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The Cappadocian Fathers, as they later came to be known, were brothers Basil and Gregory and Gregory Nazianzen, all from Cappadocia, a region in central Turkey. Recognized for their monastic leadership, they were also astute theologians. The term Cappadocians , however, is more fitting than Cappadocian Fathers because it captures three generations of a family, both women and men. The grandmother of Basil and Gregory was Macrina the Elder, who fled persecution only to be left widowed and impoverished. Yet she ministered to those who were even more needy and was canonized as the patron saint of widows.
One of Macrina’s sons was Basil (the elder), who had nine children, five of whom were designated as saints. Macrina (the younger) (324 – 379), named for her grandmother, was the older sister who had a profound influence on her siblings as well as on her mother.
Macrina the Younger had chosen a life of asceticism after her fiancé died, and she treated her servants as sisters and equals. She later joined with Basil to form a convent in conjunction with his monastery. The most celebrated of the Cappadocians, he is recognized as Basil the Great (329 – 379), Father of Eastern Monasticism. Setting aside worldly aspirations and touring monasteries in Egypt, Basil returned to Cappadocia, where he established a monastery. His “Longer Rules” and “Shorter Rules” are still used today, and all monks in the Eastern church are Basilian monks. Basil viewed monastic life as one of service to those in need, setting the example by selling his family’s estate for famine relief and calling on other wealthy landholders to do likewise. He worked in the kitchen and dispersed provisions alongside ordinary monks, distributing food freely to any in need, regardless of ethnicity.
Basil had a flare for words and is remembered particularly for “The Six Days,” his series of nine sermons on creation that display the beauty of God’s natural wonders. In 370 he was named bishop of Caesarea, pitting him against Emperor Valens, an Arian. When he died in 379, the entire population of Caesarea – Christians, Jews, and pagans – is said to have followed his funeral cortege with weeping.
Basil’s younger brother Gregory of Nyssa (335 – 394) did not enter the monastery and may have been married to Theosebia, a much-heralded deaconess in the church at Nyssa, where Gregory served as bishop. His writing set the stage for the Eastern church’s focus on apophatic theology, which emphasizes that God is ultimately unknowable. While strongly defending the doctrine of the Trinity, he insisted that God is infinite and transcendent and thus beyond our understanding. The true way to God is through darkness.
Gregory Nazianzen (c. 325 – 389), the third of the Cappadocian Fathers, was a close associate and friend of Basil and Gregory of Nyssa. His mother was instrumental in converting her husband, Gregory, who subsequently became bishop of Nazianzus. Young Gregory accused his father of tyranny and left home, only to later return and work with his father in the church.
Gregory later gave away his wealth and entered a monastery. On his own deathbed, Basil, not a man to hold grudges, recommended his friend Gregory to a post as the leading theologian in Constantinople with the hope that he would defeat Arianism. As such, Gregory’s tenure in Constantinople was anything but peaceful. The city was deeply divided, but he began drawing crowds with his powerful preaching. His “Five Theological Orations,” defending the Trinity and the deity of Christ, were aimed at Arians.
Arian opponents stormed his church in 379 during the Easter vigil, killing one bishop and wounding Gregory. Matters improved when Theodosius ascended the throne and vowed to rid the East of Arians once and for all. Gregory was elected bishop of Constantinople to replace the Arian bishop dismissed by the emperor, but his problems were far from over. Accused of attaining his position illegally, he resigned: “Let me be as the Prophet Jonah! I was responsible for the storm. . . . Seize me and throw me.” The emperor accepted his resignation, and Gregory returned to Cappadocia where his ministry began.
“Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” Ecclesiastes 7:8
Look at David’s Lord and Master; see his beginning. He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Would you see the end? He sits at his Father’s right hand, expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. “As he is, so are we also in this world.” You must bear the cross, or you shall never wear the crown; you must wade through the mire, or you shall never walk the golden pavement. Cheer up, then, poor Christian. “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” See that creeping worm, how contemptible its appearance! It is the beginning of a thing. Mark that insect with gorgeous wings, playing in the sunbeams, sipping at the flower bells, full of happiness and life; that is the end thereof. That caterpillar is yourself, until you are wrapped up in the chrysalis of death; but when Christ shall appear you shall be like him, for you shall see him as he is. Be content to be like him, a worm and no man, that like him you may be satisfied when you wake up in his likeness. That rough-looking diamond is put upon the wheel of the lapidary. He cuts it on all sides. It loses much–much that seemed costly to itself. The king is crowned; the diadem is put upon the monarch’s head with trumpet’s joyful sound. A glittering ray flashes from that coronet, and it beams from that very diamond which was just now so sorely vexed by the lapidary. You may venture to compare yourself to such a diamond, for you are one of God’s people; and this is the time of the cutting process. Let faith and patience have their perfect work, for in the day when the crown shall be set upon the head of the King, Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, one ray of glory shall stream from you. “They shall be mine,” saith the Lord, “in the day when I make up my jewels.” “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.”
