"It's Not True Because I Don't Like It"

In discussions with others concerning belief vs. non-belief in God, at least the God of the Bible, I'm often smugly bemused by some who, when explaining why they don't believe in God, bypass any scientific or logical reason and, instead, cite what they consider God's flaws: "how could God allow this?", "if He's good why would He do this?" etc. It was strange to me that they equated a perceived poor character with proof of nonexistence. 

But I recently realized I do the very same thing, in reverse. I think of life with no intelligent Creator as cold and empty, arbitrary and meaningless - but citing those negative views on disbelief in a moral God does not equal a rational explanation of why I don't take an atheistic view.

These mindsets on both the part of the believer and the nonbeliever are cut from the same irrational cloth as: "I want to go to Denny's and I don't like wearing a mask, so COVID is a hoax," or "I don't like that Trump lost the election, so it was rigged."

"It's not true because I don't like it" is an unreasonable and precarious way of thinking.

"There is No God, Because Bad Things Happen"

It's going to be a long night. There's a dog in the apartment above me whose owner leaves it alone for extended periods of time, leaving it to whine and cry for the entire complex to hear. I'm not the biggest fan of dogs, but I hate to hear or see any animal in pain. It tears me up inside, like some sort of Achilles' heel in my gut. I've left two messages with the apartment office, and I'm calling the Humane Society when they open in the morning.

This lonesome, tearful dog that no one hears led me to think of those among us who dismiss God because bad things happen and no one seems to care. (I'm not addressing those who say there's no God "because science"; I'm a high school dropout Creationist who takes a lot of psychiatric medication; any scientific diatribe on my part would be absurd; I already know that my baking soda volcano could not compete with Bill Nye's; mine would, at best, look like your mom's drunk boyfriend Randy - the one who listens to the Fabulous Thunderbirds, like a lot - helped me make it after a case of Keystone and a big fat joint; so, my surrender to the Richard Dawkinseses of the world is signed immediately.)

Anyway, I suppose it's a bit facetious and crude for me to describe them as "people who don't believe in God 'because bad things happen.'" It would be more apt to say: they don't believe in God because of centuries of barbaric wars that have left countless dead, mutilated, orphaned, and impoverished, because of millions of Jews gassed and incinerated at the orders of deluded madmen, because of teenage Armenian girls crucified in an attack on their race, because of atomic bombs dropped on Japan, because of children slain in cold blood at their schools, because of politicians void of conscience and full of Christian bunkum, because all these horrors go on day after day and no loving god stops it.

A friend of mine, a Christian indeed, expressed to me his temptation to ask "why bother believing in God?" and doing good when faced with all of this seemingly unchecked human carnage and gluttony. I likened it to shining light in a very dark place; a single candle is all the more strangely beautiful when it's the only one that flickers in a blackened room. Society, culture, are too far gone, too sick to someday give birth to peace and harmony. If there is intelligent life on planets other than our own, they've long ago made up their minds to stay far away from us, the only race who has an entire genre of jokes called "dead baby jokes."
My mother's favorite song was "What a Wonderful World." Whoever wrote that song was David Spade levels of sarcastic, because it's a horrible world, and it's a dirty lie to tell people anything different. But, although society is screwed, you and I have responsibilities as individuals to do good. As odd as it sounds, we can have wonderful lives in a horrible world. We have been given a duty to shine light for those who are in too much pain to give a toss about our existential crisis; people who are too hungry, their legs too ridden with Khe Sanh shrapnel, their tent cities taken down by heartless city ordinances, to give a second thought to Nietzsche vs. Lewis. They're too busy throwing up and struggling to breathe.

That's who you and I should be helping. The human race will never turn itself into a legion of light. So you and I have to be the tiny candles in the countless darkened rooms of the world.

It's easy for me to say that in an abstract and broad manner of speaking. But what about when those individuals, those children who could grow up to help just one person, become prey not to the twisted human race, but to one twisted human - who God did not stop?

