October, 1968 – The Beginning, 45 Years Ago

I (in the middle) was licensed to the Christian Ministry at the Grace Brethren Church of Elkhart, Indiana. I served there as Associate Pastor from then until July, 1970, when Mary and I moved to Long Beach, California for my first pastorate. There we raised our family and have lived ever since. From the earliest years I’ve often thought of ministry as having three phases: younger (25-40), middle (40-55) and older years (55-70+), each with its own characteristics. Supposedly now I’m in the “mature, wisest” years, but we do wonder. It has all gone by so fast!

Message of the Month – Justice Still Waits after Mass Murder (Seal Beach, California, Oct. 12, 2011)

“Justice delayed is justice denied”

– William Gladstone (19th century British politician)

“When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong”

– Ecclesiastes 8:11

October 12, 2011 seemed like another ordinary Wednesday, except it was an unusually hot day. People in Seal Beach were going about doing what they wanted to do or needed to do. For a few, this meant working at or visiting the Salon Meritage in “Old Town”, located about four blocks from the church I served as senior pastor.

Shortly after 1:00 p.m. the worst mass murder in Orange County history took place when eight people were shot to death there by Scott Dekraai.

As Seal Beach’s senior police chaplain, I hurried to the scene and spent most of the rest of the day there and invested many, many hours afterward. As a local minister, I officiated at the funeral for the salon owner and provided other services to the community.

Now, almost two years later, the trial scheduled to begin on November 4 has been postponed to March 24, 2014. It is not my point here to discuss the prosecution goals or the defense tactics. Nor do I need to use words like “suspect” or “accused” or “alleged killer”—terms which may be necessary in a judicial context but are not binding on the public.

My point here is to speak of justice for the families of the departed. “Closure” is, I doubt, an appropriate word here. But “milestones” are reached that help those most affected move forward in healing and other positive ways. One milestone was Seal Beach’s memorial event on the first anniversary, which was heavily attended by victimized families and at which some of them eloquently spoke. Another was the reopening of the salon last November.

The trial itself should be a further, significant milestone. As to the delay, the spouse of one murder victim said, “I’m not happy about it, obviously…it is very unfair to us.” The father of another victim told the judge, “The agony you are putting us through with delay after delay after delay, you don’t understand.”

Back to Ecclesiastes 8:11, one lesson is this: the slower the wheels of justice crank, the broader the disrespect for the rule of law and the rights of persons. In the context, the disenchanted author of Ecclesiastes laments the meaninglessness of life when righteous people get what the wicked deserve and the wicked get what the righteous deserve.

Injustice is inexplicable in a world that we believe is governed by a just and powerful God. Yet that’s the way life goes. The writer of Ecclesiastes, without mincing words of despair, does hold out hope which we should take to heart:

“Although a wicked man commits a hundred crimes and still lives a long time, I know that it will go better with God-fearing men, who are reverent before God. Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow” (8:12-13).

Then a remarkable word of counsel: “So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun” (8:15).

May God comfort and bless all who continue to hurt from the great crime.
May God bring to their lives a high measure of happiness and resolution.
And may justice come soon! – my prayer.

Please view these related news items:

• My comments at the large gathering in front of the salon on the evening after the murders. Click at “Message at Candlelight Vigil” at www.donaldshoemakerministries.com
• An interview on “How Grace Community Church served its community after the ‘Salon Massacre’ of October 12, 2011”. Click the site below these words at www.donaldshoemakerministries.com
• A news report and video on the reopening of the Salon Meritage (November, 2012): www.ocregister.com/articles/salon-378132-fannin-meritage.html

Religious Liberty Vigilance—California vs. Liberty

“On my honor, I will do my best
to do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake and morally straight.”
– The Boy Scout Oath

Belief in God* is a fundamental principle of the Boy Scouts. In 1993, the Boy Scouts, as a private organization, won a case upholding its right to enforce a religious principle in its membership standards (Welsh vs. the BSA, 7th District Court of Appeals; the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case).

Yet in California an attempt was made this year to strip tax exemption from the Boy Scouts and similar youth organizations that discriminate “on the basis of gender identity, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or religious affiliation” (Senate Bill 323).

I don’t question the sincere intentions of supporters of this bill. I do question their unwillingness to accept diversity within America, including religious and moral diversity (not that there is no place or need for a common moral fabric).

I question the power of the state to do harm to organizations functioning legally, whose right to maintain their standards, whatever they are, has been upheld over and over up to the highest level.

I question the slanted argument that a tax exemption in these cases is a “reward” for discrimination.

