Nate Silver wrote a profound article last summer.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Mr. Silver, he is a statistician who earned a solid reputation by correctly forecasting previous election results on his blog "Five Thirty Eight" (which is the total number of votes in the electoral college).  His platform has since expanded, and he is now a regular contributor to various statistical-based discussions on ESPN.com.  His discussions search for conclusions rooted in facts and evidence, and if anything his personal views (such as in his chats) seem to lean a little to the left.  All of which is to say that he does not seem to have any sort of anti-liberal bias.  

But back to his profound article from last summer.  In that article, he looked at murder rates in countries that have a "high Human Development Index," which is "an overall measure of welfare and standard of living."  In other words, countries that a high amount of resources and are governed by the rule of law. Thus, his article considered countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada, Italy, France, Greece, Germany, and even Cuba, among many others; but excluded countries that are well-known but relatively impoverished and/or lack the Rule of Law (which often seem to go hand-in-hand), such as Brazil, Mexico, Libya, Somalia, and Syria.

At first blush, the United States' homicide rate of 5.2 homicides per 100,000 people was one of the highest among countries in his survey.  And in fact, if you limited the study to the 31 most developed / advanced countries, then the United States' homicide rate of 5.2 was easily the highest among that group.

But as Mr. Silver is wont to do, he didn't stop at the surface.  Rather, he dug further into the data.  He divided the American victims of murder into four groups, by race:  Overall, white, black, and Hispanic. And once he looked at the numbers that way, the result was quite different:

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The data showed that the black community suffered 19.4 homicides per 100,000 people -- a rate that is almost triple the next worst country.  

And so that got me thinking.  We hear so much about black-on-black crime, but what do the numbers really say?  How many of those homicides suffered by the black community are the result of black-on-black crime, as compared to white-on-black crime or other sources.

And that led me to this study from the U.S. Department of Justice.  The study looked at homicide trends in the United States from 1980 through 2008.  If you hit the link and scroll to page 13 of the study, you'll see this incredible -- but very alarming -- stat:  Most murders are intraracial (within the same race), and "84% of white victims were killed by whites" and "93% of black victims were killed by blacks."  In other words, white victims are killed by other white people 84% of the time, and black victims are killed by other black people 93% of the time.  I'm not trying to do anything other than look at the honest, raw, and even painful numbers here, so please don't read anything else into it.   

But as I said above, the reason I went looking for the black-on-black homicide rate is because of how startled I was about the 19.4 rate in the chart above.  So now having this 93% number, I was able to go back and ask the question, what would the homicide rate look like in the black community if you only included black-on-black homicides?  In other words, are whites really victimizing blacks as much as the media and the Black Lives Matters MOVEMENT would like us to believe, or is the problem stemming from something else?

And so when you combine those numbers, here's the result:  Of the 19.4 homicides per 100,000 members of the black community, 93% of those deaths was caused by other members of the black community.  Multiplying those numbers (19.4 * 0.93)  still leaves a staggering rate of 18.0 homicides per 100,000 people in the black community that are caused by black-on-black violence.

If you go back and look at the chart above again, you'll see that the next highest country (among the HDI countries) is Lithuania, with 6.9 homicides per 100,000 people.  The rate for America as a whole is 5.2 homicides per 100,000 people, which is almost exactly the same as the homicide rate of 5.3 / 100,000 people in the Hispanic community.  And the rate for white Americans is only 2.5 / 100,000 people, which is still higher than most other HDI countries, but does not stand out nearly as much.  But the rate of 18.0 homicides per 100,000 in America's black community caused by black-on-black violence is, and remains, staggering -- especially since it's almost triple the homicide rate of any other racial group within the United States.

And so that got me to thinking about the common refrain that we have a problem with the "American gun culture."  If the American gun culture as a whole was the problem, then you would expect the aforementioned per capita numbers to be roughly equal.  But yet, those per capita numbers are staggeringly different.

And that got me to thinking about what's so different within each of the various sub-cultures within America, and what other variables matter within the American culture in general.  

I don't know the answers to that last question, but I am hopeful that at least framing the question begins a productive discussion that goes beyond the typical buzz words and accusations.  Let's come together, put aside our differences, and begin to ponder what common aspects of the American culture (for example, Hollywood's glorification of violence?) and the differences of the various sub-cultures (for example, the way country music talks about guns vs. the way they are glorified in the Hip Hop culture) lead to these staggering differences.  

