The Secret to Strength

I was reading Judges 16:20 where Samson was subdued by Delilah and "he did not know that the Lord had left him". I was always curious to find out why the shaving of his head led to the loss of his strength. After all, he had broken his Nazirite vow in other ways. He had touched a dead animal, murdered men with a mercenary motive, and his morality choices with the opposite sex were far from being typical of a consecrated life.

The story of Samson has the underlying theme of "Secrets". The is the secret riddle at the center of his botched marriage ceremony, and of course Delilah's relentless pursuit of the secret to his strength. Gaining access to secrets is part of intimacy. Delilah used her exclusion from a secret as leverage to challenge the depth of Samson's love for her. It was all a ploy, but Samson fell for it.

Why did the Lord "leave him", albeit for only a season? Well, until Samson told Delilah about his Nazirite vow, and his hair untouched by a blade. That was an intimate secret between the Lord, Samson and his parents. By telling all, Samson broke open a lifelong secret that damaged his intimacy with God. It was the last straw in a deteriorating relationship. The Lord in his wisdom felt there was a better chance of ultimate restoration if Samson was deprived of his strength and faced an immediate catastrophe. We know the story. There was redemption in the end.

To avoid the level of catastrophe that Samson faced, we should learn from his story. Our intimacy with God should involve secrets. If you are tweeting every time you pray, if you a blogging every time a verse impacts your heart, if your spiritual highlights only take place in large to medium size groups, you have work to do. Cultivate a "secret place" with God, Psalm 91:1. Have spiritual disciplines of prayer, worship, meditation and acts of unseen service that only God and perhaps a spouse or close family member know about.

These secrets will cultivate your intimacy with God, increase your sensitivity to His voice, enhance your large group worship experiences and most of all, become the source of your strength.

https://vimeo.com/39729166

Part two of the "Bigger series"

https://vimeo.com/39729165

Here I am on a Saturday night, talking about the Seeds conference at Church on the Move in Tulsa, OK. Then I talk about being part of something Bigger than Us.

Church fakes teens' kidnapping using real gun

Church fakes teens' kidnapping using real gun

When church leadership behaves like this it demonstates:

1. They are totally out of touch with the current concerns and campaigns being conducted to bring healing and restoration to young people traumatised by gun crime ( eg: Columbine to Virginia Tech.)
2. They are obviously bored with the mission to reach the lost and find it necessary to terrorize the found.
3. They desperately want to see the church persecuted and forced underground because behaviour like this will hasten society's swing towards opposing the church.

Time to grow up people.

20 things that will prevent you from reaching your potential

I wish I had come up with this list of POTENTIAL KILLERS on my own. I got it online or at a conference a long time ago. It is really good and makes you think:

“God sees you as you can become”

1. Wrong view of man
2. Wrong concept of God
3. Lack of a clear vision
4. A failure to develop what you’ve got
5. Resting on past achievements
6. A wrong concept of the will of God
7. Failure to release others
8. Familiarity
9. Low self esteem
10. Using the word impossible
11. Past failures
12. Inability to Change
13. Thinking that growth and achievement is God’s responsibility
14. Avoiding the pain and stretching of growth
15. Failure to put an inner deposit in your life
16. Fear of Failure
17. A negative attitude to life
18. Limiting habits
19. Blaming God and others for your lack of progress
20. Misunderstanding the power of money

Kirk Cameron ’surprised’ by firestorm comments on homosexuality caused

Kirk Cameron ’surprised’ by firestorm comments on homosexuality caused

I think Kirk is doing a good job of keeping his head in the situation, he is answering his liberal critics well. This gay issue is the hot war defining the frontier of the church right now, and the struggle to balance the righteousness of God with relativistic human rights is tripping a lot of churches over the line into murky territory.

Not long ago (in my lifetime) his comments would have been received as rational and commonly agreed upon. Now the consensus of global morality has moved the goal posts to the point where he is seen as an offender. I totally agree that any bullying and gay-bashing in the past was intolerable and a denial of genuine Christian practice. However, Pierce Morgan asked his opinion on the issue and that is what he believes! He isn't holding a torch and pitchfork while saying it. The original gospel is Jesus Christ and his crucifixion for sins, the new gospel is just tolerance. Yet none of the adherents to this new gospel will tolerate someone with a literal, biblical belief system!

