1In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
8And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. 10And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. 11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
oday is the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and the attempted attack that was thwarted by brave Americans ending in the airplane crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Because these attacks were perpetrated by Muslims, many Americans have developed an animosity toward Muslims. Most people hold this animosity in check in order to demonstrate the cherished American quality of love for diversity. But it bubbles below the surface for many of us.
But this is not how Christians should view Muslims. While Islam is clearly a religion of hatred. Christianity is a religion of love, and we Christians must show that love even when dealing with those who hate us and hate our God.
This excellent video from Pastor John Piper (Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota) presents the proper response. May we Christians hold to the love Christ showed to us when we, too, were his enemies.
oday is Memorial Day—the day we remember those who paid the ultimate price in the defense of our liberty. I’m glad our nation takes this day to thank our fallen heroes. Sometimes it’s difficult to say, “thank you,” so this day helps those of us who don’t know how to put our feelings into words.
So thank you. Thank you to all of those in the military now, military veterans, and to all those POWs, MIAs, and KIAs who over the years have served and sacrificed so that our country may remain free and safe.
I took the picture of these beautiful flowers as I walked home from the doctor’s office this past Thursday. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and the local flowers are in full celebration. I love this time of year!
confess to having a melancholy spirit. Happy and carefree on the outside, deep down I am often a scared child trying to fight off fits of anxiety. Due to the masks we all wear, I don’t know that I am any different from anyone else—although I suspect that I am.
I don’t know that I’m willing to claim the title “genius,” but I definitely fit the description in the book. And part of that description is a trend toward a melancholy nature.
So now we are heading into Christmastime—my favorite time of the year. I love the way many concentrate on showing good will to their fellow man. People are a little bit nicer, a little bit friendlier, a little bit kinder. It’s a great time of year.
When I get this way, it helps if I try to see things through another person’s eyes—another person who went through a similar melancholy moment at Christmastime. It helps me realize the similarities we all have and maybe not feel so sorry for myself and for my nation. So as I rode the subway to work this morning I listened to Christmas carols on my Zune, and my favorite Christmas carol began to play. Before the song was over there were tears streaming down my face. The girl in the seat facing mine gave me an odd look, but didn’t say anything—interaction with others is frowned on in the subway. Let me tell you the song’s story...
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this carol on Christmas Day 1863. It was during the War Between the States and Longfellow, who had lost his wife just two years prior, had just learned that his son, Charles Appleton Longfellow, having suffered wounds as a soldier in the Battle of New Hope Church (in Virginia) during the Mine Run Campaign. He considered what was happening in the world and was thrown into a melancholy state.
And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
But as he considered the overarching truth of God’s sovereignty he penned these words:
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
Here are the words for the entire song, including two verses usually not included in church hymnals because of their highly personal nature and their obvious reference to the current events at the time of the war.
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn, the households born
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
So the melancholy is here, but so is my love of Christmas and of Jesus, whose birthday is the reason for all of this. In my mind it is the promise that it will all end well, even when it seems like things just aren’t going as they should. It’s okay. Our God has always won; he is winning; he will win in the end.
appy Thanksgiving! I have always loved this holiday—and not only because of the massive quantities of good food. I have always enjoyed getting together with family and friends and thanking God for his blessings.
This past Sunday, our church had its Thanksgiving dinner. We gathered together this past Sunday evening and cooked over 200 pounds of turkey. That’s a whole lot of bird.
My childhood friend, Whit,—now known as “Bill”—and his family go to the church also, and we sat with them as we chowed down on Thanksgiving food. Of course, David did all the talking and no one else could get a word in edge-wise, but it was great fun.
Bill, Abigail, and Lois Whittaker
Bill’s daughter Abigail
This year, I am very thankful that God brought us to Front Royal, reconnected me with my friend, Bill, and put us into a house that we love. Tomorrow we will be spending Thanksgiving Day with my wife’s parents, who live very close to us now. It is good to be one of God’s children.
Okay—this may not be an actual historically accurate jam session from our founding fathers, but it’s pretty funny. No offense intended to my British friends.
uly 4th is one of my favorite holidays. Our family has always enjoyed participating in events that honor our nation and its heritage.
When we lived along the Route 95 corridor in Northern Virginia, we regularly visited Stratford Hall in Westmoreland County Virginia. Stratford Hall is probably not one of the primary targets for tourism for most people. In fact, the Northern Neck of Virginia may very well be the lightest traveled portion of Virginia no matter what time of year it is.
Stratford Hall
But we love visiting there.
Kim and David at Stratford Hall
July 4, 2006
Stratford Hall was the birthplace of some men who had a strong impact on our nation. One of those men is a personal hero to my wife and to me—Robert E. Lee, head of the Confederate forces during the War Between the States. He’s also the man who liberated the town we now live in (Front Royal, Virginia) from occupying Yankee forces. But when we began visiting Stratford Hall we found out that there were other very important people born in that house—people who had a strong impact on the course of our nation during its founding and early years.
