It’s true.

I’m in charge……….to an extent……..and there’s the rub.

We spend a big part of our day trying to make a change. Today I’m talking about changing people……..influencing them. We like to believe that we have the power to influence others. As a matter of fact…….in my blog I hope to influence you to grow closer to Christ…..and in the process to be more effective in your life.

So……do we have the power to influence others?

Well…….it depends.

It depends on who and when.

You have a little influence on what others will do in the future.
You have slightly more influence on what others are doing now.
You have absolutely no influence on what others did in the past.

You have great influence on what you will do in the future.
You have great influence on what you are doing now.
You have absolutely no influence on what you have done in the past.

So……the order of the effectiveness of your influence is this:

What I am doing now.
What I will do in the future.
What others are doing now.
What others will do in the future.
What I did in the past.
What others did in the past.

In summary:

You are most effective in changing…..influencing ……..yourself.
Your efforts to influence others are severely limited.
Any attempts to influence the past are utterly futile.

We mess this up all of the time. We spend enormous amount of energy trying to change what others are doing and what they will do (just watch Fox and CNN)…….even though experience teaches us that we are not very effective at this. We suffer a lot of pain by ruminating over things that we have done in the past. We cause a lot of pain by punishing others for things that they have done in the past.

And………we ignore the changes that we can make to improve ourselves both today and in the future.

Why?…….it’s pretty simple……… it’s a lot more fun to beat the other guy up…….or to try to shove him into some pigeonhole…….than it is to do the hard work of changing ourselves……..the hard work of growing.

It’s a lot easier to pity yourself for the hole that your past has put you in……….than it is to climb out of it.

There are a few vital lessons that we can take from these facts.

Don’t beat yourself up for past mistakes….. there are no redos……..learn from them and move on.

Don’t try to punish others for things that they did in the past…….let them learn and move on.

It’s OK to try to influence others…….but be gentle. Be certain that you are motivated by love………and don’t get upset if they ignore you…….because that’s usually what they will do.

Finally, and most importantly, you should focus 90% of your energy on changing what you are doing and on what you will do…… because, when push comes to shove, that is all you can really control.

Work to build yourself into a better person…….today. You can find guidelines in the owners manual……the Bible. (Even if you don’t believe in God……..the guidelines are still very good.)

Plan for your future………and remember that your future doesn’t end in 30 years or so when you die. Like it or not……..your future is eternal………in spite of science, in your heart, you know this to be true.

And you get to choose what it will look like.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Paul, NIV

I believe in heaven, but not God.

I hear this a lot, not in so many words. But, if you compare what people say with what they do, that is the conclusion that you must reach.

If you ask people what happens to them after they die, most will say that there is something beyond death. They will describe it as a beautiful pleasant place where they will be reunited with family and friends…….a place where they will be happy. People who believe that death is the end….”You die you’re dirt” …..are rare. People who believe that they are going someplace bad are non-existent.

I’ll call this afterlife paradise. In one form or another, almost all of us believe in it. Yet, a great many people do not recognise a creator…….I’ll call the creator God. Today I won’t delve into specifics.

So……can there be paradise without God?

If paradise is real, and we almost all believe it is. How did it come to be? There is no spiritual version of Darwinism. There must be a power, a force, a creative energy behind paradise……..and that is a good working definition of God. There is no other explanation. You can quibble over the details of God’s nature….. but it is intellectually dishonest to look forward to paradise while denying its creator…….while denying God.

Most people who believe in paradise but deny God will give you a description of paradise. Most of the time it is a hazy, soft focus place that feels good and is trouble free. Some of the time it is remarkably detailed. It varies from a vague hope to a detailed construct. The person who describes it is either disengaged but hopeful, or has actively created the paradise that they want. Curiously, this “do it yourself” paradise always has one feature. It never requires the person who made it up to change anything about the way they live. They get to do whatever they be want…….both during this life……..and in paradise. Everybody else has to bend to accommodate them. Not only that……paradise must mold itself to the wants and needs of the person you are by talking to. If they are on the left……..paradise has gun control. If they are on the right………. it has a world class sporting clays range.

Realistically, as finite humans, limited by the restrictions of science and the physical world, we can neither dream up nor create paradise. If there is a paradise…….. then there must be a creator.

