GodsView : Cognitive Dissonance and the Followers of Donald T...

GodsView : Cognitive Dissonance and the Followers of Donald T...: When the legendary boxing promoter Bob Arum was challenged about the veracity of one of his past statements, he famously replied, &quot...

Cognitive Dissonance and the Followers of Donald Trump!

When the legendary boxing promoter Bob Arum was challenged about the veracity of one of his past statements, he famously replied, "Yesterday I was lying, today I am telling the truth."

This leads to the obvious question, "But Mr. Arum, what will you tell us tomorrow?"

There is something about Arum's line that reminds me of Donald Trump, except that: 1) Arum was not running for the office of the president of the United States; and 2) Trump could say the same thing that Arum did but it appears that many of his followers would say, "You see! He's not a politician. He tells the truth."

Have you ever seen the like with a political candidate? And who but Trump could boast that he could shoot someone in broad daylight in New York City and his followers would still follow him? Who but Trump would want to boast of such a thing?

By all fair accounts, Trump did not perform well in the South Carolina debate on Saturday night, but this didn't matter much to his followers, as evidenced by the Drudge Report poll which, as always, declared him the overwhelming winner.

So when the crowd boos him for his vile behavior, that's just proof that the crowd has been stacked against him.

When competing candidates rightly confront his vacillating positions, they're branded liars, corrupt politicians and, worse, all to the delight of his followers.

"We need an alpha male," they exclaim. "Trump will get things done."

As to how, exactly, he will do it, no one seems to know.

But be assured that, despite four Trump bankruptcies (which surely affected many people, even if Trump was not personally affected) and the failures of Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump Mortgage, Trump: The Game, The China Connection, Trump Casinos, Trump Steaks, Trump Magazine, and GoTrump.com, Donald Trump will get the job done.

He always does.

He only wins—as in wins, wins, wins.

And when he doesn't win (as in Iowa)? Actually, second was really first, since, we're told, the winner cheated. And his followers cheer him on.

But this is nothing to laugh about. The future of our country is at stake, especially with the sudden death of Antonin Scalia, which makes the question of the appointing of new Supreme Court justices all the more urgent.

Last Aug. 26—so, barely six months ago—Trump stated that his sister would make a "phenomenal" Supreme Court justice, despite her strong support for partial-birth abortion.

Now, after being challenged about what kind of justices he would appoint if president, Trump says that he was only joking about his past comments about his sister: "Just so you understand, I said it jokingly. My sister's a brilliant person, known as a brilliant person, but it's obviously a conflict."

Shades of Bob Arum.

"I was joking yesterday, but today I'm being serious."

Dear followers of Donald Trump, are you sure this is your man?

But it gets worse.

During the Saturday night debate in patriotic, pro-George W. Bush South Carolina, Trump said that Bush lied about Iraq and claimed that he, Trump, was the only one to oppose the war in Iraq. In fact, at a debate last September he said, "You can check it out, check out—I'll give you 25 different stories."

When asked for proof of this on Sunday, he responded, "I wasn't a politician so people didn't write everything I said."

Really? No proof of 25 different stories you told us to check out? No documentation of your very outspoken opposition to the war? You spoke loudly and clearly back then but no one noticed it because you weren't a politician?

Unfortunately for Trump loyalists, Andrew Kaczynski has documented that "in his 2000 book The America We Deserve, Trump noted Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction and targeted Iraq strikes had little impact on their overall capabilities. The Donald said the best course might be against Iraq to 'carry the mission to its conclusion.'" (Kaczynski provides the exact quote.)

It wasn't until August of 2004 that Trump expressed clear opposition to the war, long after it had started and long after the problems with our engagement there had emerged.

This revelation led to the clever tweet from New York Post columnist Robert A. George, "Trump knew Iraq had WMDs before Bush lied abt Iraq having WMDs and followed Trump's advice to finish job in Iraq!"

In response to all this, I posted on Facebook and Twitter, "Trump could say tomorrow 'I've been lying about everything!' And his followers would say 'That's our man! He tells it like it is.'"

And how did some of his followers respond to my comment?

"So explain to me who is better than Trump."

And "No he wouldn't. Nobody is ideal, but you have it in for Trump. He is better than all of the socialists and other deceptive liars running."

