Two things that bothered me about "The Shack"

When I was in Ghana last time I read the popular novel, "The Shack". Shortly before I left, my dentist had told me it was about meeting The Holy Trinity. Sounding intriguing. Soon I got caught up in a very compelling and heart-warming story. I had advance warning that God was portrayed as a woman, so that wasn't shocking, and I recognize besides authority qualities that we recognize as male, God also has nurturing qualities that we usually identify as being female. Through most of the book, the thing that bothered me most was the depiction of the Holy Spirit. It wasn't that He was an Asiatic female. It was the half unreal, fairy-like quality that disturbed me.
I also noticed that God was all kindness and love, and His authority and judgment were overlooked.

But the thing that bothered me at the most came at the end of the book. After the author had resolved the issue in such a heart-tugging way, came the shocker that what happened wasn't real--well, not totally real. Well, maybe partly real. Not real in an historical way that it really happened. The author encourages us to believe it was real in some other sort of way that is never really defined. Francis Schaeffer! Hold still in your grave! This bothered me a lot because it amounted, in my opinion, to a redefining of reality. It was as if something could be real and not real at the same time, true and not true equally together. Francis Schaeffer! Your bones are shaking!

This week I listened to other critiques of the book on Janet Parshall's radio show, "In the Market". Many problems were discussed, but to me the problem of reality is still the most troubling of them all. After you've redefined reality, you can redefine anything and everything else without impunity.

Fetal Heart "Tones"

What do you think of the You-Tube videos where an undercover woman TRIES to talk to a Planned Parenthood doctor before an abortion? She asks him if the fetus has a heartbeat. He squirms around and says there's no heartbeat, but there are heart TONES. Hmm. Always interesting to invent new uses for words, depending on the purpose for doing so. She asks when it becomes a heartBEAT. He says simply, "birth". So let me get this straight. In the womb the heart is pumping blood to oxygenate the body cells, but that's only heart TONES. After birth the heart does the same thing for the same purpose, but that's called heart BEAT. What deceptive use of words! Oh, the wicked deception of the human heart! Does it have no limit?

Trust Women

I've been seeing pleas for funds from NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) making the abortionist George Tiller into a hero because his motto was "Trust Women." Right off let me stop and say this, lest anybody misunderstand me: I don't condone murder and I don't condone the murder of George Tiller. The one who committed that act did a terrible thing. But--to make an abortionist into a hero is certainly a stretch in my book! His murder may have been a tragedy, but that does not make him a hero.

Now--about trusting women. The same group that is distributing wristbands in "honor" of Abortionist Tiller is the very same group that works against all attempts to make sure women have full information when they are considering their response to an unplanned pregnancy. NARAL does not want women to learn about fetal development, get ultrasounds or see pictures of their unborn children or even models showing development at each stage. They apparently don't trust women to make the "right" choice if they were presented with all the facts.

"Trust women" is just a nice-sounding myth, just pro-abortion rhetoric. If pro-abortion groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood really trusted women, they'd trust them not only with the choice, but with all the information to make the choice. I suggest something better. "Trust God and Trust His Holy Word", where He said, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.
Jer 1:5 (NKJV)" It is God who is forming us in our mother's wombs, and when we suck out or cut up or poison His handiwork, it is a great and sad loss for us and for the world. That's one more reason why I am pro-life.

Children's Pastors' Conference

Children's Pastors' Conference

Check out my article, "The thunder god falls before the cross!" in the online edition of the newsletter from the International Network of Children's Ministry.

What will help the child trafficking problem at the bottom line?

One of the things I committed to do was to place on slavery map (http://www.slaverymap.org/) all the examples of human trafficking and modern-day slavery I could find fom Africa or about Africans. It seemed like a big commitment, but it's been very helpful because right away I began to see patterns--both geographically and in ways traffickers do things.

Recently I've been posting a group of cases in which kids from Togo were trafficked to Nigeria. Again I began noticing patterns. Most were recruited by a "waga", a member of the local community who recruits poor kids for trafficking, promising them good jobs far away for whatever purpose she knows rings most loudly in their hearts. Most got to Nigeria by a long, circuitous route, picking up other recruits all along the way. And most escaped at least once--some several times--only to be quickly re-enslaved. Many of them assumed that if they could meet someone who spoke their language they'd be safe. Not always true. Often not true.

I dreamed about it last night and woke up thinking about it this morning. Escaping only to be re-enslaved. The heartlessness of the traffickers and enslavers was wrenching. What will help hearts like that? I have been thinking about why I am so involved in fighting child trafficking. It's not just out of emotional sentiment or pity. It's because I truly believe every human being is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). From that basis, I see human life as worthy of respect and care. We go from that basis to Jesus' commands to love our neighbors as ourselves. That expression of our faith rests on the foundation of being created in God's image. Such a faith makes human trafficking, slavery and abuse of every kind unthinkable.

Can we fight trafficking and slavery adequately without that base? We can fight it to some degree, to be sure. I've met and read many modern-day abolitionists like myself who are fighting slavery. I can't say they don't care or they aren't trying to make a contribution. They surely are. But I think that the Christian base provides a stronger, more compelling reason for any humanitarian action. If someone truly believes God created human beings special and worthy of respect, he can hardly become a trafficker or a slaver or an abuser. I think about the Togolese children whose stories I am posting now on slaverymap. How different would their stories have been if on escaping, they had found Christians who truly believed they were worthy of respect? Lord, while I fight child trafficking and modern-day slavery, help me to maintain my balance. Help me to remember what really helps the most. Help me to give adequate attention to that.

