Good for the goose…

May 3, 2016 ~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

In his lead column in the April 30 issue of WORLD Magazine Joel Belz, the magazine’s founder, takes to task Dan Schulman, CEO of PayPal, for his decision to cancel plans to build a global operations center in Charlotte, NC. Schulman’s decision was made in response to the passage of a law in North Carolina that, according to the Washington Times, was “decried by activists as being among the most extreme anti-LGBT measures in the country.” The law was passed by the North Carolina legislature, and signed by the governor, in response to an ordinance passed by the Charlotte city government to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals from being discriminated against by businesses. The state law, which of course supersedes the local law, prohibits local governments from putting in place such measures on their own. Accordingly, transgender individuals may not use restrooms according to the gender identity but must, instead, use restrooms according to their gender at birth.

This is an issue which has received plenty of attention elsewhere, including in this blog, so I am not going to go there. Instead, I want to talk about Belz’s charge that Shulman and PayPal are behaving like “neighborhood bullies” by “throwing their weight around.” Belz says the decision is a prime example of “argumentum ad baculum – or an appeal to force.” He goes on to say that “almost every time you sense that it’s happening, you should sound the alarm and note that somebody’s changed the subject and is trying to win the day using an argument where force, coercion–or, more typically, the threat of force–is its main justification.”

In other words, Belz says that Shulman and PayPal are playing unfair, using their power to withhold a proposed new project that would inject millions of dollars into the North Carolina economy and provide an estimated 400 jobs. Belz uses rather strong language to cry foul. For example, he writes:

In the current high-profile debate over the rights and privileges society should extend to people in the so-called LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) segment of our population, it would be one thing to arrive at tolerable conclusions through traditional discussion and debate–in the appropriate legislative settings, and in the political processes through which those legislative settings are staffed. … It is something altogether different, though, to have to reckon with the clumsy demands of corporate entities that have no accountability in the various settings where they have become so intrusive and noisy. Who is PayPal–and who are their corporate colleagues? How do we know what these companies’ policies are? When they come thundering in to tell us which of our policies are OK with them and which ones aren’t, what redress do we have? If they have the right to shape our future so profoundly, do we have any reciprocal rights to shape their futures as well?

Belz goes on to say that he does not deny the freedom of such companies to intrude because “that’s the price tag of liberty sometimes.” Yet, he also concludes, “neither do we have to pretend they are being anything close to helpful citizens.”

This is where I have to question the premise of Mr. Belz. Why is it being a neighborhood bully when PayPal decides not to locate a major portion of its business in a state with laws it disagrees with, but it is fine for Christians (and others) to boycott businesses with policies or practices or products they disagree with? How can we argue PayPal is being unfair by not locating an office in North Carolina yet also argue that businesses should be allowed to refuse service to those whose lifestyles they believe are sinful? Why should it be an appropriate exercise of individual liberty or religious protection for a bakery owner to refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding or for a farm to refuse to host a lesbian wedding, but it’s “throwing their weight around” when PayPal says, “because we disagree with this law, we will not locate our business in your state”? After all, PayPal did not say they would close all locations they already have in North Carolina. They did not say they will no longer provide services to North Carolina clients or residents.

If the multitudinous posts I have seen on Facebook about the number of people who have pledged not to shop at Target because of their new policy on bathroom usage are to be believed then there are hundreds of thousands of people–perhaps even a million–who say they will no longer shop at Target. Now I am just as unhappy about the Target policy as anyone else I know. I think it is a foolish policy. To the point Mr. Belz made, I suspect that Target’s policies may change if their bottom line is adversely impacted by an effective boycott. But how is it not using force for one million people to say they will no longer shop at Target because of it’s policy, but it is force for PayPal to not open a new office in North Carolina and employ 400 people there? Mr. Belz and others who are bothered or offended by the PayPal decision could certainly choose to boycott PayPal as well if they would like.

No doubt many suggest that it is not the same thing. A few people–even a whole bunch of people–cannot carry the same weight or have the same impact as a powerful multinational corporation. I don’t know, though. The use of boycotts have been quite successful in the past when there were wrongs that, through sheer numbers, were eventually righted. The Montgomery bus boycott may be among the most famous examples, but there have been boycotts throughout history. The colonists boycotted British tea and other goods during the colonial era. The United States and other nations have boycotted the Olympics as a sign of protest at different times. I canceled a subscription to a magazine in the late 1990s because it included an advertisement that was explicitly targeted at a gay audience, or at generating support for the gay lifestyle, and it offended me. The power of the purse is an effective and influential one. It is contradictory and silly, however, to suggest that it is okay for individuals to boycott businesses but not for businesses to boycott (or choose not to locate in) states with laws they do not like. It is ridiculous to support boycotts of Target but get up in arms over boycotts of Chick-fil-A. That’s the trouble with free speech–to protect your right to free speech, you have to protect the right of those who disagree with you to have their say, too. After all, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

The Triumphal Entry

March 21, 2016 ~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

Today is the day on the calendar that we call Palm Sunday. It marks the beginning of what is often referred to as Holy Week or Passion Week, and it is the day on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to the cheers and accolades of the masses. It is often recognized with excitement and celebration—but I would suggest to you that it really was not. The ultimate end of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem would be cause for excitement and celebration, because the ultimate end would be, one week later, when He rose from the grave having defeated sin and death. For that reason we can recognize this day with celebration. On the day in question, however, only Jesus understood that that was what was coming. If we look at the triumphal entry from the perspectives of the various groups of people who were present on that day we will actually come away with a feeling quite unlike excitement and celebration. And frankly, when we really look at those various groups of people, we may find ourselves staring face to face with ourselves—or at least ourselves as we are and act at various times in our lives.

So we will unpack that idea more momentarily. Let us begin by setting the scene for what takes place on Palm Sunday. We could dwell on many aspects of this text but I am going to skip over some of them because they are beyond the points I want to examine here. John 12:1-2 tells us that six days before the Passover Jesus and His disciples arrive in Bethany. This was the hometown of Mary, Martha and Lazarus and it was very close to Jerusalem—two miles or so. This was where Jesus had performed perhaps His most famous miracle—raising Lazarus from the dead. They had a meal for Jesus here and Lazarus was one of those individuals reclining with Jesus at the table.

Jump to verse 9. Here we see that word got out that Jesus was in town and a large crowd flocked to see Him—and to see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. Now John says that the people wanted to see Jesus and Lazarus, but I think it stands to reason that the real appeal was to see them together. This was where Lazarus lived, so if the crowds wanted to see him in particular they could have done so almost any time. But now Jesus, the man who raised Lazarus, is in town again and the opportunity presents itself to see both the miracle and the miracle worker.

Verses 10 and 11 tell us that the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death because, verse 11, “on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.” Now what about this word believe that we have here? This sounds like a wonderful thing, right—Jews by the dozens are flocking to Jesus and believing in Him. I would suggest to you that this is not as wonderful as it appears. The Greek word is pisteuó, and it means “to believe or have faith in.” However, the HELPS Word Studies explains this important detail: the word is “used of persuading oneself (= human believing) and with the sacred significance of being persuaded by the Lord (= faith-believing). Only the context indicates whether pisteúō (“believe”) is self-serving (without sacred meaning), or the believing that leads to/proceeds from God’s inbirthing of faith.” I think, based on what is about to happen in the following verses, that many of those who were “believing” in Jesus at this time were doing so in the self-serving sense. They recognized a man who could do incredible things—literally, miracles—and they wanted to be on His side. They also, no doubt, wanted what He could do for them.

Just a few chapters earlier, in John 6, we see Jesus feeding the 5,000 and then walking on water. The people were thrilled and wanted to make Him their king. But in verse 35 of that chapter Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” and proceeds to explain the plan of salvation. What happens then? In verse 42 we read, “They said, ‘Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I came down from heaven”’?” Jesus proceeds to teach them further and then, in verse 66, we read, “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” Why did they no longer follow Him? The phrase translated “from this time” means, basically, “as a result of.” In other words, because of what Jesus said, they said, “Forget this. I’ve had enough of this. This is not what I had in mind.” They were following Jesus because of what He could do for them and because of their earthly Messianic hopes, which involved defeating Rome and returning Israel to the Jews.