I question the equivalence drawn between being tax exempt and being subsidized by the state. A tax exemption allows people to give to non-profit causes before other money is taxed and the tax goes to the state; a subsidy funnels money from the state to causes. A tax exemption recognizes the societal benefits accomplished when non-profit organizations do good things, usually better than the state could do them; a subsidy is a state bestowal of tax money to those who are doing what the state wants done.

I question the wisdom of punishing those with whom one disagrees in spite of the obvious overall good that these supposedly “disagreeable” organizations accomplish in the lives of many. The principle that asks, “What action will further the greater societal good?” argues against this punishment.

I question the logic of denying tax exemptions to public youth organizations while allowing tax exemptions to religious organizations that teach and practice exactly the same kinds of discrimination. In reality, there is no logic and, as surely as night follows day, we can expect future efforts to strip tax exemptions from religious organizations which do not embrace “The Doctrines of The State” nor do its bidding.

Senate Bill 323 has been laid to rest this year because it lacked critical support in the legislature. As surely as Dracula leaves his coffin at sunset, it will be back next year.

* “Belief in God” in this case does not require embracing any particular creed, such as the “Trinity” belief of the Christian Faith.

Don’s Upcoming Ministries

October 1 (6:30 p.m.) and October 4 (9:30 a.m.) – Speak to women’s Bible study groups at Grace Community Church of Seal Beach Topic: Acts 2 (The Day of Pentecost)

October 5 – Give “start-off prayer” at the 5K “Walk Like MADD” fundraising walk for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (8:30 a.m. at Long Beach’s Granada Beach)—information: (310) 215-2913

October 20 – Speak on local Grace Brethren history at Los Altos Grace Brethren Church in Long Beach (9:00 Sunday School class)

October 27 – Speak in Sunday Morning Worship Services (8:00, 9:30, 11:00) at Grace Community Church of Seal Beach Topic: Being People God Uses—Right Here, Right Now!

November 2 – Speak on police chaplaincy ministry at Grace Community Church’s men’s breakfast (8:30 at Malarkey’s Restaurant)

Bible Insight: Baptism and Repentance

“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
(Acts 2:38 NIV)
(Picture: Summer baptism in the Pacific Ocean, Grace Community Church of Seal Beach. How many churches get to have an ocean in their backyard?)

Baptism and Communion, two sacraments God has given to his church, have been minimized in many an evangelical church. Someone recently said, “Communion should be called a ‘snack-rament’ the way many observe it!”

In New Testament times, as you see from the Apostle Peter’s words above, repentance, turning in faith to Jesus, and the gift of the Holy Spirit were not separated from baptism.

Acts 2:38 leaves unsettled the question whether baptism is the essential cause of forgiveness of sin and the gift of the Spirit or their accompanying sign. Acts 10:44-48 helps us clear up that question. At the home of Cornelius, the Roman Centurion, the Holy Spirit came on the people before they were baptized, not because they were baptized (read the whole wonderful chapter). Instead, Peter called for baptism because they had received the Holy Spirit.

So baptism is not the effective cause of forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit, but it is not separated from these grace-gifts either (Peter would say, “Not baptizing these converts right away is a failure that opposes the work of God.”). To say it another way, they were “saved” neither through baptism nor without baptism.

Baptism is thus distinguishable from cleansing but not separated from cleansing. As St. Augustine said, “The outward sign of an inward grace.”

When churches and individuals introduce a big time-lapse between conversion and baptism, they bring confusion into the whole dynamic. They may wonder why scriptures on conversions don’t seem to make sense. It’s like exchanging the wedding rings months or years after the ceremony. You can’t say, “With this ring I thee wed.” This confusion may also come if baptism precedes faith and repentance by many years. Hence, “believer baptism”.

And no, you shouldn’t put off baptism just to wait to be baptized in the ocean!

Yet, this time-lapse is what we have allowed to happen. Many churches have the “walk-forward altar call” sacrament-like tradition in the place that baptism should fill. But biblically speaking, it is in our baptism that we make the confession, “Jesus is Lord!”

Let’s get back to the biblical theology and examples and make baptism what it was intended to be—part of the majestic drama of the Holy Spirit we call “conversion.” As Ananias said to Saul (later, as known to us, “The Apostle Paul”), “Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his [the Lord’s] name” (Acts 22:16).

“Prophets are Good for Business”
(Applying Biblical Principles to Work Situations)

[Because of the length of other features, this will resume at a later time.]

A Bible Text for October – Psalm 85:11-12

Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.
The Lord will indeed give what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.

www.donaldshoemakerministries.com