Every Birth is as Miraculous as the Virgin’s Birth

Every Birth is as Miraculous as the Virgin’s Birth

Since this is Christmas, and we’re focused on the miraculous birth of a baby over 2,000 years ago, a baby who would be the Savior of the world, I thought it an opportunity to broaden our focus on the one who made that birth possible. That would of course be the living God, all powerful, all knowing, all present. In all of biblical history there was no conception and birth like that of the young peasant girl Mary. Going back to Abraham and Sarah, there were several times when barren women beyond child-bearing years got pregnant, including Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, but they all got pregnant the old fashioned way. God being God, he was able to impregnate the virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, as we read about in Matthew and Luke. The old fashioned way, though, is every bit as miraculous, but we’re so conditioned by secular Western culture that we think women getting pregnant is somehow “natural.” There is nothing natural about it! (more…)

Notable Quotation

Notable Quotation

These medieval attitudes contrast sharply with our own. We have fewer plagues but more wars and of a far bloodier nature. Our approach is to hide death. It is another of our new secrets. There is absolutely no general conviction that death is something to be faced. Instead we place our quest for eternity on the material level. Life is devoted to working, preparing, saving, driving ourselves towards something undefined. The process of our movement through the system gives us the sense of being somehow here forever.

Since our age is technological, most people add to their material obsession a devotion to defeating disease. In the background lurks the idea of immortality. If five years can be added to a life, why not ten? And if ten, why not . . . ? The culture surrounding old age has been changed to the point where its vocabulary is filled with the promise of a new youth. Phrases such as “the golden age” have emerged to obscure the realities of physical decline. Charles de Gaulle, as always out of step with the conventions of his time, said old age was a shipwreck. Of course, the individual must attempt both to survive and to make use of survival. It is the obscuring of the inevitable process which is so new and so peculiar. Not only, it seems, should we not prepare our minds for termination, we should, as the moment approaches, create a whole new set of illusions in order to avoid the relevant thoughts.

—John Ralston Saul, Voltaire’s Bastards, p. 350

 

A Charlie Brown Christmas: Now More Than Ever!

A Charlie Brown Christmas: Now More Than Ever!

As is our family Christmas tradition, we watched yet again the wonderful Charlie Brown Christmas special that first aired in 1965, when I was all of five years old. I don’t remember that first one, but I’m sure I’ve watched it almost as many times as years I’ve been on this earth, and it never gets old, like me. What makes it so special, pun intended, is that in simple and profound ways it captures so well the pathos of human existence. Coming from the Greek for suffering or experience, and coined by Aristotle, the Peanuts gang are pure pathos, starting with Charlie Brown himself. His misery is hilarious, but hits home. Who hasn’t wanted to throw their own pity party when nothing seems to go our way, and nobody seems to care, and we know we shouldn’t feel that way amid the bright lights and joy of the season.

This is more of a challenge in this year of our Lord 2020, when hell has seemed to make a more obvious visit to earth than usual. I will spare the gory details, but we all know them, and all wish they were not as they are, but they are. Imagine, though, having to go through such a year without a hope that goes beyond this life. Imaging hurtling toward death as we all are . . . . and this is as good as it gets??? This is it??? We all know it’s not, but often live as if it is. Shame on us. Even back in 1965 when secularism was making its way to the pinnacle of the culture, but not quite there yet, the TV executives were pressuring Charles Schultz to pass on the now lionized Linus speech, What’s it all about. Thankfully, his Christian faith enabled him to him stand firm, and hundreds of millions, probably billions over the years, now know what Christmas is all about.

When All Doesn’t Mean All: Calvinism Gets it Right

When All Doesn’t Mean All: Calvinism Gets it Right

I recently wrote a post on I Timothy 2, where Paul says something that is a favorite proof text for Arminians, but they ignore the difficulty the text presents for their position. Reformed theology has been a critical part of attempting to build an enduring faith in our children, so I thought for the record I’d put my argument down here as well. I’m not sure I’ve addressed this passage directly with any of them, so I will enjoy sharing this to see if I’m as persuasive as I think I am. (more…)

A Good Reason to Read History: It Teaches Us Life is Short!

A Good Reason to Read History: It Teaches Us Life is Short!

Living in a culture that is so obnoxiously secular, it’s easy to fall into a trap that somehow the life we now live is eternal life, that we have forever, that this life is the life that matters. I know that sounds silly. You may respond that of course everyone knows they’re going to die. Maybe. For most of us, though, as Freud argued, our own deaths are inconceivable to us. We can’t fathom that we’re actually going to ever die. I imagine we’ll refuse to believe it until the bitter end, but the end will come no matter how hard we deny it. Yet, deny it we do. So being reminded that we will not in fact live forever, that the Grim Reaper will come for us too, is an important aspect of living the Christian life. Again you may say, we shouldn’t have to be reminded of the obvious, but we sinners are a stubborn lot, and lying to ourselves is our default nature. So what has history to do with this? (more…)