[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”949″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”“A Piece of My Mind”” font_container=”tag:h1|font_size:50px|text_align:center|color:%232633ef” google_fonts=”font_family:Bitter%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal”][vc_custom_heading text=”December 2019 Newsletter” font_container=”tag:h1|font_size:30px|text_align:center|color:%232633ef” google_fonts=”font_family:Bitter%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]
Advancing Christian Faith and Values,
Defending Religious Liberty for All,
Supporting Civility and the Common Good
through Preaching, Teaching, Writing, Activism and Reasoned Conversations
www.donaldshoemakerministries.com[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”687″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
The Fall of the Berlin Wall—November, 1989
An Important Reminder for Thanksgiving
We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, including our precious liberties gained and sustained by the sacrifice of many.
Our youth and young adults need to be taught the lessons of the Berlin Wall—what caused it, what sustained it, and what brought it down thirty years ago. Today’s fascination with Socialism shows the need for this.
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Thanksgiving 2019
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. – 1 Timothy 2:1-2 NIV
Seal Beach, California held it’s first Prayer Breakfast on November 2. I led the responsive prayer time. I began with “Thanksgiving.” My prayer, with some edits:
Thanksgiving
Scripture enjoins us to offer prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving for all who are in authority. So we pray for our president, members of Congress, judges, state and local officials. We thank you for them and we pray you will give them hearts of wisdom, justice, and compassion as they fulfill their roles as servants of the people.
We lift this prayer before you. All: “Hear our prayer, O God!”
Civility
We are concerned with the breakdown of basic civility in speech and conduct at all levels of government, high and low. We ask you to move the minds and wills of those who govern us so they will be people of civility, encouraging constructive and respectful communication, and discouraging volatile, hostile or aggressive actions and words, because civility is so essential to our democracy and our public process and who we are as a people.
We lift this prayer before you. All: “Hear our prayer, O God!”
Civility
We pray for our government in Washington. Bring wisdom and justice in spite of political turmoil and consideration of impeachment. Guide our president as commander in chief, and our representatives and senators. We also now pray for the men and women of our military at home and around the world. May they fulfill their good missions and come home safe. May our country be safe and be guided from above to fulfill the role in the world you will for us to have.
We lift this prayer before you. All: “Hear our prayer, O God!”
State Government
We pray for our governor, members of the state legislature, and other elected and appointed officials. Guide them in their priorities and their fiduciary duties as caretakers of the state’s finances and needs. May they fulfill their role so our state citizens can work and live and enjoy our truly remarkable state to its fullness.
We lift this prayer before you. All: “Hear our prayer, O God!”
Local Government
We pray for our mayor and city council, our city manager and all in administration… We thank you for them and pray your guidance for all they do. We pray for our police department. Watch over them as they watch over us. We pray for our police and firefighters as they strive often in the most difficult and dangerous of situations to keep us safe. Protect them and guide them as they protect people and property.
We lift this prayer before you. All: “Hear our prayer, O God!”
Citizens of America
We pray for our citizens, that they will take their citizenship duties seriously and fulfill them. We pray they will honor their elected and appointed officials properly, in light of their roles and in spite of their shortcomings. We pray we all will fulfill the biblical commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We lift this prayer before you. All: “Hear our prayer, O God!”
Finally, God, we thank you for America, our heritage, our present and our potential.
America, America.
God mend thine every flaw.
Confirm thy soul in self-control.
Thy liberty in law.
All: “Amen!”
(Please use this prayer fully or in part, as you find it of value.)
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You Know You Are in the Heart of Ohio
when…
People strike up conversations with you easily.
A man in the car parked beside you at your hotel offers you his scrapper without being asked, to clear the ice and frost off your car windows.
You see “Mail Pouch Tobacco” ads painted on the side of barns.
You can “open carry” a firearm as a fundamental individual right.
The little church you visit sends workers into the woods to cut firewood to give to the needy before winter sets in.
The church cutting firewood for the needy delays its project for one week so its workers aren’t in the woods during deer hunting season. Besides, some of the church’s people want to go deer hunting.
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Your brother tells you dozens of deer come through his property every night.
You see lots of Amish people on the roads and in the stores.
Gas is $2.29 a gallon.
Note: We were in Ohio for my brother-in-law’s funeral, November 20-25.
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Message for the Season . . .
Mary, Mother of Jesus,
Blessed Among Women
Mary did NOT say in her poem “The Magnificat”—
“From now on all generations EXCEPT PROTESTANTS will call me blessed.”
I once referred to Mary as “the Blessed Virgin” in a pro-life narration. The phrase was changed—“too Catholic” the editor thought. “Wouldn’t go over well in Evangelical churches.”
Too bad, since that’s how she is depicted in Luke’s birth account (Luke 1:48).
What made Mary “blessed”?
1. She maintained her virginity prior to her marriage to Joseph. *
The angel announced to Mary, “You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High…he will reign over the house of Jacob forever” (Luke 1:30-33).
Mary said, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (1:34). Good question!
The angel’s answer is profound, ending with “Nothing is impossible with God” (1:35-37).
Mary remains a role model for all—women AND men—of protecting virginity as a gift from God.
2. She willing accepted the gracious call that she will bear the Christ Child.
“I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said,” Mary told the angel (1:38). Mary remains a model to us all of surrender to the will of God.
3. She reverently pondered the meaning of Jesus’ birth and childhood.
The shepherds who came to visit baby Jesus then “spread the word” about him. Mary took a quieter approach. She “treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart” (2:16-20).
