Superman Cometh

Illinois Democrat Senator Barack Obama delivered a provocative, if not politically seductive, speech last Wednesday that tells me he's the Dem's man to watch for 2012, if not 2008. The guy is so talented a speaker (easily America's best talker since Reagan) that I think if Hillary were to choose him as her running mate, he could be the winning factor against almost any Republican opponent. He's that good.

That worries me. It also worries me that the D.C. Dullards on the Right will fumble in their responses, or go mute and hope he makes a mistake while some kneejerk nut claiming to be a Christian labels him "Obama bin Laden," thus fortifying the Franken crowd's propaganda that ALL conservative Christians are as infantile as fourth grade bullies. (More…)

Obama touches all the right notes, not just for liberals, but for the many conservatives whose values are shaped more by evangelical emotion and traditions than by a conscientiously applied biblical worldview. For example, he says this about his 2004 Senate run against Alan Keyes, who had claimed that Jesus would not vote for Barack Obama:

Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously, to essentially ignore it. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, and his arguments not worth entertaining. And since at the time, I was up 40 points in the polls, it probably wasn't a bad piece of strategic advice.

But what they didn't understand, however, was that I had to take Mr. Keyes seriously, for he claimed to speak for my religion, and my God. He claimed knowledge of certain truths.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, he was saying, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.

And so what would my supporters have me say? How should I respond? Should I say that a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? Should I say that Mr. Keyes, who is a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope?

Unwilling to go there, I answered with what has come to be the typically liberal response in such debates - namely, I said that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my own religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois.

But Mr. Keyes's implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at me, and I was also aware that my answer did not adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and my own beliefs.

Can you imagine how many Baptists and charismatics, black and white, would be moved by those words, assume that Obama had repented (from calloused liberalism to principled liberalism), and then be too lazy to actually take a look at Obama's voting record and policies?

The Senator makes a good point, and sets himself apart from the Schumer/Pelosi nitwit wing on the Left and the conservative-because-it-got-me-here crowd on the Right, when he says that, "to say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition" That's an insight usually cherished only by very morally grounded believers, rejected out of hand by the Left, and one that never occurs to most on the Right.

But he also places great faith in the State as an instrument of God for social justice, not in the biblical sense of negative sanctions (punishing crimes, restraining evil), but in achieving economic equality (and social salvation) via government policies. In other words, he believes in "curing" society's ills via taxation and forcible redistribution of wealth by civil government.

Yet predictable as this is, Obama at least makes the following excellent qualifications to the standard Democrat "salvation by politics" policies:

Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers' lobby - but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we've got a moral problem. There's a hole in that young man's heart - a hole that the government alone cannot fix.

I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws. But I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation's CEOs could bring about quicker results than a battalion of lawyers. They have more lawyers than us anyway.

I think that we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls and boys. I think that the work that Marian Wright Edelman has done all her life is absolutely how we should prioritize our resources in the wealthiest nation on earth. I also think that we should give them the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that that every child is loved and cherished.

But, you know, my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman's sense of self, a young man's sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy.

But then he goes on to detach ethical and moral foundations from faith in Christ as being exactly Who He claimed to be. In fact, a complete reading of the speech (and some live remarks I heard him make) shows that Obama believes in the "many paths to God" idea, that Christ has somehow cleansed him of his sin, but that other faiths perceive that Person and that cleansing in non-Christian terms, and that it's fine by him.

That is why he grants moral equivalence to Islam and atheism in this speech. And if that doesn't bother you, well, you'll probably have the chance to cast your vote for him down the road.

"I Will Use Them"

At Left: North Korean Cabinet Meeting (Kim Jong Il at lower right)

According to this page at HolyCoast.com, Rick Warren will be speaking in North Korea very soon to a crowd (I guarantee it) of 15,000 "Christians."

Of course the people in attendance will be there simply because they are ordered to; if any of them are Christians, they dare not ever make it known. Being a Christian, or a member of any "unauthorized group" is illegal in North Korea, and the punishment for breaking this law is usually torture or painful death. Why, then, would any believer there choose to reveal his faith at such an invitation?