Francis Lightfoot Lee and Richard Henry Lee were born at Stratford Hall when we were an English colony. These brothers were the only brothers to sign the Declaration of Independence. And they had a tremendous impact on the local Virginia area as well as the fledgling nation.
The following passage is from The Signers of the Declaration of Independence. It is a short biographical sketch of Francis Lightfoot Lee—one of Virginia’s favored sons.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Virginia
No less a patriot than his dynamic elder brother Richard Henry and his gifted younger brothers Arthur and William, Francis Lightfoot Lee preferred the uneventful life of a country squire to the public spotlight and chose to follow rather than to lead. Despite his shyness and weakness as a speaker, he exercised extensive political influence, took an active part in the Revolution, and signed both the Declaration and the Articles of Confederation
Lee, a member of one of the most famous families in Virginia and U.S. history and the sixth son and eighth child of planter Thomas Lee, was born in 1734 at the family estate, Stratford Hall, in Westmoreland County, Va. He was educated by a private tutor and never attended college. In 1750, upon the death of his father, he inherited Coton, an estate in Fairfax County. Seven years later, newly created Loudoun County absorbed Coton. At that time, the colonial legislature nominated him as Loudoun lieutenant. The next year, he moved to Coton and became trustee of the newly incorporated village of Leesburg, named after him or his brother Philip Ludwell, both local landowners. For the next decade, Francis Lightfoot represented the county in the House of Burgesses.
In 1769 Lee married socialite Rebecca Tayloe of Richmond County. The newlyweds resided at Mount Airy estate with Rebecca’s parents for a few months until Menokin, a new home that Colonel Tayloe was building nearby for them, was completed. From then until 1774, Lee sat again with the burgesses.
Lee had joined the Revolutionary movement at an early date. From the time of the Stamp Act (1765) until the outbreak of war a decade later, he participated in most of the Virginia protests and assemblies. He rarely debated on the floor in Congress (1775–79), but often opposed the position of his brother Richard Henry, and served on the military and marine committees as well as that charged with drafting the Articles of Confederation.
In 1779, weary of office and longing for the peace and quiet of Menokin, Lee left Congress. Except for a few years in the State legislature, he abandoned public service altogether and lived quietly. In 1797, only a few months after the death of his childless wife, at the age of 62 he succumbed. Burial took place in the Tayloe family graveyard at Mount Airy.
I have thought in a Libertarian fashion essentially all my life. I highly value personal freedom and recognize the great societal benefits to granting freedom to the people. Coercive behavior control has always struck me as wrong, especially when it happens within the church.
Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
When Martin Luther came to grips with the concept Paul described in Galatians 5:1—the freedom Christ purchased for us with his blood—he threw off the shackles of the medieval Roman church, got married, and began preaching the word of God to the people. Luther advised Christians to flaunt their freedom in the face of those who would seek to bind them outside of the mandates of scripture.
The difficult thing about freedom, at least for those who have a degree of authority in society (or in the church), is that you must trust the people to make the right decision or to own up to the consequences of a bad decision. You cannot simply tell them what they must do. You must allow them to decide for themselves.
This is the Libertarian paradigm. It is thoroughly Libertarian. It is thoroughly biblical. And it is thoroughly American. At least it was thoroughly American at the founding of our nation.
I am currently reading What It Means to be a Libertarian by Charles Murray (currently $12.82 at Amazon.com)—an outstanding explanation of Libertarian thought and philosophy. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in what Libertarianism is or for anyone who would like to gain an insight into the thinking of our founding fathers.
To whet your appetite for this outstanding book, the following is an excerpt from the first chapter of the book—The Framework:
An Image of Limited Government
What is it, precisely, that libertarians have in mind when they speak of limited government? Privatized roads? Privatized police forces? A world in which every personal obligation has to be in the form of a written contract? A society of Ayn Rand characters?
A few do have this kind of world in mind. Libertarian visions of the ideal society are as various as socialist visions, and some of them are extreme. Most are not, however. The country has moved so far from its origins that it is hard for mainstream libertarians to get across how close our politics are to the politics of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Their vision of the role of government is essentially the role we see. The size and importance of the official Washington, D.C., they hoped would develop resembles the Washington, D.C., we have in mind. The rights of property and economic freedom that they upheld are the rights we uphold. Limited government is a traditional American concept, not a utopian one.
I encourage you to get a copy of this book and read it. Consider the current state of our nation and what it would mean to our nation were we to espouse a Libertarian point of view and institute a Libertarian form of government.
ftentimes we look on the people of prior generations with contempt. Perhaps it makes us feel better to think that we have arrived at a higher state of enlightenment than those who came before us. So we apply today’s societal standards to those who did not live in our time; we take those people’s actions out of their context and we force them into our own context—and then claim that we know better than they.
It may make us feel better, but it is not true and it is not fair. It will, at best, allow us to ignore the areas where we need to pursue personal growth and, much the greater harm, it is slanderous.
