Concussion Research Can’t Be Ignored... by Christians!

I'm developing a new theory, along the lines of other theories of mine such as 'vasectomies kill men', and the theory is this:  Christians should not in ANY WAY be involved with the "sport" of football (with only the exception of being involved with the medical service to aid players brutalized, mangled and crippled in agonizing pain from the game.)

Concussion Research Can’t Be Ignored

(I saved this as a draft, too.  Lost interest, and frankly, probably won't ever finish this...)

Sports in the Age to Come... not quite

There was a post over on Desiring God about the topic of sports that got me thinking.  The writer, opening with "will there be touchdowns in the new creation?" more or less delved into a somewhat ridiculous endorsement of the idea of sports in heaven, with a thought that sports are something of as a foretaste of heaven.  Of course, the writer didn't bother citing anything about the half-naked women cheering for the players, the brutality and violence of games like football that frequently send men to the hospital, or the plethora of comericals on television for sexually-explicit films, alcohol, and junk food consumption (nor, on the subject of watching sports, how being a lethargic, motionless couch potato while watching sports is a way to "waste one's life", ironic on Piper's blog.

I really don't get into sports, and I really don't get into pastor endorsing sports.  I think the negatives of sports far out-weigh any positives.  I've known of far too many people personally who lament their chronic, life-long physical pain and disability that resulted from sporting events played during their youth.  If Christian kids need a good physical outlet, instead of stupidity involving throwing a small ball around, why don't they build a house for someone in need, or find some other outlet to use their energy, other than blasting out a kneecap while throwing an inflated ball through a hoop?

More on this later, but this post just had me thinking (and blogs that don't allow comments invariably have me leaving my goofy thoughts here instead.)

Cracker Barrel Cigarette Cancer

Went to Cracker Barrel the other day, and standing at the only door that you can go into was an old, overweight guy, smoking. Basically blowing his smoke all over the place, so that before you could get into the restaurant, you had to walk through his stink. This isn't the first time I've encountered this type of thing: yesterday, going into the grocery store, there's a guy right at the entrance, blowing his smoke around. And a year ago, I remember going into the HOSPITAL ENTRANCE and there was some guy, right at the door, blowing his smoke around. What is wrong with people?

I stopped to really think about the inconsiderate nature of people who smoke in public - particularly those who smoke and blow there smoke specifically where people NEED to walk, essentially blowing cancer in a placement that cannot be avoided, and it led me to the following conclusion:

People who smoke in places that other non-smokers need to travel hate other people.

But knowing that people don't like to stop their bad habits, the most civil approach would be the following:

- If a person wants to smoke in their own home with the windows and doors closed, fine.
- If they want to smoke alone in their car with the windows closed, fine.
- If they want to do as my neighbor does and just sit in the garage and smoke, fine (but he should close his garage door)

But to smoke in areas where people walk is just plain rude. And disgusting. And hateful.
I would love to see law enforcement crack down on this, but of course, they won't. Just like the noise of Harleys and booming car stereos, public smoking is a noxious behavior that the law just shrugs it's collective shoulders about. "Deafening people with noise? Who cares! Sharing cancer and disease? why not!"

Now it goes without saying that a Christian should NOT smoke. Self-destructive behavior like this is definitely sinful, and Scripture teaches that Christians should take care of their earthly bodies and not destroy them. Consider the following:

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body," (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

How can you honor God by breathing cancer into your lungs, and by killing others with that same cancerous smoke? You can't.

Restaurants and businesses take note: if you let people stand around smoking at your entrances, I will be more prone to AVOID your businesses. Walmart and grocery stores, listen up: when you let your employees smoke at your entrances, you make me want to go somewhere else to get my stuff. And even hospitals: you set a TERRIBLE model by letting people smoke at your entrances. No-smoke-zones for patients to enter the hospital is something that you should ENFORCE, not just put stupid signs up that illiterate smokers ignore. Perish the thought someone with breathing problems needs to walk into a hospital and has to walk through someone's smoke. You've got hospital security - why not put them to use enforcing non-smoking policies at entrances?

It feels like living in the dark ages sometimes.

Al Mohler and 'Can Christians Use Birth Control?'?

Mohler's article on Christians using birth control. Worth reading, but a couple things missing. Why no mention of sexual sterilization, such as vasectomy, which EVERY man in the church seems to get these days after two children. I mean, Mohler makes this point:

"Therefore, Christians may make careful and discriminating use of proper technologies, but must never buy into the contraceptive mentality. We can never see children as problems to be avoided, but always as gifts to be welcomed and received."

Erm, right... but 2-3 gifts are enough, then let's just "return" the rest of those gifts, I suppose. If children are gifts, then why do so many men take the initiative to mutilate their genitals surgically to avoid more than a very small number of gifts? It's disheartening to me when I read the works of a seminary professor or evangelical leader that I really respect, but then in the profile blurb in their book it mentions that they have just one or two children.... or no mention of children at all. Why isn't this more foundational and important to them?

If an evangelical writer is going to address birth control, he needs to address not only the disregard that Christians seem to have for children today, but also the blase attitude they have to going to a creepy doctor to have their bodies willingly mutilated without fear of

Germany and Circumcision

Interesting article from BBC on Germany banning circumcision. For what it's worth, I'm a Christian who is decidedly against circumcising, because I firmly believe that if you're a Christian who still circumcises your sons that you don't understand the gospel (or the book of Galatians, for that matter.) There is NO Scriptural evidence AT ALL to support this practice for Christians this side of the cross, and those who decide to do so to their children are practicing a strange, cult-like works-orientation to their faith, the type of thing that the Apostle Paul criticized the Judaisers about. I also have a pediatrician who, although not Christian, is not fond of circumcision, but for different reasons (and our agreement on this topic has actually opened some interesting conversations about the gospel.)

