A few days ago a good friend of mine lost his son in an automobile accident.  When I heard the news my stomach tightened and breathing was difficult.  Tears stung my eyes.  The news was tragic but as I thought about my response, I realized there was more involved in my reaction then the physical symptoms generated by the horrific news. 

 

I am a father to a son and to several daughters.  While the death of a child would be something I pray I never have to experience, the response to death would be different for son or daughter.  Not a deeper response or a more heartfelt response, just different.  The pain and heartache would be just as intense for either, but for differing reasons.  I suspect mothers feel much the same when a daughter is lost.

 

A son represents an opportunity to teach manhood.  A chance to teach all that is involved in learning what it means to be a man.  He represents unlimited possibilities.  We can teach him and shape him to be just like we are, less our bad qualities.  A father always sees his son as accomplishing more than he was able to accomplish.  He represents a link to a future generation.  In a very real sense it is a continuation of existence, and through him, the possibility of affecting future generations.  He serves as a receptacle for all of our vast wisdom.  He is the one who will carry on our name and add to it through his sons and daughters.  All men long for respect and we carry with us the hope and belief that our son will grow to reverence us and eventually come and seek our advice on life.  He will be our close friend.  To lose all those possibilities makes the loss of a son a most gut wrenching and almost unbearable thing. 

 

Intuitively I knew this when I heard the news about my friend and his loss.  I could empathize on a deep level because I am a father to a son.  It also led me to consider another Father who lost a Son to death.  A most cherished Son.  All the possibilities represented by God’s son here on Earth were lost with His death.  The pain and suffering was tremendous for the Father and the Son.  The Son’s body was almost unrecognizable at His death.  The Father was in agonizing pain. 

 

My friend is a true believer.  He knows in his heart his son was a believer.  Just like his heavenly Father was many years ago, he is in pain.  What could have been is gone, lost forever in this life.  But for the believer, what can be and will be, is still there.  Praise God!  The pain and agony of the “could have been” is blunted by the glorious grace of the “what can be and will be.”  Do the wonderful possibilities of the future make the immediate loss less severe?  Only the foolish or those untouched by tragedy believe in that cure-all.  But as time marches relentlessly forward and the past recedes into many yesterdays, the glorious future becomes more and more the reality and the past becomes the trigger for satisfying thoughts of what God has prepared down the road.  Relationships will be renewed and healed and restored to levels unimaginable to the finite and limited reality of what we perceive today.  The son and the father will be together again.      

 

That is part of the promise believers can cling to in the aftermath of tragedy.  The truth of today is but a pale shadow as compared to the reality of the final tomorrow.  I trust the Lord to encourage and uphold my friend with the promise that his weeping shall be turned to joy.  Even today our Savior’s grace is at work to take away the sting and sorrow of loss because loss is always temporary for the believer.                 

My daughter was recently sharing her amazement concerning how the members of her college class on terrorism were unable to come up with a clear definition to describe a terrorist.  Even more surprising to her was how the members of the class refused to call the recent kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Hezbollah an act of terrorism.  This wasn’t all that surprising. 

 

Defining a terrorist requires a moral judgment be made concerning the actions of an individual or a group of people.  In other words there has to be a right and a wrong against which actions can be judged.  The moral absolutes of right and wrong are sadly missing in students today.  In fact, unless they have received the training in morality at home, they will not get it in institutes of higher education.   

 

Various studies put the numbers of liberal left leaning professors ahead of conservative professors at the rate of 5 to 1.  The studies include both left and right leaning universities.  The numbers include sociology departments where the ratio of liberals to conservatives is 44 to 1 as well as economics departments where the numbers are almost 3 to 1.  

 

The numbers are important because liberals believe in issues that demand no moral judgments be made.  Issues such as abortion on demand, homosexual rights, wealth redistribution (socialism), and open borders are just a few of the hot issues for liberals.  Opposition to any of these issues requires a moral judgment to be made concerning right and wrong. 

 

With liberals in charge of academia, what do you suppose our children are being taught?  They certainly are not being taught how to determine if these issues are right or wrong by professors who themselves do not believe in anything but moral relativism.  

 

It doesn’t get any better when kids leave the classroom.  According to the people who put the numbers together, kids spend an average of 1,726 hours a year in front of the idiot box.  Lest you think they learn how to make moral or value judgments from the television, think Nip/Tuck, SouthPark, Will and Grace, or the extremely moral show, Desperate Housewives. 

 

It should come as no shock that young adults, or older ones, can not determine what a terrorist is or determine if groups like Hezbollah are terrorist groups.  Even rape, murder, beheadings, kidnappings, or using human shields, can only be judged in the context of situational ethics, not whether their actions are morally right or wrong. 

