Lift Up Your Voices Unto The Lord

As is usual, there are about a hundred things that need discussing, but I have limited time. For example, it is estimated that when the census is over that a number of states that voted for Trump in 2016 will have one of more fewer seats in Congress. California on the other hand, alone is expected to gain 11 seats. North Carolina will lose one. Thanks to Eric Holder, George Soros, and the "sue them till their blue" strategy, we in NC can count on that one seat being a Republican seat. All this is because of the courts (?) making the decision to count illegals in the census. Then there are the new gun confiscation bills being proposed in Virginia. But that too has much to do with Holder, Soros, and illegal immigrants. Yes, I pay attention, but can only comment on a limited stream of the many that cross my desk.

This week, being Christmas week, let us instead turn our attention to faith. Many things that people generally think we know with absolute certainty, we actually do not know. For example, the so called "law" of gravity is really a theory that has not been disproven...yet. But the fact that some theory may come along to disprove what we think we know about gravity means that it can not be known absolutely. So what does that mean? It means that we all live by faith in something. Such then is the article by Jack Kerwich today at Townhall.com entitled Absolute Certainty and Faith: The Proof for God's Existence - And His Nature.

(1)Terms like “absolute certainty” and “faith” possess some measure of elasticity. There’s a sense in which, arguably, there is nothing of which we can be absolutely certain. The world that we take for granted, or what philosophers have called “waking reality,” could be a dream, a video game, or a matrix.

...snip...

(2) “Faith” is not, as many seem to think, tantamount to irrationality. It does not require a “blind leap.” Neither the Bible nor the Church for much of its history viewed faith as anything other than a source of knowledge by which reason is at once supplemented and perfected. For that matter, Judaism and Islam as well largely shared this vantage.

Faith encompasses trust and hope. As such, faith is and can only be a virtue peculiar to a personal, or an inter-personal, relationship. Faith is always faith in a person.

To repeat, however fashionable it may be, all contemporary talk of placing faith in, say, the universe isn’t universally recognized as the patent nonsense that it is only because it has the effect of imbuing the universe with the qualities of a person.

I come across people all the time who do not themselves have any training in technology, or science. Yet they insist on telling me that my faith means that I can not possibly someone who understands science. Of course, these people do not even understand the fundamental principles of science. But if you believe that a rational God created the universe for us, then you must also believe that He gave us the powers of reason so that we could discover His great creation. Faith is what propellers Christians to confidently use what science tells us is true to apply scientific knowledge to practical problems-the very definition of engineering, by the way.

But faith also tells us that we Christians will be persecuted and hated in this world for our faith. At The Federalist today, Nathaniel Blake has an article entitled Liberal Order That Seeks To Shut Down Christian Charities Does't Deserve To Survive. In that article he notes that the LGBTQxyz mob is increasingly using government to persecute Christian charities and churches in the U. S.:

This should not surprise us. Jesus promised that the powers of this world would hate his followers, not that they would love us if we were virtuous. While we Christians should always strive to be more like Christ, we should not succumb to a quasi-Pelagianism that presumes our winsomeness determines how others receive the gospel. Christ himself was crucified, and the grace and charity many martyrs exemplified did not save them from persecution unto death.

But that we should expect trouble in this world does not mean we should be disinterested regarding politics, nor does it excuse governments that oppose the church and oppress its people.  That our nation seems to be starting down this path has intensified Christian reconsiderations of liberal political theory. Although our government ostensibly protects the freedoms of religion, association, and speech, procedural liberalism increasingly appears insufficient to protect our rights or to ensure a culture of tolerance and pluralism that includes Christians who maintain the traditional teachings of our faith.

As Christians, we need to recognize that we are fighting against the evil one, and things will only get worse. We can not succumb to hardening our hearts, but at the same time, we must be "be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves." And while we still can, we need to lift up our voices.