Bury My Heart at Joe Byrd Cemetery...Oh, and Bury the Rest of Me There Too

Last year, I found myself with no choice but to adopt an opposition to the death penalty. My newfound position stemmed from my vehemently pro-life/anti-abortion views. One of the standard arguments for the pro-choice side of the abortion debate would be the perceived hypocrisy of so many who are "pro-life," but support the death penalty and oppose food stamp programs. And while I've never opposed food stamps, I was often on the fence about capital punishment. The Law of Moses gave clear instructions for the death penalty, but the New Testament's position on the subject has been a source of debate, even among we who believe (though the apostle Paul writes, "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." -Romans 8:2, emphasis added; and, if we're going to base a support of capital punishment on the Old Covenant in the Bible, we'd also have to execute those who commit adultery).

But I soon realized I had no choice. Being pro-life must not end at the womb or at birth. It must carry into the child's well-being, education, and even into old age. Therefore, I decided I wouldn't give the other side of the abortion debate the ammunition - no longer could they pin me down in some generic mold of hypocrisy that they've concocted.

I oppose the death penalty.

I'm not sure how the two thoughts became connected - the thought of where I'd like to be buried when I die, and my opposition to capital punishment - but they did connect somehow, and left me with the wish to be buried in a prison cemetery, any one that will have me.
In January, I made a call to the Texas Prison Museum, to gather information on the Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery in Huntsville, Texas, a cemetery for prisoners in my state who die with no one to claim their remains. When I asked the admittedly odd question about a non-inmate being buried there, the answer was that, if for no other reason, I might be prohibited only because they're quickly running out of room.
Many prison inmates, whether sentenced to life or not, die while incarcerated each day, and many have no relatives to claim their bodies (and many have relatives who simply refuse to claim their bodies based on the deeds they've done). I'd assume that Texas would have to open a new state prison cemetery at some point. But when I pass away, I hope that any prison cemetery that will have me will allow my remains to be buried there.

My reasons are simple. When the Lord Jesus returns to gather all who are saved, both dead and alive, He will no doubt gather even those who died on the gallows, in the electric chair, the gas chamber, or the lethal injection stretcher, who confessed their sins and repented before their executions. And if I'm so pro-life, so opposed to the killing of a human being in the womb or outside of it, I can only empathize with those who were executed for their crimes by the state, though they were cleansed of them by a much Higher Authority. I've never done anything deserving of death according to the state, but had I lived during the time of the Old Testament, I could have been stoned to death for taking the Lord's name in vain, for adultery, or any number of sins for which I've been forgiven, under the New Covenant of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, it would be an honor to be raised at Jesus' Second Coming with men who, like me, are forgiven scoundrels, criminals purged with hyssop. It's my desire to meet the Lord in the air, but it's my dream to meet Him with men who had no one in their lifetime to claim their mortal bodies. In death, they were in the company of only strangers, guards and shackles. In life, they'll be in the company of their fellow saints.    

I suppose I could find just as many forgiven wretches and deviants in any cemetery, and many graves with the careless word "Unknown" etched where a name should be. But most of those people weren't killed by their state, their deaths condoned by many governors and politicians who rally against death by lethal injection in the womb, but support death by lethal injection outside it.

I don't want a special tombstone to designate that I wasn't a prisoner. I'd just need a simple marker with a number for the sake of records, the same as those who died as inmates. Jesus Christ will know where to find me when He returns.
I suppose there was no way to write this blog without looking both morbid and fanatical. I can admit to the fanatical part - I know that if I'm a fanatical supporter of life, I won't kill anyone to make my point. But I don't find eternal life and the promise of God to be morbid. He is a God of life, not of death. My job in this world is to proclaim the good news of eternal life offered to us by the Lord Jesus, paid for by His own blood; and I hope to someday be risen next to men who died alone and forsaken, but forgiven and blessed with eternal life by Him whose authority exceeds any court or lynch mob.

