Pastor Chuck Baldwin is now being published at VDARE. God bless Peter Brimelow.

Baldwin’s most recent column is a doozy. I wish I could write with such clarity.

Baldwin dissects the tragedy of the Bush administration from Iraq to immigration, from massive new spending programs (No Child Left Behind, free Cialis for geezers, etc.) to his refusal to heed judicial or congressional oversight. Baldwin correctly concludes that “the Bush II regime is worse than those of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and even Bill Clinton.”

And yet the biggest problem created by the president has nothing to do with policy. Rather, his identification with, and support from, conservative evangelicals has done severe damage to the faith.

Baldwin says it succinctly: “The worst tragedy of the Bush presidency is the damage he has done to the image and influence of Christianity. It is no hyperbole to say that George W. Bush has done more to demean and mitigate the positive influence of genuine Christianity than any single person in American history.”

Baldwin continues: “Because George W. Bush successfully portrayed himself as the ultimate Christian president, his life and policies are indelibly linked to the very definition of what it means to be a Christian in public office. The Religious Right also share in this perception, as they almost universally and totally gave their allegiance to Bush. Hence, as far as most Americans are concerned, George W. Bush is a Christian, and, therefore, his philosophies and ideas are assumed to be Christian as well.”

Thus Christians are thrust into defending “pre-emptive” warfare, torture, amnesty for law breakers, the denial of constitutional rights to citizens, and centralized, unchecked executive authority.

Also virtually ignored by my brothers and sisters is Bush’s syncretism. And by their silence, leaders of the Religious Right effectively endorse religious egalitarianism and remain silent in the face of idolatry.

Our ostensibly Christian president has bowed down before the “gods” of Shintoism, publicly celebrated Ramadan, and frequently equated Allah with the triune God. He has said that Christians and Muslims pray to the same God, and when asked if both groups go to heaven said, “Yes, they do. We have different routes of getting there.”

In short, George Bush has supported and advanced syncretistic idolatry while professing faith in God through the mediating redemption provided by Jesus Christ.

“As a result,” says Baldwin, “not only do non-Christians look askance at Christianity, many genuine Christians have had their entire philosophy regarding Biblical principles uprooted and redefined. Worse still, many Christians have, either wittingly or unwittingly, chosen to adopt Bush’s brand of Christianity, and in so doing, have abandoned genuine Bible Christianity.”

This tendency has been noted frequently by correspondents who have written to me over the last several years. One lady wrote to say she had “been struggling with this heresy within my own church…and I have finally gotten to the point of asking the Pastoral staff and Elders for an accounting, justification if you will, of HOW they can embrace this war as Just and Of God when it was created with Lies and Deception.”

Another American expatriate living in Europe read one of my essays and wrote of his experience. “I slowly watched my country and its leadership descend into its own hell, justifying each step it took along the path. Wrong became right and defendable as we were a country at war. We weren’t quite sure who the enemy was, but they were real and dangerous. And most disturbing of all for me personally was that American leaders were espousing a strange form of Christian morality as the basis of their actions. And as you have so clearly pointed out, legitimate Christian leaders were lock and step in line with the political leaders.”

What is instructive to note is that social ethics, and the application of biblical principles and law, has apologetic and evangelical consequences. This same writer saw what was happening in the American evangelical church and wondered if the fruit being produced indicated that the tree itself was poisonous. “I found myself unquestionably in conflict with my American political leadership and even began to question my own faith. If so many Christian leaders who I had previously seen as godly men in the bad old morally corrupt Clinton days could support the policies of this administration, then where did that leave me and my evangelical faith.”

Another correspondent wrote to describe how alone he felt in challenging the consensus of the new political religion spawned by the president and his evangelical allies.

“Man, it’s lonely out here! For the longest time it felt like I was the only Christian who recognized the duplicity of this administration regarding the Iraq war and the troubling veil of deception which seems to infect the Evangelical community at large. I remain mystified at the total lack of discernment in the evangelical community. Duplicity is the calling-card of this administration…the ‘fruit’ is rotten and it’s everywhere. Appointing Gays, continued abortion funding, illegal immigration and the bogus 911 event as a pre-text for war…pure evil. Any dissention from the popular point of view is usually met with ‘you’re a liberal, a communist, Marxist, leftist, conspiracy nut’..et al. And of course, there’s the simplistic propaganda and sloganeering made famous by our own President, who uttered the remarkably historic quip, ‘you’re either for us, or against us’”.

