My, how dreams have changed!

On Saturday the president issued a statement reaffirming his personal commitment to ensuring abortion rights. The last line reads as follows:

I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.

What an antiquated notion! That a fetus stands in the way of a woman being able to fulfill her dreams is the same tired, selfish claptrap which was the battle cry of the liberal feminist of the Baby Boom era. That a sitting president would echo that battle cry reveals an awful lot about the man and his principles.

Sadly, both sides of the debate have largely packaged this issue so cleverly for so long that now far too many see abortion as nothing more than a political issue among so many others. Case in point: last week was the Martin Luther King holiday. What did we hear from the traditional black leaders on this day? Most significantly, anger over students making up missed classes on the holiday due to weather postponements. The week prior, a NYC Public Health report was released which found that 60% of pregnant African American women in New York City had undergone an abortion in 2009. That is eye-popping stuff; that if you're a black fetus in NYC, you only have a 2 in 5 chance of making it to your birthday. Nationally, black women, who make up about 7% of the population, account for nearly 40% of legalized abortions. (The total national average for aborted pregnancies in still over 20% for all races.)

What we're seeing in NYC and throughout the nation is Racial Genocide 101, and what do we hear from black leaders on the subject on the day when we ironically honor a man who most famously conveyed the dreams he had for his children? Nothing. Not a peep. Other than "Jane Roe" herself, Jesse Jackson is probably the most famous flip-flopper on abortion in our nation's history. Roe became convinced of her error in desiring to abort her unborn child; Jackson, meanwhile went from an eloquent defender of the right to life to an ultra politically-motivated man on the wrong side of the aisle to be both pro-life and politically successful. He chose to enmesh himself in the latter, and now he has no moral foundation to even stand upon when speaking about a subject such as the out-of-control abortion rates among minorities in this nation. So instead he talks about kids making up snow days (which, incidentally, he is right about).

It is a shame of the highest proportions. Even conservative statistics concerning legalized abortions in the nation since 1973 show that this national right has now claimed more lives than some of the most liberal estimates of the lives senselessly claimed under the leaderships of people like Mao and Stalin. And where's our president on this? Unequivocally connecting the termination of an unborn child to a woman's "dreams". What a sad departure this type of dream is from the famous dream of the man honored last Monday.

What's Up, Doc?

Undoubtedly most of us are now familiar with the firestorm created by the freshly minted governor, Doctor Robert Bentley, when - on his inauguration day - he gave what is tantamount to an altar call at a famous black church in Montgomery. The fact that I first came upon this news on the front page of Yahoo.com rather than the local newscast is evidence that the national media ate this thing up in a hurry, causing many residents of our state to bemoan the specter of being represented by yet another prominent state politician who not only suffers from foot-in-mouth disease, but who also wants to take advantage of valuable opportunities to cram his brand of fundamentalist mumbo-jumbo down our collective throat hole.

Could it be that Doctor is a dreaded, fundamentalist, evangelical Christian who has actually been listening to and internalizing the messages he's heard throughout his life as a churchgoer? Could he actually believe that Jesus meant it when he claimed that the only way to the Father was through the Son? In other words, that all of humanity can in fact be separated along familial lines based on faith in Jesus Christ? I dunno, maybe the Doc has read through Ephesians and actually believes that true unity comes only through Christ, not through ethnicity or culture or even bloodlines...that blood is, in fact, not thicker than the water of our unique baptism.

So the Huntsville Times had an article the other day which sought to settle the issue by asking local "faith leaders" of their opinion on the uproar. Outside of a strikingly honest assessment by the token Jewish leader, it was the familiar quotes one expects in articles such as these. You can come to your own conclusions, particularly those who might explain to me the reason Weatherly Heights Baptist Church still has anything to do with the Southern Baptist Convention.

And now, just as predictably as the reactions, here came the retraction from GDRB the other day. This is a much bigger slip-up than what he said on Monday, because now it all reeks of politics. I mean, does such an apology (which, to be fair, is one of those non-apology apologies) show that Doctor Governor is placating the media or politicizing his faith? How are we supposed to interpret all this?

I'm afraid that Bentley has learned a valuable lesson of politics which he carefully avoided throughout his peculiarly anonymous state legislative career: namely that when a person in power speaks or takes a stand of consequence, folks tend to listen. When you speak about faith, amplify that tenfold. As a man of faith I hope he'll eventually also come to this conclusion: don't apologize - never, ever! - for presenting the hope of salvation to a captive audience. There are Christians around the world who would be willing to literally give their lives for such an opportunity.

