Larry Vernal Claspill

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

(I wrote these remembrances of Larry and Roy Dean a few months ago, on the 50th anniversary of the Tet offensive in which they were both killed.  I've moved my pages about them to go with my long-pondered summary of Vietnam's meaning for our generation, and for America.

There was some detailed information on the deaths of Roy Dean and Larry, which I was glad to gather and post, to make it accessible to others who knew them.  Three other classmates who died in Vietnam; Johnie Ray Barber, Larry Thomas Moulder, and Harve Edward Brown [who quit school and enlisted before our graduation]; have memorial pages online, but I couldn't find any more detailed information about their deaths.)


Our classmate Larry Claspill was killed by "multiple fragmentation wounds" on 5 February 1968, in Kon Turn Province in the Central Highlands, about 150 miles south of Khe Sahn.

We were casual friends, and thrown together in many classes.  I used to have a (staged) photo the school-newspaper photographer took when Larry and I were lunchroom monitors together, of he and I and two others with broom and dustpan, sweeping up something from the floor in the hall outside the lunchroom.            

According to his obituary, Larry had been a Post Office letter-carrier after high school, and was drafted in early 1967.  He trained at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, as an infantryman, with advanced infantry training at Fort Polk, Louisiana.  He was in Company C 1/22 Infantry, of the 4th Infantry, and arrived in Vietnam on 16 August 1967.


There are two remembrances by men who were with Larry the day he died, one including a photo, at the website Together We Served

"Larry was with Co C. 3rd platoon on Feb 5, 1968 when a squad was attacked by the NVA using a B-40 rocket. the rest of the platoon moved up to provide assistance. Shortly thereafter we were surrounded and pinned down by a machine gun to our front. Larry move up to help establish a perimeter when he received wounds to the upper body. 1 1/2hours a tank took out the machine gun and relieved the platoon. we lost 3 or 4 good men that day.Larry was a great friend and a fine soldier. His sacrifice will always be remembered and appreciated. His memory will always be an example to me of one who was ready to be the 1st to serve his fellow men.See attached photo. Doc Shyab."

	"Larry and I stood side by side that dreadful day, the burst of the machine gun came without notice I stood wounded and Larry gave up his life. I don't know why God took some and left others. I can only hope that my life has been good enough to make up for the life his family had to live without from that day forward. He was a good person and a courageous soldier.
Posted by: Michael Stoke" That website also includes a note left at The Vietnam Wall in Washington: "On 05 Feb 1968 C Company, 1/22nd Infantry, lost eight men in a firefight in Kontum Province: 2LT Harold A. Kram, St Louis, MO SSG Rembert Crawford, High Point, NC SP4 Larry V. Claspill, Kansas City, MO SP4 Lawrence G. Grassi, Bradford, PA PFC Gary L. Campen, Washougal, WA PFC Timothy J. Dineen, Vallejo, CA PFC Thomas A. Marchut, Sayreville, NJ PFC James E. Stover, Detroit, MI"

Larry was awarded the Silver Star posthumously.  His citation says 

"Specialist Fourth Class Claspiill distinguished himself while serving as a Radio-Telephone Operator with Company C, 1st Battalion, 22d Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. On 5 February 1968, Specialist Claspill's platoon was on a search and destroy mission a few miles north of Kontum, when the element was suddenly taken under heavy fire by a regimental-size force of North Vietnamese Regulars. Although enemy fire was coming from three sides, Specialist Claspill immediately took charge of his section and quickly set up a perimeter while simultaneously directing fire at the enemy. Through his quick actions the enemy was pushed back. Although completely unprotected from the enemy fire, he continued to direct fire at the enemy. Realizing that a few wounded personnel were lying outside of the perimeter, Specialist Claspill organized a five man team and deployed to recover the wounded. Although the enemy fire increased in intensity, he courageously moved out into the open, drawing the hostile fire while the wounded were withdrawn to safety. It was during this gallant act that Specialist Claspill was mortally wounded by enemy fire."
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Roy Dean McDaniel

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Roy Dean lived about 7 blocks north on the street where I grew up.  He joined the Marines the last day of June 1966, the month we graduated from East High School in Kansas City, Missouri.  He was trained as a "scout-sniper."  He went to Vietnam in October 1967 in Company A, 1st Battalion of the 9th Marines.


