We have posted three articles here concerning Todd Bentley and the Lakeland Outpouring.  I have added some comments and points of disagreement following this first statement by Dutch Sheets.

Pastor Steve

I disagree with a couple of specific things he wrote.  First, I watched the commissioning ceremony on June 23.  I did not, in any way, see it as an endorsement of Todd or his character, or even his ministry.  I saw it as these men and women publicly acknowledging that this was a legitimate move of God.  That’s what they said it was and I don’t believe it’s proper or correct to tell them it was something else.

Second, Dutch’s statement that the Lakeland Outpouring “has become possibly one of the greatest reproaches” on the Body of Christ is totally untrue.  I was there and he was not.  The intensity of the presence of the Lord was at times overwhelming.  The glory of God was almost tangible.  The miracles were real, as were the salvations.

The Lakeland Outpouring will eventually be viewed by church historians as sparking a nationwide move of the Lord.  In the long run this will be win/win.  A sovereign move of God was birthed and Todd’s problems will eventually lead to some better accountability and integrity which we certainly need.

God bless
Pastor Steve

Todd Bentley’s Personal Problems
I did not hear that Todd was going through a personal crisis until the day before our meeting with him here. When I saw him Wednesday night, he immediately wanted to share with me about his personal problems—especially about his recent separation from his wife. Todd did not share this in a way to try and justify himself, but he wanted me to know what was going on with him to give me an out if I did not think he should minister the next day. I greatly appreciated this.

I still do not know all of the details of his separation, but I did ask him if there had been any immorality on his part, or if he had affections for someone else that was causing this. He assured me that he had never committed adultery, and that there was no “other woman” that caused his separation. Some of his leaders who I talked to also confirmed that Todd had not been in any immoral relationship, though they were all grieving over Todd’s marital problems. < br>
The problems Todd and his wife have had getting along have been public knowledge for several years. I don’t know enough of the details to blame anyone, but I know Todd quite well, and being married to him has got to be like being hand-cuffed to a hurricane. Todd is so intense he makes Mike Bickle and Bob Weiner seem laid back. I think he is very much like the Apostle Peter. What makes him capable of such extraordinary faith also makes him prone to extraordinary blunders. Todd is an extreme manifestation of an emerging extreme generation. His wife may deserve to sit at the right hand of the Lord in the kingdom, and anyone who has worked with him should be up there close somewhere too.

Like it or not, that is often the nature of those who accomplish some of the greatest spiritual exploits—they also make some of the biggest bloopers. Hearing about these problems did not surprise me at all. Since I have now heard about more details, I’m still not shocked. These are problems, and they need to be fixed, which includes repenting and turning around, but if we want the victories and breakthroughs we all hope and pray for, they usually come through people with the same kind of nature. Right after Jesus gave Peter one of the greatest commendations in Scripture for the receiving the greatest of all revelations, that Jesus is the Christ, and then gave him the keys to the kingdom, He had to give Peter one of the greatest rebukes in Scripture by ca lling him Satan! (see Matthew 16:18-23)

However, the Lord did not take the keys back from Peter, even after he later denied the Lord, and even later in his life when the youngest apostle, Paul, had to publicly rebuke him (see Galatians 2:11-15). It seems that most of those who are given these keys to unlock the spiritual doors to the kingdom will also be prone to make major blunders. This type of person is simply not going to do anything small—they will have great victories, and when they have defeats, they will be great too.

When I was in Lakeland a few months ago, I was told that Todd had been making a real effort to patch things up and heal their relationship, but in June she had left and refused any contact. Todd has now lost hope that it will be worked out, especially now that she has made it clear that she will not even see him. Todd is obviously frustrated and just wants to resolve this situation that has been so hard for so long.

In marriage, I have learned there are those who admit they have been through times when they wondered if their marriage would make it, and then there are liars. Relationships are hard, and the closer they are, the harder they can be. I tell everyone that I give premarital counseling to that the Lord has ordained their marriage in order to kill both of them! That is true. It is also worth it! The greatest gift He gave to man was marriage and family. However, to have a marriage that is good,=2 0both will have to die to themselves. If either one does not make the commitment to lay down their life for their mate and their family, then what was meant to be heaven can be hell.

Family is the foundation of society, and the weaker the family is, the weaker that society will be. The weaker the families are in the church, the weaker the church will be. That is why the family life must be strong of those whom the church accepts as leaders, and there are clear biblical standards for them. If we start compromising the clear biblical standards for morality, integrity, and relationships, we will fall, and we will fail at all that the Lord has called us to. Compromising clear biblical standards can never be on the table—for anyone, regardless of how much power they walk in, how great they can preach, or how they can mobilize people.

We are also living in a society where about half of the people have now been divorced. Many more are refusing to get married because of the problems they have witnessed and the pain they suffered when their parents went through a divorce. The children are always the biggest victims of a divorce, and the meltdown in family is one of the great tragedies and great emergencies of our times. It is therefore understandable that some want to make a big deal out of Todd’s marital problems—it is a big deal.

So, should someone who is divorced be disqualified from ministry or from leadership in the church? How20can we disqualify someone from ministry or leadership for something that would disqualify God? In Jeremiah 3, we are told that God gave Israel a certificate of divorce. God is divorced. Nearly half the people in our churches have been divorced. A good many Christians now stay away from the church because they have suffered a divorce, and they feel condemned by the church for it. This is an issue that we need to address for the church, not just Todd.

When God got a divorce, was it His fault? Of course not! He was the most perfect Husband there could ever be, but He had a wayward wife that He finally gave up on. That is what happened, and if you do not believe me, go read it yourself. There is a limit to what even God will put up with and rightly so. There are things that justify divorce. Even so, I think it is because the Lord Himself went through a divorce that He hates divorce so much. Divorce is always a tragedy and usually even more for the children than for the parents.

I am not at all saying this to justify Todd or condemn him. At present, I still do not know enough about his situation to condemn or justify anyone. Unrighteous judges, who are often those who rush to judgment, are also condemned in Scripture. I am writing this to try to keep some from stumbling by jumping to conclusions. We have a brother, a sister, their children, and a ministry that is really hurting right now. I greatly appreciate Todd’s willingness to keep ministering and praying for the healing of those who are afflicted and hurting, but he, his family, and his ministry need much healing right now. One thing that would help them and the body of Christ, possibly more than anything else, is to see some real Christian charity expressed in this situation and some righteous judges stand up, which is the duty of true elders in the church.

It would be one of the great tragedies to the body of Christ in our times to lose a ministry like Todd has. He is called to start much more than the Lakeland Outpouring, and just as the Lord went around destroying the works of the enemy by healing the sick, casting out demons, and demonstrating the power of the kingdom, Todd is doing that. He is taking ground in real power ministry on a level that has not been seen in decades. To lose Todd, and to lose Fresh Fire Ministries, would be a major defeat for the body of Christ. We would survive, and we would still ultimately prevail, but the cost of this defeat would be great.