You have a human right to choose the life you live, and who you love, and how. What is important to know is that the Christian faith isn't the product of human rights. It predates even the concept of human rights. The bible reveals that we are created and were given boundaries by our Creator within which to enjoy our freedom. Kirk is expressing where he believes the boundary has been set.

We live in a wikipedia world where fact and truth is a communal product. We became this way because we got sick of discovering that the authorities were lying to us or looking through tainted lenses. The consensus is being reached on the gay issue, but like Kirk, I'm concerned what kind of society is emerging from this shift. You see, I think truth was revealed to us, not simply manufactured and modified at will.

Caught in the middle with me

This photo-shopped picture and fictitious article about Venetian authorities allowing Muslims to pray in the streets of Venice is typical of the increasingly common anti-Islam hate information on the web. Senders and re-senders of base drivel like this are similar to racists who insist on distributing emails to supposed sympathizers that equate South African leaders to primates.

This semi-popular hate culture is indicative of a reality check that Western cultures are finally taking. My definition of Western culture acknowledges the preeminent influence of Judea-Christian faith and morality, something which many have deftly attempted to deny.

By eroding the Christian conviction in Western society and pursuing a liberal critical approach to the authority of Scripture, a so-called free, enlightened but degenerate society has been created. In reality we have hollowed out the greatness of Western culture and created room for destructive forces from within and without.

I personally have more admiration for Islam than most Westerners. It’s discipline, dedication and holistic impact on life and culture is something a lot of Sunday Christians can learn from. The resolve in the Muslim mind and heart is what is eating the heart out of Western cultures. Westerners went soft on their foundations, thinking that the future was relativism. The truth of human history reveals that the strong rule. If you leave your strengths outside the door, don’t expect to be the master of the house very long.

Many European cities and communities are under siege or have already capitulated to the Muslim march. The work of Muslim extremists has created a global paranoia about the future of the planet. Americans don’t have the same degree of problems with Muslim control in the cities, but they laughably worry that their President is a Muslim plant!

The troubles aren’t only from without. The enemy within the so-called Christian West is indicative of our rotten core. Decades of degradation and humanistic moral ambivalence has hideously disfigured the Christian family and the gay agenda stronghold within the church is ensuring that our resolve to preserve the fabric of our communities will be long gone when the fundamentalist demands of Islam capture our education, law courts and economy, suppressing our arts and oppressing our women.

Well done high-minded theological professor! You created an unbelieving, skeptic out of the seminary student, now twice as apostate as his mentor. Well done, bleeding heart humanist! You systematically erased all appeal to a moral authority with your guilt-removing, feel-good psycho- babble!

Christian conservatives are caught in the middle between the disorienting picture of gay clergy performing a same-sex wedding, and an advancing Muslim horde. Yes, conservatives have played a lot of the wrong cards in the last while; this blog may be a poor hand too. But if the war on conservatives was finally over and the last one had capitulated, then the frontier lines would be redrawn between ordained lesbians and militant Imams. I wonder who would win that war?

Oh the Horror...scope!

Finally, a scientific, astronomical reason to disregard the darkness and superstition of the zodiac and our proclivity to try and foretell our future through the horoscope.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41062376/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Like Conan...I'm baaaack!

Six Month Sabbatical

I have been considering restarting my blog for some time now. I ceased blogging for several reasons.
1.) The state of my existence had become so restrictive in the last few months. The scope of our ministry opportunities shrunk to the point where I feared any blogging would prove too uninspiring for any readership. Since moving to Virginia and assuming the helm of Crosspoint church, it seems as though the blood is returning to my ministry limbs and my imagination and vision is starting to refire.
2. ) The final stages of our green card application involved Federal background checking. Not knowing how extensive the background checking is, I was concerned that my candid conversation on this blog could might trigger some unnecessary questions in our final interview. Hey, call me paranoid, but if I was the FBI I would check out Facebook etc. It will reveal more that a credit check and spy satellites.
3) I am also wrestling with the question, who am I writing to? Initially my perceived blog readership was my family and South Africans from the AOG and Cape Town ministry environments. Now that we have permanent residence in the U.S. I am completely embracing Americans as our ministry constituency. Now I have to redirect my thoughts and reasoning more towards their frames of reference. I feel the six month sabbatical has allowed me to turn the corner on this issue.

