Monday, June 1, 2020
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
The Last Enemy
Need we be subject to the sting of death?
by Commissioner Robert E. Thomson
Major Noh Young Soo had known for weeks that his personal day of decision soon would be upon him. It was 1950 and the invaders were on the march. Sooner or later they would come to the small Korean village where he, the Salvation Army officer, ministered to his fellow countrymen. Then he must witness to his faith, come what may. Finally the day arrived, and his decision was made. Not waiting for the military patrol to find him, Major Noh went out to meet them, Bible and Salvation Army songbook in hand. Standing in the road, he held aloft the two books which spoke of his faith, and he prayed for those who would destroy his village. There was a chatter of machine gun fire, a spray of deadly metal. The Major’s riddled body fell to the ground. He was dead.
Well might we ask, in the face of such a display of holy courage, the question by the Apostle Paul, “O death, where is thy sting?”(KJV). The glorious truth is that in such a death there is no sting, but rather victory and glory. Of course, there is human sorrow expressed by those who are left behind. But to the faithful, believing Christian, there is no sting in death.
Paul’s question, “O death, where is thy sting?” (I Corinthians 15:55) was addressed to the first-century Christians in Corinth. There were those in the church who denied the fact of Christ’s resurrection, even though Scripture clearly states that He was seen by “above three hundred brethren at once” and that “he showed Himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs.”
If Christ did not rise from the dead, argued the apostle, then the entire Christian faith was based upon a lie and was invalid. But Paul hastened to declare his own faith not only in the resurrection of Christ but in the final resurrection of all believers.
As a capstone to his statement of faith, the apostle declared, “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory'” (NIV).
DEATH’S INVIOLATE CLAIM That experience is in the future. Death still reigns, and one day the Grim Reaper will claim each of us. Death is the last enemy that will be destroyed. Until that time Death has an inviolate claim on every man and woman, for “it is appointed unto men once to die.”
Even though death now has the upper hand, Christ will be the final victor. Indeed, by His resurrection, He displayed His own power over death, and when death finally is destroyed, all those who have died in the faith will be raised to immortal life. But what of the present? Need we be subject to the sting of death? IS DEATH SO TERRIBLE Paul declared, “The sting of death is sin.” On reading this text quickly and superficially, it might seem more logical to turn the phrase around and to make it read, “The sting of sin is death.” In a sense, this would be true. Death came into the world because of sin; death is the ultimate consequence of sin, inborn and actual. Death is the direct result of sin; consequently, the sting of sin is death. But what actually is so terrible about death? “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints,” wrote the Psalmist. And the inspired apostle wrote, “To be absent from the body [is] to be present with the Lord.” Without the fact of sin, there would be no sting, no unpleasantness to death. It would be merely stepping from one room into another, a transposition from earth to heaven. Indeed, for the child of God, death is merely a means to an end.
Colonel Albert Pepper, a revered officer of yesteryear, told of the passing of his wife. She had been very ill for several months, and he had ministered to her faithfully. One day he realized that the time had come for her to leave her body behind and to go to meet the Lord. He said to her, even though she was unconscious and couldn’t hear him, “Mother, this is the day. This is your day. You’re going Home,”
“O death, where is thy sting?”
But when sin is present, death becomes a tragic experience. Death puts a final period to the stewardship of life. Death closes the door on the opportunity for salvation. The words of the Apostle Paul take on new meaning. When sin is present, erecting an impenetrable wall between man and God, death becomes a terrifying experience. The unsaved sinner steps from life into the darkness of eternal doom. Then truly “the sting of death is sin.” It might seem more logical to turn the phrase around: "The sting of sin is death."
