Reflections from the 73rd Floor - Remembering 9/11

We were all affected by the tragedy of September 11, 2001 in some way, regardless of where we were living at the time. As you might suspect, a number of us at Mockingbird were living in Manhattan; some of us even experienced the tragedy through our concern for individuals and/or loved ones who were working in the World Trade Center that day. One such individual had gone to work at his office on the 73rd floor of the south tower that morning. Mockingbird is extremely fortunate that the man in question, who wishes to remain anonymous, has been willing to share a reflection with us of what happened, and how he has, by God’s grace, been able to piece it all together over the past ten years.
First let me say that I am rather uncomfortable doing this. I am uncomfortable discussing my experience. I generally do not speak about living through September 11. My current co-workers do not know that I was in the building or anything that happened, and generally my newer friends find out from my older friends who were with me during that time. I was encouraged to take this anniversary as a time to reflect, so I reluctantly agreed to speak a little to you all.
I worked on the 73rd floor of the south tower and had just arrived at my desk when the north tower exploded into flames. We saw this out of our windows facing west. It seemed surreal to me, and I was stunned. I watched the manager dash out the exit before anyone else reacted, and was soon grabbed by a friend, and we went to the stairwell to leave the building. The stairs were small, each step about wide enough for two people standing side by side, and were already packed full of people. Another co-worker was trying to push through people in a mad panic, not realizing that all of the steps were occupied, and there was no place to go. I relate this because the event was terrifying, and people were reacting to the fear that suddenly invaded in different ways. I do not mean to denigrate them, as my own reaction of shocked disbelief could easily have been seen as a casual indifference. We discussed how this was no accident and dryly mocked the loudspeaker telling us to return to seats. We were leaving. The initial panic subsided mildly and a steady New York pace ensued down the stairwell.
I was around the thirtieth floor when the plane hit our building. The whole stairwell wobbled like a rope, and everyone fell onto each other backwards with the violent motion. I felt certain that the building north of us had collapsed into the south tower and ours was about to go down as well.

This is when the fear of the event took hold of everyone, myself included. I remember feeling mentally at peace, thinking that I had had a pretty good life. A co-worker a flight above me spoke up loudly, telling everyone that everything was okay, we had to get up and keep moving, and the crowd slowly rose to their feet. My knees told a different story than my brain, shaking so badly that I could barely stand on them. The brisk New York walk down stairs full of chatter and speculation was replaced by a dead silent crawl by all of us.
At the 15th floor I ended up behind an older woman who was being helped by two large men. She was having real difficulty with the stairs. I was right behind them and was confused about what to do. The distance between them and the people below them was growing to almost two flights of stairs, and the line in back of me stretched as far as I could see. Part of me wanted to help them help her, part wanted to yell at them to get out of the way. I started to become nervous as did the people in back of me. Before I could do anything, the woman said to the man to step in front of her, so she could hold his shoulders and the bottleneck was released.
Upon getting to the ground floor the scene was horrific. Leaving out the details — we could not exit onto the street. There was a security guard standing at the south exit telling everyone to go north, where there was another security guard blocking us from the plaza exit and directing us down an escalator to the east exit towards Broadway and into the subway tunnel. I watched as the firemen were rushing in and swarming the building, preparing to go up the very stairs I had just come down.
I spoke [at my parents' church] one year later, recounting this story and my gratitude for life and hope for the future. Upon reflection the only thing I want to say today regards the people I talked about. When something so terrifying and horrific happens, it is hard to imagine what your reaction will be. I have no anger toward those that panicked. It is a completely understandable reaction. I think it is the natural reaction.
Looking back however, the people who deserve my respect and honor, are the people who walked through that fear and remembered what is really important.
The man who shook us out of our shock to continue moving. The men who helped that woman on the 15th floor. I do not know if those men made it out of the building or not. They could have walked out like the rest us. Instead they helped someone not as healthy as themselves. The firemen, while trained for disaster and rushing into danger, had certainly never experienced anything like this on the job before. Even the security guards; These were not high paying positions of public trust. These were the men who swiped our badges going into the building. No one would have faulted them for leaving that scene. But they stayed and help strangers get to safety.
When I think about the heroes of September 11th I think about the people who, when faced with unthinkable terror, were able to act in in this manner. They risked their lives for acts of charity. It is hard to imagine a better portrait of the love that we Christians speak of.
When I think about myself and my life, and my community and my country, I ask myself: Are we able to take the moral path, the path of love and charity? It is an easy thing to go down an easier path, driven by fear, justified by self preservation, forgetting or dismissing as quaint and irrelevant the morals and values that we know to be true.
These people, faced with imminent death, took the path of charity and service to others. I hope and pray that we can learn from their courage.
Mockingbird

