Tuesday, November 2, 2005

HEARING THE LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD

“They are the world's children, and so their language is that of the world, and the world listens to them.”

(1 John 4:5)

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

“Truth will rise above falsehood, as oil above water.”

(Cervantes)

“The firmness with which the people have withstood the late abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false, and to form a correct judgment."

(Thomas Jefferson)

“The dust of controversy is merely the falsehood flying off."

(Thomas Carlyle)

REST IN JEHOVAH – a devotional by Michael S. Heath

The psalmist writes in the 37th psalm, "Rest in Jehovah, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of him who practices wickedness."  He goes on, "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; do not fret yourself to do evil."  And he concludes this thought with, "For evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on Jehovah, they shall inherit the earth."

Webster’s dictionary indicates that the word Jehovah denotes "the eternal Spirit, the unchangeable God."  The Psalmist is contrasting our rest in this unchangeable Spirit with our propensity to "fret" about ourselves in comparison to those around us -- especially those who we know are practicing wickedness.

It is this fretting, this worry -- comparing ourselves to others -- that leads to so much hopelessness and restlessness.  We must take our eyes off the agenda of the wicked, and find our peace in Jehovah, in God.  This is tough to do when one is engaged in a necessary battle with evil.  The difficulty, however, is all the more reason to work hard to abide in that place of divine rest.

So often despair threatens to overwhelm we faithful few who are reading our Bibles and finding in them a call to counter cultural living.  This despair can easily become anger, or wrath.  We can submit ourselves to evil.  We must not.

We must realize that those who WAIT on Jehovah WILL inherit the earth -- there is hope.

The other response many of us choose when challenged by the popular culture, friends in the workplace, and the forces of unrighteousness, is compromise.  We silently go about our business, and choose not to make waves.  We remain silent about our faith, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We must not.  We must witness to His truth, and teach about His life.  Our example is literally the only book people are reading about Christianity as Biblical literacy lingers like a fog burning off under the intense glare of a rising evil in our land.

We must root our lives in Jehovah's rest and launch our attacks on evil from this sure foundation.  Otherwise, we will fail.

Trust Him today.

SCOTT K. FISH ENDORSES “YES” VOTE ON QUESTION ONE

Scott K. Fish, the editor and owner of Maine’s largest online forum “As Maine Goes” has endorsed a “YES” vote on Question One in the upcoming referendum.  In a piece published in the magazine “Bangor Metro,” Fish gives a long list of reasons why the Governor’s sexual orientation law is a bad law. First among these reasons is that the Governor and the legislature are trying to impose a bad law on the people of Maine in order to please a small special interest group. Fish sums it up quite nicely by saying, “Forcing 'sexual orientation' on Maine may be perceived as serving a political purpose, but it wastes the time, energy, and good will of a Maine majority who have said already, 'No, thank you.'”

INTOLERANCE ON DISPLAY AT UNIVERSITY OF MAINE AT MACHIAS AS MIKE HEATH DELIVERS SPEECH ON CHRISTIAN VALUES

The audience which turned out to hear Mike Heath deliver his speech “The Vision Place of Souls” at the University of Maine at Machias was not quite what everyone had expected. The intolerance of the gay rights movement was once again on display as a older woman and several UMM students showed up dressed in KKK robes dyed like the rainbow flag of the gay rights movement. When someone tried to take the woman’s photo, she demanded that her photo be kept confidential and not released to the public.

Later, during the question and answer session, a student went on stage as Mike Heath was speaking, and onlookers grew a bit uncertain about his intent. 

It seems that as the campaign for the gay rights law steadily loses ground with the public, their approach – which now consists merely of name-calling - becomes shriller and shriller. Left with only one argument, that anyone who opposes them is a bigot, they are now apparently quite willing to make complete fools of themselves.

Photo taken at the Boston gay pride march in Boston, Saturday, October 29, 2005, in front of Tremont Temple Church

O’MEARA TAKES HARSH, NEGATIVE TONE IN RADIO DEBATE

The tone was decidedly negative when Ted O’Meara debated Steve Whiting live on WGAN radio yesterday. Once the opening statements were out of the way, the debate quickly devolved into a series of recriminations by Ted O’Meara, the chief spokesman for Maine Won’t Discriminate.

Despite Steve Whiting’s best efforts to engage O’Meara in a serious debate about what the sexual orientation law really means for Maine, O’Meara tried desperately to lead the discussion down a blind alley by criticizing the pro-family campaign as “fear-based” and the “most dishonest campaign he had have ever seen.”

Talk show host Ken Altshuler opened the debate by asking Whiting if the same-sex marriage issue is a “scare-tactic.” Altshuler interrupted Whiting repeatedly during the debate, and on several occasions, co-host Mike Violette had to tell him to let Whiting finish his answer.  At one point, Whiting was asked, “Why is your organization so afraid of gays?” which is of course,  Ken Altshuler’s way of asking “Why is your organization made up of homophobes?”

The low point in the debate occurred when Steve Whiting was interrupted by both Ted O’Meara and Ken Altshuler just as he started to describe the faulty methods used in the recently published discrimination study. The interruption by O’Meara and Altshuler effectively ended that part of the discussion, and the audience never got a chance to hear how the study lacks any form of independent corroboration.

The high point of the debate occurred when a caller informed O’Meara that his statement that 84% of the contributions to MWD came from Mainers was false. The caller correctly pointed out that 84% of the donations are from Maine, but a substantial proportion of the sum total of the donations is from out of state.

Despite Steve Whiting’s cogent and persuasive presentation of the real issues in the campaign – the practical effect of the law on the families, schools, and businesses of Maine – the debate turned out to be little more than an exercise in name-calling by Ted O’Meara and his partner in the debate, Ken Altshuler, although the name-calling this time was a little bit more subtle and better disguised than the pro-family groups are used to hearing.

YARD SIGNS AVAILABLE

“YES on 1” yard signs and other materials are available through the Maine Grassroots Coalition.

Please call 784-0846 to request the yard signs and other material, and they will be sent to you promptly.