MAKING DYING RIGHT Catherine Booth, wife of the founder of The Salvation Army, suffered great pain for many months prior to her death. But her bedroom became a citadel of triumph. To members of her family who were with her in her final moments, she said, “The waters are rising, but so am I. I’m not going under, but over. Do not be concerned about dying; go on living well, and the dying will be right.” Death seldom, if ever, is anticipated with pleasure. Especially for those who are left to mourn, it is a bitter enemy. But death need not be faced with fear. Like Major Noh, like Mrs. Colonel Pepper, like Catherine Booth, like countless unsung heroes of the faith, each of us may face death fearlessly. Christ, by His sacrifice and resurrection, achieved victory over death. But that victory is incomplete in the lives of those who have failed to experience new life in Him through spiritual rebirth. But for those who have had the power of sin broken by saving faith in Jesus Christ, death can be a triumphant finish to the stewardship of life. Then, like the apostle, we can taunt the enemy with the question, “O death, where is thy sting?” knowing full well that the sting of death has been destroyed in our life by the Blood of Jesus, shed on Calvary, and by His resurrection in our heart.
Commissioner Robert E. Thomson a former Editor-in-Chief and regular War Cry contributor, lives in Clearwater, FL.
Sunday, May 24, 2020
Out of This World We’re In
SUNDAY, MAY 24, 2020
“I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. . . .And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.” (Jn 17:6, 11)
These verses from our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer (Jn 17) reveal three truths to consider as we look ahead to Pentecost.
First, we are not of this world. Jesus prays to His Father, “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.” (Jn 17:6) He is speaking about the Apostles primarily, but also about us. It’s not the only time He speaks of such alienation from the world. He had told the Apostles earlier at the Last Supper, “[Y]ou do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world.” (Jn 15:19) And again in prayer to His Father, “They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.” (Jn 17:16)
We have perhaps forgotten this “out of the world” part of the Christian life. We found some measure of security and prosperity in the world, so we grew comfortable and sought to make a home here. Science, money, and government-provided, much-desired stability and security. We gave science a mystic authority, like a primitive people believing in the medicine man. We trusted in the power of money and of the state to keep us from all ills. We made gods out of them, willingly sacrificing for the security they could provide. Predictably, they came to act like false gods, demanding more and more.
If we forgot, the pandemic has made it painfully clear that we’re not of this world. Both the illness and its economic and political wreckage have revealed the fragility of this world’s powers. Those false gods have failed us spectacularly. Indeed, at times, they have exacerbated the problem. In a sense, it’s not their fault. We never should have expected what they cannot deliver.
More importantly, we should not have tried to settle here. If nothing else, the pandemic has caused us to feel acutely an alienation from this world – a fallen, fragile place, a valley of tears. We have here no lasting city. The more we settle here, the more unsettled we will be.
Second, it’s not enough to regard ourselves as “not of this world.” Without the supernatural outlook, that thought produces a brittle, contrarian spirit – a mindset that defines itself by what it is not, that decides according to its opposite. It is always reacting, never acting.*
Notice our Lord’s prayer: “I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.” We are out of the world because we have been given by the Father to the Son. Our separation from and opposition to the world is secondary. Primary is the truth that we have been raised beyond the world, to the intimacy of the Father and Son. We are not so much against the world as alienated from it because in Christ we have gone beyond it.
Third, we’re still in the world. “And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.” (Jn 17:11) Although not of the world, this world is the theatre of our work and struggles. We cannot quit the world. This is a fundamental challenge in the Christian life: to be in the world but not of it, even as we continue our work and life in it. The task is to hold both truths together in a reasonable balance.
Our risen Lord gives us an image of this being at once out of the world and in the world. In those forty days between Easter and the Ascension, He made clear to His disciples that He was so given to the Father that the world cannot hold Him. “Stop holding on to me,” He says to Mary at the tomb, “For I have not yet ascended to the Father.” Further, the world’s material limits mean nothing to Him. He comes and goes, appears and disappears, as He pleases.
At the same time, by word and action, He was truly present and real in the world. “He showed them his hands and his side.” (Jn 20:20) “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side.” (Jn 20:27) “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” (Lk 24:39) This was no apparition or phantasm but a real presence in the world.
It’s the life of the risen Christ that we live: one given completely to the Father and yet truly present in the world.