What Mess are You settling For?

Remember the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25. Esau was the older of the two sons and had the birthright. This meant he inherited the bulk of his father’s estate. One day he came in from the field and was exhausted. Jacob was cooking stew (KJV pottage). Esau said give me some stew and Jacob said sell me your birthright. Esau said I’m about to die what use is my birthright to me? So he sold his birthright to Jacob. Esau settled for a mess of pottage. What mess are you settling for?

Stupid and Graceless - “Bob Costas carves the selfish idiots who make a spectacle of themselves after they do something good on the football field.”

“We live in a culture that grows more stupid and graceless by the moment.” Bob Costas carves the selfish idiots who make a spectacle of themselves after they do something good on the football field.

Beckoning Christians - Another Take On Gleen Beck

TV personality Glenn Beck is not the problem, but his religious syncretism is | Marvin Olasky
"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes."
That message in Psalm 118 is vital to remember whenever a charismatic leader comes along. Many who trusted in Barack Obama two years ago have learned that. Anyone who trusts in Glenn Beck will learn that too.
This is not to equate the two individuals. President Obama continues to promote policies that are fiscally irresponsible, ethically atrocious, or both. Beck is advocating antidotes: less government, smaller deficits, and the realization, as he has noted, that "abortion is murder. . . . I think if you had a womb with a window, it would never happen."
Beck is opening a window on what for decades has been obscured—not only unborn children but unknown stories from U.S. history. Civics has largely disappeared from American high schools. Many universities teach that sophistication means snootiness toward the United States. Since Beck's televised programs emphasize the greatness of the American dream, it's a revelation to those who heard only of nightmares.
What Obama and Beck have in common, though, is a tendency toward religious syncretism, uniting beliefs that are logically and theologically separate. Obama is a Marxist-Christian syncretist, blending elements of the incompatible: That can work in an election campaign when a lapdog press doesn't dig deep, but the little sister in the combination usually ends up frustrated, as many evangelicals who backed Obama in 2008 now are.
Beck is syncretizing Mormon and Christian understanding in the service of a civil religion, but that's a radically unequal yoking for reasons WORLD has pointed out before (see "Ye shall be as gods," Feb. 16, 2002). Maybe the essence lies in the difference between two ditties: the traditional Christian one of "In Adam's fall, we sinned all," and the classic Mormon couplet, "As God once was, man is. As God is, man may become."
America's Founders did not believe in men becoming gods. They emphasized checks and balances in governance because they put no trust in princes. Remembrance of the persecution of Mormons in the 19th century has contributed to Utah's strong anti-Washington sentiment, but Mormon theology concerning the perfectibility of man does not give Latter-Day Saints an anchor to keep them from drifting with political currents as latter days arrive.
Furthermore, the sense that we become righteous not by imputation (Christ's obedience in God's sight replacing our failure) but infusion (we become godlike) often leads movements to ascribe godlike virtue to their leaders. Let's watch the Beck movement and pray that it does not become a cult of personality. Let Beck's rise remind us that Christians in past decades did not take advantage of cable TV opportunities in news and public affairs as Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch did with CNN and FOX: We complained but they built, and now we should do more than complain once again.
Bottom line: Glenn Beck is not the problem. His entertaining lectures are a slap in the face to poisonous political correctness. He's not the antidote, either. Christians should take refuge in the Lord and not in a beckoning embrace. But this country is better off with Glenn Beck than without him.
World Magazine

How Dare He?

