It may not be all “sky is falling” theorizing. Joel Belz in the current issue of World magazine compiles a list of “big problems facing our society” garnered from casually surveying his friends. The result was “nearly 20 gloomy things to think about.” Not on the minds of his friends was the reality of drought in the United States. I suspect drought isn’t on your list of gloomy things to think about either.

Not a potential drought, but a very real and present drought in highly populated areas of the U.S. The governor of Georgia recently declared a state of emergency in 85 of the state’s 159 counties “where rainfall the last few years has been about half of what is normal.” Military personnel will enforce the conservation measures. The state of Georgia has now mandated a 10% reduction in water use by force of law.

The University of Nebraska at Lincoln monitors the severity of the drought affecting the United States at their U.S. Drought Monitor website. The image map is alarming.

Belz observes,

We humans can drill deeper for oil and gas, and we can build higher kilowatt electrical generators, and we can print money to bluff our way through an economic crisis. We can even, when desperation sets in, send a surge of soldiers to Iraq. But no one has figured out a way yet to hook a fleet of 747s to a bank of rain clouds, tow them to Georgia, Arizona, or southern California’s wildfires, and flip a switch to make those clouds drop their rain.

Widespread shortages of water - life sustaining water, which most of us take for granted every day - will quickly demonstrate how utterly dependent we humans are on a sovereign God. Our relative comfort as Americans, resulting from our dependence on our ability to master technology and make it our slave, has lulled us into believing that drought is a Third World “problem,” inflicted on humans less technologically advanced than us. ”It could never happen here.” Our American arrogance is in for a very rude awakening by a God many have believed to be Himself asleep. We will wake up to discover it wasn’t our self-created technology sustaining us after all, but “the giver of every good and perfect gift” (James 1:17). When the One “who upholds all things by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3) closes the windows of heaven and restrains the rain, no amount of human ingenuity can reverse His will. “Our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased” (Psalm 115:3).

Only God can make it rain, but you and I can be obedient to God’s command to be faithful stewards of the environmental resources he has put in our care. This is not a Liberal or Conservative issue. This is a spiritual issue, and nothing reveals the true nature of our spiritual selves better than how we treat that which is at our disposal. Do we care for it or do we abuse it? How we act will be determined by what we are at the very core of our beings. And what we are at the very core of our beings - outside of the grace of God in Christ Jesus - is depraved.

Our core depravity is vividly on display in our American propensity to avarice and wastefulness. As followers of the One of whom it was said, “All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made,” (John 1:3) we have a spiritual responsibility to stop wasting his natural resources, especially water. One city in southern California has posted a list of water conservation tips which serve as guidelines for all of us. Conserve now, while water is still flowing from your tap (and you don’t need a government permit to drink it). It’s responsible. It’s reasonable. It’s an act of worship - not of the creation, but of the Creator “who gives us richly all things to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17).

HT: Joe Carter

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_2008__1/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

Frank Lockwood over at Bible Belt Blogger highlights the attacks on Huckabee from conservatives in the wake of his positive showing at FRCs Values Voter Summit last week.  Phyllis Schlafley is leading the charge, accusing Huckabee of destroying the conservative movement in Arkansas, quite an accomplishment to lay at the feet of one man. Dr. Randy Brinson of Redeem the Vote is cited by the Washington Times saying that in a recent meeting of conservative leaders, some moved to support Huckabee, causing a “panic” at Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council.

So what is it exactly about Huckabee that concerns pro-family leaders like James Dobson and Tony Perkins? That same Washington Times piece quotes Family Research Council president Tony Perkins on Huckabee:

Mr. Perkins said during a Christian Science Monitor press breakfast that although Mr. Huckabee is good on all social issues, “he has not seemed to have found solid footing on the issue of the threat, internationally, from radical Islam. There is some concern there about that issue.”

Asked what Mr. Huckabee had said to elicit concern, Mr. Perkins said that in a Republican candidates’ debate, the former Arkansas governor “made the statement that we broke Iraq.”

“We didn’t break Iraq,” Mr. Perkins said. “Saddam Hussein broke it.”

Warren Smith at The Charlotte World, makes the following observation in a piece titled, Why Huckabee Poses a Dilemma for Pro-Family Leaders:

Among pro-family leaders, though, there is some hand-wringing because they worry that Huckabee - who is the candidate the followers of the pro-family movement are obviously behind - is unelectable. Pro-family leaders such as Gary Bauer and Tony Perkins would prefer to pick a winner, and be seen as the guys who made him a winner. However, they don’t yet see Huckabee as a winner, so they’re hanging fire.

