Ted Morton is a Judas goat. Not familiar with the term? According to Wikipedia, a Judas goat is a trained goat used at a slaughterhouse. The Judas goat associates itself with sheep or cattle and then leads them to slaughter, while its own life is spared.

How is Morton a Judas goat? His presence in the Progressive Conservative party allows premier Alison Redford to claim that true conservatives still have a voice with her. Nothing could be further from the truth. She is the one who is “frightened” by anyone actually defending freedom of speech. She is the one talking about a National Energy Program to be developed with the help of eastern, anti-oil sands Liberal governments. She is the one who has promised to reintroduce an education bill that will eliminate parents’ rights to teach their children Biblical principles of right and wrong. But because Morton remains with the PCs, she can claim conservatives still count. They don’t, and Morton is too intelligent not to know it. Why he stays with Redford is a question of conscience, and thus none of our business.

Morton is not the first Judas goat to lead conservative voters to the slaughterhouse. For years the federal Liberals touted their pro-family caucus as though it meant something. All it meant was a padded majority for Prime Minister Jean Chretien to wield while imposing his anti-family, pro-gay marriage, pro-global warming, anti-US, anti-western Canada biases upon the nation. Liberal MPs could make all the pro-family speeches they wanted, but Chretien knew that when it came to actual votes, he held the whip hand. Closer to home, in his last several years as an Alberta MLA Stockwell Day fulfilled the same function for premier Ralph Klein.

I’ve never quite understood why so many conservatives are willing to give up principle and trade integrity in the pursuit of a pretense of power. But that, in my opinion, is exactly what Ted Morton, and men who think like him, are doing. They apparently believe that if they hide their true selves long enough they can eventually rise to the top. Then, they tell themselves, they can recover their integrity from the hermetically sealed box in which it has been stored and govern according to the Good Book. It never works. Unscrupulous politicians invariably use these fundamentally good men for moral cover, then throw them away when they are no longer needed.

In this year’s election only the Wildrose Party is defending individual rights. Thus, by extension, only the Wildrose is defending the rights of Christians in the public square. In my opinion the Wildrose is the only choice for people who care about fundamental freedoms. To vote otherwise is to vote for secular tyranny.

In my previous article, “For Individual Liberty Vote Wildrose,” I deliberately left out all mention of Allan Hunsperger, the Wildrose candidate from Edmonton who is in trouble this week for blogging about homosexuality. The thing to remember is, Hunsperger is a pastor, and he, like me, blogs within a pastoral context. In that context he wrote that homosexuality is a sin! The horror! Who would have imagined that in this day and age a Christian pastor would still take the Bible seriously enough to try and communicate it’s message, even the unpopular bits, to the world?

Not surprisingly, activist groups and left-leaning political parties are demanding apologies and recantations from anyone even remotely connected to Pastor Hunsperger. To her credit Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith has stood her ground and refused to call for her candidate’s head. Instead she has stated that he has as much right not to be discriminated against as anyone else. Good for her. In Alberta, among the political leaders, she is unique.

Lest you think I’m exaggerating the difference, here is premier Redford reacting to Pastor Hunsperger’s remarks a couple of days ago: “I found those comments absolutely shocking, well over the top and inappropriate. When we’re starting to talk about people facing eternity in lakes of fire, those are pretty unique comments and I think Albertans will judge those for themselves.”

At this writing the polls seem to indicate that Albertans are judging Ms. Redford unfit to carry on, although with five days to go until the election, a lot can change. But do you hear this woman? It is her official opinion that Christians no longer have the right to speak their convictions in any forum. Note well, Pastor Hunsperger is in trouble for a blog he wrote as a pastor over a year ago. Had he made similar remarks as a candidate Ms. Redford might have had an apoplectic fit and expired on the spot.

This is why I keep saying we are facing an election of historic importance. Much is at stake and for once true conservatives and people of faith have a real choice. Please pray and please vote on Monday.

Btw, I preached on homosexuality on August 21, 2011. If you wish to see or hear what I said, you can go to the church website (www.hawkwood.ca) and then click on sermon archives and select the correct date. Or, the links below will (hopefully) take you there. You may have to simply highlight them, then select copy, then paste them in the address line of your browser.

Sermon notes

http://www.hawkwood.ca/sermon_archives/sermons2011/aug/2011_08_21_what_does_the_bible_say_about_homosexuality.pdf

Sermon Audio

http://www.hawkwood.ca/sermon_archives/sermons2011/aug/2011_08_21_what_does_the_bible_say_about_homosexuality.mp3

Here in the province of Alberta we’re having ourselves an election. The idea is to elect members of the legislative assembly (think representatives from individual districts if you are an American), who in turn will elect a new premier (again, if you are an American, think governor).

To me the most interesting thing about the election is not so much the rise of a brand new party, the Wildrose, but the unanimous agreement among the other parties that the Wildrose is not fit for human society simply because its leader, Danielle Smith, actually believes in individual liberty. She has been taken to task, for instance, for her party’s stance on conscience rights among medical care providers. “Danielle, this is Alberta, not Alabama,” said Liberal Party leader Raj Sherman during the one televised debate.

Current premier Allison Redford, pronounced herself “frightened” that a debate over individual rights was taking place at all. Here is a longer version of the statement by Ms. Redford: “I was very frightened to hear the discussion today and I’ve been quite frightened to hear the development of that in the past month. I certainly respect people’s personal beliefs, but . . . we have to live in a community where we respect diversity and we understand that everyone feels safe and included.”

Ms. Redford’s words are the truly scary. All Albertans — no, all Canadians — should be frightened that such a wide spectrum of our political leaders are determined to keep anything truly conservative or faith-based out of the public square. That means they intend to shut up people like me, or most of you reading this. They don’t mind if we speak our opinions in our homes or churches, but they are determined that our voices will never again be heard in the legislature or the education system. They will use ridicule as their first line of attack. But if that does not work, they will use the legislature. And by “they” I mean everyone not a member of the Wildrose, including, in addition to the Progressive Conservatives, the Liberals and the NDP.

Remember, the Progressive Conservatives tried to ram Bill 2 through the legislature just before the election was called. Bill 2 is the education reform act that mandates all educational curricula and materials must conform to the Alberta Human Rights Act as interpreted by the Alberta Human Rights Commission (Section 16). The bill didn’t pass before the election, thank God, but Ms. Redford has promised to pass it in the next session of the legislature should she be re-elected. Bill 2 applies to all elementary and high school education in the province, including private schools and home schools, which means if she succeeds she will have taken away all parents’ rights to teach their children according to their own convictions. This must not be allowed.

If you noticed the headline at all, you will remember that I questioned whether anything else really matters if individual liberty is lost. Well, someone might want to say, “what about food? What good is liberty if you’ve got nothing to eat?” The only reply is that of history. Every fat society in history has also been a free society. Every society that has given up freedom for the promise of food has soon found itself starving in a prison.

If you are an Albertan, then doubtless you already heard about the Airdrie newborn who was killed last week by a husky dog. According to statements given to the RCMP by the family, the dog, a pet and member of a dog sled team run by the family, had never shown signs of aggression or violent behaviour before. Nor was the baby alone with the dog when the violence took place, although which parent was present is not yet known.