So what do we do? First, in all things we must keep in mind that “love never fails” (see I Corinthians 13:8). How would the Lord respond to this? How can we see this through His eyes? We already know because He showed us. In II Corinthians 5:14 Paul wrote, “For the love of Christ controls us.” How would we behave if Christ’s love was controlling us? When man kind fell, He did not criticize, gossip about us, or condemn us—He laid down His life for us.

The world will never believe our gospel of redemption and restoration until we learn to redeem and restore. Let’s take a worst case scenario here and say that Todd was guilty of terrible things and is the one at fault in the separation—what should our response be? We are told in Galatians 6:1:

Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted.

So, if anyone has been “caught in any trespass,” those who are “spiritual” must restore them. Those who are truly spiritual approach every situation with that goal—redemption and restoration. This is more than just forgiving them—it is getting them back to the place they were. The next verse says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

Already there is some gloating over this situation. Some are trying to use it to promote themselves. Every situation like this is a test for everyone. Some will pass and some will fail, and the nature of everyone will be=2 0exposed. Those who truly walk in the Spirit of Christ will be obvious. The Holy Spirit is the Helper, and those who truly walk by the Spirit will be trying to help, because they love Todd, his wife, the church, and most of all, the Lord who already laid down His life for them.

This is a real opportunity for the church to show some maturity and Christian love. This does not mean compromise, but it does mean addressing this situation in an almost opposite way that we have tended to do in the past. We will all reap what we sow, and if we want to reap grace, we must learn to sow grace every chance we get. If we want to receive mercy, we need to learn to sow mercy every chance we get. Here’s a good chance!

So what does this mean for the Lakeland Outpouring? I will address that in a bit more depth in the next Bulletin, but for now, it can continue and it can get even stronger. A well has been opened there that does not have to be shut again. However, it does depend on a lot of decisions made by the church there. We should be praying for them and asking how we can help them because they were used to release something very important to the worldwide body of Christ. Todd had already decided to turn the Lakeland meetings over to Stephen Strader and to only take a couple of other meetings over the next few months to rest and sort out his life.

What will be happening at MorningStar? I will address that in a bit more depth also, but we received a new commission on 8/8/08, and we are going higher, deeper, and further. We are close to the birth of something we were created for, that we believe will begin this fall, around September 21. We have been given that date like we were 8/8/08 and it is not a coincidence that this date is exactly six months after the Honoring the Father’s Conference we hosted with WhiteDove Ministries. Because of this, we moved our Harvest Conference to begin on September 18, and the Worship & Warfare Conference to begin on September 22, so September 21 will be the Sunday in-between. Come to either or both of these if you can, and you may be a part of history.

From: Doris M. Wagner
Subject: My Take on the Lakeland Happenings

C. PETER WAGNER - President  / DORIS M. WAGNER - Executive Vice President
CHUCK D. PIERCE - Harvest Watchman

A Message from Doris

My Take on the Lakeland Happenings

August 15, 2008
This past Tuesday, August 12, started out like any other tough travel day.  Peter was out of the house by 4 a.m. heading to the airport for a grueling 24 plus hour trip to San Francisco, Tokyo, and finally to Singapore where he would arrive midnight the next day after crossing the International Date Line. He called me from San Francisco with his usual cheerful:  “Hi, did you wake up?”  He hadn’t awakened me to say goodbye since I had major surgery on my foot on August 1 and it is sometimes tough to sleep well with the cast on my foot and lower leg.

Did I wake up?  Man, the computer was filled with correspondence about Todd Bentley’s announcement that he was separating from his wife.  This was not quite a complete surprise since late the evening before the rumor of marital strife had been dropped in our ears, but it was just a rumor.  Of course we had hoped it wasn’t true.   But there it was.

Since Peter doesn’t do his own email, I had to read the Lakeland Ledger newspaper article to him.  He then called Chuck Pierce, who immediately wrote the following letter to Peter and e-mailed it to me and wanted to fax it to Peter in the United Airline lounge in San Francisco where he had a little layover.  After some detective work (I couldn’t call him directly, his phone was busy and his battery was fading fast from overuse), I located him in the International Lounge and procured that fax number from the kind receptionist.  She found him and positioned him at the fax machine where this letter from Chuck arrived:

August 12, 2008

Dear Peter:

When I got up this morning and prayed about the move of God in Lakeland and Todd Bentley, this is what God showed me:  First of all, I felt a compassion to pray for Todd.  The anointing of this move has stirred up a hunger in the Body, and the scrutiny of Todd’s life has probably taken its toll on him.  So when I began to pray for Todd this morning (since I usually set aside Tuesdays to pray), I saw several things.  The Spirit of God is beginning to move greatly.  Also, I feel that your call to set some sort of apostolic authority in place was warranted because of potential problems moving into this move of God.  The order you set in place in Lakeland establishes a structure and boundary for Todd’s problems to be addressed.  Before that, there were no boundaries, and Lakeland had been going on for almost three months.

The thing we must remember is that God chose to use Todd to stir up the hunger in the Body of Christ.  Therefore, as I prayed, the Lord took me to the life of Samson.   He is a mystery.  He had a Nazarite vow on his life, yet he had many character flaws.  His character flaws did not stop God from using him.  I think this is the biggest misunderstanding that the Body has when it comes to the anointing.  That is why you see anointed men and women being used so mightily by the Lord, and then falling into sexual sin or monetary impropriety.

Because you have set an order for his life now, for the first time he has a shot at being fully accountable and breaking spiritual forces that could destroy his future.  What he needs to do now is submit to apostolic authority over the next nine months.  Ministry should not to be his goal.  Instead, the restoration of covenant alignments must occur in his life.   He and his wife might not be able to withstand the pressure of ministry together in the future, but during these nine months Todd’s choice would be to submit to the authority structure that God has established in his life publicly.  If he does that, he might have a ministry in the future.  If this had not been set in place, this would have been much more serious.  I’m sure others would say you should not have been involved at all.

Since Stephen Strader requested your help and he is in ICA, you did respond to his Macedonian call.  Yes, you would have looked like a hero if you had waited and gotten involved now.  But just as you wrote recently, you chose to establish the order first and then any spiritual discipline could be brought.  That makes you look like a father.

Again, Todd’s ministry allowed us all to see the hunger in the Body of Christ for miracles, healing and just a touch from God.  Todd had flaws going into the time in which God chose to initiate his call and had not dealt with some of his problems.  But God still chose to use him.  Not only did his ministry reveal this hunger, but many have gotten saved.  Now, hopefully, Todd will enter in the phase of being disciplined and establish his life in a new way so he can be qualified for use in the future.

Have a good flight to Asia.

Blessings, Chuck

To that, Peter added the following letter the “Lakeland Outpouring Apostolic Team”, Skyped it to our assistant and grabbed his plane for Tokyo and Singapore.