The problem for Christians is their near full embrace of neo-conservatism. A Christian understanding of human nature and original sin recognizes that all authority is ultimately derivative, limited and delegated by God. Furthermore, Christians are naturally suspicious of globalist attempts to reconstruct the Tower of Babel, and recognize that borders and nations are gifts of God.

A Christian worldview applied to politics thus endorses limited government bound by a written Constitution and respect for law. It believes in a foreign policy that rejects the messianic impulse. It will defend the right of peoples and nations to maintain some measure of ethnic and religious coherence and integrity.

Conversely, neo-conservatives endorse untrammeled executive power, and seek the debasement of legislative bodies and reject the “interference” of judicial bodies. They conflate Israeli and American interests, driven to create a Pax Americana at the point of a bayonet under the rubric of Democracy. They are aligned with business interests who preach the doctrine of homo economicus, who seek mass immigration as a means of keeping wages low and seek the integration of the American nation into a global marketplace as a means of its destruction.

Evangelical voters have become little more than an instrument wielded by the GOP establishment, a rent-a-mob that has destroyed the last remnants of bona fide conservatism and constitutionalism.

The association of President Bush with Christianity and the subsequent public rejection of Bushism likely means that authentic Christianity will have a diminished role in shaping public policy and will wield less influence in the public square.

Dear Mr. County Chairman of the Constitution Party,

Thank you for taking the time to correspond.

In the U.S. Constitution’s fifth amendment we read that “no person … shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” If states pass illegal laws that deny due process so that states can deprive the unborn their “life,” those illegal laws violate the U.S. Constitution and deny citizens of the different states their fundamental rights as U.S. citizens guaranteed in the fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

It is for this reason that I strongly believed that President George W. Bush had the legal responsibility and ability, by executive order, to rescue the life of Terry Schiavo. By your reasoning it is difficult to see how the state of Florida wasn’t well within its legal domain to end the life of Mrs. Shiavo. Certainly you wouldn’t agree that a state could pass a law allowing 5-year-olds to come to an extermination center if their parents wanted to be rid of them all because such pretended but possible state legislation fell safely under a slippery reading of the 10th amendment that doesn’t take into consideration the fifth amendment. Certainly you wouldn’t suggest that in such a situation a godly federal magistrate following the fifth amendment shouldn’t act in a godly fashion by intervening in such reprehensible behavior. In my estimation, to advocate a position that would allow the states to individually determine life and death on the fetal stem cell research issue is to give them the ability to legislate in defiance of the fifth amendment of the U.S, Constitution.

As I understand the history of the formation of the Constitution, the attempt was to create a shared sovereignty between the states and the federal government. This shared sovereignty was reflected in the reality that people saw themselves, until after the war of Northern Aggression, as citizens both of their respective states and of these United States. The fifth amendment by its statement “no person … shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” clearly gives the feds an implied power to protect citizens against tyranny of state despots.

I am as states’ rights as they come, Mr. ********, but I also believe in the doctrine of interposition which teaches that when there is an egregious failure in one sphere (in this case, the state governments allowing the taking of life) then magistrates from other spheres must step in. I do not believe that individual states ought to be allowed to countenance or legislate murder and I think we have become far too doctrinaire if we allow murder of the unborn in the individual states out of a well-intentioned attempt to repristinate a purist’s dream of states’ rights doctrine.

It is because of this that I believe Congressman Paul was wrong to suggest that the states should decide on fetal stem cell research. Fetal stem cell research destroys life, and were states to decide that such destruction of life that happens in the context of fetal stem cell research was acceptable law, then those states would be in violation of the U.S. fifth amendment.

So, in the end, I don’t believe what I am advocating constitutes a usurpation of power, as the U.S. Constitution explicitly details that life will not be deprived without due process of law.

Thanks again for your kind correspondence.

I recently read Paul Findley’s “They Dare Speak Out.” Findley was a congressman from rural Illinois from the late 60’s until he was taken down by the Israeli lobby in 1982, defeated by a rising young politico named Richard Durbin, now one of the most prominent Dems in the United States Senate.

