Reformation
How Easter Changed the World–and Can Do It Again
This week we celebrate Easter–the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Two-thirds of our global population will take time to honor these events in some way with cross walks, worship services, family gatherings, or even Easter egg hunts (the only major exception being the Muslim nations).
Some may have not thought deeply about the impact of Jesus, but all have affected by it.
To the majority of people in the world, Jesus is an honored historical figure who was was the founder of Christianity–but that is about as far as it goes. Many have no idea that his death and resurrection has had an unsurpassed effect on the history of man. In fact without the death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, life on planet earth would be incomprehensibly different from what it is today.
Easter changed the world–made it very different than what came before.
How different? Let’s take a look.
The essence of Jesus’ mission was to save the individual lives of every person who chooses to put their trust in him. He didn’t just point the way to a set of ideals or moral principles as many other teachers did. Rather, he promised when we were “born again by his Spirit” he would come to live inside of us, guiding and empowering people to live meaningful and godly lives.
At the age of fifteen I put my trust in Christ to forgive my sins and come into my life. He did. From the very beginning I experienced his presence, power, guidance, correction, and empowering which changed everything in my world. I was no longer “wretched man that I am!” (Romans 7:24)–but was set “free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). There was a new dynamite–dynamic–power–to live a productive life. Over the past two thousand years, it is the Spirit of Jesus Christ in millions, and now billions of people, that has altered the landscape of history through changing individual lives.
Similarly, no one altered the role of women is society more than the resurrection of Jesus. Prior to New Testament times, women labored in harsh, subservient roles, often nothing more than slaves to men and their families. Loren Cunningham and David Hamilton point out in their liberating book Why Not Women? that the Greek philosopher Cicero likened women to “slaves, dogs, horses, and donkeys”–all possessions to be used and cast away.
Jesus’ miraculous life elevated women to equal worth in God’s sight and complimentary roles in the marriage relationship. ALL of the women’s rights we enjoy, especially in the past two hundred years, were produced by the Christian faith. Even in Muslim societies today, women are second-class citizens. Not in the Christian West where women have all the same rights as anyone else. If you’re a woman, living in a Western nation, you can thank Jesus Christ for the freedoms you enjoy.
Also, though the Church has not always properly applied the teachings of Christ, it is also true that no group of people have made a more positive impact on the history of the world than the Christian Church. The “Church”–the “called out ones” (Greek = ekklesia)– transformed the Roman Empire, rescued “learning” from the destruction of the Middle Ages, raised Europe out of barbarism, pioneered the New World, and sent Christian civilization to the ends of the earth.
History would be unrecognizable today without the acts of God’s people in every century. Without the compassion, evangelism, humanitarian, and social justice works of the Church in scores of nations, the lives of millions today would be without hope.
One of the things we both criticize and take for granted in the 21st century is the positive role of human governments that were shaped by Christianity. Prior to the Christian faith being applied to civil government, people lived in perpetual fear of massacres and tyrants. Your town could be here one day and be burned to the ground the next. You could be alive one day and dead the next. Power and fear ruled human societies for much of human history.
But after the death and resurrection of Christ, the biblical role of civil government began to emerge through the Magna Charta, British common law, republican governments, democratic principles, and human rights. These things weren’t just the evolutionary march of history–they were incremental applications of Christ’s teachings to human governments.
Do you appreciate armies and police that protect us? Do you value the right to vote and elect your representatives? Do you appreciate the relative tranquility of a just social order? All of these things–which are not enjoyed in many non-Christian nations in the world–are the fruit of faith in Jesus Christ.
Most of the major milestones in human education flow from one fountain: faith in Jesus Christ. Did you know that we would have lost the great literature of Greece and Rome (and all of the ancient world) if it weren’t for the Christian monks who preserved that knowledge through finding, preserving, and copying all the ancient writings during the Middle Ages? Are you aware that the first universities in Paris and London were started by believers who had a thirst for knowledge and wisdom?
