Category: Uncategorized

Our Solemn Historic Moment

“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” 

“Like the infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe was also egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided.”

United States Supreme Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision handed down on June 24.

The people living it seldom realize they are in a historic moment. Just like the infamous day Roe v. Wade became law, nothing about day-to-day life is different. No one has flown an airliner into a skyscraper, yet everything has changed. The grass needs mowing. The shrubbery needs trimming. And while many remain defenseless, millions of innocent lives have been saved.

But my mood is more solemn than celebratory. Several reasons for that come to mind.

America has corrected a fifty-year mistake that has taken sixty million innocent, defenseless lives. SIXTY MILLION. It seems to me that we should have a day of national mourning. Perhaps we will when the work is done. For now, the mission remains: we must make abortion not just illegal, but unthinkable.

More sobering is that millions of Americans, including millions who claim to fear God and follow Christ, still believe Dobbs is a mistake and cheats women out of a Constitutional right. Two incontrovertible facts, one legal and one medical, dismantle that delusion. First is Alito’s meticulous rebuttal of the dissenting opinion. “The dissent,” he writes, “does not identify any pre-Roe authority that supports such a right—no state constitutional provision or statute, no federal or state judicial precedent, not even a scholarly treatise.” (Read the rest beginning on page 35 of the opinion). Second, all the medical evidence—heartbeats at 42 days, fetal pain, ultrasound—tells us that we were taking human life from day one. Everyone knows it. Even the President called them babies in one of his classic slips. Human babies made in the image of God. Bill Clinton won an election with the slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Maybe the next GOP candidate should say, “It’s the science.”

All babies are fully human

Further, abortion has not been banned in America. The ruling means that state laws protecting the unborn are no longer dead on arrival at the Supreme Court. States that permit abortion still permit it.  

Another sobering thought: Some Americans will use Dobbs to justify their mission to visit more violence on their neighbors. See the Summer of Rage for example.

But let’s turn the corner.

One of the synonyms for solemn is sacred. Those who have fought and prayed for this day now more than ever have a duty to double down on our support for unwed mothers and fathers and the crisis pregnancy centers that serve them. Demand for their services is going to go through the roof.

We also must teach the dignity and beauty of human sexuality as designed by God and the sanctity of every life. Prudish Pharisaic attitudes toward sex are one of the things that created this problem. But the Song of Solomon is in God’s book.

Finally, it is time to thank God for the sober-minded, courageous, and forthright people who never gave in and never gave up. Dr. James Dobson and the late Chuck Colson gave many of us the theological, medical and philosophical framework to fight abortion, but As Breakpoint’s John Stonestreet said, the Roman Catholics called out this evil when many Protestants took refuge in moral ambiguity and courageous Protestants like Francis Schaeffer called evangelicals out of their moral slumber on abortion.”

More than those, we thank God for the local leaders of crisis pregnancy centers, the regular moms, sisters, brothers, and fathers, and pastors who spoke up, showed up, and paid up to keep their doors open and the marchers marching. Most of all, we thank God for the compassionate women who continue to make themselves available every day to pregnant women in need.

REPAIRING THE AMERICANIZED CHURCH

May 14, 2011, Winnipeg, Canada. We’d just stepped off the plane, collected our baggage, and loaded up in the two Chevy Astro vans Johnnie and Alex drove over from Camp and settled in for the five-hour trip back. As our van pulled away from the curb, we heard a horrible scraping sound. SKRRRRRR!

“Oh yeah, that’s just the brakes, eh?” said driver Alex, “Finny the fish-whisperer,” Finlayson. “It quiets down once we get going a bit, eh.”

Every time Alex touched the brakes, SKRRRRRRRR! I used to be a mechanic. It was like hearing fingernails grate across a chalkboard.

The problem was: The brakes were Canadianized.

The Canadian environment is tough on cars. Salt Corrosion destroys metal. Brake rotors disintegrate. Brake pads get stuck in the slides. Calipers stick and won’t release. Preventive maintenance is essential.