Now, go back to John 12 and look at verses 17 and 18. Here we see that those who had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead were still talking about and spreading the word and, as a result, verse 18 says, the crowd went to meet Him—or to see Him. There was a procession now, with Jesus coming into town riding on a donkey, and the crowds wanted to see Him. These people were impressed by the idea that Jesus could raise someone from the dead. No doubt they had also heard of many of His other miracles, including healing the sick, the blind, the lame; of feeding the massive crowds of people with a handful of food. This, they thought, could be the one who was going to lead them out of their Roman captivity!

The people, as Jesus entered Jerusalem on Sunday, began waving palm branches and carpeting the road with branches and their own clothing. The palm branches were plentiful in the area and they were often used at festivals and celebrations as a symbol of joy and victory. The people were thrilled that Jesus was coming. Now, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. The most important significance of this is that it fulfilled specific Old Testament prophecy saying that the Messiah would enter Jerusalem on a colt. There may be other significance, primarily symbolic—with the colt being a symbol of peace rather than a horse, which would more likely represent a military conqueror.

The people wanted something more like a military conqueror because they wanted a Messiah who would free them Roman oppression. But that was not Jesus. The people were shouting “Hosanna!” which literally means, in English, “Save now.” The salvation they had in mind, though, was temporal and material, not spiritual and eternal. We know the “belief” of most of these people was not sincere because, within just a few days, their cries of “Hosanna!” will be replaced instead with cries of “Crucify Him!”

Now, let’s look at a second group, the religious leaders of the day. These individuals were furious with Jesus and determined to put Him to death. Why? Because they were losing their power and their influence. Look back at John 12:9-11. We see here that because so many people were flocking to Jesus the leaders determined to put Lazarus to death as well—meaning they were planning to kill Lazarus and Jesus. In verse 19 we see the attitude, the revealed heart, of the Pharisees—they are lamenting that “the whole world has gone after Him.” This implies that there were masses of people going to celebrate the entry of Jesus and therefore leaving the leadership and influence of the Pharisees—and they found this unacceptable. They were realizing that they should have followed the advice of Caiaphas. Look back at chapter 11, verses 45-53. The words of Caiaphas here seem to allude to the death of one man—Jesus—saving a people or a nation, and therefore alluding to the salvation made possible through the death of Christ. That, however, is not what he had in mind at all. He was expressing that Jesus—whom the Pharisees viewed as stirring up sedition and anti-Roman thoughts among the people—should die so that He did not succeed in leading a rebellion which may result in the Roman army killing all of the Jews in response and, more practically for Caiaphas, in the Pharisees losing their power and influence.

This second group of people is perhaps the group with which we are most familiar and the group whose motives are easiest to discern from a first reading of the text.

Let us look at one last group of people in John 12:42-43. Apparently there were those, even among the Jewish leaders, who truly did believe on Jesus. We know, of course of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, but they did not reveal publicly their faith until after Jesus had died. What we see in these verses is that they remained silent about their faith because they feared the response and retaliation from the other Jews. They loved the position, the power and the influence they had and they were unwilling to give that up. Back in John 9:22 we see that the rulers had determined that anyone who acknowledged Jesus would be excommunicated, thrown out of the synagogue. These leaders knew the truth, and the accepted it apparently, but at this point only secretly.

So we see three groups of people among the crowds on the first Palm Sunday. We see those who were impressed by what Jesus could do and were following Him because of what they thought they could get out of it. They imagined free food, free health care, a throwing off of the Roman oppression. Reflect on your own life for a moment. Are you ever guilty of following Jesus or of seeking Jesus just for your own benefit? Do you look to Him only when you want or need something, expecting that He will come through and provide what you want, when you want it, but you ignore or reject the hard parts of His teaching, the parts about dying to self and serving others?

Next, we looked at two different groups of leaders responded differently to Jesus but for the same reasons. The majority of the religious leaders were so mad that the people, who had always been under their influence and control, were leaving them to go follow Jesus that they wanted to kill Him. If they could just get rid of Jesus they could continue to live life the way they wanted, to do things the way they wanted. There are many people in the world today, and have been many people throughout history, who have denied God, wished Him dead or claimed He was no longer relevant, because then there would be no one to whom they were accountable and they could do whatever they wanted to do—especially if they were ones in power and positions of influence and control.

The second group of religious leaders accepted Jesus, but they would not tell anyone because of what they thought it would cost them. They already had the prominence, the position, the influence that the world could offer and they did not want to give it up. They wanted to keep the riches and glories of this world while also claiming those of the world to come, of the heavenly kingdom. Take a moment to reflect. How many times do you—do I—not speak up and claim the name of Christ because we are afraid of what others will think? Because we are concerned about the social, political or professional repercussions of being known as “one of them”? Jesus Himself said, recorded in several of the gospels, “What good will it do for a man to gain the whole world yet lose his soul?” There is nothing that this world has to offer us that could possibly come close to the promise of what is waiting for us in eternity if we know Christ as our Savior. We must not allow the fear of man to keep us quiet about Him!

Interestingly, those religious leaders who wanted to kill Jesus were the most honest of the three groups we have seen here. They were opposed to Jesus and they were completely upfront about it. The first group professed to follow Jesus but their following was self-centered and not sincere. The third group believed Jesus but would not admit that they did. It was a sincere but silent and secret faith. There are many today who fit those two groups. Many who profess to be Christians are following after Jesus only because of what they think they can get out of it—because of what they think He can do for them. Many others may have a sincere belief in what the Bible teaches about Jesus, about sin and salvation, but they believe in silence, preferring to keep their faith to themselves so as not to reap unpleasant consequences of making that belief known. Scripture makes it clear that God is not pleased with that kind of faith.

There was a fourth group of people present that day, and that was those who truly were followers and disciples of Jesus. Even many of them, however, were unaware of what was really happening. In verse 16 we see that explained to us, as John writes, “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and had been done to Him.”

Here is why the Triumphal Entry is such good news, despite the mixed bag of people who were present that day. It is good news because Jesus knew exactly what was coming…and He went anyway. Luke 19 tells us that as Jesus approached and saw the city of Jerusalem He wept over it. Why? Because He knew the response of the people that was coming. Despite the fact that they were about to welcome Him with shouts of adoration and celebration, he knew that they would reject Him. As they were celebrating the Passover feast, remembering the escape from physical death for those who had applied the blood to their doorposts when the angel of death passed over Egypt, they were preparing to reject that sacrificial lamb who would free them from eternal death and separation from God. He was weeping because, as Scripture tells us, He is not willing that any should perish. He knew both that most of those in Jerusalem were about to reject Him, and He knew that many throughout history would reject Him, refusing to accept the free gift of salvation made possible through His obedience to God’s plan, His death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, and His resurrection from the grave, proving victory over hell, death and sin.

Jesus knew what was coming and He went into Jerusalem anyway. Look at the end of John 12 – verses 44-50. Verse 44 says that Jesus cried out. This implies that He was making a public proclamation in a loud voice, likely addressed to the crowd that had followed Him. In the preceding verses we see that the people’s unbelief was revealed. Jesus is now proclaiming the consequences of believing in Him and of rejecting Him. Jesus makes it clear that believing in Him, or rejecting Him, was believing in, or rejecting, God the Father. He makes it inexplicably clear that they are one. These few verses seem, really, to be Jesus summing up all that He had done during His earthly ministry. He explains that He has done what He has done, and taught what He has taught, because it is what God the Father determined for Him to do. The audience hearing Him here was left without excuse. He made clear to them, unmistakably clear to them, that He was the Son of God and that believing in Him brings light and life, rejecting Him brings death and darkness.

We too are without excuse. Indeed, Romans 1 tells us that all humankind is without excuse. Of the groups of people we have seen here, which are you? Are you following Jesus just because of what you think He can do for you? Are you following Him but keeping it yourself, fearful of what others may think or what the consequences may be if your faith is known? Have you rejected Him, preferring to do your own thing and live your own life how you want? Or have you truly accepted Him, received the gift of salvation made possible through His life, death and resurrection? My hope and my prayer is that you are in that fourth group. If you are not, I urge you to examine your heart and your life and to get right with God. Verse 48 of John 12 says, “The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.” You have received the truth and you are now accountable for it. You are without excuse.

For those who have accepted Christ, Palm Sunday truly is a celebratory day because we know that Jesus, recognizing and knowing full well what was before Him and the painful death He was about to endure, went ahead anyway. He obeyed. He entered Jerusalem to give His life for you and for me.