Brit Hume’s Advice for Tiger

January 7, 2010
On Fox News this week, Brit Hume, respected journalist and one-time Fox anchor, was asked whether Tiger Woods would recover from the scandal that has cost him several lucrative endorsements. Brit Hume replied, “Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer.”
But he didn’t stop there—and in the process ignited a controversy that says more about his critics than it does about Hume or what he had to say.
Hume said the “open question” is “whether [Woods] can recover as a person.” Hume pointed out that Woods had “lost his family” and that his future relationship with his children is unclear.
At this point, as golfers might put it, Hume was already in the rough. Americans don’t like to be reminded that sex outside of marriage has consequences. But what set the commentariat’s teeth on edge was Hume’s suggestion that Woods’ best chance for recovery lies with faith—and specifically, the Christian faith.
Noting Woods’ Buddhist background, Hume said that Buddhism doesn’t offer “the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith,” and he urged Woods to consider Christianity.
Hume’s words were followed by “a moment of awkward silence.” But that didn’t last long. As Rabbi Brad Hirschfield put it, response to Hume’s comments ranged from “outrage to disgust.”
One example was television critic Tom Shales of the Washington Post. Shales, who once called convicted rapist Roman Polanski a “celebrity hounded by the state,” was less-charitably inclined toward Brit Hume. He wrote that “darts of derision” should be aimed at him.
Mind you, this was kind compared to most of the other things written about Hume.
The obvious question is, “Why the outrage?” Was Hume wrong about the differences between Christianity and Buddhism? Not really. Barbara Hoetsu O'Brien, a Buddhist journalist, told USA Today that “Buddhism doesn’t offer redemption and forgiveness in the same way Christianity does” since “Buddhism has no concept of sin.”
Was Hume’s offense presuming to offer Woods unsolicited advice in public? If so, the outrage is selective. At ESPN, writer Malcolm Gladwell “advised” Woods to make it clear that “he is not someone who is ready, as yet, to settle down” and then take lessons on how to “live a tasteful bachelor lifestyle” from Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter. I don’t recall any outrage over Gladwell’s “presumption” to advise Tiger Woods.
The outrage, as Rabbi Hirschfield writes, stems from the fact that “many people fear faith and even more genuinely resent it being discussed in public.” I would add they especially resent Christianity being discussed. If Hume had advised Woods to spend time in a Buddhist monastery, there wouldn’t be a controversy. If he had urged Woods to enter rehab, Hume would have been applauded.
But what Hirschfield calls the “shrill objections” to Hume’s comments are, as he tell us, rooted in the “contempt which many others have for Christians and their willingness to speak their faith.”
Here’s a prediction for 2010. I know Brit Hume; he will be fine. He is a strong, good man who can take the heat. But let’s hope his conviction to speak the truth plainly and winsomely will spur other Christians to do the same—even in the face of the “shrill objections” that are sure to follow.
Breakpoint

