Government and the Child Sex Offender

It’s terrible that ten-year-old Jamie stumbled across a pornographic website and became addicted to the images poured into his immature mind. Only the Great Physician and His Word will be able to cleanse the boy’s heart and soul of the imagery of activities he cannot yet enjoy physically.

It’s awful that his family government – his parents – failed to monitor the boy’s Internet activities and correct the directions of his interests. His parents will have to deal with the expense of psychological therapy and the hard work of retraining his ‘Net surfing. (They will also have to live with the social stigma of a son who has been labeled a sex-offender.)

I consider it worse than terrible, more harmful than awful, that the civil government believed they had the need – and the right – to arrest a now-thirteen-year-old incapable of sexual activity and to stigmatize him as a sex-offender. Maybe the civil government has a God-ordained responsibility to monitor the local cyberspace and restrain the wickedness there. Certainly the civil government has responsibility to punish those who assault others who are weak and vulnerable.

I question the civil government’s practice of labeling even non-aggressive “criminals” as sex-offenders and broadcasting this status to local communities. Are thieves stigmatized with similar labels? Are neighborhoods warned of the presence of known murderers? When Jamie turns eighteen, will his court records be sealed as are those of other juvenile delinquents? Will the civil government stop warning any new neighbors of his current criminal status?

I think we have here another example of unjust government interference. Certainly, the family government, Jamie’s parents, needed to be informed of the boy’s wicked and unhealthy activities. It would certainly help the whole family to involve the appropriate church government. The local Church can bring to the family God’s love, mercy, and healing. 

However, beyond restraining real criminal activity and supplying information and guidance, the civil government needs to butt out.

Fruit of Obamacare

There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death. (Prov 14:12, 16:25)

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is 55:8-9)

There is a clear way to tell that the socialized medicine of Obamacare is, at best, a bad humanistic program and, at worst, a tool of the Devil. As Jesus said concerning false prophets – men who claim to bring good benefits to the nation – “You will know them by their fruits.”

In Britain, Canada, and other countries with socialized medicine, medical care is very lacking. Patients wait for hours to see doctors, for months for special treatments. In the US, doctors are leaving the job market due to expected losses of income. We are already beginning to see signs of people not receiving care under government programs. When will ungodly men and women on “death panel” committees begin to refuse medical care to people because of scarce resources? (That scarcity will be brought on by government regulatory interference in the free market.)

The case of Don Piper makes a great contrasting study. His car was smashed by a tractor-trailer and he died. He later authored the book, 90 Minutes in Heaven, in which he bears witness to having gone there. Ninety minutes later, a man prayed for him under God’s strong urging and Don came back to life on Earth.

He told of the agony of recovery, the specialized procedures to save his crushed leg, the depression of enduring through the agony, sleeplessness, and emotional turmoil. Don told of countless people who prayed him through recovering from near death. The people of his church community visited (which didn’t always help) and sought to serve him. To all of them, Don’s life was precious despite the amount of destruction to his body. A doctor said he had seen worse…but none of them had survived.

As I listened to his story, I speculated how Don and his family could have paid for all the expensive procedures and care. I figured that:

1) his church community might have committed to paying the expenses,

2) his employer (the church) might have covered him with private insurance (as my factory does for me), or

3) there might have been some help from various government agencies.

It turns out that, due to circumstances, his home state was held responsible for his accident and covered expenses.

Under Obamacare, I imagine Don’s death and the extent of his injuries would have disqualified him from receiving much of the medical care he did receive. Doctors and nurses would have been unavailable for such specialized care. The specialized treatments would have been deemed too expensive for someone so debilitated.

Liberals question where is the compassion of conservatives for the poor and needy? Real compassion operates in the free market – where people are allowed to make their own choices and pay their own ways. With the lack of being forced, people more readily help those in need. The good fruit of compassion is found where people seek God’s guidance how to best exercise it.

Life as a Hero’s Journey

People often think of their lifestyle as a way of life, a non-directed set of random events that affect how they live and how character develops. As an author, I see each life as a story, a plotline headed toward some place envisioned by the Author of that life, a character arc. As Christopher Vogler wrote in The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, each character is the hero of his or her own journey.

As any good storyteller knows, character arc is developed through challenges encountered and overcome, especially those presented by the forces of the Shadow and by one’s own flaws. The Author of Lives also presents each person with challenges. These are designed to reveal character flaws to be overcome and to drive the person to more and more reliance on Him.

Storytellers also know that characters can take on lives of their own; they can go off in directions not intended by the author. God knows, the characters of Hisstory are rebellious, often not following the plotlines set up for them. God also knows how to rewrite plots, re-establish old or set up new heroes’ journeys.

