Christians ought to see the handwriting on the wall with President Obama’s appointment today of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. She is the first gay nominee to the Supreme Court.

The highest court in the land which deals with the interpretation of the most extreme laws that govern us all will now have (when she is confirmed) a gay person deciding the course all Americans will take. Among the critical laws facing Christians in particular are freedom of speech laws versus the new Hate Crimes law, same-sex marriage, transgender rights which apparently can trample on the rights of non-transgendered people, and gays in the military.

Is the deck stacked against traditional Christian interpretation of the Bible? I think so. I shared a video recently in which President Obama referred to the “Holy Koran” several times, and always with utmost respect. But when he referred to Christianity he did so with a touch of mockery, and asked, Which version of Christianity should we choose? The James Dobson kind, or the Al Sharpton kind?

He even referred to the Old Testament with mockery, citing loosely passages from Leviticus, references to the Law of Moses, laws which no Christian lives under or practices. But that didn’t seem to matter to the Commander in Chief. And now comes the inclusion of a lesbian on the Supreme Court, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of Christians in America still recognize homosexuality as a sexual choice, and as such, a sin. Romans 1, I Corinthians 6, and I Timothy 1 are not Old Testament verses. They don’t come from Moses’ law. They come from the New Testament, and they are unmistakably, unequivocally against homosexuality. That’s not “hate speech.” It’s simple preaching about what is declared moral and immoral by God in the Christian era. It’s in the same sentence with adultery, and fornication, and stealing, all things we “choose” to do, and all sin.

But in today’s hubbub of applause, what we’ll hear is simply that one more woman has been appointed, making this president the most “woman friendly” president ever. No, he’s the most anti-Christian president ever. From his first act as President, sending American tax dollars to other countries to fund their abortion clinics, in spite of our own financial crisis, to today’s act of appointing a gay woman to the Supreme Court, a woman who has never even been a judge, it is clear that the agenda of this president does not reflect my Christian values.

God help the American Christian in the future.

Dale McAlpine, a 42-year old preacher who has preached in Wokington, Cumbria for years, was arrested April 20 for violating the Public Order Act. His crime? He was preaching on a street corner and named several sins, including drunkeness and adultery. A passerby asked him if he believed homosexuality was a sin, too. He told her he believed it was. A homosexual Police Community Support Officer approached the woman, then approached the minister and told him a charge had been made that he preached against homosexuality. The PCSO identified himself to the minister as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender laison for the police, and the minister said, “It’s still a sin.” Shortly thereafter three uniformed policemen arrived and arrested the minister.
We preachers have been trying to scream for a few years that the Hate Crimes bill was unnecessary, since laws against every crime in it are already in force, and we’ve tried to show what the true nature of the bill is. It is a restriction of free speech. It is intended to ultimately silence moral preaching.
Only the courageous will be able to take a stand for strong moral writing or preaching. And as Europe goes, so goes America. Now that we see what the Public Order Act is accomplishing in Scotland, we see what is coming for the Hate Crimes law in America.
This is not the first time the Public Orders Act has been used to silence Christians. In 2002, a pensioner named Harry Hammond was holding up a sign that read “Stop Immorality. Stop homosexuality. Stop Lesbianism. Jesus is Lord.” He was arrested. As was Stephen Green, a Christian campaigner. He was handing out leaflets at a Gay Pride festival in Cardiff in 2006.
Hang on, America. It’s just a matter of time until your preachers, too, will be arrested if they dare quote scriptures that offend homosexuals. So far, no adulterers, murderers, fornicators, liars, thieves, haters, schemers, or other sinners have protested preachers’ rights to preach from the scriptures that identify their sin. Only homosexuals.

I was fully prepared to yawn my way through another National Day of Prayer. Forgive me for not sharing the ecumenical enthusiasm so many others seem to have.
I find prayer to be a very personal and real connection to the God I believe in. I know Him as Jesus Christ. That is my personal belief. I didn’t get the concept from the government. I didn’t ask the government’s permission to have it. It is my faith, and I exercise my belief in it on a daily basis, and would do so with or without the government’s consent.

This year’s National Day of Prayer has been met with the typical nonsense of the politically correct crowd. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb recently ruled that it was unconstitutional, that it violates the First Amendment. The Pentagon invited, then disinvited Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, to be a speaker at its event on the National Day of Prayer. Why? Because he called Islam a bad religion after 9/11 when Muslims blew up the Twin Towers to punish the Satan America.