Copy and paste the link below to see an article that fortifies and confirms my passion for our mission in America.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/book-religion-examines-ways-americans-perceive-god/story?id=11825319&page=1

Dunno why it isn't an active link, might because you have to pay to register a link to abc's new feed.

Anyway, the six month sabbatical is over...the blogging journey awaits.

Blood on the Soil

I watched the movie "2012" last night. Now begins the inevitable countdown to 21 December 2012 and all the accompanying paranoia that our extinction-obsessed humanity will indulge in. It's gonna be a great 2012 Christmas and 2013 New Year celebration when everybody realizes that the doomsday clock has been reset to the next end-time scenario.

The movie's significance was intensified by the relevance of it's earthquake driven story line. Haiti, Chile, and now Turkey, have dominated international news, creating an awareness of seemingly increasing instability in the earth's crust. The University of Milwaukee have a great page that records seismic activity: www4.uwm.edu/letsci/geosciences/seismic_center/2010_eq/. 2010 has been seismically busy.

It's seems the decline of the influence of Christianity on Western culture has led to a diminished awareness of the biblical end-time scenario. Now Nostradamus or the Mayans are regarded to have the more reliable visions of the future. My exposure to biblical truth directs me to believe that any end-of-the-world scenario is incorrect, because the bible describes the end of this age as the day of the Lord, not the destruction of humanity or the planet. The visible, tangible, sudden return of Jesus as Judge of all mankind will mark the end of this current time in which he is preached as Saviour, and trusted in through faith.

Yes, the bible describes a drastic change in the condition of all creation taking place in the wake of the return of Jesus, but the interruption to our current reality will not be global destruction, but the unexpected return of the King.

In passages like Matthew 24, the bible does describe an escalation of distress and misery in the build up to this appearing of Christ. Earthquakes, famines and wars are all signs of the imminence of the event. When Christians point to these natural or sociopolitical disasters as "sings of the times" there is generally a backlash from those who have reduced God to a benign, largely inactive, plaintiff notion of goodness and benevolence that permeates the universe like a lingering smell.

Is God in the business of dishing out earthquakes as either punishment for iniquity or to mark out the tick-tock of His end time clock?

I want to suggest that our environmentalist friends and their pantheistic personification of nature (most recently popularized by the movie "Avatar") are a little closer to the truth that we realise. The bible does seem to identify the earth and even rocks and plants as (albeit small) living, role-playing characters on the stage of the redemption story.

Moses is told to speak to a rock, Jesus curses a fig tree and cautions that rocks will do the work of worship if people, made in God's image, go on strike.

In a passage that is pivotal to my point, in Genesis 4:10 God informs the murderer Cain that the blood of his brother and victim, Abel is crying out to Him from the soil. As a result Cain, previously a produce farmer, is cut off from the land. This principle of sin leading to expulsion from the land (the source of life and anchor of identity), repeats itself through scripture. Leviticus 18 and 20 describes how the land inhabited by wicked people becomes defiled and eventually vomits them out to cleanse itself. The original inhabitants of the Promised land were vomited out when the Israelites invaded. Likewise, Israel was vomited out of the promised land into exile in Assyria and Babylon after years of backsliding.

In Old Testament times sinfulness was regionalised by restrictions in travel and communication. This allowed judgment to fall on Sodom and Gomorrah and allowed other cities to survive. However, the corrupting influence of a global village has allowed darkness to spread to every culture on the plant. A pornographic act in California can be viewed by someone in Siberia if they have online access. Narcotics from a poppy plant grown in Afghanistan can enter the veins of someone in Cape Town through the medium of travel. As a result, Romans 8:18-22 describes how all Creation is distressed like a woman in childbirth.

