Monday Morning Music Ministry

11-23-15

An ironic side-effect of the current wave of bombings and attacks against Christians by fringe-group Mohammedan jihadis is the revival of disputes between Christians. Not Moslems vs Christians; but Christians vs Christians.

On the airwaves, in churches, on street corners, over dinner tables, proponents range and rage. Put aside the ancient debates about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin: I would not be surprised if even those angels are arguing as they dance on the heads of pins.

What would Jesus do? Should we stop the flow of refugees? Are some of them “refujihadis”? Should persecuted Christians from the Middle East receive preference? Are we being bigots as we express wariness of Moslems? Do we invite slaughter on our doorsteps? Isn’t it about who we ARE as a people? What is wrong about wanting to preserve our inheritance and traditions? And so forth.

It seems certain that there is not one answer to each question. There might be no good answers. They might all have bad answers. Maybe the choices of the Christian West, speaking generically of our background and heritage, are Bad and Worse. Challenges that shift and morph are difficult to solve wisely. Enemies who declare their blood-lust hatred but refuse to expose themselves are complicated adversaries, surely.

Theoretical, even theological, responses, in the face of secular and Christian dissenters with whom we contend, are influenced by putting ourselves in the places of persecuted refugees (I hope none of us identifies with embedded terrorists)… or innocent potential victims.

There are many aphorisms in folk wisdom, which we all revere, that nevertheless contradict themselves. “He who hesitates is lost,” yes; but “Look before you leap.” Life lessons whose wisdom, sometimes, is difficult to discern. The Bible is no different – in fact it contains the pre-eminent life lessons.

Yet we have Jesus adjuring uncharitable listeners with the parable of the Good Samaritan… but told His disciples to tend to the Jewish “lost sheep” before the Samaritans. He tells us to “turn the other cheeks” but overturned money-changers’ tables and called people “fools, blind guides, hypocrites, murderers, brood of vipers, tombs with rotting corpses inside, hell’s offspring,” etc. Was Jesus inconsistent? No, God cannot lie, and Bible scholarship relies on scripture confirming scripture – contexts, cases, prayerfully perceiving God’s will.

So it is with “secular” issues… many of which, today, are not so secular after all.

In 1988 I took my family on a vacation to Europe, landing in Paris and proceeding through France to Germany. In 1988-89, the Eiffel Tower was painted a tan color that looked dull up-close, but at night, in floodlights, gave it a look of pure gold. It was for the 100th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 World’s Fair.

One evening we took a boat ride around Paris on the Seine, watched a fireworks display, then went up the Eiffel Tower to view the city, and for a late snack. It is not a one elevator-ride express, ground level to top: there are platforms with shops and restaurants. But we decided to go all the way to the top, and then walk down the iron-rail steps a level or two.

My daughter Emily, who was only five, suddenly froze in fear halfway down one of the stages. It was hard to get her to move… until we suggested that we all hold hands and walk down together. Some people joined us (including an Australian couple we met again on a tour bus in Germany a week later!).

At one point, Emily smiled and looked up and said, “If we all hold hands, we can do ANYTHING!”

That is true today as well. In Paris, certainly. And all over the world. And… in our own neighborhoods.

Before we can join hands with our enemies, even potential enemies, we must learn to join hands with one another. But does it seem, these days, that this is the more difficult challenge?

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Click: Jesus, Hold My Hand

9-29-14

One of the most familiar, and comforting, of Bible passages is the 23rd Psalm. Back when I was young, and prayer was still allowed in public schools, once a week a designated kid read from the Bible, before the Pledge of Allegiance, in home-room observances.

Not by written regulations of the School Board, or under legal threats from the Federal Government (why would it be any of their business?) but by a custom of courtesy, the readings were usually from the Psalms. Not always, but the presence of a few Jewish students prompted the circumspection. And as students were, relatively, free to choose the reading each week, the 23rd Psalm was about Number One on the hit parade. It is only six verses long, which perhaps is another reason why many students chose it.

But why not? It has universal appeal, offering promises to humanity; it is a spiritual palliative – soothing, encouraging, offering security.

I read it again recently. After reading and reciting it perhaps hundreds of times in my life, subsequent to the 6th grade, something struck me as new and challenging. There is one phrase among the promises and word-pictures that stands out. It is from God via the “Sweet Singer” David, so its authenticity is not suspect, but the verse is, at least superficially, of a different flavor.

In the Psalm we are assured that the Lord provides care and shelter as shepherds do; that He lovingly leads us, restores us, comforts us, protects us, anoints us, and so forth. He offers us green pastures, still waters, “paths of righteousness,” protection in life’s valleys, cups that overflow, goodness, mercy, and an eternal dwelling place.

Surely you remember the actual Psalm, especially after all these prompts: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

Have you, too, noticed the passage that is seemingly of a different flavor?

The world has changed much since my childhood days… and yours, too, even if you did not survive the Village School in Closter NJ, as I did. “God is dead,” as the Existentialists say because our culture rejects and dismisses Him. In the same way, Norman Rockwell is dead, relegated to the walls of the cultural Remnant.

