Yet another
Day of Infamy

The Kairos
Focus

GEM 04:05:17

LEAD: Today,
Monday May 17, 2004, marks yet another "date that shall live in infamy."

For, it is the
day on which -- thanks to the refusal last week of the US Supreme Court to intervene
in a blatant case of Judges imposing their perverse opinions on the people of
Massachusetts and their elected representatives -- so-called "same-sex
marriage" will become legal in that state by Court order. Thus, through
the faith and credit clause of the US Constitution, this devastating perversion
of marriage (just check out what has happened in the handful of super-secularised
European countries that have done this before: try Focus on the Family for a
start) will be automatically legalised across the United States. (And thanks
to the disgraceful sacking of Judge Roy Moore last summer, officials who disobey
unconstitutional, tyrannical court orders will have little or no support in
the public and media!)

This has immediate
implications for public policy and morality across the Caribbean, for we are
heavily dependent on the tourism industry, which in several of our islands employs
up to 20 - 25% or even more of our people and produces a similar fraction of
GDP. For, there will now be a demand for us to recognise these so-called marriages
in our lynchpin industry; and probably -- given the recent case of mockery of
marriage through annual mass nude weddings (are they still sponsored by Playboy
porn cable tv?) in Jamaica -- there are figures in the industry who are looking
to a profitable new business opportunity: wedding services for so-called gay
couples.

(This is not just
scare-mongering speculation: here in Montserrat, in the course of canvassing
for a petition to Governement to roll back legalised Internet and Casino gambling,
we have discovered that there is support for such a "gay wedding industry"
proposal among certain sectors of the business community.)

But, What Saith
Scripture?

May I beg to remind
us of a couple of politically incorrect -- the perverted law in Canada now deems
the below: "hate speech"! -- scriptures?

Deut 8:17 You
may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced
this wealth for me." 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives
you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he
swore to your forefathers, as it is today. 19 If you ever forget the LORD
your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify
against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 20 Like the nations the
LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD
your God.

Rom 1:18 The
wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and
wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness . . . 20 For
since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power
and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has
been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God,
they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking
became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed
to be wise, they became fools . . . 25 They exchanged the truth of God for
a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who
is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful
lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were
inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other
men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. 28 Furthermore,
since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he
gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They
have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.
They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways
of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless,
heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those
who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very
things but also approve of those who practice them.

The Word of God
is plain: our long-term economic and national survival -- that is, truly sustainable
development -- are dependent on the blessing of God, and therefore on our attitude
to Him as communities. In particular, if we forget him and his word and choose
to put our own ideas and idols in their place, we will destroy ourselves in
a cesspit of immorality and perversion, deceit, vicious curiousity isuing in
evil invention, and violence. Resemblance to current events in our region, in
North America and the wider world are NOT coincidental.

Nor, is it hate
to point out to those who are rushing towards a cliff edge in a fog, that they
are heading to disaster. Just the opposite, in fact: it is loving one's neighbour
as oneself to frankly point out the truth! [Cf. Lev. 19:15 - 18.]

But, why is there
so little protest, so little action to oppose these destructive trends, so little
concern, so little prayer?

Let's Connect
the Dots

Perhaps, we need
to connect a few dots:

1] ANTI-CHRISTIAN
EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION: A long time ago, in his The Rhetoric, Aristotle
warned that our judgements when we are pleased and friendly are vastly different
from those when we are pained and hostile.

In recent decades,
we have been subjected through the mass media to the notion that godly intentions
are put forward by idiotic, fanatical, violence-prone hypocritical fundamentalists,
while perversions and perverts have been consistently portrayed in a favourable
light. So, today, so-called "gay marriage" is being portrayed as a
"fairness" issue, as is the notion that the insanitary, unhealthy,
grossly bizarre, personally and socially destructive activities called "sodomy"
are actually civil rights. All of this serves to undermine our confidence in
well-demonstrated facts: stable marriages and families, in communities that
depend on hard work in communities that promote justice and contribute to the
world through productive rather than exploitive or vice-based industries are
the demonstrated basis for sustainable development of a community.