When Jesus was twelve Mary and Joseph, fearing Jesus was lost, finally found him in the Temple engaged in discussions with the teachers of the Law. Jesus explained to his parents, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (2:41-52). Once again, Mary meditated on the deeper meaning of her son’s life and mission (2:51).
The church can’t accomplish its mission without evangelists, learners and doers. AND a ministry of meditation on what God is doing and why.
4. She remained faithful to her son through the ordeal of the cross.
Three “Mary’s” stood before the cross when Jesus was crucified—his mother, his mother’s sister Mary (wife of Clopas) and Mary Magdelene (John 19:25).
5. She continued as a follower of her son after his ascension and as the Church was launched on the Day of Pentecost.
The mother of Jesus was numbered with Jesus’ disciples as they all awaited the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 1:12-14). She thus became part of the Spirit-filled infant church that began a movement that continues around the world to this day.
Mary is worthy of our honor as a singular obedient servant graced to be the mother of our Lord. Truly, all generations since should call her “blessed.”
* A long tradition within both Eastern and Western churches confesses the “perpetual virginity” of Mary. That is, even after her marriage to Joseph she remained ever a virgin. Most Protestants find no biblical or theological need to embrace this view and believe that she and her husband Joseph would have consummated their marriage in sexual union.
Important to both positions are (1) belief in a miraculous conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary, making her “the mother of the Lord” through the Holy Spirit without the agency of sexual union with a man, and (2) the role of Mary as a role model of sexual purity—a position needed today more than ever.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1575135058514{background-color: #dda1a1 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Incivility
We have scorched our opponents
with language that precludes compromise
and we have brushed aside the possibility that the person
with whom we disagree might actually sometimes be right.”
– Jim Matti, Institute for Civility in Government
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Don’s Ministry
December 29 – Speak on the Book of Revelation at Sunday Morning Services (8:00, 9:30, 11:00) Grace Community Church of Seal Beach.
You can watch the service via Facebook “live” at 11:00 a.m. (PST) on December 29 or anytime afterward. Simply go to “Grace Community Church of Seal Beach” and click on “live” or (for later viewing) “videos”.
Don’s message of July 28: “Jeremiah—Right Man for the Right Hour” (Jeremiah 1-20) and his message of April 14: “The Triumphs and Failures of Israel’s Greatest King [Solomon]” (1 Kings 1-11) can be heard at www.gracesealbeach.org under “Resources”.
Website: www.donaldshoemakerministries.com
Contact me at: donaldshoemakerministries@verizon.net[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Appendix
“Reflections on the 30th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall”
By Ilya Somin
The Volokh Conspiracy, November 9. 2019
Today [November 9] is the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is undeniably a happy occasion—not only because the fall of the Wall was good in itself, but because it presaged the collapse of communist tyranny throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. But the history of the Wall also carries some important lessons that we have not fully learned even today—lessons about the nature of communism, but also about the importance of freedom of movement across international boundaries…
In several ways, the Wall and its collapse are fitting symbols of communism. They demonstrate several truths about that system that we would be wise not to lose sight of. First and foremost, Cold War-era Berlin was the most visible demonstration of the superiority of capitalism and democracy over communism and dictatorship. Despite the fact that East Germany had one of the highest standards of living in the Soviet bloc, it had to build a wall to keep its people from fleeing to the capitalist West. By contrast, West Germans and other westerners were free to move to the communist world anytime they wanted. Yet only a tiny handful ever did so. Decisions to “vote with your feet” are often better indicators of peoples’ true preferences than ballot box voting, since foot voters have better incentives to become well-informed about the alternatives before them. Even more powerful evidence is the fact that many East Germans and others fled communism even when doing so meant risking their lives.
Second, the Berlin Wall was an important symbol of the way in which communist governments violated the human right to freedom of movement, one of the most important attributes of a free society. If people are forcibly trapped under the rule of the government in whose territory they happen to be born, they are not truly free; rather, they are hostages of their rulers.
Finally, the sudden collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 vividly demonstrated the extent to which communist totalitarianism relied on coercion to maintain its rule. Some Western scholars and leftists contended that most Russians and Eastern Europeans actually supported communism or at least preferred it to the available alternatives. The events of 1989 gave the lie to this notion. Once the Soviet government and its puppet states in Eastern Europe signalled that they would no longer suppress opposition by force, the Berlin Wall was quickly torn down, and communist governments throughout Eastern Europe collapsed within months.
Despite all of the above, I am somewhat conflicted about the status of the Berlin Wall as the symbol of communist oppression in the popular imagination. My reservations have to do with the underappreciated fact that the Wall was actually one of communism’s smaller crimes. Between 1961 and 1989, about 100 East Germans were killed trying to escape to the West through Wall. The Wall also trapped several million more Germans in a repressive totalitarian society. These are grave atrocities. But they pale in comparison to the millions slaughtered in gulags, deliberately created famines, and mass executions of “kulaks” and “class enemies.”…
It is right to commemorate the fall of the Wall, and to mourn its victims. But we should also remember that it was just the tip of a much larger iceberg of communist oppression. Indeed, those other oppressive policies were the main reason why so many Germans (and others) sought to flee communism in the first place. The true lesson of the Berlin Wall is not merely that the Wall itself was unjust, but that it was meant to perpetuate other, far more severe injustices by making it impossible to escape them. That lesson remains relevant today, as socialist dictatorships continue to oppress millions in Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela.
In western nations, “democratic socialism” has gained ground in recent years. While most of its advocates do not want to go as far as the communists did, the two ideologies nonetheless share a great deal of dangerous common ground…[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]