"There ain't no grave gonna hold my body down
When I hear the trumpet sound
I'm gonna get up outta the ground
There ain't no grave gonna hold my body down."
-traditional American folk song

That's Not Science - And That's Not Jesus

A few months ago, a friend asked me about my widely criticized, Biblically-influenced, belief that our planet is only several thousand years old, rather than the hundreds of millions of years believed by most scientists (though to be honest, even if one goes by the Bible, he still has no positive idea how old this world is). I didn't want to debate my beliefs, and basically stated that I trust God more than I trust man, and that I believe in the divinity of His word, this Book we came to call the Bible. I don't dispute that my spiritual beliefs are dogmatic - if I believe something to be an absolute truth, such as "2 plus 3 makes 5," I also can't help but be "dogmatic" if I refuse to believe the possible answer could be pi. When pressed further about my beliefs, I pointed out how many times scientists have been wrong over the centuries; for example, many of Aristotle's theories are now known to be butt-over-tea-kettle wrong, and yet he's still lauded as one of the grandfathers of science.

My friend's response was simply, "That wasn't science."

For a while, I thought that to be a silly and dodgy answer. But the more I thought about it, I realized my friend was right. No, Aristotle's misses weren't science. I believe God gave us science to study and better care for our environment, our bodies, and so forth - and being so, I believe true science, much like true religion, holds one true answer to our questions, even if man provides a myriad of blunders to try and explain them.
Man's wrongs don't render science null and void. Even now-defunct scientific theories that were widely held until just the 19th century - the Miasmatic theory of disease, Luminiferous aether, the immovability of Earth's continents, the "static universe" (if I've misspelled Miasmatic or Luminiferous, I apologize) - have been debunked and abandoned in droves, yet that doesn't make science a waste of time. And it didn't negate the many times scientists have been right to be somehow wrong.

Likewise, man's wrongs don't render my God or my faith in Jesus as the Messiah to be useless. The Westboro Baptist Churches, the false doctrines of Mormonism and the Jehovah's Witnesses, and etc., are all against God's words, twisted doctrines that claim Him but are in direct opposition to His truth. Man's lies and evil actions don't render God's truth ineffective. Fred Phelps was to Christianity what Immanuel Velikovsky was to independent theory. The abominable "Phinehas Priesthood" is to Christianity what Cyrus Teed was to...to um, not-getting-electrocuted-and-developing-wildly-inaccurate-theories-about-the-planet.

If a person does something in the name of Christ that is actually against Christ - picketing funerals, condemning someone to hell while frothing at the mouth, banishing someone from attending their church because they've been divorced, etc. - this is not the command or love of Christ. Much like my friend's assertion that it was not "science" to believe the universe to be spherical and finite. Just because I misidentified that obsolete belief with science doesn't make it science.

A disproven theory is not science, much like hypocrisy is not Jesus.

I've always found the Bible to be in harmony with nature and science. Certainly the Bible acknowledges God's creation and sovereignty over these things (Psalm 147:8, Isaiah 5:6, Job chapters 38 and 39), which many dispute. I understand that. But, the Bible doesn't claim that angels dump buckets of water from the sky to make rain - it acknowledges rain as moisture and precipitation descending from clouds (Psalm 147:8, Proverbs 25:14, Ecclesiastes 11:3, etc.). The Bible doesn't claim mischievous sprites make flowers and grass in underground factories - it acknowledges that plants need seeds, rain, soil, and such to grow (Deuteronomy 32:2, Leviticus 26:4, Jesus' parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13, etc.).
The Bible never described Earth as a flat center of the universe, but a planet suspended in space, when as yet no images from satellites and space stations existed (Job 26:7 - Job is, by the way, widely accepted, even among non-believing scholars, to be among, if not the, oldest recorded book of the Bible).
The Bible never claimed a fixed amount of stars or celestial bodies, as other early astronomers did - God alluded to an uncountable amount of stars when He told Abraham in Genesis 15:5, "'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.'"

Likewise, when contrasted with myths, the Bible always makes a distinction between the natural and the Supernatural. Unlike in the myth of Icarus, where it was supposed that men are just somehow able to fly when they strap wax wings to themselves. I once read a Native American legend during which a warrior went to sleep and told his thigh (or in other versions, his excrement) to keep watch and speak to warn him if enemies approached - because apparently that's just how it works.
Not in the Bible. When miraculous and awesome events are described, they're always separated from natural occurrence and attributed to the supernatural work of an omnipotent and all-powerful God. This ranges from Creation to the plagues of Egypt to Jonah surviving in the belly of a large fish, and most importantly, to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. It's a Pasteur-like dismissal of spontaneous generation - the Bible teaches that the awesome doesn't "just happen."

