As always happens when there is a “natural disaster” of some sort we see a lot of soul searching and question asking, especially as it applies to God. Many people seem eager to put God on trial, as if He needs to answer to us when something horrible happens in a world that is polluted by man’s sin. This is of course happening right now with the tornado in Oklahoma and it inevitably raises the question: if God is sovereign, why did this happen? I don’t have an eloquent, theologically deep answer but I wanted to throw out some thoughts as someone who relies on Christ as sovereign over everything, from my salvation worked out and predestined before the world began (Eph 1:4) to a dear friend and co-laborer in Christ looking for a house.
First and foremost, we are not in a position to dictate to God. I don’t get to ask God why He permitted or ordained something I don’t like. My position is not an innocent man hauled in before a kangaroo court where I might be justified in demanding that the judge answer why God is infinitely and perfectly good and as such He is not only incapable of doing evil, anything He ordains to do is by definition good. When God slaughtered all of the first born males of Egypt, He actively killed children. He didn’t just “permit” it to happen, He did it. Is that evil? Well we consider killing children to be evil but God cannot commit an act that is evil so in this case no it is not. Further it is dangerous ground at all to even entertain that idea. In our hubris born of privilege and cultural arrogance Christians in the West and especially America have often gotten too big for our britches and deign to stand in judgment of God. Let me take it a step further. God would be justified, simply because He is God, if He destroyed the world in fire today and incinerated every single human being. Thanks to His forbearance He chooses not to but if He did it would be good because God and God alone is the standard of what is good.
If we lose sight of this foundational truth, we run into the question of whether God is able to stop evil from happening and chooses not to or He wants to stop it from happening but is unable. Either way God comes across poorly in our eyes. I find it helpful to look at every event through the lens of God as infinitely sovereign, omnipotent and omniscient and then to ask: what does God want from His people as a response?
I want God to do things. I want God to heal people of cancer and I know He can. I want God to stop terrible things from happening at places like Sandy Hook and Boston and Moore, Oklahoma. The real question I should be pondering is: what does God want me to do in response? Our acceptance of God as sovereign doesn’t mean we don’t suffer along with those who suffer and show compassion and minister to them. It doesn’t mean we don’t pray for healing or intervention. It means that we trust in God that all He does is good even when it is precisely the opposite of what I want. That is so hard. We want God in a manageable format. We want a God who will do what we want and not do what we don’t. God doesn’t work that way and I am glad He does not. What we should want is what God wants and how we react says a lot about how we view God. I liked an article from Tony Reinke writing for Desiring God, God’s Sovereignty and Personal Compassion in Public Tragedy. Below is his summary:
Maybe I will just close with one of the most practical illustrations. It says in Acts 4:27 that God predestined what Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles and the Jews brought to pass when Jesus was crucified. In other words, the worst sinning that has ever happened in the history of the world was planned and predestined by God, for the death of his Son, that we might be saved. The murder of the Son of God is the worst act in human history, and it was planned by God according to Acts 4:27.
Now God wills that evil for the sake of thousands of good responses. He wants us to be saved by it. He wants us to trust this Jesus. He wanted Mary to come to the tomb with compassion in her heart. He wanted to show that Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus were men of courage and godliness because they were willing to take the body and put it in their own tomb.
God had millions and millions of good and holy purposes in willing that this happened. And the same would be true of everything he wills in this world. So we should determine how we respond, not by any false, human, logical deduction that we are drawing from the sovereignty of God. We should determine it from what the Bible says should be our response, namely compassion, and outrage at sin, and efforts to be involved in bringing relief.
Exactly. Our question shouldn’t be “why”, it should be “what”. What do I do when bad things happen in a sinful world? How do I honor and glorify God in the midst of tragedy? If we focus there and not on the “why” we will do more to honor and glorify God and after all is said and done that is the chief end of man.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
A Lack of Leadership
How about a broad sweeping generalization on this fine Tuesday?
The church suffers from a lack of leadership.
The church suffers from a lack of leadership.
Now I am not saying we have a lack of attempts to cultivate
"leadership". Books and seminars and professional
education/vocational training aplenty purport to help men be leaders in the
church. We are told to defer to leaders. On this very topic I give you an interesting quote from a few days ago from Dave Black on that very topic.
I am not saying we should not have seminaries or Bible
schools. What troubles me is that we so often equate a formal biblical
education with true biblical understanding. It seems to me that it is time to
say "Enough!" to the fallacious notion that a degree in theology
makes one qualified for leadership in the church.
We also don't have a dearth of those who claim to be leaders, leaders like "Bishop" Katharine Jefferts Schori who seems to think that what the world needs is diversity rather than Jesus. Then there are those who seem to buy into the hype surrounding themselves and think much of themself based on the accolades on their books. Of course there are plenty of people enriching themselves
We also don't have a dearth of those who claim to be leaders, leaders like "Bishop" Katharine Jefferts Schori who seems to think that what the world needs is diversity rather than Jesus. Then there are those who seem to buy into the hype surrounding themselves and think much of themself based on the accolades on their books. Of course there are plenty of people enriching themselves
I am also not saying we don't have any leaders in the church
at all. We certainly do! What we lack is a recognition of people who are
actually leading in the church through the Biblical means of service and
example in favor of focusing on people based on position and title.Those are the leaders, the people who live and love as Christ lived and loved as best they can. It is the example of your life, the way you live, that makes you a leader.
The church is full of leaders and those leaders rarely if
ever make demands of deference to their supposed "authority". Say
what you like and dress it up all you want in religious jargon but someone who
is more concerned with people "submitting to their authority" than
they are with serving people in humility and love is not a leader in any
Biblical sense.More pointedly, the more you have to remind people that you are a leader, the less of a leader you really are.
