Grace and peace.

So far, I have not made good on my promise to be a better blogger this year, but there is a reason for that: with the new year came a new edition to our family.  So, as you can imagine, I have been very busy changing diapers, giving baths, and brushing up on my baby talk.  I was surprised how quickly my wife and I have been able to get back into the swing of things, given that it has been quite a few years since there was a baby in the house.  They say that muscles have memory, so I guess our baby muscles have memory also.  Okay, maybe I need to exercise my comic muscles a bit more before I try anymore baby jokes.

The forces of darkness were not impressed with our little bundle of joy, however, and, even in the hospital, Satan’s “light workers” were busy little bees.  The most memorable incident occurred on the last day of my wife’s hospital stay.  I had gone down to register my child with the county clerk, as they maintain an office in the hospital.  After asking me a few questions, the representative, a pleasant middle-aged woman of apparent Arab parentage, input the information I provided into the system, and asked me to look over the paperwork, to ensure that my child’s information was correct.  The lady made it a point to ask me to look the data over very carefully, as this was the information that would be going into the records.  As I looked over the data, I noticed that she had entered my religion as “RC,” which means Roman Catholic.  When I pointed this out to her, the lady replied that when she had asked my religion, I responded that I was a Christian, and that she thought Christian meant Roman Catholic.  I told her that there is a difference, but, for convenience sake, she could just enter “EV” or Evengelical. 

Now, to the average person, this may not seem worthy of pen and ink.  But if you have followed this blog for any length of time, then you know that there are very few things that happen in my life that are not spiritually significant.  And this thing was certainly one of those things.  Allow me to explain.

When the lady asked my religion, I told her that I was a Christian, to which she added, “And your wife is an Evangelical, right?”  Now, for those of you who do not know, my wife was born and raised a Roman Catholic, and, though she attends an “Evangelical” church, she has never renounced her Roman Catholic faith.  This has presented several challenges in our marriage that you may read about here and here.  Moreover, my wife pays taxes to the Roman Catholic church as do all Roman Catholics.  So, as far as the German government and the Roman Catholic church are concerned, my wife is a Roman Catholic. 

As you may know, the term “Evangelical” refers to Bible-believing Christians, who are trusting in the blood of Jesus Christ for their salvation.  The genesis of this term is grounded in the Protestant Reformation, the movement that was ignited when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of All-Saints church at Wittenburg.  The Vatican Council of Trent, which pronounced more than a hundred curses upon the reformers, initiated the Counter-Reformation, and Bible-believing Christians became known as Protestants, because they protested against the religion of Rome, and heretics, because they did not believe in what Rome considers the “One True Church.”  Vatican II supposedly ushered in a new feel-good era of brotherhood between Rome and the Christian Church, and, instead of heretics and Protestants, Rome referred to Christians as “separated brethren” and Evangelicals. 

The Roman Catholic church uses the term Evangelical to distinguish Roman Catholics from Bible-believing Christians.  To understand why, it is important to first understand that the Roman Catholic church believes that it is true Christianity and has always proclaimed that there is no salvation outside the Roman Catholic faith.  Last year, the Jesuit Pope Frances reaffirmed this long-standing doctrine when he said,

“There is no path in life, there is no forgiveness, there is no reconciliation outside mother Church.”

What is the importance of this?  Well, I’ll tell you.  We are ostensibly in the “feel-good” stage when Roman Catholics and “Evangelicals” are both supposed to be Christians.  Proof of this is that, until now, when I have stated that I was a Christian, either that was what was written, or I was asked if I were a Roman Catholic or Evangelical.  Never before have I stated that I was a Christian and it was understood that I meant Roman Catholic.  So, when this lady understood “Christian” to mean “Roman Catholic,” she was making it clear to me that, at least in her mind, Christian meant Roman Catholic.  In other words, her words confirmed that as far as the Roman Catholic church is concerned, there is still no salvation outside “Mother Church.”

Now, I truly do not believe that this incident was merely a coincidence, as experience has taught me that coincidences are a rarity in my life.  Therefore, there was a definite purpose to this charade.  That she emphasized that I should examine the document very carefully tells me that she wanted me to catch her error, so that she could feign ignorance as to the difference between Roman Catholic and Christian, precipitating further dialog on that subject.  My views on Roman Catholicism, particularly my expose on the Roman Catholic Takeover of America, have not gone over well with many Roman Catholics, as you can probably guess.  And, on more than one occasion, someone has made a comment for the express purpose of getting me to say something derogatory about the Roman Catholic faith and even Islam.

Last year, for example, I was in the hospital for almost a week for a throat infection.  I could not help but notice that when they put me in a room with three beds, they put me in the center bed rather than on the far side of the room.  I’ve been in the hospital quite a few times in my life, and I can tell you that it is common practice to fill a room from the far side to the front.  This enables a patient to be brought in from surgery without having to disturb the other patients.  So, when they put me in the center bed, I already knew something was afoot.  It only remained for me to wait and see what was going to happen next. 

Well, to make a long story short, I ended up in a room with two men who appeared to be homosexuals.  One of them came in later the first day, and said that he had some kind of problem that required surgery, but left the third day without any surgery.  This man was placed on my right.  The other man came in the second day and the following morning went in for surgery for a problem with his left ear.  He was placed on my left.  Now pay close attention.  When the second man came up from “surgery,” he was apparently sleeping, and his head and left ear were bandaged.  I could not help but notice that there was blood on his right hand, as though he had been touching his left ear, which supposedly underwent surgery. 

To clarify, this man: 

1. was situated on my LEFT, and
2. had surgery on his LEFT ear, BUT
3. his RIGHT hand had blood on it, AS IF
4. he had been touching the wounded LEFT ear, EVEN THOUGH
5. he was asleep, AND ALTHOUGH
6. he had just been brought up from the recovery room, AS IF
7. he had just had surgery.

Do you get the point?  The whole thing was a charade!  But what was the point of it?  Well, that night we were watching TV, as the guy on the other side of me insisted on watching a show that (coincidentally) had something to do with the purported crimes of the Roman Catholic church.  This precipitated, of course, a conversation on religion.  Since I understood what was going on, I played along.  I was surprised, however, when Big Chief Wounded Ear made mention of Islam and said that all Muslims were fanatics.  Now I understood right away that he had hoped that I would make a negative comment about Islam, so I told him that Muslims were not the only ones who were fanatics, and left it at that. 

Consider that Luke 20:20 tells us that the scribes and chief priests sent spies out to watch Jesus, who “should feign themselves just men.” Strong’s Concordance says that just, in this context, means “innocent” or “holy.”  In other words, these men pretended to merely want to converse with Jesus when their purpose was to trap Him in His words so that they could accuse Him.  Jesus told us that we could look for Satan’s people to do the same thing to us as they did to Him, as “the servant is not greater than his Master.”  There is indeed nothing new under the sun.

We are in a war, Saints.