Taking a Break

 

I’ll be travelling for the next month and a half, so it’s unlikely that I will be posting to this site during that period.

Have a great summer. Will be in touch again in the fall.

May God bless you and those you love,

Bryan

Mourn Over Canada

 

Canada day is past with its rejoicing over a secure and prosperous nation. Yet Canada’s foremost major problem—beyond any political scandal or natural tragedy—is a casual and indifferent attitude to life.

We are incensed at the killing of unarmed civilians by the Egyptian military, but shrug at the slaughter of 100,000 unborn children every year in our nation, as though we were slaughtering pigs. A city larger than my hometown of Lethbridge, Alberta is wiped off the map every year.

It seems to be an open secret a child may be killed in the womb; even outside the womb if there is one toe still in the vaginal canal at birth. A child is not considered a person, and can be killed at will for any and every reason until it is totally clear of the mother’s body.

This is not because there is a law permitting abortion any time during pregnancy, but quite the reverse. There is no law forbidding it. As the chart below shows, Canada partners with North Korea and China in having no protection of any sort for a child in the womb. Further, an aborted child, even if it is fully born alive, is likely to be illegally slain. The slaughter goes beyond birth.

Will we continue to mourn the carnage within our own house next Canada Day?

Profiling

 

Two news items in the last few days caught my attention. One was Obama’s “from the heart” message about sensing suspicion, hostility and fear as an African American. The other was Detroit’s decision to go bankrupt. It reminded me of an experience that links the two.

A few years ago Ann and I were returning from Quebec to western Canada through the States. That meant the Windsor Detroit crossing. Our exit ramp was closed off. Taking the next exit got us lost in a city we’d never been to before.

We turned in what appeared to be the right direction out of the city. But to drive through a city with streets of abandoned and derelict buildings is an eerie feeling—especially if you don’t know where you are, or how to get out of it.

We eventually found ourselves in a seedy looking neighbourhood. I pulled over to see if I had map that would help us find a way out. A black youth approached us. Our reaction? “O-oh! What does he want?” He knocked on the window. We lowered it part way. “Are you guys lost?” he asked.

He kindly gave us directions to the highway we needed and we were on our way. I wondered how my reaction would have differed if a white youth had approached us. Our apprehension would probably have grown with the number of dreadlocks on his head and rings in his face!

Clearly, we do profile people according to our past experience and the knowledge we have about them. But every individual is different, and we only find out by approaching each one as Christ would. We should know a clean white face may seem friendly, but is not a guarantee of safety.

Christianity: A Counter Culture

 

When I was a teen, I lived on the south coast of England, where the sea was an inviting diversion from schoolwork. When the tide was high, I couldn’t be sure where the rocks were. It was only at low tide, they became visible so I could avoid them.

When I was a teen, England, like the west generally, pursued common life values promoted by the Christian faith. But now Christian values have ebbed, distinctive Christian values are sharply visible against a developing anti-Christian culture.

This creates two possibilities. First, it is easier to target Christians who speak publicly of their beliefs, the precursor to intimidation and persecution of Christians. Let us not forget persecution of Christians has been mostly normal for 2000 years. We may not escape.

Homosexuality is shaping up to be the leading edge for harassment of Christians. Recently, a London street preacher happened to state homosexuality, as well as adultery and sex before marriage, was a sin. He was arrested and interrogated for seven hours before being released without charge.

But second, and more positively, it is easier to be a witness when our lifestyles are increasingly different from the surrounding culture. Perhaps foremost in opposing Christianity is entitlement to personal rights. This is the basis of much social anger and unrest. Compare this to Christ who:

. . . made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:7-8.

This attitude can be the leading edge of representing Christ; it generates an approach to life that sharply contrasts our faith to the prevailing social outlook around us. Remember, Christianity is a counter-culture.

Sexual Regression

 

Two gay married men purchased a baby in Russia for $8,000. They promoted their “family” as an example of successful gay parenting. In fact, the child was pimped out to pedophiles across the world from two weeks old for six years.

One man was sentenced to 40 years imprisonment in the States and the other is awaiting sentencing in New Zealand. But this story has not been reported in the mainstream media, presumably as it would reflect badly on gay marriage.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/named-the-australian-paedophile-jailed-for-40-years-20130630-2p5da.html.

The above story, together with the restrained reporting of Gosnell’s “House of Horrors”—an abortion clinic of indescribable filth, unlicensed operatives, and routine snipping of the spinal cord of children aborted alive—exposes the sordid underside of “progressive” sexual attitudes

The Daily telegraph on July 3, 2013, published a column claiming that Pedophilia is rampant, under–reported, and incurs few adequate sentences. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/an-inconvenient-truth-of-church-and-courts-protecting-perverts/story-fni0cwl5-1226673368536.

In a previous blog, I reported that there is evidence that loosening sexual mores foster increasing sexual crimes. The above stories have caused TheChristians.com to state the following:

“The reality is that all of today’s new sexual “lifestyle choices,” from homosexuality to wife-swapping to “sex changing”, are rooted in a counterculture of disease and moral degradation that nobody now wants to acknowledge.

“It is the triumph of the secular relativist faith—aided by endlessly cooperative news and entertainment media—that all of these are all casually painted over as morally normal and socially innocuous.” http://thechristians.com/?q=node/381#sthash.auF6tkri.dpuf

The cause? A changing focus on personal pleasure rather than personal responsibility, despite the outcomes. This appears to create a cultural psychology toward desire for sexual unions that provide pleasure without the accompanying risk of children?

Homosexuality and abortion. The two dovetail: avoidance or abortion of children.

Temporary Test

setting up new blog account

A Cultural Death Wish?

See, I set before you life and prosperity, death and destruction. Now choose life. Joshua 30:15, 19

Never before have these words seemed so appropriate for today’s western culture. The further away we slip from the Source of life, the greater our slide towards a culture of death. Euthanasia, assisted suicide, and abortion are the obvious harbingers of a culture devolving to its death wish.

Medical ethicists are currently promoting the idea of post-birth abortion. A baby should not be considered a person until about the age of two, giving latitude beyond abortion to dispose of defective or unwanted humans early in life.

Now the greatest western nation in the hemisphere, following others, has legitimized gay marriage. This is a contradiction in terms: marriage exists for procreation. Other unions, however close, and however named, will never be a marriage. Gay relationships are intrinsically barren, a further nail in the coffin of life.

Courting death in all these ways creates nations that depend, like gay marriage, on adoption. People parented by other countries are imported to avoid a declining population. Chances are those will also eventually succumb to the siren call of a culture risking death.

The western world has gained in prosperity, stability, influence, and comfort by its historical reverence for God and recognition of Him as the source of life. This weekend may experience the hottest temperature the world has ever experienced in California’s Death Valley

As a footnote to last week’s blog, is it a coincidence that it follows the US supreme court decision to advance gay marriage? May be it is, but as we continue to challenge His counsel, we will only add to the dysfunction of the planet’s systems that maintain life on our precious earth.