EXODUS: Leave Your Comfort Zone

This final chapter title of LKM's BLOG is inspired by Rev. Russell Isler, Pastor of Montgomery Baptist Church(LKM's current church), and is based on the Bible scriptures of Genesis chapter 12, as well as Matthew 13:57-58 and Mark 6:4-6: The prophet is not without honor, except in his own household and among his own people. John 1:11 says "He came unto His own, but His own received Him not." The title of this BLOG article is a repeat theme of Pastor Isler's sermons, and this scripture is still mostly true in modern Israel: to date, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has yet to stage a crusade right in Jesus Christ's own back yard.

Does anyone truly have a comfort zone? Or is this just an illusion? Department of Justice statistics say most murders occur between people who know each other, and an initially-good personal relationship turns sour. Also, the number of murders committed where perpetrator and victim are of the same race or national origin considerably outnumber the number of those committed where perpetrator and victim are of different races or nationalities.

It is often popularly said that it is better to go with a devil one knows, than to take any chance with the unknown. But yet, every friend we now have was once a stranger to us, we had to leave a comfort zone in order to discover and make that new friend.

This blogger is a Toastmaster. One day, he gave a speech to his club called "God Bless Archie Bunker", in the which he pointed to Archie Bunker's Great Depression historic background as an apology for his bigotry and lack of cultural finesse. Who among us would be smooth and suave in our personal relations with other peoples unlike ourelves, if we had to quit school early and hustle to find a job--any job--at a time when job finding was nightmarishly difficult? But those of us with better education should know better, except for the fact that we still refuse to leave our illusory and imaginary "comfort zones". This blogger's only real objection to this popular comedy was that it depicted Archie Bunker as a WASP proto-type as being the only genre of person who is bigoted. There is a certain amount of "Archie Bunker" in all of us, and this blogger is not holding his breath to find any Chinese able to speak Arabic, or any Hispanics knowledgeable in the Hindi-Urdu language. "Why should they care", would come the response. After all, knowledge of one's fellow humans of different nationality is "not necessary", the shrinking of the world through improving communication and transportation notwithstanding. "Those people, those people, they, they, they...." as Archie Bunker says.

Then we keep coming back to George Mason University law professor David Bernstein's book, You Can't Say That! Is speech being regulated for cause of guaranteeing us the integrity of our comfort zones here? Is a legal wall being constructed between ourselves and certain inconvenient truths we need to hear? Sometimes, the price of freedom is and must be exposure to ideas that cause us to squirm in great discomfort. Many Bible passages are just like that, as they convict us of our sins. The Bible is metaphorically called "the SWORD of the Lord", and not His butter-knife.

If we leave our comfort zones, we may be surprised to learn that "those people" on the other side of the railroad track are not all that much different from ourselves, at the end of the day.

Finally, the Christian must understand that he or she never had any comfort zones to begin with. As the words to the hymn go: "Christian, do not seek repose, cast your dreams of ease away, you are in the midst of foes, watch and pray..." John 15:18-23. The author of this BLOG has encountered over the years even until now, people within the Christian church, as well as outside of it, who hate him. While he wants to love other people as the Lord loved us, he has known well since adolescent years that he can never trust any other people to love him in return. Jesus Christ spoke true.

-LKM

Bullying: An Inconveniently Truthful Perspective

Firstly, an acknowledgement: the author of this BLOG acknowledges the phrase "inconvenient truth" to be originally from the mind of Albert Gore Jr. Regardless of what we may think of the particular ideas and claims of Mr. Gore, at least the point is well-taken that in a supposed land of the free and home of the brave, there are certain truths which must be publicly enunciated, despite their inconvenience and incongruity to our usual predilections.

In recent years, government officials at all levels have become gravely concerned with this issue as relating to our schools. The author of this BLOG remembers being a victim of bullying himself while in school approximately fifty years ago.

Why do young people of adolescent age bully one another? The author of this BLOG suggests the answer to be that the outward physical projection of power onto people is glorified by society-at-large: politicians often make self-aggrandizing power grabs to subjugate the citienry; while in sports, individuals and teams engage in contests of strength and violence in order to gain social prestige at the expense of parties they defeat in such contests. Indeed, the American national ethos was truthfully expressed by former President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, when he said, "First you plunge your knife into your enemy, and then you twist!"

