We were warned.

The Australian Labor Party, which is in government in Australia at present, has just changed its policy on same-sex marriage. It now supports it. Soon there will be a vote in the Australian Federal Parliament on whether or not to legalizes it.
This has been a controversy for a while now, with some states in other Western countries legalizing it, some nations in Europe recognizing same-sex marriage. Much of the opposition to the idea has come from members of the monotheistic faiths, Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Whatever their disagreements about other things, they concur on this: homosexuality is not just an individual variation like left or right handednes. It offends God.
Some practitioners of the faiths, calling themselves 'progressive', support homosexual marriage. All the arguments about minorities' rights, equality at law, love being the most important thing, have been voiced in support of homosexual rights. It raises the point here: God does not change to suit human fashion, God's Word does not alter to suit changing social views. God's Word in eternal and unchanging, and that is the reliability of it. We can know it now and always. If people believe that saying "This is the Twenty First Century" proves that everything has changed, they might learn the hard way that "there is nothing new under the sun." The Bible warns, and some secular history shows, that societies can become too self-satisfied with their own power and sophistication, become corrupt and implode from their own rottenness.
We might find that turning from God's Word does not usher in a new dawn of human well-being and joy. We have turned from God, scorned His guidance and sovereignty, and His blessing will pass from us. It would be shocking to see, but just as so many great empires and civilizations have fallen before, the modern world as we know it may collapse because human arrogance and blindness has become a trap for us and we led ourselves right into it. We thought we knew more than we did, and found out how little we knew. There may be a cataclysm into which we fall, or we may simply see a turning of the tide and a return to more Godly living, after some bitter lessons. That has happened before. Only God knows what He will do. One Christian friend remarked that she thinks this society is under judgement now.
Come again, Lord Jesus.

God has no grandchildren

We've been hearing about Amy Chua, who wrote "Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother", and before that 'Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior'. Ms Chua describes how she taught her children to be successful by driving them to it. She admits to things like throwing the home-made birthday card her daughter gave her, back at her and telling her it was not good enough. Ms Chua may not have realized quite how some parents from a Judao-Christian heritage would react to that suggestion, or she might not have come out and said it.
I'm not attacking or critisising Chinese people as such. My issue is with the idea that a parent should treat a child that way.
She claims she is doing what is best because she cares enough to be hard on her children. Some westerners go so far as to accuse her of child abuse.
Things Amy Chua include as methods of parenting are: no sleepovers, no play dates, never being in a school play, no T.V. or computer games,no choice of their own extracurricular activities, never get a grade less than an A, never be anything except the best student in any subject except gym or drama and never play any instrument except the piano or the violin. True, some western parents may let their children get away with too much and make too little effort to guide and restrain them, but the Chua approach sounds to me like an abomination. I'm thankful I never was treated that way.
It can backfire, too. One young man of Chinese birth now living in Australia stated for the press that he has lost his sense of attachment to his mother because he saw her as nothing but a taskmaster. Now living in Australia he feels he can be his own person.
Ms Chua also talks about threatening to give her daughter's dolls away if she did not practice her piano music.
She also admits, unless misquoted by the press,of threatening her daughter with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas and no birthday parties if she did not perfect this piano piece.
Underlying this approach is the belief in some cultures that the child is an extension of the parent - and this is where I believe Chua's approach is wrong.
Children are not just part of their parents. They are individuals in their own right, each of them made by God. Apart from Adam and Eve, every child is conceived and gestated in a woman's womb, and the mother feels it and possibly suffers by it. You can understand why she feels she has some claim on the child. Fathers too, unless they are wretchedly negligent, feel intensely for and about their children. I can talk. I'm a father, and I saw all five of ours being born.
But those children, all children, are intended to grow to adulthood and have their own lives. And they have their own connection to God. God has no grandchildren, only children. In the sight of God, ultimately our kids are our brothers and sisters in the Lord. We cease to hold authority over them and they seek God themselves without going through us. We must teach them, but then it is up to them, and they relate to God without us being involved. They are not just part of us, even if they look and sound like us, (which not all kids do!).
This is where I believe the Amy Chua approach is wrong, because it is exceeding the right and authority of a mere human being, even if they are a parent. The time comes when children do not answer to mothers or fathers, and do not exist to gratify the parent or do what the parent wants. They are separate, with their own need to find God and communicate with Him directly, not via their parents. And they must each seek GOD'S will for their life. It may not be the same as their parents' plans!
Recall that when Jesus called some to follow Him, one said 'first, let me bury my own father'. It sounds a bit harsh, but Jesus replied, "let the dead bury their own dead." The point here is, if you have to choose between your family and God, choose God. If your family would be a barrier between you and God, choose God. Your family cannot grant you Salvation.
And your family are only mere human beings. They cannot claim to know all God's plans for your life.
Not only Amy Chua but any human parent needs to know this. Bob Dylan was not a Christian when he wrote and sang, 'Your children are not your children', but what he said was in a sense quite true. Once they leave the nest as adults your offspring must live their own lives, and they best thing they can do is seek the guidance of the Almight in doing this. Human parents cannot always know what is best because they are only human. In childhood and youth, they should give guidance, but only with the proviso that they are only human and their understanding has its limits. We parents do not have lifelong ownership of children, and can't know the future, or what God only can see is best.
Another commentator, responding to Chua, pointed out that success does not guarantee happiness. Quite true. More to the point, success does not give you everlasting life, it won't even ensure that you live a long time on this earth.
I've been told that Japanese culture is also very success orientated and involves great authority by parents over children.
Japan is a society whose population is falling, not because the law requires it but because fewer Japanese want to have children, or even marry. That shows a loss of faith in the future or the worth of begetting new life.
I prayed for Amy Chua and her family, that they find Christ as Saviour. Anything else will finally be revealed as futility. Some humans who had collossal success and fame in this world are still dead. Statues, mentions in history, things and places named after them do not change the fact that their voices are stilled and their bodies turned to dust. Only their souls matter then. And where are they? Did William Shakespeare or Virginia Woolf get to Heaven by being famous? If they get there at all, it will not be because any other human being remembers their names. It will only be because God finds their names written in His Book Of Life.
No amount of talent or achievement in this world will cause that name to be written there. And parents cannot make the name be written there. They should clearly teach their children where the truth lies, but the children must live it themselves.
God has no grandchilden, only children. Success and achievement do not bring us close to God. Only following the words and one who in life was a carpenter, can do that.
Yes, that's right. In His human incarnation, Jesus was a carpenter, not a musical prodigy or champion sportsman, not a great financial success or anything else that the mere world reveres. But He is God. And He alone knows the way.