Warren hits the nail on the head when he says pro-family conservative leaders are putting pragmatism above principle. Shame on conservative evangelical leaders who refuse to back a principled candidate simply because of the perception he can’t win. Of course he can’t win if we don’t support him. These same leaders would rather throw their support behind a tired, anemic movie actor whose own Christian principles are questionable rather than support a man who clearly articulates the values conservative Christians are known for, and does so passionately.

Mike Huckabee is clearly one of us. What makes pro-famliy leaders think Fred Thompson better represents our values than does Huckabee? Any support from conservative evangelicals for Thompson can only be justified on the basis of pragmatism (he is perceived as more electable than Huckabee) rather than on principle. I for one plan to stand on principle. If our leaders don’t stand with us on principle, it’s time for a grassroots revolt to overthrow the status quo.

Leading evangelicals have displayed much angst of late over what to do if a pro-choice Rudy Giuliani captures the Republican nomination for president. Some have turned to Mitt Romney as an “as close as we can get” alternative (Bob Jones III), while others have equated any evangelical support of Romney as downright blasphemous (Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas).

Watching all this back and forth makes my head spin. Why, I wonder aloud, would conservative evangelicals throw their support behind a Mormon when one of our own could best represent us and what we value? Back in June my colleague at KWRD in Dallas, Scott Wilder, conducted one of the most prolific interviews with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee about his candidacy for president. You can listen to it here. By the time that interview was over I was 98% convinced that, even though Huckabee probably couldn’t get the Republican nomination, he had my vote in the primaries.

Now after a rousing speech by Huckabee (see the video here) at last weekend’s FRC Action’s Values Voter Summit, some of those same perplexed evangelicals have suddenly decided that in spite of the perception Huckabee can’t win, he is the candidate that not only comes CLOSE to the values of evangelicals, but indeed shares and articulates the values of evangelicals. Why, I ask, are they coming so late to the party? And why is it taking so long for James Dobson and Tony Perkins to get on board?

My friend Joe Carter over at the Evangelical Outpost has abandoned his support for Fred Thompson and has joined forces with Justin Taylor (Between Two Worlds) and Matthew Anderson (Mere Orthodoxy) in endorsing Huckabee for President. Look for more conservative bloggers to join the parade, but for the record, I was for Huckabee before Huckabee was cool.

The formation of my prolife ideaology is not due to any political party or persuasion. My prolife views were formed by life experience twenty-one years ago.

In 1986 my wife was pregnant with our first son. It was a difficult pregnancy, and Terri was in the hospital more than she was out during the first trimester of her pregnancy. The OB/GYN she was seeing at the time was concerned about the growth of the baby, ultimately suggesting that we have an amniocentesis test (the one where they draw amniotic fluid to test for abnormalities in the baby). In the third month of her pregancy that test was performed.  Based on the results, her OB believed that there were abnormalities in the baby’s (he said “fetus’s”) spinal cord development which could indicate something like spina bifide. He gently suggested we terminate the pregnancy.

As a sovereign God would have it, he had admitted Terri to Huron Valley Hospital. It was there that we met a wonderful young Christian nurse in the birthing center named Julie. We told Julie our story and she was devasted that our OB would suggest an abortion. She told us about a prolife OB she knew who would under no circumstances suggest an abortion. His name, she said, was Dr. Henry Maicki, and he worked out of Providence Hospital in Southfield.

We made an appointment with Dr. Maicki and two weeks later we were in his office. He looked at all of the ultrasounds and the amniocentesis and suggested that the tests certainly indicated a problem. But then he said something amazing. “It isn’t for us to make life and death choices based on tests. God is the giver of life and we leave those choices to him.”

We continued the pregnancy, and ultimately it ended on God’s terms. On September 30, 1986 our first born son, Justin Paul, was stillborn. An autopsy showed no NO ABNORMALITIES with the spinal cord. To this day we have no medical explanation for his death. God had made the choice our first OB had asked us to make based, as it turns out, on faulty test results. Thanks to the encouragment of a prolife OB, we were able to give God the glory in the midst of sorrow for the choice He had made. This experience made it clear to me that no amount of scientific knowledge amassed can put us in a position to stand in God’s place by making the choice to end a life. Had we chosen to end our baby’s life, it would have been based on our limited knowledge which, as it turns out, was ill-informed by a medical test. In the end, God terminated the pregnancy based on his omniscience and for reasons known only to Him. He is God and we are not.

