Murdering A Killer

Today is a very difficult day for me. The Bible tells us that all men are created in the image of God. Because of this we are to hold human life as sacred. So it is with great antipathy that I consider yesterday’s murder of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller. This was a man that boasted that he had “more experience in late abortion services with fetuses over 24 weeks than anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere, more than 60,000 since 1973.” Keep in mind that there have been premature babies born at this point in gestation and have lived. So the babies that were “unfortunate” enough to be born that early were actually more fortunate than those whose mothers visited George Tiller’s office. The man dealt in infanticide and his entire career had the stench of death about it. It’s what he was about in a brash, unapologetic way. He took pride in the children whose lives he snuffed out with impunity in regards to the law. Even those moral enough to call his practice into question have been vilified, such as former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, who lost a re-election bid over his pursuit of criminal charges against Tiller. I abhor everything George Tiller ever stood for and know that he now faces God with a laundry-list of vulgar, egregious sins to account for on his own. That being said…

Scott P. Roeder of Merriam, Kansas is believed to have a violent history and is also believed to have ties to extreme right-wing groups such as the anti-government group (the Freemen) that staged a three-month standoff with the FBI in Jordan, MT in 1995-1996. This man also, in a premeditated way, took the life of a man made in the image of God. Granted that image was marred almost beyond recognition, the image was there all the same. Scott Roeder will also answer to God for his sin, which differs from Tiller’s only in number. While, as a God-fearing Christian man, I can understand why Roeder may have committed this act, I roundly and vehemently condemn what he did.

Many have already begun to come against the Pro-Life and Christian communities, making such incendiary comments as Mike Hendricks’ of the Kansas City Star when he claimed that all who ever referred to Tiller’s clinic as a “murder mill” are accomplices in his slaying. This is the ignorant rhetoric of an ideologue who dogmatically holds to a particular view and vilifies the opposition without understanding the opposition. Yes, there are those types on both sides of this issue (and any issue) but that’s no excuse. Again, as a bible-believing Christian I am opposed to everything George Tiller stood for. But I am also opposed to Scott Roeder’s actions. In the Scriptures we see that all life is sacred. The only institution that is granted by God with the right to retribution for the taking of innocent life is the State. (Interestingly enough, this stand puts me at odds with many pro-life groups who also hold that capital punishment is wrong.) There is no provision for vigilantism in God’s holy word. When the State fails in its duty to protect innocent life through the taking of the killer’s life, that duty does not then fall upon the general public to mete out as they see fit. To take the life of even the most guilty of killers outside the authority of the government is as great a sin against God as that of the killer themselves. Those who favor abortion must take this into account before they start lobbing invectives against Christians and pro-life groups in general.

So, as I said, I consider the death of George Tiller as a tragedy but I am thankful for the innocent lived that are being saved by it. It’s these opposing emotions that pull at me today and I mourn for Tiller’s family and for his soul that stands before God in judgment. I also mourn for the damage done to the reputation of our Lord through people like Roeder. And that is the greater grief.

Sign of the Times

Wow...it's been a while since I've done this. But after reading this I had to comment. I got the link to this article from the daily Link List e-mailed out by the office of Dr. Albert Mohler:
In a Recession, Abortions Are Not a Bad Choice

I had a few questions to think about after reading this.

If a fetus is not a person then what is it? It has all the DNA of a human being, so it's not a dog, cat, horse or fish. So what is it then? Are we making decisions of "personhood" based upon subjective criteria that haven't been proven one way or the other? (i.e. self-consciousness, ability to feel pain, etc.) If so, then where do we draw the line down the road? If the child had already been born, what then? Would it be fine for them to have the baby killed? Maybe not if it's a year old, but what about a month? Two weeks? Two days? Since we have such limited knowledge, the safe, and ethical, way to go would be to give the "fetus" the benefit of the doubt and let it live. If Bonnie Erbe has a problem with these families being a burden on "the system" she can protest the ever-growing taxes the government is robbing her of to subsidize them.

I've written more on this in another article here.

Extended Hiatus

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I've had a bit of turmoil going on and so I've put the 'ol bloggaroo on hiatus until it all settles down. Feel free to e-mail me if you'd like to (j.viens@yahoo.com).

