Capital Punishment

Again from Bryan Stevenson's book "Just Mercy;"

"I told the congregation that Walter's case had taught me that the death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill ?" (p. 313)

Stonecatchers

The most moving incident in a deeply moving book I've been reading, "Just Mercy," by Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer:

Stevenson was working hard for the release of a man unjustly condemned to death in Alabama. He'd been asked to talk about the case at a meeting in a church in the man's community, with the man's supportive neighbors.

But he knew some neighbors were "muted" (as he writes) in their support. Although they knew the man was innocent of the crime for which he'd been convicted, some neighbors were less than enthusiastic in his defense, because he'd had an affair, and wasn't a church-goer.

Stevenson began his talk with the story of the woman taken in adultery who was brought before Jesus by the men getting ready to stone her to death. He reminded the audience that Jesus had said, "Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone." When we see people who are knocked down by the stones we throw at each other, he told the listeners, we can't join in. And we can't let that happen. We have to be stonecatchers.

Years later, he was coming from a New Orleans courthouse where a judge had released two men he'd been working to free. Both had served 50 years at the notorious Angola prison on a life sentence handed them as young teens. An older woman he'd seen several times in court was sitting on the steps, and motioned him over.

Stevenson asked if she was a friend or relative of one of the released men. But she said, no, she was just there for people who needed someone to "lean on" in their misery and pain.

She'd started coming to the court for the trial of the teenagers who had murdered her grandson, about 15 years before. They were convicted and sentenced, she said. "I thought it would make me feel better, but it actually made me feel worse. I sat in the courtroom after they were sentenced and just cried and cried."

A woman she didn't know saw her, and came and sat with her. "I think she sat with me for almost two hours. For well over an hour, we didn't neither one of us say a word. It felt good to finally have someone to lean on..."

She felt the Lord wanted her to be at the court daily, "...letting anybody lean on me who needed it...all this grief and violence...people shooting each other, hurting each other like they don't care...it's a lot of pain. I decided I was supposed to be here to catch some of the stones people cast at each other."

Stevenson thought of his own invocation of Jesus' teaching years before.

The woman told him, "I heard you in that courtroom today...I know you's a stonecatcher too."

Stevenson laughed and said, "Well, I guess I try to be."

The woman took his hands, and began to rub his palms gently. "Well, it hurts to catch all them stones people throw."

Moral Relativism

"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be !" (Romans 6:1,2)

It's fashionable for Christians to condemn "moral relativism" as spiritual evil.

It's also fashionable for Christians to practice moral relativism: justifying themselves for choosing "the lesser of two evils."

The Lesser of Two Evils

Why do Christians justify "their" unrighteous politicians as preferable to the unrighteous politicians of "the other side" ?  Is it God's moral command to choose "the lesser of two evils" ?

"...why not say...as some claim that we say, 'Let us do evil that good may come' ?"  (Romans 3:8)

Why do Christians excuse their favorite politicians' doing evil on politicians promise that good ("pro-life" courts, for example) will come of it ?

God's promise to evil-doers, and those who justify them in evil, is infinitely more certain than that of the politicians: "Their condemnation is just" (ibid).

Jubilee

Without going into all of the Torah's details and nuances, we're all familiar with the idea of the "Year of Jubilee."

In the Year of Jubilee, debts are forgiven, the land restored to its owners, slaves freed. It is the great year of God's favor manifest in His creation, to His people.

The idea, and the term, should particularly resonate for Americans who are the least bit aware of our country's history. David Barton and others have fabricated a politically-deceptive "Christian heritage" for America: but for all of us who love the real righteousness God has worked in this country's history, the destruction of the rebellious Confederacy and its "peculiar institution" was what the South's (former-) slaves proclaimed it, a true Year of God's Jubilee.

The more I meditate on this year's incredible events, and the more I hear God speaking "freedom" when I'm in the company of other devoted Christians, my hope grows that this may also be a Year of Jubilee in America. That perhaps God will this year set Christians free from the lies and deceptions that have enslaved us the last 40 years to a faction of politicians and their evil agenda.

More than in any of those past years, this year we see morally-bankrupt politicians shamelessly spouting lies and hatred. But as they increasingly deepen America's moral darkness, Truth shines brighter than ever before.

