It was sad to read of the death of Thomas Kinkade a few weeks ago. I was never a huge fan of his works, although they were often attractive, and I had purchased one or two over the years as gifts for people who truly appreciated them. He declared his Christian faith many times over the years; all four of his children were given "Christian" as their middle name. The self described "Painter of Light," his paintings would often have hidden bible verses within.
His personal life at times ran to the sordid. He had an admitted problem with alcoholism, and struggled with this for many years. He was separated from his wife of nearly thirty years, and had a live-in girlfriend with whom he had numerous domestic incidents requiring the police to visit. There was a DUI a few years ago. His company was in bankruptcy, in part because of lawsuits stemming from improper business dealings with his franchise owners. There were reported drunken incidents that are publicly available but I would rather not detail them here.
His brother vouches for his Christian faith, and tells how he managed to be clean for a few years before returning to heavy drinking. The 911 dispatch record relates how his girlfriend made the emergency call the morning of his death after drinking all night long. He was fifty-four years old.
Many will be quick to make pronouncements about his life as lived and his faith. Some will claim that he must not have been a Christian. I Corinthians 6:9-10 tells us that, "Neither fornicators, nor adulterers...nor drunkards...will inherit the kingdom of God." It certainly would be good for the image of Christians to disown him as not "really one of us." On the other hand, non-Christians would be pleased to point to him as one of our own and how this demonstrates how we continue to sin, and in doing so, become hypocrites.
The word hypocrite comes from the Greek word for a stage actor. Typically in Greek plays such an actor would wear a mask. Most often today the word hypopcrite in common usage is meant to describe someone who pretends. We think of a hypocrite as someone who says one thing and does another. I think it may be more complicated that that. For myself, I prefer to distinguish a hypocrite from a stray sheep. I do this by looking at consistency, intent, and regret.
I believe a hypocrite is a person who states one thing as acceptable behavior but does not truly believe what they are saying and does not believe that behavioral rule applies to themself. For instance, if I went around saying that adultery was wrong, but did not really believe that, and felt it was alright for me to commit adultery, then what I was saying and what I was believing are not consistent. Your intent is to decieve, and your public pronouncements are deception. You do not regret your actions. You are a hypocrite, an actor, a deceiver.
On the other hand, as sinners and sheep who go astray, I think that you can condemn a sin, really believe that sin is wrong, and also believe that sin is wrong for you to commit, and yet still commit that sin as a result of your fallen nature. What you are saying and what you are believing is not inconsistent. Your intent is to obey the Lord, and you have failed. You regret your actions. You are a sheep who has gone astray. You are not excused by any means, but I would not consider you a hypocrite.
Christians are to have changed lives, and they should not be known as people with the many characteristics listed in the I Corinthian passage. Their lives while on earth, however, are not sinless. Christ advised us in Matthew 26:40, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Some Christians live lives more marked by sin than others. Without knowing the inner man, and the consistency of his internal beliefs, the intent, and the regret, we cannot truly know the hypocrite from the honest, the lost from the stray.
From what I am able to tell, Kinkade regretted his behavior, and was able to turn from it for a while. I think that his behavior was not excused, and his early death may be an instance of God calling it quits. As we learn in I John 5:16, "Threre is sin leading to death." Sometimes the only way for God to end sin in a Christian's life is to end the life. I pray that Thomas awoke to a life with God and without demons, with abundance and not addictions, with comfort and not condemnation. "If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray" (Matthew 18:12-13).
Monday, April 23, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Why Women Suffer More Economically
Continuing with the theme from last week, I would like to discuss another economic issue with you, that of women suffering from economic inequality.
First of all, let's dispense right away with this "war on women" nonsense and "contraceptive rights." I drink a lot of Diet Coke. I have several Diet Cokes a day. I am certain that I spend more on Diet Coke in a month than most women do on contraception. There is no such thing as "free" Diet Coke. Somebody has to pay for it. The government does not pay for my Diet Coke. Does that mean that the government is denying me access to Diet Coke, or infringing on my right to have Diet Coke? Does that right to drink Diet Coke mean an absolute entitlement to have Diet Coke? Of course not. Is there anywhere in our Constitution that states the United States government is obligated to give me unlimited "free" Diet Coke? Even if that would promote my "general welfare?" Do you personally want to pay for my Diet Coke? If you do not want to support my Diet Coke habit, are you infringing upon my Diet Coke rights? Should the government forcibly take money from you to give to me to buy Diet Cokes? The absurdity of this argument would not pass muster when passed by a six year-old, but apparently makes sense to Georgetown law students.