The New Socialism by Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- In the 1970s and early '80s, having seized control of the U.N. apparatus (by power of numbers), Third World countries decided to cash in. OPEC was pulling off the greatest wealth transfer from rich to poor in history. Why not them? So in grand U.N. declarations and conferences, they began calling for a "New International Economic Order." The NIEO's essential demand was simple: to transfer fantastic chunks of wealth from the industrialized West to the Third World.
On what grounds? In the name of equality -- wealth redistribution via global socialism -- with a dose of post-colonial reparations thrown in.
The idea of essentially taxing hard-working citizens of the democracies in order to fill the treasuries of Third World kleptocracies went nowhere, thanks mainly to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (and the debt crisis of the early '80s). They put a stake through the enterprise.
But such dreams never die. The raid on the Western treasuries is on again, but today with a new rationale to fit current ideological fashion. With socialism dead, the gigantic heist is now proposed as a sacred service of the newest religion: environmentalism.
One of the major goals of the Copenhagen climate summit is another NIEO shakedown: the transfer of hundreds of billions from the industrial West to the Third World to save the planet by, for example, planting green industries in the tristes tropiques.
Politically it's an idea of genius, engaging at once every left-wing erogenous zone: rich man's guilt, post-colonial guilt, environmental guilt. But the idea of shaking down the industrial democracies in the name of the environment thrives not just in the refined internationalist precincts of Copenhagen. It thrives on the national scale too.
On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an "endangerment" to human health.
Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means over a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.
This naked assertion of vast executive power in the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech President (and economist) Vaclav Klaus that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism, i.e., the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society.
Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet.
Not everyone is pleased with the coming New Carbon-Free International Order. When the Obama administration signaled (in a gesture to Copenhagen) a U.S. commitment to major cuts in carbon emissions, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb wrote the president protesting that he lacks the authority to do so unilaterally. That requires congressional concurrence by legislation or treaty.
With the Senate blocking President Obama's cap-and-trade carbon legislation, the EPA coup d'etat served as the administration's loud response to Webb: The hell we can't. With this EPA "endangerment" finding, we can do as we wish with carbon. Either the Senate passes cap-and-trade, or the EPA will impose even more draconian measures: all cap, no trade.
Forget for a moment the economic effects of severe carbon chastity. There's the matter of constitutional decency. If you want to revolutionize society -- as will drastic carbon regulation and taxation in an energy economy that is 85 percent carbon-based -- you do it through Congress reflecting popular will. Not by administrative fiat of EPA bureaucrats.
Congress should not just resist this executive overreaching, but trump it: Amend existing clean air laws and restore their original intent by excluding CO2 from EPA control and reserving that power for Congress and future legislation.
Do it now. Do it soon. Because Big Brother isn't lurking in CIA cloak. He's knocking on your door, smiling under an EPA cap.
Townhall.Com

“God and Logic: The Strange Modern/Postmodern War Against a Reasonable Deity”

A God that cannot be known as He truly is, is exactly as relevant to our lives as one that doesn not exist. A God that does not think in terms of, or more, is not the Himself the basis and ground for logical thought is a deity closer to the devil than the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. To think illogically is to think falsely and to think falsely is never to be confused with thinking well. God, our God, is a God of truth. As Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” But if one is to have truth, even the very truths of God, one must first have logic, because logic is the way the mind of God thinks, and nothing can come down to us without its form, because “In the beginning was the logic, and the logic was with God, and the logic was God.” John 1:1 CN
“Ever since St. Bernard distrusted Abelard, it has been a mark of piety in some quarters to disparage “mere human reason”; and at the present time existentialistic, neo-orthodox authors object to “straight-line” inference and insist that faith must “curb” logic. Thus they not only refuse to make logic an axiom, but reserve the right to repudiate it. In opposition to the latter view, the following argument will continue to insist on the necessity of logic; and with respect to the contention that Scripture cannot he axiomatic because logic must be, it will be necessary to spell out in greater detail the meaning of Scriptural revelation. Now, since in this context verbal revelation is a revelation from God, the discussion will begin with the relation between God and logic. Afterward will come the relation between logic and the Scripture. And finally the discussion will turn to logic in man.” Gordon H. Clark
Neiswonger   Christian Theology

Cheaters, and Tigers, and Idiots – Oh My!