Today’s Gospel comes at a peculiar and somewhat forgotten time in the liturgical year: the Sunday between the Ascension and Pentecost. Consider the mindset of the disciples gathered in the upper room. Having just seen their Lord ascend, they know that they will never again be at home in this world. He Who is their life has gone ahead to prepare a place for them.
Yet they couldn’t just keep their heads in the clouds. He had commanded them to await “the promise of the Father” that would make them His witnesses “in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:4, 8) In other words, to remain and labor in this world.
We should keep these truths in mind as we continue to prepare for the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. He comes to bring us out of this world that we’re in, to make us simultaneously in heaven and in the world.“30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. Luke 24:
Fr. Paul D. Scalia
© 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.
Thursday, May 21, 2020
Surrogacy: A Problem of Human Dignity
Ines Murzaku: Treating human beings as goods to be ordered, produced, and sold is a severe violation of human dignity and violates the rights of children and the dignity of women.
Please watch this disturbing video, a chorus of innocent newborns crying as they wait to be delivered to their destinations. How can we remain silent in the face of these disturbing images? These are infants without an identity, who have been denied the experience of their mothers’ voice, smell, and welcoming arms – or even just being able to turn to their mothers when they are hungry.
Any decent human being will find this highly disturbing. Yet BioTexCom, a leading center for infertility treatment and human reproduction in Ukraine, released it to assure the clients that the products, i.e., babies, are in good hands and will reach their “destinations” as soon as the border restrictions due to COVID-19 are relaxed.
When the video was released on YouTube recently, there were forty-six babies waiting to be delivered. Since then, the number of infants in the facility has increased to fifty-one – so “production” is continuing. The babies are born of surrogate mothers in a reproductive clinic currently located in the Venezia Hotel in Kiev.
Among the services BioTexCom offers to clients is a large bank of egg donors and surrogate mothers. This is what the center promises:
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Ukraine has become a surrogacy destination for people from Western Europe and the United States. Couples or singles from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Israel, Great Britain, America, and other countries travel to Ukraine to “order” a perfect baby.
In a strange way, it’s quite logical. Women from the industrialized West have “outsourced” making babies; they can economically support children but do not wish to or cannot carry a child physically. For this they turn to Ukraine and other poor countries in Eastern Europe, to women with strong uteruses to carry and deliver babies.
The legislative vacuum created after the fall of Communism allowed commercial surrogacy to be legalized in Russia and Ukraine, and agencies and law firms turned it into a lucrative business.
According to a European Union study on surrogacy in the EU member states, would-be parents typically paid 30,000 EUR (about $33,000) to a Ukrainian law firm “to order” a baby.
The Catholic Church is not taking these insults to human dignity lightly. Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, and Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv, president of the country’s Latin-rite bishops’ conference, have appealed to the Ukrainian government to put an end to the “double crime of renting wombs,” which has become a plague in Ukraine.
Treating human beings as goods to be ordered, produced, and sold is a severe violation of human dignity. The bishops’ appeal hit the nail on the head: the double crime of surrogate motherhood violates the rights of the children and the dignity of women, who for various motives – especially economic hardship – are forced to sell their bodies and motherhood.
Surrogacy is an offense against women; how can you “rent” the body of another human being? And how does paying the rent make you a parent? Motherhood is not merchandise and should not be for sale. The bond between mother and child is forged at conception in the womb; no one has the right to break that bond.
Pope Francis has spoken clearly (Amoris Laetitia, 54) against the exploitation of poor, third-world women: “History is burdened by the excesses of patriarchal cultures that considered women inferior, yet in our own day, we cannot overlook the use of surrogate mothers and the exploitation and commercialization of the female body in the current media culture.”
People want to “have it all,” but there are limits to what that may mean. God has put limits in place for our benefit. There are things that are extra commercium, they cannot be bought. Children are gifts with their own inherent dignity – rather than goods one has the right to purchase on the open market.
