This is how not to respond to a national controversy.

“We have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, across our workforce and our customers, and we’re proud of that longstanding commitment.
“Lowe’s has received a significant amount of communication on this program, from every perspective possible. Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”

That last sentence contradicts their actions. If they truly believed that it’s best to defer to communities, and if they truly have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, they should have left their advertising in place.

Advertising during a particular television program doesn’t mean you support the program. Do advertisers who pay $1milliion per minute for a Superbowl spot really endorse the game or a particular team, or are they just trying to get their product in front of as many eyeballs as possible? It’s the latter. Advertising is about getting people to know what your brand is, and what you sell, and doing that in the most cost-effective manner possible. If you’re trying to increase your sales in a particular demographic, it makes sense to advertise on a show that demographic is watching.

Nielsen says the show averages 1.2 million viewers per episode. That’s several hundred thousand potential customers. Compare that to the number of people who have heard about Lowes’ actions now – probably in the double-digit millions at this point. Most of those people are strongly polarized about Lowes right now, and that’s not a good thing for Lowes.

Lowes probably couldn’t win this one either way. But deferring to a small anti-Muslim group was not the best way to handle this. As one poster on Facebook says, “Muslims are probably the last group in America where it remains politically fashionable to collectively demonize and discriminate [against].” I’d add that Christians and gun-owners are right there too, but that would be awfully ironic.

Two recent posts at CNN’s Belief Blog deserve to be shared. I posted them to my Facebook, but want to share them here as well.

David Pratt is senior pastor of the 4,000-member Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. He had this to say a few days ago:

We American Christians have a way of taking the Jesus of the Bible and twisting him into a version of Jesus that we are more comfortable with. … But many of us are realizing that Jesus has different priorities. Instead of congratulating us on our self-fulfillment, he confronts us with our inability to accomplish anything of value apart from God. Instead of wanting us to be recognized by others, he beckons us to die to ourselves and seek above all the glory of God.

Much good stuff follows. His church gave away their entire half-million dollar surplus fund through churches in India and helped meet basic human needs: food, education, and clean water. Then 160 families in their congregation signed up with the Shelby County Department of Human Resources to meet their need of 150 families for fostering and adoption. Talk about No Child Left Behind.

In short, this church actively loved others. Hmm. Where have I heard that before?

The day before Pratt’s article, there was a piece about Francis Chan, former pastor of Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, California. Why is he the former pastor? “Even in my own church I heard the words, ‘Francis Chan’ more than I heard the words, ‘Holy Spirit’,” he said. He was worried about becoming “Christian Famous,” where the focus was more on him than on God. He deliberately stepped back to get his congregation refocused on what mattered.

How often do we as Christians focus on the wrong things? Does the color of the carpet really matter? The number of musicians? How many hymns versus how many choruses? Are you more concerned that people are wearing jeans to church or that they’re not there? When someone new comes to church, do you judge their appearance or welcome a new brother?

As Christians, we’re called to love people, not judge them. Serve, not criticize. Build them up, not tear them down. Some might say these are examples of radical faith. I suspect Jesus would not. I think He would say “This is what I meant all along.”

What are you focused on?

So I saw this link earlier today, and was a bit skeptical. Wouldn’t you be? Come on. “Jackboot to the throat?” Really? Are we back to “jackbooted thugs” again? Then the next part: “FDA claims citizens have no right of access to certain foods.” That certainly made me sit up and think. It’s an interesting claim. Let’s see what there is to it.

I get very cautious when I’m reading something where “Fascism” pops up. I can’t help it; my skepticism meter pegs out. But the topic had my interest. I occasionally follow the raw milk issue. My wife and I discussed the idea briefly several years ago, and decided against it, primarily because we didn’t think we could afford it. At the time, I don’t think there were any cow-shares near us.

