Righteous Lot

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I'd really never thought of Lot as an exemplar of the faith.  He obviously
had his eye on his own financial advantage when his uncle Abram gave
him the choice of grazing-land (Genesis 13:1-11).  Although Abram was
his elder and his mentor, Lot was quick to grab the best-looking pastures.

It's unimaginable in our time, though not remarkable in the hospitality
ethic of his; but Lot also offered his daughters to the rape-mob demanding
he turn over his angelic visitors to them (Genesis 19:1-11).

And though Lot could truthfully later plead that he was stone-drunk when it
happened . . . we usually don't expect the Bible to hold up an incestuous father
(Genesis 19:30-38) as a role-mode.

But II Peter 2:7 does, calling him "righteous Lot."  That verse came to mind
when my friend Don and I were talking.

That passage even goes on to say Lot was an exemplar for Christians.

" . . . and if He rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the
depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among
them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless
deeds he saw and heard); if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue
the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the
day of judgement."    (II Peter 2:7-9)

Lot's righteousness was that he was "distressed" (the Greek is kataponeo,
"worn down," "exhausted") by the evil deeds of the "lawless" among whom
he lived.  It doesn't seem to have bothered his fellow-citizens all that much.

I doubt that's because every single citizen of Sodom roamed the streets all
night getting drunk and looking for a rape-victim.  Every society needs a core
of responsible fathers and mothers raising their families, working jobs, and
running businesses, to flourish.

Sodom undoubtedly also had civic leaders who shaped public opinion and
guided public policy.  They probably lamented the crime-statistics: but no
doubt they also boasted that Sodom's way of life was justified by the fact
it enjoyed more "freedom" than other cities.

Most people in Sodom probably accepted lawlessness as "just how Sodom
is," and locked their doors.  Like people today, they were willing to "go along
to get along."  Undoubtedly they prided themselves on being "good people,"
and nothing like the street-gangs.   But scripture attests that only Lot was
"tormented" to his soul by the cit's pervasive evil.

Lot's lonely righteousness was that he was deeply grieved by the lawlessnes
of his fellow-citizens...grieved as God Himself was grieved.  This scripture is
God's promise, exemplified in Lot, that He will still "rescue the godly" . . . by
whom He means those few (like Lot) whose souls like His are fiercely outraged
by the evil deeds of the lawless.

God's promise holds good today, for everyone whose heart is like His, and is
His . . . however few they are.

Amen !

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Test Your Spiritual Discernment Here !!

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Reading I John, this series of verses caught my attention:

I John 2:18 says there are already "many anti-Christs" around us.

I John 3:10 says the children of God and the children of the devil "are obvious."

I John 4:1 says we should "test the spirits to see whether they are from God."

That set of scriptures sounds like a challenge: or rather, when God says it, a command.

Since I John is where God gives His main teaching about anti-Christ, maybe He wants us
to check and see if our spiritual discernment is functioning well enough to spot him.

Jesus told us in John 8:44 what's obvious about "sons of the devil:" like their father, they
love lies, and they love murder (and Jesus says in Matthew 5:21-2 that "murder" is angry
contempt for other people).

There's our spiritual check-list.

Of course, we should first run the test on ourselves:  do we love lies and murder ?  If so,
we have to repent before we presume to run that check on anyone elses' spirit.

O.K., done.

Now...looking around ourselves, testing in today's world to see if our spiritual discernment
is in working order...can we spot any of the "many anti-Christs" out there ?

It shouldn't be hard: as John rightly says, they are obvious.


                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Slave Names

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Doing genealogy for black American families always has one huge roadblock.  Before they were
emancipated in 1865, most black people didn't have last-names.  There were a few exceptions,
"free persons of color:" but slaves were only known by their first names.

In censuses, a primary genealogical tool, slaves didn't even have that.  They were enumerated
on "Slave Schedules" only by sex and approximate age, under their owner's name.  They were only
counted at all because of the "three-fifths compromise;"  by which the U.S. Constitution allowed
slave-holding states to count that fraction of their slaves toward the state's population-total, on
which Congressional seats were apportioned.

Even in the documents of those who knew them best, their owners, slaves seldom had more than
a first name, with an occasional descriptor.  A loving mother's will might leave "my house-servant
Suky" to a favorite daughter: a debtor might bemoan in a letter having to sell "Tom, my blacksmith."
But slaves' first identity was always as their owner's property.

