Monday Morning Music Ministry

10-8-18

There is a coming conflict in America, a war – a civil war – whose first battles are being waged already.

The contentious nomination, debate, and confirmation of a Supreme Court justice has merely accelerated the bellicosity. We are living through a rapid decline in society’s civility, which reminds us that most of history’s civil wars commence as “civility wars” – when factions no longer reasoned together, and have abandoned good will toward their enemies who yesterday were merely opponents.

Judge Kavanaugh’s victory will not change this devolving dissolution; nor would his Congressional defeat have interrupted the trajectory of toxicity. America is in a fateful vortex; no longer a slippery slope that so long was warned. The bizarre acceleration is stark when we recall that the nomination, hearings, and confirmation of another judge – of virtually identical background, resume, clerkship under the same Justice, service on the appellate bench, and judicial philosophy – encountered opposition, but was approved amid comparative calm. Eighteen months later, there were cries of apocalypse and unprecedented angst.

It is as if a bandage has been ripped from a festering, not a healing, wound.

I truly believe that a conflict is coming, and as I said, already here in many ways. This does not mean I welcome it; although I am increasingly convinced that difficulties must be endured and burdens borne, because if one “side” hates, our other side must love, or hate, and otherwise engage… but cannot ignore. Because in that hatred, the secularists hate not only us, but tradition, religion, the Constitution, the heritage of societal norms, the family unit, and nature’s apportionment of gender aspects.

This is not overstating the case, either as concerns fact or prediction. The French Revolutionaries were not content to behead members of royalty (then nobility, then clergy, then merchants, then the middle class) but introduced new calendars and clocks. No matter that their “bellyful” of “reforms” were short-lived, nor that history recorded that such revolutions turn on themselves as they collapse. And, by the way, in their deadly futility usually usher in reactionary counter-revolutions.

I am not an alarmist, except to the extent that alarms need to be sounded.

We cannot turn the clock back, even a couple of years. There will be no more civil debates in primaries or elections any more. There will be no more inaugurations or confirmation hearings without violent and obscene protests, complete with arrests. There will be no more debates, in town halls or national television, without gratuitous accusations whose bases in fact are now regarded as peripheral.

Democracy has failed. The Republican (dictionary meaning) form of government has been subsumed.

The coming conflict is a civil war more desperate than most. The War Between the States was largely geographic but today the divides are within towns, job sites, neighborhoods, classrooms, even families.

We can understand things a little better if we examine one issue that both characterizes the crisis, but also animates it. Let us call it the New Scarlet Letter.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s eponymous novel, the Scarlet Letter was “A” and stood for adultery. The book superficially was an indictment of Puritanism but was a metaphor for the nation’s hypocrisy, the sin of slavery in his day. Today there is a new “A” that fuels debate, challenges traditions, overturns norms, confronts conceptions of morality… and divides families. It, too, has enormous consequences, far-ranging implications. That “A” is Abortion.

Abortion has become the litmus test of candidates (now on the Left, no longer exclusively the Right); the bottom line of political activists; the symbol of the New World. I believe if Judge Kavanaugh adhered to ALL the views he advanced, but declared a commitment to abortion on demand, his confirmation would have been Springtime in Washington. “A” is the new password to the virtual future.

About the New “A,” it is interesting to me to read comments along the “personally opposed, but…” and “abortion is regrettable but government should not be involved” arguments… So I can imagine how these people might have responded at other times in history:

“I am personally opposed to slavery. But it is too well established… the slaves are better off than in their previous lives… they could not successfully thrive in society outside the slave system… it is not my job to interfere with their owners’ property…”

or

“I am personally opposed to discrimination against Jews… it is none of my business, however, if other people do… a lot of people believe that Jews are not actually humans on our level, and who am I to force my views on them… prejudice would not necessarily lead to discrimination; discrimination would not necessarily lead to violence; violence would not necessarily lead to arrests; arrests would not necessarily lead to deaths – that is not who we are… Jews want freedom? Well, I am free to do what I please, too…”

But right is always right, no matter the consequences or personal inconvenience to us. Slavery took a war to end (and it still is rampant in the world – which does not suggest that we be resigned to live with it, but that we maintain integrity and fight in new ways); abortion is not right merely because many people support it. I once supported it, to my everlasting shame. The new Scarlet Letter is not right or wrong based on a poll taken yesterday, today, or tomorrow.

Abortion is wrong because it kills babies.