While I absolutely believe that God is ultimately in control, I also believe that He gives us free will to make many of our decisions.  And I also believe strongly that we can make those decisions more effectively when we are more educated on the actual facts, and when we work together instead of bucking against each other.  And so why not begin that discussion here?  Feel free to comment below (honestly but politely, please) or on my Facebook page.

I encounter a lot of Christians who seem confused between legal rights and what we should be teaching and espousing as believers. As one very obvious example, homosexual Americans have the legal right to get "married," including all of the obvious homosexual actions that come with that. But God, on the other hand, has made clear that any homosexual action is a sin, and that, in fact, unrepentant homosexual actors will not enter the kingdom of heaven (leaving only one eternal option, which I genuinely wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy).
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So how do we handle that? Well, here's some Old Testament guidance that God gave to His people in another scenario where the laws of the surrounding nations were at odds with God's holy commands and decrees:

"You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 18:3-4)

And so at this point, some of you may be saying, "BUT I'M NOT ENGAGING IN HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR! AND I'M NOT A MUSLIM WORSHIPPING A FALSE GOD! LET IT GO ALREADY!!!"

But look at what else God commands us to do -- and this is in the New Testament writings, as well as in the Old:

"As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, TO BE A HOLY PRIESTHOOD, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 2:4-5)

And what was one of the primary jobs of the Jewish priests? The same job as Jesus commanded his disciples -- to teach the people of the world all that He taught us. Our job is not to convert. Our job is to teach what Jesus taught (including the whole counsel of God's Word), to proclaim His name and His Truths, and to witness to what He has done and is doing in our lives.

And so, as we continue to teach and proclaim God's truth on the "hot button" issues of culture, our job is not to win converts. Our job is to teach a very lost and misguided culture the truths that God's Word proclaims on the various issues that concern those around us, as well as other truths that our culture may not even realize matter to God.

The good news is, Jesus has already won the war. We get to freely go forth proclaiming that good news, inviting all to put down their weapons of sinful rebellion and be freely welcomed into His victory. But being included in such salvation requires BOTH putting your trust in Jesus Christ (belief) AND turning from your sins (repentance). And you cannot do the latter if God's own priesthood of believers is unwilling to tell you that your sins are sins, or if they/we are advocating things that are directly contrary to God's Word, which is a sin in and of itself (see Romans 1:18-32).

And so if you are a Christian in that very last category -- teaching or approving of things which God has called sinful -- then I hope this encourages you to repent from your own sin. Remember, our job is not to convert. Our job is not to be approved by the culture, or to be popular. Our job is to speak God's truth, in love, into a lost world. But we cannot speak truth in love if we are unwilling to speak truth in the first place.

Blessings, and Good Day to All! :)

I can't speak for everyone, obviously. But I can honestly tell you why I'm so against the current government making *any* laws about the 2nd Amendment. And the answer is, in complete seriousness, the way they handled gay marriage.

As we both ask and acknowledge every time we say the pledge of allegiance or sing (the full version of) the national anthem or sing "God Bless America," God has blessed this country tremendously. But yet despite all of His blessings (not to mention the plain fact that He is God, and we are not), we spit in his face and overtly rejected His authority when it came to gay marriage, and even more so when we began to actually CELEBRATE something that is so clearly an affront to God.

Now, this country allows a lot of sins, including greed, sex out of wedlock, and so forth. You can't legislate someone's heart into loving God (which requires obedience, John 14:15-24), nor should we really try. But it's a different issue entirely when we try to re-define something that God has already defined. At that point, we are no longer simply rejecting His clear commands and authority, but actually saying that we know better than He does. God defined marriage as being between man and woman, and for the purposes of producing godly offspring. (Malachi 2:13-15; Matthew 19:4-6)

We do not have the authority to take His place on the throne, or to change His commands -- but yet, the world has always tried to do those very things. The first time insurrection against our Creator got out of hand, He destroyed the world for rebelling against Him. After doing so, He provided the rainbow as a reminder of a promise that He would never again destroy the world by flood. (Genesis 9:13.) The next time that a large group of humanity got dangerously out of hand was Sodom and Gomorrah. God destroyed those places largely for rampant sexual immorality and extreme homosexual behavior, as well for generally rejecting Him. But yet we take those very things, combine them, celebrate them, and then use God's rainbow to indicate our "gay pride." (And even leaving all of that aside, don't forget that pride itself is an abomination to God (Proverbs 16:5; see also, e.g., 1 John 2:16).)