In a word, hapless adolescents are merely following the example set for them by older adults. The only difference is that older adult bullying is given the more respectable euphemism called government. To govern is to bully: both require use of physical force and violence--or threat of the same--to coerce citizens to comply with the wishes of stronger entities and/or parties initiating this use of physical violence. "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", wrote Lord Acton. During the era of the American military involvement in the Viet Nam war, then-U.S. Senator James William Fulbright wrote a book called "The Arrogance Of Power". But why war? The Bible scripture of James 4:1-3 explains the answer: men are usually motivated to war by pride, greed, envy and lustful desire. But these motives are usually disguised under pretext of altruism, patriotism and humanitarian benificence. Aggressor nations always claim to be liberating the peoples and nations they invade from some wicked evil or another. Likewise, the school bully will usually claim some virtuous intent for his actions, as a self-appointed vanguard of noble rectitude. Both the religious and the anti-religious share equal culpability in trying to "change the socio-political order for the better". Similarly, the school bully purports to "teach somebody else a lesson" towards an allegedly-higher good.

Yes, the inclination to bully is written deeply into the human psyche. This blogger remembers well one version of the famous movie "West Side Story" which he applauds. Here was a story of love and romance, against a back-drop of teen-age gang war between two rival gangs--the Jets and the Sharks--war which resulted in the pointless and tragic deaths of three young men. At the conclusion of this version of the movie, one police officer comments on the silly frivolities and moral recklessness of youth. But his colleague retorts, "Yeah, but are we any better?" Then the camera focuses on a newspaper at the local news stand. Its headlines read, "Four Hundred More American Troops Die In Viet Nam This Week".

-LKM

LKM: Happy Recollections Of His Cello World

The music in the background for this article should be "Happy Recollections", for cello and piano, by the famous 19th century cellist composer David Popper. This cellist blogger fervently believes that the art of cello-playing, at least in America, will not survive long beyond his own lifetime. He also doubts that names of great cellists of the past-- such as Mstislav Rostropovitch, Pablo Casals, Leonard Rose, Janos Starker, Gregor Piatigorsky, Bernard Greenhouse, Andre Navarra, Fritz Magg, Aldo Parisot, Antonio Janigro, Samuel Mayes , Paul Tortelier and Pierre Fournier--will even be in the memory of generations of Americans born after the end of his own lifetime. Starting with Elvis Presley and the Beatles, the slow but certain trashing of Western musical culture began. Today's contestants on the TV show "American Idol" owe infinite apology to the musical greats of fifty and more years ago, as the former cause this American blogger great chagrin and embarrassment for the sake of cultural repute of his native country.


The four cello maestros in this blogger's life were: 1)William Stokking, a.k.a. "Dutch Uncle Bill", future principal cellist of the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras(he was in the Navy Band-Orchestra during the time of teaching this blogger); 2)John Martin, for fifty years principal cellist of the National Symphony; 3)Leopold Teraspulsky, professor of cello at Indiana University Music School; and 4)Mihaly Virizlay, principal cellist of the Baltimore Symphony. Great first-rate performers, all! But this blogger's favorite teacher of all was---Leopold Teraspulsky. This choice has no relation to Mr. Teraspulsky's playing or teaching ability, although those things he certainly had. No, Mr. Teraspulsky is chosen because he did not smoke! As a non-smoker himself, this blogger infinitely appreciated Mr. Teraspulsky's abstinence from the use of tobacco!


The first teacher, i.e. "Dutch Uncle Bill", often told stories about himself in which he made himself the hero. For example, while driving his bright-red and white station wagon and wearing his Navy uniform hat, he once followed an emergency fire-truck convoy through a red traffic light. A near-by policeman, mistaking him for the fire chief, waved him on through the traffic light! "Dutch Uncle Bill" gave me a great early foundation, giving me left hand-developing exercises which he said would one day see me signing my checks with my left hand(I am right-handed). Then one day, he sought to teach me vibrato. I had been experimenting with this technique all the week before, and almost knocked him off his chair with shock-surprise, to show him I already had the technique mastered! I continued to study with "Dutch Uncle Bill" until the end of my elementary school days, playing for my sixth grade classmates one day at Beltsville Elementary School.