I can give you the perfect example. This is a true story. It's the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. My head has been buried in books about serial killers, cannibals, wars, plagues, corruption, but somehow, this story tops them all. When I read it, I was completely numbed; I'd never heard anything like it before. Imagine a little girl in 1975. Her name was Suzanne. Her mother's new husband was Franklin Floyd, a career criminal who'd been convicted of child molestation. One day, Floyd disappeared with his four new step-children - Suzanne, her two younger sisters, and an infant brother named Philip. The two sisters were later found to have been dropped off at a church; the fate of the infant Philip remains unknown to this day. Their mother tried to file kidnapping charges, but officials told her that because he was their stepfather, Franklin Floyd had a legal right to take them.
Franklin Floyd and young Suzanne wound up in Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia, and Florida, with Floyd raising her and passing her off as his daughter "Sharon," and sexually abusing her the entire time, even documenting it with photos that were found later. By 1990, Suzanne was going by the alias "Tonya" and, once again relocated, was now being passed off as Floyd's wife, and working as a stripper. She gave birth to a son named Michael. Not long after, she decided to run away with a young man she'd been seeing. But before she could, she was killed, just 21 years old, the victim of an apparent hit-and-run. Floyd was the main suspect; he was also the main suspect in the murder of a coworker of Suzanne's a year earlier.
After Suzanne's murder, Floyd put her son Michael into foster care and fled again. During one family's adoption process, it was determined that Michael was not Floyd's biological son with his stepdaughter. This prevented Floyd from legally reclaiming custody of the child in 1994. So he kidnapped Michael at gunpoint from his school and disappeared with him. The boy's whereabouts, or remains, have never been determined. Floyd has given many different statements as to what happened to the child, though as recently as 2015, he admitted to killing him.

God did not rescue Suzanne, Michael, or Philip.

Franklin Floyd, now 74, is currently on death row in Florida.

If there was ever a story that could make someone question God, to ask Him why, to even demand an answer and accuse God of wrong, as Job did, that's the one.

But first, my question to those whose disbelief and disdain for God is based on the suffering in the world, is: on what are you basing your criteria?
Why is God obligated to rescue from hardship? To whom has He made that promise? Why does the genuineness of His love depend on how much or how little pain He allows you to experience?
If one's perception or idea of God is not based on any specific text or doctrine, then those expectations of God are arbitrary and self-concocted - they mean nothing. They're an incomplete contract, written and agreed upon by only one party. If I decided that you are, because I say so, obligated to give me half of your weekly earnings, and you have not agreed to this, what wrong do you do by withholding money from me? What contract have you broken? What hate have you shown me? What right have I to call you evil, let alone declare you to be non-existent because of rules devised by me and me alone?

But, let's suppose one's ideas of God have been built on the Christian Bible. (I don't speak for any other God - there are a wealth of deities, spirits, constellations, trees, goats, fairies, and dictators worshiped in the world, and they're none of my business. But I do speak for the one true God. "What blithering madman is this who claims to be a spokesman for God?"
"the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." -Revelation 19:10.
Christians are called to be about our Father's business.)

From the Bible, one can gather no other portrait of life on Earth than that of an ugly, uncaring, unfeeling world where murderers and thieves are rampant, liars who aid them are abundant, and the cries of those who have been hurt by them seem to fall on deaf ears. The very authors of this Book we came to call the Holy Scriptures complained in howls of bone-chilling agony of the very same things of which we complain - we, who declare God to be a myth because none of us is placed in cosmic bubble wrap.
Even if one uses the Bible as evidence against the God it proclaims, our accusations come to nothing and our own words become a snare to our case, for in it we'll not find that God has promised deliverance for every person from every trial; He has not even reserved special exceptions for the most wonderful people from the most gut-wrenching trials.

God has promised us nothing as it relates to deliverance from the never-ending suffering on this planet. He promises us strength and bravery and the guts to love in the midst of such ugliness, but not deliverance. (Though, being that some would attribute faith and hope and love to mere madness and "viruses of the mind," as Dawkins coined, insanity is a deliverance to some extent.)
What kind of pitiful, pathetic existence we would live if we were exempt and immune from the violence and the slander of this world. Life would be an episode of the Teletubbies and God would be an absentee landlord who couldn't care less about the unfolding of the story of His people and His creation. It wouldn't be a story worth telling.
I'd rather be in danger in a real world than catatonic in a fairy tale world. I have more peace knowing I'm prone to murder, to a tire iron striking the back of my skull for the $17 in my wallet, a menial and unimpressive end, than in a life where I don't have to choose love, to choose to do right. What miserable deeds would our "good deeds" be if they were robotic and compulsive, rather than borne of the choice and the struggle to love and overcome hate and the spewing of venom so that light may prevail.

