Echoes in Eternity

Doug Wilson makes an astute observation.

We are told that the problem with the residents of Sodom is that they were seething with hatred and were willing to engage in violent sexual acts. And we are told this by people who are seething with hatred...

This is sad news. Columbo is one of my favorite shows of all-time and I just recently began to watch a few of the old ones on Netflix. Columbo always got his man but not before convincing everyone that he was an absent-minded bumbling fool. He would always figure out the crime but due to the lack of any corroborating evidence, he'd set the suspect up in such a way as to show his guilt. Peter Falk played him perfectly, and actually some of his work as Columbo was complete improv on his part.

"Just one more thing."

This is a great opinion piece on the need for fathers to be engaged with their families. I know plenty of dads who basically check out when they are at home. And when their wives leave the house, they are completely lost. Take the kids out to eat or to a movie or park? Are you kidding? Have you heard them in public? If that's you, don't just be ashamed of yourself. Change. Get freakin' involved with your kids. I know it's not easy. But this guy's advice is a good place to start.

I offer these 10 commandments of righteous fatherhood. Pay close attention, because, behind your back, people are pitying your wife:

1. No golf on weekends: Seriously, it's ludicrous. Your spouse is home with the kids all the time, and you think it's OK to take five hours on a weekend day to pursue your own pastime? Selfishness, thy name is Father.

2. Wake up: Literally, wake up. With your kids. On at least one of the two weekend days -- and perhaps both. I know: you wake up early for work. Not even remotely the same thing. Rising alongside the kiddies is hard. And crazy. And (gasp!) sorta fun, if you'd just stop moping.

3. Change diapers: If you have little kids, and you don't know how to change diapers (or, even worse, refuse to change diapers), you're pathetic. That's no exaggeration -- p-a-t-h-e-t-i-c. It's not all that hard, and though the poop sometimes winds up on the fingers, well, uh, yeah. It just does. Wash your hands.

4. Play with dolls and paint your toenails: How many fathers do I know who refuse to get girlish with their girls? Dozens. Dude, put aside the machismo, break out Barbie and slather on some pink polish. You'll make a friend for life -- and nobody else is watching.

5. Do things you don't want to do: It's easy to take the kids to the driving range -- because you want to be there. Now try spending the day having a tea party at American Girl. Or crawling through one of those wormholes at the nearby kiddie gym. Fun? Often, no. But this isn't about you.

6. Order the wife to bug off: I recently met a mother who told me her husband hadn't been alone with their 9-year-old daughter for more than two hours ... ever. Inexcusable. Let your wife do her own thing: relax, take a run, whatever. Entertain your children solo. They don't bite (Note: CNN.com is not liable if your children do, in fact, bite).

7. Surprise! Just once, on a random day without meaning or purpose, show up early at your kid's school/camp/wherever, say "Get in the car!" and take him/her somewhere special. Just the two of you, alone. A movie. A park. A hike. The memory lasts -- I promise.

8. Dishes Don't Clean Themselves (Nor Do Toys): It's amazing how this one works. You pick up a dish, run it under hot water with some soap, rub it down with a towel and place it back on the shelf. Then repeat.

9. Wake up your kid: Not often. But if you want to score big points and create a killer memory moment, walk in Junior's room at, oh, midnight, wake him/her up and go outside for 10 minutes to watch the stars.

10. [T]ell your kids you love them: They never see you, and they'd probably like to know.

Bud, as you read this your wife is expecting little -- and your kids are expecting even less. Pull one out of the blue. Make Father's Day less about you, and all about them.

For your viewing pleasure this morning...

Zach Nielsen has a great post on the reason behind why we don't see many Down's Syndrome people anymore.

Because today 90% of women who are given the news that their baby in the womb has Down's, elect to have that child terminated through abortion murdered. I know that language sounds quite harsh and potentially inflammatory. But shouldn't we call it what it is? If we can agree that it is a human person in the womb, (we don't need a Bible to prove this, just a 10th grade science class) shouldn't we call it what it is? If it is a human person in the womb, should we be shocked when we hear the word "murder"? Shouldn't that shock lead us to stop the practice of it instead of softening language so that people's feelings don't get hurt by the word "murder"?

Owen Strachan has a great post on the current kerfuffle about Rep. Weiner.

We don’t look at Anthony Weiner and the state of marriage today and scoff. We grieve. We know that outside of the grace of Jesus Christ we could well be wreaking that kind of havoc. We feel just anger at what is transpiring, anger that inspires us to break awkward silences and share the gospel with those we encounter. In our churches, through the fellowship of brothers and much prayer to a great God, we show the world a better way, a new breed of men, redeemed, not boys, not unfaithful, not dogs.

Walter Williams had some good points to make about how the welfare state has helped destroy the black American family.

“[T]he welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery could not have done, the harshest Jim Crow laws and racism could not have done, namely break up the black family."

Yesterday was the 113th birthday of the late great RG LeTourneau, the founder of my alma mater, LeTourneau University. In honor of the man, Donald Miller wrote a short post on his blog. I thought I would add some other interesting information about RG. For one, he holds more U.S. patents (mostly in heavy construction and earthmoving technology) than anyone except Thomas Edison. His equipment served as 70% of the U.S. Army's road-making equipment during WWII. He also took his technology over to Africa and made hundreds of roads into central Africa. He worked closely with several presidents, including George H.W. Bush. He also is credited with revolutionizing heavy equipment, including the invention of mobile offshore drilling platforms (a model of which can be seen in the museum on the LeTourneau campus). But probably the most astounding fact about the man is that he lived on only 10% of his income and gave the rest away to missions around the world. An amazing man!

In memory of just a few of the many who lost their lives from tornadoes here in the Midwest this past week...