One rule of thumb that's often helpful in doing genealogy for black Americans is that when they
were freed, most slaves took the last name of their former owner.  If an ancestral family shows up
on the 1870 census as Mose and Annie "Blankenship," it's a good idea to see if there are any
(relatively-prosperous) white people named "Blankenship" in the same area.

With any luck, the 1860 Census Slave Schedules may show that one of the white Blankenships had
owned a male and a female slave about the ages of Mose and Annie.  Occasionally the pre-war
legal docments or family-papers of the white Blankenships may contain a reference to their slave
Mose, or "servant" Annie.

For slave-owners liked to maintain the fiction that their slaves were "servants."  They also liked to
portray themselves as the paterfamilias of "my people."  Pretense and self-delusion were probably
necessary for them to soften the reality; that although they lived with and provided for a number
of dependents, their relationship to them was mercenary rather than (in most cases) familial.

Undoubtedly some slave-owners were kinder to their "servants" than others.  Probably the circum-
stance of daily living together in a detached "society," comprised almost entirely of the white owners
and their black slaves, made for personal relationships between them of every kind from murderous
hatred to genuine affection.

But the slaves would not have been fooled by the familial rhetoric of their owners.  It's doubtful the
owners were themselves  The idea of racial superiority on which the slave-system existed drew a line
they all knew was uncrossable.

And despite whatever benign posturings their owners made of it, slaves knew the reality of that
system was being forced to do what "master" said to do...even against their own will, choice, and
best interests.  Slaves...masters too...all understood that that their lives and their labor benefitted
him alone.

All alike recognized slavery as a monstrous wrong.  Even the great slave-owner who was perhaps
most instrumental in the founding of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, later wrote of slavery,
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

So it's hard to understand why, when ex-slaves were first free to establish their identity as persons
rather than property, they so often took the name of their former owners.

There even seems to have been a perverse pride among some ex-slaves, that taking the name of
a prominent slave-owner (their own or not) conferred greater dignity on them.  (That seems the
reason more ex-slaves took the last name "Washington" than had ever been owned by the few
whites of that name: and "Washington" is still a common surname in America's black population.)

Something similar has happened in American Christianity, and it's hard to understand why so many
of those set free by Christ take the name of their mercenary former owners: for what else is it when
Christ's freedmen call themselves "conservative Christians" ?  Weren't "conservatives" the predators
who used an evil system to make Christians serve them, to their own benefit alone ?

Don't Christians identifying themselves with their "conservative" masters show a perverse pride in
doing so ?  It's hard to miss that those who call themselves "conservative Christians" imply by that
slave-name that they are the "real Christians."

Is a slave made more-truly, and more-proudly, free by taking the name of the one who enslaved him ?
Is Christ's freedom enhanced when it is linked into the world's evil system ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Defining

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

The great teacher Derek Prince once did a series of sermons he called "Agreeing With God."
It's stayed with me over 40 years.

His point was, as scripture says, that none of us can walk with God, except we agree with God
(Amos 3:3).

Agree, first of all, in His Authority to choose the path.  Which is where we all first stumble, and
in different ways and forms, keep stumbling.

His sermons talked about how to get past that: and they all came down to thinking as God thinks.

One sermon I remember was about thinking in God's categories.  But the one that most shaped
my thinking to this day was about thinking in God's definitions: latching on to the certainty (as I
always put it) that "what God says anything is, it absolutely is."

We've all had the frustration of talking with someone at seeming cross-purposes, to eventually
discover what they meant by (for example) "mercy" was entirely different than what we meant
by that word.

If we don't want to talk at cross-purposes with God, we have to adapt His...not our own, not our
nation's, not our faction's...meanings.  Disciplining our thinking in that way is why we read the
Bible: that's where God tells us His definitions.

Some are straight equivalencies.  Because God made truth a central part of my thinking, I have
worked to train my mind in Jesus' affirmation that "...I AM...the truth" (John 14:6).  There couldn't
be a more absolute statement of what...of Who...truth is.  It's seldom I hear the word "truth," in
any context, without reflexively thinking "Jesus."

I John 3:4 is just as clear in defining sin: "...sin is lawlessness."  That's one I'm still working to
make my automatic and immediate definition.  And that process, I should say, convinces me that
knowing God's definitions doesn't end our thinking about a matter so much as it focuses and
greatly deepens our understanding of what God's saying.

But not all the Bible's definitions are presented in straight equivalences.  Reading with a desire
to know His definitions, God shows them to us in various ways.