“On 23 Jan, the 45 men of First Platoon, A/l/9, under the command of 2/Lt ROACH, together with 20 men of the l/9 Weapons Platoon under the command of 2/Lt LOVELY established an OP position at XD 823 4l6, called 'Hill 64.' At 0445H, NVA forces suddenly unleashed the fury of a mortar attack on the outpost and launched a 3-prong assault on it. By 05l3H, NVA were inside the wire...

"CPL McDANIEL asked for my grenade pouch. As I was handing the pouch to him another grenade landed between us again. This one must of been a frag because it knocked the hell out of me and the CPL. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. CPL McDANIEL’s face seemed to lift off, leaving a bloody mess, and then he fell backwards into the trench.”

--This and other remembrances of the 45 men killed February 1968 at Khe Sahn are online at the website Khe Sahn Veterans, from information compiled by Chaplain Ray W. Stubbe in his book Battalion of Kings.


"...three companies of the NVA 101D Regiment moved into jump-off positions to attack Alpha-1, an outpost just outside the Combat Base held by 66 men of Company A, 1st Platoon, 1/9 Marines. At 04:15 on 8 February under cover of fog and a mortar barrage, the North Vietnamese penetrated the perimeter, overrunning most of the position and pushing the remaining 30 defenders into the southwestern portion of the defenses. For some unknown reason, the NVA troops did not press their advantage and eliminate the pocket instead throwing a steady stream of grenades at the Marines. At 07:40 a relief force from Company A, 2nd Platoon set out from the main base and attacked through the North Vietnamese, pushing them into supporting tank and artillery fire^. By 11:00 the battle was over, Company A had lost 24 dead and 27 wounded, while 150 North Vietnamese bodies were found around the position which was then abandoned.^"    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khe_Sanh

One source says Roy Dean was killed at "Khe Sanh Near the Rock Quarry." His unit had first been stationed near Hill 689, and the map shows a quarry between there and the main Khe Sahn base.

The NVA wanted accress to Route 9, which ran east from the north-south Ho Chi Minh trail just across the Laotian border.  Their Tet offensive was in preparation, and they planned to use Route 9 to transport troops to the coast, and south on connecting highways.  The Marine base at Khe Sahn, overlooking the Demilitarized Zone and Route 9, blocked the way.

The NVA easily captured Khe Sahn village on 22 January 1968, cutting off the US Special Forces and ARVN base at Lang Vei.  On 23 January they captured Ban Houei Sane, a 700-man Royal Laotian Army post about a mile west across the border from Lang Vei.  The NVA threw 2000 men and (their first use of) armor against Ban Houei Sane, overwhelming its garrison in hours.

Lang Vei was effectively surrounded, and the major U.S. base at Khe Sahn under siege, when the NVA launched their Tet offensive on 30 January.  Lang Vei was overrun on the night of 6-7 February 1968. Roy Dean was killed February 8th.

President Johnson was worried that Khe Sahn would be "another Dien Bien Phu," (the besieged post whose capture marked the defeat of the French in Vietnam), and ordered Khe Sahn held at all costs.  The base was the western anchor of the American defence-line that paralleled the Demilitarized Zone, and directly faced North Vietnam's border.  General Westmoreland even briefly considered using tactical nuclear weapons against the NVA besieging Khe Sahn.  He believed the rest of his life that the Tet offensive was a diversionary maneuver, and Khe Sahn the real NVA target.

An Army operation broke the siege of Khe Sahn in April, but the decision was made to evacuate the post in June.  The NVA claimed victory.  There was continued fighting in the area afterwards, but the base was not occupied again until January 1971, when it was used as an American support-base for ARVN troops who unsuccessfully attacked west down Route 9 into Laos.  Khe Sahn base was again abandoned in April 1971.


                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
 

Thinking Vietnam

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

To slightly paraphrase William Faulkner, "The past isn't dead. It's not even past yet.”