Being a leader isn't easy. Sometimes being a leader means saying difficult things.
Anyone can say something to please people. It is harder to say something that
you know will anger the very people you depend on for your paycheck. Even
harder yet is to not only teach hard truths but to extend people the grace to
grow while modeling proper behavior.
Being a leader also isn't hard. Just worry about living your life as Christ taught and modeled. It doesn't require a certain educational achievement or a certificate on your wall or a title in front of your twitter or facebook profile. It just requires taking up your cross daily. Under your own power that is impossible but with the Scriptures and Holy Spirit to guide us we have all we need to be leaders in the church.
Being a leader also isn't hard. Just worry about living your life as Christ taught and modeled. It doesn't require a certain educational achievement or a certificate on your wall or a title in front of your twitter or facebook profile. It just requires taking up your cross daily. Under your own power that is impossible but with the Scriptures and Holy Spirit to guide us we have all we need to be leaders in the church.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Why The Old Labels No Longer Work (And Probably Never Did)
America is deeply divided along political lines. That is no surprise to anyone. While that has always been true in our two party, winner-takes-all system, it certainly has grown sharper and nastier over the last few decades. Old fashioned opposition has turned somehow more ugly, more personal. I usually point to the ridiculous "borking" of the late Robert Bork as the turning point but there is no credible doubt that we are a nation that is at war with itself, for now limited to rhetoric but I fear that in the future it may morph into something else.
I have started to see this dichotomy, once a critical part of my life, as entirely unhelpful both politically and doctrinally. I blame some of this on the two party, win take all system we exist in where it is natural and expedient to draw a line in the sand and then start appealing to lowest common denominator positions. What we are left with is a two party system loosely based on two ideologies that have little to do with the original meaning of their labels and I (and many others) find ourselves without a home in either party.
Modern "conservatism" is not terribly conservative at all. Rather than conserving it is about consuming. To protect our consuming, "conservatives" are willing to send young people to kill and die over and over, intervening in wars we have no business in and no real chance of "success", whatever that means. This means that the same people who complain about larger government when it comes in the form of food stamps are the first to freak out if we even suggest cutting back on military spending. Quaint notions like liberty are steamrolled by "security". Shameful though it may be to say it, the Republican party (the "conservative" party) is largely built to appeal to middle and upper class, mostly white, voters who are terrified of minorities and foreigners and angry at the poor.
Modern "liberalism"? Please. Unlike early liberalism what we call modern liberalism is simply replacing a hereditary elite ruling class with a bureaucratic elite ruling class. While homosexuals can "marry" and women can kill their unborn children, by virtually any other measure modern liberalism seeks to reduce liberty and make people less free. That is not liberalism, it is servitude and enslavement. The Democrats take a different approach from their opposites in the GOP, rather than appealing to fear they appeal to envy, painting everyone who has more than you as your enemy, an enemy that needs to be punished. Dress it up all you like in the language of "fairness", what it really comes down to is stealing from some people to bribe others for their votes.
While the modern conservative movement is deeply, perhaps fatally flawed, it is less wrong than what passes for modern liberalism. That is faint praise indeed and intended as such. With these two "choices" that are not really choices at all, it is little wonder I am done with the whole dog-and-pony show that happens on the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November. The American electoral process is a farce and everyone that pays attention knows it but most people keep doing it out of some misguided notion of civic responsibility and virtue. That isn't my primary concern.
As clearly inadequate as the terms liberal and conservative are in a political context, they are both inaccurate and deeply harmful in a church context. I say inaccurate because the things that modern political liberalism and conservatism alike stand for, or at least advocate for, have no bearing on Christian discipleship and Kingdom living. Lower taxes, defending 2nd Amendment rights, a strong "national defense"? Um no. Abortion on demand, forced income redistribution and institutionalized generational poverty. Double no.
What about harmful? Indeed and even more so than inaccurate. When we use these terms within the context of church discussions we invariably divide ourselves into camps that are as much political as they are doctrinal and the differences between the two categories is lost. Just because someone is "conservative" from a theological standpoint it doesn't always follow that they are "conservative" from a political standpoint, especially on an issue by issue basis. For example as someone who fits most possible definitions of "conservative" theologically, I am also someone who is strongly opposed to war in all forms even when it allegedly serves the national interest of America. I oppose war for the same reason I support complementarian gender roles, namely a consistent and "literal" interpretation of Scripture.
A perfect case in point was an older article someone linked to that purported to prove that reading your Bible more makes you more "liberal": Survey: Frequent Bible Reading Can Turn You Liberal . Granted it in Christianity Today and as such was immediately suspect but as I read through the article what kept jumping out to me is that the way the article defined "liberal" didn't seem so much theological as it did political. For example one statement said: But the more someone reads the Bible, the more likely he or she is to believe science and religion are compatible. Well I am pretty conservative by any measure and I think they are compatible and would affirm that statement. Now if you start getting into the particulars we would find some major points of difference on issues like evolution and "climate change". Other examples included questions about the Patriot Act and social justice issues: Some of the most interesting findings relate to moral attitudes. "How important is it," the survey asked, "to actively seek social and economic justice in order to be a good person?" Who is against social justice? Now again when you start to define "social justice" in political terms it can become code for "forced income redistribution", something the Bible never supports. I am all for social and economic justice but I also don't think that a welfare state and a permanent dependency class does anything to alleviate injustice. So the flaw here is in methodology but the message is that reading the Bible more leads to voting for Democrats.