At any rate, I understand the basic idea, which is that there’s a decently-sized group of people who believe that raw milk is better for a person than pasteurized or processed milk is. They just don’t like that there only choice these days is what they consider adulterated milk. They want the real thing. On the other side of the issue are government agencies doing what they do best: regulating. Most people on this side of the issue claim that pasteurized milk is safer for people, since the pasteurization process is designed to reduce the number of viable pathogens that cause diseases like diphtheria, strep throat, scarlet fever, and typhoid fever, among others. The typical method, known as High Temperature Short Time, also kills off almost all yeasts, molds, and bacteria that cause spoilage.

Here’s the Wiki article on the controversy.

I perused the linked article, which discusses a lawsuit filed by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund against the US Food & Drug Administration. The FDA has banned the interstate sale of raw milk; the FTCLDF wants to get that ban lifted. The Tenth Amendment Center (motto: “Concordia res parvae crescent” or “Work Together To Accomplish More”) discusses the lawsuit in this post using appropriately alarmist phrases: “No Natural Right;” “health freedom;” “secret agenda;” and “Big Dairy.” But TAC also links to the FDA dismissal motion, and that’s the most interesting part.

I am not a lawyer. I don’t even play one on TV. I can basically understand what’s written in the brief though, and can research what I don’t understand. That said, what I read on starting on page 25 of the brief is truly unsettling.

I’ve always understood the Constitution to tell the government what it’s allowed to do. That’s why there’s all that stuff about the President, Senators and Representatives, and so on. It doesn’t tell citizens what they’re allowed to do; it’s a manual for how the government is to be put together and run. That’s why there’s not a list of what we citizens are allowed to do. In fact, the 9th and 10th amendments cover that part pretty clearly:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” That means that even though a right might not be listed in the Constitution, that right still exists.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” That seems to be pretty clear. The federal government can only do what the Constitution says it can do. Everything else falls under the purview of the States or the citizens.

We won’t discuss right now how badly the 10th amendment has been shredded.

So back to the motion. As I said, there are several statements made towards the end that truly concern me. For example, “There is No Absolute Right to Consume or Feed Children Any Particular Food.” They follow that with “There is No Generalized Right to Bodily and Physical Health,” which is particularly interesting in light of the Healthcare Reform Bill that was recently shoved down our collective throats.

But what destroyed my irony meter was the claim by the United States that there is no “absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food.” How do they reach that conclusion?

Biblically.

No, really.

But there is no “deeply rooted” historical tradition of unfettered access to food of all kinds. See Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 721. To the contrary, society’s long history of food regulation stretches back to the dietary laws of biblical times. See Peter Barton Hutt & Peter Barton Hutt II, A History of Gov’t Regulation of Adulteration & Misbranding of Food, 39 Food, Drug & Cosmetic Law J. 2, 3 (1984) (citing Leviticus 11, 17 and 19, and Deuteronomy 14). (Emphasis added)

Yes, United States Attorney Stephanie M. Rose, via Trial Attorney Roger Gural just invoked the dietary restrictions God gave Moses as justification for governmental regulation of milk. Oh, the Ten Commandments, too.

Leviticus 11
Leviticus 17
Leviticus 19
Deuteronomy 14

Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I’m certain. Richard Dawkins may well blow a gasket. They have to fight this, don’t they? To let this obvious religious assault on our government pass would be hypocritical, wouldn’t it?

I received this tweeted response to my last post:

halm: @bobmueller ah, so either I am not a Christian, or you haven’t mastered arithmetic.

@halm is my brother, and his comment indicates that I probably need to better explain myself.

My parents raised me and my brother as Lutherans. Our family has a long Lutheran tradition, dating back to the late 1800s when our great-grandmother was a charter member of St. Martin’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Austin Texas. The tradition actually goes farther back; our German ancestors were Evangelical Lutherans in the Old Country.

Throughout my youth, I attended St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Marietta, Ohio. But for me, that attendance was compelled by my parents, not voluntary because I wanted to go and worship God and learn how to live anything like a holy life. I was active in the Youth Group there, but it was hardly for anything approaching a holy reason, believe me. There were some very cute girls in our youth group.