What I wanted to address in this post is the commonly stated fact that women get paid less than men, even when doing the same work. Dr. Thomas Sowell, our wisest living economist, is going to explain why this is, from his book, "Economic Facts and Fallacies" (Basic Books, New York, 2008, Pages 55-86). The following is a summary with his references at the end.
Do women get paid less than men? Yes. In most societies and for most of history, this has been true. Does this fact alone mean that they have been the victims of discrimination? Let us look and see.
First of all, there is an unequal distribution of women across different job categories. Women represent 74% of clerical workers but only 5% of big-rig drivers. Women are less than 4% of construction workers, 2% of roofers, and 1% of heavy vehicle mechanics. Most of these latter jobs requiring heavy physical work and exposure to hazardous work pay more.
Secondly, many women have a career path significantly altered by having children. The years leading up to age forty are the years where mastery over one's field is developed, and it is often those very same years that are devoted to bearing and raising children. It can be difficult to re-enter the workforce and pick up at the same point one left off. Withdrawing from the workforce for several years often results in loss of seniority in jobs where this is important. When returning to the workforce, a woman will have less experience than a man of the same age who has been working continuously, and in many professions, there is a loss of skills and currency of knowledge that occurs while away. So even women working in the same profession as a man who has never been out of the workforce will make less money. Women tend to work in professions where their knowledge and skills will not become obsolete if they are away from their careers during those years of childbearing. If you compare men and women with PhD's, women received 60% of the doctorates in education but less than 20% of the doctorates in engineering, and the latter pays much better than the former. Already we can see, then, that a woman who has a PhD may make substantially less than a man of the same age who also has a PhD when all of these factors are taken into account.
Thirdly, women tend to take jobs with fewer hours, more flexible hours, and less travel requirements, especially in the legal and business fields. In jobs with extreme stress and work hour requirements, women occupy less than 20% of such jobs, and these are the jobs that pay the most. Therefore, for example, if you look at lawyers as a whole, men are paid more than women.
But look at this: if you are a college educated woman, never married, who works full time, between the ages of 40-64, your average income is $47,000. If you are a college educated man, never married, who works full time, between the ages of 40-64, your average income is $40,000. The women are making more than the men. And for the younger crowd, if you are living alone, childless, and between the ages of 20-31, there is no pay gap whatsoever.
What about my profession, medicine? Do men doctors make more than women doctors? You bet they do, forty-one percent more. But when you adjust this for specialty, practice setting, and other factors, there is no pay gap whatsoever. In fact, male physicians work over 500 hours more per year than female physicians. Just as with PhD's and lawyers, most women choose specialties with fewer years of training, fewer work hours, and more flexible work hours.
And the "glass ceiling" we have all heard about, in corporate America? Women are definitely under-represented in top-level management. This is due to less experience and fewer continuous years in the workforce. And although their pay is 45% less than men, that is explained by the fact that women are executives in much smaller corporations than men, again due to less experience.
The Bible tells us to treat others impartially, as He does. In Romans 2:11, Paul tells us, "For God shows no partiality, and James tells us in James 2:1, "My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory." But here is the thing. Different outcomes do not mean that people were treated differently or unfairly. Are women who do the same work as men paid less? No, because they don't do the same work as men, and not for as long, and not for as many hours. We have seen that women who perform exactly the same work as a man, with the same training and experience, working the same number of hours, without taking time off from the workforce, make the same amount of money or more. Those who foster a notion of a "war on women" are actually waging a war on those too intellectually lazy to research the issues and think through them. And unfortunately, there seems to be more of the former than the latter.
1. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Evidence from Census 2000 About Earnings by Detailed Occupation for Men and Women," Census 2000 Special Reports, May 2004.
2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "We the People: Women and Men inthe United States," Census 2000 Special Reports, May 2004.
