What They Do Not Want To Know

While going through a stack of old magazines, I re-read an interview with Phillip Gulley, a Quaker pastor and author, in the December 2005 issue of Indy Men's Magazine. Apparently he had just signed a long term book deal with a major publisher, and got himself noticed by the editors at Indy Men's.

What made the interview so interesting to me is that Pastor Gulley, while obviously a nice enough guy, serves as the perfect stereotype of a humanist, liberal theologian.

I do not understand why someone would call himself a Christian, and serve as a pastor, while holding beliefs such as (and I quote him verbatim here):

• "No religion is better than another. All people are loved and cherished by God."
• "I'm not sure if there is an afterlife, but I do know this: What we believe about the afterlife has a tremendous impact on how we treat people in the present life."
• "When we talk about the afterlife, when we talk about God - who no one has seen - we ought to talk in 'if' language."
• "I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus. I don't think Jesus believed it. He was a monotheistic Jew who did not see himself as divine."
• And to this question from the interviewer: "How about the push for teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution?" - Pastor Gulley replied, "It's crap. It's a denial of the enlightenment and the scientific process."

I totally respect Pastor Gulley's right to believe whatever suits his fancy. But I have to wonder: If you do not believe that the Bible is true, if you're not even convinced of the reality of God, what is your motivation in ministry? Do you just like to play church? Does clothing yourself in "religious-speak" help to lend authority to what are basically just personal opinions?

Now you can believe whatever you want. It's a free country. But it seems silly to me that you claim to be a Christian if you don't even believe what Christ himself said. You scoff at the divinity of Jesus, but how do you ignore all of the claims he made about himself?

• "I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me." - John 4:16
• "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." - John 6:35
• Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." - John 14:9
• "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" - John 8:58

I could go on and on, since the Gospels are full of quotes from Jesus making his claim of divinity. This was precisely the reason that the Jewish authorities hated him so much! They considered Jesus a blasphemer because he spoke of his equality with God.

To state that no religion is better than another is ludicrous. That is just another way of saying that it doesn't matter what you believe, since no religion is true. The only way all religions could be equal is if they were all equally false. They contradict each other in so many ways, the only logical conclusion is that they are all false - or ONE IS TRUE, and all the others are false.

There is no sensible middle ground here. For example, if you wanted to debate the merits of Christianity and Islam, you have a clear choice to make. Either the God of the Bible; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is God, or Allah is God. They cannot both be God. They display completely different characters and personalities.

The God of the Bible declares that the Jews are his chosen people. The God of the Koran dismisses the Jews as infidels. Yet an enlightened, free-thinking, modern, humanist theologian will tell us that either belief is equally valid? Please, give me oxygen!

I do agree with Pastor Gulley on at least one point. All people ARE loved and cherished by God. That truth is emphasized in John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever shall believe in him should not perish but have eternal life." Jesus came to die for all of us. We all have equal access to his grace and mercy. The question is, will all of us choose to humble ourselves before him to receive it?

For the sake of brevity, I will limit myself to one final rebuttal of Pastor Gulley's statements. His condescending swipe at the idea of intelligent design - "It's crap. It's a denial of the enlightenment and the scientific process." - rings especially hollow with me.

Advances in the field of molecular biology over the past two decades have caused a growing number of respected scientists to seriously consider new ideas about the origin of life. Darwin's theory of natural selection does offer a reasonable explanation for the slow evolution of species over long periods of time, but it falls woefully short in explaining the irreducibly complex, assembly-line-like, nano-technology that scientists have discovered in the cells of even the simplest organisms.

And do we even need to mention the astounding, detailed information stored in our DNA, more complex than any software program known to man? If man evolved, by chance, over the eons of time, then so did my PC!

(For a fascinating documentary about the origins of life, go to unlockingthemysteryoflife.com)

In my opinion, there is one big reason that people don't want to allow the idea of a real, living, purposeful God into their thinking.

That reason is pride. We all want to be our own boss. We all want to make our own way. And we don't want some nosey God interfering with our decisions. So we do our best to pretend he does not exist, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

To make ourselves feel even better about this, we deride and mock those unenlightened, ignorant believers who keep noisily insisting that God is real and that he will hold us accountable for our actions. Their very presence is an annoying reminder that maybe there really is a God. That is why the followers of Jesus have suffered persecution since the day the church began.

