The Desert of the Real

This article would keep you in supply for some t ime. I know that I haven’t posted in awhile, especially on politics, but this one just took the cake. Ugh. I’m still boggling.

NOBEL peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish spirit yesterday, lashing out at US President George W.Bush during a speech to hundreds of schoolchildren.

AH…yes…now there is an appropriate stage for political grandstanding if I ever saw one. I don’t know how old these kids are, but if she expected them to be ignorant enough to swallow what she’s about to dish out I’m guessing grade school.

Campaigning on the rights of young people at the Earth Dialogues forum, being held in Brisbane, Ms Williams spoke passionately about the deaths of innocent children during wartime, particularly in the Middle East, and lambasted Mr Bush.

“I have a very hard time with this word ‘non-violence’, because I don’t believe that I am non-violent,” said Ms Williams, 64.

“Right now, I would love to kill George Bush.” Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.

Wow. Just … wow. Now, I’m sure if you’re reading this, you’re well aware that I’m not Bush’s biggest fan. But this kind of thing is ridiculous. Can you IMAGINE the outcry if a non-liberal were to make such a statement about a foreign leader? But, since it’s a liberal I guess she gets a pass.

“I don’t know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief. It’s our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life.”

Ah yes. Inconsistancy. The hallmark of liberal insanity. We’re to be protectors of human life…except George Bush’s.

Ms Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 30 years ago, when she circulated a petition to end violence in Northern Ireland after witnessing British soldiers shoot dead an IRA member who was driving a car. He veered on to the footpath, killing two children from one family instantly and fatally injuring a third.

Ms Williams’s petition had tens of thousands of Protestant and Catholic women walking the streets together in protest. Now the former office receptionist heads the World Centres of Compassion for Children International, a non-profit group working to create a political voice for children.

Wha? She got a peace prize for circulating a petition against violence? Is that really all it takes anymore? Is Cindy Sheehan next?

My job is to tell you their stories,” Ms Williams said of a recent trip to Iraq.

“We went to a hospital where there were 200 children; they were beautiful, all of them, but they had cancers that the doctors couldn’t even recognise. From the first Gulf War, the mothers’ wombs were infected.

“As I was leaving the hospital, I said to the doctor, ‘How many of these babies do you think are going to live?’

“He looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘None, not one’. They needed five different kinds of medication to treat the cancers that the children had, and the embargoes laid on by the United States and the United Nations only allowed them three.”

Er…Ok. So…is she blaming the current George Bush for this? And is it even the first Bush’s fault that Sadam used chemical weapons (as is usually alleged in these cases of Gulf War syndrome)? As for the embargo that just seems ridiculous to me. Sadam harbors terrorists. He himself is a terrorist. He tortured and murdered his own people. He invaded another sovereign nation, killing their people. Now, as a CL, I obviously don’t agree with our getting involved, but still…he was killing people. I guess that she is limiting the human life we are to protect again. Basically, any human life that is endangered by american action in any way.

Honestly, the embargos are a peaceful effort to end bad behavior in another nation. And she is complaining about this. Yes it impacts the people, but that is (hopefully) what will bring about change.

Wrapping up the three-day forum yesterday, delegates agreed to a 26-point action plan.

“There can be no sustainable peace while the majority of the world’s population lives in poverty,” they said.

Hrm…well, if you want to change that, you’re going to have to get rid of communism in China. Until you do that, the majority will always be living in poverty. Do they really have a 26 point plan to end communism in China? No, I doubt it very much. That would require having the slightest clue what they’re talking about.

And if they do…well that’s amazingly ambitious. If there’s really a workable 26 point plan that can so easily end poverty in China I’d love to see it.

“There can be no sustainable peace if we fail to rise to the global challenge presented by climate change.

Wait…what? What are we talking about here? Is she saying that the couple degrees of climate change over the last x hundred years is responsible for war? War in one of the hotter and dryer parts of the country no less? Seriously?