I’ve seen much ink spilled in the last month or so over the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, but surprisingly (snicker, snicker) not too much discussion recalling a less auspicious anniversary–the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty. You can read Findley’s recounting here.

My concern for now is not the events of that day forty years ago, but the continuing and on-going political cover evangelical Christians provide for Israel. Much support for the state of Israel comes from a genuine and heartfelt belief among conservative, bible-believing Christians that God made promises to the Jewish people that are tied up in a piece of real estate on the Mediterranean Sea. So where does this belief spring from?

First, many evangelicals believe the Bible teaches that God literally gave Jews the land of Israel forever. Speaking to a group of Israelis, Pat Robertson said: “Ladies and Gentleman, evangelical Christians support Israel because we believe that the words of Moses and the ancient prophets of Israel were inspired by God. We believe that the emergence of a Jewish state in the land promised by God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was ordained by God. We believe that God has a plan for this nation which He intends to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.”

But those promised blessings and realities have found their fulfillment in Christ. The Promised Land was once the specific place of God’s primary redemptive work, but now the arena of redemption has moved from type to reality. Abraham was not merely an heir to the land, but of “the world” (Rom. 4:13). It is no longer merely a portion of the world that is to be redeemed, but all the nations (Matt. 28:19-20).

In Christ’s redemption and ultimate victory, it is the entire cosmos (“the land” in a new covenant perspective) that is being recreated and redeemed. The promise of renewal and restoration symbolized by the old covenant land promises has been expanded to encompass the entire world. According to Christ, it is no longer ethnic Jews who will inherit the Promised Land, but the “meek” who will inherit the entire earth (Matt. 5:5).

A second factor driving evangelical support for Israel is eschatology, or the understanding of “the last things.” Much of contemporary evangelicalism and modern fundamentalism has adopted a strand of pre-millennialism called dispensationalism. Pre-millennialism teaches that Christ will return bodily to earth in order to establish a worldwide kingdom centered in Jerusalem. A final judgment will take place one thousand years after Christ’s return; hence, the return is pre-millennial.

Though there are a number of more complicated variants, most Dispensationalists also hold to the doctrine of a “pre-tribulational rapture”. They teach that before His bodily return, Christ will first return invisibly to “rapture” the church into heaven. This translation of the church into a heavenly state precedes the “Great Tribulation,” which according to Dispensationalists is a future event and is described in Matthew 24. It is only after this period of tribulation, also called the “days of vengeance” (Luke 21:22), that Christ will return bodily to set up a worldwide kingdom that will last a thousand years.

According to most evangelicals, the Great Tribulation will be a period of tremendous suffering and will also see the rise of the anti-Christ. The slaughter of Israeli Jews, especially during the latter half of this period, will take grand proportions. Dispensationalist theologian John Walvoord says that 2/3 of Israelis will be killed: “According to Zechariah’s prophecy Zechariah 13:8, 9), two thirds of the children of Israel in the land will perish, but the one third that are left will be refined and be awaiting the deliverance of God at the second coming of Christ which is described in the next chapter of Zechariah.”

Gary North points to one psychological benefit of holding to a Dispensational hermeneutic—it’s adherents believe they can cheat death by effectively sacrificing Israeli Jews:

Therefore, in order for most of today’s Christians to escape physical death, two-thirds of the Jews in Israel must perish, soon. This is the grim prophetic trade-off that fundamentalists rarely discuss publicly, but which is the central motivation in the movement’s political support for the State of Israel.

It should be clear why they believe that Israel must be defended at all costs by the West. If Israel were removed militarily from history prior to the Rapture, then the strongest case for Christians’ imminent escape from death would have to be abandoned. This would mean the indefinite delay of the Rapture. The fundamentalist movement thrives on the doctrine of the imminent Rapture, not the indefinitely postponed Rapture.

If North is correct, the survival of a Jewish state of Israel is necessary for its sacrificial role. There are a couple of implications.

First, there will be little evangelism of Jews. Hence Pat Robertson or John Hagee will hobnob with Israelis and never mention Christ’s work, for if Israeli Jews were converted en masse to Christianity, they would then be Raptured, too, leaving only Arabs behind. Such a scenario would make the immediate fulfillment of prophecy impossible because there would be no Jews left to persecute. So instead of evangelizing, many fundamentalists opt instead to send money to organizations whose goal is to return Jews to Israel.

