Pain Quarantine

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Angela Chininin Buele

Why You Can’t Ultimately Be Pro-Life If You Are Unwilling To Suffer With People

We all have our limits, the point where you have to tell someone, “Please, stop!  I do not need to know any more about the rat infestation in your neighbor’s garage.” Or maybe, like me, it’s a matter of what you cannot see or hear.  I am unnerved by watching (or even hearing) violence in movies and also by little kids showing me their loose teeth.  I am a mother, so I will clearly have to come to terms with the latter.

There are certain God-honoring limits we can set regarding the way we interact with members of the opposite sex, people outside of our families, and people we don’t know very well.  These offer a degree of protection (spiritual, as well as physical) and demonstrate wisdom and discernment regarding what is necessary and fruitful.  But there are also ways in which people are increasingly disengaging from communication and relationship when certain taboo topics are broached (i.e. religion, politics, and relational conflict).  These, which are no small matter of neglect, have been problematic in the culture at large for generations.  What seems to be a little more recent of a development in the “liberation through ignorance” department is the refusal to hear bad news.  This could be anything from a new cancer diagnosis to projected rain on someone’s wedding day.  When we are unwilling to hear truth because we don’t like it, not only do we discredit God as Sovereign and Good, but we also dull our minds by denying the growth required through each challenging situation.  The most poignant example of closing oneself off from unpleasant news is when we reject people in their pain and suffering because it causes us too much sadness,  whether it is a five-year-old girl who is battered by cancer treatments before she even begins Kindergarten or a woman who conceived because of rape and is contemplating abortion.  They are people who benefit by our walking the road and sharing the load with them.  Maybe it’s just a few steps, a shared prayer, or a hug, but we can’t love people without being with them in their need.

Key Question: Do you set limits in your relationships and communications with others? Are these walls designed to preserve yourself?  Why is it hard to open up to the pursuit of true edification?

Unshakable Truth: Jesus’ disciples fled when he was arrested.  Jesus sought out the woman caught in adultery, who was facing not arrest but stoning.   Preserving oneself is an investment of dust.  Jesus, on the other hand, surrendered reputation, time, safety, etc., to reach out to the lowest of the low because work in the eternal harvest fields produces an unmatched yield.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. (Romans 12:15-18 ESV)

The Real Choice: Will you love people by sharing their hurt, or will you love yourself by rejecting a battered brother?

Judge. Or Not?

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Victor Chininin Buele

I was preaching last Sunday about the question of why would one of the ways God chose to reveal Himself would be through a list of laws–do not murder, love your neighbor as yourself, do not cover your neighbor’s wife, do not lie. You get the point.

I mentioned to the congregation that we have been observing the development of an interesting legal framework where approval and celebration are being enacted into popular law.  I said we are all lawyers eager to defend ourselves and to make excuses for our behavior. I should add that we are also professionals at passing the blame to others.

If you call yourself a Christian and dare to not celebrate and give your seal of approval to something with which you may profoundly disagree, then the words of Jesus that were spoken from the mount and recorded in Matthew 7 are thrown at you–“Judge not, lest ye be judged!”

The inference is that the higher moral ground (for it is moral after all) is one of non-judgment on such matters.  The evolved mind is one that never judges.  Thus, the admonishment to you, lawbreaker, is to go and judge no more.  Says who?  Well, we all do.  And Jesus, too.  Get in line!

For a while I’ve been quite saddened by this because everyone judges, and moreover, that section of the gospel of Matthew that gets quoted incompletely is actually about the carpenter of Nazareth teaching us to judge rightly while highlighting our natural bend towards passing judgment on another quickly and without cautiously judging ourselves first.  Take off the gigantic piece of wood out of your eye before you go attempt to remove the piece of sawdust out of your neighbor’s eye.

Your neighbor needs you to judge him.

If I were breaking my promise to my wife to love and care for her, to cherish her and provide for her, I would need you to judge me.

If somebody hits me over the head and takes my keys and drives my van away with my girls inside, I need you to judge this person and help.

If you have squandered God’s financial gifts to you and buried yourself in debt, your neighbor who is defaulting on 20 past due credit cards needs you to see your own situation rightly, get your act together, and help him to not do that again and to honor his creditors.  You both need to judge each other as you walk through that difficult path together.

I have wanted to write this for quite some time because I don’t like words to get redefined.  What kind of a friend would you be if you walk around whistling while I sin and throw my life away?

