Monday Morning Music Ministry

10-5-20

How many of our mothers tried to teach us about wise choices with that time-tested question: “I suppose if so-and-so jumped off a bridge, you would too?” Remember?

Well, either a lot of Americans don’t remember, or they are quite happy these days to follow every so-and-so and jump off bridges.

The bridge-jumpers are either self-destructive at heart, or somehow happily survive the dares and the leaps. The so-and-sos go beyond those who commit vandalism and rioting in the streets, even when as serious as arson and murder, heinous as those acts are. More consequential is the fact that these things have become normalized.

It is not so much the graffiti and burning of churches… but that few pastors and priests condemn the acts.

It is not so much the destruction of statues and looting of shops… but the fact that those acts go virtually unpunished.

It is not so much the occupation of police departments and hundreds of fires… but that officials excuse (and thereby encourage) such activities.

Since Antifa “is not an organization, but an idea,” according to a major presidential candidate, aspiring leaders virtually admit that there is no manner of countering anarchy, otherwise than gradual surrender. In the American civilization, this is not temporary insanity; it is a suicidal tendency.

Returning to our moms’ finger-wagging lecture – it was not a rhetorical question. Yes, the rioters jump off bridges. And, no matter how large or small a percentage they are of the population, America has started jumping off too. Many think they would not; but our society is doing so.

The secularized culture has not substituted new standards for traditional standards. It has substituted NO standards. The concept of standards – right and wrong; codes of conduct; Absolute Truth – is anathema. Unacceptable. Unfair. Fascistic. So we are told.

Seen in that light, the black-hooded army can operate as it pleases, and so can we… unless we object, or are harmed by, their operations. How can there be right or wrong, when you deny any value-system of standards… except by the imposition of their opinions? Lo and behold, we are face-to-face with the totalitarian impulse they claim to hate.

Very much like as in the French Revolution, when the bloodthirsty street-roaming rioters wanted to abolish even calendars and ways of telling time – not only killing middle-class people and gutting churches – the anarchists will be crushed between the really serious totalitarians from above, and the traditionalists and religious classes from below. That is in the future, surely. Sadly, but surely, to come.

The road to “No Standards” has been gradual, but the changing of opinions (once called Hypocrisy) in fact has been resolute. Views of abortion is one instance.

Respect for human life has been a mantra, as never before in political discourse, for several generations, beginning especially in the aftermath of World War II and the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights. It has been underpinning the work of many nations, many organizations, many activists. Or… it has been the window-dressing.

When abortion became a sub-set of convenience, and as Christianity and religion in general was scrubbed from society’s standard operating procedures, the relevance of someone’s conscience became something akin to arrogant bigotry.

Many societies throughout history have exercised child sacrifice and practiced infanticide. On the path to contemporary peoples’ destination of No Standards are road signs labeled “Convenience,” “Privacy,” and the new mantra, “Rights.”

Rights, of course, except for the baby. Many women (and, by the way, the legal system) regard as irrelevant the fact that men too can have anguish and bitter regrets over abortions. They have obligations when their babies are carried to term, but no role if their babies are murdered before birth.

“Murder” is a harsh term – but less so, for instance to those who currently are wishing that President Trump and his family die (a tsunami on Facebook); or that police must be murdered; or, in gated Hollywood mansions, where they make fortunes by producing movies and TV shows featuring unrelenting violence. So “murder” is a malleable term, too – another case of Standards melting into No Standards. Whatever is right for them is… right for them.

Life is tough. Women who want to recast their biological realities are rescued by a culture whose lack of standards offers them the drugs or forgiveness and acceptance. Suddenly the culture wants us to play football without rules, yard-markers, or goalposts. Like changing the definitions of test scores so idiots can feel like geniuses; or awarding sports trophies for every participant – life might be tough, but is being made easier.

In America 2020, however, easier is getting harder every day.

There is no escaping the fact that God wrote the Ten Commandments. Not the Ten Suggestions.

The platforms of political parties… the pronouncements of cable-news pundits… the preaching of liberal pastors and priests… mean Absolutely nothing to the God of the Universe.

