Tomorrow…

Greeting friends!

Happy Independance day to you all. As you celebrate with family, friends, fireworks & barbecue, here are my thoughts & memories of what this day means to me:

Yesterday was the anniversary of my Dad’s passing and I was totally fine. He’s been gone several years now. Today I remembered us rushing to the hospital, and the coroner literally waiting right near the front door to take his body. The nurse who called us kept her word, that they’d wait until we got there to see him, before letting them take his body. I remember being hit with the reality of his death when I kissed his forehead. It had already grown cold. I knew then – he’s really gone. This is just a shell before me. I smiled and cried at the same time. My sister’s wedding was in two weeks and she had to face the reality, that he wouldn’t be there to walk her down the aisle. She wasn’t going to have the father/daughter dance she had planned. My brother was the last one to see him alive. “Lance, I’m going for a walk. I won’t be long. I’ll see you when I get back,” he said. Those were his last words, except whatever sweet utterances he whispered in the ears of Christ, with his arms outstretched, upward bound. Though they’d been divorced, and amicably so, for several years, I saw my Mom cry for the first time in my life. As the eldest child, I knew that I had to be there for my family, and we had to plan a funeral. My grief would have to wait. I held it in so tightly that my pain manifested physically in the place of its emotional twin. A sudden, severe toothache sent me to the dentist the next morning. My blood pressure was sky high. My pain was going to be released one way or another…

We got in the car to leave and the phone started ringing. His corneas were to be donated to a recipient in need. He had agreed to this on his license and they were the only thing they could take from a 61 year old man with heart disease. Informing us was just a formality. Then we had the heart-wrenching task of informing family and friends. He wasn’t ill, his death was sudden. But what I remember most and first, is going to his home, looking in the refrigerator and seeing chicken already seasoned, ready for the grill – it was for tomorrow. Tomorrow. It’s not promised to any of us. We make plans, but God is in control. The next day was the 4th of July. He was a veteran (USAF) and very patriotic. This makes me a bit sad, until I remember his destination. He was a Christian and very keenly understood what that meant. He made sure my siblings and I understood it too. Often he would pray and ask God to spare him the pain of ever having to bury a child. God granted him that. Knowing he’d transition first, he spoke of wanting to see his three children again in Heaven. That’s up to us. He and my mother have done their part. Ironically, it was he who told me that I should become a writer, or a lawyer. At the time I scoffed at the idea that I should write, or argue for a living. I wanted to become a research scientist. Hmm. Now I’m a writer and I argue all the time. I’m thankful to God for you Daddy. We miss and love you. There has never been a day that has passed by when you weren’t in my thoughts. In a world in which so many don’t know, or don’t have their fathers in their lives, I’m so happy and blessed to not know what that feels like.

Until next musing,

Talitha K. McEachin

 

Pro-Lifers: “Pray for Kermit Gosnell”

A group of pro-lifers began praying for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell last week before his conviction and this is the right thing to do. Although he snipped the spines of babies who could have thrived outside of the womb with medical attention, in performing late-term & born alive abortions, and as depraved as that is he too, can be forgiven. Whether through abortion or waging an immoral war, the taking of life is wrong & can be forgiven through Christ Jesus. Gosnell is  72 years old and ironically, although he illegally took life, he himself waived his right to appeals to avoid having his life taken. Even he would rather live than die – how ironic is that? I pray that before he takes his last breath that he repents, truly sees what he does as wrong & seeks salvation & forgiveness. I hope he realizes that legal or not, first trimester or late term, abortion is just wrong on so many levels. One thing I have observed is many liberals expressing disgust for what he did (and they are right). But many of them, had he done this in a state that allows late term abortion, would have no problem with the very same acts. God help us:

“We commit to praying for the repentance and salvation of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, convicted of three counts of First Degree murder of babies born alive,” Kemper says.

“While so many people are crying for blood and for him to be executed,” Kemper wants to turn that anger into loving prayers for the eternal life of a man who showed a callous disregard for human life. “I want to start a revolution of praying for the soul of Kermit Gosnell instead of crying for his death. I want him to find the hope I found in Jesus.”