This government does not acknowledge that we are a Christian nation. Obama himself said, “We are no longer a Christian nation.” And you know that with the scrutiny of the ACLU and other anti-Christian organizations this White House will do nothing that might be interpreted as favoring religion. In fact, in light of Crabb’s ruling, perhaps Obama won’t even sign the proclamation naming a National Day of Prayer.

Make no mistake about it, a National Day of Prayer has to be inclusive of all religions. In many meetings around the country stages will enjoy Muslims, Rabbis, Christians, and Hindus, and maybe even Buddhists to speak and lead in prayers.

No thanks. Prayer is not a public ceremony to me. And I’m hard headed enough to believe that prayer to a non-existent god is a waste of time and energy. Prayer to a statue is meaningless. Prayer to “something” is pointless. Forgive me for yawning.

But I did get excited the other day when Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia thumbed his nose at the ACLU, and reversed his predecessor’s ruling that Chaplains could not pray in Jesus name. McDonnell decided that if you believe in Jesus, you’re entitled to pray in His name. Oh goody. Now chaplains have permission to pray to the God they actually believe in.

Don’t worry, the attorney general will probably file suit to force the Chaplains back to mediocre prayer to nothing. Even some Christians are whining that the governor has opened the door for people to pray to Allah, or even, gasp, Satan.

Good! If someone believes in Allah, he ought to be able to pray to Allah, and I can sit silently by while he does. Even he worships Satan, and wants to pray to him, let him. It’s his right. My God isn’t frightened by it.

So, anyway, next Thursday is National Prayer Day. If you haven’t prayed since last year, by all means grab this opportunity.

President Obama met with Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu, but you’d hardly know it. There was no invitation to the press. Absolutely no photo ops. You won’t see photos of the two men standing, smiling, shaking hands in tomorrow’s newspaper. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton probably had a more substantial meeting, but even that didn’t get much attention.

You won’t hear much about Netanyahu’s concession to endorse a two-state solution, or his restricting West Bank settlement growth for ten months. But you will hear that while Vice President Biden was visiting Israel recently a new housing project was announced in the media in Israel. Oh, but not to worry, Mr. Biden punished Mr. Netanyahu by arriving ninety minutes late for a scheduled dinner.

The obvious cold shoulder shown to Israel’s prime minister may have a deeper connotation. Remember, this is the same American president who met with King Abdullah of Jordan last year, and rolled out the red carpet. The press got many photo ops. King Abdullah was here to ask the president to push Israel to accept the two-statement solution, and to push the Arab Initiative of 2002 which demands that Israel go back to the borders of pre-1967.
Remember, too, that this is the president who wrote in his book Audacity, “I will stand with them [the Muslims] should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” In that same paragraph he states that Judeo-Christian heritage will recede as an all-religions country emerges.

What did we expect would happen when he became President? Did we expect him to continue America’s long tradition of cooperation with Israel. Did we really think that he would continue to recognize the danger Israel faces by the leaders of the extreme Arab nations? Do most Americans honestly not know that Ahmadinejab prays for a world without Israel and the United States in it? Perhaps Americans should just Google “World Without Zionism” and read some quotes.

The problem we “Judeo-Christians” -we vanishing people of a previous heritage in America- face is that we have very clear reasons why we think we should stand with Israel, and they have nothing to do with politics. No, we vanishing people happen to believe in the Bible, and the Bible shows that God has chosen to use Israel as a “clock” for the timing of the end, and as a “litmus test,” if you please, to determine who is favored by God and who is not favored.

In Numbers 24 Balaam was hired by Balak to pronounce a curse against Israel, and he went out to do so. But he could not, for he saw “that it pleased to Lord to bless Israel.” And in his discovery comes the phrase directed at Israel as a people, “Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you” (24:9). Now, we Christians know that is not a commandment for us, but we cannot ignore the content.

Israel played a huge role in giving us our favorite Jew, Jesus Christ. And most of us believe that Israel still has a place in prophecy. Nations are going to come against her in the end, and God is going to cause her to prevail. We can’t talk about that in politics. It sounds foolish and naive.
It’s just the mutterings of a vanishing people, the ever-fading Judeo-Christian.