And then a decade-old tape makes its way through the media, perfectly timed before a presidential debate.  I still feel filthy for having read the NPR report of it.  So, my first reaction in social media was to try to take the gigantic piece of wood out of my eye.  You think Donald Trump is bad?  I would be terrified if you were to have full access to everything I’ve thought or said.  I am no better.  But God, being rich in mercy, changed it all.  And I have to hope and trust in the BIG God who is the Creator and Sustainer of this now-broken world to actually be so merciful that He can change this man to the core were repentance to be sought by him.  That this heart of stone can be changed, to use the biblical imagery.  And after mourning for my own sin that required Jesus’s death, I am able to start talking about that issue.

While you weren’t watching, you got caught judging.  We all did.  The whole affair is so filthy. So disgusting. So appalling. And I am glad got caught.

And it is right that we judge.  Do we really think that we don’t have a way to push for this man (who everybody has known all along was like this) to get out of the race?  I read a very good article on The Washington Post by Collin Hansen about how this highlights the long overdue need for the death of the Religious Right.  One comment asked a very good question for the person was sick and tired of articles like this not really telling us a solution, an action we can take.  So, we can go there now.  We have judged.  Let’s get past only writing on electronic walls, and let’s make this happen. As my pastor is prone to remind us – when is the last time that we actually had the faith to pray for a miracle?  I understand that we only have a month left. But is our faith and our industriousness so weak and laughable?

But I digress.  My point is an invitation to transparency and honesty.  Please ask, “I would want for you to approve of me and to celebrate my choices.”  Don’t say, “Don’t judge me.”  A faithful friend needs to have access to encourage and lift up your soul.  The kind of friend we all desperately need can’t be closer than a brother to us if we don’t let them in when our ideas need to be challenged, refined, or rebuked.  We need words to mean what they do.  The last thing that everyone would like me to do if I were to tell you I have made the choice to become a thief would be for me to tell you not to judge me.  That closes the door to any further discussion.  I have clicked to close the window on you.  I am done.   Let’s not do that.  Because we must.  Joy is at stake.  Life hangs in the balance.

Words matter.

Dented Cans and Rare Coins – How Do We Value the Life of Special People?

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Angela Chininin Buele

When I was about five years old, my babysitter’s cat had kittens.  One of them had a cleft palate, a hooked tail, two different colored eyes, and a puny frame.  All of the other kittens were “normal.”  When I was asked which one I wanted, I knew right away that I wanted the prettiest one–the one that had the longest, softest, purest white fur.  My babysitter and my mom might have questioned my choice, but I was resolved.  In the end, I took my beautiful white kitten–cleft palate, hooked tail, different colored eyes and all– home with me.  My Maddie was my treasured pet all the way up until Homecoming week of my senior year of high school.  She outlived everyone’s expectations, and she was always a great blessing to me.

I also found throughout my childhood that I was drawn to encourage and stand by the disabled and the downtrodden, appreciating their tenderness and desiring to see their bright smiles.  Some of my most vivid memories are grown from this passion-the time I spent with my mentally impaired uncle, the urge to defend the elementary school classmate who frustrated the teacher (and the ache of loss when he killed himself later that year), and the young boy with Down’s Syndrome I saw being dragged along by his angry brother through a downpour at Walt Disney World.  All of these are forever etched in my mind and on my heart as precious souls, not mistakes of God, products of Chance, genetic abnormalities, or dented cans.

My family was most likely not surprised at all when, as a 10-year-old, I announced I would become a teacher.  Shortly thereafter I decided I should be a special education teacher.  It was through my training and my career that I found that, while I still knew each special person was made by the loving hand of our Creator God, I had become quite impatient and even unkind to one of my most needy students in my class as a first year teacher.  I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to work with her years later and ask her forgiveness for not serving her more generously when I was first given the opportunity to be her teacher.  Even now I am just beginning to enter the deep waters of learning how to give steadfast love to those who have special needs.  Yet it is clear to me that the reason this journey is difficult is because I have been selfish and self-centered.  I have not sought to fully rejoice in the unique gift that people of all physical and intellectual capacities are to this world.

Some of the happiest people I have met are these precious, rare coins.  I don’t find them blaming God for making them different.  Nor do I see them wishing they had never been born because they do not see their lives as unworthy of living.