Please click HERE to read the entire article. Note that as of today (Tuesday 5-14-13) Kermit Gosnell has waived his right to appeals to avoid the death penalty & has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

I normally don’t do this & know that I respect everyone’s right to choose their faith (or not). Briefly, I want to take a moment to invite all of you who subscribe to my blog or who will see it throughout social media to accept Jesus Christ if you have not done so already. Christ came an died on the cross and was resurrected for our sins. There is nothing to bad or horrific in the way of sin that God will not forgive. No sin is greater or worse than another. The choice is yours & please feel free to contact me via my blog, website or on social media if you have any questions about accepting Christ. God can forgive Kermit Gosnell and He can forgive you. This life only lasts for a time but eternity is…eternal. God Bless!

 

Walter Myers III: It Is Better To Be Thought A Fool…

Friends,

Today I wanted to share with you a wonderful blog written my friend Walter Myers III in response to an article recently published in liberal leaning news giant the Huffington Post entitled, “6 Things Christians Should Stop Saying”. I posted my own comments to the author on the site, but Walter gives excellent, much more detailed responses to each of the points in the article. It is always amazing to me when non-Christians tell Christians what they should or should not believe. If you think that Christians are never under attack (or their faith), then look no further than Steve McSwain of the Huffington Post. Walter’s responses are Christian apologetics at it’s finest, so I wanted to share his blog with you all:

Walter Myers III

I recently read a Huffington Post article titled 6 Things Christians Should Stop Saying, written by the self-described “Author, Speaker, Thought Leader, and Spiritual Teacher,” Steve McSwain. I must say that for someone with so many titles I am completely underwhelmed. How someone who is supposedly so learned can be so ignorant of Christianity is quite risible. I have always heard it is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. This man has eclipsed that by displaying his utter stupidity and unrighteous contempt for all to see in the printed word. Now we know that the Bible is not based on anything mystical, but it is true, documented history of a people who just happen to be celebrating Passover this week as they have for 3300 years, and a man who we know factually was crucified on the cross 2000 years ago just as we knew there was a Caesar of Augustus at that time. Now I understand how non-Christians may believe Jesus did not raise from the dead, and I have no problem with that because it is entirely possible he didn’t. But the testimony has been demonstrated to be trustworthy over the past two millennia, so it is at least reasonable to say that belief in Christ is warranted even if it cannot be exhaustively proved (and if you believe there are things that can be exhaustively proved, then I would challenge you to prove what you had for breakfast this morning  exhaustively, as the only thing you can know exhaustively is what you are thinking this very instant).

Now if I have accepted Christianity based on reliable testimony, what can I do but accept what the Bible says? Am I supposed to impose my owninterpretation on the Bible, or read it for what the author originally intended? If this McSwain, who calls himself a Christian, doesn’t believe what the Bible says or that it can be interpreted properly, then why does he believe that we can properly interpret his writing? Wouldn’t the same thing apply to this bombastic piece of so-called journalism? As a self-proclaimed Christian, he is misleading many people so I would hate that to be his legacy when he goes to meet St. Peter. I will take each point below and respond briefly, as I don’t want to spend too much time on this nut case, as follows:

• Point #1: If he doesn’t believe the Bible is infallible, then there really is no point in being a Christian because if Christ cannot ensure his words are accurately transmitted through the generations then we could hardly believe he raised from the dead. If you can’t trust parts of it, then you can’t trust any of it. It just doesn’t make sense and the only course of action is to look for some other explanation of how we got here and what it means to be a human person. Regarding the successful transmission of the authors’ ideas, we have literally thousands of partial texts and hundreds of complete texts dating back to the 100s. With that many copies and variation of no more than 0.5% across them all makes the Bible an astounding historical document without peer.
• Point #2: Why does he expect the Bible to be interpreted any differently from any other book? The Bible is a book of written history that is to be interpreted like any other book, and is a book with a number of genres such as poetry, apocalyptic, the gospels, wisdom, and the law. So you don’t interpret wisdom in the same way you interpret law, and you don’t interpret poetry the same as the gospels. The fact that this escapes this man is beyond me.
• Point #3: It is just utter foolishness to indicate that Christ indicated anything other than he as being the only way to heaven. Christ is clear on this, and so were his disciples. There is no interpretive “issue” here, or alternative reading. If McSwain cannot accept that the Bible says the only way to salvation is through Christ, since it was he that died on the cross for our sins, then McSwain should just ditch Christianity since he doesn’t believe what it clearly says. There is no crime in doing this, and shoehorning his personal views into biblical interpretation is one of the worst things any Christian can do. I think there is a special hell for people who do that because it is wholly dishonest and disingenuous.

