God's Job Approval Rating

The glaring headline on Fox News is that President Obama's job approval rating hit the lowest level ever. Only 39% of those polled believe he is doing a good job. But what else I saw recently was a little more astonishing.

The same folks who brought us the Obama job approval rating decided to take the same poll for God. They felt it wouldn't be fair to God to take into account the answers of the atheists. They don't believe in God anyway. Nor did they take into account the answers of the agnostics who admit they don't have a clue. So they only tabulated the answers from those who who claim to believe that God exists.

What were the results? Fewer that 50% felt God was doing a good job. The most common reason listed for His bad grade was the abundance of terrible tragedies that take place - tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, plane crashes, terrorist attacks, murders, rapes, robberies, etc. People felt that either God could have prevented them and didn't, meaning He didn't care; or that God was incapable of doing anything about it, meaning He isn't up to the job.

Politicians live or die based on their job approval ratings, and I'm sure our President is pretty nervous about his. But I doubt that God is up in heaven wringing His hands over this. Yet, the reasons given by people need to be explained. The truth is the ratings show a complete lack of understanding about the way the world operates.

The truth is it isn't God's fault the world is messed up. It is ours. Starting with Adam and Eve, we've lived in rebellion against God and His rules. We've ignored The warnings of God. Then we complain when we get the outcome.

Adam started it off. Adam disobeyed the one and only restriction God placed on him in paradise by eating the forbidden fruit, and he suffered the promised punishment. He died - spiritually at first and eventually physically.

Beyond that, this entire world was cursed. Genesis 3:17-19 gave the details as God addressed Adam,

"Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return."

We bear the burden of living in this cursed world - a world cursed because of man's sin.

Throughout history, men knew their sinfulness, and they knew who to blame for the curse. The Puritans used to say, "Life is brutish and short, and then you die." But they never lost their faith because of it. Why? Because their pulpits thundered against sin. They never thought to blame God when they were so obviously sinful. They were simply grateful for the opportunity to repent and receive forgiveness.

Now it seems like lots of God's spokesmen are embarrassed by the God of the Bible and by the Bible itself. They have eradicated any mention of sin, judgment, punishment, or hell. Rather God is presented as a jovial Santa Claus like figure who doles out goodies and winks at our failings.

Bob Burney wrote that these pastors have done to God what they used to do to criminals and mentally ill patients in the 40s and 50s. They lobotomized God to make His behavior acceptable to society (A lobotomy being a surgery to remove part of the brain to alter behavior). He writes,

"His holiness makes us uncomfortable. His justice seems a little harsh. His righteousness seems totally out of touch with our culture as a whole. So what do we do with a God who makes us feel uncomfortable and inferior? It's easy. We perform a lobotomy. We simply perform an operation to remove the offending attributes."

Jeromy Johnson tells why:

"Cause if God behaves and thinks like that, that is not a God worthy of my - nor anyone else's worship or even respect. This god would be deemed as evil, hating, unjust, and demented."

Really? And this from His so-called spokesmen?

So instead of preaching the God of the Bible, we hear of a kinder and gentler God. Quoting Burney,

"It's not hard to find this gentler, kinder God. Turn on the TV or radio and you're likely to hear from Rev. Johnny Glitter-teeth smiling broadly and telling the congregation that God only wants to do good things for them. Think happy thoughts and God will give you all you want whenever you want it. You will hear wonderful platitudes like 'Turn your scars into stars' and other wonderful possibilities."

No wonder people blame God when it doesn't come true. They have been offered a false god, not the God of the Bible. The God who allows tragedies doesn't fit that modern template.

What you won't hear from their pulpits are the words of Scripture, words like these from Hebrews 10:28-31,

"Anyone who has rejected Moses' Law dies without mercy on the testimonies of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment do you suppose will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

But no one is warned about that from most pulpits.

Rather than be surprised by tragedy, pain, or suffering, we should wonder why any of us are ever spared. Yet we are. Praise God that He sent His Son to die on the cross to bear the penalty of our sins.

But as to the job rating of God, the blame should never be laid at the feet of God. Rather, it should be laid at the feet of the church, and more specifically the pulpits. Jesus said in Matthew 5:13, "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?"

Salt was the preserving agent that was rubbed into meat to keep bacteria from growing. Symbolically, the salt is the church (the individual believers making up the church) rubbed into the world, permeating it and providing a preserving influence on society by teaching and modeling Biblical truth. If our world has gone rotten to the core, who is to blame? Is it the meat's fault of the salt? Obviously, the church has lost her saltiness.

