Who Christened the Titanic?

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. One of the best articles regarding the event is written by Dr Jerry Newcombe entitled Who Christened the Titanic?. The short answer appears to be that the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, a British shipping company commonly called White Star Line did not believe in the custom. There have been many accounts (with a few conflicts) on exactly what happened that day, but Dr Newcombe's central purpose is to draw some very good parallels between its voyage and the current spiritual direction of modern day America. One of the best evidences we have for the article's truthfulness and effectiveness is that the usual pundits on the left have labeled the writing as anything from "scare tactics" to "hate speech". Here are a few excerpts:

The steamship [Titanic] was 885 feet long, and it was more than ten stories tall. As of that time, it had been described as "the largest moving man-made object in the world" and a "floating palace." On its maiden voyage this huge steamship was going from Southampton, England to New York City when it collided with an iceberg about 400 miles from Newfoundland and sank within three hours. There were 2,207 people on board, and 1,500 perished.

Daniel Allen Butler wrote a book I highly recommend, entitled Unsinkable. In the Preface, he wrote, “No other disaster in history could have been more easily avoided or was more inevitable… a once-in-a-lifetime combination of weather and sea conditions came together to make the iceberg nearly invisible to the ship’s lookouts.”

The Greeks had their ancient plays where the flawed hero ended up in tragedy because of his hubris---his arrogance. And when you look at many of the facts surrounding the sinking of the Titanic, you find multiple examples of pride, in the worst sense of the word. The Titanic is indeed a reminder of that ancient principle from Solomon the Wise: Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. One error compounded on another… but each was predicated on the assumption that the ship was unsinkable.

Before the voyage, one woman, a Mrs Albert Caldwell, watched “a group of deck hands carrying luggage aboard the Titanic. Impulsively, she stopped one of the men and asked him, ‘Is this ship really nonsinkable?’ ‘Yes, lady,’ he replied, ‘God Himself couldn’t sink this ship.’” (Butler, Unsinkable, p. 39).

Author Doug Phillips [president of the Christian Boys' and Men's Titanic Society, an organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the Titanic] writes this about the Titanic: "She was the floating embodiment of the new age of scientific optimism, and the international symbol of the century that would finally realize Utopia… Many perceived the ship to be a modern incarnation of the Tower of Babel. The sinking represented God's unwillingness to allow man to build any edifice of invincibility or to seek salvation through technology."

It was supposedly unsinkable… but there are some things that should have been done:

1. They should have made sure they had binoculars (which they called lookout glasses). There were binoculars on board, but they had been stashed away by someone before the voyage.
2. They should have gone through the drills. The standard procedure was to have the crew and passengers practice getting to the lifeboats.
3. They should have had far more lifeboats, one space for each passenger.
4. They should have at least slowed down or even stopped after the warnings. They were going at the fastest speed of the voyage at the time (22 1/2 knots). The captain was trying to make the trip in record time.
5. They should have heeded the six wireless messages from different ships warning them about the ice-fields. The last one… at 11PM came from a nearby ship: “Say, old man, we are surrounded by ice and stopped.” To that message, the Titanic’s radio operator responded, “Shut up! Shut up! I am busy…”

Butler writes about the actual tragic hitting of the iceberg. “Up in the crow’s nest it looked as if the ship would never turn in time. Bracing themselves for the shock of a head-on collision… as the berg brushed past, large chunks of ice thudded onto the foredeck and into the well deck… Over the noise of the falling ice it seemed to the two lookouts that they could hear a faint, metallic ripping sound.” It only took ten seconds of colliding with the iceberg to impart fatal damage to the ship, costing 1,500 lives.

America at present reminds me of the Titanic, chugging away in a major ice-field, with major moral icebergs ahead (if we haven’t already collided with them). Some of these moral icebergs include same-sex marriage, abortion, pornography, family breakdown, expelling God from the public arena by using a faulty view of church and state separation. May God have mercy on us before it’s too late.

The Bishop of Winchester said: “The Titanic, name and thing, will stand for a monument and warning to human presumption.”

Who was it that christened the Titanic? No one. It was never christened. It didn’t need to be. After all, it was unsinkable.