Scientists and science may not always, nor have they always been, in harmony. And, those who claim the name of Christ are not in harmony with the truth of the Lord when they blaspheme His name with evil ideas and doctrines.
But truth can never be separated from itself. 

Wolves in Wolves' Clothing: Last Thoughts on Fred Phelps

In 2011, I watched as many condemned other Americans for celebrating the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed.
Now in 2014, I watch as many of those same people celebrate that Fred Phelps, founder of the notoriously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, died last night.

At first I was irritated by those who scolded the people who rejoiced at bin Laden's death, but they were right. I was glad that a terrorist and enemy to the sanctity of human life had been eliminated, but why should I rejoice that someone is now in hell - the only place where God's love is perpetually absent, and no chance to repent is ever found again? That's what makes it hell, after all.

I'd hesitate to make the blatant assumption that Mr. Phelps did not repent on his deathbed; I hope he did, but I can't prove it. If he didn't, I'm sorry to say I believe he'll be sent to everlasting condemnation on the Day of Judgment. I don't think anyone who unrepentantly does things that mislead people about the doctrine of Christ, about God Himself, enters the kingdom of heaven. And Mr. Phelps, and the hypocrites like him, have driven so many away from the Savior by their hatred.

Fred Phelps' death should rightly only bring Christ's disciples sorrow and a churning in our stomachs. Hopefully, we recognize that churning as the Spirit groaning inside us, convicting us to "do good and put to silence the ignorance of foolish men," as the apostle Peter wrote, so that the illusion of the Great Deceiver, the devil himself, might be shattered, even if that illusion is worked through wolves in sheep's clothing - or in the case of Westboro Baptist Church, wolves in wolves' clothing.
"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’" -our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Matthew 7:21-23

Adam Raised a Cain (A Discourse on Sin & the Garden of Eden)

"In the Bible, Cain slew Abel 
 and east of Eden he was cast
 You're born into this life paying for the sins
 of somebody else's past."
 -Bruce Springsteen, "Adam Raised a Cain"

A female friend was trying to text me the other day, when she complained about her phone. "It's taking forever to send messages."
"Taking forever, eh?" I remarked, "your phone must be a woman."
AMIRITE fellas?!
We men and women have fun berating each other. It reminds me of the playful boys-vs-girls debate among believers, and even non-believers, about whose fault it truly was that mankind fell into sin in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve, the first two human beings on Earth, disobeyed God and ate of the forbidden fruit. And while the man in me wants to put the blame at 60/40, judging by Scripture I can only surmise that the Fall in the Garden was equally the fault of man and woman.

We read in Genesis 2:15 "Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it." Concerning Eve's creation, she was described in relation to Adam as "a helper comparable to him." Further, Genesis 2:24 tells us, concerning the spousal relationship, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."
In the third chapter of Genesis, we're sent headlong into the Fall of Man. "The serpent," it says, "was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made." 
Note here the distinction - maybe I'm just reading too much into semantics, but the serpent (who we of course know was Satan) is identified with "the field," not with the Garden. If one accepts any significance about the use of the word "field" rather than "garden" in describing the serpent, we can logically assume he had no business in the Garden of Eden. He was an intruder. And, as we read previously, God had given Adam the specific duty of tending and keeping the Garden. So, Adam had overlooked one responsibility already in preventing the serpent from entering his home - just as we today must keep evil influences and destructive behaviors from our own doors.

What happens next is infamous - it should be, because it led to the world sucking. The serpent persuaded Eve, through lies and twisting of speech, that there would be no disastrous consequence to eating of the fruit of "the tree of life." So she did, her and "her husband with her" (emphasis added, Genesis 3:6).
Long story short, mortality and sin entered the world, Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and every ugly, hurtful deed that's ever been done can be traced back to this fateful day.