God is our Hope. As more and more Christians question the lies, Jesus has promised that the Spirit "...will guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13). He has promised that when we know the truth, "...the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).

This may be the "favorable year of the Lord:" the year His Son the Messiah proclaims release for His captive people, and recovery of sight for those blind to The Truth (Luke 4:18-20). And those whom the Son sets free will be free indeed (John 8:36).

HALLELUJAH !! Praise His name !

Election Lessons

I'm taking two simple lessons from this year's election. They probably hold true for all elections.

First, that God "...removes kings and establishes kings" (Daniel 2:21). Contrary the theory of democracy, choosing rulers is emphatically not man's prerogative.

Second, that the only real importance of anyone's vote is that it shows what a voter's heart approves.

Scripture says “Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.” (Romans 14:22) And "...if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God" (I John 3:21).

The Monkey Lesson

I didn't know much, or care much, about Donald Trump at all a few years ago. What little I was aware of him, it was because he had a "reality-TV" show which I'd never been interested in watching.

What little I'd seen and heard of him, I didn't want to see or hear any more of him. He seemed the prototypical sleazy and overbearing "New York" businessman. Not someone I had any reason to want to hear or see.

But Donald wasn't satisfied with all he had...as loudly as he proclaimed to everyone who would listen how wonderful it (and he) was. He wanted more: he wanted the highest "prize" in the land. And despite his lack of any spiritual, intellectual, character, personality, or practical qualifications for the top office in the land, he was sure his winning "business" skills (loud pushiness, dishonest dealings, bullying) would take him to the top.

I almost feel sorry for him. Not that it looks like he's going to lose. God will determine that, in His Own time.

I feel sorry for Donald Trump that his overblown ambition has made everyone in the country sharply (and constantly) aware of what he is. No one can hide what they really are, when their every thought and action, past and present, is in everyone's face, constantly. And that's what running for President entails.

So everyone in America (indeed, the world) is now fully, daily, hourly, aware of what Donald Trump is.

The proverb about monkeys picking coconuts comes to mind. Monkeys ambitious for the highest coconuts have to climb the highest: and should remember that "the higher you climb, the more you show your ass."

Spiritual Warfare in Politics: A Letter to My Daughter

Dear Sarah:

I'm glad that God has given you such strong disgust for the political corruption of Christianity. That shows your heart is in tune with God's heart.

He's said the Church will be pure and spotless when Jesus comes for us. So it's certain that God will cleanse American Christianity of all the political filth it's wallowed in for the last 40 years.

Until then, we'll be dealing with more and more un-Christian beliefs and attitudes, from Christian friends. I spend a lot of time pondering how to handle that.

I know you find that infuriating. Me too. The deep moral stupidity of political Christianity is more than just lack of wisdom: it's evil. You and I have exactly the right reaction to it: Christians should hate evil.

And Christians should not be taking evil's side. When they do, it shows they've forgotten the most important fact of Christian life: that we're in a spiritual war against evil.

In that context, I don't think we can just blow it off when the enemy throws his lies in our face from the mouths of Christian friends. In spiritual warfare we're commanded to fight against the enemy's attacks, not ignore them.

But I think it's important to remember that when the enemy uses Christians in his attacks, it's because he’s made them his captives. It makes me angry to hear Christians spouting his lies: but I think he's the one we have to be angry at, for taking our unwise friends prisoner to his lies.

There's a sense in which deceived people let themselves be deceived. Everyone makes a choice what they will believe, and everyone's responsible for the choices they make. That's just reality.

But it's also true that Christians deceived by the enemy's lies are in a sense victims of his lies. Our spiritual warfare is against the enemy and his lies: not against his victims. The most important attitude, for those of us who hate evil, is to be merciful to the victims of evil.

Like when the U.S. bombed Japan and Germany in the war, we have to be careful that our attacks don't hit our own people who are prisoners, while we are attacking the enemy. We want to set our prisoners free, not destroy them.

My experience (after trying a lot of other ways) is that scripture is the only right weapon. Scripture is Truth, and that's the only thing that destroys lies. Jesus also said that knowing the Truth is what sets people free (John 8:32).