However, even though I'm against it as a gospel-believing Christian, I have no problems with folks of other religions who choose this practice. It's their decision, and they don't need a nanny state like Germany controlling them like Nazis. Oh, hey, irony...

What's the deal with Germany, anyhow? First there's this article on circumcision, then there was something else I read recently about how homeschooling is still illegal in Germany. What on earth? Do you know who it was who did away with German homeschooling in the first place? I'll give you a hint: diminutive fellow, funny little moustache, sever anger issues. Why on earth would Germany continue to practice a homeschool ban instituted by the Third Reich? I'll say this: there's no reason on earth I'd want to visit that country, let alone live there.

I don't get Germans, frankly. Two world wars in the last century alone (and what's up with that? You'd think, after the first one, they'd have figured it out that they messed up and get things right again) Personally, I think the US should have stayed out of WWII and let the Germans pound against the Soviets for a decade or so. Things would have been a LOT different, both nations would be spent and decimated, then the US could have just come in and brushed them both aside. Ah whatever. Give Germany a couple decades and given the demographic changes, it's likely to be a Muslim country anyhow.

"Clingin' to their Guns n' Bibles!"

This post at Cripplegate had me thinking that I need to publish this old-trib-times post again:

The topic above is about the American revolution, but I'm going to hone in more specifically on Christians who wield the sword, which would include Christians who would have taken up arms in a rebellion such as this one. I've written about this before, and will likely write about it more, as living in Texas, this is a topic I hear (sadly) in a lot of churches out here. Cling to you guns and your Bibles, and there's nothing wrong with being a well-armed brother in Christ, right? Hey, if someone breaks in, you've got every right to take the intruders life! No need to subdue him, or call the magistrate, or even hold him at bay until the police arrive... if he breaks in, he's dead meat, right?

But no matter how you slice (or shoot) it, the fact remains that if you are a Christian who carries a gun, and you for some reason shoot and kill a person, you are left with:

- No chance of a life transformation of the person you killed.
- No possibility of the gospel reaching them.
- Just twisted, non-christian justice from a carnal weapon.

So much for Matthew 5 and Christ's commandment to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." What about the Christian testimony of humility, forgiveness, generosity, giving and love? How can anything in Christ's message of the beatitudes in any way be construed to give a killing loophole, premeditated or otherwise? And as a wise man once observed, how can a Christian claim to be pro-life and yet support killing another person? (and how can one claim to be pro-life if he only has 2 kids and a vasectomy?.... but that's another post for another day.)

Making exception clauses to kill for any reason puts into dangerous papist territory, of warping the love of Christ into directions of Rome's senseless violence and killing at the behest of an antichrist pope...

I read recently about some of the gun-totin' churches and it makes me more and more convinced that the Anabaptist have it right. Their Schleitheim Confession (1527) offers a section that makes perfect sense of the Christian attitude towards guns/swords/killing weapons:

"Now it will be asked by many who do not recognize (this as) the will of Christ for us, whether a Christian may or should employ the sword against the wicked for the defense and protection of the good, or for the sake of love.

Our reply is unanimously as follows: Christ teaches and commands us to learn of Him, for He is meek and lowly in heart and so shall we find rest to our souls. Also Christ says to the heathenish woman who was taken in adultery, not that one should stone her according to the Law of His Father (and yet He says, As the Father has commanded me, thus I do), but in mercy and forgiveness and warning, to sin no more. Such (an attitude) we also ought to take completely according to the rule of the ban."

Another thought is how gun-totin' Christians seem to abide by a cheap grace, that doesn't call the believer to abandon all, but you can STILL hang on to that last bit of carnality and tote a gun. Recently I've been reading Bonhoeffer's "Cost of Discipleship" and one of this continuing theme is an abandonment of all for the sake of the cross, even, potentially, your own life and security. As terrible as it sounds, if someone comes to you and wants to kill you - especially for your faith - you need to be ready to die for it. Not cling to a chunk of killing metal to destroy a foe with. Kill a man, and he dies in his unbelief. You sent him to hell with no prospect of the gospel or eternal life at all.

Maybe it would be different if someone broke into my house, and then I'd think differently, right? Or maybe, like the Apostle Paul, I make full use of my citizenship to Rome, pick up the phone, call the magistrate and have them do their job. This is still a republic, and I do render to Caesar, so perhaps I should leave the defense to the magistrate and instead focus on how I can show love and forgiveness to others, even those who might want to do me harm. I think our military and police protection is wonderful, and I pray for those who protect and serve that God has put into office. I'm just not convinced that a Christian should be in an office that could potentially mean the taking of a life.

Yeah, I'm in a minority, but as I was told years ago by a pastor, if there's something you are convicted right or wrong, verify it by weighing it against the word of God, and that is what I've done... and truthfully I can't read the Bible and see how anywhere there is any sort of instruction to carry a weapon and take a life. Jesus taught forgiving over and over. He taught compassion and care of others, never killing. Christians should not carry the carnal sword, but should instead gird themselves with the sword of the spirit, and with the love of Christ.