to see where it came from

“In Highland New Guinea, now Papua New Guinea, a British district officer named James Taylor contacted a mountain village, above three thousand feet, whose tribe had never seen any trace of the outside world. It was the 1930s. He described the courage of one villager.

One day, on the airstrip hacked from the mountains near his village, this man cut vines and lashed himself to the fuselage of Taylor’s airplane shortly before it took off. He explained calmly to his loved ones that, no matter what happened to him, he had to see where it came from.”

Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

Beautifully Insane

This makes me want to sell what little I own, move to Jackson Hole, and become an extreme sport junkie. Enjoy the video and Happy Thanksgiving!

Orphans vs. the American Dream

I was recently asked my thoughts regarding orphans in America and the foster care system. Even more so than abortion as of late, this issue of American orphans has been at the forefront of my mind.  To best answer that question, I will turn to an article by Anthony Bradley I stumbled upon this summer.

Why does America have orphans if it has Christian churches?

I have been haunted by this challenge ever since and I hope it does the same for you, not simply for the sake of awareness, but for action.  The original article is HERE at TheResurgence.com.

Why Does America Have Orphans If It Has Christian Churches?

America has nearly 115,000 orphaned kids in foster care waiting to be adopted. Some wonder how this is possible in a country with Christian families. Surely, there are 115,000 missional families in America, right? Missional families, for example, embrace the redemptive mission of God and practice “true religion” in their local communities (James 1:27). Missional Christians in America could eliminate the foster care system tomorrow if we would stop “shootin’ up” with the American Dream (heroine) in order to get high on a lame life lived for the sake of comfort and ease.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” writes James (1:27). As a matter of fact, the Bible has over 40 verses mandating God’s people to look after orphans and the fatherless for various reasons.

According to the American Religious Identity Survey, conducted by the City University of New York, there are over 224 million Christians in the United States. So, why are there 115,000 orphans in a country that has over 224 million Christians?

Since God’s people have always been called to live missionally we are not surprised to see that James is not saying anything new. “When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow” (Deuteronomy 24:21).

Let’s break this down further. The Washington Times reports that there are about 65 million evangelicals in America. So, again, why are there 115,000 orphans in America’s foster care system? Does this mean that there are 65 million people missing huge sections of their Bibles? Would someone please alert Crossway and Zondervan!

Historically, the early church was known for taking in their culture’s orphans and the needy. This is such an ancient tradition of the church (except for post-1960s American evangelicals) that Pope Benedict XVI even talked about it in his first encyclical “God is Love.” He writes, “the Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word. . . Justin Martyr in speaking of the Christians’ celebration of Sunday also mentions their charitable activity, linked with the Eucharist as such. Those who are able make offerings in accordance with their means, each as he or she wishes; the Bishop in turn makes use of these to support orphans, widows, the sick and those who for other reasons find themselves in need, such as prisoners and foreigners. The great Christian writer Tertullian relates how the pagans were struck by the Christians’ concern for the needy of every sort.”

Sadly, some of you are now more concerned about the fact that I quoted a Pope than you are about his actual point. Here’s the deal: pagans were introduced to Jesus because Christians were taking care of the needy in obedience to Scripture. Taking care of the needy is not done only for the sake of evangelism. Practicing “true religion” is an extension of the kinds of Kingdom-oriented, salt and light, truth-bearing, grace-filled, Jesus-loving people who live to treat other people the same way God treats them (Ephesians 2:8-10).

We were all orphans and God adopted us in his family, remember? “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (Rom 8:14-16). As such, the best possible home for an orphan is in a home where a family is following Jesus together as former orphans themselves.

If your church is not cultivating an ethos that practices “true religion” it may not be missional at all. It may be dying or sinking into a consumeristic, entertainment quicksand where people come to have their “felt needs” stroked. Your pastor might wear “cool” clothes, have a “cool” blog, or be in the process of trying to make God and Jesus androgynous but God seems to care that his people are being led by capable men who lead the rest of God’s people in bringing the Kingdom to their local neighborhood in all its forms.