Scripture is also God's wisdom. Holding wisdom up against the moral stupidity of "political Christianity," any honest person can see the difference. Any righteous person will choose the good.

(That’s not to deny there are people captured by the enemy who end up joining his side. I doubt anyone who chooses to set their heart against God can hear anything He says, so we have to expect they will reject what scripture says.

But that doesn't necessarily mean everyone who rejects the rebuke of scripture has joined the enemy side. Some people need to hear it a different way, or at some other time God determines, or from another messenger. Either way, God's got it. He can tell deceived hearts from hardened hearts better than we can.)

Fighting political Christianity with scripture also ensures that anyone who claims to be a Christian (whether they are or not) has to listen, and take it seriously. Christians who spout evil political lies can't just blow it off when scripture says they're going wrong. And that is what they do when they think (or pretend to think) that we are contradicting them with opposite political lies.

Scripture is also the right weapon because it addresses the real spiritual issues that underlie everything else. That's an advantage in current politics, where the underlying issue is often only an idiot's choice whether we're "for" or "against" some individual politician.

(Which is not even real politics. No individual politician is more important in themselves (even when they think so) than their political philosophy, or policies, or attitudes. Scripture addresses all of those, as real spiritual issues: but that's another letter.)

Praying against Hilary shows a person is captive to idiot-political thinking. But it shows even more a failure of spiritual thinking, if someone believes a prayer like that pleases God. Those are the two main deceptions by which “political Christianity” enslaves its followers. We attack both kinds of evil thinking when we come against them with what scriptures says.

The first scriptures that came to mind when you told me about the prayer against Hilary were the ones which say our war is not against flesh and blood. (Ephesians 6:12, and II Corinthians 10:3).

Hilary is flesh and blood. Praying against her as if she were the enemy (like Trump calling her "the devil" in a recent debate) is contrary to scripture. The best way we can attack people's unscriptural thinking is to remind them what scripture says. And if they can hear it, the Truth of scripture will set them free.

Get scripture thoroughly in your own thinking. It will protect you from being deceived: and it's exactly the right weapon ("...the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Ephesians 6:17) against the unscriptural teachings of “political Christianity,” such as the "flesh and blood enemy" teaching by which politicians have deceived so many Christians.

That teaching is a particularly powerful deception. It's always worked very well for politicians, so it’s certain they will continue to use it. Even after Hilary (or any other transitory politician) is off the scene, political manipulators will be using it to scare and mislead people (about Muslims, illegal immigrants, Communists, or some other "flesh and blood enemy"). You'll need those scriptures against it all your life, for spiritual warfare.

Those scriptures also keep our thinking in line with God's thinking: which is the point. II Corinthians 10:5 says the goal of spiritual warfare is "to take every thoughtt captive to the obedience of Christ" (my emphasis). That includes our own thoughts, as well as those by which the world (and many unwise Christians) are deceived.

The scripture in Ephesians 6 also tells us who the real enemy is: "...world-forces of ...darkness...spiritual forces of wickedness..." (v. 12). The simple way to recognize those is to measure every thought and attitude by the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus was humble: pride is the enemy. Jesus was obedient: rebelliousness is the enemy. Jesus is the Prince of Peace: violence is the enemy. Jesus is Love in Person: hatred is the enemy. Jesus said He IS "the Truth" (John 14:6). "The father of lies" (John 8:44) is the enemy.

That highlights another reason scripture is the strongest weapon that exists. Like Jesus Himself, scripture is Truth (John 17:17). Using scripture in spiritual warfare, we have Jesus' Own Spirit as our Protector, destroying the enemy.

It's a two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). We have to be truthful how we use Truth. If scripture says prayers against (flesh and blood) Hilary are wrong, it's just as unscriptural to pray against (flesh and blood) Trump. "God is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34), and shows no partiality (Romans 2:11).

But we should pray against those God says are the real enemies. Prayers that agree with scripture please God, because they agree with His Own Heart. We should pray that He will destroy pride, lies, violence, and hatred.

Flesh and blood people (including Christians) who choose to live by those evil thoughts and attitudes need to re-think (which is what "repent" means) their choice; they are standing with God's enemies, whom He will destroy. They are in danger. That's why we need to remind them what scripture says.