As of this moment the husky is in quarantine for a 10-day period while the owners and bylaw officials try to determine its fate. My guess is that the dog will be put down, but likely only because of massive public opposition to letting it live. We live in a world where public officials no longer act out of unchanging principles or convictions. Few remain who even believe such things exist.

For those who believe the Bible is God’s word no debate is necessary. The dog must be put down.

“And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man” (Genesis 9:5-6).

Could language be more clear? Man is created in God’s image. To attack man is to attack the image of God in him. God takes these attacks personally. Whether the attack is perpetrated by another human being or by an animal, all such attacks cross a line beyond which mercy cannot go — not in this life, at least.

Here’s something else. Notice God states that if animal or man takes a human life, God will demand an accounting. In other words, God will be the prosecutor acting on behalf of the victim. This is an office he never abdicates, neither in time nor on the judgment day. When an animal control officer takes the life of a murderous husky he is acting as the executive of God. Moreover, when an officer of the court takes the life of a murderous man, he too is acting as God’s executive, and the blessings of God will attend to a nation that defends His image in human beings.

Concluding thought: Most of us will never commit murder; thus the equation “kill someone, be killed yourself” will never apply. But that does not free us from the duty of treating every human being as a representative of God, made in His image. As C.S. Lewis has written, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendours . . . . Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat — the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”

We who live in the West tend to mourn the decline of Christianity — for good reason. Churches are shrinking. Revivals are non-existent. Sin reigns. You know what I’m talking about. But here’s where we go wrong. If we keep our eyes focused on our own culture we are tempted to think that our decline is mirrored by a worldwide decline, and therefore a harbinger of the apocalypse. After all, didn’t Jesus ask, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8).

God forgive us for thinking our little corner of the world is the sum-total of what He is doing on earth. In fact, the world-wide church is growing as never before, as reported by the highly respected Joshua Project. (http://www.joshuaproject.net/assets/AmazingCountdownFacts.pdf)

Here are the facts.

• In A.D. 100, some 70 years after Christ ascended to heaven, only one in every 360 persons was an active believer.
• By A.D. 1000 that number had come down to one believer for every 270 people.

Clearly Christianity had an amazing impact in its first millennium. But the second millennium has seen advances beyond anything imagined in the first. Even more amazing, the pace of gospel advance seems to be quickening.

• By A.D. 1500 the ratio had been reduced to one believer per 85 persons.
• By A.D. 1900 each believer was surrounded by only 21 non-Christians
• By A.D. 1970 the number was only one to 13.
• By A.D.  2010, just two years ago, the number was down to 7.3 non-Christians for each believer.

When you think about it, this is amazing. It ought to be a cause of great rejoicing among all Christians, leading to a renewed confidence that the “kingdoms of this world” really are becoming the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ.  May God strengthen our faith, so that we will believe the Great Commission can be accomplished, and so that we will work to make it so.

Left-wing presidents must really hate to attend Washington, D.C.’s national prayer breakfasts because they never know when they will be blind-sided by someone unafraid to speak truth to power. In 1997 president Clinton was forced to listen while Mother Teresa reminded him that abortion “is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself….” And this year President Obama had to take it while author Eric Metaxas (Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy) reminded him that the unborn child is a person, made in the image of God, endowed by his Creator with all the rights and privileges of other human beings.

But before getting to the heavy stuff, Metaxas had a little fun at the president’s expense. He began by telling the audience of Washington power brokers that George W. Bush, widely accused of lacking interest in intellectual pursuits, had actually read his 576-page biography of the heroic German theologian. Then he handed a signed copy to the current president and said, “No pressure.” It occurs to me that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if every reader of this column would stop right now and pray that the president will actually read the book. He may yet win reelection and we should pray that a gracious God will give us a new president anyway.

I note this encounter because Metaxas’ book is supremely designed to make any serious reader think carefully about the meaning of leadership and the responsibility a leader has toward those he leads. For instance, the book reports Bonhoeffer’s prescient radio address delivered to the German nation on February 1, 1933, just two days after Hitler had been elected chancellor. Amazingly, Bonhoeffer was only 26 years old. That he could anticipate Hitler’s greatest sins and weaknesses so early, and then speak so clearly and directly to the issues Hitler’s rise would invoke, can only be attributed to a wisdom and maturity born of Grace and honed by a life of intense devotion to reading the Bible.

Bonhoeffer spotted the danger of Hitler’s absolute independence, noting that as the Fuhrer he submitted to no one, and that he therefore necessarily presented himself to the German public as a messiah. Previously leadership had been offered in the form of the teacher, the statesman or the father, all men under some form of discipline to a higher authority: the teacher to the text, the statesman to the law, the father to the natural law of love and the personhood of Father-God. Not so with Hitler. Already Bonhoeffer saw that the new leader was a man utterly alone, and that he was to be feared because he refused to disillusion the German people regarding himself.

“The true leader must always be able to disillusion,” Bonhoeffer said as he spoke to the nation. “It is just this that is his responsibility and his real object. He must lead his following away from the authority of his person to the recognition of the real authority of orders and offices. He must radically refuse to become the appeal, the idol, i.e., the ultimate authority of those whom he leads . . . . [H]e has to lead the individual into his own maturity.”

Nor did Bonhoeffer hesitate to warn the fledgling Fuhrer of his fate, should he fail to repent. “The eternal law that the individual stands alone before God takes fearful vengeance where it is attacked and distorted. Thus the Leader points to the office, but Leader and office together point to the final authority itself, before which Reich or state are penultimate (next to the highest) authorities. Leaders or offices which set themselves up as gods mock God and the individual who stands alone before him, and must perish.”

Bonhoeffer had more to say, but that was the moment when the radio broadcast fell silent across Germany. Nobody knows how or why, or whether it was an accident or a deliberate act by an outraged Nazi sympathizer. Nevertheless, that was the moment when the transmitter quit, leaving the rest of Bonhoeffer’s speech unheard. But the really sad thing is that in the years that followed most Germans, including most of the Christians, voluntarily tuned out whenever Bonhoeffer spoke. They would rather listen to the mad man than the saint, and all of us know how that turned out.

A week ago radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt characterized President Obama’s insistence that Christian institutions cover birth control costs in their employee insurance plans as a “Bonhoeffer moment.” I take it he meant that in the attempt to force Christians to violate their consciences on matters of faith the president had finally revealed himself as a dictator-in-the-making who must be resisted as an enemy of freedom. I think Hewitt is right. Unfortunately, Bonhoeffer moments come and go and the only ones who note them are those who, like Bonhoeffer, school themselves in the precepts of God’s Word. In most periods of history very few of that ilk exist, and it is unlikely that this era will prove an exception. Nor will our fate.

A conversation I had with my brother Lloyd (my flesh and blood brother, and very much a spiritual brother, too) led me to ponder the differences between Germany’s future, starting around, say, 1932, and England’s future starting from about 1800. It occurs to me the radically different futures that awaited those two countries could help us think about our present world’s future. I’ll say more about that in a moment, but first let me sketch out some of the more obvious differences between Germany and Great Britain in the two eras I’ve mentioned.