 

The real disappointment is that I am sure some of the kids in my daughters class come from conservative families and maybe even religious families where morals are honored and believed to be the basis of truth.  Unfortunately, the baton is not being passed to the next generation as well as it should be.           

 

    

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

I try to understand liberals and how they come to their conclusions on various issues.  I recognize most are deceived and not willing to think through issues to the point where they can grasp the concepts of why we must fight and demolish radical Islamic terrorism.  Deception lingers even though liberalism has long been shown to be a bankrupt philosophy both morally and in the practical application of the system.  Because of people’s willingness to be deceived by the claims of liberalism, it will continue to be promulgated by the main stream media.        

 

But occasionally the self deception reaches a level that is breathtaking in its absurdity, and can only be described as idiotic in the depth of the lack of understanding it portrays.  Such is the case with a recent blog entry on Anderson Cooper’s blog site by CNN correspondent Tom Foreman. 

 

Foreman questioned how a news agency should define a terrorist: 

 

“What makes a terrorist?

I don't mean why do people starting bombing, and shooting and fighting from the shadows. I mean, for the purposes of news organizations defining terrorism, what should the definition be?

The United States and others clearly call Hezbollah a terrorist group: The source of countless raids, bombings and attacks on Israel; the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, which left 241 people dead; and the architects of all those displays in which young men cover their faces, strap mock bombs to their chests, and parade before the cameras pledging to kill any and all soldiers and civilians alike who oppose their cause.

All this makes Hezbollah, especially for many westerners, the very definition of a terrorist group.

But some people describe another part of Hezbollah. They talk about a group that is beloved in southern Lebanon for running schools, hospitals, social services, even clearing snow in the winter for some communities that the official government of Lebanon does not serve. They say these things make Hezbollah something other than a terrorist group: A quasi-government; a nation within a nation.

All of this is done for Shiite Muslim families. The Shiites in Lebanon have long felt economically and politically deprived, and Hezbollah clearly gives many of them a feeling of both military and social strength.

So for one side, Hezbollah is a killing machine bent on seizing by terror what it wants from the world; for the other side, Hezbollah is a brave force, fighting for the rights of its people.

So what should the standard be? If you ran a newsroom, how would you define who is called a terrorist and who is not? What, for you, is Hezbollah?”

 

Foreman’s argument seems to be that news agencies might have difficulty determining whether or not Hezbollah is a terrorist group because they provide some helpful services for the Shiites in Lebanon.  Is this a valid way of determining whether or not a group qualifies as a terrorist organization? 

 

The answer for liberals is yes, and the reason they can answer yes harkens back to the moral fuzziness of liberal philosophy.  Evil does not exist for a liberal.  There is good and there is “falling short of your potential.”  Evil implies a moral standard of right and wrong.  And therein lays the rub.  If there is right and wrong, there are moral absolutes against which an individual, organization, or country, can be judged to determine the validity of their actions.  Evil people and organizations may do some good deeds but those deeds do not take priority over the framework of evil in which they are done.  Except for the liberal, who has no framework, but only moral relativism.  Of course, the whole concept of good and evil will eventually, and logically, lead back to (gasp) God.  A real no no for a liberal— except at election time. 

 

With no set standard to judge by, I guess news agencies, which are dominated by liberals, would have a tough time in classifying Hezbollah and groups of their ilk as evil or terrorist.  Gratefully, most people still acknowledge acts of beheading and terrorism as evil.  Unfortunately though, there are idiots among us.                

 

 

I left a recent viewing of the new SUPERMAN movie more than a little confused. Superman was nothing like what I had expected. I had read reviews which stated the super hero would retain all of the qualities that I, and most people, would associate with the Man of Steel such as goodness, virtue, knowing right from wrong, strong, etc. Some Christian reviews even used the word messianic in their description.

Wrong! Things started badly and went downhill from there. Perry White, editor of the Daily Planet newspaper, questioned whether Superman still stood for “truth, justice, and…..all that stuff.” Notice anything missing there? It seems the writers just could not bring themselves to associate the “American way” with this new version of Superman. It is easy to draw the obvious conclusion that Hollywood no longer connects America with truth and justice. This is no surprise since Hollywood almost always promotes anti-American sentiments, but it is extremely disappointing because Superman most assuredly was, and should be, tied to the qualities that America proudly stands for and promotes.

From there I discovered Superman had been gone for five years on a quest to more or less get in touch with his inner self while leaving planet Earth defenseless. In my naiveté I had always appreciated the fact that Superman knew who he was, what he stood for, and accepted and lived up to his responsibilities. Someone I could look up to and admire, and possibly try to emulate. Wrong again. Superman was really starting to be a disappointment. Unfortunately it got worse.

