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Saturday, May 31, 2008
Transition
 Yesterday was a seminal
day for HMI's Loving Care Center. As Georgia prepares for retirement, we turned the center over to a dedicated young
woman who plans to expand it to include a new section for children with disabilities. We are very pleased with this
outcome and look forward to the next stage of our life and ministry together. For Georgia that will include staying
on at Loving Care for a few more months as a consultant to guide the new leader through the transition. Then she hopes
to take a few months off just to unwind. Meanwhile, I will be continuing my own ministry, which includes some discipling,
online ministry, and writing my new book, The Renewal of All Things.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Mars
Last night on CNN I watched
the live, real-time landing of the Phoenix machine on Mars. It went off without a hitch: a truly phenomenal achievement.
The machine is there to dig up some soil in the hope of finding evidence of water in the planet's history -- and therefore
the possibility of some form of life. The scientists hope to demonstrate that if there is life on Earth, and life on
Mars, then life must be widespread throughout the universe. I remain a skeptic.
Having lived in Lebanon a number of years, and having  followed the nation's turmoil in recent years, I am happy to see that the Lebanese Parliament has elected a new President --
said to be the first step toward a power-sharing arrangement among the country's numerous sects, the most imporant one
(because the most beligerant) at the moment being Hizbullah. The new president is the former chief of the Army, General
Michel Suleiman, a Maronite Christian.
11:03 am edt
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Bears
A teen-age brown bear found
its way into Paterson this Memorial Day weekend. It ended up on a small island in the Passaic River on the west side
of town. Animal control officers tranquilized it, netted it, and later released it in the Berkshire Valley Wildlife
Management area upstate. Paterson is densely populated, yet there is open space that bears find attractive. This is the
time of year when bears are dispersing. Males travel greater distances looking for a mate. In this case the bear,
18 months old, was at the age when bears break away from their mothers and look for a place of their own.
11:12 am edt
Friday, May 23, 2008
Weddings and Such
Georgia
leaves for Virginia today, driving there with her daughter Lynn for a family wedding.
So I'll be home alone the long Memorial Day holiday, praying that they will drive safely and be protected from the maniacs
who will surely be out on the road this weekend. I don't mind being home alone. The weather, which has been unseasonably
cold of late, is warming up again. So I anticipate spending a good part of the next few days outdoors, mowing the
lawn, trimming the shrubbery, and such minor but pleasant activities.
A Texas district court of appeals has ruled that the State had no right to invade the premises of the polygamous sect,
FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints), and remove more than 480 of its children. That restores some of my faith in
the court system, in Texas at least. From the beginning I had thought it horrendous that a bunch of bureaucrats could
do such a thing. Regardless of what one thinks about the Mormons, or polygamy, children ought not to be unmercifully
separated from their parents in this way, certainly not en masse, and certainly not without a specific crime -- act, date,
and place -- being alleged.
10:36 am edt
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Critique
Today I received a note from Lenny Robertson, one of Roy Robertson's sons.
He said that in the days just before he went to glory Roy was engaged in writing a critique of my book, What About the
Cross? He was using Lenny as his emanuensis (private secretary). Lenny said his Dad never got it completed
before he died, but offered to send me a copy of the unfinished critique. I must say it was gratifying to learn that
one of the men I had long admired was giving my own work serious attention.
From
what Roy wrote I can see that we agreed on one thing: viz, that all theology is contextual and therefore relative. We
agreed on another thing as well: our respective theologies have been shaped in large measure by the areas of ministry we specialized
in -- for Roy that was evangelism; for me it was holistic discipling. I can imagine that if Roy had finished his
critique he would have agreed with me on little else! Roy was many things, but he not postmodern, the mentality of the
audience for which I wrote What About the Cross? The "missionary" dimension of Roy's ministry
did not cause him to revise his theology over the years. That missionary aspect was formed very early on. With
me it has been somewhat different. The missionary dimension of my ministry clearly impacted me over time and led me
slowly but surely in the direction of belief in universal salvation.