A Lion in the Zoo

As I was listening to R.C. Sproul speaking on the wrath of God he made a statement that brought an image to my mind. He was talking about the common loss of belief in the wrath of God and I thougth of a lion in a zoo.
People today have pretty well been innoculated to the idea of God's wrath just as they have been lulled into a sense of security with lions in a zoo. We are able to walk within just a few feet of one of the most dangerous animals on the planet. An animal that would be able to slay and devour even the greatest of men. Yet we have no fear because we know that there is some sort of protective barrier keeping us from being lunch as opposed to being a visitor. The problem with seeing God's wrath in this way is this: there is no real protective barrier. The only real barrier we have is the restraint of God, but we take our comfort in the imaginary barriers we put in place. We imagine that the lion has no claws or teeth, therefore he cannot harm us. We imagine that the lion is as tame as a housecat, therefore he has no will to harm us. Yet it is incredibly dangerous to see God in this way. Jonathan Edwards spoke to this in his sermon Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God:

The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the
string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow,
and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry
God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one
moment from being made drunk with your blood.

Does this sound like a God that doesn't exercise wrath? No thought of the imagination can eliminate this reality. The Scriptures themselves testify to the wrath of God. Just as a single example, Leviticus 10 shows us how Aarons sons, Nadab and Abihu, were consumed with fire from God when they attempted to worship God in a way other than the way He had prescribed. Let's not think that God is a tame little kitty that we can hold on our laps and pet. He is a fierce lion and He will be bringing a feeding frenzy of judgment one day. It would behoove us to remember this and not be so trite and flippant in the way we think of Him. As He stated to Aaron after his two sons were burnt up, "By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored."

Where's Mom?

There was a very disturbing and heartbreaking article on Washingtonpost.com yesterday. In Mom’s in the House, With Kids at Home, Lyndsy Layton tells the stories of several female members of congress who juggle political careers with being mothers of young children (defined in the article as those under 13 years old). The article begins with the following anecdote:

Before the sun rose over their Florida home, Debbie Wasserman Schultz pulled the thermometer from the mouth of her 8-year-old daughter, Rebecca, and checked the mercury: 103 degrees.
Stay home? Or go to work? It's a dilemma familiar to millions of working mothers. But her situation is complex: The job is 1,037 miles away, in Washington.
She got on the plane and flew to a New York fundraiser and then on to Washington for her workweek as a Democratic congresswoman. She knew her husband could handle Rebecca's fever.
Still, the guilt traveled with her. "It feels like someone's ripping my heart out," she said. "No matter how good your spouse is, kids want their mom when they're sick."

With the exception of the fact that the job is a thousand miles away, this same scene could be found in nearly any household across America. Throughout the nation mothers are leaving their children in order to go to work…to the detriment of the little ones they leave behind. Granted some mothers (particularly single moms) obviously must work to support their families; but many of the mothers in today’s workforce form the other half of dual-income households and work merely to attain a higher standard of living.

There are negative issues involved any time a mother works outside the home. One is the odd schedules that the children are typically subjected to. Ms. Layton tells of one congresswoman’s 5-year old daughter: “She attends preschool and a babysitter cares for her during the week….” She continues, stating that, “she often goes to sleep at midnight and eats just one huge meal a day, around 8 p.m.” What’s wrong with this picture? This is not a health lifestyle for a 5-year old child! Admittedly, most children with working moms do not have such extreme hours. Yet they still are awakened earlier than they should be in order to get to day-care on mom’s way to work. They eat at odd hours, according to mom’s schedule and many are too-well acquainted with the fast-food drive-up window. Then, in order to spend more time with mom, they are up later than they should be considering how early they have to get up the next day to start it all over again.

A second detrimental effect on these children is the loneliness. Children crave the love and affection of their mother. Not a babysitter, not a day-care worker and not a nanny. Even fathers cannot replace the kind of time kids need with their mothers. This point is well-made in the beginning of the article where Layton relates, “At Wasserman Schultz's home in Florida, Mondays can be the cruelest day. It's hard to watch her mother walk out the door, Rebecca said. "Sometimes, I regret that," the 8-year-old said quietly.” Nothing can replace a mother in the life of a child.