Gloria Copeland (bluh) was in the news recently for claiming, "If you have Jesus, you don't need a flu shot." Mrs. Copeland does not speak a Biblical truth. Contrary to the prosperity peddling of the Joel Osteens of the world, Jesus did not die to keep you free from ailments; He died to give you eternal life that outlasts a fallen world's mortality, to be a Light in you that outshines the darkness that does not comprehend Him. His blood was shed so that we could be made anew and forgiven for the wretched things we do, things that make the world such a dark place, ugly things we choose to do, just like the killers and politicians, and blame them on an absence of God.
God does not promise us carefree or pain-free lives (if that can be called living). Rather, God promises us eternal life through His Son Jesus, who was abandoned on the cross by the same God we accuse of apathy, all to give us life - not mere existence - peace and joy in His life, His suffering, and in His resurrection. And that life outshines all of the darkness of mere existence. 
Life hurts, but it's worth it. Existence is fleeting. Life is eternal.

If all of that truth meets your ire and disgust, then maybe this God isn't the God for you. I know that sounds pessimistic on my part, and I'd give anything for just one person to believe, but what else can I say? Should I blaspheme and make false promises to you on God's behalf of a life of sunsets and puppies? Should I burst out in tears and beg you to believe in Him? Should I stay up nights highlighting the best Ravi Zacharias quotes? Believe me, if I thought it would bring you to Jesus Christ, I'd carve my prayers for you in the skin of my forearms. But I know it wouldn't lead you to believe. Nothing I can do or say can make a believer in Christ. To think such would be vanity and idolatry. That's a matter between you and the Holy Spirit. My raving about darkness and light is to you like Samson dancing blind before the Philistines. God didn't put me here to serve apologetic theology.

Why, then, did He put me here? To glorify Him, surely, but what else? Who knows? Maybe to be murdered. As grim as that sounds, it is not absurd to think that maybe God has pre-ordained that someday I'll be murdered. Maybe He's used my suffering in the years leading up to my death to soften my heart for the moments after I'm struck, so that I can gasp to my killer that I forgive him as I collapse in a pool of blood. Even if my dying forgiveness did nothing for the killer's repentance and rehabilitation, but fell on a stony heart.
If that's the case, so be it - God owes me no explanation. He owes me no deliverance. He owes me no eternal life, but in His love and grace, and in His own unimaginable suffering on the cross, eternal life has been given to me. And He's given me the audacity, the nerve, the guts to believe.

But before I meet my end by blunt force trauma to the head during a petty robbery, I've got a dog to help.

-with love and anger,
Bud.

"But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion." -Ecclesiastes 9:4

A Thing is a Thing, Not What You Think About That Thing

There's a copy-n-paste post going around the ol' Facebook that, to paraphrase, asks people the question, "If my faith in Christ does no harm to you, why are you so against it?" I tend to avoid copy-n-paste things, but one comment on such a post caught my eye:

"lol this is so dumb. Your faith is the biggest argument against equal rights for the LGBT community, the reason why planned parent hood is being defunded , religion is the reason for all of the war in the world. Dumb, gullible, ignorant and oppressive. That's the harm it brings"

What the person who wrote this comment failed to realize is that the Christian faith in itself is not to blame, but people who misunderstand and misuse it.
One doesn't need faith to harm people - Hitler had no faith in any deity, yet he persecuted gays, much like Che Guevara, also an atheist. Not to mention the Marxist atheism that led the likes of Stalin to kill and imprison countless religious Russians. Rather, it is the misuse of a faith (or lack thereof) that causes harm. If a Christian tries to legislate morality by instilling their belief into law, that is misuse of that faith. I cannot support the decision to outlaw gay marriage due to my religious belief, which does not condone it. Concerning any similar situation, how can I hold non-believers to a standard that even I, a believer, can't live up to? That's why I need Jesus, after all.
There are exceptions of course: if a faith teaches against things that are universally agreed upon (well, sort of) by everyone of all faiths and lacks of faith: like murder, robbery, rape, etc. On the flip side, if a faith, condones and encourages something dangerous, like blowing up things in order to bring people into submission to their deity, then that faith must then be considered harmful.

