Gas-Price Galore

Perhaps the most ridiculous fiscal complain in American society is that which is leveled at gasoline prices. It is likely that voting habits may even be influenced by such price fluxuations. I am a student who commutes about 300 miles every week, needing to get gas about every week and a half. With my eleven gallon gas tank, I pay an extra dollar and a few cents for every ten cent price hike. Even in times of extraordinary hikes--like that caused by Hurricane Katrina or OPEC ham-fistedness--I might possibly pay an additional $5 every time I refill my tank. Even if those communiting into major cities with gas-guzzling SUV's pay ten times that amount in that time span, they are paying far less than the fine occurred in an ordinary speeding ticket, and they can more than make that cost up with their well-paid city jobs.

Yet people scream and cry about the raising of gas prices. While taxes rob each taxpayer of many thousands of dollars each year and bloaded government programs threaten to make this robbery even more severe, people cry about gas prices! This is the free market at work, people. The world's oil reserves are diminishing (cf. the peak oil debates), while consumption, especially in growing nations like China and India is increasing exponentially. What happens when the supply diminishes and the demand increases? Higher prices. This protects the supply and demands discernment amongst consumers.

The California wildfires provided an apt example in this regard. Several gas station jacked up prices along the major highways out of southern California. People immediately complained about greedy price-gouging by the oil companies in a time of distress (rumors of $9 a gallon at some stations). The only problem with that accusation is that it lacks thought. Hundreds of thousands of people were fleeing their homes, and the last time the do-nothing EPA inspectors checked, gas stations were not connected to a vast underground American oil reserve. The finite supply had to be protected and preserved for those who really needed gas. A dramatically-increased price will accomplish such an intended effect.

The witless witchhunt for rich oil barons will only turn this minor inconvenience into a major debacle. The CEO of Exxon-Mobil makes $13 million a year, while George Clooney makes $25 million. While $13 million is a lot of money, it is nothing in the realm of the rich. Meanwhile Exxon-Mobil is affected by OPEC extortioning and a lack of easily-accessible oil reserves. Money must be poured into research and heavy-cost extraction efforts (for example, in portions of Canada where oil is extracted from sand flats). If the populist politicians demand that these corporations reduced prices, they will create a fiscal crisis and energy shortage.

What this comes down to is simple personal responsibility. Fattened-up Americans need to stop looking for external sources to blame with vague ideals of get-slim-quick schemes, and should actually tighten their own belts. Oil has become America's achilles heal, making the wealthiest country in the world beholden to tyrannical despots. Its use also produces air pollution that people of all political stripes find unpleasant, if not damaging. Instead of punishing the evil, rich men for this problem, why not exercise personal discipline? Why not seize the opportunity afforded by higher gasoline prices to consider the importance of every commute and seek new ways of energy-efficient transportation, such as public busses or hybrid vehicles. In the meantime, the populist politicans can divert their energy from conspiracy-based economic McCarthyism to worthwhile proposals offering economic incentives to those corporations that invest in alternative energy.

Let it Rain!

The Garden of Eden was a paradise in every way imaginable--untainted by sin, harmony between man and his environment, and a landscape painted in shades of unimaginable beauty. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were banished from the Garden and cast into the wilderness of thorny toil and painful pregnancy. The generations and the work they did would both be encompassed by the shadow of sin. Within that wilderness, man remains to this day.

Yet flowers bloom. Some 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ walked within the wilderness. Soon after that miraculous baptism of Christ, where God the Father thundered "This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased," and the Spirit hovered, signifying His presence with Christ, the Messiah was cast into the desert for a time of temptation. This desert could be seen as the Garden of Eden A.S. (after Satan). In this barren ruin of Eden, the wild beast again submitted to the rule of man; in this barren ruin, Christ--the second Adam--was tested by Satan, but this time, the Word of God prevailed over the word of the tempter.

God's people for thousands of years previous to that point had attached themselves to the hope of the promise (Gen. 3:15) and waited for the day when relief would come to a parched world with parched hearts. In the day of Christ's ministry, buds began to bloom and a trickle of water seeped from the earth. He walked the worldly wilderness, with the mission to know it and conquer it on behalf of His people. The whole of human history emphatically declared its thirst, to which Christ said "I am the water of life."

The continual rainstorms in southern California right now powerfully evoke this ancient imagery. In a land known for its barrenness, the most vibrant hues of green now abound. What once was scorched by wildfire now blooms anew with life. Amidst such flourishing scenery, how can one not think of Christ?

Through Adam, the first federal representative of humanity, came sin, death, suffering, and pain. Through Christ, the second Adam, the new representative of the redeemed peoples of the earth, came righteousness, life, peace, and hope. Christ, upon His perfect life, death, resurrection, and ascension, made rare buds bloom and issued forth that trickle of watery hope.

