Trinity Western's Community Covenant and religious freedom

Monday's Vancouver Sun has some excellent perspective this week from Dr Emma Cunliffe, associate professor in the UBC Law Faculty, about the controversial Community Covenant at Trinity Western University.

When the issue blew up a few weeks ago, with Law Societies in other parts of the country refusing to recognize TWU law grads because of that Covenant, I took a few minutes and actually read the thing. It's full of all sorts of subversive stuff, like respect others, love your neighbour, treat others with dignity and humility -- a cynic might suggest that's the very thing that would turn off the legal community -- but the section on sexual morality is the one that people are exercised about. Certainly, it's been construed as anti-gay, although the actual wording is pro-traditional male-female relationships, so it also excludes people who have sex out of wedlock and/or live together without being married.

(By the way, the love, respect, dignity and humility thing is something TWU would do well to apply to traveling fans of its sports teams. I work closely with the UBC Thunderbirds, and TWU fans are, far and away, the rudest, most obnoxious fans we can think of. I wrote a blog posting a few years ago, called "What Would Jesus Cheer?" and the response from some readers when a TWU student paper picked it up suggested I'd struck a nerve.)

But Dr. Cunliffe hit a point that moves this into a completely different realm. She contends that requiring students and teachers to live by this Covenant on penalty of expulsion "compels individuals to live according to a discriminatory moral code regardless of their true beliefs." I'd take it a step further: while the Professor focuses on the fact that gay or lesbian students would have to suppress their true feelings and/or beliefs, the notion of any organization imposing a particular code of conduct on those who want to be part of it smacks of cultism. Whether or not I agree with the principles is neither here nor there: the fact is, no one should be forced into agreeing.

God gives us freedom of choice. Having given us dominion over the earth, He is not about to make Himself a liar by manipulating us. Yes, He makes it clear which He would prefer us to choose -- I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may live ... and that thou mayest cleave to Him, for He is thy Life ... (Deut. 30:19-20 KJV) -- but the choice is still up to us. No institution should presume to take that choice away.

One is not known as a Christian by the things one hates or shuns: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35)

Love, in other words, is what defines a Christian. Is signing a Community Covenant part of that commandment?

The Most Environmentally-Friendly Verse in the Bible

A Very Convenient Truth - US$3.99 on Amazon Kindle

... excerpt from A Very Convenient Truth.

The Word of God is shot through with references to and images of the love God has for His Creation, the love Creation has for Him and the responsibility He has placed on us to take care of it. What’s more, He’s given us guidelines to follow; the root of the current problem is that we have strayed away from those guidelines. 

            First, though, a Scripture Reality Check: 

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth.

-- Genesis 1:1

            “In the beginning ….” – the first thing we have to acknowledge is that God made this whole show, wrote the whole script and is moving everything along according to a Plan He’d already worked out before He ever said, “let there be light!” He takes credit for all things that have been made (John 1:3), and as Job pointed out, that includes the “bad” as well as the “good”; notice how He says, in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14, that He will “shut up heaven” and bring other such natural disasters. 

If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people;

If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Genesis 1:1 is the most environmentally-friendly piece of Scripture in the whole Bible. How? Because it establishes that there is a well-defined Authority to whom we’re accountable. God created everything and for that reason alone, we need to subject ourselves to Him. As we’ll see shortly, there are lots of other reasons to subject ourselves to Him when it comes to the environment.

Why do I believe Genesis 1:1? Because it's written in His Word --the same Word that tells me I’m saved, redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ and given a new chance at life.

---

All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.

-- John 1:3

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And because God created all, we are answerable to Him, which is what makes Genesis 1:1 the environmentally-friendly verse. We have a very high Authority to answer to – certainly higher than any scientists, politicians, activists and celebrities who have spoken out on the issue. These are, after all, fallible human beings, just like anybody else. 

            Now consider this: “… and God saw that it was good.” 

            Throughout Genesis 1, that is the coda to every stage of Creation: the indelible stamp that God saw that what He had done was good. Now since, as Jesus says, there is “none good but God” (Matt. 19:17[i]), anything God has made is an extension of Him. That tells you just how high the stakes are in this game: our lives are surrounded by extensions of God and we (as we’ll see shortly) have been given the responsibility to care for and nurture those extensions.