To:             Lakeland Outpouring Apostolic Team
From:         C. Peter Wagner
Date:          August 12, 2008
Subject:      Todd Bentley’s Character Crisis

Most of you would be aware that the Lakeland Ledger broke the news publicly that Todd and Shona have decided to terminate their marriage.  In Canada this requires a nine-month “separation” before official divorce proceedings can go into effect.  I am quite upset by this development, and I know you will be also.  I am now receiving a large amount of “I told you so!” email and I must say that my friends have a point.  This has taken the lid off of a number of related character accusations against Todd that are now coming in which I might have dismissed previously, but no longer can do so off hand.

Let’s take some time to process this.  Todd was officially, publicly aligned with the Revival Alliance, so the three of you should definitely make some kind of statement, probably sending it to Steve Strang.  Let’s not sweep this under the rug with a “touch not God’s anointed” as has been done with so many similar issues in our morally soft charismatic environment.

Meanwhile, I called Chuck Pierce for help, and he sent me the letter I am attaching with this.  Chuck has some very encouraging insights for us.

Blessings,
Peter

C. Peter Wagner
President, Global Harvest Ministries
Chancellor, Wagner Leadership Institute
719-262-9922

Then, during all of Tuesday, until after 1 a.m. Wednesday, all of my time was spent at the computer with e-mails and they all fell into two categories:  the PROS and the CONS, roughly pretty equally divided.   Wednesday and Thursday, all of my waking hours have been spent answering this type of mail.

The Cons are pretty nasty.  One even said:  “Let me be the first to say ‘I told you so.’”  These individuals asked Peter not to get involved in the “Lakeland Thing” from the onset.  Some of them are probably rejoicing over Todd’s problems.  Several are demanding a public apology from all who were on the platform on June 23rd, along with God TV.  Many are disrespectful, seemingly calling names and slinging mud.  They come across to me as jubilant in victory.  I question the godliness of this attitude.  Along the way we have lost friends who have ceased to trust us, pulled out of our organizations and separated from us.  That’s o.k.  They say we have been guilty of poor decisions and actions.

The Pros have seen things differently.   They have agreed with our actions.  Let me reflect a little on these actions as I see it.  If I seem defensive, forgive me.  Peter is such a kind and gentle person that he would never defend himself.  I am a deliverance minister, and can become abrasive when I see Religious Spirits, Pharisaical Spirits, Spirits of jealousy, envy and even hatred become exposed.  The fattest of all is the Accuser of the Brethren very much at work in the current situation.  Whenever Peter is falsely accused in print, he usually just smiles and says “Did they spell my name right?”  If things get really bad with false accusations, by a John Doe, he will serenely say “John Doe is not the enemy-we know who the enemy really is.”  This ability to handle the negative really bugs some folks and they dislike him even more.  Believe me, my pillow has been next to his for 58 years and I have seen this played out.  There doesn’t seem to be a wide neutral zone, either he is liked or disliked.  That’s just the way it is.

Peter is a man of the highest integrity. He’s a man of his word, as honest as the day is long.  He has kept his wedding vows-no need to renew them, the old ones are still perfectly good!  He has been total fun to live with and to raise our children together.  He has treated me as a colleague with great respect.  He is brilliant and godly. As we have been working on his memoirs, I have been amazed at what we have accomplished together, and we have worked side by side all of our married lives.  Of all women, I consider myself to be highly blessed.  Enough of that.

Peter did not jump into the “Lakeland Thing” lightly.  He thought about it, prayed about it and we talked it over.  Did “the outpouring” or Todd have some imperfections?  Absolutely.  Peter was asked to help out to set things in order and to investigate what some folks thought might be doctrinally “iffy.” He was asked to do this by Lakeland’s host, Stephen Strader, a colleague in the International Coalition of Apostles, which Peter leads.  It was a “Macedonian Call” for help.  That is Peter’s job.  Many of the Con people mentioned above thought Peter should have said no to this plea.   After serious thought, prayer and consultation, particularly with our most closely related prophet, Chuck Pierce, we decided to move forward.

We felt as though there was a legitimate anointing on Todd’s life.  We knew he was an imperfect person but our honest desire was to sort out and save the good.  The other charge against us is that we stupidly could not recognize that these miracles were being done under the power of a satanic spirit and that we were totally lacking in discernment.  My answer to that is, there probably was some of the flesh at work on some occasions, and people operating with a higher level of discernment may have picked up on some things we could not.  I seriously question whether a satanic spirit got away with all of the good. My conclusion is that it was mixed and we wanted to help sort out the good.  The Apostolic Team of 11 apostles which Peter put together is still in the process of sorting all of that out, and time is needed to do that.

The most serious charge against us is that the alignment meeting of June 23 was absolutely wrong (implying that at best we were misled, at worst committed a grave sin in so doing).  Our thought was to bring alignment to Todd, thereby gaining the right to speak into his life and ministry as he accepted the apostolic oversight of Che Ahn, Bill Johnson and John Arnott.  This was accomplished.  Please reread Peter’s paper sent out to our entire mailing list a few days ago.  Peter did not “ordain” Todd, as some journalists keep saying over and over wanting it to become truth.  He blessed him, yes!  Isn’t it strange that all the negative things surfaced so soon after alignment took place and Todd agreed to oversight?

I see all of this as God’s great mercy and love.  Lots of critics just plain don’t like Todd’s looks.  He’s tattooed and pierced and dresses down on the platform. I wouldn’t want my son to look like that, but to throw it all out at the cost of throwing out the anointing needs to be carefully considered.  But then the world didn’t think much of John the Baptist who probably wore smelly camel pelts and ate bugs.  Jesus had other thoughts about John, however.  As I work in the field of deliverance we start with what wants help and go from there.  To see some major transformation in a person’s life is a miracle often witnessed.  We work with some raunchy raw material at times and our only prerequisite is that they want to be helped.  It’s enough.  Man, indeed, looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.  Let’s look at hearts and the hand of God, and bless what He is blessing.

Todd is in a perfect spot for help.  The night of June 23 when we were there, Todd gave a long testimony.  He has been wounded, and has wounded others along the way.  He is still a young man, rescued from the streets and a biker society.  He is not highly schooled or terribly polished.  He does not fit the scholarly, seminary finishing school mold. He has not had the advantage of a solid steady home environment.   But then again God has this habit of not choosing the things that we would choose.  I could easily see that Todd needs deep inner healing and professional-level deliverance he has not yet had the opportunity to receive.  One of our critics said that we got it backwards and should have taken him into a back room and ministered to him before the ceremony.  We had the luxury of a few minutes with Todd before the evening meeting.  We had never met the man before.  Was I to say  “Hey, Todd, you’re a mess and need help in the next five minutes”?

The prescribed protocol is to put things in proper alignment first, then be in a position to speak into his life.  That opportunity is presenting itself now.  Todd now has the opportunity to address some character flaws and get them healed and corrected in order to carry the anointing God has given him.  We in deliverance and inner healing minister to these things daily-they are nothing to be ashamed of.  Not to deal with them out of pride or denial is where the shame can take hold.  I worked with dairy cows as a kid and picked up some of their lice once.  My mom told me as she treated my head with some smelly remedy “The shame is not in getting lice, the shame is in keeping them.”  I never had lice again!