Transition over into junior high school also saw my transition over to John Martin as my cello teacher, I was to study with him until graduation from high school. I remember but little of my study with him, except that he introduced me to cello exercise books by cellist composers David Popper and Alfredo Piatti. I studied several well-known pieces of cello solo repertoire with Mr. Martin as well. When I would complete playing these at my lessons, Mr. Martin would say to me his now-immortal words: "That was nice for a warm-up, NOW LET'S PLAY IT!" What he was referring to was the fact that while I had played these works in perfect intonation and rhythm, any semblance of artistic expression and interpretation was still horribly lacking: I was playing these solo works just like an exercise: hmm-m-m. I wonder why that was?! But John was overall an excellent teacher. He was a suave, reserved and easy-going gentleman, in stark contrast to a more forward and sometimes petulant William Stokking. John Martin never told any stories about himself as William Stokking did.


Then I went on to college, to Indiana University Music School and Leopold Teraspulsky. I learned much new cello repertoire from Mr. Teraspulsky, who was the first of my teachers to discuss with me seriously the issue of musical interpretation and refined musicianship. I eventually got the message, but concluded in later years of playing that without the ability from within one's own heart and soul to understand this concept, the instrumentalist would always be a mere organized-noise-maker, as opposed to being a true musician. Mr. Teraspulsky was also a basically very friendly and easy-going individual, and again I especially appreciated his abstinence from smoking.


Then after leaving Indiana University, I took a break from my cello as I went on to U.C.L.A. to further pursue my foreign languages studies: I had never actually majored in music while in college per se, but had opted for major in the languages studies. This is because you need no institutional degree to play in a professional orchestra: you are tested by orchestra managers on your actual playing skills when you apply for the job, and John Martin himself served as principal cellist of the National Symphony for fifty years, with no formal music institution degree. It is recognized by orchestras that some musicians are privately instructed and trained.


I finally resumed my cello again in 1974, going to the Peabody Music School of Johns Hopkins University to study with Mihaly Virizlay. Mr. Virizlay also taught me much about general musicianship, as well as about bow economy and utilization according to relative importance of various musical passages. His introduction of new and unfamiliar cello repertoire to me also prompted me to explore the cello literature on my own. Today, I have a collection of approximately 200 works for cello and piano: some are originally composed for cello, while others are merely transcriptions of works written originally either for voice or for other instruments(they sound nice on cello anyway!). I studied with Mr. Virizlay until 1980, when the school tuition simply became too expensive for me. Also, while Mr. Virizlay displayed superb ability to teach, he had a bad habit of running out on my scheduled lessons to play at his own self-glorifying public events, making up those missed lessons at his convenience! He often boasted to me of his public repute, I recall. I felt such conceit to be unnecessary, as one's musical performance speaks much more than words for any musician's public repute. By 1980, I had already had 18 years of formally-structured education on the cello, and had all the basics of cello-playing well in hand. It was just a question of learning new repertoire, and its appropriate-best stylistic interpretation is always a subject up for debate and discussion by those in the business!


My activities in Music Makers over the last forty years have always been a joy to me, and although I have made but pennies with my cello-playing, I also believe not every worth-while thing in this life is measurable in any monetary units. I also consider my high school days experience of playing with the all Prince George's County high school orchestra a culturally very enriching experience. Those of my high school classmates who would ridicule me for my involvement in this activity, both then and now, simply do not know the magnitude of cultural greatness they were(and are!) missing! I still held the high ground on this issue, the ignorance of the school's education establishment about great Classical orchestra music notwithstanding! Upon reflection, this blogger acknowledges that the genre of music he played--and still plays today--was not composed for the entertainment of the masses of common people: the latter have their own musical traditions of far more simple-minded appeal. Also, the lion's share of music this cellist blogger plays was and is the brain-children of great European--not American--composers. Also, most of the great cellists mentioned in this blog are also of European--not American--birth. Therefore, the "cultural incorrectness" this blogger experienced among his high school colleagues lies in the fact that this Western Classical music tradition is deeply rooted in Europe, but merely has shallow roots here in American soil. The likes of this blogger's former cello teachers would never "cut it" on American Idol. America's culturally-better days are most unfortunately behind her as the truly great musical composers and performers die off in our day, one by one. Indeed, the nation was too ensconced in the Watergate scandal as President Nixon fired his first Watergate prosecutor, to notice that a truly great cello virtuoso--Pablo Casals--passed from the world scene on that very same day.

Free Speech: A Right From God Or A Priviledge From Men?