The Vietnam war is not past.  It's part of the life-story of every American of my generation.  But it's also part of America's story, and is not past for anyone who is part of America's story.  Somebody once said that "things are the way they are now because they got that way."  Vietnam is part of how America got the way it is now, and part of how America will be in all the future.

Ken Burns' Vietnam documentary on P.B.S. last Fall did a masterful job of presenting the many kinds of people and stories that were part of the war.  But he left it for us to think about what the war meant, and continues to mean: the past isn't dead, or even past yet.  It continues having meaning for us, and historical perspective gives it new meaning.

But like everything in life, we get the past wrong when we're not honest about it: especially, honest about our part in it.  There was recently a striking example of getting it right and getting it wrong, when a couple well-known newspaper columnists both happened to write about Americans' lack of faith in government.  Both looked at our history to explain how things got that way.

Leonard Pitts highlighted Vietnam as the event that caused many Americans to begin doubting what our government told us, and what our government did.  The events of Watergate, taking place as the war was winding down, convinced many more that our government could not be trusted.  (And Pitts didn't say...but I will...that Ronald Reagan's Inaugural proclamation that "Government is the PROBLEM" both captured and gave Presidential imprimatur to Americans' lack of faith in government following Vietnam and Watergate.)

But Vietnam (and Watergate) was prominent by its absence from the musings of hard-line conservative George Will.  Will argued instead that Americans lost faith in their government because New Deal "Liberalism" failed.

Since he was of military-service age himself during the Vietnam war, it's impossible to believe Will was unaware of how Vietnam effected people at the time, especially those who served in the war, and those who protested it.  (Will himself did neither).  But Will serves as an exemplar of how we get the past, and the present, wrong.  Reading our preconceived meaning into the past, as Will does his conservative ideology, falsifies history...and current reality.

Will is not alone in getting Vietnam wrong.  Anyone who believes America "won" in Vietnam gets it wrong.  If America's purpose was to keep South Vietnam from falling under communist rule, we failed.  If North Vietnam's purpose was to re-unite their country under communist rule, they succeeded.  Arguing otherwise is delusional.

But there probably aren't many who'd argue America "won" in Vietnam.  The question for most Americans is why we lost the war.  And like the war itself, that retrospective question of meaning requires honesty.

I had to admire Robert McNamara.  Secretary of Defense during the first part of the war, he was later able to look at the reasoning by which he and the others who directed the war got into it, and stayed in it.  Even in retrospect it's rare that anyone, especially those who've been leaders during disastrous events, admit they were wrong: but McNamara had that courage.

McNamara said (in his 1995 memoirs, in the movie "The Fog of War," and in numerous interviews) that America's planners and leaders chose to enter the war, and made bad decisions in its conduct, because they believed "the domino theory."  America's leaders were convinced that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, Communism would infect the bordering countries, and then the countries bordering them. Their theory was that the nations of the world would thus fall to Communism sequentially, like dominos, until America was surrounded and engulfed by world-wide Communism.  McNamara had the integrity and courage to look back and say, "we were wrong."

America's first leaders in the war gave the war false meaning, with disastrous consequences.  And there are still false "meanings" being read into the war, retrospectively; such as Will's ideological view that it had nothing to do with Americans' losing faith in their government.

But the false retrospective "meaning" of Vietnam I hear most often is that "the media," and anti-war protestors, turned Americans against the war, and made America and its soldiers lose the will to win...causing America to lose the war.

It was originally Richard Nixon's "meaning," after he took over the war's conduct.  Like Lyndon Johnson, Nixon feared being "the first President to lose a war."  Johnson's solution had been to escalate the war, in the belief that defeat could be staved off that way.  Nixon tried escalation too: but as it became increasingly clear victory was not possible, Nixon found it politically expedient to deflect failure onto someone else.  Not surprisingly, he blamed those he considered his "enemies," the media and anti-war protestors.

It was a self-serving political ploy, then and now.  Nixon lied self-servingly in his ascription of defeat, which can surprise no one.  And with everything else we know of Nixon's character, it's hard to understand why any honest person would continue to believe the "meaning" he gave the war. 