Warren knows that Kim Jong Il has invited him to try and make propaganda points, just as he did eleven years ago with Billy Graham's…visit. But Warren says, according to my inside sources, that "They're going to try and use me, so I'm going to use them."

That's exactly the right attitude. I was highly critical of Graham's visits to the Soviet Union, because for all their Klingon gruffness, the Soviets still managed to fool the West. Hundreds of believers went to prison after Graham's visits, and the Church suffered because of the evangelist's naivete. But North Korea is so grotesque that nobody within its borders will be fooled for a minute. And the fools who will be fooled in the West are of a foolishness that cannot be heightened, but only further demonstrated. (Paris Hilton should be the Tim Robbins/Martin Sheen/Al Franken cadre's spokesperson. But only because the original Bonzo died.)

If Kim is battling God, he should understand what atheists usually fail to grasp: It's a mismatch! Somehow that little troll head thinks he has something to gain with this invitation, yet he's supplying exactly what Warren wants: fifteen thousand suffering prisoners with their guards and oppressors, all there to hear an uncompromising (I hope) Gospel.

Kim Jong Il, with this gambit, is toying with something far more potent than a nuclear missile. The Holy Spirit is not hampered by a Far Left contingent amongst the angels, so the diminutive dictator will not be able to blackmail a few goodies out of the deal.

God save the little loon or take him out.

How Can I Say Thanks?

Bel Air, Maryland: This evening we played the DVD of my mother's February wedding to my new stepdad, Mr. Wilkey Lowe, 80 years old, of Dover, Delaware. It was a sparsely attended affair, not because no one cared, but because most people, including my brother Joe, and his wife, Sharon, couldn't get there, eighteen inches of snow having blanketed the area on the previous evening. (More…)

I had officiated my mom's second wedding, 16 years ago, to the late Ralph Grubb. Now for number three I played and sang songs of the happy couple's choosing. It took some savvy googling to find the sheet music for "If God Left Only You," a lovely old tune that would've sounded just right through a megaphone. That was the processional.

The recessional was a bit easier to nail down. I have sung Andrae Crouch's immortal "My Tribute" on several disparate occasions, each of them important moments in the lives of loved ones. Watching my mother and her new hubby strolling happily down the aisle, true keenagers in love, made for the happiest of them all.

It was a bit harder to sing back in 1982, when Terry Law's wife, and my sweet friend and surrogate sister, Jan Law, was being laid to rest. (I am writing about this at length in chapter one of "The Power of Praise and Worship," the book I am co-writing with Dr. Law.) It was clear that someone from Living Sound should sing for Jan's memorial service, yet most of the team were so broken up that we knew an ensemble would never make it through a song. A solo would be more appropriate, and one song in particular seemed just right. "My Tribute," whose legendary composer was another close friend, was one of my solos, and one of Jan's favorite's. I got the nod.

I remember those four minutes vividly because I so feared attempting to sing that particular song. I had been strong for Terry’s sake thus far, but now my own grief was heavy upon me. I wasn’t sure I could muster the self-control to sing that big melody and its powerful declaration:

"To God be the glory…for the things He has done. With His blood…"

Blood. The memory of Terry kneeling in the open field where the wreck had happened, weeping at the sight of Jan’s blood on his fingers, kept coming back to me, and I wept every time. I did not want to falter while singing; emotions all around were raw, and a break in my voice could multiply the sorrow.

I was to precede Oral Roberts and Terry’s pastor, Billy Joe Daugherty; now it was time to sing. “Put your emotion into the song instead of fighting it,” a Voice said as I walked to the podium. I obeyed, and the result was the kind of tribute my beloved Jan deserved. It remains, to this day, my finest rendition of that modern classic.

That experience made it easier nearly four years later when my own father passed away, and to my surprise, left a request that I sing the same song for his service. "I hate that song," he once had said a few years earlier. "Every time you sing it, I know you're about to make some dramatic announcement that you're going on a mission to somewhere dangerous."

Dad was proud that I had followed him into the ministry, although he preferred that I use my voice and keyboard skills to make lots of money. "I still remember," he told me just three months before he died, "how you promised to buy me a Cadillac 'someday,' when you were only five years old. I always hoped you could."