Did you know that the printing of the Gutenberg Bible was considered by TIME magazine the most important event of the past five hundred years because it made truth and knowledge easily available to the masses? Have you heard that the first one hundred and twenty universities in America, beginning with Harvard, were started by followers of Christ for the advancement of the Christian faith?
Even the development of human work, labor and industry, finds its zenith in the application of Christian truths. For most of history, and still in some parts of the world, there were only a few wealthy tyrants and teeming masses of poor people. For thousands of years there was no middle class and no freedom for individual initiative. During the Christianizing of Europe, this all changed as believers applied biblical concepts of labor and industry which eventually became free enterprise capitalism that led the world out of its mass poverty.
As Adam Smith wisely pointed out, the Wealth of Nationswas simply the fruit of applying the reality of Christ to economics. The large and growing middle classes, the endless business opportunities, the Protestant work ethic, extensive philanthropy, and the standard of living we share today is the fruit of the teachings of Christ. When you purchase your next gizmo or wonder drug, thank God that the free enterprise system you currently enjoy is built on faith from start to finish.
Rodney Stark in his marvelous book For the Glory of God rightly points out modern science was born of the Christian faith and not in opposition to it. It was Christian civilization that proposed that “design points to a Designer”–and that man was placed on the earth to discover God’s secrets in nature and use those discoveries to benefit people.
From Galileo to Faraday, from Pascal to Einstein, the leading scientists of both the past and present have overwhelmingly been people of faith who used their trust in Jesus Christ to unlock the mysteries of his creation. I recently visited the Kennedy Space Center and gazed in awe at the technology and scientific genius that put men on the moon. None of this would have been possible without believing in a God whose creation can be understood. That Creator is the resurrected Christ.
Francis Schaeffer pointed out in his landmark book How Should We Then Live?that the coming of Christ greatly influenced the arts–that prior to Christ’s birth, all music was played in minor chords, showing the incompleteness and lack of harmony in life. After Christ’s death and resurrection brought wholeness to individuals and nations, people began creating major chord music and realistic art–an expression of their reconciliation to God. Picture the totem pole faces and primitive art forms of pagan peoples. They always look wild, menacing, and evil.
Not after Jesus died and rose! He brought healing, peace, and completeness to thousands of lives who then reflected that wholeness in ever expanding art forms. It’s a long ways from lewd and angry totem poles to the Sistine Chapel–but Christ produced the difference. When lives are changed and brought into right relationship to God, they sing, paint, and give him glory in the arts. This is why more hymns and songs have been written about Jesus than any other person in history.
The love of Jesus Christ–as demonstrated on the Cross of Calvary–has made the greatest mark upon the world. “God is love,” and Jesus’ horrific sufferings on behalf of sinful people showed the world once and for all that God cares for each one of us and provided a way out of our guilt and self destruction. For two thousand years, followers of the loving Christ have carried his compassion and care to peoples everywhere.
Nations have been won through his love; The majority of hospitals and compassion ministries around the globe have been launched in his Name; When there are earthquakes, tsunamis, fires, and typhoons, God’s love through his people runs to alleviate human suffering via the Red Cross, World Vision, and thousands of other agencies. Where would our world be without the love of Christ as expressed through his people?
Jesus was not just a good man who founded a great religion. He was the Son of God, sent on a mission to transform the world through changing individual lives. I want you to imagine for a moment what your life would like if he hadn’t died and rose again!
You’d be powerless in your sins, separated from God forever. If you’re a woman, you’ve had no rights or future. Your family would be broken and dysfunctional. You’d have no worship or fellowship. You’d be living under a tyrant, without education, and in miserable poverty. You would be fearful of nature (creation), your art forms would express those fears. You would lack faith, hope, and love in this life–and the next.
Unfortunately, that description fits the circumstances of some people alive today–who have not heard of Jesus and the wonder of his love. Let’s be faithful to take his Good News to them.
