Westboro Strikes St. Louis Metro Again

I wonder how this group gets around the country so fluidly.  They seem to have no other purpose in life than to protest people out of the blue, people they don't even know.  They are like the college mall preachers I used to encounter in school, and they're just as caustic.

Now you'll see something you will hardly ever see self-styled peaceful Muslims do to the belligerent Muslims: go out and rebuke them, denounce them, and disown them. I have done this to Westboro myself before, and now I get to do it again.

Westboro is neither Baptist nor a church. I should know 'cause I've been, and still am, both Baptist and attend a church. But that's not imortant. What is important is that they neither know Jesus nor know what He loves or doesn't love. These pitiful souls have become that which they hate, which is the sure sign they have no Jesus in them at all. There is no love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control with these folks. Degrading people, rather than criticizing their ideas and actions, disrespects the image of God that everyone is created in. As a follower of Jesus, I believe in dealing harshly with sin and injustice (while first recognizing my own sin and sin-potential) but I cannot eclipse the worth and basic humanity of the sinner through insults and put-downs.

Westboro, you've been a naughty bunch. May each of your tortured souls find the real Jesus who will put an end to your God-forsaken pickets.

On the Anniversary of Roe v. Wade - January 22

The Visible Conservative: Christians Unleashed show
Pro-Life Fridays - January 20, 2012

Jan. 22 marks the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. In a 7-2 vote, seven judges ruled to strip equal rights and equal protection for all persons living and growing inside their mothers's wombs. This decision was not rendered for any reasons that most pro-abortion supporters give today. This was not done in the name of medical need. This was not done for as a legal response to things like rape or incest. This was not done to "save" women from dangerous back-alley abortions (which, by the way, is still happening. The only difference now is that it is so much harder to prosecute a back-alley aborionist today because what he is doing is now legal). This was not done even for the excuse of not bringing an inconvenient baby into the world.

No, this decision was made on the basis of a concocted right of a woman to privacy. Under the rule of "privacy," no one is supposed to prohibit what a woman does in the "privacy" of her own domain, which we are to guess means her body. Of course, reasoning like this makes no sense, especially coming from the highest court and the biggest brains in the nation. If you read the Constitution, the 14th Amendment in particular, there is no right to privacy stated or outlined there for pregnant women or for any woman or for anyone. The Justices took creative license to the Constitution to produce such a thing as privacy just so they can make abortion fit into their artificial interpretation. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a big abortion supporter, agrees that though she believes abortion should be legal, Roe v. Wade was decided in the wrong manner in 1973.

Of course, every abortion that takes place in America today is legalized by Roe v. Wade. To overturn Roe and go back to the drawing board, as it were, would immediately restore the ability of each individual state to make legislation on the issue. The states that had laws banning abortion would automatically have those laws restored while a new effort to legalize it on the federal level would have to take place from the ground up.

But as we know, pro-abortionists, even the ones who disagree with how Roe was decided, would never support overturning it. Why? To go back to the drawing board and build a case for federal legalized abortion would take probably decades in Congress and would certainly lose when all has been said and done. The principle of arguing one's case in the Legislature is conveniently bypassed through keeping Roe just the way it is. It would be just too hard to accomplish it doing it the right way.

So here is my observation. Legalized abortion in the US is built on two things and two things only: legal fiction and expediency.

Pro-abortionists should know that the Court did not consider all the common excuses for legalized abortion as material in their decision. If the Court did not make the usual arguments for legal abortion in its decision, but instead made the 14th Amendment overreach its boundaries and now keeps it there through politics, what does that tell you about the strength of pro-abortion arguments?

It tells me that the only real reason that abortion is still legal in this country is that people in power want it that way. As a result, every baby born today does not have intrinsic rights. Every baby is alive only because someone else didn't want it to be killed. Everybody alive since 1973 is alive today not on the basis of our own intrinsic right to life, equal rights, or equal protection. Beware. Just as it was so easy to strip equal rights and equal protection from those in the womb, it will be just as easy to strip them from those that are outside the womb. It has happened before, it is happening now, and there is a good chance it will happen again. The African-American community in America should be keenly aware of this fact. When one member of the human species has no intrinsic rights, then none of us do.