But even the Bible does not teach that faith is something to be imposed on people, but must be a choice. The Crusades, the Inquisitions, were all wrong. So, again, it's not the faith that brings harm - it's those who misuse it. If I claimed Christopher Hitchens was risen from the grave and wanted me to oppress gays, when that's clearly not true, it would be no reflection on Mr. Hitchens - it would be only the result of my own deluded, erroneous use of his name. Likewise with Christianity.

A simple way to put it: a thing is a thing, and not what people say or think about that thing.

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-4-15: "An Uncomfortable, Inconvenient God"

I've often heard it said and written, as an antithesis to the existence of, or belief in, God, that the concept is much too "comfortable" and "convenient" for Him to be true. That with the idea of a God, we fit too well in the world, in the universe. I've learned, however, after reading the Bible, the Book from which a Christian should derive his or her notions about God, that though He is loving and wonderful, His truth is anything but comfortable and convenient.

How convenient it would be if His holy word did not tell me that life on this earth will be rank with injustices and grief; how convenient it would be if He promised me smooth sailing instead. But He doesn't. How comfortable I'd be in this world if He gave me an explanation of the universe's origin that didn't make Bill Nye think I'm a superstitious bumpkin. But He didn't. How I love to lust, to be angry and spiteful, to hold grudges, to hate. But what a buzzkill that I believe in a God who tells me these things are destructive to myself, and to others.
How convenient to my morality would it be if I had no one to whom to answer, to whom to be accountable, and if all my rotten deeds (and even my few good deeds) rotted along with my corpse after death as I cease to exist, and if those I left behind would wait for the sun to explode and to be like me. But, what an inconvenience it is to my conscience that I will answer to Almighty God for my time on Earth.
How comfortable it would be to blend in with the rest of the world, to be just like everyone else, a world where every fingerprint and snowflake are exactly alike and mean nothing (except when my DNA is needed for a conviction for my embarrassing acts in Santa Fe when I'd stopped taking my Lamictal regimen back in 2011).
How comfortable it would be to go unrecognized in the moral dilemmas we make, to have no conviction from Christ, who the world dismisses and calls a liar. But His Holy and inconvenient Spirit reminds me to speak up, to proclaim Him who died for me and rose again, and who longs for the souls around me in the world - the world in which I don't fit - to be saved as well.

God is beautiful, He is true, He is sovereign, He is merciful, He is good. I suppose He is convenient for me in that respect - that the only real God is the One who took on wrath and punishment on the cross, so that the punishments I deserved would never fall on me, so that I could live abundant life. I am one lucky bumpkin.
But how inconvenient it is for my flesh that the same God convicts me to do good and to shun evil. How inconvenient it is for my flesh that He tells me He loves me, and other gorgeous things that make my cynical mind cringe, when I fail.

I thank God for making me so uncomfortable, for being so inconvenient.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"Now when I looked, there was a hand stretched out to me; and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. Then He spread it before me; and there was writing on the inside and on the outside, and written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe. Moreover He said to me, "Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that scroll.
And He said to me, "Son of man, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you." So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness." -Ezekiel 2:9-3:3

The Levite's Concubine: Superstitious Barbarians of the 21st Century

Being that every "trending" news story on my Facebook feed deals with someone killing someone else, I was moved to write this a couple of weeks ago.

One of the most disturbing villains in the Bible is often overlooked, despite the heinous nature of his deed. He doesn't have the notorious reputation of Jezebel or Herod - his name isn't even recorded - but he obviously possessed a mind as sadistic. To summarize a long story, in the nineteenth chapter of the stark and often troubling book of Judges, we're told of an unnamed Levite who, while traveling with his concubine, stayed in the village of Gibeah. There, certain men echoing the depravity of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, surrounded the house where the Levite and his concubine were staying, and demanded to have sex with him. The Levite refused, and forced his concubine outside with the men, who "ravished her so that she died."