I believe that living a Christian life has less to do with what building you worship in or the label of your denomination than it does with what’s in your heart. Walking a Christian walk or leading a Christian life is a conscious decision. It means that you accept that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and that He died on the Cross for your sins—past, present and future, and that you confess those sins to Him. It’s a decision I made some 15 years ago during an Easter drama at West Broad Church of the Nazarene, and a decision I later affirmed through baptism at that same church. To me, that Easter weekend represents the beginning of my Christian life.

I can’t begin to know what’s in the hearts of other people. I believe that singing songs and repeating prayers in a pretty building don’t necessarily make you a Christian any more than piling a bunch of parts in a garage makes the pile a car. Being a Christian is an active decision, not an accident of genealogy. I’m not saying that the Church of the Nazarene is the only way to heaven. But a denominational label doesn’t make you Christian if your heart’s not in it.

The church we used to attend is closing this week. I know it’s not a surprise to anyone who attended that church. Regular attendance a year ago was in the 20s, and 9 of them had the same last name I do. When we left last fall to answer my wife’s call to another local Nazarene congregation, I worried that New Life would close soon.

My wife and I spent almost ten years at New Life. Five of my seven children were dedicated there. I spent just about two-thirds of my Christian life there. It’s understandable that I feel some ties to that congregation.

I think the “whys” about the closing aren’t that important. The congregation and board tried for years with much prayer and thought to grow that church, but it didn’t grow, and I don’t know that it’s our fault. I don’t know that it’s God’s “fault,” either. God has plans for everything, and often we don’t know exactly what those plans are.

As I think about the last service in just a few days, I’m conflicted about attending, as is my wife. She feels, based on talking to a close friend, that it’s better that we not go. The District Superintendent asked the pastor if he wanted the District to come down and do anything for the last service, and Pastor said no. According to our friend, the overwhelming feeling is one of “let’s get this over with.”

I suppose if you look at the closing of a church as a failure, then maybe staying away is the right idea. I’m not sure that it’s a failure though. Certainly it’s a loss. Almost any time a church closes its doors, it’s a loss to the community. In this case though, the void created is being filled almost immediately by a spiritually similar congregation.

But I don’t think we should look at it as a failure, any more than we look at the death of a person as a failure. At a funeral we mourn the loss, but we also remember the good that person accomplished during their lifetime, and beyond. We honor a person at their funeral, and I think that’s important to do here as well.

I know of several people who were saved at New Life. My wife renewed her pastoral call there, and the pastor at New Life mentored her carefully. We made dear friends with several people there, and I found someone as well to mentor me in my Christian walk. Seeds were planted there, and that is very important. Some of those seeds fell on the path and were eaten by birds, as Mark 4 mentions. But much more fell on fertile ground and will produce a great crop, and that should be a source of great joy. We may never know in this lifetime how many lives were touched by that “little Nazarene church out by West Jeff,” but we should rest in the knowledge that many were touched and loved.

I think I will end up going to the last service, just as I would attend the funeral of a longtime friend. I’d go to a funeral to honor my friend and their family. I hope by attending the last service, I honor those who have been a part of New Life Church of the Nazarene.

What is it that drives us to anthropomorphize our pets? I suppose to some degree it’s human nature. We’ve been doing it for thousands of years, really. Many of Aesop’s fables revolved around talking animals. Most recently, think of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, or even Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit.

I wonder about that today because of a decision my wife and I made today. One of our dogs, a German Shepherd mix who has been more than normally protective and aggressive since we got him, is getting more so these last few years. He’s bitten his dogmate at least three times, and 7 or our 8 children at least once. He’s bitten several neighbor children as well. He’s gone after my wife when she comes to hug or kiss me. It’s random; many times he waits until the person is moving away from him.