Be assured that Todd’s overseers, Che, John and Bill along with Peter are hard at work.  Please give us some time.  Peter is in Singapore and goes on to Indonesia for a few days and will not be back until next week.  Che is ministering in Korea.  Bill and John have killer schedules all summer long.  We are working as best and as fast as we can, but there are constraints that slow us a little.  Things like thousands of miles and schedules that cannot be changed, and when it is day here it is night in Asia.

I am very optimistic.  I see a door of opportunity swung wide open.  I see a wonderful, merciful God reaching out.  What many are calling a rotten mess I see as a splendid chance for one of the church’s finest hours.  The mess was there festering for a while anyway, now let’s fix it.  Is Todd’s situation a strange thing?  The breakup of the family is one of the most common societal problems we face today.  How many other couples contemplating family breakup could be encouraged to get help if this is a successful rehabilitation?

Todd now has some fathers by his side to help in time of need and to avoid shipwreck if  he chooses to accept that help.  He now has some authority in his life, and parameters are comforting to kids.  He is deeply loved by many who are in a position to help spiritually, emotionally and mentally.  He is a place of protection he did not have the luxury of before June 23.

Let me close by asking and a few questions:

Might it be that there is a hunger for revival as never before in our country?  I think so.

Might it be that God wants to send us that revival and is anxious to do so but needs the right persons and proper government in His church to look after it? I think so.

Could it be that there was true anointing in an imperfect vessel and a merciful God wanted to set up circumstances to bring healing to Todd?  I think so.

Could it be that when one apostle asked another for help in separating truth from error in a situation of mixture, that error began to surface so quickly?  Isn’t the church better off when error is exposed and corrected?  I think so.

Could it be that God brought alignment, authority and order into the Lakeland situation and once that order was established Todd was in a safe place to be ministered to?  If a wounded soul gets help and is rehabilitated, isn’t that good?  Isn’t it wonderful to have a restoration process in place to help a brother back to useful service and full use of his gifts and anointing? If he decides not to be helped, we have done our job in making that help available, and his overseers have charge of his care.

Isn’t this what the church is supposed to look like?  I think so.  If we fail, at least we will have tried. Not to have tried would have been failure to do what God required of us at this point in time.

Now here is where you come in.  PLEASE PRAY.  Ask God to so minister to Todd to soften his heart and to reach out for help, and to be fully healed.  Ask God to help him to be willing to submit to the apostolic oversight that has been put in place.  Ask God to heal his marriage and protect and bless his wife and three children.

This episode has the potential of being one of the finest hours the church has seen in recent years.  I implore you to pray.  Because this has all been so public it is all of our business and we must act on our knees.  We have a real enemy capable of infiltrating the church to truncate this process.  Let’s fight for victory!

Sincerely, in Christ,

Doris

A Vietnam veteran told me some of the horrors of his service tour. One memory involved the children in Vietnam. My friend said it was common for young boys nine or ten years old to learn a few words of English and befriend the American soldiers.

He said those same boys might walk into the middle of a huddle of soldiers after gaining their trust and drop a grenade.

Using children as instruments of war is nothing new, especially for communists. During the Sandinista conflict in Nicaragua, the average age of soldiers was 14. Most were enlisted against their will, others fought to gain respect or just to get something to eat.

But there are very few stories in history of armies killing their own children. Presumably, armies fight to preserve the future of their civilization and children are that future.

On November 18, a group of American soldiers were handing out toys and sports equipment to children in a Baghdad neighborhood. Our troops have been doing this sort of thing for years in Iraq in an effort to show the children and adults that our intentions are to bless the Iraqi people, not harm them.

An Al Qaeda suicide bomber chose this event to detonate his explosive vest. He purposely killed Iraqi children (three died and seven were wounded). He also killed three American soldiers and himself.

A new line has been crossed. The Muslim holy war has been killing other Muslim adults in Iraq since the war began. These insurgents, as our military calls them, are mostly suicidal fighters from other countries; primarily Libya and Saudi Arabia. But the war has now expanded to include the murder of innocent children.

What will it take to convince Americans of the inherent evil of Islam? This religion is so horrid it now condones the sacrifice of its own children to advance a so called Holy War. Meanwhile, Muslims in America continue a successful campaign of propaganda to convince an eagerly naïve public that theirs is a “religion of peace.”

Here in Oklahoma, that PR campaign included the distribution of complimentary copies of the Koran to Oklahoma legislators. Many wisely refused to accept. Those legislators who now possess a shiny new copy of the Koran should turn to Book 8 verses 56-61 and read these chilling words: Surely, the worst of beasts in the sight of ALLAH are the disbelievers, who will not believe. So, if thou overcomest them in war, then thereby strike fear in those that are behind them, that they may be mindful. And make ready…whereby you may frighten the enemy of ALLAH,

The 20th century was the bloodiest century in the history of the world. Communists murdered well over 100 million people in Russia, China, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba and elsewhere. Even secular political prognosticators are now wakening to the reality of radical Islam.

What will the history books record of the 21st century? That largely depends on the will of the United States at the dawn of this century.

Pastor Steven G. Dyer

Something new is happening in Hollywood these days. For most of its nearly 100 years of existence, the movie capital of the world was dominated by a few large studios. The handful of executives who ran them had almost god-like control over the content of what the world watched in movies.

In the past four decades, those executives have presided over a steady decline in the moral content and message of the movies. There have been a few notable exceptions such as Chariots of Fire in 1982, but they were just that; exceptions.

But the past decade has seen the rise of independent films bursting into the mainstream. There have always been independent films, but they were rarely shown in theatres. Since there was little money to be made, very little money could be spent on making independent films.

But home video and now the internet have dramatically changed access to films and other forms of art produced outside the mainstream Hollywood studios. And theaters have discovered there is money to be made by showing independent films.

Some of them have been very low budget productions that produced huge profits such as The Blair Witch Project and Napoleon Dynamite. But the biggest independent film of them all was Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

Gibson is a Hollywood insider but he couldn’t get any of the major studios to invest in his dramatization of the last hours of Christ’s life. The Hollywood moguls either didn’t think it would make money or they didn’t like the message, maybe both.

Mel Gibson financed the movie from his own personal fortune and not only proved them wrong, but opened the door for many new independent film makers and directors to begin churning out stories with redemptive themes rather than destructive themes.

Even the major studios are now seeing that positive messages can make great movies. One of my personal favorites is Freedom Writers produced by Paramount Pictures. It’s based on the true story of a teacher in inner city Los Angeles. It’s not a Christian film in the sense that it preaches the gospel. In fact, the only mention of God is through curse words. But the theme of the movie is redemption. Young gang members who have no hope see that they really can break out of their destructive lifestyles.

This year, an investment company, The Stanford Financial Group, financed an independent film entitled The Ultimate Gift. It’s the story of a young “trust fund baby” whose wise grandfather teaches him the really true gifts in this life. Though the film did poorly at the box office, I loved it and it’s especially good for young people.