Our insistence on using political labels loaded with cultural baggage to divide from other Christians is enormously unhelpful to our mission and harmful to our witness as the church. It happens on both sides, many "conservatives" use "liberal" as a way to dismiss anything another believer says and likewise there are many "liberals" who sneeringly use terms like "fundie" to mock those who have a more literal view of the Bible. Both groups do it and both claim to be preserving the foundations of the church in doing so but what they are really doing is dividing us up based on our positions on tax policy and national security, issues that have no bearing on our universal call to be ambassadors of a King with no army, no taxes and no borders. Can we declare a moratorium on using this language to bite and devour one another? I will volunteer to try to start with my own writings and would call on anyone reading here to do the same.
I have started to see this dichotomy, once a critical part of my life, as entirely unhelpful both politically and doctrinally. I blame some of this on the two party, win take all system we exist in where it is natural and expedient to draw a line in the sand and then start appealing to lowest common denominator positions. What we are left with is a two party system loosely based on two ideologies that have little to do with the original meaning of their labels and I (and many others) find ourselves without a home in either party.
Modern "conservatism" is not terribly conservative at all. Rather than conserving it is about consuming. To protect our consuming, "conservatives" are willing to send young people to kill and die over and over, intervening in wars we have no business in and no real chance of "success", whatever that means. This means that the same people who complain about larger government when it comes in the form of food stamps are the first to freak out if we even suggest cutting back on military spending. Quaint notions like liberty are steamrolled by "security". Shameful though it may be to say it, the Republican party (the "conservative" party) is largely built to appeal to middle and upper class, mostly white, voters who are terrified of minorities and foreigners and angry at the poor.
Modern "liberalism"? Please. Unlike early liberalism what we call modern liberalism is simply replacing a hereditary elite ruling class with a bureaucratic elite ruling class. While homosexuals can "marry" and women can kill their unborn children, by virtually any other measure modern liberalism seeks to reduce liberty and make people less free. That is not liberalism, it is servitude and enslavement. The Democrats take a different approach from their opposites in the GOP, rather than appealing to fear they appeal to envy, painting everyone who has more than you as your enemy, an enemy that needs to be punished. Dress it up all you like in the language of "fairness", what it really comes down to is stealing from some people to bribe others for their votes.
While the modern conservative movement is deeply, perhaps fatally flawed, it is less wrong than what passes for modern liberalism. That is faint praise indeed and intended as such. With these two "choices" that are not really choices at all, it is little wonder I am done with the whole dog-and-pony show that happens on the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November. The American electoral process is a farce and everyone that pays attention knows it but most people keep doing it out of some misguided notion of civic responsibility and virtue. That isn't my primary concern.
As clearly inadequate as the terms liberal and conservative are in a political context, they are both inaccurate and deeply harmful in a church context. I say inaccurate because the things that modern political liberalism and conservatism alike stand for, or at least advocate for, have no bearing on Christian discipleship and Kingdom living. Lower taxes, defending 2nd Amendment rights, a strong "national defense"? Um no. Abortion on demand, forced income redistribution and institutionalized generational poverty. Double no.
What about harmful? Indeed and even more so than inaccurate. When we use these terms within the context of church discussions we invariably divide ourselves into camps that are as much political as they are doctrinal and the differences between the two categories is lost. Just because someone is "conservative" from a theological standpoint it doesn't always follow that they are "conservative" from a political standpoint, especially on an issue by issue basis. For example as someone who fits most possible definitions of "conservative" theologically, I am also someone who is strongly opposed to war in all forms even when it allegedly serves the national interest of America. I oppose war for the same reason I support complementarian gender roles, namely a consistent and "literal" interpretation of Scripture.
A perfect case in point was an older article someone linked to that purported to prove that reading your Bible more makes you more "liberal": Survey: Frequent Bible Reading Can Turn You Liberal . Granted it in Christianity Today and as such was immediately suspect but as I read through the article what kept jumping out to me is that the way the article defined "liberal" didn't seem so much theological as it did political. For example one statement said: But the more someone reads the Bible, the more likely he or she is to believe science and religion are compatible. Well I am pretty conservative by any measure and I think they are compatible and would affirm that statement. Now if you start getting into the particulars we would find some major points of difference on issues like evolution and "climate change". Other examples included questions about the Patriot Act and social justice issues: Some of the most interesting findings relate to moral attitudes. "How important is it," the survey asked, "to actively seek social and economic justice in order to be a good person?" Who is against social justice? Now again when you start to define "social justice" in political terms it can become code for "forced income redistribution", something the Bible never supports. I am all for social and economic justice but I also don't think that a welfare state and a permanent dependency class does anything to alleviate injustice. So the flaw here is in methodology but the message is that reading the Bible more leads to voting for Democrats.
Our insistence on using political labels loaded with cultural baggage to divide from other Christians is enormously unhelpful to our mission and harmful to our witness as the church. It happens on both sides, many "conservatives" use "liberal" as a way to dismiss anything another believer says and likewise there are many "liberals" who sneeringly use terms like "fundie" to mock those who have a more literal view of the Bible. Both groups do it and both claim to be preserving the foundations of the church in doing so but what they are really doing is dividing us up based on our positions on tax policy and national security, issues that have no bearing on our universal call to be ambassadors of a King with no army, no taxes and no borders. Can we declare a moratorium on using this language to bite and devour one another? I will volunteer to try to start with my own writings and would call on anyone reading here to do the same.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Happiness Is....
...a huge bag of free leaf lard! We got this from our Amish guy who butchers and processes our hogs. The bag must weigh 35-40 lbs and we have our first batch chopped up and in the crock pot rendering down!