Keeping Up With the Joneses

March 18, 2016March 18, 2016 ~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

I should state right up front that I am not a fan of rap. In fact, I would consider myself whatever the opposite of “fan” is when it comes to rap. I have been known, on more than one occasion, to ask someone what kind of music they like and, upon receiving their response of “rap,” counter with, “I said music.” So opposed am I to rap that, despite enjoying Broadway shows and loving American history, I had zero interest in going to see Hamilton while I was in New York recently. Once I learned that the show’s lyrics are rapped, I knew it was not for me. And yes, I know that it is considered the hottest ticket in town…but then that leads to the real point I want to make here.

I do not watch the Grammy’s either. It is my understanding, though, that rapper Kendrick Lamar took home five Grammy awards out of eleven nominations at this year’s ceremony. Granted, I have never listened to so much as a single line of his rap, but an article by Arsenio Orteza back in January struck me when I read it and has been rolling around in my mind ever since. Orteza’s view of Lamar’s “music” is that “herd instinct can trump better judgment when music critics move in packs.” Orteza is clearly no fan of Lamar, writing the following about his most recent album (the one that won him five Grammay’s):

[T]he verbal component of [To Pimp a Butterfly] comprisesa dim self-awareness held together with innumerable “N-words,” “F-bombs,” and other expressions of an intelligence far too limited to be taken seriously.

So whether he’s promising a race war the next time cops shoot a black man or confusing a chrysalis with a cocoon while invoking his album’s title lepidopterous imagery, Lamar sounds like a clown.

Clearly, if he had a vote, Orteza would not be supporting Lamar for any Grammy’s. He was not alone in his evaluation of the album, though. Even those who apparently enjoy rap had less-than-glowing comments about this effort. Justin Charity, writing on complex.com in November, said, “In its entirety, To Pimp a Butterfly isn’t a conventionally enjoyable record; it is, essentially, the screams of an agonized man performing open-heart surgery on himself. … To Pimp a Butterfly is, undeniably, an important album. It’s also frustrating, painful, chaotic, and wildly derivative of so many black musical influences that Kendrick Lamar barely elevates.” Billboard gave the album 4.5 stars out of 5, but even praising the concept and deeper meaning of the album, Kris Ex said, “the music isn’t the most challenging thing about the album: the lyrics are pre-occupied with race and personal identity in ways that are decidedly uncomfortable to mixed company. Rolling Stone included it as one of the 50 Best Albums of 2105, but still said, “The pleasures and rewards of To Pimp a Butterfly aren’t easy.”

Now, I am not suggesting that uncomfortable or uneasy are necessarily bad things. There are many excellent pieces of literature, music or art that are neither comfortable nor easy but that are quite valuable and thought provoking. Indeed there is much in the Bible that is neither comfortable nor easy–and that is specifically because it is so personal and direct. (Have you read James lately?)

Lamar’s rap, however, seems to have far more going against it than for it. Those lyrics from To Pimp a Butterfly that I have read are littered with language that negates any significant point he may be trying to make. Frankly, reading just one line of some of the “songs” on the album is too much for me to handle–and I do not consider myself easily offended or “Puritanical.” Is it really possible to make a meaningful point or initiate thoughtful dialogue when everyone word but “you” in a sentence is profanity?

At the Grammy’s he performed three songs, including a new verse alluding to the death of Trayvon Martin and an untitled song that refers to Martin. The Guardian said the performance was “studded with strong allusions to racial inequality, the prison-industrial complex and black identity.” The lyrics, if you can stomach them, are studded with all manner of reference to violence, anger, crime…and confusion. Not long after these lyrical lines…

The reason why I’m by your house
You threw your briefcase all on the couch
I plan on creeping through your damn door and blowing out
Every piece of your brain
‘Til your spine drip to your arm
Cut off the engine then sped off in a Wraith

He says this…

Once upon a time, I go to church and talk to God
Now I’m thinking to myself
Hollow tips is all I got

And believe me, there is plenty more I am not quoting.

Following his Grammy’s performance the Twitter-sphere lit up with celebrities tripping all over themselves trying to praise Lamar’s performance. Piers Morgan tweeted, “This guy stole the show.” Mark Ballas said he was blown away the performance, saying Lamar had “so much heart.” Katy Perry tweeted, in all caps, “THAT WAS SO POWERFUL”. Kobe Bryant said “YES!” and Ellen DeGeneres tweeted, “@kendricklamar, you are brilliant.”

Don Cannon, though, topped them all when he said, “God bless @kendricklamar. For using your gifts to teach and inspire on such a huge platform.” Teach and inspire? What was he teaching? What did he inspire? Nothing, as best I can tell, that is socially acceptable or remotely helpful. Are African-Americans overrepresented in American prisons? Yes. Is there room for a legitimate and sincere debate about the treatment of African-Americans by law enforcement? Of course. But talking about blowing out someone’s brain until their spine drips onto their arm is not constructive and is certainly not the starting point for a meaningful or productive conversation.

So why in the world do we (the collective “we”–and far more than just the twittering glitterati of Hollywood) commend and celebrate such nonsense? Well, to go back to Arsenio Orteza, I think he hit the nail on the head in his column, which was written, by the way, before the Grammy’s performance. This observation is one of the more poignant and memorable ones I have seen in a long time:

So why do critics love him? The easiest answer is that, being mostly liberal, they consider nobly savage inarticulateness to be a sign of authentic “blackness,” not realizing that in so doing they’re perpetuating a negative stereotype at odds with their putative racial egalitarianism.

That is exactly right. Somehow we have all become like the advisers to the emperor. We can see that he is not wearing any clothes, but we are not willing to say so. We go along with everyone else, not wanting to stick out or draw undue attention to ourselves. It is easier to agree, to smile, to nod, to tweet some pithy congratulatory–and insanely stupid–commendation of words and antics that civilized people with their heads on straight would never condone.

This is true of far more than a rap performance at an awards show, of course. No doubt we have all found ourselves racing to keep up with the Joneses by wearing clothes we don’t even like because it is the “in” brand, of watching shows or movies we really do not enjoy because “everyone else is doing it.” There are innumerable examples of the ways in which we refuse to stand on our own two feet and proclaim that the emperor is naked. Years ago Ryan Dobson wrote a book entitled Be Intolerant…Because Some Things Are Just Stupid. To that I would say a hearty Amen!

We cannot expect our young people to resist peer pressure and say no to the crowd when we as adults are not willing to do so. There is nothing progressive or avant-garde, certainly nothing to be desired, in celebrating or commending that which is aimed squarely at the destruction of civilization. And it’s about time we say so. Kendrick Lamar’s rap may be a good place to start, but that is all it is…a starting point. We are paving the way to our own downfall with our expanding embrace of abortion, euthanasia, transgender identity, gay marriage, marijuana use…and on and on it goes. Somehow we do not realize, as Orteza wrote, that we are perpetuating beliefs, behaviors and positions that are actually quite at odds with our own survival as a civilized people.

God’s Unbreakable Love

February 26, 2016 ~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

A couple of years ago I posted a message I had preached on the love of God, a message I had entitled “God’s Love Is.” in that examination of John 3:16 and the characteristics of God’s love, I ended with the point that God’s love is unbreakable. I said that there is nothing…absolutely nothing…that can separate us from God’s love. I drew this from the closing phrase of John 3:16, which says, “whoever believes in Jesus shall not perish but have everlasting life.” There is no question, there is no condition, there is no fine print or exception, there is no “hope so” when it comes to the eternal life God has promised to those who accept His Son as Savior.

To reinforce this point I also looked briefly at Romans 8:38-39, and I want to unpack that verse a bit more here as a follow up. As you read this text, ponder carefully the words:

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now read it again from The Living Bible, because hearing or reading it a different way can sometimes reinforce a point or reveal something you did not notice the first time.

For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are—high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean—nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.

Depending on your translation, verse 38 begins with “I am persuaded,” “I am convinced,” “I am sure.” This word meant, in the original language, a strong and unwavering confidence or certainty. So Paul is saying, in other words, “I have no doubt whatsoever—I am 100%, absolutely, positively, no doubt about it, sure that nothing can separate us from the love of God.”

At the risk of bringing you crashing down from that spiritual mountaintop, let me give you two important points before I unpack these verses a bit more, because they are full of such profound truth that we cannot miss it. First, you must always remember that the unbreakableness (if that’s a word) of God’s love has nothing to do with you and everything to do with God. You and I are not expected to maintain our connection to God’s love, nor can we. We are fallen sinners and, even after salvation, we continue to sin. That we are still loved by God is not because we are so wonderful, certainly not because we deserve it, but because God chooses to love us.