England 1800: Whatever anyone may think about colonialism, it is difficult to deny that as England entered the 19th century it led the world in addressing fundamental moral issues. First there was the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which not only abolished slave trading within the British Empire, but also authorized Her Majesty’s ships to prevent other nations from engaging in it. England then played the decisive role in ending the Napoleonic wars in 1815. The moral content of this victory isn’t obvious, but the fact that England forced defeat upon France opened the door for an unprecedented century of worldwide peace and liberty unmatched since the days of the Pax Romana. Catholic rights were restored in 1829, a huge step forward for the principle of universal religious freedom, and the Reform Act of 1832 increased true democratic representation within Parliament. It was also in this century that universal education was established, including for females, and the last barriers to full participation in society and government were removed for all non-Anglicans.

England led the world in Christian missionary advance during the 19th century. Time does not permit an actual description of the size and extent of England’s missionary output, but perhaps it is enough to say that no continent was untouched by Evangelical English missionaries. Moreover, every country they visited was permanently benefited. To this day social scientists scratch their heads over the question of why former British colonies continue to thrive while former German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Belgian colonies fare so poorly. The answer can only be found in the army of missionaries who accompanied, and often preceded, the various trading companies that set up operations all over the British Empire. Many missionaries fought to make the laws of England apply to the “natives.” And it was missionaries who schooled those natives and prepared them for self-governance when it finally came.

England was far from perfect in the Victorian era, as any reader of Charles Dickens can attest. But the fact remains that on average a person born in England in 1800 could look forward to a better life than any previous generation. Moreover, a man born at that time could justifiably hope that at the close of his life he would leave to his children an even better world than the one he had found at birth.

Germany 1932: Significantly, this was the year before Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, the year before the Nazis began rapidly transforming that cultured, civil nation into one of the most rapacious people-eating regimes ever known. The history of pre-WWII Germany is so well-known that I need not belabour the point. Nevertheless, it might be worth remembering that the evils of Nazi Germany did not begin with the war, but during the decade preceding the war. It was in 1933 that the Reichstag Fire (almost certainly started by the Nazis) led to the suspension of civil liberties. Nineteen thirty-three also saw the opening of the Dachau Concentration Camp for political prisoners, the passage of the Enabling Act giving Hitler the power to impose laws that violated Germany’s constitution, the elimination of Jews from Germany’s Civil Service, the formation of the Gestapo, and the banning of all political parties except for the National Socialists.

That same year Germany began sterilizing, and then euthanising people with hereditary diseases. Government propaganda described children with mild deformities or mental disabilities as “useless eaters,” and “life unworthy of life.” They were taken from their parents and sent to institutions where they were eventually killed and cremated en masse. Afterwards their ashes were dumped indiscriminately into urns and sent to the parents with letters ascribing their deaths to fictitious causes. Killing these poor souls afforded the government opportunities to explore increasingly efficient methods of mass murder. All this began or took place in 1933. After that things took a turn for the worse.

Hindsight for the sake of foresight: Looking back it is easy to see that England in 1800 was vastly different from Germany in 1932. But the shocking reality is that in that year many Germans felt hopeful and positive about Hitler and where he wanted to take them. Apart from a few exceptional voices (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemoller and Karl Barth come to mind), very few Christians saw anything but hope for their nation in the rise of the Nazis. Shockingly, a majority of German church members even embraced Hitler’s heretical distortion of Christianity that turned Jesus into a blond-haired German Aryan nationalist.

Here is the question before us today. Looking at the world situation, do you believe the near future will more resemble England’s 19th century, or Germany’s Nazi era? If you think the latter is more likely, as I do, the follow-up question must be; what are you going to do about it? Maybe a better question is, what should anyone do in the face of the oncoming storm?

Some of you may know that our Summer preaching program at Hawkwood consists of me and our associate pastor Grant van Boeschoten answering questions posed by the congregation. I’m very excited about this upcoming sermon series (it begins July 3). But in getting these questions in, one person sent me a series of very interesting questions that needed to be answered, but with one exception were probably not material for an entire sermon. I’ve answered this person’s questions in a return e-mail, but it occurred to me that many of you might be interested in hearing the answers. So, enjoy or pass over as you will.
Until all the nations worship Him,
Shafer Parker

Q. Genesis 4:17 When was Cain’s wife created?
A. She would not have been created, but rather would have been one of the daughters of Adam and Eve as per Gen. 5:4, which tells us that over the 800 years of Adam’s life after the birth of Seth he had many “sons and daughters”. The Bible seems to go out of its way to emphasize two things about the human race: 1) that every human being, including Eve, is a descendant of Adam alone (See Gen. 2:20-23) and 2) that except for Adam, Eve is the mother and grandmother of everyone else (Gen. 3:20). Thus we have to draw the conclusion that Cain’s wife would have to have been a daughter of Adam and Eve.

We can only assume that marrying a sister before the flood did not carry the same negative, incestual connotation it does today. For one thing, as people lived many hundreds of years before the flood it is likely that Cain did not grow up at exactly the same time as his sister so that she might have been as much a stranger to him as were our own spouses when we first met. Also, the genetic material for the human race would not have been as corrupted as it is today, meaning there was almost no chance of two defective genes joining to produce the kinds of imbecilities and deformities that so often occur with inbreeding today.

Q. Genesis 38:26 “she hath been more righteous than I” – How was she righteous? Why more righteous than Judah?
A. Actually, this is one of my favourite questions, as it deals with the nature of saving faith among Old Testament saints. To begin with, we need to get our heads around the idea that in God’s hierarchy of values, believing in Jesus Christ is the most righteous thing anyone can do (John 6:29). That is why Jesus could say the prostitutes and tax collectors are coming into the Kingdom ahead of the Pharisees (Mat. 21:31-32).

Repentance coupled with faith brings forgiveness and salvation. Outward self-righteousness, such as the Pharisees emphasized, cannot save. In fact, if self-righteousness is mixed with pride it may damn and individual much faster than living a life filled with sins of the flesh. Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that fleshly sins do not matter. Of course they do. They are sins and must be repented of, but because they are outward and obvious to one and all, including the sinner, they are much more apt to be recognized as sins and repented of than are sins of the spirit, such as pride and self-sufficiency.

Here’s the bottom line. God wants us to acknowledge that we are all sinners and that our only hope is in Jesus Christ. It is His righteousness, credited to our account that saves us, and an alcoholic is sometimes more likely to accept all this than is the Pharisee. As Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:8-10, because we are all sinners we have to accept that we are saved by grace, through faith, and not by works. Of course all Christians recognize this, but what a lot of people do not realize is that this was true in the O.T. as well as the N.T. As Paul teaches in Gal. 3 20ff the law was designed, not to save us, but to show us our need for Christ.

The question becomes then, how do a person believe unto salvation? In the N.T. we are told that it is by confessing that Jesus is Lord, and by believing in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9-10). Outwardly our faith is confessed in baptism and active commitment to the body of Christ. But things were much less clear in O.T. times, where God accepted a somewhat wider variety of expressions of faith, especially before the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. In the case of Tamar this took the form of a deliberate defception for the purpose of putting herself in line to become one of the great-great grandmothers of the Messiah.

