Friday Afternoon, the movie “Australia”

I don’t usually recommend movies for lots of reasons, and I am not suggesting you get the DVD of this one and play it for your Sunday School class, but it was two and a half hours well-invested, I felt. The scenery was incredible — I’m ready to visit Australia — the history lesson was disturbing, the story was powerful, and the background music was excellent. About the latter, when have you ever heard a movie build the background music around “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze”?

Some 25 years ago, James Allen will remember my returning to Columbus, Mississippi, from the funeral of Barbara Hardy’s father in Ripley, Tennessee, and asking him, “What is this music? Ta-da-da-ta-da-dah etc etc?” And he said, “That’s Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Sheep May Safely Graze.'” I thought then and think now, “What an odd name for a classical piece!” And have loved it ever since.

Friday night, Christmas dinner with the Operation NOAH team

David and Wanda Maxwell invited their co-workers and some of their extended friends and supporters to a wonderful sit-down dinner at Zea’s restaurant on St. Charles Avenue. It was excellent in every way — I brought home some of the leftover bread pudding! — but left me feeling oddly frustrated. I mean, I need to be looking for ways to thank these wonderful people for the work they’re doing in rebuilding this city and rescuing the broken lives of our people — and here they are thanking me for the privilege. What are you going to do with folks like this!

Most of the NOAH workers are people from outside the Deep South who put their “other lives” on hold and journeyed here to help us. Most have been here two years or more. We are forever in their debt.

Sunday morning, worship at Riverside Baptist Church in River Ridge

Jim Caldwell is the pastor of this wonderful congregation. After half an hour of spirited Christmas praise, Jim had us turn to Luke 2 and then Acts 1 as he spoke on “From the Cradle to the Cross.” As one who visits in lots of churches and hears many preachers, I admire two things in particular Jim does so well, which I wish every minister of the Lord did equally well….

He talks to his people. He walks around some, steps down off the platform, goes across and sits in a chair by the Christmas tree, and all the time, he’s looking you in the eye and talking to you like it was just the two of you having a personal visit. He’s clear, he’s sharp, and he’s sold out to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jim never loses the awareness that there are new people sitting in the pews for whom much of this is strange. He will say, “Now, we’re coming to the portion of the service we call the invitation,” and he explains what this means and what he will be asking. Earlier, he had said, “We’re now at the time in the service which we call the offering,” and he explained that.

So many of us pastors orate from the pulpit as if every listener was born and raised in a Southern Baptist church and needed no help with the nomenclature. (Note to Ginger: that means “the meanings of the terms”)

Sunday night, a film at Kenner’s First Baptist Church

Know who Ben Stein is? He writes magazine articles and is a frequent TV personality, most recently for the show titled something like “Win Ben Stein’s Money.” A dry, witty, penetrating personality. He’s Jewish and has a Christian world view, if you don’t mind my saying so. His movie, which the church showed Sunday night, has just ended a run in commercial theaters around the country. “Expelled” tells what is happening in this country when good solid men and women in the scientific field go public with their view that there might be something to Intelligent Design regarding the formation of life. He told the stories of one after another who were fired from prestigious universities (including Baylor!) and research institutions.

Using the metaphor of the Berlin Wall, Stein and the various experts he chatted with, accuses the scientific community in this country of walling out any possible speculation of their being a Designer behind the origin of life in the universe. Yet, as he shows, some of the most eloquent advocates of Darwinism (that is, those whose religion is evolution!) when cornered will say that perhaps life on earth originated from aliens visiting this planet. Sounds like “intelligent design,” doesn’t it.

I was pleased to see that Stein interviewed Richard Dawkins whose book, “The God Delusion,” has sold a million copies and who is the guru for the new atheism. Dawkins readily admits he is fighting religion and any concept of God. Stein pinned him to the mat a couple of times, but you’ll need to get the DVD and see for yourself.

Stein said, “What will you do when you die and find yourself facing God?” He said, “I’ll say the same thing George Bernard Shaw said he would if that happened. I’ll say, ‘Sir, why have you gone to so much trouble hiding yourself?'”

I had two thoughts on that. One, Isaiah 45:15 makes the point that He is indeed a God who hides Himself. Two, Jesus said God hides these things from the “wise and prudent” but reveals them to infants, however. (Matthew 11:25)

Listen to the atheistic scientists raving about the “unwashed masses who believe this rot,” and you quickly see who the Word is talking about. Something inside you smiles with thoughts of the day when they get their comeuppance, not unlike the thought expressed throughout the Psalms for the hostile heathens receiving their just due.

The lasting thought I have about the Darwinism stuff is this: “What are the fruits of believing the way these atheistic scientists believe?” The answer is despair, misery, self-centeredness, and an amoral world where everyone seeks his own pleasure. Who wants to live in such a world?

Man was made for better things than his own pleasure at the expense of others.

I would like to point out to the atheistic scientists that it was not their offspring who have done so much to rebuild this city after Hurricane Katrina devastated it. It was Christians. Furthermore, you can go from one side of this nation to the other and count hundreds of colleges and hospitals formed by Christians. But you can count on the fingers of one hand those formed by atheists.

Jesus said it best: “By their fruits you shall know them.” (Matthew 7:20) Even if you didn’t follow any of the scientific arguments, you could look at the lives of the two groups of people — the atheists and the believers — and have no trouble making up your mind.

Bill Maher, the so-called comedian and actor, was shown in the movie saying that religion is the most dangerous thing in the world and needs to be regulated. I knew he was a strange bird, but didn’t know why. Now I do.

The last word — from me at any rate — on this subject comes from our Lord. Jesus was speaking of the persecution His people would encounter at the hands of religious people (yes, they can be dangerous!), but I would simply add the atheistic scientists to the equation. Jesus said,

“These things they will do, because they have not known the Father or me.” (John 16:3).

One more thing…

Caroline Kennedy for the U. S. Senate? Everyone has an opinion on whether she should be appointed in Hillary Clinton’s place. Over the weekend it came out that she rarely votes in elections. Which I find rather ironic.

It made me think of something a friend said a week or two ago. Drive through our seminary campus on any Sunday morning and you will find that a number of students don’t go to church. And yet, these same students will someday be leading churches and urging God’s people to get into church and support the Lord’s work.

(A word of caution: I heard the same criticism of seminarians 40 years ago when I was living on campus. These days, with some churches having Saturday night services and all, it would be chancey to jump to the conclusion that they’re not going to church at all. But still, I felt Caroline Kennedy’s not voting, but wanting to be appointed to high elective office, provided a strong parallel.)

I’m on my way Monday morning to Nauvoo, Alabama, to spend a couple of days with my mom. I’d invited my 14-year-old son Grant to travel with me, but he has other plans. No matter. I brought along a double CD of Verdi’s “La Traviata” and will turn up the volume to full strength and share the wonderful Beverly Sills with the pine trees of South Mississippi! Couldn’t do that if Grant — or anyone else — were in the car.

Have a wonderful Christmas. Thanks for the constant encouragement you are to me.