Monday, May 16, 2005

Making Your Family Look Sane   If you've read Brad's treatment of "Daddy's Girl" over at Sadly, No!, you might be interested to learn a little about Sarah Faith's daddy.  Well, it turns out that he is Steve Schlissel, the pastor of Messiah's Covenent Community Church in New York; he's a Dominionist, and a regular contributer to the Chacedon Report.  Here's part of an interview he gave to Second American Revolution Question:-- But wouldn't a Christian Republic run according to God's Law become oppressive to non-Christians? You have to understand a couple of things to understand these capital cases. Number one is that there is good reason to just believe that the capital cases, except for murder, were worst case offenses. That is to say that you needn't have administered capital punishment. Banishment might have been a substitute that was acceptable. There could have been negotiated settlements for various offenses. The one area where God said you must execute is murder. The murderer shall surely be put to death. (Gen. 9:6). So, witches, homosexuals, those who worship idols, and disobediant children might just get banished from the country, if they were lucky. Now in these other cases we have the expression of God's wrath and vengeance on these sins that are appropriate in a covenant-keeping culture, that is in a faith environment where people are self-consciously committed to the Lord and His Law, and in cases where there is a flagrant "in your face" violation. There is not really too much to fear. Even if the Law was administered, it would have the result of driving homosexuality underground, which is exactly where the Law of God would keep it. See, living in a theocracy wouldn't actually be so repressive -- gays wouldn't really be killed if they would just stay totally closeted, and do nothing to attract any attention, like God intended. Now the converse of this is what we face in our day, is not so much the danger of homosexuals being killed, but of Christians being killed in our nation, or at least persecuted and segregated, because only one group can occupy a prominent place in the public square. Yes, it's the Christians these days who are in danger of being killed, not the homosexuals.  Well, Christians aren't really in mortal peril, but they could be removed from their prominent place in the public square by those who believe in a separation of church and state, and that's almost like being killed. It's either going to be God's people out there enjoying the neighborhoods, breathing the air or it's going to be God's enemies owning the public square and polluting it. It's not ever both. So, either the Christians will be allowed to breathe, or God enemies (everybody who doesn't want our nation's laws based on some kooky interpretation of the Bible) will be out there acting like they own the public square, polluting it with their foul secularism.  It's got to be one or the other.  So which would we rather have governing the public square, righteousness or wickedness? I know when I look now I see wickedness. When I look out at my town's public square, I see a baseball diamond -- I'm not ready to make a moral judgment on it. Anyway, this is the man of whom Sarah Faith said I've been Daddy's girl from Day One. My first word was "Dada." I've always wanted to do what Daddy was doing, go where Daddy was going, read what Daddy was reading, say what Daddy was saying. We have the same sense of humor, preferences, pet peeves, strengths and weak-nesses So, what ever happened to Sarah Faith?  This is what we learn from the bio of a piece that Steve wrote about home-schooling: Sarah Faith, their firstborn, completed high school at 15, St. Francis College (magna cum laude) at 18, and received her CPA and MBA by 21; she was married in March of 2002 and is a happy stay-at-home-mom-to-be in the Atlanta area. Unfortunately, all the other kids are all losers compared to Sarah Faith.  Sad, that. Additonally, from Sarah Faith's father-in-law's Christian Testimony, we learn that she has at least two children now (Miriam and Jireh) -- so she's used her 3 years of married life productively.  Anyway, all you Sarah Faith fans will probably be interested in a piece she wrote when she was single:, Kissing, Necking, and Petting before Marriage There are those who would argue that it is not wrong to kiss before marriage. To refute this we could look at statistics of couples who thought they could start the fire and shut it at will, and found they were wrong. We could state the number of pregnancies that started as "innocent" goodnight kisses. Yes, kissing can make you pregnant. We could look at all the practical reasons not to kiss before marriage. 1.  It can spread germs.  2.  It can smear your lipstick.  Well, those are all the practical reasons I can think of. Sarah Faith goes on to define the kind of kissing she is talking about: "that kind of kissing with someone other than one's spouse which is inappropriate with a sibling, in activity and motive."  