The Catholic Church has consistently taught that human life is sacred because, from the moment of conception, it involves the creative action of God and remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. No one should play God and produce human beings in reproductive centers, exploiting disadvantaged women. In 1987, St. John Paul II approved the Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation which specifically speaks of surrogacy:
St. Mother Teresa, who spent all her life in mission serving the poorest of the poor in India, might offer a solution to surrogacy as she did to abortion: “I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption – by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives.” Maybe the same can apply to surrogacy – we can fight the disorder of surrogacy by rediscovering adoption.
Image: Louise Nursing her Child by Mary Cassatt, 1898 [Fondation Rau pour le Tiers-Monde, Zürich, Switzerland]
What is the position of The SA in Ukraine? |
Thursday, May 7, 2020
Asked about those who had left the ranks of officership, William Booth claimed that, “We remain in sympathetic and friendly relations with the great bulk of them … a large proportion – in this country nine out of ten – remain with us, engaged in some voluntary effort in our ranks.”[2] The seriousness with which such lapses were viewed is evidenced however by the frequency of cautionary articles in Army publications, usually in the form of letters from ex-officers. In his Servants of All, Bramwell Booth quotes three such letters, one from an officer who was tempted to give up but hadn’t done so, and two from people who had resigned – one to become a soldier again while the other had “become a castaway”.[3] At least nineteen contributions on this subject were printed in The Officer and The Field Officer between 1894 and 1917. These ranged from short letters like the “confession by an ex-officer” which concluded with a call for “life-long endurance”[4] to two-part articles like that by the General on “Conservation of Officers”.[5] Putting one’s hand to the plough and then turning back was considered a serious matter and a cause for great anxiety.
Fortunately some saw the errors of their ways and returned – an editorial writer in 1900 observed that, “it must be gratifying to the General and Field Officers alike that the year now closing has been marked by the return of a larger number of ex-officers to the ranks, in different capacities, than has any previous period of our history.”[6] The actual numbers were not given however.
An earlier issue shared that Brigadier Miles, after resigning and going to take work in America, has given up that work and come back again to the Army, expressing his deep sorrow for having, in a fit of depression and discouragement, left its ranks. He has been re-accepted, with the rank of Major, and is in charge of a Division. His advice to people who think they can be happier or better off under any other flag is that it is all a lie of the devil, and that they should stick to the Yellow, Red, and Blue. Ex-Commissioner Adams has also returned to the fold. He has acknowledged his sins and unfaithfulness, and confessed, with tears, to have wrongly done and said many things against the Army, its leaders, and his comrades, which he now regrets and acknowledges to have been untrue. He is re-accepted, with the rank of Captain. Pray for him.[7]
Evidently the higher they climbed, the further they fell. Too delightful to omit is the following:
We regret to report the resignation of Colonel Boon. He has left the Army with a view to joining the Independent Labour Party, in the hopes of securing by direct political agitation and law reform the results which we believe can best and indeed only be achieved by salvation. We can only say that we believe our comrade has made a fatal mistake, which he will regret both in time and in eternity… Who can doubt that a drunkard-saving, slum-visiting, people-converting F.O. ranks far higher in the Heavenly scales than any M.P. in the land.[8]
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Ed Stetzer, dean at Wheaton College, shares in Missional Living; ‘for many years now a lot of us have realized the United States has turned from being a missions sending nation to a mission field as well. Like the shock Lesslie Newbigin (CoE missionary to India)) experienced in 1974 when he returned to a very different Great Britain than he had left 4 decades earlier, we see the need for the gospel in our land is greater than ever.