There will be a day--that Great Day--when Christ will return on the clouds. The buds will spring forth into a new Garden and the trickle will turn into a mighty torrent, breaking through the impediments of death. On that Day, a new heavens and earth will be created. Heaven and earth will meet in the New Jerusalem, but the new city of God, unlike the original Garden, will allow for no more rebellion. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil will no longer be accesible, but will be replaced by the overgrowth of the tree of life. The leaves of that tree will be for the healing of the nations. There will be no more sin, no more pain, no more tears.

My God, let it rain!

Where is Your Authority?

In a small book by J.I. Packer, entitled Freedom and Authority, the ancient Roman moralist, Seneca, is quoted as describing the slavery to self as the worst possible slavery. He believed that any other authority structure was preferable to the tyranny imposed by one's own will. John Paul II put out an encyclical not too long ago, putting his own spin on Seneca's sentiments. The belated leader of the Roman-Catholic church wrote that true freedom is exercised in one's ability to escape animalistic impulses in favor or reason and virtue.

Like Seneca and John Paul II, many Christians and pagans throughout world history have sought to establish an accountability to a higher authority. They would engage in this quest because, through deep reflection, they would come to realization that human authority was compromised by the selfish desires of the human heart. To grant absolute human authority was even more unthinkable. As Lord Acton once said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Although the need for a higher authority was well established amongst the ancients, the source of that higher authority was oft-debated. Ancient Judaism sought its authority in a god of rules--compromising on the Old Testament God of the Law that condemns. In this way, human reason and righteousness could be guarded by self-imposed, Pharisaic rules. Ancient Greeks and Romans worshipped pagan deities, who happened to be quite permissive when it came to those animalistic desires of mankind. Roman Catholicism, arising a few centuries after the early Church, sought to make the Church the guardian of God's words--most notably centralized in the papacy. In all of these various expressions, people cloaked God's rule in human garb, preferring a rule that was made less terrifying through some form of human mediation. None of these systems were willing to fully account for God's holy law and man's wholly depraved character. Even so, the pursuit of a higher authority was generally a given.

The post-Enlightenment Western World tired of such antiquated views and sought to establish a worldview based on the autonomy (independence and authority) of the human mind. Philosophers established rational proofs and naturalistic scientists established a scientific method, both of which gave man absolute, unquestioned authority over the object of his pursuits--an absolute authority that would have made Lord Acton shudder. Human autonomy in this form--where God is ignored in the initiation, process, and end of human enquiry--became an inhumane autonomy. As America's Founding Fathers correctly noted with their system of checks and balances in human governance, human beings are always in need of accountability.

In the Western World of the 20th century, mankind bowed down to the primacy of the human mind--an unchecked mind which set loose unprecedented horrors across the face of the globe. Such human-centered external power is now checked by the power of individual human experience, which looks within for self-guidance. Instead of being guided by optimistic individuals with misguided notions of truth, this truth-from-within conception will ultimately bring a truth-by-consensus mentality by necessity of order, and will bring the same sort of human-centered tyranny unleashed upon the world in the past century.

So where is authority to be found? For the Christian, that authority is found solely within the Word of God. The Bible is the transcendent Word from God, breaking upon human hearts as the immanent source of hope. It is through the Bible that God speaks to mankind, offering the divine plan of redemption in the sphere of human history. When one bows the knee to the God of the Bible, she is acknowledging He who created the world in perfect harmony and even now restrains sin and chaos through His providence. When once bows the knee to anything else, she is prostrating herself to the same forces that initially brought chaos and brokenness.

Christians must resist the tyrannical authority of the papacy, which assumes the throne of Christ with utter disregard for the Lord of Hosts. They must also resist the tyranny of "mini-popes"--those church leaders who deny the need for accountability from a larger denominational structure. In addition, those charismatic groups that claim the power of the Spirit while neglecting the power of the Word must also be considered dangerous. There are many Christians in all of these other bodies, but they are Christians playing with fire.

Instead, the Christian should submit himself to a local church body within a larger denomination which professes the supremacy of the Word of God over all of human life. He should profess allegiance to the historic Confession of that denomination, a confession which unites believers of many ages and many countries under a clear understanding of the Bible. In this way, he will also avoid the pitfalls of interpretational, a la carte Christian relativism. God speaks to His people as they wander this worldly wilderness and has granted that the Church maintain the bonds of unity in these dark days. Why forsake the gifts of the Lord?

A Jacket is Not Enough

The breeze bit against the young man's body through his jacket.

Normally, warmth is something taken for granted. (Finitude has a remarkable ability of finding someone out.) Though the clouds do not obscure the sun--though a man could still bathe in the warm rains of his world--the clouds still cast a shadow and the proverbial man still finds himself chilled.

