Responding to John MacArthur about Charlottesville

I have listened to John MacArthur’s response to a question about what the Bible would say about Charlottesville 3 times. He gave a masterful biblical explanation of how desperately wicked the human heart is.

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9

While his explanation of why people would act as they did in Charlottesville was on target, his summary of the implications rang hollow.  Mr. MacArthur’s summary of the Charlottesville event was that it was just an opportunity for “angry, hostile, self willed, selfish people to explode.”  From his perspective, what was on display was a proud angry mob expressing itself. In fact he said of the entire event, “All I see in that is the justification of anger.”

I wonder if Mr. MacArthur was given the opportunity to think further about what the angry people were exploding about whether he would be so quick to say, “This is  not about race.”

The PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) in 2004 defined it as follows: Racism is an explicit or implicit belief or practice that qualitatively distinguishes or values one race over other races.

The people who were there exploding with anger have given testimony about what their anger was directed toward and they seem to know very well it was all about race!

Mr Spencer is one of a number of white nationalist leaders who have given voice to a legion of angry white men who feel that their status in America is being eroded by multiculturalism, feminism, global trade and affirmative action.

Our people are subjugated while an endless tide of incompatible foreigners floods this nation every year, the group says on its website Vanguard America.

If current trends continue, White Americans will be a minority in the nation they built.

Our America is to be a nation exclusively for the White American peoples who out of the barren hills, empty plains, and vast mountains forged the most powerful nation to ever have existed.

We’re never backing down. The fact that you treated us this way, the fact that you treated American citizens who are peacefully assembling this way is an absolute outrage.

I have never been so offended in all my life. You think you won? You looked like complete fools.

We’re going to make even more of a fool of you when we’re back here because we do not give up.

Our movement is about our identity and our future and we’re not going to give up.

It is crucial for Christians to understand that the heart of our problems resides in the evil hearts of mankind. However, that was and is not the only truth on display in Charlottesville and our society at large.  Please let more of our pastors and ministry leaders step forward and not minimize what was also on display in Charlottesville on August 12th — ugly, hostile, dehumanizing, treacherous, hateful racism.

We have this future to look forward to and to work toward!

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” Rev. 7:9

The First All Girls Brass Band in Africa!

A friend sent me this link to an all girls brass band in Mbale, Uganda. She knew my love of Uganda and how delighted I would be to see this beautiful land again even through YouTube. I am so proud of these young ladies! Mbale is about 152 miles northeast of where we lived near Kampala, Uganda. The director of this piece is a ten year old girl.

Here it is! The first all girls Brass Band in Africa!

It won’t come as a surprise to most of you to learn that girls are often discriminated against in Uganda. This is especially so in music. A girl asking to join a local brass band will often be met with a sneer and the usual comment of “girls are too weak to play a brass instrument – you go and play a side drum”.

In Mbale Schools Band we take the opposite view and encourage as many girls as possible to play an instrument. More than a third of our players are girls. So to all other Ugandan brass band leaders we say “look what you are missing out on”!

The march the girls are playing is called The Villager by Maurice Raynor.

We are the Body

This lighted pear with the church design was a gift from a friend. I loved seeing it this morning and thinking about the ways it teaches the role of the church in the world.  Our purpose as members is to get out of the four walls and shed light to others.

At a time when the numbers of religiously unaffiliated is growing rapidly, my sense is that I have been rescued from a shallow and frivolous life not just through affiliation but commitment to the church which is the Body of Christ.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

1 Cor. 12:27

John Calvin would not endorse our casual thinking about what it means to be part of a church.

The church is the common mother of all the godly, which bears, nourishes, and brings up children to God, kings and peasants alike; and this is done by the ministry. Those who neglect or despise this order choose to be wiser than Christ. Woe to the pride of such men!”

A summer studying the letter of Ephesians with other women has renewed my love and commitment to the church that Christ loved and gave Himself for.