Chuck Baldwin wrote.

"There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the biggest reason America is in the mess that it is in today is directly due to the apathy and indifference of the American pulpit."

Isn't it time the American pulpits thundered again?

Cheating Scandals - No Longer Confined to Students

Cheating is probably as old as tests. Considering the sin nature that dwells within each of us, it's not surprising it pops up from time to time. But usually cheating is done by the students, not the teachers and the administrators. That is why the cheating scandal that enveloped the Atlanta Public Schools is so shocking to us.

Now the scandal has reached Maine. On Saturday, August 6th, the Bangor Daily News ran a front page article on a Newport teacher who resigned after a state probe into cheating on standardized tests. The resigning teacher is alleged to have reviewed MEA Science Test answers with his students before the test, which in turn allowed the students to score better. This is only the latest shocker.

The widespread scandal on standardized tests from the Atlanta Public Schools (and Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, and other cities) shows the failure of the system. Rather than simply teach the test, these educators changed answers to cover up their academic failure. Cheating took place in 44 of the 56 schools examined in Atlanta. Apparently some 178 educators, including 38 principals, were involved. What incredible widespread corruption. It's understandable that families would flee from that kind of system.

What was to blame for this scandal? Why, the standards, of course. That's what we were told. It put undue pressure on the schools to perform better. It was, "No Child Left Behind," which tied federal subsidies to performance. This is the reason given by Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University.

Seems to me this is the same reason kids give for cheating. The test is too hard. It must be too hard to teach competency in reading, writing, math, science, and history. So rather than work to improve performance of the students, many of the educators cheated to raise test scores.

If we looked at performance, indeed the standards do seem too high, until one examines the facts. Education Secretary Anne Duncan states that by next year as many as 82% of all public schools could be failing. She writes,

"When a child is meeting the state standards, they are in fact barely able to graduate from high school. And they are absolutely inadequately prepared to go to a competitive university, let alone graduate."

Apparently the standards aren't really that high. Yet, turning out an educated student is too much to expect. That's why some educators had to cheat.

As I've written before, the focus of public education is wrong. Our President's friend Bill Ayers, Weather Underground founder and former professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was an influential thinker formulating the modern philosophy of education. Mr. Ayers has written that subject mastery isn't necessary for teaching. In other words, your child's math teacher doesn't have to know math. Rather, Ayers and his cohorts who have hijacked education advocate that teacher colleges train teachers to engage in "social justice," and even teach subjects like math and science in the context of social consciousness. Little Johnny can't read, but he can learn to be a leftist activist.

Quoting Marybeth Hicks,

"When teachers don't view their role as imparting information, knowledge, and skills, but rather as preparing students to be 'agents of social change' through 'critical; thinking,' it's no wonder that the kids aren't capable of passing standardized tests."

She concludes,

"It must be said: we aren't training our teachers to do the job we say we want done in our classrooms."

What is the answer? Parents need to reclaim their right to determine the education of their children, not bureaucrats. Part of the answer has to be competition. Charter Schools are a start, but just a start. Give parents vouchers that they can use in whatever way they deem best to educate their children - public, charter, private, Christian, or home school. It should be a parent's choice where the money is spent to educate their child. Unfortunately, this is the one answer that the educational establishment resists with a passion.

Why We Home School

Every parent has the right and responsibility to determine the education of their children. I don't intend to denigrate anyone else's decision, but my children are among the 2 million k-12 home school students in this country (the figure is provided by the National Home Education research Institute). We would not consider any other method of educating our children because it works.

A recent poll showed that more and more parents are leaving public education, fleeing a system that undermines their values yet fails to educate. That's understandable. In spite of well meaning educators, the system itself is the problem.

We have a system that crams up to thirty kids in one room and treats them as if they were all the same. It doesn't recognize that boys and girls are different, and doesn't accommodate the difference. These children spend most of their waking hours for five days a week within four walls where every aspect of their day is programmed. Students are expected to do and learn the same things and at the same pace. It's a place where dreamers like Thomas Edison, who was labeled addled by the school he attended, don't fit. Anthony Esolen has called the schools human warehouses where any act of imagination is dangerous.

No wonder they turn out bland uniformity. Like at McDonalds, anywhere you go in this country, every Big Mac is the same. Shopping malls all look the same. The same brands are in every grocery store. And we mass produce mediocre students. Now there is a push for a nationwide standardized curriculum to assure even more uniformity. but children are not all the same. That's why for many of us, we home school out of a simple desire for a better education for our children.