Here’s the way this worked. Abraham was given to understand that the Messiah would come through him. Later God made it clear that the Messiah would come from Abraham’s son Isaac, and when Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob, God stated before they were born that the Messiah would come through Jacob (Gen. 25:23; Rom. 9:12). The privilege fell to Jacob because as a young man Esau despised his birthright. At first glance Genesis 25:34 seems to be about a bowl of soup, but primarily he was despising the opportunity as Isaac’s firstborn to become the father, or one of the grandfathers of the Messiah. Flocks and herds were important, but the part of his birthright that Esau actually despised was his Messianic inheritance.

By the time of Tamar it was widely known that the line of the Messiah had passed to Jacob and his descendants, but God had not yet revealed which one of Jacob’s sons would carry it forward. Thus Tamar, as crude and unacceptable as her methods were in themselves, showed she was desperate to put herself where it was possible that she might be in the line of the Messiah. (Jacob, too, used deception in his quest to become a messianic grandfather, but, like Tamar, God honoured his faith, not his bad behavior).

I’m assuming you’ve read the entire chapter, so you already know that Tamar was in this desperate position because Judah had harmed her twice, once when he gave her nothing but wicked men to be her husbands (Er and Onan) and a second time when he withheld his third son Shelah, even though he had been promised. Judah’s statement, “she hath been more righteous than I” was his acknowledgment that he had behaved wrongly toward her in every way, forcing her into years of abuse and childlessness, then treating her as a prostitute, when all she had wanted to do was bear a son who could either be the Messiah, or one of His progenitors.

God honoured Tamar’s faith in two ways, first by prophesying through Jacob that the Messiah would, in fact, come through Judah (Gen. 49:10), and second, by listing her in Matthew 1:3 as one of four special women singled out for mention in Jesus’ genealogy. What is interesting is that all four of the women had some mark against them; Tamar played a prostitute to get herself pregnant; Rahab was a professional prostitute before the overthrow of Jericho; Ruth was a Moabite woman, despised by the Israelites because of their incestuous origins and their grossly immoral idolatry; and finally Bathsheba, who was infamous for her adulterous relationship with David. These women mixed great sin with great faith. But because they believed in God’s promises, they were forgiven and made integral to God’s plan to give His Son to the world.

The big takeaway from all this, of course, that seeking Jesus is the most important thing we do in this world, even if we do not know His name or where He is to be found. If we are truly seeking Him, He will find us. Secondly, we can see that all sinners are accepted by God if they repent and believe in Jesus. Just as important is that God can use our lives for His glory even when our efforts are less than perfect. Finally, note that none of these women are Jews. From the very beginning God’s plan included people from every tribe and nation.

Q. Genesis 47 & 48 “Jacob” and “Israel” – why are his names used interchangeably?
A. You are right to wonder why these two names are interchangeable. Unlike Abram and Sarai, whose names were permanently changed, Jacob (supplanter, grabber) receives a new name Israel (prince with God, or he struggles with God) in Gen. 32:28, not as a replacement but as an additional name. One excellent commentary (Keil and Delitsch) suggests this is because “the name Israel denoted a spiritual state determined by faith; and in Jacob’s life the natural state, determined by flesh and blood, still continued to stand side by side with this.”

In that light I’m going to suggest the two names are not so much interchangeable as they are specific in application. When Jacob is merely handling family matters as a natural man, for instance, when he lived in fear of starvation or when he showed preference for one wife over another, etc., he was called Jacob. But when he was about to speak prophetically, as we find in Genesis 48:8, he was called Israel.

Q. Exodus 4:24-25 “the Lord met him and sought to kill him” Why?- Why Zipporah’s response & actions?
A. Like the Judah-Tamar story, this is a fascinating text with a surprisingly powerful message. First, there is some indication in the Hebrew text that the one about to be killed was Moses’ son, not Moses himself. But whether it was Moses or his son who was in danger, the essential meaning is the same. The reason God was about to kill Moses, or his son, was that the boy was not yet circumcised, a clear violation of the rule for God’s covenant people that had been laid down 400 years earlier in Abraham’s time.

So why was Moses’ son not circumcised? We cannot know for certain, but it is possible that Moses had hesitated to force the issue because his wife was against it. Why else would Moses continue to shrink from obedience to God even when his life (or his son’s life) was at stake? It is significant that Moses’ wife is the one who finally did the deed. Even though she apparently acted reluctantly, or even grudgingly, circumcising her son may have been a way of acknowledging Moses’ God and including herself and her son in the covenant of Moses’ people. Again, as with Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, God immediately accepted this non-Abrahamic woman’s action, showing that even in O.T. times the covenant people were gathered on the basis of their faith and obedience, not by physical descent from Abraham. Jesus teaches this same truth in the N.T. (Compare Luke 3:8 and John 8:39ff. Also, compare Jeremiah 4:4, 9:26 and Deut. 10:16 with Romans 2:28-29).

Q. Exodus 24:10,11 “they saw God”, 33:11 “the Lord spake unto Moses face to face”. 33:20 “thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me & live”, John 1:18 “No man hath seen God”
A. You are indeed a careful reader and raise an interesting question here. The short answer is that Ex. 33:11 uses the expression “face to face” to indicate Moses’ intimate conversations with God. Something similar is mention in Numbers 12:8, where some translations actually read “mouth to mouth.” The concept is intimacy and closeness, a level attained only by Moses in the O.T. We have to assume, then, that when we get to Ex. 33:20 we are talking about a full revelation of God in all His Heavenly glory, which was not even given to Moses (he couldn’t stand it) and which none of God’s people will ever enjoy until heaven is attained. In point of fact the O.T. has many examples of people seeing God in one form or another (Gen. 16:13-14; 18:1ff; 32:30; Judges 13:21-22; Isaiah 6:1ff; Ezekiel 1:26ff), but in all these appearances God’s glory is somehow veiled so that the men who see Him do not die.

Q. Numbers 1:49 “thou shalt not number the tribe of Levi” and then in 3:15 “number the children of Levi”
A. The key to understanding what looks like a contradiction is found in Numbers 1:3. There God tells Moses and Aaron to number those “who are able to serve in the army.” In other words, the Levites are not to be counted toward the military strength of Israel. Chapter 3, on the other hand, deals with the work assigned to the Levites. There they are to be counted so as to properly divide up their unique work as priests.

Q. Numbers 12:10 – why was just Miriam punished and not Aaron?
A. When you go back to the beginning of the story (12:1) you will discover that Miriam’s name was mentioned first, showing that she was the instigator of this rebellion. Also, the verb in the sentence is feminine, indicating that Miriam was taking the initiative and Aaron was just along for the ride. He was guilty, but less guilty; throughout his life he was always a responder, never an initiator (Ex. 32:22ff). It may also be that God knows men’s hearts well enough to know that Aaron would feel his sin more deeply if he saw the punishment of it in Miriam than if he had himself been punished. It is also possible that Aaron’s position as high priest meant any connection with leprosy would have made it impossible for him to continue serving in his office. God may have been avoiding the issue of choosing a successor in the midst of everything else.