I knew that the Caddy wasn't really what Dad wanted, even though he would've enjoyed it. What he really hoped was that his son would have that kind of money. Not being able to make good on that childish pipe dream is one of my few regrets in life.

When I chose—was chosen for—missions, Dad was proud, but nervous, like any parent whose son goes to war. In the years that followed he and mom always welcomed me home from Africa or Russia or Asia with smiles of great delight, then sent me off again, grins intact but tinged with sweet sorrow. After all, my buddies and I didn't exactly avoid trouble spots.

In the late 1970s my father had begun to live a double life. In fact, he sowed the wind and eventually reaped a fatal whirlwind. For nearly seven years my family and I fought for him in our spirits, finally "winning" when he and mom, and more important, he and God, were reconciled less than a year before his death.

Those last ten months were sweet, as were Dad's final days and hours. (Dolly and I arrived in Tennessee barely 18 hours or so before the end. We had flown to Switzerland only two days earlier, when my brother, Kevin, called to tell us to come back.) I asked him, when I sat beside his bed, if he wanted to get well or just "go home." He nodded "yes" to the latter and whispered that he was really tired. I understood. It had been a long fight and God had won.

"I am going to destroy your dad's life, and everything in it, in order to bring him back." The Holy Spirit had spoken those words to me in Halifax, Nova Scotia, less than four years earlier. That warning had provided odd comfort during several nerve-wracking episodes to follow, and now made it easier to watch him die.

It also made it much easier to sing these words just three days later.

How can I say thanks
For the things You have done for me?
Things so undeserved
Yet You gave to prove Your love for me
The voices of a million angels
Could not express my gratitude
All that I am and ever hope to be
I owe it all to Thee

To God be the glory…for the things He has done.

Amen.

Jesus Christ, Minor Star

The American Film Institute has published its list of 100 Most Inspiring Movies of the past 100 years, and none of the three Lord of the Rings masterpieces made the list. How they could snub The Return of the King in favor of the 1979 bicycling movie Breaking Away (which even made the top 10), I cannot fathom.

It's understandable that Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" was omitted, since only a full-fledged believer would consider it inspiring, but I'm still puzzled as to why "The Ten Commandments" is the only biblically-themed movie to make the list (although it should be noted that neither Moses nor Jesus made their 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time). (Hat Tip to Christianity Today Movies, which seemed to confuse the two lists.)

Mama's Home

My wife, Dolly, is back from two weeks in China, and this morning is safely ensconced in Grandma's bed in Bel Air, Maryland. Lexi and I picked her up at the Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Saturday evening. We'll stay here a couple of days and then head home, 875 miles to the south. On the way she and Lexi will drop me off at the Jacksonville airport, so I can fly to South Bend, Indiana for a Sunday meeting.

Having her home was the best Father's Day gift I could have received. And Lexi, who never once whined about Mommy being gone, is over the moon, snuggling her jet-lagged mother at every possible moment.

Thinking the Unthinkable

Nearly 20 years ago I adopted a postmillennialist view of the future, meaning that I expect Christ Jesus to return after the thousand years described in Revelation 20. (I could further confuse my friends and alienate pastors by discussing "partial preterism," but why ruin my life all at once!) This makes me a long-term optimist in historical terms. I expect that most of the nations (people-groups) will have been discipled before the Lord comes, and that "Christianized" character will have become the norm, even amongst the unbelievers that remain. If this seems hard to fathom, just look at the reverse situation in America today, where non-biblical, even anti-biblical, paradigms dominate the thinking of millions of Christians.

Simply stated, I expect that Jesus and His bride, the Church, will fulfill the mandate that was abandoned by Adam and his bride. This optimistic historical stance naturally means that I'm not expecting a rapture to occur anytime soon, nor do I think the bad things that happen in the Middle East are a sign that we're nearing the end of history.

Some folks mistakenly think that we postmils ignore the bad things that take place around the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. To the contrary, I read the newspaper with an awareness that I need to be prepared, and to prepare my children, for a historical long haul that might include war, natural disasters, and/or severe persecution (great tribulation, but not the Great Tribulation) for followers of Jesus. I do not view the Second Coming as a bailout plan from such hardships.