God’s standards do not depend on our own standards, nor lack of them. And surely He does not wait upon our opinion of His standards.

And that truth, even more than riots in the streets and loony political platforms, will shake the foundations of this Republic.

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Click: I Don’t Want To Get Adjusted

9-28-20

I am old enough to remember when every morning, in public school, we would have Bible readings. They were rotated among students who were willing to read and lead; and most of the readings were Old Testament Psalms, in deference I suppose to the Jewish kids in class.

I am old enough to remember being confused and resentful about the prohibitions, when such things became illegal.

And I am not too old to still feel sad about the “enlightened progress” achieved by that “reform.” I was not too young to realize – because I asked them, actually – if the Jewish kids minded the readings, or the once-a-week recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. No, none of them did. I even had a classmate whose family was “artsy” and forthrightly atheist. Kyra never minded, nor appeared warped by hearing Psalms read; certainly she never spray-painted graffiti on the school, or set fires in the library.

But the war against prayers and the Bible were only the early signs of America’s suicidal tendencies. I knew, despite my youth, that some adults predicted that these impulses would lead to, some day, attempts to eliminate any form of religious expression; a generation of young people rejecting traditional values; the denigration, not only of religion, but of patriotism, “family values,” mutual respect, and civility.

Will those times ever come; will those prophets ever be able to say, “I told you so”?

Oh, wait…

From people “offended” by Christmas displays in front of town halls, to objections to saying “Merry Christmas” to strangers (by the way: So what?) to arrests of Christians, and firings from jobs, many dots are being connected in many ways along the slippery slope.

This summer, committees at the Democrat National Convention made a show of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and pausing… silent… where “under God” would have been spoken. Almost every evening, for months, we have seen people on the streets of American cities and towns burning and stomping on the flag.

I call the current situation the “Purge of Allegiance.”

Disloyalty to the American flag and our larger nation and Constitution might technically be legal – sometimes I too am sick of what this society has become – but I would be willing to suffer the approbation and consequences. The street scum today might be aware of Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death.” Their version is, “Give me a sandbox to soil.”

Renouncing allegiance to one’s country is a step away from having no allegiance to a religious faith or cultural traditions at all. While you are thinking about that, anarchists are leaping to agree. Next on the downward spiral: Having no standards means just that – no standards of right and wrong. Going back to Aristotle and heretics and Relativists of recent centuries, “What’s right for me is right,” period. Anarchy.

American churches, with some exceptions, have bought into this new way of thinking. It is not new, of course – lies as old as the Garden of Eden. We are smarter than God, you see.

The American political system is surrendering to these forces in a hundred large and small ways. Patrick Henry never said, “Give me licentiousness…”

The American culture not only welcomes these awful events, but encourages them and profits from them. An actual curse of capitalism.

Let us think about what the Obama Administration ridiculed only a dozen years ago, those of us who “cling” to our guns and Bibles. While we still can. And thinking, further, about that ragged old flag and the time-honored Pledge…

How close is America becoming, at its (new) core, something that we, too, regret and despise? God forbid.

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Click: Johnny Cash’s “Ragged Old Flag”

1-10-11

That we live in a “throwaway culture” is a cliché. Clichés usually become clichés because they are true. In the 1950s a big topic of discussion in America was  the business concept of Planned Obsolescence – the manufacture of things just shoddy enough so that consumers would get a Buzz from the Bling of the New, until those things fell apart. Next, advertisers helped convince people that replacing those obsolete things was better than fixing them.

The slippery slope was greased. The American culture has moved to Disposable Everything. From appliances needing repair to clothes that need mending, fixing is not just out of fashion, but practically disreputable. Near the bottom of the cultural slide, inevitably, are disposable marriages and disposable kids. Then, abortions, “mercy killings,” and, yes, government-sponsored “death-panel” counseling. Another manifestation is revolving theology – “moral relativism,” a pick-and-choose set of standards that represents Open-Mindedness; that is, minds so open that peoples’ brains fall out.

