HOW TO HELP: I recommend the disaster relief program of the North American Mission Board [SBC]. NAMB is the nation's third-largest disaster relief agency, and their disaster relief ministries are both effective and trustworthy. NAMB and its teams have been asked to provide 300,000 meals a day by mid-week, and up to 500,000 per day by the end of the week. Here is a link for information and donations.
How does God exercise His rule? Does He order all events by decree, or does He allow some evil acts by His mere permission? This much we know--we cannot speak of God's decree in a way that would imply Him to be the author of evil, and we cannot fall back to speak of His mere permission, as if this allows a denial of His sovereignty and active will.
A venerable confession of faith states it rightly: "God from eternity, decrees or permits all things that come to pass, and perpetually upholds, directs, and governs all creatures and all events; yet so as not in any way to be the author or approver of sin nor to destroy the free will and responsibility of intelligent creatures."
God is God, and God is good. As Paul affirms for the church, God's sovereignty is the ground of our hope, the assurance of God's justice as the last word, and God's loving rule in the very events of our lives: "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are the called according to His purpose." [Romans 8:28]
1 Corinthians 15:13-14
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.
It is true that the decisive thing is the regenerative power of God. That can overcome all lack of preparation, and the absence of that makes even the best preparation useless. But as a matter of fact God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favorable conditions for the reception of the gospel. False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root.
Does it surprise you that the Confession contains a chapter on the subject 'Of the Civil Magistrate'? Are you inclined to ask, 'What does politics have to do with Christ?' If that is something of your response, may I suggest that you are a victim of a religious background which has retreated from its social responsibilities under a wrong view of separation of church and state? Such an attitude has virtually denied the sovereignty of God over all areas of life. To restrict Christianity to the 'spiritual' realm is, ultimately, to destroy it. - A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, p. 284.
Johnson says: "No one is arguing that Christians ought to 'ignore the great moral issues of our day.' What we're saying is that there are no effective political remedies for sin." But again, Johnson trades on equivocation to give his argument plausibility. In this case, it all comes down to what you mean by "effective". Sure, political reforms will never provide a spiritual and everlasting solution to the sinful heart of fallen man. And if Johnson thinks that Colson really thinks this, he's free to offer up citations to that effect. In the meantime, the Bible makes it clear that the state is, in many cases, an effective remedy for sin, not by converting the human heart, but by punishing and deterring the evildoer. But perhaps Johnson thinks that the state is not an institution ordained by God and accountable to God, the "minister of God" which is just as much a part of our culture as anything else. Perhaps Johnson thinks that the persistent example of OT prophets in rebuking not just the general populace for their sin, but the kings in particular for their dereliction in enforcing God's laws of compassion and justice, has absolutely no teaching/rebuking/correcting/training relevance for us today. But if he really thinks this (contra 2Ti 3:16-17), he should say so.
The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity exists to help individuals and organizations address the pressing bioethical challenges of our day, including managed care, end-of-life treatment, genetic intervention, euthanasia and suicide, and reproductive technologies. The Center has tax-exempt, not-for-profit status and is supported by gifts and grants from individuals, corporations, and foundations. It is a national and international leader in producing a wide range of live, recorded, and written resources examining bioethical issues. Recognizing that biblical values have exercised a profound influence on Western Culture, the Center explores the potential contribution of such values as part of its work.
In mid-1993, more than a dozen leading Christian bioethicists gathered to assess the noticeable lack of explicit Christian engagement in the crucial bioethics arena. This group sponsored a major conference in May 1994, The Christian Stake in Bioethics, and concurrently launched The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity.
The Center has initiated a variety of projects, and has ongoing collaborative relationships with many U.S. groups, including the Christian Medical and Dental Society, Nurses Christian Fellowship, and the Christian Legal Society, as well as non-U.S. institutions such as the Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy in London, England, the Linacre Center, London, England, the Lindeboom Institute for Medical Ethics in Ede, Holland, and the Ustav Medicinskej Etiky a Bioetiky, in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Breaking News
Sudan, a nation of many sorrows, has suffered yet another tragic blow to the cause of freedom early this morning with the death of the newly inaugurated President of Southern Sudan, Dr. John Garang. He was the highest ranking Christian in the world of an officially Islamic state...
Romans 16:21 Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
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