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Our Double Standard Is Showing (Again)
There was quite an uproar a few days back when President
Obama addressed an event for Planned Parenthood and closed his comments with
"God bless you", a "blessing" aimed at Planned Parenthood. The uproar was
understandable. Planned "Parenthood" is the face of the American
abortion industry, a business that is responsible for unimaginable butchery on
a daily basis. To invoke God's blessing on their endeavors, even in the throw
away manner that politicians typically say "God bless ", is an affront. George Weigel writing for First Things described it as blasphemy in his essay yesterday, Tribulation Compounded by Blasphemy:
But there was worse. For President Obama concluded his remarks as follows: “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you . . .”
And that is nothing short of blasphemy.
Too harsh? No. For in its discussion of this grave sin against the Second Commandment, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 2148) teaches that “it is also blasphemous to make use of God’s name to . . . reduce people to servitude, to torture persons or to put them to death.” That is precisely what happens in Planned Parenthood abortuaries. And on that, the president of the United States called down the divine blessing.
Pray for him. Pray for the United States, which is in very, very serious trouble.
But there was worse. For President Obama concluded his remarks as follows: “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you . . .”
And that is nothing short of blasphemy.
Too harsh? No. For in its discussion of this grave sin against the Second Commandment, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 2148) teaches that “it is also blasphemous to make use of God’s name to . . . reduce people to servitude, to torture persons or to put them to death.” That is precisely what happens in Planned Parenthood abortuaries. And on that, the president of the United States called down the divine blessing.
Pray for him. Pray for the United States, which is in very, very serious trouble.
Now I don't put much stock in what the Catechism of the
Catholic Church has to say on a topic but it is interesting that it says that it
is blasphemous to use God's name to put people to death. I would agree that invoking God's name in the
process of putting people to death is blasphemy (an irony I will leave unexplored for now). To ask for God's blessing on a
group that murders children for money on a daily basis is a perversion and
gross blasphemy indeed. No issue there but that also raises a sticky question
that most Christians in America
not only refuse to consider but get awfully mad when someone else does. Many,
many Christians and generic religious Americans alike pray loudly and fervently
for God to "bless our troops". What is the connection you ask?
We don't say "God bless the troops of every
country". No, often Christians in America thank God for our soldiers,
the soldiers that "keep us free" and ask God to "bless our
troops". A quick Google image search for "God bless our troops"
brings up some pretty extensive results as a testimony to the notion that
somehow American soldiers are more deserving of blessing and serve in a
more righteous capacity than soldiers of other nations. After all America is a
"Christian nation" founded on "Judeo-Christian values" so
of course our soldiers are carrying out God's will.
If someone were to say "God bless Planned
Parenthood" and mean "God bring repentance to those engaged in their
bloody work of murder for profit" that would be one thing. Likewise if our
desire for God to bless our troops was a call to change hearts and bring repentance
that might be something else indeed. However I cannot imagine that is what
President Obama meant in his attempt to invoke God's blessings on the mission
of Planned Parenthood nor is that what American Christians mean when they pray
for God's blessings on "our" troops to prevail over "our"
enemies. The blessing in both case is for a blessing on their current efforts to continue and that is problematic.
Just as I cannot divide my loyalty by pledging allegiance to
a flag, I cannot pray for God to intercede on behalf of one side of a secular
military conflict over another side. I don't see that God calls me to be concerned
over a "way of life" or state sponsored "religious liberty"
or the various economic, territorial or ego driven reasons we go war. I understand the
very substantive difference between the military which has a legitimate secular
function even if I don't agree with the policies and a business that makes
money from carving up unborn children in the womb. They are not the same but
that doesn't change the very real double-standard in play here where we place
our loyalties to nation on a pedestal and pray for God to bless the armies of Caesar
because we are terrified that we might lose our precious "rights" or
have to pay more for gasoline. We have not faced a real threat to America proper
since the beginning of the 20th century but those intervening decades are
filled with war after war that American Christians have dutifully and often
eagerly participated in not just by praying for our troops but by filling the
ranks of those troops with our sons. In spite of this, if you dare to ask the question of why God should bless our troops you can be sure that you are in for a hostile response.
The double-standard in our pro-life position is glaring and
if you think that the world we are called to reach doesn't see it you are
fooling yourself. We pray outside of abortion clinics but cheer when
unbelievers die. We talk about loving out enemies on Sunday and pray for God to
smite them or at least assist our troops in smiting them on Monday. We worship
a Savior executed by the state and have no problem with the state executing
others. We speak of the sanctity of human life, especially children, but turn a
blind eye to the dead children who are "collateral damage" in
American wars. The often hurled charge that American Christians only care about
children until they are born is spurious but we seem bent on trying to prove our accusers right. After Kermit Gosnell was convicted of the heinous crimes of which he was accused, some Christians seemed to be tripping over themselves to call for his execution while the majority of the church seemed disinterested once the cause of the day left the headlines. Even while it was going on the church in America was largely silent on the killing in our name of innocents abroad. Out of sight, out of mind I guess and after all when it comes to "national security" you have to break some eggs to make an omelet.
Few things undermine our witness more than hypocrisy and even when it is in our blind spots, the world sees it clear as day. People reject Christ because of the hardness of their unregenerate hearts but they reject "Christianity" because they see our hypocrisy and double-standards, preaching one thing and practicing another. No matter how much we cherish our American identity and the privileges that come along with our worldly citizenship, it pales compared to the holy and eternity impacting mission we are called to. If our loyalty to our land of birth impedes our witness, it is unhealthy and needs to be cut out of the church. If we can rail against President Obama asking for God's blessing on an organization of butchers and do so while driving cars asking for God's blessings on those we send to kill and die on our behalf for secular reasons we shouldn't be surprised at the derision of the world.
