Of all grandparents, Rosario Gomez Cotton (my mom’s mother) has the most intimate knowledge of her ancestry. She keeps in contact with relatives in Mexico whose affinity extends to those whom we might call “sixth cousins.” One of Rosario’s great nephews is a man named Chalio. He is a respected and relatively wealthy mayor of the city of Tepeji for 3 years until his term ended six months ago.

He called my grandma a month ago and described a terrifying experience. A crew of gunmen surrounded his home and held his family hostage. They stole all his electronic equipment, three vehicles, all his money…everything. Thankfully, no one was harmed, but most of his possessions were gone and there was no way they would be recovered. As for the culprits being brought to justice, forget about it.

Apparently, Chalio had just retired from his post and no longer had an armed guard. Someone must have known this and took quick advantage of a defenseless man.

Mexico, in recent years, has been a land of lawlessness. Drug lords have extraordinary power that extends to high positions in government. Thousands have been killed. Many bodies have been mutilated and exposed—a warning against those who oppose whichever cartels are responsible.

One famous incident involved a 19 year-old girl who had used Facebook to protest against a certain cartel. They hunted the teen down, beheaded her and placed a sign near her body that said, “So you’re probably wondering where my head is….well this is what happens to whoever opposes such-and-such cartel.”

The crime and terror finds its source in every dishonest, deceitful, and unjust person in the nation.

The solution is simple, but the problem is complex. The issue lies with the moral decisions of individuals and not the system.

Bribery is the most blatant vice among the law enforcement and leadership of Mexico. Bribery is so well-known and accepted that a society devoid of it is hardly fathomable. Anything can be done for a price. A set of ethics based on an absolute standard is discarded.

Injustice and falsehood is repeatedly condemned by God. The prophet Micah spoke of Yahweh’s detestation of Israel’s similar behavior:

“The godly have been swept from the land, not one upright man remains. All men lie in wait to shed blood, each hunts his brother with a net. Both hands are skilled in doing evil, the ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire—they all conspire together” (Micah 7:2-3).

Twenty-first century Mexico sounds all too similar to eighth century Israel.

In Tepeji, police are paid off by criminals who pay them more than the government. Government officials are paid to turn a blind-eye towards drug trafficking. Those who oppose injustice and dishonesty are often tortured and killed.

The problem, at first glance, seems so vast and so pervasive that a solution appears impossible. Every level of government and police is corrupt. How could a true turnaround happen?

Most people are quick to identify evil in the world but refuse to acknowledge it in themselves.

Responding to a question posed in a London newspaper, “What is the problem with the world today?” the catholic theologian G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Dear sirs, I am.”

The horrors of violence of injustice in Mexico find their source in every dishonest act from a police officer taking $20 and letting a car pass a checkpoint to the president’s cabinet members who receive hundreds of thousands from drug lords and withhold military assistance.

To maintain justice and righteousness is commanded by God. Paul lists the fruits of spirit in Galatians chapter five and concludes saying, “Against such things there is no law.”

External reform and legislation cannot change the human heart. A military campaign cannot purge evil deeply imbedded in people. Only Christ can do this.

Only a work of God in bringing people to repentance can transform a country like Mexico. Only through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit could a person become a new creation and joyfully obey God’s commands. Only then can an entire nation turn around.

Pray that God does this for Mexico. 

The recent death of Osama Bin Laden has created a buzz in the world of Facebook, Twitter and online discussions. President Obama announced that after ten elusive years, the mastermind terrorist of the September 11 attacks had been slain by the fighting elite of SEAL Team 6. News coverage showed exuberant residents Washington D.C. reveling outside the White House in the wee hours of May 1.

In the following days, many evangelical Christians posted blogs and Tweeted Bible verses conveying their take on Bin Laden’s death. While some gave candid opinions, most were oblique and ambivalent.

There appeared to be indecision as to how we should react as Christians –as if some underlying guilt kept us from jubilation at a wicked man’s demise.  The rationale seemed to be that Bin Laden was an evil man who did know Christ; he is awaiting final everlasting judgment, incapable of repentance and salvation. Therefore, we shouldn’t be happy about it.

Something’s wrong with this perspective.  We should not rejoice because of vengeance, granted.  God is the final judge, not us. We should love our enemies as Jesus commanded. We should pray for them. We should’ve been more overjoyed at the possibility of a man such as Osama Bin Laden possibly being forgiven and saved. [...]

People have often asked me if meeting and/or interacting with another American, or even another white person for that matter, is a positive occurrence. One would think, in light of the fact that I live alone in a village in which there have been stretches as long a month-and-a-half with no interaction with someone besides the resident Aukaaners, that I would jump at the chance to converse in my native tongue. The reality, I have learned, is quite the contrary.

