VIGILANCE

We are at a new year - 2009. Some predict a year of untold blessing, another a year of extreme depression. Whether you are an unbridled optimist or an incurable pessimist, I believe the operable word for the year is VIGILANCE. There will be all manner of attempts by all manner of people to insert new laws and funding requests which could greatly effect the major moral and cultural war we are in. Many may seem either innocuous or simply extensions or variations on existing themes. However, recent chess move by Blago in appointing Roland Burris to former Senator Obama's Illinois Senate seat shows the increasingly cynical and layered decision making that is going on. Expect to see much more of the same from those who aren't being acCused of any wrongdoing.

Political games are nothing new, of course. They go back hundreds and thousands of years. Et tu, Brute? However, we are in a country where the polemic often advanced is so much about idealized government and a democratic process. The reality of politics, however, is quite different. From the AARP, Unions, NEA, Trial Lawyers, Pro- and Anti-Abortion forces, Homosexual rights activists, Wall Street, credit card companies and environmental groups come money and influence that is more about narrowly defined agendas that the good of the entire country. Many who sympathized with these groups have become disillusioned as the rhetoric gets sharper and the public interest narrower.

Let's look at just one issue - climate change. The principles are the same with MANY issues. If we adopt all the Kyoto protocols, and the new ones that have been proposed, life in our nation will change drastically and economic costs will be extreme. Those effects will NOT be the same in China and other nations where we already operate at a competitive disadvantage. It will be worse in places such as Africa, where there is intense desire to continue development which would be economically infeasible it totally green. I was amused during the presidential campaign to hear all the glib talk on wind and solar. Perhaps Arizona in the sunbelt with one hundred degree temperatures can fully become the "Silicon Valley" of the solar industry (it has made a good start) and perhaps tornado alley in Oklahoma and Kansas can help make wind energy economical during those events, but right now, neither alternative energy source is the slightest economically feasible for the vast majority of our energy needs. We have more coal than anything, and quite a bit of oil in Anwar and in oil shale, but those who have their agenda don't care if gasoline costs $12 per gallon. Billions will be poured down the proverbial drain while the energy sources we KNOW we have will remain untapped. All because of a theory which has never been proven, and which attributes all manner of power to man and none to God. He who sits in the heavens is laughing. He can change the earth's temperature with one word, and in fact he has already told us that he WILL one day cause the earth and its works to be burned up (God-caused Global Warming will making any man-made Global Warming seem rather insignificant).

In the British movie "The Great Global Warming Swindle" (shown on Channel 4 (Notorious in England for airing unpopular viewpoints as a public service), Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, is repeatedly interviewed. He believes that the environmental movement achieved most if not all of its original objectives, and now has turned into a purely political force that relies on sensationalism rather than science. He is now one of Greenpeace's harshest critics. While there have been some scientific criticisms of the film, mostly on details just as the scale on an axis of a graph, there is a lot of science in the film that has not been been able to be credibly refuted. I am an architect, and the green movement is consuming many firms many since buildings contribute close to half of the greenhouse gases that keep Al Gore on the edge of hysteria. I just went through a study of how architects view the subject. Many are committed to being carbon-neutral as soon as possible. At least one page was devoted to architects who doubt that people have much to do with the 1 degree difference over the last few decades. Nonetheless, I try to conserve resources - no one doubts the wisdom of using the least amount of energy possible, being sure our timber resources remain renewable, and being as careful as possible about emissions of pollutants or gases which are not beneficial. However, one of the very first things I learned in life was that it is dangerous to make wide-ranging decisions on incomplete or questionable assumptions. Yet, this is EXACTLY what has been going on. The 1300's were far warmer (Medieval Warm Period) and with more carbon dioxide than there is now, and that was centuries before the industrial revolution. There was much flourishing due to the warm climate conditions. Some observers note that Canada would greatly benefit from a warmer climate. YET, the temperatures went up only ONE degree over the last few decades, and have actually been FALLING of late. 2008 had the COLDEST average global temperature in eight years. NONE of the alarmists' predictions have been accurate, and to them it doesn't matter. To them, the world is flat no matter what and no one can convince them otherwise. The same can be said for the ridiculous claims of molecules-to-man evolutionists, whose ideas mock probability, possibility, and just about every scientific principle there is.

So we must be vigilant concerning all the attempts of people to impact our political, economic, cultural, and moral lives. We must also we vigilant in the church, because there all manner of people seeking to change the church - the forces to undermine the authority of the Bible, particularly on God's edicts that are opposite of political correctness, the forces to destabilize those who actively oppose the killing of the preborn, the legitimization of homosexuality, forced female circumcision, etc. We must stand firm and not tolerate any deviations from the clear word of God. We must be united as the Body of Christ, but not yield ground on the issues God cares about so deeply. Watch! Pray! Defend what is right! Encourage all to be 100% faithful to the Lord!