Two months ago incomprehensible events began to unfold at a dizzying pace. We knew nothing about the looming pandemic corona virus reportedly started in a wet market in Wuhan, China, where live animals, including bats, chickens, goats and sheep are slaughtered and sold most likely with the virus in bats before jumping to humans.Starting with just a handful of hospital admissions linked to a wet market in China, the new coronavirus (Covid-19) has spread at pace around the world, causing unprecedented social and economic change. The Covid-19 crisis rapidly deteriorated from a few cases at a market to a worldwide pandemic infecting millions and causing mass fatalitiesMore than three million people have now been infected globally, with an estimated 192,000 deaths from a virus that has seen several nations shut down completely as they try to curb its spread.’[1] The pandemic issued a stark dose of reality for pastoral ministry. By God’s grace, amid the swelling waves of uncertainty, a sense of gravity and sobriety; the pastoral steadfastness and guidance we witness is encouraging. Nearly every church in the world is presently under some sort of governmental advisory concerning COVID–19. And the church’s leaders and her faithful understand that those in governmental authority are placed there for our good, in accordance with the implementation of the divine plan of Salvation for the well-being of the church. Two of the most common questions posed/posted to me about the pandemic: Is it God’s punishment? And, is this the end tines? God’s judgment against sin is far-reaching extending to the beginning of time.Spiritually speaking, Adam and Eve and all people born after them exist in a state of alienation from God In Ephesians 2:1-3,the Apostle Paul wrote on the doctrine of salvation, and therebyestablished a bedrock of truth upon which rests everything we can know about how we are saved and why we are saved. Many ministers in the south and south-east are decrying the coronavirus as god’s curse. Another minister said the virus is a “plague” sent by god. “My spirit bears witness that this is a genuine plague that is coming upon the earth, and God is about to purge a lot of sin off this planet,” he ranted. He stressed that such a plague is part of the “end times,” a period of tribulations that precedes the second coming of Jesus Christ.
I‘ve lived through six such panic alarm announcements.
As soldiers in The Salvation Army, a part of the universal Christian Church, our missional task is to make known the good news about Jesus Christ and to persuade people to become his followers. We believe that our first parents were created in a state of innocency, but by their disobedience they lost their purity and happiness, and that in consequence of their fall all men have become sinners, totally depraved, and as such are justly exposed to the wrath of God.However, the Army does not seek converts by announcing Jesus’ imminent return and the end of our world. Predictions of apocalyptic events that would result in the destruction of the planet have been made since at least the beginning of the Common Era.[1]More than 110 notable figures, including religious leaders, have been making predictions for the end of the world since the Essenes initiated their wait two thousand years ago on the shores of the Dead Sea, and they’re waiting still. Harold Camping, president of Family Radio, that, at its peak, broadcast to more than 150 markets in the United States was an American radio broadcaster, author and evangelist whose influence spanned more than five decades. Camping’s radio broadcasts placed at the top of as the most prolific modern predictor of ‘the end’ having done so 12 times based on his interpretations of biblical numerology. His most high-profile predication was for May 21, 2011, the date that he calculated to be exactly 7,000 years after Noah climbed aboard and camped-down on the ark, the vessel in the Genesis flood narrative. When the date passed without incident, he declared his math to be off and pushed back the end by 5 months. Other high profile doomsters include; Martin Luther, Christopher Columbus, Grigori Rasputin, the Shakers, John Wesley, Herbert W. Armstrong, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jim Jones, Pat Robertson, Louis Farrakhan, Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins, and James Dobson. These areas of anxiety are very real. However, reminded of our inadequacy in this tumultuous period, we take heart by lifting our shortcomings to the Lord recognizing a more desperate dependence on his power. Polls conducted found that the number of people who believe the world will end in their lifetime, is 22% in the US. Belief in the apocalypse is most prevalent in people with lower rates of education, lower household incomes, and those under the age of 35. In the UK in 2015, 23% of the general public believed the apocalypse was likely to occur in their lifetime, compared to 10% of experts from the Global Challenges Foundation. The general public believed the likeliest cause would be nuclear war, while experts thought it would be artificial intelligence. Only 3% of Britons thought the end would be caused by the Last Judgement, compared to 16% of Americans. Between one and three percent of people from both countries said the apocalypse would be caused by zombies or alien invasion. COVID-19 has jump-started churches, mosques, temples and synagogues and changed long observed celebrated rituals in an effort to contain the spread of the virus. The faithful around the world are changing the way they do things.
The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.Psalm 24:1
This is my Father's world.
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let the earth be glad.
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let the earth be glad.
Maltbie Babcock
END PART ONE
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