While not all Christians are gifted or equipped for taking in orphans it’s pretty convicting that 65 million American evangelicals can’t rescue 115,000 kids from an unstable hell. If the pagans in our neighborhoods aren’t struck by how our churches are applying the Word of God to the needy it’s possible that we aren’t the real deal yet. May we all pray that our churches are soon as mature as James commends. The revolution continues. . .

Anthony recommends: Bethany Christian Services (a Christian adoption agency operating in the US and abroad; www.bethany.org) and Adopted by God: From Wayward Sinners to Cherished Children by Dr. Robert A. Peterson.

Bloody Red Sunset

It is necessary from time to time to resurrect the issue of abortion from the muddled backwaters of partisan politics, to hold it steadily under the light of rational scrutiny, and pronounce it to be the absolute insanity for what it is. Far too often is this issue excused from a central place in public discourse due to the inevitable and explosive responses it evokes. This inherent volatility marginalizes opinions of any kind, thus serving only to sustain the status quo. Yet, as often as the sun sets upon a day where even one child has been legally aborted in the United States, I think there should be outcry.

I cast this light of judgment not as a politician, religious guru, or constitutional scholar. I am a 25-year-old citizen of the United States of America, and the only reason I am alive today is because my mom chose to give birth to me. In an ironic sense, to be born after 1973 is nothing less than survival. My authority to cast such accusations against a society gone mad is found in nothing less than my 40 million unborn peers that have been systematically killed in the past 35 years. Undoubtedly, the history of abortion in America will be remembered as the story of genocide against the Millennial generation.

I have no desire to debate the grey areas of abortion politics, such as its relevancy to saving the life of a mother or the conception of a child in cases of rape. To me these are minor issues, distractions to the glaring plank in the eye of our culture. Nor do I cast stones at the specific women who have had to suffer the tragic experience of aborting their babies. Rather, these stones are designated for a twisted ideology that justifies the eradication of an unborn child’s right to life in the name of a women’s right to privacy. It is an abomination to the Constitution, a perversion of conscious, and a disgrace to any nation, for the truest measure of a nation’s greatness is how it cares for it’s most vulnerable citizens.

Moreover, the inequity of outrage between the continued toleration of abortion and [insert trendy socio-enviro-political issue HERE] is bewildering. We curse our president for temerarious action in the Middle East. We are hysteric over the apocalyptic threats of global warming. We send millions of dollars to Africa to fight poverty and AIDS every year as a demonstration of our national commitment to justice. And yet, while driving to anti-war protests in our Prius’, the greatest tragedy of the 20th (and now 21st) Century continues unopposed in cities across our nation. The frustration lies not solely in this cultural hypocrisy, but it is found in our generation’s awareness of such injustice (and many others around the world), but being unable to directly influence any determinable resolution. That reality torments me.

Perhaps advocacy for the voiceless is best left to the artists and poets of our day. One such musician, Noah Gundersen, wrote the following song entitled, Bloody Red Sunset:

There’s a bloody red sunset this evening
Remember the futures who are missing today
An innocent heartbeat snuffed out this morning
An example of hundreds of thousands the same.

How could this happen to you?
Why did this happen to you?
Somehow, could you please make them angels
And go, tell them we miss them.

There’s a bloody red sunset this evening
Remember the lives that were lost on this day
The doctors say, “don’t kill them with guns, kill them with needles.”
Murder is legal these days.

All the voiceless civilians we killed this year
Is this truly the answer to heal their mother’s tears?
Tell me.

How could this happen to you?
Why did this happen to you?
Why did this happen to you?
How could this happen to you?
Tell me why. Tell me why.

We’re sorry for killing your babies.
We’re so sorry for killing your babies.
And I’m sure that it’s beautiful there
Where everything shines.

They deserve something better than here.
There’s a bloody red sunset this evening.