It will be awkward for you to enter, or try to enter, paradise while denying its creator.

It is dishonest to create your own version of paradise……unless you are, in fact, the creator, God. If you deny paradise and deny God, then you are at least honest and intellectually consistent………though you must live in a state of profound despair.

So…….

If you seek paradise…….. then you must seek the creator……..and the creator is either God…………or you.

Please know………..God is seeking you.

I have walked out of very few movies in my life. One of them was “8 Millimeter”, a movie about about “snuff films” starring Nicholas Cage. Needless to say, it was extremely offensive……..but, it contained one of the most valuable pieces of theology that I have ever run across. At one point Cage’s character says,

” When you dance with the Devil………. the Devil doesn’t change……you do”

This has to be one of the greatest truths……….one of the most valuable warnings …………of life. And yet we do it every day. We participate in something…….a small act of dishonesty, gossip, pornography. We say to ourselves that we aren’t harming anybody. We even have derogatory terms for those who avoid our “Petty Sin of the Day” (PSD). We can them prudes, Pollyannas, intolerant………and we enjoy a little dance with the devil.

The thing is that we ARE hurting somebody………we are hurting ourselves. Every little inconsequential violation makes the next PSD easier. Every PSD leaves a mark on our psyche. There are pornographic images that I looked at…….. willingly……..40 years ago that are still in my head. I will carry them to my grave. My little “dance with the Devil” as a young man has changed me forever. The same is true of the “little white lie”……….the pirated video……..the demeaning comment about a co-worker.

Each of these things changes us……..and they are cumulative. Furthermore, they accumulate in us, not just individually……….but also as a society. When I was in Junior high there was a TV series, “Mission Impossible”. In one episode the female star was shown from the back without a shirt or bra on. It was shocking, it had never been done on prime time TV……people talked about it…..and it changed us as a society. Today it is not at all hard to see full frontal nudity on your TV, in your family room at 7pm. There was a time when you turned the TV off, or sent the kids from the room when something objectional came on. When was the last time you did that?

You have changed.

And it goes further. I used to watch “Law and Order”. Then I noticed that Christians were usually portrayed as hateful, bigoted angry people and the LGBT community was usually portrayed as kind gentle people. The Christians were usually the “Bad Guys”. I occasionally see the show now and it has improved. But, anti-Christian bias in our society is growing. You Tube now blocks “Christian” as a keyword in ad searches. Yes, you read that right…….check it out.

We, as a society have changed.

We used to try to teach our children judgement. “Good judgement” was a goal to strive for. Today “judgementalism” is one of the great evils in our society.

The Bible is chock full of rules…….six hundred some odd of them ……….and we don’t like rules…… we chafe against them. And yet if you look at the main ones: Love God……Love your neighbor……the ten commandments……..they are there for our own good. Like the wall around the sheep pen…….. they are there for our protection. They are there to prevent our “dance with the Devil”………to prevent us from changing into something less than we were created to be.

Advice from one demon to another from “The Screwtape Letters”

You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy (God). It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards will do the trick.

Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

C.S. Lewis

One of the longest and most divisive arguments in our society is the argument over abortion. I believe that the reason for this is that both sides are being dishonest.

To begin with we must recognize that when a couple has an unwanted pregnancy…….there is no happy ending. Somebody is going to get hurt badly……the mother……or the child. The father escapes relatively unscathed. This is not fair…….but it is the reality………it is the truth.

There are only two outcomes to an unwanted pregnancy and both are bad. EITHER the mother has to endure 9 months of pregnancy, followed by labor and delivery, followed by the trauma of adoption or 18 years of raising a son or daughter……..OR…….the child is killed by being dismembered…… without the benefit of any form of pain relief.

By any rational analysis, both of these outcomes are horrible.

These are the facts……..so why is the argument dishonest?

The argument is dishonest because each side advocates a position that causes harm to somebody…….and each side ignores the harm that they advocate. Each side refuses to accept responsibility for the pain that they cause. In short, we cannot have an honest conversation about abortion until each side recognizes and takes ownership of the harm that they advocate.

The pro life side must take ownership of the harm that their position causes the mother……..and, to a lesser extent, the father.

The pro choice side must take ownership of the harm that they advocate doing to the baby.

