As they sat in the dark, glowing rocks radiating heat were brought in and for two hours they fought the heat and dehydration. Some lost consciousness and multiple organ failure occurred. Three died.
These weren't POW's. The participants paid over $9,000 each to experience the "Spiritual Warrior" program run by self help guru James Arthur Ray, who has appeared with Oprah and Larry King. According to Mr. Ray's friend, John Assaraf, the idea was to push attendee's "personal limits and transcend pain (so they can) recognize their physical and mental health and achieve goals they never thought possible."
These weren't the first fatalities for Mr. Ray, who sometimes "plays God." Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Steve Salerno notes that one participant "leaped to her death during one of his success seminars." Other programs have had similar tragedies. In one, a 10-year-old was wrapped in blankets and made to fight her way out in a "rebirthing" which was to let her "symbolically begin a new life." Instead, she suffocated.
The list goes on.
Games that strip away defenses and create vulnerability are common in the self help industry. The movement started in the 1970's with Werner Erhard, who pioneered the mind-over-bladder path to spiritual enlightenment with his insistence on no bathroom breaks. Large Group Awareness Training has become an $11 billion industry run by gurus who who appropriate New Age notions, mangle rituals like the sweat lodge and integrate them with the charm of a drill sergeant.
Why is this popular? Could it have something to do with society's turning away from faith over the past forty years? One observer told television station KNXV that "people are looking for things to fulfill themselves and give themselves purpose." Like people in general, they have a spiritual emptiness.
There is a God-sized hole in the human heart. It's the emptiness we feel when we're spiritually deficient and there's only one cure for it: faith in God. Once we have it there's a purpose to life that's larger than our everyday battles.
There's no need to endure the humiliation of baring your soul to a group of strangers, being locked in a sauna, or subjecting yourself to verbal and physical bullying. You don't have to pay Ray's list price of $9,695.00, either.
What works is a peaceful, private, silent talk with Jesus. It's available anywhere, anytime and it doesn't cost a penny.
**********************************************************************************
On February 3rd James Arthur Ray was arrested and indicted on manslaughter charges for the sweat lodge deaths.
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us.
These weren't POW's. The participants paid over $9,000 each to experience the "Spiritual Warrior" program run by self help guru James Arthur Ray, who has appeared with Oprah and Larry King. According to Mr. Ray's friend, John Assaraf, the idea was to push attendee's "personal limits and transcend pain (so they can) recognize their physical and mental health and achieve goals they never thought possible."
These weren't the first fatalities for Mr. Ray, who sometimes "plays God." Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Steve Salerno notes that one participant "leaped to her death during one of his success seminars." Other programs have had similar tragedies. In one, a 10-year-old was wrapped in blankets and made to fight her way out in a "rebirthing" which was to let her "symbolically begin a new life." Instead, she suffocated.
The list goes on.
Games that strip away defenses and create vulnerability are common in the self help industry. The movement started in the 1970's with Werner Erhard, who pioneered the mind-over-bladder path to spiritual enlightenment with his insistence on no bathroom breaks. Large Group Awareness Training has become an $11 billion industry run by gurus who who appropriate New Age notions, mangle rituals like the sweat lodge and integrate them with the charm of a drill sergeant.
Why is this popular? Could it have something to do with society's turning away from faith over the past forty years? One observer told television station KNXV that "people are looking for things to fulfill themselves and give themselves purpose." Like people in general, they have a spiritual emptiness.
There is a God-sized hole in the human heart. It's the emptiness we feel when we're spiritually deficient and there's only one cure for it: faith in God. Once we have it there's a purpose to life that's larger than our everyday battles.
There's no need to endure the humiliation of baring your soul to a group of strangers, being locked in a sauna, or subjecting yourself to verbal and physical bullying. You don't have to pay Ray's list price of $9,695.00, either.
What works is a peaceful, private, silent talk with Jesus. It's available anywhere, anytime and it doesn't cost a penny.
**********************************************************************************
On February 3rd James Arthur Ray was arrested and indicted on manslaughter charges for the sweat lodge deaths.
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Has God Forsaken Haiti?