The agony of the labour pain typifies sin and how it makes us long for the one true just King to appear and rule. The labour pain and groans precede the joyous event of the revelation of the Son of Man and his devoted ones.

If this stands to reason, then the instability of our planet is more our doing than God's. No, I'm not talking about greenhouse gases, but I am talking about pollution. The pollution of corruption, injustice, pride and wickedness that causes the land to writhe in pain and eventually vomit us out.

^{Romans 2:5} But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

The Smell of Coffee

I'm sure you know this, but coffee smells better than it tastes. OK, calm down, I'm still an advocate of drinking the stuff. However, there is no doubt that a huge part of the enjoyment of the bean beverage is the aroma. Walking past a coffee house and smelling the freshly ground blend presents a promise of enjoyment that the liquid barely, and often doesn't, deliver on.

However, I am rarely resentful when I taste a disappointing cup of coffee. I understand that I was already consuming the enjoyment while percolating in the scent-drenched coffee shop as I waited for my order.

I have come to understand that much of the joy of life is found in the anticipation of things. Does Christmas day really live up to the giddy thrill that the sentiments of the Christmas season cultivates in our soul as we count down the advent calender? Does driving a brand new car fully fulfill the enticing, anxious excitement of exploring the endless possibilities while searching the local auto mile for your next mechanical alter-ego?

The intangibly evident smell of coffee is a metaphor for finding the true quality of the good life. Tangible materials leave a void in the human heart. The intangible raises us into a tension of expectation and anticipation that could be called hope and faith.....and it keeps us wanting to stay alive.

I have often wondered why God takes so long to answer prayers.

When we pray and believe, we are exercising faith. The bible says faith pleases God (Heb. 11:6), and that it is required for us to live by faith (Hab. 2:4), as opposed to having short occasional bursts of faith. When God answers our prayers, we take delivery of our answer and the dimension of faith ceases. That's why God waits until the last moment to answer, because it extends the exercise of our faith, in which He finds so much delight, to the maximum.

Like coffee, the anticipation of things longed for is almost sweeter than the realisation.

The Crumbling Dream of Global Democracy

I, like the increasing majority, read my news online. I am disturbed by my callous indifference to the latest report of terrorism in the Middle East. Afghanistan, Pakistan,..... today it was Iraq.....over a hundred dead in a suicide bombing. As a South African I have developed the ability to assimilate shockingly tragic news without flinching, because you hear the same type of report again and again.

But c'mon, it's absolutely crazy over there!

This last terror attack was motivated by the desire to disrupt democratic elections in the near future. It's amazing how people with a religio-cultural fervour do not want the masses to have their say. (or they don't believe in the accuracy of the process.)

The question rises in my mind: Is democracy going to win out in the end? Is the future of our planet democratic? Is democracy the best form of government for all the people of the earth?

My choice would be to spend the rest of my days in the center of the democratic universe: America. I, like most Westerners, have a healthy mistrust of office holding leaders. I have confidence that I won't abuse my own personal liberty. I am also prepared to accept the challenge of living amongst those who abuse their liberty and as a result create related socials ills. (materialism, greed, pornography, drug abuse...)

The American invention of democracy was in reaction to the collision between the European rights of kings, nobles and lords and the awareness of the rights of the individual sparked by the enlightenment and renaissance. The notion that I don't have to be a faceless peasant at the bidding of the local lord or an expendable pawn in a prince's army emerged out of a distinctly European experience.

Admittedly, world exploration and colonization exported these mindsets around the globe, but as the influence of the West diminished in places like the Orient, Middle East and Africa, it emerged that the villages of our world still valued the paternalistic leadership of elders and wanted to restore strength to their chiefs and kings.

You see, the awareness of the individual is not a given in every culture. I have observed the unity of the African community. (My apologies here if the weakness of my African anthropology proves offensive.) The village acts as one, if the chief is strong, then the community is strong, so the chief eats first and the women and children last, and nobody objects.