Finally, the fact that God’s love is unbreakable and nothing we can do can separate us from that love is not permission to sin. The fact that we could never mess up so badly that God would stop loving us does not mean that what we think and how we act does not matter. Galatians 6:9 says that we are not to grow weary in doing good. James 2:26 says that faith without works is dead. Hebrews 13:16 says, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” Ephesians 2:19 reads, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” And Matthew 5:16: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

I think it is also worth noting that just a few verses earlier, in verse 28, Paul said “we know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” In verse 35 Paul rattles off another list of things that his readers might think could separate them from the love of God–or be evidence of their separation from the love of God. He writes this: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” Then in verse 37, the verse immediately preceding the two verses we looked at last time and began with here, Paul answers that question like this: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Now, did Paul know a thing or two about suffering and persecution during his lifetime? Absolutely. We know, from Scripture, that Paul was stoned and left for dead. He was beaten with rods three times. Five times he received thirty-nine lashes with a whip. That was the maximum number allowed by Roman law, and it was so violent and severe that there are many instances of people dying from those whippings. Paul was attacked by an angry mob. He had to be lowered over a wall in a basket in an order to save his life. He was shipwrecked and floated at sea for hours. He was bitten by a poisonous viper. He was under house arrest for two years without ever facing a trial. So Paul knows that of which he speaks!

John Calvin commented on this passage this way: “He is now carried away into hyperbolic expressions, that he might confirm us more fully in those things which are to be experienced. Whatever, he says, there is in life or in death, which seems capable of tearing us away from God, shall effect nothing….”

Alexander MacLaren, a 19th century Irish minister, had this to say about Paul’s list:

The Apostle begins his fervid catalogue of vanquished foes by a pair of opposites which might seem to cover the whole ground-’neither death nor life.’ What more can be said? Surely, these two include everything. From one point of view they do. But yet, as we shall see, there is more to be said. And the special reason for beginning with this pair of possible enemies is probably to be found by remembering that they are a pair, that between them they do cover the whole ground and represent the extremes of change which can befall us. The one stands at the one pole, the other at the other. If these two stations, so far from each other, are equally near to God’s love, then no intermediate point can be far from it. If the most violent change which we can experience does not in the least matter to the grasp which the love of God has on us, or to the grasp which we may have on it, then no less violent a change can be of any consequence.

Rev. Rodney Kleyn addressed this passage in a sermon by recounting a story he had heard that made abundantly clear to him the power of God’s love, and I think it bears repeating since it could indeed help to grasp just how comprehensive the love of God is:

I heard an illustration in a sermon preached on this verse from one of our older ministers. That was ten years ago. It stuck in my mind. So I am going to use that illustration now so that, I hope and pray, it sticks also in your mind. This is like a child who has to sleep at night and it is dark in his room. He is crying to his parents: “I can’t sleep. I think there is a bogeyman in the closet.” And so his father comes into the room and says, “Son, there isn’t. Let me show you.” And he turns the light on. And he opens the closet door to show his son that there is no one there. And then he says to his son, “Just to make sure you know, let’s look in every part of this room.” They look in all the drawers, and they empty out the toy box—and there is no one there. Then he says to his son, “But just in case you still wonder, let me take you through the house.” He takes his son by the hand and takes him into every room in the house. They look in every closet, in every drawer, in every trash can. They go into the basement. They look in the utility room. They dig through the garage. And he says to his son, “See, you can sleep. There’s no bogeyman.”

Something like that here. Paul transports us from our experience in our life to all the expanses of the universe—past, present, and future. He takes the doubting and the fearful and the questioning child of God who is looking at his own life, and he says, “Come with me, let me show you.” Not death, not life, not angels, not principalities or powers, nothing in the present, nothing in the future, not height, not depth, and in case I missed it, no other creature, no other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of Christ. Why so? Because there is a love stronger, greater, than any creature. What a wonderful comfort that is for the child of God.

Everyone has fears. Everyone is afraid of something. For us as adults it probably is not the bogeyman. For us in America it probably is not persecution for our faith. But we still have very real fears that we face. Taking some of those fears from Chapman University’s 2015 Survey of American Fears, and adding some others that I know many people fear and think about, let me offer you a rewording of Romans 8:38-39 in very contemporary vernacular:

I am certain that neither terrorism nor nuclear attack, nor global warming nor overpopulation, nor Democrats nor Republicans, nor government corruption nor Obamacare, nor earthquakes nor tornadoes, nor unemployment nor bankruptcy, nor artificial intelligence nor identity theft, nor cancer nor heart attack, nor anything else ever created nor yet-to-be-created shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Psalm 118:1 says, “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!”

God’s love truly is unbreakable.

My trust and my hope

February 16, 2016 ~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

I know I am not the only one who has been thinking a lot about the unexpected passing of Supreme Justice Antonin Scalia over the past few days. His legacy will last for decades and his decisions, and minority reports, will no doubt be studied by law students, lawyers and judges for even longer. Albert Mohler was correct when he wrote, “Antonin Scalia is almost surely the most influential justice to sit on the Supreme Court in many decades. The loss of his influence, as well as his his crucial vote, is monumental.” I agree with Mohler, and I was very sad to learn of Scalia’s passing. I was sad for his family’s loss of a loved one but I was mostly sad for our country and for the impact that Scalia’s too-soon departure from the Supreme Court will potentially have on both the present and future of this nation. That is why I also found it necessary to reflect on the following thoughts.

First, the United States as a nation, conservatism as a movement, judicial restraint as a philosophy and respect for states’ rights and individual liberty as ideologies did not begin with Antonin Scalia nor will any of them end there. He was a great and influential figure in each of those areas but now that he is gone they must all go on. Someone else–or, ideally, multiple someone elses–must step up and fill the very large shoes left behind by Justice Scalia. This is much like a baseball team losing its star player. The face of the team may change, the strategy of the team may change, the success of the team may even change, but the other players do not pack up and go home.

Second, this has been a great opportunity for me to remember the importance of seeing things from someone else’s perspective. Right off the bat I was thinking that I hope there will be some way for the Republicans to delay the confirmation of a new justice until after the election. There is no guarantee how the election will turn out, of course, but there is at least a chance that a Republican will win, which would also greatly increase the likelihood of the new justice being more in line with the positions held by Scalia than any justice appointed by President Obama. Mitch McConnell announced right away that he thought the new justice should not be appointed until after the election, and others were saying the same thing. President Obama, of course, indicated that he would appoint a justice. On Sunday evening it occurred to me that if the situation was reversed and there were a Republican in the White House right now I have no doubt that I, Mitch McConnell, and many others would be advocating for an appointment and confirmation before the election. It was rather like remembering that I cannot only like and defend free speech when it is speech I agree with and approve of. The beauty of free speech is just that–it is free, meaning you can advocate whatever you want no matter how much I do not like it, and I can do the same no matter how much you do not like it. I am not saying I want President Obama to appoint the next justice, but I cannot in good conscience argue that he should not, or that his appointment should not be confirmed if qualified.

The third point is somewhat similar to the first one but is important enough on its own that it needs to be stated separately. No one’s hope is in–or should be in–originalism, conservatism or any other philosophy or ideology of man. Neither is it in any human being, politician, judge, theologian or anything else–including Antonin Scalia. Psalm 146:3 says, in the Good News Translation, “Don’t put your trust in human leaders; no human being can save you.” One reason not to put trust in them is that they, as Matthew Poole wrote, “are utterly unable frequently to give you that help which they promise, and you expect.” Antonin Scalia was a wonderful Supreme Court judge, but his power and influence was limited. He was also a flawed human being. In his Notes on the Bible Albert Barnes comments on Psalm 146:3 this way: “Rely on God rather than on man, however exalted he may be. There is a work of protection and salvation which no man, however exalted he may be, can perform for you; a work which God alone, who is the Maker of all things, and who never dies, can accomplish.” If Justice Scalia had lived to be 150 and remained on the Supreme Court for that entire time, he could not have ever accomplished anything that would save anyone, eternally speaking.