The Inn that Missed Its Chance

Amos R. Wells

(The Landlord speaks, A.D. 28.)

What could be done? The inn was full of folks!
His honor, Marcus Lucius, and his scribes
Who made the census: honorable men
From farthest Galilee, come hitherward
To be enrolled; high ladies and their lords;
The rich, the rabbis, such a noble throng
As Bethlehem had never seen before,
And may not see again. And there they were,
Close herded with their servants, till the inn
Was like a hive at swarming-time, and I
Was fairly crazed among them.

Could I know
That they were so important? Just the two,
No servants, just a workman sort of man,
Leading a donkey, and his wife thereon,
Drooping and pale, - I saw them not myself,
My servants must have driven them away;
But had I seen them, how was I to know?
Were inns to welcome stragglers, up and down
In all our towns from Beersheba to Dan,
Till He should come? And how were men to know?

There was a sign, they say, a heavenly light
Resplendent; but I had no time for stars.
And there were songs of angels in the air
Out on the hills: but how was I to hear
Amid the thousand clamors of an inn?

Of course, if I had known them, who they were,
And who was He that should be born that night, -
For now I learn that they will make Him King,
A second David who will ransom us
From these Philistine Romans, - who but He
That feeds an army with a loaf of bread,
And if a soldiers falls, He touches him
And up he leaps, uninjured? Had I known,
I would have turned the whole inn upside down,
His honor Marcus Lucius, and the rest,
And sent them all to stables, had I known.

So you have seen Him, stranger, and perhaps
Again will see him. Prithee say for me,
I did not know; and if He comes again
As He will surely come, with retinue,
And banners, and an army, tell my Lord
That all my inn is His, to make amends.

Alas! Alas! To miss a chance like that!
This inn that might be chief among them all,
The birthplace of Messiah, - had I known!

Is it beginning to look a lot like Christmas?

I was so shocked when I heard the statistic on the news that I had to research the finding myself to verify. It's true: 212 million Americans participated in Black Friday 2010. That's 212,000,000. That's two out of every three Americans. Take the elderly and the young and others simply incapable of holiday shopping out of the mix and, well, you apparently have a better chance at getting struck by lightning than finding someone who didn't shop on BF 2010.

What's more, it's estimated that we collectively spent $45 billion on BF. My calculator says that means the average shopper spent about $212 -- what's up with that number? -- on that single day alone. To put it in perspective, $212 can buy, what, about 106 Thanksgiving meals at your local soup kitchen? 212 million x 106 meals = feeding the entire world three square meals.

So we're spending a lot on one another this Christmas. We Americans are really, really good at that. It is ingrained in our conscience that Christmas is gifts. Consider: How many times have you been told about some unemployed person in your family or community, "John's been out of work for a couple months now and his bills are piling up. If we don't help him out by purchasing a few gifts, then his kids might not have a Christmas." I'm not denigrating the need for helping John out in that hypothetical situation, but do you see how we've equated gift buying and receiving with a holiday which celebrates the birth of our Lord? Exactly how did we get to that point?

And yet I sit here less than three weeks from the Big Day and I can't help but notice how Christmas seems to have fallen on hard times lately. I'm not talking about ACLU lawsuits over Nativity Scenes (those bullies!) or how insensitive people are for going all Koine on us and substituting X-mas for Christmas. I'm talking about how it suddenly seems that Christmas has lost its luster, even as we turn out in record numbers to the BF sales.

Children for one seem less excited than those of previous generations. After all, the most spoiled generation in world history already tends to be showered with gifts constantly throughout the year. What's the big deal about another day? Adults are in the same category...we're bored. I mean, how many years is the GPS deal going to be pressed on us as a hot holiday gift idea? Just how many tens of millions of cars already come with an unopened or barely used Tom Tom in the glove compartment? Oh sure, for the high-end buyers there is the novelty of 3-D tv. What's next: scratch-and-sniff?

I don't know, maybe I'm just getting older. In fact, I'm confident that my clumsy transition into adulthood has in some way helped to provoke this blog post. But somewhere deep down I believe that we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Christmas as we've known it since the mid 20th century. If true, this will create a massive void in the American conscience - as well as a massive paradigm shift for retailers who are already resorting to once-unthinkable measures to stave off their own demise.

