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

There will be a very large celebration this Sunday. One billion Christians around the world will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Chinese Christians will meet secretly and quietly thank God for His son. African Christians will dance in brightly colored costumes accompanied by loud drums, Catholics will observe elaborate Masses with great pageantry, South American Pentecostals will shout and speak in tongues, European Protestants will sing century’s old hymns, and American churches will re-enact Passion Plays and sing contemporary choruses about new life in Christ.

Though the celebrations will be very different in nature, they will all be celebrating the same event, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on an April Sunday morning about the year 30 A. D.

Christianity is the only religion in the world based solely upon a miraculous event. Many other religions contain stories of miracles; Muhammad is said to have been taken up into heaven from the temple mound in Jerusalem , Judaism speaks of the parting of the Red Sea and manna from heaven, and almost all tribal religious beliefs contain miraculous stories and belief in the supernatural.

But these religious systems would continue to stand if the miracles were removed because the heart of their teaching is a moral code and a worldview. Christianity contains a moral code and a worldview but they are secondary to the founding fact of our faith; Jesus Christ rose from the dead on His own power to prove He was the Son of God.

If the resurrection of Jesus Christ is ever proven untrue, Christianity will cease to exist.

The opponents of Christianity have understood this from the first morning the tomb was found empty. That began a 2000 year campaign to disprove the resurrection of Christ. The Pharisees bribed the Roman soldiers to say Jesus’ body was stolen while the soldiers slept (Matthew 28:11-15).

The succeeding centuries have produced numerous other theories claiming to refute the resurrection of Christ. There was the Swoon Theory that said Jesus only appeared dead but had really just fainted. The Theft Theory begun by the Pharisees actually remained popular among Jews in Palestine for several hundred years. Then there was the Hallucination Theory that said all of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances were hallucinations.

Perhaps most amusing of all was the Wrong Tomb Theory that postulated Mary Magdalene and the other women were so dingy they went to the wrong tomb on Sunday morning. A detailed explanation and refutation of each of these can be found in Josh McDowell’s classic book Evidence That Demands a Verdict.

In recent years, as America has become more secularized, we have developed a new holiday tradition. Each Christmas and Easter, the press publishes a new theory or discovery that claims to refute Christianity.

This year it came from James Cameron, the director of the movie Titanic. Cameron began appearing on the talk shows and cable news programs about a month before Easter claiming his new documentary entitled “The Lost Tomb of Christ” would “blow the lid off Christianity.” The documentary showed small caskets unearthed in Jerusalem a few years ago and claimed they belonged to Jesus and his family. The show aired last week and landed with a dull thud.

It was no coincidence that the resurrection of Christ occurred at the beginning of spring when trees and flowers are springing back to life. When the birds begin to sing and the baby calves are bouncing through the meadows, we Christians see God’s reminders of new life all around us.

I close with the traditional Russian Orthodox chant; “He is risen. He is risen indeed!”

We Christians have a love/hate relationship with politics. We love freedom but we hate compromise. We love having a voice in decisions but we hate wasting time fighting lost causes. We love representative government because it’s based upon the Biblical principle of the free will of man. We love limited government and the balance of powers because they are based upon the Biblical principle of man’s sin nature.

We love the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution because they are covenantal documents enacted by mostly Christian statesmen who understood our duty to God as citizens and as a nation.

We even love giving a voice to those who disagree with us. Unlike Islam, or some other world religions, Christianity teaches that each person has a God-given right to believe and advocate any idea, no matter how onerous.

But we Christians hate compromise because our value system is based upon eternal principles of right and wrong that never change. For example, when we compromise to allow some abortions, as opposed to no abortions, it tears at the very soul of our being. When we are forced to vote for a candidate whose beliefs line up with most, but not all, of our Biblical beliefs, it sometimes makes us feel dirty.

A recent editorial in Christianity Today magazine summed up our feelings. “We engage politically, not primarily because we want to form a voting bloc, but because we know that if we ignore politics, we imperil the well-being of millions of people.”

We believe some people are called by God to dedicate their lives to service in the political arena. The story of the great Christian reformer William Wilberforce is told in the new movie entitled, Amazing Grace. Wilberforce worked tirelessly in the House of Lords in England to outlaw slavery. It was a battle that he fought alone for many years.