But what I am writing about today is not merely the lack of shock and awe at Tiger’s infidelity. And it is meant to go deeper than providing my own moral consternation at people who do things like this. I think we all know people (or have known people) who seemed to have no bodily control of themselves whatsoever when it came to sexual temptation (male and female). Without providing them any immunity for their transgressions, some people do not appear to have much more dignity in this category than a wild animal. Do you really think Tiger Woods fits into this category? I do not. And I never thought Bill Clinton did either. At the end of the day, while 7th commandment violations may be their “sin du jour”, I believe that the 1st commandment is where the whole deal gets started. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. These pathological narcissists break this commandment from the moment they get out of bed, because they have no functional understanding whatsoever that they are not God themselves. Tiger Woods is accountable for his adultery, but don’t you think it might be more helpful for this guy to find out that he is not God? Does someone actually believe that a 21-year old cocktail waitress whore can be expected to keep a three year secret forever and ever, just because his bodily urges so desperately hope that she will? Is he mentally retarded? No, he has a God-complex. He actually believed that he could do this in perpetuity, and nothing would come of it. The idiocy of this mess is only transcended by the offensive level of arrogance and hubris.
Tiger, the good news is that there is hope. It is not going to come by blaming the media (though they really are unspeakable vermin). And it will not come by feigning contrition a few hours after you found out you are finally caught. There is one source of redemption when your soul finally hits the shocking point of realizing that you are not God.
To Read The Rest - David L Bahnsen

Hell Never Produced a Single Pleasure

One of the roots of Christian Hedonism as I have pondered it for the last forty years is C. S. Lewis. Reading Alan Jacobs’ biography, The Narnian has underlined the influence Lewis has had on my thinking.
Here is a striking sentence about Lewis’s lifelong pursuit: “Lewis’s perpetual task both as a defender of Christianity and as an advocate of medieval literature is to call people to delight” (p. 190).
One of his paths to this “perpetual task” was his analysis of the devil’s use of pleasure. Screwtape (speaking for the devil—“Our Father”—in The Screwtape Letters) says to one of his under-devils:

Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy's ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which he has forbidden.... An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula.... To get a man's soul and give him nothing in return—that's what really gladdens Our Father's heart. (quoted in The Narnian, 189)

This is an astonishing view of pleasure. Hell has never been able to produce one! It can only misuse the ones that God created—in “times,” “ways,” and “degrees” that God forbids.
This means that all the debased enjoyments of the world are echoes of the joys of heaven. The analysis of this is worth a lifetime. And one effect of such an analysis would be to take the notion of “seeker-sensitive” ten miles deeper into Truth. How to penetrate the soul whose every desire is for Heaven while hating Heaven—that is the task.
By John Piper

Joel Osteen’s Christianity without a Cross

The sad thing about Joel Osteen is that he has all the marks of a sincere person. I just finished watching the profile of his ministry on “60 Minutes,” and there is not one thing about him that looks phony. He is one of the most likeable, loveable fellows that you’ll ever see. I really think he believes everything he is saying.
That is why what he does is so awful. The prosperity gospel that Osteen preaches will damn the very people he intends to help (if they believe it), and he appears completely unaware of the darkness into which he plunges his followers. Osteen’s lack of awareness of his own blindness was prophesied in the scriptures: “Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13). If anyone has ever been deluded by his own error, it’s Joel Osteen.
Nevertheless, Osteen pastors a church that has about 42,000 people attending every week. On top of that, his television broadcast reaches an estimated 7 million people on a weekly basis. Yet by his own admission, his message focuses on the “positive,” and not on sin, redemption, and the cross of Jesus Christ. In other words, his message doesn’t focus on the Gospel. I would have to say that there is hardly anything distinctively Christian about anything that he says. And if fact, the prosperity “gospel” is decidedly anti-Christian (1 Timothy 6:10).
As I was watching the “60 Minutes” interview, I was aghast that Osteen openly admits that he preaches this way. He doesn’t even blush when he says it.
Inteviewer: “[In your new book, you write that] to become a better you, you must be positive towards yourself, develop better relationships, embrace the place where you are. Not one mention of God in that. Not one mention of Jesus Christ in that.”

