News Weakly - 6/8/19

For Kings and All the Ones in High Position
Last week President Trump made a surprise visit in the wake of the Virginia Beach mass shooting to McLean Bible Church. Watch Pastor David Platt put 1 Tim 2:1-2 into practice. You can also see what the pastor had to say about it. (It makes me wonder why he felt he needed to explain to his church that praying for people as Scripture commands shouldn't be an offense.) The subsequent criticism leveled against a pastor who from all appearances went against his own political leanings to obey the Word and pray is disheartening to me. Since when did praying for someone (especially in the thoroughly biblical and Bible-soaked way he did) become an endorsement of the one prayed for or an insult to those listening? "He shouldn't have let him on the platform" makes no sense unless the rule is that no one may be prayed for on the platform (which makes no sense). Are Christians losing their sense of why we're here? Because praying for the president is in the Bible and when obeying the Word is an offense to Christians, I have to wonder what's wrong with Christians.

He Who is not For me is Against Me
Democratic presidential candidate John Delaney told the California Democratic Party convention that he favored universal healthcare but thought that "Medicare-for-all" was the wrong way to achieve it. His fellow Democrats applauded the idea even if it wasn't their own. Oh, wait ... no. They booed, and the ever-lovin' AOC told him to "please sashay away." What kind of crack is that? (FYI, "sashay" is a typically female walk with exaggerated hip and shoulder movement. What is she saying to her fellow male Dem?) Delaney tweeted, "Intolerance to alternative points of view is not what the Democratic Party should be about." I'll refrain from further comment.

And You Want Me to Make Science My God
We've been told to avoid coffee or that one or two (at the most) cups a day is tolerable. Now they tell us that "up to 25 cups of coffee a day is safe for heart health." Okay, clear as mud.

Raise Worthy?
The Los Angeles Times reported, "Democrats shunned a White House veto threat and muscled legislation through the House on Tuesday that would bestow a chance for citizenship on an estimated 2 million-plus migrants, a bill that stands virtually no chance of enactment but lets them showcase their efforts on one of their highest-profile priorities." They went on to say, "The bill passed on a near party-line 237-187 vote as supporters in the House visitors' galleries roared, 'Yes we can!'" It won't actually get to the president's desk, of course, because it has to survive a visit to the Republican-held Senate and it's not getting past that. All this to say that the proposal to raise Congress's pay seems unwarranted, given that this Congress (like too many before it) seems to accomplish nearly nothing.

A Bridge Too Far?
I'm in favor of justice and I'm opposed to child sex crimes, but I'm just wondering. Is this a bit over the top? Alabama's state legislature passed a bill that would require anyone convicted of child sex crimes to undergo chemical castration. And, oh, by the way, they'd make the offender pay for it. Seems like "child sex crimes" is a broad term and "chemical castration" may not be appropriate in all cases. (For instance, is it only men who commit child sex crimes?)

Different Fundamentals
Tim Jones was found guilty in South Carolina this week of murdering his five children back in 2014. The jury ruled he was guilty and not mentally ill. He admitted to the crime of strangling four of them to "send them to heaven where they could be together." The thing about the story that offends me (apart from the fact that a father would kill his five children and think it was a good thing) is the description of him in the story as "a fanatical Christian fundamentalist." I would like to point out that killing one's family cannot be classified as Christian and for him to be a "fundamentalist" Christian would require a radically different set of fundamentals than, say, Christianity in general or the Bible in particular. You cannot characterize someone who violates multiple biblical commands as either "fundamentalist" or "Christian" and have those words actually mean anything. If a Muslim follows his Scriptures to the letter, he is a "fundamentalist" and would certainly need to do things like "kill the infidel." If a Christian follows his Scriptures to the letter, he, too, is a "fundamentalist," but those Scriptures require "love your neighbor" and "take up your cross," not "Kill your children."

Barks Like a Duck
"Twenty-three gay couples have held an unofficial mass wedding in Tel Aviv" to protest their country's definition of marriage. "'Struggle is not only about demonstrations and protests,' organisers said in a statement. 'It is also about loving the one we want, the way we want.'" That is, indeed, the point, isn't it? "We will define what we wish to define how we wish to define it -- 'gay,' 'marriage,' 'love,' etc. -- and predicate it solely on what we want." The statement went on to say, "To love is not against the law." True, as long as you don't define "love" as "murder" ... you know, like Tim Jones in the last story. Look, protest all you want in favor of love and marriage; just don't require that everyone redefine it to suit your tastes. Of course, this is a lost cause on my part, isn't it? The damage is already done. The "marriage" that barks like a duck is in some sense real in people's minds now.

Lead Us Not Into Mistranslation
Pope Francis figured it out when no one else could. Recently the pope approved a revision to the Lord's Prayer. Believers and unbelievers alike can probably quote that prayer, so we all know the line, "And lead us not into temptation." Well, Mr. Pope says that is wrong, wrong, wrong. It should read, "Do not let us fall into temptation." His thinking? The original implies that God can lead followers into temptation. Now, the text of Jesus's prayer isn't ambiguous and the translations for all of history have concurred, so I'm pretty sure Jesus is delighted that Francis came along to save His bacon. "It's Satan who leads us into temptation," the pope said back in 2017. Never mind James 1:14, I guess, or the fact that the term "temptation" in the New Testament can mean "enticement to evil" or a trial that tests us. Never mind that if God allows temptation He is still involved. And we certainly don't want to look at other Scriptures like when "a harmful spirit from the Lord" tormented Saul (1 Sam 16:13) or the prophet Micaiah told Ahab that "the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all your prophets" (1 Kings 22:23). When we revise Scripture because we don't like what it says, it used to be called "liberalism." Now it's Catholicism?

And You Will LIKE It
Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren wants your money. Oh, not personally. She wants you to pay for murder. Yep. She thinks it is the job of the federal government to use your money to pay for killing the most vulnerable human beings. This is the kind of leadership America needs. "We'll kill 'em all and we'll make you pay for it and you will like it!" Or else?

When they kill 3,000 babies a day on your dime, who won't they kill?

(By the way, 1 day after affirming his position that you shouldn't have to pay for mothers to murder their babies, Joe Biden threw taxpayers and children under the bus. Killing babies is "the healthcare women need.")

A Study in Contrast
A Massachusetts state trooper is a hero after rescuing a fawn from the highway. He took it from the left lane and returned it to the woods so it could reunite with its mother.

Spike Lee has called for Hollywood to withdraw all work in Georgia because Georgia supports children with a heartbeat. Lee called for Hollywood to "shut it down."

Save the baby deer; kill the baby humans. And isn't it ironic that Hollywood, long recognized for its "casting couch," it's "Harvey Weinstein" mentality, and it's "anything goes" morality has something to say about the morality of stopping the beating heart of a child?

In the meantime, Moloch says he may rethink his presence in Georgia if this anti-abortion bill goes into effect. Says so right here on the Internet.