We had “enemies” then, at the height of the Cold War. We were ready to survive those enemies by scrambling to the school’s basement and tucking our heads between our knees if nuclear bombs were to fall on the playground. Our society’s enemies now, today, include anonymous killers who want more than to overtake our courthouses. Our enemies want to torture and kill us; by their asservations, to be preceded by attacking peoples’ bedrock beliefs; and then committing heinous and despicable methods of murder. For Christians, it includes bondage, sometimes crucifixion, and beheading. For their fellow, but less enthusiastic, religionists, their promises and practices include bondage and mass executions leading to unmarked ditches. Except for those who are buried alive.

These descriptions are not the usual reports of propaganda (as I recall the dictum that “in every war, the first casualty is truth”). Our self-proclaimed “enemies” brag about these goals and acts, and post videos on the internet.

To return to the Psalm, of course the phrase that stands out is, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” Would it seem that consistent to the entire Psalm, David might have written, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my friends”? Every other promise and description is of peace, joy, happiness. Surely a picnic beside the still waters, near the Path of Righteousness, with our friends whose cups are running over, would fit into the picture.

But David, taking dictation from the Holy Spirit, knew what he was writing. Therefore, so should we.

We shall never be free from enemies. Just as we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death – that is, obliged to endure it occasionally, not switch on the GPS for detours – God is with us. He will protect. Moreover, we should not want to live in a daisy-world (sorry, Norman Rockwell) that is totally unrealistic. We have enemies, and God prepares tables before us in their presence. Why? To confront them, to witness for Truth, to boldly share our convictions, maybe persuade our enemies.

This does not mean to roll over, declaring that their belief systems are peaceful and merely have been perverted. That is moral cowardice. That will only prompt them to laugh louder. NO. God sets our placemats in the presence of our enemies to confront, not to compromise.

The real menu in this imaginary meal with our enemies is their hatred (however, we are determined to bring sweet desserts of love, making our boldness palatable). And – let us not fool ourselves – these enemies might kill us, but the One they really hate is Jesus Christ. One by one by one among us, the enemy hates us in direct proportion to the presence of Jesus in our hearts. Remember how Satan denigrated Job to God: he doesn’t love You, just Your blessings, Satan charged. Well, Satan hates us according to the amount of Christ that lives in our hearts.

For those cultural self-haters among us who abandon religious tenets and civilization’s traditions, supposing that enemies will be appeased… they are mistaken. They will not even be at the virtual table; they will be despised and eliminated with even less thought than enemies expend on attacking those with strong Christian faith.

God wants us to be in the presence of our enemies. That is, not to avoid, appease, or compromise with them. David did not, in his life. Neither did Jesus. We are to contend… to represent Christ. And we are promised to be equipped, comforted, anointed, blessed, and victorious. God prepares a table before us… right smack in the presence of our enemies. Are you hungry?

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

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A song about the everyday enemies of life, behind which is Satan, no less than the enemies on nightly news programs, is by Jami Smith:

Click: You Prepared a Table For Me

9-8-14

History knows two kinds of war, generally: those that are declared, with precise commencements, formalities, and peace treaties; and those that begin from a host of various grievances or jealousies, have hazy – usually multiple – flash-points, and drag on, and on, spreading misery and atrocities over civilian populations no less than enemy forces. Both sorts of war can change the course of history to equal degrees.

The United States – the West; the Christian church – is engaged in the second form of these wars. We are not anticipating it. We are IN it. And we have been for some time. That the “enemy” can be defined in several ways does not diminish the fact that there is one war. And it is not new, although our dim-witted realization, as if awakening from a dream, might be new.

I am writing of Islam, of course. It is instructive, even vital, that we review how we got here. “Past is prologue,” Shakespeare wrote.

The hideous barbarism of ISIS / ISIL is the latest. We should call it the Islamic State, as its leaders do, although our own “leaders” believe that would reveal us to be politically incorrect if we call them either Muslims or terrorists. (They are merely “extremists,” you see). We can go back to 9-11; to the various Palestinian terror groups, modeling themselves, by the way, after the Zionist terror groups before 1948. We can go back and back in history.

The history of Islam, or the Mohammedans, as the West used to call them, is as rich in politics and warfare as it is in theology. After the death of Mohammed, probably in 632, Muslim factions started warring, partly as a byproduct of factionalism, but also to spread their religion’s overall influence, expanding in an imperialist mode. Throughout the Levant, to Asia Minor, to north Africa. And to Europe.

Through formal invasions and persistent incursions, Muslims spread into Europe. It was a time after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Civic, military, and social systems had deteriorated, and Islam tried to fill the vacuum. The remnants of the Visigoth Empire were supplanted in modern-day Spain. Pockets in southern France were overrun. Strongholds of the old Byzantine Empire were no longer strong, and Mohammedan armies pushed them back.

For a millennium the Arabs and Islam continued squabbling over men’s minds and men’s land, while over the time also mastering various cultural advances in mathematics, science, poetry, astronomy, medicine, and art. But the doors of Europe and Christianity, whether to knock or kick down, were seldom far from the expansionists’ minds, either.