Born-again Christians remind the people of this world of what they do not want to know.

Be Better Than Bitter

I am acquainted with one particularly unhappy individual.

He spends a lot of time being angry at the world. He is unhappy with life, but it never seems to occur to him that some of his problems could be the result of his own behavior. A wise man once wrote that we all get exactly the kind of life that we choose, and to a great extent I believe that is true.

I've talked to him many times over the years about the Lord, and what a difference he has made in my life. But he insists on alternating between a disbelief in God's existence and an anger towards God because he is unhappy with how his life has turned out. He feels that people have taken advantage of him, ripped him off, let him down, and cheated him. Sometimes I just want to say, "welcome to the club...it's called life."

My grandfather used to tell me that you were lucky if you could count your true friends on the fingers of one hand. Grandpa might have steered me wrong a few times, but he sure knew what he was talking about there. Most of the people we meet are more worried about themselves than anything else, and if you go through life searching for people you can trust with your heart, you will find yourself becoming bitter and disillusioned.

As the song says, "There's just not enough love in the world."

So what is a person to do to avoid a bitter outlook on life? I thought you'd never ask! Here are Skipper Dave's Six Tips for Sane Living:

• Don't expect too much. Jesus promised that we would have trouble in this world. If you're looking for a rose garden you might as well check out now.
• Give without expecting anything in return. God wants us to give to help others - with our time, our resources, our prayers - and there is no guarantee that any of it will be appreciated or reciprocated. But getting back is not the point anyway. Just give and let it go - God will bless you in due time, in his own way.
• Love unconditionally. This is hard, at least for me. I tend to want to judge people by their behavior before deciding if they are worthy of my love. This is wrong. I'm still working on it, and so should you.
• Put yourself last. I'm not saying you should be a doormat. If someone is seriously ripping you off, you have a right to stop it. But I'm talking about putting others first. Let your agenda become a lower priority, and you will find contentment creeping into your soul.
• Forgive. Let it go. Whatever they did to you doesn't matter any more. It is said that "the acid of bitterness does the most damage to the vessel in which it is contained." Life is too short to hang on to past offenses.
• Move on. We all make mistakes. We all blow it on a regular basis. Repent, forgive yourself, and ask God to help you move ahead. He is the God of new beginnings. Let him lead you into the future he has planned for you. The devil would love to see you stuck in the mire of your past mistakes. Don't give him that satisfaction!

Please Spank Your Children!

As I get older, I try really hard not to become a geezer. I don't want to be some cranky old man who thinks the world is going to hell in a hand basket and that we need to go back to the "good old days."

The good old days were never that great, anyway. I can't imagine life without Velcro, email or air conditioning.

But one thing that I have noticed (and this has nothing to do with being old or cranky) is that many of the young children I come in contact with now are, to put it as politely as possible, spoiled-rotten-whiney-brats!

This is a serious problem. Spoiled, whiney, self-centered children will grow up to become irresponsible, selfish, useless adults. Just what the country needs; more unproductive citizens sucking the lifeblood from our culture!

This is not really the child's fault. Every child is a product of the environment and training techniques of the parents. When I see a spoiled brat, I also see a set of parents who have failed in their responsibilities to that child. This is tragic, because we all suffer for the failures of the parents.

A spoiled child is doomed to an unhappy life. That child will grow up to be selfish and immature. He will be in trouble in school, on the job, and oftentimes with the law when he grows up. He will spend his life expecting the world to cater to his every whim the same way that mom and dad used to. Mom and dad might bend over backwards to keep little junior from being displeased, but I can guarantee that the rest of the world will not treat him like that.

You can discipline your child now, or you can wait 20 years and let the warden do it for you.

So, mom and dad, let's toughen up and act like adults. You are supposed to be in charge of that child you created. You are supposed to be teaching that child the difference between right and wrong. You are supposed to be teaching that child that, although he is special and cherished by you, he is not the center of the universe, and that the needs of other people are at least as important as his own.

He needs to learn to respect your authority, or he will never respect the authority of his teachers, bosses, or law enforcement officers. He needs to learn to work for the things he desires, instead of having everything given to him without effort, or he will become a leech on society and grow up to believe that the world owes him something.

And when he challenges your authority, either through direct disobedience or a disrespectful attitude, he needs to be spanked!