Second, as North says, if Israel were militarily removed from the land it would mean an indefinite delay of the Rapture. The result is untrammeled support for Israeli policy. Some go even further and see the displacement of non-Jewish inhabitants of the land as legitimate, something of a replay of the conquest commanded by God during the days of Joshua.

When Findley first wrote “They Dare Speak Out,” evangelical support for Israel was strong. If anything, it has gotten stronger. According to a recent Zogby poll, 31% of Americans and 40% of Protestants believe that “Israel must have all of the promised land, including Jerusalem, to facilitate the second coming of the messiah.” Zogby’s poll would have been more informative had he separated Protestants from self-described Evangelicals.

If evangelicals believe that all of the promised land belongs to Israel by God’s promise and that it is the key to facilitating the return of Christ, they will obviously feel compelled to support the policies of Israel. One of America’s most prominent Baptist leaders, Richard Land, puts it this way: “God blesses those that bless the Jews and curses those who curse the Jews. Consequently, we believe America needs to bless the Jews and Israel because if we bless the Jews and support Israel, God blesses us. And if we don’t, God curses us.”

Dispensational theology has entered the American bloodstream through the religious media and books such as the Left Behind series. But it shows up in other strange places, too.

In a speech to the Knesset in 1994, Bill Clinton sounded like Dr. Land, asserting that abandoning Israel would be an unforgivable sin and that according to the will of God the land of the Bible should continue as the possession of Israel in perpetuity. He also committed the United States to supporting that aim and goal.

Here is a snippet of the speech that can be read in its entirety here:

The truth is that the only time my wife and I ever came to Israel before today was 13 years ago with my pastor on a religious mission. I was then out of office. I was the youngest former governor in the history of the United States. No one thought I would ever be here — perhaps my mother; no one else.

We visited the holy sites. I relived the history of the Bible, of your Scriptures and mine. And I formed a bond with my pastor. Later, when he became desperately ill, he said I thought I might one day become President. And he said, more bluntly than the Prime Minister did, “If you abandon Israel, God will never forgive you.” He said it is God’s will that Israel, the biblical home of the people of Israel, continue forever and ever.

So I say to you tonight, my friends, one of our Presidents, John Kennedy, reminded us that here on Earth, God’s will must truly be our own. It is for us to make the homecoming; for us to chose life; for us to work for peace. But until we achieve a comprehensive peace in the Middle East and then after we achieve comprehensive peace in the Middle East, know this — your journey is our journey, and America will stand with you now and always.

What are some of the consequences of this Israel-centric view of the complexities and vagaries of Middle Eastern geopolitics? Look at two events from just the past week.

After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Washington, President Bush pledged to increase US military aid to Israel over the course of the next decade. Since the Camp David Accords, Israel has received $3 billion from the United States. Despite our turning Israel into the penultimate regional military power, there is a demand for more. More financial support, diplomatic cover, and even military action on Israel’s behalf are demanded.

A more serious matter was a resolution passed by Congress last week, calling on the United Nations Security Council to “charge Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the United Nations Charter because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.”

The measure past by a tally of 411-2, and demonstrated again the clout wielded on Capitol Hill by the Israeli Lobby. Interestingly, the motivation for the resolution is the claim that Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” in a speech last year.

In fact, the quotation was a mistranslation, indeed a fabrication, of what was actually said, but that doesn’t matter, because as a post-modern imperial power we simply choose to make our own reality. That only two members of the House, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, voted against this piece of nonsense is demonstrative of the hypocrisy of the “antiwar” Democrats. It also reveals the depth of the foreign policy consensus where the Middle East and Israel are concerned.

My point is not that 411 members of the House are Dispensationalists or Christians, for that matter. Most are not. Rather, I am asserting that ideas have consequences and theology has outward manifestations. Is the fruit produced by Dispensationalism and Christian Zionism good fruit, or is the tree rotten?

Why assume our government is incompetent? Who knows — maybe they’re actually trying to nurture the emerging crop of terrorists? Check it out:

The civilian death toll in Iraq is, by all accounts, frightful. Car bombs enact a terrible toll, and this is widely covered by the press almost every day. But civilians who die at the hands of American troops get much less attention. There are many reasons for this. The incidents are widely scattered and usually do not involve large numbers at one time. The U.S. military rarely admits wrongdoing — in some cases, it may not even know that anyone has died. The media, amid horrible violence, has trouble investigating.