Being pro-life means all life. Loving our enemies means all of our enemies. The commandments of Christ don't change at the borders of America.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Control the food, control the people
The older I get, the less crazy some conspiracy theories sound to me...
You can live without cars or cell phones or cable TV. In fact a lot of what people think are necessities are little more than luxuries and a many of them are actually harmful. But food? You simply cannot live for very long without food. Food, water and shelter are the essentials of life but with each passing year all three become less free and more controlled by the government.
Our food system is completely and almost inextricably linked to our government control. For the vast majority of Americans, even families that raise some of their own food like we do, it is virtually impossible to feed your family without eating food that has been regulated, controlled and subsidized by the Federal government. Walk through a supermarket with me and I bet that you would be hard pressed to find a single food item that didn't get handled, subsidized or regulated by the government. Now that may not seem like a big deal, after all don't we all want "safe food"? Sure but at what cost? I am not talking about the price sticker on a bag of Doritos, I am talking about the real costs of food that you don't see at the checkout line but that we all pay.
Thanks to onerous and usually unnecessary regulations that make smaller scale (and more local) operations economically nonviable, more and more of our food is produced hundreds or thousands of
miles away. Have you ever stopped to wonder how it is that you can buy virtually any food you want, regardless of where you live and what season it is? We used to live in one of the northernmost towns in North America, a place where the growing season is very short and winter is very long, but I could still buy "fresh" fruits and vegetables year round even though the nearest place that could raise strawberries in February was over 1000 miles away. I wasn't buying produce that was "produced" locally, I was buying food that had been trucked from all over the country (and outside of the country) to provide me with whatever food I desired, whenever I desired it (and at a low price of course). Gone is any sense of the seasonality of food, something that makes sense when you realize that the harvesting that happens in fall now is mostly field corn and soybeans that are completely inedible for humans. The crops that are harvested in the fall will be shipped off to a food processing plant or a feedlot somewhere far away or stored until the prices hit the right level.
Of course to move that food efficiently requires a key ingredient, namely cheap fuel. If we paid $7 or $9 per gallon for diesel fuel you can be sure that it would be far more expensive to buy food from far away processors and you wouldn't be able to obtain produce in the winter, or at least not at such a low price. One of the most insane features of our modern food system is that it is built not so much on sun and soil as it is on petroleum, petroleum that we on the one hand refuse to extract from our own domestic sources but on the other hand are perfectly willing (and often eager) to sacrifice countless lives and limbs of our young people and innocent by-standers overseas to keep the river of cheap oil flowing. If we ever suffer a real petroleum crisis you can be sure that a food crisis will follow right behind. Our food system is dependent more on oil than on crop yields or biotechnology or the good old American farmer. Without oil, cheap and plentiful, we could not continue to feed ourselves as we are used to doing. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. It also shows what a farce the idea of cheap food really is. Between crop subsidies, disaster insurance, trade deals, military interventions around the world, etc. we pay an enormous cost for our food supply but the difference is that it is an indirect cost, something lost in the morass of the income tax system.
Another way that Uncle Sam controls food is simply having the government become the provider of food for many Americans, more now than at any time in history which is a symptom of the bitter irony of the "War on poverty" that has made poverty generational and more common rather than reducing it in any meaningful way. There are over 23,000,000 American households receiving food assistance via the SNAP (Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program) program administered by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. Broken out by actual people and we see that over 47,000,000 people or 15% of the population is enrolled in the SNAP program with some states like Mississippi and the District of Columbia having over 20% of their population enrolled in the "food stamp" program. The modern day United States Department of Agriculture is mostly involved in regulations and in supplementing tens of millions of Americans food purchasing budgets rather than anything having to do with actual agricultural practices, having long ago abdicated the development of agricultural practices to international food and agriculture companies like Monsanto, Tyson and Conagra as well as land grant universities funded in large part by those same companies. This isn't a knock on people who legitimately are in a position to need food assistance but it is an accusatory finger pointed right at the same organization that on the one hand provides "free" food for some while perpetuating an economic system that leaves so many people in need in the first place, namely the United States government. Not only can you not really buy much food that isn't controlled by the government, many families simply cannot afford to feed themselves at all without that assistance.
So what is my point other than conspiracy ranting? Not much other than pointing out that the majority of Americans and the citizens of other industrialized nations are more or less completely dependent on the government for feeding themselves to the point of being completely incapable of procuring even the most basic food needs without the assistance and permission of their government. It is easy to assume that the government will always be there but given the troubling instability of European nations and the incredible debt level of our own government that permanence is no longer a given. The seemingly steady and secure food system we enjoy is actually on pretty shaky ground and any disruption could have serious, potentially catastrophic consequences.
Each little step toward food independence, no matter how small, is important. Whether you have a small square foot container garden or a few backyard chickens or you raise most of your own food yourself you take a small step of peaceful, lawful rebellion against those who would enslave us by controlling our food supply. Cheap food is anything but inexpensive and a people cannot be free when they are not able to even feed themselves without a by your leave from the government.
You can live without cars or cell phones or cable TV. In fact a lot of what people think are necessities are little more than luxuries and a many of them are actually harmful. But food? You simply cannot live for very long without food. Food, water and shelter are the essentials of life but with each passing year all three become less free and more controlled by the government.
Our food system is completely and almost inextricably linked to our government control. For the vast majority of Americans, even families that raise some of their own food like we do, it is virtually impossible to feed your family without eating food that has been regulated, controlled and subsidized by the Federal government. Walk through a supermarket with me and I bet that you would be hard pressed to find a single food item that didn't get handled, subsidized or regulated by the government. Now that may not seem like a big deal, after all don't we all want "safe food"? Sure but at what cost? I am not talking about the price sticker on a bag of Doritos, I am talking about the real costs of food that you don't see at the checkout line but that we all pay.