And, "[People would] much rather give Trump the benefit of the doubt because he does not answer to any special interest groups and because he proves that you can fight the leftwing media and their strongest weapon 'political correctness.'"

What makes this all the more disturbing, not to mention downright scary, is that a substantial percentage of his supporters profess to be evangelical Christians, and it still appears that there is almost nothing he could say or do that would dampen their support for him.

"After all," they lamely repeat, "we're not electing a pastor, we're electing a president."

And if I might borrow a quote, "Yesterday he was lying; today he's telling the truth."

Let the voter beware.

GodsView : In the World…!

GodsView : In the World…!: If you had been a missionary to Africa in the nineteenth century, you would have been traveling to “the Dark Continent” and “the White Ma...

In the World…!

If you had been a missionary to Africa in the nineteenth century, you would have been traveling to “the Dark Continent” and “the White Man’s Graveyard.” That’s how people in the West viewed Africa—a vast, unexplored continent filled with as many question marks as people and wild animals. You might as well have been assigned to a planet in outer space.
But that’s where British medical missionary and explorer David Livingstone went and spent 30 years, beginning in 1841. Maps of Africa at that time had vast blank spaces on them. Rivers, if known, were unnamed in Western terms. There were no roads, no country borders, no landmarks. Just trails, jungles, mountains, and plains that were home to people, animals, diseases, and customs almost wholly unknown to Westerners.
Livingstone was encouraged to go to Africa by a missionary to Bechuanaland Protectorate (modern Botswana) named Robert Moffat. There, Moffat said, he had seen “the smoke of a thousand villages, where no missionary had ever been.” His culture shock revealed the need. So Livingstone went—and spent three decades pulling the curtain back and letting the civilizing light of the Gospel shine on the Dark Continent.
The nineteenth century is often referred to as the Golden Age of Missions. Western missionaries—American and British primarily—began taking the Gospel into barely-known regions of the world. While Africa was perhaps the darkest and least-known of the continents, the culture shock for Western missionaries was serious wherever they went: Hudson Taylor to China, William Carey to India, Adoniram Judson to Burma, and others.
As radical as was the culture shock of those missionaries, there is one instance more dramatic than all those combined: when Jesus Christ left heaven and came to earth.

Their Culture Shock

Walther Eichrodt (d. 1978) was a Swiss theologian who was famous for his use of “irruption” to describe the way God came to earth: “That which binds together indivisibly the two realms of the Old and New Testaments . . . is the irruption of the kingdom of God into this world and its establishment here.”¹
What is irruption? The best way to understand what irruption means is to think of its opposite: eruption. When a volcano erupts, it explodes from the inside. When something irrupts, it enters explosively from the outside. That’s what happened when Jesus came to earth and announced the explosive presence (irruption) of the kingdom of God. Just as David Livingstone entered darkest Africa from the outside, so Christ entered into the darkness of humanity from outside.
Philippians 2:5-11 is the classic text that describes the culture shock Christ experienced when He left heaven and came to earth: “But [Christ] made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men” (verse 7). Christ left the glory of heaven and the fellowship of the Trinity and journeyed to a planet made dark by sin. He became like—physically but not in His character—those He came to save. He left the throne room of God and became a slave. In short, Paul writes, “though He was rich . . . He became poor” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
Think of the culture shock Jesus experienced living in a fallen world. Even though He entered this world as a babe and was gradually “acclimatized” to human culture, He was never without the presence of the Spirit (John 3:34) and an awareness of His heaven-sent mission, even as a child (Luke 2:41-52). But He never got used to selfish ambition, lying, stealing, deceit, killing, sexual sin, profanity, sickness, demon possession—these things were an affront and an offense to His divine sensibilities. Yet His mission required that He live in the presence of cultural offense without becoming part of its practice.
Jesus discovered on earth what missionary Don Richardson discovered in New Guinea—everything was backward! In his 1974 book, Peace Child, Richardson told how the Sawi people, upon hearing the story of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, applauded Judas and laughed at Jesus. In their culture, trickery and deceit were high values, and Jesus was a fool who got duped for 30 pieces of silver.
If Don Richardson was shocked at such a reversal of values in New Guinea, imagine how shocked Jesus must have been to discover how dramatically humanity had reversed the values of heaven. No wonder He taught His disciples to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