Ironically, the earthquake decimated the funeral business in Haiti. Funeral parlors in Port-au-Prince line Rue de l'Enterrement, or "Burial Street," which ends at the cemetery gate. After the tremors subsided, unidentified bodies were left outside the morgues and as they piled up rules requiring preparation by the parlors were suspended. Garbage trucks picked them up and brought them to mass graves.
One grave was created by the city government when it knocked down a wall that surrounded the cemetery, dug a hole, dumped bodies near it, instructed the regular workers to toss them in and promised it would cover them. The bulldozer didn't return and the pit remained open under the blazing sun.
Graveyard worker Cereste Achille, quoted by Christopher Rhoads in The Wall Street Journal, surveyed the pile of decomposing corpses and said, "Only God can help them."
Where WAS He? Why did He forsake Haiti? Or did He?
God is there and will be there long after rock concerts to benefit Haiti fall out of fashion. Far from ignoring the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Christians have been building and healing there for decades. It's telling that when the earthquake first struck, the U.S. news media relied upon on-the-scene reports from missionaries. Christians are always there.
Bill Martin is a family man, just an average person serving God. His avocation is going to Haiti with other Christians who pay their own expenses and purchase building materials as well. This time he went with his son, Nikolai, and fellow First Central Baptist Church member Dan Appleton.
After landing in Port-au-Prince, the volunteers rode in a truck bed for seven hours over rough, unpaved roads to an orphanage. With no equipment, the workers mixed concrete on the ground by hand and shoveled it into 5-gallon pails that were passed hand-to-hand up the stairs to pour a second story floor. In the sweltering conditions, old hands like Bill jockeyed for prized shady spots in the bucket brigade.
It's hard manual labor, but they keep coming back because they go home with great memories and the priceless knowledge that they're doing God's work. Hundreds of Christians like these were already on the ground when airlifts started arriving from a suddenly sympathetic world.
They were there before the earthquake, they're there now, and they'll be there after the headlines fade, political posturing stops, and foreign aid tapers off. They'll continue to help because they're emissaries from a God who commands them to help the less fortunate.
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
One grave was created by the city government when it knocked down a wall that surrounded the cemetery, dug a hole, dumped bodies near it, instructed the regular workers to toss them in and promised it would cover them. The bulldozer didn't return and the pit remained open under the blazing sun.
Graveyard worker Cereste Achille, quoted by Christopher Rhoads in The Wall Street Journal, surveyed the pile of decomposing corpses and said, "Only God can help them."
Where WAS He? Why did He forsake Haiti? Or did He?
God is there and will be there long after rock concerts to benefit Haiti fall out of fashion. Far from ignoring the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Christians have been building and healing there for decades. It's telling that when the earthquake first struck, the U.S. news media relied upon on-the-scene reports from missionaries. Christians are always there.
Bill Martin is a family man, just an average person serving God. His avocation is going to Haiti with other Christians who pay their own expenses and purchase building materials as well. This time he went with his son, Nikolai, and fellow First Central Baptist Church member Dan Appleton.
After landing in Port-au-Prince, the volunteers rode in a truck bed for seven hours over rough, unpaved roads to an orphanage. With no equipment, the workers mixed concrete on the ground by hand and shoveled it into 5-gallon pails that were passed hand-to-hand up the stairs to pour a second story floor. In the sweltering conditions, old hands like Bill jockeyed for prized shady spots in the bucket brigade.
It's hard manual labor, but they keep coming back because they go home with great memories and the priceless knowledge that they're doing God's work. Hundreds of Christians like these were already on the ground when airlifts started arriving from a suddenly sympathetic world.
They were there before the earthquake, they're there now, and they'll be there after the headlines fade, political posturing stops, and foreign aid tapers off. They'll continue to help because they're emissaries from a God who commands them to help the less fortunate.
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Why Haiti?
Why did a tsunami inundate 14 Asian countries in 2004? Why did Hurricane Katrina swamp New Orleans? Why did 15 tornadoes touch down within two days in America's Heartland last February? Floods, mudslides, wildfires, ice storms, the occasional volcano..... Natural disasters happen all the time, all over the world. They're part of our infinitely organized but sometimes devastatingly active universe.
The question isn't "Why Haiti?" It's "Why is it so bad?"