Something similar happens to churches that go too long without proper maintenance. They become Americanized. And just like that van needed an annual inspection and maintenance on its brakes; churches need a yearly inspection. We need to examine ourselves and make repairs. The founders of our Church built in our annual membership renewal so that we would have to take a look at ourselves as a church, see where we might be corroded and hanging up, where we’ve become Americanized, and make some repairs.

Americanized churches have three characteristics.

The Americanized Church is About the Individual

The Church is ‘of the individual, by the individual and for the individual’ to paraphrase Mr. Lincoln. The feelings, rights, and preferences of the individual supersede every other value. Forget sound doctrine. Forget obedience. Every spiritual value is weighed against personal peace and prosperity. If it adds to my sense of self and well-being, I embrace it. If it challenges my comfort zone or, God forbid, calls me to change my thinking and behavior, I reject it.

But that kind of church “doesn’t work,” there’s a scraping sound when it’s focused on the individual.

The Americanized Church is Optional

We show up when we feel like it. We participate when it’s convenient. We give out of our surplus. We serve until it no longer feels good. It’s optional.

Christ’s Church is his body, His physical presence on planet earth.[1]

Sometimes people say to me, “I can’t feel God in my life.” And I say, “What am I, chopped liver?”

Jesus works through the Church, his body, to meet each other’s needs. He nurtures us, cares for us, gifts us, cleanses us, and matures us for his purposes. He appointed us to do good works planned before the Church began.[2] But it doesn’t work that way if it is optional.

The Americanized Church is Cliquish

It has in groups and out groups, super-spiritual groups, and not so spiritual groups. It breaks down into socio-economic layers.

Former Christianity Today Editor, Andy Crouch, related a conversation with a 25-year-old pastor who “appeared to drive up the average hairstyling bill in the room by several dollars. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘we’re starting a church for cool people.’”

Cool people?

“Yeah, you know, people like us.” (He doesn’t mean himself and me; he means himself and his friends—all of whom do indeed exude a level of coolness that I could only dream about.) I fleetingly envision spot checks at the door—Old Navy allowed only on probation, white sneakers politely referred to the contemporary service down the street—but decide that coolness is probably self-enforcing.”

“Later in the weekend, after one of my presentations, he admiringly says—I swear this is an accurate quote—’You know, dude, you may not have cool hair, but you have some serious clue.’ (What a relief—the cool kids like me!).”[3]

Cliques have the right to decide who is in and who is out, who gets included, and who is excluded. SKRRRRR! But here’s the fix:

Commit to the growth of others.[4] We ask, “What’s it doing for me? If it isn’t meeting my need, I’m not going to go.” Instead – with balance – we should evaluate: will my presence be an encouragement to a weaker brother or sister? Will my service edify someone other than me?

Church membership is a commitment to do all these things and more in a community of others who are also doing them. That preventive maintenance will keep any church working well for a long time to come.

[1] Eph. 1:22-23.

[2] Eph. 2:10

[3] CT Mag. March 2002 Andy Crouch

[4] Rom. 15:1-2

GOOD FRIDAY AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

GOOD FRIDAY AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

One of the great questions of the skeptic, the greatest objection to Christianity as we know it is: How can a good God let bad things happen to good people? How does Christianity deal with that question?

The standard answers run something like this:
 He loves us but he isn’t powerful enough to do anything about it.
 He’s powerful enough to do something but he really doesn’t love us.
 He’s not there.

But when we look at Psalm 22 and see that David prophesied all of it 1000 years before Christ quoted it from the Cross, it opens up an answer that we hadn’t considered:

God is doing something to overcome evil that we never would have dreamed.
• He is wrestling evil to the death in the body of the king of goodness.
• He is swallowing all injustice in the suffering of the just one.
• He is putting out the fire of death in the unquenchable life of the Living One.
• He is breaking the power of sin and the curse by nailing it to the Cross of the sinless one.