This will be painful but it will finally lead to a conversation that is at least honest. It will not, however, lead to a happy ending for the couple with the unwanted pregnancy.

The only “happy ending” is to prevent the unwanted pregnancy in the first place. We have had effective birth control for decades. Science and chemistry have not solved the problem.

So what is the solution?

The best solution has also been around for a long time…… centuries as a matter of fact. We need to eliminate “recreational sex”. This is the solution that God gave us in Exodus. This is the solution recommended in the “owners manual” ………the Bible.

“You shall not commit adultery”

God, NIV

Like the rest of the Bible, this rule is not there to wreck our fun. It’s there for our protection……….from ourselves.

Obeying this one rule would solve the bulk of the abortion problem……..and end our dishonest debate.

Or……

We could just keep on yelling at each other for another 50 years or so.

We could force women to endure unwanted pregnancies.

We could continue dismembering 3000 children a day.

Facebook has become a big part of life. I check it daily and occasionally post things on it. My posts are usually aimed at getting something done…….in a word, many of them are ads. But, my posts are also the face that I show to the world. In a way, Facebook is how I tell the world who I am.

But, Facebook can also tell ME who I am………and even more important…….. Who I am becoming.

I know 2 people who post a lot on Facebook. One posts a lot about missing dogs and dogs that need homes. The face that she chooses to show to the world is one of love and care for animals at risk. FYIW……. her posts haven’t motivated me to rescue a mutt…….but, her heart is in a good place.The other posts a series of attacks on a well known politician with bad hair. They range from funny, to misleading, to vicious. The face that she chooses to show the world is one of hate. FWIW, I haven’t changed my politics because of her posts.

The first lesson is this. Neither of these sets of posts has changed me. Facebook isn’t nearly as effective in that regard as we like to think. It does, however, open a window into the heart of the person making the post. The fact is that, more than anything else, your Facebook page tells the world a lot about you. It tells the world a lot about me. In fact, this may be it’s greatest value.

Facebook can tell YOU a lot about YOU. It can tell ME a lot about ME.

So……… here is my challenge. Open Facebook, find the page that contains only YOUR posts, and read the last 20 or so things that you have posted……the last 20 or so things that you have chosen to tell the world about you.

What do those posts say about you? What can you learn about yourself from your Facebook posts? Are you a lover…….or a hater?

I want you to be happy……and I believe that the surest path to happiness in life is to love and care for others. Do your Facebook posts show love and care for others? Are you happy?

That is, after all is said and done, what God wants for you.

“Love your neighbor as yourself”

God, NIV

If you are a Christian you know that everything will be OK……. in the end. This is a promise……..straight from God.

So…….. if everything isn’t OK in your life………if everything isn’t ok in your world……….then this isn’t the end.

This is all about trust and patience. We tend to ask God for something and expect him to give it to us right now. We forget that God operates on a different time frame, sometimes an eternal time frame.

One of my sons was paralysed in a motorcycle accident. He was “learning how to walk again” and was outside a restaurant on crutches. A young, well intentioned, Christian offered to heal him. This kid said a brief prayer then said “Throw down your crutches and walk!” My son couldn’t. The kid, in so many words, said “It’s your fault because your faith is inadequate.” This is, at best, misguided theology. The kid expected God to follow the kid’s instructions right here and right now. FWIW……My son now walks……. and he has since given me an adorable granddaughter. God answered that kid’s prayer……..and then some. The kid threw my son…… and God …….under the bus because the kid insisted that God follow the kid’s orders……… right now. The kid demanded that God operate on the kid’s schedule.

A husband and wife missionary team worked their entire lives in a small village in Africa. They retired and were flying back to the States………. coach. It turned out that the ambassador to the country had also retired and was on the same plane……. first class.

They landed and everybody in coach was told to wait while the ambassador deplaned. There was a red carpet, a 21 gun salute, speeches, and then a big limo took the ambassador away.

The exhausted missionaries headed for baggage claim. The wife said, “Why do they throw a big party when the ambassador comes home and after a lifetime of serving God, we come home and we get nothing?”

The husband replied “Because we’re not home yet.”

If you get discouraged…… if things are falling apart in your world…….if you think things aren’t fair…. if your prayer hasn’t been answered……..just remember……. you aren’t home yet.

Just remember…….. things will be OK……….. in the end.