Subtle tricks.

Arsinoe was Cleopatra's younger sister, so history tells us. And Arsinoe was killed on big sister's orders, because she might have been a rival for the Egyptian throne. The same source describes how the boys in Cleopatra's family were disposed of, also. How vile and evil! If you asked most people what they know about Queen Cleopatra, they would probably say she was famous for her beauty and her tragic death after her lover died, not that she was a power-seeking murderer.
We know families don't always get on well, but fratricide is another thing. As we agreed, discussing it after, the society of Ancient Egypt included some dark and evil places.
It's the same elsewhere. The Ancient Greeks, of the Hellenic Age, had a very advanced civilization in the material sense. They learned and deduced some things about the world and our solar system which were later forgotten and had to be rediscovered hundreds of years later. Vert commendable.
They could also be grossly indulgent and entertain some perversions. Several times I've been told that Hellenic men took boys as 'lovers'. That's not homosexuality so much as pederasty, or paedophilia.
The Romans indulged in debauched evil, too. Burning people alive in the Colluseum, or having them set upon by wild animals, was a specator sport for the public at the time.
Yet we were taught at school that these societies were marvellous and admirable. History books and scholars talk about 'the wonder that was Ancient Rome' and 'the Golden Age of Greece', overlooking the Greek practice of keeping slaves. Egypt too is described as a place full of wonders, like the pyramids and Tutenkhamen's tomb.
A young learner could get the impression that the past was a breathtaking place, and it's only the present that is disappointing. And it is a subtle trick, to delude us about human nature and the state of the world. It pretends that human beings are much more admirable and upright than we actually are. I say 'we' because I'm not some exception.
Secular teaching of history therefore conceals an important truth, that a human must know to hear the call of God. Human history does NOT only show us what marvels we have achieved as a race, but also what depths of corruption we have often sunk to.
Teaching history the way we do can be mischieviously misused. Communists teach history to try and sell their ideology, by claiming everything before Karl Marx was bad. And secularists can use history to try and fool us that we don't need God.
This was what George Orwell meant when he said, whoever controls the past controls the present. Tell people that the past was what you want them to believe it was, and you can manipulate them into believing certain things about the present.
The concept of the 'noble savage' comes in here too. The idea was that at some time in the past, a human society existed which was perfectly harmonious and free from evil. If we can get back to it we can re enter the golden age of peace. That idea also tries to show that human creatures can be perfect if put in the right environment - and thus pretends that we are better than we are in fact, when you look at what actually happens.
I can see why the Christian schools movement has grown. There is a need to present knowledge and learing in a clear way, without attempting to idealize it. And Christian truth will show that, but not secularism. Secularism tries to pretend we are better than we are, and deny the need of a Messiah to save us.
I wonder where it will end?