Yes, I said spanked! Not beaten, not abused, just good-old-fashioned spanked. I hope no one has fainted at this radical and barbaric suggestion, but it is a time-honored and effective method of getting a rebellious child's attention.

Spanking, of course, works best on younger children who are not old enough to be reasoned with. School-aged children are more effectively disciplined by grounding, denial of privileges and other punishments that take away something they will miss. Use some common sense and make the punishment age-appropriate. What is most important is that the discipline is reasonable and consistent.

Spanking is so important precisely because it is the most effective discipline for children from the ages of 1 through 6 years of age, and this is when life-long attitudes and behavior patterns are established. If your child has not learned to obey and respect you by age 6, you are in deep doo-doo as a parent.

If you are currently raising a brat, you have no one to blame but yourself for the misery you will endure. If that child will not submit to your authority now, wait until he is 15 and your life truly becomes a living hell. We all reap what we sow, and if you neglect your duties as a parent now, you will pay for it for the rest of your life!

OK, mom and dad, let's walk through a little training exercise.

Let's imagine that you have told little junior to make up his bed before he goes outside to play. Junior promptly runs out the door and says he'll do it later. Being the nice guy that I am, I would even give junior a second chance and sternly say, "Junior, get back in there and make that bed or you won't play outside at all!"

Now if you've been spoiling your brat for a long time, he is probably conditioned to throw a tantrum at this point and say, "I don't want to make my bed now, I want to play!" This is now the perfect time to apply the aforementioned discipline. Grab junior firmly by the arm and escort him into the bedroom where you can sit down on the edge of his unmade bed and drape him, belly down, across your lap. Lay one arm across his shoulders to hold him in position. With your other arm, using your open hand, apply three or four firm swats to his fleshy posterior (some call it a butt) and make sure you smack hard enough to cause moderate discomfort.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: Always limit spanking to the butt. God has wisely designed this fleshy cushioned area of the body for spanking purposes. You can obtain the desired painful stinging discomfort of discipline without doing any real physical damage to the child. DO NOT spank the legs, back or shoulders, or you may really physically hurt a child, and that is something you never want to do. Especially avoid slapping around the face or neck, this can be dangerous.)

Now you turn junior loose, inform him that you want that bed made NOW, and that you will be in to talk to him when he is finished. If he balks at this, repeat the spanking procedure and add an extra swat or two for good measure. I assure you that he will soon comply with your desires and make that bed.

Now he may be mad at you. He may even say he hates you and you are a mean parent. You cannot let this bother you. You are the adult. You are responsible for teaching this child how to mind, and sometimes being a real parent can get real ugly. Toughen up! You will survive, and you will prevail if you don't give in to his manipulations.

After junior has been punished, and after he has complied with your instructions, you should allow a short cooling off period (for both of you) and then go in and talk to him about why he was disciplined and how he can avoid being disciplined in the future. This is the time to hug him, assure him of your love, and make him understand that God has given you the job of teaching him how to mind, and that you have to spank him if he is being disobedient. Explain to him that you spank him because you love him and you want him to learn to do the right thing.

This may sound old-fashioned and corny, but I guarantee that it will work if it is applied consistently. I have raised my children, and helped to raise many other children, and I have never met a child who did not understand the connection between love and discipline when I took the time to explain it to them.

The greatest benefit to this kind of consistent discipline is that once it is established, you very seldom have to actually use it. It may take three or four repetitions before it fully sinks in, but once junior realizes he really has to make his bed, he will begin to do it without a fuss. Once your children know that you mean business, they start to behave better, and the instances that require spankings become less and less frequent.

I think I can honestly count the lifetime total of spankings I have given my children on both hands. But because I started when they were young, and because I was consistent and they knew I would do it whenever necessary, I seldom had to resort to it. The kids learned to behave to avoid being punished, and as a result, all of us were happier.

Every child we care for in our home loves coming to visit us. They know that they have to behave here, and many of them behave better for us than they do for their own parents, because they know that we will enforce our rules with discipline if they misbehave. They also know that we love them, and they are very loving and affectionate towards us, because they understand that our discipline here is done in a spirit of love.

So be an adult. Fulfill your God-given responsibility and teach that child to respect your authority. Act like a parent instead of a wimp. Your life will be better. Your child's future will be brighter. The rest of us in society will benefit by having another mature, responsible citizen growing up in our culture.

Do you love your child?

Then discipline your child. For all of our sakes.