Zebras Cannot Become Stripeless On Their Own

Regrettably, it has been a long time since I’ve updated the blog, but working 40 hours a week and spending the other times sleeping, at church activities, or talking to my wonderful girlfriend, it doesn’t leave a lot of time to write. Nevertheless, I’m here yet again to deliver another dose of entertainment and rants against Modern American Culture. Let’s roll.

Pretzel Gourmet and Cleaning with Blood

I figured I’d start with a Pretzel Gourmet update (wow. I am horrible at catchy introductions). Since I’ve been back, the store has made slow but steady improvements to make the place look less shady. The new girl, Jessica, and I have been working hard during the slow times to clean some of the more noticeably slapdash areas. I’ll admit, the place still looks like some shoddy ethnic restaurant that has changed leadership four times, but I still finding myself loving the place. I have worked there for nearly four years now, so there will always be a little special place in my heart for the PG. But seriously, it needs a facelift.

When you clean the Pretzel Gourmet (and when you’re not reacting to the caustic chemicals invading your nostrils), you tend to think about things. God has used this summer at the PG for me to concentrate less about fitting into a new job and instead for me to focus more on loving Him and others. Something I’ve been thinking about has to do with cleaning. As I’ve been cleaning the store, I’ve wiped away a lot of gunk that has probably been festering for months or even years. And it hasn’t been easy either; oftentimes it will take me several nights of hard scrubbing using a range of chemical cleansers to tidy up just one section of the store. But I know that no matter how hard I scrub, the store will never be totally clean or like new.

That exact thing is true of our sinful nature. We, by ourselves, can never wipe away our sins. The Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and David lamented that “surely I was sinful from birth.” We are all sinners, filthy rags worthy for nothing more than being thrown away. Like the cleaning rags I can use at the Pretzel Gourmet, which I try to clean with bleach and Goo-Gone and intense washing techniques, they still are not as good as they were when they were new. We can try to hide our sins by trying to ignore them, by calling them by different names (most popular being “sins do not exist”), or by focusing our attention on other “noble” goals, but they do not even come close to wiping out our stains that penetrate us so deeply. The most wonderful fact in the entire world is that though we are but filthy rags, there is a way for us to be spotless – it is a washing not with soap and water, but with blood.

It is a story that has been told so many times and yet too few times. Secular society knows it as the Myth of the Jesus and the Cross but Christians know it as the Good News. What I think makes it so hard to believe is that there is nothing in the physical world to which we can compare such a wonderful feat. Nowhere in the history of the world has there been a zebra who, feeling condemned by his stripes, consulted something higher than himself for relief from his birthmarks. Nor has an old automobile with 250,000 miles of wear ever been transformed into a car with no signs of use.

That is, unless it is made new. Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) And again, Jesus said, “You must be born again.” (John 3:7) That is the only way that the zebra weary of his stripes could ever become stripeless or the run-down car run like the first time its engine roared. It is the also the only way we, too, can be without sin. Only through the blood of Jesus are we washed whiter than snow.

It is not the point of my argument to explain exactly what being washed by the blood of Jesus means, but know that there was something outer-worldly in the person of Jesus that made is life, death, and subsequent resurrection and ascension so important in the history of mankind. What I mean to focus on is just how perfect this cleansing from sin is because it is truly the only cleansing of its kind. How perfect is it? The Bible says, “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalms 130:12) Try doing that on your own! It is this phenomenal cleansing that Christians call forgiveness and it is absolutely perfect. God remembers your sins no more and when you tell God that you know you are in the wrong, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us.” (1 John 1:9) The Bible is true, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”! (Romans 8:1) There is no shame, no guilt, no fear; his forgiveness is total and complete.

The hymn says it best:

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.^[1]

This is but one part of the Good News and much (much) more could be said about it, but I think God for helping me begin to see just how perfect God’s forgiveness truly is. I hope you were blessed too and if you have any questions, I would love to talk to you about it.

Within the next few days, I should have completed an entry on school vouchers. Stay tuned!

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^[1]Logos Hymnal. 1995 (1st edition.). Logos Research Systems, Inc.: Oak Harbor, WA

Harvard Initiates the Fall of American Higher Education

It has been a while since I've looked at a news website, so I've decided tonight to take a gander at my personal interest: education.

Story One:

Harvard approves biggest curriculum change in 30 years

Western civilization took another hit last week when Ivy League member Harvard University, one of the leading institutions of higher learning in America, overhauled its curriculum to place a higher emphasis on discussing "societies of the world" and the sciences (and the moral implications of advances in science). This is merely a continuation of the progressive philosophy of American education that is already so prevalent in our failing public schools. Call it what you will, but the moves by Harvard University are moves toward Multiculturalism and Scientism in higher education.

Multiculturalism centers around the idea that Western Civilization has failed as a model for society and so modern societies should seek values and ideas from other cultures to fill this void left by the West. As Wikipedia puts it, "Multiculturalism is the idea that modern societies should embrace and include distinct cultural groups with equal social status." The only true difference in these definitions is my part about the failure of the West, which is an assumption of Multiculturalist thought.

