Jeremiad. This blog may not be for you.  Or maybe it is.

Marty Allen sock puppetry responding to the Prophet Amos. 

Sock, craft foam, hot glue, marker, Photoshop 2018.

The name of this blog is “Pastor Obvious.”  The “Pastor” part is what I used to do, but I no longer serve a particular congregation.  Sometimes it’s hard for former pastors to ditch the preaching piece of their ministry and this sabbath morning is one of them, because our poor, beleaguered nation has suffered three mass shootings between this sabbath and the last sabbath. People want answers: they want a prophet. 

Too much prophetic preaching is bad pastoring.  “Too much” means almost no prophetic preaching.  “Too much” means you should invite a guest pastor in to throw their bombs while you go to the beach,  and stay away for two weeks, so people have time to forget before you come back.  Nobody wants an Elijah, a Jeremiah or even a John the Baptizer in the pulpit every week.  Nobody wanted Jesus to stick around after he cast out demons, either (Mark 5:17). Congregations can’t take it.    

But today I am giving in to a bit of prophetic bomb-throwing, even though I am not a prophet.  Jesus was the last prophet, and we are told that in these last days God speaks to us through his Son (Hebrews 1:1-2) and through the Scripture.  So, although I am not a prophet, I do have something in common with the Prophet Amos, who testified: “I never set up to be a preacher, never had plans to be a preacher. I raised cattle and I pruned trees.” (Amos 7:14 The Message).

You may not want or need to read this.  But we never know what the reach of the internet is going to be, or who will take it to heart.  I don’t have a pulpit anymore, and no church can fire me for offending folks, which is a great freedom, so here goes:

We are reaping the whirlwind because we have sown the wind (Hosea 8:7).  By “we” I mean the West generally, but the United States particularly.  We have sown the seed of a culture of death that has been carried by the wind to every aspect of our common life like noxious kudzu. 

God is a jealous God. We are commanded to have no other gods besides him; we are not to worship idols (Exodus 20:3-6; 34:14; Isaiah 45:5).  Yet we have become a nation of idol worshipers and the idol we worship is ourselves.  Unlike the Hebrew nation who, in Moses’ absence, forgot God and made a golden calf to worship, we have not forgotten God.  We are in daily, active rebellion to God.  We push back, every hour of every day: incremental  rebellion is never enough; we are never satisfied.

Pope John Paul II coined the term, “culture of death” in his 1995 "Evangelium Vitae," ("The Gospel of Life”), which addressed the immorality of considering abortion and euthanasia matters of individual rights.  "Choices once unanimously considered criminal and rejected by the common moral sense are gradually becoming socially acceptable,” he declared.”  He viewed it – rightly - as a “war of the powerful against the weak.”  Our self-worship allows us to declare our lives more valuable - and our personal choices more important – than the lives of those weaker than ourselves.  Marriage changed from being a gift from God as a Christian witness for sexual expression and children into an unnecessary restraint, birthing the Sexual Revolution of the 1960’s and ‘70’s. Divorce became “no fault.” But sexual freedom wasn’t enough: birth control depended on personal responsibility, so abortion was re-cast from murder to birth control and “reproductive rights.”  But still, we weren’t satisfied: abortion must be available to the point of infanticide, and 66 million abortions later, blood and treasure is poured into the preservation of the individual right of the powerful to murder the weak.

But still we aren’t satisfied:  If we can kill the unborn and infants because they hold back our self-idol worship, then we also have to able to kill the depressed, because they’re no fun to be around; and the infirm, because they cost too much time and money to care for; and the elderly because, well, they’re old, their time is short, and money and resources can be better spent on the young.  But it still isn’t enough: We assign untrained bureaucrats the power of life and death decisions when it comes to our access to medical care.  Strangers get paid to decide if we’re worth saving.

We deny that humanity is created in the image of God (Imago Dei).   God is sovereign over all of human life.  We can fertilize human eggs in a petri dish and implant them in a female womb, but we can’t create the egg or the sperm or the DNA.  God creates human beings marked with God’s image.  As long as we tolerate the presence of infants among us, newborns and small children only highlight our own perversion.  Their softness compares unfavorably with our hardness.  Their innocence stands in witness against our sinfulness.  