So beware, my friends, if you find yourselves believing that you are being heroic to say or think that the abortion of a disabled child is compassionate since their lives would be so different compared to your own circumstances.  I assure you that none of the physically or mentally disabled children or adults I have worked with over the years would agree with this.

Key Question: Can joy be found in the middle of a challenge?

Unshakable Truth:  “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:2-5 ESV).

The Real Choice: Will you see disabled people as dented cans to be thrown away or as rare coins to protect, care for, and appreciate?

The Dilemma of Disability and Disease

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Angela Chininin Buele

Viewing Already Fragile Life in Light of New Health Risks

Zika is a new buzz word, but all of its implications boil down to a very common fear.  When a couple attempts to conceive and are blessed to be able to do so, much is assumed about the security of the baby’s development and health.  However, tests designed to indicate level of risk (not diagnose, mind you) of potential genetic abnormality are packaged and performed in order to prepare expectant parents to decide if their baby will be healthy enough or if some condition, or the possibility of such a condition, would prompt them to abort and try again for a healthy baby.

Because those who intentionally conceive presumably have no resistance to their wombs serving as nurturing station for their developing child, the decision to abort upon receiving indication that the baby could have health problems, demonstrates an inaccurate understanding of the value of the child.  A baby is, by nature, in constant need and vulnerable to even mild risks.  The God of Life creates each person, without mistake, to reflect His glory and to give and receive love generously.  When children are denied birth because their parents are told that they will not look a certain way or perform skills at a sufficient level, we treat the bearing and raising of children like an Olympic qualifier instead of the delightful challenge that it is.  When we want to treat people like possessions, we must not be surprised when violence increases.

It is truly heartbreaking.  Microcephaly (caused by Zika), Down’s Syndrome, and Spina Bifida trigger terror in the hearts of many expectant parents.  I would like to suggest that this response offers a more certain diagnosis of a parent’s failure to love than any risk level marker/indicator can diagnose a baby’s failure to be “normal.”  It used to be understood that children come with neither manuals nor receipts for returns.  Nor do they come with warranties.  And parents who are filled with terror at the thought of having a child with special needs are not loving that child.  No baby ever hated or even mourned his/her disability.  Of course there can be physical discomfort – even pain – and that brings empathy and sadness, but not terror.

Babies are not interchangeable.  They are not accessories, nor are they entertainment or a hobby.  A baby is a tiny person that is designed by God, for God, and in God’s image.  There are lovely benefits to parent and child when love is abundant in the home, but they are some else’s treasure, and we have no right to judge them as physically or intellectually insufficient and therefore deny them life.

My youngest daughter was born perfectly healthy after an uneventful pregnancy, but she developed a fever and became dehydrated at five days old.  She was admitted to the hospital where she (and I) stayed for five days while all signs seemed to point to a diagnosis of leukemia.  I’ll pause there and ask: what does the pro-choice community offer to the parents in this situation?  Before exiting the womb, the right to abortion is championed for such “defectiveness,” but what do (read: can/will) they say about the one-week-old who seems to have leukemia?  Does she have Constitutional rights now?  Should they be revoked?

Well, approximately 30 minutes before the bone marrow draw was scheduled to be performed (two years ago today), the culture came back positive for a virus.  Our little girl was the youngest person ever to develop Leukocytopenia as a result of contracting this virus.  Needless to say, we were overjoyed to know that she would not have to suffer through such a difficult condition at such a tender age, but if she had gone through it, we would have been right there with her because that is the joy and the pain of parenting – loving through difficulty.

Key Question: Despite parents’ fear of inadequacy, is it fair to deny a child life based on the possibility of disability?

Unshakable Truth:  “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:8-10

Sometimes we are given a gift like a quilt.  Hours and hours of work were done by some else, and we simply lay the beautiful fabric over ourselves and curl up in its warmth.  There is no work for the recipient to complete in order to enjoy the gift.  Other times, the gift is more like a sewing machine.  There is much work to be done before you will be able to curl up under the quilt you made with your sewing machine, and in the end, there is a quilt either way.  The difference is in the learning and the gain through process.

If the difficulty is relieved, we see His mercy for a moment, but if the challenge persists, we see His mercy each and every moment and we carry on by His grace.  His strength is what overcomes our weakness.

The Real Choice: Do you want God to change your circumstances so you can be yourself, or do you want Him to use your circumstances to change you, making you more like Christ?

