This has nothing to do with anything usually pertaining to this site but it might make someone out there grin. It just about knocked me from my chair.

HT: Dave.

Amazing video set to a song by my favorite musician

HT: JT

One of the reasons Christians defend traditional views of marriage is that marriage paints for us a picture of Christ and his church – the union of the bride with the bridegroom. God’s organization of marriage is such that the way the husband and wife interact paints a picture of the way God interacts with his church. Mixing gender roles distorts that picture. Redefining marriage destroys it entirely.

But this is not a post about marriage, it’s a post about taking care of widows and orphans. People have rightly criticized evangelicals for focusing too much on things like homosexuality and too little on things like feeding the hungry. I would argue – though the example of my life is woefully inadequate to back up this argument – that we should devote as much time defending the oppressed, visiting prisoners, and taking care of widows and orphans as we spend trying to preserve biblical institutions in society. Both present a picture of God, a reflection of God’s grace to the world.

Consider who you are, how miserable your state, how hopeless and in need of the absolute, free grace of another to bring you salvation. And then Christ came. He transformed you, brought you to himself, cleansed every sin, and brought you into his eternal kingdom.

The question then is, what are you doing in your life that presents to the world what Christ did for you? This, I think, is one reason it is so important for us to help those in need. There are other very good reasons to do such things (God said to, that pretty much settles the argument) but one motivation for Christians is we know every time we feed the hungry or clothe the poor, showing concern for the physical as well as spiritual well being of another human being, we reflect God in the world, shining his light through our good deeds

Let’s not mistake church attendance for helping people in need. Throwing money in the offering plate is also not enough. The Father of the fatherless, the protector of widows, wants us to show his true character to the world. How are you displaying his mercy and grace and generosity to those who are in desperate need of your help?

Mac lovers (like me): something to consider.

Apple announced it is donating $100,000 to the “No on 8″ campaign, citing its history as one of the first California companies to offer equal benefits to its employees’ same-sex partners: “We strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights–including the right to marry–should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.”

According to the article, Google has also given money to the “No on 8″ campaign. This sort of thing won’t lead me to stop using their products, though it should give one pause to consider where the profits from some of your spending is eventually ending up. Granted just about every corporation we interact with will at some point or another do something or other that opposes what God has established in his Word, so this sort of thing isn’t exactly new, but I really don’t like the thought of some of my money (by association) going to defend gay marriage in California.

Thoughts in this post were triggered by a post over at Thinking Christian.

Pretty much everyone is familiar with the debate over intelligent design – whether or not scientists should allow for the possibility that some divine being was the originator of life on earth. Christian views of intelligent design vary from traditional six-day creationists to deistic folks who feel God did little more than set things in motion and then stepped back to watch. When it comes to a particular religion, however, intelligent design is a bit more agnostic. At its core it simply proposes that some deity was responsible for life on earth.

I can understand the scientific desire to find the cause at the root of every event. I understand scientists who want to figure out exactly how life came to be on planet earth. The desire to understand How Stuff Works is what drives science and propels human understanding to greater and greater levels. And, frankly, it’s exciting stuff. It is amazing all that scientists have been able to understand about our universe – and it is exciting to think of how much is left to learn. Who knows what we will find under the next leaf? Who knows what is below the surface of Mars? Who knows what we will be able to do once we understand how various natural processes work? And on and on goes the mind that finds science fun and exciting.

Nonetheless, it is frustrating for me that scientists are, well, so often so unscientific when it comes to the possibility of God. I have no problem with scientists seeing how far they can push understanding, tracing the generation of life back as far as we can, but there is something mind boggling about scientists that refuse to admit that science might only go so far, that there might be points past which science simply cannot provide answers. What sparked life on earth? I have no problem with scientists trying to find a scientific explanation but I do have a problem with scientists who refuse to even acknowledge the possibility that science will simply be unable to answer that question.

By faith I believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth. By faith I believe he did this by his own power and he created everything according to his will. Science helps me understand some of what God did to bring about his creative intention but science itself can never prove that God did it. The most science can do is leave the question unanswered and so far it has done just that. As long as scientists can offer no clear and definite proof of how life began on earth, they should at least recognize the possibility that science will never be able to answer that question. So long as they refuse to acknowledge this possibility, they show their faith in human assumptions about origins is as great as my own faith in God.

I generally stay away from politics on here and this isn’t really a political post, but I just had to say it: Politicians ain’t actors! Since when are presidents picked by how well they perform in front of the camera? Facial expressions, body language, gestures, delivery of words… You’d think the election was some form of American Idol!