The author of this BLOG regrets to add this shameful chapter to his BLOG as per the record of his own experience. However, he believes the shame herein described belongs not to himself, but to our government, for its abject refusal to acknowledge that the civil rights and liberties enumerated in the U.S. Constitution--as this nation's founders said--come from God as absolute and inalienable, and not as priviledges granted and withdrawn by men, according to their convenient political expedience. Further address to this issue is available in George Mason University law professor David Bernstein's book, You Can't Say That!(Why not? Read on!)

The legal background to this article is the U.S. Supreme Court cases of Connick v. Myers, and Churchill v. Waters. Here, the high court proclaims that government employees have First Amendment free speech rights, so long as their speech "does not interfere with the efficiency of government operations." Who assesses the meaning of this edict? Why, government itself, unchecked and unrestrained from any possible politically-motivated abuse. Four times was the author of this BLOG suspended from work at the U.S. Defense Mapping Agency, for which he worked from June 1976 - June 2006.

Suspension number one came in response to his written letter to his department chief, questioning the latter's patriotism and sense of commitment to other people. The man switched sides three times at a department picnic volleyball game, trying to abandon the losing team and secure a place for himself on the winning side. When it became obvious that whichever side he was on was going to lose, he chickened out and dropped out of the game altogether. The author of this BLOG also referred to this department chief--a black African-American man named James--as "Uncle Jim-ima", a male-sex version of a nationally-famous commercial food icon. This BLOG author was suspended for "use of insulting language", and for making a "racially discriminatory comment about a superior agency official". QUESTIONS: Is it interference with government operational efficiency, if an employee's insults to his superiors do NOT relate to the government agency's official mission? How will the government define "insulting language" in a manner satisfying the Constitution 14th amendment, when one man's villain is another man's hero? Is it discriminatory under any federal civil rights statute, to satirically call a black person after the name of a long-established and famous commercial food product black icon? In any event, the volleyball team-switching incident made the BLOG author wonder if his department chief's leadership included the magnanimity to help those in struggle to succeed on the job, as opposed to self-glorification by association with those already winning and successful.

Suspension number two came in response to doctoring the photograph of an agency lawyer in the agency's newspaper, to make him look like Satan the devil and send the doctored photo to him. He was being cited for an agency award for outstanding work. This BLOG author felt he did not deserve the award, for reasons of constitutional import relating to the first suspension incident. QUESTION: Is it interference with government operational efficiency, to express contempt for an agency official not in the employee's chain-of-command, and concerning an extraordinary occasion of award not directly central to the successful execution of the agency's mission?

The third suspension came in response to an e-mail addressed by this BLOG's author exclusively to his immediate first-line supervisor. In this e-mail, he used the word "nigger-boy", to describe how he felt he was being treated by a fellow co-worker believing himself to be more competent on the job than this BLOG's author. This co-worker was repeatedly commanding the BLOG's author to go down to the map library five floors down, and retrieve maps. After several episodes of this treatment, the BLOG's author felt greatly demeaned, to say the least! QUESTION: How can the use of just one word in an e-mail, no matter how unpleasant or "politically-incorrect", possibly cause interference with government operational efficiency, if used only once and not as part of a repeated pattern of co-worker harrassment? Hostile work environment law would have very unlikely application to this instance.

The fourth suspension came in response to e-mails sent from the BLOG author's home to that of a foreign-language instructor on temporary contract with the agency. These e-mails were composed by the BLOG author on his own time, from his own home, and using his own resources. He was chiding the foreign language-instructor for the latter's boasting about previous association with high-ranking government officials. The BLOG author was warning that government and politics are very unpopular here in America, and so such personal association would NOT confer socio-political prestige, but quite the very shameful opposite. The foreign language instructor complained to agency officials about "feeling threatened" by the e-mails, although the e-mails contained no statements of intent to inflict any criminal injury upon the instructor. Thus the charge of "feeling threatened" was vague: threatened with what adversity? Not explicitly stated or proven. QUESTIONS: Do government agencies, as employers, still have administrative control over their employees, concerning the latter's behaviour off of government property and after working hours? Does government have authority to vague, non-specific threats not stating intent to violate any particular law? Is "feeling threatened" by a communication's recipient sufficient legal grounds to even say a real threat exists, i.e. does "feeling threatened" equal objective reality under the law? This question also occurred with the second suspension incident.