This desires includes wanting my children to be good citizens. The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported a couple of weeks ago that only one in four high school seniors scored at least "proficient" in knowledge of U.
S. citizenship. History is just as bad, and the older the student the worse the results. It showed 20% of sixth graders, but only 12% of high school seniors could demonstrate a grasp of our nation's history. That is scary to think about these kids getting old enough to vote. I want my children to know why our country is the greatest on earth.

I want my children to have a rigorous and broad liberal education. Bruce S. Thompson, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and professor of classics and humanities at Cal State, surveyed the educational offerings of colleges. His bleak conclusion,

"No longer do they provide students with a grounding in the best that has been said and thought, as (Mathew) Arnold put it. What they do provide is a poor substitute: vocational training and unexamined left-wing orthodoxy."

According to Thomas Sowell,

"Unfortunately, an increasing proportion of American education, whether in the schools or in the colleges and universities, is closer to the baton twirling end of the spectrum than toward the nuclear physics end. Even reputable colleges are increasingly teaching things that students should have learned in high school."

Sowell continues,

"Too many of the people coming out of even the most prestigious academic institutions graduate with neither the academic skills to be economically productive nor the intellectual development to make them discerning citizens and voters."

That's not good enough. We want better for our children.

What is an educated person? Robert Heinlein, the noted sci-fi author, defined it like this:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

I couldn't agree more. As home school parents, we try to give our kids a wide variety of experience. Our children have helped butcher pigs and chickens. They have written poetry. They have followed the Oregon Trail and explored Civil War battlefields. They have taken boards and nails and made elaborate tree houses. They have taken years of Latin. They have compared the Code of Hammurabi with the Law of Moses. They have read Eusebius and Plutarch's Lives - not snippets, but the whole books. They have practiced fencing with home-made swords. And they are thoroughly grounded in the Bible.

Someday, I want my children to be the leaders in their communities, not followers. I want them to be able to think and use their reservoir of learned knowledge, not follow blindly anywhere the so-called elites take them. And above all, I want them to be grounded in their faith. That is why we home school.

The Moral Decline of America - Part Two

Last time, I discussed the moral decline of America. I said we were already over the edge morally and in a free fall. I gave examples of that free fall, and I gave a Biblical reason - America has kicked God out of public life.

To prove it, I quoted Romans 1:18, which said,

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness."

I pointed back to the turning point, when the Supreme Court decision of Abington versus Schemp in 1963 forbid Bible reading in schools.

Since then, there has been an ongoing assault on the public knowledge of God. We cannot post the Ten Commandments for fear someone might read them and actually obey them. We cannot allow prayer at graduation ceremonies or football games. The list goes on and on.

But if we are in moral decline, this presupposes we were once a moral nation. Some claim we were even a Christian nation, a claim President Obama denies. Certainly nations can't be Christian, only people can. But there is clear evidence that was the intent of the founders. Many of the earliest came to America to escape repression and to seek religious freedom. They desired to build a nation on the laws of God.

We were forged to be "One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." We were to protect certain "inalienable rights" endowed to us by our Creator - rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - and yes, freedom of religion. We were to be a nation ruled by people who were ruled by God's Law.

James Madison, Principal author of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, who was often called the Father of our Constitution, wrote:

"This duty [homage to God] is precedent, both in order of time and degree of obligation,to the claims of civil society. Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the universe."

What makes a good citizen, and in turn, a good country? That her citizens have faith in Jesus Christ.

George Washington said,

"Of all the dispositions and habits which leads to public prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."

The founders built this country on the twin supports of religion and morality. When Washington said religion and morality, he understood that to be Christianity and the morals taught in the Bible.

John Adams, our second president, eloquently concurs,

"We have no government, armed in power, capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion [same two supports]. . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."

Aren't we finding that true?

What makes the current state of affairs seem so dark and dismal is because we've experienced a righteous nation. Perfect? Oh, no! It never was. But at least it tried. But not anymore.

As Ron Blue writes,

"The nation's moral fiber is being eaten away by a playboy philosophy that makes personal pleasure the supreme rule of life. Hedonism catches fire while homes crumble. Crime soars while churches sour. Drugs, divorce, and debauchery prevail and decency dies. Frivolity dances in the streets. Faith is buried. 'In God We Trust' has become a meaningless slogan stamped on corroding coins."

We've lost what we once had, and the blame falls squarely on the church. We, who were called to be salt and light, to preserve and to show the way, have failed our mission. But we are the only hope for the future.