Wilberforce was tempted to quit many times because he hated compromise and he hated playing the political games. But he did not quit because he knew that the lives and futures of millions of people hung in the balance. After 40 years of struggle, slavery was finally outlawed in all of the British Empire . The final victory took place just days before his death.

There have been many other Christians who have worked tirelessly in the political arena championing the cause of the unborn, civil rights, child labor laws, religious freedom, family values and many more. All of them faced fierce opposition. All were forced to accept small victories and incremental change when their passion and calling cried out for more. Like Wilberforce, most were accused of ulterior motives and personally attacked by unscrupulous political opponents. But they fought on.

Another reason Christians hate politics is because our votes are sometimes wooed by wolves in sheep’s clothing who pretend to know God, but when the political pressure comes, they acquiesce to special interest groups and lobbyists.

None of this is likely to change. There will be true Christians and false Christians running for political office. There will be true change, partial change and in many cases evil will triumph over good.

Our sincere thanks and gratitude goes out to the true Christians who stay in the battle.

“I like to gamble and I’m not going to quit.”  That statement could have come from any one of thousands who fill the casinos in our area every night.  In this case, it came from Charles Barkley, the former NBA star who has always insisted that athletes should not be looked up to as role models.

            Gambling has gone main stream in America.  Human nature being what it is, there have always been those willing to risk what they have on the chance of gaining more.  But in the past, gambling has been confined to smoke-filled back rooms.  Like prostitution and bootlegging, everyone knew it occurred but it wasn’t approved by society.

            Today 65% of American adults disagree with the statement “it is morally wrong to gamble.”  Among evangelical Christians, the figure is 43%.  Polls of this type were not conducted in decades past so we can only speculate what the results would have been if the same question were asked a hundred years ago. 

            I believe it’s a safe bet (pardon the pun) that many more Americans in the past believed gambling was morally wrong.  I base that assumption primarily upon my study of American history and American theology. 

            The most influential theologians of the 19th and 20th centuries decried gambling as a violation of God’s principles, but not for the reason one might think.  The venerable Charles Hodge wrote in his classic Systematic Theology that winning was the problem more than losing.  The triumphant gambler takes advantage “of the unwary or unskillful to deprive them of their property without compensation.” 

            The basic teaching against gambling was that it was actually stealing to take someone’s money or property without compensation.  The argument that the loser has voluntarily given up his property was countered by theologian R.L. Dabney “that his consent is one which he has no right to give, because it is prompted by an immoral motive, namely; the hope of plundering his rival (The Practical Philosophy).”

            In our modern secular society, theological arguments carry very little weight.  The best condemnations of gambling center upon the losers.  Every pastor in our area has dealt with the spouses and children of gamblers who suffer because of their losses.   While the casinos make millions, it’s the churches that help feed the children of the hapless losers.

            If we view gambling only from the pragmatic view of the victims, we are then required to balance the misery of the losers against the joy of the winners.  Since morality today is determined either by obvious effects of the activity or the will of the majority, we end up with most Americans thinking the good outweighs the bad so gambling must be acceptable.

            But it is not acceptable.  Gambling violates the command of God to each of us that we “look not only to [our] own interests, but also to the interests of others (Philippians 2:4).”  Gambling violates the Biblical principles of stewardship and property. 

            Is gambling here to stay?  Probably.  But morality is eternal.  It does not change with the political or economic winds of the day.

Laslo Tokes was a young pastor who defied the status quo. In Communist Romania pastors typically collaborated with the government and remained under the control of Nicolae Ceausescu, the Communist dictator.

Pastor Tokes was appointed to the pastorate of the dying Hungarian Reformed Church in 1987. The life of Christ immediately came back into the church as he preached boldly the message of Christ. Young people began coming to the church. Baptisms and catechism classes resumed as the church’s membership swelled to nearly 2000 in two years time.

Predictably, the Communist secret police moved in to stop this pastor as they had many others before him. They threatened the parishioners, beat the pastor, and murdered one of his close friends. The police stood in the church building during services wielding machine guns. But the church would not be intimidated.

Finally an order of removal was issued for Pastor Tokes. On December 15, 1989, he was to be forcibly removed from the church and his home which was a small apartment in the back of the church building. When he awoke that morning, the building was surrounded by the people of the church. They formed a human shield, preventing the moving van and the secret police from seizing their pastor and his wife.