9:32 pm edt
Friday, May 16, 2008
Same Sex Marriage
Yesterday the California Supreme Court gave same-sex
marrige a boost by determining that the ban on it in that State was unconstitutional. As I understand it, strenuous efforts
will be made to persuade the California State legislature to overrule the Supreme Court decision, on the basis that the majority
of the population of California is decidedly against same-sex marriage. California's governor says he is against same-sex
marriage, but will not support any legislative move to overrule the Court's decision. A while
back I defended same-sex marriage and got a lot of negative feedback because of it. Today I just want to make two simple points.
(1) The main reason I am in favor of same-sex marriage is because I believe marriage and family constitute the primary building
block of societies worldwide. Marriage is a good thing; promiscuous sex outside of marriage is harmful. It is better for two
people of the same sex to enter the covenant of marriage for precisely the same reasons it is better for two heterosexual
people to do so. And (2) I'm always very wary of the majority, which is frequently dead wrong. The U.S. constitution was
designed for the specific purpose of protecting minorities from the zealotry of majorities. Over and over again in American
history -- think of slavery, think of the emancipation of women -- the majority has been sadly and badly mistaken. So I'm
with Governor Schwarzenegger on this one.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Acts of God
I have heard from three friends in China about the horrendous earthquake that occurred earlier this week. One of them resides
in the general area. Ten days ago Myanmar was devestated by a cyclone. In both cases tens of thousands of people have
died, many of them children. Such events always pose problems for thinking Christians. Did God send these catastrophes? Did
God merely allow them? Are they malicious acts of Satan? Are they in some way the result of Adam's sin in the Garden of
Evil?
These questions raise difficult issues about the character and sovereignty of God. If God is loving and kind, how could he
instigate or permit such evils? Perhaps he is loving and kind, but not all-powerful, and therefore could not prevent the evil.
When it comes to the evil acts of human beings, the traditional answer is: God is all-good and all-powerful, but God has created
human beings with free will. Therefore, though he is powerful enough to prevent evil, he chooses not to, in order to respect
human free will. Whether or not that kind of reasoning satisfies you, it does not seem to be relevant when it comes to these
horrific events likes earthquakes, cyclones, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.
Yet perhaps free will is involved in these so-called "acts of God" also. Perhaps God has embedded a kind of free
will into the very nature of the universe, so that it is free to be itself and even to make itself. And God respects that. Yet
that raises the more serious question: But what about all the suffering, so much of it inflicted on innocent children? The
answer to that can only be a retreat to what is called "the greater good" defense. That is, the suffering, as horrible
as it seems to us, is nothing compared the greater good of the eternity of joy and blessedness that awaits us in the future.
This defense is clearly affirmed by St. Paul in Romans chapter 8.
Yet for Christians this only ignites a further question, for not all of these "innocents" are destined for
an eternity of joy. If they are not Christians, an awful fate awaits them, surely, even an eternity of hell-fire torture.
I am unable to believe this, and this is one of the reasons I think we have to consider seriously the concept of universal
salvation. The "greater good" is that God has destined for final salvation every member of the human race who has
ever lived.
This too raises many questions, but they are not
unresolvable. A perfectly good God who is also perfectly powerful is surely able to figure out how to save the very race he
created, even while respecting its free will. The same thing applies to natural evil, the so-called Acts of God. God is also
going to save the whole of creation by renewing it completely. Hence the "new heaven and new earth" Scripture foretells.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Roy Robertson Mission Pioneer
Note: this eulogy was posted on another of my web sites for the past couple of days while I worked out
some problems on this web site. It appears things are up and running again here.
Roy Robertson, left, died earlier today. He was in his mid-80s.
Roy was the first Navigators missionary, sent out to China in 1948 when the outcome of the war between Mao ZeDong and Chiang
KaiShek was still moot. This summer the Navigators are planning to celebrate the 60th anniversary of their missionary effort.
Roy, as the first Nav missionary, was to be the featured speaker. I was looking forward to seeing Roy again for the first
time in a decade, though we had been corresponding regularly. For 60 years Roy evangelized throughout all of Asia, not
only in China, but in Japan and Taiwan and Hong Kong and Viet Nam and the Philippines and Singapore and Indonesia and India.
Roy specialized in large scale evangelistic outreaches, with a strong,
sustained emphasis on follow up, and always with a view to training younger men. Roy was indefatigable, working right up to
the end when, as I understand it (reports so far have been conflicting) he died peacefully seated on his front porch after
mowing the lawn. I am sure he did not resist death. His wife, Phyllis, had gone to be with the Lord just a few months ago.
