Do you have any predictions for the coming year? Here are some possibilities:

Well, I don’t know about those. That’s the thing about predictions—it’s so easy to be off the mark. There are a few, though, in which we can have confidence. Let me offer this one:

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever.

He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

But from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children’s children—with those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts. [Psalm 103]

I must be tentative in making predictions as I look at the political world; it’s all dependent on the choices people make. But I can always depend on the character of God to be constant. He will not change. That’s a foundational truth, a principle we can rely on—a prediction that will surely come to pass.

I’ve called this blog “Pondering Principles” because I believe that God has given us general truths [principles] that apply to all of life. Naturally, I want to expound on those truths and call us back to being principled people.

We need to keep in mind, though, that there are other principles out there that are not from God. They also form the basis for what people think and do. If they don’t come from the heart and Word of God, however, they will do more harm than good.

I’m particularly distressed over people who use such “principles” for their own advancement. Such people and their principles are especially pernicious when they switch from God’s principles to ones of their own making just to get ahead. One person who epitomizes this switch is Jesse Jackson.

He’s in the news again. I’ll get back to his latest comments in a moment, but I want to highlight the major switch he made in principles that is most offensive to me and countless others.

In his early years, Jackson was a staunch defender of the rights of the unborn. He even wrote an article for National Right to Life News in 1977, in which he said, ”as a matter of conscience I must oppose the use of federal funds for a policy of killing infants.”

Jackson related how his mother had been advised by doctors to have him aborted. He was grateful she didn’t follow that advice. He even added:

Some argue, suppose the woman does not want to have the baby. They say the very fact that she does not want the baby means that the psychological damage to the child is enough to abort the baby. I disagree. The solution to that problem is not to kill the innocent baby but to deal with her values and her attitude toward life — that which has allowed her not to want the baby.

So Jackson understood that abortion was the taking of innocent human life. What changed? He ran for president in 1988. Knowing that he would never receive the nomination on the Democratic ticket with a pro-life stance, he did a complete 180, becoming a radical proponent of abortion on demand.

I can have no respect for a person who changes his views to attain political office, especially if the change encourages the murder of children.

Jackson also has developed a race-oriented approach that sees all things through that racial prism. The lengths to which he has gone in this respect was on display last week at a reception hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus. One member of the caucus, a representative from Alabama, had actually dared to vote against the House healthcare bill. Jackson decided to inject himself into the issue by declaring,

We even have blacks voting against the health care bill.  You can’t vote against health care and call yourself a black man.

Oh, really? He’s tried to backtrack from that statement, saying he didn’t mention any names. Right. Jackson continually uses charges of racism to create white guilt. Now he’s saying that if a black representative disagrees with a certain bill, he, in effect, is not really black.

Is the color of one’s skin the most crucial factor in life? For Jackson, and many others like him, it is. If decisions are made based upon race, isn’t that a racist view of life? President Obama, for all his talk about transcending race, does his best impression of Jackson on a regular basis. If you listen to his administration, any disagreement with him is probably because of racist attitudes.

Whether it’s Obama or Jackson, the racist impulse in their words and actions is one of those pernicious principles that does not come from the heart of God.

Sometimes, when I hear the rationales being put forward for certain policies, I just have to shake my head in disbelief. The logic is so illogical. One of the best cartoonists for pointing this out is Bruce Tinsley. Here are a few examples.

There seems to be a tendency in liberal circles to spend a lot of time ignoring evil. Well, there is some evil identified in liberal ideology, but it’s always somehow attached to America in general, and conservatives in particular. And their sense of what needs to be punished is also logically incoherent.

The whole concept of a hate crime is unconstitutional. Government’s job is to protect the innocent and punish those who commit crimes. Whenever government decides to penalize people for what they might be thinking, it has stepped over the line. Punishing people for not liking others is ludicrous—that’s God’s realm. As long as no outward crime has occurred, government has no role. Besides, as I often tell my students, if someone murders someone else, it’s probably because there was hatred in his heart all along. How can you add an extra penalty for murder? What are we going to do, execute the murderer twice?

The illogical logic carries over to international affairs as well. We’ve been part of the United Nations since 1945. We were the prime movers in setting it up, inspired by a belief that this organization might be the key to avoiding future wars. So how has that worked out? Feel safer? Yet we continually get grief from the other inhabitants of the asylum.

What a great deal! It takes a special type of logic to love this. Unfortunately, that special logic is now calling the shots.

Why do we think as we do? It all comes back to a rejection of Biblical principles and infatuation with man-made, man-centered solutions. Those kinds of solutions are never solutions at all.

And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man. [Genesis 9:5-6]

D.C. Sniper Muhammad

In October of 2002, Washington, DC, and its suburbs were targets of terror. I know. I lived there. For three weeks, everyone wondered if stopping to pump gas in your car would be the last thing you did in this life. Someone was killing innocent people, at least ten during those few weeks.

That someone turned out to be John Allen Muhammad and his accomplice, a teenager named Lee Malvo. That teenager, who is no longer in his teens, is serving a life sentence. Muhammad, on Tuesday evening, was executed by the state of Virginia.

Up to the last, he was sullen and unresponsive, saying nothing. Like last week’s slayer, Nidal Hasan, he was a radical Muslim, although, just like with Hasan, there was an attempt to downplay that truth.