Many others joined the crowd throughout the day. Christians from different denominations and ethnic groups gathered to protest the Communist government’s oppression. By nightfall, several thousand protestors surrounded the church building. Candles were lit and the crowd’s boldness grew.

For the first time in decades, they began to chant the words “Freedom, Liberty!” They sang patriotic songs that had been banned by the Communist dictator. The protest continued throughout the night and all of the next day. As night fell on December 16^th, the chant turned into rebellion as they shouted, “Down with Ceausescu! Down with Communism!”

On the morning of December 17^th, the secret police broke through the crowd by force. Pastor Tokes had taken refuge in the church sanctuary near the Communion Table. He had wrapped himself in his clerical robes and held a Bible as a shield. He and his wife were beaten and removed.

The protesters moved en mass to the town square. The crowd continued to grow and the shouts of freedom grew louder. Then the inevitable happened; Romanian soldiers opened fire with machine guns on the crowd. Hundreds were shot. They had known the price of freedom would be high.

But their candles and their faith had sparked a revolution. By Christmas, the evil dictator Ceausescu and his wife were dead and Romania was free. The following year, the seemingly monolithic Soviet Union collapsed as well.

Today, there is a small plaque on the side of the church building in Timiasoara. It reads, “Here began the revolution that felled a dictator.”

This newspaper opined last week that “Communism didn’t matter – economics and trade trumped everything.” I was sure I had misread the piece so I reread it several times. No mistake; “communism didn’t matter.”

  The editorial was entitled Repeating History and was drawing some parallels between the Vietnam War and the current war in Iraq. I’m going to give the editors the benefit of the doubt that they were speaking about Communism only in terms of how it affected us in the United States.

  When we look back upon the history of the 20th century, we see that communism mattered a great deal to many in the world. It mattered to the 6 million people of the Soviet Union who were starved to death by Josef Stalin. Communism mattered to the 3 million Chinese who were murdered under Mao Tse Tung’s so-called Agrarian Reform.

  And Communism certainly mattered to the 3 million Cambodians slaughtered under Pol Pot after we pulled out of Southeast Asia. All totaled Communists murdered 100 million people in the 20th century.

  Today Communism is trying a 21st century Extreme Makeover. Hugo Chavez was democratically elected in Venezuela and has been systematically socializing the country. He nationalized (that’s Commu-speak for stealing) Citgo Oil Company and is using its huge profits to buy favor.

  It’s working. Chavez was recently voted dictator of Venezuela and the country’s congress will not even bother to meet for the next two years. He is heavily courting Cuba with the obvious aim of setting up a puppet government after Castro dies. Chavez attempted to buy a seat on the Security Council of the United Nations last year and was only narrowly turned back.

  Meanwhile, the largest Communist nation in the world, China, has completely embraced capitalism and is rapidly becoming the world’s second Superpower alongside the United States. Last month China successfully tested a missile that blows up satellites in orbit. The possible uses of such a weapon are obvious but, of course, the Chinese promise they will never use this weapon for military purposes.

  In all of these countries, personal freedom and especially religious freedom is extremely limited. House church leaders in China are being jailed everyday. Venezuela is steadily increasing its pressure on Christians and most missionaries have already left the country. Cuba continues to be one of the world’s leaders in suppressing freedom of religion. One of my good friends just spent a week teaching Christian leaders in Cuba and was forced to stay indoors and out of sight to avoid detection.

  Communism is based upon a values system of atheism and collectivism. In other words, there is no God and all rich people should be murdered. So Communism matters very much.

  The Christian response to Communism has always been to proclaim the message of Christ to those who are bound by it. In the darkest of places, the light shines brightest. Alesandr Solzhenitsyn and Watchman Nee are examples of those who suffered for years in Communist prisons. Both emerged with a strong faith in Christ and a message of love for the world. And that certainly matters.

It was the eve of the Desert Storm invasion of 1991. My friend was a Navy SEAL who had seen plenty of combat, including losing several comrades in Panama the year before.