The media simply did their job.  They told us and showed us what was happening: on battlefields, and, as the Pentagon Papers came out, in American government councils.  People saw that what was happening was horrible...knowingly purposeless destruction and death, and criminal political manipulation of our people and government.   People rightly demanded an end to the horror, for the good of our people and country.

Complaints that "the media" lost the war by not falsifying it as glorious and good was Nixon's ploy to disguise political self-interest as "patriotism."  No one, those directing the war most of all, believed we were winning, or could win, the war.  No one believed that it was in the best interests of America and its soldiers to spend more of their blood in Vietnam.  Politicians who pretended to believe they could lead America to victory in Vietnam, but were being undermined by the media and anti-war protestors, "played" the war in the most evil way possible, for their own cynical political advantage.

But Nixon's lying "meaning" of Vietnam is still fixed in some people's minds.  I still hear it from them.  As a political ploy, it has worked well.  The people who still believe that lie are largely the same self-deluded people who were once Nixon's, and are now Trump's, "base:" as if lying to ourselves about Vietnam's meaning will "make America great again."

More disturbing is that Americans' giving a false "meaning" to defeat in Vietnam has a historical parallel in Weimar Germany.  Like America, Germany lost a war.  As in post-Vietnam America, many in post-war Germany questioned how it could have happened, for the spirit of nationalist pride (American or German) is always that our soldiers, our courage, our will, and our purpose are so superior to any other nation's that we can never be defeated.

Many Germans would not give up their nationalistic pride; but could not reconcile it with Germany's undeniable defeat.  They chose to believe the comfortable lie their politicians told them, that Germany lost the war because the nation and its soldiers were"stabbed in the back" by the machinations of enemies at home.  (And Hitler wasn't alone in telling them the Jews were that enemy.)  Many Germans chose to believe that lie, and believed that Nazism would restore Germany to greatness.

It has yet to be seen what will be the outcome of Americans believing the "stabbed-in-the-back" lie about Vietnam, that "the media" and ("liberal") anti-war protestors lost the war.  But we already see that hatred of Nixon's scapegoats is an article-of-faith for supporters of the current president; and that his deceived "base" believes his immoral and corrupt rule is the only thing that will "make America great again."

Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin spoke wisdom about war: "you don't win a war any more than you win an earthquake."  Satan is the spiritual author of all man's wars; and only satan ever wins them, gaining his purpose of destroying people physically, psychologically, and spiritually.  And on the rubble of war he builds toward further destruction: confirming the "winners" in their self-pride (satan's own sin, which is under God's heaviest judgement), and fomenting murderous self-delusion on the thwarted national pride of the defeated.

But satan never gets the final say.  God holds out repentance, for people and for the nations they are.  If we can be honest enough to admit to ourselves that we lost in Vietnam, we can be as honest with ourselves as Robert McNamara was, and admit that "we were wrong."  The only way people or nations begin to free themselves from the consequences of their wrong-doing is admitting it to God and to themselves.

We were wrong in our pride.  Wrong that scripture's judgement on pride somehow didn't (and doesn't) apply to America the same as to any other person or people that ever existed; and wrong to disbelieve God that pride goes before a fall.  Wrong to believe the politicians who told us that we can restore America's pride by blaming other people for our fall.

Continuingly wrong to want America to be proud, and wrong to believe those who tell us that restoring pride will bring God's blessing on America...and not God's judgement on America.

Nations are people, and people make mistakes.  We were mistaken in what we thought we were doing in Vietnam.  God is merciful to those who admit doing wrong, and stop doing wrong.  If we instead tell ourselves lies about Vietnam, in order to maintain our pride, we delude ourselves about the war's meaning, and about current reality.  Most significantly, we continue doing wrong.

God promises no blessing to the self-deluded, and willful wrong-doers.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              


"...the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability have illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is. The cognitive bias of illusory superiority derives from the metacognitive inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude; without the self-awareness of metacognition, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.

Conversely, highly competent individuals may erroneously assume that tasks easy for them to perform are also easy for other people to perform, or that other people will have a similar understanding of subjects that they themselves are well-versed in.

As described by social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999, the cognitive bias of illusory superiority results from an internal illusion in people of low ability and from an external misperception in people of high ability; that is, 'the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.'..."