In the politicized "Christianity" that has corrupted the American Church, it's probable some who hear a prayer against pride, or lies, or violence and hatred, will take it as a political prayer. In the personalized deception politics has become, they might even consider it a prayer against their favorite candidate, and be angry.

But if we pray honestly (against the enemy forces of evil, and not against an individual), their anger doesn't matter.

People who think "pride," "lies," "hatred" and "violence" describes their candidate show that they know in their hearts that is their candidate's spirit. It's a good place to urge them to listen to what their own heart is telling them.

If they get mad that we call out pride, lies, etc., as the enemy in our prayers, good. The Spirit says in scripture that those are the enemy: if people can hear that, it shows they are still able to hear the Spirit. If they can still hear the Spirit, there is still hope they could repent of those evils.

It's made me very glad to see that God gave you a strong hatred for evil. You're right in step with His heart. These observations are my understanding of how we can best take part in God's destruction of His enemies.

Bless you !

love, Dad

This Is a Hopeful Time

As much as possible, I've stood back from this election. No one has time enough...nor is it fruitful...to be involved with the daily outrages against Truth, good manners, commonsense, and righteousness.

But it's impossible not to hear some of it anyway. And I hear that the Trump campaign seems to be self-destructing.

I hope it's so. A Trump presidency would be disastrous for our country. But if God has set His heart against America, it could be that He will yet make Trump President.

The American Church has certainly given God reason to set His heart against America. Most especially, prostituting itself to politicians.

But if, as it now appears, God has allowed that evil liaison to disintegrate, I can only be hopeful in the mercy He is extending to us. Hopeful that the people who are called by His name will re-examine themselves, and their beliefs.

The rise of Trump has made many (and not Christians only) question the democratic mechanism. I've certainly heard many people question how we ended up with him, indeed with two Presidential candidates, whom no one wants.

Perhaps Christians will also question the operative belief that their participation in our nation's politics makes politics better, more moral. It obviously has not.

Perhaps Christians will also re-think the false belief (vouchsafed to us by politicians for the last 40 years) that Christians are "conservatives."

Maybe some Christians will also re-examine their love of Reaganism's rebelliousness ("government is the problem"), arrogant nationalism, and "de-regulation" (of guns, environmental preservation, Wall Street's lawlessness, et al). Reaganism is hard-core ungodliness, and has had disastrous repercussions for our country.

It seems God has put the American Church in a dire situation which will force honest people will re-think ("repent") before Him all their beliefs that led them astray. It's another cause He has given us for renewed hope.

God is greatly merciful in offering the American Church this chance to repent. I have to believe...since He is no respecter of persons...that He gave the German Church a similar chance to repent their arrogance, disbelief, and nationalism after the disaster of World War I. I'm hopeful American Christians will be wise enough to learn from Germany's fate the wrath that follows from arrogant unrepentance.

Macro and Micro: Luke 6:41-45

I've been pleased lately to hear brothers and sisters speaking against, and praying against, the spirit of lawlessness in our country.

If God has shown me the deepest, most utterly grievous, sin He finds in America: and I'm certain He has: it is lawlessness. It is the spirit and attitude and idea and walk that we make our own choices, follow our own ways, and will violently resist any who tell us otherwise.

Lawlessness is itself the essential nature of sin itself, against which Jesus has conquered:

"All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him." (Isaiah 53:6)

I am pleased that other believers are also hearing God call out the spirit of lawlessness, and lead us in speaking and praying against it in His greatest power.

But my pleasure that the Church is hearing this most important word of God is dampened by the realization that our prayers against "lawlessness" are often only against street-riots. Dampened even more by realizing that many who pray against street lawlessness are themselves followers of the spiritual lawlessness of poltical deceivers, that "government is the problem."

Jesus' contrast of the moral "speck" and the moral "log" comes to mind. Perhaps the Church sees others' soulish street violence as greater sin than its own deep spirit of rebellion towards authority.

Jesus directed His moral aim against the greater sin, the determinative spirit in which we think and act. The "evil treasure" we store up in our hearts, from which we bring forth evil. The "bad" nature of the tree, which determinines what fruit it will produce.

God, forgive us our self-deception ! God, give us ears to hear. Give Your people spiritual eyes in which there are no logs, to see !

Amen