Abundant Life: January 2010

Problems with the I Am Second campaign

Their billboards are impossible to miss. A giant black and white picture of a celebrity’s face looks down at drivers speeding by. The words “I am second” in huge print beside the picture catches your eye and makes you curious. What does that mean? How can that famous person, first on the playing field or at the box office, be second? A website address printed on the billboard drives you to the Internet to check it out. If you look at www.IamSecond.com you will quickly find that it is an evangelistic effort, designed to help non-Christians become Christians. It specializes in appealing to folks with little or no religious background and offers a different perspective on Christianity, something different from the traditional “you become a Christian by going to church” thinking. While the program is gaining a lot of attention and publicity, it needs to be examined according to the Scriptures (Acts 17:11). Such an examination finds three serious problems with the I Am Second campaign.

Sensible Dancing

Dear Sir:

My dad reads your paper; that’s how I got the address. I’ve been talking to him about dancing. He won’t let me, because of what it will lead to, and all the preachers he has talked with on the subject say, “No,” it isn’t good.

But my side: That’s just about all the things that teenagers do beside smoking and drinking. I can see where these aren’t good and I would never dream of doing them, but “what’s wrong with dancing?” It’s just something to do for pleasure.

Disconnected Dads

Many years ago, there was a blues song called “Motherless Children.” But there is cause to wonder, if a similar song were written today, if it might not be called “Fatherless Children.”

First, there is the growing trend among successful (as the world counts success) women in their late 30’s and early 40’s to raise children without fathers. Then there are those who are fathers only biologically, refusing to take responsibility for their sinful lifestyles. And there are the great number of children deprived of fathers by divorce.