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Click: Komm, süßer Tod

5-21-18

Some of you might remember that song title. I am dating myself (which actually is a useless pastime, dating yourself – you always wind up with half the food going cold and saying things you already know) but it was a movie from 1966.

It is hardly remembered today. It was the film that made a star out of Michael Caine, and the first movie to be “Suggested for mature audiences” by the Motion Picture Association of America, precursor to a PG rating. Its theme song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David was sung by Cher and flopped; a later release by Dionne Warwick was a hit. The movie was very “Sixties,” with Caine playing a wastrel and what that age called a womanizer – #MeToo alert – whose escapades and affairs led to broken relationships and abortions. In the end, Alfie is bitter and alone, very alone, and a swinging theme that trafficked in glamour ends sadly.

Ironically, the “naughty” and edgy movie presented a moral. Well, that was the 1960s. It was the “Me Generation,” in Tom Wolfe’s phrase, before MeToo… the social chickens coming home to roost… which provides us a moment for a detour to mourn the passing of Tom Wolfe last week. As famous as a celebrity for his foppish attire as he was significant as a 20th-century American author, he was able to infiltrate and dissect the fashionable limousine-liberal Establishment in a series of social-commentary essays and novels, as well as flag-waving Americana, for instance in The Right Stuff.

And little remembered is that Tom Wolfe also was a brilliant cartoonist and biting caricaturist.

To return to the ‘60s, as I was familiar as a teen with the movie of this essay’s title, What’s It All About, Alfie? As well as the tectonic shifts in society around all of us. From trivial things like bell bottoms to substantial factors like relationships, it’s hard not to notice major changes in society.

Or is it? The title song What’s It All About, Alfie? went through my mind recently when the unusual name Alfie popped up in the news. Do you remember it? In Mercyside, England, home of the Beatles, Alfie Evans, 23 months old, was dying of a mysterious nerve ailment. In brief, the hospital’s doctors judged that he was brain dead, and ordered life-support removed. Since Alfie responded to stimuli and opened his eyes, his parents objected. A glimmer of hope!

Lawsuits, appeal after appeal, went to the High Court, which also ordered that life-support should end. The parents approached the Vatican, and the pope made an appeal for mercy. The Italian government granted emergency citizenship to little Alfie, that he might be taken to Italy for treatment. The British government barred the boy’s travel and prohibited the parents from attempting any such measures.

In the end, the hospital and the government prevailed. Life-support was removed. Alfie lived another five days on his own, and died.

What’s it all about, Alfie? A generation ago, euthanasia was a taboo subject, yet people pushed the law and argued for mercy killing. Ten years ago, a vice-presidential candidate warned of governmental “Death Panels”… and was widely ridiculed by liberals. Yet – abortion itself aside – today we have the government preventing parents from exercising medical rights over their children; sanctioned killing of Down Syndrome children (at a 90 per cent rate); and death penalty verdicts for impaired children. No matter what the parents desire.

Yes, Alfie’s case was in England. But we take note because it made more news than most comparable horrors. It happens across Western Europe… and, more and more, in the United States.

The Founders had to prioritize their major priorities desired for the nation they built – LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But now unelected bureaucrats and unaccountable judges hold the power of life and death over their subjects. In a different flavor of significance, the Masterpiece Cakeshop case has been decided by the Supreme Court, and its decision – probably with a surfeit of concurrent opinions and dissents – will be handed down this summer.

That such a case was brought, much less having risen to the Supremes, is enough of a barometer for us to gauge the state of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness in the United States. You have heard of the case: a pair of homosexuals sought to have their “wedding” cake decorated in a certain way, and for their nuptials; and having found a Christian baker, Jack Phillips in Lakewood CO, who said “No thank you” on the basis of his religious beliefs, they and their backers filed suit.

Jack had maintained courtesy, and offered to sell any other cake and any other decoration; and he recommended other local bakers who might accommodate them. But their intention was to sue. After years of court appearances, decisions, appeals – and a business harmed; a family’s life rocked – Jack, and the world, are about to learn whether the Founders deliberated, and patriots lived and died, for the sake of cake decoration.

Of course it IS more important than that. Because the Left and Secularists have made it so. Freedom of action – that a shop owner can exercise his own standards. Freedom of speech – argued on both sides. Freedom of religion – can Jack, and therefore all of us, be coerced to act contrary to conscience? Artistic expression – must an artist, yes, a dedicated cake decorator, be told what he can design… or not? Civil rights – are the homosexuals harmed, as Blacks were under Jim Crow laws? Freedom of association – Rather a different level than public restrooms or seats on a bus or the right to attend neighborhood schools, can a court force people to fraternize, even via simple business transactions?

