Month: September 2013

Unbelievably Small Leaders

President Obama spoke to the nation last night about the Syrian crisis. It wasn’t the speech that was anticipated earlier in the week. Russia threw him a lifeline by saying Syria is open to the idea of turning over its chemical weapons to the UN. This will now lead us . . . where? Promises, delays, more promises, more delays, weapons inspections that go nowhere, etc., etc., etc. Haven’t we seen all this before? So after more than a week… Read more »

The “Dangers” of Homeschooling–Part One

The Mallard Fillmore comic strip is consistently in tune philosophically with Biblical and conservative values. It’s not often you can find cartoonists with a message that extols the positive traits of a practice such as homeschooling. In the past week, the artist, Bruce Tinsley, has taken aim at the public education system with backhanded swipes at its failures via comparison with homeschooling. He has begun a countdown of the Top Ten Reasons Not to Home-School Your Children. He begins with:… Read more »

“Public” Education: Time to Take Off the Blinders

It’s not that Americans don’t have faith; they just trust in the wrong things. While we, as a nation, drift away from our Biblical roots, we provide substitute gods that we hope will save our society. I spend a lot of time and space commenting on our misplaced confidence in the government to give meaning to life and to ensure we are all taken care of. A corollary to our supposed omnipotent government is our vaunted education system. Despite all… Read more »

Finney: Directness

Charles Finney was a very direct preacher. He didn’t hold back on anything. If he believed the congregation to which he was speaking was resisting God, he said so. To do that kind of thing nowadays would be to invite open rebellion and loss of pulpit in most places. Yet Finney’s approach led to numerous awakenings of solid Biblical faith. Wherever he went, controversy followed. One story from his autobiography I find both amusing and sad at the same time:… Read more »

Lewis: Look Out! It’s Alive!

There’s just no getting around the existence of God. The apostle Paul says people have to actively suppress the truth of His presence, and they do so to avoid the idea they are accountable for their actions. One of the psalms says a person has to be a fool to believe there is no God. C. S. Lewis has his own unique way of expressing these Biblical truths. In his book Miracles he declares, God is basic Fact or Actuality,… Read more »

The Normalization of Sin & the Persecution of Christians

In one of my posts last week, I chronicled the various threats to religious liberty—more specifically, threats to the public expression of Christian faith—that have cropped up recently. One of those in my list was a bakery in Gresham, Oregon, run by a Christian couple that was being sued for not making a cake for a lesbian wedding. Since I posted that, the bakery, Sweet Cakes by Melissa, has closed. The reason for the closure was the intimidation brought by… Read more »

Obama & Syria: Further Reasons for Opposition

A Senate hearing yesterday on the Syrian situation and the administration’s desire to get involved militarily constrains me to comment once again on this topic. My last post laid out some of my rationale for opposing involvement: neither side deserves our help; we will either be aiding a dictatorial regime allied with Iran or an uprising with a distinctly Al Qaeda flavoring. I have a few more thoughts to add today. First, it’s interesting how this is not a purely… Read more »