The so-far turbulent 21st century needs to once again focus on the greatest Person of history–Jesus Christ. During this holiest of weeks, we need to pray that mena nd women, families, and whole nations will look to Jesus Christ for forgiveness of their sins and power to live wholesome and effective lives.
We must never forget that Easter–the death and resurrection of Jesus–radically changed the world for good.
Let’s ask Him to do it again in our generation.
Gas at $4 a Gallon? Here’s Why
When gas prices edged up fifty cents a gallon during the George Bush years, the mainstream media cried bloody murder trying to smear the Administration.
Yet under the Obama administration, gas prices have DOUBLED–with hardly a peep from those same news outlets.
Why?
Because it was never about prices. It was about bringing down a conservative president then, and propping up a liberal (socialist) one now.
The leftist media actually want gas prices to rise because they desire to take Americans out of their cars and into centrally-planned light rail systems the people don’t want to use. They want to promote wind, solar, and other renewable resources to “save the planet.”
It’s a huge “con” which is about nothing but control.
Controlling people. Limiting freedom.
America has plenty of energy resources to power everything we use–at far lower prices:
- We have vast oil reserves, including ANWAR, which if it had been developed ten years ago, would be making a significant contribution to lower fuel prices now.
- We have immense shale oil deposits that could be harvested.
- We possess the world’s greatest largest reserves of natural gas.
But there’s been a conspiracy in the past twenty years in this nation to place so-called environmental concerns over the future of powering America. Most of those”concerns” are just plain bunk.
It’s time we called the charade and demanded that American energy companies be allowed to do what’s necessary to bring down gasoline prices and provide complete energy independence from a chaotic Middle East.
The following article by the Heritage Foundation is right on the beam. Read it and let your voice by heard. RB.
“Obama’s Anti-Drilling Agenda Costs Jobs Across America”
President Obama’s hometown of Chicago is nearly 1,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. But like many other communities across the country, it is suffering the consequences of his Administration’s anti-drilling agenda.
Illinois accounted for $376.2 million in shallow-water drilling expenditures over the past three years, according to an analysis by 14 oil and gas companies that spend money on vendors and subcontractors. The bulk of that money—$242.2 million—was spent in the Chicago district represented by Representative Danny Davis (D–IL).
It’s fresh evidence that Obama’s anti-drilling agenda is having a ripple effect across America since last year’s oil spill, claiming jobs not just in Louisiana and Texas but also in communities far removed from the shipyards in the Gulf of Mexico.
The study from the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition paints a picture of the nationwide economic ramifications. Obama can’t even be blamed for playing politics. Five of the states that benefit most from shallow-water drilling backed him as a candidate in 2008. And Democrats represent many of the congressional districts that stand to lose millions.
The cost in jobs is startling. A new analysis by Louisiana State University professor Joseph Mason projects national job losses at 19,000 from the drilling moratorium, with wage losses at $1.1 billion. About one-third of those jobs are located outside the Gulf region.
Nearly a year after imposing his anti-drilling agenda, it’s quite clear that Obama is carrying out misguided policies causing widespread harm.
And job losses aren’t the only consequence. The Obama Administration’s deliberate delay in issuing permits for both deepwater and shallow-water drilling has led to a sharp decline in oil production for the Gulf of Mexico this year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration puts the figure at 240,000 fewer barrels every day.
With gas prices hovering around $3.56 per gallon nationwide, now is not the time to lower production. The only way to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil is to produce more of it here at home.
The recent approval of new drilling permits for the Gulf of Mexico is a welcome and long overdue move by the Administration, but it’s nothing to celebrate. The pace of permitting is far below the historical average, and there’s no indication that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) has any desire to return production to a pre-spill level.
