Lowering the Drinking Age

There is a movement afoot (to use Sherlock Holmes' word) to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18 in Pennsylvania. One of the many college presidents who have signed on to this movement and is actively promoting the agenda is the president of Elizabethtown College, Ted Long. He, along with many others, is convinced that the reason why there is so much of the dangerous and sometimes fatal practice of binge drinking on college campuses is because the age limit is set too high, that lowering the minimum age for the legal consumption of alcohol will have a sufficiently satisfactory effect on diminishing the participation in binge drinking.

Derek Melleby, of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (CPYU wrote an excellent opinion piece in the Sunday Lancaster News that points out some fatal flaws in Long's argument.

It seems to me that part of what Long, and those with a similar argument, are doing is working to abandon - or at least greatly lessen - their responsibility for helping students that might be or are given to even one experience with the illegal consumption of alcohol. As Melleby points out in his article, the problem is rooted in a culture that increasingly encourages ignoring any reason to delaying gratification of any kind - alcohol, drugs, sex, possessions, etc. And, as Melleby points out, and despite what Long and others want to argue, having raised the legal minimum drinking age from 18 to 21 HAS had a very positive effect on reducing injuries and fatalities associated with alcohol consumption.

Long argues that, because there is so much time spent having to police students there is, then, insufficient time for counseling students. I wonder how much time Long himself has done either? If he thinks that those who do the policing cannot also do the counseling, i would refer him to a friend of mine who is a cop on a local municipal police force who does just that. Or perhaps he does not think that there are enough available staff to do the policing with sufficient staff left to do the counseling. Hmmm... maybe an increase in staff could help resolve that dilemma. In either case, it means a greater expenditure of college resources one way or the other. Perhaps that's something he's trying to avoid (although the college has gone through tremendous expansion in the 17 years i've lived in the Elizabethtown community - a tremendous expenditure, so it's not that money isn't available).

Or maybe Melleby is right. Perhaps Long is under the assumption that one of the reasons students come to Elizabethtown college is for the alcohol experience. If that's true, that doesn't say much good about the college, does it? And while that, indeed, may be why SOME students enroll there, i seriously doubt if that's the motivation for but a handful.

No, i seriously doubt lowering the drinking age will be helpful to the college or the community.

In fact, i would advocate not only keeping the drinking age at 21, i'm inclined to be in favor of raising the driving age from 16 to 18 in Pennsylvania.

When "a long time" isn't long enough

Here's an excerpt from an article entitled Pope Pelosi at the Gate that ran in newspapers over the past few days (i read it in our local Sunday paper, i found it online in Thursday's San Francisco Chronicle):

Citing Barack Obama's recent pass on a similar question - "At what point does a baby get human rights?" - Brokaw asked Pelosi what she would say to Obama were he to ask her advice.

Pelosi didn't finesse her answer, as Obama did when he said the question was above his pay grade, but she may wish she had.

"I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time," Pelosi began. "And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctrines of the church have not been able to make that definition. ... St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on a woman's right to choose. ... I don't think anybody can tell you when life begins, human life begins."

I'm glad the article included the response of the Catholic Church - the right response, i might add - but i want to add an excerpt from the Epistle of Barnabas, a Church document dating to around 100 B.C, more than two hundred years prior to Augustine...

Do not kill an unborn child through abortion, nor destroy it after birth.

Regardless of the attempts (or lack thereof) to define when "human" life begins, regardless of Pelosi's consistency of being an ardent, practicing Catholic, regardless of her having studied for a long time the issue, it is quite clear she has not studied it enough - or perhaps she has studied only long enough suit her own bias.

All About You

I/we wrote this to sing tomorrow morning in worship in conjunction with the sermon "It's All About Who?"

All About You
by Jim & Wendy Gambini

How many times have I said, "I'll sing for you, Jesus"?
And how many times have I said, "I'm all a-bout you"?
I love to sing your songs of love
If I like the style and key.
So maybe I'm just really about me.

How many times have I said my prayers to you, Je-sus?
And how many times have I said, "I'm all a-bout you"?
I praise you for your truth and grace
But not for my agony.
So maybe I'm just really about me.

So many times I've made the vow
I'll live my life for you
And if I need to lay it down,
I'll gladly die for you.
But I still choose when and how,
Not this way and not right now.
Hypocrisy lives deep in me.
Consume me with your holy fire.

