Mohler-rific!

I doubt that there is anybody in the world who could listen to Dr. Albert Mohler speak and not think, “He is WAY smarter than me!”  The guy is brilliant, and has practically read every book known to man- which probably go hand-in-hand. 

Dr. Mohler spoke Wednesday morning on the status of the SBC.  In a nutshell, he used two great analogies that should be cause for concern in the Southern Baptist Convention.  General Motors and indoor, enclosed shopping malls.  The analogies were great, not just because they were brilliant and creative, but mainly because they were fitting.  You can watch and listen to Dr. Mohler’s address here.

At one point in the message, Dr. Mohler mentioned regenerate church membership (only those who have been “born again” [John 3], a.k.a. “regenerated” by the Holy Spirit, can become church members).

I think that regenerate church membership is a very significant issue in the SBC. In my experience, regenerate church membership was neither understood nor practiced.  I think that SBC church membership is far too often make-a-decision, walk-the-aisle, say-the-prayer, and get baptized church membership instead of regenerate church membership. 
 
I personally made the decision, walked the aisle, said the prayer, and got baptized when I was six; although I was unregenerate until I was 23.  My name was written in the membership roll at an SBC church long before it was written in heaven (temporally, not theologically).  I know several Christians who were baptized more than once because they were in the same situation.  More importantly, I know several who call themselves Christians, but find the assurance of their salvation in who they are and what they have done (members of such-and-such church; made their decision, walked the aisle, said the prayer, and got baptized on such-and-such date) instead of finding their assurance in who Christ is and what He has done.

One priority in the SBC, I think, should be getting rid of “ghost members”- people who do not actively attend, have moved away, or even died; yet are still on the membership roll.  Another- which is easier said than done, but nonetheless necessary- should be better understanding and applying regenerate church membership.  These go hand-in-hand, I think.

We try to make sure that a person bears the fruit of regeneration before admitting him or her into the church as members, and if a member does not appear to be regenerate (he does not actively attend, for example), we treat him or her like an unregenerate person and remove him or her from the membership roll.

At the end of the day, we should desire to see people’s names written in heaven more than we desire to see their name written in our membership roll.  If a person is unregenerate, his name is not written in heaven (John 3:3).  Therefore, his name should not be written in our membership roll.  We are only hurting him, and hurting our church (and the SBC), by allowing him to be an unregenerate church member.

“Biologically Speaking, Life Begins at Conception” – Abort73.com

“Every new life begins at fertilization. This is an irrefutable fact of biology. It is true for animals and true for humans. When considered alongside the law of biogenesis – that every species reproduces after its own kind – we can draw only one conclusion in regard to abortion. No matter what the circumstances of conception, no matter how far along in the pregnancy, abortion always ends the life of an individual human being. Every honest abortion advocate concedes this simple fact…”

Read the rest here

Spiritual Warfare From the Corner of First and Market Streets

If you stand on the corner of First and Market Streets in downtown Louisville, KY, you can see two historical marker signs from a moral battle in the history of this country.  If you look to the south, there is an inconspicuous sign that marks where there was once a slave pen.  In the 1800’s, where this marker stands there stood a place where people of one skin color bought and sold people of another skin color.  Rather than being judged by the content of their character, these slaves were judged by the color of their skin and condemned to slavery.  They were forced to walk down to the Ohio River and were shipped to the plantations of the south.

However, if you look to the north from the same street corner, there is another historical marker.  From the same time period in the 1800’s, this marker tells of a church/seminary where African-Americans were- illegally- taught how to read, and how to read.  In this wonderful country, it was legal to buy and sell African-Americans as slaves, but it was illegal to teach them how to read.  In opposition to this unjust law, and less than 50 yards away from a slave pen, people were teaching them how to read anyway.

Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world, and that there were “more than twelve legions of angels” at His beck and call.  We read about spiritual warfare in the book of Daniel.  What spiritual warfare must have been taking place at this street corner, as one side obeyed unjust laws and the other side disobeyed them?  The angels of the living God must have been fighting as people who were created in the image of God were being oppressed and bought and sold.

There is still much spiritual warfare going on around us today, and the corner of First and Market Streets is still an intense battleground.  Where the church/seminary once stood, there now stands a crisis pregnancy center.  At this center, women who have an unplanned pregnancy are able to have a free ultrasound of their baby and free counseling about the alternatives to abortion that are available to them- all of which are better than abortion, both for the mothers and their babies.

Also, from this battleground/street corner, you can see a juxtaposition of two “historical markers,” if you will, of probably the two most intense spiritual moments of my life:

Just down the street from a place where African-Americans were treated as property, unborn babies are now tread as property.  Just down the street from a place where the rights of African-Americans were bought and sold, sometimes resulting in their death, the rights of unborn babies are bought and sold, always resulting in their death.

