God Loves Charleston

On Wednesday the 17^th June, Dylan Roof, a 21-year old male walked into the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and shot dead nine people who were attending a Bible Study in the church. Among the dead was the Reverend Clementa Pickney the church pastor and a state senator. Immediately after the killings, the usual questions and statements were asked and raised. “God’s dead”, “Is God alive?”, “If there’s a God, why didn’t he stop it?”, “Maybe God is not as powerful as they say he is”. Sigh!

The troubling thing is that Christians, even pastors have these thoughts and ask these questions. However while it’s okay to have these worries and doubts, the only way they can erase these doubts and answer these questions is only by going to God’s revealed word, the Bible. Psalm 115:16 says that “The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth has He given to the children of men.” John 4:24 goes further to say that “God is a Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Hebrews 1:14 tells us that “Are not the angels all ministering spirits sent to minister to the heirs of salvation?” If we understand that God is a spirit and the angels and God live in the same place, then what these verses tell us is that the Heavens are for spirits while the earth is for humans.

The Bible makes us understand that we are spirits with a soul and we live in a body. With our spirits we connect with the heavens, God’s own or the devil’s own. With our souls we feel and express emotions. With our bodies we interact with the world around us. While we know that God is a spirit, the fact is that spirits are not legal in the earth. God is only legal in the earth through human agents in answer to the prayers of individuals. That is mainly how miracles happen. But the fact is that we live in a fallen world where crazy things happen because as the Bible says “The heart of man is desperately evil.”

Tragedies will happen. At times we will lose loved ones when we are not ready to let them go. Horrible things will happen in the world that will be broadcast on the news that will make us wonder: “Is God in control?” Yes he is. The Bible tells us that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. He owns the earth. Which then leads to the question, “Why did he let it happen?”, the answer to that is “He didn’t. He gave the earth to men. The evil in the hearts of men makes them commit heinous crimes. “Does that mean God is helpless?” No. God set the rules by which the earth runs. While he is God, he chooses to abide by the rules he has set to govern the world in that spirits are illegal in the earth. However because crazy things happen in the world, at times we fail to see or understand the love of God because of the bad things that happen. No matter how long we live on the earth, we will never have the answers to all the questions we have. We should however take comfort in the fact that he has promised to never leave nor forsake us. He also promises to comfort us when crazy things happen. That should comfort us in the midst of our troubles.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers and LOST, BUT FOUND.

Why I Think George Zimmerman Is Guilty

Trayvon Martin is dead. The man who shot and killed him, George Zimmerman is a free man, acquitted of all charges by a jury comprised of six wise women who are his peers. They say they acquitted him after considering all the facts in light of the stand your ground law in Florida. The people of Sandford and the state of Florida have in effect told us that George Zimmerman lawfully and legally killed Trayvon Martin because Zimmerman was afraid for his life. They have told us that Goerge Zimmerman did the right thing in shooting to death an unarmed seventeen year old boy. What this means is that Trayvon Martin was at fault for his own death. As I write, Trayvon Martin’s parents are still searching for justice for their slain son. Whether they will ever find it is extremely unlikely.

Zimmerman’s lawyers took pains to stress that there was no racial profiling involved in their client’s decision to accost Martin. According to them, Martin was wearing a hoodie and therefore looked suspicious. The hoodie apparently was the favourite attire of gang members in the area so Zimmerman honestly felt that Martin was out to commit a crime. This is beyond belief. A top with a hoodie is an article of clothing and nothing more. A lot of colleges and high schools in America issue tops with hoodies with the college logo to their students. Some of my favourite bands like Kutless sell tops with hoodies as band merchandise. Are we then saying that because a top with a hoodie is the favourite attire of gang members then anyone who wears one must be a gang member? In my personal opinion, I do not believe it was the hoodie alone that lead to Zimmerman deeming that Martin looked suspicious. It is my personal opinion and belief that it was Martin’s colour in conjunction with the hoodie that led to him being accosted.

Whether or not Zimmerman racially profiled Martin is something we’ll probably never know. While racism is a terrible thing, President Obama has recently spoken of his own experiences of racism as an African American so it’s nothing new. For me, the issue of race though important, is not the most essential aspect of the case. In life, we are given different instructions and we are expected to obey them. A child is instructed by the parents not to speak to or accept a gift from strangers. We are told to look left, right and left again when crossing the street. A soldier in Afghanistan or a policeman in New York knows that obeying an instruction could be the difference between him living or dying or putting his colleagues at risk. Forget about the gung-ho policeman in Lethal Weapon who won’t wait for back up because he doesn’t want the bad guys to escape or he wants the glory. That’s a film. In real life, not waiting for back up could be fatal. In life, an instruction is not meant for your safety alone. It’s also meant for the safety of the other people involved. I'm sure no pedestrian wants to be the reason why a motorist swerves into building or wraps his car around a lamp post.

We all know that Zimmerman was told by the police not to get out of his car or accost Martin. He did both. I personally have not heard anything about the number of robberies, murders, burglaries or muggings that Zimmerman personally stopped by reporting suspicious individuals or accosting them. So why did Zimmerman leave his car to accost Martin? Did he have some super hero complex? It’s likely he did. Did he think he could over power Martin if things got rough? Maybe he thought so. But I don’t think those were the main reason. In my personal opinion, the main reason Zimmerman stepped out of his car that fateful night was because he was packing. He had a gun and he knew how to use it. The question then is, did Zimmerman leave the safety of his with the express intention of killing Martin? No, I personally do not think so. However, by his own admission, he thought Martin looked suspicious. Zimmerman stepped out of his car that night and took his gun with him. In my personal opinion, he took the gun with him because somewhere at the back of his mind, he had every intention of using the gun if the need arose.