To continue reading the remainder of his rebuttal, please click HERE!

 

Christianity & Equal Opportunity Sin Condemnation

I think that one of the reasons that many view Christians as religious bigots when the topic of the day is dealing with homosexuality is because many of us Christians are very inconsistent with condemning all sinful behavior or immoral lifestyle choices equally. We whisper and gossip about the rumors within the church of the woman sleeping around with another woman’s husband – adultery. We might think badly of the fornication of single members of our church but we don’t always confront or condemn this behavior. We may know that a member is smoking marijuana, drinking excessively, beating his or her spouse or stealing and we may even be vocal about it, but not nearly as loudly or with such fervor as we do the homosexuality in our midst. Homosexuality, in my opinion, more than any other sin, is treated as the sin of all sins – the ultimate abomination to Jesus Christ. The swan song of morality. It is regarded as something that is so unnatural, vile and repugnant to us that if we don’t speak up against anything else, we’ll speak up against it – well many of us but most certainly not all.

The very idea that two men or two women would physically & emotionally embrace one another in the manner which the word of God has clearly designed and preserved for one man and one woman is so repulsive to us and quite rightfully so because it is repulsive to Christ. Before someone comments mentally or otherwise that I am a bigot, note that I am speaking of the acts themselves as repulsive, not the person committing them. Now I’m not arguing that we should not view homosexuality in this way, but why aren’t the other sins named and others, equally repugnant to us? None of us are perfect, although I think we should be striving for it as best we can. Even if we are not physically manifesting the sins named, many of us are thinking about dating or sleeping with other men or women when we are married, even if that person is married – we lust and are enticed by sins of the flesh constantly, well I know that I am, if I am being honest with myself. Matthew 5:28 tells us unequivocally that:

“But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his mind.”

Many of us, without manifesting the sin of adultery itself, have been guilty of it repeatedly without giving it a second thought– think about that. Many of us are “in the closet” with our manifestations of heterosexual perversions. So how dare we point a harsher finger (keyword harsher not that a finger should not be pointed at all) at those who sin openly because we feel morally superior in the moment, because no one knows about our sins or we are not sinning in the same way that homosexuals are or committing an allegedly “worse”sin. My father, Leroy “Lee”McEachin (RIP) had a great method for keeping his mind on things that were pure and righteous – he constantly studied and memorized the word of God. When he was on the job he would read over and over again scriptures that were written on the back of his business cards. One of the gifts he received from me one year was his favorite – a small hand held electronic Bible which he used so much the markings on the keys became worn and faded in just under two years. When I was a child our home was filled with conspicuous postings of scriptures on bright orange poster board – above the sink where we brushed our teeth, on the refrigerator, which some members of my house accessed more than others (smile Lance, my brother) and on the mirrors of our bedrooms where we glanced, or stared for hours (okay guilty as charged). Obviously, he too, was not perfect but the habit that he passed along to my siblings and I through his actions more than words, was to commit the scriptures to memory for our spiritual survival in this world full of sins of all types and more importantly, our minds – the devil’s playground. Back then I didn’t appreciate this habit so much but now as an adult I completely understand. After speaking with other fellow Christians about this matter, one of them said to me:

“..it (the church & I know this person didn’t mean all churches) doesn’t view all (non-violent) sin equally. It looks the other way on premarital sex, and is now warming up to same-sex marriage because it doesn’t want to be confrontational, unfair, bigoted, homophobic, etc. The church is just all too willing to be just like the world instead of shining light on darkness. That’s why Christians are trying to find all sorts of excuses to go along and get along on same-sex marriage. I guess they’re just tired of getting beat up. The bottom line is they won’t be able to squirm away from this one so easily.” 

I am in strong agreement with this person. Now back to those non-homosexual sins; I have found none and believe that there is no biblical evidence that the sin of homosexuality is greater than others such as adultery or lying for example. If someone has it, please share it and I will retract that statement after consulting with trustworthy Christian scholars on the matter (trustworthy to me). I submit to you, that the bigotry accusations, due to the view of homosexuality, hurled at Christians, are misguided and misdirected because in our faith, which we have the constitutional freedom to pursue in America, we are taught in Colossians 3:5:

“So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust and evil desires.”

and also in Galatians 5:19-21:

“When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness,wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”

The Bible outright forbids and expresses disdain for the practice of homosexuality in the Old and New testaments:

Leviticus 18:22:

“You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman.”