Thomas Jefferson
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
Traveling in primarily Christian circles, I have often heard disparaging statements made against some of our nation’s founding fathers. Rather than taking the time to read the actual writings of our founding fathers, many folks fall for the Secularist’s line that our founding fathers were all Deists. This is simply not even close to the truth. One of our recognized founding fathers was a proclaimed Deist (Ben Franklin), but most of the others would be described as Christian based on their writings and their statement of personal belief. That does not mean that they all had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Some of them, who fully accepted the social teachings of Christianity did not bow to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. So while they were Christians in belief, they were not of the “househhold of faith.”
One such founding father was U.S. President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson recognized the societal benefits of adherence to the teachings of Christ, but he did not like the concept of Christ having to die to reconcile man to God. So in Christian circles it is well-known that he physically removed references to the blood of Christ from his personal bible. He also cut out some of the miracles from the bible.
Thomas Jefferson
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
This is not a good thing, and a disbelief in the sanctifying and reconciling blood of Christ clearly places Thomas Jefferson in an unbelieving stance with regard to Christianity.
However, we do our children and each other a disservice when we paint Jefferson as a bad man. He was wrong with regard to the blood of Christ, but he was an absolute genius with regard to human liberty, politics, and government. And, after all, that is what he should be known for as one of our founding fathers.
President Thomas Jefferson (1801 – 1809)
So as we approach the celebration of the United State’s Independence Day, here are a few quotes from one of my heroes—our third president, Thomas Jefferson:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property—until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Wow! We need a president like that again.
Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans. Never forget the efforts and the sacrifices of our founding fathers and the generations that have preceded ours. We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.
esterday was Kim’s birthday. Happy birthday, Kim! So we decided to take advantage of one of our town’s unique offerings—baseball.
If you were to walk straight through the woods behind our neighborhood (“as the crow flies”) you would come to a large playground, a pavilion with lots of picnic tables, a swimming pool, and a large baseball complex, including a wonderful baseball stadium. The front of the baseball stadium proclaims that this is the “Bing Crosby Stadium.” Quite a conversation starter when we take visitors around our town to see the sights.
The stadium was built in honor of Bing Crosby who visited the town of Front Royal when he was in the Washington, DC, area on business. The town was raising money for their Little League facilities and Bing Crosby donated a large sum of money to kick off the fund raising. Crosby, who was always a promoter of youth athletics, later made another very large donation to bring the needed funds into the town of Front Royal. This stadium was built in his honor due to that event and to his commitment to Little League athletics.
We have heard the sounds of the games from our bedroom window at night, but this was our first visit to one of the games, and it was a blast. The athletes were college-aged and played quite well. The Front Royal Cardinals were hosting the Rockbridge Rapids. It was a good night for the Cardinals who took the game 7-0.
Two concessioneers
The young kids (including David, who is not so young anymore) grouped at the end of the stands and ran out to retrieve any pop-up foul balls from the parking lot. If they turn the balls into the concession, they get a free snack. So the stadium employees don't have to scour the parking lot for balls after the game and the kids get to eat lots of sugar. A true win-win situation if there ever was one. And it kept David occupied throughout the game.
A cute little girl watching the game
Because this is not professional ball, the players do not get paid and are not provided with housing. We met one of the families that opens their house to a couple of players. And it was fun listening to the crowd cheering their favorite players on—often the players who stay at their house.
The experience reminded us of the Lynchburg Hillcats minor league games we loved attending so much while we were living in Lynchburg. The stadium is not as large, the stands not quite as full. And there is no mascot (we miss Southpaw). But we’re close enough to walk to the games, the people of Front Royal are a thoroughly enjoyable group of people to spend an evening with, and the game play was very good.
David, waiting for another pop-fly foul
We have been truly blessed to have been moved to this town in the Shenandoah Mountains. Kim’s birthday just gave us one more experience and one more reason to love this town.
n Good Friday, our choir and orchestra presented selections from The Messiah. Then on Palm Sunday, our pastor preached on the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus. On Easter Sunday, the following video was played at the beginning of the service. The original sermon was convicting enough, but melded with excerpts from Handel’s Messiah, it was bone chilling. I’d like to share this video with our readers.
I took this photo at a friend’s last weekend. He was doing a fundraiser for Gonzaga and his house was decorated accordingly. I thought this image of flowers arranged on the piano in his living room just looked like Easter, so on this Resurrection Sunday I am posting this picture to remind us:
He is alive, for he has risen from the dead. Alleluia!
t’s Good Friday today and the newscasters this morning raised the question: “Why do Christians actually celebrate the death of the founder of their religion?” What a wonderful question. What a wonderful answer! What a glorious Savior!
To quote Tony Campolo: “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!”
My non-Christian acquaintances and coworkers have questioned how I could believe such outlandish things as the claim that Jesus died and rose again from the dead. They have likened it to believing in UFOs or conspiracy theories. None of them liken it to believing that humans are descendant from tadpoles, but that’s another matter we should not be distracted by right now.
So on this Good Friday when, yes, I am celebrating Jesus’ death on the cross, I present to you an answer to the question.
Here’s Voddie Baucham—a much more eloquent man than I, answering why he chooses to believe the claims of the Bible. We’re jumping into the middle of his talk, but I’m bringing you in where things really start to get exciting.