The newest independent film offering is Bella. Mpower Films uses a no name cast to tell a powerful pro-life story. The message is redemptive and highlights the value of life.

For most of the mid-twentieth century, believers did not consider a film “Christian” unless it contained a clear presentation of the gospel. The problem with that standard is that people don’t go to the movies to hear a sermon, they go to the movies to watch a story being told.

We Christians need to learn to look for redemption in the stories and use them as discussion starters with our friends to then tell them the ultimate story of redemption.

“Millions of Americans who in times of personal crisis and emotional and mental anguish once turned to priests, ministers, and rabbis for keys to the heavenly kingdom, now go to physicians and psychiatrists, who hold the keys to the kingdom of pharmaceutical relief, or to drug dealers and liquor stores as chemicals and alcohol replace the confessional as a source of solace and forgiveness.”

That’s a quote from Joseph Califano’s new book entitled High Society.  Have chemicals become the new religion for millions of Americans?  The numbers are truly staggering.  Americans make up only four percent of the world’s population but we consume two-thirds of the world’s illegal drugs.  We have 61 million chronic smokers, 16 million alcoholics, and every day 100 million Americans are popping anti-depressants, tranquilizers or painkillers.

There can hardly be a person in this country that has not been affected by addiction.  Every one of the millions of addicts and alcoholics has families and neighbors.  As a pastor, I have spent countless hours counseling and praying with people suffering from various types of addictions.

One of our biggest struggles as a church and as a society is to know whether we should deal with addicts as offenders or victims.  For the most part, our society has chosen to see them as victims.  We have told them alcoholism is a disease and therefore they can’t help themselves.  That resonates well with a person who already feels controlled by the urges of the addiction.  But victimization rarely produces freedom.  It typically produces more bondage which leads to increased guilt and helplessness.

Dealing with alcoholics and drug addicts as offenders makes a little more sense because addiction is the primary contributor to most criminal behavior.  Any corrections officer will acknowledge that most inmates are in prison because of drugs or alcohol.  Indeed, getting tough on drug pushers and manufacturers has produced severe overcrowding in our prisons.

The Bible actually describes the problem in totally spiritual terms.  God calls this behavior sin.  Specifically, the Bible says drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:10).  That sounds pretty harsh unless we look at it in light of the First Commandment which warns all of us not to have any other god before the true God.  When a person runs to a chemical for solace and comfort, it is idolatry.

From countless hours of counseling with addicts I have seen a few success stories.  They all follow this pattern.  First the addict admits he (or she) is a sinner and is totally controlled by his sin.  Next he asks Jesus Christ to come into his life and commits to serve Christ rather than self.  Finally, the addict submits himself to an accountability structure of other people who have permission to speak into his life.

Anything less than this kind of radical repentance and obedience ends in failure.  Chemical church doesn’t work.  The church that Jesus founded does work.

I never really thought about the impact Jerry Falwell had upon my life until he passed away recently. He was the kind of man you either loved or hated. His plain spoken manner and in-your-face style made him a lightening rod for controversy. I always suspected he liked it that way.

I came to faith in Christ in April 1979. Though I had been raised in church, it was not until my sophomore year in college that I truly encountered God and began to serve Him. One of my earliest memories of those days was listening to Jerry Falwell on The Old Time Gospel Hour.

His message resonated within me. He talked of patriotism and Christianity almost interchangeably. It was not until many years later that I realized how unusual it was for a member of the fundamentalist wing of our faith to be leading the charge into politics.

Everything Jerry Falwell said made sense to me in those early days. I watched as the Moral Majority was formed and saw it influence the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. That led directly to the presidential bid of Pat Robertson in 1988.

As it happened, that was the same year I moved to Virginia Beach to attend graduate school at Regent University , founded by Pat Robertson. At Regent, there was a bit of a love-hate relationship with Jerry Falwell and Liberty University .

We agreed politically on most issues and I recall at least one classmate who graduated from Liberty and came to Regent for post-graduate work. But Regent University was part of the charismatic arm of Christianity, thus Dr. Falwell and Dr. Robertson had to agree to disagree on some areas of theology. Jerry Falwell wasn’t very good at disagreeing agreeably, but it seemed things had improved in recent years.

The Moral Majority was officially disbanded in 1989 and replaced by Pat Robertson’s organization the Christian Coalition. As it happened, the state leaders of the Christian Coalition were the subject of my master’s thesis in 1992. During the course of the thesis research, I talked personally with several dozen of the leaders of that group. One of my discoveries from those interviews was that many of them had been involved with conservative Christian causes in the 1980s. By inference, they too had been influenced and led by Jerry Falwell.

Though I admire Dr. Falwell and agreed with most of his public stands on the issues, I found his rhetoric and some of his statements difficult to swallow. His very public battle with Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine was never a good thing. And when he accused the Teletubbies cartoon characters of promoting a gay agenda I wished he had just stayed in bed that day.

As I watched the cable news interviews the day of Dr. Falwell’s death, one theme emerged. Those who admired him and those who opposed him all saw him as a man of integrity. They said he fought for what he believed and was always honest.

That’s a great eulogy for all of us to strive toward.

Many would argue that an understanding of Christian doctrine has no place in a free democratic society.   But those who founded this nation would almost unanimously disagree.President John Adams stated very clearly that, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”

President George Washington said that, “religion and morality are indispensable supports” of our government.

We live in a culture that is becoming increasingly immoral.  But our form of government was designed to function only if the majority of the people have strong moral standards.  As immorality increases, freedom must decrease.  A people can only be as free as their common moral consensus allows them to maintain.

A recent example of this can be seen in the history of the Soviet Union .  The communist government conquered and controlled a variety of ethnic and religious groups such as Bosnia and Chechnya .  These people hated each other and wished to kill the other.  But the communist regime took away their weapons and their freedom so that they were not allowed to act upon the evil in their hearts.  After the fall of communism in Russia , these ethnic groups armed themselves and went to war.  The United Nations, and primarily the United States , then intervened and re-imposed control.  Since there is no moral base for civility, self-government is not possible.

If men do not choose to control their own evil desires, or ask God to help control them, then government is forced to eliminate freedom for the safety of the populace.

I taught political science at the college level for a number of years.  One of the lessons I used with my students was to find out what freedoms they would give up to obtain safety.  For example, if terrorists took a school building full of children hostage would you give up the right to vote in the next election in order to get your child back?  Of course you would.

Would you give up your freedom to work and live wherever you wish in order to get your child back?  Certainly.  Would you give up freedom of speech or freedom of assembly?  The answer to all of these is obviously yes.

The point of the lesson was that these freedoms are only available to a society that has a strong moral base.  If anarchy and lawlessness are commonplace, such as we are now seeing in Iraq , it is impossible to have a truly free society.

The ramifications of this truth for the United States are sobering.  Can we maintain the right to bear arms if the people who have guns can’t be trusted?  Can we maintain the right to privacy if large numbers of terrorists are using that freedom to plot mass murder?