African democratic processes often miss the spirit of a private, secret ballot, because no other decision is made that way, why should we vote as individuals? Who gives me the power to decide to empower our traditional decision makers? I often feel that traditional African communities enshrined a desire for democracy in their communities simply on the basis of their majority over the controlling colonial communities. Where it not for the debt and trade links to their previous colonial masters, I think they would abandon the insanity of democracy altogether.

Is the middle east not in a similar struggle against our democratic idealism? Even moderates would probably be more confident in benevolent autocratic religious leaders than submit to the uncertainty of constitutional elections.

Biblical prophecy seems to predict the rise of a strong global autocratic leader with the power to reign in civil liberties and enforce conformity to sinister policies in the pre-apocalyptic period. Whether democracy is the mechanism used by such a leader to gain control is unclear, what is clear is that the spirit of liberty and democracy evaporates during the time of their rule. Further predictions indicate that this sinister power isn't broken by free and fair elections, but by the arrival of a liberating army under the command of King Jesus Christ.

Democracy will be dead and the all the people of the world will live in peace and justice. Go figure.

Reigning Cats or Dogs?

We have two kittens, now about 5 months old. The girl is "Sam" and the boy is "Luigi" or "King Louis the 16th"(which had a ring to it, despite the tragic circumstances of said king's demise), depending on which side of the Italian/French border you prefer. In spite of such fascinating names, the cats are inevitably referred to as "the boy cat" or "the girl cat."

It has been said that "dogs have owners, and cats have staff." Nothing epitomizes this maxim more vividly than watching my son Michael's voluntary servitude to whatever might be the kitten's pleasure. Bob Sjogren, in his book "Cat & Dog Theology" expands on the comparison between cats and dogs to describe the importance of adopting an accurate perpective on the meaning of life.

Bob argues that you get "dog" and "cat" people. Dog people view life as follows: "He loves me, died for me and he answers when I call his name, He must be God!" Cat people think differently: "He loves me, died for me and he answers when I call his name. I must be God!"

For Cat Christians, the ultimate reason behind all existence is their own benefit and blessing. Nothing makes sense or is worth fighting for if it doesn't ultimately promote my interests. Cat Christians will endure terrible hardship at times, but all with the understanding, that in the end, their endurance will be vindicated with an even greater reward.

Cat Christians will even wear the trendy "It's not about me." T-shirt if they believe it presents an opportunity for God to trust them with "next-level" blessing.

What if it pleases God's glory to throw you under the wheels of the truck instead? What if you are the martyr whose blood will become the seed of the church? What if your uncanny suffering is destined to stand as a testimony to unseen accusers as recorded in the book of Job?

What about the generations of Israelites that would die languishing under Eqyptian slavery waiting for Moses to be born? Where was their big redemption? How about the missionary who watches her children die of malaria before her own life expires after battling tubercolosis? Is her faith somehow deficient? Can every Christian expect to come back with a knock out punch in the 15th round after falling behind on points? Like ants crossing a stream, some have to die to build a bridge for others, and ensure that progress continues. How often has the kingdom of God been halted in it's expansion to indulge the comforts of a self serving Christian?

I know that insane leaders and cruel tyrants have used this very logic to motivate the sacrifice of followers to their corrupt ends. However, if our Savior's defining hour was the cross, why should we be such strangers to hardship if we claim to be His followers?

I suffer from a severe case of Cat Christianity. Like lymphoma, it keeps manifesting everywhere. Drilling down to the core of my motivations is harrowing. Why after so many years in God's kingdom do I lack nobility of spirit?

Emergent writer, Brian McLaren, wrote about a root cause of self serving Christianity. He says that many Christians have a fundamental flaw in their make-up. They got into this thing because they wanted to escape hell. This begs the question: at what point should " I don't want to burn in hell." evolve into " I want to lay my life down for God's glory, no matter the cost"? People who desperately want to escape the flames are the least willing to run into burning buildings to save others.

Fear filled preaching about hell has triggered a self preservation motivation for getting saved. We need to saved from selfishness and self absorption. We aren't called to simply escape hell and go to heaven, we are called to be reconciled to our God, live for His glory, and serve others with the ministry of reconciliation, no matter the cost.