Two weeks after the stillbirth of our son we were back in Dr. Maicki’s office for a follow-up visit. In addition to attending to Terri’s physical needs, Dr. Maicki took the time to minister to both of us spiritually and psychologically. He encouraged us to try again, in our own time, but not to fear being pregnant again. By February of the next year we were.

Twenty years ago on October 24, 1987 God gave me one of the greatest blessings of my life in the birth of our daughter, Jessica Mae. The early months of the pregnancy were again difficult, and Dr. Henry Maicki was a support to us the entire pregnancy. Just a year earlier he had helped us learn to hold our stillborn son, and to give him away. A year later he rejoiced with us as he handed Terri her very much alive daughter.

My prolife views are not political as much as they are spiritual. They have been formed by the experience of having one OB ask us to make a decision only God has the authority to make, and then watching as God made the decision we would prefer He not make. My prolife views were shaped through the compassion of a prolife OB who was not afraid to allow God to make hard decisions, and then to support us in the wake of the loss, encouraging us to realize that ALL was not lost.

I related this story on my radio program in honor of my daughter on her 20th birthday, October 24, 2007. In telling it, I wondered out loud whatever had become of Dr. Maicki. Was he still practicing? Was he in good health? Was he even still alive?

Imagine my surprise as on my call screen in the studio appeared the words, “Dr. Maicki.” A friend of his had been listening to the program, called Dr. Maicki to tell him that some teary eyed talk host was talking about him on the radio, and he called the program!

We learned (obviously) that Dr. Maicki was very much alive! He had stopped delivering babies in 1995, having established the birthing center at Providence Hospital in 1979 and devoting 18 years of his life to obstetrics. He was still at Providence, though in a different role. He was now working in pallative end of life care through a hospice program he established. His ministry now encompassed both ends of life: bringing it in with joy and easing it out with compassion, with a view to eternal life after physical death. His own prolife views informed him that preserving life to its natural God-given end was just as important as preserving life in the womb. I asked Dr. Maicki to explain how delivering babies compared to pallative end of life care for the dying. He told me,

I see a great similiarity. I’ve often said that the two most spititual times during a persons life, during a family’s life, is during birth and death, and so I see great similiarities in what’s happening. There’s so much emotion, there’s so much sensitivity that’s going on. One we think of as a beautiful thing, but we also have to look at life as God had planned it: we sinned and brought death into the picture. He did give us that option and we brought that on ourselves. Now that that is the situation we all know that (death) is going to happen sometime, and it’s hard to prepare for those things.

So I did have the joy of preparing women and families to bring a new life into the world, and now I talk with a lot of families and try to make them understand that we’re now talking about the other end of life, here on earth at least, and then we can talk about re-birth. One (experience) tends to be a little tearful (dying), one tends to be more joyful (birthing). On the other hand we should really realize that they’re both joyful because those that have served the Lord are going to be in a re-birth situation.

I thank God for the life and ministry of Dr. Henry Maicki. Twenty-one years later my heart still rejoices in how a sovereign God worked to bring this man into our lives, to protect us from making choices that belong only to God, and to help us learn the lesson that God is sovereign in both life and death.  I will be eternally grateful for him.

About six months ago Willow Creek Community Church released the findings from its six-year qualitative study of the effectiveness of its ministry. Christianity Today’s Out of Ur blog analyzed Willow Creek’s study and said,

Having spent thirty years creating and promoting a multi-million dollar organization driven by programs and measuring participation, and convincing other church leaders to do the same, you can see why Hybels called this research “the wake up call” of his adult life.

Hybels confesses:

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

In other words, spiritual growth doesn’t happen best by becoming dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships. And, ironically, these basic disciplines do not require multi-million dollar facilities and hundreds of staff to manage.

Read Out of Ur’s entire commentary here.

As an evangelical professor of Bible and theology, I have decided to support Mitt Romney for President (even though he is a Mormon) for two old-fashioned reasons: First, he is the best-qualified candidate, and second, he holds moral and political values consistent with those in the Bible.

 Read the entire column at Townhall.com

….just got its lapel pin. Does Jesus Save or Joel Osteen?

 http://www.iwjo.com/