First of all, let's dispense right away with this "war on women" nonsense and "contraceptive rights." I drink a lot of Diet Coke. I have several Diet Cokes a day. I am certain that I spend more on Diet Coke in a month than most women do on contraception. There is no such thing as "free" Diet Coke. Somebody has to pay for it. The government does not pay for my Diet Coke. Does that mean that the government is denying me access to Diet Coke, or infringing on my right to have Diet Coke? Does that right to drink Diet Coke mean an absolute entitlement to have Diet Coke? Of course not. Is there anywhere in our Constitution that states the United States government is obligated to give me unlimited "free" Diet Coke? Even if that would promote my "general welfare?" Do you personally want to pay for my Diet Coke? If you do not want to support my Diet Coke habit, are you infringing upon my Diet Coke rights? Should the government forcibly take money from you to give to me to buy Diet Cokes? The absurdity of this argument would not pass muster when passed by a six year-old, but apparently makes sense to Georgetown law students.
What I wanted to address in this post is the commonly stated fact that women get paid less than men, even when doing the same work. Dr. Thomas Sowell, our wisest living economist, is going to explain why this is, from his book, "Economic Facts and Fallacies" (Basic Books, New York, 2008, Pages 55-86). The following is a summary with his references at the end.
Do women get paid less than men? Yes. In most societies and for most of history, this has been true. Does this fact alone mean that they have been the victims of discrimination? Let us look and see.
First of all, there is an unequal distribution of women across different job categories. Women represent 74% of clerical workers but only 5% of big-rig drivers. Women are less than 4% of construction workers, 2% of roofers, and 1% of heavy vehicle mechanics. Most of these latter jobs requiring heavy physical work and exposure to hazardous work pay more.
Secondly, many women have a career path significantly altered by having children. The years leading up to age forty are the years where mastery over one's field is developed, and it is often those very same years that are devoted to bearing and raising children. It can be difficult to re-enter the workforce and pick up at the same point one left off. Withdrawing from the workforce for several years often results in loss of seniority in jobs where this is important. When returning to the workforce, a woman will have less experience than a man of the same age who has been working continuously, and in many professions, there is a loss of skills and currency of knowledge that occurs while away. So even women working in the same profession as a man who has never been out of the workforce will make less money. Women tend to work in professions where their knowledge and skills will not become obsolete if they are away from their careers during those years of childbearing. If you compare men and women with PhD's, women received 60% of the doctorates in education but less than 20% of the doctorates in engineering, and the latter pays much better than the former. Already we can see, then, that a woman who has a PhD may make substantially less than a man of the same age who also has a PhD when all of these factors are taken into account.
Thirdly, women tend to take jobs with fewer hours, more flexible hours, and less travel requirements, especially in the legal and business fields. In jobs with extreme stress and work hour requirements, women occupy less than 20% of such jobs, and these are the jobs that pay the most. Therefore, for example, if you look at lawyers as a whole, men are paid more than women.
But look at this: if you are a college educated woman, never married, who works full time, between the ages of 40-64, your average income is $47,000. If you are a college educated man, never married, who works full time, between the ages of 40-64, your average income is $40,000. The women are making more than the men. And for the younger crowd, if you are living alone, childless, and between the ages of 20-31, there is no pay gap whatsoever.
What about my profession, medicine? Do men doctors make more than women doctors? You bet they do, forty-one percent more. But when you adjust this for specialty, practice setting, and other factors, there is no pay gap whatsoever. In fact, male physicians work over 500 hours more per year than female physicians. Just as with PhD's and lawyers, most women choose specialties with fewer years of training, fewer work hours, and more flexible work hours.
And the "glass ceiling" we have all heard about, in corporate America? Women are definitely under-represented in top-level management. This is due to less experience and fewer continuous years in the workforce. And although their pay is 45% less than men, that is explained by the fact that women are executives in much smaller corporations than men, again due to less experience.
The Bible tells us to treat others impartially, as He does. In Romans 2:11, Paul tells us, "For God shows no partiality, and James tells us in James 2:1, "My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory." But here is the thing. Different outcomes do not mean that people were treated differently or unfairly. Are women who do the same work as men paid less? No, because they don't do the same work as men, and not for as long, and not for as many hours. We have seen that women who perform exactly the same work as a man, with the same training and experience, working the same number of hours, without taking time off from the workforce, make the same amount of money or more. Those who foster a notion of a "war on women" are actually waging a war on those too intellectually lazy to research the issues and think through them. And unfortunately, there seems to be more of the former than the latter.
1. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Evidence from Census 2000 About Earnings by Detailed Occupation for Men and Women," Census 2000 Special Reports, May 2004.
2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "We the People: Women and Men inthe United States," Census 2000 Special Reports, May 2004.