An analogy

When some people talk about Christianity, or any other belief, they give their ignorance away. I don't mean to be too harsh, just get right to the point. People discuss faith as if it was like being part of a club, which has some traditions and rituals, but it doesn't necessarily change your the members' world view. When they're not at a club meeting they simply live like everyone else around them.
This is the analogy that occurs to me. A convinced theist, or believer in God, and a convince atheist are as different as two mathematicians working with different number scales. If you work with a number scale of ten, then four fives equal twenty. If you work with a number scale of five, four fives equal forty. The same data yields a different answer if your analytical thinking framework is different. If a person really believes in the existence of God, then God is a factor in all things, all issues and all equations about life. God is always there and always has to be considered. And God can make the impossible possible. God can, if He chooses turn water into wine. So God has to be remembered in all situations. Someone I once knew said "This has nothing to do with God," when telling someone else what to do. They were quite wrong. It has everything to do with God. The advice they were giving was not in keeping with God's teaching. But they were saying that in the real world you have to be 'practical', by which they meant do whatever worked best, and never mind if it wasn't the Christian thing to do. There is probably a great deal of that. This person called themselves a Christian but left God out of some of their daily decisions in life. God was only for Sundays or for making fine sounding speeches about when they were in the mood. Their faith did not transfer into daily life.
That's not all. Some non-believers, or agnostics, don't understand why Christians get 'hung up' about certain things. They don't see why Christians have to make an issue out of things instead of just fitting in. That is to say, they don't realize how real God and His teachings are to those who really believe.
Even though I personally do not follow the teachings of Judaism, I must respect the right of a Jewish man to wear a yarmulka, if he feels that's important a part of his belief. Some people propose to ban such things in public schools, because the school is supposed to be secular. But a Jew does not stop being Jewish just because they are in a public school.
And a Christian does not stop being a Christian just because it is not Sunday and they are not in church.
That is why they sometimes cannot fit in with the world. Jesus Himself warned His followers of that. They may be rejected and victimised by the world.
In the same vein, some people say the church should 'modernise' to fit in with the community it wants to connect with. That is putting the cart before the horse. The community needs to change to follow the Word's teachings - or else be honest enough to admit that they are not doing so. To say the church has to agree with society is saying that the church has no real beliefs, it just reflects social or political fashion. But some people can't see that because they do not really know what they are talking about when they discuss faith.

Call a spade a spade.

Not long ago I see a female person verbally attacking a man, telling him off and putting him down, and when he reacted in the same way she accused him of being 'afraid of strong women.' I felt like telling her there is a BIG difference between a strong woman and a bully. It is another case of calling something obnoxious by a fine sounding name in an attempt to make it better than it is.
I know some strong women. I've been privileged to be involved with several strong women, and none of them needs to be abusive, critical, loudly in my face or hostile. None of them tries to be intimidating to get their own way. That is a very important difference. There is some self-serving dishonesty in confusing the two, by calling one the name that belongs to the other.
One strong woman I know stuck by her husband and family, doggedly working hard to help keep the family's struggling farm going. She is my mother. Another strong woman has coped with a lot of grief and disappointment, been through two lots of cancer surgery, and still works while still being there for her friends.
Another strong woman has overcome a miserable childhood to work at her marriage and raise five children. I should know. I'm married to her!
None of those, and others like them, is a strident harridan who pushes people around and belittles them.
Some pushy, bullying women I know try to walk on a man's face and then accuse him of male chauvinism when he simply insists on not being treated that way.
A good woman is worth more than rubies, as the Bible says - and I don't mean that condescendingly. It is true. But let's get the definitions right. Strong need not be loud. Real strength is not the same as vindictiveness, or personal ego. Some female bullies, like male ones, have a problem with fear of their own. They are scared stiff that someone might see their uncertainty so they cover it up with bluster, and try to intimidate others with abuse.
For pure strength, look at the Messiah. He could have called the vengeance of God down on His tormentors, but he asked that they be forgiven instead. Strength and brutality are two utterly different things. We all need to know the difference.