He and I were discussing President Bush’s announcement that we would liberate Kuwait from Iraq . I was hesitant about it because America had never fought a war against Muslims. I explained to my friend that religious fervor is the highest form of motivation. It causes people to fight with tenacity and believe in ultimate victory even in the face of certain defeat.

His response was simply, “Yes, but they are terrible soldiers. They aren’t disciplined or well trained and we will easily defeat them.”

Since that conversation years ago, our country has fought several wars against Muslims. We lost in Somalia , we probably ended in a draw in Croatia , we were blindsided on 9/11, we won in Afghanistan and we won in Iraq .

When I say we won in Iraq , I mean we toppled the government and occupied the country. That’s the traditional definition of winning a war. Of course, President Bush (the younger) is attempting to do much more. His goal is to set up a democracy in Iraq that he believes will serve as a model to the rest of the Middle East .

It won’t work. Our war against Muslim terrorism is a war that must be fought. The 20th century will be remembered in history as the war against communism, but the 21st century will be the war against radical Islam.

We can defeat them in battle. We can even defeat them using very limited warfare tactics. The problem is that defeating Muslims militarily only fuels their religious fervor to continue the war.

The president is also trying very hard to keep this war from being about religion. He has succeeded from our side of the Atlantic, but that will never work in the Middle East . We in the West can think in secular terms and easily separate things like politics and religion. In the East, those spheres of thought have never been separate and Islamic theology will not allow such thinking.

To Muslims, an attack or invasion by the United States is an attack by Christian infidels requiring all Muslims to respond with a Holy War.

On our side of the ocean we’re just trying to keep them from attacking us again on American soil. On their side of the ocean, Holy War has been declared and Allah demands they fight until all the infidels (that’s us) are dead or converted.

The war against Muslim terrorism will continue for decades. Any attempts to impose democracy in Muslim countries will fail because Islamic theology and eschatology won’t allow a form of government based upon the right of self-determination.

My Navy SEAL friend was right, they are terrible soldiers. But I was also right, they will keep fighting.

A noticeable change is coming to American politics this year; the Democrats are getting religion. Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and John Kerry have each hired religious outreach advisors.

Their mission, according to World Magazine, is to “convince white evangelical voters that a liberal agenda is consistent with the Bible and that the expressed Christian devotion of Democratic candidates is authentic.

The Democratic Party of the 19th and early 20th century was known as the party of the people. Its base was made up of mostly blue collar middle class voters who believed in God and country.

But during the cultural upheaval of the 1960s, secularists ascended to power in the Democratic Party and led it in that direction. The result was a national party platform that many Biblical Christians could not agree with. Support for abortion and homosexuality are the two most noticeable unbiblical stands taken by the party.

This does not mean that every member of the party agrees with the national party platform. Many solid Christians have continued to maintain membership while disagreeing with some of the platform stands taken by the national leadership.

In the past four decades, most of the public faces of the Democratic Party have touted separation of church and state and, in some cases, even been antagonistic toward Christianity. Since a significant part of their voter base seemed to resonate with that message, the party continued to move to the left politically.

So what has brought this new attitude toward faith? The most notable event was the 2004 election in which evangelical Christians voted in record numbers and mostly voted for George W. Bush. It was clear that church going Christians were the deciding factor in the election.

So after losing two presidential elections they thought they would win, Democratic strategists are apparently convinced they can, and will, win back a significant portion of the Christian vote.

Former missionary Burns Strider is Mrs. Clinton’s Director of Religious Outreach. Strider easily quotes scriptures such as Micah 6:8, “to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God,” as Biblical support for the liberal political agenda of the Democratic Party.

Burns grew up attending Sunday school in Mississippi. “My belief in the Democratic Party and my belief in the Lordship of Jesus Christ moved forward together on the same line,” he explains.

Each of the top three Democratic presidential candidates is a church member. Hillary Clinton is a lifetime member of the United Methodist Church. Barak Obama is an adult convert to Christianity after having been raised in a secular home. His conversion took place at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, known for its commitment to liberal theology and liberal politics.

John Kerry is a Roman Catholic. He defended his deviation from Church teachings during the 2004 campaign; particularly his support for abortion.

Expect all of the presidential candidates to speak openly of faith. It’s a very good sign. It’s not a sign that America is becoming more religious but it is a sign that Christians are doing more to connect their faith to their votes.