One I'd call inferential.  It takes a little meditation, for example, to understand that Isaiah 53:6a
is a definition of sin: "All we like sheep have gone astray, Each of us turned to his own way..."
But if we consider that "gone astray" is a common Biblical trope for sin, we can readily see that
God says sin is "turning to our own way."

The bonus-points for working through this verse to God's definition is that it underlies His prophecy
of Christ, His remedy for sin.  And Isaiah broadens and deepens our understanding of how"lawless-
ness" operates in our own lives, by our choice to "turn to our own way."

I recently came across another of God's definitions: one I've read hundreds of times, and didn't "see"
as a definition.

"Wisdom" is another of those key concepts God's impressed on my mind over the years.  I can still
remember the Sunday afternoon I was laying on my bed, reading James 1, when the reality of verse 5
smacked me HARD: "...if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and
without reproach, and it will be given to him."

I remember the excitement of knowing that verse applied to ME...and that God guaranteed He'd
give me wisdom...and all I had to do was ask.  So I did.

The years since, I've had to come to a working definition of "wisdom"...how else would I recognize
it to thank God for it ?  With apologies to Spike Lee, I settled on "wisdom is knowing how to do
the right thing."

Close.  But scripture's definition is better, once I saw it in Ephesians 5:15-17:

" Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time,
because the days are evil.  So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is."

Wise men show wisdom by making the most of their time.  The most we can ever do is please God:
and we please Him when we do righteousness ("the right thing").  We are foolish, and our lives are 
futile, if we do not"understand what the will of the Lord is."  Wisdom is understanding God's will.

I'm sure God has more to say about what wisdom is.  If I pay attention, I can look forward to learning
more of His counsel.  Meanwhile He's working this portion of His meaning into my operative under-
standing, so I can better, more deliberately and with less stumbling, walk with Him.

I agree with God that that's what we both want.  Amen !


                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Civil War Redux: Coda

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Lincoln ended his First Inaugural with words that always move me, deeply.  Move me most, knowing
that those whom Lincoln addressed arrogantly refused to hear and heed his words.

"Conservative" ideology has filled many Christians' hearts with fear and hatred toward their brothers;
which is always satan's purpose in his "doctrines of demons" (I Timothy 4:1).  The words I'd most wish
today's deceived "conservatives" would hear, and heed:

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained
it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will
yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better
angels of our nature."

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Civil War Redux II

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Tony Horwitz' Spying on the South also quotes Lincoln's advice to Southerners in his 1861 First Inaugural:

“Before entering on so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, would it not be wise
to ascertain precisely why we do it ?  Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility
that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence ?”  (p. 397)

I hope Lincoln's words would resonate deeply with Americans today . . . much deeper, hopefully, than they did
with Southerners of 1861.

Arrogant haters of authority always embrace unreality: they must always assert what our current rulers call
"alternative facts," must always avow like they do that "Truth is not truth."  In this they manifest that they
are "sons of the devil" (as Jesus called them in John 8:44).  Like satan, those who deny God's Primacy must
needs deny God's creation, and His Rule, of all that exists.

Deluded "Christian conservatives" who follow these liars should discern that rejection of reality is rejection
of the One Who created it.  Discern most of all that these liars reject the One through Whom " . . . all things
came into being . . . and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being" (John 1:3).  That
the liars reject Him Who said " . . . I AM . . . The Truth . . ." (John 14:6)

It is no accident that climate-change skeptics, holocaust-deniers, white-supremacists, and the conspiracy-
minded flock to the ranks of "conservatives," who embrace unreality . . . that is, unTruth.  It is no accident
that the Great Leader they revere is distinguished above all else by his arrogance and his lies.

Too many who call themselves "Christians" also join in lock-step with that Great Leader: join in fearing and
hating the "deep state" he claims opposes him, join in despising the "elites" (middle-class people of ability
who excell by education and hard work) who oppose him, join him in hating and fearing the "liberals" who
oppose him.  Join him, indeed, in fearing and hating everyone who opposes any of his delusions.

"Conservative Christians" have proof, of course, that the current Leader's enemies are their enemies.  Aren't
Christians, after all, the real target of the supposed "War on Christmas" ?  Haven't we seen Christians perse-
cuted by that city-council telling a baker he could not refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding ?  Isn't every
judge's decision not predicated on "conservative" ideology a threat to Christians' religious freedom ?