Monday, April 9, 2012
I'm From the Government, and I'm Here to Stop Your Suffering
I would like to write to you today in a different vein, not strictly related to our discussions of suffering and the Christian. It has to do with our notions of suffering as it relates to poverty. We have many instructions in the Bible on how to help the poor among us; I would not begin to quote them all. However, John asks in I John 3:17, " But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?"
The Bible intsructs us to aid and comfort the poor. What I am concerned about is people taking this notion and using it to legitimize the government taking from one person and giving to another. Nowhere in the Bible is this even remotely hinted at as a mechanism for looking after the poor. And many in our government and media are providing very, very false notions about poverty in an effort to further their agendas. Yes, they have an agenda, and a narrative. It is a story to be adhered to by the unquestioning of the untruthful. It is imperative that those who care also be those who think. I will try and show you how you, too, can verify this information-- so don't just take my word for it.
The basic notion being propagated is that we are economically unequal and somehow that is somebody's fault and that somebody else ought to fix it. Never mind that we are unequal in most regards, whether it be height or intelligence or good looks or abilities. It seems that there is a body of belief that it is wrong to be wealthy and that the wealthy are reponsible for the poor being poor, or at least our current economic system is responsible. It is frequently said that our wicked system of capitalism leads to the "rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer", and that our free market system only benefits people at the top. It is an "unfair" distribution of income.
First, it is important to realize that nobody "distributes" income. It is earned, by people of varying skills, life circumstances, and work ethics. Given what you know about people and human nature, if you could magically give each and every American the exact same amount of wealth beginning tomorrow morning, a miraculous equal distribution, how long do you think it would take before they became unequal again? I am sure that by tomorrow night, you would already see some people wealthy again and some that are broke.
The wealthy do not "steal" from the unwealthy. Lady Gaga made 90 million dollars last year. Does that make you any poorer? Roger Federer makes $47 million dollars a year. Did that reduce your income by one penny? (http://www.paywizard.org/)
The average poor person in America is not destitute by the standards of the world. The poor in America rank in the top 30th percentile of worldwide income. The average poor person's home in the United States is larger than that of a middle-class home in Europe. A typical poor person's home has 2 color televisions (1/3 a wide-screen or plasma) and 80% have air conditioning, 70% have a car, and only one in seventy is homeless. (2009 American Housing Survey, 2009 Residential Energy Consumption Survey)
Government intervention worsens income inequality. The countries with the most socialized forms of income redistribution also have the greatest gaps between the very wealthy and the very poor. The more the government intervenes and centrally plans income redistribution, the worse things get. For example, the poverty rate for blacks was plummeting between 1940 and 1960 (87% to 47%), it slowed its fall in the 1960's (47% to 30%), and has changed little since then after the introduction of Welfare. (The Thomas Sowell Reader, Thomas Sowell, Basic Books, New York, 2011, pp 302-303; America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible, Stephen Thernstrom and Abigail Thernstrom, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1997, p. 380; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports P23-80, The Social and Economic Status of the Black Population in the United States: An Historical View, 1790-1978. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. )
Although income categories show inequality, and that gap may be increasing, income categories are not people. Individuals do not stay in the same income category over their lifetime. Think about how much money you made at your first job as a teenager, how much you made after you graduated, how much you make now, and how much you will make when you retire. People in the very highest income levels, the "1%", drop out regularly. Thirty percent of households in the lowest quintile in 2004 moved up to a higher quintile by 2007, and thirty-two percent of households in the highest quintile moved down to a lower quintile over the same period. The number of people who stay poor is quite small; only two percent of the population lived in poverty for all four years from 2004-2007. ( U. S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports P60-239, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010, Page 4)
Income statistics, including the Census Bureau's, typically use household income to look at poverty, and households. But the surprising thing is that households have been shrinking, meaning fewer wage earners per household. So when you hear someone say that a particular group has seen their income fall over time, in reality the number of workers per household has been declining. The amount of income per person has risen. (Economic Facts and Fallacies, Thomas Sowell, Basic Books, New York, 2008, Page 125; U. S. Bureau of the Census,Current Population Reports P23-196, Changes in Median Household Income: 1969-1996, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.) However, it is important to note that there are fewer single-person households and fewer small families in higher income households, and more single-person households, single-parent households, and smaller families in lower income households. (P60-239, Page 11) The average number of people in the top quintile households is 3.2 and the average number in the lower quintile housheholds is 1.8. In addition, because the households are smaller, the actual number of people in the lower quintile is much less than the higher quintiles. (Microeconomics, Roger Arnold, South-Western Cenage Learning, 2011, Page 331).