After reading "Daddy's Girl," I don't want to know what kind of kissing is appropriate with a parent. Kissing in this way outside of the bonds of marriage neither proves nor enhances true love. Rather, it proves, demonstrates, enhances a physical attraction that is Biblically classified as lust when not consecrated in marriage. While the physical aspect is a necessary ingredient in a marriage, it is not necessary for a premarital relationship. Rather, it hinders true communication between the couple. Why is premarital sex wrong? Isn't one reason that we are to keep ourselves pure for the person who will one day be our spouse? We may not have sex with anyone who is not our lawful spouse. Those who are single do not have a lawful spouse. Therefore, singles may not have sex. End of story.  And now you know all you need to know about sex -- you may not have any if you are single. Now let me ask you a question. How happy would you be if, after taking wedding vows, your beloved passionately kissed someone other than you on the lips? I daresay you wouldn't like it much. If you would, then you are not being an imitator of God in His jealousy for what is His own, and should repent. Repent ye of not imitating God's jealousy! Well, what right have we to kiss someone now in a way that is not lawful later? Can we not extend this to say: We may not kiss anyone who isn't our lawful spouse; someone who's single has no lawful spouse; therefore singles may not kiss? And can we not extend this futher to say: We may not file a joint income tax return with anyone who isn't our lawful spouse, and someone who is single has no lawful spouse; therefore singles may not file income tax returns. "Show me a verse that says 'No Kissing'", you say. "Scripture doesn't even mention it. You can't make me feel guilty for doing something the Bible doesn't forbid." There are many expressions of passion that are not specifically recognized in Scripture yet which are wrong to engage in outside of marriage. Can you find me a Scripture passage condemning petting, or other practices that don't go "all the way" to include the act of intercourse, yet involve passion and intimacy between unmarried persons? Sarah Faith is right, there aren't any -- so, I guess she's proved that petting is okay with God. How about a passage that condemns homosexuals kissing? Can't find one --so that must be okay too. Or one that says you can't smash your neighbor's windshield? Wouldn't that be covered by such verses as Exodus 22:6, which says that if you burn your neighbor's field, you have to make restitution. You can't, because they don't exist. And yet I hardly expect you to condone those practices. The key is that these actions are subsumed under the broader heading of "sexual immorality." Smashing your neighbor's windshield is considered sexual immorality?  That sounds kind of sick (and kind of like that Cronenberg movie Crash). I would submit that premarital kissing, because of its very nature, also falls into this category. The Heidelberg Catechism assures us that some sins are more heinous than others. Just because one sin is less heinous than another doesn't mean that it is not, therefore, sin. Christ himself warns us that if we hate our brother we have already murdered him in our heart. Therefore, hating our brother is sin. It is not punishable here on earth, but such a thought will be judged.(Matthew 5:22) So, if you've ever thought about kissing someone you're not married to, you will be punished for it after you die.  See, you're not supposed to have a sexual orientation until after you're married (as a guy named Garrett once said). So, no kissing until after marriage.  End of story. 8:04:07 AM     comment [] trackback []   Who Said It?   Time to announce our Mystery Guests from last time, and honor those heroes who were the first to identify them. 1.   Ben Shapiro  -- D. Sidhe 2.   Judson Cox   -- D. Sidhe 3.  Thomas Sowell -- Vivek (Click the link to check out his blog, Uncivil Discourses.  Do it now!) 4.  Justin Darr   -- Vivek 5.   Mike Adams   -- D. Sidhe 6.   John Stossel -- D. Sidhe 7.  Walter E. Williams  -- Vivek 8.  Andrew Sullivan -- Vivek Plus, a style point to Tara for the following: #1 is Donald Rumsfeld (he was condemning "morale," not "morals." #2, unexpectedly, was the Spanish Inquisition. #3 has never been anywhere near Bangladesh. #4 was Pavlov's cat (he hears a bell and does nothing). #5, as noted above, was Hedwig of the Angry Itch. #6 was Gary Aldrich, only it wasn't sugar. #7 was channeling the spirit of Wal-Mart. And #8 was the newly out(ed) Mayor of Spokane, Jim West. Close enough, right? Congratulations to our winners, whose victories get them slowly closer to some of our fabulous prizes, such as this not-yet released book: Unhinged : Exposing Liberals Gone Wild by Michelle Malkin Book Description A hilarious proof of the utter hypocrisy of Democrats who fashion themselves as role models of tolernace and civility. Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc. (October 25, 2005) I'm sure none of us can wait for this one! But on to our Mystery Guests for today.  So, who said the following? 1.  He has a magazine TV column, so now he has an excuse to spend all night watching Star Trek DVDs.  Well, an excuse that doesn't explicitly involve marital problems and a mispent life. I don’t know why I’m sounding so apologetic. Maybe because I know how deep into the hole I’m going to go here. Ah well. If I’d written a 6000 word essay for the New York Review of Books about the social implications of Buck Rogers (“Rayguns and Auschwitz: views of utopian militarism in the totalitarian age”) I would get respect Hey, I'm sure Jonah Goldberg respects him!  (Sorry, but that's the most comfort I can offer.)  2.  This guy isn't the country's worst blogger, but he may be the most annoying.  