When we do those things, we spit in the face of a God who has blessed us so tremendously, time and again.

All of that was bad enough. But then the government took those things, and then began to force even God's own people (the Christians) to either participate, or else be subjected to financial punishments or even incarceration. Now they're trying to un-accredit Christian universities and force various Catholic institutions to participate in their godless ways, including paying for abortions and birth control and forcing them to hire people who are living in open sin. (I'm not defending the Catholic church per se, but I am defending their right to function as an entity separate from state control.) What's next -- forcing Christian churches to hire atheist pastors? Forcing Christians to remain silent about the portions of the bible that society deems to be "offensive" or "hate speech"? We are headed down an extremely slippery slope, careening towards a very dangerous ending in the ways of God, even if not in the ways of the world.

And how did we get there? Here's how this all plays into my concerns about touching the 2nd Amendment. When the whole "gay marriage" "debate" started 10 or so years ago, or even just going back five years ago, the constant refrain from the left was, "Just let the gays get married. It won't bother anyone else." First, you see how quickly the swell of public opinion changed. Fifteen years ago, gay marriage was an absurd idea to all but a relative few. Today, to even question the idea of gay marriage results in you almost automatically being accused of hatred, bigotry, and homophobia. And I know, because I've been personally accused of ALL of those things.

But more to the point, once the LGBT community / lobby got an ounce of power (and the wave of public opinion) behind them, suddenly "Just let us get married, we won't bother anyone else" became "We're going to force the Christians to participate in our wicked ways, or else!"

You see, to most non-Christians, bondage and oppression come in the form of physical slavery, of being forced to do things against your own will. But to most genuine Christians, the worst form of bondage is bondage to sin. God has changed our hearts from the inside to the point that we GENUINELY hate sin and GENUINELY love and want to obey God's ways (see Ezekiel 36:27 -- if you read none of the other verses that I posted, please read that one, as it's essentially foreshadowing the NT Gospel via an OT prophet). To tell us that we can't obey God, I would seriously sooner sit in jail (or honestly even be killed) than to be forced by the government to sin against God.

​To us, government overreach in telling us how to worship God is the worst form of tyranny there is -- and I mean that from the depths of my soul, and from the bottom of my heart. I'm not just saying that to make a point for a debate. I sincerely mean those things, and so do A LOT of other Christians.
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And so what's the Constitutional answer to government tyranny? The 2nd Amendment. (Along with obedience, preaching and prayer, which are the spiritual answers.) Most Christians have no desire to ever shoot someone even in self-defense, let alone to go and shoot up a school or nightclub. But the mere ability to bear arms is designed to protect us, first and foremost, from governmental tyranny. Simply owning guns makes it harder for the government to just impose its will and overstep its bounds, because they know that the citizenry is capable of fighting back if need be. And that right there is why this administration in particular has zero chance of making any changes on 2nd Amendment issues, and it's precisely because of how much they overstepped their bounds and rammed homosexuality (and now transgender stuff) down our throats.  

Buying a gun doesn't mean that you are going to kill someone. In fact, MOST gun owners never killed anyone, nor will they ever kill anyone.

Getting an abortion 100% means that you're going to kill someone. Every. Single. Time. That's the point of abortion.

Don't hear me wrong, what happened in Orlando was awful. Fifty people died. They're never coming back. A nation mourns, and rightly so.

But every single day in America, an average of 3,000 babies are aborted. Real people with real souls, given to them by God. People who will never even get a chance at life. And they aren't coming back, either.

Three thousand babies per day. More babies are killed in one five-day "work week" than all of the people who died from gun violence in all of America in all of 2015 combined.

Three thousand babies per day. But we've become completely numb, because we've bought the lie that it's a "woman's right" to kill what is living inside of her body, a "woman's health issue" that allows her to destroy another human life.