Lincoln's advice should still be heeded by all those so enmired in unreality that they (like their Great Leader)
wish for a "new Civil War."  Today's "conservatives," like those of 1861, should step out of their partisan mind-
set long enough to consider rationally the " . . . possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no
real existence ?"

Amen

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Civil War Redux

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

William Faulkner, arguably the greatest Southern writer, said of the Civil War's place in America's
psyche, "The past isn't dead - it's not even past."

All Americans revere rebellion: it was sanctified to us when our "founding fathers" made us a nation
by rebelling against their rightful ruler.  Quite illogically, they also wished to confer on their new nation
an ideal of unity: "E Pluribus Unum."  But Southerners in 1861 showed that rebellion is inherently, des-
tructively, the enemy of unity.

George Santayana's famous quotation (slightly paraphrased here) was that "Those who do not learn
from history are doomed to repeat it."  Poor America !  We have not learned from our Civil War history
 . . . and it's not even past for us today.

One thing we still haven't learned is that rebellion and unity are not ultimately political principles.  Our
perceptive brother-in-Christ Tim in Australia put that truth as straight as it's ever been stated: "Politics
is not really about politics."

America's tragedy in the Civil War is our tragedy today; that so very few of America's (self-proclaimed)
"Bible-believing" Christians understand that God deems rebelliousness and unity spiritual principles,
and says a great deal about both in scripture.  For anyone who honestly believes scripture, God declares
the consequences of rebelliousness are destruction and death: as the South (especially, but not solely)
should have learned in the Civil War.  Unity is the work of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus prayed for all His
followers (John 17:20-21).  Perhaps even today's "Bible-believing" Christians can puzzle out which God
desires for us, and commends, and commands.

Nobody today misses the spirit of divisiveness in which we live, and the immense harm it has done, and
is doing, to America.  Anyone who knows anything about the Civil War should know that following the
spirit of divisiveness has painfully real consequences, and is the surest way any people can be made to
lay waste their own land, and murder their own brothers.

So It's disturbing that American "conservatives," who have long pursued political power by fomenting
division, are talking up a "new Civil War" on (those they choose to deem) their enemies: by which they
mean every American whose opinions differ from theirs in any point. 

Their faction's current Great Leader is a man after their own hearts, who has erected his political power
primarily on divisiveness, and violently attacks everyone who dares disagree with him.  It didn't start with
him, of course: "conservatives ' " demi-god founder, Ronald Reagan, legitimated rebellion against authority
. . . as a principle of government !! . . . in his proclamation that "Government is the problem !"  The current
president is only the most recent, and most autocraic, of Reagan's authority-hating brood.

And in recent months the current president (the greatest scholar ever, no doubt, of the lessons of American
history) has given his imprimatur (who needs a Vatican council to decide these things, when you're always
right, and have a Twitter acccount ?) to some of his followers' predictions of a "new Civil War."

So I was struck by another parallel between the divisive "conservatives" of the pre-Civil War South, and
those of our times, in a book I'm reading.  The author recently traveled across the South in the footsteps
of Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous designer of Central Park in New York, who made his trip in the mid-
1850s.  Olmsted intended to write a book about his experiences to help Northeners understand Southerners,
and show there was hope for reconciliation of the regions' differing views.

But by the time he'd finished traveling the South and wrote his book, Olmsted had come to see the regions'
world-views as impossible of reconciliation.

Though charmed by a Tennessee planter with whom he stayed, a classmate of his brother at Yale, Olmsted
quickly noted in the planter an anti-democratic spirit: a "devilish, undisguised . . . contempt for all humbler
classes," which arrogance seemed to distinguish all the slave-owners he met.  Contempt for "lesser" people
is still a hallmark of the "conservative" mindset: in which their revered Great Leader leads them, and leads
them all.

Talking with the planter and his slave-owning friends, Olmsted also found that they chose to dismiss Nor-
theners' opposition to slavery as "Yankee cant;" hypocritical pretense of moral principle.  Olmsted wrote
that they " . . . had no power of comprehending a hatred of Slavery in itself . . . and couldn't imagine that
the North would be governed by any purpose beyond a regard for self interest."  (quoted in Spying on the 
South: An  Odyssey Across the American Divide, by Tony Horwitz, pp. 84-5).

It's a view "conservatives" still hold today about their "enemies," anyone who claims the current president
ever did any wrong, the way Northeners claimed slavery was wrong.  Today's "conservatives" are as dismis-
sive of moral claims as were the "conservatives" of Olmsted's time.  And as ready to impugn the honesty
of those who raise moral objections, either from national ideals, or the Bible.  "Conservatives" still believe
that their "enemies' " motivations are base political self-interest . . like their own: and that their "enemies"
should be most hated for hypocritically pretending otherwise.