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Mind you, this is not to say that we regard Creation as being God Himself. Paganism and animism and similar philosophies take that fatal step, but in so doing, they deny the vital principle of accountability to an Authority. I believe that’s one of the reasons why alternate theories like evolution and natural selection become so popular – even in the absence of real scientific proof – humans, fallen creatures that we are, really don’t want to be accountable to anything but to our own conscience. 

            Strangely, many people who believe in Creation miss the point about accountability, themselves. The environment is repeatedly sacrificed either for the perceived need to feed one’s family or out of greed, plain and simple. Have you ever tried to convince someone – especially someone who thinks they’re “right with God” – that they’re committing sin? Yet we’ll see soon that destroying Creation without taking steps to replenish it is the “original environmental sin”.

            And if people try to “clean up the mess” or prevent it from happening in the first place without acknowledging their accountability to God as Creator and in control of all things, they find the efforts are futile. In fact, if the object of the efforts is to “stop global warming,” they’re already doomed to failure.

Where is your faith?

Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find atheists in insurance companies, if only because storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. are referred to as "acts of God". Some might bristle at the idea of blaming God for the things that go wrong, but in His Word, He's usually the first to take credit.

But the Lord sent a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. (Jonah 1:4 KJV)

This week, we were on the lookout for one monster of a storm in Metro Vancouver. One meteorologist could see it coming on Sunday -- just as we were recovering from a snowfall that caused the usual traffic snarls and grumbling among Wuss Coasters -- and described it as a "wicked-looking system" coming in from the North Pacific. As of Tuesday night, it was predicted to hit Vancouver just before noon Wednesday, with winds peaking around 100 km/h (65 mph), gusting to 140 (90). Certainly, the memories of the great wind that blew down 1,000 trees in Stanley Park in late 2007 were still fresh, so people got a little bit freaked out. So what do we do?

I have prayed against "acts of God" in the past, with interesting results. In spring 2007, the projections indicated that the Fraser River was about to head for a flood even worse than in 1948, which is still legendary. A group of friends prayed together and rebuked it: the river reached just high enough to test our own faith, and then gradually receded. The inspiration comes, in large part, from the account of Jesus, being wakened out of sleep in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, because the boat He was in was being swamped by water. He went up on deck, rebuked the storm and then, when things had calmed down, said to the disciples, "Where is your faith?"

The following winter came that horrific windstorm, which changed Stanley Park's landscape overnight. Flush with my "batting average" in standing against the elements, I had been praying against that, too, and the next morning, was bewildered as to why my prayer didn't "work".

I prayed about it, and the Lord's answer was surprising: who said it didn't? No one got killed, and the storm hit late at night with very few people out on the roads. (There were fears it would hit just as at least 100,000 people would have been heading home from a Seahawks game in Seattle. But it held off.)

The storm had to hit, He said, because it was His Will. But people were praying and so the damage was limited.

As I've contemplated that since then, He's shown me that it's actually futile (not to mention dangerous) to try to stand against His Will -- especially when there's a part of one that wants to say (O, prideful person!) "look what I can do! I can rebuke storms!". That said, we can, like Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah, advocate for the people that are threatened. After all, it's all about His glory and how much we're willing to seek Him no matter what.

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it wasn't to show that He could do it: it was to show God's glory. God knows the time and date when He will call us home, and to try to stand against that puts us in an extremely dangerous position.

For the disciples in the boat, "Where is your faith?" was the reminder that, so long as they had Jesus in the boat with them, they were going to be OK. That's the same as with Paul, when his ship ran into the storms off Melita: an angel reminded him that he was supposed to get to Rome, so he and all those with him were going to be safe -- so long as they didn't fear.

But what happened in all those circumstances -- Jonah on the freighter; Mary and Martha when their brother died; the disciples in the boat; Paul en route to Rome -- was that they all turned to the Lord rather than collapse in fear or cry out that the devil had them under attack.

The other thing to realize is that others, regardless of their faith level or whether or not they Know God, are affected by our faith level. When we seek Him, they benefit too and see His glory. Note that Matthew records that there were other ships caught in the storm that night on Galilee and they, too, were saved when the winds calmed down.

Wednesday morning, I went out onto the patio as the rain was getting heavier, and He started showing me what to pray. If this resonates with you, please join me.

Lord, You created all including good times and bad times. You cause it to rain on the just and the unjust. You are the One sending this storm and I praise You for it and give You the glory because You know the beginning from the end and all things are, ultimately, right.

In Jesus’ Name, I pray protection against fear and physical harm against all people: those who know You and those who don’t; those who have rejected You, ignored You, had a skewed vision of You and even those who have no vision of You at all. I was one of those people and You protected me from worse. Protect them now as You did then.


