Confronting Evil

Earlier this morning, I read and commented a bit on Psalm 121. Then I came across this:

The bottom line is simple to state but far more complex to practice and effectively put in place. Evil must be confronted. To confront evil, it must first be identified and branded as such. And as a Christian, I must not confront evil with evil. And there is where the rubber meets the road, there is where the struggle becomes real, there is where, if I can add a bottom line to the bottom line, I need help.

And so I commit this year to be constantly seeking that help. Sadly, because I know myself, I’ll need help in adhering to that commitment but I know from whence that help originates.

Source: What will the New Year bring?

How must a Christian confront evil?

Part of the answer: with good and with blessing.

What’s more of the answer?

Now what I wrote earlier this morning: My Help.

Asking vs Demanding

Which will get you farther in life?

The American Center for Law and Justice has sent a letter to Lane Community College in Eugene, Ore., demanding that it rehire Barry Sommer and reinstate his course “What is Islam?” or face legal action.

The noncredit course was cleared by LCC officials and had been posted for registration on Dec. 1. Using the Quran as one of its textbooks, the course was designed to help students better understand the Islamic doctrine so they could be better informed to grasp the issues in news on Islam, Muslims and the Middle East.

But shortly after Sommer appeared on a local news broadcast promoting the course, CAIR Council on American-Islamic Relations e-mailed LCC and asked for the course to be cut. The group questioned Sommer’s qualifications to teach the course, saying he is president of the local chapter of Act! for America, which it has accused of being anti-Islamic.

Source: Legal Group Demands Community College Reinstate Canceled Islam Class

ACLJ “demanded” (I count four uses of the term or derivatives in the entire piece).

CAIR “asked.”

Lesson: You get farther by asking than by demanding.

Disclaimer: The lesson has plenty of exceptions and exemptions.

December 31

It was a busy day — a second gained here, a day lost there, a blue moon eclipsed over this way, an evil empire ditched (perhaps), a now-evil light bulb lit, a quad of Beatles on the way out, a state divided in the East, and thus goes a busy day in history (which is alleged to repeat itself, you know).

1384 — John Wycliffe (the Morning Star of the Reformation) dies.

1695 — A window tax is imposed in England, causing many householders to brick up windows to avoid the tax. Coming soon to a window near you? Read it all

Neat Little Things from God

Special Request

I made a special request of the Lord recently. Never would have done that in the past. It happened on a day that I was overcome with a sensation of intense beauty. To be overcome with beauty is to know a moment of transcendence, and to have that is to desire it again.

I asked the Lord if he would grant me to taste beauty every day, even just a fleeting glimpse of it. He knew what I meant: I was requesting not only to be presented with objective beauty, but also the subjective apparatus—to be given the capacity to be overwhelmed.

Then I went on my way and did not always remember my petition. But the Lord remembered, and daily he has been coming through with delight. One day it was….

Each time this happened, I suddenly remembered that I had asked the Lord, and so I recognized that these were no random cosmic acts but intimate winks from my Father, the giver of perfect gifts, with Whom there is no shadow of turning.

Again I say, Andrée Seu!

Above all, love God!

since November 9, 2005