Evening
“Knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?” 2 Samuel 2:26
If, O my reader! thou art merely a professor, and not a possessor of the faith that is in Christ Jesus, the following lines are a true ketch of thine end.
You are a respectable attendant at a place of worship; you go because others go, not because your heart is right with God. This is your beginning. I will suppose that for the next twenty or thirty years you will be spared to go on as you do now, professing religion by an outward attendance upon the means of grace, but having no heart in the matter. Tread softly, for I must show you the deathbed of such a one as yourself. Let us gaze upon him gently. A clammy sweat is on his brow, and he wakes up crying, “O God, it is hard to die. Did you send for my minister?” “Yes, he is coming.” The minister comes. “Sir, I fear that I am dying!” “Have you any hope?” “I cannot say that I have. I fear to stand before my God; oh! pray for me.” The prayer is offered for him with sincere earnestness, and the way of salvation is for the ten-thousandth time put before him, but before he has grasped the rope, I see him sink. I may put my finger upon those cold eyelids, for they will never see anything here again. But where is the man, and where are the man’s true eyes? It is written, “In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment.” Ah! why did he not lift up his eyes before? Because he was so accustomed to hear the gospel that his soul slept under it. Alas! if you should lift up your eyes there, how bitter will be your wailings. Let the Saviour’s own words reveal the woe: “Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.” There is a frightful meaning in those words. May you never have to spell it out by the red light of Jehovah’s wrath!
It is not easy to deal with Simeon alone, since he is always associated with his brother, Levi. “Simeon and Levi are brethren” (Gen. 49:5 ). Of Simeon’s personal history we know little. His name implies hearing with obedience, but Simeon was deaf in the day he should have heard, and disobedient and irresponsive when his lot hung in balance.
The first thing recorded about Simeon is that with Levi his brother, he drew the sword in treachery against the Shechemites and slew all the males. When rebuked by their father, they upheld indignantly their right to act as they did. Both acted “in their selfwill” (Gen. 49:6), which means they took malicious delight in their gross crime.
Simeon next appears in the story of Joseph, who felt it would be better to retain Simeon until Benjamin had been brought to the palace. Joseph felt with his father Jacob that Simeon and Levi would be best apart. In fact, Simeon had no blessing while joined with Levi and no prosperity while he was with Reuben. When separated, Simeon, at first, did not multiply (1 Chron. 4:24-27). During the forty years in the wilderness the decrease of Simeon was remarkable. Because of the idolatry of the tribe, thousands were slain.
In the land of Canaan, Simeon joined with Judah, and this association marked a turning point in the history of the tribe. Judah and Simeon went up together to Canaan (Judg. 1:1-3). Simeon means “obedient hearing,” and Judah, “praise.” The absorption of Simeon into the inheritance of Judah gave Simeon a place and work in Israel. In the final division of the land, foretold by Ezekiel, between Benjamin and Issachar, there is a portion for Simeon.
Over the gate to the Golden City, Simeon’s name is inscribed—“Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed 12,000”—a way for even Simeon to enter the city of God above. From the time the Simeonites became aware of what God had done for them there was no more curse and no more captivity for them. Hitherto instruments of cruelty, they became instruments of warfare against the enemies of the Lord, ultimately earning the right to be included among the number eternally sealed (Rev. 7:7).
