The Sky is Falling: News at Ten

Has anybody else noticed that national crises are turning up on TV as frequently as Hollywood awards shows? Just in the last six months we have endured the mortgage crisis, the banking crisis, the stock market crisis, the Detroit automotive crisis, and the Swine Flu crisis. Trillions of stimulus dollars and hundreds of broken promises later, all those storms are still swirling, but there’s a new call to arms! Do they still sell Alka Seltzer down at the Rite Aid?

Our leaders hate to be the bearers of bad news, but they are rushing to the microphones to warn us again. Yes, we are suffering from an urgent "Healthcare Crisis" that cannot wait another week.

That term “healthcare crisis” is invoked so often and so ominously that you’d figure most Americans are wringing their hands in utter despair. Surely the warning signs are everywhere. Hospitals are so crowded that long lines of aged heart patients and cancer patients are spilling out clinic doors- stretching for blocks down the streets, right? Medical schools are graduating so few budding interns that there is a doctor shortage, right? And there is such a dearth of effective pharmaceuticals that Americans are dying of common disorders. Right? No. No. No.

This week, The New York Times reported recent polling that indicates broad support for healthcare reform. Some 85% of Americans allegedly believe our healthcare system must be radically or substantially reformed. But that same research found that 77% of Americans are satisfied with their own healthcare. If that’s a national crisis, I’ve got more breaking news:

• This country surely suffers from a congressional crisis, because I can guarantee you that 77% of Americans are dissatisfied with Congress. This can’t wait! When can we toss those bloated narcissists out of DC and bring in some ordinary Americans who haven’t traded their souls for campaign cash?
• Then there's the urgent education crisis. Seven out of ten Americans are not satisfied with our public schools. If healthcare companies need federal competition to make them improve, why not create competition for our wasteful public schools? If competition works so well, why did the President shut down the voucher system which allowed inner city DC students to attend great private schools?
• And finally, almost 77% of Americans support restoring prayer to schools and public places. Wake up, Washington! We have a prayer crisis. Are there any of those stimulus dollars left for getting desperate Americans out of a prayer crisis and into real prayer lives?

Sure, we’ve all heard that 40 million figure for uninsured Americans. But I have to wonder if that’s anything like the "documented" number of women reportedly beaten by husbands on Super Bowl Sundays? Hey, if we could pin down a real number for the uninsured, most would be young people who don’t want to spend money on insurance they don’t need; Americans who are between jobs and will be insured when they are rehired; and immigrants who are here illegally.

If that leaves 10 million uninsured Americans, surely there’s a more efficient way to help them than turning the world’s premiere healthcare system over to the same Beltway politicians who waste billions of tax dollars year after year on Bridges to Nowhere and studies on the sex life of killer bees in China.

No doubt, we’d all like to see healthcare costs go down. But if that’s actually what you desire, then you surely can't afford more posh office suites for bureaucrats, more kick-backs for DC politicians, and more federal paperwork for honest doctors. Wake up America: Most of us haven't seen a real crisis yet, but you have some ambitious politicians who are eager to show you one.

Hell is a Four Letter Word

Funny, it’s been a long time since anyone has told me to go to Hell! The bad news is that there are more graphic four-letter words people can use to insult you these days. The good news is that Hell has been banned.

Actually, I’m pretty sure the place is still there- at least that’s what God promises. But more and more Americans are grossly offended by the idea. They insist that a sentence in Hell would be unjust. Most people aren't that wicked, or so we commonly assume. Hell would be okay for somebody like Hitler, but it’s surely not for mass consumption! Most people just aren’t that bad.

It may sound odd, but I was reading this history book last week and I came across a shocking fact: when Hitler came to power, most people didn’t think he was that bad, either. He was elected by the majority in a nation of nice, moral people. In fact, even when he began to eliminate the Jews, most of his fans and followers thought it would stimulate the economy! What’s wrong with that? Heck, the H-Man still has has tons of fans in the world today. No doubt, they are all nice people as well.

Or try this idea. If most people are basically good, how do you explain the epidemic of child molestation, date rape, mail fraud, identity theft, child pornography, racism, and genocide that dominate the headlines daily? Is a small group of skinheads in Montana responsible for all that evil? When corporations seduce and corrupt children with violent, suicidal, sex-charged music videos in order to rake in megabucks, are the people who run those corporations basically good? And if most earthlings are morally acceptable, which other planet is providing us with our surplus of corrupt politicians, greedy corporate CEO’s, angry terrorists, and self-centered celebrities?

I remember a stunned church member who came to me in shock a few years ago. He had inadvertently discovered that his godly Mom had been part of an adulterous affair when she was younger. He was stunned and couldn’t even imagine how his innocent Mom could have ever been a part of something so unsavory. When the Bible speaks of depravity, it means that none of us are quite as innocent as we'd like to pretend.

If most of us are offended by the "injustice" of Hell, perhaps it’s because we are too comfortable with real-world evil. We don’t know most people in the world, and can’t imagine what they’re really like. And we’re in denial about ourselves.