I Stand Up For Adolf Hitler’s and Cecile Richards’ Right To Life

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Angela Chininin Buele

Prepare to Have Your Non-judgmental Standards Shaken Up

If only we had known how much death would result from one birth.  If only we could have seen it – and stopped it.  Would you have stopped the nightmare before it started?  I wouldn’t have (either time), and I’ll tell you why.

I feel anger swell up in me when I hear a news report of someone being hurt or neglected.  Sometimes it causes me to have a very physical response, which is like a surging sensation that urges me to enact change to rescue the victim or punish the perpetrator.  To the best of my understanding, and thanks to common grace, this is not an unusual phenomenon.  It is also quite normal to think that our emotions are an appropriate guide for just action.  This could not be farther from the truth.  Instead, when something harmful happens, it’s like a rock is thrown through the glassy surface of a serene lake, and our emotional reactions are like ripples in the water’s surface that obscure the reflection of God’s glory.  Just as James says, “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”  Our anger does not cause us to be righteous.  But, God’s righteousness will cause us to become angry in some circumstances, and that is a completely different – and sanctifying – experience.

Just as parents are required to apply discipline with love in order to raise the child to seek the God of Life, we are called to be agents of light, seeking the good of the city where the Lord has us.  And when that brings the conflict of protecting some people from others while loving them all and pointing them all to eternal hope in the Savior, Jesus, we are often at a loss to do this properly since we lean more on the “good guy” and “bad guy” labels than we might realize.  But this is exactly where we need to wrestle as Jacob did and hold on tight until the Lord grants holiness in the merging of just redirection and steadfast grace and hope.  I’ve been parenting for just a few years now, but I see that showing compassion to the offending child (not just to the offended child) is both my greatest ambition and my greatest weakness in raising my children, whom I love with a rather giddy affection.  But the crazy thing is that I am called to show that very same just redirection and steadfast grace to those for who I have no natural delight or affection.   Would you say you would find that an appalling proposition too?   Well, it’s a good thing we have the gospel to remind us of our own debt of sin.

If we were to apply vigilante justice to prevent heartache, would we not have to erase Saul the persecutor, and with him would go Paul the missionary and teacher.  Adolf Hitler’s life is over, and we see no redemptive fruit within his personal life. But we may praise God that Cecile Richards is still alive and still has the opportunity to repent of her complicity in the systematic massacre of millions of humans of all races.  We must pray for her, my friends, to be justly redirected and for her to be changed by the steadfast grace and hope found only in Christ.

Key Question: Can you see both Adolf Hitler and Cecile Richards with compassion, or have you judged one or both to be without hope?

Unshakable Truth: “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” Ephesians 2:12-13.

Hitler, Richards, and I have one thing in common – our need for forgiveness.  My awareness, in light of their apparent unawareness of this fact, must cause me pain, not pride; sadness, not satisfaction.   I wouldn’t not wish for one who champions death to be aborted simply because that would make me a hypocrite in my own anti-abortion position, but I stand up for the right to life of all pro-choice proponents because they are God’s creations and can be brought as near as a precious brother or sister by the blood of Christ.

The Real Choice: Will you love the unlovable, or will you forget that, just as Cecile Richards was once a fragile unborn baby like those she refuses to protect, you, too, were a hopeless and rebellious sinner?

A Labor of Love: The Call to Pray for Pro-choice Mothers

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Angela Chininin Buele
Someone I genuinely love once sported a maternity t-shirt that had two tiny foot prints positioned over the belly and the words “pro-choice” across the chest.  I came across this photo on Facebook so I was able to take a peek into the cross-section of responses posted.  This young woman seemed to have a number of friends who made the kind of conflicted comments that communicated their discomfort with her splashing her “right” to abort on very fabric where her child’s kicks reverberated.  I remember thinking of it as the most heartbreaking veiled threat that a mother could make to the very child her body nurtured.

When my first daughter was born, this friend and I were able to visit briefly, and something she said seemed to betray her own longing for a daughter. I’m not sure she heard me, but I pointed out that she could still have one.

Almost exactly two years later, her daughter was born – prematurely and she is, by the grace of God, developing well.  This precious little girl is a gift from the Lord, who has entrusted her to the care of a mother who made herself the poster-woman for proud pregnant abortion activists.

It pains me to ask:  What happens when this child finds her mother’s maternity pro-choice shirt in a drawer or comes across the picture or hears her mother speak about her passion for the availability of abortion?  I once posed a similar question on social media to find out how people tell their own children that they are pro-choice.  Would you believe that most of the people who responded seemed to think I was either stupid, cruel or both for suggesting that anyone would talk to a child about abortion?  I don’t recall any shame or remorse regarding their pro-choice position, but there was a clear disgust for insinuation that their children be told about that.