Our Culture Shock

Jesus experienced culture shock, nineteenth-century missionaries experienced culture shock, and we are experiencing culture shock as well. It’s as if we have fallen down “Alice in Wonderland’s” rabbit hole, spinning and tumbling into an environment we don’t recognize and can’t understand.
But remember: This is not new! From the Garden of Eden forward, this world has been a strange and threatening place for those who seek to follow God. The current manifestations of sin in our world may be more modern, but there is nothing new under the sun of sin. Our challenge is the challenge of the ages for the people of God: Do not grow weary in well doing (Galatians 6:9); do not become of the world while living in the world (Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 9:19-23; 1 John 2:15-17).
But there is another challenge: What can we learn about God and His purposes as we see chaos, immorality, and secularism rising all around us? Once we get acclimatized to our culture shock, how can we use it to our advantage? How can we make it a spiritual asset instead of a spiritual liability?
1. We remember the need. Christ said He did not come to minister to those who are well but to those who are sick (Mark 2:17). Instead of being frustrated by “the sick,” we must see them as the reason for Christ coming to earth.
2. We remember the beauty of Christ. Christ is everything like us in His humanity (Isaiah 53:2; Hebrews 5:8) and nothing like us in His deity (Hebrews 4:15). The corruption of the world reminds us of His perfection. He is, in His beauty, what we are destined to become (Romans 8:28-29).
3. We remember the dangers of sin. We are warned about the dangers of thinking we are beyond sin (1 Corinthians 10:12). There, but for the grace of God, go we.
4. We remember the truth of Scripture. We are reminded that “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19) but that “the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
5. We remember the solution. Mankind seeks solutions to manifold problems. But we remember “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The best thing we can do for our world is to manifest Christ.
6. We remember our priorities. “Fixing the world” is out of our hands. We are to focus on what we can do, not worry about what we can’t do. That means prayer, having biblical reasons for our hope, being salt and light, and sharing the Gospel.
7. We remember the outcome. “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Revelation 21:1). The Judge of all the earth will do right (Genesis 18:25).
In short, culture shock has a purpose: To remind us of the world’s need for Christ. When we go out into the world—mission trips, serving the needy, helping a troubled neighbor, praying for the world’s “hot spots”—we stay aware. By insulating ourselves from the “sick” in this world, not only can we not help them but we lose sight of the power of the Great Physician and His ability to meet their needs as well as ours.
Don’t be shocked by what is happening in our world. It is normal; it is what happens when people refuse the grace of God. Instead, let your life be an echo of the words of Jesus, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Remember: You and I were part of the world’s chaos before we met Jesus (Ephesians 2:12). God has not turned His back on our chaotic world and neither can we.

GodsView : The Promise of Persistent Prayer!

GodsView : The Promise of Persistent Prayer!: As I look back on my life, there have been many experiences that have shaped and defined who I am. One of those was being diagnosed with ...

The Promise of Persistent Prayer!

As I look back on my life, there have been many experiences that have shaped and defined who I am. One of those was being diagnosed with prostate cancer. I never thought the “cancer” label would ever be attached to me—a relatively young guy in excellent health with energy to spare. And yet, it was.
I made it through surgery without incident, but recovery nearly did me in. I was exhausted. I was fearful. I was despondent. I was weak. Was I ever going to get better? Were my best days now long gone?
For many months I prayed to God for help, and for healing, and for hope. Week after week, I crawled into the pulpit to deliver my prepared talk, sustained only by the prayerful persistence that connected my heart to God’s.
Though I was wobbly and wounded on nearly every front, the more I pursued interaction with my Father, the more divine strength I sensed in my life. The more I knocked on the doors of heaven, asking for rest to invade my tired days, the more I found God ready and willing to carry the burden I bore.
[Pull Quote] The more I knocked on the doors of heaven, asking for rest to invade my tired days, the more I found God ready and willing to carry the burden I bore.
Yes, my knuckles may have become bruised from all that knocking, but my soul was refreshed, revived, and healed. Healed from despair… healed from anxiety… healed from suffering…  healed from grief. Every ounce of healing I desperately needed was found by way of earnest prayer.
I’ve always been intrigued by a particular parable Jesus told in Luke 11 that has to do with this idea of persisting in prayer. Here, Jesus sets the stage for how His followers are to make their requests known to God.
In the story, a man has the nerve to show up unannounced at his friend’s house—and at midnight, no less—to borrow not a smidgen of food, but three large loaves of bread (a day’s worth of meals in those times). The friend essentially blows him off: “Get lost! I’m trying to get some sleep in here!” But the man will not be dissuaded from making known his desperate request. After all, he has an empty cupboard and a hungry houseguest waiting back at home. What is he supposed to do? Show up empty-handed? And so the man keeps knocking. And eventually, the loaves are his.
Jesus taught us in Matthew 7 that when we ask, it will be given to us. When we seek, we will find. When we knock, the door will be opened to us. This is the tantalizing trifecta He conveyed to His disciples, and it’s the same offer He extends to us. Let the truth of it seep deep into your bones because God promises that it is so!
So don’t pray fleeting, infrequent prayers, but passionate, persistent prayers. As you’re faithful to knock, you’ll find the provision you need is there in your hands.