Show us Your glory in this and show us – together and individually – what we need to do, think, say, pray about, to bring our lives into line with You.


In Jesus’ Name ... Amen.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand;

but it shall not come nigh thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

-- Psalm 93:7-8

Argument? I'll sit this one out.

"Do you know," the reporter asked me, "of any church groups that might take out advertising to counter this?"

That rather tiresome group, the "freethought" lobby -- a/k/a atheists -- has resurfaced, purchasing ad space on public transit, where they intend to run a series of ads either questioning or outright denying the existence of God. I've blogged about the discussion that happened almost two years ago when they tried this, and now they're trying to raise the hackles of pretty much every group that they feel doesn't use hard science to back up its claims.

I understand these adverts will use the late Carl Sagan's declaration that "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence".

I don't know if any church group will try to respond with an ad campaign of its own. My advice is that there shouldn't be one. Why pay good money to advertise something that's so doggone obvious? Most churches I know of that have that kind of bread are spending it on helping the poor, healing the sick, comforting the brokenhearted -- you know, activities that prove there is a God.

Oh, yeah ... and praying for those who don't believe. But that doesn't cost money.

I will -- as our forefathers have -- defend to the death their right to say what they feel and to advertise it; I also know that I was very much in that camp at one point: maybe not outright denying there was a God, but refusing to accept that He played any kind of role in day-to-day life or that I had any responsibility to Him. I figured science -- and my own intellect -- knew best.

And I learned the hard, painful way how wrong I was about my intellect ... and the humbling, gratifying way how wrong I was about His being "distant". And in my own free thought, of my own free will, I came to Him.

The "freethinkers" are just as lost as I was. But remember: Jesus wants us either ice-cold or red-hot -- anything else, and He'll spew us out of His mouth on Judgment Day.

So I won't argue with these people and I would encourage any other Believer to sit this one out. Remember: arguments rapidly deteriorate into exercises in "who's right" rather than "what's right", and as Bishop Noel Jones says, you could win an argument but lose a soul. Instead, we need to reach out to these folks and simply -- as James Aldrich says -- love them until they ask why.

I do pray that the "freethinkers" open their minds to the idea of God, and that if they want a "discussion", they lead the hand by providing "extraordinary evidence" that He doesn't exist -- because I guarantee, that's the most extraordinary claim of all.

Hawking and one of the First Temptations

Stephen Hawking is back in the news, this time with a book that, according to press reports, provides scientific evidence that God did not create the Universe. It's likely to spark outrage among Christians -- or anyone else who believes in God (Muslims, Jews ...) -- and will cause many people to want to rise up and argue vociferously against the professor's points.

My advice: don't take the bait.

Don't succumb to what was, essentially, The First Temptation of Christ: to dispute the point that began, "if thou be the Son of God ....". For Jesus, even responding to the Devil's statement would be to admit that there was the slightest possibility that He wasn't the Son of God. Instead, Jesus simply said, "it is written ...." No debate. No discussion. Stand on the Word of God and do not waver.

For us, that's important, because that is the very weapon we have at our disposal as believers, and that's all we need.

So no matter how tempting it is to stew on the concept and think of a well-constructed, rational argument, all that does is play into the devil's hands and take the fight onto his turf. Rational thinking cannot withstand faith, and as the Apostle Paul says, anyone who believes in God has to begin by accepting that He exists, and since no one has seen God, that's a matter of faith.

A little while ago, I blogged about another statement of Hawking's, that mankind had to make plans to colonize other parts of the galaxy(ies), or else we'd become extinct. That might have been taken as a wake-up call to the situation on Earth, but his theory that the Universe could have come to be without God runs deeper than simply promoting science over religion.

If God did not create the Universe, then to whom are we accountable. The idea of our accountability is based in that fundamental statement in Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth". If for some reason we reject that, then what good is a God at all? Why should we be accountable to Him? Why should we follow commandments? Why should we love Jesus and love our neighbour as ourselves and lay down our lives for others, whatever the cost or level of inconvenience?

Take God out of the picture, and we're left alone with our own intellect to get us through life. What many think of as freedom of thought is really aimless direction. What is the foundation of any kind of morality? Laws by governments that can be changed the instant a party ticks off enough of the electorate? Being "nice" or "tolerant" towards someone? If my intellect is as good as it gets, I'm in big trouble. I need God, through His Holy Spirit, to show me what to do and how to do it, and if this God didn't even create the Heavens and the Earth, then He's really not much better than I am so why should I owe Him any obedience at all?