Q. Numbers 22:20 – “rise up and go with them” and then in verse 22: “God’s anger was kindled because he went” Why would God be angry with Balaam for doing something he was told to do?
A. The quickest way to get to the heart of this apparent contradiction is to think of a parent who realizes his obstinate child is determined to disobey. “Go ahead,” says the parent, knowing that allowing the child to experience the full impact of his folly may be the only way it will ever learn why the parent was opposed to the action in the first place. The parent continues to love the child, and may even hover near to prevent the child from undergoing any permanent harm, but that doesn’t mean that mom or dad isn’t angry that their child has defied them. The child then does what he wanted to do, and later on may even defend himself with the argument, “You told me I could do it.” But in his heart of hearts he knows he was being disobedient. I think this is a good description of God’s interaction with Balaam.

Balaam is a fascinating O.T. character in that he apparently knew God’s personal name Yahweh (see Num. 22:13, and 22:18 where Balaam actually confesses his faith), which previously seemed only to have been revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3). The event with the donkey is further proof that God was not really in favour of Balaam’s involvement with Moab, and was determined not to let him pass without further reassurances from Balaam that he would serve Him and not the king of Moab. Evidence that Balaam knew when he left his home that he really didn’t have permission to make the journey comes in v.34 where he offers to go back home. At this point, chastened and wiser, he is given clear permission to go because God is now assured that he will say whatever God puts in his mouth.

Q.I Kings 13 – why was the man of God killed but not the prophet who lied to him to cause him to sin?
A. Like so many stories in the Bible this one will be easier to understand if we are able to enter imaginatively into the circumstances and try to look at events as if we were personally involved.

To make this effort easier let me start with a couple of basic principles. Principle 1: Stories like this one are God’s way of using exaggerated effect upon an individual to make a point that stands good for all humanity and for all time, even if the punishment for most is reserved for the judgment day. Like any good parent who may slap a child’s hands (thus causing pain) to prevent the child from touching a hot stove (which would cause much more pain and potentially much greater injury) God often in Scripture gives us glimpses of future judgment to guide our behavior in light of His eternal values. Principle 2: Sometimes a problem of interpretation is solved by re-phrasing the question. No one can deny that the second prophet lied, but we need to remember that he did not “cause” the first prophet to sin anymore than a bottle of wine “causes” an alcoholic to open it and get himself drunk. Temptations abound in this fallen world, but every child of God is responsible for his own sins.

Doubtless the second prophet sinned when he lied, although until God revealed the truth to him as they sat at table he might not have realized the full extent of the harm that he had caused. I can imagine several ways the second prophet might have persuaded himself that he was acting from the highest motives. For example, he might have felt that God’s rule about avoiding fellowship shouldn’t apply to fellow prophets and that by making up a story about an angel he was actually enhancing the fellowship of the guild of professional prophets.

Another approach would be to lump the second prophet the many men and women who throughout history have believed their counsel to be spiritual and wise, but who are in fact snares for those called to serve the living God. How may times has someone been dissuaded from a missionary career by a well-meaning parent or pastor with the argument that they should instead minister to the many lost people at home? Would not God want them to concentrate their efforts on the home front until all souls are saved? Such spiritual sounding arguments may have originated in the very pit of hell, especially if they are effective in deflecting an individual from the course of obedience.

Q. I kings 18:4 – “100 prophets: by 50 in a cave” – does not compute!
A. The answer is he hid these one hundred prophets by 50 in two caves, one cave for each 50. This is one of those cases where an older translation (in this case the KJV) has not made the meaning as plain as possible. Here’s the NIV, which makes the arrangement clear: “Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water.”

Q. Jeremiah 27:5 – why do you think that God gave them (Judah and the surrounding nations) over to the King of Babylon? (verse 5: “and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me”
A. First of all, I think it might be better to read this verse in a modern translation: “With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please” (NIV).

I think three things are going on here. 1) God is reminding Judah and the surrounding nations of His absolute sovereignty over them. This is a theme He touches on frequently in all the prophets, but especially in passages like Isaiah 45. Paul brings it up again in Acts 17:24-28, using much the same language as found in the O.T.

Acts 17
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

We simply cannot exaggerate the importance God places upon his sovereignty over the nations in His Word. 2) God is reminding the people of Judah that even though they are the chosen people, in His sovereignty He has perfect freedom to use an idolatrous king to punish them for their idolatry. 3) Finally, since all the nations belong to God (see Psalm 33:8-10), He is warning the Jews not to resist the Babylonian king when he comes to conquer them. In this case resistance really would prove futile. But they need not fear the future. The sovereign God who reigned over all the nations, was also able to protect His people’s land and bring them back to it after 70 years of captivity in Babylon.

Q. Daniel 1:7 – Names change from Daniel to Belteshazzar, Hananiah to Shadrach, Mishael to Meshach & Azariah to Abednego. From Chapter 3 onward all are referred to by their new names except Daniel, who is called Daniel (with some references to Belteshazzar) right through to the end of this book. Why?
A. This is a difficult question, but the answer is related to the question of why these four men’s names were changed in the first place. It is easier to answer that second question, which you did not ask, than the one you did ask. Perhaps that explains why the commentators focus most of their discussion there. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think the answer to your question is related to the answer to the second.

So let me answer the second question first. As you probably have guessed, each of the Babylonian names assigned to Daniel and his friends relates to one of the primary Babylonian gods. This was customary in the Babylonian world. Nebuchadnezzar himself was named after Nebo (sometimes Nebu), the Babylonian name for the planet Mercury, considered the messenger of the gods, exactly like the god Mercury in Roman mythology. According to the commentaries (with which I agree, btw) the emperor gave these Babylonian names to his Jewish captives to integrate them into the Babylonian culture and to encourage them, if possible, to forsake their former faith and enter fully into the Babylonian religion. Of course this did not happen, as we know from Daniel 3, where the three plainly rejected the worship of idols even when threatened with death in the fiery furnace.

Now, as to why the three friends almost lost their Hebrew identity while Daniel kept his, well, all I have to say is really supposition, an educated guess based upon a few facts. I’m going to suggest that Daniel kept his Hebrew name (which means “God will judge”) partly because it was associated with the name of the book that is a vital part of the Old Testament. It would have been quite jarring, actually entirely inappropriate, to have named one of the major prophetical books in the Hebrew Bible “Belteshazzar” (“Bel’s prince, or “he whom Bel favours”). So, since the name of the book remains Daniel, it seems sensible that the reader would never be allowed to forget that the principle actor in the book is the same man for whom the book is named.

Second, it is significant that throughout the book, it is Nebuchadnezzar, the idolatrous, pagan king who is under judgment. Thus the connection to Daniel’s name is kept before the reader. Daniel was subject in this life to the Babylonian emperor, but his very name reminded that idolatrous king that in the end he was always subject to Daniel’s God.

Third, you will recall that Daniel’s three friends spent their lives as officials in the Babylonian government. Though their witness to the living God never failed, it may be that their names were on so many official documents, and their influence so powerful within the Babylonian government that their identities as individuals became more associated in public, at least, with their Babylonian connection than with their Jewish heritage.