But after a bite yesterday of another neighbor child, we realized we can’t trust him any longer, and he can’t stay with us. When you come to a realization like that, you have two options: surrender, or euthanasia. Surrendering a nine-year-old dog with a bite history is not a realistic option. I knew the first time I suggested it that his chances of adoption were nil at best. So tomorrow afternoon, I will drive him to our vet, and I will come home alone.

I feel no small amount of guilt over this. I’m supposed to be the alpha of our pack. I’m supposed to be the one to train him, and let him know when he’s getting out of line, and I can’t help but feel that I’ve failed in that task. My logic is that if I had done a better job of training him and controlling him when he was younger, we wouldn’t have this issue now. If it were a sudden-onset issue, I could chalk it up as a cranky old dog. He’s a shepherd, and he’s nine. He’s entering the “Hey you kids, get off my lawn” stage of his life, or he should be. But it’s gone on since we found him as a stray pup. There were better and worse times, but it’s gone on for a long time.

Maybe he just thinks he’s being protective. The baby, who’s four, has never been bitten. She can flop on him, lay on him, squeeze the stuffing out of him, and he won’t blink. He’s never come near me, either, or challenged me in any way. But everyone else in the family has been snapped at, nipped, or bitten. So I suppose in some way he might think he’s just protecting me. But if that’s the case, I don’t understand why that protection doesn’t extend to other members of the family. I haven’t made any special effort to bond him to me.

As I anthropomorphize him a bit more, and let my guilt shape that picture, I have to wonder what he’s going to think tomorrow afternoon. He’s not afraid of the vet, but not a big fan, either, so the trip won’t be a big deal. He’s had injections before too, so that shouldn’t throw him. If everything is done right, he’ll just go to sleep. I’ve read “The Rainbow Bridge” many times; this is not the first pet I’ve lost, nor is it the first time I’ve asked the vet to help. But it is the first time I’ve had to do this for a behavior issue. The only other time the vet has helped, it was a sixteen-year-old blind poodle with bad knees. She was not living a good life, but was just too stubborn to give up. I can’t even pretend to be noble about tomorrow though. It’s purely a protection issue. I have to protect my kids, and guests, so the dog is expendable.

Does he know that? If I meet him again by the Rainbow Bridge, will he greet me with wagging tail and excitement, focusing on the good times he had with our family? Or will he snarl at me as he remembers what I did? Will I face an accusative face, asking me, “What did I do? I was just trying to take care of you.”

Intellectually, I know, or at least strongly believe that he’s not going to realize anything is different about tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll pick up that the kids are distressed. He might notice that they’re spending more time with him than they usually do. But he won’t understand why. He might notice their faces taste more salty, but he won’t comprehend what it means.

I hope.

More importantly, I hope my children who understand what’s happening tomorrow eventually understand why it had to be done. Tonight as we told them of our decision, many tears were shed, especially by my oldest daughter. She adores animals, and wants to work with horses when she’s older. She’s been teaching the dogs to jump the last few months, and Chester was taking to it pretty well for a nine-year-old dog. But now I’m taking that away from her. And she knows what’s going to happen, as do some of the older children. We didn’t go into detail with the younger ones; we just told them that I was taking him to the vet, and he wasn’t coming home with me. But the older ones know. It was only five years ago that we lost our cat Niban, so they know. I just hope and pray that they understand why we’re doing this, and that one day they’ll forgive me for the pain I’ve caused.

Now that I’ve finished a first draft on my first novel, I’m working on outlining the second. As the first passes around to a few readers, and the plot develops in the second, I’ve become concerned about the track I seem to be following. Don’t Stop Believin’ wanders through the adult entertainment industry – exotic dancing. Sad Girl is heading down an even darker path: human trafficking. Are these really topics that belong in Christian fiction, I asked myself, several times. Am I really glorifying God?