Lastly, children pick up on their place in their mother’s hierarchy of priorities. Again, there are some mothers that must work, but a child can tell when mom’s working just to “be more connected” with herself, or just so the family can have a bigger house, second (or third) car, or (worst of all) to be “more fulfilled.” All of these ideas are internalized by these young children and the interpretation they come up with is, “’I’m not as important as that new car, bigger house or next piece of legislation.”

Many times women say, “Let the father stay home with the kids, then!” But congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz said it best: "No matter how good your spouse is, kids want their mom when they're sick." And that's not the only time. Too bad, kid...mom's at work.

Dad isn't missing, he's been systematically excluded

There's a heartbreaking article in the Boston Globe today. In "Two Moms and No Dad -- For Now" Virginia A. Smith writes:

"When 10-year-old John was 3, he told me one morning as I was driving him to
preschool that not having a dad made him feel sad. He has said this on a number
of occasions over the past seven years. We do what we can to fill the gap. He's
very athletic, and we take him to play baseball, soccer, basketball, and ice
hockey, anywhere that men congregate to coach and cheer on their sons.
I have come to love the fathers of his teammates at the testosterone- soaked hockey rink who slap my son's helmet and say, "Way to go, John!" I love his first-grade teacher, who has become his unofficial Big Brother and who takes him to Red Sox and Celtics games, Northeastern hockey games, mini-golfing, and bowling. I love the father of one of my son's friends who takes him camping and teaches him to build rocket launchers. These men are godsends, but sometimes I wish we could have provided my son with a real live father."

This breaks my heart. You have a boy who wants a dad...who desperately needs a dad. But the selfishness of this woman has denied him that. I know this is going to sound harsh, but if women were meant to have babies without men, IVF would not be needed. Asexual reproduction would be possible in humans. Here we're seeing a glimpse of the damage done by the myth that children raised in homes with gay parents turn out o.k. They may seem normal and well-adjusted on the outside but all of the pain of what they're missing is internalized. They likely don't say anything for fear of hurting the parent but the pain is there nonetheless. She laments, "...sometimes I wish we could have provided my son with a real live father." Well, I tell you what, Ms. Smith...if you had thought of that before you decided to go off on your own and have a child in a decidedly unnatural way just to satisfy your own desires then all of this could have been avoided. But now you have to watch your son grow up wondering what it's like to have a "real live father." Congratulations. Good job. I'll pray for you and your son that God will work in your hearts and that this experience will help your son to see the harm done when children are denied a father (or a mother). I pray that God will draw your son to Himself and grant him salvation and that you, too, will be drawn to repent. I pray for your daughters that they don't grow up believing that "gay is o.k." I ask that God would grant them the wisdom to see how wrong any sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is wrong and that God would lead them to be pure, chaste, godly women who seek after him and that they would marry and that God would bless them with many children.

My heart aches for this woman and her family. I hurt for this little boy who has no father, as I hurt for any boy in that kind of situation (whether in gay households or single-parent homes). Lord help them.

Love and Marriage

There's a pretty good article by Christine B. Whelan on OpinionJournal.com about the idea of pre-marital counseling. In her article Ms. Whelan compares the "counseling" concept in the new movie License to Wed with the actual counseling that takes place in churches/synagogues/mosques today. She shows that while Hollywood shows pre-marital counseling as some inane series of tests and tasks a couple must perform to be considered worthy of marriage, genuine pre-marital counseling is designed to help the young couples with communication skills and encourages them to think through ideas such as finances and child-rearing.

The focus of the article is primarily on the church's role in being sure that these young couples have thought through the more serious topics they will face in marriage before they make the commitment; but there is another aspect that I believe is missing in much of the counseling today that must be addressed -- the theology of marriage.

The current divorce rates among "Christian" couples is a shameful blight on the church in America and I believe that the root cause is that people have separated theology from marriage. The Bible is replete with references to marriage and the message is consistent: Marriage is from God, it is holy and it is for life. When this is forgotten and marriage is seen as an invention of man, is less than holy and not a life-long commitment we end up with disposable relationships designed to suit our purposes rather than God's.

I will write more on this on a later post.