Finally, it should be pointed out that from chapter 7 to the end of the book, Daniel’s prophecy is entirely about God’s sovereignty over the nations. It is in Daniel, more than any other prophetical writing that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is revealed as the Father of the coming King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Dan. 7:13-14), the Messiah Jesus Christ! After chapter 6, Daniel’s role as God’s prophet completely subsumes everything else, making the emphasis upon his Hebrew name entirely appropriate.

Q. Matthew 7:25-30 – I don’t understand the conversation (verse 28 especially)
A. I’m not sure which text you’re dealing with. I don’t see a conversation in Matthew 7:25ff. If you will recheck your reference I will do my best to answer your question.

Q. Matthew 8:4, “tell no man”; 16:20 “they should tell no man”; 9:30 “see that no man know it”; Luke 8:39 “show how great things” – Why did Jesus not want these specific healings in Matthew made known? And then in Luke Jesus said specifically to make known this healing?
A. On the most basic level, Jesus would have always practiced what he preached. In this case I’m thinking about Matthew 6:1-4 where Jesus emphasizes three times that our good works must be done in secret, so that God can reward us openly. If we seek our own reward we block God from rewarding us. Though Jesus was the Son of God, he was also the Son of Man and lived under the same rules he set for the rest of us. Thus, having healed a leper he would do everything possible to avoid capitalizing upon it or using it in any way for his own promotion or advantage. He had no interest in advertising or marketing He was entirely about service and waiting upon God the Father to glorify God the Son. This answer, I believe, will explain much of the gospel record where Jesus says, “Tell no man.”

But there’s more. While I’m convinced that the previous paragraph covers a large part of your question, the full answer rests upon the rest of Matthew 8:4, where Jesus said, “but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” This is a direct reference to Leviticus 14:2. Jesus is anxious that a healed Jew follow the O.T. law. Lepers were outcasts from society and could not be allowed back into fellowship with other people until they had been pronounced “clean” by a priest, so Jesus is saying to this Jewish man who still lived under the old covenant, “don’t try to short-circuit the clear commands of the O.T. Before you rejoin society, go to the priest and get yourself a certificate pronouncing yourself clean.”

But there’s yet another dynamic at work here. The interesting fact is that from the time God gave Moses the law that tells lepers what to do when they’ve been cleansed until the time of Christ we have no record of a Jew being cleansed of leprosy – certainly not after the Exodus. In fact, because no lepers had ever been cleansed the rabbis had decided that the cleansing of a leper would be one sign that the Messiah had come. When Jesus told this man to go straight to the priest (found only in Jerusalem) he was sending the religious establishment an unmistakable message that God was in their midst. If the man told everyone along the way what Jesus had done he would risk stirring up the crowds, making it possible for the High Priest to reject him as a rabble rouser without ever having to examine him (which is exactly what did happen. See Mark 1:45). In fact, when you read the Mark verse you find even more practical reasons why Jesus wanted the man to keep his mouth shut. Such crowds were gathered by the man’s story that for a time Jesus was simply unable to enter towns to minister.

The big exception to the issues I’ve addressed so far is one you already noted, the Gadarene Demoniac about whom we read in Luke 8:39 (and parallel passages). Here Jesus tells the man to go home and tell his friends “what great things the Lord has done for you.” Jesus said this because the circumstances were different. This was a Gentile district, a location that Jesus only visited once. There was practically no danger that the people would try to make him an earthly king, or that the knowledge of what Jesus had done would complicate his message to the priests. And because Jesus was about to leave the area, never to return, it was vital that this man tell the community about him so they could believe in him.

Q. Luke 9:18 “he was alone … his disciples were with him”
A. The easiest way to respond to this one is to simply give you the same verse in a modern translation, in this case the Good News Bible: “One day when Jesus was praying alone, the disciples came to him. “Who do the crowds say I am?” he asked them.” As you can see, Jesus was alone until the disciples came to him.

Q. Acts 11: 11 & 12“three men”…..”six brethren”
A. I’m not sure what the problem is in this passage. Three men came down from Cornelius to ask Peter to go with them. Peter went, but he took six Christian brothers with him, who could then act as witnesses to the rest of the church when they returned to Jerusalem.

Q. Acts 12:17“show these things unto James and to the other brethren” – Why James?
A. James, very probably Jesus’ brother and the same man who wrote the epistle of James in the N.T., had quickly become the leader of the mother church in Jerusalem. The Apostles were messengers sent to plant churches, but not to pastor them. The task of leading the original local church fell to James, and as such he quickly rose to a place of high prominence in the entire church of the day. For instance, in Acts 15:13 James sums up the first doctrinal conference in Jerusalem by pronouncing with authority that the church’s official position would be that Gentiles would not need to be circumcised or forced in any way to adopt Jewish customs to be considered brothers in Christ. The R.C.C. claims Peter as the first pope, but ironically, the one man in the N.T. who ever acted with anything like a pope’s authority was James in Acts 15.

I’m always amazed how quickly people leap into action following a major disaster, such as the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown that have combined to decimate a portion of Japan. That rescue workers should race to the scene to help the survivors is very much the right thing to do. In such moments food, blankets, water and other necessities are always welcome. But are there any words that can comfort such people? Any words at all? Would you dare approach people who are spending their nights freezing in the mud to tell them that a loving God in heaven is watching over them?

Frankly, if I were in Japan I think I’d keep my mouth shut for the moment and concentrate my energies on saving as many lives as possible. But most of us don’t live in Japan and we do ask questions of God in times such as these. Sometimes even faithful Christians fail to find any useful answers. If you are struggling to know what to say to yourself, think with what alacrity the anti-faith crowd will act to twist this disaster to try to tear down other peoples’ faith.

None of this is surprising. For thousands of years people have asked how an all-powerful God could allow such suffering. Of course this question about Japan is another form of a more general question: Why any disasters? Why did Haiti lose somewhere between 90,000 and 300,000 people in its 2010 earthquake? Why did more than 50,000 Chinese die in the earthquake that struck Shichuan province three years ago? And why were 5 million left homeless? Going further back, you could ask, why were nearly 4 million killed in the 1931 Yellow River flood? Or why over 280,000 deaths in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami?

Did you know that this is the most common question people ask about God? It’s also the most popular line of attack employed by the world’s atheists. You know the drill: With so much suffering in the world, especially that which is caused by man, atheists conclude that either there is no God, or God is too weak to prevent suffering, or else God likes suffering, in which case he is evil.

I suggest it’s time to make the atheists and doubters answer some believers’ questions. For instance, if these wiser-than-god atheists were suddenly given god-like powers, what would they do to stop the world’s suffering? Would they be willing to stop every act that causes suffering? Would they be willing to prevent all lies? What about all murders? What about every act of adultery? What about drug use, alcohol abuse, theft, violence and fornication? What about child abuse and spousal abuse and eating too much chocolate? For that matter, since evil acts arise from evil thoughts, would atheists prevent those, too?

Do you see where this is going? If God acted to prevent all evil humanity would lose its free agency, or free will if you prefer that term, and as such true humans would cease to exist.