What did God do with the problem of evil? He absorbed it all in the person of his son who sang the great question out of the depth of his soul while nailed to a cross.

A POST ELECTION PRAYER FOR ALL BELIEVERS

A POST ELECTION PRAYER FOR ALL BELIEVERS

I woke this morning and found about what I expected, an undecided election fraught with the potential for significant conflict in our country. As one commentator said last week, “This is going to make Florida’s hanging chads in 2000 look like a cake-walk.” Thankfully, as a result of that debacle, the Supreme Court rendered a decision that all ballots must be counted and turned in by December 8, six days before the electoral college meets. So, we should have a decision, if no less conflict, by then.

I grieve for our country and pray for it daily, but my chief concern is for the Church of Jesus Christ. We are “the support and pillar of the truth”[1] and cannot stop speaking it even when the world would rather not hear it. But we are also required by our Lord to be peacemakers in this world.[2] We are also commanded to “make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” within the Church.[3]

With those three tasks in mind, I offer the following prayer, adapted from 1 Peter chapter 1, and I ask you to pray it with me for ourselves and for all who bow the knee to Jesus Christ over the next month.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade—kept in heaven for us, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

Though we have not seen him, we love him; and even though we do not see him now, we believe in him, and are filled with inexpressible joy, for we are receiving the goal of our faith, the salvation of our souls.

Therefore, Father, we ask that you help us prepare our minds for action, be self-controlled, and fully set our hope on the grace to be given us when Jesus Christ is revealed. Please help us, Father, as obedient children, not conform to the evil desires we had when we lived in ignorance of you and your Son. Please help us, Father, to be holy because you are holy.

Since we call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, help us live our lives as strangers here in reverent fear. For, we were not redeemed with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

Finally, because we have been purified by obeying the truth, help us to love one another deeply, from the heart, recognizing that we have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

For, all men are like grass, and all their glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.

Amen.

[1] 1 Timothy 3:15

[2] Matthew 5:9; James 3:18

[3] Ephesians 4:3

TOP TEN MENTAL HEALTH TIPS

TOP TEN MENTAL HEALTH TIPS

In 2007-2009, my middle daughter, Emarie, passed through a time of deep testing. By God’s grace, she came through with her life and faith intact. She now works as an architect and Jiu Jitsu instructor in Billings, Montana. As I am at a conference this week, I thought you would appreciate her insights.

1) Find the balance between a healthy amount of time to reflect and too much introspection. Do you never slow down long enough to hear the silence? Or do you tie yourself in knots over-thinking? Develop habits that help you strike a middle-ground and pay attention to how you’re doing every now and then.

2) Journal often. It will help you do step one.

3) Take care of your body. Drink water, sleep, eat your veggies! Move yourself!  I know you know how, but are you DOING it? It might take discipline and accountability to develop healthy habits, but you’ll never get there if you don’t go for it. Your brain feels better when you feel better.

4) Talk to people you trust regularly. If you can’t come up with 1-3 people you’re close enough to do this regularly, consider a counselor. Professional talk therapists are better for preventative maintenance than crisis management; they’re objective, they don’t have to be your best friend, and they won’t be part of your life forever.

5) Do something productive. Change the oil. Clean the house. Mow the lawn. Savor the accomplishment of a small job well done.

6) Cry. Everybody does, and there are things in life that merit it. If you can’t grieve, you can’t heal. In retrospect, I find it interesting that my deep-dive into depression involved no tears. I wouldn’t let myself cry, and for a long time, I didn’t heal. The frequency of a need to cry varies from person to person and across the seasons of life, but it’s safe to say that you’re overdue if you can’t remember the last time. I keep a playlist of sad instrumental music, and when I’m feeling down, I turn it up and sit in the feeling until I figure out why. Usually, it merits a good cry.

7) Sing. I learned this from my younger sister, and it works! When her bedroom door slammed, and the soundtrack to Sweeney Todd started at full volume, there was no doubt she was upset. There’s music to suit most any feeling; head out in the car alone, turn it up, and sing along.