“There can be no sustainable peace while military spending takes precedence over human development.”

Again…what?

Man…this is worse than listening to Senator Ted Stevens talk about the internet!

Ms Williams, I leave you with this:
It is better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

There is a story over at AgapePress now about Joel Osteen’s recent appearance on TBN. Now, I hope you won’t think I’m picking on him if I point out a few problems I have with what he said, because I think his example is merely reflective of the larger evangelical church. He is simply a more public, and thus more recognizable, figure.

Pastor Osteen was asked by [Larry] King if a Jew, Muslim, or anybody could get to heaven without going through Jesus. Osteen stated he could not judge anybody’s heart, and left the matter up to the Lord. Osteen was criticized by many evangelical leaders for his response. Last week Osteen was interviewed on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), and he clarified his previous statement. “Before I did that interview, I read the last five interviews Billy Graham did. It’s the same thing that he said. He just had 50 years of ministry, where people knew exactly what he stood for,” the Texas pastor explained.

Ok, so, I understand what he’s getting at here. It is true that people know more about Billy Graham than they do about Joel Osteen. But I don’t see how that’s relevant. I have just as much of a problem with Billy Graham saying it.

There is an underlying problem here as well, but lets come back to that.

“Well, our number-one thing is to bring people to Christ—and He is the way. It’s just, again, I don’t want to turn off the people we’re trying to reach.”

It sounds good, but Osteen missed a critical part of the teaching he is referring to. We are not to add to the offense of the cross. We should not be a stumbling block ourselves. Yet the cross itself is an offense, and one that we are not to be ashamed of. If you leave out the cross, then what do you have left?

Osteen was also asked, while on TBN, about critics who say he is too “soft” when it comes to biblical preaching and evangelism. “Every morning I start off the first half hour and just seek the Lord, make sure I’m right on course,” he shared. “And when I search my own heart, which I think is the most important thing for each individual, I think, ‘God, I believe to the best of my ability I’m doing exactly what you called me to do.’”

It starts out good, but the rest is disturbing. It is important to seek God, and I would say that is the most important thing for each individual. Beyond that, we do not search our hearts for direction. “The heart is more deceitful than all else” (Jer 17:9) That should be the last place we should look.

Osteen admitted that while he does listen to the critics, “the stories of lives changed are a million to one.” He added: “A lot of times the people criticizing, that’s what they do for a living.” Lakewood Church is reportedly the fastest growing church in the United States.

So, to summarize that point, if more people like what I’m saying, that dislike it, then I mist be on the right track. I wonder how he would explain that in light of John 6. There, thousands didn’t like it, and disliked it so much they left. Only the disciples remained. That isn’t to say that the reverse is true, and that you’re only on the right track if everyone hates you, but the point is that it isn’t a good idea to trust in popularity for determining if you’re doing God’s will.

So, I’m sure there are those who will read this and think I am being petty. That I’m taking a live interview and expecting him to cover all of his bases. However, I believe this little blurb says as much about evangelical Christianity as a whole as it does about him. Tomorrow morning, I am going to be teaching on Proverbs 16. There are a couple of relevant passages here:

2. All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, But the LORD weighs the motives.
25. There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.

Indeed, the Christian church today compares itself mostly to itself. And when they do that, they declare themselves as being ok. Their ways are ‘clean in their own sight’. They seek whatever means they desire to accomplish God’s will, based on what seems right to them. They ‘search their heart’ if you will, and find all kinds of creative ways to expand their church. The world eats it up, and you get huge megachurches as a result.

The problem is, that we are not the standard. God is the standard. His Word was provided to us for a reason. I fear for a pastor, who when asked about how he handles his ministry, answers that he aligns himself with his own heart, and with the voices of men, rather than Holy Scripture being his first and last stop. And I fear for the church that does the same. Joel was right the first time, the place to go is on your knees before God, and before His word. That is the only place to go, and the only place we need to go. The rest only searves to betray a functional denial of the sufficiency of Scripture.