--  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect  (my emphasis)


There are spiritual dimensions here as well, I think.  It says something about a person's spirit whether they are quicker to ascribe (albeit mistakenly) "high competence" to themselves, or to others.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Jerusalem II

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Today is the 70th anniversary of the modern state of Israel's coming into existence, an event of immense significance in our understanding of God's rule in the end-times.

Today, after 70 years, the Trump Administration moved the American embassy to Jerusalem.

There is predictable protest and rioting by Palestinians, with scores of deaths.  There is predictable rejoicing by Israeli nationalists, and by American "Evangelicals" who interpret Jesus' teachings as supporting Israeli nationalism.

The dedication speech of the American ambassador to Israel stressed that today's great event was brought about entirely by President Donald J. Trump.

The Trump administration also brought in two of their strongest "evangelical" supporters to give a "Christian" blessing to the great event.  The preacher who gave the invocation (pastor of the largest Baptist church in Dallas), thanked God for bringing about the great event by giving America Donald J. Trump as president.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also gave Trump personal credit, thanks, and praise, on Israel's behalf.

I wrote about this matter last December (which is why I've entitled this post "Jerusalem II"), when Trump first announced that the embassy would move to Jerusalem:

"...I'm greatly put on guard when a world-leader who's established himself as a "man of lawlessness" (II Thessalonians 2:3) postures, for his own self-glorification, about the status of Jerusalem, the city of the Great King."  (https://cross-purposes.blogspot.com/2017_12_06_archive.html)

That concern is confirmed by the excessive glorification of Trump in today's ceremonies.

And that concern has been heightened in the interim.  Trump has, of course, continuingly shown himself a man of satan's character, lies and murder, as Jesus said in John 8:44 (the latter of which Jesus defines as bad-mouthing and hating others, Matthew 5:21-22).  But I've also been thinking, as recently as last week, about Trump's character as a covenant-breaker.

I'm always surprised that American "evangelicals," especially those who blindly support "God's chosen people," don't understand that the Jews' standing with God is based on His covenant with Abraham.  Or that God takes covenant so seriously He decrees judgement on covenant-breakers: even those who do it to get out of what they perceive as "a really horrible deal for America."

Listening to the effusive praise today at the great event in Jerusalem, it was clear that Israel's ruling faction and their American "evangelical" allies consider Trump "God's Man" for Israel, and the Jews' greatest friend.  Thinking of Trump's character,  I had to think of Daniel 9.

That chapter is usually considered prophecy of end-time events and the restoration of Israel.  It prophesies a man who is a key figure of ungodliness in the end-times,, "one who makes desolate," who will enter into "a firm covenant" with the Jews for seven years, but break it after three-and-a-half years (v. 27).

Jesus twice referenced Daniel's "one who makes desolate" (Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14: Luke  21:20's warning of Jerusalem's "desolation" may also allude to Daniel 9:27)  He seems to want us to pay special heed to Daniel's prophecy.  Christians who have usually consider that "the one who makes desolate" is probably the end-time personage we call "antiChrist:" about whom, of course, Christians have come up with thousands of theories.


I have to wonder if the time for theories is past, and we should look at the reality before us.  Not that God's given me new light (or even a new theory) about anti-Christ, in today's events in Jerusalem.  Rather that we should know what scripture has always said: that he will be a man who embodies the spirit of satan, as Jesus embodied the Spirit of God.

So we have always known (or should have known) that he will be especially distinguished by the spirit of lies and murderous hatred, as Jesus says satan is.  That anti-Christ will be a man of overweening pride, satan's own original sin: and a completely self-willed man, in rebellion against any authority over him, as satan is.

I don't have any special light from God about who antiChrist is; or even whether he's currently alive and operative on the world's stage.  But if Daniel 9:27 indeed speaks of antiChrist, one of his signal prophetic acts will be making a covenant of friendship with Israel, and subsequently breaking that covenant.

My thought on this significant day is simply that we should closely watch any world-leader who manifests satan's character, and vaunts himself on his professed friendship for Israel.  That we should closely, spiritually, watch and discern current world-leaders and events  Amen !