The Author of History has also written hero’s journeys for various levels of peoples. Families can follow on-going sagas, as illustrated by the Kennedys or Duck Dynasty’s Robertsons. (The Goads of Quixtar/Amway are another fine example.)

Ethnic groups and nations have their own stories. The history of Great Britain is an intermingling of Celts, Angles, and Saxons; Gaels, Picts, and Scots; with Scandinavian Norsemen and Frenchified Normans. The form of British government has flowed from pagan tribal monarchies through Christian feudal lordships to today’s humanist royal figureheads and socialist parliament.

America has its own storyline. Settled early on by believers who sought to worship God their own ways, the North American colonies were envisioned as places for religious freedom from which missionaries would evangelize the world. Many are the references in the various state constitutions to God’s purposes for their existence.

But America has turned away from the King. We have forsaken God’s Law to live by humanistic philosophies. We have allowed the government to interfere in the free market, in the education of our children, in our exercise of worship. We have been living through the destruction of the economy, the self-control of our citizens, our morals, and our lives. God’s judgment is to let us suffer the consequences of our self-will.

As with Nineveh in the Book of Jonah, the only way to deliverance is through turning back to God for His mercy and grace. The only way to save our country is to return to obedience to God’s Law, to following His way of doing things.

Moving to WordPress

I want to thank all three/four of the people who are following me on this blog.  I have taken the advice of Kristen Lamb and decided to create a more professional blog. I have moved to johnpauldewalt.wordpress. I would love all of you to follow me there.

Thanks.

Just to Pay Expenses

What’s the best job in the world?  One for which “…they actually pay me to do what I love!”  Talk about a dream job.

Jefa-fa Dun-ham (as his puppet Peanut calls him) has never worked at a real job.  He has always been a ventriloquist. (Sorry about commercial in the link.)  People just pay him millions to entertain them.

How unlike the Michigan man of the early 1900s I read about in the book, Anchor Post.  His daughter wrote that her father was a preacher of the Gospel; he farmed only to pay expenses.

So, I will take the advice of Kristen Lamb, author of Are You There Blog? It’s Me, Writer.  She said to her audience – writers, “When people ask what you do, you need to tell them, ‘I am an author’ or ‘I am a writer.’”  Since I believe Messiah would have me proclaim Biblical truths through my stories and essays and I enjoy writing, from now on I will tell people I am an author.  I just work in a factory to pay expenses.

Whom do you know has a dream job?

To Die Happy

I don’t believe I’m becoming obsessed with death.  However, I have been thinking a lot since my wife’s funeral last October about what I’d like to have at my own.  It boils down to a lot of music in worship of Messiah.

I would want

·      hymns from my childhood  O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing, How Great Thou Art, Great Is Thy Faithfulness

·      anthems from my teen years in church choir     The Heavens Are Telling from Hayden’s Creation Oratorio, Open Our Eyes

·      choruses from young adulthood as a new believer      The Steadfast Love, (I’m drawing a blank on more examples.)

·      as well as proclamation music from these last decades          Indescribable, (Another blank.)

Open Our Eyes listed above declares

Thou hast made death glorious and triumphant!

For through its portals

we enter into the presence

      of the living God!

I love that song, not only for its stirring crescendo, but also for the truth of its lyrics.

It is often said when a man dies in the arms of a woman that at least he died happy.  Last Sunday, during worship, I wept, overwhelmed by joy in the Lord.  I thought that were I to drop dead right then, I would leave this life doing one of my favorite activities.

Insha’Allah or Que Sera, Sera?

My son and I almost had an auto accident earlier this evening.  Driving me home from work, he ran a blinking red light.  As we passed through the intersection, I saw headlights coming toward us – from his side.

After we made it through safely– and I pointed out his error, I thought about my lack of reaction.  Somehow I felt confident we would not be hit. 

I contemplated the car being wrecked.  That would have been bad (let alone either of us being hurt).  We have only the one car between us. 

Yet, I was not disturbed.  Was this fatalism - Insha’Allah, as Arabic speakers often say?  In our ignorance, we Americans see this as a shrugging “If God wills.”  (Wikipedia says it’s a statement of submission required when making plans for the future.)

Or was my feeling more like Connie Francis’ light-hearted Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)?  “The future’s not ours to see. Que sera, sera.”  This never seemed like much of an answer to me.

I find I like Wikipedia’s Insha’Allah better or maybe my own “hopeful fatalism”; it’s all in God’s loving hands.