Finally, the wealthy work more. Individuals in the bottom quintile performed about 4% of the work and individuals in the top quintile performed about 39% of the work in America in 2002. (Ibid) And in II Thessalonians 3:10, Paul commanded, "If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat." Clearly, not everyone who is in poverty is able to work. However, despite the incredible advances in medical care over the last fifty years, the number of people on disability compared to the workforce as a whole has increased from less than one percent to five percent. (Coming Apart, The State of White America, 1960-2010, Charles Murray, Crown Forum, New York, 2012, Page 198; Social Security Administration, Annual Statistical Report on the Social Security Disability Insurance Program, 2010)
So all this talk about the "rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer" isn't quite so simple, is it? The people who are pushing the redistribution agenda to alleviate the suffering of poverty are counting on two things: 1) that you will believe everything that you are told without bothering to research it yourself, and 2) that your desire to do good for the poor will lead you to do what they are telling you is the morally right thing to do.
Many years ago, our government saw itself as an agent of God, given stewardship of this country and accountable to the people. Nowadays, God is a competitor to our government, which seeks to replace Him in our lives and make us accountable to it. The easiest way to get God out of the way is to convince people that He isn't getting the job done, that He has done a lousy job of distributing wealth, and only the smart people who can be elected can fix all of that. I am profoundly grateful that God doesn't have to run for re-election, but if He did at least we could believe his promises.
The Bible intsructs us to aid and comfort the poor. What I am concerned about is people taking this notion and using it to legitimize the government taking from one person and giving to another. Nowhere in the Bible is this even remotely hinted at as a mechanism for looking after the poor. And many in our government and media are providing very, very false notions about poverty in an effort to further their agendas. Yes, they have an agenda, and a narrative. It is a story to be adhered to by the unquestioning of the untruthful. It is imperative that those who care also be those who think. I will try and show you how you, too, can verify this information-- so don't just take my word for it.
The basic notion being propagated is that we are economically unequal and somehow that is somebody's fault and that somebody else ought to fix it. Never mind that we are unequal in most regards, whether it be height or intelligence or good looks or abilities. It seems that there is a body of belief that it is wrong to be wealthy and that the wealthy are reponsible for the poor being poor, or at least our current economic system is responsible. It is frequently said that our wicked system of capitalism leads to the "rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer", and that our free market system only benefits people at the top. It is an "unfair" distribution of income.
First, it is important to realize that nobody "distributes" income. It is earned, by people of varying skills, life circumstances, and work ethics. Given what you know about people and human nature, if you could magically give each and every American the exact same amount of wealth beginning tomorrow morning, a miraculous equal distribution, how long do you think it would take before they became unequal again? I am sure that by tomorrow night, you would already see some people wealthy again and some that are broke.
The wealthy do not "steal" from the unwealthy. Lady Gaga made 90 million dollars last year. Does that make you any poorer? Roger Federer makes $47 million dollars a year. Did that reduce your income by one penny? (http://www.paywizard.org/)
The average poor person in America is not destitute by the standards of the world. The poor in America rank in the top 30th percentile of worldwide income. The average poor person's home in the United States is larger than that of a middle-class home in Europe. A typical poor person's home has 2 color televisions (1/3 a wide-screen or plasma) and 80% have air conditioning, 70% have a car, and only one in seventy is homeless. (2009 American Housing Survey, 2009 Residential Energy Consumption Survey)
Government intervention worsens income inequality. The countries with the most socialized forms of income redistribution also have the greatest gaps between the very wealthy and the very poor. The more the government intervenes and centrally plans income redistribution, the worse things get. For example, the poverty rate for blacks was plummeting between 1940 and 1960 (87% to 47%), it slowed its fall in the 1960's (47% to 30%), and has changed little since then after the introduction of Welfare. (The Thomas Sowell Reader, Thomas Sowell, Basic Books, New York, 2011, pp 302-303; America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible, Stephen Thernstrom and Abigail Thernstrom, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1997, p. 380; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports P23-80, The Social and Economic Status of the Black Population in the United States: An Historical View, 1790-1978. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. )