Self-will fittingly describes Simeon’s career until he was separated from Levi. God hates self-will for He knows how it accounts for uncontrolled passions, and the failure to respond to higher appeals. Because of their self-will God, in His governmental dealings, scattered and impoverished the Simeonites. May we not come nigh their dwelling but ever seek to learn, prove and obey “that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
2. A just and devout man in Jerusalem who awaited the coming of Jesus, the Messiah (Luke 2:25-34).
The Man Who Died Satisfied
The adoration and prophecy of Simeon, who waited for the consolation of Israel and blessed the Consoler when He appeared, is rich in spiritual suggestion. This spectator of the most significant birth of all history, endued with a prophetic spirit, kept the lamp of prophecy burning when religion was at a low ebb in Israel. Simeon means “one who hears and obeys” and this saintly Simeon knew the voice speaking in the prophets of old, and obeyed the light he saw. Coming into the Temple, he took the Babe in his arms and blessed God. What a wonderful benediction his was!
At last faith had been justified and Simeon could die without fear. Have our eyes seen the salvation of the Lord? Can we die in peace? In his swan song, Simeon was not ashamed to declare that the One born in the city of David was the Saviour of the world. This was more than the letter-learned scribes of his times had discerned. These were the men who looked upon Christ as a sign to be spoken against and to whom He would become a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.
With godly Simeon it was different, for he was Spirit-taught and knew that Mary’s Child was the One through whom the world was to be blessed. As he eagerly anticipated Christ’s first advent, are we found patiently awaiting His second advent? When He does appear and we see Him as He is, ours will be the thrill Simeon experienced as He gazed upon the Lord’s Christ.
Six months ago, I returned home to discover that a family had moved into my backyard storage shed. Displaying an incredible sense of entitlement and off-the-chain arrogance, the family refused to leave, arguing that they were simply seeking a better life. Adding insult to injury, their TV, computers, etc. were powered by an electrical cord plugged into the exterior outlet of my home.
Infuriated, I immediately sought help from law enforcement to remove the squatters from my property. After inquiring about the race of my intruders, law enforcement accused me of racism and declined to assist me. I yelled, “These people are breaking the law! What about my rights as a property owner?”
The police scolded me: “Don’t try to hide your racism behind the law!”
I returned home, frustrated, to witness more of the trespassers’ family and friends setting up residency in my backyard. One invader brought an old piece-of-crap RV. My Homeowners’ Association is fining me daily until it’s removed. There are tents and people living in an old Chevy station wagon — all powered by a dangerously poor imitation of a MacGyver-style electrical hookup into my power, including a maze of electrical cords.
To stop further invasion, armed buddies volunteered to secure my fence and take turns keeping watch. Local media caught wind of my buddies’ sympathetic and generous offer and branded them an angry mob of racist vigilantes. Law enforcement threatened my buddies with arrests if they intervened in any way.
With city elections only a few months away, the mayor showed up at my home with fruit baskets for the invaders. His Honor assured the invaders that he supported their honorable pursuit of a better life 100% and would not tolerate the “racist” property owner (me) evicting them. After the thunderous applause subsided, the mayor’s assistant made sure that each invader filled out a voter registration form, which he collected before the mayor and his entourage departed.
So here I am. My monthly electric bill has tripled. Cited for code violations, I was forced to install more outlets and electrical power. My backyard landscape, with my wife’s prize-winning flower garden, is now a mud-pit resembling a scene from the movie Woodstock. Invaders now occupy every inch of our exterior property.
Local media continually write stories about what a cruel, heartless, evil, and racist SOB I am for not providing food for my “guests” and adding them to my health insurance.
We keep our kids in the house when they return from school. Our neighborhood has become unsafe; there’s drug-dealing and Lord knows what other illegal activities taking place in our backyard.
The Homeowners’ Association sent a petition to the city demanding that something be done to stop the invasion spreading all over our community. In response, the city is suing us. The local media has joined the city in their effort to portray us as racists who are somehow breaking the law.
Unbelievably, to assist the invaders, the city has raised our taxes to provide bilingual signage throughout our community, not to mention food, education, and health care for our “guests.”
Please understand. Our history of swiftly coming to the aid of people in need around the world confirms that my neighbors and I are a charitable, generous, and compassionate people. Thus, we wholeheartedly support anyone seeking a better life.
But there is a right and a wrong way of doing things. An illegal invasion is not the correct way. It is also immoral to send a message that it is acceptable to break our laws — a slap in the face to all who play by the rules.
What happened to “equal justice for all”? Law enforcement and government lending a deaf ear to lawbreakers for political reasons is the worst kind of corruption. Their motives are not about compassion, but rather securing new voters. Such self-serving exploitation of power is shameful, despicable, and ugly. How can my city, with a straight face, instruct kids to obey the law and not sell drugs when the city decides to enforce laws based on their agenda or the race of the offender?