Thanks to onerous and usually unnecessary regulations that make smaller scale (and more local) operations economically nonviable, more and more of our food is produced hundreds or thousands of
miles away. Have you ever stopped to wonder how it is that you can buy virtually any food you want, regardless of where you live and what season it is? We used to live in one of the northernmost towns in North America, a place where the growing season is very short and winter is very long, but I could still buy "fresh" fruits and vegetables year round even though the nearest place that could raise strawberries in February was over 1000 miles away. I wasn't buying produce that was "produced" locally, I was buying food that had been trucked from all over the country (and outside of the country) to provide me with whatever food I desired, whenever I desired it (and at a low price of course). Gone is any sense of the seasonality of food, something that makes sense when you realize that the harvesting that happens in fall now is mostly field corn and soybeans that are completely inedible for humans. The crops that are harvested in the fall will be shipped off to a food processing plant or a feedlot somewhere far away or stored until the prices hit the right level.
Of course to move that food efficiently requires a key ingredient, namely cheap fuel. If we paid $7 or $9 per gallon for diesel fuel you can be sure that it would be far more expensive to buy food from far away processors and you wouldn't be able to obtain produce in the winter, or at least not at such a low price. One of the most insane features of our modern food system is that it is built not so much on sun and soil as it is on petroleum, petroleum that we on the one hand refuse to extract from our own domestic sources but on the other hand are perfectly willing (and often eager) to sacrifice countless lives and limbs of our young people and innocent by-standers overseas to keep the river of cheap oil flowing. If we ever suffer a real petroleum crisis you can be sure that a food crisis will follow right behind. Our food system is dependent more on oil than on crop yields or biotechnology or the good old American farmer. Without oil, cheap and plentiful, we could not continue to feed ourselves as we are used to doing. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. It also shows what a farce the idea of cheap food really is. Between crop subsidies, disaster insurance, trade deals, military interventions around the world, etc. we pay an enormous cost for our food supply but the difference is that it is an indirect cost, something lost in the morass of the income tax system. 
Another way that Uncle Sam controls food is simply having the government become the provider of food for many Americans, more now than at any time in history which is a symptom of the bitter irony of the "War on poverty" that has made poverty generational and more common rather than reducing it in any meaningful way. There are over 23,000,000 American households receiving food assistance via the SNAP (Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program) program administered by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service. Broken out by actual people and we see that over 47,000,000 people or 15% of the population is enrolled in the SNAP program with some states like Mississippi and the District of Columbia having over 20% of their population enrolled in the "food stamp" program. The modern day United States Department of Agriculture is mostly involved in regulations and in supplementing tens of millions of Americans food purchasing budgets rather than anything having to do with actual agricultural practices, having long ago abdicated the development of agricultural practices to international food and agriculture companies like Monsanto, Tyson and Conagra as well as land grant universities funded in large part by those same companies. This isn't a knock on people who legitimately are in a position to need food assistance but it is an accusatory finger pointed right at the same organization that on the one hand provides "free" food for some while perpetuating an economic system that leaves so many people in need in the first place, namely the United States government. Not only can you not really buy much food that isn't controlled by the government, many families simply cannot afford to feed themselves at all without that assistance.
So what is my point other than conspiracy ranting? Not much other than pointing out that the majority of Americans and the citizens of other industrialized nations are more or less completely dependent on the government for feeding themselves to the point of being completely incapable of procuring even the most basic food needs without the assistance and permission of their government. It is easy to assume that the government will always be there but given the troubling instability of European nations and the incredible debt level of our own government that permanence is no longer a given. The seemingly steady and secure food system we enjoy is actually on pretty shaky ground and any disruption could have serious, potentially catastrophic consequences.
Each little step toward food independence, no matter how small, is important. Whether you have a small square foot container garden or a few backyard chickens or you raise most of your own food yourself you take a small step of peaceful, lawful rebellion against those who would enslave us by controlling our food supply. Cheap food is anything but inexpensive and a people cannot be free when they are not able to even feed themselves without a by your leave from the government.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Having A Baby Is Not A Disease
I saw this video linked the other day and liked it a lot....
Again, we had all eight of our kids in hospitals, the last couple attended by a midwife. We have never given birth at home. We also don't think that women who choose to should be seen as backwoods kooks and furthermore don't think that midwives who assist a woman in doing one of the most natural events in life should be criminzalized for doing so.
There might be a point when more and more drugs and c-sections and inductions and extraordinarily expensive hospital care might be overkill, frightening women into thinking they are incompetent to deliver their own child. Sometimes the old ways are really better.
Again, we had all eight of our kids in hospitals, the last couple attended by a midwife. We have never given birth at home. We also don't think that women who choose to should be seen as backwoods kooks and furthermore don't think that midwives who assist a woman in doing one of the most natural events in life should be criminzalized for doing so.
There might be a point when more and more drugs and c-sections and inductions and extraordinarily expensive hospital care might be overkill, frightening women into thinking they are incompetent to deliver their own child. Sometimes the old ways are really better.
My How Things Have Changed (And Not For The Better)
Sometimes the best blogging is the simplest and I love Dave Black's lists. This morning features a great list of bullet points, each one dead on the money and worthy of extensive study in its own right (and I would love to see him do a point by point on each topic below) about how the church has changed from the New Testament model.
All true I am afraid. Then he simply adds this:
The New Testament shows us that the need great of modern Christianity is to return to biblical faithfulness and the profound simplicity of the New Testament.
