Merry Christmas!
December 22, 2008
This Christmas season is a challenging one for many of us who have financial concerns pin-balling in our minds instead of sugarplums dancing in our heads. Ministries are feeling the pinch of the economic meltdown, losing millions from savings and investments as well as experiencing declines in contributions. We are not exempt, but Golden Gate is in better position than many others. We will weather this storm and go on with our mission.
As a nation, our greed has inflated our economic expectations. In spite of the recent downturn, the United States is still the most prosperous nation on earth and American Christians the wealthiest believers on earth. We need to keep this in focus as we move through the next several months. A wrong attitude, a “poor us” mentality, will cripple our work in unnecessary ways. We are facing economic setbacks, but we must not be debilitated by our circumstances – or the discouragement they produce.
During lean economic times, Christians must continue to set the pace in giving. We must do this to insure our ministries that meet human need and share the gospel are not compromised. Christian leaders must also re-evaluate their programs and organizations with a critical eye toward preserving what is most essential to our mission. Economic challenges can be a blessing in disguise if they make us more focused, more intentional, and more strategic in using resources.
Perhaps our national economic slap-in-the-face will contribute to a national wake-up call to reorder our priorities and refocus our values. We are at our best, as Americans and certainly as Christians, when we are committed to helping others, sacrificing for the common good, and sharing our wealth with those less fortunate. The Christmas season is a good time to make these values your personal and corporate priority.
So, find a way to celebrate Christmas by giving yourself away during the holiday season. Do it through your church, in your neighborhood, at work, or in the community. Do it quietly, without fanfare, trusting God to impact you more than those who receive your service. Give yourself, and your money away as a statement of confidence in God who provides.
One friend said, “God isn’t broke.” And, George Mueller said, “God’s work, done God’s way, will never lack for God’s support.” Let’s keep our priorities straight as we continue to serve, give, and minister in the Spirit of Christmas!
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Porn Then and Now
December 15, 2008
Okay, so it’s Christmas and you may not want to read about pornography right now – but a recent coincidence is just too mind-boggling to let pass.
Bettie Page (sometimes Betty Page) passed away on December 11, 2008. Ms. Page had a prominent part in creating the porn industry in America. She was one of the first women to pose semi-nude for magazine photos in the early 1950’s, then took it all off for a Playboy centerfold in January 1955. Hugh Hefner said she was, “an iconic figure…someone who had a tremendous impact on our society.” No doubt.
The SF Chronicle’s obituary reported, “Ms. Page mysteriously disappeared from public eye for decades, during which time she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.” Since when did battling mental illness and becoming a born-again Christian belong in the same sentence, as if they are two sides of the same coin? Linking these concepts is another step toward marginalizing Christians – making our beliefs more than politically incorrect, now we are deranged!
On the same day Ms. Page’s death was reported, a news article detailed the growing practice of teenagers distributing nude photos via their cell phones. Teenagers are taking nude pictures of themselves or friends and sending them out at alarming rates. Twenty percent of teenagers have sent or posted nude or semi-nude photos, while almost a third of all teenagers report having received or seen these photos.
Bill Albert, chief program officer for National Campaign, a non-profit group that advocates for sex education and access to contraceptives said, “What young people report is this sort of behavior contributes to a casual hookup culture.” No kidding! School administrators are cracking down on the practice and one district attorney is threatening to charge offenders with distributing child pornography. With the proliferation of cell technology – good luck to the already overwhelmed administrators. And, while the DA may have the law on his side – with all the real child pornographers in our culture, is going after these kids really the best use of his time?
The dysfunctional, double-minded thinking in America astounds me. On the one hand, we demand pornographers have free rein, protected by the First Amendment, to distribute their garbage at will. On the other hand, we are up in arms when teenagers personalize the message and send out nude pictures. Do you really think most of these kids don’t have access to porn in their homes, on their computers, and at the movies to such an extent they are desensitized? We surround young people in a sea of pornography and then complain when they take a swim. The problem isn’t out of control teenagers; it’s my generation of irresponsible adults who have lost their moral moorings and contributed to our nation’s moral degeneration.