Worse -- take God out of the picture and you take Love out of the picture. God is Love, and Love cannot be explained by any kind of reason. Take Love out of the picture and the concept of laying down one's life for someone else can only happen if it's convenient for someone: if it makes them look good or saves someone's life because the person laying down his or her life would miss them. For that very reason, Man could never have conceived of unconditional Love.

But as Christians, we know that, and because we know it -- it's not a theory for scientists to debate, publish and peer-review -- there's absolutely no point in debating Hawking's theory or giving it the time of day; even if we think that we've come up with the perfect slam-dunk to shut it down.

Consider Eve. In her zeal to defend her right standing with God, she embellished on God's instructions regarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil -- saying God had said not even to touch it -- and, by essentially lying about God's word, giving the devil an opening.

Consider Hezekiah's troops (II Kings 18), faced with the Assyrian envoy not just trash-talking their military abilities but trash-talking the God of Israel Himself. Every soldier kept his mouth shut, having been being ordered not to respond to the envoy's increasingly blasphemous rantings. That's how we have to be.

Besides, to respond would be to judge Prof. Hawking, himself. It's possible to be "sincerely wrong" about something, and we are only called on to pray for those who are misguided. I believe God is using Hawking as a means of dragging the atheists to the brink of the abyss and then, in a glorious revelation of His own, showing Himself to Hawking in a way so brilliant, so glorious and so incontrovertible, that Hawking will have no choice but to repent and retract his statements ... and in the process, bring other atheists into the Kingdom with him.

That is, in effect, what happened to the Apostle Paul. He was by no means the last person to be knocked off his horse and become one of the Lord's greatest supporters, and I believe Stephen Hawking is a prime candidate for a shaft of light, himself.

Wall Street, Bay Street and Revelation

I'm neither a macroeconomist nor an alarmist. I wouldn't know a derivative if it walked up and shook my hand. I still believe Asset-Backed Commercial Paper is something you stick to the wall if you're too lazy to wash, prime and paint. I'm relieved that I was too fiscally irresponsible to have any money to invest because I'd be shirtless now. And I grieve for anyone who's losing in the current market collapse -- from the rich dudes with offshore accounts and homes in The Hamptons to the faces, bodies and families represented by that phrase tossed off so blithely by commentators: "mortgage foreclosures are up".

But the clouds I see are not the storm clouds of world economic turmoil. They're distant clouds, with Jesus mounting up, ready to ride in and claim His bride. And that means we need to be extra wary of how we respond to events, because a lot will happen in the mean time that will try our faith.

See, there are two factors we need to be aware of. First is that it may well be that the world financial system is about to come apart at the seams. That means anyone who steps up with The Answer To All Our Troubles will be given a lot of clout. Dare I say that he or she will be worshipped?

The second is that the current President of the United States, while being aligned closely with the "religious right", is the son of the man who, when he was President during the Persian Gulf Misunderstanding of 1990, kept talking about the "New World Order".

"New World Order" is a phrase that's closely associated with the Satanic forces predicted to rise up in the Last Days. And while I'm not one to blather on about shadowy conspiracies and the Illuminati and so forth (focusing on such things takes one's mind off God), we need to be sufficiently aware of the signs and the prophecies so that we're not sucked in.

The collapse of the financial system is a perfect door-opener to the events described in Rev. 13:16-18:

And [the beast] causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Beware, in other words, of any "conditions" or requirements imposed by banks, governments or even innocuous-seeming agencies "all in the name of convenience". Look with extreme prejudice on any requirement to carry a certain kind of card or indelible identifier in order to do simple business transactions like buy groceries or withdraw money from a bank account.

Simply put, we're heading into a time when the temptation will become great to sell out, to abandon faith in God for the sake of putting food on the table or keeping a roof over one's head. Those who don't "take the mark" will be frozen out of the standard economic system, and will need to rely on Jehovah Jireh -- the Lord God Who provides -- to meet their needs. False Christs will arise, as Jesus predicted, appearing to have the Answer and to work miracles: but they're counterfeits and we need to be aware of that.

I write this not to scare anybody, but to remind people of what's in the Word of God. Read it and strengthen your faith (especially if you read the King James Version: there are many "faith-charged" passages in KJV, which are altered in versions published since around 1950 -- more on that in a later posting), and be prepared to change your whole way of thinking -- even if that means "doing without" and relying on God.