Their mere presence reminds us that we are not, in fact, in control of the consequences of our actions.  Their presence reminds us of our shortcomings and failures.  Therefore, tolerance is not enough:  newborns and children in the womb must be declared “not human,” and “not persons” so we can tell ourselves that we – not God – are in control of their right to life.  But still, we aren’t satisfied: When we allow them to be born, instead of seeing them as a gift from God, they are treated as simple commodities.  We freeze fertilized eggs “in case we want them later.”  We “rent wombs,” and buy infants from surrogates to sell them to same-sex couples.  But why stop there?  If they are “things” and not people, why not throw them in a trash bin or abandon them in the park if we wait too long for an abortion?  Why not buy and sell them for sex?  

We deny human exceptionalism.  Our active rejection of God’s sovereignty over human life and the imprint of Imago Dei is further evidenced by the growing insistence of environmentalists that human beings are not in any way exceptional and are equal to – or more likely, lower than – other creatures as well as the natural environment.  Human beings are portrayed as being rapacious consumers, feeders, polluters and destroyers, while animals, reptiles, fish and even trees and glaciers are promoted as superior to humans and worth the sacrificial expense of human life.  This is not to say that humans are not responsible for exercising good stewardship in the management and preservation of the creation God declared “good” (Gen. 1:31)  But the excessive elevation of the created order over human life exceeds the God’s charge to humans to  care for the earth (Genesis 2:15) and animals (Proverbs 12:10), because they belong to God (Deuteronomy 10:14; Psalm 24:1-2).    

We are erasing men and women.  That God determines sex before birth is on parade several times a day with every diaper change, denying our claims that sex doesn’t matter and gender is “assigned,” or “chosen.”  We can abort girls and prefer boys, but we can’t create boys and girls by choice.  If adolescent girls are feeling sexually pressured by boys, it’s so much easier to get a breast binder and pretend to be a boy than it is to be a late-blooming flat-chested girl in the midst of a class full of buxom promise.  If a mother who wished for a girl birthed a boy instead, who can blame her for imagining that those long eyelashes, blond curls and rosy lips were really meant to belong to the daughter she was denied? If a young man who is a mediocre athlete wants to win medals and fame, why not claim a different sexual identity and bulldoze a few female champions at their game?  We’ll let them, after all.  If both men and women are reduced to only anatomical parts which are interchangeable at will, we effectively become a race of Mr. and Mrs. Potatoheads. 

Three- and four-parent birth certificates are becoming more common. Colorado does not identify an infant’s sex on birth certificates.  Oregon’s birth certificates allow three “gender” choices.  California will change birth certificate sexual designation with a simple request.  All but three other states will change the sex designation on a birth certificate upon presentation of a court order or medical affidavit.  Only Kansas, Ohio and Tennessee will not change the sex identified at birth. 

In California – and other states – public school curricula indoctrinate children as young as kindergarten  with detailed descriptions of sexual deviance, and the National Library Association endorses, promotes and stages “Drag Queen Story Hours” in local libraries for young children and toddlers.  Again, in California, public schools assist children who say they want to transition to the opposite sex, while maintaining confidentiality from their parents.

We encourage violence against women and children.  This is the culture of death war of the strong against the weak again.  If women are the same as men – and men sometimes use force to get their way – then there is no reason to spare women the imposition of male force.  If women are taught to hate men, some men will believe it gives them the right to retaliate.  If women reject men’s children via abortion, then men learn to hate women.  If children are only “things” and not people, then some men believe they are justified in coercing a woman to abort to escape the responsibilities of fatherhood.  If women and children are sexually desirable – yet weak – and men are more powerful, then there is no bar to sexual abuse and sex trafficking.  And if pregnancy is only a female’s responsibility and promiscuity only the female’s fault, then legislators – both male and female – are bound to legislate to “protect women’s reproductive rights,” while at the same time allowing them to ignore appeals to criminalize FGM (female genital mutilation performed to as a way to control women’s sexuality).