8) Get straight with your creator. If you feel like you’re bent double under the weight of something you can’t even see, go to the one who accepts burdens. Go screaming, go fighting, go doubting, but go.

9) Worship. Once you know who God is glory in it. Meditate on it. Sing about it. If you’ve never done #8, this may seem silly, but participating in worship has never failed to change my day regardless of my mental/emotional state, attitude, energy level, or even intention.

10) Put yourself on a brain diet. I’m not talking about food. Pay attention to the information, images, and implied messages you are consuming, especially through social media and entertainment. You KNOW the stuff that’s junk-brain-food. Junk-brain-food is just like junk food-food, it tastes good, at least for a moment. It strokes your ego, suits your fantasies, and captivates your attention. Stop taking it in. It may seem harmless, but it’s poison for your brain. Unplug entirely if you have to.

For example, I like country music (not all of it, but, you know, more than 50%); however, I won’t listen to some THEMES of country music. The feelings/attitudes those songs generate aren’t worth it. I also don’t watch horror movies. I know they’re dumb, I don’t believe any of it is real, and I know many of them are funny, silly, suspenseful, thrilling, or well-written. But I don’t watch any of them because I find them disturbing and unenjoyable. Further, I think that if I liked a horror movie, I would like it the same way I like the third piece of chocolate cake, more in the having than the actual eating and not at all once it’s finished. It’s junk-brain-food, and my mental health is better without it.

LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM A LIVING LEGEND

LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM A LIVING LEGEND

Sonlight, the college vocal group I traveled with from 1981-83, was lost in New York City after dark. The passenger van was vibrating so badly that it felt like it might come apart. We stopped, and I crawled underneath to check the driveshaft, but without a flashlight, I could not see anything. I got back in the van, and one of the other guys figured out we were in Harlem and needed to make a few more turns to reach the expressway and head north to our hotel. We rounded a corner and saw a man lying in the street, suffering from a gunshot. No police cars yet. “We gotta get out of here!” we said. One more turn and we were on the expressway. Less than a mile later, the driveshaft let go with a loud BANG, and we were stranded.

That event sticks in my mind not only because of the location and time but mostly for the way our leader, First Baptist Church of Atlanta Worship Ministry Director, John V. Glover, handled the situation. Without losing his cool, he loaded all 12 kids into the equipment van and gave directions to the hotel. Then he began whistling as he stuck out his thumb. He’s whistling! I thought. He is not shouting, or cussing, or blaming anyone. He’s whistling. The fact that he did not seem worried helped the rest of us not to. Then a big two-tone Cadillac coupe pulled over, and a huge guy with a gray beard offered him a ride. I thought, “That’s it. The Mafia’s got Johnny, and we are never going to get out of here.”

My friend, Johnny, produced and directed the Atlanta Passion Play that ran for 35 years and played to over one million patrons. He has led choral groups for 60 years, produced and conducted more musicals than I can count, and mentored hundreds of young men and women into life and ministry. Via Facebook, his family helped us celebrate his 80th birthday this week with memories and gratitude for all he meant to us. He did it with legendary energy and positivity, but the leadership principles he taught us will be most valuable to you. Former FBCA Orchestra Director John Gage summed them up.

– It is more important to develop your spiritual life than it is to build your vocational/ministry life.

– Excellence is always critical and worth the time and effort.

– Collaboration is better than trying to do it all yourself.

– Trust those you hire, but help them develop as well, and they will become a valuable asset to your ministry.

– Give guidance but get out of the way and let your employees take responsibility for their areas of expertise.

– Pray first.

– Be creative but not at the expense of comprehension.

– Love your staff and let them know you love them by investing time in them.

– Family is more important than work.

– Always allow your boss to make the final decision after stating your case.