Indeed. Many of us tend to blog in great volumes about the church but that simple statement kind of captures it. Anyway I don't have anything to add to that (well I do but it probably can wait!) but I think it is worth pondering.
- The Lord's Supper has changed from a celebration to a ceremony.
- Worship has changed from participation to observation.
- Witness has changed from relationship to salesmanship.
- Leadership has changed from servanthood to professionalism.
- Mission has changed from being missionaries to supporting missionaries.
- Body life has changed from edification to entertainment.
- Buildings have changed from functional to sacred.
- Child care has changed from the hands of parents to the hands of strangers
All true I am afraid. Then he simply adds this:
The New Testament shows us that the need great of modern Christianity is to return to biblical faithfulness and the profound simplicity of the New Testament.
Indeed. Many of us tend to blog in great volumes about the church but that simple statement kind of captures it. Anyway I don't have anything to add to that (well I do but it probably can wait!) but I think it is worth pondering.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Pray For Kermit Gosnell
The news is abuzz with the verdict of guilty for Kermit Gosnell. Caesar has meted out a just verdict and now will carry out the wrath of the state on an evil doer. While many who kill children for profit still walk free, a mockery of justice, at least in this one account justice will be done. As far as what is to happen to Gosnell next, there remains the possibility of a death sentence. Many will cheer if that is the sentence.
I will not.
First, Mr. Gosnell is 72 and unlikely to live long enough to have a death sentence carried out. More importantly, as heinous and inhuman as his actions were no one is too great a sinner for Christ. I will not call for his death because he is already dead in his sins. I will instead pray for his life, a new life in Christ where he can receive forgiveness for his crimes. Mr. Gosnell, a butcher of children, is no more deserving of hell than I and if a killer of children is not the sort of enemy I should pray for I don't know who would be.
Pray for this man that while he still draws breath that God will call him to Himself. If God chooses not to, He will see to it that Gosnell faces the eternal justice that he deserves (and that I do as well). Regardless there is hope for Kermit Gosnell in Jesus Christ and I am far more interested in seeing his salvation than I am in seeing him strapped to an electric chair.
I will not.
First, Mr. Gosnell is 72 and unlikely to live long enough to have a death sentence carried out. More importantly, as heinous and inhuman as his actions were no one is too great a sinner for Christ. I will not call for his death because he is already dead in his sins. I will instead pray for his life, a new life in Christ where he can receive forgiveness for his crimes. Mr. Gosnell, a butcher of children, is no more deserving of hell than I and if a killer of children is not the sort of enemy I should pray for I don't know who would be.
Pray for this man that while he still draws breath that God will call him to Himself. If God chooses not to, He will see to it that Gosnell faces the eternal justice that he deserves (and that I do as well). Regardless there is hope for Kermit Gosnell in Jesus Christ and I am far more interested in seeing his salvation than I am in seeing him strapped to an electric chair.
Replay: Christians and the sword
Why the anger at the suggestion, from Scripture, that Christians should not take up the sword and commit violence toward others? Do we love bloodshed so much? It is not a difficult case to make from the Bible, a case made from the teachings of Christ, the manner of His life and His death, the testimony of His apostles and the witness of His people throughout the ages who have gladly laid down their life for the sake of the Kingdom. Nevertheless I get more backlash from this topic than almost any other.
I would hope that I would not be misinterpreted as saying that those who take up the sword are not Christians, I simply ask if we should not seek the way of the towel and basin rather than the way of the sword and not just when it is safe and convenient but especially when it is not safe or convenient. It is easy to talk about loving our enemies in theory but many of the teachings of Christ are easy in the abstract. It is when we are faced with a situation where following Christ means great cost to us that we find out where our allegiance lies and who our trust is in.
The sword is the tool of the world, a tool that wields the power of finality by taking the life of another. That is what it is made for and that is what the powers of the world have always used it for. It is what the Jews expected from their Messiah, that He would lead them in overthrowing their oppressors. Jesus showed them a different way, a way that makes no sense to the world. He showed them and the Romans and His sheep throughout the ages that love of enemy can overcome the sin of the world.
Anyway, here is the series presented for your enjoyment and consideration.....
--------
The state, the sword and Christians
Can Christians take up the sword? - Intro
Can Christians take up the sword? - The pro-sword view
Can Christians take up the sword? - The anti-sword view
Can Christians take up the sword? - Conclusion
Thursday, May 09, 2013
What Does Success Look Like?
How do we know if "church" was a success on Monday morning? We often ask questions like: Was the sermon good? Did people pay attention? How was the music, uplifting and tailored to the sermon? How many people showed up? What was the offering?
Dave Black offered some pertinent thoughts last Sunday on the critical importance of what happens after Sunday:
If, then, the ministry of the laos is God's means of fulfilling His mission in the world, it is necessary that we view what we do on Sunday mornings as merely the beginning, not the climax, of our work. In other words, we need to change the basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the ministry of our churches. The question is not "How many attended on Sunday?" but "What did those who attended on Sunday do during the week to advance God's mission?" This is what it means to be the People of God. It is a people who understand that the mission of the church is to fulfill God's redemptive mission. Our calling is to join God's army and become aggressively involved in His mission in the world.
My point was that God's call to salvation and His call to mission/ministry are one and the same. To follow Christ in this way is not optional for the one who is truly born again. It is to this life of mission/ministry that we must respond. Not only is this possible and practical in this day of over-professionalization; an emphasis on anything else is, I think, a perversion of the Gospel.