GodsView : Why I Am Pro-Life!!

GodsView : Why I Am Pro-Life!!: In one of the most poignant verses in the Bible, Isaiah describes the day we now live in.  “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good ...

Why I Am Pro-Life!!

In one of the most poignant verses in the Bible, Isaiah describes the day we now live in.

 “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20 
Some people like to say they’re for “a right to choose,” but then don’t complete the sentence. Choose what? What do you choose? They can’t say, “I’m for the choice to kill a baby in the mother’s womb,” because it doesn’t sound so good.
The decision to take an innocent life in the mother’s womb really is a choice between life and death. God’s Word says clearly in Deuteronomy 30:19
Therefore choose life, that both you and your children may live.
Understand that you are free to choose. You are not free not to choose. And you are not free to choose the consequences of your choice. God has told us we are to choose life.
I’m going to give you three reasons I’m pro-life. But first, let’s look at our present situation:
On the day you are reading this, in America 3,000-4,000 lives will be snuffed out. They’ve not had the benefit of a trial; they’ll have no counsel to represent them. They’ll be executed in a cruel and inhumane way. Though they’ve committed no crime, one will die about every 21 seconds.
Who are the co-conspirators of this atrocity? Who is putting the unborn to death?

• Supreme Court justices. Six of them, high priests of humanism, wrapped in their robes, sided with Justice Harry Blackmun to do this.  
• Governmental social planners. Some receive your tax dollars and mine. Planned Parenthood does for parenthood what Orkin does for bugs.
• Willing physicians.
• The willing mother or father of the child.
• Abortion clinics, getting wealthy on the death of the unborn.
• Many others who are silent and unconcerned. Or too timid to speak out.
• Politicians who put self-interest and re-election above the lives of innocent children.      