Here we go again. Some congressmen are pushing President Obama to hurry up with immigration reform, and one of their key initiatives is the implementation of “biometric national identification cards.” Senators Charles Schumer (D-New York) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) just postponed a meeting with the President for the second time. It is likely that they are simply reacting to sharp criticism from advocates.

But mark this down: this congress will push the issue of immigration reform, and they will include a demand for biometric national ID cards. Biometric ID cards will necessarily contain virtually all of your personal information – banking, health, insurance, and more – and will require your bodily engagement to be effective, i.e., either your thumbprint or handprint, or eye scan. And of course there are those who believe the card is the first step to an implanted chip similar to those used now on pets, and approved by the FDA in 2004 for human implants.

The CEO of PositiveID (formerly VeriChip), Scott Silverman, said on Fox & Friends in 2006 that immigrant workers ought to be “chipped” to track them and monitor their taxes. It should be noted that PositiveID is a new company which resulted from the merger of VeriChip and Steel Vault, the people behind NationalCreditReport.com. Am I the only one that wonders at the connection between a company which manufactures human microchip implants and credit reporting companies?

The disturbing thing about the senators who are about to push for immigration reform which will include a biometric I.D. is that they won’t discuss other methods of controlling illegal immigration. There are so many other options short of building walls. Every small town in America knows where its illegal workers hang out, and who hires them. But nothing is done because local law enforcement knows they don’t have the support of the ICE or other federal agencies.

And think about this. Currently illegal immigrants are able to work without providing one shred of documentation. No driver’s license. No Social Security card. They just work for cash with no reporting. Now how exactly is the requirement for everyone to have a biometric ID card going to change that?
The illegals will still work under the radar, no license, no SS card, and no National ID card. The only people genuinely targeted by such “immigration reforms” are the legal people who are already carrying every ID card required, and paying taxes on their income.

When Senator Schumer was told small businesses would have to pay $800 for a scanner just to scan employees, his response for the business owner was, “He can just go down to the DMV.” What an ignorant response for a man voting on the life and welfare of every human being in America. Like the DMV is going to welcome local businessmen lining up to scan their employees. Or like you need the extra people in line when you’re trying to buy tags for your car, or renew your driver’s license.
Nothing surprises me coming out of congress anymore. But some things do frighten me.

I was disappointed watching the Academy Awards 2010. Not at the hosts. I thought Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were funny! I thought they teamed up to provide a welcome “show within the show.”

And no, I wasn’t disappointed at the winners. I thought Bridges was due, and I thought Sandra Bullock was actually humble in her acceptance. And I thought the movie she won for was a wonderful example of how Hollywood can once in a while come through with something mainstream Americans can warm up to.

No, my disappointment was more about something that didn’t happen rather than something that happened. For the last few years I’ve watched certain Hollywood celebs use their Oscars night to either bash former president Bush, or to make an impassioned plea to “bring our soldiers home!” Their compassion was convincing as they spoke of our young men and women dying “over there.” In particular, I watched Sean Penn on some Youtubes demanding that Bush be impeached because he had put our young people in an improper war, and demanding that democrats, when they were in control, bring our troops home.

And does anyone remember Barbra Streisand’s outrage? I know there were others, but the two I named were actually at the Oscars, and had a speaking role. What a great opportunity for Streisand to talk about how we have tripled the number of soldiers in Afghanistan that we had when Bush left office. And we still have troops dying in Iraq. Penn had a golden opportunity to simply say, “Bring our troops home.” Surely they haven’t forgotten their numerous speeches in 2006, 2007, and 2008.

But, alas, there was not a word about our dying soldiers in a bad war. I don’t get it. If they were dying unnecessarily two years ago, how is it that they are now dying well? If compassion cried out for them two years ago, what happened to that compassion?

So I was disappointed that, at the Oscars, some of the celebrities who have been so filled with compassion for our troops in the past seem to have lost their compassion. Some who wanted, no, demanded, an immediate end to the war, seem to now embrace the tripling of troops in Afghanistan. Ain’t politics something?

I mean, it makes you want to ask, “Where is Cindy Sheehan?” I know she didn’t have anything to do with the Oscars, but she was famous for camping outside Bush’s Texas ranch and protesting the soldiers being in Iraq. But to be fair to her, did you know she actually tried to do the same thing last August when Obama was vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard? Yep. She went there to camp and protest just like she did Bush. She went there to tell Obama to get the troops home. But you didn’t see her on TV protesting Obama’s war, did you? Nope. Hollywood must now approve of it. That’s all I can guess after watching this year’s Oscars.