If the Court says that Jack Phillips must accede to antithetical messages being produced in his workplace… would it follow that a Jewish baker must fulfill a demand to decorate cakes with swastikas on Hitler’s birthday?

These ARE questions with significant import… and deeper implications. If the Court decides against Christians who want to act like Christians – fill in names and beliefs of anyone these days, except the politically correct and approved – it will let loose the Establishment’s fury against sermons (hate speech?), Bible studies (already proscribed in some San Diego neighborhoods), parental authority (expect more “divorce petitions” filed by children against parents, yes), more restrictions on prayer in public places… et cetera, au nauseum.

It is coming. It was predicted in the Bible. No surprise.

And it was forecast in a quirky film in the Crazy 1960s.

What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give?

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Click: God Of Our Fathers

10-24-16

Democrat Vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine grew up in Kansas City KS. Recently, that city’s Archbishop, Joseph F Naumann, described the senator as a “Cafeteria Catholic” for picking and choosing the Church doctrines he chose to respect.

Kaine, who has a rare lifetime Zero rating from the American Conservative Union – which I realize is not a religious organization – favors abortion, and voted for its legality, extension, and federal funding; among opposing other teachings of the Church.

There are Protestants who have conflicts, too – claiming belief in the God of the Bible, but denying large portions of the Bible of God. “Pick and choose Christianity” is a cancer in Protestant (and Evangelical and Pentecostal and mainstream and post-modern) churches too; a cancer that metastasizes rapidly.

Kaine, and others, predictably fall back on the crutch of Relativism and say, “I am personally opposed to abortion, but I will not impose my view on others.” You have heard such things. Maybe you have said such things.

Some Day, these nominal Christians will answer for their hypocrisy. Abortion, death penalty, whatever the issue, if you believe something… stand up for it. If, further, your opinion is informed by your faith – if you believe it involves God’s will – then I worry for your soul if you fail to share His truth in public.

“Whoever disowns Me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” That’s Jesus, quoted in Matthew 10:33.

Hey, politician – Hey, neighbor; Hey, person in the mirror – if you “personally oppose” abortion but tolerate it in society, how were people wrong to “personally oppose” slavery back in the day, but permit its practice? Slaves were private property, it was argued – who would you have been to interfere? Hey – what about the persecution and slaughter of Jews during World War II? It was argued that Jews were sub-human, after all; and how would have it affected you? Was it your business?

Since babies who are murdered up to hours before natural birth cannot speak for themselves, I will make their plea: Why are their lives less important than babies one day old? Or two years old and disabled? Or… why are their lives less important than your life?

The administration and party whose power Mr Kaine wants to perpetuate frequently has shown less compassion, and expended less political capital, on behalf of little victims of infanticide, and uncountable Christians martyred for their faith around the world, than toward trans-sexual persons who claim that landlords don’t like them; or sexual predators who demand free access to women’s restrooms in malls.

America, 2016.

Republicans are not off the spiritual hook. The Supreme Court that has written offensive rulings, and “discovered” rights that were not enumerated in the Constitution, have largely been Republican courts. Republican Congresses have been Big-Brother enablers since the 1930s. Conservatives, let’s admit it, have become mere foot-dragging liberals.

Speaking personally – c’mon, that’s what we all do – when Donald Trump, for all his many flaws, said that he is opposed to abortion; describes “late-term” abortions in graphic detail; and promises that any Supreme Court nomination he makes will be committed to overturn Roe vs Wade… that did it for me. No matter what other promise he makes or breaks; no matter what Hillary advocates and pledges… Trump deserves the vote of Christians and those who respect life (including descendents of slavery and holocausts).

Can we step back and realize that as few as four years ago, even most Republicans, conservatives, and “faith-based” candidates, refused to voice approval of Roe vs Wade being overturned? to dare to admit that they had a “litmus test” for judicial nominees? Mr Trump does. It is a political earthquake few have noted. In his Gettysburg speech, he further committed to positions — school choice, for instance — that conservatives and people of faith have wished for in living-room discussions and Republican “leaders” have failed to commit.

To those many people of faith, so-called, who lament our spiritual crisis, and the moral swamp wherein we slog: I am often among you, and hear many prayers for God to “bring revival to this land.”