That’s all I’m sayin.

From the 2008 Desiring God National Conference

May our Sunday mornings… and our Monday mornings… be different.

HT: JT.

The New York Times has an article about middle class families that have had to trim spending during the downturn. The focus of the article is on teens in those families who have for the most part been used to pandering from their parents, getting just about anything they ask for. A couple of quotes jumped out:

When Wendy Postle’s two children were younger, saying “yes” gave her great joy. Yes to all those toys. The music lessons. The blowout birthday parties.

But as her son and daughter approached adolescence, yes turned into a weary default. “Sometimes it was just easier to say, ‘O.K., whatever,’ than to have the battle of ‘no,’ ” said Mrs. Postle, a working mother who lives in Hilliard, Ohio, a middle-class suburb of Columbus.

An indulgent childhood leads to indulgent teenage years. I know how hard it is to say no to a three year old. The things they want tend to be cheap and buying is easy. But even – and especially – at a young age children need to learn that they cannot always have the things that they want. Parents, be wise. Teaching children to expect that they will always get what they want means when they become teenagers they will still expect the same.

Here are some comments about parents having to talk to their kids about the need to spend less in a time when everything is costing more but income is more unstable:

Parents hardly relish these conversations. As they sit down with their teenagers, they are agonizing over their own feelings of failure. “Parents are going to feel they’re not giving their kids everything,” said Madeline Levine, a California psychologist who writes about adolescents in her book “The Price of Privilege.” “The kids are going to be confused. They’ve never known not having what they want. And the parents are going to have to tolerate their kids’ anger.”

Allow me to be a bit harsh. Parents, then, are feeling like failures when they cannot feed the greedy appetites of their children, when they are unable to feed indulgent lifestyles. Once upon a time good parenting meant training your children to live good, well-mannered, productive lives. Today good parenting means making sure your children can live lazy, self-indulgent, Paris Hilton type lives? Something is seriously wrong.

Wendy Postle said her teenagers have become angrier and more argumentative about money. “They seem so selfish,” she said. She wondered whether the fault was hers, whether that early lavishness was a parental failing.

I wonder.

Here is something all parents should see, coming from one teenager who was talking about the way her parents bribed her with things:

And yet, she added shyly: “I love the gifts but I’d really like to spend time with him. But my parents are working harder than ever and they’re so worried. I don’t want to force him to spend time with me. I can be a real earache.”

Kids need parents. They need parents present and involved in their lives. Good parenting does not mean buying kids a bigger television. It means spending time with your kids, loving them and showing them how to live. Let’s tie in one more social ill: an abortion culture treats kids as disposables that are a matter of individual choice. Why let kids get in the way of doing the things you want to do? Earn enough money to buy them enough stuff to cover up their unhappiness and you can get back to doing what you want to do. But in the end everyone ends up indulgent and unhappy and the only solution is one that will require a great deal of pain and adjustment for everyone: sacrifice and working toward real family life.

Gender Blog has the news. A quote:

AB 2567 will require all California schools to “conduct suitable commemorative exercises” in honor of Milk, who was a radical homosexual activist during the final years of his life. According to the bill the required “exercises” will include: “remembering the life of Harvey Milk and recognizing his accomplishments as well as the contributions he made to this state.”

Critics usually present legislation like this as being far more radical than such legislation actually is, but the very fact that such legislation is introduced – and passes! – shows deep problems in our society.

While hunting for more info on Charles Finney (blame it on these guys) I turned to Christianity and Western Thought, vol 2, by Steve Wilkens and Alan Padgett. I came across the following, talking about various revivalist movements such as that by Finney. These words could easily be applied to movements of our own day:

These and numerous other groups often grew out of a conviction that existing denominations, doctrines, and practices stifled Christian vitality. Though not always explicitly stated, the twin concerns that drove these movements are faith in individual judgment (or stated in the negative, distrust of institutions) and a belief that the past stands in the way of the future.

While often envious of the massive appeal of such movements, the guardians of tradition pointed to dangers inherent in revivalism. First, these movements placed heavy emphasis on the experiential aspects of faith. Therefore, church practices such as catechetical instruction, reliance on an educated pastorate and the sacraments were downplayed, redefined, or eliminated. Doctrine, creed and confession were given little attention. Second, such movements led to a proliferation of new sects. To the traditionalists, sectarianism was one of the major problems faced by the church universal and was the natural outcome of abandoning practices and doctrines that formerly provided some level of unity. A third danger was individualism, in which a person’s private experience of the divine became the grid through which religious doctrine and practice was judged, rather than the other way around.

(pp 247-248)