Albert Mohler was correct; a giant has fallen. But that giant was a human being. A giant in the legal realm, yes. Still–and Albert Mohler would wholeheartedly agree with me, so do not read this as me suggesting that he said anything otherwise–whether or not I like the person who assumes the seat vacated by Scalia, whether or not that person is an originalist or an activist judge, is not where my priority should be. Whether or not Antonin Scalia is on the Supreme Court does not matter, eternally speaking. What matters is that God is still on the throne–and in Him will I place my trust and my hope.

Will you be my friend?

February 3, 2016February 3, 2016 ~ jbwatson ~ 2 Comments

I was recently teaching my U.S. History students about life in the United States during the early 20th century. One of the points I made was the very close same-sex friendships were common at that time. Not coincidentally, I also explained that homosexual behavior was illegal at the time, even though there were urban areas where it was fairly common. This got me to thinking that close same-sex friendships seem fairly uncommon in 21st century America. I do wonder whether or not the increasing acceptance of homosexuality has anything to do with that, because there is no denying that those who are not homosexual may fear the perception of homosexual tendencies if they have very close–shall we say intimate (in the non-sexual, non-physical meaning)–same-sex friends. If that is the primary reason for the lack of such friendships that is another sad result of the increasing embrace of homosexual behavior and identity.

Still, I think there is more to the problem than that. I think it is far to say that there is very little instruction, in schools, churches or families, about what it means to be a friend. Sure, we teach broad-stroke lessons about being honest, sharing toys, not lying and so on, but, other than a series of devotionals on friendship that a colleague shared a few months ago, I cannot remember the last time I heard a message or a serious lesson on what it means to be a friend. Search “friendship” on Amazon.com and you will get some 86,500 results. Nearly 54,000 of those, however, are children’s books or works of fiction. Still, that leaves more than 32,000 books on the subject that do not fall into those categories. So what do those thousands of books have to offer?

Well, when I narrow down the results to the “Relationships” category and then request that the results be sorted according to “most reviews” the top results are the well-known How to Win Friends and Influence People (which is not exactly about deep, meaningful friendships), Tuesdays With Morrie (a heartwarming account of a specific friendship and the impact it had on Mitch Albom but, again, not really a how-to book on friendship), Jane Austen’s Emma (which really should be in the fiction/literature category), Matched (a science fiction/fantasy novel also erroneously categorized), An Invisible Thread (which looks like it may be interesting, but along the same lines as Tuesdays), and Little Women (again, miscategorized). Among the top fifty results it appears to me that only two are possibly anywhere close to what I have in mind when I say a book about what it means to be a friend and to develop a deep, meaningful friendship. Both of those, by the way, are about relationships in general rather than the unique relationship of friendship in particular. The books I found in my search that seemed they were about friendships specifically were all targeted at friendship among women. I did finally find two books that are focused on male friendships, and while I have read neither the descriptions seem promising. They were Breaking the Male Code by Robert Garfield and Buddy System: Understanding Male Friendship by Geoffrey Greif. The only book I found in my search–which was not, I will grant, exhaustive–that seemed like it might be along the lines of what I was looking for without being gender specific was The Art of Being a Good Friend by Hugh Black. I may have to check that out.

Last November Janie B. Cheaney wrote, “Stranded in a landscape of ferocious individualism, with families and communities falling apart all around, it might be time for the church to develop a theology of friendship.” I think Cheaney is absolutely correct, and her terminology gave me another search term for my Amazon quest. Searching “theology of friendship,” however, did not yield much either. There were some results–320 to be exact–but most of them were about two friends exploring their differences, about the trials of “celibate gay Christians,” about friendship with Jesus and about specific friendships, such as with a disabled individual. There were a few books that looked they may come close to what I was hoping to find but it was obvious they were not all that popular. Martin Marty wrote a book in 1980 called, simply, Friendship. It is available from four different sellers for the staggeringly small sum of one penny and it is sitting around 2.8 million on the Amazon bestseller list. Gary Inrig’s 1988 book Quality Friendship, published in 1988, seemed like another possible match. There are six sellers offering it at one cent, but it is some 2.3 million places higher on the bestseller list than Marty’s book. I was curious if there were any recent books that might approximate what I was hoping to find and I discovered that Adam Holland’s Friendship Established was released just yesterday–in e-book only, it appears. Skimming the first five pages of results revealed nothing else.

Where to look next? Google, of course. There I found the work of a fellow WordPress blogger whose blog is entitled Resolution 28 (which comes from Jonathan Edwards). It included an excellent post entitled “Theology of Friendship.” The author of the blog, identified only as “bc,” wrote this:

Yet there is a gaping hole in the church’s theology of friendship. Some may not know what genuine Christian friendships are supposed to look like, what they’re supposed to feel like. Even more disconcerting is that many people know mentally what good, Christ-centered friendships are supposed to be like yet half-heartedly implement those concepts into their own lives. We often hear stories of Christians who hold grudges, gossip, and take advantage of each other–I’ve seen them and I’ve been a part of them–and often times those associated are the ones who attend church regularly! It seems that too often our friendships are characterized by actions–the giving, the smiling, and the joking–and not enough by our heart for one another. It’s admittedly easy to act like friends on the surface level and it’s surprisingly difficult to be a genuine friend.

That shows tremendous insight, and is exactly along the lines of what I was feeling and hoping to find addressed elsewhere. It appears he wrote six posts in his series on the Theology of Friendship and I look forward to reading them.

I am no expert on friendship, that’s certain. I surely could have been a better friend on many occasions in my life. Another point “bc” made in his post excerpted above is that pride is the chief reason why there are not more deep, meaningful friendships among men in particular, and I am afraid he is right. After all, a deep and meaningful friendship–an intimate friendship–is one which requires transparency, vulnerability, honesty, patience, forgiveness and more. Indeed, intimate friendship requires many of the same things a successful marriage requires yet without the physical intimacy and without the formalized commitment. Therein, no doubt, is part of the problem–anyone can walk away from a “friend” at any time. There are no strings attached, no contracts to break. When the friend gets on your nerves, or when being his friend becomes unpopular, inconvenient or difficult, why bother? That probably sounds cynical but I would challenge you to reflect on your own life, the friendships you have had, and then tell me you cannot count yourself among the guilty.

While I am no expert on friendship, I am fortunate to claim a number of true friends. Not a lot, mind you, and I do not think it is all that reasonable to imagine that anyone can–should?–have an abundance of intimate friends. But these are friends whom I could tell anything, I think, without fearing that they would abandon me. In fact, I feel confident that, if necessary, they would challenge or confront me, telling me I need to get my act together. I can also say that at least once in my life I was decent enough to be that friend to someone else, and never once did I regret doing so. Sure, there were some awkward times when I was not sure what to say and when I was not sure how he would respond when I did say something, but our friendship endured. Endures.

It was same-sex friendships that got me thinking about this subject, but I am not convinced that intimate friends must be of the same sex. Sure, there are some potential dangers in having an intimate friend of the opposite sex, but the same can be true of same-sex friends. In fact, among my intimate friends I have both men and women. The nature of opposite-sex intimate friendships could no doubt be explored at length, and perhaps I will tackle that someday, too. But not today.

For now, I encourage you to think about whether or not you have any intimate friends and if not, why not. I encourage you, if you are a parent, to teach your children what it means to truly be a friend. If you are a pastor, I encourage you to consider preaching on friendship. If you are not a pastor, I encourage you to ask your pastor to preach on friendship. Oh, and no matter who you are, if you ever do find a really good book on friendship, please share the title with me.

Here’s to friends.

Snowflakes and Babies

January 25, 2016January 20, 2022 ~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

All of the snow blanketing the East Coast from Winter Storm Jonas coincided with the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. That prompted me to do some thinking about the correlation between snow flakes and humans. Some quick online research informed me that according to Jon Nelson at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan–a physicist who has spent a decade and a half studying snow–the number of cubic feet of snow that falls on the earth each year is about one million billion, or a one followed by fifteen zeros. So how many snowflakes is that? Well, again according to Nelson, one cubic foot of snow contains about one billion snow crystals (or what most of us commonly call snow flakes), meaning that in one year one quadrillion–a one followed by 24 zeros–snow flakes fall to earth.

What does all of this have to do with humans? Well, like me, you have probably always heard that no two snow flakes are alike. Nelson suggests that may not be entirely true. He thinks that snow flakes (crystals) that fall to the earth before they fully develop might be alike, actually. Of course, neither he nor anyone else will ever be able to prove that. Here is what Nelson had to say in an article posted on Live Science in 2007:

How likely is it that two snowflakes are alike? Very likely if we define alike to mean that we would have trouble distinguishing them under a microscope and if we include the crystals that hardly develop beyond the prism stage—that is, the smallest snow crystals. Good luck finding them though. Even if there were only a million crystals and you could compare each possible pair once per second—that is, very fast—then to compare them all would take you about a hundred thousand years.

