the glory and the horror

So the Pirates signed two young men from India who have never played a game of baseball in their life. They were discovered (how else?) on a reality show designed to find people who could throw hard and accurately. These two guys were clocked in the 80s and 90s.

I think this only makes sense, as India is projected to surpass China as the most populous country on the planet. With a country with such cricket talent, it’s only a small step to train some of the bowlers to throw a little higher.

John Piper recently wrote a great article on where our true hope lies.

Please, please, explain to me how this is going to create more of a culture of life?

From the Washington Post:

The new president is also expected to lift a so-called global gag rule barring international family planning groups that receive U.S. aid from counseling women about the availability of abortion, even in countries where the procedure is legal, said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he rescinded the Reagan-era regulation, known as the Mexico City policy, but Bush reimposed it.

“We have been communicating with his transition staff” almost daily, Richards said. “We expect to see a real change.”

Also, Obama has changed his transition website, but just a few days ago, it read thusly (thanks Google cache):

Barack Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as President. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in that case.

This is not a culture of life. It is a culture that will encourage more murder. If he chooses to remove restrictions, increasing access to abortion, he is increasing access to murder. That is NOT a culture of life.

I pray that God gives him wisdom and convicts him of his sin in this area.

Some of you know that I have struggled for quite some time now with what sort of career I envisioned myself having. There was a time when I was considering dropping out of medical school, and then there was a time when I wasn’t sure I wanted to do residency, and so on. As I’ve progressed, though, it seems that I find more and more that I enjoy and love about clinical medicine, while still keeping my deep and enduring love for the less hard-science sides of medicine, such as the theological, the philosophical, and the sociological. That said, I’m applying to a medical toxicology fellowship to start at the same time as Kathlen’s fellowship.

One thing that this has taught me over the years is that it’s ok to not have a perfect plan, as long as we are prayerfully considering our options, and living a life of faith and obedience, grounded in the grace and mercy of Christ.

So for those who haven’t heard, we’re headed to Denver for the next few years. Come on out and visit us!

Where is the hope? I meet millions who tell me that they feel demoralized by the decay around us. Where is the hope? The hope that each of us has is not in who governs us, or what laws are passed, or what great things we do as a nation. Our hope is in the power of God working through the hearts of people, and that’s where our hope is in this country; that’s where our hope is in life.

- Chuck Colson, from the prologue to Steven Curtis Chapman’s Heaven in the Real World

The power of the Holy Spirit changes the hearts and minds of men, such that the people who were once in rebellion are now drawn to see their purpose in Christ, to be reconciled to the Father. That is our hope. When hearts and minds are radically transformed by the Holy Spirit, only then can we truly make a difference in our society. We cannot think that the efforts of a pagan governments are sufficient to address the problems of this world. They are a poor substitute, and worse, some actually actively suppress the Gospel at times.

Our hope is in Christ. It was before the election, and remains so after the election.

May the Lord use this to glorify His name and bring more people to a greater understanding of His grace and our purpose.

For those who have been following the last few posts, please consider your voting issues in terms of priorities. There will be no ideal candidate for the Christian. There will be better and worse candidates.

The question is which will implement a government most in line with basic Christian principles. In Scripture, what does God explicitly require of the government, and what does God explicitly require of His people?

Should the government make murder harder or easier to occur? Should the Church or the government have primary responsibility for taking care of the poor? Which takes higher priority – definitively protecting persons from murder, or attempting to protect them from poverty?