So how does that work?  Babies and children are told that they grew big and strong in mommy’s tummy, and adolescents are told that if they get (or get someone) pregnant, there are just some cells to scrape out of the uterus?  Is that really the thought process and plan?  What if they put two and two together?  And how does that culminate on Mother’s Day?  Does the card read, “You alone have the right to choose if a child within your uterus may continue living there.  I’m so glad I made the cut”?  I have to think that even pro-choice mothers would want their children to be confident in their love for them.  Unfortunately, viewing even one child as unwanted and expendable thoroughly undermines the desire to love any other child unconditionally.

Key Question:  How can pro-lifers pray for women who raise children as they advocate for abortion rights?

Unshakable Truth: “Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?…He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children.  Praise the Lord!”  Psalm 113:5-6, 9

Joy, the primary byproduct of gratitude, is what is missing in the abortion rights movement.  So we need to pray for the joy of the Lord to fill the hearts of pro-choice women, especially those who are mothers.  We must pray that they will have joy in God’s purpose and timing for bringing life into the womb.  And we must pray for their joy in understanding that all children are unique and delightful gifts, given to bless their mothers and fathers.

The Real Choice: Pro-lifer, will you join me in praying for the mother I mentioned above to be given unending joy by the Lord of Life?

Lenín Moreno y el futuro de la Pacha Mama

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Victor Chininin Buele

El otro día (la manera en la que por alguna razón me gusta referirme a eventos que pasaron ya hace algún tiempo) estaba regresando a casa de una aventura laboral en Tailandia.  Mientras esperaba por el tercer pájaro hacia la metrópolis de Nueva York tomé una foto de la sala de espera en Ámsterdam para recordar al aeropuerto.  Al revisar la fotografía observé a un personaje muy sufrido en la esquina.  Quizá estaba con dolor o con cansancio.  No lo sé.  Y vi a una compañera fiel a su lado alentándolo.  Y pensé cuánto quisiera la oposición al oficialismo una foto como aquélla para aprovecharse de la apariencia de sufrimiento para sus motivos políticos.  Me levanté y decidí saludarlo.  Muchas veces nosotros pensamos que quienes han tenido el privilegio de dirigir a nuestro país pertenecen a otro mundo.  Pero son seres humanos como nosotros.  Entonces lo hice.  Y fui sorprendido por una humildad que me demostró que estaba conversando con un gigante.  Al agradecerle por su labor para la inclusión social no quiso recibir alabanza sino que empezó a dar crédito a otros.  La humildad de Jesucristo mostrada en lugares como Filipenses 2 es una humildad que nos enseña que quien en verdad es grande debe mostrar una actitud humilde considerando al otro como más importante que a sí mismo, no buscando cada uno sus propios intereses, sino más bien los intereses de los demás.

Esta semana se ha hecho pública la noticia que este gigante es uno de los candidatos presidenciales en Ecuador.  Esto amerita un poco de reflexión.

No me gusta “etiquetar” a las personas.  Pienso que crear categorías en las cuales ponemos a las personas no nos ayuda a llegar a la unidad verdadera.  Pero como esta reflexión tiene la política en su corazón no puedo evitar el uso de ciertos sustantivos y adjetivos.  Por ello pido mis disculpas al lector.

No soy correísta.  No soy de la oposición tampoco ya que una de las manifestaciones más trágicas de la falta de unidad de los ecuatorianos es que no pueden encontrar un candidato viable y que pueda hacer una oposición efectiva.

Ecuador ha cambiado mucho en la llamada década ganada.  Tenemos excelente infraestructura.  Tenemos mayor acceso a centros educativos que parecen demostrar  calidad.  Tenemos orden.  Podemos ir a realizar trámites públicos sin tener la necesidad de llevar ofrendas de amor a los funcionarios para suplicarles  su atención.  El otro día con mi esposa nos encontrábamos en el mercado y una señora nos contaba con gran emoción como sus hijos que no hubieran tenido acceso a educación superior eran becados.  Debemos ser sensatos y dar gracias.  Claro – es muy fácil empezar a hablar de cuestiones económicas y del uso del presupuesto nacional y de la caída del precio del petróleo y de la nueva matriz productiva y todo eso.  Pero estas cuestiones económicas no me preocupan tanto.  En realidad, cualquier situación mundial que nos ayude a ver que no podemos depender solamente del petróleo es algo útil para nuestro país.  No puedo ver una otra manera de maximizar nuestra percepción de la necesidad de cambiar la matriz productiva.