In 2nd Chronicles 7:14, God says,

"If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will forgive their sin and heal their land."

That is a conditional promise.

We who are God's people, who bear the name of Christ as Christians, must put aside our arrogance and fall on our knees in fervent prayer for this land. We must seek God's face where it is revealed - in the Bible. We must diligently study, teach, and obey God's Word.

Plus, we must turn from our wicked ways. This is talking to God's people. We must stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution. We must get over our love-affair with the world and fall in love with God all over again. Then God will hear and heal our land. But it is up to us. If we do, I believe revival will sweep this country once again. Yes, we can regain what we have lost.

The Moral Decline of America - Are We Already Over the Edge?

Awhile back, Glenn Beck made a statement that offended conservatives. He said that same-sex marriage would never destroy America. How could this unrelenting attack on marriage not be the final nail in the coffin of the family? How could it not bring down God's wrath on us? Yet, Beck is right. Same-sex marriage isn't the reason for God's wrtath, but the result. Let me explain.

Same-sex marriage will not bring down God's wrath on America, because it is already upon us. In Romans 1:18, Paul writes chilling words, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness." Paul further explains that God Himself placed within each of us a God-consciousness, a conscience perhaps; plus God has revealed Himself abundantly in nature. So no man has an excuse for not recognizing God.

If this knowledge of God is suppressed, God's wrath comes upon us. Oh, not in the Sodom and Gomorrah way, but God simply lets us destroy ourselves. As the old saying goes, God gives us enough rope to hang ourselves, and we do. There's enough evidence to lead anyone to God, but men reject Him and suppress that knowledge. Therefore, God gives them over to their own sinful passions to reap the awful consequences of thier sin.

The rest of the chapter in Romonas elaborates the consequences, and they might not be what you would expect. Romans 1:24-29 says, "Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies amongst themselves. . . for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due."

The point is these evils manifest the wrath of God. Is is Galatians 6:7, "God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap." George Mason, Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention, said, "As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be punished in this. By the inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence [God] punishes national sin by national clamaities."

As a society, have we suppressed knowledge of God? Absolutely, and with predictable consequences. We officially did as a nation in 1963 in Abbington versus Schempp when the Supreme Court first repudiated the Bible and its teaching in public affairs by banning Bible reading in public schools (then banning prayer the following year). Since then, there have been scores of cases overturning long standing practices stemming from God's law.

It is so prevalent now, that Arleen Ocasio, director of the Houston National Cemetary, tried to ban using the names of "God" or Jesus" at funerals, or saying "God bless you" to grieving families. She thought the ban was consistent with national policies.

There is a self imposed absence of God in public America. The results? Quoting historian David Barton, "As a result of the reversals, the United States is now number one in the world in violent crime, divorce, ilegal drug use; number one in the industrial world in teenage pregnancies; and number one in the industrial world in illiteracy. We have always been a world leader; however, since 1962-63, we have begun to lead the world in many of the wrong categories."

Back in the 80s, William Bennett, former Secretary of Education and Drug Czar, chronicled the decline by listing the changes since 1963 in "The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators." Violent crime increased 560%. Illigitimate births increased 419%. Divorces were up 400%. Child abuse increased 340%. Teenage suicide was up 200%. S.A.T. scores dropped 80% in spite of massive funding. These trends are frightening. Our country went over a cliff morally. The destruction of the traditiional family continues with disatrous consequences.

This is the wrath of God upon us. Truly we live in a decadent society, but as Cal Thomas noted, "Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are the reflection of it." Our decadence reflects our attitude about God and His Word. We have repudiated His Word as a nation, so God has given us up to do whatever we please. This is destroying us!

Let's reverse this. Rebecca Hagelin writes, "Unless we are willing to stand. . . our children may grow up in a society slowly crumbling under the weight of its own pervrrsity."

TIME TO DEFEND MARRIAGE - AGAIN!

Credit where credit is due, I say. So today, even before challenging the church, I give credit to those who again push same-sex marriage. Even though I oppose your agenda with every fiber of my being, I take my hat off to you for a number of reasons.

I do so first for the way you stick to it. Your unwillingness to give up in the face of repeated defeats is impressive. Ann Coulter says that there is never a permanent victory over a liberal. She's right. You keep trying and trying, and you've even won some victories, especially through the courts imposing your "new morality" on a few states.