God could have cut His creative work short and left it with the definitive remark, "Good." If anyone cuts such corners, it is not God. If anyone remains unsatisfied with simple "good," it is God. The God who demands perfection from sinners according to His righteous character could never settle for anything less than perfection in His own work. Thus, God created His masterpiece--opting to make her of rib instead of the dust of the earth. He veiled her in long hair and gave her the power to sustain the generations of mankind. "Very good."

Wind is by nature a finite force, exacting its will without regard to those within its folds, yet bound to pass as a word spoken and forgotten. It enshrouds man within the walls of its blustery tomb for a moment, leaving a cacophony of silence in its wake. Who fills the silence, but God, the Master-Craftsman?

The young man thought to himself, "A jacket is not enough."

Christian Tyranny

The Dec. 9th, 2007 issue of the Washington Post Magazine features an article entitled "The Trials and Tribulations of Hashmel Turner." The byline: "An unassuming small-town preacher and his unconventional lawyer are trying to win the right to pray to Jesus at city council meetings." At issue is the alleged right of a city council member to pray in Jesus' name. The case, Hashmel C. Turner Jr. v. The City Council of the City of Fredericksburg, may advance to the Supreme Court where the "right to pray" in city council meetings will either be enshrined into federal law or prohibited.

What is the purpose of the State in this world? Is it to function as a religious organization? Many would like to think so. The Religious Right speaks with wistful nostalgia of the golden age of a Christian America, and many speak of America as the modern day Israel, representing the cause of Christ before a fallen world. Socialists also believe the State to be a religious entity. Sin is defined as social injustice in this scheme, and redemption is found through the power of State to remedy social evils.

The traditional political dichotomy of liberal v. conservative proves itself to be unhelpful when it comes to Church-State tensions. Both ideological groups tend to view Christianity as a means to an end. Liberals have typically viewed the Church and the State as cooperative entities, working together for social justice. Conservatives have typically view the Church and State as competitive entities, in which the Church must harness the power of the State in order to promote and enforce a code of civic virtues.

What is the Christian position? Christ said that His Kingdom was not of this world. Instead of riding into Jerusalem on a mighty military steed and implementing a theocratic state, He rode into Jerusalem on a lowly donkey and bore a Roman cross, instituting the theocracy of the Church in the process. He instructed people to render unto Caesar what belonged to him and to God what belongs to Him. The Kingdom advances on this earth when the Church proclaims the redemptive message of the Gospel.

What results have past intermingling of Church and State borne in history? One needs only look at the Crusades for a clear example of the Church inappropriately wielding the sword of the State. Roman-Catholic tyranny and its usurpation of the throne of Christ with a mere man may likewise be tied to its political interests. In fact, every authoritarian regime in world history has by definition taken upon itself religious properties in order to exact its power.

Was America ever a Christian nation? Never. It was founded upon such religious principles as natural law and an awareness of sin, liberty and the need of the government to preserve the integrity of the family and Church to attend to religious matters. Christian? No. It could best be labeled as a blessed period in which God, in His common grace, imbued the American consciousness with an extraordinary sense of civic righteousness.

Is there such a thing as a Christian nation? There is no such thing. The State is a God-ordained insitution (Gen. 4), which is specifically areligious. Ideally, the State preserves the right of the Church to maintain its redemptive prerogatives. The usurpation of religious functions by the State necessarily comes at the expense of the Church and the family. Likewise, the Church, by aiding and abetting this diabolical usurpation, becomes a tool in the hand of idolatrous man rather than Almighty God.

The Twentieth Century has seen an unwarranted transfer of religious power from the Church to the State. As a result, the Church often finds itself corrupt and spiritually impotent and the State has become a bureaucratic monstrosity that competes with the Christian remnant for the spiritual vitality of human souls.

In the aforementioned article, Turner is described as living "through bad times: segregation, bomb shelters, the Vietnam War. But something was different. 'Before, it seems like things came from somewhere outside. Now it seems like America is eroding from within.'" Within that statement, one finds the modernist quest to put the Church and State in bed together and make pseudo-spiritualized pagan babies. Something was different in the twentieth century: evil had come to be viewed as an exterior force, such as segregation, Hitler's Germany, or Tojo's Japan. In the 21st century, such absurd simplifications are discarded and the the disturbing realities of every human heart are coming to light.

At least Turner's lawyer is consistent--he appeals for the same rights to sectarian prayer for Muslims and Wiccans as he does for Christians. Conservatives are right to stress that the Church-State separation is intended more as a buffer for the Church's right to free expression than as a wall with which to exclude religious voices from public venues (the latter opinion was voiced by the bigot, Thomas Jefferson, years after the Constitution). They are not right, however, in assuming that religious disciplines, such as prayer, are appropriate and beneficial for the State. The battle for public prayer should not be between sectarian and non-sectarian prayer, but between prayer generally and an absence of prayer. The latter should be preferred.