The idea of considering ideas from other cultures doesn't sound too bad on the surface, but its implications on American education are huge. The trend of American education today says that we should teach our students to be, above all things, tolerant. It teaches students about other cultures under the presupposition that all cultures are equal. So the West is as good as the East, African culture is as valuable to us as Irish cultures, and the Jewish faith has accomplished exactly as much as Buddhism. The world is nothing more than a smorgasbord of equal cultures and all the modern student must do is have his fair share of each to be "educated."

This is obviously wrong. All cultures are not alike, nor are all cultures equal. The religion of China and the religion of the West are not the same nor comparable. The Irish have not accomplished as much in their history as the English or the Greeks. We live in a world of unique, individual cultures just as we live in a world of unique, individual people. If teachers are to teach children to be American citizens, they must become, above all things, experts in American history, and the history of America is not found in Africa or Latin America or the East, but in the West.

The effects of Multiculturalism already are apparent today as American students today leave schools with less knowledge of their country than ever before. However, what's most dangerous is that they leave school skeptical of their own heritage. Sure, every history has its dark moments, just as all people have fallen short of the glory of God, but that does not mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater; despite our efforts to eliminate our heritage, America is a product of the West.

I will leave Scientism for another day, but briefly, I will lay out the following argument. When we begin to emphasize the sciences in school, it tends to endorse the philosophy of materialism - that all we are is that which we can observe. While scientific observation is a way to better understand God's created order, it has its limits, especially in the realm of faith, ethics and morality. Science does not leave room for morality or religion. There is no quantitative measure for God or morality. If educators teach education outside its Christian context, science becomes an excuse to endorse a purely materialistic way of life. And I don't want to carry out this argument now, but this endorsement of materialism makes education's purpose purely utilitarian; that is, a materialist view of education makes students believe that the only purpose of education is to help them in getting more material wealth in the future instead of education being the means by which students become well-rounded people capable of being active citizens in their respective communities.

Stories Two and Three:

Louisiana school district sued over Bibles in school

Advocacy groups sue to halt Bible classes in Texas schools

There's nothing more refreshing than reading yet another story about the ACLU defending American "Freedom" from the poisons of Christianity. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued an eastern Louisiana school district for distributing Bibles on school property. As the story goes, students were instructed to pick up copies of the New Testament near the school's office. The fifth-grade student (whose parents filed the suit at the bidding of the ACLU) soon found herself in line with her class waiting to receive their Bibles from two men. Said the ACLU representative Joe Cook, "With her classmates and teachers looking on, Jane accepted the Bible out of a feeling of coercion and fear that she would be criticized, ridiculed and ostracized." This is the fifth time in thirteen years that the school district has been sued over religious issues.

In regards to this story, it's about time we get those nice gentlemen handing out Bibles out of our schools so we can concentrate our attention more fully on the secular humanist philosophies we cling to so dearly. I love this story. It's an example of a public school district (a parish school district at that) sticking it to the man by ignoring laws in order to teach the truth as they see it. And this isn't even the first time they've done it!

The only reason the ACLU cares is because the school took time that would normally be spent proclaiming its agnostic views in favor of Christianity. This is not an issue of freedom or about adherence to the constitution, it's an issue of a school not fitting into the standardized mold the government has put in place.

Did you read the quote from Mr. Cook?! Poor Jane was "coerced" into accepting a Bible from two men with her teachers and peers looking at her every move. You could make up a similar story about a Christian child in public schools being forced not only to accept but to read a Biology textbook proclaiming evolution as truth! But you will never hear of the ACLU fighting against the Scientism and Secular Humanism so prevalent in schools because its exactly what they want.

Jane may have accepted the Bible because the rest of her peers did, but no one made her read it. Not an ounce of Biblical teaching was disseminated during school hours and Jane still has her religious freedom. What this Louisiana school district does realize though, and unfortunately more school districts do not, is that it's what inside those Bibles that offer freedoms reaching above and beyond any freedoms man himself could ever legislate.

And now the third story. This one, another ACLU gem, is about two advocacy groups who have sued a Texas school district for offering a Bible course as an elective. The ACLU and the American Way Foundation (what euphemistic names!) have hailed the Bible course as "basically a Sunday School class within the walls of a public school."

This is a sticky subject. It is first necessary to recognize that the Bible class is an elective. Students attending the school are not required to take the class and can opt to have nothing to do with it. For that reason alone, this law suit will fail.

The real issue to me is if the Bible ought to be something taught in public schools or in private schools without Christian affiliations. I find it hard to make a judgment for all schools; that is, I would probably leave it in the hands of the parents, teachers, and school board members of each individual district and school to determine the best course of action.

Obviously, I would love Christian morality and Biblical teaching encouraged in a school setting. The Founding Fathers of our nation even thought that this was the best course of action in our schools. But the teaching would have to have a rherotical approach, meaning that the teacher would have to be laying out the thesis that Christianity or the Bible is indeed true. Many secular universities today offer courses on Christianity and the Bible, but the professors are adamate atheists or agnostics. They teach religion and Bible courses using a dialectic approach, laying out every religion as equal, every Biblical teaching as something Christians believe. Their approach is "here are the facts, but that's all you need to know so that you can interact with those people if the moment arises." Does this remind you of Multiculturalism? If schools are to teach the Bible, they must start with the presupposition that the Bible is true. If teachers desire to instill Christian morals in their students, they themselves must believe Christian morality is true and necessary.

Thanks for muscling through this series of essays. Please comment and raise counterarguments and I will answer on this forum.