That's why, following your legislative victory in New York allowing same-sex marriage, I expected you to begin the petition drive here in Maine again within the week. No matter that the voters in 2009 rejected same-sex marriage by a hefty 53 to 47 percent margin, or the fact that every time people get to vote you lose, I knew you would try again. Sure enough, last Thursday, June 7Th, you began your petition drive to get the issue on the ballot again in 2012.

Now on Wednesday,August 17th, the Maine Secretary of State approved language for your citizen's initiative. You are off and running. The political battle is on again.

We in the church can learn from you. We finish a battle then get back to our normal lives, usually exhausted. I doubt that Bishop Malone or Pastor Bob Emrich feel up to spearheading another protracted political fight. Nor are the people of Maine. Marc Mutty of the Portland diocese of the Roman Catholic Church said,

"The people of this state rejected same-sex marriage in November of 2009 and should not be put through what will likely be another diivisive, drawn out campaign."

You know that. Yet, as the church, WE MUST AGAIN MOBILIZE to defend Biblical marriage. We need your ability to stick-to-it.

My hat is also off to your public relations campaign. Almost daily your cheerleaders in the Bangor Daily News make absurd claims with no references to sources. Claims that 10 to 15% of the population are homosexual when any legitimate survey can find only about 2%. Claims there is a gay gene in the DNA code predetermining homosexuality, when no gene can ever be identified. Claims that children are just as well off with two aprents of the same sex in spite of many studies to the contrary.

And, of course, equating your behavioral choice to the racial struggle for equality was a stroke of genius. Who can be against equality, right? Even your name, Equality Maine, makes it hard to resist. And that allows you to tell us we are on the wrong side of the moral issue, and call us homophobes and hate-mongers if we oppose your so-called equality. Yet, the real issue isn't equality, but morality, and same-sex marriage is simply, morally wrong. Michael Youssef claims, "Every issue is a moral issue." This one certainly is.

You've claimed your cause is similar to the court case of Loving versus Virginia. Virginia law made it a crime for Mildred and Richard Loving to marry because they were an interracial couple. However, they were fighting for the right to become a traditional marriage between one man and one woman, not trying to redefine the very definition of marriage. When the Supreme Court upheld their right in June of 1967, they ruled in favor of traditional marriage, not against it. I'm surproised that the black community isn't up in arms over the way you try to make your case equilivilent to thiers.

The Supreme Court understood then that the essential public purpose of marriage was to bind one male and one female together and to the children their sexual activity might produce, knowing that children do better in a home with a mother and a father. That is still true and the reason traditional, Biblical marriage is worth defending.

Same-sex marriage disconnects marriage from its most basic purpose. Quoting Jeff Jacoby,

"Marriage - male female marriage - is indispensable to human welfare. That is why it has existed in virtually every known human society. And why it cannot, and will not, be permanently redefined."

Thousands of years of collected wisdom shouldn't be thrown overboard, and no society until now has ever established same-sex marriage.

I also take my hat off to you for your effective use of questionable polling data. As they say, figures don't lie, but liars figure. Polling data can be fertile ground for liars. We repeatedly hear nowadays that a majority of people approve same-sex marriage. Really? If you say something over and over and over again, it doesn't make it so. When the Alliance Defense Fund and Public Opinion Strategies conducted a scientific national poll from May 16Th through 19Th of this year, they got entirely different results. They found that 62%, a solid majority in any body's reckoning, believed that, "marriage should be defined as a union between one man and one woman." These findings line up well with the actual results when voters go to the polls.

People, we need to think right. Proverbs 1:7 says,

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge , but fools despise wisdom and instruction."

Without beginning with the fear of the Lord, it's amazing where our human reasoning will take us - yes, even to calling thoise standing for Biblical morality bigoted hate-mongers while demanding a complete remaking of the definition of marriage. Now we see Isaiah 5:20 lived out before our eyes. It says, "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil." We cannot stand by and allow them to stand moralitiy on its head.

Now to address the church (and all who believe traditional marriage is worth defending), I quote the hymn of William P. Merrill,

"Rise up, O church of God! Have done with lesser things. Give heart and mind and soul and strength to serve the King of Kings."

We can win this battle again. Thirty two states have put marriage protection on the ballot, and all thirty two have won. In the ten states of the south where people have voted, traditional marriage won by an average of 71.44%. Even in Ohio, in 2004 they passed a state constituional amendment by 62% protecting marriage. We've alredy won once in Maine.