The woman later stumbled back to the house and collapsed dead at the doorstep. When the Levite found her, his words of anguish and lament (sarcasm) were, "Get up, let's go." So, seeing that she was dead, he placed her body on his donkey, and when he returned home, he cut her corpse into twelve pieces, and sent a piece of her to each territory of Israel. In the next chapter, he gave his reason for his hideous actions, claiming he did it to make the nation of Israel aware of the rape the men in Gibeah had committed (though it was he who had given her up to them).
All of this wickedness eventually led to a war in Israel.
The final words of the startling book of Judges perfectly sum up why so many atrocities happened in Israel during this period: "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25).

Today, cozy with Snuggies and Netflix, we look back on such things and want to throw up in disgust, and rightfully so. "Barbaric," we say with disdain. But we, as if we were anthropologists of morality, separate ourselves and our own time from wickedness such as this; we attribute it to a lack of common sense and an abundance of ancient religious superstition. We muse in our minds that today's society, safe in the embrace of the legacies of Steve Jobs and Stephen Hawking, is above such depravity.

But, a look at a few of this year's (2014) news headlines suggests otherwise:
"Body of missing 4-year-old autistic boy found in South Carolina pond."
"8 children stabbed to death in the Cairns suburb of Manoora."
"Boko Haram insurgents kidnap at least 185 women and children in Nigeria."
"Edmonton mass murder: bodies of 7 adults, 2 children found in 3 places."
"Pakistan: Taliban school attack kills 141, including 132 children."
"Dover, NH: Man shoots wife, self in hospital; sister says he did it 'out of love.'"

We gloss over the fact that it wasn't even one hundred years ago that many in the nation of Germany followed a madman named Adolf Hitler and gleefully supported the Nazis' quest to annihilate the Jews from the face of the planet. And we forget there is no shortage of groups today that mold their ideals and charters after these monsters. And we forge that just fifty years ago, these groups in our own country were lynching men for the color of their skin, as racist mayors were unleashing vicious dogs.

Yet we have the nerve to assert that faith in God is out of place in this modern, "civilized" age of reason and carbon dating.

The most strident of atheists looks at the roots of religion - any religion - as a blithering group of bumpkins and jumpy, guilty simpletons attributing good and bad to an object, some stone monolith perhaps, and bowing down to it with caveman-like grunts and Pentecostal-like hooting. But I see the exact same thing happening in the unbelieving world today, in reverse: those who curse the notion of faith in disgust bowing down to the accelerator mass spectrometer, with proud announcements that carbon dating and the humor of Seth MacFarlane have come to save us from religion, and if we only believe in the words of Christopher Hitchens, we can be saved from ghastly superstitions of old, and everything will be alright - and explained.

Before and after the Flood, God describes, as a whole and without exception, the natural hearts of man as continually evil. We need a Savior. We need a Power not of our own making. We are wretched by nature, and would never tell ourselves so. We exalt ourselves like the Pharisees who plotted to kill Jesus, that we are above the barbaric nature of men of old. But an hour spent watching the news proves otherwise.

We need Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was given as an atonement for our sins, so that our hearts may be open to true love, to the knowledge of the mercy and grace of God, the zealous desire He has to cleanse us of sin and give us everlasting life.
We today are no better than the marauders and rapists of ancient days. The ability to Skype has not made the hearts of man any less prone to fanaticism, racism, or barbarianism.

"Therefore hear this now, you who are given to pleasures, who dwell securely, who say in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, nor shall I know the loss of children'; But these two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day: the loss of children, and widowhood. They shall come upon you in their fullness because of the multitude of your sorceries, for the great abundance of your enchantments. For you have trusted in your wickedness; you have said, 'No one sees me'; your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you; and you have said in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one else besides me.' Therefore evil shall come upon you; you shall not know from where it arises. And trouble shall fall upon you; you will not be able to put it off. And desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you shall not know" (Isaiah 47:8-11).