I posed a version of that question to my friend/editor Joy, and she pointed me to several authors: Brandilyn Collins, Dee Henderson, Terri Blackstock, among others. I’ve read a few of Dee’s works, and just finished Terri’s Cape Refuge (and liked it a lot). Dee’s O’Malley series involves a violent stalker. Cape Refuge opens with a double murder. Collins writes Christian suspense. Can I do this?

Brandilyn had a great post the other day about a great fan letter, which in turn linked to a not-so-great fan letter, and that one was the one that really moved me. It was especially heartening to get an encouraging comment from Brandilyn on Facebook.

So I’ve been reading Brandilyn’s blog on a regular basis lately, and today there was a link to Mike Duran’s excellent blog, Decomposing. He’s got some great posts about some topics I’ve really been struggling with, so I’ve got some reading to do. Between his and Brandilyn’s blog, and the AFCW reading lists (social issues and author comparison, I’ve got a lot of reading to do.

I’ve been trying to outline my latest book. I want to develop “The Sad Girl” into a full-length novel, because I think it will be a good story. But it’s taken a very dark turn at the moment. I’m not above writing a dark story about an ugly topic, but at the moment, I haven’t found a Christian aspect to the story.

Don’t Stop Believin has a strong religious story arc, despite the adult entertainment background. One of the main characters learns about God’s love for her, and then make some difficult decisions about how to deal with the changes salvation brings into her life. Even if a Christian publisher won’t accept it as-is, I think it could be re-written without too much difficulty into an acceptable story.

I haven’t found that angle yet for Sad Girl yet. But I have some time ago determined that I’m not going to write a book that doesn’t glorify God in some way so I need to pay attention to that as I continue the outlining process. I’m still learning about the main character, named Danny Cumberland, and his girlfriend Teresa Chadwick, so maybe there are some things they haven’t told me about themselves yet. I hope so. It’s disconcerting to think about putting so much effort into a story that I won’t be able to write.

Researchers in Jerusalem announced that they’ve found a burial shroud that almost certainly dates to the early 1st century AD, during the time when Jesus walked the earth. It’s significant because it provides some idea of how the body died (probably TB), but more importantly because of the weave of the cloth. It’s a much simpler weave than is found in the Shroud of Turin, the cloth thought to be the burial shroud for Jesus’ body between the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

For some, that brings doubt not about the Shroud of Turin, but about the new discovery. I am certain that some will think that because of the differences between the clothes, they will think that the newly found shroud is fake, because they “know” the Shroud of Turin is Jesus’ burial shroud.

This announcement comes just two months after an Italian professor of organic chemistry made it known that he had produced an almost identical copy of the Shroud of Turin, using various pigments and common painting techniques. Professor Luigi Garlaschelli says now that he has the process down, he thinks he could create another reproduction in about a week.

In my younger years, I felt sure that the Shroud of Turin really was what people believe it is. It made sense to me that whatever Godly energy that radiated from Jesus when He was resurrected could have left an afterimage on the cloth that surrounded him at the time. As science worked more on the Shroud, I held to my faith. Surely God would have left some physical evidence of one of the most important events in the history of Christianity.

As I’ve aged (matured?) though, I’ve begun to have doubts about the Shroud, as well as the many other religious relics attributed to Jesus Christ. That is not to say I’ve doubted the existence or the deity of Jesus. But I doubt that we will ever find any object that can categorically and convincingly be tied to Jesus’ time on earth. I honestly and truly believe that we’re never going to find the real tomb of Jesus, or anything relating to the Crucifixion or Resurrection.

Why? God commands against idols, and He knows how we as humans would idolize the sites, and the objects. Witness the thousands of years of bitter controversy about the Shroud. Much of the New Testament is about faith, and faith doesn’t need objects, but rather experiences. Faith is defined as “confidence or trust in a person or thing,” or “belief that is not based on proof.” This latter definition is the more important one, I think. Having physical proof of Jesus’ presence on earth would negate the need for faith. Jesus told Thomas after the Resurrection, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:24-29 NIV).