Osteen: “That’s just my message. There is scripture in there that backs it all up. But I feel like, Byron, I’m called to help people…how do we walk out the Christian life? How do we live it? And these are principles that can help you. I mean, there’s a lot better people qualified to say, ‘Here’s a book that going to explain the scriptures to you.’ I don’t think that’s my gifting.”
Osteen has no idea that the Bible teaches that pastors must be able to do precisely what Osteen says he’s not gifted to do—teach the scriptures (1 Timothy 3:2). Moreover, pastors have to know the word so well that they are able to refute false teachers and their teachings: “He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). Not only does Osteen not have the pastoral gift of teaching, he is himself a false teacher.
I am writing this blog because I think Osteen is dangerous. The prosperity “gospel” that he preaches makes the Almighty into a cosmic slot machine; just believe hard enough and you’ll hit paydirt and have your “best life now.” Yet the Christian gospel explicitly teaches that if a person tries to have their best life now, they will forfeit eternity: “Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it. For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:25-26).
Listen to Joel Osteen at your own risk. He is peddling death. And he is affable enough to make you feel like it’s life. But do not be deceived. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Reactions to the “60 Minutes” Joel Osteen Piece

The mentality that thinks in terms of marketing Jesus inevitably moves toward progressive distortion of him; the pursuit of the next emotional round of experience easily degenerates into an intoxicating substitute for the spirituality of the Word. There is non-negotiable, biblical, intellectual content to be proclaimed. By all means insist that this content be heralded with conviction and compassion; by all means seek the unction of the Spirit; by all means try to think through how to cast this content in ways that engage the modern secularist. But when all the footnotes are in place, my point remains the same: the historic gospel is unavoidably cast as intellectual content that must be taught and proclaimed. -D.A. Carson, The Gagging of God
A few thoughts on tonight’s 60 Minutes’ piece on Joel Osteen.
1. Byron Pitts, the reporter doing the piece, was simply superb. To the point. Unmoved by show. Understood the problem. In fact, probably understood far more than Osteen himself does about Christianity.
2. As much as I would like to join those who say that Osteen is a simpleton who doesn’t know what he’s doing, a close examination will show that at every point where there is a choice between being part of the church or departing into heresy, Osteen sticks with the church where there is money to be had and departs from the church where there is a faith to be confessed. He’s could be called a heretic by some, even if he is a believer, and he communicates a purposefully false trivialization of the person and work of Jesus Christ in favor of a man-centered motivational message of self-improvement.
Again, as I’ve said before, every evangelical leader needs to personally and by name repudiate and separate from Osteen, and call upon him and his followers to come back into the faith that is articulated in the Apostle’s Creed.
3. Osteen’s 73 million dollar cash cow is making a lot of people wealthy. This is about money, and Osteen is smart enough to know there is more money to be had by avoiding begging on TV. This doesn’t change a thing, however. He’s taking enough money to fund a huge part of the modern missions movement and using it to put on a show and promote materialism.
4. The line about getting people into “church” who have been out of “church” is simply crap, to be polite. No one in this movement is in church. They’re in the worst form of the prosperity Gospel, they are abandoning the God of the Bible, and they are glorifying a man who is assisting in the humiliation of the Gospel of Jesus. Osteen is a motivational speaker, and he uses only enough Christianity as necessary to get in the pockets of the gullible. Osteen is a Gospel preacher like Col. Sanders is an army officer.
5. Osteen’s tears of gratitude over being part of “changed lives” shouldn’t erase the fact that he is responsible for the spiritual delusion of millions, and his dressed up denial of the Biblical Gospel will be judged for the lie that it is on the day of judgement. I’ve got hundreds of letters from people telling me that IM essays “changed” or “helped” them. Send me 73 million bucks and I’ll be grateful, too.
6. The piece got what it needed out of Dr. Horton, but you should read Made In America to get the whole picture of what Horton would say if he had more time.
7. Evangelicals: Want to know why thousands of us are looking toward Rome? How bad can Marian dogmas and purgatory be in comparison to a movement that has tens of millions of people hailing Osteen as the great Christian proclaimer of our age? From Graham to Osteen. God help us. You cannot help but feel dirty.
8. Osteen probably doesn’t have the knowledge to be able to judge his own errors in the light of Biblical truth. Sad, but true. He simply has no idea that he has no idea. He thinks Jesus, the Holy Trinity and the Holy Scriptures are all means to the end of having a better paycheck. According to Osteen tonight, you can get the same truths from any psychologist or motivational speaker.
9. The story no one seems to want to tell: Osteen never used the principles that are in his books in order to succeed. He dropped out of college after one year at ORU. (Too academic?) He was a media guy at his dad’s church. He was brought into the pulpit by his dad’s sudden death, and he was clueless. Parroted his dad’s methods for a couple of years, then found Norman Vincent Peale’s positive thinking and abandoned the Gospel for “life coaching.” In other words, he stumbled into daddy’s pulpit and found what drew the crowds. A guy with a message of personal improvement like Tony Robbins? Hardly.
UPDATE: A page of Horton resources related to Osteen.
UPDATE II: So many good Osteen pieces on there. Denny Burke zeroes in on Osteen’s glad admission that he does not preach the Bible’s main message.