God created a world with dynamic forces and gave it to us. He also gave us an intellect and the right to exercise it freely. We use it to manipulate natural forces to grow food, cure illnesses and make all kinds of other advancements. Other elements of creation are destructive, but we can mitigate their severity.
Or not. In Haiti's case, a kleptocratic government and a self-serving elite gorged themselves on foreign aid while common people remained impoverished, malnourished, unemployed and living in crowded shanties with open sewers. Earthquake resistant buildings did not exist there.
The population lived near a fault line that generated a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, casting them into a nightmare. Mother Nature was nasty, but the exercise of free will for selfish ends made the disaster far worse than it might have been.
We often act against our best interests. Harry Truman was a guy who refused to leave his home on the slope of Mt. St. Helens as it exploded. Bangladeshis occupy sea level land that floods during monsoons. The San Francisco Bay Area sets atop four fault lines. We know the risks but can't resist taking them.
Why is free will so important to God? Why does a loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God let free will go unchecked? Wouldn't God want to make life easy for those he loves, even if it meant withholding free will?
Well, no. God's most important desire is for man to love Him, and genuine love is given without inducement. Here's an example: suppose a distant uncle sent you a regular check for no particular reason. Would you love him? You'd feel something as long as the payments kept coming, but you probably wouldn't yearn to learn what he's really all about. If the money stopped, your good feelings would dissipate and you'd be left with nothing more than the material things the money bought. God isn't looking for sham love like this, and won't bribe us for it by making us materially happy and pain-free. He wants us to focus on who He is and love Him for the right reasons.
Our trials pale in comparison to God's gifts. He provides standards that direct us through life, strength through prayer, forgiveness that reduces our burden of guilt, and peace. And overshadowing it all is a promise of eternal life that keeps us forward looking and and puts our trials - even earthquakes - in perspective.
The hardships we endure are part of a finite life that transitions into eternity. Those looking back from heaven would no doubt agree that God's modus operandi is sound.
To forward this post, please click on the envelope icon below "comments" or use the "share" button above.
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
The question isn't "Why Haiti?" It's "Why is it so bad?"
God created a world with dynamic forces and gave it to us. He also gave us an intellect and the right to exercise it freely. We use it to manipulate natural forces to grow food, cure illnesses and make all kinds of other advancements. Other elements of creation are destructive, but we can mitigate their severity.
Or not. In Haiti's case, a kleptocratic government and a self-serving elite gorged themselves on foreign aid while common people remained impoverished, malnourished, unemployed and living in crowded shanties with open sewers. Earthquake resistant buildings did not exist there.
The population lived near a fault line that generated a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, casting them into a nightmare. Mother Nature was nasty, but the exercise of free will for selfish ends made the disaster far worse than it might have been.
We often act against our best interests. Harry Truman was a guy who refused to leave his home on the slope of Mt. St. Helens as it exploded. Bangladeshis occupy sea level land that floods during monsoons. The San Francisco Bay Area sets atop four fault lines. We know the risks but can't resist taking them.
Why is free will so important to God? Why does a loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God let free will go unchecked? Wouldn't God want to make life easy for those he loves, even if it meant withholding free will?
Well, no. God's most important desire is for man to love Him, and genuine love is given without inducement. Here's an example: suppose a distant uncle sent you a regular check for no particular reason. Would you love him? You'd feel something as long as the payments kept coming, but you probably wouldn't yearn to learn what he's really all about. If the money stopped, your good feelings would dissipate and you'd be left with nothing more than the material things the money bought. God isn't looking for sham love like this, and won't bribe us for it by making us materially happy and pain-free. He wants us to focus on who He is and love Him for the right reasons.
Our trials pale in comparison to God's gifts. He provides standards that direct us through life, strength through prayer, forgiveness that reduces our burden of guilt, and peace. And overshadowing it all is a promise of eternal life that keeps us forward looking and and puts our trials - even earthquakes - in perspective.
The hardships we endure are part of a finite life that transitions into eternity. Those looking back from heaven would no doubt agree that God's modus operandi is sound.
To forward this post, please click on the envelope icon below "comments" or use the "share" button above.
To add or remove an address from the Finding Faith mailing list, which provides a link to the weekly post, please send an email to cwgalaska@triadpress.us
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