If Jesus said this to Thomas, would He make it easier for us to believe by seeing?

December funerals can pretty much suck. You’ve lost someone in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and that can throw a heavy weight into the holidays. It’s hard to share the Christmas cheer when you’re grieving. You can feel guilty about being down, so then you seclude yourself from folks, which is the last thing you should do at that time. Then when Christmas rolls around next year, you get fresh reminders of your loss; it’s next to impossible to forget that death, because it’s tied to a big annual event that millions of people across the world celebrate.

I know what December funerals are like. My mother died December 21, 1998. I had about 20 months prior to that date gotten saved, converting from a non-practicing Lutheran to an evangelical Protestant denomination (Church of the Nazarene). My father was Lutheran; my mother was, I think, Presbyterian. Religion wasn’t that big of a thing in our family, although my dad had always required us to go to church. I had been baptized as an infant, and gone through confirmation. But nothing ever clicked for me.

Dad had died in 1994. My mom had health issues of one kind or another, leading her to be hospitalized in mid-December for venous bypass to help save her legs from the ravages of advanced and out-of-control diabetes. It was only moderately successful, and as she was recovering, she suffered a stroke.

She was dying that Monday.

I had driven from Columbus to Marietta the day before after a rambling phone call from the ICU nurse about how my mom was “decompensating,” and frantic calls to my brother in Oregon. My wife stayed in Columbus with our two small children.

One of the things most evangelical churches teach is that if you present the Gospel to someone, and ask them to make a commitment of their life to Christ, and they refuse, they’re condemning themselves to Hell. The thinking is that they’ve refused salvation. My mom was not overly religious, and at the time, I felt that I needed to “get her saved,” as I understood things. But I didn’t want to have a salvation talk with her, for fear she would refuse the commitment at the end. She had been confused over why I wanted to be baptized again as a born-again Christian, even though I had been baptized as a baby in the Lutheran church. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on matters of religion.

So I had hemmed and hawed about it, and now it was too late. My brother and I, along with the parish nurse and the visitation pastor from the local Lutheran Church were in the ICU room watching my mother die. The pastor was at the foot of the bed. My brother was on the right side, and the nurse was next to him. I was on the left side. I was bawling my eyes out, convinced that my own fear and weakness had kept my mother from hearing the salvation message that I thought I had a duty to tell her.

It was not long after nine PM, and I was holding her hand, and telling her I loved her, and that I was sorry. And at that moment, just before she died, I felt a hand on my shoulder, as though someone had come up beside me on my left side, and put their arm around me. And a quiet or “still, small” voice said to me, “It’s OK. She’s with me now.” Perhaps a minute later, her heart stopped.

Could I have imagined it? Could I have created that experience out of an intense desire to know that I would see her again in heaven? I suppose.

Could it have been Satan, taunting me? I doubt it. I believe in Satan, just as I believe in God, and the resurrection of Christ. You can’t logically believe in God, and not believe in Satan; you can’t have good without not-good, or evil. But it’s not Satan’s style to say something like that. He’d have been screaming “She’s mine now, you fool! You failed!”

I am convinced though that what I experienced that night in a lonely ICU room was a loving, merciful, compassionate God tending to His child in the best way He could. I didn’t want my mom to die. I miss her and my dad terribly. But her body was worn out. Yes, He could have healed her, just as Christ healed so many. But physically touching me was much more miraculous than anything he could have done for her. My God, the Creator of the universe, the Great I Am, presented Himself to someone who was hurting and alone one night. How can I doubt a God like that?

So that is what I choose to remember in December. I could focus on the loss, and how my mother won’t be around to see her grandchildren grow up, and how they won’t have as many loving grandparents in their lives. I could focus on the anguish of watching her lie in a bed, her body refusing to give up. But instead, I choose to focus on the way my God showed His love for me. Isn’t that the better way to deal with Christmas ghosts?