UPDATE III: Slate Magazine on Osteen’s God.
Internet Monk

Offendedness is a Double-Edged Sword

Comedian Larry David is best known as the creator, writer, and producer of Seinfeld.  He also plays a fictional version of himself on the HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”  David is currently in hot water  (see this and this) for a “Curb” episode that aired last Sunday in which David accidentally urinates on a painting of Jesus.  A woman later sees the painting and mistakes it for a miraculous crying Jesus.  She brings her mother back to the bathroom and both kneel in prayer.
Not surprisingly, Christians, and Catholics in particular it seems, do not find peeing on Jesus very funny.  Deal Hudson, author and publisher of InsideCatholic.com asks “Why is it that people are allowed to publicly show that level of disrespect for Christian symbols? If the same thing was done to a symbol of any other religions — Jewish or Muslim — there’d be a huge outcry. It’s simply not a level playing field.”  Hudson has demanded an apology from the show’s producers and writing team.  Similarly, Bill Donahue of the Catholic League criticized the episode as crude and insulting.
Clearly, urinating on a picture of Jesus is not going to win any accolades from the Church.  The episode from last Sunday sounds tasteless, wildly irreverent, and just plain stupid.  It’s no wonder Christians don’t like it.
But playing the grievance game with these kind of stunts is not always a good move.  For starters, it attracts more attention to the offending show.  More to the point, it overlooks the fact that just about everything on television is tasteless, irreverent, and stupid.  If we are going to be offended by sin, we should be disgusted by more than the occasional shock episode.  We should be just as opposed to taking the Lord’s name in vain, fornication, lust-enticing sensuality, glamorized crime, voyeuristic entertainment, and all manner of worldliness.  Sure, peeing on a picture Jesus is bound to get more headlines, but there are a thousand other sins that get broadcast every day and every night.
Most importantly we should be cautious about demanding apologies because offendedness is a double-edged sword.  Sure, there’s a time to publicly call out trash as trash.  And I’m sure there’s a double standard when it comes to mocking other religions.  The majority will always makes for safer satire.  But Christians make a mistake when they give into our culture’s obsession with being victims.  We have the right to free speech in this country.  So of course we are going to be upset with things that other people say and do.  But is it surprising that Larry David thinks Jesus Christ is a joke?  Do I need to be offended?  God’s thinks Larry David is a joke (Psalm 2:4).  Besides, when we go around asking for apologies when people mock what we value, we set ourselves up for the same demand the next time Miss California defends biblical marriage or Tim Tebow puts Bible verses under his eyes.  It’s not a crime to offend people.
Now, just to be clear, the issue is different when anti-Christian trash gets paid for through taxpayer supported programs and agencies.  But when junk shows up on HBO, or on any station for that matter, the best way to fight back is simply to turn off our TVs.
Come to think of it, that could solve a lot of problems.
Kevin DeYoung