But let me be a little more personal. If God were to stop all evil, He would have to stop many of the things I’ve done, and that you’ve done, because by our own actions we, too, have caused some of the suffering that exists in the world. I certainly have. I’ve hurt feelings. I’ve not always told the truth. I could say even more about my own role in propagating evil, but surely you agree that for God to stop all the evil in this world He would have to stop everyone of us in our tracks. In one of the greatest ironies you can imagine, it is a fact that by permitting evil and suffering to continue, God is actually showing us mercy by allowing us to continue in existence. God will put an end to all suffering some day (II Peter 3:10-13), but that will mean the end of the world. In the meanwhile, his forbearance equals our continued existence, and that means we are given more opportunities to repent.

Meanwhile, God turns suffering toward good (Rom. 8:28). In the midst of dire need many people finally turn toward God. In The Problem of Pain C.S. Lewis says pain is God’s megaphone to make evil impossible to ignore. It shatters the illusion that all is well, that what we have is our own and is enough for this life. Pain can push an unbeliever toward faith in God and it can force Christians to depend upon God as we should. According to the Bible, full surrender to God is always done against our natural inclinations (here let me recommend a long meditation upon Romans 7 and 8). Thus the highest truth that pain can tell is that our submission to God is always contrary to our nature. Obedience to God is always painful, and to choose painful obedience is the supreme reversal of Adam’s rebellion.

Natural disasters
“Okay,” you say, “I get why God allows the suffering caused by human sin, but what about natural disasters? How are they to be reconciled with a loving God?” Here is one of the many places where it is important to remember that the Christian Bible includes the Old Testament. Don’t forget that universal sin was the result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God. By the time of Genesis 6 the human race had become so depraved that God sent a world-wide flood to destroy everyone who lived, excepting only Noah, his three sons, and their four wives.

A strong argument can be made that before the flood all the earth’s land formed a single super-continent — sometimes called Pangaea by modern geologists. (For more info on flood geology read Henry Morris’ The Genesis Flood, or go to (www.creationism.org/patten) and download his free books.) The flood tore that giant continent apart and wracked the earth’s crust in ways that reverberate to this day. The various faults along which most earthquakes occur (including the most recent in Japan) are a result of the broken crustal plates caused by the terrible disaster the earth underwent some six to ten thousand years ago — because of sin.

We must not forget that all “natural” disasters (including volcanoes, etc.) are the continuing effects of the sin of our fore-parents, Adam, Eve and all their pre-flood descendants. Had they not sinned no universal flood would have been necessary. Had there been no flood the earth’s crust would have continued in a state of equilibrium. This is what Paul had in mind when he wrote in Romans 8:19ff: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” That day is coming (II Peter 3:13), but until then, we will all have to endure a lot of pain for the sake of those yet to be saved (II Peter 3:8-9).

It’s time the truth was told about Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer who murdered his disabled 12-year-old daughter Tracy in 1993. Latimer has been treated as a hero by the mainstream media. Whether we’re talking about major newspapers like the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star, various iterations of the CBC, or even such supposedly conservative publications as the National Post, his story is told exclusively in his voice and from his point of view. No one challenges his version, which I tell you now is filled with falsehoods and exaggerations, nor does anyone attempt to speak from Tracy’s point of view or that of any other cerebral palsy sufferer.

It seems to me that these are minimal requirements for good journalism, but if anyone is telling the other side of the story these days I’m not aware of it. So even though I don’t think a personal blog is the best place to present this material it will have to do for now. Someone needs to speak for Tray and tell the bigger story. What follows is far less than the whole story (someone should write a book), but I suspect it will give you a larger understanding than you have received from the media lately.

I will get to the true story of Tracy Latimer in just a moment, but before we go there I need to deal with one objection. Some of you may be asking, “Why should we make a fuss over Tracy Latimer?” It’s a good question with a two-part answer.

First, the public should know the truth about Latimer himself. Apart from Alberta Report Newsmagazine, so far as I know it has never been published that at age 21 he was convicted of rape, only to have the conviction overturned on a technicality. Nor has the public been told of Latimer’s phobic reaction to all things medical. He was not in a position to make a clear-headed decision about his daughter’s health.

Second, Tracy Latimer was killed simply because the supreme authority in her life, her own dad, decided he no longer wanted to care for her. Once he decided to end her life he acted in cold blood. He put her down as though she were nothing more than an unwanted puppy. To this day he declares in multiple interviews that although taking her life was “difficult” it did not make him “sad.” It is not an accident that he was initially charged with first-degree murder.

If Latimer’s actions had gone unpunished the value of every person in Canada as bearers of God’s image would have been seriously diminished, if not eliminated. This has already happened to significant degree through legalized abortion, and Tracy’s death may yet prove to have been the tipping point beyond which no human life will ever again be held truly sacred. In an effort to avoid that fate, if possible, I now offer you an article that I wrote for Alberta Report back in 2001. It seems to me that it is still relevant today.

Ten Years Minimum

Knowing that everything Robert Latimer said about the child he murdered was false, the Supreme Court sent him to jail

February 19, 2001

by Shafer Parker
For the past seven years northern Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer has argued that he was not being treated fairly by Canada’s justice system. But his accusations reached a new zenith last month when he accused the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) of being “twisted” and devoid of “understanding” after the court upheld by a vote of 7-0 his second-degree murder conviction in the death of his 12-year-old daughter Tracy in October 1993. Latimer was especially angry that the court rejected his argument that the Criminal Code’s mandatory minimum life sentence with no parole for 10 years for anyone convicted of second-degree murder amounted to a violation of his Charter protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

Latimer’s dissatisfaction with the justice system stems in part from his having undergone two separate jury trials, both of which ended in guilty verdicts that were appealed to the Supreme Court. The highest court threw out his first conviction and ordered a new trial when it was learned prosecutors had questioned potential jurors about their views on mercy killing.

The SCC’s final ruling holds that no “aspect of the particular circumstances in this case of the offender diminishes the degree of criminal responsibility borne by Mr. Latimer.” Nonetheless, he still insisted that he had acted properly when, on a Sunday morning while wife Laura and his three other children were in church, he propped up Tracy, who from birth had suffered from cerebral palsy, behind the wheel of his pickup truck, and piped in exhaust until she was dead. “This is not a crime,” he told reporters after the Supreme Court’s decision was released. “Almost everything that’s happened have been things that ordinary humans would do.”

In a unanimous opinion (Justice Michel Bastarache excused himself because he has suffered the deaths of two disabled children), the justices on the Supreme Court rejected Latimer’s attempt to employ the defence of necessity, noting that “the accused did not himself face any peril and Tracy’s ongoing pain did not constitute an emergency.” Nor were the justices moved by Latimer’s belief “that further surgery amounted to imminent peril, particularly when better pain management was available.” Tracy was scheduled for surgery to relieve the pain in her dislocated hip the day following her murder.

Beaumont, Alta., resident and disabled persons advocate Mark Pickup, who suffers from multiple sclerosis himself, says that Latimer should have no beef with how the media has portrayed him. Most of the reporting of the case, he says, emphasized his descriptions of Tracy’s pain and suffering, ignoring evidence of the immense enjoyment she got out of life. One study of 80 Latimer-related newspaper headlines, for instance, showed that only 25 had mentioned or alluded to Tracy at all, and only three referred to her without some negative qualifier. Perhaps as a result, a 1999 Angus-Reid poll showed that 73% of Canadians believed that Tracy suffered constantly from unbearable pain.