Blogger Comment Issues

Once again, I’ve been busy designing electrical facilities for some shipping port expansions in the New England area (yes I have a “real job”, contrary to what many of my co-workers might say). Things are once again getting back to normal, so I’m looking forward to posting again.

During my absence, we were notified that many readers were experiencing difficulty while viewing certain pages and leaving comments on others. After some research, we determined that the two issues were inter-related, tracing both back to a recent Blogger update that was producing similar symptoms on many other blogs. This upgrade added Blogger support of threaded commenting, which allows a reader the option of leaving a general comment about the article, or responding to another comment on the thread.

Unfortunately, the upgrade contained a few bugs, so pages containing previous comments appeared as a completely blank white page. Pages without comments could be viewed, but readers were prevented from adding comments. As a temporary fix, we changed our comment settings about six weeks ago from embedded (threaded) to a pop-up window.

We have now been notified that the issue has been fixed, so we’ve re-enabled the threaded comments feature for all pages. We’ve spot-tested several pages using the latest versions of IE, Firefox, and Chrome and encountered no problems. Still, if anyone has any future problems with commenting (or any other technical issues), please don’t hesitate to let us know. Thanks again for your support and feedback.

ObamaCare Death Panels Coming in 2014

Buried deep within the over 2800 pages and 425,000 words that comprise the ObamaCare law, we find a provision for creating an Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). The IPAB creates an unelected board of 15 politically appointed "experts" whose primary objective is to "cut healthcare costs" from Medicare. Since by all credible estimates (including the Congressional Budget Office), ObamaCare will greatly increase healthcare costs, the panel's only means of cost control will be the rationing and denial of proven medical treatments to otherwise qualifying patients.

Thus, the decision on who lives and who dies is left in the hands of these 15 bureaucrats. Incredibly, there's very little that can be done to challenge this board if ObamaCare is not repealed. Establishment of the IPAB is a massive expansion of government control and a gross violation of the Separation of Powers. The panel's rulings are not subject to review by the courts and can only be overridden by a super-majority of congress, an extremely difficult task.

BHO's comrades in the media, such as the New York Times, and the liberal blogosphere continue to deny the existence of this death panel (or paint their opponents as being paranoid and/or of spreading falsehoods), hoping that most people will believe their coverup rather than reading this portion of the healthcare bill for themselves. The good news is that even many liberals that favor killing innocent babies are drawing the line in opposing the killing of seniors (seniors have the right to vote). Yet, we still have an uphill battle, so we urge all our readers to contact their senators and representatives to voice concern and disapproval on this pro-life issue.

For more information, see Truth in Action Ministries - The “Death Panel” Buried Deep Inside the Health Care Law, and The Weekly Standard - The Real Mediscare.

Sanctity of Life Month 2012

As we welcome in the New Year, we also mark January as the National Sanctity of Life Month, a month set aside each year to raise our awareness of the value of life. We can hardly think of a better way to begin the year than by attempting to save the lives of as many innocent babies as possible. In addition, tomorrow, January 22 is National Sanctity of Human Life Sunday (SOHLS), a special day to focus on the fundamental right to life as recognized by our nation's Founding Fathers.

President Ronald Reagan established SOHLS in 1983 by proclamation at the request of the Christian Action Council Education and Ministries Fund (now Care Net). The day is held annually on the Sunday that falls closest to January 22, the day on which the US Supreme Court issued the Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton decisions. This year, it falls on the exact 39th anniversary of the 1973 decisions.

Since 1983, the SOHLS proclamation has been issued by Presidents George HW Bush and George W Bush. Not surprisingly, Bill Clinton and BH Obama declined to issue this proclamation. Rather than issuing the proclamation recognizing the right to life, Obama chose instead to celebrate this year's National Sanctity of Life Month by ordering all private health insurance companies to offer no cost (no copay or deductible) coverage for contraceptives, including those that destroy life after conception. As reported by the Family Research Council,

Today the Obama Administration issued a statement re-iterating the "contraceptive mandate" requiring all insurance providers cover the full range of FDA-approved drugs and devices would remain intact. This mandate, issued in August, includes drugs that work after conception to destroy life rather than prevent it. The statement included a postponement of one year for religious groups that do not already carry contraceptives and additionally would not be exempted under last year's narrow definition of "religious employer."