But some things are right anyway, true anyway, worth it… anyway.

A major denomination whose membership rolls have been shrinking in recent decades (coincident with its Disposable Theology, more and more and more liberal on doctrine) is running a TV commercial campaign, imploring people, “Visit us; you’ll like us.” I suppose they hold nice pot-luck dinners, but for a church to twist its message to be something people “like” to hear, is to bring Planned Obsolescence to religion. Jesus did not go the cross for telling people what they wanted to hear.

He was condemned to the cross because He said things people NEEDED to hear.

Dedicated Christians are swimming upstream these days – to state the situation mildly. We tell the old, old story… and are met by firestorms of opposition from the culture, from the entertainment world, from the music industry, from radio and TV, from Hollywood, from the mainstream media, from the courts, from politicians and bureaucrats… and, too often, from apostate churches.

How do we respond? If we hate compromise on every side, the first thing we should avoid doing is to… compromise.

This week, amateur divers found the wreckage of the USS Revenge. The ship, commanded by Oliver Hazard Perry, was lost in a storm 200 years ago off the coast of Providence. Two years later, in a naval victory on Lake Erie, he uttered the famous words, “We have met the enemy and they are ours!” The motto on his battle flag became, “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” still the U S Navy’s motto.

America needs citizens who say, “Don’t give up the ship,” and Christian Patriots must be in the front of the lines. It can be discouraging to lose battles and see our culture slip away – our heritage rudely transformed – but we must fight anyway.

Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love Him. — James 1:12

We might lose some battles, but we fight anyway. We might lose some goals, but we dream anyway. We might lose some allies, but we pray for them anyway. We might lose some denominations, but not the Word of God.

These things might be tough to put into practice, but they are essential to remember. That’s why stirring words and music, a good anthem, is needed today… and here is a nomination. Martina McBride’s classic song is a grassroots battle-hymn, perfect for this moment of crisis in our culture wars.

Click:  I Do It Anyway

Sometimes they get it right. After all the changes, in schools and stores, of Easter observance to Spring break, Christmas to “Winter,” Thanksgiving to “Harvest”; not to mention President’s Day, which blurs the commemoration of ANY president by declaring it for EVERY president… I think it’s appropriate that “Decoration Day” of my youth is now called “Memorial Day.”

And then we had Armistice Day. According to legend, the World War I (the “war to end all wars”) cease-fire was held up until 11:11 on 11-11 to suit President Wilson’s whim. True or not, and not knowing how many extra corpses piled up to hold the schedule, it is characteristic of Wilson. OK, Armistice Day is now Veteran’s Day. Here the wider net of a title IS more appropriate.

An article this week in Assist News Service reviewed a new book by Pastor John MacArthur in which he contends that English-language translators have long mistranslated the word in the New Testament for “slave” as “servant.” http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2010/s10110027.htm Perhaps translators were squeamish about the negative connotations of slavery, but if humans are described as slaves to sin, surely we can consider ourselves slaves to Christ. Just as surrender to God somehow brings victory, so can slavery to Christ bring freedom.

We need, then, to think of slavery in a new way, spiritually (and in its worldly aspects, too, because slavery still exists in many places). But we also can think of servanthood in a new way, too. Let us not forsake serving Christ, and let us remember that we serve Him by serving others.

Let us think this week, with Veteran’s Day coming, of “those who serve.”

No matter what any of us think of America’s two current wars, or any of the past wars, or any wars in general, it is the serviceman and servicewoman — think of the root word — who do the work that their countrymen are not able or not willing to do. Most servicemen do not hate the enemy: they might be taught to do so, but at most it is the leaders who define that policy. To me, the average serviceman (I am talking of any time, in any culture) does not primarily hate: he loves. The flag. The home soil. The way of life back home. This is a mighty picture of servanthood.

When they become veterans — that is, when they leave the military — it is the nation’s duty to serve THEM. The time, the sacrifices, the families left behind, the wounds and injuries… too often are all forgotten by an ungrateful nation. How many veterans feel that recognition of their service has been relegated to one holiday, in the minds of many?