Even most non-Christians realize that their body has a soul, something deeper than just their intellect and emotions and physical body parts. Souls don't develop at the 3-month point of a pregnancy. Souls are given to us by God from the outset of pregnancy -- just as when He knit King David together in his mother's womb. (Psalm 139:13)

But yet we still kill 3,000 babies per day, and no one says anything.

Except for when they complain that it's too hard to kill the 3,000-and-first.
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I agree that mass killings are a problem. But yet half of this country passionately supports mass killings, as long as they're to their own benefit. After all, who wants the inconvenience of a gift from God?

If guns are on the table, then let's REALLY get serious about death and put abortion on the table, too. Now is as good of a time as any to talk about THAT issue of mass murder -- and much longer overdue than the gun debate.

Life is short.  Last night, 50 people died in a nightclub in Orlando.  But hundreds, if not thousands more died from various other causes throughout this country.  Some were old and had lived a full life.  But for many others, their time had come at a much younger age.  Despite how good (or bad) your life seems to be at the moment, you could be next.
 
To be sure, this tragedy will incite all of the normal social and political battles.  “If we had completely eliminated guns, this never would have happened.”  Yes, it would have.  Maybe in a different way, but guns are not the problem.  Cain killed Able with his bare hands, or perhaps a rock.  Suicide bombs are even more devastating than both rocks and guns, and there’s no practical way to outlaw them.  This tragedy still would have happened even without guns -- perhaps in a different way, but banning guns would not have eliminated the sin in mankind’s heart.
 
Conversely, you may hear, “Well, it was a gay club!  They got what they deserved!”  Yes, and no.  In response to a similar tragedy that befell Galilee many centuries ago, Jesus Christ Himself said this:  “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”  (Luke 13:2-3)  Their sin is no worse than my sin or your sin.  We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s holy standard.  (Romans 3:23)  And as a result, we all deserve death.  (Romans 6:23)  That’s every bit as true for an atheist doctor as it is for a homosexual club goer who rejects God, and for that matter, even for Christians who know God. 
 
The difference is not whether we deserve to die, or whether we will actually die, because absent a rapture, Christians and non-Christians alike will all die.  The difference is not even whether we will live to old age.  Some dedicated servants of God have died at very young ages, including David Brainerd, Keith Green, and Jesus Christ Himself.  The question is not one of life or death, or even of timing, but rather, what happens when we pass into the next life.
 
And therein lies the greatest tragedy of this all:  Apart from Christ, absolutely no one will be justified before God at the final judgment.  No one is “good enough” apart from Christ.  (Luke 18:19)  No one can love enough or do enough good works to be pleasing to God apart from faith in Jesus Christ.  (Romans 8:8; Hebrews 11:6)  In fact, apart from genuine faith in Christ, even our best works are like filthy menstrual rags before God – perhaps accepted or even glorified by man, but completely repulsive and unpleasing to a righteous and holy God.  (Isaiah 64:6; Hebrews 11:6)  And so, when all is said and done, no one will be “righteous” enough, or “justified” before God, apart from Christ.  (Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:10, 3:20; Galatians 3:11)  There is, quite simply, nothing we can do on our own to merit heaven, to merit eternity with God and in His presence.  (Revelation 7:9-17)
 
Nevertheless, although we have done nothing to deserve salvation, God has given us everything we need for it.  Jesus Christ Himself left the glories of heaven to come to this Earth – and make no mistake, this Earth was every bit as depraved in His day as it is today, and was without our modern technological comforts and conveniences to boot.  He lived the perfect life that we could not live, and then died the death that we deserve.  Although He was the only person in the history of mankind who did not deserve death, He laid down His own life so that we may have ours.  And although we deserve noting except death, God gave us everything we need for life through His own merit.
 