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

House of Representatives' Chaplain

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Another recent news-story:

Speaker Paul Ryan evidently asked the House' Chaplain to resign.  When his letter of resignation became public, we could all read that Chaplain Pat Conroy began his letter, "As you have requested..."

But Speaker Ryan (a Catholic) has since denied that he asked Conroy (a Catholic priest) to resign.  Ryan's chief-of-staff has since denied that he told Father Conroy the House needed a non-Catholic Chaplain.  Some protestant Republicans in the House  (mostly from the South) have since withdrawn their comments that the House needs a Chaplain with children, who can "connect" with members.

Father Conroy has since withdrawn his resignation.  He became convinced his ouster was a veiled attack on his religion.

But Father Conroy also said that after his prayer for the House during the Republican budget-push a few months ago, Ryan had told him, "Padre, you got to stay out of politics."  Among other things, Conroy had prayed God to give House-members a purpose "...that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”

Ryan has also denied that he (a chief author of the Republicans' budget) had asked for Father Conroy's resignation because he was politically offended by that prayer, though many members of the House (in both parties) are convinced that was the issue for Ryan.

Among them, a southern Republican member I heard on NPR.  I missed his name, and can't quote him verbatim: but his angry point was that when you start telling a man what he should or shouldn't pray when he's talking to God, you've gone too far.  Bless that member's heart !

All the allegations, denials, walk-backs, "spin," hypocrisy (especially by Republican champions of "religious liberty" who really aren't), hints of religious prejudice, etc., etc.: par for the course.

Maybe the spiritual needs of the current "conservative" House of Representatives are 'way greater than a Chaplain can handle.

I'd suggest the "spiritual needs" of the current House of Representatives House require an exorcist.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Demons

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              


Reading the book of Mark, we were talking about a time Jesus made a demon leave a possessed man.

Someone asked," What do you imagine we would call demons these days ?"

I immediately, forcefully, said, "Demons."

The question seemed to presuppose that what people in Jesus' time thought were evil spirits were actually what we now know are pyschological phenomema of some kind.

That idea is not completely off-base.  Scientific research has found out a great deal more than was known 2000 years ago about such things as mental illness, personality disorders, and abberant pychological states.

All of those are real phenomena; oftentimes, they are kinds of harm that human beings do to themselves.  The Bible is about reality, and about how God saves men even (especially) from themselves: so it doesn't seem at all "Biblical" to claim that pyschological and mental disease don't exist.  They absolutely do.

And because there are so many kinds of pyschological and mental harm human beings can do themselves (and each other), the most critical skill in diagnosis is distinguishing one from another.  That's where we come back to Jesus.

When Jesus cast out demons or taught about demons, He treated them as non-corporeal beings under satan's spiritual command, who afflicted, and even inhabited, human beings.  Believing in Jesus means believing Jesus knew what He was talking about...especially when He was talking about spiritual realities.

I have no doubt He also knew everything about mental and psychological disease that scientific researchers have learned in the last 2000 years, or ever will learn.  When He diagnosed people as having a demon problem, it wasn't because He mistook their symptoms for some other kind of mental and psychological problem.

Jesus' diagnosis was infallible.  Diagnosis is always a bit iffier for us.  That's why I think one of the charismata God gave Christians is "distinguishing of spirits" (I Corinthians 12:10).  The Spirit of God is the only One able to diagnosis demons as infallibly as Jesus.

Failure to seek the Spirit throws us into one of two errors.  One is that there's no such things as demons, and man has (only) psychological and mental disorders.  The other, that all of man's non-physical disorders are caused by demons.  Either un-Spiritual attitude blinds us to reality.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Speaking in Tongues: The Value of Controversy

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Satan is, and has to be, a controversialist.  He's chosen to put himself in the position of denying everything God says and does; so he's endlessly busy spreading his "alternative facts" and contrarian viewpoints.

He's still telling the children of Eve the same lie he told Eve, that disobeying God will make life better and greater...not result in death, as God says.  "Has God indeed said...?" (Genesis 3:1).  And he's still arguing (and we still hear those he's deceived by his argument, saying) that Jesus was not really a flesh and blood human being, not God's Son, not the Messiah, and that God didn't literally raise Him from the dead.