The mandate not only violates such existing conscience protections on abortion such as the Hyde/Weldon Amendment (in so far as Plan B and Ella are covered), but also violates the principles of the Church Amendments which protects conscience rights for those who object to contraceptives and other services on moral or religious grounds. Additionally, the U.S. government already funds domestic family planning at a level of $1.9 billion annually.

Tom McClusky of FRC Action had the following to say:

"This HHS delay does nothing to change the anti-religious, anti-conscience, and anti-life contraceptive mandate, rather it only postpones its implementation until after the presidential election. Despite the fact that certain drugs and devices approved by the FDA can work after conception to destroy a newly developed baby, the Obama Administration mandate still forces all insurance plans to carry these drugs and devices even if employers are morally opposed.

"This does nothing to expand conscience protections it merely punts compliance for most religious employers with conscience objections until after the election. It does nothing to modify or expand the very narrow exemption for churches to include the thousands of religious organizations who don't qualify, it only delays their pending obedience for 1 year.

"The new rule also mandates that these groups with a one-year reprieve in the mean time will be forced to tell their employees where to obtain contraceptives. This completely violates the conscience rights of many Americans. As we approach the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade tomorrow may all voters who respect life take note of the Obama Administration's ardent policies against life and religious liberty and vote accordingly in November."

Although we should work to end abortion throughout the year, we're asking all our readers to make a special effort this month to pray for and support the many excellent pro-life organizations working to preserve the lives of these vulnerable babies who are made in the image of God.

End of 2011 Toons

Here's some year-ending cartoons.

These toons have been archived at End-year 2011 Toon Review. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas and Troop Salute

We'd like to wish all our readers a very Merry CHRISTmas. We'd also like to share this great tribute to our brave troops, both past and present. This excellent Christmas light show includes the anthems of the various branches of our military.

Yet Shall He Live

One of my spiritual heroes is AW (Aiden Wilson) Tozer.  He served as pastor of several churches for about 45 years, including the Southside Alliance Church in Chicago for 30 years.  He then became pastor of Avenue Road Church of Toronto in 1959 before dying suddenly of a heart attack in 1963.

Pastor Tozer never went to college or seminary, and had no formal religious training, yet by spending hours upon hours with an open Bible before God, he was able to speak and write with such conviction that he became one of the most often quoted Christians of the past 50 years.

Here is a short except from one of his sermons about death, based up the Scripture verse, He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live (Jn 11:25- KJV).

This may sound strange-but it is a fact that death is not the worst thing that can happen to a believing Christian.

I can recall the first time I heard that statement, in a quiet conversation with Harry M. Shuman, for many years the president of the international Christian and Missionary Alliance. He was a soft-spoken yet forceful man of God, rich in the wisdom of God’s Word. We were talking of the serious issues of life and death. When he had something especially important to say, Dr. Shuman had an unusual way of lowering his voice and tilting his head just a bit. I can see him yet as he looked out from under his shaggy brows straight into my eyes.

"Remember, Tozer," he said, "death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person!".

For the Christian, death is a journey to the eternal world. It is a victory, a rest, a delight. I am sure my small amount of physical suffering has been mild compared to Paul’s, but I feel as Paul did: "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far!" (Php 2:23)

Pastor Tozer is speaking, of course, of physical death.  All people, both believers and nonbelievers, will experience physical death unless we’re still alive here on Earth when Jesus returns.  However, only nonbelievers (those without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ) will experience the second death - an eternity in hell separated from God.  This eternal state is also known as "eternal death" or "spiritual death".  This should not be confused with the state of being "spiritually dead", the current condition of a nonbeliever, and the former condition of believers prior to being regenerated (made alive in Christ) by the grace of God (Eph 2:1-10).

Many of us have heard the old saying, "Born once, die twice; but born twice, die once".  Christians have been born twice, that is “born again” or “born from above” (Jn 3:3-7), so only Christians will die only once (physically), while unbelievers will experience both physical and spiritual death.  It has rightly been said that "one can't kill a Christian - but can only change his or her address".

