Moral Child Abuse

"Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him." - Proverbs 22:13

How often do we hear it said when there are incidents of children doing wrong that it is the fault of the parents? So often that is has become almost cliche; but it is also the truth. Parents are supposed to be the moral teachers of the young, raising them to strive for something more than self-gratification at all costs. Sadly, too many children either have parents who are so self-absorbed themselves that they do not care enough to provide moral direction. On the other hand, we also see parents who are so bent on indulging their children out of a warped sense of love, that they give the child the impression that the world does indeed revolve around them.

Regardless of which type of failing a parent possesses, the result can be harmful not only for the child, but for society. Usually, it is easier to see the results of the neglectful parent in the form of children who are literally uncared for, ignored or even openly abused. The child who is over-indulged, however, is usually less noticed except in rare cases. Perhaps you can recall the
cheerleader mom who in the 1990's tried to hire a hit man to kill the mother of one of the other girls competing for a position on a cheerleading squad.

Now we have another case of mother who has gone to obscene lengths to spoil her child and in the process has set an extremely poor example for a child who needs her mother to be a moral role model.

The gist of the story is this: Mom wants her 6 year old daughter to win an essay contest to win a Hanna Montana makeover and four tickets to a sold out concert. Nothing wrong with that right? But, they submit an essay about the girl's father being killed in Iraq and it turns out to be a lie. Good coverage can be found here. You can hear the mom's desperate attempts to justify herself to a reporter here.

Clearly this mom intended to present an essay that would use sympathy to increase her daughter's chances of winning. But, now that she has been caught she is using the childish argument that she never claimed it was true, it was just an essay - a story.

It's easy to go off on a tirade and say things like "what a scum bag!" I know it's easy because that was my first reaction. But the lesson here is how important it is for parents to be moral teachers. My teenage son, upon hearing of this said he wasn't surprised and "that's what the world is coming to." Sadly, he's right.

First, we must realize that what this woman did is something that any of us could have done. It is part of our nature to be selfish and willing to gratify our wants in ways that are immoral. In Christian theology we call that possessing a sinful nature. All of us have that nature and all of us have acted wrongly (i.e. sinned) because of it.

Self-discipline is required to control the sinful nature and to act according to moral (i.e. God's) truth when our impulse is to ignore that truth. In this incident, the mother failed to exercise such discipline; just as all of us have and will fail at times.

We can all learn from this incident. This effort to win tickets was a great teaching moment that was squandered. In writing the essay, mom could have taught lessons in doing your best and being fair when we are in competition with others. Instead, she indulged the sinful nature by teaching her daughter a "do whatever it takes to win" ethic. Then, when the lie was exposed, she taught her daughter about denial and self-justification rather than taking responsibility and making things right.

Parents are the key to moral training, as Proverbs 22:6 says: "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Parents who indulge their children's every desire fail to provide such training just as surely as parents who neglect their children outright. The evidence of that failure in our society is everywhere. Quite simply, we have too many adults who never learned to stop acting like children because their parents failed to teach them right from wrong.

So, while it is easy to condemn and vilify, the important thing here is to call for doing what is right after that which was done wrong. Sometimes that involves the humbling experience of admitting, even to your own child, that you have done wrong. After all, when they see us struggling against our sinful natures in order to do what is right, they learn the lesson that morality is a life-long struggle for excellence and that failure, when it comes, can be dealt with properly or improperly. In confession there is forgiveness, in repentance there is a commitment to do better.

This mother can still salvage the lesson in all this. For her daughter's sake and hers, let's pray that she finds the strength to do it. For ourselves, let's pray that when we fail, we have the clarity of judgement to admit it and rely on God, the source not only of the moral truth we sin against, but also the source of forgiveness when we fall. For more on that go here.

The War On Christmas

First off, let me wish you a Merry Christmas!

Every year it seems we are treated (or subjected to) claims that there is "War on Christmas" and vehement denials that such a war exists. Some Christians bemoan the fact that the word Christmas itself has been removed from the season in order to dilute the fact that we celebrate the birth of the Savior. Also bemoaned are efforts to drop traditional carols from school plays (or the dropping of all such pageants), the banning of nativity scenes from the public square and the on-going efforts to mask the Christian nature of the holiday.

Clearly, there are those who want to push all mention of religion out of the public sphere. But, why do Christians get so upset over this? This is exactly what our Lord told us would happen.

Go back to that first Christmas. We know from the Biblical account that most of the world missed the significance of the birth of Jesus. Indeed, when the Magi came to Jerusalem and asked about "the one born King of the Jews" it took the people, the religious leaders, and Herod by surprise and they were "disturbed" by the Magi's inquiries. Other translations use such words as "agitated," "troubled," and "deeply disturbed." The fulfillment of the promise the Jewish world had awaited for centuries was not celebrated but feared!