2] DISTRACTION:
It is no coincidence that over the past several months, the current US Administration
-- led by a now much despised, Evangelical, born again Episcopalian -- has been
subjected to a flood of accusations of lying, hypocrisy and imperialistic intent
regarding its renewal of hostilities in Iraq (after 12 years of Armistice violations,
17 UNSC resolutions and several surges of renewed hostilities through brief
bombing campaigns failed to secure complince on the part of the Saddam Hussein
regime). But, just at the time vindicating facts are surfacing, our attention
is being diverted by: yet another accusation: prison "atrocities."
[I thought such terms were usually reserved for the sort of massacres and torture
chambers that have put 300,000 graves in the Iraqi deserts, thanks to the Hussein
family's activities since 1979. Or is this an attempt to create a sense of immoral
equivalency between a rogue prison unit and a sadistic, tyrannical mass-murdering
regime?]

I hear someone
querying: "Vindicating facts"? Yes:

(i) A few weeks
ago, 20 tons of VX and other deadly war gases were recovered, just in time,
in Jordan, in the hands of Al Qaeda operatives linked to Iraq. The gases reportedly
came in via Syria, but their ultimate origin is not in serious doubt: Iraq
is the only accessible source capable of manufacturing these gases on the
scale in question. Had they been released in Amman, Jordan, 80,000 people
would have died. If released in Israel, it would have triggered massive, perhaps
nuclear, war. In short, the cost of a smoking gun discovery would have been
catastrophic; but since there is no mass-casualty, WMD event, this has been
briefly reported and soon forgotten: don't hold your breath waiting for apologies
to the villified but now vindicated Administrations of Bush and Blair. For
shame!

(ii) Over the
past several months, significant, apparently well substantiated information
has surfaced that the Iraq Oil for Food programme, administered through the
UN Secretariat, had become a global bribery and illicit weapons smuggling
scheme, implicating senior UN officials and a cluster of Govermnments including
especially France and Russia. So serious are the allegations that former US
Fed Chairman Paul Volcker is leading an audit team set up by the UN, though
the scope is artificially restricted. For, US$ 111 Billions were processed,
only US$ 15 Billion of which went for actual food (much of which failed to
reach the actual needy people), and another US $30 Billions for various "cultural"
items. What happened to the other US $60 - 70 Billions? Could this explain
why even though so much was spent, the people of Iraq were still suffering
severe hardships?

3] MORE DISTRACTIONS:
Isn't it strange that an Administration that issued a press release in January
regarding the discovery of abuses at Abu Ghraib, and anounced that Courts Martial
were in train, would face at this time -- only two weeks before the Courts Martial
could convene -- a scandal triggered through leaking of photographs that the
leaders of the Pentagon pleaded be held back for a reasonable time in the interests
of protecting the lives of troops? Isn't it even more interesting that when
an innocent abducted Jewish contractor was beheaded by wanted Al Qaeda operatives
based in Iraq, in "revenge," blame was promptly attached to the Administration
-- whose officials had warned him to keep out of Iraq?

Also, since the
sort of perverse, homoerotic and sadistic behaviour captured for the camera
revealed in the photos reflects directly on a pornographic, perverted lifestyle,
what is the connection between the 1993 "Don't ask, don't tell" Clinton-implemented
policy on sodomy in the military [not to mention in the White House Oval office
- Fellatio is in fact a type of sodomy] and the recent events? The consequence
is quite predictable: Bush has now slipped to 46% in the polls, with Kerry --
whose public policy philosophy wioll materially advance exactly the destructive
agendas we are discussing -- now at 51%.