Whether you are liberal or conservative…….. today’s post is going to annoy you. You may even refuse to accept parts of it…. So please bear with me.

The great intractable arguments of our age usually drag on because either the two sides are talking about different things…….or because both sides are wrong.

With GW……… both sides are wrong. Since you are probably on one side or the other…….. You too are wrong.

Conservatives are wrong because they argue that it is not happening. Well, it is. The glaciers are melting, the weather is getting warmer, we have a 100 year flood every 10 years, etc. Conservatives say that this is temporary….. statistical noise…….. that things will ultimately cool back down. I’ll concede that they are right if and when the planet cools back down. But, I’ll bet a six pack that I will never see it in my lifetime.

Liberals are wrong because they propose a laundry list of expensive, “big government” solutions that are futile…… All to be paid for by some, as yet to be named, “rich guy”. There is no serious proposal on the table that will fix GW by cooling the planet down to 1950 temperatures. The most comprehensive “fix” that has been proposed, the Paris Accord has, as it’s goal, merely slowing GW down. And even that is failing. In essence, liberals say we should spend enormous sums of money on various projects so that we might delay the consequences of GW…… the flooding of Miami for example…….by a few decades. And all of their plans ignore the fact that the population of the earth will double…… again…….in my grandchildren’s lifetimes. Do you really believe that we can double the number of people running air conditioners and eating hamburgers and cut our carbon emissions?

Theoretically, if you give enough monkeys enough paper, enough typewriters, and enough time……… they will type the Bible.

Theoretically, there are fixes that might reverse……might “cure” GW.

1. Completely outlaw burning fossil fuels and eating meat worldwide, today.
2. A 30 year ban on having children followed by a strict one child per family limit worldwide until the population of the earth drops to 4 billion.
3. Outlaw cutting trees and require every human to plant and nurture 100 trees.

If we did those kinds of things, we might fix GW……. in about a century. But, of course we won’t. And even if the US did, China, India, Brazil, and the developing world will not. In essence, we are asking the developing world to throw itself under the bus by not doing exactly those things that America has been doing for the last 200 years.

In a word………. practically speaking…….attempting to “cure” global warming is futile.

Here is the sad truth.

We have overpopulated and then poisoned the planet. We are not going to fix it. Southern California and the great plains will revert to desert. Much of Florida will flood. Drought and hurricanes will become more severe and more frequent. We will face water shortages and food shortages. In addition to refugees fleeing Central America, we will have refugees fleeing southern California, Florida, Arizona, Kansas, and Nebraska. It is not a question of “if these things will happen”, but rather of “when”. Will they happen to me, to my children, or to my grandchildren?

Enough.

Our current debate on GW is a bit like a man who has jumped off of a 100 story building and is plummeting to the sidewalk. He passes the 75th floor and a Republican sticks his head out of the window and says, “nothing to worry about………it’s a temporary statistical hiccough……. keep doing what you’re doing…. It’ll be Ok.”. He passes the 65th floor and a Democrat sticks his head out of the window and says, “flap your arms……..it’ll slow you down.”. And yet the sidewalk is still racing up to meet him.

Pretty depressing………… So why does this mess belong in a Christian blog?

It has to do with hope…… hope for me, for my children, and for my grandchildren. If I am a secular humanist, I have to tell my children that my generation, and my parent’s generation, have poisoned the planet, it’s going to get ugly for them and then they will die and that’s it. Tough luck for you. As a Christian, I will tell them that yes, we have poisoned the planet and it’s going to get ugly for them…….but then, after they die, they will go to a place that hasn’t been poisoned…….a place where all of the bad things in this world have been dealt with…….a place of love, joy, and peace. And Jesus will be there waiting for them. I’ll be waiting for them too.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 

John, ESV

This is my kind of place.

Spoiler alert…….. Today I may step on some toes. What I am suggesting here can be done by many families……… but, perhaps not by all.

I know a family. Mom and Dad both worked low wage, maybe even minimum wage jobs. They had a child and Mom decided to stay home and be a full time at-home mother. I looked at their financial situation……I thought that they were insane. The numbers just didn’t work according to my vision of what a modern family should have and be. They struggled for years. They did without things that we all take for granted. And…… in the process…… they raised a really fine son and he is now starting his family. They made a choice. They gave up a lot of material stuff and raised their son themselves. I’ve changed my mind. Looking back, their decision is one of the wisest and most unselfish I have ever seen. They chose relationship and family over stuff.