Evidently before Superman left town he and Lois had gotten to “know” each other in the biblical sense of the word. He returns from his journey to discover he has a son, and his girlfriend Lois is living with another man. Not married to another guy, but cohabitating with him. The other man, Richard White, also works for the Daily Planet and is seen doing most of the caretaking of the house and child. There is no mention of marriage because Lois is not into the whole commitment thing according to Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen. After all, her career is important to her. You are probably thinking that Superman does the right thing and offers to marry Lois or at least offers to support his son and be a presence in his life. Nope. Too busy saving the world and fighting for “truth, justice, and……all that stuff” I suppose.

I was really puzzled at this point. The man in the movie version of the Man of Steel wasn’t a superman. He was just a dead beat dad and someone who exercised no control over his passions and desires. Superman was acting just like the so called men of today. He was involved with a woman he had no business being in a relationship with, there was no commitment in the relationship-only sex, and he was too busy with his own pursuits to take care of the more important responsibilities in his life. Superman seemed much more about promoting the feminist agenda and the continuing effort to devalue and marginalize men. I wanted a movie about someone I could look up to and admire. Someone who demonstrated the qualities that I need to emulate in my own life. Not a movie about a twerp in a costume who is only marginally different than most men in the world today.

Superman……..Not Hardly.

It is fascinating to watch news reports concerning the happenings in the Middle East. It seems every mention of Israel is combined with words such as condemn, killed innocent civilians, destroyed buildings, bombing airports, etc.

Scarce is any mention of facts such as Hamas launching missile attacks against Israel every day since Israel turned control of the Gaza strip over to the Palestinians. Nor about tunnels dug under the border into Israel that allowed for the killing and capture of Israeli soldiers. And of course there is almost never any mention of how Hamas or Hezbollah, the terrorist groups operating out of Gaza to the south and Lebanon to the north, refuse to even acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. It’s a real no no to mention facts such as these in news stories where the goal is to make Israel look as bad as possible.

But somehow it is ok to call Israel’s response to all of this an act of terrorism. That was the response of the corrupt and scandal ridden leader of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. The U.N. was all set to pass a resolution condemning Israel for their action until the United States stepped up and derailed the effort.

What’s wrong with this picture? Should Israel allow their cities to be bombed day after day? Should they just turn their heads when their soldiers are killed and captured? Would the United States allow this to happen and not take action if Mexico was involved in measures such as this against our country? Remember, the soldiers were on the Israel side of the border. Liberals and the liberal press obviously think they should. They would also think the U.S. should tolerate it if Mexico was lobbing bombs into Texas. It would be justified in their minds because just like Israel, they think we would deserve it because in some way or the other we would be responsible for all the problems in Mexico.

Israel originally pulled out of Lebanon and the Gaza strip because they had bought into the lie that by doing so the violence would end. You would think the press and the world would recognize these terrorist groups will not be satisfied with anything short of the complete annihilation of the state of Israel. Israel is certainly having that point driven home to them again.

For Israel, and the United States in its war on Islamic terrorism, the answer is that it will take the killing of enough of the terrorists until they can no longer be a viable threat. Negotiations will not work with groups this warped and hate filled. While liberals may not like it, violence is the only answer. The liberal’s answers have now been shown to be lacking.

Israel is fighting a war on two fronts, Hamas in the south, and Hezbollah in the North. It is just ludicrous to think they also have to fight a war on a third front, the liberals and their press.

What if Israel agreed to an illogical and ill advised cease fire as proposed by spineless EU countries such as France and others? Countries, by the way, that could not survive without the umbrella of protection provided by the United States and its strong military.

Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, and Syria will once again have shown the West to be lacking the resolve needed to stay engaged when the going gets rough. They will be emboldened to increase the scope and intensity of future attacks on the two countries they comprehend to be their greatest threat, Israel and the United States. Their misguided followers and demented leaders will understand that cowardly tactics such as hiding in civilian areas and putting missile launchers in schools and hospitals work to keep public opinion focused in a negative way toward Israel.

They learn if you behead enough people and declare you had little choice because you are a victim of an imperialistic unyielding nation intent on denying you a homeland, you get more aid instead of being hunted down and destroyed.

What if instead of a man of convictions we had John Kerry, the war hero whose supposed great feats of courage were shown to be lies, in the White House?

There would be more pandering and additional forms of appeasement being passed off as diplomacy by the so called intelligentsia of the world. The deaths of more Israelis and more Americans would me ensured. The expansion of Islamic terrorism around the world would proceed because they would know nobody is going to stop them.

What if the Pope understood there is evil in the world and decried its existence instead of calling for a cease fire on both sides?

Perhaps sound moral direction could be re-established in the Catholic Church and it would become an influential voice for God in the world and within its own membership once again. Maybe it would not fall into the same traps of pacification as in World War II when it also failed the Jewish population.

Just a few what ifs……….