La razón que me lleva a escribir esto es una de las enseñanzas del carpintero de Nazaret.  Mateo reporta en el capítulo 16 de su evangelio que Jesús preguntó a sus discípulos «Pues ¿qué provecho obtendrá un hombre si gana el mundo entero, pero pierde su alma?»

El mismo licenciado Moreno hizo una pregunta que nos lleva a la misma interrogante en su carta a Alianza PAÍS del 30 de marzo de 2016 desde Ginebra.  «Debemos ser autocríticos y reconocer que en estos años no hemos logrado llevar elementos inspiradores suficientes para cambiar el YO interior de nuestro pueblo […]  Nuestras estrategias de comunicación y de formación política no han sido suficiente para transformar al individuo».

No debemos mentir.  Tenemos dificultades grandes con nuestra identidad.

No somos católicos.  Lo que se llama catolicismo en Ecuador no es nada más que el resultado de muchas mezclas ancestrales y actuales.  Cuando se impusieron estas enseñanzas a nuestros antepasados, ellos buscaron maneras de seguir adorando a sus dioses de antaño delante de los ojos de la malvada inquisición.  No es esto diferente que cuando vinieron los Incas a hablar de la adoración al sol y a su Inca años antes que los conquistadores.  Los artículos 71 al 74 de la Constitución dan derechos a la Pacha Mama, “donde se reproduce y realiza la vida”.  Mientras una generación se afana por ser católica y seguir el camino de El Cisne a Loja trayendo a su objeto de adoración, la otra utiliza el 20 de agosto para otras actividades mientras dejan a los curuchupas y a las abuelitas que vayan a seguir sus tradiciones incluso quizá enviando a los niños con ellos. No podemos ocultar que la vida del catolicismo en Ecuador está luchando contra un viento fuerte.  No somos ateos, ni socialistas laicos.  A pesar que muchos digan lo que digan acerca de la religión popular descrita en el párrafo anterior, no son en realidad ateos.  El ser humano siempre adora a algo y nosotros mismos somos excelentes ídolos.  También ideologías generan los mismos comportamientos que haría la religión.  Nos gusta copiar las ideas de otros, aprendemos de Nietzche, del Che, de Chávez, de Correa.  Pasamos horas siendo esclavos de las máquinas de bolsillo que contribuyen a la difusión de las ideologías de moda.

Nuestra juventud tiene acceso al mundo.  Tiene acceso a cantidades inigualables de conocimiento y perspectivas. ¿Qué provecho obtendremos si ganamos toda la prosperidad posible pero perdemos nuestra alma? ¿Qué Revolución existe si cambia la infrastructura pero no los corazones?

Sin Reforma no hay Revolución.

Los incas no pudieron ganar nuestro corazón.  Los católicos tampoco pudieron ganar nuestro corazón.  Los políticos del pasado no pudieron ganar nuestro corazón.  La Revolución Ciudadana no pudo ganar nuestro corazón.

Y ahora viene el momento de elegir nuevamente.  Observando la situación actual tengo certeza que Lenín Moreno será nuestro presidente.  Y de hecho probablemente consideraré seriamente hacer el viaje a Chicago para votar por él.  Le debo mucha gratitud por su labor y pienso que hará mucho bien por nuestro país.  Pero tal como ha ocurrido con el Mashi, él no es nuestro mesías, nuestro salvador.  Y no podrá cambiar nuestro corazón.

Solamente el evangelio de Jesús – su verdad inigualable y su poder – pueden hacerlo.  ¿No es hora de empezar esta Reforma?  No nos llevamos bien, solamente nos unimos por el fútbol y por un momento, peleamos, nos tenemos envidia, robamos, matamos, nos insultamos, nos aprovechamos de la desgracia ajena, queremos que nuestros opositores reciban lo peor de lo peor, salimos a protestar, nos escondemos de protestar por el miedo.  Tenemos en nuestras almas un agujero muy grande que siglos de opresión ideológica no han podido llenar.  La Pacha Mama no tiene dones divinos para ser donde se reproduce y realiza la vida.  Cuando pelamos la cebolla que es nuestra fe, llegamos siempre a este ídolo ancestral.  Los dejo con las palabras del escritor de la Carta a los Hebreos, capítulo 11: «Pero en realidad, anhelan una patria mejor, es decir, la celestial. Por lo cual, Dios no se avergüenza de ser llamado Dios de ellos, pues les ha preparado una ciudad». No perdamos nuestra alma.  Hay esperanza.  Hay futuro.  Hay una patria mejor.  ¿Avanzamos?