4] MEDIA BIAS
& AGENDAS: Thursday before last, I finally had enough of media manipulation.
On a BBC World Today programme, Korean Christians and missionaries were characterised
as gibberish-speaking, ecstatic crusading zealots, who have targetted the Middle
East. In that region "crusader" is not only a fighting word, it will
cost innocent people their lives. (BBC evidently knows this: when I checked
the online version, without notice of the alteration, references to crusading
zeal and to glossolalia had been edited out.) So, instead of reporting on the
transformation of Korea into a modern, highly progressive, exemplary Christian
nation that is now the number two sender of missionaries globally, we saw a
calculated hatchet job: and, to date, there has not even been an acknowledgement
of my complaint. Next time, when an innocent Korean, Chinese or Japanese is
murdered by blood-crazed jihadist zealots in the Middle East, do not expect
BBC, sadly self-righteous in its secularist agenda, to apologise or acknowledge
guilt.

On this one, I
have reached a pitch, where I have now developed an online rating scheme for
the media and similar presentations in the name of truth: http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/straight_or_spin.htm

How it works:
media stories have (1) a head and lead, (2) the story proper, (3) characterisation
of people and institutions mentioned or implied, and (4) a background context.
For each of these elements, we should consider: (a) Accuracy, (b) Fairness,
(c) kindness, (d) balance (or whether it provides a counter-balance). So we
have a sixteen-point rating scale. Sources that consistently score 13 - 16 are
acceptable, but those at 7 or under are dangerous. Unfortunately, that is exactly
where much of the local and international media are these days. For shame!

Seeing the
Big Picture

One of the major
points above is: context -- or rather, the lack of it.

For, if we fail
to understand our times, we will not know what to do [1 Chron. 12;32]. in our
times, that means we need to understand how three major forces are dominating
global trends, and how we should respond intelligently and spiritually as Christians
in the Caribbean:

I: The Northern
Tidal Wave: out of Europe and North America, anti-Christ secularism, neo-paganism
perversions and apostate chhistianity have joined forces to target the world
with a filthy brew of unbelief, occult involvement, moral collapse, perversions
of every stripe and corrosive selective skepticism and suspicion of anything
that smacks of Christ.

II: The Middle
Eastern Tidal Wave: out of the jihadist, islamist ideology that once led
to the wars of muslim expansion from 621 - 1683, we again see a bloody surge
of jihad-motivated aggression. From Indonesia to Sudan, Nigeria and beyond,
blood, much of it innocent, flows once again. And, the global Dawah missionary
campaign, Saudi-funded tot he tune of US$ 100 Billions over the past twenty
years, seeks to islamise the whole world. (Those who are entertaining the thought
that such would be a blessing should first find out what dhimmitude is like,
perhaps by looking at www.dhimmi.org . Similarly, those who deride Christian
missionaries as illegitimate, should reflect on the impact of the global Dawah:
this is the principal source of the wave of Wahhabist extremist clerics that
have ideologically fanned the current jihad into flames. Go compare: who planted
hospitals and schools?)

III: The Southern
Reformation: thank God, over the past 100 and more years, God has sent out
a massive wave of the gospel, which has triggered a revival and transformation
of the South of the planet. And now, with China having multiplied its Christian
population at least twenty-fold in the past fifty years, over the next 20 -
30 years, that nation is poised to become the largest Christian nation on the
planet. Already, the Chinese church is looking to its global respoonsibilities!

So, the ball is
in our court. For, we in the Caribbean are the first region to be thoroughly
evangelised in modern times, and we are by and large the peoples of the 10/40
window, who through being brought to the Caribbean [with all the horrors that
that implies] have been blessed through the gospel in ways we often take for
granted. But now, we have to think harder than we have ever had to think before,
and awaken to our responsibilities in the world.

++++++++++++++++++++++

PS: I have been
very busy with a transition to Montserrat, and have had to neglect regular postings.
For this Iam sorry, and hope to be able to take back up the torch over the next
few weeks. Indeed, this discussion piece will be followed by other articles
one a week for the next little while. Let us think, and act, by God's grace.
Gordon.