The Beginning of Empowerment

The last two Sunday's messages have been a re-examination of the foundational teaching of repentance. We have learned about how many believers never live a healthy Christian lifestyle because repentance isn't fundamental to their conversion experience.

I made a personal commitment to Jesus after hearing the gospel preached in the eighties, and I often testify how I sinned more after my conversion than before. It seems as though the gospel had been reduced to a humanistic: "Just accept Jesus" before I darkened the door of the church that night. As young Christians, we were taught that if we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, He will progressively change our mind about sin and make us want to do good instead. As much as the Spirit plays a huge role in purifying our hearts, God cannot force us to repent from sin. The Spirit convicts, but we have to make up our mind to repent, and to follow through on that.

Why did repentance become so unpopular? In a world drenched with feel-good, popular psychology, the diagnosis of sinful practices requiring a humble acceptance of error and a radical course correction just didn't sit well with a generation hooked on self-expression. Caricatures of heavy-browed, finger-wagging preachers chastising their cowering flocks caused image conscious churches to wade into the swamp of democratically demanded affirmation.

While the church was softening it's message, society urgently attended to the empowerment of disadvantaged and oppressed people groups. Those seeking empowerment ranged from disadvantaged race groups, to women, the unskilled, to those pursuing alternative lifestyles. Few of these groups looked to the church for a pathway to empowerment. The irony is that the key to empowerment was lying fallow in the church.

Empowerment achieved can look suspiciously like the oppressed attaining the lifestyle of the oppressor. Those lacking self-determination looked over the fence of injustice and resolved to somehow obtain what the privileged had. The African-American wanted the respect and rights of the Caucasian, the women wanted the male privileges of high paying careers and freedom from the burden of homemaking, the unskilled worker wanted the wage and opportunity to relax that only the successful few enjoyed. The battle for equal rights for alternative lifestyles continues till today.

Just one question: Who said that a lifestyle equal to the privileged oppressor equates to freedom and empowerment? In my experience of apartheid South Africa, the oppressors were as disfigured and trapped as the oppressed. The oppressor has the further disadvantage of being blind to the golden cage. Most importantly, the oppressor has increased wrath stored up for the final day of judgment.

This gives rise to my premise. Empowerment cannot be achieved without God. Equality to a more privileged sinner might feather your nest, but how will that help if the whole tree is on fire?

You see, I believe that freedom isn't the absence of all authority. In fact, careful observation of history reinforces that freedom requires fences or boundaries to secure it. Without some final authority we are left with anarchy and without the rule of law, no-one is safe. It therefore stands to reason that empowerment can only occur through adherence to ultimate authority. In other words, if I comply with God's requirements, I escape all other oppressors and experience the freedom of having to bow only to my Creator.

I begin to comply with God's requirements by repenting from a sinful lifestyle. Therefore repentance is the beginning of empowerment. Forget the march to city hall, rather get a change of mind about the life God wants you to live.

Go Deep!

Columbus day weekend was a shocker for sport lovers across Boston. The Red Sox: swept out of the play-offs by the Angels! Now what? Are we forced to support our rival Yankees against the resurgent West Coast teams? Not likely. Rather, I suspect the subject of baseball will all but disappear from New England conversation until next summer.

What about Brady and the Pats? Are you kidding me? Somehow contriving to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! I get the feeling that the monkey on Brady's back is his reputation rather than his repaired knee. The Broncos QB, Orton, who looks like Mr. Unassuming and probably won't marry a supermodel; played like the seasoned pro, while Brady desperately tried to engineer the old magic to no avail. Sure he did OK in the first half, but the long bombs exploded on the turf, and were it not for zippy Wes Welker grinding out the yards, the game would have been over long before the end of regular time.

I mentioned football in Sunday's sermon. I compared the fisherman Peter's return to the deeper water after an unsuccessful night on the sea in Luke 5 to the resolve of a receiver to dash into the end zone one more time to catch the elusive ball and win the game. In tough times we must still position ourselves within reach of opportunity and expect success, especially in response to Jesus command to "go deep."