On "Déjà Jew"

Wednesday, The Jerusalem Post published this article on the resurging Anti-Semitism in some European countries, particularly in France and Belgium.  It cites instances of some Jews masquerading as Muslims in order to escape violence and persecution from Muslims.  As if that weren't troubling enough by itself, the author unfolds an eerie backdrop behind these invidual situations reminiscent of the institutionalized persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany (or, Nazi-Europe as the case became) leading up to the Holocaust.

After WWII, the Western world just about swore that a Jewish Holocaust would never happen again. Indeed, civic organizations were built on the motto "Never Again" to protect all future generations of Jewish people from suffering the kind of Anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust. Unfortunately, in some significant ways it apears that their aims are not being met. In various countries in Europe today, a similar lead-up to the outright persecution of Jews is happening in places with growing Muslim (not Aryan) populations. The hate is the same; the rhetoric is the same; the excuses are the same; the supposed cause is still socio-political.

This is the 21st century. Ignorance of this kind was supposed to be educated out of the masses through mandatory government schooling and national legislation. This great failure of the State is only matched by the failure of morals, ethics, and a consistent belief in the humility found in our human createdness under God. Ye olde libertine maxim that government cannot legislate morality is only correct when you realize that what legislation cannot change is a person's immorality.  Legislation changes only the occassions on which one exhibits it.

I know my Muslim friends may accuse me of fingerpointing that the chief persecutors today of Jews worldwide are Muslims, but I should hope that people would look at the problem itself, not at the finger. Europe burns occassionally from these ethno-religious conflicts that we have come to view at the least as uncivilized. The underlying reality is that Europe is burning invisibly everyday. Our American society must say much more than that such behavior is simply uncivilized. It must say that persecution and violent persecution are objective, irrefutable wrongs. Until we purge our collective minds of this insidious moral relativism that shackles our consciences, we will never be free to "Love your neighbor as yourself," much less "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind." (Matt. 22:37)

(HT: David Wood on Answering Muslims for sharing this article.)

Facts about Mormons, not Mormonism

It’s true what they say about journalists being unable to write accurately about matters of science or religion. This morning, Yahoo! News published an article titled “Will America Get It’s First Mormon President? Five Facts About Mormons.” I’ll just dive right in and tell you what it says, and more importantly, what it doesn’t say.

1. The founder, Joseph Smith, was murdered.

True, he was, but leaving out the details makes it sound like he was a martyr for his beliefs. Smith was so not a martyr, for he was killed in a gun fight while in jail for vandalizing and destroying a newspaper press that was publishing articles critical of him.

2. The Book of Mormon and the Bible are important.

This makes it seem as if both books are placed on equal footing. However, Joseph Smith taught that the Book of Mormon is “the most correct book on earth,” while the Bible has many “plain and precious things” removed from it (according to the Book of Mormon) and only believable “as far as it is translated correctly.” What is important for Mormonism has been to downgrade the moral and spiritual authority of the Bible and to replace it with the Book of Mormon. The Mormon can say with a straight face that the Bible is important, for without it, Mormonism has no basis for claiming that it is the religion that “restores” the true practices of Jesus and the Apostles. In everyday reality, however, the Bible is maligned far more than it is admired in the LDS church.

3. Marriage is forever.

In the article, it says “Marriage is between a man and a woman and should be forever.“ If only it told the truth that in “forever,” marriage is between a man and his women.” Aside from the real fact that Jesus taught that there is no marriage in the age to come, Joseph Smith’s sacred teaching that polygamy is the way of (and the way to) eternal life is still affirmed by their other scriptures in the hereafter (Doctrine & Covenants, Sec. 132).

4. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Really? The author could not come up with a full five facts about Mormons, so she throws in the choir as a “fact?”

5. Fasting.

Now it seems the author has run out of things to write, because neither “The Mormon Tabernacle Choir” nor “Fasting” are even statements. Many Mormons do fast as directed by the LDS church as a religious duty. Failing to participate in all the religious duties as outlined in the directives of the Word of Wisdom is unworthiness to receive further advancement (read: eternal life) within the Temple system of Mormonism.

The real story here is that this so-called list aptly points out facts about Mormons but does nothing to enlighten us about Mormonism (what the LDS church really teaches). I think Mormons would be relieved at this weak and trivial representation of what they believe, because it camouflages Mormonism as an innocuous religion that needs no critical evaluation. That is, of course, helpful in diverting attention away from the LDS church when a Mormon is running for President.