As President Adams said, our freedoms only work when the people are a moral people.  Absent a widespread revival and return to God, these freedoms will have to be gradually curtailed in order to maintain public safety.

Tragedies such as the shooting at Virginia Tech are sobering.  There is something about the senselessness of the event that our minds cannot reconcile.Images of wounded teenagers and shocked, mourning relatives become engraved upon our consciousness.  Why?  How?  Could it have been prevented?  Is there someone to blame?  These are the questions that we struggle with.

Within hours of the shooting, gun control advocates were calling for stricter gun laws and gun owner lobbyists were proclaiming that gun laws don’t work.  Teachers were talking about the obvious emotional problems of the gunman and college officials were subjected to extreme public scrutiny for every decision they had made about security.

Many were reminded of September 11, 2001, the last time our nation was shocked by a mass killing.  Though this event is smaller in terms of lives lost, the emotions and fears can be very similar.

The root cause of the Virginia Tech tragedy was not lax security or gun control laws.  The Bible teaches us that all evil behavior is caused by man’s penchant for evil.  “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5).”

British author G.K. Chesterton noted that, in terms of empirical evidence, “the doctrine of original sin is the only one that can be proved.”  He continued in his classic work Orthodoxy that the hope of mankind lies in the fact that we have sinned but we can be forgiven.

But European and American societies have invented creative new ways to explain away the evidence of sin and evil.  The most common is modern psychology.   Psychology in its many forms can explain away even the most heinous events as a mental illness or disorder.

Norway is already treating all criminals as mentally ill.  The ramifications of this worldview upon our society are devastating.  No one is held truly responsible for their actions when this mis-belief is taken to its logical conclusion.

The shooter of the Virginia Tech massacre was known to be a dark and despondent individual.  No doubt he was depressed and suffered from severe mental and emotional anguish.  But does that excuse the act of murdering 33 people?  Are we going to re-evaluate history and declare Hitler and Genghis Khan innocent because they needed anti-depressants?

Admittedly, psychology has helped ease the suffering of many people and for that we are thankful.  But it cannot be allowed to explain away the obvious existence of sin and evil in our world.  The scripture is clear that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10).”

Next week this column will quote some of the statements of America ’s founding fathers.  They understood the importance of holding men accountable for their actions.

The Virginia Tech shooting was a horrible tragedy.  It was perpetrated by a young man filled with sin and bent to do evil.

Most of us have double standards in our lives.  We don’t try to be hypocrites, but life is so complex that it’s virtually impossible to be consistently right in every situation all the time.

As a country, America has many double standards.  One of those glaring inconsistencies has been in the news this week.  Radio shock jock Don Imus used racial epitaphs in a comedy routine.  The reaction to an older white man calling young black girls “hoes” was immediate and strong.  Good.  It’s past time that Americans stood up and said “enough!”

Mr. Imus has been suspended from his job for a couple of weeks.   If this were representative of a shift in cultural thinking it would indeed be a very bright day for our nation.  But the double standard screams at us through our radios and music channels because rap and hip hop artists have been saying these things and much worse for decades.

Why is it acceptable for young black men to degrade and insult young black women but totally unacceptable for older white men to say the same thing?  The answer is that it’s totally wrong for anyone to speak evil and degrading things of this nature.  If this controversy grows into a backlash against the shameful messages in rap music, it will be a great blessing to the young people of our culture.

But that probably won’t happen.  This will likely fade away with the next news cycle and our culture will go back to its steady downward spiral into amorality.

There are several biblical truths that come into play here.  Jesus said “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).  When words such as this come out of a person’s mouth, it is indicative of sin in the heart.   Racism is simply pride projected upon someone we feel superior to.  Pride was the original sin of Lucifer (Isaiah 14:13-14) and we humans have struggled with it ever since.

Jesus also told us we would give account in the Day of Judgment for every idle, or careless, word that we speak (Matthew 12:36).  On the one hand that gives me some comfort when I think of rap artists and shock jocks who seem to be able to demean and belittle others with impunity.  But on the other hand, it makes me tremble because I know that I am not without sin.

That last thought causes many Christians to keep silent about evil around us.  “Who am I to judge?” they say, “I have my own struggles to deal with.”  That sounds very noble but the result is a world with no moral voice to guide it.

It is possible to condemn sin, but do it in an attitude of humility.  It is equally possible to hate the sin but love the sinner; which means that we Christians should condemn what Don Imus and the rap artists say, but we should not condemn them as persons.  Ultimate judgment belongs only to God.

Yes, in some ways all of us are guilty of double standards.  But that does not relieve us of the responsibility of being salt and light in the world.  To paraphrase Jesus words, if we stop doing that, this world will be in even bigger trouble than it already is.

Pastor Steven G. Dyer

Historians have chronicled the rise and fall of great world empires. Large volumes have been written detailing the growth of great dominating powers such as Assyria, Rome , Spain and Great Britain .

The patterns of rise and fall are so similar that virtually every historian recognizes them and they have been documented by such notable names as Arnold Toynbee and John Glubb.

Not only are the characteristics of an empire documented, but the length of world domination also follows a predictable pattern. The ancient Assyrians dominated the world for about 250 years. The Persian Empire that conquered them lasted a little over 200 years; likewise the Greeks and then the Roman Republic . Even more recent world dominating powers such as Spain and Britain have enjoyed periods of power lasting about 250 years.

In the final stage of world domination, all of the empires of the past have experienced eerily similar attitudes. Dr. Glubb calls the final stage of empires the “Age of Decadence.” This final stage of world domination is characterized by a decline in morality. The population, as a whole, becomes very self-centered and pleasure driven. Materialism and frivolity are the words that describe their way of life. Religion declines and is replaced by a love of money and hedonistic pursuits.

Too much wealth for too long is the cause of this cultural deterioration. As a result, the great empire loses its will to fight. It became a great power by conquering land and people. But in the final stages of domination, the empire no longer fights to gain territory but only fights to defend itself. It has lost the will to make war.

It’s not that the great nation is unable to fight, indeed it has great military might. But the people and the leaders no longer want to go to war; they now consider it immoral.

The inevitable result is that the great empire is conquered by some upstart young country that has no such moral compunction. Assyria was conquered by Persia , Persia by Greece , Greece by Rome , Rome by the Barbarians and so forth.

There has never been a world empire that has deviated from this predictable pattern. It happens because human nature fights to achieve domination and pleasure and once this is gained, we will only fight to defend what we have. Eventually we won’t fight at all.

When President Carter reinstated draft registration in 1979, protest marches broke out on college campuses. One young man carried a sign with the slogan “nothing is worth dying for.” That’s the mantra of declining civilizations.

The one bright spot for Christians in these times is that there are many opportunities to love and serve. The light of selflessness and sacrifice shines very brightly in a dark time of self-centered decadence.

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn’t go to college. He never visited a big city. He never traveled more than two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself.

He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.

While He was dying, His executioners gambled for His garments, the only property He had on earth. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race.