That is a powerful but accurate statement. God does not call us to salvation and then expects us to run out the clock sitting in pews until we die or Christ returns. As Dave says the call to salvation and the call to mission are one and the same. No one who is called to saving faith in Christ is not likewise called to ministry. To truly know if the gathering of the church accomplished what it should have on Sunday we should look to how the church lives Monday through Saturday. A major reason we are exhorted to gather together in the first place is not to "worship" but to "stir up one another to love and good works" (Hebrews 10:24). if people are not encouraged, equipped and exhorted to mission work when the church gathers, you might as well stay home.
There has been some backlash recently against the calls for a more "radical" Christianity. In the response to the Platt/Chan radicalism, which isn't really terribly radical, I fear that many Christians are having the "show up, pay up and shut up" model of "church" reinforced. For example a recent article in World magazine, The 'new legalism', seems mostly designed to comfort people who are content with "going to church" as the sum total of their Christian life. The problem with the "new radicalism" is not that it makes people who live comfy middle-class suburban lives interspersed with a couple of hours of "worship" feel bad about themselves, it is that the definition of radical doesn't go nearly far enough! What passes for the life of disciples of Christ in the west is so radically (pun intended) different from what being a disciple meant to the 1st century church, to the Reformers and later the Anabaptists and for all of those who live in places of the world where being a disciple often means laying down your life, that those saints who went before wouldn't even recognize it. Can you imagine an Anabaptist who watched friends tortured, drowned and burden at the stake for their faith being told that a suggestion that Christians don't need multiple iPhones was excessively radical and "legalistic"? I don't think they would be very sympathetic.
Calls for radical discipleship, every member ministry must be coupled with a proper theology of justification so that we don't confuse exhortations to ministry and good works as somehow aiding our justification but that is no excuse to not call every Christian to engage in the privilege and solemn and sacred duty of being on mission for Christ. The church exists for mission and the mission is too big for any by-standers, too all encompassing to be subcontracted to a select group of professionals, too critical to be left to chance. Our faithfulness in this generation of the church will not be judged based on political victories or bank accounts or membership statistics. It will be judged on how faithfully we carried our the Great Commission and lived out the Great Commandment. If the Lord was passing out mid-term grades to this generation I am afraid we would all be looking at summer school.
Dave Black offered some pertinent thoughts last Sunday on the critical importance of what happens after Sunday:
If, then, the ministry of the laos is God's means of fulfilling His mission in the world, it is necessary that we view what we do on Sunday mornings as merely the beginning, not the climax, of our work. In other words, we need to change the basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the ministry of our churches. The question is not "How many attended on Sunday?" but "What did those who attended on Sunday do during the week to advance God's mission?" This is what it means to be the People of God. It is a people who understand that the mission of the church is to fulfill God's redemptive mission. Our calling is to join God's army and become aggressively involved in His mission in the world.
My point was that God's call to salvation and His call to mission/ministry are one and the same. To follow Christ in this way is not optional for the one who is truly born again. It is to this life of mission/ministry that we must respond. Not only is this possible and practical in this day of over-professionalization; an emphasis on anything else is, I think, a perversion of the Gospel.
That is a powerful but accurate statement. God does not call us to salvation and then expects us to run out the clock sitting in pews until we die or Christ returns. As Dave says the call to salvation and the call to mission are one and the same. No one who is called to saving faith in Christ is not likewise called to ministry. To truly know if the gathering of the church accomplished what it should have on Sunday we should look to how the church lives Monday through Saturday. A major reason we are exhorted to gather together in the first place is not to "worship" but to "stir up one another to love and good works" (Hebrews 10:24). if people are not encouraged, equipped and exhorted to mission work when the church gathers, you might as well stay home.
There has been some backlash recently against the calls for a more "radical" Christianity. In the response to the Platt/Chan radicalism, which isn't really terribly radical, I fear that many Christians are having the "show up, pay up and shut up" model of "church" reinforced. For example a recent article in World magazine, The 'new legalism', seems mostly designed to comfort people who are content with "going to church" as the sum total of their Christian life. The problem with the "new radicalism" is not that it makes people who live comfy middle-class suburban lives interspersed with a couple of hours of "worship" feel bad about themselves, it is that the definition of radical doesn't go nearly far enough! What passes for the life of disciples of Christ in the west is so radically (pun intended) different from what being a disciple meant to the 1st century church, to the Reformers and later the Anabaptists and for all of those who live in places of the world where being a disciple often means laying down your life, that those saints who went before wouldn't even recognize it. Can you imagine an Anabaptist who watched friends tortured, drowned and burden at the stake for their faith being told that a suggestion that Christians don't need multiple iPhones was excessively radical and "legalistic"? I don't think they would be very sympathetic.
Calls for radical discipleship, every member ministry must be coupled with a proper theology of justification so that we don't confuse exhortations to ministry and good works as somehow aiding our justification but that is no excuse to not call every Christian to engage in the privilege and solemn and sacred duty of being on mission for Christ. The church exists for mission and the mission is too big for any by-standers, too all encompassing to be subcontracted to a select group of professionals, too critical to be left to chance. Our faithfulness in this generation of the church will not be judged based on political victories or bank accounts or membership statistics. It will be judged on how faithfully we carried our the Great Commission and lived out the Great Commandment. If the Lord was passing out mid-term grades to this generation I am afraid we would all be looking at summer school.
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Who Doesn't Love A Baby Horse?!
We have a couple of visitors to the farm, an Amish friend's Halflinger mare who is going to be bred to our Percerhon stallion and also her week old baby that is also from our stud horse! He is awfully cute and you can tell that his daddy is jet black from his coloration. Dad is not very interested in the baby but he is quite happy to see momma horse!
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