But concerning whose "fault" it was that this happened, we see plainly that Adam and Eve were "one flesh," that Adam had a responsibility and duty in overseeing the Garden of Eden, that he faltered in negligence when he allowed the serpent near his wife, and that Eve too stumbled when she heeded the word of the enemy. The man and woman were one flesh.
In the New Testament, Paul at two points seems to distribute responsibility evenly. In his masterpiece of Romans, Paul writes in the fifth chapter, "through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned". (It would be an injustice to grace if I didn't include Paul's complete thought here - he writes that though sin entered the world through one man, "the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.") Later, in his first epistle to his protege and faithful companion Timothy, while referring to the authority of men in the church, Paul scolds Eve particularly for her part in the Fall, writing, "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression." (1 Timothy 2:14)

I used to read a lot about serial killers. One thing that linked almost all of them was an abusive and painful childhood. So many of these murderers' parents or guardians beat or neglected them, allowed them to be exposed to hideous things, or forced them to commit atrocious acts at tender ages. These killers' parents made them pay for their twisted actions, leading them to paths of darkness and destruction.
In God's grace, He often won't punish us for our sins - but we sure make each other pay for them.

It goes right back to the beginning of man on Earth - if Cain's parents had not sinned, he would not have been envious of his brother Abel, would never have killed his own flesh and blood. (Not to suggest our sins as individuals, much like Cain's sins, are merely results of environment or ancestry - rather, they are the result of our surrender to temptation, as it was from the beginning in the Garden).

But it should also be noted that the first Biblical prophecy of the Messiah, Jesus, is spoken directly by God, during His casting of Adam and Eve from the Garden - He says to Satan the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." (Genesis 3:15) In the bruising of His heel, God was speaking of the unthinkable pain His Son would endure on the cross as the ultimate sacrifice to atone for the sins of man; this would bring doom to Satan, a destiny for a lake of fire, therefore the bruising of his head. But compared to the abundant life, on Earth and after, which Jesus' death and resurrection gives to so many, the pain He would endure on account of sin would seem like a wound of the heel.

Some might ask "Why didn't God just atone for the sins of all mankind right then and there?"
Thousands of years passed between the casting of man from the Garden of Eden and the death of Jesus on the cross. In those thousands of years, not only were we given prophecy after prophecy of the coming Savior who would atone for us, but we see the Hebrews who lived under the rigorous Law of Moses - which was fulfilled by the final, ultimate sacrificial Lamb in Jesus Christ. So, we have thousands of years of prophets foretelling the suffering and victory of the Messiah, and years of "the law of sin and death" as Paul described it. These things were an ominous prelude to what was to come, a prologue if you will, so that we would have more reason to believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
Despite this, there are still many who don't believe - how much less would believe if Jesus had been sacrificed on the same day as the Fall of Man? We would have had no prophets, no anchor of history, to affirm to Jesus' Authority.

Speaking of prophecy and the rotten things we do to one another, individually or collectively, sometimes I let the assurances of Biblical prophecy turn into apathy. For example, I know there will never be world peace, at least until Christ's millennial reign, so I don't fret about it; I know we'll never eliminate poverty and starvation from the world because the Bible tells us that people will become more and more evil, always swindling, stealing, and wronging each other. I believe in global warming and climate change, but I believe it to be a prelude to the Great Tribulation which Jesus described. And all of this was entered into the world through the devil's deception in the Garden.
But I shouldn't think that the fact that the world will always be a rotten place excuses me from my responsibility as an individual - Christ has given us a responsibility to live peaceably as individuals even if many others don't, to give and bless those in need, even if there are many who don't, not to litter and to care for the environment, even if so many don't even acknowledge that the environment is changing, and not for the better.
Will it bring peace to the Middle East or Washington DC? No. Will it eliminate tyranny and poverty? No. But each good deed done in Christ's name, no matter how small in the world's eyes, sends a ripple of hope in a sea of very ugly, bloody water.

“Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
-our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Matthew 13:24-30

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

Why I Can't Attack Evolution & Islam & Etc

I've learned recently, or may have just forgotten in complacency, that if one has guts enough to believe in something, he or she can't be thin-skinned about it.

Among the words of Jesus I remember and cherish the most are those recorded in Matthew 10:16 - "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves."