As far as this BLOG's author can fathom, the four suspensions he experienced on his job were not based on any credible interference with any aspect of the agency's official mission, per se. Rather, he was suspended for mere "political incorrectness" which offended various agency officials' feelings. To use the words of William Shakespeare, civility is "a consumation devoutly to be wished". But the question of government being empowered to dictate rules of unwritten customary civility still remains. The power to penalize people for violation of unwritten social mores is a power the people should confer upon our government only with the greatest of reluctance--if they confer such power upon government at all--given the presence of the 14th amendment in the U.S. Constitution. Equal enforcement of unwritten law can never be guaranteed, and the words, "you cannot impose your religious morality on me" is a rallying cry of the American far Left. Why that cry should be nullified as a condition of government employment is a question the Left has yet to answer.

This BLOG author has not been able to procure justice on this issue, even five years after retirement from his government job. The question of use of "offensive language" is an ever-increasingly prominent issue nonetheless. "Free speech for me, but not for thee?" The U.S. Constitution, backed by the Declaration of Independence, contains much high-flying, idealistic rhetoric. But the author now knows that as relating to himself, none of it is true! -LKM

Education: A "Woman Thing"?

This blogger remembers his high school and college years, 1961-1971. All during those years, the gender balance of all his teachers and professors was more-or-less evenly distributed, half-and-half. He greatly appreciated seeing both genders take responsibility for the education of future generations of Americans.

More recently, however, in October 2009 exactly, the state of Maryland held a state-wide symposium in Columbia(Howard County) on parental involvement in education. This blogger attended that convention, and, to his shock-surprise, discovered that a good 90-95% of attendees at the convention were women! He began to seriously wonder if he as a man was a freak incongruity, an unwelcome intruder at some event far more exclusive than publicly advertised. What had happened over the last 35 years since he left the four ivy-covered walls of formally-structured academia? Men at the conference, while certainly present, were few and far between.

Is education today becoming an exclusively woman-thing? Statistical surveys recently are indicating that more women than men graduate from college with advanced degrees, and that women academically out-perform men at all levels of education and schooling. Are men getting the message, sought or unsought, that education is no longer for them, so they better get out of education "while the getting is good"? What would be the economic and socio-political consequence of a complete feminine take-over of all academia? Could America afford, or perhaps even desire, such a consequence? Now that John Wayne is dead, it might enable women to say, "Men can do anything they want to----as long as they have supper ready for us women when we come home from work." (Some men, particularly among the French and Italians, have proudly shown themselves to be among the world's best chefs. Meanwhile, most medical doctors and lawyers in Russia are women.) Europe appears to be not the least bit squeamish about crashing the walls of gender distinction in the distribution of highly-educated top-paying professions. Et tu, America?

Today, technological advance is replacing brute bodily physical strength as the central qualification of competence to perform many tasks previously thought to be "a man's job". Most notably, the military is moving in this direction in relation to national defense. John Wayne is dead, and so are those brash "rides into the very jaws of hell and returning back again unscathed(ta-da-a-a-h!). No longer does the U.S. Marine Corps claim to "build men", or to be "looking for a few good men", as it once did, shall we dare say, "in the good-old days"? (Do we hear older males' champaign glasses clinking in salute to the memory of those days?) But today, the U.S. military is gravely concerned that today's educational institutions may fail to accomodate competent operation of new and advancing technologies so sine qua non to America's national defense. If women academically out-perform men in school, the new American military may have no choice but to rest the burden of national defense mainly upon the shoulders of women. Will women then still need men "like a fish needs a bicycle"? Maybe. But the extent of feminine willingness to transition over to this previously-exclusive "good-old-boys' club" remains a big bottom-line question. Trends of gender in education will hold the key to answering that question.

What if between men and women, women become the more superiorly-educated sex, what effect, if any, will this have on love-life relations between the sexes? Will women love men more, love them less or love them about the same as in past generations? This blogger admits to speculation about married life to a woman far more-educated than himself(whatever "educated" means). To a medical doctor, a corporate CEO, to a Nobel Prize-winning college prof? Maybe. But to a lawyer? When pigs fly: when William Shakespeare advocated killing all the lawyers, he made no reference to sexual preferences. "The first thing we must do...." Some superiorly-educated women may decide it is high time to contemptuously spit men out of their mouths; but, the wiser among them will see education as a continuous revelation to themselves of how very ignorant they still are, and perhaps understand that maybe--JUST MAYBE--their "ignorant and stupid" man might still know a few things they would find at least interesting, if not downright urgently important. In any case, sameness of profession, and of intelligence level in the same, can lead to intense professional jealousy and rivalry, as well as to complementary romantic compatibility. So regardless of education, marriage should ideally be with complementary rather than with competitive professional roles.