I grew up in the 50’s. My family, in retrospect, was comfortably middle class. I thought we were wealthy because we lived in a stone house. Go figure. We had a used car that ran most of the time, one black and white tv that worked most of the time, one room in the house that had air conditioning that worked most of the time, and 15 year old appliances. My dad worked and my mom stayed at home and raised me and my siblings. Today, a family living the way we did would be considered poor. Maybe………. but we were very happy……..we were rich.

The tv tells us that we “need” all kinds of stuff: 2 flat screen tv’s, two or three late model cars, 3 or 4 $500 cell phones, internet, cable tv, health club membership, membership on a “select soccer team”…… you get the drift. Having these things is the new “normal”. But, having these things usually requires a 2 income family. In other words, we have bought into society’s standard for a “comfortable” life and have accepted the 2 income budget that goes with it. In order to support this modern lifestyle, mom and dad both have to work….. often long hours….. often more than one job. In short, we have turned the job of raising our children over to strangers…..or worse…..to machines in order to have more and better stuff. But, I doubt that our modern families are any happier than the 1950’s family that I grew up in.

We talk about giving our kids “quality time”. But the truth is that we don’t get to plan what will become “quality time”. Our children will look back 10, 20 years from now and decide what the quality time was. And it won’t be the big party, the trip to Disney world, or the lavish Christmas. It will be the conversation at dinner, sitting in the back yard one summer evening, being there after the big breakup, the wordless hug, that first ten minutes after a disastrous day at school.

We can’t plan out an hour or two of “quality time” from 7 to 8pm on Tuesday night and execute the plan. The best we can do is give our kids a large amount of time and hope that some of it…… when they look back at what shaped them into adults ……. will have been “quality time”. This means that either mom or dad has to BE there…….a lot. I don’t think that it is critical which one. The work of “being there” is hard work…….it is emotionally taxing ….. and our society places no value on it.

We can’t give our children “quality time”, but we can give them “quantity time”……and some of it will turn out to be quality time. The truth is that the secret of creating quality time is to give our kids lots of time……lots of us. This job cannot be farmed out to a nanny or a day care………or a video game.

Greed is a prejudicial term. We usually apply it to people whose lifestyle is well above our own. Greedy people are bad…..right? But, there is a low level of greed that has become normal. Our very high, now normal, expectations of the stuff we should have has led us to also accept as normal the idea of turning the raising of our children over to strangers. We take ourselves out of our children’s lives so we can work, so we can fill our children’s lives with stuff.

New definitions:

Love your neighbor………. give your children your time and attention by raising them yourselves……… be there when they get off of the bus after a disastrous day at school. Talk to them more than the tv does. Throw large amounts of “quantity time” at them………. they will find the “quality time” in it.

Greed……….. give your kid a car….. give them the latest video game and a state of the art cell phone…..and throw in an hour of yourself………. from 7-8pm……. on Tuesday evening.

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”  And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

Jesus, NIV

Thank you Cindy…….. for the sacrifices that you made…….to give our sons your time……yourself…… both quantity time…….and quality time.

Let’s just get this out in the open.

I’m a mess.

And so are you.

Oh, I can come up with a long list of nice things that I have done. But, there’s another list that I don’t talk about so much……and it gets updated just about every day.

Anger, revenge, jealousy, dishonesty, exaggeration, pride, selfishness.

Even though I don’t share this list with others, I am acutely aware of it. I know that I have fallen short…….. today………and I will fall short again tomorrow. Any of this sound familiar?
As you probably guessed……we’re all in the same boat. Measured on God’s scale there really isn’t much difference between us. So………I don’t get to congratulate myself because I was nice for a while today……..and I don’t have to beat myself up because I was bad. Being a mess is normal. Being a mess is actually not the problem.

The real problem with being a mess is that we can start to feel unworthy. Oh, we won’t run around telling everybody how rotten we are. It’s much more subtle than that. Instead, we wonder if we really stack up…..if we even belong with all of those really great Christians we run into. We wonder if we will “fit in” in paradise……..even worse………we wonder if we will even enjoy paradise……. sitting around all day playing a harp.

