Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Two today

First up is a piece by Michael Brown over at Townhall.com entitled Spiritual Suicide: When European Churches Sell their Soul to Islam. Micheal Brown:
Last month, in Sweden, the Bishop of Stockholm “proposed a church in her diocese remove all signs of the cross and put down markings showing the direction to Mecca for the benefit of Muslim worshippers.”

As reported on Breitbart.com, “Calling Muslim guests to the church ‘angels’, the Bishop later took to her official blog to explain that removing Christian symbols from the church and preparing the building for Muslim prayer doesn’t make a priest any less a defender of the faith. Rather, to do any less would make one ‘stingy towards people of other faiths’.”
This is utter madness. We are called to The Great Commission, which is a call to baptize everyone on earth and give them the Good news.  For those who do not know it, the Great Commission, found in Matthew 28, verses 16 to 20 says:

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
A principle way that we try to follow the Great Commission is by modeling, or in other words, by being good examples of God's life changing Grace in our own lives. If people can see a change for the better in us, it adds credence to the message. There are people in public life who model the saving Grace of God through Jesus Christ. Glenn Beck is one, and Bob Beckel of the Five on Fox News is another. These men are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but their lives have been changed, for the better, by God through Jesus. Neither man is a saint in the popular sense of the word, nor an angel with wings, but I suspect that those that have been helped by them see them as angels.

Second, we have an American Thinker blog piece by Ed Straker entitled Which is better; open carry or concealed carry laws? Please go read the piece. It is short, but then come back. Have you read it yet? Good. Straker writes:
I think this is right. Concealed carry is a valuable tool, especially in schools, where one lunatic can massacre large numbers of people without worrying about getting shot himself.

Open carry is a little dicier. If you come from a rural culture where many people carry guns, you might not bat an eye if you see someone with a pistol. But in many suburban and urban cultures, it is very unusual to see someone with a gun. When I see a person with a gun, I think, "Is this a person who is just exercising his right to protect himself...or is this person carrying around a gun because he is quick to use it?" I think this because I, like millions of others, grew up in a culture where we just didn't see people with guns.
If you will allow me an opinion on the subject, I think Straker is correct as far as he goes. This is a bill that would allow guns inside schools, something a majority of teachers and principals of schools oppose on the grounds that it might "scare" children and take away from the learning environment. I think that if guns are concealed, then students should not be aware of them most of the time. I also think children are much tougher than the teachers are letting on, and they will easily become accustomed to guns in the school, particularly if it is explained to them that teachers carry guns for the protection of the students in their charge. It also doesn't hurt that students "learn" that there is evil in the world, right and wrong, that adults have to deal with such things, that teachers are there to pass on a great many lessons, not all of them related to the classes they teach.

One does a great deal of growing up when one takes a concealed carry class.  Yes, you learn the laws, and you learn about your weapon, how to shoot it and hit a target, some of what happens when you do.  But if you are a thinking student, one also has to come to grips with what it might mean to have to shoot another human being.  You never shoot to kill, but killing may be the outcome.  What of your eternal soul?  How do you forgive the other party, how do you live with yourself?  Wrestling with these questions makes a deeper and more respectful person.  One who eschews confrontation for the sake of both.

On his last point, I do see the value of open carrying as a political tool, but our schools are not meant to be political tools, and those of us on the conservative Constitutionalists side should not make the classroom a political battle ground.  A concealed carrier looks like everyone else, but maybe a little better dressed.

May the peace of the Lord be with you all today, and may you all see the miracles which happen all around us today.

Wade

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