So, maybe you would rather say “no two snow flakes are alike as far as we know” but I am content to leave off the qualifier. And if you believe that God is in control of the entire universe and the creator of every snow flake, as I do, then this is even more astounding. Job 38 references the storehouses of snow and hail. I find it fascinating to contemplate massive warehouses somewhere in heaven, filled with billions and quadrillions of snowflakes! Anyway, I got off track. What does this have to do with humans?

Well, not only do I believe that God makes each snowflake, I believe He makes each human being. Psalm 139:14 tells us that each human being is “fearfully and wonderfully made.” The previous verse says, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” I love that word picture, because knitting is such a delicate craft, requiring attention to detail. It should encourage each of us to consider that God put each human together exactly as He saw fit, according to His specific desires and plans for each person. The Message presents Psalm 139:14 like this: “you know exactly how I was made, bit by bit.”

According to Professor Nelson it would be an impossibility to compare every snowflake that falls to the earth in one year. I suspect it would also be impossible to compare–or even to count–every hair on the heads of the earth’s six billion inhabitants, yet Luke 12:7 tells us that the very hairs of every head are numbered–meaning that God knows how many hairs there are on each and every head. The Voice renders that verse to include the statement “God knows you in every detail.” That is both comforting and intimidating but it means one thing for certain; if God cares enough to knit each human together and to be familiar with each detail of each person, down to the number of hairs on each head, then each human being has inherent worth.

In a recent column Mindy Belz wrote the following:

What role do I–one of 6 billion–have in the world? Infinitely the same value as all others, and theirs infinitely of more value to me when I know they matter infinitely to God. The fact that life is valued before it has done anything of value is groundbreaking enough to remake whole political systems–if it means the life of a plumber, poet, or president can be conducted for God’s glory. All men everywhere, leveled. Your one blank slate, while it is yet blank, created equal–preeminently so–to all others. It is earthshaking enough to unravel the world’s looming human catastrophes–if a life has infinite value to God.

So, next time you look at the snow outside your window–whether that is today or months from now, whether you like the snow or you wish it would just go away–let it be a reminder to you that God makes each snowflake unique, He makes each human being unique, and each and every human being was made by design, exactly the way God wanted him or her to be. God, as it has so often been said, makes no mistakes. And life beings at conception. The science is actually unmistakably clear and so is the Bible. Regardless of the arrogant and selfish attitudes of those like Lindy West–who announced last year, “It is a fact without caveat that a fetus is not a person. I own my body and I decide what I allow to grow in it.”–no one has the right to arbitrarily end the life of another. God created that life, He designed it perfectly, exactly the way He wanted it. God owns that body, not Lindy West or anyone else, and we must never forget that we are not God. None of us.

The one-eyed babysitter

January 11, 2016 ~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

Odds are good that you have heard the term “one-eyed babysitter” applied to television and, specifically, the use of television to entertain and occupy children. The amount of time children spend watching television and, now, occupied in front of other screens–computers, tablets, cell phones, etc.–is another serious side effect of the decline of marriage-based, two-parent families and the number of two-parent families in which both parents work. In January 2015, The Atlantic reported on a groundbreaking study conducted by researchers in Australia that calculated the total amount of time children were spending in front of screens of all kinds, as opposed to previous studies which focused on television or computers alone.

According to the article, “the study would suggest that many students worldwide are probably using technology much more than the recommended two-hours maximum every day.” That figure has long been the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which also recommends that children under three avoid screens completely. A March 2015 report on the BBC web site stated that children aged five to sixteen spend, on average, six and a half hours per day in front of screens, with teenage boys spending an average of eight hours per day. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ web site states, “Studies have shown that excessive media use can lead to attention problems, school difficulties, sleep and eating disorders, and obesity. In addition, the Internet and cell phones can provide platforms for illicit and risky behaviors.” Therein lies the real problem.

Any internet-capable devise puts its user a matter of a few key strokes away from accessing just about anything–and that is both good and bad. The access that we enjoy to information today provides incredible benefit and convenience. Our lives have been transformed by the ability to push a button and find the answer to virtually any question. One could easily argue that that is not always a good thing. For example, the need to memorize anything has all but disappeared. Still, the advantages offered by technology cannot be discarded. Neither, however, can the disadvantages and risks.

In a December article in WORLD on sex trafficking, Opal Singleton, training and outreach coordinator for Riverside County Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force, was quoted making an important observation about the risks associated with our worldwide connectedness. “Never before has there been this much competition of influences on our kids’ morals, spirituality, self-image, and sexuality,” Singleton said. “We have perfectly normal parents handing their child devices that provide access to hundreds of thousands of strangers around the globe.” Internet chat rooms, social media sites and myriad other tools, apps and web sites that make communication to easy and convenient also make it, when unfiltered, unmonitored and carelessly used, dangerous. Singleton went on, in the same article, to describe a high school senior with a 4.0 GPA who had been confronted by her mother just days before she planned to fly to Ireland to meet a 28-year-old man she met playing an Xbox game. That is just one example among thousands that could be shared.

In December 2015, Tim Challies authored a blog post entitled “Please Don’t Give Them Porn for Christmas,” which he started this way: “This Christmas a lot of children will receive porn from under the tree. It not what they wanted, and not what their parents intended for them to have. But they will get it anyway.” What did Challies have in mind? “[G]iving your children computers, iPods, tablets—any of these devices—gives them access to the major gateway to pornography,” Challies wrote, after citing these statisics: “According to recent research, 52% of pornography is now viewed through mobile devices, and 1 in 5 searches from a mobile device is for porn. The average age of first exposure to pornography is 12. Nine out of 10 boys and 6 out of 10 girls will be exposed to pornography before the age of 18. 71% of teens hide online behavior from their parents. 28% of 16-17 year olds have been unintentionally exposed to online pornography.”

When parents are absent or are too busy to spend time with their children, getting to know them, keeping an eye on how they use their time and what they do with their electronic devices, they are creating opportunities for children to seek the attention they are not receiving from their parents in very dangerous places. Parents who are too busy, too tired or simply not present cannot provide the supervision, the attention or the training essential to the development of discernment that children need. Parents need to remember that children are a gift from the Lord and with children comes great responsibility. Parents need to be wise as serpents when it comes to the devices they allow their children to have, the amount of time they allow the children to use them and the amount of supervision they will insist upon while they are being used. Technology is a wonderful thing and can be great fun. Never, though, will a parent forgive him- or herself if they flip and east response of “go watch the television” or “go play on your tablet” results in a child addicted to pornography or lured into sexual slavery. No one thinks that will happen to their child, but the risk is just not worth it.

The 800-pound gorilla

January 4, 2016 ~ jbwatson ~ Leave a comment

At the end of November WORLD published an article that includes lots of contributors. Marvin and Susan Olasky got the byline, but the piece included contributions from Katlyn Babyak, Onize Ohikere, Abby Reese, Jae Wasson and Evan Wilt. The article took up six full pages of the November 28 issue and was also the inspiration for the cover, featuring a plump Uncle Sam in an apron offering broccoli to a young man who seemed less than thrilled. The cover headline was “Fat Chance: What Happens When Washington Says ‘Eat Your Vegetables?'” The article title was “Fat of the Land: How a healthy idea became a bloated bureaucracy.” What was all this about then? About the obesity epidemic in America in general, about the child obesity rate particularly and about Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign and resulting overhaul of federal guidelines for student lunches.

The article highlighted some unique programs around the country that teach children how to eat healthy, that teach children to grow vegetables, that help overweight children (and adults) shed pounds and more. Some of the programs are impressive, while others sound almost too good to be true. After all, I struggle to imagine any environment in which a bunch of young elementary school students actually enjoy (or even actually eat) a lunch of steamed edamame, beef and brown rice pilaf, and oranges. At least half of the article though was devoted to Mrs. Obama’s crusade. The article touted good things she has done, including her willingness to do whatever necessary to promote healthy eating and exercise. She has, the article states, “danced and push-upped her way across television talk shows. She charmed kids by making a video in which she boogied with a turnip. She donned gardening gloves and tilled the White House kitchen garden.” All of those things are indeed impressive. Given that Mrs. Obama is the youngest First Lady the U.S. has had since Jacqueline Kennedy, it has been encouraging to see her engage in activities other First Ladies could not have done. (For the record, Hillary Clinton was only 83 days older than Michelle Obama when her tenure as First Lady began, but I do not think I am alone when I say that I cannot really imagine Mrs. Clinton doing anything mentioned above for public view).