A father and his two little ones shopping at Home Depot...

“The paternal state not only feeds its children, but nurtures, educates, comforts, and disciplines them, providing all they need for their security. This appears to be a mildly insulting way to treat adults, but it is really a great crime because it transforms the state from being a gift of God, given to protect against violence, into an idol. It supplies us with all blessings, and we look to it for all our needs. Once we sink to that level, as Lewis says, there is no point in telling state officials to mind their own business. “Our whole lives are their business.” The paternalism of the state is that of the bad parent who wants his children dependent on him forever. That is an evil impulse. The good parent prepares his children for independence, trains them to make responsible decisions, knows that he harms them by not helping them to break loose. The paternal state thrives on dependency. When the dependents free themselves, it loses power. It is, therefore, parasitic on the very persons whom it turns into parasites. Thus, the state and its dependents march symbiotically to destruction.

When the provision of paternal security replace the provision of justice as the function of the state, the state stops providing justice. The ersatz parent ceases executing judgment against those who violate the law, and the nation begins losing the benefits of justice. Those who are concerned about the chaos into which the criminal justice system has fallen should consider what the state’s function has become. Because the state can only be a bad imitation of a father, as a dancing bear act is of a ballerina, the protection of this Leviathan of a father turns out to be a bear hug.” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 184).

Doug Wilson wrote an excellent post on the recent flap surrounding Ron Paul's comments in a recent Republican debate in favor of legalizing drug use and prostitution.

While many Christians are unsettled by Paul's idea of legalizing drugs, for example, I am far more concerned about the millions that have gotten themselves addicted to the crack cocaine of other people's money, and who need a daily fix of their power and privilege, paid for by beyond ridiculous economic policies.
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Adultery was a crime in ancient Israel, and a great deal of that activity is committed with prostitutes, and so, there you go. But smoking dope was not a crime under biblical law, and so there you go. And lest you think this would create a vast population of lotus eaters, the Bible does not give us warrant to create a great network of welfare payments that enable people to live like irresponsible potheads, getting dope from friends and their dinner of Cheetos from their food stamps. If we didn't fund it, we probably wouldn't have quite so much of it. Just a thought.
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Many of our modern statist do-gooders and bedwetters think they do not fit the description of the abusive rulers in the Lord's parable because their intentions (viewed under the magnifying glass of their very own wisdom) are so clearly good and full of the waft of sunny uplift. But they are the ones who created the wastelands of the modern American inner city, filled our American penitentiaries with millions of men, who live out their lives in the greatest dog pound ever, and who choked the economy that could feed the world by harassing hard-working men and women all day every day with niggling restrictions, regulations, and rules. Morever, they are impervious to any evidence that would actually demonstrate to them the desolations caused by their pride and officiousness.

U2's Bono conducted an interview a few years ago (that I just came across today) and in it he clearly and repeatedly presented the Gospel. Salvation by grace through faith alone is the drum he beat, and he beat it well.

There's nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is. I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so relatable. But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey from stern father to friend. When you're a child, you need clear directions and some strict rules. But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.
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You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics; in physical laws every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.
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I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s---. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.
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But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled . It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.

This video by Francis Chan is really powerful. He speaks to the arrogance behind certain ways of approaching Scripture... so true.

Do you ever even consider the possibility that maybe the Creator's sense of justice is actually more developed than yours?... See, when we make statements like "Well, God wouldn't do this, would he?", do you understand at that moment you're actually putting God's actions in submission to your reasoning?"

Mark Steyn has a good piece on the problem this country faces with entitlements... particularly a "sense of entitlement."

I like to think that upon arrival in this great republic I assimilated pretty quickly. Within four or five months, I was saying “zee” and driving on the right more often than not. But it took me longer to get the hang of the word “entitlement.” You don’t hear it in political discussions in most of the rest of the West, even in Canada. There’s talk of “social programs” and “benefits” and “welfare,” but not of “entitlements.” I knew the term only in its psychological use — “sense of entitlement” — in discussions of narcissistic personality disorder and whatnot.

Once I’d been apprised of its political definition, I liked it even less. “Entitlements” are unrepublican: They are contemptuous of the most basic principle of responsible government — that a parliament cannot bind its successor. Which is what entitlements do, to catastrophic effect.
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“Entitlement commitments are not debts,” wrote John Hinderaker of the blog Powerline. “Congress can wipe them out simply by repealing Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.”

That’s technically true in the same sense that it’s technically true Congress can wipe out a lot of our debts — or at any rate our debtors — by nuking Beijing. But is either likely to happen under any scenario this side of total societal meltdown? Indeed, I find it easier to imagine economic collapse, secession, civil war, Mad Max on I-95, cannibal gangs of the undocumented preying on gated communities of upscale gays, etc., than any combination of House, Senate, and president “repealing Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.”

Which is where we came in. Whether or not government “entitlements” are debts, they very quickly become a psychological disorder — and a “sense of entitlement” is harder to dislodge than almost anything else. Government entitlement breeds psychological entitlement breeds a utopia of myopia. I don’t mean merely in the sense that polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans still feel entitled to their entitlements, but in a more profound way.
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John Hinderaker is right. We can, in theory, repeal the entitlements. Repealing the sense of entitlement is the tricky part.

I see a lot of charities doing many good things in our inner cities, from urban housing development to cheap groceries. But until this country tackles the sense of entitlement that has crept into our hearts and eliminates the destructive entitlement policies that have helped that mentality to take root while also destroying our economy, those charities will continue to merely spoon water out of the Titanic's hold. Unless those moral and political leaks are repaired, we will continue to sink. It starts with repentance... unfortunately, our socio-political landscape is lacking prophets.