Johnny’s impact on me is immeasurable. I learned to trust God in impossible situations when he showed up the next day after spending all night in a truck stop getting our van fixed.  I courted my wife of 36 years backstage in the Civic Center during the Passion Play, and three years later, he performed the ceremony. I received the confirmation of my call to ministry in response to a challenge he gave Sonlight on the way home from a Jamaica trip. I memorized Romans 6 on that same trip because he challenged us to do it, and I still teach young men facing temptation to do it today. I learned to speak to churches on those Sonlight trips and what to do when the accompaniment tape breaks. And I participated as he took a few professional musicians and hundreds of average singers and molded us into a powerful community of praise. The list could go on, but most of all, Johnny became one of three key men God put in my life as mentors in those days to replace the father I lost when I was fifteen. I will never stop being grateful for him. So, Happy Birthday, Johnny! And here’s to another 80!

WE ARE CAESAR: Christians and Politics in 2020

WE ARE CAESAR: Christians and Politics in 2020

A national election looms, and the contrasts between the candidates and their platforms could not be more distinct. How should we choose? Do the life and teaching of Jesus give us any guidelines?

Yes! Jesus faced a hotly contested political issue. His epic reply was: “Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God, what is God’s.” (See Matthew 22:15-22). The story behind the quote is rife with political tensions that make ours seem mild.

The Story

Judea became a Roman Province in 6 AD after the failed tetrarchy of Herod Archelaus. After the census, the Romans levied a head tax on top of the property tax customs tax. Judas of Galilee led a revolt over it. The debate that raged at the time was whether a good Jew should pay the fee.

We can paraphrase the question to Jesus like this: “Can we pay taxes to Caesar and still give allegiance to God? Are we traitors to God for supporting this pagan leader’s rule over His land?”

The question was a trap. If Jesus rejected the head tax, he was liable to Caesar’s court. If he supported the tax, the Zealots—a violent political movement—would turn on him.

Every resident of Palestine knew someone, a brother, a father, a cousin, a neighbor, whom the Romans had victimized. They were sold into slavery, forced off their land, or executed for speaking out against oppression.

Moreover, the Messiah, like the judges of old, was expected to depose tyrants and enforce justice. Would Jesus measure up?

Jesus turned the tables and set a trap of his own. “Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” He said.

They paid it with a Tiberian denarius, propaganda disguised as currency. One side had a profile of the emperor and a superscription that read: TI CAESAR DIVI AUGUSTI FILIUS AUGUSTUS (Tiberius Caesar, August Son of the Divine Augustus). The other side had a picture of a woman seated on a throne holding an inverted spear in her right hand and a palm branch in the left. The superscription read “PONTIFEX MAXIMUS” (High Priest). The Jews saw it as a portable idol promoting a pagan religion and hated it. So it was funny to watch the questioner dig around to find one, and then realize with embarrassment that all the Jews in the courtyard were frowning at the fact that he would have it on his person.

When he handed it over, Jesus nailed them with three piercing facts. The meaning of his reply runs something like this.

“Hypocrites!” He said. “Since you don’t seem to have any problem doing business with Caesar’s coins, you had better pay his taxes. Second, as much as you pretend to be offended by Caesar’s claims on deity, you have no qualms about bringing this pagan symbol into God’s holy temple. And third, by holding his coin, you already pay tribute to him, let Caesar have his idols.”

“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, namely the thing that bears his image and name. But give to God also what bears his image and name – yourself.”God made us in his image. God saved us and called us his own. We owe him our entire being. Jesus is saying, “Caesar owns your money. God owns you. Don’t confuse the two.”

The Principle

The principle is this: Get your allegiances right, and your obligations will come clear. Render to the government what you owe to the government, and to God what you owe to God.

How does this story guide us today? To answer that question, we have to recognize the differences between our government and theirs. Our political systems are completely different. Thus our obligations are different.

Jesus and his contemporaries lived in a conquered country occupied by hostile troops and governed by foreigners. They had no vote or representation in government; they faced imprisonment, slavery, or death for protesting, and had no power short of open rebellion.