I've long touted the claim that I hope to keep my mind as narrow as "the narrow way" preached by our Lord. If I leave it open to any doctrine, teaching, theory, philosophy or creed, I become a random mess of miscellany. My mind and heart must test what is spoken to me before I believe it. And if I believe the words of the Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit to be the absolute truth, then to those words I have a duty, to preach, to encourage, to defend. But I've recently come to realize that the verse on which the practice of 'Christian apologetics,' i.e. the defense of our belief, should be based is Matthew 5:39, when Jesus said, "whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also."
Actions speak louder than words. If I'm criticized for my faith, I do no good, I win no souls for Christ, I warm no hearts, by retaliating with endless strife and arguing. Sure, I may have once owned Richard Dawkins in a debate at Oxford Lecture Hall, and made him hold my jacket while doing so - but who did I feed? Who did I bless, to whom did I minister?
Nobody.
God's words through the apostle Paul are "Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies," and "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal."

I would have done far more good to have kept silent, left the lecture hall, and went to whom the Lord led me to bless, rather than keying "LOSER" on Mr. Dawkins' car and going to the Manchester United after-game party at a local pub.
Jesus' silence during His interrogation was among His greatest works - He knew the men questioning and striking Him would have accepted no answer He could have given; the Pharisees were only determined to see Him crucified, Herod Antipas wanted only a miracle for his own amusement, and Pontius Pilate only wanted desperately to be rid of the whole matter. Jesus' actions spoke louder than any response He could have given - He gave Himself on the cross as a ransom for the souls of you and me, and rose again from the dead.
As Isaiah prophesied six hundred or so years before Jesus' birth, "He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth" (Isaiah 53:7).

I convince no one of the truth of the Gospel by arguing about it; I have a much better chance abiding by it.

So, what does this have to do with my defense of the Gospel and of my Lord, and my newfound refusal to directly attack any other doctrine?

I don't know if the Koran teaches or endorses violence against non-Muslims; as far as religion goes, it's really irrelevant to me, because what I do know is that Islam does not profess Jesus Christ as "the way, the truth and the life," as the only Lord and Savior. Rather, Islam teaches that Jesus was only a prophet or "helper" of God, and further denies His death on the cross and Resurrection from the dead. This is all I need to know about Islam, or any religion, creed, or doctrine of spiritual substance, before I give it any attention. It doesn't matter if Scientology truly teaches men to eat placentas or not - it does matter that Scientology denies Jesus as the Christ. It doesn't matter if Mormonism teaches its members to wear special underwear or not - it does matter that Mormonism was founded when false gospels were added to the truth of Jesus, which the Word of God strictly forbids.
Do I desire for Muslims or Scientologists to come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior? Do I desire for Mormons to abandon the false teachings they follow? Absolutely. But I cannot lead them to Him with venom in my words.

As for the evolutionary and Big Bang theories, at least in the way they've been so widely accepted, there are many Christians who subscribe to them. I've found that science and the Bible are in harmony - but when a theory or claim, scientific or not, denies what was authored by God through prophets and parchment, I can't accept it. For the the Big Bang or human evolution to work, the Biblical account of Creation must be denied. This comes from the Scripture I believe to be holy and sovereign, from God's mouth to man's hand, a Book He would not let become faulty or flawed. I don't have to attack the ins and outs of evolution or other theories to defend what I believe.

I'm too stupid for lots of things - mathematics, algebra, women, and science among them. The most profound scientific thing in my argumentative canon, and even this is probably theoretically flawed somehow, is that if Louis Pasteur disproved the myth of spontaneous generation, why is the Big Bang Theory still being taught? Again, I'm sure someone from the scientific field would correct me or explain this, but remember: I know little to nothing about those things. So if you're a scientist, you probably would find it frivolous to correct an idiot like me, admittedly unlearned, on my claim.

And, again, being uneducated on matters of evolution, Big Bangs and et cetera, I've no business attacking them. I do however have every right to dismiss them as they pertain to the Word I believe to be flawless and holy. Much like I would not want someone with little or no knowledge of the Bible to attack it, if I were an evolutionist, I'd have no time for someone like me, whose last scientific studies came from watching Beakman's World, criticizing their claims.

It's enough for a person to defend his or her own beliefs without directly attacking another's; if the defense is done so in love, he or she makes a case, whether he can prove it or not, even if there are others who believe the same thing though they may not behave as they should. In the eyes of the world, my claim of Jesus' divinity may be dismissed as superstition, but I open the door to many more ears if I stick to what I know, and who I love, rather than what I don't know and those whose love I could drive away from accepting the Gospel.