Hashtags and ribbons for awareness don't make us better than killers, thieves, and rapists of eras gone by. Only the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ can deliver us from our evil selves. Dismissing this God we call a superstition, an ignorant crutch, has not made our hands less bloody, our minds less warped, our wisdom less hollow. In denying the need to be more like the repentant thief on the cross, we remain the brute, barbaric Levite. And what's more, we are Pharisees of time: we exalt ourselves as better than the dregs of days past because we can read On the Origin of Species and watch Religulous on our tablets, with a handful of Starbucks, and a mouthful of gluten-free pretzel puffs.

"There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”
-Luke 13:1-9

My Brother Jeffrey Dahmer

A belief, or lack thereof, can't be bolstered by big names. Atheism isn't given merit simply because Ricky Gervais and Seth MacFarlane are atheists; but likewise, I can't make a bigger case for Christianity simply by pointing out that Norm MacDonald and Alice Cooper are Christians. A belief must be judged by its own merits, not by the names - prestigious or otherwise - of those who subscribe to it.

I was thinking about this recently, and the names whose fame - or notoriety - makes no difference because those names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and not bolstered or burdened with worldly praise or hatred. "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away" (Revelation 21:4). Two of the well-known names that came to mind were those of two convicted serial killers, David Berkowitz (the only participant in the "Son of Sam" killings to be caught), and a name reviled even more, Jeffrey Dahmer, who raped and murdered at least seventeen men, and indulged in such things as cannibalism and necrophilia with their remains. Before he was killed in prison in 1994, he accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and repented of evil.
Some may argue that convicts often "find religion" to warrant a release or new trial; David Berkowitz, however, refuses to attend any of his parole hearings, and it's quite illogical to argue that Dahmer professed Jesus in order to look better - no amount of religion or good deeds would have ever seen him released from prison, or gained him one ounce of good favor in the eyes of the public. And Dahmer knew that.

I don't pretend for an instant that Dahmer's salvation lessens the pain of his victims' families on Earth, nor do I pretend that it exonerates him for his gruesome crimes. God will forgive you of any terrible thing done on this earth, but the state will still rightfully sentence you to prison.

But as I said, Dahmer's name came up when I was thinking of "famous Christians," and how I can't sway anyone to believe in the divinity of Christ by dropping names. I even began to think some names would further drive some away from the Gospel - some might ask how God could forgive a deviant, a cannibal, a rapist, a murderer.
Jeffrey Dahmer, as long as he was on this earth, and as long as the record of his awful deeds remains, will always be a monster. I was a monster once too. I don't pretend that my deeds were anything like Dahmer's, but he and I were once both in danger of eternal separation from God's love, had we died unrepentant of our respective evils. Jeffrey Dahmer was a monster indeed, but he became my brother in Christ.

This might draw the ire of the more ravenously skeptical; a serial killer repents and asks forgiveness of an Authority higher than any Wisconsin court, and finds peace in the final years of his life, spent in a cold gray prison. I was asked once, "Are you tellin' me there's a God who will send a cold-blooded murderer to heaven if he repents but He'll send a gay man to hell?!"
No, I don't tell you that for a second. God offers grace and forgiveness to all who accept it through faith in His Son Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead. He sent Jeffrey Dahmer to heaven not by Dahmer's own works, but because of God's grace. He'll send me to heaven not because of my own works, but in spite of my own works, for most of them on this earth have been bitter and bigoted. I don't recall the Bible describing homosexuality as an unpardonable sin. But any gay man or woman who believes in Jesus as the Son of God and abides in Him will not be cast to hell, despite the ignorance of the signs at Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas.

The unpardonable sin, for which Jesus condemned the Pharisees, cannot be committed today, for those Pharisees are long dead. Indeed some remain in the Pharisaical mindset, but that's another matter. Now, the only unpardonable sin is more of an unpardonable state - dying in the state of unbelief, of denying Jesus as Lord. But if you believe in Him, the atoning power of His blood shed on the cross is by no means nullified or rendered void by the sins forgiven you.

I'm grieved that Jeffrey Dahmer chose to spend his time on Earth doing the atrocious things he did. But I'm glad that when he and I and all other saved persons stand in God's kingdom unashamed, I'll know him not as a deviant and a murderer, and he'll know me not as a racist and a liar. Maybe this famous name does help to bolster Christianity's claims...

"I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." -our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as recorded in Luke 15:10