Around 700 and for roughly a half-century, a fierce battle over the survival and character of Christian Europe was fought on the Iberian peninsula and in southern France. The romanticized legend known as The Song of Roland, a landmark in Western literature, nevertheless tells the facts that Charles Martel, his son Pepin le Bref, and his son Charlemagne, combined through persistent bravery and bloody sacrifice to defend Western civilization.

Not only was militant Islam turned away from Europe, but Charlemagne, in present-day German lands, reestablished the Holy Roman Empire. Yet the inexorable “soft” invasions continued. After a siege on Constantinople roughly contemporaneous with the Battle of Saragossa in Spain, the Bulgarian Emperor Khan Tervel turned back vicious Moslem fighters and earned the title “Savior of Europe.”

Around 900, Moslems attacked the Italian peninsula. Rome was sacked, and an emirate was established in Sicily. Three centuries later a resurgent Mongol empire swept across Eurasia, defeating Moslem strongholds in their path, most notably as far south as in the Battle of Baghdad, 1258… but then its leaders, following the mighty Timur, converted to Islam. The effect was a victory for the consolidation and spread of a militant Islam, from Egypt through Syria to India.

Thereafter, the Islamic Ottoman Empire invaded Western Europe and colonized Greece, all of the Balkans, Romania, Bessarabia, and Hungary, and was stopped only at the outskirts of Vienna. In 1683 a brutal force of militant Islamic soldiers besieged Vienna, which literally, geographically, was a gateway to Europe. Only the fierce rescue by brave Polish, Austrian, and German Hapsburg troops led by the Polish king Jan Sobieski turned back the Muslim invaders.

The Ottoman Empire remained a diminished irritant to European Christianity, and was dispatched after World War I after it chose the wrong side – the defeated Central Powers – and was dismembered. Greece became independent, the British typically gained territories-by-peace-treaties, and Turkey became a constitutionally secular country in 1923.

With that – and buying off Islamic leaders with protected artificial statehoods (Iraq, Iran, Trans-Jordan, etc), trade favors, and other emoluments after both world wars – Western Europe thought that radical Islam was a thing of the past.

But as recent events have shown (including a quiet resurgence of a radically Islamic Turkey), the last century was just a breathing-period. The incessant 1500-year war of Islam against Christianity continues.

I do not apologize to readers for this brief history lesson. As George Santayana said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Shame on Americans for being generally ignorant about such vital matters. I will go further and wager that most Americans could not fill in the names of many Middle East countries on a blank map of the region. Nor assign the Sunni or Shi’ite loyalties of the players in the current crises, much less Alawite or Ba’athist roles in the conflicts.

(Neither can most Americans identify the role of British and American manipulation of events since the end of World War I, prompted by trade and oil and geopolitical interest, including doing others’ bidding; and usually bungled. But that is another essay.)

The fact – the hard fact – remains: we are engaged in a religious war. And that is very bad news, because America is hardly a religious nation any more.

We are, therefore, losing before we realize we are being attacked. Feeding our lack of conviction is the notion that to recognize Islam’s war on us is to be “unfair.” “Prejudiced.” The political and cultural leaders who feed these concepts are, simply, traitors to the nation, to our culture, and to our faith.

We should recognize them as traitors, and deal with them as traitors. And shame on the American public – traditional Christian patriots – for surrendering. Not just to notions of “Arab extremism” or “Islamic terror,” but surrendering to the traitors who soften or minds and wills.

The United States is a Christian nation, founded by Christians, dedicated to God by countless pilgrims and pioneers in the name of Christ. That does not means we hate or should exclude others, but it traditionally meant that we invited others to live at peace in a Christian nation. Christians like to say “Judeo-Christian” often so they will not be accused of wanting another “Holocaust,” but our values and traditions are Christian.

We are under attack. “We” are not only Americans – Islam does not care so much about our passports. It is not a question of their wanting more real estate.

Christianity is under attack. You can respond by softening your faith. By being “tolerant” of those who wish you dead and happy to help in the effort. Or you can join the historic ranks of forgotten heroes and martyrs like Charles Martel, Pepin le Bref, Charlemagne, Khan Tervel, and Jan Sobieski, willing to die if necessary for Western civilization and for Christianity.

The war, like it or not a real war, is being waged by Islam.

But the real enemy, admit it or not, is our own culture’s loss of faith.

We cannot pretend that — for the first time in history — this condition, a lost foundation of faith, will not be fatal to a culture. We cannot wish this away. We need backbones, not wishbones.

The first battle – or is it our last? – seems to be lost already. How many of us will enlist?

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We are not helpless or clueless if we choose to engage. We have the words of the Bible, and the example of Christ. There is the example of uncountable martyrs and warriors who loved the Word so much – who savored the sacrifices of those who have gone before; and who cherish the dream for the sake of their children – so we might be encouraged. For Christ’s sake, not just our own. An inspiring version of an old hymn of the church, and a rousing video message, by Michael Card.

Click: How Firm a Foundation