"Teacher's can't control kids anymore because the government took God out of all these places," said one member of Turner's church. Really? Perhaps kids are uncontrollable because the government took upon itself the responsibility of raising children--a responsibility entirely unsuitable for an areligious entity. Two other members of Turner's church said that it didn't matter whether one prayed to God or Allah because "Everyone is praying to the same God." That is what happens when the Church submits her prerogatives to the State. The Enlightenment figures had their goddess of reason; Americans have their goddess of non-sectarian spiritual virtue.

In the West, the Church has largely prostituted herself to the nations, much as Israel did in the Old Testament. Is it any surprise then that the vital centers of the Church are developing in third-world countries? America has not failed--the Church failed by handing the keys of the Kingdom to an entity which knows not the door.

Rebels with a Cause

The true health of a Church may be measured in its proclamation of the dark side of the Gospel: the power and guilt of sin. It is one's doctrine of sin that provides the landscape for one's doctrine of Christ. Christ came to conquer the power and guilt of sin, so how it is exactly defined also defines the ministry of Christ and His redemptive work.

In that vein, men like the one above (Joel Osteen) may and should be considered heretics. Even a non-confrontational postmodern should be able to make this claim. As Dr. Michael Horton said on 60 Minutes, Osteen preaches a "cotton candy gospel." How dare one make this claim about a nice young man like Pastor Osteen--a man who loves Jesus so much? Because Pastor Osteen loves an emasculated Jesus. Joel Osteen defines the guilt of sin as one's inability to escape their past, and the power of sin as poor self-esteem and self doubt. Consequently, Osteen defines Jesus as the conquerer of the past and the giver of self-esteem. Jesus becomes the little string-drawn puppet attached to the fingers of an autonomous humanity, rather than the God-man who will return on the clouds with awe and terror in His wake.

There is a reason why "sin" and "Christ" are the two hardest words to speak and hear. One exposes the horrible plight of the human heart; the other reveals the exclusive way to escape the penalty of that plight. That is why it is admirable when a young Christian finds herself trying to speak those words of power when many a pastor of God's flock display cowardice of the highest rank in avoiding them.

For those looking for a rubric with which to judge the faithfulness of the preaching and teaching they receive, here is what the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church says about sin: "Sin is want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God" (Shorter Catechism, 14). Sin is not injustice, as the socialist would claim; it is not feelings of guilt, as the psychologist would claim; it is not even bad deeds, as some Christians might think. Sin is the guiltiness of man before the law of God--the law that man definitively rejected and rebelled against in the garden of Eden and which is rejected and rebelled against in every human heart (Rom. 1 and 3:23). Every system and ideology that desires an allegiance as strong as Christianity must redefine sin and salvation in its own terms in order to claim that allegiance.

There is no excuse for ambiguity on the matter of sin by the Church--such ambiguity enshrouds the Savior in shadow. Sure, it is a painful thing to hear (especially for modern and postmodern Americans), but the the Scripture tells that the Gospel is offensive. Even so, there is such love in bringing sin to light: "For God demonstrates His own love for us in this--while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). The doctrine of God is here: sovereignty (absolute control and rule), revelatory (accessible to His creation), and loving (mercy toward sinners). The doctrine of sin is here: guiltiness and helplessness (in need of some supernatural act to escape God's wrath). The doctrine of Christ is here: the atonement (offering Himself us to pay our penalty, turning away God's wrath).

Lord God, please convict human hearts of their sin and pastors' hearts in their unfaithfulness in preaching and teaching this necessary message. Please teach Your people to come to terms with their disease rather than being distracted with symptoms--exposing our wounds before the salve of Your grace in Christ. We are rebels against the living God, with the cause of thwarting Your purposes. Our lives are individual towers of Babel, seeking to exalt ourselves to the highest place. Yet in our pride, we stumble. You deconstruct our baseless edifices and reveal to us the Roman cross in which the God-man connected You to Your people in one great redemptive act. In light of our need for Your grace and Your fulfillment of our need, we--the people of the broken heart--prostrate ourselves before You in reverence and awe. May You lighten our burden and our path as we walk the road of faith, giving You the glory. Only in Your Son can sinners know the love of God. We know, and we rejoice.

In Jesus' Name, we pray. Amen.

A Snow-Strewn Mist

The sky, congested with gray, drops millions of little while flurries.

The ground is thick; the trees are bare.

Sight extends no more than fifty yards to the past or the future.

Each torrent of flurries presents another wave of nostalgia.

The wall of white obscures the view while imbuing hope.

The chill forces the heart to beat with greater fury.

Enveloped by a snow-strewn midst, I am lost in wonder.