The good news is that nobody has to go to Hell. Thank God Jesus Christ came to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

Blame the Bearded Guys

If the Bible seems a bit dull to you- too cut and dried- just blame it on those old, bearded guys. It worked for Dan Brown when he wrote the DaVinci Code, and it seems to be working for other post-modern types who are offended by the Word of God. Apparently, those wicked church fathers, had this secret meeting with the Emperor Constantine. (Okay, it wasn't that secretive. We've all known about it for nearly 1700 years.) In a couple of days, they hand picked and edited the books of the Bible, crushed the competition, shut out the truth about Mary Magdalene, and invented the doctrine of the Trinity.

Then they successfully hid their tracks for all this time until Dan Brown exposed them with his best-selling novel. And today we all know the Fathers of Nicea were sinister control freaks who despised women and plotted to deceive the whole world for thousands of years. Well, that's what their critics say.

But it started me thinking. If those early church fathers were so powerful and so determined, why didn't they take their plot more seriously?

• Why didn't they edit the gospels and make one of the Apostles the first witness to the resurrection? Why did they leave Mary Magdalene and the women as the first to arrive and get word to the men? Women were considered absolutely unreliable witnesses in their world! Why didn't they fix this embarassment?
• Why didn't they tweak the four Gospels to make them fit together more comfortably? The gospels use different stories and notice different details to show different aspects of Christ's ministry. If these inconsistencies were really a credibility problem, why didn't they scan those manuscripts and do some word processing?
• Why did they leave Simon Peter looking like such a loser? He denied Jesus at the worst possible moment! And John's Gospel ends with this pathetic scene where Jesus has to forgive the guy. Incidents like this make our would-be heroes look weak. Why didn't they do a rewrite and let Peter fight boldly for Christ until he was finally knocked unconscious and tossed into a dungeon bound and gagged?
• And if they were really trying to rehabilitate Christ's reputation because they knew he had died in vain on the cross, why did they leave in that irritating question: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It would have been a lot smoother if they'd just let Jesus exclaim, "What a rush! This was a great ride, Pop! Back in a sec!"

Something tells me those early church fathers weren't as corrupt and all-powerful as we've been told. The evidence tells me these were ordinary guys who had become convinced that Jesus Christ had actually come back to life after a violent death, rolled away a big stone, and returned from his grave. There can be only one reason they left the New Testament intact with all those "problem passages:" because it's the truth. They weren't trying to polish the truth; just pass it along.

As John wrote in his Gospel account, "But these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name." The Gospel is not based on a foolproof plot. It is based on the Truth.

Sliming the Word of God

A good friend asked me to read a book he'd purchased and share my thoughts. It was titled, Ten Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs the Job.) It's one of those skinny, chatty, anecdotal books that assume "hip honesty" is cool and orthodoxy is obsolete. Most pastors can't afford to be honest, right? They have to say certain things in order to stay on the payroll, so somebody has to re-educate ignorant Christians whose number is Legion. Apparently, this author was glad to volunteer.

One light-weight chapter offered a word for all those foolish souls who believe the Bible is "inerrant." In one deft paragraph, this spiritual advisor charges many of his brothers and sisters with "pat answers," copping out, and wasting other people's time. So much for love and gentleness. Then he twists the knife with this statement: "Let's turn to the painfully obvious biblical errors." (Aren't you glad he's a friend, and not an atheist or something?)

Are you ready for the first, and most "painfully obvious" error in your Holy Bible? 1 Kings 7:23 "values pi at 3 instead of 3.14 as we now know it to be. Close but not inerrant." Having never come across the term "pi" in Scripture, I hurried to find the offending text. In fact, the passage simply describes a round object in the Temple which was ten cubits from rim to rim, and thirty cubits in circumference. Dividing the circumference by the diameter should calculate 3.14, so the statement must be erroneous and unreliable.

All I could do was laugh. I thought about the Greek sophists of Paul's day who took pride in being able to argue any point, no matter how irrational or absurd. Since when does a narrative describing the appearance of the Temple have to express every dimension of every structure within two decimal points in ancient Hebrew? This account was written to help us imagine the Temple, not rebuild it to scale! Think about this:

• The Bible is full of rounded numbers, and everyone has always known this.
• Exodus 12:37 summarizes that the Exodus included 600,000 men, not counting women and children. If we should some day find an ancient Egyptian manuscript that proves 600,023 males actually departed, that would confirm the account, wouldn't it?
• 1 Samuel 4:2 describes how the Philistines killed 4,000 Israelites in one battle. Perhaps you've noticed that most fatality statistics in Scripture are amazingly round numbers! Would you be shocked or offended to find an ancient historian who counted 3,997 bodies? Most of us would assume this confirmed the biblical estimate.
• Matthew 15:38 records a miracle in which Jesus multiplied seven loaves and a fish to feed 4,000 men plus their families. Now if Jesus really multiplied that small amount of food, but only managed to feed 3,987 men plus their families, is Matthew a big fat liar? Is God?

So much for "painfully obvious errors!" However,I have decided the book is right about one thing: if I believed that kind of rubbish, I would lose my job. My people have much more respect for God than that. In fact, if I really approached God's Word with such apprehension, I would resign my job. I would have no supernatural basis for supposing that lives could change, miracles could happen, or people can live forever. I would be as shallow and spiritually empty as many of the books in Christian bookstores.

Dear friends, you never need to worry that God's Word will mislead you. God won't stand for that. But you should beware of laid back authors who describe how well they know God in spite of the Bible's flaws. Misery loves company, and these unhappy souls have invited you into the trap to share their fears and sorrows. Don't take the bait. Trust the Lord.