Back in 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled in Roe versus Wade that unborn babies could be deprived of their right to life and be killed in the womb, the church mostly remained silent. In their generation, they abdicated the fight over the biggest moral issue of their day. Same-sex marriage is the biggest moral issue of our day. Don't let our children and grandchildren have to ask us why we sat out the fight, if we lose anther great battle. This battle can be won. It will be, if we rise up and get to work.

What Should We Think About Gambling?

Gambling was back in the news this week making the front page of the Bangor Daily News on Thursday. Governor LePage is reported as threatening to veto a bill (L.D. 1418) allowing blackjack, poker, and other table games at Hollywood Slots in Bangor.

In 2003, voters approved Hollywood Slots to operate about 1,500 slot machines.
The new bill would allow them to compete with the voter approved casino being built in Oxford County. This bill along with others proposing new racinos in Calais, Biddeford, and Lewiston are making their way through the process in Augusta.

What should we think about this issue? Since these bills require voter referendum, it is a political issue up for debate. Since it is also a moral issue, I urge the churches to actively enter this debate.

Surprisingly, the church is relatively silent on the issue. The church was not always silent. An unknown preacher in second century North Africa preached, "Gambling is like the devil's hunting sphere and those who play the dice are wounded with an irresistible allurement. . . The gambling board is the devil's snare and the enemy's trap which indices greed but in actuality brings utter ruin."

St. Augustine said, "The devil invented gambling." John Calvin caused gambling to be outlawed in Geneva. Martin Luther said, "Money won by gambling is not won without self-seeking and sin."

In the early years of our country, gambling was widespread. However, when the evangelical church raised her voice, the blight was rolled back. By 1884, legal gambling had disappeared from America. It wasn't until 1964 that New Hampshire discovered the lottery as a cash cow, and government sponsored gambling came back into favor. Now 37 states prey on the poorest if their citizens with lotteries, and there are some 500 casinos across the the land. It's time the church raised her voice again.

There are Biblical reasons to oppose gambling. I won't take time to make a full case, but here is a sampling of reasons. George Washington stated, "Gambling is the child of avarice, or greed, the brother of iniquity and the father of mischief." That's Biblical. Jesus said in Luke 12:15, "Take heed and beware of every form of greed, for one's life doesn not consist of the things he possesses."

Furthermore, since gambling seeks to make a killing at the expense of someone else, it violates the second great commandment. Jesus told us that,second only to loving God with all of our heart, soul, and mind, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Quoting Pastor John MacArthur,

"The success of gambling is based on certain sins. If these sins didn't exist, gambling wouldn't either. The sins that support gambling are materialism, greed, discontent, expoitaion, laziness, distrust of God's provision, disdain for the virtues of labor, irresponsible stewardship, and indifference to those in need."

The devastation that gambling does to society should also be a reason for the church to raise her voice. 500 billion dolalrs is legally wagered every year in America. If you add in illegal gambling, the total raises to an estimated one trillion dollars. There are approximately ten million compulsive gamblers, more than the number of alcoholics. With that much money involved and that many compulsive gamblers, trouble is surely brewing. And it is.

By 1995, studies indicated that 95% of Americans gambled, 82% played the lottery, 75% played slot machines, 50% bet on dogs or horses, 44% bet on cards, 34% played bingo, and 74% frequented casinos. We spend more on gambling that on music, movies, and all other entertainment combined, and more than we spend on all professional sports combined. That's only what is spent legally. People earning less than $10,000 annually buy more lottery tickets than any other income groupo.

Atlantic City shows what happens to a city that allows gambling. It's population shrank 20% since 1976. Crime is up 380%. The police force has doubled. Half of the 2,100 businesses have closed. Four of the past six mayors have been indicted for corruption. According to the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, casino gambling is a magnet for street crime. 40% of white collar crime is caused by compulsive gambling. We haven't even talked about the devastation that gambling causes in the homes of compulsive gamblers.

God said in Genesis 3:19. "By the seat of your brow you shall eat bread." Proverbs 12:11 says, "He who till his land shall be satisfied with bread, but he who follows frivolity is devoid of understanding." God has ordained a method of gaining wealth. It is called work. Gambling offers the fantasy of getting rich without work. It is just that - a fantasy.

Gambling is not good for our community. With gambling, no new wealth is created. Wealth is simply transferred from the hands of the many to the hands of the few. Gambling produces nothing. It adds nothing to the larger economy. Instead, it harms most those who can least afford it. Quoting MacArthur, "It is a plague on our culture (and every culture where it has been legalized), and Christians should not be silent or neutral about it."