Thankfully, our system of government is different. We have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to vote, and freedom to sue the government for justice. We also have the freedom to live and do business publicly as our religious conscious requires. We have not only the right but also the obligation to participate in government at every level. ‘We, the people’, are Caesar. But just as it was in those days, so it is today, Caesar isn’t Lord. God is. ‘We the people’ – in the form of the legislature, the courts or the executive branch – might make a law or ruling that runs contrary to the will of God. Because Christians have the option, we also must promote government for the common good and oppose or change those laws and rulings that are opposed to the common good. That is our obligation to Caesar.

Applying the Principle

To apply the principle, we need to think about both sides of the political equation: our allegiances and our obligations.

The Christian’s first allegiance is to the gospel. Our primary mission is the proclamation of the gospel, which alone can change the heart of a nation. Thus, we need to be wary about aligning ourselves with a particular individual or party.

Our allegiance to God, who commanded us to ‘love your neighbor’ motivates us to work for the good of all our neighbors, not just the advancement of our religion. Therefore, Christians must be impartial advocates of truth, no matter the political consequences.

What are God’s values concerning the political issues of the day, and what is our obligation as participants in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people?

Abortion – God is the creator of life. Children in the womb are the most defenseless. Isa 1:17 says: Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. (NIV) Christians should vote for the people who will do the best job of defending the unborn.[1]

Marriage – God established the moral order for the world he created. If we abide by it, things go well. If we abandon it, we can expect trouble. Christians should vote for people who will honor God by maintaining the traditional definition of marriage.

Religious Freedom & Freedom of Speech – Jesus commanded: “Go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Religious freedom and freedom of speech are the two most important founding principles of America. Religious freedom is broader than the so-called freedom of worship. And freedom of speech is central to our ability to function as a civil society. Christians should vote for officials who will protect religious freedom and freedom of expression.

Economics

Jesus was clear about our obligations to the poor. But scripture also teaches, “He that will not work, should not eat,” and that all men should be responsible for providing for their families. No fair-minded person could look at the multitude of social services offered in this country and conclude that our government isn’t caring for the poor. Yet welfare fraud totaled $99.1 billion in fiscal year 2019. Christians should vote for officials who will do a better job of managing that system and reign in the abuses.

Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s.” As we consider our civic responsibilities, let’s get our allegiances right, and our obligations will become clear.

[1] Biden’s VP Choice Expected, World News 8/11/2020.

LAST RIDE WITH BIG MIKE

LAST RIDE WITH BIG MIKE

Dealing with Covid-19 has been hard on all of us, but especially those with mental health issues. Since today is the tenth anniversary of his passing, I thought I would re-post this story about my brother, who fought a great battle for his mental health and won.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Heb 12:1 NIV)

Nitrogen fumes from the Shell premium gas Mike burned in his Honda CBR 1100 XX drifted back to us, threading their way into our helmets along with the mountain aromas of cool granite, green laurel, and fresh-cut grass. I kept pace with Mike and his passenger, my daughter Mikeala, on a borrowed BMW, railing the tight curves and slowing to a walk on the switchbacks of Georgia SR 180 as we wound our way up Brasstown Bald, the highest point in the state.  It would be our last motorcycle ride together before he died on August 5th, 2010—and one of the best—climaxing as it did with a view of the world from 4,784 feet. He had already covered 200 of the 350 miles he would ride that day and wasn’t even tired.

My older brother Mike suffered from atypical bipolar disorder. This disease, or something like it, was not new to our family. Our aunt suffered for years before taking her own life. Our grandfather was also disabled by it. It hit Mike in his 39th year, brought on (we believe) by a reaction to a blood pressure medication that works fine for millions, but not for him.

Big Mike, his nickname in the neighborhood, was always bigger and stronger than most of my friends and me. He was also a rock when I needed him most. Watching him break into a thousand mental pieces was almost more than I could bear. But watching him climb up out of that psychological black hole, a place from which few men return, was one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever witnessed. We talked about writing a book on it. I’m writing this today to encourage you and anyone else that you know who has a mental disorder.

Three things marked Mike’s journey from the pit of despair back to mental health.

