How should we react to Saddam’s execution as Christians? I’m sure some one will come along and write something better, but I’d like to put my thoughts out there to help start the conversation.

I believe our reaction should be mixed. On one hand, we should be joyful that goodness and justice has triumphed over evil in a significant way this day. It is significant because a symbol of death and tyranny in the world has been destroyed. Instead of fading away into the pages of history via old age, a strong conclusion has been dealt. Such a triumph, I believe, is a blessed manifestation of God’s hand moving to make things right.

Conversely, we should also be mournful. Despite the wretchedness of the man hanged, he is a man made in the image of God. No matter how corrupted that image is, it resides nonetheless. Saddam Hussein is also a reminder of how fallen we all are. Certainly he caused more death than most of us will ever even have the opportunity to cause. But we, just as he is, were dead in sin as a result of the fall. The death and tyranny inflicted by Saddam are the consequences of what happened long ago in the garden, as is Saddam’s death. This should cause us to reflect on the sinfulness and guilt that mars us all who are children of Adam. Though those of us in Christ have been saved from the ultimate consequence of sin, we still daily experience and participate in it’s tragedies.

To go too far in either of these reactions would be wrong. It would be easy to be so joyful that we become jovial and make jokes about Saddam’s death. Such humor quickly crosses the line into inappropriate since a human death has occurred. The other extreme would be to be upset or depressed over the execution. Such a reaction does not pay appropriate regard to the justness of the death. There ought not to be any remorse or resentment because the execution was just and especially warranted in this case.

The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing

(A.W. Tozer)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are simply “things.” They were made for man’s use, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him.

But sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul.

Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and things were allowed to enter. Within the human heart things have taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk, stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne.

This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough, fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets things with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns my and mine look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God’s gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.

Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His Disciples, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. (Matthew 16:24-25)

Breaking this truth into fragments for our better understanding, it would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril. Jesus called it “life” and “self,” or as we would say, the self-life. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness; the words gain and profit suggest this. To allow this enemy to live is, in the end, to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up all for Christ’s sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal. And possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective way to destroy this foe; it is by the cross. “Let him take up his cross, and follow Me” (see Matthew 16:24).

The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. These are the “poor in spirit.” They have reached an inward state paralleling the outward circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of Jerusalem. That is what the word poor as Christ used it actually means. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the yoke of the oppressor; and they have done not by fighting but by surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

I’m currently working on a paper (for school) on inerrancy. One of the things I find interesting about the topic is that both sides (those for and against it) have generally been acting like the debate’s been over for the past two decades. I haven’t been able to find a complete volume dedicated completely to the subject written in the past 20 years, only scattered references here and there.

As I’ve been reading the dated material (Jack Rogers, Clark Pinnock), I’ve been having a difficult time putting myself in the non-inerrantists’s shoes. So I’d like to ask for some help, particularly if you don’t agree with the doctrine of inerrancy.

1)      What publications/scholars have persuaded you toward your position?

2)      What arguments do find compelling against inerrancy?

3)      What do you see as the difference between infallibility and inerrancy?

At this time, the first question is really the most pressing since it’s better for me to quote published scholars than comments on a blog. However, I’m personally interested in responses to the latter two as well so I can better understand the position. I’m not looking for a debate right now. If you leave responses (please do), my replies will be in gratitude and perhaps clarifying questions.