Although income categories show inequality, and that gap may be increasing, income categories are not people. Individuals do not stay in the same income category over their lifetime. Think about how much money you made at your first job as a teenager, how much you made after you graduated, how much you make now, and how much you will make when you retire. People in the very highest income levels, the "1%", drop out regularly. Thirty percent of households in the lowest quintile in 2004 moved up to a higher quintile by 2007, and thirty-two percent of households in the highest quintile moved down to a lower quintile over the same period. The number of people who stay poor is quite small; only two percent of the population lived in poverty for all four years from 2004-2007. ( U. S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports P60-239, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010, Page 4)
Income statistics, including the Census Bureau's, typically use household income to look at poverty, and households. But the surprising thing is that households have been shrinking, meaning fewer wage earners per household. So when you hear someone say that a particular group has seen their income fall over time, in reality the number of workers per household has been declining. The amount of income per person has risen. (Economic Facts and Fallacies, Thomas Sowell, Basic Books, New York, 2008, Page 125; U. S. Bureau of the Census,Current Population Reports P23-196, Changes in Median Household Income: 1969-1996, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.) However, it is important to note that there are fewer single-person households and fewer small families in higher income households, and more single-person households, single-parent households, and smaller families in lower income households. (P60-239, Page 11) The average number of people in the top quintile households is 3.2 and the average number in the lower quintile housheholds is 1.8. In addition, because the households are smaller, the actual number of people in the lower quintile is much less than the higher quintiles. (Microeconomics, Roger Arnold, South-Western Cenage Learning, 2011, Page 331).
Finally, the wealthy work more. Individuals in the bottom quintile performed about 4% of the work and individuals in the top quintile performed about 39% of the work in America in 2002. (Ibid) And in II Thessalonians 3:10, Paul commanded, "If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat." Clearly, not everyone who is in poverty is able to work. However, despite the incredible advances in medical care over the last fifty years, the number of people on disability compared to the workforce as a whole has increased from less than one percent to five percent. (Coming Apart, The State of White America, 1960-2010, Charles Murray, Crown Forum, New York, 2012, Page 198; Social Security Administration, Annual Statistical Report on the Social Security Disability Insurance Program, 2010)
So all this talk about the "rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer" isn't quite so simple, is it? The people who are pushing the redistribution agenda to alleviate the suffering of poverty are counting on two things: 1) that you will believe everything that you are told without bothering to research it yourself, and 2) that your desire to do good for the poor will lead you to do what they are telling you is the morally right thing to do.
Many years ago, our government saw itself as an agent of God, given stewardship of this country and accountable to the people. Nowadays, God is a competitor to our government, which seeks to replace Him in our lives and make us accountable to it. The easiest way to get God out of the way is to convince people that He isn't getting the job done, that He has done a lousy job of distributing wealth, and only the smart people who can be elected can fix all of that. I am profoundly grateful that God doesn't have to run for re-election, but if He did at least we could believe his promises.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Obviously French
There was a movie that came out twelve years ago, "Vertical Limit." It was about trying to rescue trapped mountain climbers on K-2, the second tallest mountain on earth. In one of the earlier scenes, we are introduced to a character named Monique who approaches two other mountain climbers, Skip and Peter. She brusquely shoves some papers at Skip, whom she knows, and doesn't say a word to Peter, who she has not yet met. After she walks off, Skip explains to Peter, "Don't mind her. She's French-Canadian. Some days she's Canadian. Can be quite pleasant. Today she's obviously French."
Now before I get deluged with e-mails from readers in France, let me assure you that I have nothing against them. I am sure they have similar jokes about Americans. I am simply using a humorous scene in a movie to illustrate a point. Those of us on the road to sanctification who are not yet perfected have a sin nature that frequently leads to lapses into sinful behavior. We are Christian-sinners. Some days we are Christian and can be quite good. Other days we are obviously sinners.
I have a little dog like that, named Amelia. She has the most unique personality of any dog I have owned, because she is equal parts perfectly sweet and perfectly wicked. She can be the dearest little thing sometimes, humble and submissive, and at others she truly embodies the common name for a female dog. She is quite manipulative, and has her owners thoroughly trained, and as princess of the household she rules over the other three dogs. She is full of mischief.
Paul describes the problem in Romans 7:15-17: "For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me." The Christian is indwelt by Christ yet sin remains. This is a very real struggle for many of us, and there are days when I am an obvious sinner. Sometimes others suffer because of my sin.