Humility. Mike was a proud man, a strong man that submitted himself to hospitalization under the care of competent professionals who prescribed medication and psychotherapy. Once out of the hospital, Mike took responsibility for himself and worked the program. It took years. And like many bipolar patients, along the way, Mike decided he no longer needed the meds. Stopping the meds led to a relapse and another hospital stay. But the second time was the charm. He humbled himself by taking his medicine every day and visiting a counselor every week for years. Even when he no longer needed the counselor, he stayed on the medication and visited a therapist now and then to keep a check on himself. He knew the disease too well and as strong as he was, knew he couldn’t handle it alone.

The second thing was his faith. In all the years of his suffering, Mike never turned his back on Jesus Christ. I never heard him blame God or use his illness and disappointment as an excuse to quit worshiping or neglect his devotions or stop fellowshiping with other believers. He wanted to be well, and he knew that in the end, only walking with Jesus would give him the strength to get there.

Perseverance. Sadly, many suffering people give up and let their illness define them for the rest of their days, or take their life. Mike never gave up. Even after two years of unemployment due to his disease, he kept his courage up. He was as healthy on that day at the top of the world as I have ever known him, enjoying the good gifts God gave, enjoying the ride, and discussing plans for his new business. No one knew that even though his mind had healed, his heart was diseased. He was working on a motorcycle in his garage on the day his heart stopped.

So, if you know someone who is struggling with a mental disorder, tell them about my brother. Tell them they can recover. And tell them there’s a big guy in that great cloud of witnesses, cheering them on.

HYDROXY-CHLOROQUINE ZINC & Z-PAK: Quackery or Solid Science?

HYDROXY-CHLOROQUINE ZINC & Z-PAK: Quackery or Solid Science?

AUGUST 5 UPDATE: Last week, I quoted with approval Yale epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch’s review of reports on the efficacy of HCQ against early stage Covid-19. This link will take you to his faculty colleague’s rebuttal. Their bottom line: “Let us be clear: we are unanimous in our desire to see the development of therapies to treat COVID-19 and to prevent the transmission or acquisition of SARS-CoV-2. If HCQ was shown to be effective, even among subgroups of patients with COVID-19 in ongoing high-quality trials, we would join our colleagues in promoting access to it for all who need it. However, the evidence thus far has been unambiguous in refuting the premise that HCQ is a potentially effective early therapy for COVID-19.”

Over fourteen million people watched a Facebook Live press conference in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building by the group, America’s Frontline Doctors, on Monday. By Tuesday, all social media platforms had pulled it, and fact-checking sites everywhere were dismissing it as quackery. Even their website was gone. Why? Because the doctors at the conference were calling—loudly in one case—for Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, and Azithromycin (Z-Pak) to be made available to the public as the standard of care for early symptomatic Covid-19, and as prophylaxis against catching the disease.

I thought their arguments were sound and their experience as primary care physicians and ER docs credible. That’s why I was discouraged to find sources quoting Nigerian native Dr. Stella Emmanuel—the most passionate and combative of the group—as saying some rather outlandish things about other topics. I liked Dr. Emmanuel’s sincerity, but her comments in other fields—if accurately reported—diminished the credibility of the group.

Still, the absolute silencing, eerily similar to twentieth-century Soviet erasure of opposition voices from the public record, disturbed me. Dismissing them as “doctors with a conservative agenda” does nothing to address the facts. Do these medicines work, or not? That’s all that matters.

I am not a conspiracy theorist. But people on the political left are just as passionate about their convictions as I am about mine. And sometimes, passion and cynicism about the other side blind us to facts.

That is what I think is happening with Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, and Z-Pak. But I still wasn’t prepared to write about it until I read Dr. Harvey A. Risch’s Newsweek article from July 23. Dr. Risch, a Yale epidemiologist, has the academic credentials and publishing record that America’s Frontline Doctors, despite their clinical experience, lack.

A few of his most cogent comments from the article:

“I am usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis, I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily.”