I have been thinking quite a bit lately about the war on terror, which I view as World War 3, and in fact have started thinking about the unthinkable, a global nuclear war. We could, of course, preempt such destruction by taking a tough stance with Iran, North Korea, and other trouble-makers, as well as strongly encouraging Western Europe to exorcise the spirit of Neville Chamberlain, whose doctrine of appeasement seems to have EU politics locked in its ghostly grip.

Unfortunately our current Senate and House don't seem collectively to have one complete set of cojones among them when it comes to facing the ugly truth: The War on Terror is Islam at war with the rest of the world in general, and Christianity in particular. I think this is largely due—and I have said this before—to the fact that so many Americans are at war with God themselves. It is hatred of Christ, the exclusive Lord of All by Whom the whole world will be judged, that drives the spirit of political correctness.

The culture war in America is a war on the image of God, wherever it is seen. That is why it's a war on heterosexuality, on marriage, on monogamy, and especially on men, in our calling to be the heads of monogamous, heterosexual, married families. The burning desire to erase God's image pervades today's "movements," from feminism, to environmentalism, secularist pacifism, and almost all far-Left politics.

It explains the abject, unmitigated hatred of George W. Bush, and why the Far Left (and even not-so-far Left) considers it worth opposing him at all costs, including subversion, treason, and the loss of this war.

It also explains the galling lack of courage on the part of today's "conservatives," from Denny Hastert to Bill Frist, to stand up to the Far Left. They talk a big talk, but are like St. Peter, who panicked and denied Christ when a little girl by a campfire put him on the spot as a Disciple.

Hatred of God on the Left, and cowardice on the Right, is why I consider it possible, perhaps even likely, that the West will continue to appease Iranian and North Korean lunatics, paying them "incentives" to cooperate with us, all the while knowing they're going to break their word.

We're just shaking hands with bad-guy wrasslers, and sooner or later one of them is going to have radioactive brass knuckles hidden in his waistband. That likelihood makes the unthinkable all too thinkable, that some goon coddled by the Left and tolerated by the Right will launch a first strike. If and when that happens, we'd better be sure our own trigger finger hasn't atrophied along with our gonads.

At least al-Qaeda is pushing us toward the ugly truth a little sooner than we would've faced it voluntarily. Maybe a monster with horns will make us realize we're facing the devil and not dating Elizabeth Hurley.

He Who Is Not With Me…

Today's report about the killing of al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi might or might not be good news, depending upon how one reads the official al-Qaeda reaction, which says in part: "'The death of our leaders is life for us. It will only increase our persistence in continuing holy war so that the word of God will be supreme.'"

The terrorist group has long claimed they are leading all of the Islamic world in a holy war against America, while we have insisted that they do not represent Islam, but are merely a terrorist sect, and that the war on terror is not a religious war.

We are wrong. Arabs dancing by the millions in Mideast streets on 9/11, Moslems parading through London toting large, hand-written death threats, young Islamofascists burning cars in France, and Islamic schoolbooks from Paris to Riyadh, all reveal a systematic and systemic indoctrination of hatred towards America, Israel, Christianity, and Judaism. It is a religious war to them, and that makes it one here also, regardless of our politically correct insistence that it is not.

Our big problem is that too many people here in the West, particularly in Western Europe, also hate Christianity and Judaism. They refuse to identify with Jesus Christ—and by extension "traditional" American values—so in opposing Him they stand beside Osama bin-Laden by default. They might not want to identify with al-Qaeda, but when there's a choice between only two sides, Jesus, Himself, has made it clear that "he who is not with Me is against Me" (Luke 11:23).

This is a truth with which every secularist in America must eventually reckon, not only regarding al-Qaeda, but with regard to a host of hot-button topics, from abortion to education to environmental concerns. Jesus was not exaggerating when He claimed to possess "all authority in heaven and on earth" (Matthew 28:18). Some secularists are beginning to realize this. They're starting to see just how comprehensive their battle with Christianity is, and that is why they cry "theocracy" every time a Christian speaks out on any issue. The fact that their systematic de-Christianization of various aspects of American life went uncontested for several decades makes them feel like they are under attack from us, even though our nation's historical roots reflect that the founders were on our side of the issues. Hence they take the position of noble defenders of the American way of life, while they continue dismantling what they claim to defend.

