Above all, our sickness should drive us to our knees in prayer. God can heal the sick. And even if He chooses to delay this longer than we might want, we should thank God for controlling the world even on days we cannot control even our little part in it.
What We Learn from Our Sicknesses
It is that time of year when everyone seems to be getting sick. I had a virus a few weeks ago and many family members and friends have been taking time off work. There also seems to be a higher than usual amount of people with more serious, long-term illnesses. Like with all aspects of our lives, we should ask: “how does this help me serve Jesus? What does this tell me about God?”
We must not draw the wrong conclusions about what is happening to us when we are unwell. It is easy to feel cheated as if we deserve whatever plans we have made to work out, and incredibly frustrated when they have not. Instead, there are some important things that we can productively think about when we are sick, including:
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We live in a fallen world
We probably already know this theologically; when we are sick, we feel this personally. We feel the impact of sin in the world in our sore joints and runny noses, in the way that our body cannot do what it usually does. This reminds us that so much of our lives are marred by sin even when we are not obviously sick.
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Surgical and Sexological Practices? Not Today, Satan
Fortunately for us, Satan lacks self-control. He can’t keep anything within reasonable proportion. He can’t be content with transing just some of the kids. He must trans all of them. He must destroy every human body on the way to devouring every precious soul. And so, eventually, all the confused speech becomes such a deafening cacophony of lies, that all the “surgical racism,” whatever that is, will be seen for what it is—total and complete evil.
“I hate this book,” said my child, removing an earbud.
“What book?” I asked.
“The Screwtape Letters,” he replied.
“Oh yeah,” said another child. “That’s the worst. Get out of my head, Dr. Lewis. You Don’t Know Me.”
Except he does though.
I wanted something light and fluffy for today, since I have so much to do and so little time to do it. But then a dear friend sent me this long rant by Andrew Sullivan, who afflicted himself by reading Judith Butler’s latest book which he describes as “decipherable” but “inelegant.” He takes this new readability as a hopeful sign, that the tide of gender confusion and insanity is perhaps turning. Butler, and that extraordinarily wicked person, Andrea Long Chu who made a case for the transing of children in New York Magazine, are not relying “on the media, the government, and the courts to impose their ideas by fiat” but are taking their arguments to the general public. This must represent some measure of desperation. The release of those WPATH files combined with the airtime de-transitioners are getting in places like the New York Times indicates that there is plenty of work to do to convince both lofty academic and humble normie to persist in doing “the work.”
I am not entirely persuaded about the hopefulness of this shift, but I was delighted to hear what is happening, in general, to the entire “community” that persistently attempts to find their essential identity in anything related to sex. In the words of Sullivan:
That’s why the Trevor Project, the massively-funded TQ+ organization, now tells troubled young gay kids that a gay man is defined as someone who has sex with biological women as well as with men. A gay man is not attracted to the same “sex” but to the same “gender” and that now includes biological women. Trevor has abolished homosexuality! It’s why woker-than-woke Grindr, formerly an app for gay men, is now full of straight dudes with profiles that say “NOT INTERESTED IN MEN just don’t bother,” “I don’t like men,” “Str8 4T”, “do not message me if you’re cis or a man,” “Fems and Them No Men,” “No gay men u will be blocked,” and “Im straight not gay.” Just another part of the straight “queer” community.
In the postmodern world where we invent reality hour by hour, depending on how we feel, being gay now includes heterosexual sex — and by far the biggest group in the “LGBTQIA+” umbrella are bisexual women in relationships with straight men. At some point, gay men will wake up and realize that they have abolished their own identity — indeed merged it into its opposite. But they have another tea dance to get to and another Instagram vacation pic to post. Most are pathetically uninformed, or programmed by tribal insecurity to follow the queering herd.
All my children, not just the two aforementioned, are binging on Lewis right now. If I made up a drinking game for every time I heard “C.S. Lewis” or “Tolkien says,” around here I would have to be locked away. Instead, I’m just folding laundry and eating cheese, and listening to them argue. No matter what I’m reading or thinking about, eventually, I’m going to end up back in Narnia or St. Anne’s.
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An Appeal on Race in the Presbyterian Church in America—Part 3
Of course, the world begins its attack with race. There must be a racist lurking behind every corner. Everything is boiled down to race, and all disagreement must include some underlying racial motivation. And yet, Christian charity would require us to admit at least the possibility that the issue might be entirely theological without any racial motivation at all.
“Therefore my appeal is that the PCA re-focus on the gospel ministry of the church and make that its declaration rather than repeatedly making statements on race and its related issues.”
Are There New Issues?