Until that happens, expect more grim news like the unfortunate circumstances facing Seahawk Drilling, which was forced to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a direct result of the bureaucratic delays at BOEMRE. Seahawk’s president and chief executive Randy Stilley, writing in The Washington Post, painted a dire picture:
The government’s drastic slowdown in the issuance of permits for shallow-water drilling operations—in which companies work in familiar geological formations, typically in less than 500 feet of water, mostly seeking to produce natural gas—has all but crippled the industry. The survivors (for now) like Hercules are staying afloat largely thanks to revenue from operations outside U.S. waters. Put another way, a once-proud industry born in the gulf during the Truman administration can no longer survive on operations in its own back yard.
Unless things change soon, Seahawk Drilling won’t be alone. Businesses located in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, and New York—top recipients of shallow-water drilling spending—will all face economic consequences as well.
It’s time for lawmakers to take notice. Representative John Sullivan (R–OK), who represents a district with $87.2 million in shallow-water expenditures over the past three years, recognizes the impact. He told us: “Continuing to keep American sources of energy under lock and key by failing to issue drilling permits only serves to place American jobs at risk, drives up costs at the pump and deepens our dependence on foreign oil.”
Things don’t have to be this way. The House of Representatives must continue to conduct rigorous oversight of the Obama Administration, challenging the Administration’s excuses and applying pressure when necessary. America’s energy future depends on it.
No More Politeness on Obamacare
As a general rule, I try to be polite with people and their policies.
When Obamacare first came out, I was careful to not attribute bad motives or intentions to those who wanted to change our health care system. It’s true I didn’t share their view of greater government intrusion in the U.S. healthcare industry, but I wanted to be civil in my reactions and opinions.
But I learned something recently that caused me to change my mind. It’s time to take off the kid gloves and state the truth plainly.
Obamacare is a sinister disaster.
Here’s why…
Actually, we should have known this a long time ago. There were a number of ominous signs when the original bill was being passed:
Sign One – The way the bill was put together behind closed doors on a totally partisan basis. The Democratic Party allowed no Republican involvement and didn’t allow CSPAN or anybody else to broadcast hearings or the decision-making process. A cloak of darkness almost always means deception. We should have strongly protested this clandestine process.
Sign Two – Buying off a number of senatorsto get this bad bill to pass. Congress is always involved to some degree in horse-trading, but the “Louisiana Purchase” with Senator Mary Landrieu and the “Cornhusker Kickback” bribe made to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson–and others–went way beyond the pail. The passing of this legislation was loaded with bribery and pay-offs. That’s bad policy in a democratic republic.
Sign Three: Three thousand pages in length. The Obamacare bill was a multi-thousand page bureaucratic monstrosity–worth of the former Soviet Union but not the United States of America. The important things in life and best writings are usually simple–think the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. We should have shouted from the housetops that we would not stand for a bill that was so large that nobody had time to read it–that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said needed to be passed quickly so that afterwards “we could find out what was in it.” Three hundred million Americans should have shouted bloody murder over that perversion of the legislative process. Pass a bill that alters an industry and nation–and find out afterwards what it means? That’s not only idiotic–its an evil use of governmental power.
Sign Four – Exceptions, exceptions, exceptions. Obamacare was passed on the idea that it was better for American business and the public. We were told it would make health care more available and affordable, bring costs down, and decrease the deficit. Well, if it was so good for one and all, why did nearly 1000 groups line up to be excused from the program for a number of years? If something is good, you won’t want to be excluded. You will desire to be the first in line for the benefits.
That didn’t happen with Obamacare. If it’s bad for business now, it will be far worse in the future.
But the worst abuse of the Obamacare bill only came to light recently. That’s because it took all this time to carefully comb through the voluminous pages of this legislative nightmare and actually begin to understand what it was saying and doing.
Buried in the 3000 pages of federal healthcare takeover was a stealth appropriation of 105 billion dollars!
Let that sink in.
105 billion.
That’s the entire size of the US debt in 1980–a mere thirty-one years ago. To implement Obamacare over the coming years, the authors of the bill totally side-stepped the appropriations process of the US Congress. They didn’t want anyone ever changing their prize plum.