What is our part in all of that?  Admit that we can’t do it on our own.  Admit that apart from Christ, we are as sinful as the openly gay people partying into the wee hours of the morning.  Admit that apart from Christ, we are as lost as the Muslim shooter who openly rejected Christ as His Lord and Savior.  (And yes, I do know that he openly rejects Christ as His Lord and Savior, because part of accepting Islam is rejecting Jesus Christ as God, Lord, and Savior.)  Admit that you need Christ every bit as much as those who died last night, even if you’re a “successful” doctor, lawyer, engineer, teacher, coach, or parent.  Because as I said at the outset, you could be next.  Or “do you [still] think that these [Floridians] were worse sinners than all the other [Americans], because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
 
The greatest tragedy in all of this is not simply the pain and aguish felt by so many last night.  The greatest tragedy in all of this is that the fifty openly gay club goers, as well as the shooter, all seemingly died in unrepentant sin, in open rebellion against God, and thus without a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. The greatest tragedy is not thinking about what so many suffered through last night, today and beyond, as horrible as that is; the greatest tragedy is realizing that eternity apart from Christ will be forever unspeakably worse, but yet that tragedy could have been avoided if the seed of the Gospel had fallen on soft hearts that were willing to listen to the truth before it was too late.
 
Christians don’t preach to judge you.  We preach because we care.  We preach because we've been where you are, and because we know what's on the other side -- the wonderful, and the terrible.  Please listen to us.  And if not to us, then please listen at least to Jesus:  “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”  (Luke 13:2-3)  Please listen before it’s too late for you.  Because as harsh as the suddenness of last night’s tragedy was for so many, you could be next. 

The "blank page" between the Testaments represents spiritual darkness, a period without any light or new revelation from God for around 400 or 500 years.

During this period, the Jews went back and forth between oppression and freedom. The Jews briefly won their independence back in 164 BC, at which point the Maccabean family of priests began to rule over them. The following is from the ESV Study Bible (p. 1784):

"From the second generation onward, the Maccabean rulers became progressively dictatorial, corrupt, immoral, and even pagan." Dictatorial. Corrupt. Immoral. And pagan, or rejecting God. That sounds eerily similar to the state of America today -- and I'm including the leading politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle, including President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Mr. Trump.

"Internal strife led Jewish leaders to ask the Roman general Pompey to come and restore order." In America, faced with a similar situation, we are on the verge of turning to General Trump to "restore order." Some of you may cheer at that. But then read the next passage (and these quotes are all in order, and in context):

"Pompey did so, but he also brought Roman rule, which began in 63 B.C. and lasted into the fourth century A.D.

When Pompey took Jerusalem, he entered the temple and even the Most Holy Place. To the Jews, this was the ultimate insult and sacrilege." My Christian friends especially should realize the arrogance and sacrilege associated with that, the complete disrespect for God and His Ways. Sort of like rejecting the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, and the sanctity of Holy Communion, although this was admittedly even more bold.

"The Romans could not understand why the Jews resented the various exercises of privilege and control by their conqueror." The same is true today for the left's inability to understand why their "tolerance" of sin and "progressiveness" away from God's ways are so offensive to the right, and particularly to the conservative Christians on the right.

"Hence deep suspicion and ill will began growing, lasting over a century until the Jews rebelled and the Romans destroyed the Jewish state. The NT reader must remain aware of this seething undercurrent that colors much of what takes place, even during the ministry of Jesus." Deep suspicion and ill will. I can hardly think of better words to describe America today. Each party deeply distrusts the other, and in a great many cases that has manifested itself in a thinly-veiled hatred for "the other side."

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But fortunately, the solution today is the same as the solution was 2000 years ago: Jesus Christ Himself.

The difference between now and then is that today's church is powerless. We are so focused on historical Christianity that we fail to make history of our own. So focused on doctrine that we forget about obedience. So focused on life that we forget about Jesus' command to die to ourselves. So focused on comfort that we forget about carrying our Cross, which isn't just a burden but a complete surrender of this life, complete death to self so that we may FULLY live for Christ.

The early church had the Holy Spirit in full measure, but lacked most of the New Testament. But relying deeply on God and on His teachings in the Old Testament, they "turned the world upside down." (Acts 17:6)
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Church, what's stopping us from doing the same today? Our politicians cannot save us, nor can church history or even perfect doctrine (if there was such a thing). Christ and Christ alone can save us, and God's power through the Holy Spirit can change us and the world around us. Only when we turn back to doing things God's ways, to becoming clean vessels that are completely empty of self, and thus completely prepared to be filled by the Holy Spirit, only then can we truly make this country -- or even our individual communities -- great again.