My late best friend, Mike Baker, told me about a conversation with his father during Watergate. Mike had
opined that it would be good if Nixon was removed from office.  Doesn't matter one way or the other, his
dad told him: everybody in public office is only there to line their own pockets.

"You don't know that's true," Mike said.  Of course I do, his dad replied, with this crushing logic:  "If I was,
I would."

The spiritual blindness that enslaves evil-doers is that they choose, and ultimately become unable, to
conceive any moral purpose higher than their own exists . . . for anyone.  Their arrogance that "no one's
better than me" issues in their belief that everyone is therefore as self-seeking as they themselves are...
and contempt for everyone they imagine is just as evil as they know they are.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Persecution and Persecutors

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

The current president, as usual, responded to Christianity Today's defection from the ranks of his
his admirers with vicious angry tweets.

At this point, he can only murder his enemies with words: though Jesus says his words are murder
(Matthew 5:21-2).  At this point, his toadies in the Senate are arguing, but have not yet legislated,
the principle that he can do anything he wants.  But it's easy to see they would not be averse to
making that the basis of American government.

It's easy to see too that all his party, his appointees, and his voters would be, to-a-man, amenable
to such a government.

I know some members of his "Evangelical base."  And it's always been amazing to me that most of
them believe that their political faction...even when it held the Presidency, both houses of Congress,
and the Supreme Court simultaneously...was somehow a downtrodden "minority," surrounded by and
under attack from their "liberal" enemies.

Their political self-image as heroic victims plays into the "Evangelical's " proud self-image as Christ's
truest followers, and greatly persecuted for it.  Denied (in their telling) the "right" to not bake a cake
for a gay wedding, or install a replica of the Ten Commandments on a court-house lawn, or utter the
words "Merry Christmas" . . . are they not viciously persecuted for their faith ?

The Catholic Church calls "martyrs" those who are killed for the faith.  "Evangelicals" seem to have a
much-lower standard: anyone who feels their "rights" are the least infringed has "suffered for Christ."

Should the current president continue to live, it's not inconceivable that his Congressional toadies
might legislate the fully-autocratic principle of government he believes in, and that they want for
him.  If they did, the Supreme Court he has put in place could likely certify his autocracy as entirely
"constitutional."

Should any such thing happen, in our day or ever, it's easy to see that the current president, or some
future one, would want (and undoubtedly be given) power greater than Twitter-threats to punish his
enemies: that is, everyone who did not say what he wants to hear, or do what he wants them to.

The dirty little secret of "Evangelicals' " politics is that in such circumstances (to which they have
shown themselves agreeable) they would be the only Christians immune to the measures of perse-
cution that might be set in place: arrest, torture, execution.  "Evangelicals" need not fear persecution:
autocrats only persecute those who dissent from their rule, and "Evangelicals' " track-record shows
they don't, and won't.

It worked that way in Nazi Germany.  Many German Christians remained silent about their rulers' evil
deeds: some even rejoiced at, or took part in, them.  The only German Christians persecuted under
Hitler were those who would not acquiesce in his evil.  If I understand scripture's prophecies, it will
work that way in the reign of anti-Christ, whose "Church" of acquiescent "Christians" will admire and
serve him.  Only those who cleave to Christ will feel his wrath

I have no specific vision of America's future, beyond the certainty of God's promise that He will utterly
destroy all evil-doers and those who follow them.  The certainty of God's promise should make us all
fear for our country's future: and fear even more for the future of the American Church.

I make no prophecy about the persecution of American Christians.  Only to say that those who vaunt
themselves Christ's truest followers, and martyrs for Him . . . while joining with men of lies in their
evil deeds . . . fatally deceive themselves.

The willing eagerness "Evangelicals" have shown to parrot, and believe, the current president's claim
of moral perfection; that he's "done nothing wrong;" evidences the spirit of Nazi Germany's "Christian"
murderers, and the spirit of Anti-Christ's "Church" that will persecute all who cleave to Christ.

Jesus said " . . . a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to
God"  (John 6:12).  Many of today's "Evangelicals" and their superstar "leaders" have joined in the
current president's wrath against Christianity Today.  They show themselves ready to visit his wrath
on every other Christian who will not acquiesce in his evil deeds, as they do.