Mr. Pickup says the media presented the public with a caricature of the case jurors in both trials actually heard. He points out that although Latimer was lauded by his wife as a “100% honest man,” court testimony showed he tried to hide his role in Tracy’s death, initially stating to police that she had died in her sleep. He cut up and burned the hose that had carried exhaust gases into the truck cab, and when he learned that police investigators were planning an autopsy he insisted she be cremated instead. He confessed to killing his daughter only when police informed him that Tracy’s blood possessed lethal levels of carbon monoxide.

Also unreported was Latimer’s fear of medical procedures—in court he was described by defence lawyer Mark Brayford as “a little bit phobic about the medical profession.” Latimer was more than a little phobic. His wife Laura admitted on the stand that he “was very squeamish about medical matters; he was afraid of blood, afraid of needles, afraid of anything medical…anything to do with women’s health….he used to say [vaccination] was cruel.”

“Even a judge got involved in promoting a skewed version of Latimer,” Mr. Pickup says. He notes that after Latimer’s first visit to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in 1995, Chief Justice E.D. Bayda wrote that the defendant was “typical salt of the earth . . . a devoted family man . . . loving, caring, nurturing.” But Mr. Justice Bayda was as aware as anyone that Latimer had a dark side. He had either forgotten or was deliberately ignoring the fact that in 1974 he himself had presided over a trial in which a jury in Battleford, Sask., had convicted the then 21-year-old Latimer, along with another young man, in the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Latimer’s home town of Wilkie on September 8, 1973.

Latimer’s supporters can claim that Tracy’s death was his first brush with the law only because the rape case was overturned on a technicality regarding the judge’s handling of the case. A retrial was ordered, but the Crown declined to prosecute.
In court Tracy’s mother deliberately misrepresented her daughter’s condition during her last year of life. During Latimer’s second trial she stated under oath that Tracy’s back surgery (in which steel rods were inserted to straighten her spine) had left her “in a lot of pain. She used to be a happy little girl, and she’d turned into someone who just sat slumped, just waiting to be moved. She was-she was very unhappy . . . Once in a while she would kind of sort of bat at a toy, but . . . she was miserable, and it was getting-it was getting harder and harder to even have her comfortable.”

Actually, Tracy enjoyed her last year, and Laura’s own testimony proved it. Under direct testimony she had repeatedly stated that after Tracy’s back surgery she could no longer stand being taken out of doors, or for a car ride. But under cross-examination Mrs. Latimer admitted that less than a month after the surgery Tracy was riding the bus to the developmental centre in Wilkie five days a week, 45 minutes each way, right up until her last weekend. Moreover, Laura admitted in court that Tracy’s surgery had taken so much pressure off her abdomen that for the first time in years she could breathe easily and digest her food properly.

Contrary to the Latimers’ declarations that in Tracy’s last year she was little more than a pain-wracked vegetable, crown prosecutor Eric Neufeld demonstrated that assessments by therapists showed the little girl obviously enjoyed music; she had a pull-switch on the canopy of her chair that would activate toys, and if a caregiver got too close, she would grab his or her glasses with her one useful hand and smile broadly. She also smiled while playing a clapping game with her peers and would try to start again after others had grown tired.

But the greatest contradiction to the parents’ propaganda came from the caregivers’ communications book that was permanently attached to Tracy’s wheelchair. The entries made by Mrs. Latimer, which she reluctantly read out in court (she had to be prompted repeatedly to speak up), reveal that in the last months of her life, Tracy was doing better than ever.

Numerous entries record Tracy eating and sleeping well, and there are frequent descriptions of her as a “happy girl.” She was “all smiles” when her cousins came for a visit. And when her younger sister Lindsay invited friends for a sleepover, she was fully involved in their hijinks. “Tracy was the worst girl,” her mother wrote, “up at 10 to seven, laughing and vocalizing. She was really good the rest of the day.”

Tracy loved to let her sister paint her fingernails, and although reported by her parents to have the mental abilities of a four-month-old whose actions were entirely random, Mrs. Latimer wrote in the communications book that when offered several colour options, she chose the red fingernail polish “as usual.”

The communications book also directly contradicts the Latimers’ statement that Tracy could no longer enjoy the outdoors after her back surgery. After a May 23, 1993, picnic, which lasted all afternoon, Mrs. Latimer had written, “[Tracy] seemed tickled with the outing, ate a very good supper, especially enjoyed lemon pie for desert.”

Despite Latimer’s apparent popularity, most commentators applauded the Supreme Court’s ruling. In a guest editorial on CBC radio, University of Saskatchewan law professor Donna Greschner congratulated the court for recognizing that laws should only be changed after “a full and proper debate” in Parliament. “Applying the law in this case was the morally right thing to do,” Ms. Greschner added, since Latimer’s actions met the definition of first-degree murder.

“The disabled are pressed on all sides by those who assert that their lives are of lesser worth than others,” wrote lawyer Iain Benson, executive director for the Ottawa-based Centre For Cultural Renewal, in a review of the ruling. “To grant Robert Latimer a lesser sentence [would be] to agree that the life of Tracy Latimer was of such a nature that it was not of any value to her. To pardon Mr. Latimer while he maintains that his choice was the right one, the moral one, would weaken our collective grasp of the inviolability of life and the equal dignity of the disabled.”

Cheryl Eckstein, president of British Columbia’s Compassionate Healthcare Network, says the country’s collective grasp is already too weak to comfort the disabled. She points out that at least seven other mercy killings have been committed in Canada since Latimer killed Tracy, none of which has resulted in any jail time. Nor is she encouraged by the hundreds who came out in force last month to protest Latimer’s imprisonment. Even politicians seem to be on Latimer’s side, she says, noting that in 1995 a Senate report on euthanasia recommended that a lesser charge be added to the Criminal Code for “compassionate murder.”

But determining exactly where the federal Liberal government stands has been problematic. Federal Justice Minister Anne McLellan was reported in the Nov. 7, 1997, issue of the Edmonton Journal to be considering changing Canada’s Criminal Code to permit lenient sentences for second-degree murder in “exceptional circumstances,” but Department of Justice communications officer Wendy Sailman now insists the minister would never have spoken on the issue because the Latimer case was then before the courts. Justice lawyers did oppose Latimer’s last appeal to the Supreme Court, but Ms. Eckstein says Minister McLellan’s refusal to condemn the 1995 Senate report, or to even appear before further Senate hearings on euthanasia last year, gives her little hope.

Meanwhile, Latimer has settled quickly into prison at the Saskatoon correctional centre, telling reporters that he mostly just sleeps and reads, and that prison life feels like “hibernation.” He said he does not plan to ask the government to grant him mercy for at least a year, and he expressed gratitude for the thousands who have signed petitions to pressure the government into letting him go.

“With so many people supporting Latimer, it’s a scary time to be disabled in Canada,” says Mr. Pickup. He expects the political climate will only get worse as long as Canadians are taught to put personal interests above all other concerns. “What Latimer did to Tracy was all about his needs,” he says. “He wanted her out of his misery.”