But a recent episode involving a single casualty has drawn unusual attention – only because the youth happened to be the son of a Los Angeles Times employee in Baghdad.

Tina Susman told the story last Tuesday in the L.A. Times. The boy was 17, but she did not name him, nor identify the father.

Susman, the paper’s Baghdad bureau chief, wrote, “U.S. military officials say troops are trained to avoid civilian casualties and do not fire wildly. Iraqis, however, say the shootings happen frequently and that even if troops are firing at suspected attackers, they often do so on city streets where bystanders are likely to be hit. Rarely is it possible to confirm such incidents. In this case, the boy was the son of a Los Angeles Times employee, which provided reporters knowledge of the incident in time to examine it. Witness and military accounts of the shooting offered a rare look into how such killings can occur.”

She revealed that since February, stringers for the newspaper across Iraq have reported at least 18 incidents of American troops firing wildly with at least 22 noncombatants killed. Surely this only scratches the surface, as Walter Pincus observed yesterday in a Washington Post article on the “solatia” or condolence payments that I have often written about. Thousands of such payments have been made by the U.S.

Susman noted that in most cases the wild firing occurs after an IED or car bomb goes off (as happened most tragically in Haditha).

She graphically recounted the testimony of a man named Abu Mohammed who owned a shop where the youth ran for help after getting shot. “I was hesitant to open the door because I was afraid that the American soldiers would shoot me dead,” he said, recalling when the boy began beating on his door. Even as he let the boy in and helped him to the floor, he said, troops kept firing.

“They were confused and angry and suspecting anyone around,” Mohammed said. “If a bird had passed by, they would have shot it.”

The U.S. military said troops fired in self-defense.

If the War Party were trying to recruit for Al-Qaeda, could they possibly do a better job than they’re already doing? If so, how?

On second thought, I shouldn’t suggest that Dubya is indispensable in his capacity as Mr. bin Laden’s ally and recruiting agent. After the Crawford Caligula is long gone, I’m sure that whichever of the famous senatorial duo — Obama or Clinton — succeeds him will continue the project in a fine and workmanlike manner.

An average American was going about his daily business when he fell into the hands of the State. They stripped him of his clothes through taxation, beat him by legislating against his cultural roots and dumbed him down by the process of enstupidification, leaving him half dead while still thinking he was perfectly healthy (hey, enstupidification works). They then invited in an alien horde into the Average American’s homeland with the intent of destroying America’s cultural identity and impoverishing him even more by forcing him to pay for the social services that the illegal aliens required.

A minister happened to be observing the illegal alien invasion and seeing this influx cover the half dead nation, he passed by on the other side and joined the Robber State in calling for more illegal aliens to come and finish off what the Robber State had started by its earlier beating.

So to a liberal, when he came to the place and saw the languishing American culture passed by on the other side all the while saying, “Things must be fair and everybody must be equal.”

Finally a CEO from Mega Corporate America came upon the bleeding and frail American people and gave them a good swift kick saying, “We must have more illegals here so my profit margin share can increase.”

But a Christian (whom the liberals and multiculturalists regard as heretics and sinners), as he traveled came where the wounded American People were, and when he saw them he took pity on them because he knew that they were, at one time, His people. The good Christian came to them and bandaged their wounds, pouring on the oil of faith and the wine of repentance . Then he put the people on His own donkey named Gospel, took them to the inn named ecclesiastical and took care of them. The next day he took out two silver coins named restored independence and renewed Christendom and gave them to the innkeeper Christian Knox. ‘Look after them’ he said, ‘and when I return from kicking the butt of the Robber State (”for I know if this bully is not constrained he will pillage and rob these people again and will give their country to another people”), I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.

“Which of these four do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the Robber State and their illegal alien henchmen?”

Like a monster in a bad B-movie, “comprehensive immigration reform” will not die. Over cocktails yesterday, Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid resurrected the “grand compromise” which could come to the Senate floor as early as next week.