Got to run — the Spot-O-Potty delivery guys have arrived. Yes, it is another expense, but it is worth it.
In a year-end review of countering rocket fire from Gaza, the IDF reports that its retaliatory fire killed 100 Palestinians, including nine civilians. The rest were combatants linked to Palestinian terror organizations. Put another way, the Palestinian fatality toll included 10 fighters for every civilian.
The one-to-10 noncombatant-combatant fatality ratio is unique among conflicts around the world. No other army can boast of similar records of minimal civilian collateral damage. In fact, the United Nations estimates that 30 civilians are killed for every 10 combatant fatalities in conflicts elsewhere in the world. That’s three times as many non-combatants as combatants.
The IDF’s record is the more remarkable when one considers that Palestinian terror groups are deeply embedded in civilian neighborhoods, requiring ever greater IDF pinpoint accuracy in retaliatory strikes as well as extensive intelligence inside Gaza to select proper targets. Also, quite often, IDF commanders will forgo ordering an attack when the potential for civilian casualties seems too high.
Yet, if one reviews mainstream media reports in 2011 about the continuing Gaza conflict, scant attention is paid to the paucity of Palestinian civilian casualties. Headlines regularly announce that “Israel killed 3 Palestinians” — leaving readers in the dark about who these casualties are or, worse, concluding erroneously that they’re probably civilians. And virtually never do reporters dig into the lengths to which the Israeli military goes to spare civilians.
This remains most notable in coverage of Israel’s counter-terrorism incursion into Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009. To this day, media like the New York Times, abetted by spurious reports from human rights organizations and the UN’s notorious Goldstone report, still buy into Palestinian casualty figures hook, line and sinker, vastly exaggerating Palestinian civilian fatalities while overlooking hundreds of combatant fatalities.
The IDF, which conducted a detailed post-offensive investigation into Palestinian fatalities, found that there were 1,166 Palestinian fatalities, including 709 combatants, from what was dubbed Operation Cast Lead. And it identified every one of them. In three weeks of grueling ground combat, in the face of terrorist fire from amidst Gaza civilians, the number of Palestinian combatant fatalities still substantially exceeded the number of non-combatants — by a margin of 6 to 4.
These breakdowns, however, were mostly ignored by mainstream media, while overall casualty totals were vastly inflated by the Palestinian side and by self-appointed human-rights groups. And, more often than not, combatant-versus-noncombatants breakdowns never made it into print.
To this day, the New York Times, in referring to Israel’s 2008-2009 Gaza offensive, simply mentions that 1,400 Palestinians were killed. Which falsely suggests that Israel used disproportionate force. A breakdown of civilians and non-civilians would throw light on what actually happened. But that king of reporting is not fit to print in the New York Times.
In similar vein, the UN’s Goldstone report accepted largely pro-Palestinian statistics to buttress its gross libel that the IDF deliberately targeted civilians.
Ironically, Hamas — long after the ground war was over — accepted breakdowns much closer to the truth. Why? Because, on reflection, phony big numbers for civilian deaths and phony small numbers for combatant deaths were apt to minimize Hamas’s “heroic” resistance against Israeli forces. So, Hamas belated announced that it had lost 600 to 700 of its fighters – a range quite close to the IDF’s conclusions.
But this also is of little interest to Western reporters determined to martyrize Palestinians while maligning Israel and its military.
Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers
While the Iraq War has ended, America is still fighting a war on its own territory as the rich vs. poor continue to argue. Victor Davis Hanson explains why America’s two-front war has caused the country to slow down.
From Righthaven to Charlie Sheen’s meltdown to Occupy Wall Street, 2011 was a year of epic failures for much of the left. John Hawkins takes a look at the top 10 biggest failures of 2011.
Videos from the funeral motorcade for Kim Jong Il show North Koreans hysterically mourning for their leader. Ed Driscoll asks, “Who is the intended audience for these videos?”
Newt Gingrich recently criticized Americans’ work ethic. Ruben Navarrette Jr. writes that Gingrich is right to try to engage Americans in a discussion about the importance of working and to learn the value of holding down a job.