“I am referring, of course, to the medication hydroxychloroquine. When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.”

Risch goes on to mention doctors he knows who’ve risked their careers to prescribe these medications for their patients, governments that have reversed course on banning the drug, and mistakes in the FDA’s reporting on the risks associated with its use. Like Dr. Emmanuel and Dr. Gold of America’s Frontline Doctors, he recognizes that patient health is more important than politics.

Do we?

TRUE SCAM STORY and how to avoid it

TRUE SCAM STORY and how to avoid it

It started with a friendly phone call about software support. It ended up costing the church over $700 and a boatload of trouble. Just to relieve your mind, no church member’s Social Security numbers were exposed, and we’ve contacted the half dozen employees and former employees that might have been.

On May 20, 2019, our office received a call from a nice guy named Matt Roberts, claiming that he was our new Quickbooks account representative and providing a phone number for product support (note: Intuit owns Quickbooks). We wrote the number down and thought nothing of it. In March of 2020, we had an issue and called Matt. They forwarded us to Lisa, who explained that we had a corrupted file, and to fix it, we needed a new software support subscription. We thought we had all the support subscriptions we needed but, I was in a hurry that day, we couldn’t issue a payroll check until the problem was solved, and software support is always expensive. We had just switched to Windows 10 and knew that there were potential issues with corrupted files. Finally, we believed we were talking to Intuit.

We weren’t. We were talking to a shadow software support firm called QB Support Solutions. But we still did not know that. They required a $700 one year subscription and remote access to our computer to fix the problem. My office admin assistant said, “Something doesn’t seem right about this.” I should have listened. But Quickbooks is not my thing, I don’t know how to fix corrupted files, the people sounded genuine, and as I said, we were in a hurry. We paid with an e-check straight from our bank, gave them access to the computer, and they fixed it—end of the story.

Except it wasn’t. Two weeks ago we had another issue with the computer. The office admin called QB Support and got the run-around. In the meantime, we thought we had evidence that someone was trying to access the office computer without permission remotely. We finally started digging. We called Intuit directly. They fixed the problem in about an hour. That’s when we discovered that Intuit won’t call you unless you request it and they will always leave a case number for the call. QB Support Solutions is not an Intuit company or contractor, Matt and Lisa are not and never have been Intuit employees, and their phone numbers have never been Intuit numbers. We also discovered that the physical address on QB Support Solutions letterhead did not match the same on their website, GoogleMaps cannot find their physical address, and they won’t return our phone calls.

We froze all outgoing checks from our account for two days, opened a new account, consulted with an IT specialist, closed the old account, and got the computer fixed.

We got scammed. But it could have been worse

Software scams are much like spiritual scams. Jesus said the devil is a thief and a liar. The Apostle Paul warned us to be wary of the devil’s schemes. He deceived us in the garden, and he is still deceiving today. A few parallels with our spiritual lives might help us avoid both kinds.

Deception is most potent when we have a pressing need, we don’t know how to meet it, and we’re in too much of a hurry to think it through. We’re lonely but can’t find the relationship we need. We need money and don’t know how to get it. We’re goal-oriented but feel stifled. Or we need to process a paycheck but can’t make the software work.

Deception looks like the real thing and sounds genuine. It fits a pattern that worked in the past and fulfills a need in the short term. It plays on our trust. Alarm bells may sound, but we don’t have time. A short-cut appears, and we take it. In the end, it “bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.”

These may seem obvious, but a few things to do if your alarm bells are sounding:

  1. Listen to the alarm. Pay attention to what it is telling you. (Gal. 5:21; 6:7-8; Acts 20:31).
  2. Slow down. Postpone whatever is next on your list—it probably wasn’t that important anyway—and work the problem. (Prov. 19:2; 25:8).
  3. Dig deeper. Go to the source. Read the Scriptures. (Matt. 22:29; Acts 17:11).
  4. Take action. (Prov. 6:1-5; 1 Cor. 6:18; 10:14; 1Tim. 6:2-12).