We celebrate sexual perversion.  The loss of the Christian witness of marriage as an earthly picture of the relationship between God and God’s people has opened the way to an ever-expanding array of sexual deviation, promoted as “orientation” and “expression.”  “Orientation” is a behavior-word, not an identity-word.  By that I mean everyone chooses a sexual orientation with every sexual encounter.  Orientation is changeable and capricious.  “Expression” is the same.  We choose to express how we experience sex and how we want to be perceived by others.  Expression is not an identity, it is a contrivance with a deliberate goal.  In the war of the strong against the weak, child brides are a prize.  Young boys and even infants are simply sex toys to the pedophiles who abuse them in the name of “unchangeable orientation.”  NAMBLA (the North American Man-Boy Love Association) whose motto is “Sex before eight, before it’s too late,” lobbies Washington for the removal of laws against pedophilia and pederasty.  Polygamy (more than one wife) is a topic of prime-time television and polyamory (more than one husband) is promoted as simple equality for women.  Sex-game shows pretending to promote romance and marriage, instead match strangers for casual – and public – sexual encounters.  

Pornography is on the rise.  Once considered a deviant vice and societal corruptor run by mobsters, the use of pornography has been normalized as a shame-free sexual add-on.  Nadia Bolz-Weber, a female Lutheran minister, promotes “responsibly sourced pornography” as a harmless pastime, as though “sex worker” is a legitimate career and no exploitation or drug use is involved in its production.  However, as long as sex is disconnected from marriage, women are viewed as weak and fair-game for exploitation, and healthy relationships between the sexes remains compromised by confusion, ambivalence and outright animosity, pornography is by far the “easier choice” over and against real-life intimacy.

We celebrate death and desensitize to violence.  We celebrate death in books, television, movies and video games.  Murder mysteries, television crime shows, horror and action movies and video games all show ever more gruesome violence.  Torture and sexual abuse scenes are routine.  The more blood the better.  The player who kills the most people wins.  In war we use the same techniques to defeat the enemy in “combat”:  Modern warfare is rarely hand-to-hand combat – soldiers never see the opponent’s face.  We kill anonymously with IEDs and drone and bomb strikes, and then we bring our servicemen and women home and ask them to slip seamlessly back into the life of the community and see others as human persons again – but the culture around them at home is the same culture of anonymous death that they knew in the war zone.  What’s the real difference?     

Why are we surprised at the violence?  If culture and laws treat people as commodities, while ignoring humanity and personhood; if self-actualization is the highest cultural virtue, allowing only for “survival of the fittest”; if we are determined to reduce humanity from a common race to nothing more than collective diversity; if our only relationships are with our screens and others with anonymous usernames;  if we continue to celebrate death and desensitize young men to violence; if every person’s individual desires crush every other person’s desires, why are we surprised by the violence of the past week? 

As long as we continue to blame weapons – whether guns, knives, bombs or fists – or drugs, mental illness and racism for the consequences of the culture of death, rather than our personal idolatry and sinful ways, the violence will continue to escalate unabated. 

As long as we hate God so much that we don’t simply forget God, but rather, make active rebellion against God’s sovereign desire for flourishing human life our 24/7 project, no legislation will succeed.  No public shaming will stop the flow of blood in our streets and the abattoirs of Planned Parenthood.

There is only repentance.  There is such a thing as national repentance, and we need that.  But even national repentance only happens when the citizens of that nation personally repent.  Only a humble surrender of ourselves to God; only an exchange of this life for Christ’s life; only turning from our desires to God’s desires will release the head of steam the culture has built up to an explosive pressure. 

Is the violence we are experiencing a “severe mercy” allowed by God to turn us away from evil and back to God?  Read about the Egyptian plagues in Exodus 7-11 and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart; then read all of Judges about the bloody brutality of life when everyone did what was right in their own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25).  Read about coming plague-reprise in Revelation 15-16 and see how God intends that the calamities will turn people away from their sins and back to Him.  And then read how humanity will stubbornly refuse to repent and how instead they’ll curse God for the suffering they’ve brought upon themselves.  Read all that – you can do it in an afternoon - and then decide for yourself.  But do not delay.

So now you know what a “jeremiad” is. 

What is our hope?  We know that God is merciful to those who show mercy (Matthew 5:7; James 2:13-18); and that God doesn’t want anyone to perish but all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:8-10).  We know that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16-18).  We have the assurance that if we seek God with our whole heart and soul we will find him; that God loves those who love him, and those who seek God will find him. (Deuteronomy 4:29; Proverbs 8:17; Jeremiah 29:13).

There are none so blind as those who will not see.  If you are an idol-worshipper do not delay in coming to repentance.  If you are a believer remember your First Love and do again the things you did at first.  (Rev. 2:4-5)