As Christians, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit who convicts us of our sin and leads us to hate it and to ultimately be freed from that part of our flesh. Our hope in Christ is that our sanctification will one day be complete when we reach Heaven and leave this world and our worldly ways behind us. The problem with Amelia is that the Spirit does not dwell within; I just don't believe she hates that sinful part of herself.
As her human, not canine, father, I still love her despite her sin. And my Heavenly Father loves me despite my sin. He has much higher expectations of me, however. He has given me his Word, His Son, to constantly remind me of the standard to which I am held. And as short as I fall compared to that standard, I thank God for providing it for me. Those of the world who do not believe in Christ have nothing by which to measure themselves save their own notion of goodness. Like Amelia, they have no higher Being to which they compare themselves. They are comfortable in their sin.
We have much Scripture to support the notion that animals will reside with us in Heaven. Isaiah 11:6 talks of the wolf (not lion) lying with the lamb, and other animals present. Revelation talks about all creatures praising God (5:13). We do not have a Scriptural guarantee that our pets will join us in Heaven, although many Christian writers seemed to think so. C. S. Lewis in particular felt that our pets would be with us. He states in "The Problem of Pain" that, "in this way it seems to me possible that certain animals may have an immortality, not in themselves, but in the immortality of their masters."
He also states, "If a good sheepdog seems 'almost human' that is because a good shepherd has made it so." But what if you are a bad dog with a bad shepherd? God cannot allow sin into Heaven. There is no peeing on the rug in Heaven. How will we get Amelia there? I will be allowed into Heaven because Christ covers my sins and has paid for them. Poor Amelia cannot accept Christ and therefore be perfect in sanctification.
We are both obvious sinners. If Amelia has to rely on my sanctification as her master to get into Heaven, she may have a real problem.
Now before I get deluged with e-mails from readers in France, let me assure you that I have nothing against them. I am sure they have similar jokes about Americans. I am simply using a humorous scene in a movie to illustrate a point. Those of us on the road to sanctification who are not yet perfected have a sin nature that frequently leads to lapses into sinful behavior. We are Christian-sinners. Some days we are Christian and can be quite good. Other days we are obviously sinners.
I have a little dog like that, named Amelia. She has the most unique personality of any dog I have owned, because she is equal parts perfectly sweet and perfectly wicked. She can be the dearest little thing sometimes, humble and submissive, and at others she truly embodies the common name for a female dog. She is quite manipulative, and has her owners thoroughly trained, and as princess of the household she rules over the other three dogs. She is full of mischief.
Paul describes the problem in Romans 7:15-17: "For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me." The Christian is indwelt by Christ yet sin remains. This is a very real struggle for many of us, and there are days when I am an obvious sinner. Sometimes others suffer because of my sin.
As Christians, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit who convicts us of our sin and leads us to hate it and to ultimately be freed from that part of our flesh. Our hope in Christ is that our sanctification will one day be complete when we reach Heaven and leave this world and our worldly ways behind us. The problem with Amelia is that the Spirit does not dwell within; I just don't believe she hates that sinful part of herself.
As her human, not canine, father, I still love her despite her sin. And my Heavenly Father loves me despite my sin. He has much higher expectations of me, however. He has given me his Word, His Son, to constantly remind me of the standard to which I am held. And as short as I fall compared to that standard, I thank God for providing it for me. Those of the world who do not believe in Christ have nothing by which to measure themselves save their own notion of goodness. Like Amelia, they have no higher Being to which they compare themselves. They are comfortable in their sin.
We have much Scripture to support the notion that animals will reside with us in Heaven. Isaiah 11:6 talks of the wolf (not lion) lying with the lamb, and other animals present. Revelation talks about all creatures praising God (5:13). We do not have a Scriptural guarantee that our pets will join us in Heaven, although many Christian writers seemed to think so. C. S. Lewis in particular felt that our pets would be with us. He states in "The Problem of Pain" that, "in this way it seems to me possible that certain animals may have an immortality, not in themselves, but in the immortality of their masters."
He also states, "If a good sheepdog seems 'almost human' that is because a good shepherd has made it so." But what if you are a bad dog with a bad shepherd? God cannot allow sin into Heaven. There is no peeing on the rug in Heaven. How will we get Amelia there? I will be allowed into Heaven because Christ covers my sins and has paid for them. Poor Amelia cannot accept Christ and therefore be perfect in sanctification.
We are both obvious sinners. If Amelia has to rely on my sanctification as her master to get into Heaven, she may have a real problem.
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