But the problem of the contrarian...or better, rebel...mindset is that it is completely controlled by the one it rebels against.  He's infinitely subtle about it: but satan's chosen position can never really be more subtle than an angry child reflexively shouting "It is NOT !!"  to everything his parent says.  We've all seen wise parents turn rebellious outbursts to their purpose.

God turns controversy to His purposes.  Controversy is always about what IS and what is not.  My observation is that God uses the controversies raised by satan's denials to call to our attention what He truly says and does.

Satan's not above manufacturing false ones, to put us off the track; but every real controversy is ultimately about Truth.  Every real controversy arises from satan's questioning what's true: "Has God indeed said...?"  And every controversy, if we perceive it and pursue it rightly, is a way that God affirms His Truth.

That's not to say even real controversies can't put us off the track, and play into satan's hand.  Many people simply hate disagreement, and are easily persuaded to walk away from controversy.  If anyone (it doesn't matter who) disagrees (it doesn't matter why) with anything, they want no part of the matter..."too controversial," and unpleasant.

But when Truth is under attack, I'd question how much "love of Truth" is evidenced by anyone who walks away.  We are told to "...always [be] ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you..." (I Peter 3:15).  If our hope is not in the truth of what God says, and if we are not willing to defend that truth...what claim do we have to being Christians ?

Peter goes on to say that our defense must be "...with gentleness and reverence."  This is the other main way we play into satan's hand in controversy.  We can easily fall into the trap of coming to love...even identify with...the controversy, more than Truth.  When we do, we become, like satan, "controversialists."  And, like satan, our desire in controversy becomes not defending Truth, but destroying others.

All that seems necessary prologue in talking about "speaking in tongues."  The charismata, "grace gifts," "spiritual gifts," have been controversial in our time.  I consider the controversy means God is spotlighting the charismata to our attention: and that all who love Truth will dig into scripture to see what He says about them.

Looking at what scripture says about tongues is the point of my following post.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Politics: America, 2018

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

The excuse I hear, and have heard ever since Donald Trump came on the scene, is that "all politicians lie," and/or "politicians always lie."

Like all generalizations, there's a bit of truth in those statements.

Even the best politicians stretch the truth a bit, or bend it slightly (or greatly) to their advantage.  They always have.

But the attitude of those generalizations, that politics today is the same as it's always been, is hugely false.  Maybe Donald Trump's continual blatant falsehoods are the traditional New York real-estate developer standard, and all the denizens of that sub-culture know everyone's lying, and expects everyone to lie, and thinks lying is no big deal.  That is not the traditional standard of American politics.

Nobody has to think back very far to realize that.  Republicans lambasted Bill Clinton for lying about his relations with Monica Lewinsky: it served their political purposes.  Democrats lambasted George Bush for lying about "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq: it served their political purposes.

Before Donald Trump, both parties recognized the standard of truth, and believed that truth mattered to voters.  Both parties believed they could fatally harm their opponents with voters by catching their opponents in a lie...if they could avoid being caught in their own.

Richard Nixon was tripped up by his lies.  Even Ronald Reagan had to publically crawfish that he was kept in the dark by underlings like Oliver North, and didn't intentionally lie to Americans about his administration's dirty tricks.

So it's absolute self-deception to believe our politics are the same as they've always been, and Trump is just another lying politician of the kind we're used to.

He's not.  Trump recognizes no standard of truth.  His own counter-factual pronouncements are all he believes: and he himself doesn't really believe them.  He admitted (or bragged) that he "made up" trade-figures when he was arguing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, so he clearly understands there's a difference between his own bullshit and truth.

But most of all, it's not the same old politics because many Americans voters no longer care that they are being lied to.  Very many are willing to obstinately argue that Trump's manifest, hourly lies aren't really untrue...and even if they are, so what ?  By them, Trump is "making America great again."

Where in our newly-amoral politics are Christians...followers of The One Who said "I AM...The Truth"... ?  Very often, Christians are among those most obstinately arguing for, and making excuses for, Trump's lies.

There are consequences: God judges those who lie, and those who love lies.  He harshly judges those who love lies while claiming they love Jesus.