Here are some facts to help you.

Those really great Christians…..you probably already guessed…… they’re a mess too. Don’t worry if their lists are better or worse than yours………there is no meaningful difference.

You will “fit in” in paradise because it’s going to be full of people just like you……. forgiven sinners.

Finally……. and best of all……paradise is going to be a lot of fun. I’m not a Bible scholar…….this is my best guess. You probably won’t have a harp…….a white gown…..a halo. You won’t spend your day sitting on a cloud singing hymns……although you will spend time praising God……..out of sincere gratitude and love. You will have a physical body and you will be in your prime……maybe in your 20’s. You will have a home. You will probably have a job………one that you really enjoy. But, most of all you will experience the joy of doing the one thing that you were designed for…… spending time with your creator.

I’m retired. As I write this, I’m sitting on my front porch. It’s a cool summer morning. Humidity is uncharacteristically low for Kentucky. There is a blue sky with white clouds. There is a nest of warblers singing away about 12 feet from me. All I can see is grass, trees, flowers, sky, and Jet…….the best Labrador on the planet. In a little while, I’ll put down my coffee, wander over to my shop, and build a table. I think that paradise must be something like this morning……..only better.

When I get there, I don’t know if I will still be a mess……..I think probably not. But, even if I am it will not be a big problem. I am so looking forward to it. If you are not looking forward to paradise, maybe you are carrying around the wrong picture of eternity.

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

David, ESV

Spoiler alert:

This post is not suitable for your children and grandchildren. It may be disturbing if you are a secular humanist or an atheist, especially if you are under 30 years old. As they say “Parental supervision is recommended”.

Here goes.

We live in a world that is increasingly secular. This is especially true in the more “sophisticated” countries ……think Europe. Things are less secular in the “third world”. In his book “The God Delusion” Dawkins tells us that the really smart people are atheists…….and he has the numbers to prove it.

So…… I’ve been thinking about “what is the difference between Christians and our secular friends and neighbors”. I think that the difference boils down to hope.

For the Christian, I have heard it said that “we know how it ends”. It ends in paradise, living in a close relationship with a creator who loves us deeply. It ends with us living in a place where we just fit in, a place that we were specifically designed for. It ends in a place where we will finally…….. for the first time in our lives……. be completely satisfied.

In a word, we believe that a loving father…….the one who created us……the one who loves us just as any parent does…….. has us covered.

More and more though, the secular humanist, the atheist, also knows how it ends…… though most don’t think it through to its logical conclusion. The population of earth will double in 60 years to about 15 billion. The earth can only produce enough food to feed about 10 billion (and that is only if we all become vegans). The earth will continue to warm and Florida will flood. Our oceans will fill with trash and contaminated fish. Our groundwater will dry up. Southern California, the great plains and all of the other currently irrigated deserts of the world (the places that produce most of our food) will return to their natural states. And so it ends………with overpopulation, inadequate food supply, lack of clean water, starvation, drug resistant bacteria, pandemic, contaminated air, global warming, flooding, weather related catastrophes, widespread extinction, mass migration, wars over resources, and more…………all of this in spite of our best efforts as a species. Current science tiptoes around the fact that these things are, from a practical perspective, unavoidable….. that we are past the “tipping point”. And, believe it or not……… the horrors described above are the “best possible case scenario”. If you want the “worst possible case”, it could be something like instant sterilization of the planet by nuclear holocaust……or even worse………lingering death in a soup of nuclear contamination or some other form of contamination (carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, fracked groundwater, micro-plastics………you choose) . For the secular humanist, the best possible outcome is global pandemic…………to die before “it all hits the fan”. But where does this leave his children……… her grandchildren?

The secular humanist will say that some (as yet unknown) technological breakthrough will save us. But this is a pretty thin reed……..and time is running out.

So……what is the difference between the Christian and the secular humanist?

I think it is the difference between hope and dispair. I hate to put words into the other guy’s mouth…….and to make broad generalizations. But, if you look around us, the angry people demonstrating in our cities are disproportionately secular. The people singing in our churches are disproportionately Christian. More and more, it seems as though the Christians are happy and hopeful, and the secular humanists are unhappy and worried about the future.

I can’t blame either of them.