Last article addressed whether the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) position on racial sin was clear. This question is raised as this series of articles (for the first one click here) makes an appeal to PCA elders to turn the corner on a prevailing General Assembly (GA) conversation: race and racial sin. To that end, three questions are asked that should help give clarity on the need for continuing attention on this topic:Whether the PCA has a clear and thorough declaration on the sin of racism;
Whether there are any new or extraordinary manifestation of this sin rearing its head in society or the PCA that would warrant additional teaching from God’s word;
Whether the PCA neglects shepherding of private or public unrepentant sins in this regard that should be addressed by church courts.The first question was raised and answered in last installment with a resounding “yes!” The preponderance of theological statements, pastoral letters, and reports from the PCA (1977, 2002, 2004, 2016, 2018) has rendered further declarations on racial sin simply an exercise in restatement and redundancy. However, questions 2 and 3 above are yet to be tackled.
Overture 45 (and 46) at the 48th General Assembly (St. Louis, MO)
Both Metro Atlanta (#45) and Metro New York (#46) presbyteries submitted an identical overture, asking the GA to take several actions on behalf of the Asian-American members of the PCA. Although the reasoning for any overture is never part of the final denominational adoption of a request, it is still pertinent because they argue that a significant new development in the area of race relations has arisen that would make a new statement necessary and good. Two points are specifically important:
“Whereas, Metro Atlanta Presbytery learned with sorrow of the tragic deaths of eight people in and around our own presbytery on Tuesday, March 16, 2021, six of whom were of Asian descent, who were wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters made in the image of God; and
Whereas, even though the ultimate motivation of this shooter remains unestablished, these tragic shootings happened within the larger context of an increase in violence in this nation against Asian Americans over the last year; and have brought to light the racism that many of our Asian American brothers and sisters in Christ, and Asian American neighbors have experienced, and remind them of the anti-Asian racism that has been present in the past.”[1]
These reasons sound very much like a case for answering the second diagnostic question above with a “yes.” It is an assertion that there is a new form of racial sin previously unacknowledged by the PCA warranting additional clarification from the denomination. However asserting something is not the same thing as proving it.
Is There An Extraordinary Increase In Racial Sin?
Certainly US news outlets reported an increase in violence against Asians with vigor. For example here is a story of such increased violence from NBC. In the article, several cities are cited as examples, but for simplicity’s sake, only New York City will be considered here. Included in the article is the statistical analysis that the city with the largest surge in race based crime is NYC at a staggering 833% increase. Reporting things that way makes for an alarming headline and concern is an understandable result. However, as Christians it is important to think critically to understand if such numbers are, in fact, indicative of a racial crisis in our land.
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Opening Blind Eyes to the Truth about Sex-Trafficking in America
Blind Eyes Opened is a unique Christian documentary in that it is an in-depth examination of the sex-trafficking industry in the U.S. The film shows the dregs of depravity that drives the industry, but more importantly, it shows the transformations that are possible through Christ. Further, it shows the interconnected roles of law enforcement, policymakers, organizations, ministries, and experts in combatting the scourge of trafficking. Most importantly, it will show the hope that is in Christ and the power of His love that will cover the worst that can happen to anyone!
Some 20 years ago, I was invited to a meeting to discuss “human-trafficking.” Held at the Salvation Army Center on D.C.’s New York Avenue, only 10–15 D.C. policy analysts were invited — feminists, conservatives, evangelicals, politicos — and none of us had previously heard of the term “trafficking.” That meeting, convened by Michael Horowitz, then at the Hudson Institute, opened our eyes to a problem that is now addressed at the national level as well as internationally through cooperation among nations, as a consequence in large measure of the diligent work of those whose eyes were opened that day.
Prior to that meeting, sex-trafficking was seen as something that happened somewhere else; it didn’t affect Americans. Besides, it was an “underground” kind of crime that was isolated and rare. Through Horowitz’s passion, we learned that we had been blind to reality. With our eyes opened, we had to do something!
I got involved by helping to draft the original Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), lobbying to get it passed, doing the same for subsequent reauthorizations, and providing manpower in the bipartisan coalition that Horowitz spearheaded to provide a foundation for anti-trafficking work that was so effective under the Bush 43 administration and that has flourished dramatically during the Trump administration through the leadership of Ivanka Trump Kushner.
While there is much to celebrate at the beginning of 2020 and during January — the National Human Trafficking Awareness Month — there is an overarching problem that has yet to be resolved. The “blind eye” problem remains an issue: people still don’t see what is happening right under their noses. Many Americans still think the issue of human-trafficking is other nations’ problem. Far too many people fail to see that trafficking victims exist in plain sight. They don’t realize that there are many children under 18 right here in the United States who are prime sex-trafficking victims. Many people are unaware that boys as well as girls are victims of sex-trafficking. Few people know that the National Human Trafficking Hotline receives an average of 150 calls per day.
Let’s begin with some basic information. Human trafficking is big business. According to the Polaris Project, one of the outstanding anti-trafficking organizations in America, trafficking is a “multi-billion dollar criminal industry that denies freedom to 24.9 million people around the world.” In 2014, forced sexual labor was estimated to be at $99 billion worldwide, with the highest profits in developed countries. It has been called “Modern Day Slavery” because traffickers buy and sell women — over and over again, until the girl is used up and discarded. Numbers are thrown around carelessly, but we have some concrete numbers from Polaris.
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