Germany's Pogrom Against Homeschoolers

When the wall in Berlin which separated the 'free' West from the 'Communist' East fell, most assumed that it was the West which had triumphed, ushering in a new era of freedom for those formerly in bondage in the East. However, as this article from Worldnet Daily shows, one has to wonder which philosophy really triumphed, at least in Germany.

Given Germany's history regarding those with whom its government disagrees, homeschool families may find themselves in great peril shortly. We should pray that the Lord will protect His people in Germany and will turn the "heart of the king" where this wicked law is concerned.

Quotable Quotes

"To the church is committed the task of proclaiming the whole counsel of God and, therefore, the counsel of God as it bears upon the responsibility of all persons and institutions. While the church is not to discharge the functions of other institutions such as the state and the family, nevertheless it is charged to define what the functions of these institutions are...To put the matter bluntly, the church is not to engage in politics. Its members must do so, but only in their capacity as citizens of the state, not as members of the church."

- John Murray

Virtual Chisinau

I've been blessed to travel to the Republic of Moldova on three different occasions as part of a missions team. The capitol of Moldova is a beautiful city called Chisinau. Recently I was contacted through my Flickr site by a gentleman named Mihai to ask if he could use some of my Chisinau pictures on a new website called Virtual Chisinau. I was honored to lend my few photos to this effort.

You can see one of the ones posted so far here.

While there, take a look at the other pictures as well, many far better than mine, and see what a beautiful city Chisinau is!

FYI...the site is in Romanian so it may be difficult to read the captions!

More on Mike Huckabee

Kim Riddlebarger has an excellent discussion today on the modern American evangelical approach to politics in general and Mike Huckabee's application of that specifically.

Sin is Like Silly String

Our two boys are currently playing Upwards Basketball at a local church. As those of you familiar with Upwards will know, part of the purpose of that program is to introduce boys and girls to Jesus Christ - nothing wrong with that. One of the ways the program does that is to have a short devotional for the children during the half-time of each game - again, nothing wrong with that.

However, at our first game this past week, I was more than a little concerned about the message given, or at least implied, by that half-time devotion. The overarching message was the Jesus loves you, in fact that He loves everyone no matter what. They had a man dressed up as Elmo from Sesame Street helping with the presentation and at one point the speaker said Jesus even loves Elmo with his big funny nose. He then went on to say that Jesus loves you even when you 'mess up', not sin mind you, just 'mess up'. So what does that look like? Its like when you spray silly string inside the house. I kid you not, that was the illustration given. The speaker said he likes to spray silly string inside the house (and he then sprayed it across the crowd of kids much to their glee) but that his wife loves him even when he does that and that's how Jesus loves us too.

Now, my wife thinks I'm overreacting given that these were kids between 1st and 3rd grade, at least where our boys were concerned. However, leaving aside the theological issues around 'Jesus loves everyone in the world', my feeling is it is never OK to trivialize sin in this way. Even very young children are capable of understanding the holiness of God and the seriousness of sin. They must in fact understand that in my opinion before they can repent and be saved. Which brings me to another point, there was no mention at all of repentance - just Jesus loves you no matter what.

What do you think? Was I overreacting to this little devotional or was it doing these children a disservice, especially those who may not be from Christian families and who need to hear the true gospel preached to them?

Huckabee's Phone Call from God

Disgusting.



HT: Lew Rockwell

Quotable Quotes

"From what are the people being saved? Not from visible warfare or barbarians but something far greater: from their own sins, a work that had never been possible to anyone before."

- John Chrysostom