They already have quite a few friends there. Along with the havoc they can wreak within Libya, it would be a handy forward operating base for striking in Europe, noting that one of the major figures named below has already spent time in the United Kingdom. This development may also…
Haniyeh is trying to look more statesman-like with this regional tour. There is, curiously, not a peep in this report about Bashir’s status as a war criminal wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide in Darfur. Then again, Bashir is consistently protected by the OIC and the Arab League….
The language is notably forceful here as it all but orders people to exercise their “choice” not to celebrate. How long will it be a choice? The Islamic Community tells people not just to avoid celebrating, but to “turn off the lights early and let everyone see you’re boycotting everything…
As I noted here, Dean Obeidallah is making a film about the trumped-up concept of “Islamophobia,” and he would really like to interview me for it. So after I wrote this yesterday, we had another exchange, and I thought there might be an opportunity for some honest dialogue. So I…
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has been praised by Saudi-funded dhimmi pseudo-academic John Esposito as a champion of a “reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism and human rights.” But numerous statements of Qaradawi demonstrate that he anything but a “reformist” or a genuine champion of “democracy, pluralism and…
Here on Jihad Watch, it seems that not a few days pass without a new story of Boko Haram jihadi attacks on Nigeria’s Christians. Despite all this documentation, a New York Times report appearing soon after the Christmas Day church attacks absurdly informs us that “Boko Haram, until now mostly…
Here is the latest from Shakila, the Liberated One, over at her blog. She is very concerned, as you’ll see, that some Islamic supremacists are saying that she is a fictional character of my creation. While I appreciate her concern, it is not necessary: as we have seen here again…
This case demonstrates one of the many problems with curtailing “offensive” free speech and criminalizing hurt feelings. Simply expressing a belief at variance with Islam can be seized upon as “blasphemy,” or as “offending religious sentiments,” and simply being visible in daily life as an adherent of a non-Islamic faith…
Funny how that keeps happening. “I’m allowed to kill infidels, man tells judge,” by Haneen Dajani for The National, December 29: ABU DHABI // A mentally disturbed man who stabbed a witness to death in court told an appeals court judge yesterday that as a Muslim he was entitled to…
Priorities: this is “under investigation.” If you do your Sharia amputation homework with one of these, can you still get credit? “How did Israeli pencils reach Saudi chain?” by Ofer Petersburg for YNet News, December 29: Saudi authorities are investigating how Israeli pencils reached one of the kingdom’s biggest retail…
I recently received this heartfelt email from a Pakistani who has converted from Islam to Christianity. It is like many others that I have received, and vividly illustrates the plight of apostates from Islam in Muslim countries — a group whose human rights no one cares about, as the world…
As I have said many times in the context of many similar incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is no reliable way to distinguish a peaceful Muslim from a jihadist. This is yet more fruit of the unwillingness to make even a cursory attempt to take that fact into account….
Yet another nail in the coffin of the dangerously delusional idea that the ‘Arab Spring’ is a step forward for freedom, democracy, human rights, et cetera. Earlier this month, in a development nearly two weeks old (as of this writing), approximately 192,000 rare books and manuscripts belonging to the Institute…
Dear freedom lover: Sinister Islamic supremacist groups like Hamas-linked CAIR and the group behind the Ground Zero Mosque, the American Society of Muslim Advancement (ASMA), are making huge end-of-the-year fundraising pushes. CAIR just sent out a call for a December fundraising goal of $240,000 to fight “Islamophobia.” Daisy Khan of…
Actually it looks as if the perps were Sunni Wahhabis. Odd. We hear so much more about “Islamophobes,” and yet those who are accused of that particular trumped-up malady never seem to do any acts of violence to rival those committed by Islamic jihadists. “Shia Islamic Boarding School Torched, Police…
The ongoing imbroglio with Denver Bronco quarterback Tim Tebow has made plain three really unflattering facts about the secular-progressive (“sec-prog”) movement in this country. Tebow’s straightforward and unapologetic Christianity has been received by NFL mensae magnae (contradiction in terms?) as a type of threat. These folks have responded by building upon the previously gathered strength of the anti-Christian movement in this nation. Such a movement, by the way, is far more prevalent than it formerly appeared.
