Memorial Day and America

I had an incredibly busy weekend and no access to the internet, so I'm posting on Memorial Day a bit late. A friend sent me some pictures and I wanted to pass on my favorite. I used to see lots of patriotic photos when I was involved in a public policy organization, but this one really gripped me. I'm thankful for the hundreds of thousands of America who have served our country.

Website Madness

I’ve had the same email address for well over a decade. As you can imagine, I’ve accumulated a lot of junk subscriptions and have thus far resisted the urge to leave this address behind. It’s more than just an emotional attachment like a high school letterman’s jacket stashed in a cedar chest. It has a utilitarian purpose of keeping me connected with people and organizations of my past. I normally “delete all” after skimming my inbox and rarely take the time to read the ones that have snuck their way into my inbox folder. It’s a whole lot easier than trying to “unsubscribe” to these organizations. Today, though, was different. I opened an email from beliefnet.com. I have no idea how I subscribed or how long they’ve dropped into my account, but something today caught my eye and I was off into cyberspace. It the quagmire of “Christian” offerings (which is, no doubt, how I got pulled in to begin with), was a box for my daily horoscope—something completely antithetical to Christian faith. As I was going to delete, a pop up box offered to assess my angel temperament—after answering questions they would tell me what angel I was like. I’m only aware of three angels and feared I’d be matched with the one who starts with “L”. I didn’t need my ego slammed and I didn’t need this foolishness. I’m officially “unsubscribed” now (or at least I think I am). But I couldn’t help wondering about people who aren’t as family with historic, orthodox Christianity as I am. How many of them pop over to this “Christian” site to get their daily horoscope and periodic “angel assessment”? It was a reminder of how mess up our country is and a reminder of the many false religions and teachers the Bible warns us about. How grateful I am for a strong web presence of genuine Christianity. I pray millions will find their way to these sites and learn about the true Christ and His true salvation.

The Duck Finally Quacks -- Obama Comes Clean on Homosexual Marriage

The over-used adage, “if it walks like a ducks, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck—it’s a duck”, was evidenced yesterday when our nation’s President, Barak Hussein Obama, publicly declared his support for homosexual marriage. In an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, the President said in part:

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."

The President’s position is of no surprise. He ended the military’s compromising position of “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell” which conservatives sadly adopted as a way of allowing Sodomites to continue their service as long as they didn’t publicize it. The new policy allows such persons to be public about their chosen behavior. Then the President ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, a law passed by the Congress of the United States. So yesterday’s interview, though seemingly untimely provoked by Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks the previous Sunday, were of no surprise. While he was previously hypocritical and dishonest about his views on this matter, yesterday the President finally came clean. Sadly, the President invoked his Christian faith as a key to his decision. But the Bible his faith is based upon clearly denounces the position he holds. Homosexuality is a sin to be avoided, not a lifestyle to embrace. http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/president-obama-affirms-his-support-for-same-sex-marriage.html

A post-National Day of Prayer Post

Yesterday was a special time of prayer for me, my family, and my church and I trust it was the same for millions of other Christians. I do long for the day when we, like the American Christians of previous generations, cease from our labors and normal schedules and truly draw aside the entire day to pray. One of my favorite spiritual proclamations from our nation's history comes from Abraham Lincoln. It was introduced by Senator James Harlan of Iowa and subsequently passed by the entire Senate and signed by President Lincoln of March 30, 1863. The nation was being ravaged by Civil War and the North was not faring well in the struggle. The resolution reads as follows:

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation. And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh. By the President: Abraham Lincoln William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Those words, 149 years old, apply very much to our current situation. May we continue to pray.

Pray for America

Tomorrow is the National Day of Prayer. If you’re a Christian, it is essential that you spend time interceding for our nation. Tomorrow, we’ll do what Americans have always done in times of great need—pray and ask God for help with the issues facing our country. Perhaps those issues don’t seem quite as pressing as they did when Ben Franklin reminded the Constitutional Convention that “God governs in the affairs of men… And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?” During the early days of our existence as a nation, we knew we needed God. And during the darkest hours of the Civil War, a minister said to President Lincoln that he hoped the Lord was on their side. Lincoln thought for a moment before replying, "I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right...but it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I--and this nation--should be on the Lord's side." I must confess I share some of Lincoln’s “constant anxiety” about our nation being on God’s side. In fact, I have to conclude that America, for the most part, is a nation that has set its face against God. That’s why this Thursday is so important. It is vital for Christians to stand in the gap—between our Holy God whose ways are just and our sinful nation whose ways are sinful. On the National Day of Prayer, let us as Christian citizens do our part to talk to our heavenly Father with urgency and passion about the things we face as Americans.