Attempting to allay concerns of critics that enforcement provisions will ultimately fall by the wayside, the president said, “We’re going to show the American people that the promises in this bill will be kept.” Legislators in the “world’s greatest deliberative body” will consider 19 amendments to the bill, including several which will provide $4.4 billion for enhanced border security.

As with prior attempts at immigration overhaul, employer sanctions will inevitably go absolutely nowhere. Moreover, given the track record of Congress and the Administration it is inconceivable that the border will be genuinely secured. I mean really, we’re much too busy securing the borders between Iraq and Syria, Iraq and Iran, North and South Korea, Afghanistan and Pakistan, etc.

During the first six years of the Bush presidency, the illegal population grew by 79%, legal immigration has increased about 20%, and nearly 2 million babies were born to immigrants.

Domestic enforcement of employer sanctions has likewise been abandoned by our government. As recently as 1997, there were 17,554 workplace arrests of illegals. In 2005, there were a mere 251. Out of an estimated 7.2 million employed illegals, 0.003 percent can expect to be arrested.

As one great statesman and orator once remarked, “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

The Reformed World in the month of June convenes many of their denominational Synods and Assembly’s. At such gatherings weighty subjects are discussed and voted upon and on many of those issues I have passionate convictions that sometimes are assuaged by denominational decisions but more often become unchartable due to what I am convinced are decisions that are reached by way of pagan sentiment and irrationality more then by way of thinking God’s thoughts after Him.

 
Yet, when my passions get the better of me I turn and look at my flock who, for the most part, find the decisions made at these convocations largely irrelevant for their day to day living even though in a Macro sense the decisions are immensely significant for they and their children. In years past perhaps the local congregation and its members took their day-to-day cue from denominational hierarchies but those days are long past. Today, faithful members of the flock, if they look anywhere at all in their day to day living, look to the Covenant community and to the Elders to provide context for their living and dieing.

 
Currently the small flock I serve has had one of its long time member’s (Calvin John TeVelde) die today  after a long fight with Cancer. At the same time the small flock here has another 45-year member (Thea Folsom) slowly losing her long fight with Cancer. In light of the ministry going on in these contexts its difficult to take Church politics very seriously – not because they aren’t important but rather because the average local congregation is very seldom shaped in their day to day living any longer by decisions made in Mecca, Rome or Grand Rapids no matter how good or rancid those decisions are. As I walk with my people through the valley of the shadow of death they don’t care about women in office or Federal Vision or the Belhar Confession. What they care about at this time more then ever is to have an under-shepherd that will calm their fears by whispering, singing, and praying the Gospel of Jesus Christ for them to them. Their walk through the valley has stripped them of everything except the need to be reminded, when the intermittent lucid moments arrive, that Christ has not abandoned or forgotten them and that having saved them to the uttermost He will save them to the uttermost. Likewise, their spouses, who are about to be left alone after long years of marriage want to be reminded that God is good, even in His severe mercy.

 
The one thing that saddens me as I dwell on the relationship between Church courts convening far away and ministering to the dying and their families is the thought that the Church courts will so mess up the Gospel there will be a paucity of ministers left to preach Christ in such a way that the fears of those who struggle in facing their own mortality will be calmed. I am saddened that the possibility exists that Church courts will so mess up the completeness of the Gospel that people will die never having lived to see and be a part of the beauty of the Kingdom because the beauty was covered with the graffiti of well intended but stupid Church court decisions. I am saddened by the possibility that the context in which the faithful die in will be severely diminished because of the context that they lived in was diminished by Church courts getting the Gospel and its implications severely twisted. I am saddened that it might be the Church courts that aid and abet the coming of a new dark ages that will make it more difficult for the flock I dearly and passionately love to live in and die in well.

 
But when such sadness looms I must preach to myself what I preach to the dying. I tell them they must look beyond that which is seen to increasingly see that which is unseen. I tell them that they must anchor their hope in the unseen as the seen ebbs away from them. I tell them that the saving and keeping power of Christ is not limited by their own mortality.

 
 Now, I must remember that just as God is not limited by their mortality, neither is He limited by the ability of Church courts to err.  I must remember that my hope is anchored in He who has gone behind the veil for the Church and not in Church courts. I must remember that God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines.

 
May the God of all Grace remind both the dying and their ministers that He is able to overcome both death and Church courts.