First truth: the sec-progs have meatier game in sight than we used to think. That is, when sec-progs start out declaring that they aim merely to set a plain whereupon all religions can fairly “coexist,” they really contemplate an end-game where religions fade permanently out of view. Have a look at the emergent history of the jurisprudence: “No federal religion” became “no state religions”; this became “no government entanglement with religion”; this became “no governmental support for religion”; this became “no governmental mention of religion”; this led to the phase that the Tebow debacle currently evinces: “no popular mention of religion in any public sphere, including private affairs which get viewed on TV.” One can easily imagine the last few steps in this phenomenology of disappearance.
Coming back to Tebow, let’s remember that his comparatively subtle iconographic decorum has managed to stir up the hornets’ nest to a startling degree: recent betrayals by active (Lions players Stephen Tulloch and Tony Scheffler) and especially retired (Merrill Hodge and Jake Plummer) players lack all response-to-stimulus proportionality and sound more like personal defensive responses to some governmental actor threatening the players’ own religious liberty. That is, all such ugliness over Tebow taking to his own knee in thanks, or occasionally mentioning the J-word after a game, exposes a fetid, rotten sort of secularism at the heart of what most popular accounts — derivative largely of the accounts by complete outsiders to the sports world, the sacerdotal order of pale, effeminate, urban-dwelling media-poseurs — name “America’s game.”
This leads one to the second ugly truth exposed by all this Tebow noise: football — especially the NFL — has gone soft. This ugly truth might also be called “the Heartland fallacy,” because it modifies not only football players, but also fans (i.e., average Americans) and the culture. (Recall how very briskly the NFL ended their association with Hank Williams, Jr. over what amounted to a bizarre yet harmless drunken screed functionally unrelated to his easily dismissible role as Monday Night Football’s twangy bard.) By virtue of the fact that so many league-dwellers and viewers agree that Tebow is “out of bounds” for announcing his unapologetic Christianity, one rightly detects that football is no longer the happy sanctum of “Heartland values,” or whatever.
In fact, compared to the NBA — by popular accounts, a much less “traditionalist” league — the NFL’s treatment of its vocal Christian players plain stinks. For example, the NBA’s Kevin Durant has mentioned Christ in thanks after every nationally televised win for four years running (as an OKC fan, I know). Dwayne Wade, who like Tebow spends much of his off-court time with children with cancer, talks openly about the Holy Trinity having motivated his choice of jersey number (3). During last season’s playoffs, league commentators repeatedly flashed a picture of a college-aged Kendrick Perkins serving Catholic Mass as a nearly grown-up altar boy, without a hint of derisive commentary (and the topic even became an issue mentioned innocuously and with constructive interest throughout the series). All of these instances witnessed not a single carbuncle of anti-Christian sentiment. Could it be that the NFL is just the more secular-progressive, without being the more pandering, league?
Nope: the very zeitgeist of nearly-2012 aligns anti-religiosity with populism. I don’t know quite how to explain the lack of Christian-derision in the NBA, given the general veracity of the previous sentence, though it seems to have something to do with a given league’s degree of attention to marketability: the NBA cares about this, being a business, but the NFL seems to live and breathe by such a criterion, obsessing over it. To me, this means plainly that the NBA is simply a better-run league, less expected to kowtow to the superfluous expectations placed upon it by the hoi polloi (aside from the expectation that they will avoid lockouts at all cost!).
Add to all these charges college football (which I’ve never watched)’s crisis with Jerry Sandusky, and a generalized sense of the conformist culture (entailed by football’s hierarchies across the nation’s middle schools, high schools, and colleges) which arguably produced the Sandusky cover-up and the clannish defense of him afterward…and you’ve got a full-on midlife crisis for football.
While loving the game itself, I’ve simply been driven to the brink. Take the absolutely mandated pink NFL jerseys for the entire month of October; the cinematographic acrobatics ordered by the league to avoid camera shots of even the tiniest dustup on the field; the politically correct commentators; the hyper-conservative play-calling embraced as a simple “tradition” of the game (another doctrinal offense by Tebow); and now Tebow receiving harsher treatment than past players who have raped, sold drugs, drowned dogs, etc.
In other words, the league’s oddball values (i.e., mainstream ones) have finally been exposed to an unforgiving light. It’s the same wan, greenish light that characterizes all of the urban-poseur values of the sec-progs (usually reserved to their own sportless sphere of influence). It’s readily visible if we select a view of a slightly bigger picture: the sec-progs advocate teaching kindergartners how to wear condoms but are offended by the concept that sometimes grown men fight with their fists. Or to put an even finer point upon it: they want to teach kindergartners how to wear condoms and (not “but”) are offended by Tim Tebow’s open chastity. The point is that in watching the NFL, there remains no longer any distinction between “urban values” and “rural values,” for which the NFL used to surrogate. And as ever, these values remain at cross-purposes. Soon now, we the people will be put to a choice.