The good news is that the stridently non-religious Left is being pushed back on almost all fronts. The bad news is that too many of today's so-called conservatives are content to aim for containment rather than victory, both in today's culture war and in the War on Terror. (Both are religious wars, through and through, simply because there is no other kind of war.) As Howard Phillips, founder of the Constitution Party, once said, today's conservatives have never wanted to win the culture war; they just don't want to lose it on their watch.

Christians should not give up, but fight on. We also need to remember, however, that our battle ultimately is spiritual in nature. Hence we should employ godly strategies and tactics, not resorting to the smarmy faux spirituality lately displayed by the likes of Howard Dean and Senator Clinton on the left and John McCain on the right. Instead we need to run campaigns like those of John Thune and Tom Coburn, and then keep our elected officials' feet to the fire once they take office.

The 50 Hardest Steps of My Life

My wife, Dolly, leaves for a two-week mission to China tomorrow morning, along with a team of about 40 folks from our church. Our four-year old, Lexi, and I are halfway to Richmond, Virginia, where I'm speaking tomorrow morning and evening, while Dolly is in the air somewhere between Orlando and Beijing.

This will be our family's sixth trip to China: Two for me without Dolly, two for Dolly without me, and two together (pre-Lexi) in the 1980s. The first two journeys were as "mules," i.e., we took luggage stuffed with Bibles and no clothes, and stayed just long enough to drop the goods.

That first trip to Guangzhou hangs preeminent in my memory. Dolly and I had agreed to walk past the customs area separately, so that if one of us got caught with the Bibles, the other could head for the American embassy to get help. We were already experienced with customs crossings in the Soviet Union, and had heard that China wasn't so tough. But contraband is contraband, and we knew the Bibles could put us in a jam. More…

After a 20-minute puddle jump from Hong Kong on one of CAAC's ratty, pre-capitalism jets, we landed at the dowdy Guangzhou airport. The halls were stark and white, no doubt from years of white-washing over stains instead of removing them. Today, only twenty years later, one encounters such backwardness only in remote, minor cities.

Immigration passed quickly and predictably, dour young soldiers sitting behind elevated desks, matching nose, eyes, forehead, and other facial regions with passport photographs. Then we headed into the luggage hall, and retrieved our big, wheeled Zero Haliburton suitcases. Their gleaming silver shells made them instantly findable in the sea of black canvas and cardboard, a characteristic that usually proved helpful in the crowded world of air travel, but today might easily bring unwelcome attention.

Dolly and I put about thirty feet (and a hundred passengers) between us and headed for the green "nothing to declare" exit. We were about halfway through the hall when I saw a hand wave her to the right, toward a big x-ray machine. I knew I had to stick with the plan, so I kept walking. They were, without exaggeration, the hardest fifty steps of my life. Every protective instinct in my body and soul wanted to take over and rush back to her. But I knew her best protection lay outside that door, so I hurried on.

Standing out on the sidewalk I looked for a taxi. There was not a single letter posted anywhere in any recognizable alphabet, and I realized getting to the embassy was going to be an adventure of its own. Being alone didn't help. My heart was already beating wildly, just from wanting to keep my wife by my side. Now it pounded even harder.

I was just about to pick a taxi when suddenly Dolly rushed out the door. "Keep going," she whispered loudly, and we started walking fast away from the building. An hour later at supper she explained her getaway.

"I just stood there playing dumb," she said. The customs agent was motioning for her to put the suitcase on the x-ray conveyor belt, which would have guaranteed her several hours of questioning. So she just stood there, grinning, repeating, "What? This? But this just has my belongings in it…I don't understand…What are you looking for? This is just my suitcase."

I remembered how King David had feigned insanity, and was proud of my wife for taking such a tack. She kept talking…

"Just when I was running out of stall time, some Chinese guy rushed by with a heavy cardboard box on his head. He obviously wanted to get past customs quickly, and caught my agent's eye. As soon as he went after the man, I ducked and ran."

Twenty years later I look back and realize my urge to step in and protect was totally unnecessary. In fact, if my wife had been arrested by the Chinese authorities, well…that would have been their own tough luck!