Tag: faith

The New Boston Massacre: A Matter of Faith

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

americanchristianflag 2I am a Christian American Conservative. I make no apologies for it. I believe in the triune God and I believe that America is the greatest country on the face of the Earth.

I wrote yesterday about the reticence of both the Obama Administration and the Main Stream Media to identify the murderous brothers who were responsible for the New Boston Massacre as Muslim Terrorists.

If the Terrorists had been like me, A Southern Baptist from Mississippi, ol’ Scooter and his minions would have shouted it from the rooftops for the whole world to hear.

In fact, during the early aftermath of the massacre, they were publicly wishing for that to be the case.

The Liberal Hierarchy desperately wanted the perpetrator of that heinous attack to be an American Christian. Then, they could have “killed two birds with one stone.

In today’s “Me First” Culture, Patriotism and Christianity are considered passe, by the new “diverse” society, which the Liberals, and their unwitting lackeys, are so desperately trying to build.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, without a love of country, a nation is lost. Without love of God, one’s soul is.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m no Pollyanna. I am quite aware of the things with have been done in the name of Christianity. However, I’m also acutely aware of the barbarism that has been done, and is still being done, in the name of Allah.

Andrew McCarthy, in an article for nationalreview.com, wrote this week, that

We are in a war driven by ideology. “Violent extremism,” which is the label the government and the commentariat prefer to put on our enemies, is not an ideology — it is the brutality that radical ideologies yield. Our enemies’ ideology is Islamic supremacism. To challenge and defeat an ideological movement, you have to understand and confront their vision of the world. Imposing your own assumptions and biases will not do. Islamic supremacists do not see a world of Westphalian nation-states. They do not distinguish between Russia and America the way they distinguish between Muslims and non-Muslims. Their ideology frames matters as Dar al-Islam versus Dar al-Harb: the realm of Islam in a fight to the death against the realm of war — which is everyone and everyplace else.

The fact that you think this is nuts, or that I’m nuts for saying it out loud, has nothing to do with whether they believe it. They do — and they don’t care, even a little, what you think.

You do not defeat an ideology by hoping it will change or disappear. You have to challenge it, to make it defend its baleful tenets in the light of day. You cannot protect yourself from its violent outbursts absent understanding its teaching, reluctantly accepting that its teaching will inevitably lead some Muslims to strike out savagely, and committing to a pro-active, intelligence-based counterterrorism strategy — one that scraps political correctness and ferrets out the jihadists before they strike.

I have heard and read from some of this “Me, First Generation” that there is not any difference between Christianity and Islam. Quite Frankly, that’s like saying that there’s no difference between an in-ground swimming pool and a garden hose.

In Islam, the way to “walk with God and escape his judgement on that final day of judgment is through ‘falah’, which means self-effort or positive achievement. The faithful must submit to God and follow all of his laws as found in the Koran. Judgment day in Islam involves some sort of measurement of what the believer has done wrong and what they’ve done right. And even then you might not be let into heaven if Allah decides you’re not good enough.

This is the direct opposite of Christianity.

According to the Bible, no man can ever be good enough to deserve God’s favor, to win God’s heaven, because from birth we have Free Will. This Free Will may cause us to reject God and live our lives our own way. That’s why it was necessary for Jesus Christ to die for our sins, covering us in His blood of the New Covenant.

God’s Word tells us that what we need is not ‘falah,’ but faith. To have faith in, to trust, to rely on Jesus and his death as as “the expiation for our sins”. Those who have been Saved by Jesus Christ can be sure that in the future God will welcome them into heaven with wide open arms, because they have been washed by His blood.

Islam and Christianity present two very different Deities, who may share some similarities, but who have different identities and ultimately different standards. To pretend they are the same is not only to be clueless of the faith of 78% of the citizens of this nation, but, to be ignorant of an integral part of our American Heritage, the legacy of Christian Faith, which our Founding Fathers bequeathed us.

Now, I am not saying that every Muslim is on a jihad against “the infidels”.

However…

When Christians become “radicalized”, we want to share the testimony of what God has done for us through His love, with everyone we meet. We get involved in our local church and we become better fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and American citizens.

When Muslims become “radicalized”, they want to “kill the Infidels” in the name of “Allah the Merciful”.

In the case of the Chechen Muslim brothers, their immersion into Radical Islam led them to “kill the infidels” that horrendous day.

For Liberals to deny that, is disingenuous at best, and just plain out-and-out lying at worst.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop: A Man of Science. A Man of Faith

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

koopThe finest Surgeon General of the United States in our generation, C. Everett Koopp, passed away this past week.

The following very fair biography is courtesy of msnbc.com (Can you believe it?)

To judge from the reaction on the left, when Ronald Reagan announced his choice for Surgeon General 32 years ago, you would have thought the man he’d chosen had a horn and tail.