I know that both of them were greeted in glory as heroes.
For
several years Roy worked under my leadership. I used to jest that he was my ideal 19th century missionary. And indeed, in
many ways he was a throwback to an earlier era, which made him something of a misfit in The Navigators after its founder,
Dawson Trotman, drowned in 1956. Roy's vision of mission was formed in large measure by Trotman, but Dick Hillis was also
a major shaper of Roy's strategies and methodology. Hillis was a China Inland Mission missionary who later founded Overseas
Crusades. With my encouragement, Roy left the Navs to found his own mission, Training Evangelistic Leadership (TEL) in the
1970s. The mission grew steadily through the years. And just this year he formally handed over his leadership to a successor.
In his most recent note Roy assured me that he would be reading my
book, What About the Cross? as he traveled to Singapore and back. He wrote, "I'm glad you're your own
man and not someone else." Coming from Roy, that was a blessing.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Police Problems
 Rev. Al Sharpton led a half-dozen non-violent protests in New York City. The protesters were outraged over the acquittal of
three police officers who shot a killed a bridegroom on the eve of his marriage. The officers were tried before a judge without
a jury. The outrage is understandable -- 50 shots is a lot! At the same time, from my perspective, both the judge and the
protesters overreacted. One of the police officers fired only one shot; a second fired four. The third officer, obviously
out of control, fired the other 45 shots. In my judgment, the two officers should have been acquitted (there were ambiguities
in the situation) but not the third. Meanwhile, down the road in Philadelphia, a dozen police officers jumped three men, suspected
on drug dealing, threw them to the ground, beat them and kicked them unmercifully. And the whole thing was filmed and broadcast
live to the public from a news helicopter that happened to be on the scene. Of course, the police chief apologized, but more
than an apology is necessary. Real reforms in the mentality of cops on the street need to occur. Paterson, like New York City
and Philadelphia, has a high minority population, yet its police officers are predominantly white and live outside our city.
They do not identify with Paterson and slip easily into brutality.
Rev. Al Sharpton led a half-dozen non-violent protests in New York City. The protesters were outraged over the acquittal of
three police officers who shot a killed a bridegroom on the eve of his marriage. The officers were tried before a judge without
a jury. The outrage is understandable -- 50 shots is a lot! At the same time, from my perspective, both the judge and the
protesters overreacted. One of the police officers fired only one shot; a second fired four. The third officer, obviously
out of control, fired the other 45 shots. In my judgment, the two officers should have been acquitted (there were ambiguities
in the situation) but not the third. Meanwhile, down the road in Philadelphia, a dozen police officers jumped three men, suspected
on drug dealing, threw them to the ground, beat them and kicked them unmercifully. And the whole thing was filmed and broadcast
live to the public from a news helicopter that happened to be on the scene. Of course, the police chief apologized, but more
than an apology is necessary. Real reforms in the mentality of cops on the street need to occur. Paterson, like New York City
and Philadelphia, has a high minority population, yet its police officers are predominantly white and live outside our city.
They do not identify with Paterson and slip easily into brutality.
8:05 am edt
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Washboards
 Well, it looks
like this blog is functioning again, although with the new system my host company is using, it takes forever (65-75 seconds)
to upload a picture, and another 55-65 seconds to post it on this blog. I think it has something to do with "phishing."
In any event, I'm unhappy about it, but don't know what I can do. This photo was taken at the only plant in
America that still makes washboards -- the kind my mother used to use during the Great Depression, and which I myself had
to use from time to time. Once World War II was finished, everyone was able to buy regular washing machines of the kind
familiar to us today, though still relatively primitive at that time. So why are washboards still being made?
It turns out that the soldiers and marines in Iraq find them very useful for socks and underwear!
Monday, May 5, 2008
Blog Probs
The company that hosts my
web site has undergone a major overhaul. Some things work better; some things, don't, however. One thing that
isn't working right now is the method for posting photos on this blog. Which is why I haven't been blogging
lately. I'm hoping the problem will be fixed soon.
5:47 pm edt
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