Romans 1:26:

“That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against thenatural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other.”

I could just as quickly and logically hurl accusations of non-religious bigotry at those who hurl them at Christians but I’m not a fan of ad hominems, so I won’t do that. Instead let me emphasize that although marriage is licensed and taxes are collected from the institution of marriage by the government, the institution itself is a predecessor of government. One thing that religious and governmental institutions once universally agreed on is the belief that heterosexual unions in marriages were the best environments for rearing and protecting children. Consider this, nearly 75% of America’s population says that they are of the Christian faith and Christianity is not the only religion which opposes homosexual lifestyles. When our governing officials attempt to re-define marriage in ways that many citizens oppose based on the tenets of their religious faith, they are in fact launching a direct assault on our liberties and legislating morality for all.

Instead of our current president Barack Obama’s recent open support of gay marriage, and in light of his strong views on the separation of church and state, his only response to the topic should have been in support of states’ rights to democratically decide the legality of non-traditional marriage. At least this way, religious and non-religious citizens alike, on both sides of the argument maintain their choices on this decision where they reside. It is in this tradition that the members of the highest court of our nation – the Supreme Court, can maintain their personal opinions while fairly and objectively rendering legal decisions. For Christians, if the vote is in their favor they can rejoice when the legal mandates are in harmony with their personal beliefs and respect them when they are not, although they should still be able to vocalize disapproval, without the ever present stigma of being labeled a “bigot”, which is etymologically fallacious anyway. A bigot is a person who is viciously and utterly intolerant of a differing creed, belief or opinion. Expressing disagreement in and of itself does not merit intolerance. Many Christians simply agree to disagree with non-theists on the matter, and cast their votes accordingly. Christians, if we were to voice our dissent on non-homosexual sins such as adultery just as quickly, adamantly and loudly as we do at homosexual lifestyle choices, perhaps the non heterosexual community would not be so quick to label us “bigots”. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t live to avoid labels from non-believers but Mark 16:5 states:

“And he said to them, Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.”

and Matthew 28:19-20:

“Go therefore to make disciples of all of the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Predestination arguments aside, how are we to achieve this with hypocrisy red herrings regarding the sins we unequally stand against as obstacles? Again, either way this label is unfair, however, we are spiritually charged with the task of and justified in expunging all sin from among us, as much as we possibly can. We must treat the sin of adulterers, liars, fornicators and so forth with equal spiritual condemnation. It is not the fact that we speak out against homosexual lifestyle choices that is problematic, it is the manner in which we treat other sins, equally forbidden in the Bible, as if they render a cooler place in hell or a warmer place in heaven if the offenders are not repentant. I spoke with another colleague who is a self-professed “gay Christian” He says:

“I believe that gay persons are born this way. Since many in the gay community are guilty of fornication and promiscuous, the church should advocate gay marriages in order to discourage sexual promiscuity and the spread of diseases just as they do for heterosexuals”

There are several errors in his logic and views among other things but I’ll say this – personally, I think that those in the church who believe that “some people are born gay” and use this as an argument to justify their support of gay marriage are wrong. What we are all born into is sin:

“Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me…” Psalms 51:5

I believe that we have different inclinations towards different sins and some have an attraction towards the same gender. This alone is not the troublesome issue but rather the fulfillment of such desires in active homosexual lifestyle choices. This is the same problem for sinners whose inclination is for premarital sex who become practicing fornicators. We will either choose the path of hedonism or seek to be forgiven and quell those desires through the teachings of Christ and fellowship with the righteous. So I say to believers under the cyber sound of my voice, that if we want take charge of the religious and general narrative on sexual lifestyle choices in light of morality and be taken seriously, we must first, like my father, form habits which encourage and foster pure thoughts and leave little room for sinful impurities. Then once this habit is formed, we must develop an equal opportunity philosophy towards all sinners, regardless of which one they choose to indulge, including ourselves. Either way, quiescence in the face of sin is equivalent to approval and sin type based, biased, vociferous condemnation is hypocritical. Balance, which is always my personal goal, is found in the scriptures, when applied equally to sin inclination demographics.