Herod goes so far as to consult the priests and the teachers of the law regarding the prophesies concerning the Messiah. He is told where the child was to be born according to God's Word. Yet neither he nor the religious leaders bother to follow the Magi in welcoming the Messiah. Instead, out of jealously Herod plots to kill the Christ child and asks the Magi to report the child's location to him. When God foils his plan by warning the Magi not to report back to Herod, the evil ruler has all the male children in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were under the age of 2. Of course there is a war on Christmas, and it has been waged since the very first Christmas.

There are three things we as Christians must recall during these times. First, that the world is fallen and full of sin. It does not welcome God or His Son. It didn't then and we should not be so surprised when it doesn't today. Jesus himself warned us of this again and again. The Christian is to expect rejection just as the world rejected Christ:

All men will hate you because of me... (Mt. 10:22)

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. that is why the world hates you...They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that i warned you... (John 15:18-16:4)

Put another way; and I wish I could remember the exact quote and the citation, "why do we act surprised and offended when the darkness is dark?"

Second, this isn't our fight alone. God did not allow evil men to destroy his salvation plan when they sought to kill the infant Jesus, and he is still in control today. As Job said: "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted" (Job 42:2). This is not to say we will not have troubles and hard times. Again, Jesus warned us, but he also reassures us:

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16:33

Finally, our mission is to be like a light in the darkness and to reach those who are lost. In this we must be very careful. When Christians focus on "protecting our rights" in the political arena, we miss the mission we are called to. Such an adversarial relationship is usually not a very good witness to those who need to hear about Jesus. You don't find the early church staging protest marches, writing letters to the editor, or demanding their rights when they were persecuted. Instead they boldly carried out the Great Commission.

I say all this, because I am often as guilty as anyone of focusing on the the wrong part of this issue. Too often, I would rather win the argument than the soul. Too often, I take offense at the world and rage against it, rather than trying to be like Jesus, who lovingly entered darkness in order to save as many as possible.

As Christians, our focus is often too narrow and worldly when it comes to matters such as the "War On Christmas." Those battles are merely part of the ongoing war of a sinful world against its God. We who are Christians are on the front line and our mission is not to protect manger scenes or see school kids sing carols or have the store clerks say "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays." Our mission is the same as Jesus'; to love those in darkness and to help bring them to the Messiah whose birth we celebrate today.

A Surrender

You simply must read this post at Gates of Vienna. It is in regard to the Sudanese imprisonment of the English teacher over the naming of a teddy bear Muhammad.

You know the story. She faced imprisonment because this is classified as disrespect for religion (why do I suspect that disrespecting non-Muslim faiths would be OK in the Sudan?). The masses in the streets demanded execution and brandished swords as if they were ready to carry it out. Now she is going home because the Brittish government intervened and secured a pardon for her.

All well and good for her, but as is pointed out over at Gates of Vienna, we should be shocked by the words of those who are not on the backward, medieval, barbarian side of this issue. The behavior of the Sudanese was an absolute travesty and yet Gates of Vienna quotes from this AP story:

Lord Nazir Ahmed, who met with al-Bashir earlier Monday along with Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, said the case was an “unfortunate misunderstanding” and stressed that Britain respected Islam.

He hoped “the relations between our two countries will not be damaged by this incident,” Ahmed told reporters at the presidential palace after Monday’s meeting.

Just what, pray tell, is all this conciliatory comment about? Why the kowtowing to these brutish thugs. Why do the representatives of the West have to practically beg forgiveness and express an attitude that in the end endorses the behavior of a bunch of Islamofascists? No one ever says to them that their laws are too harsh, that their extremism is dangerous, that they violated the human rights of this woman. Instead we see the pathetic spectacle of Western governments bowing before the Islamists and assuming a subservient position. It is disgusting!

Now, that said, there is the issue of all of this being under durress. England wanted to get one of their citizens out of the hands of a cabal of murderers and the teacher cannot be blamed for saying in her written statement:

I have a great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone.

If saying that to the President of a backward nation like Sudan would get you the heck out of their pathetic excuse for a nation, then I can't blame her much. But it is high time we stop this as a culture. We see it all the time and it is nothing less than appeasement in the face of absolute brutality. Danish cartoons, teddy bears, forbidding a peaceful demonstration for fear of upsetting "immigrants" [aka Islamofascists],authors changing their books and art museums pulling exhibits, and on and on it goes.

This is not about respecting a religion, this is about caving in to tyranny! When the west does this it only strengthens the radicals and tells the moderates who may desire reform that they have no allies on our side of the world. This is madness, hasn't anybody read their history of what went on before WWII?

We need a leader with the courage to stand up and call this behavior unacceptable, to call it offensive, to call it barbarism, to proclaim that such governments and faiths deserve no respect and will receive none. To say that relations have been harmed because we expect better from them and owe them no explanations or apologies. Unfortunately there seems to be a big shortage of such leaders throughout the West, including sadly, here.

UPDATE: A good post by Jason Hayes links to an interview of several terrorist leaders by Aaron Kline published on WND. Read their take on the teddy bear incident and other actions committed by the adherants of the religion of peace in regard to Jewish and Christian holy sites and you will realize just how little respect it deserves from the West.