What will fill the void? It is rather a question of Who. As we wrestle with so many inevitable changes which are threatening to undo our familiar national psyche and values, might we finally have room for the Lord who was first introduced to the world in a barn because there was no room for Him in an inn? I pray so.

Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown
When Thou camest to earth for me;
But in Bethlehem's home was there found
No room for Thy holy nativity.
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus!
There is room in my heart for Thee.

Just Like Startin' Over...

You don't know the first thing about tomorrow. You're nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing.
- James 4:14

This weekend a lot of attention is being paid to John Lennon, and rightfully so. One can go on and on about the ever-growing impact of Lennon on popular culture. His talents as a musician, song writer, self-promoter, and, especially, as a lyricist are legendary and unequaled in music history. Put it this way: 30 years after her last album, Lady Gaga will not get a Google banner in her honor. Lennon did.

For all of his talent and ingenuity, Lennon lived a life that was filled with neglect and heartache. Abandoned by both his father and, ultimately, mother, Lennon grew up with an aunt in the blue collar, working class town of Liverpool. By all accounts the two celebrities who had the most impact on Lennon during his formative years were James Dean and Elvis Presley. Those two superstars fed the future Beatle's rebellious streak and encouraged the lad to combine music with just enough attitude to become both popular and rich. It worked well, but only after the talented Lennon surrounded himself with other talented musicians and hard working self-promoters.

The ultra-success of Beatlemania ultimately never cured John Lennon's growing sense of disenchantment, and actually seems to have driven him even deeper into the pit. What started out as recreational marijuana use turned into LSD experimentation and a full-blown heroine addiction by the late sixties. While many might argue that drugs made Sgt. Pepper's possible, no one questions that Lennon's creative capabilties began to nosedive by the time he started his use of heroine (see Let It Be).

His marriage to Yoko Ono came about when Lennon's first wife, Cynthia, discovered that the Japanese-American "Conceptual Artist" (whatever that means) had been having an adulterous relationship with John. The Lennon/Ono marriage was rocky from the very start and included periods of hardcore substance abuse, mutual adultery, international controversy, and - lest we forget - more ingenious self-promotion which spanned the first half of the seventies. What lacked during this period for Lennon was any actually good music. So Lennon decided to quit writing music and, legend has it, focus fulltime on rebuilding his relationship with his wife and growing a relationship with his youngest son.

In 1980, after a half decade as a stay at home father, Lennon and Ono released the LP Double Fantasy. Ono's contributions not withstanding, Double Fantasy represents John's best work since Pepper, maybe even Revolver. It is far and away the greatest post-Beatle album by any member of the quartet (All Things Must Pass is a distant #2). Lennon's contributions to Double Fantasy focus on themes such as maturity, forgiveness, family devotion, and fatherly patience...themes which are far more adult oriented than songs about anarchy and class warfare and overblown allusions of a post-religious world. Perhaps these themes from the mind of the aging Lennon were more self-promotion, but perhaps they represent the first indicators of a major cultural shift of the eighties: Baby Boomers growing up and entering reality.

Whatever the case, Lennon's artistic creativity was no longer about fusing youthful rebellion to good music as much as fusing a truer and deeper sense of self-understanding to really good music. Or so one might imagine from those few tracks. Merely a month after the release of Double Fantasy, Lennon was shot dead. Just as he began talking about "Starting Over," his precarious life ended at age 40. Saturday will be his 70th birthday.

What Do We Do With Joel?

Ah, Beeson; how you have come into my thoughts today!

Let me say at the outset that I went to what one might call a interdenominational, evangelical seminary. As such, we had many different views on so many secondary and tertiary issues of Scripture and such. I suppose our diverse student body was the apple of the eye of our ecumenically-minded dean, Timothy George. But we also agreed on a great deal: humans are saved by grace through faith; the Bible is the inspired Word of God; Jesus is the Son of God. On and on.

Oh, and then there's this that we also agreed on: something strange is up with that whole Joel Osteen/Lakewood Church thing. Beeson prided itself as a theological institution waist-deep in historical theology, but most everyone seemed much more knowledgeable on the subject of ol' Joel than, say, Karl Barth. We biblical students seemed to care a lot more about what went on in Joel's pulpit than in, say, the prophecy of the prophet Joel.