There are typically what could be eloquently categorized as three “white people” groups you meet in the interior of Suriname. The more common two: Peace Corps volunteers and European Tourists from France or Holland, who are generally somewhat risky because of their perception of missionaries–which is unfortunately often negative and with Europeans, the whole language guessing game: not knowing exactly where they’re from, both of us being unsure if we might be proficient in the other’s language and to what degree they understand and speak English (which is, more often than not, pretty well). With the Peace Corps, it’s a real grab-bag. You might find a guy like a friend we have who is born-again, evangelistic, and down-to-earth, or you might get a liberal, pluralistic, feminist who sees you as someone destroying the beautiful and harmonious indigenous culture. [...]

Enthusiastic Nevada County residents commemorated the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., crowding into the auditorium at the miner’s foundry Monday to partake in what resembled a typical Gospel Church service in the south. Soulful voices resonating and accompanied by the swaying of an eager, genial crowd made one feel they were every bit a part of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. [...]

I don’t want you to think that I am about to tell you what I think Jesus would think. That would be rather pointless. And stupid. If someone tries to base their opinion on their opinion of someone else’s opinion, leave them to it. What I want to do is examine a situation in which Jesus talks about marriage. From there we can dialogue about how his view of marriage relates to the homosexual community.

[...]

Your individual identity, in a regional sense, is only fully realized when you reside somewhere outside your home (whether city, state or country).  In the Suriname interior, I’m often designated the “American boy” and even more inclusively as a “baaka” (foreigner).  It happens when you are the sole white person in a village of 3,000 black persons.  As so often exists, associations are invariably tied to stereotypes.  “Did you ever meet Michael Jackson?  Do you know Obama?”  With Maroons, and their understandably narrow worldview, opportunities to educate them (among other things) of the vastness of the U.S. in proportion to their country.

[...]

The other day I walked into a room and gasped in shock. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I had to do a double take. No, they were really there. I was in a room with Dave Matthews, Oprah, and Lebron James. The funny thing, they were all watching TV. Receiving news; news of the purple line. This is my story of a line that leads home.

[...]

How do we know what the right thing to do is?  Is there a way to differentiate between right and wrong without a standard?  Speaking of the latter, when there is no standard for what is right and what is wrong morality then becomes relative to the mind, or eye, of the beholder.  Questions people ask when speaking of morality are:

• Is what is right for me concerning morality right for everybody?
• What about the tribe in South Africa who kill people for sport?  Are they right in doing so?
• Is murder in America okay to do?  If not, then why?
• Is the ‘law’ relative only to certain societies?
• What about other cultures who practice the abuse of women and discard baby girls in dumpsters?  Is that okay for their culture?
• Is murder in general wrong?
• Is homosexuality morally ethical?  If yes, why?  If no, why?
• Is there a difference between not obeying the speed limit and raping a young girl?
• Is sex, explored in relative ways, right for the individual partaking in it?

These are only a summary of questions one might ask when thinking through the topic of morality: what is right and what is wrong?  We must ask, “how do we know this?”

[...]

Step 3- Numinous Awe and Morality collide

Finally, we have come to the third step that Lewis believes every religion experiences at its foundation. We would do well to note that this is the final step according to his calculations that every religion experience, and the fourth step is saved for Christianity alone. To recap, the first step was the innate sense of awe towards a numinous (supernatural) reality that is different and alien to human. The second step was the observation that every people set for themselves a moral standard in which everyone under the standard fail at some point producing guilt. Now, we come to the start of a religion: the collision of steps one and two.

[...]

Step Two- The Presence of Morality and Guilt

The next step in C.S. Lewis’s road to religion is morality. If you remember, Lewis observes that every major religion has three steps at its foundation. Then, Lewis goes on to say that Christianity has a fourth step that sets it apart and gives validity to Christianity that no other can claim.

But let’s get back to this second step. There is no connection between the first step of numinous awe and this second observation of morality. In fact, every people that has lived (religious or not) has possessed some sort of system within their being that is expressed in the sense of “I ought” or “I ought not.” Lewis is not concerned here if the laws among people are similar or different, the important thing is that there is some form of foundational sense of right or wrong that has characterized man from the beginning. Lewis also states that, “Morality, like numinous awe, is a jump [an unexplainable phenomenon in human existence]; in it, man goes beyond anything that can be given [deduced] from human experience.”

The last incredible observance of morality in mankind is that everybody sets the standard too high! We all experience a sense of guilt from failing to do the “I oughts” and accomplishing the acts of “I ought not.” One would think that at least one society would set a standard of morality that would render them guiltless, but they all without exception “prescribe a behavior that their adherents fail to practice.” If it is remarkable that every culture in every time sets a standard of morality, it is even more astonishing that everybody sets a standard that leads to guilt.

So, here we are two steps in. To recap, the fact that people of all time stand in awe of a numinous presence they cannot explain is observation one. The fact that people of all time set a standard of morals in which a characteristic of guilt is present is observation two. In the next step, we will see Lewis not simply make an observation but a connection…