When Muhammad received his penalty, it was a righteous judgment. The reason the Scriptures give for allowing the death penalty is that when you take the life of an innocent person, you have taken the most precious gift God has given to each individual. You have destroyed a being made in the very image of God. The punishment must match the magnitude of the crime.

While in some ways this is a cold comfort, it was necessary to uphold the sanctity of human life. The cold-blooded nature of Muhammad’s crimes are not morally equivalent with a state execution. The first is murder; the second is justice for the murder. It is Biblically mandated. All too often we don’t see true Biblical justice for heinous acts. At least in this case, we did.

Whenever God’s righteousness is honored, society is better for it. Our society is better without John Allen Muhammad. May his just execution serve notice on others who may want to follow in his footsteps.

It’s been a political truism in America for a long time: the independent voter is the key to winning elections. There are always segments of the population who are committed in principle to either the Democrat or Republican parties, but those segments cannot carry elections by themselves. The independent voter must be wooed—and will be—one way or the other.

In the last election, again it was the independents who made the difference, both in the presidential and congressional races. For president, they went with Obama, primarily because they were reacting against Bush. A new poll suggests the political winds are shifting. As reported in the Wall Street Journal:

For the first time, independent voters—who delivered Mr. Obama the White House and Democrats control of the Congress—disapprove of the job he is doing, 46% to the 41% who approve. In July, 49% of independents approved of the president, against 38% who disapproved.

New doubts about the president have coincided with new hopes for Republicans, who appeared flattened by the election nearly a year ago.

The White House, of course, might be able to offer this plausible explanation:

Since that’s the purported reason for all his other woes, why not repeat the mantra to cover for what’s really happening: a loss of confidence in this president’s ideology and competence.

As a Christian, I value independent thinking. I don’t want anyone to follow a party line without examining critically the arguments being forwarded. Yet when I look at what we are told are the independent voters, my concern is that they classify themselves as independent simply because they have no principles.

If you can sway this way and that in your political opinions based on what happened yesterday or what you see happening today, where is your foundation? What do you really believe? It reminds me of a passage of Scripture found in the book of James. It speaks of perseverance and maturity, and says a Christian who lacks these qualities “is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”

That description also applies, I think, to people who are always shifting back and forth between the political parties. Know what you believe and know why you believe it. Make all decisions based upon principles. And if those principles themselves are based upon Biblical truth, they will steer this country in the right direction.

For those of you who have read this blog over the months, you may have noticed that the guy on the right has shown up more than once. His name is Noah Webster, a man I got to know quite thoroughly as I researched and wrote my doctoral dissertation because he was the subject of that endeavor.

I was fascinated with Webster because he became a Christian convert at age 50, and his worldview altered considerably in the realm of education. He switched from being an Enlightenment devotee to a student of the Scriptures.

When he wrote his monumental dictionary, finally completing it in 1828, he defined education in this way:

That series of instruction and discipline which is intended to:

1. Enlighten the understanding
2. Correct the temper
3. Form manners and habits
4. Fit a person for usefulness

In my study, I was drawn to a certain passage of Scripture in the second book of Timothy, as the apostle Paul reminded his young disciple:

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for:

1. Teaching
2. For reproof, for correction
3. For training in righteousness
4. That the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work

If you compare those lists, you find a remarkable similarity. Teaching proper doctrine enlightens the understanding. Webster’s “correct the temper” is a character-oriented expression; Scripture being used for reproof and correction is for the purpose of inculcating proper character. When you form manner and habits in life, you are being trained in the way you should live, which is the same as being trained in righteousness. Finally, making a person fit for usefulness is no different than equipping someone for every good work.

Okay, here’s my logic, which I believe is solid in this case: if education and Scripture are both good for the same things, we should be able to use Scripture in education, without any qualms. God’s goals in His Word are the same goals we should have for education.

As I said in a previous post, there should be no division between the sacred and the secular—all knowledge ultimately comes from the God who gave us the ability to reason and draw conclusions about the world in which He has placed us.

Never apologize for using Scripture as the basis for education; it provides the principles—the general truths—that apply to all of life.

Since the president opened the door for a discussion of education, I’d like to walk through it. As a professor of history, education is my livelihood, and I’ve spent more than three decades thinking about principles that apply to education. As always, I go to the Scripture for my foundations.

For instance, in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, the nation of Israel was told:

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Those words are addressed to the parents, who have the primary responsibility for raising their children. They have that responsibility, not the government. Someone may say that this passage doesn’t deal directly with education. My response is that it is teaching that all of life is to be lived in the knowledge of God, and that certainly includes what children learn about the world in which they live.

This world, and all that it contains, is God’s. There should never be a separation between secular and sacred. As Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10 note:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge . . . The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

The starting place for all knowledge and wisdom, therefore, is a reverence for God, and when we have that reverence, we will gain understanding.

Consequently, all education should be based on knowing God first, and the ones who should be planting that knowledge into the children are their parents.

Now, a couple of questions about modern American education. First, is our education system based on the knowledge of God? Second, do we really allow parents to have the final say on how their children are educated?

We are told that religion should be relegated to the private realm, and has no place in education. We are also told, in subtle ways at times, that no matter what parents think, the professional educators are the ones who know best what their children need. I respond that both statements are violations of Biblical principles of education.

Since I don’t want any one post to get too long, I’ll stop there for now, but I have a lot more to say about this; indeed, I have so much to say I could fill this blog for weeks. I plan to continue this topic on a regular basis.