A juror in the matter has told us about how the jury felt Zimmerman feared for his life. I must state here that I find Juror-B37’s references to Martin and Jentzel repugnant in the extreme. I also find it strange that she seems to have a very friendly outlook toward Zimmerman evidenced by the way she kept referring to him by his first name. In my opinion, Zimmerman set off the chain of events which culminated in Martin’s death when he disobeyed the instruction of the police and stepped out of his car. He would not have had to be afraid for his life if he had just stayed in the car. For me, at that point, he became guilty of the death of Martin.

If Zimmerman was a policeman or a member of any of the armed forces, he would probably face some internal administrative panel to answer for his disobedience. Unlike what happened in court, I doubt if he would have got off so lightly. But he’s not. So he walks away a free man without any care in the world or having to answer to anybody for his actions. The state of New York via its Supreme Court told us child pornography is not a crime. Now the state of Florida in conjunction with Sandford have told us loud and clear that it doesn’t matter if you kill an unarmed seventeen year old boy, even if you were the one that initiated the confrontation that led to the boy’s death as long you were afraid for your life.

Dr. Mike Murdoch is one of the greatest teachers with regard to understanding and applying wisdom to everyday living. According to him, the instructions you obey determine your future. By disobeying an instruction, Zimmerman cut short Martin’s life. However, he has created a future for himself. He will forever be known as the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin in cold blood. I hope that’s something he can live with.

Abortion: Murder, the American Way (Part 2)

So, the question then is what is abortion?

I believe that in a society where government distrubutes contraceptives free of charge to girls as young as eleven or twelve and children as young as 15 or less can get abortions,  there is a fundamental problem. One of the fundamental problems with western society is the issue of identity. Thanks to the curriculum being taught in schools, children grow up being taught that they are nothing more than slightly more intelligent chimpanzees. As they grow older, Hollywood then passes across its own message that we are nothing more than dogs with urges. Urges that need to be acted upon. When you couple that with the overriding message of freedom, you have a distressing situation. Government is busy gleefully handing out contraceptives and can't be bothered to tell people that there is another way. Parents on the other hand don't have the moral authority ro tell their children what to do because when they were that age they did the same thing although they are now older and wiser. Which is why more teenage girls are getting pregnant at a younger age because no one tells them there is another way. The only message they are getting is that that they are free to do as they please.

Thanks to the pill, American women seem to no longer think that pregnancies are caused by sex. I really don't know whether they have gone back to the idea that storks bring babies, but thanks to the advance of science, American women now get shocked when nature asserts itself and they get pregant after sleeping with a man. They seem not to realise or want to accept that getting pregnant is a time tested consequence of sleeping with a man.

So back to the question. What then is abortion? If getting pregnant is a consequence of sleeping with someone, then abortion is a reaction to that reality. What liberals say is that abortion is a choice. That is disingenious and quite a blatant lie. When a woman meets a man, she has different choices. She can choose to wait before sleeping with him to find out if they are both ready for commitment so that she is not left holding the baby. Even if a woman were to decide to sleep with a man without knowing if either of them was ready for a commitment, either to themselves or a child, there is still a choice as to what contraceptive to use (of which abortion is not one as explained in my last post). However, from the moment a child is concieved, there can no longer be talk of "choice". Or at least not in the way it is used. The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary defines choice "as an act of choosing between two or more possibilities". When a child has been concieved, there can no longer be talk of choice with regard to contraception because life has already been concieved. There is an inevitability about the situation. The choice that arises at that moment is whether to allow the child to live or to kill it. To dispose of the life created like so much unwated baggage. Just because the parents who unthinkingly decided to create life no longer want the life created because it would cramp their style.

In that case, abortion is no longer about choice. Abortion then is a result of the fact that one person or the two people involved in creating life did not think through their choices before hand before creating life and the consequences of such choices. We live in a society where people nowadays are always trying to evade the consequences of their actions. Abortion is one way women have been evading the consequences of the actions they take. However it is quite sad that the millions of unborn children aborted over the years are the ones who have to pay the price of the fact that their parents didn't think.

Abortion: Murder, the American Way

As the election in America approaches, I have been struck by the genuine hostility between the two major camps in the election, especially the seeming hostility between the two major players. I have also been struck by how much lies are being peddled by the liberal wing in American politics over the issue of abortion.

I have come to understand that the issue of abortion is arguably the single most divisive issue in this election and the liberals are using all kinds of scare tactics to get women voters on their side. Like George Bush’s “War on Terror”, anyone who speaks out against abortion is automatically labelled a misogynist and someone who is waging a “War on Women”. I understand that writing about the issue of abortion might not be too popular but I believe the truth needs to be told.

Abortion: What it is not.

Supporters of a woman’s right to control the reproductive process and the right to determine when she gets pregnant or whether she even gets pregnant or not will tell you that abortion is a form of contraception. This is a lie.

Dictionary.com defines the word contraception as the “deliberate prevention of conception by any of various drugs, techniques or devices.” The etymology of the word contraception tells you that the word itself is made up of two words, “contra” and “conception”. The word contra in the sense in which it is used means “against” while conception in defined as the “act of conceiving”. So in the full sense of the word, contraception, or a contraceptive, is used to stop conception. It is against conception. I’m sure that even the most fanatical supporters of abortion will agree that abortion does not stop conception. The most prominent fact about abortion is the fact that it takes life after the life has been conceived. It is quite clear that abortion is not a method of contraception.

If abortion is then not a method of contraception, what is it?

That is a question we shall seek to answer in subsequent posts.