How’s that for democracy? Sounds more like tyranny or dictatorship to me.
Our hero for uncovering this fraud is Congressman Ernest Istook. Here’s how the Heritage Foundation reported this incredible find:
“Today former Congressman Ernest Istook testified before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee about the $105 billion slush fund in advance appropriations liberals tucked inside Obamacare. The $105 billion bypasses the traditional yearly budgeting process and is spread throughout the 2,700 page legislation. It took the Congressional Research Service (CRS) seven months to identify all the disparate funds and it was not until February (11 months after the bill passed) that all of the funds could be totaled up.”
We also need to give Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) immense credit for beating the drum to raise awareness of this unprecedented level of hidden, advance spending. She calls it “Obamacare’s 105 Billion Dollar Power Grab.”
Here is her analysis:
“While Obamacare is rightly notorious as a fiscal nightmare, less well known is just how massively it transferred power from Congress to the executive branch. In fact, the full scope of Congress’s abdication is still unknown. What is now known, however, is that deeply buried within Obamacare was a $105 billion slush fund that assures its implementation into the future, no matter what future voters think or want.”
“This makes then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment to the Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties about Obamacare, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” made a year ago tomorrow, ironically prescient. Just this past month, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) updated an October 2010 reporttitled “Appropriations and Fund Transfers in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).” The new report found that, unbeknownst to almost every Member of Congress, Obamacare contains $105 billion in direct implementation spending that bypasses Congress’s normal appropriations process.”
“A separate CRS report, titled New Entities Created Pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, concludes: “The precise number of new entities that will ultimately be created pursuant to [Obamacare] is currently unknowable, for the number of entities created by some sections is contingent upon other factors, and some new entities may satisfy more than one requirement in the legislation.” These new bureaucracies would have the power to reach into your life on a daily basis, including control over who is allowed to sell you health insurance and how they may do so, as well as what procedures Medicare will or will not pay for. Once Congress allows these new bureaucracies to be created, it will be next to impossible to get your health care freedom back.”
“But these merging entities do have a weak spot. CRS reports: “In practical terms, many of these entities will not be able to function until their members are appointed and funds are appropriated or made available for the entities to operate.” That is where the secret $105 billion stash comes in. Instead of leaving these fledgling bureaucracies vulnerable to the budgetary decisions of future Congresses, Obamacare appropriated billions in implementation spending over a 10-year period. Conservatives can still save the nation from Obamacare’s bureaucratic kudzu, but they must act proactively. They must go beyond simply not providing funds for the implementation of Obamacare. CRS explains: “Precedents require that the language be phrased in the negative, for example, that ‘none of the funds provided in this paragraph (typically an account) shall be used for’ a specified activity.”
“This is why our nation cannot afford to fund the federal government by continuing resolutions, which perpetuate the status quo—a status quo where Obamacare’s implementation is already funded. In order to truly defund Obamacare, conservatives must go through all 2,700 pages of the bill and cut spending for every program one by one. That is the mandate this Congress was elected on. Members need to do their jobs.”
“Last night, I shared important news with you about the fraudulent appropriation of $105 billion dollars to fund Obamacare, passed by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats without a single hearing or even allowing Members of Congress time to read the bill. In the coming week, my colleagues and I will be doing everything we can to ensure that this funding is rescinded, and I hope you’ll sign my petition to call on the rest of Congress to do the same.”
I was concerned about Obamacare from the beginning. But I was polite in my analysis and gave the benefit of the doubt to the authors.
No more. No more politeness. Obamacare is the worst bill in the history of the United States. It was crafted in darkness, used massive bribery to win approval, is a bureaucratic monstrosity, and stealthily used a massive monetary power grab to insure its survival.
It needs to be repealed, defunded, publicly scorned and placed on the ask heap of history.
There will be no economic renewal–or renewal of government–without it.