Reflections on the power of teachers

When I graduated from Tri-State (now Trine) University in 1978, I was asked to write the poem for the inside cover page of the class yearbook. My poem was about the influence of what we believe on what we do. Unworthy philosophies don't stay philosophies but become the acts that make up history. Before Treblinka (a Nazi death camp), a people believed in the philosophy of national socialism (Naziism).

It came to me again today. In reading through my Google alerts (which I use to try to keep up on areas of vital interest), I read a blurb about Afrikania Mission. This is the group that most strongly opposes the liberation of shrine slaves. Their main argument is that shrine slavery is a part of their culture so no one should mess with it. There was a simple line in this article about Osofo Okomfo Damua, the founder of Afrikania. I knew he was a former Roman Catholic priest who apostasized from his faith and became what in Ghana is commonly called a "fetish priest." In America we are prone to call such a person a witch doctor. He became sold on the idea that the spirits behind the African idols, or the "lesser gods" as they are called in Ghana, were every bit as viable and as worthy of worship as Jesus Christ. He founded the Afrikania Mission and became an outspoken opponent of Christianity.

Today, I can truly say that if it were not for the opposition of the Afrikania Mission, all the shrine slaves in Ghana would have been freed long ago. Ghanaian law, public opinion, and common decency are all on the side of liberation. From my experience I would say that a very high percentage of the priests and shrine owners themselves actually favor liberation. It is only Afrikania's incessant cries of 'Don't mess with our culture!' that keep the shrine slaves in bondage.

I knew all this, and I knew that Damua was influenced toward his relativistic stand by his studies in the U.S. I saw from the article that he obtained a Ph.D. from Howard University. Ah, yes. I've read some of the convoluted thinking of some of their scholars. I'm sure some are fine, too. I read on Wikipedia that one of their faculty discovered blood plasma. I'm sure many do a fine job. But somebody there influenced Damua in a direction that has had extremely tragic consequences. It could have happened in many universities, wherever relativistic thought is extolled.

I love teaching myself, and I loved university, so I couldn't get this out of my mind. I pictured some professor extolling what seemed to him like just a philosophy. There is no ultimate truth, he might have said. Truth for you might not be truth for me--something like that. In fact, the many gods worshiped in Africa--the spirits behind those mounds of clay with little shells stuck in for eyes--they are really just as good as the Christian God. Whatever he said, it made such an impression on Damua that he left his Catholic faith and turned to ancient idols.

It was a tragedy for Damua's own soul, for Jesus said, "No one comes to the Father but through Me" (John 14:6b). It was a tragedy for a woman I visited with team members a couple of years ago in a Ghanaian village. We sat on benches and chatted while she wove baskets. She was glad for our visits, but she told us pointedly that it was too late for her. She belonged to Afrikania, she said, and she had already given herself to the devil. (Those were her own words.) We pleaded with her that it is never too late as long as she has breath. Jesus loves her and stands ready to forgive her and welcome her when she comes to Him. She refused.

It is a continuing tragedy for thousands of shrine slaves who are still bound (not physically, but spiritually, psychologically and socially) to their masters, forced to bow and chant to idols that many of them tell me they hate. It is a tragedy for future generations because most shrines practice "replacement." When those slaves die, or even if they escape, the shrine will seek another girl from that family. One priest put it this way: "Once a crime is committed, it must be continuously atoned for until the end of time." !!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder who influenced Damua. Was it one professor? Was it literature he read? Was it the flavor of a whole department? I don't know. I may never know. Whoever and whatever it was bears a weight of responsibility that I can't even imagine. Because of that influence, Damua died in his sins without the Savior. Because of that influence, that lovely woman we talked with may also face God without a covering for her sin. Because of that influence, thousands upon thousands remain in slavery and pass that heritage on to their most unfortunate children.

I got to wondering about Howard University. I found out it was started shortly after the end of the American Civil War. The first goal was to train African American clergyman, although the idea quickly expanded to include an entire university. Wow. To think that something started for such a purpose could end up having such an influence.

It gets me thinking. What kind of an influence will my life have?

THIS IS THE REASON I CRY

I got a tear-jerking email this afternoon. I could barely keep my tears off the keyboard as I read it. Another mission organization working in southern Sudan has 300 kids they have rescued--former child soldiers, and they are overwhelmed. Could we give them a home? They have immediate contact with 1,000 on the streets of Juba. Some have been rescued agressively and others have escaped from the LRA.

At times like this I wish ECM was much bigger than it is. We, too, are so stretched. We're trying to do so much with so little. BUT HOW DO YOU SAY NO? HOW DO YOU TURN AWAY FROM SUCH A REQUEST? HOW DO I GET IT OUT OF MY MIND? OR DOES GOD EVEN WANT ME TO DO SO?

This kind of thing puts my heart in a visegrip. I can hardly think of anything else. Some things I can turn away from and say, "That's awful, but that's a responsibility God has given to someone else." I can't say any such thing in this case. This is the very exact kind of thing to which God has called me--us. It is very evident that my mind and heart are going to wrestle with this until God shows us a solution. Right now, my heart is breaking. Lord, help! What do You want us to do?