Elephant Puppets

Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus is shutting down after May 2017 due to a sharp decline in ticket sales.  It, of course, is not the only reason, but the decline corresponded with the removal of live elephants from the shows.  The elephants had become increasingly controversial due to animal rights groups allegations that the animals were mistreated by the circus workers.

The latest version of the show features life-sized elephant puppets named Queenie and Peanut. While the puppets look to be real it is obvious that they are puppets because the human operators are clearly visible. The audiences love them!

As ringmaster David Williamson says, "You can't tell the story of the circus in America without elephants."

Much the same thing is happening in many of America's churches. The true Gospel of Jesus Christ has been replaced by other emphases because some see the Gospel message as imperialistic, ethnocentric, depressing, at odds with their belief in the essential goodness of Man, or exclusivist.  On the contrary, there are strong reasons to believe that a Gospel-less Christianity is not Christian.

Book Comment: Trusting God Even When Life Hurts

In Trusting God Even When Life Hurts (NavPress, 1988), Jerry Bridges makes some very startling assertions.  All of them are biblically sound and all of them are true.

Basically, Bridges’ point is that God can be trusted because of His absolute sovereignty in every instance, in every moment, in every detail, no matter how small.  Bridges quotes hundreds of verses of scripture which make the point that God has absolute control over who is in political power and over the decisions which they make.  He is in control of the weather, including tornadoes and tsunamis.  He is in control of illness and disease.  He is in control of the forces which hold a molecule together and which move gibberellins through a plant.  (Matthew 10:29)

God uses His people and also people who utterly reject Him; everyone serves His plan, which He established at the moment of Creation.  All things move as God purposes and everything works together (even bad things and bad people) for the good of those who love the Lord.  That is what the Bible says.  We do not always understand how that could be so.

Pastor bridges in his book is very careful to stress that God's sovereignty does not obviate human responsibility.  We are not God's puppets or chess pieces, but are free moral agents who are held accountable for our decisions and actions.  As the Bible declares "... they have no excuse."   (Romans 1:20)

Some Christians believe as does Rabbi Harold Kushner that God is loving but not all powerful. Kushner challenges the idea of the omnipotence of God.  God grieves with us over bad things which happen but is unable to do anything.  This is nothing more than Deism; a God who creates the world and then essentially walks away.

 Jesus in Matthew 10:29-31 declared that God is able and willing to sustain us and bring good to His people.  He can use miracles or other people (good or bad), or situations and events (good or bad) to work out everything to our good.