Circumlocution Trails

I was traveling the dirt road, one of the main roads in the huge nation of the Congo, paralleling the 2,000 mile Congo river from Goma to Bukavu. My driver stopped the vehicle at a deserted, once beautiful, tea plantation home. The deserted plantation was now controlled by the government and two guards were on duty. This was after the reign of Joseph-Désiré Mobuto. One of the guards made a place for our lunch and opened the house to the bathroom. I remarked to him about the beautiful home and the fact that just 100 years before, English missionary, George Greenfield, had buried a wife and three children on the banks of the Congo river, to bring the gospel to that part of the world. In 1907, at his funeral in Goma, a choir of 10,000 natives sang: “All hail the Power of Jesus' name.” He said yes, and just a few years ago, the English settlers, owners of this plantation, were killed and their bodies piled one on the other, doused with gasoline, and burned.

Everything God is, is what people anywhere and everywhere are looking for, whether their religion is true or false. The poet has said, there is a hole within the soul of every human being, conscience of the heart, and they try to fill this hole by

worshipping something or someone greater than themselves. When traveling in Burma, Mandalay, there were 600 monasteries in this one city. In a world of 7 billion population, half live in the country and half in the city. In Burma, there are more Stupas in the countryside than people. (a Stupa is a dome-shaped mound, various sizes, usually containing the ashes and bones of a Buddhist.), a shrine of worship.

Western Civilization, Christianity teaches us that the Jews and Gentiles hated one another. It was the dead 33 year old son of God, Jesus Christ, beaten, crucified, taken from a cross, that in a mystical-mysterious miracle of grace translated in a supernatural way His words, love one another. (John 13:34) No one could ever have convinced Saul, persecutor of Christians, that he would become the Apostle Paul of the Christian church. The dead but resurrected body of a 33 year old man did more than all the prophets or saints of old. His disciples, his most devoted followers, following His resurrection had an eclismic experience and were never the same again. Each died a martyr.

Those who do not want religion in their life usually glorify something. Most of the time, I have found, science and, I have found that many unbelievers are just as moral or more moral than believers and, the atheist scientist contributes much to human knowledge. Such as the Natural History Museum in London, with it's great portrait of Charles Darwin looking down, great and rare earth science collections. (70,000 items) As my wonderful mother told me before I left for the university, your mind will be opened to many things, if you are not ready for that, you should stay home. The God-fearing believer does not park his “questioning” mind at the church house door when he goes in to worship. Many of the world's greatest scholars, scientists were believers in a Sovereign triune, God. Even Christopher Hitchens, who died recently of cancer believed in the Christian concept of life, that human life starts with conception, that he would never abort a child but, to the end, he said that if he showed any signs of believing in God, one would know that the cancer had eaten his brain. He wanted to be a hero to atheists. It is not necessary to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, hardening the heart.

When will the world realize that secularism cannot deal with the reality of wickedness and evil? With academic sophistication, the Nazis first put 275,000 of their fellow disabled citizens to death, using the well-worn mantra, “happiness and suffering were incompatible.” The academically superior, progressive German nation, then had no trouble seeing 6 million Jews killed. Without a noble foundation of decency under-girded by righteousness, even the sane lose their way. In America, on the edge of euthanasia, Indian massacre, the Dred Scott decision where human beings were lessened. Eugenics practices in mental hospitals and now, God help us, the holocaust of abortion. (53 million of the most innocent, killed since abortion on demand legalized by the Supreme Court in 1973) Where have the lousy Christians, pacifist preachers, pretenders of civil rights been during these times of atrocities? Some law schools are teaching liberal lawyers to protect the rights of animals, seals who eat too many Salmon, dogs and cats used in experimentation.

Christianity cannot be reduced to a group experience. God never called a committee to do His work or cover evil with the delusions of psychology. God knows the erratic heartbeat of every child and the mother of that child, hearing bombs dropped from electronic drones. God is aware of every vote, whether from an elected official or a citizen... votes that enable evil.... votes that have flattened every ambition because of $707 trillion in derivatives and entitlements... vote from Catholics, Baptists, that have shamed our blessed Lord.

Character determines destination and for many with character, the destination, goal posts, are too close for activity no matter how much we want to stay in the fight. Rather, it is left to the young, those with the energy to carry on the fight. “Wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12)

John Milton, one of the world's greatest poets was blind when he wrote Paradise Lost. In his verse, concerning his blindness, he wrote, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”