Perhaps we should think of every day of the year as Veterans’ Day. Then maybe we can set one day apart for even more special thoughts — we could call November 11th “Servants’ Day.”

Here, again, a gospel song with special significance this week:

Click:  Gone Home

A bit of a personal story, prompted by the video to Click, below.

A number of years ago I was working on a book, a three-part biography of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis; evangelist Jimmy Swaggart; and country-music superstar Mickey Gilley, all first cousins to each other. A friend offered me his unused condo in Montgomery, Texas to get away for research and writing one summer. Since Lewis lived in Mississippi, Swaggart in Louisiana, and Gilley in nearby Pasadena TX, it made geographical sense.

Once settled, I took out the Yellow Pages to chart the location of Assembly of God churches for all the weeks ahead, intent on visiting as many as I could. East Texas was in every way new to me, and I wanted to experience everything I could.

Well, the first one I visited was in Cut and Shoot, Texas. That’s a town’s name; you can look it up. A small, white frame AG church was my first stop that summer… and I never visited another. For one thing — coincidence? — I learned that a member of the tiny congregation was the widow of a man who had pastored the AG church in Ferriday, Louisiana, the small town FOUR HOURS AWAY where, and when, those three cousins grew up in its pews. She knew them all, and their families, and had great stories. Beyond that, the pastor of the church in Cut and Shoot, Charles Wigley, had gone to Bible College with Jerry Lee Lewis and played in a band with him, until Jerry Lee got kicked out. Some more great stories.

But there was more than that kept me there for that summer. In that white-frame church and that tiny congregation, it was, um, obvious in three minutes that I was not from East Texas. Yet I was treated like family as if they had known me three decades. It was the Sunday before July 4th, and a fellow named Dave Gilbert asked me if I’d like to go to his farm for the Fourth where a bunch of people were just going to get together and “do some visitin’.”

On the Fourth I bought the biggest watermelon I could find as my contribution to the pot-luck. Well, there were dozens and dozens of folks. I couldn’t tell which was family and who were friends, because everybody acted like family. When folks from East Texas ask, “How are you?” they really mean it. There were several monstrous barbecue smokers with chimneys, all slow-cooking beef brisket. (Every region brags about its barbecue traditions, but I’ll still fight anyone who doesn’t claim low-heat, slow-smoked, no sauce, East-Texas BBQ the best) There was visitin,’ after all; there were delicious side dishes; there was softball and volleyball and kids dirt-biking; and breaks for sweet tea and spontaneous singing of patriotic songs.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is America.”

As the sun set, the same food came out again — smoked brisket galore; all the side dishes; and desserts of all sorts. Better than the first time. Then the Gilberts cleared the porch of their house. People brought instruments out of their cars and trucks. Folks tuned their guitars; some microphones and amps were set up; chairs and blankets dotted the lawn. Dave Gilbert and his brothers, I learned, sang gospel music semi-professionally in the area. Pastor Wigley, later in the summer, opened for Gold City Quartet at a local concert, playing gospel music on the saxophone. But everyone else sang, too; of course in some churches, in some parts of America, you’re just expected to sing solo every once in a while. You’re not expected to — you want to. So into the evening, as the sun went down and the moon came up over those farms and fields, everyone at that picnic sang, together or solo or in duets or quartets. Spontaneously, mostly. Far into the night, exuberantly with smiles, or heartfelt with tears, singing unto the Lord.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is Heaven.”

(By the way, not only am I not from East Texas, although it is sort like home now; but I was born in New York City, so you might appreciate just how different, and not merely special, that day was for me.)

Here is a video that very closely captures the music, and the feeling — the fellowship — of that evening. A wooden ranch house, a barbecue picnic just ended, a campfire, and singers spontaneously worshiping, joining in, clapping, and “taking choruses.” There were cameras at this Gaither get-together, but it took this city boy back to that Fourth of JU-lye, finding himself amongst a brand-new family, the greatest barbecue I ever tasted before or since… and the sweetest songs I know.

Click:  The Sweetest Song I Know