This second truth looms so large as to bleed over into the third: that our entire culture evinces a general trend whereby the popular sensibilities become thinner-skinned as the popular mores demand an ever stronger and stronger stomach. The average commercial shown during an NFL game threatens to corrupt the mind of the youth in far more pernicious ways than a few skirmishes by players during the game ever could. And yet the liberals who have long masterminded the realization of such a bizarre world with a thousand subtle nuances — having effectually blinded the masses — can simply shrug in feigned innocent perplexity.
The moment, which I believe has just passed us, wherein Tim Tebow’s prayers and sexual chastity get formally denounced as dangerous needs to be a “moment of clarity,” en masse, whereupon we can all reassess the paltry values that we have thoughtlessly embraced as a people. While, happily, it seems that enough folks have awoken to the economic blights of leftism for the 2012 election, such a realization — in order to bear any meaningful change — must be met with a concomitant moral reawakening. This is my New Year’s wish. And God bless Tim Tebow.
America, though often derided and hated — perhaps not explicitly, but silently — by the left, oftentimes experiences the opposite problem from its most ardent admirers, the conservatives. Through their admiration, perhaps condensed most perfectly into what is known as the American Dream, men elevate a nation into idolization because the nation elevates men. One does not have to look far to see that in American literature, in the movies, and in even the world of politics, Americans believe on a sincere level that in the United States, opportunity can be had by all who truly seek it, and that for this reason America is worthy of glorification.
I am not writing this article to say the opposite is true — that somehow America was never a place in which the poor could, through innovation and labor, become wealthy, or that America is not and has never been a land of opportunity. But it must be made known that long before America existed, the dream had already been established elsewhere — and perhaps not even elsewhere, but rather within a person, and through that person, in a religion.
It is in the Proverbs and in the Law that one finds the order and justice and character by which wealth is accrued, proclaiming opportunity not to those already well-situated, but instead to the wise and honorable. It is in the Scriptures that man sees the faithful wandering nomad exalted, becoming history’s greatest patriarch. It is by the hand of God that one sees the eleventh of twelve brothers — the weakest — raised above the rest, eventually becoming second only to Pharaoh and preserving his entire people. It is in the Bible that one reads of the outcast Moabitess becoming the ancestor of King David and the Messiah, the young shepherd who slays the giant and becomes king of Israel, the coward from the weakest Israelite clan who delivers his nation from its oppressors, the fig-pruner called to become a prophet, the tax collectors and fishermen who become apostles, and the poorest of carpenters who sits at the right hand of God.
Far beyond the glories of the American Dream, Christianity is not a nation of elevation, but the religion of elevation. It is not confined within borders, defended with physical arms, or subject to recessions; it is not subject to decay and decline; it does not find itself under excellent administration one day, and the next under poor. It is a kingdom for which its citizens wait in temporary exile, establishing the effects of dominion wherever it has truly transformed their hearts, building Zion slowly as a glacier moves, a convert at a time. It raises the dead, gives hope to the hopeless, and turns sinners into saints.
“Blessed are the meek,” says He of those who rely not upon themselves, but upon Him for their strength, “for they shall inherit the earth.” ”Blessed are the poor in Spirit,” says He, “for they shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven,” and “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” says He, “for they shall be filled.” This hunger, this spiritual and temporal poverty, leads men to reliance upon the Almighty. It is the Almighty who establishes men in righteousness, and it is righteousness which establishes true prosperity. And should one of God’s elect not be endowed with material riches, he will be none the poorer. He will have a promise of eternity, the presence of the Holy Spirit, a regenerate heart, and a camaraderie within a community which surpasses earthly expectations. If honor and grace and peace from God Himself will not satisfy a man, then he will certainly never be satisfied with material gain, even should he come to own the earth and all that is in it.
Should it be said by Americans that America herself grants men their liberty and prosperity, they would be woefully wrong, for that would be confusing the end with the means. It is God Himself who establishes nations, who smiles upon His children, bringing grace to the humble, righteousness to the sinner, and wealth to the poor. For what is liberty, if not within the laws of nature and of nature’s God? What is law without unalienable rights? From where do these come, if not from above?