The article does a good job of also highlighting the downside to Mrs. Obama’s crusade, including the resulting public school lunches that most students do not enjoy or even eat, the bureaucratic growth stimulated by so many new federal guidelines ans recommendations and the government overreach that comes when the government institutes a goal of average fruit consumption among students reaching 100% of the recommended level by 2030. Of course, trying to find ways to reach unobtainable goals calls for some creativity and guideline restructuring, such as the USDA’s decision in July to allow vegetables in smoothies to count toward the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act’s mandate a 150% increase in fruits and vegetables in school meals. Somehow I suspect I am not the first one to think of the ballyhooed inclusion of ketchup as a vegetable in the 1980s (even though pickle relish is what was actually recommended, not ketchup). Another part of the problem, of course, is the waste that results when students are served foods they won’t eat. I do not disagree that children need to be fed healthy foods and that they need to learn to eat and enjoy them in order to have a balanced diet, but I question the wisdom of making that the responsibility of the government.

That leads to the 800-pound gorilla in the title, which is alluded to in the article’s conclusion and is the real inspiration for this post. After referencing the many studies that attempt to diagnose why there are so many obese individuals in the United States the article states the following: “[A]mong the outpouring of papers and studies on why some adults and even some kids weigh more than 300 pounds, no one seems to be scrutinizing the 800-pound gorilla in the room: fewer families with married moms and dads in the home, and more families with mothers who come home from full-time work exhausted. Few things are more politically incorrect than to speculate on the connection between family and fat, yet until we do that we’re driving blind.” This is crucial–and I extend kudos to Olasky, et. al. for addressing it in their article. Of course there are plenty of two-parent families that do not eat well, but single-parent and two-working-parent families are more likely to eat processed, packaged and unhealthy foods I would bet. I dare say, too, that two-parent families with children whose schedules are slammed with school, practice, rehearsal, club and whatever-else, constantly scurrying from one activity to another, are more likely than children with well-balanced schedules to eat unbalanced meals.

To his credit, Mike Huckabee has raised the issue (healthy eating and its connectedness to many of the other problems and potential problems facing our country) in both his current presidential campaign and his unsuccessful 2008 run. Few journalists seem to take notice, few debate moderators seem to care and few other politicians seem to have any interest in the subject. That’s fine, I suppose, because there are myriad other important issues for presidential candidates to address and, as I mentioned above, solving this problem is not the bailiwick of the federal government. What is important though, and the point that Olasky is making, is that there are many ramifications and repercussions to family disintegration that we do not think about when we get used to no-fault divorces, single-parent families and other iterations of the family that vary from the way family was intended to function. Likewise important, and the point that Huckabee is making, is that when we do not consume a healthy diet, it is more than our waistlines that suffer. The law of unintended consequences is alive and well and we can find prime examples of it every day if we just look around. As we enter the thick of campaign season this is good to keep in mind as we listen to the promises and claims of those vying to get our votes.

It is also, of course, a great reminder that it would behoove us all to eat a good meal tonight–a home-cooked one, ideally without any processed food and with the entire family sitting around the table.

My Year in Books-2015

January 1, 2016 ~ jbwatson ~ 1 Comment

My annual review of my year in books is the post I receive the most comments on face-to-face. Readers tell me they enjoy and look forward to it every year. It is a favorite of mine, too—I enjoy looking back over the list of books I read during the past year and recalling what I learned, liked and disliked. In 2015 I did, once again, surpass fifty books for the year, ending with fifty-four (and a quarter—more on that quarter later). So, without further ado, here is the overview. As always, the books are grouped primarily by genre rather than by the order in which I read them, not all fifty-four books are included, and none are reviewed extensively for sake of space.

I will start with what many would call classic fiction. Despite referencing it in my teaching for many years, I had never read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. I have now rectified that. It is worth reading and worthy of its classic status. It does provide an interesting look at the life of immigrant workers and the meatpacking industry. John Updike’s Rabbit, Run provides a glimpse into the life of someone who seems unable to get past the fact that his success in high school basketball is not going to carry him through life. The search for the thrill and fulfillment he experienced there, though, leads him to make some poor choices, and if nothing else the book serves as a lesson in the folly of thinking that real happiness can be found in self-gratification. I had read it before, but a debacle over the merits of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath being read by students in a Christian high school English class led me to read the book again. My own opinion remains that the book has merit and provides an abundance of teachable moments, but I do understand and respect the opinion of those who do not agree. Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, which I had not read before, proved a reasonable alternative for 20^th-century American literature. The book reminded me in many ways of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and it can certainly produce excellent discussion on the subject of marriage.

The quest for ideal American lit for Christian school students led me to read or re-read each of the following, as well: John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I found all worthwhile reading and conducive to meaningful discussion.

Each year I set my sights on one of the greatest classics I have yet to read, and in 2015 that was Don Quixote. Suffice it to say that I did not enjoy it, do not recommend it and struggle to grasp why it is considered one of the all-time greats. I found most of it absurdly silly and ridiculously long. The same objective could have been accomplished in a book one-third the length (or less). It did not help matters that the translation I was reading did not adhere to normal rules of English grammar, resulting in extreme run-on sentences and other challenges. It took me five months to finally finish the book, and even then I had to force myself to read 100 page increments in between other books I read during that time.

In the genre of contemporary fiction, my 2015 reading included Elaine Neil Orr’s A Different Sun, about a well-bred southern woman who marries a former Texas lawman-turned-missionary and joins him in missionary work in Africa. This book, too, could produce interesting discussions about marriage and love, as well as dealing with temptation and the many challenges of evangelizing an unknown land. Jolina Petersheim’s The Outcast was my first foray into Amish fiction and it was presented in the review I read as a modern retelling of The Scarlet Letter. While there are some similarities, I think that is an overly generous comparison. Still, the book did present opportunity to grapple with hypocrisy, the cost of sin, the meaning of forgiveness and the impact of bitterness among other topics. Someone gave me Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and encouraged me to read it, so I did. The story is interesting in parts but invites the reader to follow a dangerous path of looking for omens to direct one’s life and “listening to one’s heart.” I would not recommend it for those immature in their faith, as it could prove problematic. Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune, though, gives insight into life in Victorian-era Chile and in Gold Rush California. It also provides a look at the lengths to which someone who believes they are in love will go to find their soulmate.

I don’t recall how I came to read Laird Hunt’s Neverhome and I am not sure I liked it. The book tells the story of a woman who fought in the Civil War, disguised as a man, leaving her husband at home. It does not make it clear right away that that is what is happening—the reader is left to figure that out. Women, of course, did fight in the war, and the book provides an interesting look into the challenges they faced in doing so. However, the book never makes clear why the main character’s husband stayed at home and makes him out as a sissy, quite frankly. Perhaps the blatant abandonment of proper male and female roles is why I ultimately disliked the book.

I was sorely disappointed with Harper Lee’s Go, Set a Watchman. I did not find it particularly well-written and it left me disliking Atticus Finch–I would have been content to keep liking him.

Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, on the other hand, was quite enjoyable. It is the first of Doerr’s books I have read, but his interweaving of the lives of a blind French girl and a German boy during the period Germany occupied France in WWII was captivating. Particularly agreeable is the love shown between father and daughter.

I always have a number of entries in the mystery and crime fiction genre and 2015 was no exception. Mary Louise Kelly’s The Bullet was an engaging tale that I enjoyed, but it fell victim to too many convenient unlikelihoods that made the ending somewhat unsatisfying. Alafair Burke’s Long Gone was a fun and pleasing read, as was Charles Cumming’s A Foreign Country.

Then, too, there are always a number of books by authors I read annually—as most of them can be counted on to provide at least one book a year. David Baldacci’s The Escape is a typical Baldacci page-turner that would be enjoyed by any of his fans. Jeffrey Archer’s Mightier Than the Sword was the latest installment in his Clifton Chronicles and was generally as enjoyable as the others. The next book in the series is out next month, I believe. James Patterson can be counted on for quick reads, and NYPD Red 2 and NYPD Red 3 both fit that bill (and both were co-written with Marshall Karp). John Grisham’s Theodore Boone: The Fugitive was an expectedly consistent addition that series of juvenile fiction.