It will be our task as voters to judge the sincerity of each candidate, Republican or Democrat, and remember that God is not a member of either party.

Certain activities are universally unpopular, but none more so than condemning someone for their sin. If you want to become the object of ridicule and rejection, just try telling someone they are committing a sin.

John the Baptist did it and they cut his head off. Jesus did it and they crucified him.

Never has the exposition of sin been more unpopular than it is in modern America . Many people do not believe in sin. Many more believe sin is real, but that it’s relegated to the truly evil such as Hitler and Saddam Hussein.

To make our sin seem less sinful, our society has given it new names.

What the Bible calls adultery, we call an affair. What the Bible calls fornication, we call free love or youthful curiosity. Drunkenness has become a disease, homosexuality is no longer perversion but simply an alternate lifestyle. Covetousness is simply the American way of life. Lying is reframing the issue.

The irony of this is that we Americans are very religious. A recent Baylor University study found that 90% of us identify with a congregation, denomination, or religious group. Less than 5% of Americans consider themselves outside the Judeo-Christian tradition.

But nearly half of the babies born this year will be born out of wedlock. We no longer consider that sin. When was the last time you heard the word bastard? 20 million babies will be killed in the womb in our country this year. We call that choice. Pornography is destroying our families and our relationships and we call it entertainment. Gambling is addicting millions of our young people and we call it gaming.

Over 40% of Americans will attend a church service this month. We are religious but we are not holy.

The history of America is a history of revivals. When sin began to run rampant, God’s people prayed and cried out to Him for a sovereign move of the His Spirit. The result was repentance and change.

We’ve not seen a true revival in America in at least 50 years. Join me in praying for a true revival while I prepare myself to be unpopular.

“Who is my neighbor?” It’s a 2000 year old question asked of Jesus by a cynical man who was trying to defend his own selfishness. Jesus answered his question with the famous story of the Good Samaritan. After concluding the story, Jesus looked at the man and asked which of the three was a true neighbor to the injured stranger? “The one who showed mercy on him,” was the begrudging, but also accurate response.

Over the past week, we have witnessed many examples of neighbors helping neighbors. Most of the homes in our immediate area were without electricity for hours or days due to the ice storm. Many of us stayed with relatives or friends who had heat. I witnessed a great deal of concern among people for anyone who did not have power and might be suffering in the cold. I even had a person I barely know offer a spare bedroom to me and my family. The one who shows mercy is a true neighbor. Tragedies and crisis have a strange way of bringing out the best in us. The Bible teaches that we have a fleshly, selfish nature. But we are also created in the image of God and that benevolent God-side of our nature causes us to help others in need, give to charitable projects, and even travel to foreign countries to alleviate suffering.

Much of the time we deal with the selfish side of people’s nature. We are constantly on guard against being cheated in a business deal or becoming the victim of crime. So it’s refreshing and encouraging to see the good side of people shine on occasion.

There’s an interesting story from World War I that illustrates this dichotomy. The Germans and the British were entrenched for many months in fox holes fighting one another. The soldiers actually lived in the trenches only a few dozen yards from the enemy. On occasion, a soldier would stick his head up above ground level only to be shot at by the opposing army.

It was Christmas day. Both sides were ostensibly Christian countries and everyone was aware it was the Holy Day to celebrate the birth of Christ. One of the soldiers ventured out of the trench taking a chance that Christmas Day would be a day for a cease fire. Someone produced a soccer ball, probably confiscated from a nearby farm house, and the war weary soldiers began kicking it around. One by one, the soldiers of both sides emerged from their fox holes. A make-shift soccer field was laid out in the ground between the two enemy trenches. The British and German soldiers played a soccer game against each other on Christmas Day.

When darkness fell, they returned to their holes and the following day the fighting resumed as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But something extraordinary had happened. For a little while, the angelic side had triumphed over the fleshly side of their humanity.

As the power is restored and life returns to normal here in Oklahoma, it behooves us to acknowledge those who chose selflessness over selfishness. Perhaps we can even return to normal a little bit better for the experiences of the past week.

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.”

Grace happens around us everyday.  Most of the time it goes unnoticed; a student is allowed an extra day to turn in an assignment, a policeman lets a speeding motorist off with just a warning, a judge gives a criminal one more chance to change his ways.