May the grace and peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Things To Know Before Cursing President Obama

I'll not deny that Christianity is dogmatic - any world view, be it social, spiritual, or otherwise, is dogmatic, if one holds it to be true. But I do assert that the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ have freed me from the dogmas of American politics - the strict rules of "conservative values" (whatever those are) or "liberal progress" (whatever that is). If I follow Christ and not Reagan or Roosevelt, neither of whom died on a cross for us and rose again, I find my views on various social and political subjects not limited to one side of the fence.
Having said that, I should elaborate my Presidential voting history - in 2004, the year I turned eighteen, I voted for George W. Bush, and would not change that vote if I could. In both 2008 and 2012, I voted for Barack Obama. And though I've grown increasingly dissatisfied with his job in office, I believe it to be un-Christlike to curse him rather than pray for him. It's sort of like John Wayne said when John F. Kennedy was elected - "I didn't vote for him, but he's still my President and I hope he does a good job."

'Merica!

Now, many of my brothers and sisters in Christ, some of whom serve an idol without knowing it - that is, "conservative values," even if they clash with Christ - take much joy in slandering and reviling the President. Well, that's an American tradition, but my Lord teaches me to rebuke slander and lies, such as blatantly fake "foreign student" ID cards from Columbia University, and other Facebook posts and chain e-mails with inaccurate information. So, addressing some of the most common things being said on the web about Obama, here are some things you should know:

1. Concerning the claim that Obama is the Antichrist - this cannot be, according to Scripture. Many prophecies concerning the coming Antichrist, specifically two key passages - 2 Thessalonians 2:3-5 and Daniel 11:36 - describe that the "man of perdition" will exalt himself above any other god that has ever been worshiped. President Obama, however, is a Christian. And yes, many of you may say "How can he call himself a Christian when he..." (insert complaint here). But the point is, he still calls himself a Christian and therefore does not exalt himself above any other god, nor most importantly, the only true God.
The true Antichrist is very serious and will be a very real threat, and the more we as Christians call this politician or that "the Antichrist" because we don't like him, we cause others to ignore the very real danger the real "man of sin" will bring. Further, when we use the Bible to curse and revile, rather than what we are truly instructed to do with God's word, we drive so many away from Christ. (see 2 Timothy 3:13-17)

2. The assertion that Obama is a Muslim is ridiculous because, again, he has identified himself as a Christian and has said "I'm a Christian. I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ." (Source: "Christianity Today") Islam, however, denies that Jesus is the Son of God, and denies that He died and rose again.
"Yeah well, maybe he's an undercover Muslim!"
Yeah, that's not how it works. Muslims would consider that blasphemy against their religion. If Barack Obama were a white man named Rick Johnson, this paranoia would simply not exist.
...what? It wouldn't.

3. When you say President Obama's "turban is too tight" when he makes a blunder, let's remember two things: he's not a Muslim, and second, the turban is not a strictly Muslim piece of attire. The Levite priests wore turbans in the days of Moses, and turbans are mentioned many other places in the Old Testament, as they were common pieces of headwear centuries and centuries before Islam was founded.

4. For those of you calling for the impeachment of Obama - you keep using that word "impeach"...I do not think it means what you think it means. To impeach does not mean to remove from office. Rather, impeachment is actually a formal accusation or bringing of charges against an elected official. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were the only two Presidents to be impeached, yet neither were removed from office, and both finished their terms. Also, I'd suspect that you'd be concerned about a trial costing taxpayers money - the Clinton investigation alone cost almost sixty million dollars.

The Bible's definition of a saint is not a flawless person, nor is it a person chosen by Rome; rather, the Bible alludes to saints as anyone who believes in and calls on Jesus Christ. Being in a job where everyone wants to shoot you, I believe President Obama calls on Jesus quite often. I may disagree vehemently with decisions he's made, but he is a brother in Christ, he is a fellow saint, one far above the likes of myself, or of the apostle Paul, who described himself as "less than the least among saints."

To revile a brother in Christ in such a position, rather than pray earnestly for him, is blatant, un-Christlike behavior.

May the grace and peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.