The New York Times' Frank Rich isn't the country's worst columnist--that distinction belongs to Paul Krugman--but he may be the weirdest. Rich is a former drama critic who, for reasons no one remembers, was given a political column by the Times some years ago. I'm sure Rich has many interests, but the only one I've ever seen mentioned in his columns is homosexuality. [...] Today, as in Drury's book, only liberals out their enemies. This is particularly relevant, perhaps, to Frank Rich, because Rich himself is a famous "outer." It was Rich who outed David Brock, a formerly conservative journalist. Brock didn't kill himself, thankfully, but he couldn't take the heat, and became a strident left-winger, which pretty much ended his career. Well, it ended Brock's career as a Scaife minion, a job this Mystery Guest seems to be bucking for. 3. Well, sure, this Mystery Guest was "wrong" about that Schiavo talking points memo, but it's not the same thing as what Newsweek did, in that he didn't kill anyone and Newsweek did. I really think that calling Newsweek's blunder "the press's Abu Ghraib" is unfair to the low-lifes who carried out the Abu Ghraib abuses. After all, they didn't even hurt anyone, let alone kill them. And the people they abused were almost certainly terrorists. One can't say the same for the people who were murdered in the riots that foreseeably followed Newsweek's story. It's nice that this Mystery Guest is looking out for the low-lifes who abuse and torture prisoners in their care (hey, low-lifes have to stick together).  And anyway, sodomizing somebody with a glow stick is just good-natured fun, while believing a source who got part of the story wrong is premeditated mass murder (and of people who aren't even terrorists)! 4. Love tips for girls, by the guy who wrote about the Runaway Bride in last week's column (he's apparently abandoned the Bible as a source for his sermons, in favor of the Hollywood Star.) Hey girls, if your husband ever gets convicted for chasing children with a chainsaw, and then gets released from our “justice system” without having his frontal lobe scraped with a cement trowel . . . you might not want to let him around you and yours ever again. [...] What is wrong with the woman who’ll let a man—husband or not—with a rap sheet that includes twenty plus violent offenses, with one that entails wielding a chainsaw at kids, who, in addition, stated several times he wanted to kill her, still be allowed to share air with her? Of course, Hobbs didn't didn't chase any children with a chainsaw, and Sheila Hollabaugh was never married to him.  But that doesn't mean that our columnist  isn't a qualified marriage counselor, although as far as we know, he isn't.  Anyway, just because he doesn't know what he's talking about in regard to the case he chose to write about doesn't mean that he doesn't have a point when he advises you not to stick with a man who has been convicted of wielding a chainsaw at kids. 5.  Advice to graduates, from a man who claims that Don Rumsfeld didn't hire him as an intern because "Don's impression of me was that I was kind of a detached, impractical, academic type." My college experience, though, began at a place called Yale -- but I didn't finish there. Actually, instead, I dropped out after a few semesters. Actually, dropped out isn't quite accurate. (Laughter.) Was "asked to leave" would be more like it. (Laughter.) Twice. (Laughter.) And the second time around, they said, don't come back. (Laughter.) Getting kicked out of Yale is funny, and is something that I'm sure has happened to all of us. You know what else is funny?  Drunk driving, and the abuse of alcohol that most certainly contributed to our esteemed speaker's problems at Yale.  So, young people, if you happen to spend so much time boozing it up at college that you get arrested a couple of times for driving under the influence, and flunk out of school, don't think of it as screwing up, think of it as an amusing anecdote you can recount in commencement addresses. 6. From a press account of another famous American's speech at a college graduation:  The conservative commentator's speech turned political quickly, telling the crowd Bill and Hillary Clinton jokes. [Mystery Guest] still managed to send the former students off with words of wisdom as inspiration. "Here at Liberty the fire of your freedom and your faith has been light... That fire has the ability to bring others out of moral darkness. We need you now and with your courage I believe that our country's greatest days are ahead of us," [MG] said. Come on baby, light my fire with your morality, as practiced by telling  devout young audiences a bunch of Bill and Hillary Clinton jokes, just like Jesus would have done. Here's more about this Mystery Guest from another news story: Falwell called [MG] a rising star among conservative leaders. He stood beside [MG] prior to the address as university Provost Boyd Rist presented him with an honorary degree. “He speaks the truth,” Falwell said. He is becoming a “powerful voice to the causes most special to us.” Hearing that one is becoming a voice to the causes most special to Falwell would be enough to scare any normal person straight, but I doubt it will even cause this guy a second thought -- that's just how scary he is. 5:13:18 AM     comment [] trackback []

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