Abortion was never as real in my mind before I saw pictures of babies who had been aborted as it was after I saw those pictures.  And, abortion became even more real- and exponentially so- when I saw mothers take their babies into the EMW Women’s Surgery Center.  The vaguely named abortion clinic is in the middle of this picture, and you can see its white awning extending almost to the street.

Looming large behind the clinic is the Kentucky International Convention Center.  You can see the east side of the KICC spanning most of the picture, and its north side runs along Market Street to the right of the pic.  This was the site of the 2008 Togeter 4 the Gospel conference, where my voice was among 5,000 others singing praises to the almighty God and listening to 8 of the premier theologians in the world speak.

Ocean Vault Lava Monkeys

I learned this stuff in junior high, high school, and college science classes, and would love to enlighten you by passing it along.  This stuff is all obvious and pretty self-explanatory, so I shouldn’t have to go into much detail.

There was a guy who did an experiment in an incubator-type thing in a laboratory somewhere, and created a strand of DNA.  There was a certain combination of elements that, when extreme heat was added, would form DNA.  This combination of elements can be found in ocean water.  Therefore, if ocean water had an extreme heat source, then DNA- the building block of life- could have come about naturally.  Two possible heat sources are 1) the vaults in the ocean floor, where lava oozes out into the ocean, and 2) lightning.  Given enough millions of years, the right combination of elements could have either gathered near a lava-oozing ocean floor vault or puddled together on a beach and been struck by lightning.

Now, we obviously evolved from monkeys.  Only religious fuddy-dudds question that fact, and you don’t want to be one of those.  Everybody with a brain sees how obvious this is.  They have nipples, we have nipples.  They have opposable thumbs, we have opposable thumbs.  We evolved from them.  Simple as that.

So, the only question that remains is whether you are an Ocean Vault Lava Monkey or an Ocean Water Puddle On a Beach Lightning Struck Monkey.

Actually, there’s a bit more to it than this.  We still have the matter of which one of Darwin’s finches evolved into the monkey which eventually became your ancestor.  But still, anybody with a brain can see that the heated ocean water became finches which became monkeys which became humans.  Obviously.

My Family Tree. Obviously.

She Said, He Said

Thank God for people who believe differently than I do.  My best thoughts in defense of my beliefs have come from responding to such people.

A recent example happened in a discussion with an “escort” for the Louisville abortion clinic.  She, as many people do, suggested that our time and effort would be better expended elsewhere.  Somewhere other than in front of the abortion clinic, where we dodge escorts and traffic while trying to dissuade girls from killing their babies in the couple minutes or so it takes them to exit their car doors and enter the abortion clinic door.

She brought up the issue of orphans, both as a justification for abortion and as a better avenue for our time and efforts.  She, as these escorts often frustratingly do, made her point and turned her back on me to pursue a conversation with a fellow escort.  Nonetheless, I am grateful for her remarks.  She is wrong, of course, but she is also right.

She is wrong in saying that the evil of our orphan situation either justifies abortion or excludes the need for us to fight the evil of abortion.  However, she is right in pointing out the tragedy of the situation of orphans in this country. 

I hope to talk to her again soon, and plan to ask if she is doing anything to help orphans.  I hope she is, and that would be great to learn.  But, if she is not, then she uses one evil to justify another, while fighting neither.  My solution, and what I believe Jesus would have us do, is that we must fight both.  We must both fight abortion and adopt orphans.  The orphan situation in this country does not lead us to kill the orphans, and neither should it lead us to kill the unborn babies who may or may not become orphans. 

Orphans are, by and large, being robbed of the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness- at least to the extent that we enjoy these rights.  However, 60 million babies, each and every one of whom was just as American as you and I, have been robbed of the right to life.  Because all men are created equal- knitted together in their mothers’ wombs by God and in His image- all men have these inalienalbe rights, and we should fight both for the right of every unborn person to life, and the right of every unborn person and every orphan to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Abortion: Brass Tacks

As they say back where I come from, let’s get down to brass tacks on abortion.

If your mother had aborted you, would you be alive or dead right now?
Dead.

What would have been the cause of your death?
Abortion.

Ball game.  End of discussion.  Abortion kills.

Abortion + Social Security = Stupid Americans

People aren’t talking about the impending problems with Social Security as much as they were a couple of years ago.  Once the Baby Boomers have retired, there will not be enough workers paying into Social Security for the Boomers to draw their Social Security checks.

Even with our national unemployment rate pushing 10%, imagine where we would be if the estimated 60 million children who have been aborted were in or soon would be in the work force.  That would be about 54 million workers paying into Social Security so that the Baby Boomers who had Social Security taken from their paychecks would receive their due. 

Those who might argue that abortion has prevented problems with overpopulation should go read Philip Longman’s “The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What To Do About It” and see that overpopulation is a myth.  Our falling birthrate is a more real and dangerous threat than overpopulation ever has been or will be.  If you hope to see any of that Social Security coming out of each and every one of your paychecks, stop aborting your babies!