All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one solitary life. – Anonymous

These few paragraphs have been repeated for many years and the author is unknown. I share them with you because they beautifully capture the simplicity and majesty of Christ.

There’s an interesting story told of an impoverished young girl who stared in a store window at a beautiful ceramic nativity scene. She looked at her own tattered clothing and thought of the dirty hovel in which she lived. In comparing her own life to the sanitized version of the baby Jesus, the young girl concluded that the Christ-child could not possibly identify with her.

We have cleaned up the story of Christ to make it more palatable to our modern sensibilities. But Christ’s coming to earth wasn’t clean. He was born to the poorest of families in the most deplorable of dirty places. God chose to send His Son into such filthy conditions to make a statement.

The message to the little girl looking in the window is the same to you and me. Salvation offered by Jesus Christ is available to all.

As we gather with our families this Christmas, we are celebrating the solitary life of the Son of God who came to “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

The battle between science and religion rages on. Two books by atheistic scientists are currently on the New York Times best seller list, “The God Delusion” by Oxford professor Richard Dawkins and “Letter to a Christian Nation” by Sam Harris.

Both books criticize the majority of us who believe in God and claim that atheism is the only reasonable position. The impetus for this new wave of anti-God books is the rising popularity of Intelligent Design.

Intelligent Design is a catch phrase title given to a rapidly growing body of scientific study that claims the universe is so complex it must have been designed by a Higher Being. Though Intelligent Design steadfastly refuses to identify this Being as the God of the Bible, atheists are nonetheless threatened and are fighting back.

TIME Magazine put it on the cover of the November 13, 2006 issue. TIME convened a debate between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins. Collins is Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. He headed a team of 2,400 scientists who succeeded in mapping the biochemical letters of our genetic blueprint, arguably the most significant scientific accomplishment of the past few decades. Collins is a Christian who maintains that science does not have to exclude God in its understanding of the universe.

Though the introduction to the article is slanted against faith, TIME deserves credit for bringing together two eminently qualified scientists for the debate. From the outset, both men agreed that religion and science cannot exist in totally separate realms. Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould had popularized the belief that religion and science can coexist because they occupy separate airtight boxes.

Collins called it an “artificial wall between the two worldviews that does not exist in my life.” Dawkins added that the idea was “purely a political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the scientific camp.”

It’s refreshing to me to see the destructive philosophy of separate spheres of life begin to be dismantled. Many Christians and non-Christians attempt to live their lives in neat little categories. This artificial separation then provides a compartmentalizing of life that results in hypocrisy.

Our lives at work, our lives at church, and our lives in the classroom are all parts of the reality of our existence. Science is not separate from faith any more than Saturday night at the bar is a separate reality from Sunday morning singing in the choir.

I use these particular examples because many have mistakenly thought that evolutionary teaching in the classroom has little or no effect upon how the average person lives. Abraham Lincoln correctly observed that the philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next generation.

I encourage you to read the entire debate between Dr. Dawkins and Dr. Collins. It can be found on the web at www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132,00.html.

The most interesting part to me was the discussion about the unknown questions of the universe. Dawkins admitted “There could be something incredibly grand and incomprehensible and beyond our present understanding.”

“That’s God,” Collins replied.

The recent snow storm forced many of us to slow down. Forced is the correct word for many in today’s fast paced society; we are busy, busy, busy.

This busy-ness frequently results in stress because we just can’t do everything we believe needs to be done. Stress seems to be a modern invention. The word is rarely found in writings from the past.

While I do not believe stress is a modern invention, I do believe it’s much more prevalent today because of our life styles in 21st century America . Stop and think a moment about life just 100 years ago. Most people did not have cars, electricity or telephones. Most Americans (about 80%) lived in rural areas and farmed or ranched for a living.

There were no radios, televisions, video games or internet. There were no organized sports leagues for children. There were very few club meetings, golf courses, dance recitals or quick trips to the store.

Our modern technological advances have greatly improved our quality of life. Most of us rarely have to suffer from extreme cold, extreme heat or hunger. It’s been so long since we were bored we’ve almost forgotten the meaning of the word.

Before technology allowed us to tame nature, snow storms brought everything to a complete halt. But today we have four-wheel drive vehicles and snow plows and large highway budgets all designed to keep everything moving.

Before technology allowed us to tame the dark, most everything slowed stopped when the sun went down. There were no headlights on great grandma’s buckboard.

In addition to technological advances, our society has steadily moved away from its Biblical roots. The Bible taught our ancestors to honor the Sabbath day. My grandfathers didn’t work on Sunday. Even those who did not worship God in church stopped and rested on Sunday.

Our Creator created us to live in seasons and rhythms. The Old Testament mandated five feasts for God’s people. They varied in length from three to ten days and everyone was required to stop working, rest, eat, visit with friends and worship God. In essence, they were holidays and vacations mandated by God.

But today our technology and our profit driven society has helped us to keep going when it’s dark. We can keep going when the weather is bad. We don’t have to stop for the Sabbath or the summer heat or any other reason but sheer exhaustion and mental breakdown. And when we refuse to slow down or rest, we have drugs to keep us going and make us feel better about our out-of-balance life.

We all appreciate technology, and we should. But we should not be a slave to it.

The answer to stress is to look to the Creator. God told us to take time to rest. He told us to take time pray and be with our families.

This Christmas season, why not set aside time to rest. Say “no” to some of the extraneous activities and “yes” to family, worship and God.

The Christmas shopping season begins today.  Millions are storming the malls trying to get a head start on Christmas shopping.  Or should I say Seasonal shopping?  Or am I supposed to say Holiday shopping?  Hanukah shopping?  Kwanzaa shopping?  Oh I’m so confused.

At least that’s how many people have felt in recent years as political correctness has attacked Christmas and virtually everything Christian.  The absurdity of this crusade to eliminate Christianity from public view can be seen a couple of recent examples.

School children in Texas were instructed to draw a tracing of their foot and then put a message on the drawing.  One little girl wrote “Jesus Loves Me” on hers.  The child’s teacher ripped the tracing off the bulletin board and told the crying student “Don’t ever do this again.”  The little girl got the message, Christianity is not allowed.

Another Texas teacher instructed her class not to write “Merry Christmas” on cards they were sending to soldiers in Iraq .  The reason, she said, was that it might offend the soldier.  (It’s extremely difficult for me to imagine that a soldier from a Christian nation who is being shot at daily by Muslims would find the words “Merry Christmas” offensive.)  This teacher even forbade her students from saying Merry Christmas to each other.

Both of these examples are found in John Gibson’s book “The War on Christmas.”  According to Gibson, people who treat Christian symbols with disdain are acting out a deep-seated hostility toward all things Christians.  They’re often offended by Christianity on an intellectual level.  They think it’s a crutch used by the less intelligent.

This very small, but vocal minority has been amazingly successful in their campaign against anything Christian in public.  However, it appears the pendulum may be swinging back in a more reasonable direction.

Many Christians have finally voiced their disdain for this unwarranted censorship of our faith.  As a result, several major retail chains have decided to put “Merry Christmas” signs back into their stores and advertising this year.