She never saw the truck coming, didn’t have time to brace for impact. In an instant she was blasted across the console of our brand new Toyota Celica, her head knocking out the passenger side window. The truck had run a red light and broadsided her. Witnesses rushed to her side and helped her. In minutes an ambulance took her to Baylor Hospital.

I was working several miles away when the company phone rang. A coworker offered me a ride to the hospital. When I arrived an hour after the accident, doctors were still digging out glass from her head and ear. She was a bloody mess. But there was a worse problem: she was seven months pregnant with our first child!
After a couple of hours waiting, one of the doctors came out and summoned me for a private meeting. “Your wife is extremely shaken,” he said, “but she should recover okay. Our real concern now is for the baby. We can’t find a heartbeat.”

“What does that mean?” I stumbled, not knowing the right questions to ask.

“It’s not uncommon,” he comforted. “Sometimes in a shock like this a baby’s heartbeat may be dramatically subdued. But usually, by now…”. He hesitated.

They kept her for observation, and I prayed long into the night that tomorrow they’d tell us the baby’s heart was beating and everything was going to be fine. But instead when I went to pick her up and take her home, the doctor told me to take her to our pediatrician right away.

After long scrutiny the pediatrician prepared us for the worst. He was holding out hope the heartbeat would return. But we should come back to him in two days. We did. Still no heartbeat. He prepared us kindly. The baby would be stillborn.

We should keep a bag packed and be ready to respond immediately at the first sign of labor. My wife’s body would naturally reject the baby, and the baby’s lifeless body would be expelled.
We continued to return to the pediatrician every few days. He was surprised that after two weeks of no heartbeat we had not had to make that emergency trip. Then it was three weeks. Then four.
The pain of losing our firstborn had weighed enormously on us. After four weeks I saw that one of my friends was preaching at a hotel in north Dallas, and I asked my wife if she wanted to go hear him. Just an excuse to get out of the house. I was surprised that she did.

When the service was over, we were among the first to slip out, hurrying through the foyer to get back home, back to bed, back to waiting. As we crossed the mezzanine, a familiar voice called out, “Danny boy!”

It was my childhood pastor, Rev. Paul Hosch. He summoned us over, smiled down at my wife’s tummy, and said, “I like to pray for all the girls in my church when they’re pregnant. I know you’re not in my church, but I just feel like I ought to pray for you. Do you mind?”
We didn’t, of course, and right there in the foyer of the hotel he prayed that my wife and baby would have a perfect birth. He didn’t know the situation. We had not been in touch with him for a long time.
We got in the car, swallowed up in our loneliness. “It was sweet of him to pray,” my wife said, looking out the side window as tears fell.

We dressed for bed. She was exhausted from her first time out of bed in a month. We hoped she hadn’t overdone it. I checked to see that the packed suitcase was still in its place.

Around two in the morning I was awakened by my wife’s screaming. Instinctively I jumped from the bed and began to pull on my clothes. She was saying, “No, no, no!” I was saying, “It’s alright. It’s okay. You’re gonna be fine!” I was dressed before I realized she was telling me to stop dressing. She was crying, but she was laughing.

“Feel!” she yelled. I saw that her hand was rubbing her tummy. I put mine there, and for the first time in four weeks, our firstborn was kicking.

A few weeks later, both mom and baby had a perfect birth!

My oldest daughter was about 6 years old, playing on the floor with a church friend of the same age. My youngest, Ashley, was three. She was excluded from their game. Chutes and Ladders was too complicated for her, they thought. But she could count, and proved it to them, so they let her in.
After a few plays they called to me. “Daddy, you want to play with us?” I guessed the door had been opened to outsiders, so I left my book on the dining table and headed to the contest.

My youngest was being bratty. Every time she would climb a ladder, she’d chant in a sing-song, “Na na nuh na na, I’m gonna win.” The others rolled their eyes.
Chutes and Ladders is a tricky game. In just a few spins, the little taunter hit a couple of slides and fell back, and Daddy hit a couple of ladders. And just like that, I won the game.

Without thinking, I chanted in her sing-song, “Na na nuh na na, I won the game!” And suddenly, without warning, she exploded in rage, jumped to her tiny feet, and yelled, “Well I coulda won if it hadna been for my stoopid daddy!” And then she turned and ran to her room.