Among Baldacci, Grisham and Patterson, all three had new books out late in the year, and the three of them are grouped in Amazon’s “frequently bought together” feature. In these three offerings, the authors apparently felt compelled to inject current affairs into their novels. Grisham’s Rogue Lawyer is probably the book I like least of all of Grisham’s efforts, and I have read them all. The book seems like a combination of short stories slapped together in an effort to hit on all of the hot-button issues of the day while cranking out a legal thriller—cage fighting, human trafficking, homosexuality (the main character’s wife left him for a woman and works in a law firm full of raging lesbians), police brutality and more. Even worse, the book contains some of the most implausible plot twists Grisham has used since his conclusion to The Firm.

Baldacci’s The Guilty continues his Will Robie/Jessica Reel series and is centered around Robie going home for the first time since high school to (1) find out why his father has been arrested for murder, and (2) deal with some inner demons that cropped up after a successful assassination mission at the start of the book unintentionally included killing the target’s young daughter. Homosexuality is not a main theme of the book, though it does come up, and Baldacci creates a character—a physician in Robie’s hometown—who gives away Bibles among other efforts at righting the wrongs of his father. When he helps Robie crack a coded message based on Leviticus he gives a Bible to Robie. He explains that Leviticus contains one of the passages that has created such a fuss when it comes to homosexuality and says something to the effect of, “I don’t believe everything in this book. It has some great stuff, but it’s time we realize we’re in the 21^st-century and ignore biblical injunctions against homosexual activity.” That the one character in the book who seems to possibly care about biblical truth takes this approach to the Word is disappointing. The book also includes reference—though not explicit—to child molestation and incest.

Patterson’s Cross Justice was apparently written by Patterson alone, a rarity for Patterson books these days. Frankly, Patterson would be well served to allow a little more time to pass between the events Alex Cross deals with in his life full of one crisis after another. This book, too, takes some incredibly unlikely plot twists and includes some truly absurd actions that ultimately go unpunished. Still, the book is interesting overall and, like all Patterson offerings, a quick read. This book includes a split personality male whose alter-persona is a female. It was refreshing to see that Patterson presents this cross dressing persona as a result of nurture, not nature and of mental instability. I feared from the beginning that it would go the other, more politically-correct route.

In the biography category, Terry Teachout’s Duke is a comprehensive and well-written biography of Duke Ellington, perhaps the greatest American jazz composer. Karen Swallow Prior’s Fierce Convictions, a biography of British poet and abolitionist Hannah More, was well-written and interesting. Prior to reading this book, More to me was nothing more than a name that had appeared in biographies of William Wilberforce. David McCullough’s The Wright Brothers is the latest in McCullough’s long line of well-crafted biographies. I have spent a considerable amount of time on the Outer Banks of North Carolina where Wilbur and Orville Wright made their first flights so have always had an interest in the brothers, but this book only heightened that interest. It also prompted me to plan my summer vacation travel to include a visit to Dayton, OH where the Wright brothers grew up, had their bicycle shop and eventually perfected manned flight.

Rifqa Bary’s autobiography Hiding in the Light is a captivating account that will both challenge and aggravate you. It will challenge you to reconsider your own faith and how strong it really is while aggravating you to see what Bary went through with Social Services after running away from home for fear of her life.

As I do every year, I read a number of history books last year. Gregory Coco’s Wasted Valor is an attempt at understanding how the Confederate dead at Gettysburg were treated. This is a unique and necessary part of Civil War history, but the book gets tedious at times and would likely not be of interest to anyone who is not a devoted Civil War buff. Eric Foner’s Gateway to Freedom is a mostly-fascinating (though at times tedious) history of the Underground Railroad. Richard Beeman’s Plain, Honest Men is the most thorough account of the constitutional convention I have ever read and is well worth reading for anyone interested in that transformational summer.

Thomas Bogar’s Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination is an absorbing look at the actors and theatre employees who were present when Lincoln was shot and how that event impacted their lives. That brings me, as well, to the “and a quarter” I referenced at the start. Robert Summers’ The Assassin’s Doctor includes a 160-page biography of Dr. Samuel Mudd, which I read. Mudd is the physician who set the leg of John Wilkes Booth after Booth assassinated Lincoln. Though it is unlikely Mudd knew about the assassination ahead of time, he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in aiding Booth’s escape. Andrew Johnson pardoned him, however, just before he left office, meaning Mudd served not quite four years. The book, however, also includes some 500 pages of primary source material, including letters to and from Mudd, trial documents and much more. It would be a treasure trove for anyone interested in Mudd. I am interested in Mudd, both because of my interest in Civil War history and because I grew up just a few miles from Mudd’s house. When I entered school on my first day of kindergarten it was at Dr. Samuel A. Mudd Elementary School (which also tells you more than a little about the sentiments and sympathies of those in southern Maryland!). So while I read the 160-page biography, I have not read all of the documents Summers included.

Nathaniel Philbrick and Erik Larson write history books that read more like novels—and that is meant as a high compliment. Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea is a fascinating account of the whaling ship Essex. In addition to a thorough accounting of the tragic final voyage of that ship and the impact it had on the men who survived, the book forces readers to consider what man is capable of doing when staring almost certain death in the face. I have not yet seen Ron Howard’s film adaptation of this book but look forward to doing so. Larson’s Dead Wake was a compelling account of the sinking of the Lusitania, interweaving perspectives from the U.S., Great Britain and Germany. Fascinating characters abound, and the look into the secret British intelligence office alone makes the book worth reading. In the Garden of Beasts is an older one of Larson’s books (2011) but equally intriguing. I recommend it for anyone interested in WWII history, and especially to anyone who has ever wondered how no one could have seen what Hitler was doing in Germany.

In the category of leadership, Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeadership was a worthwhile read but offered little that was truly new insight. Good reminders, though. Theodore Kowalski’s The School Superintendent is really a textbook, but it is one of the best and most practical books I have ever read on the subject (despite being written for public school administrators), while Gene Frost’s short book Learning From the Best, Volume 2 takes secular business insight and applies it to the Christian school.

In the area of Christian living, my 2015 reading included Max Lucado’s Before Amen (a helpful book on effective prayer written in typical Lucado fashion), Nancy Ortberg’s Looking for God (an interesting read I did not agree with entirely and well summed-up in its sub-title, Slightly Unorthodox, Highly Unconventional, and Entirely Unexpected Thoughts about Faith), John Ortberg’s All the Places to Go…How Will You Know? (a book consistent with Ortberg’s style of addressing meaty spiritual matters in an easy-to-read and sometimes lighthearted manner), Edward Welch’s Side by Side: Walking With Others in Wisdom and Love (a practical guide for effectively coming alongside those who are hurting for one reason or another), John MacArthur’s The Truth War (an exposition of Jude and highly relevant for this day), Kevin Leman’s The Way of the Wise (a book in typical Leman fashion about applying practical biblical life lessons), and Jamie Snyder’s Thou Shall (a short book focusing on all the things the Bible tells us we should be doing, challenging the reader not to focus on all of the things the Bible says we should not be doing).

In March I finally read Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, a book I have been meaning to read for years but kept putting off. Some of it I liked and some of it I did not. I found that Miller addresses topics few other Christian writers are willing to address. Sometimes that is refreshing and necessary. Other times it is because they should not be addressed. I also found Miller unnecessarily crude at times. Even if that is his effort at “being real,” I found it off-putting. After discussing the book with a friend, said friend then loaned me two of Miller’s other books, Through Painted Deserts and Searching for God Knows What. The previously stated opinion of Miller’s writing was only reinforced in these two volumes, though the latter of these two books did include an excellent chapter on Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet in particular) that would be beneficial for anyone wanting to bring biblical integration into a study of that most famous of all Shakespeare plays.

I read only one political book in 2015, but if your political leanings are at all like mine, Rick Santorum’s Blue Collar Conservatives will leave you wishing Santorum had a place on the main stage for the GOP debates rather than being stuck in the undercard round.

I think that just about sums up my 2015 in books. Thanks for sticking with this post to the end. Please feel free to share your own recommendations for books I should read, or your thoughts on any of those referenced here, and stay tuned next year for another review of my year in books.