January 22, 1973, was a day which will live in infamy, one of the darkest in American history, like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. In America it is now legal to kill a baby. That probably just went right past you. It is now legal to kill a baby.
The only requirements are:
1. The baby still lives inside the mother, at least a portion of the baby. (Part of the baby can now be outside the mother.)
2. The mother wants the baby killed.
3. A doctor is willing to do the killing.
The Court ruled in 1973: “A state is forbidden to proscribe (forbid) abortion any time prior to the birth if in the opinion of one licensed physician an abortion is necessary to preserve the life or the health of the mother.”
Few would argue about “life of the mother.”  But note that key word “health of the mother.” The court elaborated, “All factors, physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman’s age, relevant to the wellbeing of the patient” could legally justify the taking of an innocent human life.
Roe ruled abortion is permitted if the woman says it would (1) distress her (2) produce psychological harm (3) tax mental and physical health by child care, or (4) bring distress associated with an unwanted child. That is, “If I don’t want this child, then that’s my mental health condition that okays the child being put to death.” Or, “We can’t take of the baby; kill it.” Or, “We didn’t get married. We are pregnant. Kill the baby.”
Most people are aware of Roe v. Wade, but few of Doe v. Bolton, companion piece to Roe v. Wade, legalizing any abortionist to kill a baby through all nine months of pregnancy.  It is even legal to kill a baby while the mother is in labor and the baby is partially delivered, partially out of the birth canal.
In America, if you crush a bald eagle’s egg you can be fined $5,000 and spend a year in jail, but you can make a handsome living killing babies in the mother’s womb.  Pharaoh and Herod must now take second place to America.
          Woe unto them that call good evil that put light for dark.
In America, a teenage girl can receive amoral sex education in school and be given contraceptives with government money, and if she comes up pregnant, she can be taken to a Planned Parenthood clinic without her parents’ knowledge or consent, where she can have the baby killed. Yet many of these same schools would not dare give an aspirin without parental consent. That is barbaric. It is also crazy.
I.
I am pro-life because it is just that: a matter of LIFE.
What is being put to death in the mother’s womb is a human life. When the ovum and the sperm are united, it becomes human life. There’s no question about that.
Here are some of the pro-abortion arguments you hear and my answers to them:
IT’S NOT A HUMAN
Someone wrote “Dear Abby” saying they were a pro-choice because “to believe the ovum and sperm united are human life would like believing a vehicle was in existence after a nut and bolt were joined together at the beginning of an auto assembly line.” So if you have an egg and sperm come together, that’s no more life, they say, than a nut and bolt in a car factory is a car.
What convoluted logic! There is a great difference. A nut and bolt are only a nut and bolt. They will not one day become a Cadillac! But when the egg and sperm come together, that is a human life, and no carburetor, fender, steering wheel or engine is added. Everything is already there! All that little life needs is nutrition and water to grow. You don’t add anything. It’s a human being already.
Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, obstetrician/gynecologist, was director of the largest abortion clinic in the western world. But his eyes were opened. He suddenly changed his tune after his clinic had performed 60,000 abortions. Resigning, he said: “I’m deeply troubled by my own increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.” Think of it. He stated there is a “vector of life.” From the moment of conception, there’s “a self-directed force of life that, if not interrupted, will lead to the birth of a human baby.” The child conceived is a human being from the moment of conception.
All the components of life being there, some will say, “That’s only some blob, not human life.” Is it animal? Vegetable? Mineral? It is human life.
IT’S MY BODY
Abortion advocates talk about having “a right to my own body.” The child is not a part of the mother’s body. He or she is a new life, altogether different, with their own unique DNA, circulatory system, often even a different blood type than the mother, and certainly their own unique fingerprints. The nucleus of a human cell has 46 chromosomes, 23 from the father and 23 from the mother. So the child is not merely “part of the mother’s body.” It is as much a part of the father as the mother. It is life, and it is life from God.
IT’S JUST A “FETUS”—NOT A PERSON
People often use the word “fetus.” In Latin, “fetus” means “baby, child”; to say “fetus” is to say “child” in Latin. No matter how small, it is a child. It’s all simply a continuum. You and I were once a child all the way through in gradual development. Just because he is little and young has nothing to do with the reality that he or she is a human being. When conceived, a baby is as small as a grain of sand. But a new human being has begun, no less a person than the child or adult walking around.
Speaking of development within the womb, the Psalmist said,
Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. Psalm 139:13-16.
This passage, inspired by the Holy Spirit, reveals that when a mother is pregnant, God Himself is forming a child within her. “Wonderfully and fearfully made” literally means awesomely made. It also tells us that little baby is the object of God’s love and concern. The Bible does not distinguish between prenatal and postnatal life but speaks of babies in the womb as people and persons.
Jeremiah was ordained in his mother’s womb.
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Jeremiah 1:5.
You don’t ordain a blob of tissue. God said, “Before I formed you, I knew you, Jeremiah. You are my prophet.”
John the Baptist was in his mother Elisabeth’s womb when his cousin Mary came to visit with Jesus in her womb.
And it came to pass that when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. Luke 1:41.
The word Luke used for babe is brephos. Thayer’s Lexicon says, “The word brephos is an unborn child, embryo, fetus, a newborn child, an infant, a babe.” Whether in the womb or out of the womb, the Bible uses the same word.
And they brought unto [Jesus] also infants [brephos], that He would touch them. Luke 18:15
Brephos, infant, is the same word used for John the Baptist in his mother’s womb.
Why am I pro-life?  The Bible says it is a crime against God to kill innocent life.
These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. Proverbs 6:16-17.
The taking of life in the womb is an abomination to Almighty God. What could be more clear? He hates abortion.
Doctors and nurses who had worked with abortionist Dr. Nathanson told him of nightmares, depression and personality changes they and other clinic personnel were experiencing because of the taking of innocent life. I am pro-life because it is a matter of life.

In Part Two, I will tell you the two other reasons I am pro-life.