The three of us were shocked. I didn’t know what to do. Meekly I whispered to the two girls, “Keep playing. I’m going to sit out for a while.” And then I went back to the table and my book.
Quite simply, I didn’t know how to respond. She’d never called me stupid. I had not seen that kind of rage in her. I felt partly guilty because I goaded her, but she had been doing the same. I imagined what my father might have done to me if I had ever called him stupid. But I elected to just keep reading my book.

After a while, I was aware of timid little steps behind my chair. I sensed her. She didn’t speak. Momentarily I turned around to face her. Her little body was in complete surrender. Her arms hung limp at her chubby little sides, her head hung down. She wouldn’t look up. She knew she was in for it, and she had come meekly to get it.
“Do you want something?” I asked. She never looked up.

“I sawwy, Daddy.” A tiny tear fell.

I opened my knees and pulled her into my chest and just hugged her. The other little girls were watching. I whispered in her ear, “It’s okay. I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have teased you.” And then we just hugged for while. After moments, I said, “We gonna be okay?”

“Yep.”

“Want to go back and play?”

“Uh huh.”
So I let her go. As she turned, heart all healed, tension all gone, I reached toward her and caught her attention. She froze for second. “Hey,” I whispered, “You don’t really think I’m stoopid, do you?”
Her face screwed up for a second, and then, “Sometimes!” And she was gone. Before I could backhand her across the room, she was playing again.

I spun back around to the table and laid my head in the crook of my arm. I was having a moment, and I needed to have it privately.

“God,” I whispered, “I wish I could know that you love me like I love my kids. I love my kids even when they’re brats.” And in one of those rare moments of life, I heard God whisper back in my ear, as I had in hers, “Where do you think you learned to love? I don’t love you ’cause you’re good; I love you ’cause you’re mine.”

My father was a simple man who offered simple solutions to problems. When I was a teenager and trying to be a good Christian, I would ask his help with some problem, and more often than not his advice would simply be: “Why don’t you just pray about it?”

That would be it. Just pray. I saw that as a cop-out, an unwillingness to hammer out the details of a resolution. As a result, I probably over-reacted the opposite direction. I tried to resolve all conflicts. I tried to figure out the complex issues, and talk for hours. In the long run, prayer became a “last resort” for me. If all else fails, then I’ll pray about it. But for my dad, prayer had always been a “first resort.”

I wish I had learned from him a little earlier.

Along the way I’ve accidentally discovered the power of prayer.

It would take too long to list the many opportunities I’ve had to discover the value of prayer, but it is necessary that I tell at least one.

In Vietnam, I had my first bout with fear and depression after about 8 months in the country. My fiancee had dropped me, and my family was going through a huge crisis, and I was out of touch, unable to call home and communicate. And remember, I liked to talk things out and work out long resolutions. The helpless and hopeless feelings slowly drove me into a deep despair, and one day I simply walked away from my duty post without explanation. My commanding officer saw me and yelled at me, but I waved him off, telling him I couldn’t function. I wandered aimlessly, then wound up at my hooch, and fell across my cot. Still didn’t pray though. For a long time I just lay on my face and tried to think things through. There had to be a solution. I just couldn’t see it yet. Finally, in complete, silent helplessness I just leaned back on my knees and stretched one hand toward heaven, with my eyes closed tightly.

When I did, one of my buddies had apparently been watching me over the plywood divider between our cots, and he actually reached down and gripped my hand. I flushed with embarrassment, and wondered which of my friends was so ignorant that he would do this to me.

I kept my eyes closed tightly while I counted to 10, trying to think of a comment I could make that would get us past this awkward moment. Finally I decided I would just look at him and say, “You nut, what are you doing?” and see how he responded.

So I took a breath, and opened my eyes. To my surprise, no one was there. No one gripped my hand, although I had felt it squeeze, and squeezed it back. And even now, looking up, I felt the hand in mine, though none was there.

Chills raced up my spine. I was shocked for a moment, and then I heard the kindest voice whisper, “If you’ll just hold to this hand, I’ll work out everything back home, and everything in your life.”
I fell across my bed, and now the dam burst. I wept, over and over. But it was good weeping. I was consoled. I understood that life and its problems were not always in my hand to resolve. I could “just pray,” and know that there was a Friend listening, and He could work things out.

Are you holding His hand?

Not sure? Just pray. You’ll know.