My family and I went deep when we passed through "the eye of a needle", leaving our life in South Africa behind to go into the deeper water of the USA, expecting a great catch! It has been hard work just getting to and staying in this "end zone" of opportunity. The game is well into the fourth quarter and we need a touchdown to go to extra time. Like Randy Moss I feel like the ball just hasn't been there for a pass completion.

I will keep running into the end zone, continue sailing into deeper water to let down my nets. My hands are raised, my head is lifted, I know my quarterback has His eyes on me.

Mojave Madness

I'm not sure, but I think there is an endurance motor race through the Mojave Desert called Mojave Madness. The madness of a bunch of bikers looking for some extreme fun is nothing compared to the supreme court battle raging over a memorial cross erected by and for war veterans in a national park.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6266291/Mojave-Cross-memorial-to-WWI-dead-violates-first-amendment

Some "bright spark" is suing for the removal of the cross because it is offensive to war veterans of other faiths and it violates the separation of church and state. As a result, the cross has been boxed like an IKEA flat-pack until the court case is over and a decision is made. Hah! This is what made America great!

I understand the first amendment. I think it is a critical part of making America's the best form of government on the planet. By the way, being better than other methods of government does not mean we have a perfect system of government!

Nevertheless, I think that many right wing conservative Christians are wasting their breath trying to argue for a Christian State and Christianity as the state sponsored religion, (or is it Church sponsored State? I dunno.) The fact is, every national population will consist of a percentage of people that don't believe that Jesus is Lord and Saviour. Those people must be governed with justice and be given their human and civil rights to prevent human authorities from inevitably exploiting the weak and limiting the liberty of the ignorant or the minorities.

Having said that, I have seen crosses across the South African landscape. They are serene, sometimes stirring reminders of the pioneering spirit that established a form of civilization in the wilderness. They are expressions of the devotion, trust and dependence on God that enabled some of our predecessors to endure hardship.

It is important to note that these crosses, just like the one in the Mojave desert, are not critical to the mission of the church or the advancement of the Christian cause. One can again argue whether the cross is the best symbol to serve the message of God's love. If Jesus had been hanged instead of crucified, would we be arguing about a "gallows and noose" on a rocky outcrop?

My point is that I think that the agenda to strip this nation of all physical reminders of an undeniable Christian heritage is pathetic. I can only imagine how a traveller or a tourist would ridicule at the current sight of what must look like a confused apology for the passionate determination of a God-fearing veteran who wanted to remember and celebrate the faith of his peers that endured the fire of war.

So the Buddhist couldn't erect their own monument nearby? Hey, as religions go, I think Buddhism is a very virtuous, peace-loving faith system. But was America built on it's principles? Did countless American soldiers find comfort and strength in Buddha as they shivered in the trenches of war? Do Buddhists even believe in war? C'mon people! Get real.

Having said all that, I think we can either leave the cross alone or sadly, take it down. Whatever satisfies the wisdom of the court. But will someone PLEASE get rid of the IKEA lollipop!

Worth fighting for

I have become aware of a prevailing attitude amongst locals during our first year in Massachusetts. When people learn that we have stayed here for some time, they cynically ask "So what do you think?' It's as if they expect us to burst out sobbing and say, "It's terrible here, we hate it! It's so cold and miserable!" The few people who know anything about Cape Town say: "You left that...for this?"

Yes, it is insanely cold in winter, but how about the dozens of South African professionals that continue to move to Canada? Talk about cold! Do they get asked the same questions?

For now, the snow has a mysterious charm for us, and the foliage of spring, summer and fall is spectacular. I have enjoyed opening my car window as I drive through the tree-lined suburbs of Boston. There is a similar tree-lined avenue near our previous home in Cape Town. I often took visitors to our area along that route, just for the scenic value. In Norwood, MA , nearly every street looks like that!

Having studied some of the revolutionary history of Boston, the natural beauty of New England has spurred me on to conclude that "It was worth fighting for."

If a bunch of colonial fat cats back on their damp island were seeking to dominate and extract tribute from my bountiful new world, I might have been willing to grab my musket in the name of freedom if no other reasonable recourse were possible.

I feel a kindred spirit with the patriots in my reason for being here. I felt a call to this part of the world because a new fight for freedom is raging.