C. Everett Koop, who passed away this week at the impressive age of 96, had been the chief of surgery at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, where he’d pioneered revolutionary techniques that saved countless infant lives. He was also a committed Christian whose faith and medical work had made him a fervent opponent of abortion. Democrats roared in protest and sent months fighting the nomination. Reagan had been elected with a major assist from the burgeoning Christian Right, and Koop perfectly symbolized the hard-right, almost theocratic direction liberals believed the new president wanted to take the country.

“The nomination” The New York Times declared in one of many editorials condemning Koop’s selection, “is a disservice not only to the Public Health Service and the public itself, but also to Dr. Koop. He is being honored for the most cynical of reasons–not for his medical skills but for his political compatibility.”

But his opponents didn’t really know Koop. And actually, Reagan didn’t either. [ I disagree…but, let’s move on] Because he was also a man of science, and of immense integrity–and when he was finally confirmed in the spring of 1981, Koop set about confounding critics and cheerleaders alike, becoming the most consequential surgeon general in the nation’s history and probably the single most important public health voice of the last three decades.

Smoking was one of his first crusades. The tobacco companies and their powerful allies in Congress denied it, but the evidence was overwhelming: Cigarette smoking was killing Americans in droves. Koop had little official power, but he did have a big platform, and he used it fearlessly–issuing blunt reports on the fatal risks of cigarettes, a landmark warning about the danger of second-hand smoke, and barnstorming the country to urge Americans to change their habits. Jesse Helms–one of the conservatives who’d championed his nomination–turned on him. The governor of North Carolina screamed for his impeachment. It all made Koop’s boss in the White House uncomfortable–but the smoking rate went down.

Then there was AIDS. The earliest reports of the killer virus coincided with the start of Reagan’s presidency, but as the death rate spiked and the mystery deepened, the president and his administration said little and did even less. Except for Dr. Koop, who saw AIDS not as a niche concern of gay men–a constituency much of Reagan’s political base was openly hostile to–but as the public health crisis it was. ”It is time,” Koop said, “to put self-defeating attitudes aside and recognize that we are fighting a disease–not people.” He issued a report that shocked the nation and enraged the right: the AIDS epidemic was only getting worse, Koop said, and while abstinence was the only sure way to stop its spread, the use of condoms by those who opted for sexual activity was essential.

When Reagan asked Koop to study the health risks that abortion posed to women, the surgeon general complied. Ardent abortion foes were hopeful: finally, a way to tilt the abortion debate back in their favor. But Koop did his study and reported back with words that bitterly disappointed the president and his supporters: “I regret, Mr. President, that in spite of a diligent review on the part of many in the Public Health Service and in the private sector, the scientific studies do not provide conclusive data about the health effects of abortion on women.”

C. Everett Koop left office just as committed to his faith and just as opposed to abortion as he had been when he entered office. But his personal moral views never clouded his judgment, or his commitment to public health. He was–and still is–a model surgeon general and his legacy is a reminder that sometimes the worst thing you can do is to judge a book by its cover.

Of course, I disagree with MSNBC on one point. Dr. Koop’s “personal moral view”, aka his Christian Faith, guided the decisions he made, in all aspects of his life. This article first appeared in the March 6, 1987, issue of Christianity Today. At the time, C. Everett Koop was Surgeon General of the United States.

My mother was 87 when she died of uterine cancer. She was in a coma, during which people actually asked me if I wanted to put her on dialysis. That would have been ridiculous for personal, spiritual, and economic reasons.

I do not believe—and have never taught—that every patient should be kept alive for the longest time possible. Nor have I said every patient has to have the last bit of high-tech heroic treatment available. I do believe in the right of the patient to say, “I have lived my life,” and to choose his or her own treatment. But that question becomes complicated when we consider the decisions people make for others who are not cognitive and have not made their final wishes known.

Right now, I am 70 years old and in excellent health. If my kidneys shut down tomorrow, let’s say, after a severe infection, I don’t know how long I would want to be on dialysis. It would be foolish and a waste of resources for me to have a kidney transplant at my age. I would probably opt to clean up my affairs, say goodbye to my family, and drift out in uremia.

The important point is that my wife and I know exactly how each of us feels about the end of life. This will be crucial if the time comes to make such a decision and I’m not then able to do so.

Of course, all such talk has different connotations for the Christian than for the non-Christian. My wife knows I do not believe in being ushered out of this life with a lethal injection. I want to hang around long enough to be sure my family is taken care of. But after that, I don’t want my life prolonged in great discomfort when it is fruitless.

I don’t look forward to the manner in which I am going to die. But I do not fear death. Indeed, the way in which we face death is a matter of faith. For the Christian, it is not the end.

Thank you, Dr. Koop, for your service to this nation, and your love of God and Country. You will be missed, sir. Godspeed.

Until He Comes, 

KJ