Does the LDS church have any legitimacy from the Bible?

What is "this rock" that Jesus will build His Church on?

One of the main Mormon claims to divine authority is in interpreting Matthew 16:13-18 to refer to their concept of "continuing revelation." By basing the organization of the LDS church on "continuing revelation," as "the rock" on which Jesus builds His church, the LDS church claims legitimacy for its founder Joseph Smith and the entire line of its prophets "continuing" through today. It is widely known that Mormon leaders routinely misread, mangle, and misapply the Bible in order to fabricate legitimacy for Mormonism, so how has this been done to Matt. 16:13-18?

"13 When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”
14 So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

According to Mormon teaching, "the rock", or foundation, of Jesus' Church is the act of God revealing new information or new revelation to Peter. It infers, therefore, that it is the act of new revelation or continuing revelation that is to be the basis on which Jesus builds His Church. The Mormon Church, as Joseph Smith claimed, is that church that receives God's continuing revelation through the Mormon prophets.

Even if true, this is a curious position for the LDS church to adopt. The concept of "continuing revelation" is believed on the basis of necessary change. The idea that God can give "new" revelation has weak limitations in Mormonism, forcing most Mormons to contradict either themselves or the doctrine itself whenever called on to explain it. On the one hand, the LDS church's main proposition is that it is a 'restoration' of the lost faith in God, yet on the other hand, it accepts that beliefs can and do change based on the next revelation from God. If the former is true, then "continuing revelation" is a danger to the very nature of Mormonism, for it would suppose that the restoration is complete and there would be no need for "continuing revelations." If the latter is true, then Mormonism should not need any validation from the Bible; it does not need to 'restore' anything but only live out what is "new," which is a door flung open to any and all possibilities, even ones that contradict former revelations and all in the name of necessity (God does, because God must). This has forced Mormons to place weak limitations on just how far a theoretical new revelation can lead them, but of course, there is no such limitation within Mormon doctrines or the Four Standard Works themselves. The late Mormon President Ezra Taft Benson himself headed off this question of consistency by discouraging Mormons from comparing the words of previous prophets to any current one. “Beware of those who would pit the dead prophets against the living prophets," he said. Indeed, Mormon Prophet Harold B. Lee said, "Sometimes we get the notion that if it is written in a book, it makes it more true than if it is spoken in the last General Conference. Just because it is written in a book does not make it more of an authority to guide us. President Taylor goes on with this same idea and explains why the scriptures of the past are not sufficient for us today." [emphasis mine]

But I digress. Back to the topic, which is the Bible passage from which the LDS church draws its legitimacy and divine authority, unnecessary as that is by its own standards. Does it exegete the passage correctly?

The "rock" which Jesus calls Peter is masculine (petros), but the "rock" that Jesus says He will build His church on is feminine (petra). Looking at the syntax, "revealed" is a verb and cannot be 'petra', so neither can be the concept of "continuing revelation" which is further removed from the context of the passage. The one question that is almost never asked of this passage is "What is the subject matter?" 'Petra' can only point to the next closest idea, the subject, which in this case is Peter's confession that "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Jesus' Church, therefore, is built on the divine identity of Jesus Christ, which leads necessarily to the believer's confession of His divinity. What Jesus is + our confession of Him = the foundation of the Church, which will continue to build and defeat evil to the point that not even the gates of Hell will be able to hold the Church back.

If the identity and confession of Jesus Christ as the divine Son of God is the foundation of His Church, then no religious body, sect, or denomination can claim to be the "One True Church" anywhere on earth. Jesus did not build and is not building His Church on the outer trappings of religious practices or principles, of names or lineages. The Church is built on Himself and is made of the people (the 'petros'-es) who believe on Him. As it is, all institutions with bylaws, constitutions, hierarchies, and religious rituals are NOT the Church, even as those who are in them ARE the Church. Those who believe and follow Jesus are not simply 'in the Church,' they are the Church as temples of the Holy Spirit.

The confession of Peter can only be made in earnest at God the Father's revelation into the heart of the individual, as Jesus said. For Mormons, this confession is not the foundation to faith and church, as the Mormon prophets have so clearly declared. I should hope that every Mormon who places that high value in sincerety looks at Peter's confession and the confession of all Christians throughout the history of the Church wonders why the Mormon prophets substitute themselves over "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God" for the foundation of Jesus' Church.