El evangelio ofrece libertad.  Pero no lo conocemos.  Empezaremos allí la próxima vez.

¡Hasta la victoria siempre!

Sex as the Litmus Test For Life

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Angela Chininin Buele

How Feeling Good Has Been Confused for the Reason for Living

Sex used to be commonly understood as the marital rite of passage that it is-a thrilling new secret adventure, entwining a husband and a wife into one heart, mind, and body.  It has been increasingly shoved into the limelight, however, and even been marketed as a civilly protected right.  Any­­ economist can tell you that overstock drives prices down, and so it is now that we have lots and lots of cheap sex all around us.  Not only has this overexposure led to heart-wrenching depravity of how, with whom, and how much; but even the dulling of passion strips this glorious intimacy of its due power.

I am often mocked when I highlight the side effects of the Industrial Revolution. The great thing about starting a “what if” conversation is that it should make both parties think more about what is, what could have been , and how they both might merge in the future.  So, I think that the Industrial Revolution set us on a devastating course of producing cheap products (thus losing the capacity and drive to be dedicated craftsmen), overconsuming and wasting these products (as cheap things break, no one is upset when more stylish, cheap things come out to replace them), and diminishing the values of contentment and stewardship.  There you go.  That’s my opinion, and I’m happy to defend or amend it as any pushback would warrant.

The truth is, advancement in technology has been used in many ways to spread sexual “liberation” to all reaches of the globe at the speed of light.  Clearly, two things are worthy of noting here.  First, sexual immorality was already present around the world long before the internet – or even electricity – was invented.  Also, almost all technology can also be used to the glory of God.  But the clamor of convenience can also deafen the ears – and minds – to the things of God.    As masses try to get more out of exchanges that mean less and less, the false gospel of sex salvation has been developed around two central doctrines: Everyone should celebrate what makes you sexually fulfilled, and no one should keep you from seeking sexual fulfillment.  If he were alive today, Karl Marx would likely be forced to call sex a religion for it sure seems to be the opium of the masses.   And no social stigma or “unwanted” babies will be allowed to kill the buzz.

Our evil desires lure us to sin.  We seek that which will enslave us.  But the solution is redeeming sex, not eliminating it, as many a caricature of Christians might like to infer.  It’s not enough to reclaim it as a prize for our own dominion, but we must surrender it to glory of its Designer.

Key Question: Is all of this talk of sexual liberation actually leading you to deep enslavement?

Unshakable Truth: “Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.” Proverbs 26:11

Illicit encounters, images, and conversations, violent attacks and systematic abuse, and the deadening of intellectual and physiological excitement are the vomit one returns to when folly urges he rejection of God’s rightful dominion over the delights of the marriage bed.

The Real Choice:  Are you willing to take a new litmus test and drink the living water to break the cycle of vomit?

Standing in the Diversity Gap: Who Made the List, and Who Got Cut

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Angela Chininin Buele

Animals have PETA, trees get hugged, the earth has lawyers, The Sierra Club works to keep U.S. Navy activity from disrupting ocean wildlife, and the USDA has a task force to address air quality. These organizations all work to preserve resources from careless destruction, and this is an honorable aim. What is less than honorable is the redemption attributed to the attainment of their goals. There is no love offered by any of these groups because their hope for legacy and security is centered around a gift that has been exalted to the status of Giver. This exchange is actually worship because the benefit of the defense these groups offer is never a blessing for –but rather a warning against– humans, except, arguably, in the case of the atmosphere.

Those who are wooed by these causes seek to re-enter the Garden without approaching or acknowledging the Gardener. Value of all things has been reassigned, and the periphery, the backdrop, the landscapes have been given center stage. It’s as if the crown were given reign over the kingdom instead of being passed from the head of one ruler to bestow authority upon the next. When you submit to the creation, there can be no demonstration of grace. It is simple and tragic idolatry.