Last year I wrote that I had decided to be offended by stores that purposely leave Christ out of Christmas.  This year, I believe there will be fewer retailers tempted to do so.  So I’m going to go out of my way to patronize the businesses that put “Merry Christmas” signs in their windows and on their advertising circulars.  I’m also going to do my best to personally thank those merchants for keeping Christ in Christmas.

Join me, won’t you?

Mr. Story was my seventh grade history teacher. One thing he said still rings in my memory after all these years. “Socrates was a very wise man who told everyone what to do, so they killed him.”

Mr. Story was playing a little bit loose with the historical facts but it’s a timeless truth that most of us don’t take advice well. Young people in particular are known for resisting sound advice from their elders.

With that in mind, educator Charles Sykes has published a book, “Dumbing Down Our Kids,” giving some very sound advice to young people coming of age in the 21st century environment of fast food and MySpace. Most of his points can be linked to scripture but I will forego the editorializing and simply pass along his eleven rules for modern teens.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem.
The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school.
You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.
Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine
about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now.
They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how
cool you thought you were.
So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the
closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT.
In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer.
This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are
interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life.
In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

These words of advice were circulated on the internet and erroneously attributed to Microsoft founder Bill Gates; probably with the belief that Gates’ name would lend more credence to the words.

Since it didn’t work for Socrates, it probably wouldn’t have worked for Bill Gates either, but it’s still good advice.

We Christians have an uneasy relationship with Halloween. Most of us have fond memories of Trick or Treating as children. Then about 30 years ago, many pastors and parents began to back away from the observance of the holiday.

That reaction against Halloween came as Satanism and Wicca became more popular. Rock groups in the 70’s and 80’s began openly worshipping Satan and the demonic element of Halloween suddenly seemed too much for Christians to participate in.

This same period gave rise to Rock and Roll seminars as evangelists traveled from church to church playing records backwards and warning against the subliminal demonic messages in the songs. (By way of personal observation, contemporary rap music played forward is far more destructive than anything Zed Zeppelin ever produced backward or forward.)

For Christian parents, the retreat from Halloween was a Catch 22 guilt trip. If we allowed our children to Trick or Treat, we feared we were desensitizing them to evil ideas and entities. If we didn’t allow them to participate, we felt we were depriving them of fun that all of their friends were enjoying and they would thus develop a complex and rebel.

While most Christian parents are aware of their ambivalent guilt feelings, most are not aware of the true history of Halloween. Here’s a short version: The early days of Christianity saw thousands of believers martyred for their faith. They were thrown to the lions in the Roman Coliseum. They were burned at the stake, tortured, crucified, and even forced to freeze to death on frozen lakes.

In 610 A.D., the church designated a holiday to honor these brave Christians. It was called All Saints Day. All Saint’s Day was also called All Hallows Day. The night before was supposed to be a time of cleansing, prayer, and preparation for the holiday. All Hallows Eve eventually was pronounced Halloween.

Originally the day was May 13, but in the eighth century it was moved to November 1 to compete with a pagan ceremony of the Druids and Celts called Samhain. Samhain was the celebration of the dead.

In the succeeding 12 centuries, the holy and pagan roots of Halloween have been alternately emphasized. At times it seemed the pagans had taken it over, at other times, it seemed the church had stamped out the demonic element of the celebration.

My point is that Christians do not need to be the least bit apologetic about celebrating Halloween. Certainly we should refrain from dark costumes and symbols that celebrate the dead, but there are countless ways to make the holiday fun for children and adults alike.

One such example is Cornerstone Church ’s Hallelujah Party at the Grove Civic Center . For 15 years, Cornerstone has offered a safe and fun alternative for children of all ages. In fact, I took a group from our church this year to help just to say thanks to Pastor Bill Lay and all the folks who have worked so hard.

If you’d like more information on this topic, I recommend a Focus On The Family book entitled “Redeeming Halloween, Celebrating Without Selling Out.”

     She was in her early 20s, intelligent, attractive and Israeli.  As a student in my Western Civilization college course, she talked passionately of her homeland and her people.  

It was 1993 and I was teaching as an adjunct instructor at Tidewater Community College in Virginia.  Newly elected President Bill Clinton had just brokered a new peace accord between the Israelis and the Palestinians.  This young lady was very excited about the prospects of peace in Israel and very optimistic about peace in the future.

     I almost felt guilty injecting reality into her youthful optimism, but her world view was woefully incomplete.  My young student could see the “what” of war in the Middle East, but surprisingly, she did not understand the “why.”  Apparently she had been raised in a secular home and had only minimal understanding of the religious foundations of the land where she had grown up.

     The Middle East conflict is not just about land or power.  The root of the unrest has perhaps the deepest of all possible causes; God.  Both the Jews and the Arabs believe God gave the land in Israel (or Palestine depending upon which side you’re talking with) to them.  Thus, there are only two possible ways to bring peace to the region; either one side destroys the other permanently, or one side converts the other permanently.  Anything short of that will be a temporary peace at best.

I explained this to my student and suggested she go home and think about it.  The next class period she came back and acknowledged that was exactly what was driving the fighting.  She agreed with me that neither of these two outcomes is likely to happen soon, so the fighting will continue.

President Clinton’s peace agreement is now long forgotten along with others before and since.  Government leaders should continue to work for peace and cease fires and we pray they are successful.  But ultimately, the core issues remain.

     Most Americans don’t understand the core issues and therefore don’t understand why Jews and Arabs can’t just agree to live together peacefully.  Land, ancestors, and religion are perhaps the three most emotional issues we humans deal with.  Wrap them all up into two totally opposing values systems and you have modern day Israel and Palestine.

     In this most recent eruption of fighting, President Bush deserves some credit for not following in the footsteps of previous American presidents, (Republican and Democrat,) who blamed Israel for defending themselves when they were attacked. 

     As Christians, our sympathies lie with Israel.  God told Abraham that he would “bless those who bless you” (Genesis 12:3).  The Bible further admonishes us to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6).  Christianity is rooted in Judaism and the New Testament teaches us that Gentile Christians are the spiritual children of Abraham as Hebrews are the physical children of Abraham.

     That does not mean that Christians wish the death of the Palestinians or that we favor war.  It does mean we want our government to stand by Israel as we “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”  While we hope for temporary peace in the Middle East, Christians believe the land of Jesus will not experience permanent peace until Jesus returns to the land.

Every weekday morning, several thousand Cubans line up around the block in front of the U.S. Embassy office in Havana.  They are asking for permission to visit the United States.  Most go home disappointed.

            I’ve had the privilege of traveling to other countries on numerous occasions as part of my ministry work.  Everywhere I go, people want to come to America.  The simple freedoms that many of us take for granted everyday are not available in most of the world.

A controversial resolution asking Christian parents to remove their children from public schools was rejected by the Southern Baptist Convention last week.  Instead, the Baptists approved a more moderate stand urging Christians to “engage the direction of the public school system.”