So let Americans not look to America for their dream, but let them look to their Savior, the God-man Jesus Christ. He will establish America in goodness, as the song goes:
America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev’ry gain divine.
In Him will they find Law. In Him will they find liberty. In Him will they find righteousness. And should a nation be so graced by His children — not those proclaiming Him in word only, but those whose hearts have been transformed by His Holy Spirit — it is then that such a nation will truly be established in opportunity. History declares such of our ancestors, from the first Puritans forward, and should we be so pious as they, then God’s providence will smile upon us until we cannot even wish for more. Christ must be exalted, and then He will exalt. This truth is recorded in the annals of history, and it is the future of all who not only call themselves such, but are truly Christian.
Anyone can claim to be the sole path to God. In fact, quite a few people have made this assertion throughout history. The real issue is why anybody should believe Jesus was telling the truth when he said it.
We can say that Jesus’ resurrection confirmed him as the Son of God. If that’s true, then all other faith systems cannot be true, because they each assert something contrary to Jesus’ divinity. And of course, the historical record concerning the resurrection is extremely compelling.
Well-known apologist and evangelist Dr. Ravi Zacharias believes people should approach the subject by looking at the four fundamental issues that every religion seeks to address: origin, meaning, morality and destiny. In these key areas, only the teachings of Jesus Christ fully correspond to reality. There is coherence among his answers unlike those of any other religion.
“Consider Buddhism,” says Zacharias. “Buddha’s answer on the question of morality does not cohere with his answer concerning origins. Why? Because Buddhism is technically nontheistic, if not atheistic. If there was no Creator, from where does one arrive at a moral law? Or consider the Hindu version of reincarnation. If every birth is a rebirth, and if every life pays for the previous life, then what were you paying for in your first birth?
“By contrast, Jesus addresses these four fundamental issues of life in a way that corresponds with reality and has internal consistency unlike any other faith system.
“Concerning origins, the Bible says we are not identical with God-contrary to the Hindu claim-but we are distinct from him. That is, we didn’t bring ourselves into being, but we are a creation of God. Being created in his image accounts for human beings having a moral point of reference. No system is able to explain this except the monotheistic ones. Even naturalists have no explanation for humanity’s moral framework. However, this moral framework corresponds to the reality of human experience.
“Christianity says we rejected the divine will. The tempter in the garden said if you eat this fruit, you will become as gods, knowing good and evil. The implication is that you become the definer of good and evil. Humanism was born right there; man became the measure of all things. This willful rebellion and rejection of God corresponds to reality.”
On the issue of meaning, Zacharias says the Christian faith stands without parallel. “The simplest way to describe it is that God does not call us to meaning by asking us to be good people. He does not call us to meaning just by telling us to love one another. It is only in the experience of worship that meaning comes to be. Only something greater than pleasure can provide meaning, and that is the perpetual novelty of God himself in worship. The Bible tells us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind, and only when we’ve done that can we begin to love our neighbors as ourselves. This also corresponds to experience.
“Christianity says morality is not culturally based, but instead it grows out of the very character of God. Otherwise, you end up with the dilemma from philosophy of old: Is the moral law over and above you, or is the moral law subject to you? If it is over and above you, where do you find its root, then? The only way to explain that is to find it in an eternal, moral, omnipotent, infinite God who is inseparable from his character. Thus, Christianity explains morality in a coherent manner.
“Lastly, destiny is based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the historical event that proved his divinity and opened the door to heaven for everyone who will follow him. Where else do you have anything that comes close to claiming this? Because the resurrection is an actual historical event, we can be forgiven, we can be reconciled with God, we can spend eternity with him, and we can trust Jesus’ teachings as being from God.
“No man spoke like Jesus. No one ever answered the questions the way he answered them, not only propositionally but also in his person. Existentially, we can test it out. Empirically, we can test it out. The Bible is not just a book of mysticism or spirituality; it also gives geographical truths and historical truths. If you’re an honest skeptic, it’s not just calling you to a feeling; it’s calling you to a real Person. That’s why the apostle Peter said, ‘We did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty’ (2 Peter 1:16).
“He’s saying, ‘This is true. This is reality. This can be trusted.’ And, yes, this truth excludes that which is contrary.” Adapted from interview with Dr. Ravi Zacharias.
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