Here's something to remember: any demonic forces taking over the financial system are only shadows, wispy wimps, compared to the awesome power of Christ. They're like the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus. All it took was for Him to take a single step towards them and they fell over like tenpins. We can do that too. Remember: "greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world". This is nothing to fear if we're prayed-up, with our faith in God intact and strengthened. If we find ourselves confronted with a set of rules that prevents us from doing business as we've known it, fine: declare that The Lord Will Provide and resist the devil.

But for God's sake -- and the sake of your family and yourself -- do not lose sight of Jesus, the Cross and the Lord. He will be with you, until the end of time.

Health and prejudice - 2

More musings about the mumps outbreak in the Fraser Valley and the innuendo about "fundamentalists" refusing to get vaccinated.

I know people who do not get sick and don't get vaccinations. I'm one of them. As I said in my previous post , I haven't had vaccinations since 1994, yet Iget the flu maybe once every 18 months or so, am laid out for a couple of days, and then I'm back on the job.

Then there are people who get their shots and still get sick. Huh?


And what about these "fundamentalists", who are getting the mumps?

Two points come to mind. One is that I'd love to hear from them as to the diseases they haven't been getting, in spite of not getting shots. I mean, if they didn't get shots for mumps, then presumably they haven't been getting shots for the other diseases for which there are shots, and yet we're not hearing about outbreaks of those diseases among that community. I wonder if any reporter is going to seek them out.

Another point is a bit more esoteric. Presumably, they're standing on faith as their reason not to have shots. But what's the foundation of the faith? Are they standing on, say, Exodus 15:26, which promises that if we walk in God's ways, none of the diseases He's visited on our enemies (the Egyptians, in the case of the Israelites who were hearing that Word) would come on us? Are they praising the Lord God Who heals, or God our protector?

Or is there that un-Scriptural belief at work, that says, "if it's God's will for me to be sick ..." or "Lord, if it be Thy will for me to get better ..."

THIS JUST IN ... It's NOT God's Will for you to be sick, and it IS His will for you to get better. End of discussion. But those words, "if it be Thy will", are, as TL Osborn says, some of the greatest faith-killers ever to come out of someone's mouth. "Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering," James writes (Jas. 1:6), and if we say dumb things like "if it be Thy will", we've just wavered. If you know the Word of God, you know that health and healing are His Will.

That's a significant problem with our walk with God. Way back in Genesis 3, the serpent hisses at the woman, "Yea, hath God said ...?", and while he's talking specifically about eating that fruit, the general impact has colored our relationship with God ever since. "Hath God said ..." that whatsoever we ask in Jesus' name, we can have it if we believe that we receive it???? "Hath God said ..." that the wealth of the Gentiles shall come to us???? "Hath God said ..." that by Jesus' stripes we are healed????

Or do they believe, perhaps, that sickness is in some way a lesson God is teaching us? How could it be? If it's God's Will for us to be healed, then why would He go against His own Will by making us sick? In Him, there is no shadow of turning (James (again) 1:17). Any "lessons" we learn from being sick come when we turn our eyes towards God again and glorifying Him with our healing.

I say this not to judge any of these "fundamentalists" who are being obliquely (and unfairly) blamed for the mumps outbreak. I say this to help us all remember to check the sort of faith with which we declare our protection from disease. Faith in the Lord God Who Heals and that we are protected is one thing; but "faith ... unless", I believe, leaves one wide open to be whacked, because that's a crack in the armor that the enemy can exploit for all he's worth.

As I said in that other post, the real story is that health officials say the mumps vaccine "wanes" after 15 to 20 years (I wonder if they told people that as they were sticking in the needle), since 25% of the cases reported so far are people who had been vaccinated; another 25% had been "partially" immunized, whatever that means (how can you be "partially" immunized? You either are or you ain't -- it's like being a little bit pregnant), and the remainder hadn't had shots.

So wouldn't it be interesting to find out more about this "remnant" who haven't been immunized? Who are they? What diseases have they been spared? How many of them don't have mumps? This is getting very interesting, don't you agree?

Mind you, the health officials, citing privacy considerations, won't say who these people are, what denomination they belong to, or anything like that. They're willing to slag their alleged religious motivation for not having the shots, but then duck under the Maxwell Smart Cone of Silence to prevent us from hearing about their miracles. Somehow, we'll have to flush this story out ourselves.

And now, back to Psalm 91.