The revival fires of the Great Awakening which stirred up the appetite of independence and freedom from an exploitive and spiritually compromised British Empire created an America with freedoms that are still unique in our world today. Unfortunately, the steamroller of secular thought and the successful discrediting of Christian leadership is creating communities without a sustainable upliftment dynamic. If we don't fight for the soul of the emerging generation, America will descend in world influence and make way for the dominance of other cultures who may not have a Christian foundation.

Fortunately, many leaders and churches are fighting the good fight, reaching this generation with contemporary methods. However, Massachusetts and the East Coast needs more prevailing churches to secure freedom for this densely populated, beautiful part of the world.

A Dragon in the Daffodils

Philosophers want to understand the meaning of life-to prevent useless pursuits and to make sure our limited time on earth is well spent. They desire to strip back the layers of reality to reveal the essence and core of existence. Despite their best intentions and excavations, empirical evidence cannot provide an adequate foundation for thought. As a result, every philosopher, every theorist, relies on presuppositions. Flaky, unprovable theories that undergird some of the most powerful arguments raging in the forums of contemporary society.

A dominant humanist anthropological presupposition is that human beings are inherently virtuous. It is a contagious optimism about the nature of people that argues that the deviant or criminal behaviour that ruins our societies is as a result of circumstantial pressures on an innocent human disposition. This theory disregards the account of the disobedience and resultant corruption of the human nature of our progenitors in Eden.

According to humanism, people do wrong when they are subject to poverty, poor parenting, hunger, disease, lack of recognition or lack of opportunities to thrive. Social saviors set about remedying these ills and believe for the possibility of a perfect earth in which all these evils are gone.

This theory has had a huge impact on the philosophy of education. Rather than leading a child to redemption, educating them into a biblical worldview, all while catering for the sinful nature through discipline, the humanist view believes in the innate goodness within a child. Each child is seen as a seed in the garden of goodness, simply needing the right conditions to grow. The seed is pure, so every child is encouraged to express themselves with only socially acceptable behavior as a limiting guide.

Unfortunately this garden of human virtue has a terrible occupant. The daffodils are being trampled and chewed on by an untamed dragon called the "sinful nature". It is present in every child, even in the majority that manage social acceptability. On the other hand, the delinquents present a curious challenge to humanism While humanists struggle to categorize and remedy "bad seeds" their failure to acknowledge the dragon in the daffodils will guarantee the failure of any humanistic effort to create a new world.

Ultimate purpose

Humanism is the major force in shaping law and morality in Western society. The subject of my previous posting is offensive to the humanist mind, because, to the humanist, the comfort and prosperity of humans is the highest goal of existence. That doesn't sound like such a bad life philosophy does it? I think conservative Christians too eagerly vilify humanists. They are genuinely trying to make a better world.

However, some humanists do away with any belief in God. They cannot contend with a supreme being who may interfere with their man centred ideology. That's a problem. There is a God. I refuse to enter the debate of whether there is a God. It's like the ink of a pen writing about the non-existence of the very paper it is writing on. Relatively recent* developments in the sinful arrogance of man have developed a world view in which no God exists.

*The context of "recent" is millenia past.

Another more populous group blend the Christian religion with humanism, bending God's love into an adapted form of humanism. In this hybrid form of the faith, Jesus becomes the world's greatest human rights activist. The international trend towards the upliftment of the poor and diseased is noble and vital, but it has provided an excellent middle ground between Christians and humanists. This middle ground is the construction site of an entirely new theology which is being taught and caught in churches worldwide. As a result, new Christians are more likely to be introduced to Jesus the Relief giver than Lord Jesus the Saviour.

Even hard line evangelicals will be surprised to hear the accusation of humanism woven into their ultimate purpose of "saving lost souls at all costs" . The ultimate purpose of God isn't to get people saved. If that were so, then one person in hell would mean that God's control over creation has been compromised and an eternal tragic failure has occurred. The ultimate purpose of creation is the glory of God. Our redemption and fellowship with Him is for His pleasure. I hate to say this, but a hell full of departed souls will not detract from the glory of God at all.

I can hear the humanists seething....