Obama's Summer of Discontent

The politics of charisma is so Third World. Americans were never going to buy into it for long.
By FOUAD AJAMI

So we are to have a French health-care system without a French tradition of political protest. It is odd that American liberalism, in a veritable state of insurrection during the Bush presidency, now seeks political quiescence. These "townhallers" who have come forth to challenge ObamaCare have been labeled "evil-mongers" (Harry Reid), "un-American" (Nancy Pelosi), agitators and rowdies and worse.

A political class, and a media elite, that glamorized the protest against the Iraq war, that branded the Bush presidency as a reign of usurpation, now wishes to be done with the tumult of political debate. President Barack Obama himself, the community organizer par excellence, is full of lament that the "loudest voices" are running away with the national debate. Liberalism in righteous opposition, liberalism in power: The rules have changed.

It was true to script, and to necessity, that Mr. Obama would try to push through his sweeping program—the change in the health-care system, a huge budget deficit, the stimulus package, the takeover of the automotive industry—in record time. He and his handlers must have feared that the spell would soon be broken, that the coalition that carried Mr. Obama to power was destined to come apart, that a country anxious and frightened in the fall of 2008 could recover its poise and self-confidence. Historically, this republic, unlike the Old World and the command economies of the Third World, had trusted the society rather than the state. In a perilous moment, that balance had shifted, and Mr. Obama was the beneficiary of that shift.

So our new president wanted a fundamental overhaul of the health-care system—17% of our GDP—without a serious debate, and without "loud voices." It is akin to government by emergency decrees. How dare those townhallers (the voters) heckle Arlen Specter! Americans eager to rein in this runaway populism were now guilty of lèse-majesté by talking back to the political class.

Read the rest here

A Physician's View Of Health Care

This link points us to a physician's view of the government intrusion and our consequent loss of freedom under the health care takeover plan being considered. (Warning: gratuitous cat animation with rude gesture at end, sorry.)

Mary Kassian On The Shack

Mary Kassian, author of The Feminine Mistake writes about William Young’s portrayal of God in The Shack: “The Shack contains terribly wrong concepts about God. Plain and simple. If you think it doesn’t, then you’re well on your way to accepting the image of the Christa on the cross. In a few years, you’ll be hanging her up in your church. I don’t think I’m overstating the case.”

To read the whole article

A Conversation with Death on Good Friday

CHRISTIAN:

Hello, Death, my old enemy. My old slave-master. Have you come to talk to me again? To frighten me?

I am not the person you think I am. I am not the one you used to talk to. Something has happened. Let me ask you a question, Death.

Where is your sting?

DEATH, sneeringly:

My sting is your sin.

CHRISTIAN:

I know that, Death. But that’s not what I asked you. I asked, where is your sting? I know what it is. But tell me where it is.

Why are you fidgeting, Death? Why are you looking away? Why are you turning to go? Wait, Death, you have not answered my question. Where is your sting?

Where is, my sin?

What? You have no answer? But, Death, why do you have no answer? How will you terrify me, if you have no answer?

O Death, I will tell you the answer. Where is your sting? Where is my sin? It is hanging on that tree. God made Christ to be sin—my sin. When he died, the penalty of my sin was paid. The power of it was broken. I bear it no more.

Farewell, Death. You need not show up here again to frighten me. God will tell you when to come next time. And when you come, you will be his servant. For me, you will have no sting.

O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

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