My hope is Ms. Page really did become a born-again Christian. She deserves the rest of heaven. After all, her life was chaotic from the beginning. The some obituary referenced above included this telling detail, “She grew up in a poor family. It included three boys and three girls…and her father molested all the girls.” That explains so much. Ms. Page was more victim that villain. May she rest in the Prince of Peace this Christmas Season.
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Graduation
December 8, 2008
This week is winter commencement, our next opportunity to send out graduates to fulfill our mission of accelerating the fulfillment of the Great Commission in the churches of the West and on mission to the world. Winter commencement is special because we have it in a church, decorated for Christmas, with music and other service components focused both on the Christmas message and our mission. This year, we will also commemorate the first graduates from our Haitian CLD center. It never ceases to amaze me how many language groups we are touching with our work. God has truly made us a seminary for the nations.
Another kind of graduation will also be celebrated this week. Dr. Frank Pollard, former president of Golden Gate, died recently. His memorial service will be at the First Baptist Church, Jackson, Mississippi on Thursday, December 11. Dr. Pollard was also the long-time pastor of that church. Dr. and Mrs. Pollard had recently moved back to the Bay Area and were once again involved in seminary life. Ann and I were particularly grateful for their personal encouragement and support of our service. While we won’t be able to attend Dr. Pollard’s service due to graduation responsibilities, we will participate in another memorial service on December 21 at Tiburon Baptist Church, here in Marin County.
Dr. Pollard’s death reminds us how young a seminary Golden Gate still is. We are 64 years old, not that old for a major educational institution. Now that Dr. Pollard has graduated, for the first time in many years, less than half of the seminary’s presidents are now alive. That’s right. Until last week, four of the seven presidents in our history were still alive. We are a young school, still growing and forming into all we will be.
Our youth is underscored by another dynamic group we will commemorate during our spring graduation. This is the 50th anniversary graduating class at the Mill Valley Campus. We are celebrating those “golden graduates” by inviting all graduates prior to 1959 back to the Mill Valley Campus for spring graduation. We will have several special events for the graduates, including honoring them during the commencement ceremony. So far, we have identified about 400 living graduates of Golden Gate prior to 1959. If you know someone who needs to be on that list, drop an email to sharondaugherty@ggbts.edu and we will be sure they are invited.
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Bloody Friday
December 1, 2008
Black Friday, so named because it’s the day retailers go “into the black” for their fiscal year, is the madcap shopping day after Thanksgiving. It has always seemed an unlikely juxtaposition to me – humbly giving thanks on Thursday and then greedily shopping on Friday. But, nonetheless, early shopping trips on Thanksgiving Friday have become an American tradition.
But this year, Black Friday turned into bloody Friday. In a Walmart near Manhattan, a temporary worker named Jdimytai Damour was trampled by the crowd rushing the door after the pre-dawn opening. Damour was trampled by people committed to buying cheap television sets or video games. News reports indicated other workers were knocked to the ground as they tried to rescue Damour, and customers simply stepped over him and kept shopping even as the store announced it was closing because of the death. Pathetic!
But wait, that isn’t the only similar incident on Black Friday. Another woman was trampled at a different Walmart. Fortunately, she wasn’t seriously injured. And, it’s not just at Walmart that violence erupted. At a Toys R Us in Southern California, two women started arguing over some issue or product. Their male companions pulled out handguns and started shooting, wounding each other in the melee. Onlookers reported quite a fight between the two women before the shooting started. There may have been gang implications to the dispute. Hard to imagine two women slugging it out and their men shooting each other over Barbies!
So this is what we have come to in America. We have greedily driven ourselves close to a Depression with inflated stock prices and bad mortgages. As a nation, we are almost a trillion, yes trillion, dollars in debt on credit cards alone. And, since all this isn’t enough – we are now willing to trample anyone who gets in our way while shopping for half-price stuff we don’t really need.
A culture of death leads, gradually, to a diminished value on all life – even Walmart greeters. We are marching incrementally but steadily toward a culture which completely devalues life. We already practice abortion as birth control. We allow legalized physician-assisted suicide in Oregon and Washington. We warehouse murderers rather than deliver justice for innocent victims. We turn the mentally ill into the streets to fend for themselves in the name of personal rights. We are mixed up about the value of life.
God help us. We need his mercy to bring us to our senses. We must rediscover the value of life – defending the weak, avenging the innocent, protecting the helpless. May God help us before it’s too late.
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