For those wanting more info on how to avoid the second death, please read our How to Be Sure You’re Going to Heaven article.

A few years ago, we also wrote a related article on the Differing Views of Death between believers and unbelievers.  We welcome you to check it out.

Fall 2011 Review

Our fall 2011 cartoon review includes Israel. OWS, Thanksgiving, the beginning of election season, and more.

Our toons have been archived at End-year 2011 Toon Review. Enjoy and continue praying for our nation.

Obamacare and the SuperCommittee

We haven't done a toon update in a few months, so we're uploading one tomorrow, but I wanted to load this separately while it was on my mind. Most of us remember all the promises made by BHO, his supporters and media apologists regarding this takeover of the health-care industry by the federal government. We were told of all the money that would be saved, both in premiums for individuals and in reduction of the national deficit. Those that currently had health coverage was promised that we would be able to keep our same policies and doctors.

Of course, only those drinking the Obama Kool-aid actually believed any of the claims about the policy. Most reputable economists predict that ObamaCare will greatly increase the deficit at a time when the feds are already broke.

On a personal note, we finally received our insurance options for the coming year. The policy we had previously carried was discontinued due to increased costs brought on by Obamacare. The policy that we were forced to settle on featured a higher monthly premium, much higher deductibles instead of a low co-pay, and less coverage. I have not yet verified whether or not our doctor will accept the new policy. I have a request for BHO and his comrades. Please stop helping us. We can't afford it.

So, now the issue of whether the feds can force us into the program will be decided by the "un-biased" Supreme Court. Why doesn't this make us feel any more confident?

Another subject related to the fed's out of control spending is that of the creation of a so-called Super Committee to come up with some budget cuts. In picking the toons for the Fall update, I had to wade through hundreds portraying the committee as being a deadlocked failure. I chose to exclude all other than the one below because I consider this to be the biggest non-story of the year. Only those who believed the promises from BHO regarding Obamacare would be naive enough to believe anything good could come from this idea. By including such members as John Kerry and Patty Murray, Harry Reid guaranteed that the committee would either be deadlocked, or deliver a "partisan solution" that would consist primarily of tax increases and defense cuts.

Many people complain about the gridlock in congress, but I actually prefer it to the alternative. Compromise would normally be preferred, but there are so many Socialists and Marxists currently masquerading as Democrats (or we should say Democrats of a generation ago), that the situation can only be fixed by an election purge. We must vote for candidates who will stand up for the constitution and traditional values, not for candidates who will compromise with those attempting to destroy our country.

His Cross is my Cross

From a sermon by AW Tozer:

To take Jesus Christ into your life without reservation is to accept His friends as your friends and to know that His enemies will be your enemies! It means that we accept His rejection as our rejection. We knowingly accept His cross as our cross.

If you then find yourself in an area where Christ has no friends, you will be friendless, except for the one Friend who will stick closer than a brother. I made up my mind a long time ago. Those who declare themselves enemies of Jesus Christ must look upon me as their enemy, and I ask no quarter from them! And if they are friends of Christ they are my friends, and I do not care what color they are or what denomination they belong to.

If the preachers would faithfully tell the people what it actually means to receive Christ and obey Him and live for Him, we would have fewer converts backsliding and foundering.

Preachers who are not faithful one day will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and answer to a faithful Savior why they betrayed His people in this way!

We must pray for and encourage those who are living and serving in those areas that are not friendly to Christ. What shall we say however, about professing Christians (not just preachers) who live in lands still relatively from from persecution? Many have compromised their beliefs and become so entangled with this present world that their faith is barely recognizable. Christians used to view the world as a battlefield, but too many now consider it a playground instead. Rather than holding to the historical doctrines of the Faith, many have now embraced a hybrid creed, interbred with worldly ideology.

We as the Church are called to be holy and set apart, to stand firmly on biblical principles when confronted with moral, ethical and spiritual issues; whether in the social, political, religious or any other realm. We can not remain neutral. We must choose whom we will serve, a choice that leads to either life or death (Dt 30:19). We must say with Joshua, "as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord" (Jsh 24:15).

We are called to transform the world, not to assimilate into it.