I am not optimistic about a response that you people pray for. God could send revival; He is sovereign. Of course. But just as He did not send ten thousand angels to pluck Jesus from the cross… so He will not cause the Supreme Court building to spontaneously combust; or The New York Times building to float into the Hudson River and sink.

True revival comes less from God, and more from the hearts of His people.

And, when it comes, things are directed to Him, and not to rulers or candidates or politicians.

Everything else – everything – will fall into place when we seek revival as a people. Be not deceived, God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7). Do you believe God wants a relationship with a people who snap their fingers so He can clean up their holy mess?

Until and unless true revival comes, we deserve the mess we have created. I will support any candidate who commits to core biblical principles (apart from generic “caring” and compassion” as even the heathen do), and who is forthright about it.

We have sunk so low in America that I actually am grateful to have spiritual straws to grasp.

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Click this Johnny Cash performance: Help Me, Lord

6-23-14

We approach the Fourth of July again. I am going to suggest we save a little time apart from our backyard barbecues, or town parades if your town still holds them. In addition to ketchup and mustard, add some of these patriotic condiments to your picnic fare; in addition to cheering the flag or the Boy Scout troop in the parade, cheer some of these quotations.

In fact, in addition to prayers, or the Pledge, at your gatherings – even if your family does not already exercise those traditions — draw together and exchange the quotations by our distinguished “guest bloggers” here. (And they are verified quotations, not those manufactured by well-intentioned patriots or challenged by Snopes and Urban Legend watchdogs.)

Long ago, a Frenchman visited the United States, toured the great cities and smallest towns, and came away astonished. Alexis deToqueville reportedly said, “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Our president has denigrated the term of current popularity, “American Exceptionalism.” He has said that he is sure every nation thinks of itself as exceptional. We can worry that his complete misunderstanding of that term reflects his complete misunderstanding of America. Americans are not exceptional by virtue of birth certificates or driver licenses. American farmers or American firefighters are not different, or “more exceptional,” than human beings anywhere doing their jobs honorably. Heroes are heroes. And American villains can be as villainous than any others.

“American Exceptionalism” refers to the American system. What “is” the USA? The first of nations, not to declare independence, but to enshrine Liberty. To acknowledge God in the foundational documents of its Declaration and Constitution. To be a nation of laws, not men. To be a Republic, not a Democracy: elevating individualism, under law, over institutions and governmental whims. To respect religion, and religious freedom, as vital components of our American system. In revolutionary fashion – yes, the first; exceptional in world history – to protect minority rights but guard against majority tyranny.

Here, our guest bloggers may remind Americans of things we might have forgotten, God forbid.

“The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” George Washington, first Inaugural Address.

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens.” George Washington, Farewell Speech, 1796.

“I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning.” Benjamin Franklin, 1787, Constitutional Convention.

“I’ve lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this Truth — That God governs in the Affairs of Men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that except the Lord build the House they labor in vain who build it. I firmly believe this…” Benjamin Franklin.

“Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” John Adams.

“I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me.” Alexander Hamilton.

“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” John Jay, Constitutional framer, First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

“[The Bible] is the rock on which our Republic rests.” Andrew Jackson.

“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon.” Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation Declaring the National Day of Fasting.

“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” Abraham Lincoln.

“Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.” United State Supreme Court, 1892.

“Ever throughout the ages, at all times and among all peoples, prosperity has been fraught with danger, and it behooves us to beseech the Giver of all things that we may not fall into love of ease and luxury; that we may not lose our sense of moral responsibility; that we may not forget our duty to God, and to our neighbor.… We are not threatened by foes from without. The foes from whom we should pray to be delivered are our own passions, appetites, and follies; and against these there is always need that we should war.” Theodore Roosevelt.

“Can we resolve to reach, learn and try to heed the greatest message ever written, God’s Word, and the Holy Bible? Inside its pages lie all the answers to all the problems that man has ever known.” Ronald Reagan

These are exceptional credos. It would be an exceptional disaster if a free people would forget such an inheritance. Happy Fourth. GO forth.

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Many songs, many hymns, many patriotic airs could be the background music for this essay. “Faith of Our Fathers,” “Battle Hymn of the REPUBLIC,” many would be appropriate. But since I have quoted aphorisms of the past, I offer you a recent song about America a different-yet-similar rallying cry. “America First” by the poet of the common man, Merle Haggard.

Click: America First