Of course, the human causes can be skewed as well. Popular Coexist bumper stickers cleverly demonstrate the common symbols for different categories of people (Islam, Wicca, male, female, Judaism, Buddhism, Karma, Toaism, and Christianity). The chorus line arrangement is supposed to demonstrate that living side-by-side we should all be able to get along. At least, some of the graphics and memes lend to that intention. Other representations, however, claim that the unity is, in fact, an eternal bond of shared rightness across the board. This might be referred to as Universalism, which essentially tells everyone they are simultaneously doing good and wasting their time.

With all of this protection and preservation, this unity and affirmation being touted, it is truly heartbreaking to see who doesn’t make the “protected status” list.  The unseen. The unseen are denied safe passage and face certain, violent murder under the guise of security and autonomy while the killings are recorded as victories.  Could we be talking about unseen undocumented immigrants, you might ask.  Or perhaps refugees fleeing imminent danger?  How could this be tolerated – even celebrated? Because, just like all successful historical massacres, blame is assigned to evoke justification, and carnage is hidden so the problem appears to be resolved. What is most shocking, however, is that we are actually looking at the unnamed travelers -living, moving targets- in wombs across the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Where is the camaraderie between human and human? How have the inanimate and the four legged outranked people?

All talk of tolerance and coexistence is meaningless without reconciliation and humility.  True coexistence can only occur when real peace is found, when real reconciliation takes place.  The only place you can find that precious resource is at the foot of the cross, where God and man are reconciled, where salvation is possible because God who became a baby who became a man was unrighteously killed by his fellow men and rose again.  He offers salvation to every last one of us humans. He is making all things new even now.  Will you be reconciled?

There is no more beautifully diverse path than the narrow road of Calvary (Galatians 3:28)

Key Question: Do you want your passions (the causes dearest to your heart) to change the world for your good, or do you want the Passion to change you for the world’s good?

Unshakable Truth: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than that Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Romans 1:22-25).

These words matter because they come from God, and He has true authority over every part of us because He is our Maker.  We have the honor –instead of the obligation– to obey Him because in His love He is a Father and not a cold slave driver. To reject Him in order to throw ourselves down at the feet of creation is grave foolishness.

The Real Choice: Will you prepare to enter into the true Utopia of God’s Kingdom or will you try to establish a throne for yourself in this world before you leave it?

“Love Comes Naturally, Hate Is Learned”

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The right, the wrong, and the rhetoric therein

Angela Chininin Buele

In order to make sure we are all on the same page, I would like to include the actual and complete quote by Nelson Mandela below:

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

I believe it is quite unfortunate that his carefully developed statement has become something of a bullet point zinger, but what is more disappointing is that you can actually uncover truth working from the structure of the one liner where none is to be found from the original quote.  What I mean to say is that from “Love is natural; Hate is learned” you can see the perfect gift of Love (life) that God gave man and the hate (sin) with which man repaid him, having been taught by God’s Enemy, Satan.  You might also say that babies first show only delight in the connection they share with other people, but as physical strength and capacity for strategic thought develop, more and more conflict (sin) enters into their relationships.  Up to this point of the common abridged version of the quote, it has merit.

The complete original quote, however, misrepresents both our ultimate character as self-interested beings and the hope for remedy.  Our poisoning has not come from without but from within, and the antidote is not a bypass but complete transplant.  And for that you need a Surgeon.

Having addressed the right and the wrong of this mantra’s application, what of the rhetoric?  That is what is shrouded by the very words “love” and “hate.”  The oversimplification of these terms leaves no shortage of broken hearts in its wake.  Truth be told, love is not about primarily about affirmation, but about delight, protection and edification.  And hate isn’t primarily about disdain, but apathy, autonomy, and neglect.  Does that better paint the broad strokes of beauty and terror?

Key Question: Do you more often use the self-satisfying meaning or the soul-satisfying meaning of the terms “love” and “hate”?

Unshakable Truth: “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge; but whoever hates reproof is stupid.” Proverbs 12:1

One who has caused an accident that leaves them trapped in a burning vehicle might not appreciate the experience of having their car ripped apart by the Jaws of Life, but the gratitude for another’s sacrifice to perform the rescue is not soon forgotten.  Those working to rescue must not be slandered as hateful for destroying the victim’s vehicle.  They should instead be seen as loving for their compassion for the person’s very life.

The Real Choice: Will we be moved to give full and accurate weight to the terms “love” and “hate,” or will we use them as tag lines for our own purposes?