The Bible still counsels that God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, so that no man--or woman--will boast in His presence. (I Corinthians 1:17-31). -LKM

LKM: His Christian Faith and His Music

The author of this BLOG is thoroughly convinced that the ability to compose and/or perform music is a very special gift from God not imparted to everybody. Evolution cannot explain how and why men have any aesthetic discernment so obviously present in music composition and performance. Were this to be a consequence of evolution, all men--or most men--would have such aesthetic discernment. But such is not the case. The composer Gustav Mahler once said, "If the music composer could say in words what he says in his music, he would not bother to write the music." This Christian musician is therefore deeply perturbed by those of his Christian brethren who say only choral music containing praise words men understand is worthy of performance in a Christian religious setting, and instrumental music is to be condemned as "worldly", "secular", etc. Indeed, Psalm 150:3-5 advocates praise of God through instrumental music: "Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet: praise Him with the psaltery and the harp. Praise Him with the timbrel and dance: praise Him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise Him upon the loud cymbals: praise Him upon the high-sounding cymbals." God is not anthropomorphic: thus He needs not human words by which to discern if music performed be to His honor or no.

Approximately 40 years ago, this Christian musician helped establish a local amateur musicians' club called Music Makers. Its activity survives to the very day of this writing, being held the first Sunday afternoon of each month. This BLOG author and Christian musician therefore sees such musicale meetings as a continuation of his Sunday morning worship service of the Lord: we present to Him our best show of musical talent with which He has blessed us. I Samuel 16:7 says men look upon the outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart. Through instrumental music, God has the clearest expression of the human heart unmarred by human language, referencing Gustav Mahler's quotation. This BLOG writer and Christian musician therefore asserts that the great symphonies of Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart, for example, are just as much musical monuments to the glory of God as are traditional hymns of the Christian faith such as "Faith of Our Fathers", "What A Friend We Have In Jesus", "The Old Rugged Cross", etc.

This Christian musician considers it most unfortunate, therefore, that around 1900, the Christian churches expelled as hopelessly sinful all music not openly propagandizing through human language for the Christian faith. It is by no coincidence that this Christian musician rarely chooses to perform the music of composers born, or even those dying, after 1900. It is also no mere coincidence that the world's greatest musical compositions were written by composers dwelling in lands where the gospel of Jesus Christ has been preached and beloved most copiously by all. Countries of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Sikhism, Confucionism and yes--even Judaism--have given to the world nothing of musical composition comparable in magnitude of either quality or quantity to the historically-Christian realm. Cynics may attribute this fact to Europe's Age of Enlightenment, in the which the traditional Christian church was rejected by men in favor of atheistic secular humanism. Rebuttal: Antonio Vivaldi was a Roman Catholic priest, Franz Joseph Haydn was also a Catholic, and Johann Sebastian Bach was his Lutheran church organist for many years. Bach composed Saint Matthew's Passion and Saint John's Passion, two musical works of equal magnitude to the more famous Messiah of George Friedrich Handel.

Today, there is unquestionably a regrettable disconnect between music and the Christian faith, i.e. Christian churches only value music to the extent that it propagandizes openly for the Christian faith, and not for any intrinsic genius of musical content or message per se. For their part, most musicians not in the employ of any Christian church openly sneer in abject contempt and disbelief in the Christian faith. They do not see music as being any special gift from God, but they cannot explain their special musical talent and capability otherwise. Both camps miss the central bottom-line point: According to the Bible, God said, "Let us create man in Our image." This means the endowment of men with creative capability unique to his genus and species: no other members of the animal kingdom exhibit this same capacity to create, even as God also creates. This blogger's musical colleagues may bury their heads like ostriches into the sand in denial of this truth, but the truth still lives, Enlightenment or no Enlightenment! From whence came the light to empower the Enlightenment? God is a god of purpose, and it was not for no purpose that God said in the beginning, "Let there be light!" -LKM