How many times have you said, "My cross I bore for you”?
And how many times have you said, "My heart is for you"?
So I'll trust you and I'll bear the cross
And not live by how I feel.
And maybe I can really,
Maybe I can honestly,
Just maybe I can truly be
All about you.

© 2008 Jim Gambini

The Right Questions

I frequently (though not regularly) listen to, read and sometimes reply to discussions (primarily on YouTube) between Muslims and Christians. Tonight I read questions posed that are intended to demonstrate the absurdity of Jesus being both God and Man. These are questions that I have heard and read umpteen times. Some samples are:
- How can the omniscient God not know something?
- How can the omnipotent God become tired?

Of course, these questions often lead to questions like:
- Can an omnipotent God create a stone so heavy he cannot lift it?

Well, maybe there is no such thing as a stupid question (maybe)… but there is such a thing as a wrong question.

To ask the question, “Can God make a stone so big he cannot lift it?” is the wrong question (and I do think it’s a stupid question). The questions about an omniscient God not knowing something or an omnipotent God not being able to do something are the wrong questions. They are wrong (and stupid) questions because they are pointless.

Let me suggest, instead, what kinds of question ought to be asked about God:
- Can the All-mighty God humble himself?
- Can the All-wise God humiliate himself?
- Can the Ever-present God hide himself?

Of course, a monosyllabic answer to these questions is completely inadequate. They scream for explanation – one way or the other.

But here is the question that most stimulates and unnerves me:
Can God become something other (else or more) than what he is?

Worshiping Moloch

I originally posted this on my blog "Pilgrim Musings" but decided to remove it from there (as it was not consistent with the theme and character of that blog) and post it here.

Having awakened at 3:00am, I began reading some blogs I've not perused in some time. Aimee Milburn (Historical Christian blog) recently commented (Perverted "Blessing") on an article from the Catholic News Agency regarding clergy offering their blessing on the opening of an abortion clinic in Schenectady, New York. There were plenty of comments connected with Milburn's post - most of them quite good. One comment compared the current U.S. legalization of abortion and pursuit of "reproductive rights" in that vein to the worship of Moloch.

Moloch was, supposedly, an ancient God to whom the worship offered included the sacrifice of infants and children. A large stone would be chiseled or bronze was cast and formed into an image with extended arms and hands. The hollowed out statue would then be "fired up." Worship would include sacrificing children by placing the small child into the red hot hands of this "god." (Note: there is much uncertainty regarding exactly who or what Moloch was according to archeological findings. There are variations reported as to how the children were actually sacrificed - but there seems to be general - if not universal - agreement that worship of Moloch commonly included the sacrifice of children.)

Even if my historical assessment is flawed, the point is that our children have become the last disposable inconvenience to our pursuit of unbridled hedonism. The difference between our promotion of abortion and the worship of Moloch is that, at least when children were sacrificed to Moloch, the parents would weep and wail (although that was to be drowned out through loud music and the shouting crowd). As Planned Parenthood and its supporters (such as the wolves in clerical clothing) promote abortion as a social blessing, those of us who correctly understand this to be "the great evil of our time" ought to weep and wail for this contemporary slaughter of the innocents.

How corrupt and wicked is the thought: better to take responsibility for saving an endangered owl or a tree than to take responsibility for a human child... and kill it. The clergy that "blessed" the abortion clinic and declared it to be a "sanctuary" and "holy ground" have pervertedly replaced the birth of a baby with its destruction as a blessed event. And Moloch smiles.

May God have mercy.

Reading and Sleeping

Why do I fall asleep so quickly nearly every time I go to read? Am I tired? Do I not get enough sleep? Or is there something else? Is there something in my brain, some mechanism, some trigger… a switch of some sort? And what is it that switches? Is it something that switches off? Or something that switches on? Or perhaps it’s more like a railroad switch – nothing that switches on or off but something switches direction.

Whatever it is, it’s frustrating. There is so much that I want to read – but I fall asleep so consistently. It gets to the point where I don’t even want to read. But then, I see all that there is to read, so much that I want to know that I try again to read… and fall asleep again.

Is there something I need to find? Is this a gift or a curse? Perhaps I should find some way to understand this as opportunity for something good in a way I’ve not conceived up to now. Perhaps there is something excellent in this that doesn’t fit into any definition of excellence that I currently use or have. Is there a meaning to this that I have yet to perceive? Is there a revelation of some sort in it? Is this “sleep” telling me something, something I’ve not been able to hear or see as of yet?