Can you blame us? For nearly a decade, Joel O has been setting the standard of success among the prosperity crowd (an accomplishment which won him the cover of, not ironically, a magazine called Success). His church, Lakewood Church of Houston, Tex., was recently described as the most popular church in America by BusinessWeek Magazine. His fingerprints on the canvass of the increasingly diverse world of Protestantism are undeniable and should be studied hard by up and coming ministers.

Osteen and the theological framework he represents are no flashes in the pan, neither. There was a time when I thought, "Oh, that guy's fifteen minutes are going to run out soon. The days of the megachurch are over and the religious hope of material prosperity lives and dies with Wall Street. Besides, he's a pretty awful speaker and he looks funny." But Joel keeps on going.

Why? Because I misunderstood how slowly things both materialize and fade away in the world in which Osteen & Co. operate. Popularity in the field of religion and spirituality and philosophical ideals doesn't die out as quickly as popularity in music and art and fad diets. Katy Perry and Lady Gaga will soon enough go the way of Macy Gray and Pink and Atkins, but apparently not so with our name-it-and-claim-it crowd. You would have thought that a housing crash and subsequent recession would have slowed down the prosperity gospel at least slightly. You'd be wrong. Turns out megachurches of all types are still growing and a whole lot of people are still attracted to the idea that Jesus died to give you a two car garage and a nicer vacation than last year's Caribbean cruise (which still needs to be paid off!).

So, what are we to do with Joel and the movement he epitomizes? Let me say here that I do in fact think his brand of...well...performance is a fad which is destined to die out sooner or later. But when is anybody's guess. I suppose that folks who are attracted to the gospel of prosperity have to live through a few financial or physical crises in order to see that more faith, more works, do not cause the Father to become a genie who grants you your heart's material desires. Ultimately, though, Joel's brand of Christianity will only die out when the church in America receives a clear mind, conscience, and will in the matters of materialism.

The American Dream used to represent the ideal that this nation affords anyone - regardless of one's background - the ability to live a better life in secured freedom. Today the American Dream is no longer an ideal, but rather things which are characterized by white, picket fences and having a good college fund for your kids. It was only a matter of time until this materialization and deterioration of the American Dream entered the church, as it has now in so many. Until the serious-minded Christians of our nation stand up for matters near and dear to our Lord's heart (social justice, a serve others mentality, a "He must increase, I must decrease" worldview, etc.), the deterioration will march on. Change here doesn't begin with our jokes about Joel or our self-righteous charges against the theological errors of the prosperity gospel; it begins with an ad fontes call to Scripture from the pulpit, the Sunday school classroom, and the workplace.

A New Phase of Life and Ministry

Since I surrendered (and that is the appropriate term) to God's call to ministry, I have gone through periods where doubts have sprung up: Is this really the right seminary? How tough will it be to find a ministry position after graduation? Will I be able to raise a family on a pastor's salary? Am I cut out for all the tasks a pastor faces? On and on.

Now there was a time when I would've scoffed at Christians who allowed self-doubt to creep into their minds by thinking something such as, "Obviously, he or she didn't take Philippians 4 into account!" The experiences of the past few years of ministry and education have knocked me down from my self-erected pedestal of what I call 'Believer's Snobbery' as the Lord has worked on me by knocking me down to size and simply saying, over and over again, "Do you trust me?"

Now this question hasn't manifested itself as of yet in some kind of call to Jesus-in-the-water, Peter-in-the-boat type of faith, but it has had its difficult moments. This collective expreience has sharpened my own pastoral sensitivities to those who face periods (for some, eras) of doubt; above all, however, it has taught me to rely, rely, rely on the Lord.

Anyway, the Lord has recently merged the combined life of my wife and me with a wonderful church not too far south of Huntsville, Ala. There are some questions which remain, but the overarching doubt of "Will the Lord really provide for us?" has been answered in a way which can leave no doubt, like a 550 ft. homerun or something.

Now there is still a great amount of growing to go, and I still worry about the mistakes I will undoubtedly make and how they might impact the congregation. Ultimately, though, I have learned through it all that my primary concern must not be about how the Lord will provide for His own, but rather how I can better grow in Him and serve His people. And so I enter this new phase of life and ministry recognizing that we serve an amazing Lord and Savior who unquestionably provides for His own in His own way and time. Praise the Lord!