Why I Believe In Jesus Christ

There is one major and several minor reasons why this BLOG's author personally believes in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour, Redeemer from sin. The minor reasons are those which merely enable intellectual assent to this divine proposition, without acceptance for one's own life of its true spiritual efficacy. Let us look at those first. 1)Mutually-conspired collusion by the Old Testament prophets to fake a prediction of Christ's coming is virtually impossible: they were not all chronological contemporaries of one another; yet, every prophecy about Christ was fulfilled by His life. 2)Jesus Christ could not have had personal human control over every Old Testament prophecy made about Him, such as His family ancestral lineage, His betrayal by Judas Iscariot for exactly thirty pieces of silver, the gambling of Roman soldiers for His clothing at the foot of the cross, the location of His birth, His abuse and suffering at the hands of the local Jewish crowd on the road to Calvary, and His burial in a tomb borrowed from a rich man(Joseph of Arimathea). 3)Concerning His resurrection from the dead, some cynics say Jesus merely swooned--fainted into temporary unconsciousness on the cross--but later revived in the tomb. Rebuttal: A Roman soldier's spear thrust into Jesus' side should put final end to a mere swoon on the cross. 4)Also concerning the resurrection: Roman soldiers were posted in front of the boulder closing the entrance to the tomb, to assure that Jesus' body would not be stolen. The boulder was huge and heavy, rolling it away would have been a very strenuous task taking too much time to escape the Roman guards' notice. The punishment for a Roman guard sleeping on guard duty was death. So, the body of Jesus Christ could not possibly have been stolen. 5)Jesus Christ re-appeared to His disciples after the crucifixion. All of them acknowledged Him. It is virtually impossible that all were simultaneously experiencing the same hallucination. 6)Cynics say the whole New Testament is a fictitious concoction by the ancient historian Josephus Flavius. Rebuttal: It is highly unlikely that Josephus Flavius had all the Old Testament writings collected together in hand, to invent a New Testament fulfilling of all the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus Christ with such uncanny accuracy. The entire Bible was not formally compiled and canonized into a single book until the time of the early church councils, a few centuries after the lifetime of Josephus Flavius. The authorship of the New Testament apostolic letters after the Four Gospels is well-corroborated and attested as the Bible claims. 7)Finally among the minor reasons why I believe in the Bible is that it is possible to deceive just so many people for just so long: had the whole Bible--or at least the New Testament--been a baloney-sausage, it would have been discredited and forgotten centuries ago, and no Christian church would exist anywhere today.

Now to the major reason why I believe in Jesus Christ. At the outset, it should be said that no man can choose Jesus Christ on his own initiative, nor will he: Jesus Christ must choose men. John 6:44, 15:16. But the main reason for belief is the radically-fundamentally transforming power of people's lives by Jesus Christ today: gamblers, drunkards, drug addicts, liars, rapists, robbers--sinners all--are changed to sainthood by the power of Jesus Christ living in them. No amount or severity of prison incarceration alone can reform wicked and evil sinners like this, as repeat criminals untouched by Jesus Christ prove daily. No external pressures can change the inner heart and soul of man: change must come from inside the man and work its way outward. This is the meaning of "born again" as used by Jesus Christ in conversation with Nicodemus the Pharisee. John 3:1-8, I Corinthians 2:14. Natural men have no spiritual discernment.

Finally, it must be asserted aggressively and unequivocally that science does not refute religion, but is complementary to it. Science is one realm of truth while religion is another realm of truth. Spiritual truth cannot in any way be tested and evaluated within the physical realm of science. Notions of right and wrong can in no wise be measured and tested in science laboratories for corroboration or refutation. From where comes man's unique ability to love, appreciate, value and esteem, as no lower animals can? Science has no answer here.

Jesus Christ is the real deal because He and His followers have faced persecution and opposition to an unprecedented magnitude. Satan the father of lies and ruler of this world leaves his own alone. Nobody ever hears of persecution of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Taoists or Confucionists. Even Jews, for all the persecution and hostility they have faced down through the centuries, cannot claim a scope and magnitude of persecution matching the experience of Christians. Unfortunately, persecution of Jews since the era of Jesus Christ has been intimately related to alleged Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ, based on Matthew 27:24-26. Still, salvation and reconcilliation to God is open to all men today, to Jew and Gentile alike.

-LKM